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Psychophysical Acting
An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavski
Phillip B. Zarrilli
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eBook - ePub
Psychophysical Acting
An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavski
Phillip B. Zarrilli
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Ă propos de ce livre
Psychophysical Acting is a direct and vital address to the demands of contemporary theatre on today's actor. Drawing on over thirty years of intercultural experience, Phillip Zarrilli aims to equip actors with practical and conceptual tools with which to approach their work. Areas of focus include:
- an historical overview of a psychophysical approach to acting from Stanislavski to the present
- acting as an 'energetics' of performance, applied to a wide range of playwrights: Samuel Beckett, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Kaite O'Reilly and Ota Shogo
- a system of training though yoga and Asian martial arts that heightens sensory awareness, dynamic energy, and in which body and mind become one
- practical application of training principles to improvisation exercises.
Psychophysical Acting is accompanied by Peter Hulton's downloadable resources featuring exercises, production documentation, interviews, and reflection.
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Informations
Part I
What is the actorâs work?
1
Historical context
The work of Russian actor and theater director Konstantin Stanislavski (1863â1938) revolutionized Western approaches to acting in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As part of his life-long practical research into the nature and processes of acting, Stanislavski was the first to use the term âpsychophysicalâ (psikhofizicheskii) to describe an approach to Western acting focused equally on the actorâs psychology and physicality applied to textually based character acting.
When psychology emerged as a separate discipline from philosophy in the nineteenth century, the sciences of mind and the self were often considered separate from the science(s) of the physical body. This split reflected the long-term Western binary dividing mind from body that so problematically crystallized in the mindâbody dualism of the seventeenth-century French philosopher RenĂ© Descartes (1596â1650). Scientists and philosophers who wanted mind and body to be considered in relation to one another, rather than separately, began to use the compound term âpsycho-physicalâ to bridge this gap. As Robert Gordon explains,
The development of post-Darwinian theories of physiology had produced a new understanding of the nervous system, which rendered obsolete the earlier rhetoric of acting based on a simple use of corporeal and facial signs to express inner feelings. New notions of acting as behavior not only served the Darwinian logic of naturalistic drama appropriately, but also reflected the modern physiological conception of the body as a unified psychophysical organism.
(Gordon 2006: 36)
Stanislavskiâs use of âpsychophysicalâ in relation to acting was therefore an innovative, if historically limited and not always successful, attempt to problem-solve the relationship between the âpsychoâ and the âphysicalâ elements of acting. Key elements of Stanislavskiâs constantly evolving psychophysical approach to acting were drawn from two main sourcesâthe work of psychologist ThĂ©odule Armand Ribot (1839â1916) and the limited versions of Indian yoga available to Stanislavski in turn-of-the-century Russia, filtered through the then popular occultism and spiritualism (Wegner 1976: 85â89; Carnicke 1993: 131â145; White 2006: 73). From his early focus on affective memory to his later method of physical actions, Stanislavski always attempted to overcome what divided âmind from body, knowledge from feeling, analysis from actionâ (Benedetti 1982: 66).1
[Ribotâs] psychophysical theories [âŠ] state that the mind and body are a unit, and that emotions cannot be experienced without physical sensation [âŠ] As Stanislavski writes in An Actor Works on Himself, Part I, âIn every physical action there is something of the psychological, and in the psychological, something of the physical.â
(Carnicke 1998: 178)
Stanislavski described how the actorâs âphysical score,â once perfected, must go beyond âmechanical executionâ to a âdeeperâ level of experience which âis rounded out with new feeling and ⊠become[s], one might say, psychophysical in qualityâ (1961: 66). In My Life in Art, Stanislavski described the actorâs optimal state of awareness or concentration as one in which he âreacts not only on his sight and hearing, but on all the rest of his senses. It embraces his mind, his will, his emotions, his body, his memory and his imaginationâ (1948: 465). Stanislavskiâs ideal was that âin every physical action ⊠there is concealed some inner action, some feelingsâ (1961: 228).
