Mike Chekhov

Another new practitioner we studied in our class was Michael Chekhov. Michael is the nephew of the internationally famous playwright Anton Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, etc) and was born in 1981. His acting techniques proved very popular, being used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe and others. 

Michael was born 28 years after another famous practitioner, Konstantin Stanislavsky. This resulted in him training under Stanislavsky's methods of Naturalism.  Stanislavsky actually quoted that Michael was his "most brilliant student" at the Moscow Art Theatre. During Michael's lifetime work, he was caught up in the Russian Revolution. 

In 1953, he wrote a book called 'To the Actor'. This was designed to let the actor experiment themselves with techniques, and it has an emphasis on imagination and movement. The book, along with Michael Chekhov's work, was an "off-shoot" of naturalism. Meanwhile Stalin was the director of Russia, and got rid of most things experimental.

Michael mostly liked to focus on looking at atmosphere, actors creativity and the physicality of inner experiences. He is looking at the differences between you and your character, unlike other practitioners including Stanislavsky, who liked to focus on the similarities. Michael didn't agree with everything that Stanislavsky taught. 

Michael, unlike Stanislavsky, said that actor's don't have to use emotional memory in performance, he said you can just imagine how your character feels. This is different to what Stanislavsky preached, who believed emotion memory was fundamental. He said they don't have to rely on their own experiences, and that they can take a more objective approach.

Psycho-Physical Techniques
Michael Chekhov said that Actor's should take an interest/understand the composition as a director and not just immerse themselves in their part. I think he thought that this would give them a greater understanding of the play dimension's instead of just focusing too deeply on their own character. He believed you should work with creating the atmospheres of the play. Actors should use their higher ego's they can stand up as a confident creative role in the play. He is more mystical and less systematic than Stanislavsky (who has 10 elements towards acting and directing).

Simon Callow, a fellow English Actor, said: Chekhov's theatre is a theatre where magical things happen, where dream like things occur.

I couldn't help thinking that perhaps what makes it so magical is Chekhov taking a completely diverse on look onto theatre, importing this into everything he creates. He describes actors to be "actor-poets" and believes this is the way they should function.