The Actor's Journey

1 Chapter One Introduction There was a famous Kabuki actor, who died about fifty years ago, who said, ‘I can teach you the gesture that indicates “looking at the moon”. I can teach you the movement up to the tip of the finger which points to the sky. From the tip of your finger to the moon is your own responsibility.’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 125) This thesis follows the journey from the tip of the actor’s finger to the moon: the actor’s journey towards presence in live performance. This journey, although unique for each actor, follows certain key and integrated principles that are needed to achieve and to sustain presence. My own journey into the patterns and processes of these principles has led me to theorise that they are inherent, or should be inherent, in any form of actor training and/or practice. These principles are not training techniques in themselves but form the lifeblood of performance presence. They help the actor create and convey the mystery and reality of performance and allow ‘the actor to ride the dynamic waves of structure,’ (Carnicke in Lovell and Krämer, 1999: 77). The desire to impart the significance and the reality of human experience, from birth to death, is a fundamental one. Mankind exists; each individual exists alone; the pain of such an existence, the sadness of it, and of course the joy of it as well, must 2 all be conveyed. One way to do so is through the theatre. (Suzuki, 1986: 62) Sharing experiences ‘both in their unique and their common aspects,’ (Suzuki, 1986: 57) is central to theatre performance. Live theatre performance is immediate: ‘the audience is in direct contact with the performer at the moment of his “performance”,’ (Hunter in Auslander, 1999: 18). Furthermore, live theatre performance occurs in real time and real space. Its ‘perceptual continuity’ (Auslander, 1999: 19), or flow of action and energy, is relayed first hand, as distinct from other performance mediums where primary communication is mediated through various means of recording. It is because of the unique and unpredictable nature of theatre’s perceptual continuity and performance concepts, that the theories in this thesis are directed solely towards the practice of live, theatrical performance rather than film or television acting. When an actor creates performance presence, they ‘capture the humanity, the human truth.’ (Radvan, 2002: focus group). Performance presence and its ‘ability to attract and hold the attentiveness of the audience’ according to Radvan (2002: focus group) relies on the performance and the actor/s to explore, reveal and convey the mysteries and reality of human existence. Yet, despite performance presence’s mysterious and dynamic nature, my research has led me to identify and conceptualise four key principles that work together to create and 3 sustain presence: energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality. If an actor can harness and develop these principles, the actor becomes part of the unique communicative experience of each performance. As Stanislavski (1937: 313) concluded in An Actor Prepares, ‘If you analyse this process [the ‘creative process’ of performance] you will be convinced that laws regulate organic nature, whether she is creating a new phenomenon biologically or imaginatively.’ Last year, while in training and creative development with my own theatre ensemble, I became more and more aware of the theatre actor’s role as creator and communicator, and of the unique experience this provides for both audience and actor. This awareness, however, raised further questions for me about how the power of this experience could be sustained performance after performance: I realised that training and discipline were important, but felt that training alone could not guarantee performance presence. In an attempt to explore this question, I turned to a Masters Research degree with QUT. This dissertation and its findings are the result of not only the last year’s research but of my own experience as a professional actor. My initial research explored theatre history and theatre training references as well as writings by actors and directors on their own practice and beliefs. I discovered that although most of these readings contained crucial ideas on best training or practice, very few of these 4 ideas accorded with one another. I began to look more closely at what theatre practitioners could agree on. It was clear, for example, that they could agree that performance presence was central to ‘inspired acting’ (Chekhov, 1991: xxxvii) or best performance conditions. As I researched further, I began to identify underlying principles of performance that were closely linked to these practitioners’ notions of presence: ’The arts’, Decroux has written, ‘resemble each other because of their principles, not because of their works.’ We could add: neither do performers resemble each other because of their techniques, but because of their principles. (Barba, 1995: 15) Barba’s work on ‘recurring principles’ (Barba, 1995: 15) in performance provided a firm base from which to develop my research. His exploration of recurring principles in performance crosses cultural boundaries to focus on universal principles of performance. My own exploration and interpretation of Barba’s work, my own experiences as a performer, and my exploration of other data led me to focus more intently on the state of presence in performance rather than performance anthropology in general. My question became far more singular and far less universal than Barba’s: What are the key principles an actor requires to create and/or enhance her/his performance presence? In Beyond The Floating Islands, Barba (1986: 220) wrote of his research on Brecht: ‘I understood that I musn’t search for what Brecht’s words 5 meant, but rather for what led him to write them’. Similarly, my research began to analyse actor training and practice not for the training techniques themselves but for the underlying principles that drove these techniques. My research collected and interpreted data from literature by or about Artaud, Auslander, Bogart, Brecht, Brook, Chaikin, Chekhov, Cohen, Cole and Chinoy, Fo, Grotowski, Hodge, Lecoq, Mamet, Meisner, Meyerhold, Oida, Sauter, Stanislavski, Suzuki, and Zarrilli amongst others. As my research deepened, I observed a recurrence within the literature of certain principles relating to successful performance or performance presence. Although these principles were often labelled or spoken about in slightly different terms, I was eventually able to define a finite set of principles that underscore live performance presence. My thesis’s aim became to define and codify a clear set of principles that create or improve an actor’s performance presence based on an extensive review of theatre literature across the last century. In order to do this I needed to define not only performance presence and its key principles, but also to describe the way in which these principles work together and with each individual performance to achieve presence. The interactive processes of my research, and the dense, theoretical concepts that have resulted from them, have somewhat governed the way in which this thesis is presented. My literature review has a dual 6 purpose: it acts both as my core data and as a key method of validating my theories. As a result, I have purposefully integrated the developed theories with the literature review from which they were conceived and refined. This rich data analysis, presented in Chapters Four and Five, relates directly to the very interactive nature of my research. Chapter Two outlines the constructivist, grounded nature of my research methodology. Using such an interactive and interpretive research process allowed me to collect and analyse data while developing and reassessing my theories and conceptual framework. Strauss and Corbin (in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 274) state that: … there is built into this style of extensive interrelated data collection and theoretical analysis an explicit mandate to strive towards verification of its resulting hypotheses (statements of relationships between concepts). This is done throughout the course of a research project, rather than assuming that verification is possible only through follow-up quantitative research. The interactive literature and data analysis are introduced in the methodology chapter, Chapter Two, however the bulk of the literature review is actually incorporated into the detailed data analysis and theory presentation in Chapters Four and Five. This reflects the symbiotic relationship between the literature review and the theoretical framework. The literature review was complemented and triangulated through 7 continued reading and analysis and through a focus group I ran with three practitioner/academics. In addition, I ran a five-day creative practice. The aim of this creative practice was both to confirm my developing theories and also to see how my theories operated as praxis. This interactive, jointly practical and theoretical approach of the three major components of my research underlay my exploration of the complex and holistic state of performance presence. The creative practice and focus group components of my research are discussed in more detail in Chapter Three and help lay the groundwork of the thesis’ key theories. Chapter Four examines the nature and definition of performance presence in more detail. Live performance presence, for the purposes of this thesis, is holistic and requires an audience to exist. It is also dynamic: adjusting and reaching from moment to moment of performance rather than occurring ‘in the moment’. It is neither static nor pure, ‘blasting’ (Barker in Hodge, 2000:124) energy but rather a subtle amalgamation of key performance principles and processes that are individual to that actor and which interact dynamically with the influences of each performance. An actor’s pathways of performance are unique and, as such, the way presence is channelled can vary from person to person. Chapter Four’s explanation of what is meant by the term 8 ‘presence’ underscores the central focus of this thesis: to define and describe the key principles of performance presence. Chapter Five examines these four key principles of energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality in detail. These principles of performance presence are as dynamic and holistic as the unique performance state that they create. In exploring and developing such principles, the actor embarks on their own individual journey, a journey described by Yoshi Oida (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 125) as moving away from routine technique and which explores the distance from the tip of their trained finger to the moonlit sky of performance presence. Performance presence relies on the actor’s ability to take all they have learned and experienced and to channel it with the right balance of energy, imagination, awareness and mutual response to each new performance experience. As the old saying goes: practice makes perfect. Or perhaps in this case: practice of core principles of performance makes presence. ‘Through conscious technique to the subconscious creation of artistic truth’, said Stanislavski of great acting (1968: 274). Models of these principles and the way that they create presence are represented diagramatically in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 on pages 60 and 61 of this thesis. The principles of performance presence, as well as the subcategories and processes that they entail, are basic principles of human 9 expression, heightened and adjusted to create live presence in the actor’s performance world. ‘In simplest terms, the theatre is a transmission of the forms of human action. These actions are no special property of the theatre; rather, the theatre functions as a model for the whole cultural mechanism, and how we must deal with our communal experiences,’ (Suzuki, 1986: 68). Live theatre presence and the principles they create ‘transcend any kind of practiced routine’; they are integral to ‘great’ or ‘living’ performance (Suzuki, 1986: 20). This thesis contains no prescribed formula for the application of these principles in practice. It is envisaged, however, that the conceptual framework for these principles and their processes can be applied across a diverse range of actor training and performance methods. This thesis serves as a guide for theatre practitioners who are creating live performance experiences and who wish to enhance the performance presence of such experiences. 10 Chapter Two Research Methodology Grounded Theory Research ‘The grounded theory approach is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon,’ wrote Strauss and Corbin (1990: 24) of the theory developed by Glaser and Strauss in the late 1960’s. These procedures are not only systematic but also interactive. My research has led me to develop the theory that the ‘phenomenon’ of performance presence is created through the four key principles of energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality. The early developmental stages of my thesis and the creative practice component of my research were also guided by the principles of action research. The cyclical nature of my research and its emphasis on both theory and practice are closely linked to ‘the essential feature of the approach: trying out ideas in practice as a means of improvement and as a means of increasing knowledge’ (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988: 152). The result of such a method is improvement in understanding and better articulation and justification for what goes on. ‘Action research provides a way of working which links theory and practice into the one whole: ideas-in-action’ (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988: 152). 11 However, it became evident early in my research planning that although much of my methodology fitted the action research spiral of planning, action, observation and reflection, there were other principles of this methodology which did not apply to my research methods. Grounded theory’s emphasis on generation of theory and work-in-process (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 9) provided a more valid research methodology for this thesis than action research’s emphasis on verification through collective action. The importance of the group in action research cannot be overemphasised. Activities where an individual goes through cycles of planning, action, observation and reflection, CANNOT be regarded as action research. Action research is not individualistic. (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988: 156) Only the creative practice component of my research was actually collective and although both this practice and the focus group were active methods of verifying my theories, the majority of my data collection and analysis involved individual research. Grounded theory provided the ideal methodological approach for this thesis as my research required constant interaction between data collection and conceptualisation, not only to narrow down the field of investigation but also to develop ‘plausible relationships’ between concepts and ‘effective theory’ (Strauss and Corbin in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 278) relating to performance presence. It is because of 12 grounded theory’s strong interaction between the data and its analysis, that the literature review component of this thesis is embedded in the data analysis and developed theories of Chapters Four and Five. The primary and secondary literature was used throughout my research and the writing of my thesis to refine, develop and explore my theories. Thus Chapters Four and Five are not a literature review per se, but rather the development and refinement of theory through the interaction of data collection and data analysis. Since its inception in the late 1960’s, grounded theory has been developed and diffused throughout both qualitative and quantitative streams of research. Interestingly, Strauss and Corbin (in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 277) see some risks in the increasing popularity of grounded theory as ‘some users do not understand important aspects of the methodology’. Their main concern was that researchers might concentrate on analysing the data rather than developing theories from it. To overcome this misunderstanding, later overviews of the method reemphasise the advantages of a researcher’s theoretical sensitivity and, in particular, how this sensitivity helps the researcher develop salient theory from their own experience and knowledge as well as from the continuing emerging data. As this thesis was my first foray into grounded research careful planning was required so that the topic became neither too broad nor too narrow 13 in its focus. The aim of such planning was to create a research journey that could explore the phenomenon of performance presence in detail without straying too far from the path and becoming lost. Grounded theory’s approach allowed me to take into consideration my existing theoretical sensitivity as a professional actor, ensemble member and researcher. It also allowed me to develop further sensitivity to the topic of performance presence and its core principles as I continued to collect, interpret and validate data. I was heartened by Strauss and Corbin’s (1990: 57) analytic procedures which they designed to ‘build rather than test theory’ and to ‘provide the grounding, build the density, and develop the sensitivity and integration needed to generate a rich, tightly woven, explanatory theory that closely approximates the reality it represents’. These aims were also relevant to my own. In order to achieve them, however, I needed to allow my research to be open to questions and analysis while still following fairly formal research procedures. ‘To reach these ends requires maintaining a balance among the attributes of creativity, rigor, persistence and, above all, theoretical sensitivity’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 58). My collection and analysis of primary and secondary data relating to performance presence was designed to interact with and work in unison with the processes of analysis, conceptualisation and theory development. This flexible approach was comprised not of static steps 14 but of a continuing spiral of data gathering, processing, validation and redevelopment. This flexibility allowed constant questioning and development of the data as they emerged. Because they [grounded theories] embrace the interaction of multiple actors, and because they emphasize temporality and process, they indeed have a striking fluidity. They call for exploration of each new situation to see if they fit, how they might fit, and how they might not fit. (Strauss and Corbin in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 279) Charmaz refers to two types of grounded theory: ‘constructivist and objectivist methods’ (Charmaz in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 509). The constructivist approach, which best describes this thesis’ grounded theory methodology, accepts that the ‘categories, concepts, and theoretical level of an analysis emerge from the researcher’s interactions within the field and questions about the data’ (Charmaz in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 522). My theories stem from my own interaction with the literature and practice surrounding live theatre. These theories are firmly grounded in my research but form a synthesised or constructed interpretation of the data. Technical and Non-technical Literature As mentioned in the introduction, my thesis aims to answer the question: what are the key principles of performance presence? This question was a result of researching and analysing both technical and non-technical literature until I was able to define a question that was capable of in- 15 depth exploration but was not so broad that it would become unworkable. The main purpose of a literature review in qualitative research and grounded theory in particular, is to ‘discover relevant categories and the relationships among them; to put together categories in new, rather than standard ways’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 49). A literature review encourages and develops a researcher’s theoretical sensitivity. This sensitivity to the investigative field helps the researcher narrow the field of investigation, discover and develop themes within their data and then develop theories. Equally importantly, the literature can also be used as secondary data and help validate theories. The literature should be grounded in the research. That is, the literature should inform and be driven by the research. The interaction of data collation and theory development is strongly integrated – one informs the other and helps provide ‘conceptual density [which refers to the] richness of concept development and relationships’ (Strauss and Corbin in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 274). In the case of this thesis, the literature review, in conjunction with collection of primary data from a creative practice period and focus group session, was used not only as crucial data but also to question, develop, and to a certain extent, validate my theories. I based my research on an extensive literature review covering theories on and practices of performance from theoreticians and practitioners of the past and present. Much of this literature did not focus on principles 16 of performance per se but on actor training methods, theatre anthropology and history, performance style, definitions of acting and live theatre, as well as performance development and practice. From these sources, as well as a period of creative practice and a focus group, I drew and developed my thesis. Many of the literature references were technical in nature and comprised mainly research, theoretical or philosophical papers pertaining to the profession and disciplines of theatre, communication, cultural practices and methodology. Some examples of the theatre references used in this thesis include: Stanislavski’s (1937) An Actor Prepares; Barba’s (1995) The Paper Canoe; Cole and Chinoy’s (1972) Actors on Acting; and Zarrilli’s (1995) Acting (Re)Considered: Theories and Practices. However there was also a very large and important range of nontechnical literature. This literature comprises ‘biographies, diaries, reports, videotapes, newspapers, and a variety of other materials’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 55). This type of literature was as essential to my research as the technical literature, and examples include: interviews with Anne Bogart; videos of theatre workshops such as Barba’s Meyerhold’s Etude, Throwing the Stone; theatre reviews; and biographies by theatre practitioners such as Brook and Stanislavski. This literature review was by no means a linear process where one text’s topics, opinions or practices neatly followed another’s. Integration and synthesis of all the literature was important to the development and verification of my theories. From the very early stages of my research, 17 my methodology followed Charmaz’s (in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 510) outline of grounded theory: … (a) simultaneous collection and analysis of data, (b) a two-step data coding process, (c) comparative methods, (d) memo writing aimed at the construction of conceptual analysis, (e) sampling to refine the researcher’s emerging theoretical ideas, and (f) integration of the theoretical framework. As a result, the literature review has become integral to the data analysis and theoretical framework and has been written into the thesis accordingly. Conceptualisation of Data As my reading and analysis deepened, I noticed certain patterns that crossed nearly all the data. These were: a) a general disagreement as to best training techniques and practice. Although clusters of practitioners agreed on some points or with other practitioners working in similar ways, most practitioners spent considerable time in their career carving out their own model (theoretical, practical or both) of best training practice; b) a general agreement that actor presence is crucial to best performance and that this presence attracted and maintained audience attention; 18 c) a range of principles underlying all actor training and practice that, when developed and practised, can create and maintain performance presence. This third theme became the basis for my central question not only because it most intrigued me but also because very little of the literature I was studying covered it specifically or in detail. Which principles amongst the many discussed were the absolute core principles of presence and how could they be most simply defined? Amongst the many terms used to describe similar principles, which were the most relevant? If indeed these principles created presence, how did they operate in practice? The lack of detail and specificity of the underlying principles of performance presence led me to research the principles of presence more formally. I was no longer looking at literature as a general way to discover trends and concepts but as a means of narrowing down the properties and processes of performance principles and presence. My own experience as an actor meant that although much of the literature I consulted was written by directors, trainers and theoreticians, I was most drawn to defining the principles of performance that an actor requires to create and maintain presence. Already my sensitivity towards live performance was shaping my interaction with the data. This thesis strives to capture in language, which principles an actor must use in practice during performance. Like Charmaz (in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 523), I concede that although my thesis is firmly 19 grounded in the data, my own, unique research experience ‘can only claim to have interpreted a reality’. Once I had narrowed the focus of my research question, my ongoing investigations slowly developed a large number of principles of performance presence. At one stage of my research I had no fewer than 17 principles listed in my notes. Gradually however, the methodological cycle of writing and analysis, reflection, and validation through other literature and discussions with colleagues and supervisors allowed me to narrow the number of performance principles to a more viable and clearly defined set of four. I tried and tested these principles, their properties and their definitions both theoretically and practically over a six-month period. I watched for similar or different patterns in other literature, traced my theories back through the existing literature and in the creative practice, discovered the processes of the theory, and worked at predicting the applicability of my theories across a range of different performance conditions. These methods of developing and validating my theory allowed me to create dense and precise theories that were based largely on ‘systematic statements of plausible relationships’ (Strauss and Corbin in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 279). 20 The Language of the Thesis This thesis theorises that theatre actors and directors, no matter what their own theatre styles and aims, seek ways to create presence to fulfil their creative desires and projects and to create a successful, live performance. For the purposes of this thesis a ‘successful’ performance is that which attracts and holds an audience’s attention. It creates a unique and memorable experience for its audience and hopefully for the actor/s. Presence is often described as the actor’s ultimate state in performance: an holistic and dynamic state that attracts, captures and inspires its audience. Holism, for the purposes of this thesis, is an integration not just of the mind and body but of the conscious and unconscious, the internal and external, the spiritual, the communal and the emotional. Holism is ‘the concept that the entirety or wholeness of an entity is other or greater than the sum of its parts’ (http://www.wordsmyth.net/: 2002). The challenge for this thesis has been to use academic writing to discuss the holistic nature of presence and its core principles. Presence is a living, holistic and fluctuating human state not easily defined by language because it is experienced aesthetically. As a result, presence is often only described by metaphor or analogy, by using general descriptions such as ‘living’ or ‘alive’, or by giving examples of performers who have presence. Paradoxically, in attempting to define and discuss the key principles of performance 21 presence in this thesis, I was required to express a non-written, often intangible, communicative experience in written form. 22 Chapter Three Refining Theory through Primary Data In this chapter, I will outline the two primary data gathering components of this research. 