What Stanislavski meant by âinner actionâ and âfeelingsâ were not exclusively informed by Ribotâs psychology, but also by Stanislavskiâs adaptation of yoga exercises, principles, and philosophy.2 As early as 1906, Stanislavski became interested in yoga (Carnicke 1998: 140). Although his knowledge of yoga was limited and may have been drawn exclusively from books in his library,3 Stanislavski adapted specific yoga exercises and principles to help attune and heighten the actorâs sensory awareness in performance.4 Arguably the most important material element Stanislavski borrowed from yoga was prana (or the Sanskrit compound, prana-vayu)âthe breath(s), wind, vital energy, or life-force understood to circulate within.5 Stanislavski provided a fairly accurate description of the movement of prana as it is experienced within as follows: ââPrana moves, and is experienced like mercury, like a snake, from your hands to your fingertips, from your thighs to your toes [âŠ] The movement of prana creates, in my opinion, inner rhythmââ (Carnicke 1998: 141).
From 1912 in the laboratory setting of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre Stanislavski and/or his artistic and administrative assistant, Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (1873â1916), utilized exercises clearly drawn from yoga.
First Studio member Vera Soloviova recalls:
[W]e worked a great deal on concentration. We imagined a circle around us and sent âpranaâ rays of communication into the space and to each other. Stanislavski said âsend the prana thereâI want to reach through the tip of my fingerâto Godâthe skyâor, later on, my partner. I believe in my inner energy and I give it outâI spread it.â
(White 2006: 79)
Yoga was the basis for Stanislavskiâs shift in rehearsal methods when he worked on A Month in the Country. The actors were requested to âradiate their feelings to communicate the subtext of inner emotions and motivations through eye contact with one anotherâ (Gordon 2006: 47â48). In addition to these specific uses of prana for work on concentration, inner action, and the radiation of energy, Stanislavski borrowed from Raja Yoga âthe obscure notion of the âsuperconscious,â placing it next to the âsubconsciousââ (Carnicke 1998: 142).6
The Stanislavski legacy
Stanislavskiâs legacy is profoundly diverse. It is like an aging oak treeâeach major branch with its own unique twists, turns, knots, etc.âsome of which turn in on themselves. The primary trunk and many of its major branches include those primarily concerned, as was Stanislavski himself, with textually based character acting. Some of these branches were developed by those who studied and/or worked directly with Stanislavski and remained in Russia, such as Maria Osipovna Knebel (1898â1985) or Vasily Osipovich Toporkov (1889â1970) (Carnicke 1998: 151). Others were developed by those who worked and trained for a while with Stanislavski, but emigrated from Soviet Russia to the West. First among them were Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya who founded the American Laboratory Theater (1923â1926). Michael Chekhov (1891â1955) founded the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington Hall, UK (1936â1938) and on emigration to the United States further developed his own approach in Ridgefield, Connecticut (1938â1942) and later in Hollywood.7
For very different but equally compelling reasons, a historically balanced view of Stanislavskiâs approach to psychophysical acting has been extremely difficult if not impossible both in Soviet Russia and in the United States. Sharon Carnicke reports how Soviet authorities were so troubled by the idealism of Hindu philosophy informing parts of Stanislavskiâs work that âcensors attacked Stanislavskiâs interest in yoga,â expunged prana from the 1938 Russian edition of Stanislavskiâs acting manual, and emphasized his late method of physical actions while obscuring the importance of symbolism, formalism, and yoga in his work (1998: 144; 1â2).
In the United States the highly problematic English translations of Stanislavskiâs work by Elizabeth Hapgood (Stanislavski 1936, 1949, 1961),8 the dominance of American method versions of Stanislavskiâs approach, and âa Freudian-based, individually oriented ethos [âŠ] privileged the psychological techniques of Stanislavskiâs System over those of the physicalâ (Carnicke 1998: 1). This early preoccupation in the United States with psychology and the creation of a truthful emotional life for the character meant that, like the Soviet version, the importance of symbolism, formalism, and yoga in Stanislavskiâs ever-evolving system were also obscured.
