A Study Of Method Acting

The Method Acting is a world-famous American performance theory developed from the Stanislavski System. From the 1930s to the present, Method Acting has not only fundamentally changed the film, television and theatrical performance situation of the U.S., but also had a broad and profound influence on that of Europe and the whole world. By examining the eighty years'exploration of the Method, this paper attempts to give a comprehensive and systematic interpretation and analysis of the Method Acting.The first chapter gives a review of the eighty years'exploration of the Method members and an analysis of the cultural causes and cultural characteristics of the Method Acting. The representatives of the Method, such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, were all descendants of the Eastern European Jewish immigrants of the 1980s and 1990s, therefore, they were born with complicated cultural genes; through them some kind of communication among the American culture, Russian culture, European culture and Jewish culture had been achieved. In their exploration, Jewish culture and European culture were steady influential factors from the beginning to the end, while Russian culture and American culture showed a trend of shift. It is the Method members'complicated cultural identity that made it possible for them to revolutionize the American performance art and reinforce the American operation system.The second chapter, taking the whole performance theory history as a frame of reference, makes a study of theoretical contribution of the Method. Method Acting theory belongs to the category of realism performance theory; nonetheless, it hasn't limited itself to the traditional realism performance theory, but improved the realism performance theory by drawing on lessons of modernism and postmodernism performance theory. The Method solved the long-term unresolved issue of "experiencing" and "expressing"; they found a solution to the problem of "expressiveness" by following Stanislavsky's steps; they made creative statement on the relationship between the role and the human; and they developed the realism situation theory to a mature extent.An introduction and evaluation of the Method's actor training approach is given in the third chapter, with the review of the continuous development and improvement of the actor training approach since the Ancient Greece. The distinctiveness of the Method's actor training approach is as follows:Firstly, the actor training approach of the Method has been committed to explore and develop the actors'talent, for which they concern more about the creativity training instead of the traditional voice and body training. Secondly, compared to the Stanislavsky System, the Method's actor training approach is more highly integrated, their exercises more logically arranged, and therefore can stimulate the actors'creativity step by step; in addition to that, their training approach is closely related to skills of character creation. Thirdly, the Method breaks the traditional division of inner and outer techniques, connecting body, emotion, spirit and action as a whole.The fourth chapter gives an interpretation and analysis of the Method's character creation techniques. The Method's character creation skills is their greatest contribution to performance theory and practice; if their actor training techniques hasn't outperformed that of Stanislavsky, then their role creation skills has definitely outmatched the Stanislavsky System. From the practical point of view, the Method Acting theory might be the most valuable thing since Stanislavsky System.