ABSTRACT
Chekhov described the actor’s work as having three realms: our bodies, our voices, and our emotions. Initially, he tried to compartmentalize, to first work on the body, then the voice, and then the emotions, but what he found over and over again was that work on the body would influence both the voice and the emotions. Scaffolding Chekhov’s psycho-physical exploration onto the Meisner approach that insists on an active connection with the scene partner helped students in ways unavailable through one course of study alone. What follows is a discussion of the elements in the Michael Chekhov technique that author use as a composite approach fusing these schools of actor training, describing how the devices of one can be enhanced and released by the other.
