Identification

IDENTIFICATION (ID)

"To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life." -- Albert Finney

From the (Investment) Newsletter:

"In the world of theater, actors are taught that their lines are only the end product of intense external environmental and internal psychological factors besetting their characters. The actors' lines are not the source of the character, merely its final expressions after all the conflicting swirls of the character's "life" have been accommodated and evaluated within that character's individual psyche. To merely speak lines from a page is poor acting because there is no character, only a series of meaningless words. An actor cannot become a character without "being" in that character's mental frame of mind. An actor is a failure if he is unable to explore and learn within his own mental world."

Why would the financial advisor be interested in acting? Acting is a behavior. You have to behave (live) as ACTOR, meaning "living as your characters"! This is the core of the Method. "it has been said that actors have no character, because in playing all characters they lose3 that which Nature gave them, and they become false just as the doctor, the surgeon, and the butcher, become hardened." (Denis Diderot, The Paradox of Acting, Actors on Acting 169).

Do you understand it?

When Aristotle introduced the idea of mimesis he didn't stress the pre-conditions of imitation -- identification. Imitation is (one way of another) an understanding, connecting yourself with the subject of imitation. That's the basis of Stanislavsky's theory of acting. Spectator identifies himself with both -- character (fiction) and actor (real). Interesting, we do treat character as real. We're forgeting that Hamlet is "played."

Definition: Spectator = Character = Actor

Of course, the identification is never total. That would be madness. We still remember that theatre is theatre.

"Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are." -- Marlon Brando

Brecht's concept:
Instead of identification (ID) with the character reacting to the character.

Distance (through A-effect) with your character.

You are your material. Struggle (conflict) with the material -- and overcoming the material.

Balance between the fixed and the freedom. "Actor's choices." First, second, third choice. If you don't have at least three, you are not ready to choice. Go back and do you home work.

MASTER GESTURE

"The soul desires to dwell with the body because without the members of the body it can neither act nor feel." Leonardo Da Vinci

Michael Chekhov begins his work THE PSYCHOLOGICAL GESTURE[1] with those words.

Could we laugh at "confession"? We would like to?
Damn and damner.
The idea of Comedy Mask.

EXRECISES

HOME WORK

NOTES Read "Actors on Acting"

Split & Multiple Personalities

Not only possible, but required.

Art is beyond the possible. You hear a lot of stories about artists and madness.

Art is a controlled madness and artists is a master of this art.

To perform is to double your existence, to add another life (your character) to your life.... This is the power and the attract of the art -- you are gaining anthoer, new life!

I always say to students: Do not fear, give it -- and you will gain. Give everything you got to your character -- and you will get it back, and more!