Info about Plays
Acting Skills - The Modern Actor
Modern acting skill has evolved over many centuries in the same way that human society has. Actors have always been the interpreters of the dramatist's ideas about the world and the forces and influences that have directed it: people, their beliefs, culture, politics, morals, and way of life. Until the Restoration of Charles II playwrights wrote mainly about those who governed human society, either kings, nobles, or gods, and their effect on the great mass of humankind, managing in this strict framework to make profound comments on the nature of man, his character and motives. The Restoration marked a tremendous change in the actor's role and performance. First, in contrast to the theatre of Shakespeare's time, women were acted by women, with all the real allure of their sexuality; next, the plays of this time, though packing substantial moral clout, were about everyday things, such as sex, money, the manners and modes of the bourgeoisie. Immediately the actor became the voice and epitome of his time, and his performance came far closer to reality. The great actor David Garrick was much remarked upon for the lifelike quality of his performances; he seems to have taken Hamlet's advice to the players.
The greatest influence on acting in the last hundred years has been the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky, founder of the Moscow Arts Theatre. The modern actor is his product. He revolutionized the art of acting, and in a lifetime of acting, directing and teaching from the 1890s to the 1930s, set down on paper the what, the where, the why, and especially the how of the actor's performance. He emphasized rationality and deductive ness as well as instinct and intuition. His object was to produce acting firmly based on reality and truth; the whole of modern changing industrial society, the sweeping developments in politics, education, medicine, science and manufacture demanded a way of acting that presented an utterly real picture of life as it was now seen and understood. Liberated humanity wanted to see a true image of themselves down to the finest and subtlest details. The effect has been profound, and acting has been irreversibly changed for the better.
The other commanding influence of this century has been the film and, in particular, Hollywood. Stanislavsky's 'Naturalism' was the right method of acting for the great gallery of real people that the film now portrayed, and the qualities of truthfulness, detail and underplaying are precisely those needed by the present day screen and television actor. This mode of working requires the utmost concentration, clarity of thought and economy. The physical responses and facial expressions arising from intense emotion must be drawn almost in miniature for the close-up or medium shot, and big physical and vocal action in the long shot must be performed with absolute precision. Michael Caine in a deeply informative television programme gave a most telling demonstration of the screen actor's art and skill by enacting a short scene of dramatic and apparently dangerous action, interspersed with a few words of dialogue, using the show's presenter as his fellow actor. By the end of Caine's 'lesson', the presenter, an agile and intelligent fellow, had just about mastered a 20-second scene, and understood the importance of position, speed, body language, business for the camera, and vocal pitch and level.
Acting on the stage has changed greatly during this century. The demands of so many and various styles of theatre, from pantomime to Pinter, mean that the stage actor must acquire a powerful and versatile technique. A play of heroic action and heightened poetic language may be being acted in a theatre seating 70 or 2000. In contrast, a conversational play which requires subtle speech and delicate nuances of body movement may have to be acted in an auditorium for 1500 people. Yet the dramatic effect must be the same, and the actor therefore needs a fine ability to adjust his scale of performance, to judge accurately how much? Stage acting is 'projected', that is, the voice, movement and body are conveying a bigger, bolder image than that needed for acting for the camera. Even quiet, shy or withdrawn characters need projection, but it must not be apparent to the audience.
So the modern actor or actress who works for both stage and screen is above all a consummate technician. This wide range of skills is what enables him to cope with two very different forms of acting. The camera requires above all that the actor thinks character, emotion, and situation - a flicker of the eyes, the beginning of a smile, may say it all. The stage actor by comparison is using much more energy, and a lot of the time is up and running.
So what can you learn about acting from a book? The answer is -quite a lot. Voice, speech, analysis of text and creating a character are all subjects more amenable to discussion than, say movement and body management for the actor. You can gain a better understanding of what you need to learn, and how to go about it. I use a wide variety of texts, some of them from other centuries, some modern and experimental. Each play needs a different approach; acting is always specific, not general, for it is about particular people in particular situations.
If I often refer to the actor as 'he', it is merely for convenience and brevity, and I hope women readers will know that I am addressing them as well