module 30: word repetition exercise

Word Repetition Exercise

• There is a brilliantly conceived exercise developed by Meisner called the “Word Repetition Exercise” that is at the very core of the Meisner technique. It allows you to see yourself through the eyes of others.

• This exercise trains two muscles of an actor:–The ability to look and see; and–The ability to listen and hear.


• Acting is about reacting to stimuli – to be sensitized to the point that you respond to everything.

• What could be more stimulating than a living person?


• The creative genius of this exercise is that it trains the actor to listen to what their partner means, not just to what they say. In essence, you become a “sensitized responder.”

• You become better in tune to reading human behavior and body language and answering truthfully from where it goes inside you.


• This is important because while the playwright gives an actor the words, it is the actor’s job to pick up on the impulses.

• The more you do this exercise, the more perceptive you will become.


• Word Repetition Exercise– Two people stand (or sit) a few feet apart from

one another, facing each other.– Each person puts their full attention on the other

person and takes that person in (this allows you to attach yourself to something outside of yourself)


– The exercise begins by one person making a concrete and specific observation about the other person – something that immediately catches your attention about the other person. What strikes you about the other person that you like? This could be a physical characteristic or something descriptive about the other person’s clothing.


– Proper examples: “You have red hair;” “You have blue eyes;” or “You’re wearing a soft green shirt.”

– Improper example: “You have a head.” It’s too general!


– The other person repeats back exactly what the first person says changing only the pronoun “You” to “I”

– Example: “I have red hair;” “I have blue eyes;” or “I’m wearing a soft green shirt.”

– Keep the connecting words. They too carry meaning. • Partner A: “You are laughing.” • Partner B: “I am laughing.” Not, “I’m

laughing.”

Word Repetition Exercise– The repetition continues in this fashion without any

pausing in between. Pausing is a cauldron for thinking because it allows for the wheels inside your head to turn. But thinking has no part in this exercise.

– The temptation to go into your head and to vary up the monotonous repetition will be overwhelming. Indeed, your mind will always be trying to anticipate and to stay one step ahead. Do not anticipate anything or take anything for granted. Treat this as a reality, not as an exercise. For example, if your partner walks towards you, you might say: “You walked towards me.”


– If you repeat what you get from your partner, you won’t be at a loss for something to say.

– Don’t speak over your scene partner. Remember, you can’t repeat any faster than you can hear.


• There will come a time during the exercise when the repetition changes – organically. There are three ways in which this can happen:

– Keep truth in the answer;– The formulation of an impulse from the

accumulation of the repetition; and– Off of behavior.


• Follow your impulses and allow them to dictate the changes. Allow it to go wherever it goes. Don’t walk in with an agenda. You’re not here to play your idea out of what you want to happen. As my acting instructor likes to say, “Take what you get, not what you want.”

• Remember, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”


• Allow it to become a pingpong game of impulses!


• There will come a point during the repetition when you feel the urge to say something different. Honor that impulse and express what you’re feeling but don’t explain or describe yourself. For example, if you’re feeling frustrated, express your frustration through the phrase you’re repeating (i.e., through tone, voice inflection, and body language). If you don’t follow that impulse at the moment it happens, then it will be lost.


• This is easier said than done because the tendency nowadays is to follow your instincts only when they are socially acceptable. We fear being branded as uncivilized.

• But in this exercise you must have a clear point of view and respond from that point of view, regardless of how awkward or vulgar it might be.


• Otherwise, what we’re left with is two pleasant people that are committed to staying pleasant. There can be nothing more dull and uninteresting than two accommodators.


• The lubricant of life is manners. As a result, we curb our impulses too much. But in this exercise, manners are a hindrance because they prevent you from responding truthfully.

• The idea here is not to present the version of yourself that you think is acceptable. You are a more dynamic person than you have the freedom to express in real life. There is more to you. Don’t settle for anything less.

Your Rich Inner Life

• How you live in everyday life is not all of you. We have a much richer inner life than what we let out. If our full potential was represented by all of the keys on a keyboard, most of us would spend our entire life playing the same two keys despite the fact that a keyboard has 88 keys and vast tonal capabilities.

