Mike alfreds lesson notes

Mike Alfred's

Exercise 1 improvisational clap tag 

A leaves the room an B stays in the room. B is told a specific given circumstances. When A re-enters the room A and B must improvise a scene based upon the given circumstance. A has no clue what is going on in the scene and must observe, interpret and respond to what is being offered in the scene by B. Then when your instructor/director claps you can change the given circumstance of your improvised scene. 

The aim of this is to make you be a less selfish and internalized actor. Also this exercise aims to make you exist in a space with another person and to allow yourself to live in the moment. You are trying to not be living in the past or the future intellectually, but physically in the present with your partner. This exercise helps you be a more truthful and physically instinctual actor. Action on stage comes from interaction between characters, which is why making offers and accepting offers on stage is so important. It's all about what you bring to the table. 

Exercise 2 

Laban efforts - Glass coffin 

This exercise begins with you imagining yourself to be inside a glass coffin. You must then map out the corners and confines of your own personal space using your hands, then your feet, legs, arms, shoulders and whole body. Whilst doing so you should experiment with levels and moving around and exploring in your own space. 

The Efforts

Light/Flexible/Sustained = Floating
Light/Flexible/Broken = Flicking
Light/Direct/Sustained = Gliding
Light/Direct/Broken = Dabbing
Strong/Flexible/Sustained = Wringing
Strong/Flexible/Broken = Slashing
Strong/Direct/Sustained = Pressing
Strong/Direct/Broken = Thrusting/Punching

These efforts supposedly come together to make up the complete human emotions and the messages behind each line we speak. 

Defining the Elements

Light:

Light implies functioning with ease. There is no weight to your movements. Your arms and legs are free and able to move softly and without effort. This was an easy movement as it required little effort.

Strong:

Strong implies that you are functioning with hard, powerful movements. As if you are trying to move through sand or mud. It makes your arms and legs move with effort, as though walking through sand up to your knees. This was particularly tiring and required a lot of effort.

Direct:

Direct implies that you are functioning in a harsh and rather forceful way. You know what you want and you are going to get it. You can look at where your hands and feet are moving to, as you move them, to give a sense of purpose. This move was tiring as it involved a lot of effort and a large physicality.

Flexible:

Flexible implies that you have no focus and are able to move or go anywhere. You are able to bend and form lots of different shapes and in different directions. You bend your hands, feet and face and you allow yourself not to have a focus point, so that you are flexible to move or go anywhere. This movement was quite gentle and easy, you have to move gently for it to be flexible.

Sustained:

Sustained implies that you are moving in one motion, you're not breaking the motion or stopping, you have energy flowing from one physical state to another. This movement was quite hard to keep up, especially if the other two elements are strong and direct. It tends to be slower and takes on a gentle physicality, such as moving through water or gliding.

Broken:

Broken implies that your movements are abrupt. You are jabbing through the air, creating a harsh atmosphere. This movement was tiring, as it was hard work to keep up. It tends to be fast, such a swatting away a fly.

Technically: 
Light and Strong are to do with Weight and the intensity of a movement.
Direct and Flexible are to do with Space and how you move in it.
Sustained and Broken are to do with Time or speed of a movement.

Weight - heavy / light
Focus - direct / flexible 
Continuity - sustained / broken 

This exercise can be used before and after the text of a piece has been applied. It is primarily a physical exploration exercise however it can be adapted within the workshop for vocal development. This exercise is all about your process and what you're feeling as an actor living and breathing in the moment on stage. This exercise is very useful in order to establish the physicality of your character. Through this you may link character traits with the vocal and physical exploration of the character. 

Michael Chekhov Research

All approaches to acting in America and Europe stem from the pioneering work of Constantine Stanislavsky. His unending quest for truth on the stage resulted in a revolution in the way an actor prepared and presented a role. Unfortunately, in America, his system arrived in its nascent form and was not allowed to develop, leaving us with naturalism as the actor's highest artistic achievement. This work has found its way back to Europe as a result of the American cinema and now prevails as the dominant approach to acting. Stanislavsky's research continued, however, and took him beyond naturalism. Among his followers, were three of the most important theater artists of the 20th century:

Michael Chekhov: An outstanding Russian actor, director and teacher of acting lived and worked in Russia, in different European countries, and in the USA. Nephew of the famous writer and dramatist Anton Chekhov, an ideal pupil of Constantine Stanislavsky and considered by Stanislavsky to be his most brilliant actor. Marked by the Soviets for arrest, he escaped to the West bringing us his invaluable methods and techniques;

Eugene Vakhtangov: Actor, teacher who died as a young and very promising director, and whose name is associated with an existing School and a Theater in Moscow;

Vsevolod Meyerhold: Actor, teacher who became the premier Socialist Director of a new form of theater in Soviet Russia until his extermination by Stalin.