1. Creative Practice In order to further ground and validate my theories, it was important to put these theories into practice. Only then would I understand the complexities of my theories in a practical as well as a theoretical manner. The interplay of reading the literature and doing an analysis of it, then moving out into the field to verify it against reality can yield an integrated picture and enhance the conceptual richness of the theory. (Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 55) The literature, and my continuing dialogue with it, was a major method of developing and validating my theories. However, I also had a longheld need to witness first-hand how my theories would hold up as praxis. As part of this hands-on approach, I organised an intensive fiveday creative practice as research period with a select trio of actors. The general process and outcomes were the most important components of this creative practice. In other words, the creative 23 practice was not so much a ‘test’ of my thesis but rather a way of refining my theories. Accordingly, I will only briefly outline the production that was devised over the five-day period. Prior to the practice itself, I developed a scenario within which the actors could explore the four principles of performance practice. I specifically developed a scenario that was defined enough for the actors to maintain focus but might also encourage creativity and use a range of performance styles. This scenario I entitled The Afternoon Tea Ceremony. Based on the movements and rituals of the Japanese tea ceremony, the scenario would play out an Australian ‘arvo tea’ where a grandmother has invited her favourite grandson and his new girlfriend to afternoon tea. The relationships between the characters allow for moments of extreme politeness, nervousness, doting familiarity, and genuine love and warmth built into an atmosphere of ritualised, cultural tradition (based on both Japanese and Australian notions of tea making and drinking) and family events and memories. The three actors I chose to work with, two females and one male, were former colleagues and each brought to the creative practice their own experiences and qualifications. Both females had actor training experience at Australian tertiary institutions. One is studying a Bachelor of Theatre Arts (Acting) at the University of Southern Queensland while the other currently works as a freelance theatre director and education officer. The male had worked as a professional actor for over eight years 24 and now teaches drama in the New South Wales and Queensland education systems. The creative practice was situated in a dedicated performance space from 9am to 5pm over each of the five days. The aim of the creative practice was to play with the principles of presence in practice in order to redefine and confirm my theories. The actors were asked to arrive each morning in their day clothes and then to prepare themselves by washing face and hands and changing into their performance clothes. At the end of the day and at lunchtime this process was reversed. On Day 1 we met at the performance space where I explained as clearly and as precisely as possible the theories my research had so far led me to develop. As expected, the actors posed many questions about the perceived definitions and processes of the principles of performance presence and the nature of presence itself. I had expected immediate questioning of the validity of these principles but the actors agreed that theoretically these principles made perfect sense to them. Like me, however, they were interested in putting these principles into practice. Another important aspect of the creative practice process was the actors’ and my journal writing. Journal writing and pauses for reflection and discussion were staggered throughout each day’s practice. Reflection on and analysis of the way the principles of performance 25 presence work in practice were crucial throughout the creative practice. They allowed for interaction between the conceptualised, formal theories developed from secondary data and the explorative practice that provided primary data. Over the first three days we holistically explored the principles of energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality through group and individual exercises and scenario improvisations. These exercises were developed from my own acting experience as well as from leading actor training literature including: Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Lecoq, Decroux, Chekhov, Chaikin, Meisner, Suzuki, Oida, Barba and Bogart (see Appendix B for more detail on these exercises). Each exercise was chosen because of the principle or principles that it allowed the actor to explore. An example of such exercises was the ‘Internal’ and ‘External Monitor’ (Benedetti, 1998: 18) exercises explored early in Day 1. The actor is asked to perform a series of simple actions while someone else acts as their Monitor, pointing out unnecessary tensions as they go. These actions might be to line up chairs against a wall, to tidy up the room, to arrange flowers in a vase, to set the table for tea. The first actor must verify what their ‘external monitor’ actor says. Is there tension where they say it is? The actor needs to become aware of the unnecessary tension and release it. Using this exercise the actor is encouraged to develop the performance principle of awareness and, to some extent, the principle of mutuality. It also highlights the integrated, 26 holistic nature of the principles. This is also highlighted in the complementary ‘Internal Monitor’ exercise where the actor is encouraged to develop both awareness and imagination. An example of the ‘Internal Monitor’ exercise is to ask the actor to imagine a fence approximately 40cm above the ground. The actor is asked to crawl under the imaginary fence gradually pushing their head and shoulders under it. They are then asked to crawl back under the imaginary fence backwards. This exercise and other exercises that allowed the actors to explore the principles of presence were practised throughout the first three days of the creative practice. By the end of Day 3, it was agreed that considerable reflection and discussion of the principles and processes of the last few days were needed. On the morning of Day 4, the actors and I sat down to a three-hour meeting in which we discussed what they had felt and perceived during and after the work on performance principles. The main points that came out of this discussion and that informed my theories were that: 1. presence is indeed holistic and dynamic; it is not purely a dominating energy but something more subtle and flexible; 2. the four principles I had conceptualised were not only relevant but extremely useful and practical for improving performance presence; 3. the definitions and subcategories of the four principles more than adequately covered the underlying principles of performance 27 presence, and there was no need to extend or concentrate the number of principles and their subcategories; 4. the principles needed to interact and work together to create performance presence; 5. the way these principles worked together was as dynamic as presence itself, so that each principle and the way it interacts with the other principles adjusts and changes with the dynamic rhythms of performance; 6. it is very hard to consciously develop these principles and to be in performance at the same time. In other words, these principles work best when they are developed in practice to such a level that they operate subconsciously in performance. ‘We do not however study the subconscious,’ wrote Stanislavski (1950: 274) ‘but only the paths leading up to it.’ The actors commented that the minute they started improvisations, text-based work, new approaches or had an audience (just some of the elements of ‘performance’), it became harder to focus on the principles. However, with time and practice, these principles and the exploration of them becomes more inbuilt, leaving the actor to develop and adjust them more easily to new experiences or to make each performance fresh for themselves as well as for the audience; 7. these principles may occur naturally in an actor but they take discipline, effort, time and constant practice to be created and/or improved; 28 8. reflection is a very important part of the process of an actor’s development of these principles. The actor needs to reflect on and re-explore their journey in order to move further ahead. In the creative practice component of this research, the actors’ understanding and development of performance presence principles improved after they had had time to reflect on their practical work. Holistic, reflective and dynamic processes are vital to achieving presence in a sustained way throughout an actor’s career; 9. some actors may never achieve the presence that is recognised in ‘great performers’, but an actor’s development of these principles of presence can still improve their performance to levels that may not have been reached without using them; 10. each actor would like to continue working on these principles in their own work as actors, directors and theatre educators. In addition, we agreed that although the five days gave the actors the opportunity to begin to understand and explore these principles and their processes through small exercises or improvisations, this period was certainly not enough time to develop these principles to such a level that they could create sustained presence. It was felt that if an actor or actors could rehearse daily over a three-month or even longer period, they could then explore the boundaries and benefits of the principles more fully and be able to start applying these principles of presence in performance. In an ideal world my next step in this area of research 29 would be to create a theatre troupe that could dedicate itself to a sixmonth creative practice that would develop the principles of performance as well as a finished, text-based show that would run for at least two months. In that way I would be able to further research these principles first-hand and test the way the principles develop from practice to performance and in performance over time. Fortunately, similar periods of performance development have been practised and documented by leading theatre practitioners such as Stanislavski, Copeau, Grotowski, Barba, Brecht and Brook. Although their work focused on actor training or other performance concepts, their work was an excellent secondary source for my own research and theories. The three actors and I agreed that an actor’s desire to explore, learn and build their craft should be lifelong, for as soon as exploration ceases, the actor’s journey is over. This leads to stagnation of the actor’s principles of performance presence. As a result, the remainder of our time in creative practice was spent reworking some of the more developed exercises and scenarios so that we might more deeply understand the principles, their processes and the nature of presence. The principles of presence overlap and interact constantly. It is their integrated and holistic nature that creates dynamic presence for they work together in different ways in each actor and with each moment of each performance. The boundaries of these principles therefore are not 30 always clearly distinguishable. It is important to note that although Chapter Five describes the core principles of presence and their subcategories in four separate sections, presence can only be achieved when these four principles interact. As they interact and the boundaries between them blur and overlap, an holistic, dynamic performance presence is created. Performance presence is greater than the sum of its parts. The actors and I agreed that to create presence none of the principles could exist separately. They, like the higher state that they create, are holistic: they span the mind and body, the conscious and subconscious, the internal and external, the spiritual, communal and emotional planes of human life. This is somewhat likened to Stanislavski’s view of ‘the great artist nature’ (1950: 300). The principles are understood and developed by the actor in a ‘piecemeal’ (Stanislavski, 1950: 290) fashion but when these principles interact with one another and with the dynamic influences of performance, something greater is created. This ‘greater’, heightened state of presence is built through the holistic interaction of its core principles. 2. Focus Group The focus group component of my research was designed to be a validation and research method complementary to the literature review and creative practice. I had spent nearly 12 months researching the primary and secondary data but sought further expert evaluation and/or 31 redefinition of the principles of performance practice and how they create presence. I had used the literature and the creative practice to reevaluate and to validate my theories but felt that a third method of validation was needed to challenge or re-confirm my hypothesis before I began writing my research and field notes into a rough draft. I originally decided to interview three practitioners in separate, one-on-one meetings. However, in the interests of extending the scope of my primary data, I finally decided on a focus group where the interviewees would be encouraged to actively discuss any points of interest or uncertainty between themselves as well as with me. The focus group, like the other research methodology used in this thesis, needed to be well prepared and relate directly to the thesis’ key question and also needed to be flexible and open to any new ideas. The advantage of using a focus group to gather primary data was that its ‘open response format’ (Stewart and Shamdasani, 1990: 16) provided me with the opportunity to ‘obtain large and rich amounts of data … [and to] obtain deeper levels of meaning, make important connections, and identify subtle nuances in expression and meaning’ (Stewart and Shamdasani, 1990: 16). The interactive processes of the focus group also provided me with ‘direct evidence about similarities and differences in the participants’ opinions and experiences as opposed to reaching such conclusions from post hoc analyses of separate statements’ (Morgan, 1997: 10). 32 I invited three participants from a range of academic, training and practice backgrounds to meet, answer and raise questions and discuss the key theories of my thesis. The participants, Jo Loth, Leonard Meenach and Mark Radvan and I met for a one-hour recorded session. Loth has a strong performance background in Suzuki Method and physical theatre and had recently completed her own MA in theatre research. Meenach is certified in Arthur Lessac and Eric Morris methods of actor training and is currently on the teaching staff with QUT’s Acting and Technical Production Department. Radvan trained in directing at NIDA and was formerly Associate-Director of Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre before joining the theatre staff at QUT. The diverse and experienced backgrounds of these three participants were very important to the quality of feedback and discourse of the focus group. The prepared questions were simple, open-ended, and designed to encourage discussion. I began by briefly outlining my research methodology and the theories this methodology had led me to develop. I presented them with a current conceptual framework of my theories (see Figure 1.1, Chapter Five: 60) that outlined not only the four principles of performance presence but also the processes of interaction between them that led to presence. My first question was broad: how would each participant define ‘presence’? This generated much discussion but was finally narrowed down to several key points. Firstly, they all agreed that presence is something that ‘attracts and holds the attentiveness of the 33 audience’ (Radvan, 2002: focus group). Secondly, they stressed the communication of human experience that is inherent in performance presence. Without spontaneous, dynamic and ‘organic impulse’ (Meenach, 2002: focus group) this human experience becomes stale, the communication becomes false and the performance loses its presence. However, this spontaneous impulse could only be released when the actor was fully focused on their objective. All agreed that the principles outlined in my thesis did underlie their understanding of performance presence but that the actor needed to develop these principles to such a level that they could operate subconsciously while the actor focused on the objective at hand. And although spontaneity and impulse were crucial to the principles of performance presence, it was also agreed that an actor needed ‘skill and craft to communicate’ (Loth, 2002: focus group) the experience of performance or , as Mark Radvan (2002: focus group) put it, to ‘capture the humanity’. Each of the participants used varying methods to train successful actors. Although we touched on some of these techniques, they are not particularly relevant to the central subject of my thesis. I turned instead to the question of how they felt the principles of performance presence interacted with one another during both training and performance. Once again, they all agreed that the principles and craft of performance needed to be practised and honed to a strong level so that spontaneous interaction and truthful focus could take place during the actual 34 performance. There was some disagreement as to exactly how long these processes could be expected to take so that sustained and dynamic presence could be readily achieved. Some participants felt that it could be achieved over the three-year period that is normally allocated to tertiary actor training, while others felt it was a life-long quest. However it was agreed that an actor must always be willing to explore performance and that this takes considerable time and effort. No matter the type or duration of training, without a willingness to explore and engage in the principles of performance, an actor cannot create sustained presence. These opinions, and other data gathered from the focus group, are incorporated throughout this thesis. 35 Chapter Four Performance Presence – Defining the Indefinable An Introduction to Presence If acting is complex, it is because we are complex. It is the goal of acting to learn to manage that complexity, to learn to use it, and to create a powerful and subtle art of it. (Cohen, 1978: 236) Presence is powerful, but this sense of power often overlooks the subtle and dynamic nature of sustained presence. Often definitions of presence refer to the actor having charisma, having ‘it’ or being ‘in the moment’. None of these descriptions is particularly useful, however, because they exclude the dynamic processes and principles that are inherent to performance presence. To avoid this, many theatre practitioners use metaphors, analogies or descriptive examples. During this thesis’ period of creative practice, the actors used the analogy of body surfing to describe their understanding of performance presence. They felt that the processes inherent in bodysurfing were similar to that of creating presence. First, the actors agreed, one learns the basic techniques which will enable one to catch a wave. These techniques are based on principles of physics that underlie the way solid matter moves through water. As 36 the learner begins to catch waves, they are very conscious of these principles and the way they affect their technique. Gradually, with practice, the learner becomes more skilled at reacting to and catching waves and improving their ride. Eventually this results in the bodysurfer feeling ‘at one’ (Muspratt, 2002: creative practice) or integrated with each wave. However, it is as hard to chart the detail of each body surf as it is each performance, because every wave is different and the bodysurfer must vary and adjust their surfing technique to the underlying currents of each ride. The bodysurfer, like the actor, is working holistically within the framework of certain core principles to guide their performance. In performance, the actor harnesses the principles of energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality to achieve and sustain presence in each performance. These principles and their processes will be more specifically defined in Chapter Five. The bodysurfer analogy is just one way of describing or attempting to define presence. One of the most regularly used analogies for presence that I came across in my research was that of performance presence as a flame. ‘Underneath the stew pot, there’s the flame. That’s why it boils,’ wrote Decroux (in Zarrilli, 1995: 81). The flame, or presence, is that which keeps performance on the boil. This analogy allows that performance is dynamic but once again ignores the dynamic nature of the flame itself. It also excludes the importance of the audience in the process of creating presence. Ryszard Cieslak also used the image of 37 the flame to describe his rehearsal and performance processes at Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre. ‘The flame,’ said Cieslak ‘is my inner process each night. The flame is what illuminates the score, what the spectator sees through the score’ (in Schechner, 1988: 19). With this analogy we begin to get a clearer picture of the processes and requirements for achieving presence. Another common, and perhaps more dynamic, description of presence is that it is ‘lit’ or ‘alive’. This is well exemplified in the following statement by actor David Warrilow: I am responsible for certain aspects of performance, but there’s a whole other level which is coming from outside of me. What I’m supposed to do is channel that, whatever it is. My image of it is that energy – light – is coming to the top of my head, which is where the ‘soul’ is supposed to enter the body; and that I am to channel it. It is channeled …through the vocal, physical, breathing mechanism which is called David Warrilow and then it’s given to whomever is waiting to receive it. (Lassiter in Zarrilli, 1995: 319) Philip Auslander (1999: 2) writes of himself as ‘impatient’ with certain generic descriptions of presence. For Auslander (1999: 2), ‘clichés and mystifications like “the magic of live theatre”, [or] the “energy” that exists between performers and spectators in a live event,’ are ‘unreflective assumptions’ that fail to ‘explicate the value of “liveness” ‘. I am not quite as ‘impatient’ as Auslander. For despite the inadequacy of such descriptions, they are at least an attempt to put the very vital forces of performance presence into words. Translating the live experience of 38 theatre into written language always loses some of the impact of the actual event. And yet, even Auslander accepts (1999: 2,3) that describing presence through imagery or metaphor may have ‘value for performers and partisans of live performance. Indeed it may even be necessary for performers, especially, to believe in them’. So how best can I describe presence for the purposes of this thesis? I aim to define presence not by describing it with metaphor or analogy, but by outlining its integral importance to performance and by defining its fundamental principles and processes. Despite the range of ways that presence has been defined in this thesis’ primary and secondary data, these data also strongly indicate that most theatre practitioners do believe that performance presence, or at least their definition of performance presence, is crucial to theatre. As Barba asks, ‘why is it that if you are watching two actors on stage, even if you are unfamiliar with their theatrical form and cannot understand what they are saying, you are unable to take your eyes off one of them whilst the other is of no interest at all?’ (Barba in Watson, 1995: 143) Stanislavski called his chosen ideal of acting, ‘experiencing’ (Carnicke in Hodge, 2000: 17). This ‘experiencing’ related to the most important point of theatre: that it is, above all, a human experience. ‘The Russian word [for ‘experiencing’] carries many different nuances, amongst them ‘to experience’, ‘to feel’, ‘to become aware’, ‘to go through’, ‘to live 39 through’,’ says Carnicke (in Hodge, 2000: 17). Cohen too, defines performance as an experience: a human experience that is shared by both actor and audience. Audiences … consider that a performer has presence if and when he is ‘convincing’, ‘commanding’, ‘captivating’, or ‘charming’. In each of these cases, however the audience is describing not the actor but themselves: they are saying, in effect, ‘I was convinced’, ‘I was commanded’, ‘I was captivated’, ‘I was charmed’. They are saying that the actor made them have an experience. This, of course, is the entire goal of theatricality in the first place. (Cohen, 1978: 219) Stanislavski said that the actor who had presence was the actor who ‘startles, overwhelms, stuns me. … It shakes, enthralls, and engulfs [me]’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 298). He described this quality of presence as ‘magnificent in its bold illogicality, rhythmic in its unrhythmicness, full of psychologic understanding in its very rejection of ordinarily accepted psychology … It cannot be repeated. The next performance will be quite different, yet no less powerful or inspired’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 298). It was through descriptions like this that I began to notice the dynamic and holistic patterns of presence, its key principles and processes. Grotowski worked extensively on developing a best performance practice and firmly believed in the ‘living presence of the actor’ (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 196) that was particular to the theatre and set it apart from other forms of representation. 40 Central to Grotowski’s conception of performance was the notion of the ‘total act’, a culminating moment in the actor’s role in which s/he is able to transcend the performance score and the technical demands of the part, revealing a truth that is paradoxically both personal and universal. (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 197) Grotowski’s theory was that once the actor has fully mastered and absorbed the disciplines of technique, the unconscious could emerge and connect with not only the actor but also the influences of each unique performance. Grotowski referred to this as the ‘flow of life: the cycle of living impulses’ (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 205) and believed that when the actor channelled this ‘flow of life’, performance presence was created. Grotowski’s techniques aimed to develop the actor into just such ‘an organism-channel through which the energies circulate, the energies transform, the subtle is touched’ (Schechner and Wolford, 1997: 376). This organism channel is dynamic and holistic: it is reactive to its external and internal impulses and integrates the mind and body, the conscious and subconscious, the emotional, communal and spiritual realms of human life. ‘ “Presence” is a rather abstract term often referred to within this book in different contexts of actor training,’ says Hodge (2000: 7) in her introduction to Twentieth Century Actor Training. Hodge’s introduction briefly outlines some technical theories relating to presence in training. These include ‘concentration and control of energy’, interaction, being able to operate on ‘several levels of consciousness simultaneously’ and 41 being in ‘the immediate moment’ (Hodge, 2000: 7). However, for the purposes of this thesis, the most useful definition of presence in performance training is described by Dorinda Hulton, one of Chaikin’s actors, as occurring: [W]hen the actor allows a particular kind of shifting balance, or dialogue, between body and mind, in listening to and watching for the emerging form, the emerging image, and is able, moment to moment, to come into alignment with it. In such a case there is a perceptible quality of ‘presence’, moment to moment within the process of change and transformation, this quality of ‘presence’ having more to do with the actor in operation with imagery rather than uniquely with the actor’s ‘self’. (in Hodge, 2000: 161) This definition highlights the central patterns and themes of presence that much of my research’s primary and secondary data brought into focus: dynamism, holism and the need for presence to be witnessed externally. Dynamism The term ‘dynamic’ does not refer to presence being forced upon the audience. Presence is not a state that the actor can fake or create just by being technically adept or by using exaggeration. Nor is it created purely through energy. Clive Barker refers to two kinds of performance energy. One is ‘blasting energy’ which he defines as an energy that can be created by forcing energy upon the audience to sell the show ‘regardless of the quality, or even the nature, of the material’ (Barker in 42 Hodge, 2000: 124). This is not presence, nor is it particularly useful for creating presence. The second type of energy is an ‘internal energy which sprang from engagement with the processes followed during rehearsal’ (Barker in Hodge, 2000: 124). This more subtle style of energy is more likely to create presence. Although energy, like imagination, awareness and mutuality, is one of the key principles of performance practice, it alone does not create presence. However Barker’s differentiation between the blasting and the subtle can be applied to the nature of dynamic presence. Dynamic presence is subtle and engages directly with the flow of its performance environment. Presence is reactive to performance. As performance is dynamic, presence must interact dynamically with its performance environment to exist and survive. This dynamic interaction is what makes live theatre such an experience for both actor and audience alike. For herein lies the ‘unpredictability’ (Meenach, 2002: focus group) of interaction which is so human and so fundamental to live theatre performance. ‘The script is going to live in its own unforeseeable ways. The other people onstage will be acting in this rehearsal, in this performance, in this moment, in this take, in their own unforeseeable ways’ (Mamet, 1997: 30). Both Mamet and Bogart stress that acting requires ‘courage’ (Mamet, 1997: 32) and ‘bravery’ (Bogart in http:www.tcg.org/am_theatre/at_articles/ jan01_bogart_linklater.html, 28 February 2002: 8) to be able to interact with the unpredictable, dynamic flow of performance. This dynamic flow 43 affects everything within that performance including the presence of the actor/s and how the audience perceives them. Oida and Barba both refer to the Japanese Noh Master, Motokiyo Zeami, and his use of Jo, Ha, Kyu in performance. Jo, Ha, Kyu is another way of explaining the way presence needs to react to the dynamic flow of performance in order to exist, in order to be experienced by the audience. It is a natural rhythmic structure found in ‘every moment of performance as well as its structure’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 31). ‘The word jo literally means ‘beginning’ or ‘opening’, ha means ‘break’ or ‘development’, and kyu has the sense of ‘fast’ or ‘climax’’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 31). This Jo, Ha, Kyu or dynamic flow of performance is found in each aspect of performance, each speech, each gesture, each performer, the interaction between each performer and the performer/s and the audience. The sense of onward progression is never absent. Sometimes the surface of the action slows down, or stops completely, and there is no visible Jo, Ha, Kyu; nonetheless the development of Jo, Ha, Kyu is still happening, this time on an internal level. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 31) Presence, then, should move with this dynamic rhythm, act with it, react to it. Presence is not a static state. For presence can carry individual rhythms of the performer and be carried by the dynamic rhythms of the performance. Rather than defining presence as existing in the moment, this thesis theorises that presence is a more dynamic state that reacts to and moves from one moment to the next. 44 Although actors are often directed to work ‘in the immediate moment’ (Hodge, 2000: 7), if they remain in the moment and do not move in reaction to the next moment, or the dynamic flow of performance, presence is no longer there. ‘Jo, Ha, Kyu isn’t just an esoteric theatrical concept,’ says Oida (1997: 32) ‘but a rhythm that the audience senses in their flesh and bones.’ If actors are not aware of the rhythms (either consciously or subconsciously), then any performance presence that has been developed becomes lost as the audience senses a loss of action. From the audience’s point of view, there is a real sense of being constantly carried forwards. There may be a huge variety of surface rhythms within any given performance, but the audience will never sense that the action has ‘slackened off’. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 31) It is possible for the actor to work with the rhythm or to deliberately work against it. Sometimes breaking the rhythm can have a tremendous effect on the audience by increasing audience attentiveness and improving performance presence. Either way the actor needs to be working instinctively with the dynamic nature of the performance. In general, performers know what their next action will be. While they are carrying out one action, they are already thinking about the next. They mentally anticipate, and this automatically induces a physical process which influences their dynamics and which is perceived by the spectator’s kinaesthetic sense. (Barba, 1991: 213) An actor’s awareness (one of the key principles of performance) of the changing dynamic rhythm helps create the actor’s performance 45 presence and potentially improves the performance as a whole. As will be discussed further on in this chapter, this awareness can cross all planes of the actor’s consciousness. Chekhov (1991: 129) referred to performance’s dynamic movement in terms of an ‘artistic frame’. ‘Each artistic action, however large or small, must be preceded by a preparatory activity and then followed by a sustaining moment. This creates the frame. Neither nature nor man is exempt from this law’ (Chekhov, 1991: 129). Performance, one of humanity’s methods of communicating nature and the experiences of man, has its own overarching artistic frame as well as smaller frames within each performance. The actor must perform dynamically in order to stay within the frames of performance. Only then will their performance ‘appear significant and harmonious to the audience’ (Chekhov, 1991: 130). Holism Holism, as previously mentioned, is more than the symbiotic relationship of mind and body. Holism, in philosophical terms, ‘claims that reality is an interconnected, interdependent whole, which radically changes the nature of each element within it’ (Settanni, 1990: back cover). In the early twentieth century, Jan Christiaan Smuts theorised that ‘matter, life and mind were ultimately one’ (Settanni, 1990: 109). However, it is 46 Smuts’ application of the term ‘holism’ in relation to the human organism that is the most relevant to live performance: The whole, being an organized unit, was not simply an assemblage of parts, loosely strung together. To the contrary, it was a tightly interknit unit, displaying a unity of function and organization greater than the assemblage of its parts. Any living organism was an example of such a whole, but the human person constituted an ever superior, more unified example of such a whole. … The human personality represents the apogee of all possible holistic units. In personality, mind and body are integrated and the goal of the personality expands through all such interconnections with experience, forming increasingly wider and more organized unities. (Settanni, 1990: 109-111) Performance presence is a uniquely holistic phenomenon. The unification of mind and body necessarily incorporates and integrates internal and external influences, the conscious and subconscious, the spiritual, the communal and the emotional. Holistic presence is created through the full integration of all of these elements. Such integration creates a unified whole where the boundaries between terms like the ‘physical’ and the ‘psychological’ are not clear-cut. Indeed, any attempts to define them separately from one another automatically negate their inherently holistic nature. They rely on and integrate with one another to achieve a greater and more complex whole. A Unified Body and Mind Great variation exists in the terminology attributed to the dialogue that occurs between mind and body in performance. Some of these terms include: ‘psycho-physical’ (Chekhov, 1991: xli), ‘physiopsychological’ 47 (Zarrilli, 1995: 193), or the ‘organic body-mind’ (Stanislavski in Barba, 1991: 150). These terms negate the unified nature of the mind and body as they reflect a pasting together of two separate components which, in reality, are not separable. The English word which most appropriately conveys the indivisibility of a unified mind and body state is ‘holism’. As I have already stated that holism, for the purposes of this thesis, applies to a unified state that encompasses more than the integrated mind and body, I will refer to the unified mind and body as simply that: a unified mind and body. A unified mind and body is integral to performance presence. As Carnicke (in Hodge, 2000: 16) writes: The first, most persuasive of these [essential assumptions about acting] is Stanislavsky’s holistic belief that mind and body represent a psychophysical continuum. … Stanislavsky insists that: ‘In every physical action there is something psychological, and in the psychological, something physical’. As he explored the ‘body-mind’s organity’ (Stanislavski in Barba, 1991: 150) in performance, Stanislavski (in Hodge, 2000: 16) grew to understand that there were ‘various paths’ an actor could take to explore and benefit from this ‘psychophysical’ unity, with the ultimate benefit being the ‘general creative state’ of stage presence. Shaner (in Zarrilli, 1995: 189) describes the unified mind and body as both ‘symbiotic’ and ‘polar’. By ‘polar’ Shaner does not mean that they 48 are separated but instead that they are at work concurrently in performance. Phenomenologically speaking, one can never experience an independent mind or body. … Although there may be mind-aspects and bodyaspects within all lived experience the presence of either one includes experientially the presence of the other. This relationship may be described as being ‘polar’ rather than ‘dual’ because mind and body require each other as a necessary condition for being what they are. The relationship is symbiotic. (Shaner in Zarrilli, 1995: 189) Therefore, mind and body ‘live together’ (Macquarie Dictionary, 1991: 1771). Their ‘union’ is ‘necessary to both’ if performance presence is to exist. Internal and External Although for the purposes of this thesis ‘internal’ refers mainly to the actor’s internal stimuli while ‘external’ refers to those stimuli outside the actor, in some literature the body is discussed as ‘external’ and the mind ‘internal’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 41). In either situation, the actor is working in an holistic way where both the mind and body and the internal and external influences of performance interact with one another. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you to go from the inside out – or the outside in. It’s a circle’ writes Blumenthal (in Hodge, 2000: 161). Lorna Marshall in The Invisible Actor agrees. She uses Oida’s analogy of the actor’s mind as rider and the body as the horse to describe how they must work in ‘harmony’ with one another in ‘good’ performance (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 41). This harmonious state combines ‘the double 49 aspect of inner psycho-technique with external physical technique’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 282). All your inner resources and physical capacities are on call ready to respond to any bid. You play on them as an organist on the keys of his instrument. As soon as the tone fades away on one of them you pull out another stop. (Stanislavski, 1968: 283) Oida quotes Noh Master Zeami, who says that in performance: ‘The body moves seven-tenths, the heart moves ten-tenths’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 42). Although this ratio allows for less flexibility and dynamic movement than Stanislavski’s analogy of the organ, it is another way of expressing the unified mind and body in performance. Using this ratio, an actor’s physical expression might no longer mask the internal life of the performer. When you are learning a role, you must do it one hundred per cent, using both the inner life and the physical expression to the maximum. However, if you continue to work the physical expression to the maximum when performing, you prevent the inner life from becoming accessible to the audience. If you slightly relax the outer expression, then what is happening inside can be felt by the audience. They will feel that they are watching something very interesting and involving. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 42) Despite the precision of Zeami’s 7:10 external to internal ratio, this balance may not always be the same for each actor or for each moment in performance. However, the ratio serves to emphasise not only the inseparable nature of the mind and the body and of the internal and external but also the spiritual, emotional and communal elements of 50 holism. It also emphasises the difference between holistic ‘daily life’ (Panigrahi in Barba, 1991: 9) where we do not always need to train or to be as consciously aware of our mind and body unification as we do when in holistic performance mode or ‘extra-daily’ (Barba, 1991: 9) life. Integration of the Conscious and Subconscious Holistic presence unifies the consciousness as well as the mind and the body. The performer’s conscious state in performance is elevated from the conscious and subconscious levels employed in day to day living. During training and rehearsal an actor has the time and the opportunity to be consciously aware of their performance and to consciously develop their acting technique. However the aim of most actor training is to lift the actor from a strongly conscious level to a performance state where, although the actor is aware that they are on stage and playing a role, their subconscious levels of performance are also actively engaged. They are in a state of ‘heightened consciousness’ (Hodge, 2000: 242). They are conscious that they are in performance mode and also that the performance mode indicates a blurring of the conscious with the subconscious. ‘These levels weave in and out and are sometimes present in combination’ (Chaikin, 1991: 21). If the actor performs on a solely conscious level, that is, if they are consciously aware of every technique of acting that they apply, performance presence could not exist. ‘Time on stage moves too quickly [for the actor to consciously control performance]; and the moment, if one has time to 51 consider it, is long gone by the time the consideration begins’ (Mamet, 1997: 31). Oida confirms this: ‘[w]hen you are actually on stage, you must forget about all the theories, all the philosophies, all the interesting techniques. Just do it’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 120). There is some debate amongst theatre practitioners as to whether there are two levels of consciousness or several overlapping layers of consciousness. Some, like Chekhov, refer to a dual consciousness of the actor: At one time in Russia, we thought that if we were acting we must forget everything else. Then some of our actors came to the point where they discovered that real acting was when we could act and be filled with feelings, and yet be able to make jokes with our partners – two consciousnesses. (Chekhov, 1985: 102) Grotowski’s term ‘I-I’ referred to dual consciousness not by splitting the actor in two but by doubling them. ‘The question is to be passive in action and active in seeing’ (in Schechner and Wolford, 1997: 378). In Grotowski’s work passive and active refer to the subconscious impulselevel and the conscious, awareness-level respectively. Other practitioners refer to layers or levels of consciousness. Hodge, for example, described Staniewski’s Centre for Theatre Practices, Gardzienice, as aiming to ‘achieve multiple states of presence, in order to deal with the many realities simultaneously. [And] to realise a heightened state of performance consciousness which Artaud had reached for as an ideal’ (Hodge, 2000: 242). This thesis acknowledges 52 that there are several levels of consciousness but that these levels are often referred to in a binary way, the conscious and subconscious, in order to write more clearly about the integrated processes of human consciousness in action. A human being is capable of channelling the autonomic, subconscious and conscious simultaneously. Breathing is a good example of the autonomic. We do it independently of all other action. However we can consciously adjust some autonomic action. Humans can, for example, consciously change breath. If panicked or angry, we can consciously adjust our breathing to calm down. Likewise we can adjust our breathing to give us more energy or more vocal volume. The conscious state, at its most basic sense, is an awareness of a given situation or of something we are experiencing. The subconscious stems from what we have learned or experienced previously. During our first few driving lessons, for example, we drive consciously. We experience and are very aware of what we are doing to operate a car. As we become more experienced at driving, these operations become part of the learned subconscious. We operate the gears, indicators and steering wheel apparently automatically. However we are not (we hope) ‘on automatic’. Exercising learned and practiced behaviour gives us the opportunity to consciously become more aware of the other factors affecting our driving such as other traffic, road signs and road rules. It is in this way that we become more practised and more competent drivers. 53 This latter stage of driving is the most similar to theatrical performance. The co-existence of the conscious and subconscious in performance allows the subconscious to channel all that the actor has learned and experienced prior to their current experience on stage. These layers of impulse (both internal and external), awareness and interaction exist and grow dynamically as the performance progresses. You cannot at any moment concentrate on situation, style, characterization, theatricality as though they were so many loosely arranged ping-pong balls. You must stack them so that one rests upon another, so that by handling one of them correctly, you will take care of all of them at the same time. The bottom plate, the foundation of acting, is the character’s intended victory in his situation. It demands the actor’s total concentration and all of his conscious, controlled energy. (Cohen, 1978: 214) For Cohen, acting principles and techniques are practiced to such an extent that they are active subconsciously in performance, leaving the actor to concentrate on his purpose or action. Some theatre practitioners may disagree with Cohen’s belief that the actor is driven by their action in performance (although this is well supported by the likes of Stanislavski, Barba and Meisner), however the crucial point Cohen makes for this thesis is that both the subconscious and conscious are integrated in performance presence. In order to create presence the actor must ‘appeal to the unconscious and the conscious’ (Strasberg in Hodge, 2000: 134). The four key principles of performance presence, as we shall see more clearly in Chapter Five, also require this heightened 54 consciousness. The principles must be developed to such an extent that they interact and operate subconsciously, thus allowing the actor to focus more consciously on their objective and their interaction with the dynamic influences of performance. By consciously developing the principles of energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality, the actor may be able to establish them as ‘normal, natural attributes of our second nature’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 283). Only then will s/he be able to apply them subconsciously in performance and develop ‘the general creative state’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 282) of presence. If an actor cannot channel the subconscious, the conscious takes over and may block the flow of energy and impulse required to create presence. If the subconscious reigns supreme the actor will lack focus and control and presence will also be lost. Performance presence requires all levels of consciousness to be in play. In children’s play, the laws of the theatre may be studied in their most fundamental forms: the décor, the thing requisite, suggested by what is actually there, ever-present realization that it is all only play. The actor is in the same case. It is a fairy story that he can ever forget the audience. Even in the moment of highest excitement the consciousness obtrudes itself upon him that thousands are following him with breathless, tremulous suspense through the last doors opening to his inmost self. (Reinhardt in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 297) In his writings on The Dual Personality of the Actor, Constant Coquelin (in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 199) took this same view to the extreme. If you identify yourself with your part to the point of asking yourself, as you look at the audience, ‘What 55 are all those people doing here?’ – if you have no more consciousness where you are and what you are doing – you have ceased to be an actor: you are a madman. Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop processes indicated her belief in the need to develop both conscious and subconscious levels of performance. Her training, like that of Grotowski and Suzuki and many other theatre practitioners, used repetitive and disciplined exercises that aimed eventually to break the actor’s conscious actions. ‘This process is complicated, relies upon trust and self-confidence in giving up the conscious control which the actor often inhibits’ (Barker in Hodge, 2000: 121). So the key to performance consciousness is that the layers of consciousness and subconsciousness are integrated and adjust dynamically to what is required of the actor on stage. When you act, you are totally involved with the character you are playing. If the character is sad, your body and emotions move accordingly. At the same time, there is another ‘you’ who is ordering the performance, who is not at all sad. You can feel the relationship between the ‘you’ who is fully engaged in the moment, and the ‘you’ that stands outside and watches. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 54) Performance Presence and the Audience Over the centuries performance has developed and redeveloped itself to fit the mould that was required of its time, place and culture. But always 56 ‘the relationship between theater and society, performer and spectator [were] linked closely together’ (Lancaster, 1997: 75). However, this thesis maintains that performance is more than just ‘linked closely’ with the spectator. Performance and performance presence cannot, as definitions, exist without an audience. THERE IS NO THEATRE without an audience. ... It is the mutually enjoyed experience of performers and audience which constitutes theatre; it is the LIVING TOGETHER of an ordered existence, the interchange of spoken or unspoken thoughts, ideas, emotions, actions – in other words, transactions – which make theatre. (Roberts, 1971: 27) Performance necessarily requires an audience. Performance presence, the ultimate state of performance, requires an audience to exist. As the aim of this thesis is to define the key principles of presence an actor requires in performance, I shall not be too deeply concerned with the audience’s role in performance. However it would be inexcusable to ignore the relationship that exists between actor and spectator (this is covered more extensively in the section on Mutuality in Chapter Five) as without this relationship, presence cannot be created. This shared, mutual relationship between actor and audience will be discussed, for the purposes of this thesis, from the actor’s perspective. Sauter (2000: 53) defines theatre as ‘the communicative intersection between the performer’s actions and the spectator’s reactions’. This intersection, one of presence’s central and identifying features, can only be created during the process of the performance itself. ‘It is the very 57 “eventfulness” of all theatre, the interaction between performer and spectator which facilitates theatricality’ (Sauter, 2000: 63). This definition is another indication of theatre’s strong link to daily life and existence, to the human need for expression, communication and creation. Performance is a heightened way of experiencing this human truth and is ultimately what brings the audience and the actor to the theatre. Theatre is much more than a ‘ “work of stage art” (or simply “a piece of art”)’; it is a ‘ “communicative event” ‘ (Sauter, 2000: 20). Performance communication is different from that of daily communication. In many forms of live theatre, the experience is often shared kinaesthetically between the actor and the audience, the only consciously formal communication being the final curtain call and applause. In order to create presence in performance the actor needs the skills and spontaneity to be able to communicate in a heightened and kinaesthetic way: Acting, which takes place for an audience, is not as the academic model would have us believe. It is not a test. It is an art, and it requires not tidiness, not paint-by-numbers intellectuality, but immediacy and courage. (Mamet, 1997: 32) The communication necessary for performance presence relies on there being both an actor and an audience because ‘… if a spectator does not like the actors,’ or if the actor does not attract or affect the spectator, ‘the performance becomes meaningless’ (Sauter, 2000: 5), and ‘there will 58 not be any communication at all’ (Sauter, 2000: 59). Without the spectator/actor relationship, performance presence cannot exist. Performance presence is a complex and heightened state. It is an holistic state which is greater than the sum of its parts. It integrates a unified mind and body, the actor’s internal and external influences, heightened levels of consciousness and communication as well as other elements of human life such as spirituality, emotion and communality. Presence is also dynamic. It is able to adjust to the dynamics of the unpredictable and communicative experience of live performance. But how can an actor, irrespective of their technical training, create or improve presence? And, more importantly, how can they sustain presence throughout an entire show or recreate it performance after performance? answer. These are the questions my thesis will attempt to 59 Chapter Five The Key Principles of Performance Presence Conceptual Framework Ultimately, many twentieth-century practitioners have eschewed the notion of a comprehensive [training] system in favour of identifying first principles within the context in which their training operates … This suggests that some principles are fundamental, capable of transcending their origins and therefore justifiably can be recognised as part of a matrix of key concepts in twentieth-century Western actor training. (Hodge, 2000: 8) Energy, Imagination, Awareness and Mutuality. These are the terms used in this thesis to define the key principles of performance presence. Baldly stated, these terms mean virtually nothing. They are labels. They sum up, as concisely as possible, the complex properties and processes that surround each principle. Look not to the name of the principle but to what the name stands for. Lecoq (Lecoq, 2000: 166) referred to the principles underlying dramatic representation as the moteur (motor/s of play), a term which is often translated as ‘the driving force’ of performance. These principles, like the performance presence that they are needed to create, are holistic, dynamic, and must interact with the audience. Presence is not fixed in 60 the moment. Therefore its principles must be flexible and dynamic enough to interact with the flow of performance and performance influences such as the audience, other actors, time, space, light, rhythm and sound. The integration of an actor’s energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality with the dynamic influences of each performance creates an holistic presence (Fig 1.1). Principles of Presence in Practice Dynamic movement of performance Energy Imagination presence Mutuality Fig 1.1 Awareness Presence occurs when all four principles: energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality, are integrated in performance. These principles are also dynamic, that is, they interact with the dynamic and unpredictable nature of each performance. As the actor practises and develops these principles, they become more subconsciously integrated with her/his performance. The actor can then interact instinctively with the dynamic nature of each performance and focus on the performance objective at hand. As this process develops, the boundaries between the four key principles become more and more integrated, which ultimately creates an holistic and dynamic presence. With reflection, discipline, practice 61 and a willingness to explore and to enter into the unpredictable nature of performance, the principles of presence dilate and overlap. Presence can grow, improve and be sustained (Fig 1.2). Improved Development of the Principles of Presence Dynamic movement of performance Energy Imagination Presence Mutuality Fig 1.2 Awareness As the actor becomes more accustomed to using the principles of presence, her/his presence dilates and integrates more easily with the dynamic nature of each performance. Fig 1.2 is adapted from a Media Convergence diagram (Productivity Commission 2000, ‘Convergence’ in KKB018 Creative Industries Required Readings (2002), Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology). The beauty of these principles is that they are adaptable to each unique performance. Their balance and interaction with one another changes with each moment of performance. Such adjustment allows the actor to sustain performance presence throughout an entire performance or throughout a season of performances. Sometimes the actor can perform the same role, with the same cast, for years with hundreds of performances. I used to watch Sir Laurence (Olivier) when he played Mr. Puff in The Critic. To the identical syllable, in each performance, he would take off his hat, take out the hatpin and stab the hat with the hatpin. He 62 didn’t vary a hair’s breadth from performance to performance, yet it was always funny and always astonishing. It occurred to me that it is possible to be a well-trained instrument, to perform as a craftsman without ever becoming ordinary, and if there is such a thing as perfection in acting it’s worthwhile living for and striving for that perfection. (Harris in Cohen, 1978: 139) In an interview with actress Therese Gihese, Brecht asked when a ‘good actor’ (in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 318) is ready to play their role. Brecht: Must a good actor be able to play his part under all conditions? Does he need a certain length of time for working into it, or must he be able at any time to play the part he has learned? Giehse: If he really plays the part – at any time. It just requires a certain period of concentration. By ‘really’ playing the part I understand Giehse to mean having presence. In order to be ready to play the part, the actor must have a developed practice of the principles of presence. Concentration is required during this development period but so are exploration and openness. Constant exploration of the principles of presence through practice and reflection is crucial if the actor is to avoid mechanical or habitualised performance. Just as our daily activities lack physical dynamism because they are habitual actions learned through constant repetition, so too can the actor’s performance presence become dulled through mechanical or habitualised action. To become too much at ease with one’s development and performance surroundings leads to 63 ‘lifelessness’ (Watson in Zarrilli, 1995: 136). Although much actor training relies on codified structures and repetition to improve impulse and spontaneity, performance presence requires a balance of practice, exploration and reflection of its key principles. This is the actor’s neverending journey and although the actor may experience moments and periods of success in achieving presence, they should never stop learning and experiencing. Energy 3. power as exerted. 