Sanford Meisner Technique And Theories Research

The research object of this paper is Meisner Technique and Theories.It is an actor training method invented by Sanford Meisner,an important American actor,director and teacher in the 20 th century.Meisner Technique is one of the most important practical methodologies in modern theatre theory.Its wide influence and deep reform make it still the method and theory widely used and studied by major theatre creation companies,art colleges and academic research institutions all over the world.The research scope of time and space for this paper,mainly in the field of American theatre art since 1930 s.The research content of this paper mainly includes Meisner’s life and artistic creation,and the inheritance,principles,characteristics and value of Meisner Technique and Theories,as well as the teaching and application in contemporary China.The research process and methods of this paper includes four parts.First,field investigations.The author went to the Department of Theatre Arts at Stony Brook University in New York in 2013 to conduct field research on the teaching and acceptance of Meisner Technique in United States,and participated deeply in the training of the Meisner Technique course,gaining first-hand practical experiences as an actor and a preliminary understanding of the application of Meisner Technique in the United States.Second,teaching practice.After returning to China from the research in New York,the author has continued to apply the Meisner Technique in teaching courses and theatrical performances,and applied for research projects and wrote an academic paper to make a preliminary discussion of the Meisner Technique on affective memory,and tested the application of the Meisner Technique in the cultural context of Chinese society as a teacher and researcher to verify its feasibility.Third,participate in research.In 2016,the 10-days’ "Master Class of the Meisner Technique" organized by the International Performing Arts Research Center of Shanghai Theatre Academy（formerly the Experimental Teaching Studio of International Performing Arts）from October 15 to 24,2016 was the first official introduction of the Meisner Technique in China’s mainland in the name of universities.This is the first official introduction of Meisner Technique in the name of universities in China’s mainland.The author personally participated in the whole process as a theoretical researcher,the interviewing of foreign experts,the collation of participants’ insights and the writing of academic papers,which made the research content and direction of Meisner Technique and Theories clearer.Fourth,literature collation.Entering the stage of literature collection and collation,the author mainly read a large number of foreign monographs and journal papers,translated and collated many first-hand materials,most of which had never been cited in domestic academic research before.This paper puts forward the following main points.First,Meisner Technique and Theories must be viewed in the historical context of the 20 th century,which includes the communist and socialist world revolution represented by the Soviet Union,and the capitalist economic crisis that started in the United States and spread globally.These general contexts present themselves in the history of the United States itself as the Great Depression of the 1930 s and 1940 s,which stimulated the birth of the left-wing theater movement in the United States,which led to the creation of left-wing theater organizations represented by the Group Theater,and it was in this left-wing cultural movement that the Meissner Technique was birthed.Meisner’s own awareness of and participation in the socialist and communist cultural movements were also very much in the stage,all of which directly or indirectly influenced the emergence of his method and theory.Second,Meisner Technique and Theories was directly influenced by the techniques and theories of several Soviet dramatists,including the Konstantin Stanislavski,Michael Chekhov,Joseph Rapoport and Ilya Sudakov.Soviet intellectuals who played a crucial role in the formation of Meisner Technique and Theories.Third,Meisner Technique and Theories was structured following four principles: abolishing the intellect,build the foundation,behaviorism and acting oneself.These principles are implemented in all the specific exercises invented by Meisner,and the most important thing to understand the Meisner Technique and its Theories is to grasp them.The characteristics of Meisner Technique and Theories are as follows: it is a set of preconsciousness training for the actor’s conscious,it takes a half step back in Stanislavski’s model of "reaching the subconscious through conscious",it is the preparation for the actor prepares.By exploring the relationship among unconscious,preconscious and conscious in Freud’s psychoanalysis theory,we can grasp the characteristics of the acting style directed by Meisner Technique.Through Freud’s psycho-topographic theory,we can observe the dynamic mode of conscious provided by Meisner Technique and Theories,and evaluate its value.This paper holds that Meisner Technique and Theories provide three values.First,it strengthens the authentic style of American theatrical acting,which will help us understand the characteristics of American theatrical acting.Second,it establishes a set of professional standards for actors,and provides a possible testing tool for the qualification and standard of actors.Third,it is the extension and supplement of Stanislavski system,which helps us to think about how to systematically design the overall framework of collage education of theatre art according to the specific situation.