I remember talking to an actor once about "Method Acting". As I was not an actor, it was a foreign concept for me but one that I realized I innately understood. Strange when that happens. But that's for another time.
In it's most basic form, this actor shared with me how in Method Acting, the actor develops thoughts and feelings of the character to make him/her more life-like, more real. We all have an "inner monologue" going on or are motivated by internal things that prompt us to 'act' (or react) in a certain way, and that's sort of where this comes from. What it broadens to include is every aspect of the character and the more detailed and specific that inner monologue can be, the more "real" the visual portrayal will become. So they say.
"Can you give me an example?" I asked my friend.
"Sure," he said. "Let's say you're in the play Les Miserables. And, in this play, you are Marius. You're at the barricade and Eponine has come to you through the battle lines. She is shot, falls towards you and you catch her. A very powerful moment, right?"
I nod my head.
"How do you play the moment?" he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"You get very specific, every detail becomes a conscious moment. You get very deliberate. Such as, create an inner monologue .... what's the first thing you hear?"
"The gunshot."
"Is it the first you heard today? The 10th? How is this one different?"
"It's not the first, but it's the one that is accompanied by a lot of yelling. I hear Gavroche yelling and Francois shouting in anger. There is a sound of movement, people rushing to someplace, scraping of the barricade wood."
"Very good. What are you thinking?"
"There is someone there, someone has been shot. I must see who it is. I push people aside and freeze when I see them carrying Eponine over the barricade. She is leaning heavily on them, I make my way to her, worried that she didn't get the note to Cossette, sick that something else happened. I lift her and gently set her down on the street ... she leans heavily on me and I feel the warmth of her body. No, it's not the warmth of her body that I feel. I slowly pull my hands away and see the glisten of blood on them."
"Ok," my friend interrupted. "Now, as Marius, you are going to need to break down. But, you don't know what a breakdown is to Marius ... do you know what would cause you to break down? What experience would you, Matthew, you have that would cause you to breakdown? Similar to what Marius would experience?"
I paused.
"Once you have figured that out, once you have created that moment in time, with every sense you have, with every thought, and fear and emotion you can enter into ... I promise you, your Marius will weep. The key is in the details. Do not leave one emotional, one sensory stone unturned," he said to me, winked and picked up his water bottle. "Your audience will feel Marius's pain even though it was you who created the experience on which to react to. That, my friend, is Method," and he left the stage.
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