4. ability to produce action or effect. (Macquarie Dictionary, 1991: 578) Barba (1991: 74) describes energy as ‘life’ or ‘presence’: that which enables the ‘performer to function as such for the spectator’. Although this thesis agrees that presence can be described as ‘alive’ and definitely requires a particular type of performance energy, it disagrees with Barba’s description of energy as presence. My research has led me to theorise that energy is only one of the four central principles required to create presence. It is not presence itself nor can it create presence on its own. Presence also requires imagination, awareness and mutuality. Performance energy is not just ‘blasting energy’ (Barker in Hodge, 2000: 124), it is subtle and dynamic. It is also holistic and is created through a constant adjustment and interaction of forces. Often these forces are 64 completely opposite in nature. The nature and processes of performance energy have been developed in this thesis with reference to the work and theories of leading theatre practitioners. For an actor, the equivalent problem [of creating alive and resonating art] is maintaining a lot of ‘presence’ when you are faced with an audience. Although they may not put it into words, the audience can sense the performer’s energy, and for them it is one of the main pleasures of theatregoing. Anything that increases your energy will help your acting. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 47) Interestingly, in his memoir Threads of Time, Brook (1998: 171) uses Oida’s own performance to exemplify the importance of energy in maintaining the audience’s attention: By an inexplicable yet precise effort that demanded a subtle mastery of his energies – by ‘making an emptiness’, as he called it – he became so powerful a magnet that even when he descended and walked among the children, at times deliberately disappearing from sight, they all stayed silent and attentive until he regained the platform again. But how does the actor, regardless of the method of their training or style of performance experience, harness the appropriate energy to help create presence in performance? Preparation and the ‘Dynamic Stillness’ of Energy The more an actor explores their energy in practice the more they are able to understand their energy and its origin. Oida’s ‘Nine Holes’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 4-13) is just one way of preparing the actor’s energy 65 and, in particular, the actor’s key energy channels, for performance. Oida uses the Japanese tradition of awakening the body’s nine orifices: two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, one mouth, one anus, one urinary opening. Preparation involves clenching and relaxing these openings, massaging them, exploring them so that the actor is alert and aware of the different body channels. In addition, Oida also prepares energydriving body parts such as the spine, the hands and the hara or centre. ‘But the Japanese concept of the hara is seen as something more than a physical location; it is the core of the entire self. It is the centre of a person’s strength, health, energy, integrity and sense of connection to the world and the universe,’ explains Lorna Marshall (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 10). Barba refers to other Oriental theatre terms for the holistic centre of a performer’s energy like ‘prana or shakti in India; koshi, ki-hai and yugen in Japan; chikara, taxu and bayu in Bali; and kung-fu in China’ (Barba, 1991: 74). Preparation and practice allow the actor to develop and explore energy and the other principles of performance presence in action. It is an energy quite different to that of daily life and needs to be developed. With practice and understanding, an actor’s holistic awareness of this principle grows and learns to adjust to the particular environment of performance. One puts one’s energies to the test. During his or her training, the performer can model, measure, explode and control their energies, let them go, and play with them, like something incandescent which is nevertheless controlled with cold precision. (Barba, 1991: 246) 66 Barba’s (1995: 13) research into theatre anthropology covered both ‘North Pole’ and ‘South Pole’ performers. South Pole performers ‘do not belong to a performance genre characterized by a detailed stylistic code’. North Pole performers model ‘scenic behaviour according to a well-proven system of rules that define a style or a codified genre’. These performers are referred to in Barba’s earlier work and in other literature as Eastern performers. Barba’s ‘fascination with Eastern performance stems from the ability of its actors to project a powerful presence on stage’ (Watson in Zarrilli, 1995: 133). By drawing performance and training parallels between these Eastern forms and his own work with the Odin Teatret, Barba developed key principles ‘which dictate the use of energy during performance’ (Watson in Zarrilli, 1995: 133). This energy is heightened from the energy required in daily life and is ‘a major source of actor presence during performance’ (Watson in Zarrilli, 1995: 134). As the actor develops the principles of performance presence, they may also begin to understand how the principle of energy integrates with the other principles of performance: imagination, awareness and mutuality. The following exercise by Chaikin highlights the overlapping and interactive nature of the principle of energy with imagination: When an actor responds to an imaginary stimulus, he himself chooses and shapes that stimulus. He has the potential for a deep contact with that stimulus, since it is privately chosen. This contact brings up 67 energy for the actor’s use. On one level or another he is given energy by his inner promptings, associations, that part of his life which is already lived. (Chaikin, 1991: 8) Yet again, we are faced with a question. If energy, like the other principles of performance presence, is a principle inherent in all human beings, how do we differentiate between the energy that we use to live on a day-to-day basis and the more specific energy of performance that creates presence? ‘The observation of a particular quality of scenic presence has led us to differentiate between daily techniques, virtuostic techniques and extradaily techniques’ (Barba, 1991: 10). Daily techniques are those we use every day; virtuostic techniques are specific acrobatic or highly technical movements such as those found in circus and sport; and extra-daily techniques are those which create performance and, if used effectively in conjunction with the other principles, performance presence. Daily techniques (such as walking, talking, picking up objects, using objects or the way we react to the people and the environment around us) use very similar principles to the performance principles outlined in this thesis. However, in daily life we are rarely aware of these principles. They come to us naturally. On stage however, the actor must take these principles to higher levels if they are to create performance presence. 68 Chekhov, like Barba, observed and wrote of the difference between daily and heightened performance energy: With a desire to look natural, he gives the impression of a lifeless puppet. He lacks the increased degree of Activity [energy], which alone can enable the actor to look ‘as in life’ from the audience. … Here are the words of the French actor, Constant Coquelin: ‘You as an actor are in the theatre and not on the street or at home. If you put on the stage the action of the street or the home, these will resemble very much what would happen if you were to put a life-sized statue on top of a column: It would no longer seem to be life-sized.’ (Chekhov, 1991: 114) Barba’s extra-daily techniques help create an holistic presence within the actor; a ‘glowing’ (Barba, 1991: 54), dilated state. He describes dilation as occurring when: … the particles which make up daily behaviour have been excited and produce more energy, they have undergone an increment of motion, they move further apart, attract and oppose each other with more force, in a restricted or expanded state. (Barba, 1991: 54) Franco Ruffini (in Barba, 1991: 65) describes dilation as ‘distinguished by an excess of energy’. However this energy is more than just raw, uncontrolled energy. It is dynamically adjusted through the extra-daily techniques of opposition, balance and control to create the ‘glowing’, dilated energy required for performance presence. The dilated energy can often be expressed at the pre-expressive level, according to Barba, and ‘deals with how to render the actor’s energy scenically alive’ (Barba, 1991: 188). ‘This pre-expressive substratum is included in the 69 expression level, in the totality perceived by the spectator’ (Barba, 1991: 188). Barba uses the term ‘pre-expressive’ to describe the ideal state of energy that underlies an actor’s performance presence. For the purposes of this thesis, I refer to this extra-daily or pre-expressive energy state as ‘heightened performance energy’ or simply ‘heightened energy’. However, this energy has been referred to in a range of different terminologies across theatre literature including the ‘neutral state’ and ‘neutral motionlessness’ (Copeau in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 220). Theatre practitioners describing this state are at pains to point out that despite these terms’ inferred neutrality or blandness, the energy required for performance is both dynamic and immediate. A.C. Scott referred to it as ‘standing still while not standing still’ (in Benedetti, 1973: 463) and Rudlin termed it ‘the state of readiness’ (Rudlin in Hodge, 2000: 71). These expressions are closer to the mark. For an actor’s heightened energy can only be created by being dynamic and ready to interact with the unpredictable nature of performance. Since actors too ‘are unique, each person’s neutrality is his own: there is no single pattern’ (Hayes-Marshall in Zarrilli, 1995: 124). The unique nature of performance means that there are developed methods for, but no real rules in the development of this state of energy. The actor creates energy by interacting uniquely with her/his performance environment. 70 Hayes-Marshall states that ‘if a student’s work creates fire, I’m not interested in saying it’s not fire’ (in Zarrilli, 1995: 123). ‘Neutral motionlessness’, a term used by Copeau to describe heightened performance energy, was defined as a state where the actor is ‘at the same time to be possessed by what he is expressing and to direct its expression’ (in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 220). Copeau’s performance training aimed to build ‘sincerity’ of performance and to avoid ‘affectation of any kind whatsoever, whether of the body, the mind, or the voice’ (in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 219). For Copeau, ‘sincerity’ or human truth was the key to performance and, in its turn, ‘motionlessness’ was one of the key principles that developed this ‘sincerity’. An actor must know how to be silent, to listen, to answer, to remain motionless, to start a gesture, follow through with it, come back to motionlessness and silence, with all the shadows and half-tones that these actions imply. Silence is expressive through the contained sincerity of the person who is listening, through the simple internal preparation of the answer. An actor who thinks and feels impresses the audience through the very quality of his presence, without having to externalise his thoughts by any grimace whatever. (Copeau in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 222) To create presence the actor’s energy must be controlled and developed holistically. This holistic energy state is often referred to in yoga or other holistic disciplines as ‘dynamic stillness’. However in performance this energy state is required to interact with the dynamic and unpredictable influences of the performance environment. The 71 heightened energy of performance thus requires not only control but also spontaneity and the ability to work through impulse: An actor who is comfortable in stillness and activity, who commits to both, and who moves easily from one state to the other, is an actor who commands the stage. The neutral mask provides a way for the teacher and student momentarily to grasp and hold on to the intangible quality called ‘presence’. (Eldredge and Huston in Zarrilli, 1995: 128) Energy, even when described as pre-expressive or neutral, adapts to the flow of performance. It is necessarily dynamic and a performer’s heightened energy will differ from performance to performance. This is because energy ‘already contains the seed of the action that is to follow’, says Copeau (Copeau in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 222), and is conveyed without requiring any external manifestation or halfmanifestation. The motionlessness that follows a mild gesture is not the same as the motionlessness that follows a violent gesture; that which paves the way for a rapid gesture is not the same as that which paves the way for a slow gesture. (And note that I am saying ‘paves the way’, not ‘foreshadows’) (Copeau in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 222) Copeau created techniques that would, through process and practice, allow his actors to develop and modulate their own ‘motionlessness’ or energy. This modulation is the process by which heightened energy is created in performance. It is created through a complex adjustment of opposing 72 forces. Grotowski described performance ‘essence’ as being channelled through the actor. The actor ‘must develop not an organism-mass, an organism of muscles, athletic, but an organism-channel through which the energies circulate, the energies transform, the subtle is touched’ (Grotowski in Schechner and Wolford, 1997: 378). Conjunctio Oppositorium Grotowski referred to the joining of opposing forces or conjunctio oppositorium as one way these energies are modulated to create performance presence. The notion that spontaneity and discipline, rather than being mutually contradictory, actually reinforce one another was a central principle of Grotowski’s work. … Grotowski articulated this principle as conjunctio oppositorium, a conjunction of opposites, asserting that the actor’s mastery of an established structure … paradoxically allows for a kind of freedom. (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 204) The integration of spontaneity and discipline is just one example of the conjunction of opposing, binary forces that can create heightened performance energy. This thesis does not aim to outline all the possible sets of opposing forces that can be unified and modulated to create presence-giving energy, although we will look at the example of relaxation and tension later in this chapter. Suffice to say that the principle of performance energy is holistic and dynamic and is created through the modulation of opposing forces. Therefore, Grotowski’s theory of conjunctio oppositorium, in this thesis, relates not solely to 73 discipline and spontaneity. Rather, it is used to describe the conjunction and modulation of any forces that create the energy required for performance presence. Barba’s extra-daily techniques are also based on the processes of modulation. His extra-daily techniques, techniques that realise the principle of performance energy, are developed through the adjustment and integration of oppositionary forces. They are based on five principles of adjustment: ‘balance in action’, the ‘dance of oppositions’, the ‘virtue of omission’ or ‘consistent inconsistency’, ‘intermezzo’ or ‘equivalence’, and a ‘decided body’ (Barba, 1991 and 1995: 10-19 and 16-35). Once again the names of these principles may change and develop but their basic definitions do not. ‘Balance in action’ (Barba, 1991: 10) pertains to the constant alteration of balance. This balance can be vertical, horizontal, internal to external or vice versa. It models and amplifies the micro-movements and balance controls that are hidden in the depths of the body’s daily techniques in order to increase the power of the performer’s presence. Barba sometimes referred to extra-daily balance as ‘precarious’ or ‘luxury’ balance (Barba, 1991: 34). This is because it particularly highlights the unpredictable and rich nature of heightened performance energy that creates presence. ‘Extra-daily balance demands a greater physical effort – it is this extra effort which dilates the body’s tensions in such a way 74 that the performer seems to be alive even before he begins to express’ (Barba, 1991: 34). The actor’s daily balance is thus heightened to work within the nature of performance and to create a sense of dynamic unbalance. This unnaturally energised and precarious balance ‘engage[s] and emphasise[s] the performer’s material presence’ (Barba, 1991: 35). For ‘the opposition of different tensions in the performer’s body is sensed kinaesthetically by the spectator as a conflict between elementary forces. … [T]he balance must become dynamic’ (Barba, 1991: 39). Oida too believes that balancing opposing forces is crucial to performance: This is a paradox; one aspect of the performance is calm, the other is dynamic. Actors need to experience this duality. When you discover physical stillness, it is not total stillness; there is also an inner dynamism. When you discover physical dynamism, you must balance it with inner calm. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 40) Barba’s (1991: 12) second principle for creating performance energy is ‘the dance of oppositions’. By using this principle the performer creates energy by means of a tension between opposing forces. This holistic method of adjustment relates particularly to the development and control of the actor’s internal and external energies. A good example of this dance is the energy created by playing with the oppositionary forces of relaxation and tension. In the following paragraphs we will examine 75 how the actor can modulate these opposites to create presence. We also see how theatre practitioners, other than Barba, relate presence to an energy that is created through adjustment and conjunction of opposites. For Oida an actor needs to understand ‘the difference between being relaxed and being tense, and how to control each state’ (Oida and Marshall 1997: 23). Oida suggests that a simple exercise to begin with is to clench all the muscles of the body to become as tense as possible. This way, the actor learns what tension feels like. Then the actor should quickly release the muscles at which point they will learn what the opposite of tension feels like. Eventually the actor will be able to modulate the two to create the right balance of performance energy. Brook and Chekhov talk about relaxation in terms of ‘lightness’ (Brook in Hodge, 2000: 190) or ‘ease’ (Chekhov, 1991: xxxvii) but both maintain that it is important to the actor’s energy and presence during performance. Chekhov referred to ‘ease’ as ‘a rich alternative to Stanislavsky’s relaxation’ (Chekhov, 1991: xxxix). In other words, one must recognise and bear the substantive weight of what it is one enacts, its gravity; one must remain present, engaged and embodied in the doing that takes us into the world – but with a lightness of touch that is buoyant and playful, that enables one not to be encumbered or consumed, but to take off, to move on, to be ‘free’. (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 190) 76 Chekhov’s ‘ease’ is described as a ‘lightness’ that creates dynamic performance. Both ease and relaxation however are not being referred to in the ‘daily’ sense of the words where, for example, one might slump into a chair or practice meditation. Ease refers to a form of energy that is not heavy or bound; relaxation refers to having a sense of energy that is neither tense nor blocked. By describing what terms like ‘ease’ and ‘relaxation’ mean in performance, we have already identified their opposing forces. The dance between the two sides creates heightened energy. ‘During performance,’ wrote Chaikin (1991: 10) ‘the actor experiences a dialectic between restraint and abandon’. ‘Mime,’ said Decroux, ‘is at ease in unease’ (Barba, 1991: 12). Barba agreed that this unease allows the actor to confirm that ‘extra-daily, non-habitual tensions are at work’ (Barba, 1991: 13). The actor’s extra-daily state of dynamic energy relies on the existence and interaction of ease and unease, relaxation and tension. Stanislavski posits that physical tension is creativity’s greatest enemy, not only paralysing and distorting the beauty of the body, but also interfering with the mind’s ability to concentrate and fantasise. Performance demands a state of physical relaxation, in which the actor uses only enough muscular tension to accomplish what is necessary. (Hodge, 2000: 16) Finding the ‘necessary’ balance between opposing forces, drives the actor’s ‘dance of oppositions’. Chekhov uses a heavily tense performance situation to give an example of how to balance necessary tension with ease or relaxation. He describes a scene with two characters fighting on stage where: 77 … if we are really doing it heavily and tensely – using everything opposite to the feeling of ease – it will give an impression of heaviness, but it will be an unpleasant sensation for the audience. Such efforts make the audience and the actors really ill … but if they fight having this ability of ease, they will give the impression of a fight, but it will be a work of art. (Chekhov, 1985: 57) Barba’s (1995: 25) third extra-daily method of energy modulation is ‘consistent inconsistency and the virtue of omission’. This relates to a simplification of an actor’s action in performance while not relaxing energy or tension levels within the body. Once again we see the dynamic adjustment of opposing forces to create heightened energy. The compression, into restricted movements, of the same energy which would be used to accomplish a much larger and heavier action. … Working in this way reveals a quality of energy which makes the performer’s entire body come live, even in immobility. (Barba, 1991:14) The fourth principle, ‘intermezzo’ (Barba, 1991: 15) or ‘equivalence’ (Barba, 1995: 30), relates to the rearranging of forces or natural energies of action to create a new action or meaning which is further removed from the rules of daily life. It denotes a rupture in the automatic actions that are generally found in daily life. By breaking the expected or natural rhythm and flow the actor is able to create a heightened energy not found in daily life. 78 Barba’s (1991: 17) last principle for modulating and developing heightened performance energy is ‘[a] decided body’. This term in French, ‘être décidé’ (to be decided), also denotes a sense of passivity that I believe better represents the actor’s state of decisiveness without action. By ‘decided body’ Barba means that the actor is neither in the process of deciding nor carrying out the action of deciding. It refers to a moment of both action and passivity. Here again we see that the process of creating heightened energy is via the adjustment and integration of opposing forces, in this example the conjunction of past, current and future action. ‘Balance in action’, ‘the dance of oppositions’ and ‘a decided body’ are principles that result chiefly from the dynamic juxtaposition of opposing binary forces such as tension and relaxation, strong and soft, active and passive, discipline and spontaneity. ‘The virtue of omission’ and ‘intermezzo’ are principles more concerned with expansion, simplification and adjustment of daily techniques to create extra-daily energy. Although Barba is one of the few theatre practitioners to attempt to classify the underlying principles of heightened energy, the five principles we have just outlined are not necessarily the only ways of creating the energy needed for performance presence. However, they do cover the complex adjustments and integration of forces that create the holistic and dynamic principle of performance energy. 79 Each actor’s energy is unique. Each performance is different. As the actor enters into performance, the way their energies are dynamically adjusted and the oppositionary forces channelled will vary. What is important is that the actor’s energy is lifted from a daily state to a heightened state. This is realised through the integration, balance and adjustment of opposing forces such as relaxation and tension, internal and external impulse or influence, the intangible and the concrete, and discipline and spontaneity. This holistic energy however cannot truly be achieved without the other principles of presence, awareness, mutuality and imagination, also being in action. Imagination Although energy is a ‘major source of performance presence’ (Watson in Zarrilli, 1995: 134) it cannot create presence alone. The next major source of performance presence that this thesis will examine is imagination. Imagination is not simply a matter of the mind visualising an image. The holistic nature of performance means that presence and its principles of practice, including imagination, should resonate throughout both the mind and the body. Zarrilli’s psychophysiological theory indicates that the actor should be able to intuitively ‘actualize a full-bodied connection’ 80 to the mind’s image that is ‘palpable through the actor’s body – from the soles of the feet through the eyes’ (Zarrilli, 1995: 195). For the purposes of this thesis, however, the holistic state of imagination is not necessarily achieved from ‘the outside in’ or ‘the inside out’, as a truly holistic state works in both ways: it is indivisible. The actor’s energy and imagination become one, communicating the fictive world in which the actor exists to the spectator. For again and again we see actors who start off well but who can never give a full expression of the character because they have not imagined it fully and actively and laid its foundations well; or others who have given a good performance on the opening night, while their imaginative powers were still at work, but who gradually lose life and conviction as the run proceeds. … They are caused, quite simply, by the actors losing sooner or later (some lose quite early) the ‘offered circumstances,’ on which their part, not to mention the plot, depend. (Redgrave in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 404-405) Feeding Imagination Imagination is a principle that can be used to bring about the magical quality of performance. In daily life, the actor deals with ‘real’ actions and experiences, but in performance, imagination is needed to make the fictive world of the play as ‘real’ as the performance event itself. To avoid exaggerated or bland performance, the actor must imagine. You simply imagine that the space you are working with is bigger. When you walk across the stage, in your imagination, you go to the horizon. … On stage it is very important that the whole body be involved in whatever you are doing, even if the visible movement is quite tiny. You don’t need to demonstrate that the 81 object is heavy (as in mime), but in your imagination it weighs a lot. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 37) This is not quite as straightforward at it sounds. To carry a fictive heavy object requires the actor to use the imaginary object in a similar way to the ‘real’ one. During the creative practice component of this research, the actors worked with an exercise that required them to lift a chair and carry it a few feet before putting it down. Then they were asked to do the same again but this time by only imagining the chair. As soon as the actors bent down to pick up their imagined chair, they realised they had not been aware of its weight, where they had placed their hands to lift and what muscles and tensions the body used in carrying out this seemingly simple task. Immediately they went back to the real chairs. After 5 to 10 minutes practice of going between the real and the imagined object, their imagined performance became much clearer and stronger. The imagination was now working holisticalIy and with experience of an imagined task. One of the actors noted in their journal (Adamik, 2002: Creative Practice) that the principle of imagination did not work alone but was integrated with the other principles of presence, mainly awareness and heightened energy in this case. In addition, imagination needed to be mutually interactive with the performance objects and space. The imagination can be fed and developed in a variety of ways: For example, I say the line ‘I am angry!’ If I think of myself as an isolated unit and focus only on my 82 personal experience, the anger will be quite small. But if I think of the burning fire that roils in the core of the earth, the anger becomes much stronger and richer. Of course, the fire itself isn’t ‘angry’; rather my emotion has a counterpart in the natural world. In the same way, if I want to embody ‘happiness’, I can imagine that I am part of the air circulating around me. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 49) Both Oida and Lecoq also use colour to move the actor’s imagination away from the realms of daily life and into the fictive world of performance. In the colour exercise, Oida (1997: 72) suggests the actor think of a colour and then ‘unify [their] whole being with that colour without trying to demonstrate it on the outside’. The actor then asks their audience to guess which colour they chose. ‘If you have a strong imagination, the audience can sense what is happening’ and can often guess the correct colour. ‘Your imagination will subtly alter your being and your actions, and the audience can feel it. They will understand’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 72). The actor’s presence is communicated to the audience when they have fully unified their imagination with their action. The link between imagination and observation was explored during this thesis’ period of creative practice. Many of the exercises we used were developed from the work of Stanislavski, Chekhov, Bogart, Meisner and Brecht. ‘Observation and imagination frequently complement each other,’ said actress Helene Weigel in an interview with Brecht on the need for observation (in Cole and Chinoy: 1972: 315) ‘What is important 83 is that the imagination have enough material to begin working on,’ she added. This observation may come naturally to a performer or may have to be learned. Observation is a technique for developing performance rather than a key principle of practice in itself, but it is invaluable for understanding the principle of imagination. Observation opens the actor to experiences and fresh ways of exploring the world. This knowledge informs the imagination and the actor’s performance. Research into the play’s fictive world is also important. In Bogart’s ‘Viewpoints’, this research is called ‘sourcework’ (Landau in Dickson and Smith, 1995: 18). In rehearsal Bogart would ask actors to choose a word or bring in a memento or a newspaper clipping that the actor felt summed up the themes of the fictive world of the play. Landau believes that sourcework ‘is a way of lighting the fire for everyone to share’ (in Dickson and Smith, 1995: 17). By adding to and developing the actor’s imagination, this process also ‘lights the fire’ for the audience who will eventually share the play’s performance. Meisner (1987: 78) used the term ‘preparation’ to describe the importance of observation, research and reflection prior to performance. ‘Preparation is that device which permits you to start your scene or play in a condition of emotional aliveness’ he wrote (Meisner, 1987: 78). Brecht saw observation as central for any actor to perform well. For an actor to be able to complete the complex task of presenting the 84 audience with a means for social change, they need to be to able observe and understand the world around them. Observation is a major part of acting. The actor observes his fellowmen with all his nerves and muscles in an act of imitation which is at the same time a process of the mind. For pure imitation … is not enough. (Brecht, 1964: 196) Observation informs knowledge; knowledge generates understanding, play and response. The cycles of life and life’s energies are continuous and inform one another. So are the principles of performance presence. In Speech to Danish Working-Class Actors on the Art of Observation Brecht wrote: In order to observe One must learn how to compare. In order to compare One must have observed. By means of observation Knowledge is generated; on the other hand knowledge is needed For observation. (Brecht in Hodge, 2000: 104) Brecht used research, analysis, observation and questioning with his actors to build productions that would invoke a similar level of questioning, this time of society and events outside of the theatre, in the audience. Truthfulness in imagination and observation was essential to this process. In Some of the Things that can be Learnt from Stanislavsky, Brecht wrote: ‘S. taught that the actor must have exact knowledge of himself and of the men he sets out to portray. Nothing that is not taken from the actor’s observation, or confirmed by observation, is fit to be observed by the audience’ (Brecht, 1964: 236-237). Brecht required his actor to question not only their character but also the world 85 around them: fictive and real. Brecht wanted his actors to be true to their character and to question that character in the world of the play. The answers to such questions lay in observation and imagination. Much of observation can be done in daily life and during the research and rehearsal process of the production but the fictive world of the performance needs to be explored through imagination. Different experiences arrive with each performance if the imagination is truly in a heightened state. These unique experiences and the actor’s character’s reaction to those experiences create not only a sense of surprise and enjoyment of the character for the actor but can also build focus and bring human truth to performance. Fictive Worlds Chekhov put much emphasis on concentration or focus in imagination. He believed that concentration made a stronger impression on the audience and improved the actor’s presence because ‘his acting becomes clearly shaped, sure, and explicit’ (Chekhov, 1991: 11). In the fictive world of performance an actor’s concentration had to be even stronger, for the stronger their concentration, ‘the sharper the audience’s focus and experience of the play will be’, agreed Benedetti (1998: 32). Chaikin (1991: 12) also stressed the importance of focused imagination. ‘The more we are able to sustain a strong bond of concentration with visible and invisible objects to which we direct our attention, the closer 86 we will approach an understanding of the nature of real imagination’, he wrote. Stanislavski encouraged his actors to enter a fictive world and to imagine (using both mind and body) their characters’ world in the utmost detail. Stanislavski’s methods require the actor to use the ‘magic if’ (Stanislavski, 1978: 94) approach to explore this world: From the moment of the appearance of [the Magic] If the actor passes from the plane of actual reality into the plane of another life, created and imagined by him. … He does not forget that he is surrounded by stage scenery and props. … He asks himself: ‘But if this were real, how would I react?’ (Stanislavski, 1978: 94) Other theatre practitioners have referred to this technique as the ‘creative if’. Although the concept of the ‘if’ is more important than the label, I believe that the term ‘creative’ is perhaps more useful than the term ‘magic’ in describing how using the ‘if’ can develop imagination. For the word ‘creative’ implies not only an originality that is unique to that actor, but also a sense of the actor’s subconscious and conscious productivity, rather than an imagined state that occurs magically. ‘The task for the actor is to become an active participant in the process of imagination rather than just a passive dreamer, to bring the world of the imagination on to the stage and give it life’ (Chamberlain in Hodge, 2000: 86). 87 Chekhov believed that the more the actor develops their ability to imagine the more they become aware of the logical thought processes of imagination. ‘He sees more and more that his images follow with a certain inner regularity, although they remain entirely free and flexible. They become, in Goethe’s words, “exact fantasy” ‘ (Chekhov, 1991: 6). For Chekhov however, logic or truthful imagination requires more than thinking and reasoning. It requires instinct. For above all, imagination is creative and impulse-based. The images of imagination ‘must be able to influence and lead each other, to change themselves, merge with each other, to follow their own logic freely, inspiring, suggesting and enriching us at the same time’ (Chekhov, 1991: 12). Imagination must be as true to its fictive world as we are true to our own world. By developing a logical yet dynamic and reactive imagination the fictive world can be clearly communicated to the audience. At the same time the actor’s performance and stage presence is enriched. The actor develops their imagination through observation, research, and constant practice but it is important to emphasise that the actor can never consciously let go of the ‘real’ world while imagining the ‘fictive’ one. Chekhov’s writings on ‘Atmosphere’ (Chekhov, 1991: 34) are wonderful examples of the complexity of the fictive world and its influence on presence. The atmospheres that Chekhov described are layers of imaginative states that create the fictive world or the general atmosphere of the performance. These layers include the atmosphere of 88 each moment, of the actions and reactions of the performers, the atmosphere created by the audience, and the overall atmosphere of the stage setting itself. ‘The stage is always filled with Atmospheres, the source of ineffable moods and waves of feeling that emanate from one’s surroundings’ (Chekhov, 1991: 27). The actor needs a heightened imagination to create and perform within these atmospheres: The actor will also [like the audience] receive the necessary inspiration for his acting from the Atmosphere directly. Just as in everyday life one speaks, moves, and acts differently when surrounded by different Atmospheres, so on the stage the actor will realise that the Atmosphere urges him to new nuances in his speech, movements, actions, and feelings. (Chekhov, 1991: 28) To maintain contact with the imaginative world, to exist within the networks of Atmospheres, the actor must be able to play and interact with it. The more the actor develops their imaginative relationship with the Atmospheres that surround them the more they are able to impulsively and creatively react in a truthful way to the dynamic nature of the performance. For the imaginative world is never static. The experienced performer knows and loves the catalytic power of the Atmosphere, which awakens his activity. He needs it on the stage if the theatre is to represent an expanded life for him and not merely a feeble reproduction of his usual surroundings. (Chekhov, 1991: 35) Stanislavski, Lecoq, Reinhardt, and Meyerhold (despite differences in performance style) all believed that to create presence on stage, the actor needed to be actively engaged with the fictive world of their 89 performance. Stanislavski’s earlier theatrical efforts focused on realism in theatre, Meyerhold focused on the ‘theatrical’ (Leach in Hodge, 2000: 37) or grotesque, Lecoq developed mime and mask, and Reinhardt immersed himself in ‘titanic’ (Reinhardt in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 294) and spectacular productions. However all these practitioners, and others besides, have spoken of the creative ability of the actor to ‘play’, to imagine the fictive world of the performance in such a heightened way that they are able to interact with it. ‘Neither belief nor identification is enough – one must be able genuinely to play,’ said Lecoq (2000: 19). Reinhardt spoke of the ‘enchanted sense of play’ (Reinhardt in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 295) and its relation to stage presence or the artistic ‘nature of genius’ (Reinhardt in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 297) that is evidenced in the play of children. ‘Their imaginative energy is compelling,’ Reinhardt (in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 297) said and this imaginative energy in performance can be equally compelling for its audience. Copeau’s belief in play or the actor’s ability to laisser jouer (to let oneself play) was central to his ensemble theatre approach. Robert Leach writes of Meyerhold’s attitude to training the actor’s body in space as also focusing on play. ’It is not necessary [for the actor] to feel, only to play, to play’, Meyerhold exclaimed in 1913. The actor was thus to be seen as akin to the child initially, recreating the motion of the action, not seeking the Stanislavskian objective of the character in the ‘play’. Understanding, which may include an understanding 90 of feelings, becomes accessible to the child, but through the doing. (Leach in Hodge, 2000: 40) Holistic Imagination and the Actor’s Objective The principle of imaginative play is not based on either a ‘doing’ or ‘thinking’ approach but on the premise of these two processes being inseparable. Meyerhold believed his processes of understanding through ‘doing’ unified the mind and body and gave an element of performance presence to his biomechanical études. Speaking of his études to Harold Clurman in 1935, he said ‘Each exercise is a melodrama. Each movement gives the actor a sense of performing on the stage’ (in Zarrilli, 1995: 91). Exercises with very specific scenarios such as ‘Shooting the Bow’ or ‘The Stab with the Dagger’ broke down gestures into detailed studies of imagined action. Having specific fictive scenarios enabled Meyerhold’s actors to ‘imagine’ the fictive world of each scenario while still learning other valuable technical skills. Unification of these skills with imagination, energy, awareness and the mutuality inherent in partnered exercises, allowed the actors to explore and develop key performance presence principles in training. This holistic approach to training can be found in many other actor training methods. Decroux also gave specific ‘imaginative’ scenarios to his ‘dynamo rhythmes’ (Sklar in Zarrilli, 1995: 112) exercises. ‘The Antenna of the Snail’ is such an example. Although these exercises aimed to develop muscular tension, their visual and explorative titles give the 91 actor a way to develop their mime techniques while also developing their imagination. The ‘dynamo rhythmes’ exercises also require awareness and heightened energy to create a mime that ‘imitate[s] the sensitive snail’s antennae as they near an obstacle, vibrate and recoil’ (Sklar in Zarrilli, 1995: 113). Suzuki uses the strict disciplines of his method to develop a creative and unified link between the body, the mind and the fictive world of the actor. Each actor’s creative interpretation is unique to that person and therefore they channel imaginative play through individual pathways as they train. ‘Any time an actor thinks he is merely exercising or training his muscles, he is cheating himself. These are acting disciplines’ (Suzuki in Zarrilli, 1995: 78). Suzuki writes of his training as a way to make the body speak. ‘These techniques should be mastered, studied, until they serve as an “operational hypothesis”, so that the actors may truly feel themselves “fictional” on stage’ (Suzuki in Zarrilli, 1995: 155). Physical sensibility to the fictive is one of the basic principles that Suzuki identifies as key to achieving presence on stage. Although Suzuki speaks here of the actor’s ‘body’, this body represents the holistic, unified actor. Barba’s ‘fictive body’ (Barba, 1991: 19) is also a term not solely related to the actor’s body but related to the unified mind and body of the holistic actor. The performer creates a network of external stimuli or 92 ‘magic ifs’ to which they react with physical actions. ‘[E]ach of the body’s actions is dramatised by imagining that one is pushing, lifting, touching objects of determined weight and consistency’ (Barba, 1991: 19). Chekhov used the term ‘incorporation’ to explain this holistic approach to imagination. Chekhov’s actor: … cannot avoid gesturing or moving without responding to his own internal images. The more developed and stronger the image, the more it stimulates the actor to physically incorporate it with his body and voice. (Chekhov, 1991: 95) The imagination, in cooperation with the other principles of performance presence, helps the actor create and believe in their performance objective. This objective helps the actor maintain presence throughout each performance. An example of developing an objective through imagination is given by Meisner in his description of a ‘Knock on the Door’ exercise. The scenario the actor is given is this: he is very eager to take out a girl who has given him her phone number on a slip of paper. Unfortunately he has lost the number and is now forced to try and find her through the phone book. As he is searching through the phone book another actor keeps distracting him with a repetition exercise. … Vince’s [the actor’s] attention is fixed on solving the problem of locating K. Z. Smith, a task made more difficult by Anna’s [the second actor’s] insistent pursuit of playing the word game. The result is that the dialogue is more focused, and there are more impulsive shifts in its direction, more surprises. (Meisner, 1987: 39) 93 Without imagination the objective cannot come to life. The actor’s ability to play within the fictive world also encourages the actor’s strength of objective or intention in performance. For the purposes of this thesis, ‘objective’ is defined as the purpose or goal of the actor’s character through each moment. These objectives may change throughout performance, and from performance to performance. Chekhov believed that objective was very closely tied to the principle of imagination. If the actor is immersed in the fictive and dynamic world of performance, then their objective becomes second nature. It becomes both conscious and subconscious, external and internal impulse. ‘ “There is an outer eye that observes, and there is an inner eye that sees,” wrote Robert Edmund Jones, and it is to this inner eye that the actor appeals when searching for the Objective by means of imagining’ (Chekhov, 1991: 108). Stylistic Truth Another important aspect of imagination is performance style. Style, like the imaginative world in which it exists on stage, should not be demonstrated or mimicked. It is integral to the fictive world, the atmospheres and the interactions that take place in a performance. The actor, therefore, must behave as truthfully to the fictive world’s style as possible. This doesn’t mean that their performance style should be based in realism or naturalism. It means that in performance the actor 94 must use their imagination and critical sense to interact logically with the fictive world of their performance. It means that they must use the ‘currency’ (Cohen, 1978: 140) and that will help them achieve their objective in the fictive world. In Acting Power: an Introduction to Acting (1978: 140) Cohen says that ‘ “style” in this book is considered simply as the behavioural characteristics shared by the play’s characters. It is, in other words, the play’s collective characterization’. Although ‘style is essentially tied to action; it is a tool toward situational victory and toward survival’ (Cohen, 1978:142), it is created and developed through the actor’s imagination. Style is brought to life through the actor’s interaction with their fictive world. The actor must be able to ‘speak the language’, to negotiate and play, to read the signs and learn about things they do not understand, to judge when to give in and when to turn away. These and many other cultural or social indicators are what we need as human beings to get by in daily life. Cohen uses the example of buying a beer in a foreign country to outline the need to learn and adhere to style. To get the beer, it is important to know or to be able to quickly learn the language and social/cultural requirements for beer buying. This is the ‘currency’ one needs to get what one wants, but it also implies a sense of observation, an openness to communication and interaction, and logic on behalf of the buyer. Dario Fo (1987: 29) also emphasises the importance of style 95 as survival currency in his discussion of Matching Trade and Gesture. In it he says that: ‘style of gesture of every people derives from its relationship with the need to survive’ (Fo, 1987: 29). Thus the objective and the style of each performance are unique to the fictive world in which they exist and in which the actor imagines her/himself to exist. Ask the character to fulfil the objective, ‘I want to get some money’. Imagine some situation – where the character is, and from whom he or she wants to get the money. Try to imagine the character fulfilling the objective. That will be the next step. Follow your imagination so that there will be no breaks in it. (Chekhov, 1985: 76) The actor must use imagination to fulfil their objective and to be truthful to the style of performance. Stanislavski believed that logic was crucial to maintaining stylistic truth in performance, both its internal nature (feelings, imagination and action) as well as its external attributes (the performance environment). Logic stems from the actor’s critical sense of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for that moment in performance. It would, for example, be absurd (unless the action is contextualised or intentionally absurdist) to stand on a chair if someone has asked you to ‘please sit down’. Logic is a major part of how true to style the actor is being as they move through and interact with the fictive world. ‘Every movement you make on the stage, every word you speak, is the result of the right life of your imagination,’ wrote Stanislavski (1937: 71). This ‘right life’ refers to the actor’s ability to channel logical and truthful imagination throughout each performance 96 rather than forcing generalised or clichéd style. For ‘[s]tyle is not “something added”, it is instrumental to the situation’ (Cohen, 1978: 152). This gives the actor a ‘true’ value on the stage and helps maintain the actor’s concentration and dynamic interaction. Stylistic truth, like the presence that it helps create, must go further than ‘the moment’. [It] is a struggle, not an accomplishment – for the character as well as the actor. Neither the actor nor the character will ever be the total master of any style; they are always trying to top themselves, they are always reaching for style; they never completely arrive; they never completely rest. (Cohen, 1978: 174) If the actor lacks the imagination necessary to interact with the fictive world, their performance will have little impact. Lack of imagination leads to dull or stereotyped performances and the actor must avoid stereotyping and cliché at all costs if they are to develop performance presence. Cliché is like a weed: no garden is free from it all the time. The greatest performances are those which are most free from it, those in which every detail has been freshly conceived and which retain at each performance enough of that freshness. It is this freshness which contributes whatever is most exciting and at the same time satisfying in the theatre. (Redgrave in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 406) Stylistic truth is not about inventing what ‘looks’ appropriate but about reacting to a truly imagined fictive world. For style ‘is the expression of real understanding, of deep communication with the world and its 97 secrets, of the constant effort of men to surpass themselves’ (St Denis in Cohen, 1978: 155). There is no hard and fast rule to applying stylistic truth in performance. Costume, gesture, vocal technique, rhythm, dialect – all these elements can help to create a truth of style. But how does the actor develop the style that is appropriate for their character, for the play’s collective style and that is flexible enough to interact dynamically with the fictive world of performance? The answer is through logical, holistic and interactive imagination. The actor, like the foreigner, might use observation and research to develop a truthfully imagined fictive world. Many film actors speak of going ‘in-situ’ to observe how the types of character they are going to portray behave in the real world and this technique is equally important in theatre practice. The actor might use techniques such as researching and practising the appropriate physical or spoken style, observing those styles in practice where possible, listening to relevant recordings or speaking with people who can offer advice or creative fodder for the character. This helps the actor create a basis from which they can explore their own character, from which they can imagine and respond to the other characters and the fictive world. Like all the principles of practice required to achieve presence, each actor must find their own way to explore, process and channel them. 98 Some elements of the imaginative process or style of the production might be more useful to an actor than others – the actor needs to practise using their imagination in different ways and in different fictive worlds. Sir John Gielgud, for example, found that costume style helped fulfil his own quest for stylistic truth. It is always important to me, in a character part, to be able to satisfy myself with my visual appearance. I imagine at rehearsals how I hope to look, but if my make-up comes out well at the first dress rehearsal, my confidence is increased a hundred-fold. In the same way, the right clothes – especially in a part where they must be heavy and dignified – help me at once to find the right movements and gestures for the character. One’s expression in a character part develops tremendously quickly after the first few times of making up. (Gielgud in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 401) But Gielgud’s costume style was nothing without the man’s own truth of style in performance. ‘The costumes, sets and makeup may be in a certain style, but they do not make the style of the performance if the sense of style does not live in the soul of the actor,’ wrote Chekhov (1991: 124). Observation, research and logic help develop and improve an actor’s truth of style. Michael Redgrave quoted Stanislavski’s friend and colleague Nemirovich-Danchenko to describe how important truthfully styled and imagined performance is to creating presence. ‘Always he sought,’ said Nemirovich-Danchenko, ‘the essence of the play in the times and events described; and this he expected the actor to understand. This is what Stanislavsky called the core, and it is this core which must stir the actor, which must become part of him for the time being’. (Redgrave in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 407) 99 Awareness Awareness, for the purposes of this thesis, refers to an holistic principle of openness and critical sense. When the actor is aware of their internal and external channels, they develop these channels to operate dynamically across all levels of consciousness. Awareness occurs during performance and helps the actor adjust to and interact with the unique experience of each performance. Mutuality, the fourth and final principle developed in this thesis, is the actor’s interaction with their own awareness and those performance influences. Awareness adds to the principles of heightened energy and imagination by being open to both internal and external impulse as well as by developing a subconscious critical sense of their own performance. In this state, the actor is able to imagine and to interact with the dynamic movement of performance while still being aware of the audience and all that is occurring around them. Oida describes how the actor’s holistic ‘body’ must be aware of itself, of the audience and of the space while performing: As you work, you gain a greater awareness of your body … You start to really inhabit your body, and see how the subtlest shift in your body affects your inner landscape. Sensing this mysterious connection, moment by moment, as we perform, is quite wonderful. This moment-by-moment discovery is 100 fascinating, but as actors we want to go further. We want to create for the audience a sense that there is something ‘more’ behind each of these moments. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 35) That something ‘more’ is the resonating push of an actor reaching for new levels of awareness and working mutually with their performance influences such as the audience and other actors. Without awareness, the actor cannot be open to the holistic influences of impulse, imagination, the flow of energy and rhythm or the action of performance. Nor can the actor have a critical sense of their performance and develop their performance accordingly. Awareness requires both an openness to internal and external influences and having enough critical sense to be able to develop performance principles and skills. ‘Being able to constantly discover new ways to make your acting come alive requires great skill and awareness’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 39). Chekhov (1991: 155) refers to awareness as ‘Divided Consciousness’. This relates to the way an actor’s awareness crosses both the conscious and subconscious planes of performance and creates an holistically aware and interactive performer. ‘As the creator of his character, he becomes inwardly free of his own creation and becomes the observer of his own work’ (Chekhov, 1991: 155). Staniewski’s theatre, Gardzienice, worked closely on ‘a particular state of presence that demands that the actor’s “gate of perception is open”. The actor must find a particularly alive, highly tuned state of instinctive response’ (Hodge, 2000: 242). 