Mary will be getting a little lamb about 6 months from now...

I'm on my 4th week of studying the Meisner Technique now, and I'm getting closer and closer to being a master of living truthfully under imaginary circumstances... which is what this technique teaches. I say I'm getting closer, but I'm getting closer very slowly. I know I've only been doing this for almost a month, but compared to other drama training I've done, this is a bit, shall I say... tedious?

If in acting, your body is your instrument.. then what you usually do in acting is learn the basic notes, start playing very simple tunes, then learn chords and more complex tunes, and then onto the stuff that only musicians really know about. In the Meisner Technique, you start by learning a note.. you practice and practice and practice that note. Then you learn another note, you practice it, then you combine it with the first note and practice that over and over again. You then learn another note.....

.....

..about 3 weeks later you learn a chord, and you put it together with the notes you've learnt to make some kind of melodic sound, and you practice and practice and practice it. I don't know when you get to the point where you start playing actual tunes, as no one in my group has gotten to that level yet.

What we do is a lot of repeating. We start by standing with a person observing things about them and commenting on it. Then we stand with a person and tell them something about themselves and repeat what they say, they repeat it back and keep going on until the instructor says stop. Then you tell the person something about themselves, they repeat it from their point of view and you repeat it from yours again until something changes and you comment on that. And you do it again and again. I've been doing this for 3 weeks. Last night I moved up a little, and entered the scene of the more advanced students and threw them off what they were doing, and commenting on their behaviour so they can repeat it back to me and on and on and on...

So it's going, but slowly. I might be starting on activities next week, depending on what happens in tomorrow's class. It's all very exciting.