I always thought Meisner was just a technique actors use to bring out their emotions. I've discovered that this preconception of mine wasn't wrong (yay!). It's just a little incomplete. After participating and observing Meisner classes, I can see that it also teaches an actor how to react truthfully. That means actors must react without the standards of society weighing them down.

Picture yourself in a scenario where you bump into a person at the mall. The person passes a rude slightly rude comment, "Hey watch yourself". I would assume most people would ignore it or might snipe a comment back just to even the playing field, but there wouldn't be a big fight. Now picture the same scenario but between to Meisner Actors in a scene. Here the possibility of a big fight is much higher because Actors are supposed to truthfully let the words "Hey Watch Yourself " inspire them. They're meant to truthfully react knowing that in a scene, society does not exist to judge their actions. 

When I first started taking improv classes, I wanted to make myself more confident in the face of adversary. It definitely worked. When on an improv stage, you're constantly tackled by problems that need to be overcome in order for a scene to be continuous. Sometimes the answers to those problems require a bold move. Sometimes they require complete silence. How can improv actors continually find these answers without being mentally worn out.

Well, it turns out they're not thinking at all. Rather improv actors live in the scene. They play everything to the top of their intelligence. It's not acting, but living. How does living produce funny material? Well it turns out that life itself can be very absurd. But since we live in it everyday, we just don't realize it. 

My views of acting have changed over the past three months. But this change happened in a weird way... It wasn't as much from reading the meisner and improv books as it was from just watching people grow and develop as actors.