What is "The Method" and why do I care?

If you are hoping to create performances that have deep impact upon your audience, you will want to acquaint yourself with the ideas of Constantin Stanislavski.  Stanislavski's book "An actor prepares" describes his system for acting, and apparently it is still the only complete system for acting that we have.  Consequently it influences the vast majority of what you see in professional theater and in movies today.  Method acting came from it, as explained nicely in this wikipedia page.  But what does that mean?  I mean, method acting is a method for what, exactly?

The purpose of Stanislavski's system is to access the performer's inspiration, and to use that inspiration to create truthful performances.  "To Inspire" a performance literally means to "breathe life" into it.  Stanislavski believed that the way to breathe life into a performance was to engage the performer's subconscious mind.  Because the subconscious is responsible for the details of our actions in our real lives, the actions of the "inspired" performer would also be realistic and believable, resulting in the ultimate goal - a truthful performance, capable of touching an audience deeply.  You can prove this to yourself quite easily - last time you had a conversation with someone, how many of your facial expressions and gestures were the product of your conscious mind?  Almost none, I bet.  The rest was done by your subconscious mind, which is masterfully capable of producing in you realistic and believable behaviors.  Truthful behaviors.  Authentic behaviors.  Just the stuff you want on stage.

In writing his books, Stanislavski was fighting against various forms of the same lousy and untruthful acting we see so much of today in the theater and in the movies.  I'm sure you will recognize all of the following:

• Forced Acting - you rely on inspiration but you don't know how to access it reliably.  Consequently, as Stanislavski puts it, high moments alternate with over-acting.
• The Art of Representation - you create the part in a deeply felt and truthful way and and "get it right" in rehearsal, with a focus on external appearance, then strive to duplicate that correct performance each time, rather than living it afresh each time.  Getting it right in rehearsal requires a lot of skill, and replicating it even more so.  But he argues that the result is not truthful and therefore leaves much to be desired.
• Mechanical Acting - you learn the cliche gestures that represent your character and emotions, like putting the back of your hand to your brow to express tragedy, or spitting on the floor because you are playing a peasant.  Stanislavski refers to this as "a dead mask of non-existent feeling."
• Over-Acting - takes the first general human conventions that come along and uses them without technique, and without refining them for stage.  Like mechanical acting, but without the technique.
• Exploitation of Art - moments when you as the performer are merely using your place on the stage to showcase yourself personally, rather than to play the intended part.

Maybe you've recognized yourself in the list - I know I did!  As usual, learning new things teaches one humility.

So The Method tries to get at something better, more truthful, and more effective than the approaches listed above by engaging the performer's subconscious mind.  The trouble is, you can't get at the subconscious mind without making it conscious, and in doing so you kill it.  The subconscious just can't be dragged into the light for examination without introducing a lot of what you might call "left-brained interference."  So you need an indirect method of engaging the subconscious, and that is what "the method" is really for.

The book itself takes the form of a journal written by our hero Kostya (you might guess here that the original book was in Russian) who is taking a year-long acting class in the Moscow Theater.  In the first chapter, the students are asked to come up with something and put it on stage for a live audience, so that the teacher can get to know their talents better.  It's a pretty funny read, because it reminds me of what most amateur performers actually do when they're first hitting the stage, namely make up an approach more or less at random, and get unpredictable and usually horrible results!  Kostya decides to play Shakespeare's "Othello", and without understanding the play itself, the character, or anything remotely accurate about how a "moor" might have behaved, he paints himself brown and struts about like a savage, flashing his teeth and rolling his eyes.

You have to admit, most amateur performance is pretty bad.  Sometimes it's not much better than watching third-graders, except that the people on stage have lost their cute factor and with it, the audience sympathy.  We could really change the world if we taught everyone just the basics of how to perform, so their first experiences on stage were more likely to be positive.  They might just keep at it long enough to get quite good at it!  And they might attract an audience outside their circle of friends.

In subsequent articles, I will explain all about how the method works, and how you can apply it to create truthful performances.