101 Awareness is crucial in keeping this gate open and to developing presence. Meyerhold too incorporated the principle of awareness into his work. In describing Meyerhold’s training processes, Leach (in Hodge, 2000: 43) wrote that the actor’s ‘exact eye’, which refers to ‘ “self-admiration”, or self-awareness’, is crucial to developing performance. ‘In a theatre such as Meyerhold’s, the actor needs to be extremely sensitive to what his body, his gestures, his movements are connoting. He needs a kind of inbuilt mirror’ (Leach in Hodge, 2000: 43). Without this ‘in-built mirror’ the actor lacks the ability to create presence. By being aware of the dynamic shifts in performance, the actor is able to better participate in the experience of live theatre performance. In the early stages of training or rehearsal, the director can be helpful in monitoring an actor’s progress in developing the principles of presence but as the actor progresses they must be able to self-observe, to be critical of their own performance. Eventually, they will reach a state where ‘seeing’ their own performance is both a subconscious and conscious, an internal and external, reaction to the performance influences. ‘In performance, you cannot ‘look to see’ whether you are doing a movement correctly or not. You must be able to position your body by feel alone’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 53). Practice encourages the actor’s own awareness and performance pathways. 102 Chekhov incorporated a range of awareness levels into his group of exercises called ‘The Four Brothers’. These principles were crucial to his acting method. ‘They are feelings of ease, of the whole, of form and of beauty’ (Chamberlain in Hodge, 2000: 89). ‘Ease’, as we have mentioned earlier, relates to the feeling of lightness and energy that fills the performer when their energy interacts with the dynamic movement of performance. The ‘whole’ is an awareness that every action either verbal or physical needs to be subtly defined from the very beginning to the very end. ‘[T]he feeling of form develops an ability to perceive one’s own actions from an aesthetic viewpoint, to become aware of the shapes made in space and their appropriateness’ (Chamberlain in Hodge, 2000: 89). And ‘beauty’ is an inner sense of satisfaction while performing without showing off. Awareness is the current that runs through all four of the ‘brothers’. Oida suggests simple exercises to develop the actor’s awareness in relation to their own space and movement in performance. One of these exercises encourages the actor to explore and develop an awareness of the eight directions and various spatial planes through which their body moves. These exercises also allow the actor to become aware of how sitting, lying, moving forward, back or to the side can create different energies and emotions. ‘This helps you gain a real sense of the stage space in relation to the audience. … Your actions will look very natural, 103 while at the same time retaining a quality of clarity and spaciousness’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 21). Thus we begin to see how awareness is simultaneously internal and external. By repeatedly exploring all external spatial avenues in this exercise, the actor becomes subconsciously aware of not only the space but also how different ways of moving through space trigger different internal impulses and vice versa. Lendra defines some parallels in the principle of awareness between Balinese traditional performance and Grotowski’s work. In discussing Grotowski’s physical exercises called ‘The Motions’ Lendra raises the point that the principle of awareness, like the other principles of performance, are heightened from similar principles in daily life. ‘The Motions’ is a physical exercise that trains sensitivity of the body and alertness of the mind. One of its requirements is that the performer: … must not react to any one thing but must fully perceive all that there is to see and hear. To see and hear and not to react, according to the way we normally live, is a contradiction. This contradiction creates ‘life’ and self-awareness. (Lendra in Zarrilli, 1995: 153) The exercise develops heightened awareness of a type not found in daily life. According to Lendra these exercises also serve the purpose of stirring the ‘sleeping energy’ (Lendra in Zarrilli, 1995: 53) or the potential, heightened energy within the actor. These deep-rooted principles of dynamic presence have been used not only in Balinese performance and in the theatre of Grotowski but also in other styles of 104 Eastern and Western performance training. The style of training used to create awareness is not, however, the key question of this thesis. It is the definition of the principle of awareness and how it interacts with the other principles of performance practice that is most important. Awareness has been highlighted as a central principle in the varied training processes of highly influential theatre practitioners such as Stanislavski, Copeau, Grotowski, Barba, Zarrilli’s Asian/Experimental Theatre, Suzuki, and Brook. These practitioners detail a range of techniques that develop awareness by trying to make the actor open and free. For this though, the actor needs to be willing to learn and to be open to new approaches and experiences throughout their entire career. This learning state encourages the actor’s awareness of what is going on around them and how that relates to their performance. Breath, life’s central force, is an excellent example of how central awareness is to developing holistic performance presence. By consciously being aware of breath, an actor can develop performance expression and energy. Artaud believed that breath was central to the expressiveness of mind and body. Breath becomes inextricably linked to expression of the highest quality: it literally breathes ‘life’ into performance and reforges ‘the chain, the chain of a rhythm … the magical chain’ which creates the presence that ‘will take hold of’ the 105 spectator (Artaud in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 239-240). ‘This question of breath is in fact primary; it is in inverse proportion to the strength of the external expression’ (Artaud in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 236). In the creative practice period of this research, the actors were given several exercises designed to increase their awareness of how breath affects external expression. The actors were asked to wave goodbye to an imagined someone and see how their breath can change the meaning of the goodbye. If this movement is made while breathing in as the arm is raised, and then breathing out as it falls back, the sense of a positive farewell results. If you do the opposite, raising the arm on the out breath, and letting it fall as you breathe in, the dramatic state becomes a negative: I don’t want to say goodbye, but I am obliged to do so. (Lecoq, 2000: 76) The actors were then asked to play with breath in other actions such as getting dressed while running late for an important function, walking home along a dark street, or making a cup of tea on a lazy afternoon with nothing to do. With time, the aim is that the actors would be able to develop a more subconscious awareness of their breath and its effect on their performance. Thus it appears that any actor whatsoever, even the least gifted, can by means of this physical knowledge increase the internal density and volume of his feeling, and a full-bodied expression follows upon this organic taking-hold. (Artaud in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 239) 106 Using conscious awareness to develop impulse-based action, and then to move this awareness of internal and external impulse to a more subconscious level, is very important to the actor’s journey. Via Negativa ‘Via negativa’, or repetition exercises, are a well-known process used to develop impulse, openness and spontaneity in performance. They are also very useful for developing conscious and subconscious awareness as they encourage both learned and learning behaviour. ‘Via negativa’ approaches were used by Grotowski, Brook, Barba, Zarrilli and Littlewood as well as many traditional theatre practitioners to develop clear channels within the actor. The principles of performance presence flow through these channels. Barr referred to this as creating a ‘free instrument’ (Barr, 1982: 19). The ‘via negativa’ approach places an ‘emphasis on extreme and sustained physical action as a key to spontaneity’ (Lendra in Zarrilli, 1995: 149-150). The aim is to ‘unlearn’ blocking behaviour. In Balinese tradition this unlearning process is done kinaesthetically, without the master having to say a word. ‘Learning kinaesthetically … incorporates both the physical precision and the emotional quality of the action’ (Lendra in Zarrilli, 1995: 149-150). By using techniques such as the ‘via negativa’, a prompter, and habitbreaking repetition during training and rehearsal, Joan Littlewood aimed to develop the actor’s use of the subconscious during performance, thus freeing the actor to use their conscious awareness in other, more 107 important, ways on stage. The use of such methods ‘remove selfimposed and textural pressures which interfere with the action of the subconscious’ (Barker in Hodge, 2000: 122). Oida wrote that ‘repeated movements have the effect of stimulating your internal energy, making you more sensitive and aware as a person’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 44). The actor should practice repetitive training that frees the mind and body and allows them to move from conscious to unconscious awareness of the other principles of performance. ‘You might get bored, but at a certain point you may find that you have gone beyond boredom and broken through into another realm’ (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 46). Grotowski (1969: 16) described ‘via negativa’ as ‘not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks’. In eradicating these blocks the actor’s awareness is developed to work instinctively from impulse. Grotowski referred to them as ‘living impulses’ (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 199) and further defined impulse as: ‘In/pulse – push from inside. Impulses precede physical actions, always. The impulses: it is as if the physical action, still almost invisible, was already born in the body’ (Grotowski in Hodge, 2000: 199). The actor’s spontaneity becomes unblocked and a more dynamic form of action can then take place. Grotowski used ‘via negativa’ processes as a ‘primary route to discovering truth and organicity on stage’ (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 200), to open the actor 108 and free mutual and more dynamic exchange. As the actor adjusts to these processes ‘the body becomes non-resistant, nearly transparent. Everything is in lightness, in evidence’ (Schechner and Wolford, 1997: 377). ‘By blocking the path taken by the actor,’ writes Rolfe (in Zarrilli, 1995: 124), ‘you oblige him to look for another. … Each restriction placed on the actor forces his imagination to seek ways to get around it’. Brook’s processes for developing the actor’s pathways and to improve actor impulsive awareness, or what he referred to as ‘transparency’ (Brook in Hodge, 2000: 178), follow similar processes to that of Grotowski’s ‘via negativa’. They ‘necessitate an un-learning, a peeling away of habit and the known in favour of the potential and the “essential” ‘ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge. 2000: 178). ‘Transparency’ for Brook allowed the actor to achieve presence. It made them ‘alive and present in every molecule of their being,’ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 178) because it gave them ‘the capacity to listen through the body to codes and impulses that are hidden all the time at the root of cultural forms’ (Brook, 1998: 167). Awareness interacts with all the holistic and dynamic principles of presence: heightened energy and imagination and, as we shall see later in this chapter, the principle of mutuality. Indeed for Brook ‘… the ultimate ideal is an actor who has developed to the point where all 109 available channels – those of the body, the intellect, and the emotional faculties – are open, interconnected and active’ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 180). Awareness is a crucial principle of this holistic state. During one of Brook’s intensive study periods for the preparation of The Ik, Brook’s actors spent considerable time and effort copying the postures of members of the Ik tribe from photographs. This required intense interaction and ‘coexistence’ (Brook in Hodge: 2000: 186) between the actor’s internal and external impulses. The photographic images were represented in ‘painstaking detail’ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 187) while other actors monitored and commented on their portrayal. The actor would then improvise ‘the action or movement immediately preceding or following the instant captured in the photograph’ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 187). This process relied on the existence and development of holistic awareness. ‘The true actor recognises that real freedom occurs at the moment when what comes from the outside and what is brought from within make a perfect blending’ (Brook in Hodge, 2000: 186). Rhythm and Kinaesthesis Rhythm, like breath, is another good example of how an actor’s internal awareness can be developed to create performance presence. Rhythm is an integral part of performance. ‘Wherever there is life there is action; wherever action, movement; where movement, tempo; and where there is tempo there is rhythm’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 198). Each actor, for 110 example, has their own internal rhythm of which they will be aware. However, the unblocking processes that we have just discussed are one way of allowing this internal rhythm to develop and work impulsively with the external influences of performance such as other performers, the performance space and the audience. ‘To help stir his dormant feelings an actor has recourse to Inner Tempo-Rhythm’, said Stanislavski (1968: 277). But rhythm exists in performance both internally and externally. For the purposes of this thesis, rhythm will be discussed within the principle of awareness but it should be noted that rhythm flows throughout performance and, in so doing, could be developed through the other principles of performance presence such as energy, imagination and mutuality. Through his work with the Odin Teatret, Barba changed the approach of his actor training to better incorporate the principles of performance with the actor’s individual rhythm. Barba moved from collective exercises to individual holistic processes that allowed each actor to use their own rhythm and pace. The emphasis changed from skill outcomes to developing the actor’s awareness and energy through practice. The effect of collective, mutual interaction was not entirely forgotten however. The Odin actors developed their own training according to what was important to them but still trained together in the supportive surrounds of one room. 111 During the creative practice component of this research, I noticed that working with allocated rhythms - fast, medium and slow - helped the actors to develop awareness of their own internal rhythms and the way in which they normally perform. Until then, their rhythms had been stilted or sometimes conflicted with the performance influences. We developed several rhythm exercises that the actors could work on individually. Having the time to become aware of their own natural rhythms and the way newer rhythms changed their performance was very beneficial to their performance. They were able to focus less on their own inbuilt rhythms and develop rhythms that interacted directly with the other performance influences such as the space, the other actors and the dynamic actions of the scenario. It was at this point of my research that Barba’s approach to training made more sense than ever. Each individual actor needs to explore in their own time and space while still being in a mutual space. They need to work as a group, in exchange and on their own: taking their explorations to the furthest depths and the greatest heights while still never forgetting the journey in between. Zarrilli’s Asian/Experimental Theatre actors and students also used training techniques that allowed them to explore their own rhythms in a collective environment. Zarrilli’s use of both t’ai chi ch’uan and kaļarippayattu in actor training enables his students to explore disciplines that require them to use their ‘energy in two qualitatively different modes of expression’ (Zarrilli, 1995: 187). By exploring their 112 own body’s rhythms and the contrasting energies of the sharp, immediate kaļarippayattu and the softer, grounded t’ai chi ch’uan, the actor begins to intuitively understand the rich rhythms of expression that are available to them through their bodies. The students progress through a long-term process that builds an holistic knowledge in the subconscious. The focus of this training however is to remain ‘energized’ (Zarrilli, 1995: 187) and ‘true’ to rhythm and impulse while not allowing the practised forms to become empty or mechanical through repetition. In the interests of developing a presence that can be sustained through the dynamic nature of performance ‘the actor must commit him/herself fully to training as an ongoing process of selfdefinition’ (Zarrilli, 1995: 186). ‘This process of self-definition and personal justification can never end – the practitioner must constantly (re)discover the “self” in and through the training with each repetition’ (Zarrilli, 1995: 186). In order to keep the rhythm of performance alive the actor’s awareness of internal and external rhythms must be finely honed because the audience too is aware, whether consciously or subconsciously, of the performance’s rhythms. If the rhythm becomes too predictable or repetitive the performers’ and the performance’s presence can fade and audience interest is lost. 113 Barba describes the actor’s awareness of rhythm as a type of kinaesthesis. The Macquarie Dictionary (1991: 972) defines kinaesthesis as ‘the sensation of movement and derives the word from the Greek: ‘kīneîn move + aisthēsίa perception’. The actor’s conscious and subconscious awareness of the rhythms of performance allows them to break rhythm, work within rhythm and even create new rhythms. The secret of a rhythm-in-life, like the sea’s waves, leaves in the wind, or the flames of a fire, is found in the pauses. These pauses are not static stops but transitions, changes between one action and another. (Barba, 1991: 212) ‘Kinaesthetic sense is essential to every kind of performance,’ (Barba, 1991: 213). Barba uses kinaesthesis to describe not only the actor’s awareness but also the audience’s perception of the rhythm of performance. Above all, the actor should not anticipate rhythm or the rhythm they think the audience is expecting or not expecting. This can only lessen the experience for both parties. Rhythm materialises the duration of an action by means of a line of homogeneous or varied tensions. It creates a waiting, an expectation. The spectators sensorially experience a kind of pulsation, a projection towards something which they are often unaware of, a breath which is repeatedly varied, a continuity which denies itself. Carving time, rhythm renders itself time-in-life. (Barba, 1991: 211) Lecoq believed that rhythm lies behind an actor’s response to another actor. 114 Rhythm is the result of an actor’s response to another live performer. It may be found in waiting but also in action. To enter into the rhythm is, precisely, to enter into the great driving force of life itself. Rhythm is at the root of everything, like a mystery. (Lecoq, 2000: 32) Brecht used rhythm to create links between characters and the play’s life. Fo is described as not only having a strong rhythmic feel for his own performance presence but also as being aware of its flow throughout performance in general. When Fo directs rehearsals of his plays or critiques the work of his students, he always stresses the importance of rhythm … [H]is theatre flows with a dynamic musicality that is generated by the basic emotional impulses of the situations he enacts. (Jenkins in Zarrilli, 1995: 244) So rhythm is one very clear example of how an actor’s development of an holistic, interactive awareness is key to performance presence. Furthermore, the actor’s interaction with the performance’s dynamic rhythms is kinaesthetically sensed by the audience and this adds to the presence of the performance. The power with which rhythm yokes itself to performance is further evidenced by Mark Radvan’s work on Creative Flow: And Rhythm flexes Emotion. By that I mean that Rhythm has the power to evoke emotion in both spectator and performer. Rhythm whether physical or vocal creates emotional responses that can transcend the literal emotional content of the words. (Radvan, 1999: 192) 115 Mutuality According to the Macquarie Dictionary (1991: 1176) mutuality is the ’n. condition or quality of being mutual; reciprocity; mutual dependence’. The term ‘mutual’ itself means (1991: 1175) ‘adj. 1. possessed, experienced, performed, etc., by each of two or more with respect to the other or others; reciprocal …’. The actor is never ‘alone’ in performance. Mutuality is the principle of performance presence that most reflects live theatre’s shared nature. This principle of mutual communication integrates cycles of awareness of and response to both internal and external stimuli of performance. Mutuality is interaction and inter-reaction. The previous section has discussed the actor’s awareness of their own channels in performance but the actor must connect, act and react to the other performance influences such as the other actors, the audience and the performance environment of time, space, set, lighting etc. Mutuality is the joint give and take between the actor and their entire performance context. Although awareness and mutuality are similar principles, for the purposes of this thesis, their definitions require them to be separately discussed. Awareness refers to the actor’s own pathways of performance which are created by the actor alone and adjusted by them alone, whereas mutuality is a dynamic state of interaction between the 116 actor and the influences of performance. Mutuality is a principle that very strongly underlies the communicative and human experience expressed in theatre. Hodge (2000: 233) defines mutuality as ‘simply a way of perceiving, absorbing or dialoguing with a partner, and by extension, with the environment in which the actor works.’ Mutuality requires heightened awareness from an actor before the actor can apply this principle. It is a highly sensitised, holistic principle of interaction that explores and energises all levels of performance. Although few in the literature review refer to the principle of ‘mutuality’ by name or definition, many theatre practitioners do refer to its processes or use terminology that refers to the same processes. Brook (in Hodge, 2000: 187) sees a major part of the process of actor preparation as not only creating awareness within the actor but also then ‘amplifying [this internal and external sensitivity] towards fellow actors’. He refers to this process as a type of ‘tuning’ (Brook in Hodge, 2000: 187). This ‘tuning’ or mutuality enhances an actor’s performance because it encourages innately responsive and creative behaviour. This behaviour helps create dynamic and reactive performance. During Brook’s explorations of performance he found that ‘like self and other, actor and character, performers and audience, for Brook, inner movement and external action must always be in a dynamic relationship 117 of exchange’ (Marshall and Williams in Hodge, 2000: 175). Brook’s work developed ‘transparency’ within his actors: ‘a state of openness and immediacy’ that relates to awareness and the interrelated but separate quality he called ‘the invisible network’. This network refers to ‘a state of connectedness and responsiveness’ (Marshall/Williams in Hodge, 2000: 175). These two states require an actor to not only tune into their internal and external influences but to respond to them. By connecting with the external influences of performance, the actor is using the principle of mutuality. ‘For Stanislavsky, there can be no drama without interaction amongst scene partners and between actors and audience’ (Carnicke in Hodge, 2000: 21). This ‘invisible network’ of interaction, of mutuality, relies on constant conscious and subconscious negotiation in performance. ‘Where there is intercourse there is of necessity Adaption so they must hang side by side’ (Stanislavski, 1968: 277). Meyerhold’s biomechanics is another method that firmly incorporates the principle of mutuality. Biomechanics is not arbitrary. It requires of the actor, and it trains: (1) balance (physical control) [energy]; (2) rhythmic awareness, both spatial and temporal [awareness]; and (3) responsiveness to the partner, to the audience, to other external stimuli, especially through the ability to observe, to listen and to react. (Leach in Hodge, 2000: 43) 118 Action-Reaction Performance presence requires not simply action, but action that is kept alive through cycles of action and reaction. Action-Reaction is a linear process that creates active and responsive performance; it blurs the lines between the actor’s development of awareness and impulse and the mutuality that is required to drive the impulse into a shared and interactive experience. Action must always precede reaction. ‘The longer the interval between action and reaction, the greater will be the dramatic intensity and the more powerful will be the dramatic performance if the actor can sustain this level,’ writes Lecoq (2000: 35). This intensity can be critically and instinctively (consciously and subconsciously) balanced by an actor’s awareness. In Impro, Johnstone cites many case studies and examples of society encouraging humans to ‘block’ spontaneity or impulse. Actors, however, need to accept and develop it in order to create presence. Imagination, unblocked mutual exchange and responsiveness are central principles in Johnstone’s work. Johnstone uses exercises based on offers, blocks and acceptances. ‘I call anything that an actor does an “offer”. Each offer can either be accepted or blocked’ (Johnstone, 1981: 97). ‘Scenes spontaneously generate themselves if both actors offer and accept alternately’ (Johnstone, 1981: 99). The processes of action and reaction 119 inherent in mutual exchange help maintain the dynamic nature of performance presence. Without this exchange performance would stagnate. Like the other principles of performance presence, mutuality needs to be developed through practice. Cohen supports Johnstone’s view that the actor must avoid being blocked or defensive if they are to achieve openness and participate in the flow of exchange created in performance. ‘The defensiveness of the blinded adherent of simplistic ‘methods’ and clichés is simply and clearly that: defensiveness’ (Cohen, 1978: 234). An actor may not at first realise that they are blocking offers but with external monitoring, their own awareness, and practice the actor develops the open, mutual exchange required of performance presence. Irrespective of each performance’s unique structure, mutuality, the exchange between the actor and the other performance stimuli, must take place. Whether the actor is alone on stage or surrounded by a large cast, whether the performance has been directed by a specific director or the playwright or developed by the actors collectively, whether there is only one spectator or thousands, there must exist dynamic exchange and interaction. As discussed in Chapter Four, performance and performance presence can only exist when an audience is present and engaged. This is because presence requires interactive exchange. This exchange does, and indeed should, vary from performance to performance due to performance’s unique and dynamic nature. This 120 means that no performance is ever the same and that is often why an audience wants to experience performance in the first place. The following discussions focus on the nature of dynamic exchange of some of performance’s key mutual relationships. Actor-Actor These fellow actors, these audiences, with their shifting variations of quality, are the only means by which an actor may gauge the effect of his acting. With their assistance he may hope to improve a performance, keep it flexible and fresh, and develop new subtleties as the days go by. He learns to listen to them, to watch them (without appearing to do so), to respond to them, to guide them in certain passages and be guided by them in others – a neverending task of secret vigilance. (Gielgud in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 402) While being aware of their own performance, the actor must also be aware of what their fellow actors are doing. Mutual exchange takes place when the actor actually interacts with the other actor/s. No longer is impulse generated simply from within the actor but it is generated from external stimuli and in return sends impulses back to other actors. A dynamic cycle of exchange is created. Brecht’s approach to theatre encouraged mutuality between his actors by encouraging research into and interaction between performance characters. Brecht encouraged his actors to discover the world of the performance while still being firmly ‘true’ to the play’s ‘fable’ (Rouse in 121 Zarrilli, 1995: 238). The actor’s process of discovery had three basic steps. Firstly, to study the character within the fable in detail. To discover the contradictions, the tensions and their actions within the fable. This was encouraged by blocking the scenes very early on. The second part of the process, and the process that relates directly to actor mutuality, was to have the actor define their own character and this character’s behaviour particularly in relation to the other characters and the fictive world of the fable. ‘In fact, Brecht rarely spoke about individual characters in isolation. Rather he exhorted his actors to create their characters dialectically with each other, to react rather than act’ (Rouse in Zarrilli, 1995: 240). The learning process must be co-ordinated so that the actor learns as the other actors are learning and develops his character as they are developing theirs. For the smallest social unit is not the single person but two people. In life too we develop one another. (Brecht, 1964: 197) The third, more ‘Brechtian’ (Rouse in Zarrilli, 1995: 240) step in the actor’s discovery is less relevant to this thesis as it refers to the actor’s examination of their character from the perspective of society. Brecht’s approach to performance development has been described as ‘more a matter of environment created around the actor than a methodology of acting itself’ (Blau in Zarrilli, 1995: 241). This environment, which relates to the collective ensemble and their fictive world on stage as well as the influential environment of the real world, requires genuine, mutual exchange. 