Acting techniques from the masters: Bobby Lewis

The Importance of Being Honest: Acting Techniques from the Masters

The following are excerpts from Dr. Mary Schuttler's class on the masters of acting technique.

Summary of Robert "Bobby" Lewis's contributions

We must never settle for "what" we are doing and "why" we are doing it, but we also must ask "how" we are doing it. And if we have found the "how" we mustn't forget to justify the "what" and "why." The modern acting talent ought to have a line from his/her head to his/her heart with the circuits ever remaining open and the lines well traveled in both directions.

Biography of Robert "Bobby" Lewis 1909-1997

Web Bio: Robert Lewis (16 March 1909 – 23 November 1997) was an American actor, director, drama teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York in 1947. In addition to his accomplishments on Broadway and in Hollywood, Lewis' greatest and longest lasting contribution to American theater may be the role he played as one of the foremost acting and directing teachers of his day. He was an early proponent of the Stanislavski System of acting technique and a founding member of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he was the Head of the Yale School of Drama Acting and Directing Departments. HEarly Years Bobby Lewis was born in Brooklyn in 1909 to a middle class working family. Encouraged in the arts by his mother, a former contralto, Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music, particularly opera. He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting. In 1929, he joined Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City. His musical background proved invaluable later when he bacame a director of Broadway musicals, operas and filmmed musicals in Hollywood. The Group Theatre In 1931, Lewis became one of the 28 original (and youngest) members of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre. Formed by Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and producer Cheryl Crawford, The Group was an ensemble of passionate young actors, directors and writers who came together to explore the inner processes of theatre craft. Lewis and other members of the Group, such as Stella Adler and Elia Kazan, were proponents of a new form of acting based on the techniques of Russian director, Constantin Stanislavski. They believed the Stanislavski System, first seen in America in the 1920s, resulted in a more truthful, more believable, and therefore more powerful stage performance than could be accomplished with more traditional stylistic techniques common at that time. Lewis appeared in several original Group Theatre productions in the 1930s including Sidney Kingsley's Pulitzer Prize winning Men in White, and Clifford Odets' plays Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing, Paradise Lost and Golden Boy. As in any artistic endeavor, differences in translation and emphasis between the Russian Stanislavski System, and what eventually came to be known as The Method, were debated vigorously in the Group. In later years, Lewis held that Strasberg's Method, while valid in its particulars, was a misrepresentation of Stanislavski because it emphasized only some parts of Stanislavski's theory. (See Method — or Madness?, below) Despite the Group's success, internal disagreements, the lure of Hollywood and financial issues began to take a toll and, by late 1936, production was suspended. Officially released from Group obligations, many of the members, including Lewis and Group founder Harold Clurman, went off to join other Group members already in Hollywood. In April of 1937, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford resigned as directors of the Group. A year later, however, Robert Lewis and Elia Kazan returned to New York to restart Group workshops and The Group Theatre Studio resumed with fifty actors chosen from four hundred who auditioned. Lewis, Kazan and Sanford Meisner were the principle teachers. That same year, Harold Clurman returned from Hollywood to stage the Group's production of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy, which became its most successful play. Robert Lewis was cast as Roxy Gottlieb, the prizefight promoter. Lewis later maintained that he had been miscast in the original production, though he assumed a more satisfying role as director of his own successful production of Golden Boy at the St. James Theatre in London, in 1938. While in London, Lewis studied with Michael Chekov, an actor whose work he admired and whom Stanislavski considered one of the foremost interpreters of his theories. At Chekov's studio in Devonshire at Dartington Hall, Lewis further shaped his understanding of Stanislavski's techniques, or "method," as it was informally known in America. The following year, Lewis made his Broadway directorial debut with a critically successful production of William Saroyan's My Heart's in the Highlands (1939). Soucre: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia

Sample Acting Exercises by robert "Bobby" Lewis

1. (Relax and Energize) – a) Stand up, medium base, normal posture.  Shake your hands.  Hard, from the wrists out.  Shake, shake, hard.  You should feel your hands leaving your body.  Continue for at least 30 seconds.  Now reach for the ceiling and stretch.  Up on your toes.  Higher.  And slowly down.  Now your fingers should be tingling. Shake it out and sit.  b) Tense and relax each body part, one area at a time.
2. (Concentration) – Divide class into two groups.  When I say “begin,” Group A count by 8 as high as you can go.  Group B call out numbers at random to distract them; you may approach them, but do not touch them – try to break their concentration vocally.  Call “stop” – how far did you get?
3. (Concentration) – a) Put two chairs facing each other. Two volunteers sit and A begins a story; B talks along with A, saying the exact words at the same time – help one another succeed.  b) Now have B tell a story.  c) Next call “switch” as they go along.
4. (Concentration) – Bring up 8 volunteers.  Stand in a straight line, facing front.  Tick off the alphabet in a row until each player has 3 or 4 letters.  Repeat your letters.  Now spell out ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS in rhythm with energy.  Now add the 4 movements: on beat #1 – stamp your right foot; #2 – stamp your left foot; #3 – step forward with your right foot, throw your right hand straight out in front of you, and call out your letter; #4 – return to position.  Try other variations as well.
5. (Imagination) – assume an arbitrary pose.  Describe who you are and your situation.
6. (Imagination) – Create four distinct and arbitrary poses. (ex: #1 – squat down, torso erect, hands at sides; #2 – rise, throw right hand behind you and step back on your right foot; #3 – step forward with your right foot in front of you, with your right hand extended in front of you as well; #4 – return to normal posture.)  Now justify the choreography.
• You can’t teach acting; if you have the equipment and talent, then ok.
• A good teacher can give certain hints to release expressivity, or strengthen some technical weakness; that’s about it. It is still crucial to do this, however.
• Work in the classroom is only prep for the stage, not an end in itself. One must understand how to translate it into a performance.
• When you’re in trouble with a role, you should be able to turn to your technical knowledge.  The aim of techniques is to free the spirit.
• There is danger in separating the inner and the outer.
• You should not just settle for “what” we are doing and “why,” but also “how” we are doing it. If you find the “how” you must justify the “what” and “why.”

Advice to the Players by Robert Lewis

(ENERGIZING/CONCENTRATION)

• Relaxation and Energizing
• Body Work
• Concentration – two forms; outer and inner. By altering the place the concentration lands, you can alter the drama.  Concentration exercises improve your instrument and help in the actual playing of parts.
• Imagination – helps you create and justify.
• Sensory Perception – well developed brings truth to acting; use sense memory as a substitution (ex. blow brains out = cold shower).
• Intention – you always have to express your intention in terms of a VERB.
• Improvisation – a training aid to study the process of intention; with no given lines you are forced to concentrate on your intentions and make adjustments.

Chapter One - Relaxation and Energizing

• 1st two element’s in exploring acting
• Gives you a sense of truth, sense of form, sense of style, sense of the whole, sense of beauty, and sense of ease (the starting point).
• Ease: so that one does not notice the workings of the actor as he is acting.
• When you’re relaxed; no tension; technique is not apparent so thinking can come through easier to feel.
• Stage relaxation means a balance achieved through full energy and feeling of ease; it is higher than life energy.
• When onstage you can touch an object to release tension.
• EXERCISES: 1. medium stance, posture, shake hands from wrists out; hard. Hands should leave the body. Reach for ceiling and stretch. Up, up, up on toes; straight line from tips of fingers to toes; higher, higher. Slowly down. Tingling? 2. sit comfortable in chair. relax each body part. Relax it, study it, try to isolate that area; tense and relax; up; shake your hands and stretch. 3. In chair relaxed. Check all muscles, tighten a single muscle; rest of body relaxed. Rise, walk and sit back down in this condition. Do it for other body parts. Can use for characterization.

