Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

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Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 12:28pm

Was having and interesting discussion with a friend yesterday, and thought it would be neat to hear others' perspectives.

Can you tell when an actor is relying "on instinct" in their performance, or using their technique? How? Is one better than the other? (I'd argue a balance is needed).

Can you think of Broadway actors who veer mostly toward one over the other?

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 12:38pm

In good acting, instinct is a technique and a technique is instinctual. What you are really asking is if there are actors who let the seams show. The answer is yes.

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 12:50pm

After doing it for a long time, the lines blur. I'm mostly instinctual but, when confronted with something I find tricky, I rely on my technique. But at this point, I'm not necessarily sure when I'm using one or the other. I teach acting (focusing on musical theater performers) and I basically tell my students that this will all make sense in about 5 years. It takes a long time to stop consciously using the tools on your toolbelt and that all tools are not created equal.

One is absolutely not better than the other. The goal is to create a seamless performance. How you get there is your own process.

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 1:06pm

You sound like a better teacher (maybe even a better actor) than some. A lot of acting students never get this memo. (It's my prejudice, but I see an awful lot of the seams of viewpoints training.)

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 1:17pm

I think it's a bit odd when an observer says of an actor "he was just getting by on technique." How do you know what was going on in the actor's head?

People only say that when the seams show, as Hogan put it. Two who are often accused of this are Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett. I love both, but I agree that on occasion I feel as if I'm watching an intelligent actress making "choices" rather than the character they are playing at the time.

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 1:48pm

carnzee said: "I think it's a bit odd when an observer says of an actor "he was just getting by on technique." How do you know what was going on in the actor's head?"

What someone says after seeing a performance that they feel disconnected to is less relevant than the disconnect, no?

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 2:34pm

carnzee said: "Two who are often accused of this are Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett. I love both, but I agree that on occasion I feel as if I'm watching an intelligent actress making "choices" rather than the character they are playing at the time."

I think one of the reasons I have the same reaction to both of these actresses from time to time is because I have witnessed work that I felt was seamless (Streep: Sophie's Choice, Prada and even Postcards from the Edge; Blanchett: Blue Jasmine). So when I witness performances where I don't feel the same kind of seamless-ness, I look to the material. Being on the inside of plenty of dud roles in dud shows, I can tell you that technique is invaluable when you are in something that isn't particularly well written. When I teach my intro to song interpretation course, I specifically pick songs for each of my students because I want to make sure they can apply to basics to spectacular material and know what that feels like. If you can begin to master that, you begin to understand how technique can save you when you are working with less-than-stellar material. And if you're in the world of creating new musicals, the material oftentimes is...well...less than stellar. That's not actually a knock at musical writers (or at least all of them). Songs come in drafts, so what you are presented with may be rough in shape. Your technique will help you navigate the song and, more importantly, it will allow the songwriters to really see what they've created and how it might be fixed.

I am also a huge proponent of developing one's own process. If I were to ascribe myself to one school, it would veer towards Stanislavski, where understanding given circumstances and character bio on a very deep level allows you to play in a well-defined sandbox. Some people chafe at the parameters of the sandbox, but they forget they are among millions of grains of sand (the possible choices an actor can make). Studying viewpoints, the method or Meisner is simply adding tools to the tool belt and should never, EVER be thought of as the complete answer to everything.

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 9:02pm

HogansHero said: "What you are really asking is if there are actors who let the seams show. The answer is yes."

That wasn't what I was asking, but thanks. The seams can show whether an actor is solely instinctual or using staunch technique, that's for sure.

I agree that both feed each other, and where one ends the other can pick up the slack. I have found it extremely interesting as I am working with a young artist who has never set foot on a stage and has no formal "technique" to speak of.... but it isn't hindering his performance. In fact, it's forcing an older actor who I have worked with many times to eschew her staunch technique in an effort to be really present with him. Similarly, the young fellow is receptive to what she is doing and seems to be understanding the technical elements she's using in rehearsal.

Just thought it was an interesting discussion!

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/12/18 at 9:21pm

It's a tough pill to swallow, but there are people in this world with innate talent: people who don't need any help, and don't benefit from any, people for whom it is effortless. (Unfortunately, there are also people who think they are these people and therein lies the trouble. But that's another song.)

#10

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/13/18 at 8:07am

The goal of technique is to free, engage and particularize instinct. Some "naturals" can, at least theoretically, get there without technique. But the goal of technique is to reveal, free, engage and particularize instincts.
One might for instance have the instinct to drop to the floor and grasp the Earth in a scene, but perhaps only if one has done one's homework in script analysis, character development, understood what the character wants and what the characters "target" is, charted one's thoughts and superobjectives (using one's own experience as well as one's imagination), specified the obstacles, the character's blind side, the character's tragic flaw, the characters archtype (and perhaps drawing it, Michael Chekhov) found the character's center of gravity and or Meisner repeated with one's scene partner... to name just a few things.
On top of which, instinct of course comes into play in much, perhaps all, of the technical work that leads to that instinct to drop on the floor in rehearsal. To name a quite obvious example, identifying a character's center of gravity can come, even quite literally, from the actor's gut.

#11

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/13/18 at 10:28am

OMG. This thread reminded me of an EXTREMELY over-excited girl and her gay BFF at Dolly. First of all, they were trying to compare this girl's performance as Dolly in a summer program's production to Bernadette Peters and their director to Jerry Zaks. It was absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have ever overheard in a theatre in my life.

But, then she started gushing over how she could see "every decision Bernadette Peters was making in her acting choices." I actually had to remove myself at that point to avoid confronting this girl or laughing so loud the entire audience would hear.

#12

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/13/18 at 11:13am

To use a current Broadway production, I think that in Angels in America Nathan Lane is using his finely-honed technique for Cohn. You can tell that every line is timed to the minute, that he's thought about every inflection of the voice, and which lines to emphasize. When to go for laughs, and when to go for a serious response.

Otoh I thought Andrew Garfield was relying more on instinct. This is why his performance was uneven -- it was good in MA when the storyline was more structured, but in Perestroika he relied too much on shrieking.

#13

Instincts vs. technique in an actor's performance

Posted: 4/13/18 at 11:28am

I feel like a great performance is a combination of both. I'm thinking of, most recently, Glenda Jackson in Three Tall Women. After the fact, one could tell she had prepared diligently, and yet, her performance was so alive and present, that I didn't even think about it during the show. Frank Langella said something spot-on, in that "good acting is a combination of truth and tricks."

In rehearsal, instinct is about reading the script, intuiting what the character wants from moment to moment, understanding the rhythm of the dialogue, etc., and the technique is about refining those choices and distilling to their most essential, human forms.

In performance, instinct comes in listening and responding without getting ahead of yourself or the character, and technique comes in when having to repeat that performance (to a degree) night after night after night. So back to my original point, I feel like acting is at its best when the two work in tandem.

Updated On: 4/13/18 at 11:28 AM

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