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Acting: Theory and PracticeDateline: 29th July, 2001 There's an old story - probably apocryphal - about Sir Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman during the making of the film Marathon Man. I'm not even sure that I've got the details right, as I've heard more than one version of the story, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong! It's the punchline that's important anyway. According to the story, just before filming a scene in which he was supposed to be exhausted from running, Hoffman did exactly that: he ran until he was really pretty shattered. Olivier had watched this, and the subsequent conversation went something like this: Olivier Another story, not apocryphal because it happened to a friend of mine: He was playing the part of a drunk (I can't remember the play: to be honest, I don't think I ever knew it) and received quite a lot of plaudits from director, cast and audience for his performance, until one night he did get drunk before the show (unforgiveable, as he now knows). His performance was terrible that night! And he never did it again. Have you looked at the newsgroup rec.arts.theatre.misc recently? There's a big argument going on over one Jeremy Whelan and his New School Acting techniques. (He, incidentally, is no slouch at defending himself) Wading in to this argument is Norman B. Schwartz, (self-)styled Il Professore. So far in the discussion we've seen mention of M. Chekov, Lee Strasberg, Stanislavski, Delsarte, and a whole range of various and often competing theories of acting. So what have these seemingly disconnected stories got in common? The idea of a theory of acting, the belief that, if you follow a particular school or individual's way, it will make you a better actor. The right theory will enable you to develop your craft, to use the phrase which occurs time and time again in the current Usenet discussion. May I at this point divert into another (seemingly irrelevant) personal reminiscence? In my first year of teaching (which began in September 1966), I was working in a large (1400 students) comprehensive school, teaching English and Drama. I was given a whole year group's exam papers to mark, classes which were taught by a wide variety of teachers. There was me, full of modern (at the time) ideas and there was Miss Gourley, close to retirement and still teaching in the way she had been taught before the war, and there was a whole spectrum of other teaching styles in between. We taught in unstreamed groups (that is, the kids wern't divided into classes according to ability), so, I arrogantly felt, the results would be proof perfect of the greater effectiveness of modern teaching methods. I learned a very important lesson: all teaching methods work, so long as the teacher really believes in what (s)he is doing and does it well. The spread of marks in each class followed, within tolerances, a normal distribution curve. Take another look at Marathon Man: who comes over as the better actor, Olivier or Hoffman? The product of the British classical tradition or the Method actor? It's too close to call: they both turned in superb performances. Makes you think, doesn't it? Articles Indices: |
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