I agree with NAF1138 that this isn’t right, but it’s not wrong, either. What it is is conflating style with technique.
You might say that there’s a “presentational” style and a “realistic” style. There’s also a “naturalistic” style, but that’s out of fashion right now (that was David Mamet and Caryl Churchill - lots of people stammering and speaking over each other at rigidly specified points of the script).
“Method” doesn’t have much to do with the style, but it has to do with how you get ready to do it. It happens to lend itself more to realistic and naturalistic styles, and probably influenced their popularity, but one can absolutely do realistic and naturalistic styles without using Method acting techniques.
Short, not entirely accurate version:
Method - Feel it. Recall your own experiences which are like those your character is going through. Remember how you felt then in your own experience, and put that feeling into the words and actions your character is doing.
Classical - Do it. Make your face, body and voice do what a person in your character’s situation would do. Whether or not you feel anger is irrelevant. You raise your fist like so and your voice like thus and you portray - you act - anger.
This brought to mind an amateur production of Jesus Christ, Superstar that I saw eons ago. Apparently, the director had a favorite gesture that he made all the actors use all the time over and over to the point of being distracting. They’d hold their hands in front, palms up as if their hands were full, and move them up and down for emphasis. Rage, confusion, sadness, fright - no matter - that was the gesture. We applauded politely, but went home and mocked the performance among ourselves.
More recently, we went to a local production of The Lion in Winter. The actor portraying Richard was apparently supposed to be enraged the entire time, judging by his constantly clenched fists. I don’t know if he was told to do that or chose to do it, but once I noticed, I couldn’t un-notice.
Yeah, I know, you can’t expect professional quality from community theater and I certainly don’t think I could do any better, but they’re just my observations and opinions…
And I know Car 54 and other shows of that era were very broadly done - it was a different time and there were different expectations of entertainment. But seeing similar broad acting these days seems out of place - hence my question. Different styles for different audiences, I guess.
Also Comedy in particular has a short shelf life and what is funny to one generation changes rapidly. I listened to an interview with Michael Schur recently (creator of Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99 and writer on The Office) and he was talking about how none of the 20 somethings on his writing staff thought anything before 1985 was funny. Annie Hall? Not Funny. Young Frankenstein? Not funny. George Carlin? His later stuff was ok but mostly not funny.
Some stuff is timeless, and sometimes if you are introduced to it early enough you might still like old comedy, but comedy is very much of a time and place.
Multi-camera sitcoms are stage plays. Most stage acting requires a certain amount of exaggeration so that you can be seen and heard from the back of the auditorium. Even though TV allows for subtlety, the history of where sitcoms originated still have those stage play conventions, right down to the writing, and we’re used to it, so it works.
Sometimes a show can start out as wacky and get more subtle and real as it goes on, like MASH. Sometimes it can start out traditional and go weirder and broader as it goes on, like Married With Children or The Drew Carey Show. As they develop, the acting style changes.
Shows like Cheers and Barney Miller went in with a certain style already figured out, and was written and cast with that in mind. Most others are throw-it-at-the-wall type concepts.
Sitcoms can be formulaic, and as long as the audience likes the formula, it will be reused.
I remember a few years ago, the British comedy Couplings had some kind of dream sequence where the characters were saying what they really meant, and it was all one dimensional.
Man: I have a large penis. Let me show it to you.
Girl: Me! Me! Me! It’s all about Me!
If the same thing were done for Two Broke Girls, it’d be something like this:
Caroline: I want to be privileged and rich again.
Max: I’m a drug abusing whore and Han is short and effeminate.
Earl: I’m an old relic victim of white oppression.
Oleg: I have a large penis. Let me show it to you.
Sophie: Me! Me! Me! It’s all about Me!
When actors change media, they may find that what used to work fine doesn’t work now. They have to learn to adapt.
Silent movie actors had to over-emote on screen to convey feelings they couldn’t express vocally. When talkies were invented, sometimes the silent movie techniques actors had learned made their performances seem unnatural and over-the-top.
A comedian who’d learned his craft in vaudeville may have developed a larger than life persona that worked perfectly on stage in front of a big crowd… but which seemed excessive and bombastic on a small TV screen.
Or a stand-up comic who’s never really acted before may seem lost for a season or two on a sitcom. He may seem like he’s still doing his shtick, rather than becoming a character.
There is really no such thing as “good” acting in any kind of objective sense, (and this is why the Academy Awards are so gratuitous, IMHO). Rather, there is just acting that conforms or not to whatever expectations a particular audience may have, whether that audience be an individual or a society. These expectations have always changed historically, and have little to do with being “realistic.”
Exactly. Also, a lot of times realism isn’t the goal. Some of my favorite types of theater, Brecht or Robert Wilson for example, don’t make an attempt at realism. That just makes them have different goals.