These artists helped the naturalistic theater flourish until they understood, along with Stanislavsky, that actors were artists; they needed to move away from the mere "photographic" representation of life by seeking truth in more inspiring ways. They believed strongly that life on the stage needed to be bold, expressive, and theatrical. Consequently they developed imaginative methods using psycho-physical techniques, exercises that use the undeniable connection between the body and psychology, movements and principles that generate various sensations and emotions. They found these techniques liberated and excited the actor to truthful expressions.

In an article in the NY Times, "Dispensing With Dogma in the Education of Actors" (8/2/98), it states, "...naturalism has sometimes seemed unequal to the task of portraying characters on the stage. And there is renewed interest now in discovering ways to train actors that go beyond the Method."

In the same article, Jon Jory (Actor's Theater of Louisville) is quoted as saying "Today, American conservatories and studios alike are trying to create new theatrical languages ......this is the most exciting period in acting in 35 years."

And Melissa Smith, director of the actor training program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco said, "People who are going to work in film, television and theater are looking for a range of ideas about training."

The acting community is hungry for alternatives to the Method. The Michael Chekhov Technique, rooted in Stanislavsky, influenced by Meyerhold and Vakhtangov, is one of the most viable alternatives.

Following Michael Chekhov's method an actor gains freedom of all limitations of the subjective personality and has endless opportunities for the creative authorship in any theater system, director's conception, or performance structure.

Chekhov's technique is a completely imaginative approach to experiencing the truth of the moment. According to Chekhov the work of the actor is to create an inner event which is an actual experience occurring in real time within the actor. This inner event as it is being experienced by the actor is witnessed by the audience as an outward expression related to the contextual moment of the play. This event and the ability to create it belong to what Michael Chekhov calls the Creative Individuality of the actor, and is not directly tied to his personality. This Creative Individuality allows the artist actor to use parts of himself that are not just the smaller meaner more banal elements that make up his daily life, but rather parts of his unconscious, where dwell more universal and archetypal images. In Chekhov's own words:

"All you experience in the course of your life, all you observe and think, all that makes you happy or unhappy, all your regrets or satisfactions, all your love or hate, all you long for or avoid, all your achievements and failures, all you brought with you into this life at birth -your temperament, abilities, inclinations etc., all are part of the region of your so called subconscious depths. There being forgotten by you, or never known to you they undergo the process of being purified of all egotism. They become feelings per se. Thus purged and transformed, they become part of the material from which your Individuality creates the psychology, the illusory "soul" of the character."

(To The Actor by Michael Chekhov)

In this way the ego of the character is not subjected to the ego of the actor, because the Individuality seeks a creative union with the character, and will not allow the smaller personality to invade the character thereby distorting this character into one more representation of the actor's personality. The actor's work continually becomes an artistic creation.

                                                     The Michael Chekhov Handbook For the Actor by Lenard Petit

http://www.michaelchekhovactingstudio.com/technique.htm

Michael Chekhov lesson notes

Michael Chekhov: Wrote 'To the actor.' Born 1891 28 years after Stan. Academy award nominated (he didn't win) Russian American director, author and theatre practitioner. 

His techniques have been used by people such as Marylyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood. 

Nephew to Anton Chekhov. He worked with Stan at the Moscow art theatre in 1912.

In 1928 he was forced to leave Russia as his teachings about theatre were seen as far too abstract and threatening in their experimental nature. 

Revolutionized theatre - he was experimental and radical and he was the first to publish an actual workbook for actors to use. 

It contains exercises for people to physically engage with and asks the actors to participate and experiment with the different exercises. The fundamental ideas were taken from and adapted from stanislavski's teachings, however Stan's work was much more like a story with a narrative. 

Believed that actors are creative artists creating characters distinct from theirselves. 

He wanted his actors to focus more on how they are different to their characters instead of how they are similar. 

Micheal disliked the logic that a "system" imposed. He also disliked the idea of actors using their own emotional memory to engage with an emotion. As he believed so strongly in actors using their imagination that he believed that if a person hadn't experienced a specific circumstance in which the character feels for example sad, and then decided to remember a memory in which they were feeling the same emotion in a dissimilar situation then the actor is simply remembering instead of imagining how their character would feel in said circumstance. 

The following element are dominant in his work:
Atmosphere 
Engaging with identity
Actor creativity 
Physicalization of inner experience 
Using imagination to create character
Using the "higher ego" different self to everyday self

He also believed that an actor should not just know their own role within a play. They should know the play as a director would. They should understand the internal message of the play and the composition of the play through the directors eyes.