As long as people think about acting as a representational art, rather than as a creative, experiential art, the perception that there isn’t any place for Method Acting in comedy will persist. In other words, if the various sensory exercises are only used to generate real emotions and behaviors, and then applied to result oriented acting, the best that can be hoped for is predictable reactions expressed organically. It will help to refer back to last week’s posting to follow this reasoning.
I recently read an article titled “Why An Actor’s Process Kills Comedy” written by an “expert” and published by a leading industry newspaper. In it, the author states, “It’s a pretty safe bet ‘the actor’s process’ will kill any chance the audience will laugh even once during a scene. Why? Because ‘the actor’s process’ is designed to make the audience think that something real is happening and to care about it and feel for it, and so they won’t laugh”. The misunderstandings in this statement as to the nature of the actor’s process are endless.
For openers, the process in Method Acting is designed to bring the actor to a reality, not the audience. Behind almost all that we do onstage is the idea that the audience has the privilege of watching us without our being aware of it. Stanislavski defined this in his observation that “acting is the ability to be private in public”. If actors are real in their performances, this will extend to the audiences’ belief in what they are watching. But in order to understand how this impacts comedy, we first have to realize that there are several different forms of comedy.
There’s stand up comedy and joke telling. Even though an actor’s process isn’t necessary for this, I have occasionally seen very skillful comedians create the realities of their jokes with great success. With jokes it is sometimes more important to get the timing of the punchline than it is to get the reality of the situation.
There’s sitcom with its own special approach to getting the laughs. Here again, it is a matter of choice as to whether a sitcom actor uses acting skills to achieve this. Very often sitcom comedy relies on cliché and finds its humor in representing stereotypes that we are all used to and with which we are comfortable. A good example of this is the work of the cast of “Two and a Half Men”. Everything that takes place is predictable and familiar to the audience. Nothing catches us by surprise and most of the time we anticipate the humor. If an actor were to interfere with this by making it too real, it might interrupt the flow of the script and thereby interrupt the laughs.
There certainly is the comedy of personality that can be brought to acting. By this I am referring to comic stars who then act in films. We watch these films with the enjoyment that we already know what to expect and are rarely disappointed. Most of the time these comedians extend the same type and style of comedy that they are known for (and in some cases they even repeat jokes that they are known for) to the script and get the laughs that they have always gotten in other performances.
Then we have to turn our attention to the wide range of comedies that exist in theatre and film. This can be regular comedy such as that found in “Barefoot In The Park” by Neil Simon, or satire such as found in the film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Love The Bomb” or “The Miser” by Molière, or farce such as Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest”. In all of these examples Method Acting, with its ability to create realities of varying intensity, excels. In other words, in all forms of substantial comedic theatre (rather than standup or vaudevillian comedy) real acting with real craft is called for and necessary.
For the incompletely trained or informed, Method Acting is relegated to the creation of reality, and the responses remain true to that experience. However, for actors who stayed the distance and trained more completely, there is the understanding that sense memory can go beyond this. We have the ability to make our sense memories stronger or weaker as needed. It is like turning the volume up or down as we listen to music. In other words, we can actually be more ill, drunk, hot, cold, etc., than we have ever actually been by allowing our imaginations to expand upon what we have actually experienced. This works in all forms of comedy and allows Method Acting to enhance rather than interfere with the outcome, flow, and the laughter.
Lee Strasberg gave us a guideline as to how to go about applying our training this way. He said that, “comedy is reality extended. If your imagined reality (sense memory) exists on a scale from 1 -10, in order for it to be funny you must make it at least a 15. Slipping and falling on a banana peel only gets you hurt. Slipping and skidding on it as if it’s the most slippery thing in the world, and falling bottom over top and not being able to stand up, gets you laughs”. Gene Wilder was an active member of The Actors Studio and a student of Lee Strasberg who is a great example of this. Certainly his Bloom in “The Producers” is more real than real, and very funny. John Leguizamo was trained at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and puts his ability to create his characters and situations to good use both on stage and on-screen in hilarious ways.
Based on this ability to use our process in comedy, Lee showed us how to apply it to satire and farce as well. According to Lee, “satire is a real person in an unreal situation, or an unreal person in a real situation”. Think about how you can exaggerate the character by the use of overdone character studies (either based on people or through animal exercises), or how you can turn up the volume sensorially on the situation. George C. Scott comes to mind in his portrayal of Gen. Buck Turgidson in “Dr. Strangelove”. He created a completely over the top character in the horrible reality of potential nuclear war, and audiences laughed. Another example is Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie”. Here, he makes his character very real and believable, but expands on the plight of the character and his/her situation.
Farce is a natural to the Method Actor. Lee said, “farce is an unreal person in an unreal situation”. Look no further than the characters and situations found in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” (and yes, this farce is a parody of the original horror movie). Gene Wilder created the title character and went way above what would have been called for if it hadn’t been a farce. He did the same thing with every aspect of every situation in which Dr. Frederick Frankenstein exists. Add to that the performances of Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher, Peter Boyle as The Monster, and Gene Hackman as The Blindman, all of whom were doing the same level and type of work. All wonderfully crafted actors trained by Lee Strasberg, and all members of The Actors Studio. This farce, made in 1974, is timeless, and audiences still laugh thanks to the craft and process of Method Acting.