ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a perspective on how to understand the metaframe; what “reality” and “fantasy/pretend” mean in context to Chekhov and Meisner; how the differences manifest, with examples in both techniques; how to identify the tendency in the artist; how helpful or devastating being in the wrong frame can be; and how to work with actors in both metaframes with either or a combination of Chekhov or Meisner. While current modes of training may be evolving, we are, herein, contemplating two training approaches developed essentially in the second and third quarter of the twentieth century. The idea that an actor would be “torn down” was common, in the name of being rebuilt in a “better fashion.” Many teachers are aware of archetypal student-profiling systems based on different intelligences such as musical, mathematical, kinesthetic, visual, or degrees of extroversion or introversion, etc. Different types of students respond more successfully to different teaching approaches.
