Process and Presence. The Spiritual Aspect.
Method acting is an organic approach stressing "inner work" and "internal memory." This system has influenced modern acting like no other, and its various offshoots, from Meisner to Adler to Strasberg, have spawned some of the greatest actors of our era. In addition to Brecht, Grotowski, Artaud, Suzuki, and LeCoq, modern actors have many resources from which to study acting from a wide array of approaches.
However, there are dangers in every approach, from the narcissism and self-indulgence recognized as psychic disturbance in the worst of Method acting to the exhibitionism and histrionics sometimes ascribed to the more external physical methods. There is a spiritual aspect underlying all this, an aspect Stanislavski himself was keenly aware of, but attempted to dilute subversively, to appease the industrialized culture of his time.
"The creative process of living and experiencing a part is an organic one, founded on the physical and spiritual laws governing the nature of man (Stanislavski 1936, 44)."
Konstantin Stanislavski was a strong proponent of combining the intellectual, or known, and the spiritual, or unknown. In his advice to actors he wrote:
"So an actor turns to his spiritual and physical creative instrument. His mind, will and feelings combine to mobilize all his inner elements . . . out of this fusion of elements arises an important inner state ... the inner creative mood" (Stanislavski 1963, 81).
In method acting we are taught to follow character objectives beat to beat, or moment to moment. When we are spiritually mindful this moment to moment stage awareness transfers to our living and vice-versa. We become compassionate witnesses with true agency in our reactions to circumstances, people, places, and things onstage and off. This takes great discipline, sacrifice and practice. Ideally, guides and mentors along the way help us avoid traps on the road. How many times have we heard a director tell us, "just be yourself?" Often, we don't really know what that is, our view of self is limited, subscribed by social and cultural indoctrination and stereotype. As a matter of survival, we act like we believe the world wants us to act.
The social impositions of our culture inundate us with negative thoughts and feelings like fear, lack, envy, worry, doubt and "not enoughness," often causing us to overcompensate through performative devices or gimmicks. Unfortunately, this is largely acceptable today in our culture where mediocrity is lauded. Don't have the courage and honesty to be open and vulnerable? Kill them with schtick! There is a reason public speaking is considered terrifying second only to death. When we realize that we are indeed infinite beings, that we embody every Divine quality inherent in all creation, we are set free to express the fullness of our heart's capacity. This freedom manifests as an energetic frequency that is inspiring and liberatory. I am the coach to facilitate this process in individuals and ensembles. It's not about getting work. It's about the work itself, the process.
---Kenshaka Ali
Actors are born like poets, because acting is poetry, it is art; you have to have an inborn spirit. Not everybody can be an actor, because one has to get so much involved in the act, so deeply involved, that one forgets that one is separate. One has to lose one's identity in the acting, one has to become one's part; one has to forget everything about oneself. This is no ordinary feat...
Acting is certainly the most spiritual of professions -- for the simple reason that the actor has to be in a paradox: he has to become identified with the act he is performing, and yet remain a watcher. If he is acting as Hamlet he has to become absolutely involved in being a Hamlet, he has to forget himself totally in his act, and yet at the deepest core of his being, he has to remain a spectator, a watcher...
The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into acting. Then this whole earth is just a stage, and all the people are nothing but actors, and we are enacting a play. Then if you are a beggar, you play your act as beautifully as you can; and if you are the king, you play your act as beautifully as you can. But deep down the beggar knows, "I am not it," and the king too knows, "I am not it."
If the beggar and the king both know that "What I am doing and acting is just acting; it is not me, not my reality," then both are arriving at the very center of their being, what I call witnessing. Then they are performing certain acts and witnessing too.
Acting is the most spiritual profession, and all spiritual persons are nothing but actors. The whole earth is their stage, and the whole of life is nothing but a drama enacted. ---Osho
However, there are dangers in every approach, from the narcissism and self-indulgence recognized as psychic disturbance in the worst of Method acting to the exhibitionism and histrionics sometimes ascribed to the more external physical methods. There is a spiritual aspect underlying all this, an aspect Stanislavski himself was keenly aware of, but attempted to dilute subversively, to appease the industrialized culture of his time.
"The creative process of living and experiencing a part is an organic one, founded on the physical and spiritual laws governing the nature of man (Stanislavski 1936, 44)."
Konstantin Stanislavski was a strong proponent of combining the intellectual, or known, and the spiritual, or unknown. In his advice to actors he wrote:
"So an actor turns to his spiritual and physical creative instrument. His mind, will and feelings combine to mobilize all his inner elements . . . out of this fusion of elements arises an important inner state ... the inner creative mood" (Stanislavski 1963, 81).
In method acting we are taught to follow character objectives beat to beat, or moment to moment. When we are spiritually mindful this moment to moment stage awareness transfers to our living and vice-versa. We become compassionate witnesses with true agency in our reactions to circumstances, people, places, and things onstage and off. This takes great discipline, sacrifice and practice. Ideally, guides and mentors along the way help us avoid traps on the road. How many times have we heard a director tell us, "just be yourself?" Often, we don't really know what that is, our view of self is limited, subscribed by social and cultural indoctrination and stereotype. As a matter of survival, we act like we believe the world wants us to act.
The social impositions of our culture inundate us with negative thoughts and feelings like fear, lack, envy, worry, doubt and "not enoughness," often causing us to overcompensate through performative devices or gimmicks. Unfortunately, this is largely acceptable today in our culture where mediocrity is lauded. Don't have the courage and honesty to be open and vulnerable? Kill them with schtick! There is a reason public speaking is considered terrifying second only to death. When we realize that we are indeed infinite beings, that we embody every Divine quality inherent in all creation, we are set free to express the fullness of our heart's capacity. This freedom manifests as an energetic frequency that is inspiring and liberatory. I am the coach to facilitate this process in individuals and ensembles. It's not about getting work. It's about the work itself, the process.
---Kenshaka Ali
Actors are born like poets, because acting is poetry, it is art; you have to have an inborn spirit. Not everybody can be an actor, because one has to get so much involved in the act, so deeply involved, that one forgets that one is separate. One has to lose one's identity in the acting, one has to become one's part; one has to forget everything about oneself. This is no ordinary feat...
Acting is certainly the most spiritual of professions -- for the simple reason that the actor has to be in a paradox: he has to become identified with the act he is performing, and yet remain a watcher. If he is acting as Hamlet he has to become absolutely involved in being a Hamlet, he has to forget himself totally in his act, and yet at the deepest core of his being, he has to remain a spectator, a watcher...
The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into acting. Then this whole earth is just a stage, and all the people are nothing but actors, and we are enacting a play. Then if you are a beggar, you play your act as beautifully as you can; and if you are the king, you play your act as beautifully as you can. But deep down the beggar knows, "I am not it," and the king too knows, "I am not it."
If the beggar and the king both know that "What I am doing and acting is just acting; it is not me, not my reality," then both are arriving at the very center of their being, what I call witnessing. Then they are performing certain acts and witnessing too.
Acting is the most spiritual profession, and all spiritual persons are nothing but actors. The whole earth is their stage, and the whole of life is nothing but a drama enacted. ---Osho