Today we did a Meisner Master class.
We started it off by each saying two facts about Meisner. My
facts were:
- It’s designed to help you get into your characters. Meisner described it as an “unconscious release of character”
- The goal of the Meisner method is to eliminate the actor on stage, leaving a character than exists completely on stage.
We then performed Act 1, Scene 4 normally. After this we
Meisnered the same scene.
When we asked the audience if they had noticed any changes
or developments they all had a lot to say. It flowed more and felt more urgent,
the relationships between everyone in the scene was more prominent and the atmosphere
was realised. This was good as it showed that the audience understood what
Meisner was trying to do.
Creating this master class was very helpful as it reminded
us of what the practitioners thought and wanted from their methods. It also
gave us the opportunity to apply it directly to our relevant text which was
extremely helpful as, after doing this, I was a lot more confident in the scene
and my character.
