The Michael Chekhov Handbook

For the Actor

Lenard Petit

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429620058
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

The Michael Chekhov Handbook is a practical guide to Chekhov's supportive techniques for actors, fully updated with new exercises that examine the relationship between the sensations of the physical body and the imagination.

Lenard Petit draws on 25 years of teaching experience to unlock and illuminate Michael Chekhov's philosophy, and offers guiding principles and effective tools that actors can apply in rehearsal and performance. The second edition focuses on the building blocks of drama and an exploration of the five senses as an expressive springboard, with a new section on the function of the Archetype in the Chekhov method. Theory and practice are treated here with clarity and simplicity.

Dedicated to students and teachers of acting, The Michael Chekhov Handbook provides readers with the essential tools they need to put the rewarding principles of this technique into use.

1

The Aims of the Technique

Chekhov imagined the Theatre of the Future. He was convinced that it would happen and actors would come to meet it fully prepared. The aims of the technique speak about an ideal. Michael Chekhov is quite eloquent about all of this, and these ideals are scattered throughout his books and teachings. A long time ago, these ideals kept me reading his words, and they have stayed with me; I do believe in them. They give me a picture that keeps the destination clear.

I offer you five provocations, in Mr. Chekhov’s words recorded by Dierdre Hurst Duprey:

1. 1 The actor in the future must find not only another attitude towards his physical body and voice, but to his whole existence on the stage in the sense that the actor, as an artist, must more than anyone else enlarge his own being by the means of his profession. I mean the actor must enlarge himself in a very concrete way, even to having quite a different feeling in space. His kind of thinking must be different, his feelings must be of a different kind, his feeling of body and voice, his attitude to the settings—all must be enlarged.
   Michael Chekhov: Lessons for the Professional Actor

1. 2 Our own ‘I Am’ is usually weak, but if we do the exercises of concentration, we will see that this feeling of ‘I Am’ becomes stronger, and we will feel as if we are centralized on our own spirit. The ability of concentration and the exercises, if they are done sufficiently and with the proper activity, will give this marvelous feeling of ‘I Am’. With this ‘I Am’, we will begin to get our own being centralized, so our body will become centralized and our spirit will be centralized. This is the most beautiful thing, and especially for an actor who shows his whole being and nothing else on the stage. Then we will immediately become artists in the highest sense of this word.
   Michael Chekhov: The Actor is the Theatre

Through concentration, the Chekhov technique leads actors to discover a power that is greater than the everyday sense of being humans. The real work of the actor is to transform personal experience into a universal and recognizable form of expression that has the ability to change something in the spectator. To simply reproduce a personal impression as it was experienced is not enough. As actors practicing, we are saying ‘I am’ again and again so that we can come to know the many ‘I ams’ that live in us. As an actor I find a way to say and believe in these words so that they can be a starting point for my work. The feeble ‘I am’ of every day cannot be enough, I have to look for ways to increase this sense of self so that I can transform into other characters.

We live in an age where all of our responses to life are monitored; our thoughts and feelings are continually questioned and weighed into the scale of social acceptance. Generally speaking, we grow up in a world of doubts, apologies, and surrenders. Pushing that all down, some of us decide to become actors. Hopefully we have talent, or the natural ability to do it, because the talent of the actor needs attention. This Technique appeals to the actor’s talent. The instrument is the body with the voice, and we have to bring our talent to that. There is only so much we can take from work on ourselves, on our psychology, on our personality. We have to bring a clear and objective power to our talent so that we can interpret the lives written for us to act or to act the lives we are creating in our rehearsals. Good intentions are never enough. Dance and speech lessons are not enough. A performing technique is necessary.

We trust in the incorporation of images to transform us, and believe that there is a radiant energy inside us and this energy can be formed and made active. If the joy of the performing artist is to give all at every moment, then there must be something to give, there has to be an inexhaustible supply of energy.

1. 3 When I try to imagine what the theatre can be and will be in the future, it will be a purely spiritual business (I speak neither in the mystical or religious sense at the moment) in which the spirit of the human being will be rediscovered by artists. The spirit will be concretely studied… . [I]t will be a concrete tool, or means, which we will manage just as easily as any other means. The actor must know what it is, and how to take it and use it. We [will] know how to manage it, and understand how concrete and objective it can be for us. I believe in the spiritual theatre, in the sense of concrete investigation of the spirit of the human being. But the investigation must be done not by scientists, but [rather] by artists and actors.
   Michael Chekhov: Lessons for the Professional Actor

In the essence are found the building blocks from which we can recreate the world of the character. The details are created out of the essence.

Michael Chekhov was a very gifted artist; his technique was formed as a result of his ability to concentrate, and to look at how he was concentrating, and what he was putting his attention on while he was acting. He saw what was at work for him. His early training with Stanislavsky enabled him to have a clear starting point, a new ‘I am’. But his technique was his own way of working.

‘I invented nothing’, he said, ‘I have been observant, and discovered this is what I am doing when I act’.

The actor develops his skills in order to be capable of everything demanded of him. This development and the ability to create belong to what Michael Chekhov calls the Creative Individuality of the actor. The Creative Individuality allows the artist to use parts of himself that are not just the meaner, more banal elements that make up his daily life, but rather parts of his unconscious, where dwell more universal and archetypal images.

