Sanford Meisner on acting

A surprisingly real struggle of a book to get through...

Intro to chapter 2:
Meisner: What’s the first thing that happens when they build the World Trade Center - you know that building?
Male student: They dig a hole.
Meisner: Well, of course they dig a hole. They don’t glue to the sidewalk! What’s the first thing they did when they built the Empire State Building?
Female student: They had to put down a foundation first.
Meisner: They had to put down a foundation on which...
Female student: ...they built the building.
Meisner: ...they built the building.

Page 68:
"I want to show you something. John, come over here."
John leaves his seat and stands next to the desk. Meisner moves around it to stand next to him.
"Now turn around," he says. "Make your position as firm and as rigid as you can. If necessary, hold on to the desk but make yourself absolutel steadfast."
"Okay."
"I don't think you're solid enough. Are you?"
"Yeah."
Meisner places the palms of both hands on John's shoulders and attempts to budge him. "I don't make any impression on him!" he says. "I'll try again. John, do the same thing."
Again John holds on to the edge of the desk, so tightly that the knuckles of his hands turn white.
"He's stiff!" Meisner says, and then spells the word "S-t-if!" The class laughs. "Now, John, relax."
John lets go of the desk, turns and shakes the tension from his arms and shoulders. Meisner gives him a firm but gentle shove and John takes two long, loose steps forward.
"He's responsive! Do you see that? Relax." Meisner pushes him again, and again John ambles forward. "He's responsive to what I do. Thank you, John. Sit down."

Page 72:
"What we're looking for is the picking up not of cues but of impulses. One doesn't pick up cues, one picks up impulses."

Page 110:
"You're too polite, and in acting politeness will get you nowhere! Look, find in yourselves those human things which are universal. Don't act out what you see on television!"

Page 114:
"Acting is a scary, paradoxical business. One of its central paradoxes is that in order to succeed as an actor you have to lose consciousness of your own self in order to transform yourself into the character in the play."

Page 127:
Ralph enters the room, closes the door quietly and stands still for a moment before taking off his coat. He is visibly upset and slams his coat onto the bed before crossing to the table, where he remembers leaving his notebook. Its absence is a genuine surprise to him, and the resulting exercise, though brief, has vitality.
"All right," Meisner says after a few minutes. "Now tell me, what did I do? Not what did you do, but what did I do?"
"You made something happen," Ralph says. "You made me want something. You created a need and made it impossible for me to -"
"I made it more alive," Meisner says. "Right? How did I do that?"
"You gave me something to do."
"I made you come from something that had happened, right?"
"Right. You made it more specific."
"And what happened because of that?"
"The scene came more alive. It got on the edge of something more important."
"It came to life. Were you working off each other?"
"Yes."
"Ralph, what I did to you - and this is no disgrace, quite the contrary - was to pull you back almost to the beginning. Why did I do that?"
"Because I got lost."
"So I gave you a compass."
"Right."

Page 170:
"What you do and how you feel about the script which makes you do what you do determines the character...Character, you can say, is determined by what you do...The emotion comes with how you're doing what you're doing. If you go from moment to moment, and each moment has a meaning for you, the emotion keeps flowing."

Page 178:
"The first thing you have to do when you read a text is to find yourself - really find yourself. First you find yourself, then you find a way of doing the part which strikes you as being in character. Then, based on that reality, you have the nucleus of the role. Otherwise every shmuck from Erasmus Hall High School is an actor because everyone there knows how to read...Anybody can read. But acting is living under imaginary circumstances. A script - I may have said this before - a script is like a libretto. You know what a libretto is, don't you?"

Page 186:
"Why does any artist begin doing what she's made for? Even she doesn't know. She's just following a need within herself." (Gender corrected by me)

Page 191:
"There is always some juice in the trouble barrel, no matter how full the talent barrel is. The trouble cannot transpose itself into talent without leaving some residue behind, even in the most talented of human beings."

The death of a parent.

The death of a parent is not something you bounce back easily from, even when you think you have, even when you think you're doing fine, for a few hours, days, or maybe even some weeks. That's a fallacy. The death of a parent is always there, it's not something you can forget. That absence will always be present with you, the rest of your entire life.

