Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach.

The movie 'Stagecoach.' - good acting? natural.

 

An actor I used to work with, many years ago, John Gillett, has written a book on acting; it's called Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach: A Practical Workbook for Actors.

He wrote it a few years ago and I have just found it on Amazon.

Oh dear; another book about acting, was my first reaction; but then I started to read some of it.

First of all I have to give John 4 stars for the writing of the book and for the kick in the arse the British acting profession needs.

He is right; we don't talk about acting here, we tell stories of old times in rep when so and so came on stage with his flies undone or a large piece of spinach in their front teeth. That's okay; nobody wants to stop the fun but there is a very interesting side to acting theory and, indeed, I spent some time doing this when I lived in Los Angeles.

I spent 16½ years living and working there and worked with actors who were trained in all kinds of methods from Stanislavsky to Meisner, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and I bought all the books, started learning all over again; I did workshops, joined an improv group - as it's the 'done thing' in a company town – went to 'Starbucks' and 'Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf' on Sunset, and did a bit of networking. 

Everybody walks around with a 'spec' script in their pocket, their 'head shot' in their bag and some changes of clothes in their car in case they get an emergency call from their agent with an audition or 'call back' for the one they went for the other day.

There are no 'rules of thumb' of course, but I have worked with actors who have talked at great length about acting techniques and it hasn't made a bit of difference to their performance. They were great at the theory and terrible at practice; as my dad used to say 'they could talk a good fight.'

I am a great fan of John Malkovitch who is, in my opinion, a great actor; very dangerous on the stage who does virtually no research at all. He knows how to 'behave' and that's what acting is all about. I didn't see anybody like him in any workshops.

I remember a Stella Adler lecture when she referred to British acting as something the Americans couldn't aspire to as 'they' (the Brits, as they're called) have their natural class, poise and manners that 'we' (the Americans) just cannot do. I am paraphrasing her, as it was a long time since I first became aware of the lecture, in the Stella Adler Studio on Hollywood Boulevard, which is played on a continuous loop - but it's something to bear in mind.

Maybe she was thinking of actors like David Niven and Leslie Howard?

Whilst in Los Angeles I would go to a workshop and 'work-shopped' quite a few plays including playing the title role in Richard III – that would never have happened here; another thing that would never happen here was that I was auditioned to play Sir Isaac Newton on TV. I didn't get it but over here I might have had a very slight chance to play his servant.

That is the main difference between British and American acting – class; and that's why you see the same faces on TV over here all the time and why we – and I shouldn't really say this as an actor – have to put up with so much stereotypical bad acting on our screens; acting we have got used to over the years and since I have returned to London I have got used to it too after the initial shock upon my return.

I remember working with an actor in LA who was trained in the Sandy Meisner technique and who used it; he would use a yellow highlighter on his script and that was the only part of the script that he ever read or even knew.

He thought this was enough; I loved having conversations with him, during the rehearsal breaks about his various techniques, but I could never get through to him that his character might have been mentioned in another part of the script and this might help him with his characterisation. What if his character committed suicide at the end of the story or had some kind of quirk or disability?

I mean what is the point of acting? To help tell the story I should think.

In Los Angeles there were coaches and workshops for everything: cold reading classes, audition classes, comedy classes, stand-up comedy classes and all the rest of it. I did the workshop aforementioned and a term at The Groundlings – the improv group.

There were quite a few stars emerged from The Groundlings, I have to say, who would go in to Saturday Night Live and then on to movies and then disappear with their money – apart from Will Ferrell who really made it big.

The people that make the most money in Hollywood are the acting coaches – they are all over the place; they're all 'in the moment.'

I had a friend there who taught at the Lee Strasberg Institute on Santa Monica Boulevard but nowhere did I see any classes in voice production or diction.

And the other way to make money in Los Angeles is to write an acting book; Samuel French's book shop on Sunset Blvd is always busy and puts to shame their branch in Fitzrovia, London.

So what about John's book? For a start he splits actors in to two types: Representational Actors and Organic Actors and you will know from the supermarket which one is considered the better in every day life - but can you taste the difference?

Representational, he says, use fake emotions and the Organic ones use experience. The other thing he points out is that public subsidy in the theatre here should be raised to European Rates and recent cut backs reversed – what that has to do with Stanislavsky is beyond me.

John also talks of group theatre philosophy, publicly funded; what about the National Theatre, here? It's government funded and employs lots of privileged actors and actresses?

Read this book if you think you need help but always remember, if you can't act in the first place this book will not teach you and furthermore ask yourself who the best actors are in your life; they are our children who are naturals. They only become unnatural when they are given lines to say or acting teachers get hold of them.

I have seen literally thousands of performances and I have loved some of them them, been swayed by some of them and thrilled by some of them. Sometimes I have almost been moved by some of them, but I've only been really moved twice and I know this was purely by technique and both times it was by Sydney Poitier: once in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and once with Bobby Darin in the movie Pressure Point. I fell for it both times.

Good actors? I don't know.