Your Rich Inner Life

• We have not even scratched the surface of our tremendous creative powers and abilities. They remain dormant and unused as long as we don’t know about them or as long as we deny them. The best and most human parts of you are those that you have inhabited and hidden from the world!


• This exercise gives you the freedom to tap into these parts and to raise your voice and be heard!

• The way this happens is by pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Don’t self-edit yourself or censor yourself. Give yourself permission to let go and be free!

• When you have freedom, a much richer version of you emerges.


• We want to see the real, authentic you – not a shadow of you.

Word Repetition Exercise• Tips– You are the single most important thing in

your acting.–An actor’s greatest strength is his

vulnerability – his ability to be affected by things both real and imaginary. – You have to make a demand on yourself to

“show up.”


– You’re entitled to 100% of your partner. Your partner is entitled to 100% of you. If your partner dies away, he’s dying away on you. – This is a dreadful exercise for those who like

to be in control and/or have trouble letting go. Give yourself permission to be free.


– You must become emotionally available in order to do this exercise. In other words, you must be open and receptive. You have to drop your guard. This gets in the way of openness. You’re a much more attractive person when you’re open and receptive.


– Focus all of your attention on your scene partner like a laser-beam and receive him or her. Don’t allow any energy to leak out. Everything good from this exercise will come out of the contact with your partner.


– You must listen like you’ve never listened before. The casual listening that we do in everyday life is inadequate. You have to listen not only to the words that are being said but to the meaning behind the words. These changes might be subtle. Listen for the changes in the person – the agreement, the disagreement, the annoyance, the despair, the excitement.

– In other words, you have to listen to what your partner means, not just to what he says.


–Why? Words don’t always carry the truth. In life, we don’t always say what we mean. A person’s behavior might reveal something radically different than the spoken words.

– Truth versus fact: Deal with what the other person is really doing to you and respond to that, no matter how awkward it might be. In other words, hear the meaning and then respond to the meaning behind the words. Is your partner being bossy? Is she blowing you off? Is she manipulating you?

Waking Up The Instrument


– Repeat back exactly what was said. Avoid the tendency to make it conversational. The topic is that one singular moment that you’re in right now. There is no subject – only the moment you’re in. Don’t try to connect it logically to the first point.


– The logic of the exercise is the emotion. The feelings that are created come from the contact (i.e., repetitive exchange) between you and your scene partner. The feeling created by the contact makes the repetition come to life.

– When the exercise is going well, it follows the pattern of a heart monitor.


– Commit to repeating the words with enough energy that they reach your partner. You have to really reach your partner in order to complete the transaction. You want your partner to hear you the way you need her to hear you. Repeating the phrase in a monotone voice wrings the meaning out of the answer and will cause the exercise to flat-line. You want to be in the answer. While the words might be mundane, we still want to know that there is a person in there. When you repeat the phrase, you have to own it!


– If the words are being uttered in such a way that they are hollow and empty, or like they could be set to a metronome, the repetition will die.

– The more you look, the more you’ll see. The more you listen, the more you’ll hear.


– The dreadful thinking pause. Don’t pause in between or give yourself the opportunity to compose yourself. In that pause, you’ll be able to “think” how to respond and deliver a chosen response. This is not Anderson Cooper talking to a foreign correspondent in Kandahar while broadcasting from a studio in NYC with a thirty-second delay. If the pause is so long that you can drive a train through it, reset.


– Repeat immediately even if what comes out is mangled or gibberish. There is no such thing as a mistake. “Screw ups” are what make this exercise most interesting. They are gifts!

– Don’t anticipate what to say next or attempt to vary up the monotonous repetition just for the sake of making it “clever” or interesting. Trust that it will become interesting. Repetition holds the step forward.


– The biggest stumbling block is getting caught up in linguistics, but it’s not about the words. Instead, it’s about the feelings behind the words – i.e., the life that is created between the two people. If you listen attentively and really take your scene partner in, something about him or her is going to change you. In other words, when there is genuine contact of some kind that comes from really looking and really listening, whatever is going on in the other person is going to show up somehow in you. If you let the other person in, they’ll do half the work!


– Don’t fall into the trap of being a reporter and jumping from one random observation to another. This exercise is not about making casual observations – it’s about experiencing what you’re feeling inside and allowing it to live in the exchange. In other words, answer from where it goes inside you. Be alive in the answer!


– Observations, unless informed by a point of view, is a means of avoidance.

– On the other hand, observations are great when they come out of a response to behavior.


– Take what is happening personally. Remember that everything happening in the exercise is real. Annoyance, anger, hurt are real. They have momentary value. Just like in acting, the people are real and the things that are happening between them are real. The only thing that doesn’t exist in this exercise are the imaginary circumstances.

– This is the tuning up of the instrument.


– You cannot respond to anything that you cannot receive. Let yourself be affected. Acting is a felt experience. Some of us are Teflon while others are Velcro. Teflon is a non-stick surface. Velcro is a surface where everything sticks. People who are Teflon don’t allow things to happen to them. They put up a wall. If you are Teflon, you have to fight through that armor.


– The key is involvement. Everything good comes out of involvement. Involvement comes from listening to what was just said and repeating.

– If you are really involved in the other person, the changes will take care of themselves.

– If you are really involved in the other person, then you won’t have time to watch yourself doing it or to guard yourself. You’ll only have the time and energy to do it.


–When you are really involved, it will be as if you’re living off of your partner.

Word Repetition Exercise– Don’t get into the habit of explaining things away,

describing yourself, or justifying yourself. Not only will this take you back a couple of steps, but it will heap the attention back on you. Instead, take from the living moment with your partner and answer the moment he gives you. The point is to take in whatever you encounter and answer impulsively from moment to unanticipated moment.

– How do you express what you’re feeling on the inside if you can’t describe yourself? If you’re feeling uncomfortable, you might say, “You made me uncomfortable” instead of, “I’m uncomfortable.”


– Don’t question the observations that your partner makes. By doing so, you remove yourself from the contact. It is a defense mechanism designed to deflect attention off of ourselves. In life, we recoil from encounters. In acting, we have to meet them head on.

– As my acting instructor says, “An actor goes to acting like a tiger goes to meat.”


– Trust your response. If you’re really feeling something, express it. If your partner looks unhappy say, “You’re unhappy.” Don’t say, “You seem unhappy.” If something is it, say it.

– If it’s wrong, don’t worry. Your partner will correct you if it is because they have to answer truthfully from their point of view.


–Never guess or assume what you think is there. Instead, see what is really there.–Nor should you agree with your partner just

for the sake of agreeing. When that happens, it’s not truthful. Don’t be anything but honest.


– If you feel like your mind is wondering or that you’re losing the connection with your partner, get more involved in him. A common pitfall is not taking enough of your partner in.

– Remember that you’re only one moment away from getting re-connected. It’s called, “the next moment.”


– Don’t manage and compose yourself. If you do, you’ll get a chosen response. That part of you that dials it down and laughs it off is no good. The best moments are the ones when you aren’t in charge of yourself. Don’t keep one hand on the steering wheel!

Word Repetition Exercise– The Pinch and the Ouch• Don’t do anything until something happens to make

you do it.• Example: I pinch you. You say, “ouch!” My pinch

justified your “ouch.” Stated otherwise, your “ouch!” was the direct result of my pinch.• What you do doesn’t depend on you – it depends on

the other person.


–Purpose• This exercise is much more than a

slightly innocuous word game.


– It’s going to reveal something!• “Mechanical repetition is monotonous

and robotic, but it’s the basis for something.” Sanford Meisner• “It eliminates a need for you to think and

to write dialogue out of your head in order to keep talking.” Sanford Meisner


• “If you stick to the repetition, which is illogical and comes purely from what you hear, you’ll overcome a tendency to use your head logically.” Sanford Meisner


• The repetition exercise, in essence, is not boring. In fact, it’s impossible to be bored if you’re involved.• “It plays on the source of all organic creativity,

which is the inner impulses.” Sanford Meisner• There are things that are going to begin to be

done. “The illogical nature of the dialogue opens you up to the impulsive shifts in your instinctual behavior caused by what was being done to you by your partner, which can lead to real emotion. This is fundamental to good acting.” Sanford Meisner

module 30: word repetition exercise

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