Inside Out or Outside In?

There are three main questions that actors ask themselves fairly regularly.

i) Will I ever work again?
ii) How am I going to pay my tax bill? 
iii) Why didn't I save for my tax bill when I was working?

When we are in work, these questions conveniently fade into the background and we can address the more complex issues of process and method.

Method refers to a process based on the teachings of Stanislavski, refined by the Lee Strasbourg studio in New York and beloved of wannabe Marlon Brandos everywhere. Method could be described as 'inside out'. The inner life of the character dictates its physicality.

Commedia and physical theatre work the other way about. Your physicality demonstrates your inner feelings. You work from the outside in. Fava says that the term physical theatre is bollocks and in southern Europe ALL theatre is physical. Yada yada yada. 

I think Stanislavski and Fava can both cock right off, I'll do what works for me, and I'm going to call it the Magpie Method. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I never thought I'd end up acknowledging a debt of gratitude to my alma mater, but that's actually what they taught us at East 15.

No matter if I'm working on film or stage, the inner workings of a character have to be in place or there's no truth to the world you're creating. Equally, your audience are not telepathic. They read gesture and movement consciously and subliminally. Your body language has to be as true as your thoughts or you're cheating, and sooner or later you'll be found out.

So now you know.

Lx