In the dramatic
arts, The Method is a group of techniques actors use to create in
themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, so as to develop
lifelike performances.
(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "R" is for "real")
It happened back in the 1950s. There was an earthquake in Manhattan.
(Odd, because they almost never had earthquakes in
New York City.) But this was a different
kind of seismic event.
A young actor named Marlon Brando was appearing in a
play and was sort of shaking the earth, or at least his audiences, with a
hugely different style of acting. It was
raw, vivid, real.
What was the theatre like before, say, World War
II?
Well, the art of acting in America then emphasized
diction, fencing, dancing and singing.
And the business was very successful: there were a great many
productions – mysteries, musicals, classical dramas and drawing-room comedies
(“Tennis, anyone?”). But in dramatic terms it was all rather weak; the school of
realism of Ibsen and Zola had not impacted Yankee actors and directors.
This new type of dramatic presentation required the
actors to use what was called “emotional memory.” They had to find within themselves the means
to express the emotion they were trying to portray on stage.
If the script called for a murderous rage, the
actors should look deep in their pasts, into their emotional memory, to find a
moment when, maybe as a child, they had felt this same murderous rage against
another kid who was tormenting them.
An interesting idea.
It had literary justification.
Surely you’re familiar with Marcel Proust, who dipped the little cookie
known as a “madeleine” into his cup of tea and experienced a whole world of –
emotional memory.
It was an American thing. The great actors of the United Kingdom, Sir
Laurence Olivier and others, for example, looked with amused condescension on
these strange Yankee rituals. They
believed that it was training, technique and talent that made for great acting, not necessarily personal emotional involvement.
The story is told of a famous British actor who
played a tempestuous scene and was later asked by an eager drama student what
he had been thinking about during his shouting and groaning in that wildly emotional moment on stage.
“The size of the house,” he replied; “how many
tickets had been sold.”
But there must have been something to the American
deal. For quite a number of years,
thanks to Brando and other such stars, this was taken up by thousands of American
actors who adopted this style and would take it to a point where it was a bit absurd. They had to have time out to dig deeply into
themselves before they felt they were ready to deliver their lines in a play or
a film.
Starting back in the Fifties, this way of doing
things got to be well known; it entered into our national consciousness. It had a name. What was its name?
