Hello and welcome to Thespian Thursday; that day of the week where I share some interesting stuff I found while perusing the boundless indices of the internet, and then point out why I still have much to learn, especially about myself.
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| Black and white faces on a black and white background? This could be the edgiest thing I've ever put on this blog... |
Did you know that there are multiple schools of thought in how acting should be done? I didn't until today. If you're an acting enthusiast or simply enjoy the theory of things, then this may prove to be of interest to you. (It certainly was for me for a few reasons.)
Seven days ago, I wrote a blog post about some handy tips to know if you're looking to be a better actor. As it turns out, today, I learned two things. Firstly, what I spoke about was essentially some of exercises used in what is referred to as "Method Acting", which is interesting. The other thing though is, admittedly, that it did technically make me wrong. I remember writing that post in the mindset that the advice I was giving was part of the way to be a better actor. While I may not have been wrong, my tone is incorrect in that there actually are multiple possible methods for achieving thespian excellence, so my apologies in that regard.
Moving past apologies and onto the interesting things, (lest you begin mimicking my headdesking habits in frustration.), here is a link to a rather well explained list of acting methods as written by "wrenfrost56" written in April 2013 on a website called Hubpages that I've never heard of before.. (I did attempt to see if I could find further information on this person to better credit them, but the most I found was an inactive twitter account under the name of Karen Edwards)
In any case; the article explains, in far less confusing terms than the associated Wikipedia articles on the same disciplines, (Which I am loathe to link to due to Wikipedia's inherent proclivity towards incorrect changes and subjective opinions), the origins and constituent practices of these different acting methods. Beside some non-developed/named methods for things like Shakespearean acting, Wrenfrost56 makes mention of most acting methods, although does not make mention of classical acting. I highly suggest checking out that article for a bit more insight into the ways that actors portray their roles. Perhaps you will even find something of use.
The interest in all this information for me, however, does not come solely from the existence of those acting methods; but instead in Philosophical terms of my unfounded belief that I was correct. In a discussion which perhaps would have been at home in tomorrow's blog post for Philosophical Friday as well as today's; I find it interesting that based off of my apparent successes as an actor, I immediately believed that the means which I used to act so effectively "must" have been the best or most correct.
To disconnect the concept from the subject, I subconsciously decided that since what I was doing was clearly so effective, there could not be any other effective methods of acting. Of course, having disproved that myself, it is now interesting to think; why is it that I, or perhaps other people, would so quickly dismiss the possibility of other effective strategies? Is it one of the strange differences in my thinking which I so often find contrast that of other people, or are humans as a whole possess an inherent proclivity towards a "Not broken, don't fix it." belief with regards to methods that work in completing tasks. Since I also just said I don't think like normal people, I'd probably say it's an issue only people like myself suffer from, but there's no way for me to effectively answer such a question. Regardless, it is still interesting to notice the ways our minds work, and thereby correct errors in our own judgement and thinking with that insight.
In any case, thus ends today's blog post before I find myself pasting this into tomorrow's post instead. I hope you've found something of interest or use here, and don't forget to leave a comment below if you have something to add, or simply which to tell me that I'm weird. If you have a friend looking to improve his acting skills, I would appreciate you sharing this post so that they may find information which could help them decide how they want to go about that. If you find my writing interesting, entertaining or informative, perhaps consider liking my Facebook page or following me on Twitter using the associated button on the bar to the right. As always, I hope that you have/had an AWESOME day, and I will see you tomorrow.
Beannacht mo chara.
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