"The job of an actor is to reveal the life of another human being.
" These are words that were instilled deeply within me, when doing my Method training.
Not being able to come by any decent work, I took it upon myself to provide work for myself.
I wrote a one-man play called "Educating Charlie", a piece about the early life of Charles Dickens and, of course, took the main and only part of Boz - the great storyteller.
I had it properly produced and marketed, and I now tour it.
As I got into the project it became clear to me how Method was absolutely suited to such an undertaking.
The job of an actor is to reveal the life of another human being - is exactly the requirement for successful prosecution of the piece! This is what the performance is about; just this and no more (except, possibly, a little entertainment value!) Many people find it hard to describe what, precisely, "The Method" is and, perhaps, it is different things to different people.
My, perhaps, rather simplistic understanding of it is, that it is called Method because, as Stanislavsky said, "If I aim for a result, the result will, inevitably, elude me" In other words, committing to a process, rather than forcing a result.
And this type of theater cannot be anything else.
Stanislavsky also stated that a requirement of acting was the "Ability to be private in public".
Although Dickens was a great showman, he was very, very private about his personal life.
"Educating Charlie", apart from showing Charles Dickens as a master entertainer, also allows the audience to see the great man in private.
Another tenet for true performance is to understand that one "is the conduit".
How else, with a one-man show - no one else to share the scenes with - could it be?