Long before I began studying with Lee Strasberg, I heard and read about how difficult it was to understand Method actors. It seems that the perception was that, even with all of the “reality” that was achieved in their acting, no one could be heard or deciphered. Of course, as the first and leading proponent of the Method to reach super-star status, Marlon Brando was accused of this more than anyone. “Marlon mumbles” was an often heard and repeated complaint.
You can imagine my surprise when I got to Lee Strasberg’s class and one of the first things that he taught was how to make a “full, vibrating sound that comes from the chest”. He taught this as part of the process of relaxation that was necessary to prepare the actor’s “instrument” to engage, respond to, and express what was going on in the imagination. I’ll save the discussion of relaxation for another venue, but Lee’s students quickly realized that when we allowed ourselves to fully relax, we opened ourselves to full expression.
It is normal for the voices of all people, in all cultures, both young and old, both male and female, to rise into the throat when expressing any emotion. I’m speaking not only of actors, but also of all people. Since the craft of Method Acting takes us to real experience onstage rather that to representation, and since real experience leads to real expression, it is therefore normal for our voices to rise into our throats. This vocal placement doesn’t present any real problems in our everyday lives. As I tell my students, “if a child gets hurt and comes crying to a parent, it is not necessary for the parent to understand what the child is saying. It is sufficient for the parent to comfort the child and address the injury. When the child calms down, and can more clearly speak, the parent can get all the details. But in acting, the child needs to be understood at the same time that s/he expresses.” There are no subtitles, and no going back over the lines.
When as students, we would sit in chairs and relax and allow expression out (assuming that there was something to express) Lee would immediately demand that we couple the expression to the “long, full, vibrating sound, coming from the chest”. A short while later, when we engaged our imaginations through sensory memory exercises and again became expressive, Lee would instantly make the same demand of us. And of course, when we were doing scenes, we had to use the same “full, vibrating sound, coming from the chest” as we expressed ourselves through our lines. If this need for clear, strong, resonant voices was demanded from the very first day of Lee Strasberg’s classes, how did the mumbling Method Actor myth come to be?
The first answer lies in the type of acting that critics and audiences were used to before they were exposed to Stanislavski through Strasberg trained actors. At that time, actors were judged by their ability to project. They were judged by their elocution, rather than their connection to the reality of the play or their believability. When all of a sudden these critics and audiences were confronted by actors speaking “normally”, without vocal artifice, the distinction was great. And, as with most new things, it took time for them to adjust to and accept this “new acting”. Now, when we see an actor relying solely on his/her voice, the absence of reality is glaring and we reject it as “too phony”.
Lee came right out and told us another reason for the mumbles myth. In the days of The Group Theatre, he always opted for reality over clarity of speech, even as he wanted and asked for both. Given a choice, he wanted the audiences to believe the characters through their behavior even if some of the dialogue couldn’t be heard or understood. However, he never allowed his actors to settle for this. He always pointed out that a particular actor needed to train that part of his/her craft even more, until both believability and being understood were combined. This choice continued for him at The Actors Studio and is still present today.
Then, along came film, and movies magnify. On camera, an actor needs to do very little to express. The image is some twenty to thirty times larger than real life. As a result, the slightest muscle twitch can be seen in the last row of the audience. With every sigh and breath being recorded by sensitive microphones, and sometimes enhanced digitally, the quietest whisper can fill the movie theatre with sound. Nothing escapes. The actor can get away with using this type of voice, still feel the intimacy of an exchange, and be heard. Of course, the actor that does this will rob him/herself (and the audience) of the fully open expression. Again, we see actors not using their voices fully in film, because they feel it isn’t necessary when the medium does so much of the work for them. Even then, there are far to many times when we can’t hear or understand what is being said. It is also easier to seem real, and even intense, while whispering. Audiences often equate this type of speaking with the contained energy of true emotion.
Then there is the problem of the imitator. In all fields, when something new and innovative comes along, it is followed by many pretenders and imitators. Rather than learning a complete craft, and living up to all of its demands, there are actors who will skillfully replicate what another has accomplished. With each repetition of this type of approach the needs of acting are further removed from performance. The imitator of the imitation gives credence to the misinformed. When actors such as the members of The Actors Studio, and their startling onstage realities, were compared to the presentational/representational acting that critics and audiences were accustomed to, a slew of pretenders jumped on the bandwagon.
Of course, there is the “natural” response, as opposed to the “real” response to our experiences that an actor has to be trained to express, and this also leads to a lack of performance energy. Examples come in many forms. There are what I call the enervators. When an actor is creating fatigue (mental or physical), heat, being drunk or stoned, and many more of this type, it is natural for him/her to be robbed of energy. When an actor is creating a person to help them get to the reality of a love scene, the reality of the intimacy makes it easy to keep quiet. However, as I tell my students, “the people in the last row of the balcony have as much right to what you are expressing as the people who are sitting in the front row.” In a recent rehearsal at the college where I teach, one of the actors said that the love scene no longer felt real to her because she wouldn’t be so loud in expressing herself to her lover. This is mostly a problem of getting accustomed to living and sharing in front of an audience.
The end note to all of this hasn’t changed since Lee Strasberg told us that real behavior is more important than clarity of speech, but that he wanted and demanded both. It is up to all actors to train both the internal and the external parts of our acting instruments. We have to be able to create realities, and we have to have the vocal and physical skills necessary to clearly and fully express them. By the way, when I review all of Marlon Brando’s films, I can’t find a single performance in which he can’t be understood.