Uta Hagen | Acting Style

Over the week, I've found there aren't many noted female practitioners, which I was surprised enough about to start writing a whole blog post on, namely 'The Lost Women of Theatre'. During research for that, I finally came across what I had been searching for: a female drama practitioner who had a profound influence on acting, enough to warrant a legend left behind. So here she is... HAGEN.

Uta Loompa Doobidy Doo

Now, I'm going to start this time with a clip of Uta herself explaining her method, and then I'll summarize afterwards. Hearing her explain what is, in my mind, precisely what acting should be, is excellent.

So immediately, we should understand we're dealing with naturalistic acting from the same 'get the audience emotionally invested' approach as Stanislavski. I think this should be the solid starting point from where to birth any acting method, as unlike with all of the practitioners we've looked at thus far, you're going to end up with something real. Not real in an unrehearsed, 'raw' way, but in a true to life way.

So what is Hagen's method? Well, unsurprisingly called the Uta Hagen technique, it focuses on having a grip on reality mixed with imagination, channeled through a trained set of skills like voice, movement and your knowledge of acting itself. Perhaps the most important part of Hagen's method is the actor fully becoming their character, not just inside but out. Sometimes it's easy to become a character in your head but unless you can show the audience what that involves, you aren't truly acting as them.

To achieve this level of immersion, you must come to learn and accept yourself, harnessing your physicality and vocals as tools, truly understanding yourself so you can manipulate it into the character. One of her methods was called substitution, which is somewhat identical to Stanislavski's 'emotion memory', something she references in her works: you substitute what you have felt to show how the character feels. Maybe this is not a case of someone's own method but the definitive method to realistic acting as a whole. You have to use what you know, that much is clear, even if the character is far from yourself. Perhaps one of Hagen's best quotes is:
'Find yourself in a part rather than lose yourself in a part'.

The reason for walking is destination. One of the students mentioned this in the above clip; Hagen told her students never to pace for everywhere you walk should have a destination.

Here's a sample acting exercise of Hagen's: Three Entrances.
When you walk into a scene, think:
 - What did I just do? 
 - What am I doing right now? 
 - What’s the first thing I want?

It's all about motivation and emotion and that's why I love this method so much. It works. It works because it aims not to send out a certain message or be a metaphor or put off the audience. It serves to immerse the viewer in a story. It is therefore, without a doubt, my favorite method on the list so far. And being able to see Hagen at work on film, like in the clip above, makes her to me even more of a helpful source than the likes of Stanislavski. I think we just found my favourite practitioner... join me next week to see if Uta can be overtaken!

-BEST-

HAGEN - 'THE UTA HAGEN TECHNIQUE'

GROTOWSKI - 'POOR THEATRE'

ARTAUD - 'THEATRE OF CRUELTY'

MEYERHOLD - 'BIOMECHANICS'

-WORST-