THE REALISTIC SCHOOL OF ACTING

The Realistic School has eveloved through the work of great teachers like Stanislavsky, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Utah Hagen and John Strasberg, and Gilles Plouffe, to mention but a few. Realistic acting trains fundamental and essential elements such as Talent, Imagination, Organic thinking, Intuition and Spontaneous Inspiration. The basic training develops the actor's knowledge of him/her self. An actor dreams awake, creating a new life from real and imaginary life. An actor makes the invisible world visible; expressing one's intuitive and conscious vision of life in his/her art. Art is a conscious as well as intuitive process. A realistic actor lives the life of his character! Learning Realistic Acting takes one to three years. It is interesting to remind ourselves that this type of technique has influenced the work of such great artists as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan and many other great actors, writers, directors and producers.

THE 11 ELEMENTS OF OUR TRAINING

1. Basic Technique: presence, concentration, focus and imagination

Basic technique begins with knowing oneself and knowing how to use yourself during your work. It is developping a level of awareness where the actor is in constant contact with himself during his work. The actor is present in his body, his reasonning, his feelings and his emotions. Acting is a conscious art form. The actor knows how to use himself, on what to focus his concentration and how to be in contact with the imaginary.

2. Preparation and research

An actor knows himself, knows what type of exercises and research he needs to do to create a character and a complete imaginary world with precision and detail. An actor knows how to train and warm-up his body and voice to allow his instrument to perform at peak capacity.

3. Capacity to perceive reality in an imaginary world

To perceive reality in an imaginary context the actor must go beyond his ideas that are based on his interpretation of the text. The actor must work while focusing on essential realities within the context and, at the same time, being consciously aware of any organic impulses that could lead to manifestations of secondary realities provided through moments of inspiration. It is a layering process.

4. Capacity to coherently express what one perceives

Without loosing his sense of who he is and in what context he is working to create, the actor must learn to do what he really wants to do rather than doing what he thinks he should do or what he thinks the character would do. This behavior is essential to the discovery and the expression of all realities. Other wise the actor is expressing the idea of reality rather than the reality itself.

5. Capacity to work spontaneously

To fully exist in the world of a character, the actor needs to be fully focused in the moment and avoid anticipation of the next moment or the next line. To do this, the actor must keep himself in a state of confusion, a state in which he doesn’t know what’s coming next or what he will do next. He sustains his concentration in the present moment without any form of anticipation.

6. Capacity to recognize intuition and follow through on it

Intuition can only function if the actor’s intellect is not dominating his attention during the work. Intuition can only function at its best when the actor is completely present in his body and his mind. For most actors, in the beginning, this requires a conscious sustained effort.

7. Organic text analysis

Most actors take a rationilized approach to text analysis. The result is usually detached, superficial and limited. The actor must learn to engage sensorially during the read and analysis, so as to perceive the essential realities and the secondary realities intuitively, beyond the rational logical perceptions.The way we do it in life.

8. Capacity to actualize an imaginary world

The imaginary world exists beyond an actor’s mind. It’s not simply an idea of something; it’s knowledge and a belief that will manifest in the real reality during the actor’s work. It is exists inside and outside. The actor creates the imagniary world and makes it tangible and visible for himself and for the audience. It is the art of making the invisible, visible.

9. Developping a sense of truth

The sense of truth is this capacity that an artist possesses, the capacity to see and perceive reality whether it be in real life or in an imaginary world. The first thing to develop is ones capacity to see reality in life. To do that, the actor must know himself, otherwise his perception is distorted and these distortions will manifest in his work. To learn this, the actor must expose himself, become vulnerable. Truth is found in transparency.

10. Capacity to transform

For an actor the art of transformation is a capacity to concentrate ones focus on essential elements of reality combined with a strong  concentration that allow s one to sustain multiple elements until they begin to multiply naturally and lead to a transformation into the world of the character. The actor travels into the world of his character, mind, body and spirit. Once transformed, the actor must know how to sustain this fragile connection.

11. Passion

Passion is essential to an actor’s artistic success. If the actor is not passionnate about his work, his craf, his art form, it is unlikely that he will achieve a high level of artistic success.

The quality of his work will most likely be limited to a superficial level. The commitment will simply not be enough to accomplish the work required to create a full character, with a complete imaginary world. It will be almost impossble to experience a transformation. This type of work requires a deep and complete personal commitment.



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