chapter two - Body work

• Walking in a circle; fast, slow,...; accent different beats;
• 1,2,3,4; 1,2,3,4; 1,2,3,4; 1,2,3,4—4 bars now only accent 1st bar and nothing on last 3; pg 10. shrink and expand circle, then backwards
• Develops control over your body
• Statues (for freedom and trust): swing partner around and let go. 1st end in a haphazard pose, then a predetermined pose, then a beautiful pose, then a funny pose

chapter three - concentration

• In order to concentrate organically on what you want, you must be muscularly free. But, conversely, muscular tension will tend to disappear if you are able to concentrate on the     object of your choice - the 2 go together.
• 2 forms: OUTER-what is chosen that we can actually see OR listen to and really hear what you choose. INNER-thinking of what you decide to think about and nothing else.
• There is a circle of concentration which can range from the whole world to a single person, for example.
• By altering the place where the concentration lands, you can alter the drama. EX. from a twitching lip to the eyes to discover guilt.
• Concentration exercises improve your instrument and help in the actual playing of parts.
• Mirror exercises (pg 21+); Story (pg. 26)

chapter four - imagination

• Exercises: pg.30 change the prop around the circle; pg.33 piece of cloth to become character. Imagination helps you create; develop it thru exercises.
• Use imagination for justification; if asked why you did something, for ex.; use it when things appear senseless or uncomfortable.
• It’s as if . . . a taxi is waiting and I have 10 minutes; springboard of your imagination pgs.40-41; 1 or 4 poses to justify.
• Exercises must be done meticulously.
• EX.1: 1) Feel a real object. 2) Reproduce the sensations without the object. 3) Check up on yourself with the actual object again. Do this with see, hear, taste, and smell too.
• EX.2: Tug of war with rope and then without.

chapter five - sensory perception

• Sense memory; don’t parade your technique; play the play.
• Without well developed sensory perception, there can be no truth to your acting; helps in transmission.
• Since we must deal with imaginary props/circumstances, we need to trigger our moods and emotions for help; make us believe-Marceau.
• Can use sense memory as a substitution; blow brains out=cold shower.
• character can be molded; wind on face=Nazi
• Can find all major elements thru sensory perception; pull all together.

chapter six - intention

• “The big one”, objective, action (inner not physical), subtext; the most important element of the acting craft; Stella=character, Strasberg=emotion.
• Definition: Intention is what you are really doing on the stage at any given moment, regardless of what you are saying (or not saying, if it’s a silent scene or if you are listening); what you’re doing inside. “I love you” on paper has many different approaches.
• Actual application: you always have to express your intention in terms of A VERB; “to extract a crucial answer”
• Create a list of things to create impatience, not “act impatient” (check watch, see wrong person, appt book.. .and you will feel it)
• No “to be” verbs; one overall objective for play (spine), general objective for scene, smaller objectives within.
• Study play to know which objective to pick; study character & relationships, given circum. before play begins, and w/in scene itself.
• Inside and outside develop together in rehearsal process.
• “Choice” how you choose your intentions and how you use them
• measures your artistry; comedy – ”to swim in his beard,” “to sniff at her”
• “Playing the opposite”: when an actor makes a strange choice simply because it’s strange. (Really?)
• An actor must always take sides.
• EX. Break an objective into 3 parts so it doesn’t lag and it helps to build it. Set up a 3 part scene. Do it again to overcome obstacles. If not real, question. pg. 69-70,

chapter seven - improvisation

• One of the great values of improvisation is for training; improv is the control of the problem (intention). You execute the intentions and improv is the result of that execution.
• There always must be something to improvise on; strict forms/rules.
• Improv, a training aid, gives you the chance to study the process of intention; with no given lines it forces you to concentrate on your intentions.
• Improv helps you to establish a connection to your partner.
• Improv forces talking and listening.
• Improv helps you develop a sense of the first time.
• Improv helps you develop some element of characterization that doesn’t come out of your work on the part.
• Stop improv before “dangers”; distort scene intentions, disrespect author’s lines, lack of form.
• If use improv with an actual scene, check intentions of scene carefully, and after improv, do the real scene so you can make connections; work within the form.
• make the improv happen; never deny; if someone does, adjust.
• EX. pgs.85-98

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