So last night everything came to fruition. At least in my sound sleep I saw everything. Motivation is key. Just talking about it elates me. I have found a symptom from past experiences in class which allows me to become motivated and thus shelter myself from the outside world. As long as I am not missing out on beautiful experiences like waking up the next morning I should be solid. In understanding of the Stanislavsky method I would like to point out a competing method at the time of Stanislavsky by a student/contemporary known as Vselovod Meyerhold. First I will give you my take on his Biomechanic method of acting and then I will deny you a more "academic" answer based on my lack of knowledge and study of this man and acting in general. (Note: Most of the things I have learned about things that I like (music, theatre, film, art, etc) have come from various sources, not all can be trusted, but since I am a man of being impressed upon I cannot help myself from regurgitating silly, at times, pointless facts about things that I kind-of-know-but-not-really. So Meyerhold, eh. Well, first off, he joined the newly formed Moscow Art Theater in the early part of the 20th century just about the time when Stanislavsky was becoming a sort of acting god. But Meyerhold had a falling out with Stanislavsky and left the Moscow Art Theater. At the time the proletariats in Russia were rising up out of their factories and opposing the Czar. The proletariat art movements at the time in Russia were very modern and avant-garde and dealt mainly with industry since Russia was just then experiencing an industrial revolution. So constructivism was a big idea for artists, poets, authors, playwrights, so on and so forth. So this Biomechanical way of looking at acting fit right in with the constructivist idea and the proletariat cause. Meyerhold himself quickly joined the Soviet ranks after the revolution in 1917. He became the head of the theater division of the People's Commissariat for Education in 1920. I did do some research as you can probably tell and will provide a link at the bottom of this blog when I am done. However, for now, I just want to get across the point that at the time Meyerhold was brilliant, ahead of his time, truly a part of the Russian avant-garde. Although his legacy did not last because of his bizarre method where representation of a character used bizarre movements and gestures to relate the emotion of a play. And from what I can recall about the videos I have seen, personally, many characters in the plays put on in his biomechanic method were inanimate objects. At least I'm sure of Vladimir Mayakovsky's plays. He was a bizarre kind-of-avant-garde-renaissance-egomaniacal man. But, yeah, back to Meyerhold. At the time he was perfect for early Soviet theater, of course, Stanislavsky's method has worked out much better for Hollywood and much better for my eyes on the screen, but Meyerhold was one of those guys that was also around during that era and as a Soviet, proletariat force found himself arrested and shot in prison under Stalin just like most of the major early Soviet leaders. Weird.


Meyerhold

Read more about him because I have to go and my previous thoughts have left me. Hopefully the subject will stay alive in my brain...and possibly yours!