Meisner Acting Technique: What Is It And How Does It Work?
In the prologue of the book Sanford Meisner on Acting, actor and director Sidney Pollack collects some of his experiences with the prestigious theater acting teacher. In 1952, Pollack was 18 years old and had just entered the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, the acting school where Meisner was a teacher. In Pollack’s own words, Sandy (that was what they called Sanford) was “terribly precise,” and his classes were of such intensity that he was not prepared for them when he first came.
Pollack remembers how Sanford Meisner had the uncanny ability to read the thoughts and emotions of his students When a surprised student asked him how he did it, he simply responded that it was twenty-five years of training in the profession. And indeed, that was the case. Meisner, along with other greats such as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, had been changing the theater landscape of the United States for more than two decades.
Sanford Meisner was the creator of a theatrical performance teaching technique known as the Meisner method or technique This line of teaching revolutionized acting concepts, although, strictly speaking, it was not an entirely new technique. As we will see below, Stanford took its ideas from Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), a prestigious theater professor of Russian origin who laid the first foundations of the renewal. A renewal that, much later, figures like Meisner and Adler would follow.
What, then, is the Meisner acting technique based on? In this article we will try to offer a clear summary of its main characteristics and a brief biography of the man who made it possible.
The dream of being an actor
Sanford Meisner was born on August 31, 1905 in Greenpoint, New York, son of a couple of Hungarian-Jewish origin. Shortly after Sanford was born, the family moved to the Bronx neighborhood, where the couple’s second son, Jacob, was born. This brother will have great importance in Sanford’s life path, as we will see below.
In 1908, Sanford’s health (who is three years old) is not very good, and his parents decide to move for a while to the Catskill Mountains, where they believe the air is cleaner. However, it is in this natural area where the tragedy unfolds. Little Jacob, who is then just a baby, is accidentally fed unpasteurized cow’s milk, which transmits bovine tuberculosis that will lead to his death at only three years old.
In the book cited in the introduction, Meisner remembers the episode with bitterness. The death of his brother digs a deep wound in his heart; not only because of the loss itself, but because of the feeling of guilt that he would never leave him. His own parents, with more than dubious judgment, feed this feeling by telling him that, if it were not for him (since the trip to Catskill was to improve Sanford’s health), Jacob would still be alive.
Tortured by guilt, little Stanford escapes existence with music It is common to find him playing the piano that the family has at home; Even years later, when his father takes him out of the conservatory where he has begun musical studies and puts him to work in the family business, the young Sanford survives emotionally by remembering in his mind the melodies that he has studied.
Despite this, Meisner’s true dream is to be an actor. At the age of nineteen he got his big opportunity: the Theater Guild was conducting interviews to hire teenage actors. Without hesitation, Sanford goes to the casting, and is chosen for a small role in the play. They Knew What They Wanted. If he was already clear that his vocation was to be an actor, from this experience he will put all his efforts into achieving it.
The Group Theater (1931-1940) and theories of theatrical interpretation
The news fell like a stone on his parents. In Sanford Meisner on acting, Meisner remembers the silence that fell at dinner when he announced his intention to dedicate himself to acting But nothing was going to stop him.
The scholarship he received to study at the Theater Guild allowed him to carry out his first theater studies, in addition to promoting a reunion with Lee Strasberg (1901-1982), with whom he had met at the Chrystie Street Settlement House and who would be crucial in his development. like actor. Strasberg defined his own theatrical performance technique, known as The Method who based his theories on those of Stanislavski, the great and true father of stage renewal.
In 1931, Strasberg and two other actors had founded the Group Theatre, a theater project that was going to revolutionize the stages of the United States. Meisner is delighted to join the company. The first work of the group, The House of Connelly by Paul Green (1931) was a total critical success. Many more productions followed, some of them quite controversial: Night over Taos (1932), Men in White (1933) or Big Night (1933).
The Group Theater only lasted nine years, partly due to disagreements that soon separated some members of the group. In 1934, Stella Adler (1901-1992), who later became one of the most prestigious acting teachers (with students such as Robert de Niro, Warren Beatty and Marlon Brando), returned from studying with Stanislavski in Paris. The ideas she brought from the great Russian master did not coincide with those of Strasberg. While the latter advocated more for an interpretation based on “emotional memory” (that is, the recollection of personal experiences to give life to the character), Adler leaned towards the use of imagination advocated by Stanislavski.
Differences of opinion over interpretive methods led to the group’s split in 1940. Meisner, who had aligned himself with the theories of Stella Adler, continued to serve as an acting teacher at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, that he would not abandon until his retirement.
The Meisner acting technique emerges
From Stella Adler and, therefore, from Konstantin Stanislavski, Meisner acquired the conviction that imagination was an indispensable element to construct a credible performance. This involved disinhibiting impulses and, consequently, living in the moment.
In an interview with Steven Ditmyer, a Sanford student, the director repeated one of Meisner’s favorite statements: “Acting is doing.” In other words, the actor should not pretend because, the moment he does it, the performance is fake. On the contrary, to perform a correct interpretation it is necessary to connect with what you are doing; imbibe the character and what he is experiencing and feeling at that moment.
Therefore, good interpretation does not arise from the brain, but from impulses, from the less rational part of the human being. The moment you stop to think “rationally” about what the character is feeling and doing, your interpretation is doomed to failure. Instead, If you let go and act as you would really act if that happened to you, you are letting the interpretation flow naturally and, therefore, this will be credible. Broadly speaking, this is what the Meisner acting technique is based on.
As we can see, it is radically opposite to what Strasberg advocated, maintaining that the actor should evoke his own memories. By absorbing yourself in your memory, you are thinking and, according to Meisner, thinking ruins the performance. The Meisner acting technique is still valid today. Its creator conceived it as a two-year study plan: in the first course, the tools available to the actor are practiced and they are taught to connect with their impulses. The objective is for the actor or actress to be able to develop adequately in a scenario that is the result of their imagination. Later, during the second year, these techniques are put into practice through diverse and varied interpretations (classical texts, monologues, improvisations…).
Meisner’s technique has proven to be highly effective, and many actors have taken his classes ; among them, authentic stars of classic cinema such as Gregory Peck or Joanne Woodward. In the report about Sanford Meisner that was made in 1990 (see bibliography), actress Suzanne Pleshette (1937-2008) commented that Meisner was not anyone’s “father.” His teaching prepared students to face the outside world and, of course, everyone who studied with him came out absolutely prepared for it.