The death of a parent is not a joke.

It's not to be taken lightly.

The death of a parent will often still not feel real, even though I know, I know - trust me, I know (!) - that I will never see my father again. I know. And yet sometimes it still hits me - "he is really gone", "he is never coming back", or "I will never see him again". Recently I remembered something and I said "Don't tell my parents" and then I realized, I only have one parent left. I've lost half of who I come from.

The death of my parent made me realize that I didn't take death seriously before. I hadn't seen it. I hadn't experienced it in someone close to me, someone I come from. I don't think you're the same person after you see someone no longer living - especially the way it happened with my father, us getting off the plane not knowing what to expect when we get to the hospital. And there he is. Gone. We just missed him. Buried the next day, next to his own parents. Of course we didn't sleep that week. How could we?

What a truly awful and traumatic week that was, that one week in India, returning after 10 years, and that's why we returned. Because Papa, returned.

At least he was smiling, I keep telling myself almost everyday. At least he was smiling. That smile on my father's face, makes his death and the way it happened, much more bearable. It's a blessing, really, for him and for us. And it didn't go away. That smile makes it all better, makes me think it was meant to happen this way, when it did, where it did. Hard for us, but good for him.

The death of a parent is all too real. There is nothing more real in life, than death. It is irreversible. It is final. There is nothing you can do about it - nothing, absolutely nothing. All you can do is cry, grieve, have regrets, have guilt, and eventually somehow in some way try to find a way to go back to your old life, while being so haunted, while seeming fine but actually not really being fine at all. Not at all. Seeming fine, is a joke really. Not sure when I'll actually be "fine". I need more time.

I mean how can you be fine? It's such a massive loss. Such a massive loss. That loss needs to be respected, and given time. The death of a parent needs to be respected.

The death of a parent will turn your world literally upside down. There has been nothing more surreal, more bizarre, nothing with constant 24/7 moments and thoughts of "is this actually happening?" - nothing, nothing at all. When I realized in the bathroom of my now-former favourite coffee shop in NY over speakerphone that my father could die, it was as if the ground beneath me no longer existed. It didn't. And it doesn't. What ground do I have to stand on? I stood next to the ground that my father is buried in.

The death of a parent means your life will never be the same again. Ever. Nothing will ever be the same. Our lives are forever changed. Again, there is no turning back. There is no choice. Who am I without my father? Who will I be, without my mother, if she goes before me? I can't think about that right now. I need to be kind to myself, as people keep telling me.

I didn't sleep much last night. Today was Father's Day. Our first without our father. Recently it was Eid, our first without our father. Soon it will be my birthday, my first without my father. It's a year of firsts, grave firsts. Often I wonder what my father is doing. I talk to him every now and then. It's a coping mechanism obviously, for my own comfort, but it's instinctive, and you cannot help it after the death of a parent.

In a few hours I'll wake up, play chess with my cousin - because the last time I saw Papa, he taught me how to play chess - and we will play to honour his memory. His legacy? Yes - I'll make chess his legacy. Then I shall drive back. I think my father would be happy that I spent Father's Day with my cousin, with one of his favourite nephews. I am happy that I did, that I didn't have to spend this day alone in that massive city, in a county of 10 million people in which I realized today, that none of those 10 million people know my family. Zeroe. I needed to be around someone who knew my father.

The death of a parent makes you realize how petty and insignificant 99% of your problems or other people's problems are. I'm learning, I'm still learning. It's an ongoing lesson.

The death of my parent made me realize instantly and automatically that I was not compassionate or understanding at all when someone else's parent passed away. Now I know what it's like. It's obvious most of the time if someone has experienced loss or not - you hear it in their voice, you see it in their face, it's in their choice of words to you. The way they hug you. They get it. I didn't get it before. Now I get it. You seek out those, who also get it. You can't help it.

Miss you Dad.

On my father's death.

A few thoughts. Next week I hope to be able to actually journal, once things settle down at least a bit.

Death is a part of life. Some might say, life is death, death is life. But basically, death is a part of life. None of us will escape it, and at some point, you will probably see someone who is no longer living.

Death is both extraordinary, and mundane.

And this cliche is too true: life is too short.