122 Other practitioners with quite different approaches to actor training and performance also see mutual exchange as a central principle of performance presence. Oida (1997: 76) believes that the most fundamental level of acting is ‘the living exchange between two people’. He provides a variety of techniques for developing mutual exchange between actors that not only increase the actors’ enjoyment of performance but also improves performance presence. Building the principles of awareness and mutuality into performance practice encourages the actors to look outwards as well as inwards. By building an openness and awareness of the internal and external influences of performance, the actor is able to enter into dynamic exchange with little effort. This is an easy, unconscious process; you don’t need to think about it. You concentrate fully on your task, while unconsciously responding to the other people around you. There is a balance between yourself and others. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 82) Joseph Chaikin also believed that mutuality ‘between actor, character, audience and play’ (Hulton in Hodge, 2000: 153) helped create ‘theatre’s power to effect change and transformation: transformation in the person of the actor within the process of acting, as well as Brecht’s agenda for social change in the audience’. The only way to effect change in the audience would be if the performer had captured their attention, had created performance presence. Chaikin explored the principle of mutual exchange through the ‘processes of collaboration 123 with, or between, actors, directors and writers – the ensemble experience’ (Hulton in Hodge, 2000: 53). In Dialoguing The Bodies, Radvan (1999: 184) discusses how these processes of collaborative flow could develop performance presence in an actor: When two actors work together the possibility exists for them to stimulate in each other, or between each other, a Creative or Flow State. … Within this Expanded Creative State it is possible for moments of Great Acting to be brought into being. Radvan and Simcoe characterise ‘Great Acting’ as being ‘Dynamic, Reactive, Interesting, Specific, Holistic, Relaxed and Revelatory’ and believes that this ‘dynamic and highly desirable Creative Flow State’ (Radvan, 1999: 186) can be accessed or provoked through any of the identified Entry Points. These entry points are termed: ‘Physical/Vocal’, ‘Emotional’, ‘Logical/Psychological’, ‘Sensory’ and ‘Lateral’ (Radvan, 1999: 186). Without entering into the definitions of each category, the entry points in general serve as a ‘way in’ to the actor’s channels through which flow the four principles of presence: energy, imagination, awareness and, of course, mutuality. Radvan and Simcoe’s process for arriving at the Creative Flow State is to not focus on any particular Entry point as a correct training method but instead to identify and then stimulate each performer’s entry point before moving the performers into a shared state of dynamic communication or ‘Creative Impulse’. These 124 entry points lead the actor towards Grotowski’s vision of the actor as ‘an organism-channel’ (Schechner and Wolford,1997: 376). Once [these entry points are] established, the goal of the director and the actors in rehearsals is to sustain and surf that Flow State wherever it leads. The longer we can keep the actors in this shared Flow State, the more Great Acting is released. (Radvan, 1999: 186) Developing kinaesthetic awareness, or awareness through heightened consciousness, is crucial to this interactive Flow State. ‘As Kinaesthetic Awareness is expanded however, the Imagination of the Actor not only flows back into the body, but is transformed by its expanded experience of the body’ (Radvan, 1999: 194). As the actor develops awareness and creative flow the sparks of Radvan’s ‘Great Acting’ begin to fly: ‘This ‘vanishing’ or ‘burning’ [again a reference to Grotowski’s work on impulse and action] body marks the moment when the mind and the body of the actor are suddenly and completely united in an act of negotiation or communication with another human being in the same drama. (Radvan, 1999: 196) Like Brecht, Stanislavski, Meyerhold and the other theatre practitioners already mentioned, Meisner believed that ‘performance is based on relationships, either to scene-partners or the audience’ (Krasner in Hodge, 2000: 145). His actors were required to develop their performance craft by reacting spontaneously to other performers and to the stimuli of the fictive world around them. Meisner’s method required a lengthy process of training and practice to develop spontaneous 125 exchange that worked across the actor’s consciousness levels, through the conscious to the subconscious. This procedure must be performed without intellectual interference, without ‘thinking’ or ‘dwelling’ on the reaction. As Meisner put it, the exercise eliminates ‘all that “head” work’; it takes away ‘all the mental manipulations and get[s] to where the impulses come from’. (Krasner in Hodge, 2000: 145) Piscator believed that mutual exchange develops true partnerships, both between actor and spectator and between actor and other actors. You know that even when you find yourself alone on the stage speaking a monologue, you are in reality not alone. You couldn’t play your part all by yourself. You are surrounded by the presence of the other actors – your partners – even if they are, at that particular moment, not on the stage. You exist through them as much as through or by yourself … You can never find yourself before you have learned how to re-act to your partner. In order to find yourself, you must go out of yourself. (Piscator in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 303) Piscator took this notion of mutuality back to its roots of human truth and expression. He believed that by convincingly communicating with both their partner/partners and the audience the actor unifies the finiteness of the theatre with the infiniteness of life. This idea was crucial to his development of Epic Theatre but, more importantly for this thesis, it outlines why the principle of mutuality is so inextricably linked to experience of human truth that underlies performance and performance presence. 126 Actor-Audience Concentrate your whole attention on me [the audience]. Don’t forget that you have to convince me not only of your presence, but of your existence. Naturally you can turn away from me, but don’t forget that I am always there, and that we can succeed only as a unit. There is no theatre without an audience. (Piscator, in Cole and Chinoy, 1972: 302) The creative, dynamic and holistic state of presence requires mutual exchange between actor and audience. ‘The difference between the act of expression and the act of creation is this: in the act of expression one plays for oneself alone rather than for any spectators,’ says Lecoq (2000: 18). Mutual exchange, like the other performance principles, is uniquely created as part of each performance. It is not an experience that can be ‘falsified’ or repeated. Chekhov (1991: 28) denounced any actor who employed shallow means to ‘ “trick” the audience’s attention’. This is because: … performance is in reality a mutual creation of actors and audience, and the Atmosphere is an irresistible bond between actor and audience, a medium with which the audience can inspire the actors by sending them waves of confidence, understanding, and love. They will respond thus if they are not compelled to look into empty psychological space. (Chekhov, 1991: 28) Interaction, often kinaesthetically developed in performance, is vital for attracting and maintaining the audience’s attention. 127 At the end of each performance came that release of the collectively held breath, followed by the storm of applause signaling [sic] the conclusion of a mutually shared and mutually enjoyed experience. (Roberts, 1971: 22) The audience must sense something of their own presence in the performance that they are experiencing. They must know, whether the actor consciously indicates it or not, that the performance is for them. Marshall used the notion of Jo, Ha, Kyu, discussed previously as a way to channel the principle of energy, to explain the subconscious or kinaesthetic exchange that takes place between actor and audience in the ideal performance state. The bodies of the actors and the bodies of the watchers become connected, and it feels as if they are sharing the same journey. Many Western performers use the Jo, Ha, Kyu rhythm subconsciously. They can sense when a performer is getting ‘bogged down, when you need to ‘pick it up’ and ‘keep it moving’. (Oida and Marshall, 1997: 32) Roberts (Roberts, 1971: 24-25) described this connectedness as a communication of human experience. [A] human communication which is the essential factor – perhaps the only essential factor – in the art of theatre. Theatre is experiential … The large numbers of people who voluntarily place themselves in theatre seats night after night in all the theatres, large and small, throughout the world, are looking for an EXPERIENCE, preferably life-enhancing. ‘There is another human exchange,’ confirmed Oida (1997: 83) ‘between the actor and the audience’. Oida believed that the actor’s ability to sense the audience grows with experience and he suggested 128 that the actor develop the technique of ‘smelling’ each performance’s audience and to ‘balance’ the performance accordingly. This doesn’t mean to change the performance to suit the audience but rather to become aware of the audience and to enter into the kinaesthetic relationship of mutual exchange. ‘The actor’s testimony, his or her total act, is offered to the spectator’s view, accomplished in their presence, but never for their sake’ wrote Wolford (in Hodge, 2000: 198). Performance and performance presence require an audience but because much of the mutual exchange that occurs between actor and audience is kinaesthetic, the actor need not enter into a conscious interaction with the audience unless it is part of the nature or style of that particular performance. In forms of theatre such as Forum Theatre or Theatre Sports, strong actor/audience exchange is required. Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre is an excellent example of extreme actor/audience exchange. ‘The performance is an artistic and intellectual game played between actor and spect-actor’ (Boal in Zarrilli, 1995: 253). The actors’ performance presents a certain ‘vision of the world’ (Boal in Zarrilli, 1995: 253) and the outcome of the performance is reliant on the reaction and intervention of the audience. An audience member or ‘spect-actor’ can even take over a role. However, the actor (whose role has been momentarily usurped) does not stop communicating with the ‘spect-actors’. Instead, they remain nearby to ‘encourage the spect-actors and correct them if they start to 129 go wrong’ (Boal in Zarrilli, 1995: 253). By ‘going wrong’ Boal indicates that even the ‘spect-actor’ must be stylistically truthful to the fictive world of the performance as well as continuing to share in mutual exchange with the rest of the audience, the ousted actor/s and the actors in play. Even though the ‘spect-actor’ is not a trained actor, the complex, holistic principle of mutual exchange remains just as important to the performance. In other more formalised forms of theatre there is no conscious interaction other than the audience’s applause at the end of the show and the actor’s bow. The level of mutual exchange is determined by the style and unique nature of each performance. Warrilow suggests that by developing ‘the proper flow of exchange’ (Warrilow in Zarrilli, 1995: 319), the actor does not waste energy trying to second-guess what the audience wants or values. ‘There was a time when my perception of the audience was “us” and “them” ‘ (Warrilow in Zarrilli, 2000: 319). Thus, ‘proper’ mutuality should not only register the existence of the audience but should include dynamic interaction between actor and audience. Presence can be blocked by the ‘showmanship’ of false interactions, false energy and false style. But by becoming aware of the audience, by developing awareness of themselves in relation to the audience and by developing a genuine exchange with the audience, the actor opens the doors for presence to be created: All my life, I have been saying that the audience is important, indeed crucial for the development and 130 growth of work. In these present talks, nothing I have said is of greater moment; for an author, actor or director, the audience represents the litmus test, the proof, the quality control as well as the possibility of valuable assistance. Never descend to playing to the gallery, however, because often the audience may well turn out to be a disaster. (Fo, 1987: 114) Actor-Director The ‘director’ is a fairly new arrival in theatre history. Before this, theatre relied on an actor/manager or a more collaborative approach with actors taking on the responsibilities of today’s director. Not all theatre productions today use a specialised director: often the director is also an actor or playwright. Nonetheless where a director and the actor/s are working together on a production they must do exactly that: work together. The processes of collaboration and mutual exchange in rehearsal boost the actor’s chance of creating presence in the actual performance. The actor cannot rely solely on the director to provide them with presence, nor can the director expect outstanding performance without some effort on their part. A bond of mutuality must exist; a mutual understanding and constant communication that grows throughout training, rehearsal and ultimately subconsciously into the performance itself. The director can aid the actor in researching and working through the processes needed to create a performance presence. Ideally, the director guides the actor through the principles of practice required to 131 achieve presence and the actor accepts this guidance as part of the process towards a successful performance. In accepting this guidance, the actor is agreeing to work with openness and a willingness to collaborate; to give and take. In Twentieth Century Actor Training, Hodge noted that ‘it is striking that all of the practitioners discussed here [within the book] have valued the implicitly collaborative nature of the director-actor dynamic’ (Hodge, 2000: 2). This director-actor relationship is often as important as that of the actors who work together. For the director can have an extreme influence on the fictive and ‘real’ environment such as the style, stage layout and lighting that surrounds the actor. The principles of performance presence, mutuality in particular, are often first exchanged between actor and director in the developmental stages of performance. There are many other forms of mutuality in any given performance such as the actor’s interaction with space, time, and the fictive world. Some of these have been discussed in the previous section on Awareness, some have not been discussed at all. The development of this thesis’ theories relating to the principles of presence has constantly referred to the writings and ideas of other theatre practitioners. This not only helped to clarify and confirm these theories but also instils them with the depth and richness of centuries of practice: Ultimately, many twentieth-century practitioners have eschewed the notion of a comprehensive [training] system in favour of identifying first principles within the context in which their training operates. … This 132 suggests that some principles are fundamental, capable of transcending their origins and therefore justifiably can be recognised as part of a matrix of key concepts in twentieth-century Western actor training. (Hodge, 2000: 8) Energy, Imagination, Awareness and Mutuality are very complex and holistic principles that create an actor’s performance presence. In developing these four principles, I have referred not only to my own research but also to both the Western and Eastern practices and theories of performance. 133 Chapter Six Conclusion I conclude with one of Chekhov’s exercises for developing performance presence. Although the focus of this thesis is key principles of presence and not the techniques used to develop them, this exercise is one last example of how the principles can be applied in practice. 1. 2. 3. 4. To summarize: Imagine the air around you filled with a certain Atmosphere [Imagination]. Become aware of the reaction within you [Awareness]. Move and speak in harmony with the Atmosphere [Energy]. Radiate it back into the space around you [Mutuality]. (Chekhov, 1991: 34) Although this thesis does discuss some exercises that can be used to create the principles of presence, these exercises serve merely as examples. The focus of this thesis has not been to dictate which actor training techniques best develop presence but rather to develop and define the underlying principles of performance presence. These principles are found at the heart of all live performance presence. They are the undercurrent of performance presence and, therefore, the undercurrent of many existing actor training methods. Their flexible, holistic and innately ‘human’ nature, should allow them to operate across training and performance practice methods. 134 Above all, they can be applied to each performance and work uniquely with that performance. No performance is ever the same – so mechanical, or contrived performance attitudes impede performance presence. The principles I have developed create a ‘living’ (Wolford in Hodge, 2000: 196) presence because they are interactive, dynamic and holistic. When understood and properly developed, they allow the actor to create and maintain presence in an environment that is live and unpredictable. We all would like to be part of, to create, that theatre which we could participate in with pride, on which we could reflect with pride. To do so, one has to buy a ticket. The price of admission is choice – the choice to participate in the low, the uncertain, the unproved, the unheralded, to bring the truth of yourself to the stage. (Mamet, 1997: 124) The constructivist, grounded research approach I used to explore the key principles of an actor’s performance presence has allowed me, to a certain extent, to bring the truth of myself to this thesis. My theories were developed through interaction with the literature on and the practice of live performance. They are my own current interpretation and are not set in concrete. Like the actor’s principles of presence, they must 135 be prepared to take the journey that allows them to be developed and practised further. Knowledge is, after all, linked closely with time and place. When we carefully and specifically build conditions into our theories, we eschew claims to idealistic versions of knowledge, leaving the way open for further development of our theories. (Strauss and Corbin in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 276) The actor’s and researcher’s journey is filled with passion, frustration and dedication. The most important thing to learn is that one can never stop learning: Tout bouge. Everything moves. Tout évolue, progresse. Everything develops and progresses. Tout se ricochette et se révebère Everything rebounds and resonates. D’un point à un autre, pas de ligne droite. From one point to another, the line is never straight. D’un port à un port, un voyage. From harbour to harbour, a journey. Tout bouge, moi aussi! Everything moves … as do I! Le bonheur et le malheur, mais le heurt aussi. Joy and sorrow, confrontation too. Un point indécis, flou, confus, se dessine, A vague point appears, hazy and confused, Point de convergences, A point of convergence, Tentation d’un point fixe, The temptation of a fixed point, Dans un calme de toutes les passions. In the calm of all the passions. Point d’appui et point d’arrivée, Point of departure and point of destination, Dans ce qui n’a ni commencement ni fin. … In what has neither beginning nor end. … (Lecoq, 2000: 169) 136 Appendix A CREATIVE PRACTICE Saturday, 29 March – Wednesday, 3 April 2002 ACTOR BIOGRAPHIES • JAMES ADAMIK Jim has been acting for over fifteen years and has an extensive history of performances with a variety of companies in the ACT, NSW, Victoria and Queensland. He has a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Theatre, and a Diploma of Secondary Education. He is currently in his final year of study for a Bachelor of Primary Education. Jim has worked as a drama teacher in a NSW state high school, and as a contract teacher in primary schools. • EMMA HARRIS Emma began her career in theatre in 1998 after graduating from college with a double major in Drama. She has directed several productions including Anne Lee's Faust and Furious, which enjoyed a successful season at the 1998 Adelaide Fringe Festival. As well as directing, Emma has acted with various companies across NSW, the ACT and Victoria, and has been fortunate to work within a wide range of theatre styles. Currently Emma is in her second year of a Bachelor of Theatre Arts (Acting) at the University of Southern Queensland. • ESTELLE MUSPRATT Estelle is an award winning, professional theatre director and youth arts worker. She is currently directing Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes for the Street theatre, Under Milkwood for Canberra Youth Theatre and is working as an Education Officer at Old Parliament House. In 2001 she was the Associate Artistic Director of Canberra Youth Theatre, directing Time Control a whole of company production, a member of artsACT’s peer assessment committee for Theatre, Film and Dance and the ACT Contributing Editor for Lowdown Youth performing Arts Australia Magazine. Estelle is currently Canberra's contributing Editor for Lowdown Youth Performing Arts Magazine and sits on the boards of Muse Inc, The Street Theatre, ArtsVoice and is a member of Canberra Youth Theatre’s Artistic Steering Committee. 137 Appendix B Creative Practice – General Outline of Exercises and Explorations Personal Notes of Jane O’Donnell Introduction • • • Presentation and explanation of research and theories to date General discussion and Q&A Outline purpose and processes of Creative Practice in relation to research and methodology Display conceptual frameworks e.g. as in Stanislavski’s Building A Character where large banners are placed piece by piece into a framework for great acting in large scale on the theatre wall. This allows the actors to identify what they have learned and how each principle relates to ‘great acting’. Also put up a copy of Chekhov’s ‘inspired acting’ diagram. Then put up my diagram, explain and discuss. It remains on the wall of the space during the five days so that the actors can refer to it if need be for their journal entries or if changes or refinements need to be made. This diagramatic reference point should help the actors to think about the practical work we are doing in a more defined way. Their journals would begin to use the terms that I am using so we are speaking one language and working towards a common goal. The thesis definitions and diagram could be changed around at different points in the practice if necessary. These changes would be documented and conclusions made at the end of the process. The 5-day process should allow for refinement, change or further discussion of the key principles of presence and their processes in practice. If, at any time, the actors feel that my current theories are not precise enough, not correct, or do not work in practice, then they are encouraged to discuss this with the rest of the group or in their journals. By applying and developing my theories in collaborative environment I hope to refine my theories and witness how they operate as praxis. Practice makes perfect.] 