Fascinating opening episode to ‘Michael Sheen Gets into Character’ on Radio 4 (catch it on BBC Sounds) looking at Konstantin Stanislavski’s ‘System’ of acting. The System transformed theatrical practice by codifying a way of creating authentic seeming characters, on cue, so they could be brought to life reliably night after night.
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Born in the early 20th Century and evolved over time, the System evolved from a focus on affective memory – the use of sensory memories and cues to trigger emotions 😂💘😢 😍 – to the idea of physical action, where the actor gets into character by doing, by moving from action to action within the circumstances of the play🏃♀️ 🏋♀️ 🤼♀️ So the System embraces different but complementary approaches, internal and external, with emotion evoked either through the actor’s own internal repertoire or elicited by action.
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Fundamentally, the System addresses the tension between the real and the not real, the paradox at the heart of acting: it’s not me but it is me.
🎬 🎥 🗣 The same paradox applies to non-actors when we find ourselves in the spotlight (and different people feel the spotlight in different places). We too are faced with the tension between the real and the not real: we have to appear to be our real, natural selves in a place that can feel anything but natural or real 👨👨👧👧🗣👨👨👧👧.
When it comes to performing ourselves – because that is exactly what we have to do – we can take a lot from Stanislavski’s System. As Michael Sheen realised early in his career, it’s not at all about flashy content (though our content has to be great, of course it does – and that’s a whole art in itself!). It’s much more fundamental and personal: observing our emotions so we have a repertoire to draw on when we wish to engage the emotions of others; and embodying this in our physicality, through what we ‘do’, so that our head, heart and body are mutually supportive and working together in flow 💐. That’s how we share our inner truth and land our message.
#YouBrand
#Stanislavski
#performingyoureslf
#confidentanywhere
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