Director Mike Alfreds on The Perdekamp Emotional Method | PEM Acting

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Mike Alfreds is commended by Sir Ian McKellen as one of the country's greatest directors with over 60 years experience. He has plenty of knowledge and experience to share. Listen to him speak about emotions, some of the current issues in the acting profession, and why PEM is essential for the actors craft.
Mike is a household name in the world of directors, having staged over 200 plays internationally and being a winner of the Critic’s Circle Theatre Award for Best Director.
He’s directed for famous theatres across the world such as the Cincinnati Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, The Royal National Theatre, Cambridge Theatre Company and many more.

Transcription:
“When something happens the body reacts first.
Then, the feelings come. And finally, the thinking.
So, if there’s a loud explosion, the body will go - or whatever.
Then the feeling would come: Do I hide? Do I run? And the panic.
And then the thought comes: What shall I do?
It seems that using the body is a way into everything else.
Which is what PEM does.
I’m aware of more and more is that actors aren’t connected to their bodies.
You know they go to gyms, they work out their bodies, they’re flexible, they can do acrobatics.
But they’re not in touch.
And so whatever they’re thinking or trying to feel, it doesn’t show.
There’s something- and maybe it’t a cultural thing, maybe it’s a western thing, maybe it’s living in big cities, maybe it’s that we become very protected and when we go out we don’t show anything, I don’t know, but I’ve been doing a huge amount of work online during Covid,
working with actors from, Japanese actors, Indian actors, American actors, all sorts of European, lots of Australian actors of course, from Melbourne,
They all seem to have the same problem.
They can’t feel inside their body.
That’s why I love PEM, it’s because you get the body going which contains the emotions and if you put your body into different conditions and shapes and positions then you’ll start to feel differently. I mean, you should be feeling differently all the time!
Emotions are flowing, they’re not blocks.
They’re shifting in every moment.
Most actors, they look the same all the time.
The body’s not moving, they have no gestural range whatsoever.
And I go to the theatre and I don’t care because I don’t believe them and they’re boring.
Audiences learn to accept what they’re given.
And if the actor is charming enough or flashy enough, or has a particular way of doing things the audience likes. They’re cute or…they get away with it.
(What would you say to actors, why they should do PEM?)
They will have an emotional technique.
I thought it was actually learning another language for your body.
Actors know I have to work on my body, I have to work on my voice, maybe on analysing text, but they - none of the internal. And the emotions are - can be worked on and exercised so they are available to the actor.
What I got from it is that you go all through this work. And them, they have that capacity, you work on a character and they can place that feeling and it’s available for them within the reality of the character.
And it’s truthful, because in the moment they are using all of themselves truthfully, organically.
Well it’s so understandable, you think - well why isn’t everybody working like this?
Ideally, P E M, PEM should be part of every training curriculum.
The level of acting would go up…100%”

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