MUMBLES?

From Turbulence to Truth

Marlon Brando burst into public consciousness hauling heavy freight. His work instantly became synonymous with Method Acting.

In a rough and tumble game of public tag, he was it. For better and worse.

Brando was called “Mumbles” in a derisive way. His natural speech seemed odd and suspicious in what was a stage and film world largely accustomed to studied and slightly pretentious performances. 

Certain critics and commentators were off-put with Brando. His ‘as in life’ approach to acting was different and unsettling.

American culture sensed significant shifts in all aspects of life after WWII. Among the changes was the way acting looked and felt on stage and screen. Brando and THE Method, this new and mysterious kind of acting sprung from foreign soil, from places where U.S. Armed Forces recently fought. Method acting and therefore Brando was connected, at least subconsciously, to fighting with Nazis, and an emerging Cold War with communists in the Soviet Union.

Brando and Method Acting were chained together in the press, now known as the media. While he garnered kudos in many quarters, he also took an incoming barrage of critical heat, darts of derision, and lots of ridicule. 

In the great tradition of media enterprise his handsome face and idiosyncratic personality sold plenty of newspapers and magazines in the late 1940’s and early 50’s. We were still awaiting the every household embrace of television, the great distractor, and we were a people in extreme need of distraction. 

However Brando was treated in the media, audiences were  swept away by his sensitive good looks, masculinity, and plain old charm. On top of that he was an actor with artistic intention, honestly steeped in a brave new approach to stagecraft. The combination made a powerful impact. 

To illustrate - fresh from the NY stage, on the verge of movie stardom - an early screen test.

Turbulent Times Invite Profound Change

An era of upset and change colored post-war America as the second half of the 20th Century dawned. We were awash in confusion and fear. 

The U.S. was in the midst an economic boom, and a baby boom, set against pervasive anxiety that at any second we might have an atomic BOOM. 

It was a time when the (dis)order of the day was bomb shelters; duck and cover drills for children in school. 

School children wore dog-tags (like soldiers at war) so they could be identified in case of a Commie caused calamity. One too many booms for comfort.

In the socio-political and cultural upheaval of the post-war era Marlon Brando’s brand of Method Acting was widely adopted on stage and screen. A rabid media and ill intentioned political forces exploited these threatening changes. Brando and other high profile actors, writers and directors influenced by the imported Method were soon defamed and some were outright persecuted. 

On the distaff side Marilyn Monroe came to prominence. She, too, was entangled with THE Method, this mysterious and potent influence on stage and film acting shipped in from Eastern Europe by way of theater people with left leaning reputations.

In addition to elevating the quality of theater art they had social justice on their minds. Dangerous people with a growing audience.

Marilyn radiates danger, no doubt about that.

While audiences quickly learned to enjoy ‘contemporary’ acting in the performances of Monroe and Brando (and other players to be named later), the distraction craving public was even more absorbed and titillated by the twists and turns in their personal lives. Dramas replete with glamorous good fortune and deep misfortune were all sold hard in the interest of voracious business entities.

A growing and hungry media dined out on Monroe and Brando in tandem with an expanding entertainment business with which it shared selfish motives and substantial profits. 

THE Method was (mis)characterized as the cause of whatever difficult, and seemingly perverse bolts regularly struck Marilyn and Marlon. The widely reported close connection of Method acting to actual life made the shameful media abuse of actors like Monroe and Brando easy to sell.

Acting and Life

Method acting does hinge on a dynamic connection to actual life, as lived daily. “As in life” is a core principle of contemporary acting as derived from THE Method.

THE Method when not carefully studied and understood at its root, and in the context of its history and evolving shapes in practice is easy to distort for attention, which is the meat of what media sells. The media, then and now, sells our attention.

What we know as acting is largely the product of what the media has sold and uneducated yet entitled opinion. 

Those of us who have toiled in stagecraft and filmmaking are wont to say: “Everybody has two businesses. The one they’re in and show business.” Civilians, people with no genuine connection to show business, watch television, go to the movies, read about the shenanigans of actors, hear about box office grosses, come to think they know what’s going on.

Since we all live daily lives, we tend to see acting as a simple extension of what we all do every day, and we are not entirely wrong. We go astray when we skip over the skill, process, and practice elements. Appearance deceives in the absence of curiosity and a search for truth. We can’t learn what we think we already know.

The media, commerce, and other cultural forces, including our innocent ignorance, distorts our understanding of acting.

Process and Performance as Product

Performance is but one product of acting process. Because it is a product, and commerce is the air we breathe in a world that values product and overlooks process and practice, product is often all we see. Actors acting in shows is what we are sold. That is the extent to which we know anything about acting.

ACTING HUMAN intends to reorient our perception of acting  with an emphasis on the value of process and practice as it serves our intention to live life alive. 

We are now, once again, living in undeniably turbulent times. Change in how we see ourselves, each other, and the Universe in which we live is imperative to survive. With clear intention, a little luck and practice, perchance to thrive.

ACTING HUMAN can, given patient contemplation, sincere engagement and consistent practice, change how we inhabit self, create identity, and live moment to moment in a fluxed up world. We can transform how we relate to all the actors with whom we play scenes in our daily lives. We can create whole humans living new, whole, and vital lives.

For now, and forever, take care to grow patience and curiosity. Slow down and pay attention. Creating a whole and vibrant life takes a lifetime.

On Sunday I’ll trace the beginnings of Method Acting as it sprung from Eastern Europe in the early years of the Twentieth Century, in a turbulent time to say the least. We’ll cover its travel to New York, and eventually Hollywood, by way of a hand full of influential teachers.

These seminal teachers taught Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and hundreds of prominent actors who have graced our stages and screens for the last seventy-five years.

Having a grasp of acting history will make clear how the actor’s craft when seen together with wisdom traditions, East and West, all the sciences, natural and social, the full array of humanities, as viewed and experienced through ACTING HUMAN practice will serve us to co-create full lives of value together.

The potent possibilities inherent in the acting process used creatively in daily life - ACTING HUMAN - can point us to peace and true prosperity at the highest level.

Whole humans create humanity.

By The Way 

Marlon Brando did not deserve the ‘Mumbles’ moniker. It was given as a pejorative. Tsk tsk, and then some. 

There is, however, a ‘real’ Mumbles, he is a master musician, one of the finest trumpet players and entertainers to have ever walked the Earth.  

Clark Terry was a worldwide sensation. He lived fully alive, with generosity and unfailing kindness for ninety-five years.

Terry is best known to me as mentor and a dear friend of sixty years. His influence is in everything I’ve done and in all we share here. 

May we live our lives in the spirit of excellence, BIG fun, and true joy that is Clark Terry. 

His life expresses the essence of ACTING HUMAN. 

Sit back, smile, and enjoy life lived alive in the mumbling mastery of CEE-TEE.

See ‘ya on Sunday. 

Lights up!