138 • Our tea/coffee breaks will form part of the performance practice (they are ‘tea ceremonies’) and should be carried out in different styles (Eastern & Western) for 10-15mins in silence. Once the tea is made, served and tasted, the actors should bow (or perform some other agreed ritual) and can then really take a break. Perhaps as we are doing this over the Easter break, we could play with an Easter Tea Ceremony on Easter Sunday? • Actors must bring rehearsal gear with them and get changed into it at the theatre not beforehand. They must also change into their ‘normal’ clothes again before leaving the space for lunch or for the evening. This is to clearly delineate between the ‘daily’ and ‘extra-daily’ principle of performance. Would also like to determine a small “enterspace” practice eg. Oida’s cleaning the floor. I might use a small hand bowl at the entry to the performance space in which the actor’s can ritually clean their hands/face. This, like the changing from ‘daily’ to ‘extra-daily clothing, links back again to the Japanese tea ceremony. • Give regular and appropriate intervals after exercises for the actors to write in their journals about how they felt during that exercise, what they noticed, what it did to their performance. I should do the same. Should be done straight after the practice, not after a cigarette break. They will have time during lunch breaks or at the end of the day to write any more deeply or to form an overall perspective of the theories and processes in practice. By using these journal processes, I hope to get both immediate responses as well as more considered responses. • Record the process both in journals and with a video camera. Day 1: Energy & interaction of principles Morning – Introduction, Outline of basic premise of creative practice, 20 minute discussion with Q&A. Allocate characters, outline performance scenario, give out journals and outline the general timelines and processes of the next 5 days. Change into rehearsal outfits. Discuss Japanese tea ceremony (Stories and pictures of ceremonies, their histories and aesthetics can be given each day before ‘tea’ if we like). ‘Tea’-break. Discuss our own ‘tea ceremonies’. Write ideas up on the board. Go through play synopsis and devise a basic storyboard. Do this storyboard up on butcher's paper as well as take notes of it at the end of each day so that documentation is solid. Afternoon – conjunction oppositorium and ‘extra-daily’ exercises. Working towards the heightened energy state. Then start looking at 139 characters ‘expressive states’ and the conjunction of oppositionary forces e.g. strong/soft, tense/relaxed. Play with these to develop each actor’s character a little. Impro some ideas for the show using different energy states and different combinations of opposing forces. Prepare some observation and imagination tasks for Day 2. Actors into rehearsal gear – there will be a special space for preparation (like the tea ceremony’s waiting room). We will keep a basin of water outside of the performance space and they should prepare themselves before they begin a session – dampen face and hands. Rub them. Then bow (straight-legged bend from waist) to one another and begin. A breathing and gentle warm-up exercise: Oida’s nine holes + spine + hara + hands. Tension & Balance: based on exercises by Oida & Stanislavski Necessary tension: a) Lie on floor tense and release – try to feel the difference between tension and relaxation. b) Walk around the room, see where the unnecessary tensions are and try to release them. Sit on the very edge of a chair, see where the unnecessary tensions are and try to release them. c) The external to internal monitor: perform a series of simple actions while someone else acts as your Monitor, pointing out unnecessary tensions to you as you go. Verify what they say. Is there tension where they say it is? Become aware of it and release it. These actions are things like: line up chairs against a wall, tidy up the room, open and shut a window or a door. d) Internal monitor: Exercise with an imaginary fence. First crawl under the imaginary fence, which we’ll say is about 40cm above the ground, gradually pushing your head and shoulders under it. Then crawl back under the fence backwards. Play with walking: bearing in mind economy of movement, tensions and what they do to the actor’s presence. Kathy Foley (in Zarrilli, 1995: 166), writes of the character Panji who symbolises the ruler and the mountains, peace and fertility amongst other things. Panji’s visual focus is directed to the ground about a body length in front of him, almost giving the impression of being recycled back into his body. The centre of gravity (the energy focus) is low, in the umbilical area near the base of the spine. This extension of energy toward the earth and the maintenance of a wide, deep plié allows all the parts of the body above this center to give a floating impression. Try walks for a grandmother of different types and ages with different characteristics: brittle, tired, happy and fit, insecure etc. Try walks for young men and women too. Try and encourage 140 examination of the oppositionary forces brought together to develop a heightened performance energy. e) Check your hands: extend each finger individually, bend each finger in turn. Shake a drop of water off your hand. Fan your face with your hands as though it was hot; shoot a pistol. Muscle use: Carry a real chair from the wall to the table. Which muscles are involved? Then carry an imaginary chair, using the same muscular effort and the same level of energy. If you don’t succeed, repeat the exercise with a real chair and try again. Balance and centre of gravity: a) In a kneeling position, reach up towards a hanging object without letting your feet leave the floor. b) Lean forward and hand an object to someone some distance away while sitting. c) In a sitting position stretch out as far as you can to pick up a glass of water that is in different locations in the room eg on the window sill, on a table, lying on the floor in a corner. d) Get down on your knees in the middle of the room, then, on cue, start to get up and imagine that you receive a blow in the back or the chest. Do you fall or manage to stay upright? Where is your centre of gravity? Repeat – being pushed in different parts of your body or from behind or to the side. e) Imagine you are sitting down and someone tries to push you off your chair. Your chair tilts but remains upright. Where is your centre of gravity? Try very hard to knock your partner over. Then try again but this time don’t knock so hard. Do this with physical contact and then repeat precisely without. Decroux: explore two types of tension – the secousse and the fondu. Secousse: tensing the muscles and releasing suddenly in a powerful and quick movement. Fondu: continual slow movement at constant velocity with a constant degree of muscular tension. ‘The Antenna of the Snail’ (in Zarrilli, 1995: 113). Tense neck muscles. The head then turns slowly as the tension is released. As the head reaches the 45º angle, the neck tenses again, causing the head to rotate back in the opposite direction. The tension and recoil imitate the sensitive snail’s antennae as they near and obstacle, vibrate and recoil. This can be re-done the next day in imagination to show the inherent interaction between principles of presence. From Lecoq (2001: 75) try expanding movements to their maximum. Expand to the point just before over-balance. Practise and repeat some 141 of Decroux’s and Lecoq’s movements with these. Also try some of the Samurai movements and climbing the wall and lifting exercises (Lecoq, 2001: 78-80). Feel the balance. Push the limits, make mistakes feel the pushes and pull of the body and how these affect you as a performer. Repeat and explore many times. Practice until you get it ‘right’. Feel the tensions between push & pull. What does this do to your energy and to your focus? Repeat & explore. Barba’s ‘dance of oppositions’: we see some of this in the next Meyerhold exercise ‘Throwing the stone’ – a good use of dance of opposites and tensions. ‘The Chinese performer always begins an action with its opposite. For example, in order to look at a person seated on their right, an Occidental performer would use a direct, linear movement of the neck. But the Chinese performer, and most Oriental performers, would begin as if they wanted to look in a different direction. They would then suddenly change course and turn their eyes to that person. According to the opposition principle, if one wants to go left, one begins by going to the right, then suddenly stops and turns left’ (Barba, 1995: 176). If one wants to crouch down, one first rises up on tip-toe and then crouches down. Gives and effect of surprise and guides the spectator’s attention. We see this again in the ‘Throwing the Stone’ eg. I want to play with this using simple actions such as tea making, looking at someone, bending down to get something out of a cupboard etc. What does this do to the energy of the exercise? Ask actors to observe not only their own ‘performance’ but also that of the other actors and to write notes about what they felt and observed. Meyerhold – a dactyl and then an étude. Watch video (Barba on ‘Throwing the Stone’) and discuss. We see heightened balance, surprise: simultaneous affirmation and negation of what the audience expects, rhythm and breaking the rhythm, dance of oppositions, energy (small and large modulation of energies), tension, intention (imagination). Then practice the movements – practise and repeat this exercise over the following days. Can also use Meyerhold’s other exercises, such as ‘Stab with the Dagger’, if we have time. Also play with Meyerhold’s notion of grotesque freezes (in Hodge, 2000) in a family portrait sequence of the Arvo Tea Ceremony. Develop a family portrait moment for the play. Here we can also incorporate Barba’s ‘eye cutting’ or ‘mie’. Show the actor’s some pictures of this (Barba, 1995: 111-112). The grotesque photo portrait should use this eye effect: in the photo the actors show their character’s true inner feelings. Although they smile at the camera, they look at one another from the sides of their eyes. For example, the grandmother looks ‘down’ at new girlfriend, girlfriend looks sideways to boyfriend for support, boyfriend could be oblivious to the other two or having his own look. Discuss and play with this. Getting different scenarios and tensions from 142 the use of ‘mie’. The actors work together to create a focus through the opposing forces of the eyes. Preparation for Day 2 Observation/Imagination: at end of day ask actors to observe two people on their way home. The next day they will be asked to describe them in as much detail as possible, and to try and explain what they were doing or imagine what they were doing. Try and extract from the actor what were that person’s special characteristics, mannerisms, clothing, makeup: what was it about them that caught their attention. Stress importance of observation – think of things they have observed in the past that relate to their own characters or the afternoon tea scenario (their own grandmothers, girlfriends, boyfriends). They may also want to collect and bring in photos or newspaper pictures. Give example of Helene Weigel’s silent scream developed from a newspaper photo of a grieving Indian woman. Anne Bogart’s sourcework – creates ‘play-world’ (Landau in Dickson and Smith, 1995: 18): ‘Anne asked everyone to come in on the second day with a list or presentation which answered the question “What is German?” ‘. For tea ceremony scenario, we could develop a list or presentation on ‘relationship with Grandmother’ and/or ‘what is a cup of tea to you’? Leads us to the ideas of play breakdown & the ‘supertask’, the ‘through-action and counter through-action of the Model Rehearsal Method’ and to a certain degree the practices of Brecht, Bogart and other theatre practitioners: find a good blend. Over the next few days collect ideas and pictures where possible. Day 2: Imagination & Interaction of Principles Yesterday we focused on dynamic balance, on the energy created by binary opposites – but we were also using the other principles of performance presence: Imagination, Awareness and Mutuality. Remember this. The principles interact in performance – over the next few days we will be doing exercises that incorporate all the principles at any given time but actors will have the luxury in the earlier parts of this process of trying to focus on them individually. An example of this is ‘Antenna of the Snail’ from Day 1: see how imagination and awareness are necessary to heighten the performance energy, thus making the performance even stronger? Ask actors to discuss the two people they observed, to describe them and what they were doing and explain what they think they were doing: special characteristics, mannerisms, clothing, make-up, actions, imagined purpose. Perhaps they can even try and re-create that person as a character. Explain that sometimes an observation journal is good 143 way of training yourself. Then ask one of them to describe in detail what I was wearing yesterday or the night before. Observation & (imagination) characterisation: Model your appearance on someone you have seen and observed. Justify it. Imagine how they live, what their past is, what their profession is, what they are likely to believe in, how they will vote etc. Also – follow up on the Anne Bogart “play-world” – “fictive world”. Our research should help create it. We will define the basic scenario more closely at this point. Write down some ideas on the board. ‘The lists serve to waken the imaginations of the actors and to start creating the vocabulary for their “playworld” ‘ (Landau in Dickson and Smith, 1995: 18). They may have their own photos or objects that they’ve brought along that they can use to help further create their character in their imagination. We can encourage the actors to lean into cliché and stereotype and as we go through these lists of objects but as we explore these lists/objects further we should come up with something that is based on yet transforms these clichés. Objective/Intention: Each actor takes a position on a given signal, releases ‘necessary tension’ and then must justify through imagination why they have taken that particular position. Then create a story from that action – it should be detailed. Go over every little thing. I ask questions and they respond. How did you get there? What is the sky like or the room like? Why? What are you wearing? What time is it? Remember: all the details of the decision must be precise. The actor must imagine the objective in full detail, must see it clearly in mind’s eye. Quick response: pass an object around the group as it gets passed on it changes from: a frog, manure, ice, a mouse, a very sharp knife. Actors should respond to the object. Feelings a place evokes: Chekhov’s ‘Atmospheres’. Atmosphere inspires both actor and audience and develops actor’s concentration. Bring ‘Manny’ (the mannequin) in for this exercise. He is the ‘audience’ – actors need to be aware of him as they are of me or anyone else in the room (Graeme Pitts uses this in his practice). This exercise involves imagination, energy, mutuality and awareness quite clearly. Atmospheres: imagine the space around you filled with the chosen atmosphere. Aim is to learn how to maintain the imaginary Atmosphere that surrounds you. (Imagine it as a smoke or light, fragrance etc). Then take it slightly further. For example, for the grandmother and grandson the kitchen or house is well-known, intimate, ‘homely’. For the new girlfriend it is an entirely different atmosphere: foreign, tense, new. Do a ‘what if’: ask the characters to each imagine what the tea room at Nana’s looks like, then get them to tell us all in detail. The layout – where cupboards, windows, doors, tables, photographs, etc are. Where 144 are the biscuits kept? What shade are the walls – are they painted or wallpapered? The carpet, rugs, boards? Create a scenario where the three find themselves in private tea rooms. The basic scenario is that are all being seated by a waiter and ordering a pot of tea and some scones/jam/cream. They then wait for it to arrive. There are spirits in the tea room – it is in an old private house where a family was murdered. It is an uncomfortable but highly charged atmosphere. See what happens, how the characters behave in this atmoshpere than change that atmosphere and do another impro using the same scenario. It is in colonial India: posh, waiters are very haughty, the airconditioning is up too high. Service is quick. Change atmospheres again. It is a CWA hall in inland Australia. It is very busy and hot, people crammed in. There are flies and it is annoying, noisy and cramped. Get actors to suggest other atmospheres. Compare the scenes as they change with atmosphere. Play with actions and imagination – what you do will be different depending on the performance influences and circumstances. Describe Meisner’s ‘Knock on the door’ phone book exercise as an example of this. Developing the actor’s imagination to change the quality of actions and gestures. Examples: Action = Take off your coat when: • You have come home from work and are hungry, • You have just come from visiting a very sick friend in hospital, • It is a new, rather expensive coat and you want to take good care of it, • You are in the waiting room of a famous director and you want him to give you a job. Action = Preparing a meal or a cup of tea when: You are at the office and will be drinking it at your desk, You are at home and have a very special guest, You are making it for a young child who is with you. Logic of action exercise (Benedetti, 1998: 29-30): ‘You are expecting your girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s parents for a meal for the first time. You want to make a good impression. The sequence of Basic Actions: 1. Tidy the room. 2. Lay the table. 3. Make yourself presentable. 4. Check to see if everything is all right. 5. Wait for them to arrive. Each of these five Basic Actions can be broken down into sequences of small, physical actions.’ 145 These smaller actions can be broken down even further. Adapt this scenario to be expecting girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s grandmother for an afternoon tea or light meal. Style: Robert Cohen says style is imposed and inherent, that it is a survival mechanism in performance. It is closely linked to objective. Give actors the example of a foreign man in a bar and the style he needs to learn and adhere to to buy a beer. We will also explore reciprocal style: first a general improvisation is suggested where two persons have conflicting objectives. ‘For example, Person A wants Person B to stand up and make a speech, but Person B has a hole in their pants and doesn’t want anybody –including Person Ato know about it. The improvisations is ‘stylized’ by planting the following preconditions: Person B has a grave hearing defect so, that they can only hear words spoken in a high falsetto, and cannot read or lip read. Person A also has a hearing defect and can only hear very low tones – the very deepest that Person B can come up with. Both actors are improvising only out of situational needs and goals’ (Chekhov, 1991: 126-127). We can change this to a tea ceremony scenario. Play with external style: At an agreed upon Western-style afternoon tea (practise the actions first) but imagine that all actors are dressed in the full kimino of a Japanese tea ceremony costume. It is tight and restricting but elegant and sensual. Agree on a description first. As best as you can imagine the Japanese ‘style’ of performance tradition, gesture and posture. The actors will have watched a video presentation of a tea ceremony by now. How does this change the original Western ceremony? Energy, imagination, awareness, mutuality exchange? Maybe do a tea ceremony in another style? Children’s pantomime or gun slinging saloon for example. Day 3: Awareness & Mutuality Awareness Multi-level focus: Count how many matches in a box of matches while telling a story at the tea table. Raising awareness: Oida’s (1997: 20-21) eight directions of movement and spacial awareness exercise. Sense of space is codified into eight directions in relation to the audience. Oida’s Awareness and Mutuality excercise (1997: 75): 146 Start to walk by getting a sense of your own body, as it is connected to the earth and sky. Then start to move around the room. As you walk about, try to feel the other people in the space. In fact, you are doing two things simultaneously: keeping your awareness of your body in space, and also making contact with other performers. You are using three directions at the same time: up, down, and outwards. Then you imagine that one more ‘you’ exists in the world, and that this ‘you’ simply observes what is going on. It observes your physical situation, and it observes how you contact other people. Now you have three levels of activity and awareness: your physical body in space, your relationship with others, and the silent observer. Take an actual item of clothing e.g. a coat or perhaps this could be a different piece of clothing which represents the character. Put it on noting carefully everything that you do. When you think you know what the sequence of actions is, put the coat aside and mime the action as accurately as possible. If you don’t succeed, go back to using the real item, becoming aware of the logical chain of actions. Also logic in imagination exercise. Take a series of simple, everyday actions and break them down into their smallest constituent actions. Actions such as writing a letter, peeling potatoes, washing the dishes, shaving/putting on make-up, packing a suitcase. Breath & gesture, breath & rhythm: Example: waving goodbye with breath changes attitudes: eg p76 of Lecoq. ‘In a standing position, I raise my arm to the vertical to wave goodbye to someone. If this movement is made while breathing in as the arm is raised, and then breathing out as it falls back, the sense of a positive farewell results. If you do the opposite, raising the arm on the out breath, and letting it fall as you breathe in, the dramatic state becomes a negative: I don’t want to say goodbye, but I am obliged to do so’ (Lecoq, 2001: 76). Find an example: perhaps getting dressed to visit grandma where the breathing affects the actions. Putting on the kettle is another good example. Breath can affect the rhythm and attitude of gesture – the fictive world itself. Imagination, awareness and energy are working together. More examples: It is a dark night. You are in an empty street. You hear footsteps approching. Or, it is Spring. You are in the park. The birds are singing, the trees are in leaf, the flowers are blooming. Or, you have forgotten your purse/wallet. You have to unlock the door, find the purse/wallet get out and lock the door again all the time knowing you will probably be late for the bus which will mean you’ll be late for an 147 important meeting. How do these situations affect your breathing? Did you feel a different internal rhythm? Develop a scenario using the three actors as grandmother, grandson and girlfriend playing with breath and rhythm. When we practise this scenario does the performance develop and how? Describe Zarrili’s (1995: 191) kathakaỊi exercise. The example here is how breath control and tension can influence gesture and presence. His example is of the erotic sentiment. ‘Beginning with a long, slow and sustained in-breath, the eyebrows move slowly up and down. The eyelids are held open half-way on a quick catch breath, and when the object of pleasure or love is seen (a flower, a lover etc), the eyelids quickly open wide on and in-breath, as the corners of the mouth are pulled up and back, responding to the object of pleasure. Do Brecht’s ‘Said the man, said the woman’ exercise. Get the actors to improvise a scenario we might use in the performance scenario e.g. washing up the dishes in the kitchen for example. The girlfriend might nearly drop one of Nana’s special teacups but catches it just in time. Then they must do it with ‘said the man’, ‘said the woman’ with each action or thought. E.g. ‘the man keeps drying the plates’, ‘the cup slips’, ‘ “we have to leave now” thinks the woman’. Doing this exercise with both thought and action may highlight the actors’ levels of consciousness and the way these levels change and move in and out during performance. The scenario can be developed through improvisation. However, keep the improvisations simple. Keep in mind that often the first thing that pops into an actors mind during improvisation can be the most interesting and so the more we can develop our scenarios during this creative practice through improvisation, the better. Ask actors to write about this after the following exercises. Then do some impulse exercises. Grotowski, Barba, Stanislavski, Chekhov, Brecht, Suzuki, and Oida all suggest that repetition is ideal for finding true impulse. The following scenario of making a pot of tea, or any other tea-related action, is based on a repetition exercise by Chekhov designed to increase ‘Creative Individuality’ and awareness: Repeat the chosen action at least twenty times. Each time avoid repetition of any kind. Do each action in a new way with a fresh inner approach. Keep only the general ‘business’ as a spine for the exercise. By doing this exercise you will develop your originality and ingenuity, and with them you will gradually awaken the courage of your individual approach to all that you do on the stage. You will always find new, individual ways to fulfill old business, remaining within the frame given by the director. You will discover gradually that the real beauty of our art is constant improvisation. 148 Grotowski said it was necessary for the actor to ‘justify every detail of his or her training with a precise image whether real or imaginary’ and this relates even to basic exercise such as sit-ups or push-ups. Choose a basic exercise like a spinal roll or leg stretch. To develop a unified mind/body and to avoid mechanical repetition the actor should be aware each time of why they are doing the exercise. This ‘why’ shouldn’t be general but rather as specific as possible. Improvisation is encouraged in relation to the flow of associations that accompany the exercise. So too is interaction between actors if necessary. This will probably mean that the actors adjust the way they ‘perform’ an exercise and will allow for changes in rhythm, interaction, dialogue etc. However remember that the basic exercise shouldn’t change too much itself. Try and track how this exercise develops energy, imagination, awareness and, where it exists, mutuality between actors. Then move on to Meisner’s repetition exercise (Krasner in Hodge, 2000: 144): As an exercise, repetition demands of actors that they verbalise what they perceive in another actor. In other words, one actor might begin by saying ‘You’re looking at me’, and the other actor might reply, ‘I’m looking at you’. The essence of the phrase (‘looking at’) is repeated about a dozen times, all the while each actor ‘reads’ the other actor’s behaviour. Meisner explains that actors ought to observe behaviour, and in turn ‘your instinct picks up the change in [the other actor’s] behaviour and the [repetition] dialogue changes too. Develop this exercise even further until it becomes one Meisner’s ‘Knock on the Door’ exercise. This exercise uses the model of the repetition exercise but then adds adds a more complex scenario as well. This scenario means that each actor has their own activity or objective and a conclusion must be reached. Mutuality Coordination exercise: Working with the dynamic energies (and the conjunction of opposing forces) of the other performers and exploring how this relationship develops in performance. Working in pairs or threes, perform the following activities: saw wood, drag a large chest, a sofa, move a cupboard, a precious but light painting, row a boat. Follow on exercise from the coordination exercise: Estelle, pour a cup of tea and create a sound that goes with this movement. Play with the sound. What internal image do you have? Focus on this, move close to Emma. For a few seconds both actors repeat the sound and movement 149 simultaneously – the first actor ‘giving’ the image and the second actor ‘receiving’ it. Emma then moves out into the space and the process continues to Jim who passes it back to Estelle etc. ‘The form of the sound and movement is allowed to alter – a new association surfaces in relation to the changing form – which in turn shapes the rhythms and dynamic of another sound and movement image which is then passed on to another actor, received by that actor and so on’ (Chaikin in Hodge, 2000: 160). More mutual give and take in improvisation: On a given signal, two actors spontaneously adopt a position in relation to each other. They each inwardly justify the position and then begin to move, observing each other, trying to understand and justify their actions. They decide what it is they are doing and coordinate and direct their efforts to a common end. The common goal might be making tea, getting ready to go out, cleaning. The first actor devises the situation and starts to improvise on it and the second adapts to what the other is doing. Gestural clarity is important. Devise a scenario. The girlfriend wants to go. She must make this clear to the boyfriend without the grandmother knowing. At first the boyfriend doesn’t get it, he is engrossed in a conversation with his grandmother – the girlfriend must be subtle yet clear to convince him. Have the actors pick key gestures from these and play with them – making them bigger, playing with the tensions, the balance etc. Incorporate Barba’s shadow play exercise here (1991: 184). Perform a simple action. Perhaps Jim giving Emma some flowers or Estelle offering tear or cake. See how mutuality, awareness and energy work together in this exercise. Oida’s mutual hand ‘conversation’ exercise (1997: 75-76). Actor/Audience relationship: perhaps now is a good time to bring in ‘Manny’ (the dummy audience) again. Already the actors are aware that I am watching their work closely but perhaps to enhance this awareness I’ll put the dummy in a conspicuous audience position. He is the ‘audience’. Mutuality and Rhythm. Exploring rhythms with simple action. In varying rhythms perform any or all of the following actions: Dust the furniture Turn over the pages in a book Count the number of matches in a box Find a letter in an untidy drawer or box Make a cup of tea Initially, everyone works to the same rhythm. Then they work individually, changing rhythm frequently. Use a CD to start with. I think some traditional music Japanese music could be interesting. Explore 150 working with the rhythm and then without it: when I clap my hands they work ‘with’ and the next clap signals ‘without’. Three tempos lento, allegro, presto. Invent a group scene where each character has a different tempo-rhythm which must of course be justified in logic. The scenario might be: the boyfriend is happy to go and wants to show off his girlfriend, girlfriend is feeling awkward and nervous and doesn’t really want to go. Nana is getting ready: she is eager to see her grandson but dubious about his new girlfriend and is preparing for what she will ask the girl to find out if she is ‘suitable’. In the scenario where the couple are getting out of the car, through the gate, up the path to the door. Nana can be watching. Play with the rhythms and how they effect the performance. Joan Littlewood’s exercise of playing with time. Slow down movement with the environment. One person wants to get afternoon tea over with quickly the other wants to spend all afternoon there. Play with how long they’ve been there: an hour, 6 hours. Play with actors’ weight, movement tempo and rhythm, direction, stance etc. Reinforce Oida’s (1997: 85) description of actors as storytellers. Must smell the audience and know what is going on at all times. Day 4: WHAT NOW ? DISCUSS AND DOCUMENT the last three days in detail. What worked? What didn’t? Re-assess the theories built into the last three days’ creative practice. In general Barba’s practice of allowing actors to explore the principles of performance in their own individual way, testing, feeling, repeating should continue over the next few days. Major debrief – go to different space. At this point we can change days 4 and 5 programming. We can include more repetition of work already done that needs to be explored further. Get feedback. More improvisations and the exploration of the processes of the principles in practice as well as development of the Arvo Tea Ceremony over the next two days. 151 Appendix C Photo Documentation of Creative Practice and Focus Group The following images are stills taken from digital video recordings the Creative Practice (30/3/02 – 3/4/02) and Focus Group (24/5/02). Estelle Muspratt: ‘Throwing the Stone’ exercise. 152 Estelle Mustpratt and Jim Adamik: ‘Throwing the Stone’ exercise. Estelle Mustpratt, Jim Adamik and Emma Harris: improvisation of ‘Afternoon Tea Ceremony’ scenario. 153 Jim Adamik and Emma Harris: shadow and gesture exercise (shadow). Jim Adamik and Emma Harris: contrast shot of the shadow and gesture exercise. 154 Emma Harris and Estelle Muspratt: exercise combining use of the four principles of performance presence: energy, imagination, awareness and mutuality. Jim Adamik: tea repetition exercise. 155 Estellle Muspratt, Emma Harris and Jim Adamik: improvisation of ‘Afternoon Tea Ceremony’. Estelle Muspratt, Emma Harris and Jim Adamik: improvisation of ‘Afternoon Tea Ceremony’. 156 Jane O’Donnell, Emma Harris, Estelle Muspratt and Jim Adamik: discussion and feedback session. Jane O’Donnell, Leonard Meenach, Mark Radvan and Jo Loth: focus group discussion. 157 References Artaud, A. (1970) The Theatre and its Double: essays, Montreuil: Calder. ---. (1989) Artaud on Theatre, London: Methuen Drama. Auslander, P. 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