1. 4 We have lost the whole poetry around our art, and it has become a dry business. The whole theatre has become so materialistic for us as actors: our attitude towards ourselves, our bodies [and] voices, our approach to the new play and so on… . Everything is condensed to the present moment, and even more to the events of the present moment, and even more to certain events… . The future theatre cannot go along this way of condensing and making everything dry. The theatre must go the opposite way, which is to enlarge everything: the point of view, the means of expression, themes for plays, and—first of all—the kind of acting.
   Michael Chekhov: Lessons for the Professional Actor

Artists desire to work from an inspired state. Yet inspiration is a fickle thing. The Chekhov technique addresses this desire. It aims to entice the inspiration to wake up for the artist. This is a bold claim that Chekhov makes again and again when discussing his method with his students. We begin with that promise, and by using the techniques, discover very quickly that we arrive somewhere within ourselves that is very new, yet very familiar. This creative place is fresh and available; it leads us to pure acting. Chekhov defines this pure acting as being able to happen without justification, without personal reasons, without psychology. Inspiration happens simply because we are actors, and we have engaged our actors’ talent.

1. 5 We must never stop acting. We are always going on, and if we know it, our inner life, and power, and beauty as artists will grow, will show itself, and we will use our means of expression better and stronger than if we are under the impression that sometimes we are active as artists and sometimes not. If this seemingly simple and not very important idea is digested, you will see how much it will give you and disclose for you, and in yourself things may arise from within which you cannot get in any other way than to change your point of view and get new conceptions of yourself and your art.
   Michael Chekhov: Lessons for the Professional Actor

2

The Five Guiding Principles

Chekhov has given us what he calls Five Guiding Principles. These guiding principles should lead us through the process of acquiring and developing the technique. He tells us we have to train in order to have a general technique, and then we apply specific techniques to a role. These principles are the reliable power for us. They are points of reference we keep returning to. They can sustain us as we sustain them. The principles are like prisms, and tools are like light passing through them. All the colors we experience, we use to express ourselves.

1 The Technique (Acting) Is Psycho-Physical

The body and the psychology are one thing. The body is developed and trained so that it becomes sensitive to this connection. Movement is not gymnastic but psychological in that it affords us the experience of states and conditions of being. The good result of movement exercise is a fit body; for us it is a good benefit but not the aim. The body must act as a sponge to absorb psychological values or qualities from the movements. These movements are repeatable and can be used during the rehearsal to anchor key moments of the scene within the body. The psycho-physical exercises devised by Chekhov aim to develop the two powers of concentration and imagination in tandem. Conscious movement involves much more than muscles and bones. With proper concentration, we experience movements so as to reeducate ourselves. We become familiar with the actual movements that surge through us.

Our normal lives prevent us from recognizing these movements, due to our habit of passing experiences through the intellect. Conscious movement helps us become aware of clear impulses that lead us through our daily lives. Action and reaction, giving and taking, laughing and crying, living and dying, can all be seen as movement. We see them for what they are in the first place, inner movements. We feel where they move in us, and how they move in us. Then we learn how to follow them when they naturally occur within.

It is quite easy to imagine these inner movements as happening. We can make them happen. We develop the power to change things for ourselves in our lives and in our art through the imagination of movement. This is inner movement.

If the impulses that spring up and die within us are not followed or actively resisted, we will naturally lose conscious awareness of them. Our focus as student actors here is to reacquaint and then to reanimate that which we have let atrophy within. With the body flexible and soft, absorbent and expressive, we find again the pleasure of movement, and the surety of a physical wisdom our thinking could never achieve.

2 Intangible Means of Expression Lead to Tangible Results

The promise of the technique lies in the idea that the most effective and powerful means at our disposal are intangible. They are present only when the concentration is active. These intangible means include atmosphere, space, radiation, relationship, inner movement, imaginary body, imaginary center. When the concentration fades, so do these means; they cannot exist without an imaginative and concentrated effort. They are intangible because one cannot put a finger on what is happening. We know when it is present, and we know when it is not. When it is present we receive what comes to us and use it as our means of expressing the tangible; that which is seen and felt by the audience.

3 The Creative Spirit and the Higher Intellect

There is a spiritual element to this work that must be acknowledged. This spiritual element is neither religious, nor mystical. The creative spirit (imagination) is differentiated from the reasoning mind. The creative spirit as Chekhov talks about it functions within the artist by making one thing out of a multitude of things. This faculty can grasp understanding through archetypes and through a desire to find wholeness. It is the quick creative function of synthesis. The creative spirit is capable of working in this way; the rational mind works through analysis. Analysis separates and divides, whereas synthesis unifies and brings together the many disparate parts we encounter in the preparation of our composition (role). The work is intuitive; the results come and are actively invited into the consciousness, so they can be experienced and expressed.

4 The Technique Is One Thing: It Awakens a Creative State

There are a number of components in the technique. Each one of them needs to be examined individually and practiced thoroughly. The artist learns to distinguish between the components. The creative spirit connects them to each other. Each component opens a door to inspiration. Through concentration we can activate one of them. Because we have a familiarity with all of them, this one component will cause any or all of them to become active.

5 Artistic Freedom

The technique promises artistic freedom. Chekhov suggests that this principle be engaged through a dialogue with the technique itself. It is the way to know how to work. Rehearsing and performing is the work of the actor. But how will she do it? If she has a method to use, and it is made up of different parts, then it is necessary to confront this method and to inquire of it which part of it speaks the loudest to her. Which part of this technique gives her the freedom she seeks as a performing artist?

3

The Dynamic Principles

My approach to the technique is to take the principles...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Introduction
• 1 The Aims of the Technique
• 2 The Five Guiding Principles
• 3 The Dynamic Principles
• 4 The Tools
• 5 Application
• 6 Mastery of the Technique