In addition to suppressing the influence of yoga and Hindu philosophy on Stanislavski, his attempts to solve the acting problems of alternative forms of new drama, such as the highly static plays of the Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck (1862â1949), were until recently neglected or forgotten both in Russia and in the US. Inspired by symbolist poetry and the late nineteenth-century European fascination with mysticism and metaphysics, Maeterlinckâs plays were written in reaction against historical dramas, drawing-room comedies, as well as emergent naturalism. His plays possess âcharactersâ difficult to situate in a given historical world. Arguably the two most important of Maeterlinckâs plays in terms of experimentation with form were his early plays, The Blind (1892), first staged in 1892 by French director, Paul Fort, and The Intruder, directed by Meyerhold in 1891. In The Blind there is âalmost no actionâjust waiting, mounting anxiety, and slow recognition of inevitable deathâ (Fuchs 1996: 96). The Blind and The Intruder were notorious at the time as âstatic theatreâ since they placed their âcharactersâ in situations in which there was little if any physical movement.9
In 1904 Stanislavski decided that the Moscow Art Theatre would stage three short Maeterlinck plays, including The Blind. According to Benedetti, Stanislavski ârealized that a new acting technique was necessary for this static drama; however, his own experiments at home in front of a mirror, both vocal and physical, proved unsuccessfulâ (1999: 152). The production was considered âa failure and Stanislavski was forced to concede the inadequacy of conventional representational methods when faced with the mystical abstractions of the ânew dramaââ (Braun 1969: 19). In spite of this failure, Stanislavski remained obsessed with how to successfully stage Maeterlinckâs plays (Benedetti 1999: 177); therefore, he began preliminary work on a production of The Blue Bird in 1907. After âthe longest period of rehearsals the [Moscow Art Theatre] had as yet ever deliberately undertakenâ (ibid.: 179), The Blue Bird premiered in 1908 and âbecame Stanislavskiâs most famous productionâ (ibid.: 183).
American versions of Stanislavski
When Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre eventually toured America during 1923â1924, American actors came to know a particular version of Stanislavski based on the realist repertory the company performed and on a series of public lectures about Stanislavskiâs acting system. While in the US the Moscow Art Theatre performed four plays from their well-established early repertoryâAlexei Tolstoyâs Tsar Fiodor, Maxim Gorkyâs The Lower Depths, and Anton Chekhovâs The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters (Benedetti 1999: 282â287). There were no performances of Stanislavskiâs more experimental work, such as Maeterlinckâs symbolist plays.
American actors were so curious about Stanislavskiâs âsystemâ that he gave permission for his former student and assistant on the tour, Richard Boleslavsky, to give a series of six public lectures. At precisely the time when Stanislavski was âplacing greater emphasis on physical tasks and physical actionsâ in the development of his own process, âBoleslavsky stressed the importance of emotion memory, developing the technique beyond Stanislavskiâs original practiceâ (Benedetti 1999: 286). The combination of performances from the realist repertory and Boleslavskyâs lectures created a distorted and incomplete picture of Stanislavskiâs directorial interests as well as his approach to acting.
So successful were Boleslavskyâs lectures that they were first published in the October 1923 issue of Theatre Arts Monthly as âActing, The First Six Lessonsâ (Boleslavsky 1949), thus establishing âBoleslavskyâs authority as a teacherâ of the Stanislavski system in America (Benedetti 1999: 286). Arguably the most influential of those who trained with Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya at the American Laboratory Theater but never directly with Stanislavski was Lee Strasberg (1901â1982)âthe individual most identified with the development of American method acting. Strasberg co-founded the Group Theater (1931â1940) with Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford. He focused on developing an actor who ââcan create out of himselfâ ⊠To do this the performer must âappeal to the unconscious and the subconsciousââ (Krasner 2000a: 134). Through exercises in âsense memory,â the actor ârecalls important events in their life, and then tries to remember only the sensual facetsâ (ibid.: 132). Exercising oneâs âaffective memoryâ the actor experiences remembered emotion leading to a release of the actorâs emotions on stage (ibid.: 133). Strasberg warned actors that emotion âalways should be only remembered emotion. An emotion that happens right now spontaneously is out of controlâyou donât know whatâs going to happen from it âŠâ (ibid.: 136). In spite of such warnings the firm foundation of Stanislavskiâs system as Strasberg taught it lay in finding âemotional truthâ (Smith 1990: 424â425).
Two of many other approaches to Stanislavski-based work in America were created when Stella Adler (1901â1992) and Sanford Meisner (1905â1997)âboth of whom were members of the Group Theater and worked with Strasbergâeach broke with him in 1934 and 1935 respectively. Adlerâs 1934 break with Strasberg was prompted by five weeks of work with Stanislavski himself in Paris on a role in Gentlewoman.
What struck Adler most was Stanislavskiâs insistence on physical action as the basis for building a performance, his rejection of any direct approach to feelings and his abandonment, except as a last resort, of Emotion Memory, which, under the influence of Boleslavsky, had become a feature of Stanislavskian acting in America.
(Benedetti 1999: 351)
Thereafter, