DOGMA AND ORTHODOXY IN ACTING

Each acting technique, each approach to the craft, has its own lineage — practitioners who serve as guides, passing down their knowledge and helping actors unlock their full creative potential.

Think about it — once, the relationship between actors and their craft was direct and diverse. Actors learned through trial and error, through real-time experience, from actor to actor. Now, they have guidance, they are lucky, but alas, there are still narrow minds out there who don’t teach — they preach.

They preach Orthodoxy.

Even within structured techniques, there was once a pantheon of teachers and philosophies to draw from — different approaches, different perspectives that enriched both the art and the craft of acting. And even if one was mono-technique oriented in their approach, there were still so many sects, so many beautiful schisms — divergences that kept the work alive even inside that structure of the artistic orthodoxy. Look at Stanislavski and Chekhov, Look at Meisner and C.Conrad and how the later took the technique and actually made it better.

But, just like religion 2,000 years ago, orthodoxy is always trying to prevail. Every 20 years, a single acting dogma emerges — a school of thought that begins to dominate, shrinking the landscape around it.

A rigid hierarchy forms, where a select group positions itself as the sole bridge between actors and the vast, rich world of Acting and Art. They become the intermediaries. Instead of fostering exploration, these self-appointed gatekeepers police it, dictating what is “correct” and what is not.

Go outside the dogma? WRONG.

Interpret the scriptures differently? WRONG.

Suddenly, discovery is no longer essential if it moves outside their knowledge or what they feel confortable with. Instead of forging their own path, actors are handed a fixed doctrine — a method, a rigid sequence of exercises, declared the only true way. They are told:

“You don’t need to explore beyond this system. In fact, if you do — if you experience spontaneous revelation or discover something outside the accepted canon — you’re probably doing it wrong.”

Or, to be precise: You are a sinner.

But acting isn’t a museum piece. We’re not here to polish old techniques like relics behind glass. If you’re looking for preservation, go admire a mummy, my dear.

Acting must stay alive — evolving, expanding, sometimes catching us off guard.

The moment we treat techniques as sacred texts instead of tools for discovery, we stop being artists and start being historical reenactors.

Actors are fucking anarchists.

Once, actors had access to a vast pantheon of techniques, each offering unique shades of meaning and expression. But orthodoxy flattens that diversity, reducing a rich, multi-dimensional language into a single, dull note.Like a groan imersing from a toothache

Acting should be like a great alphabet, each technique or school of thought a letter forming a vocabulary capable of expressing the most intricate human experiences:

• A is for Artaud, who shattered theater’s polite conventions.
• B is for Brecht, who reminded us that storytelling could also be revolution.
• C is for Chekhov, who taught us how to wield energy and imagination.

et cetera.

But when a singular dogma takes hold, it strips away that richness, reducing everything to a monotonous chant:

“This is the only way. This is the only way.”

And what a barren, lifeless landscape that creates — when actors, once free to explore the infinite possibilities of performance, are left with nothing but a rigid, narrow formula that doesn’t even comprehend the vastness of what it has erased.

Love,

KF

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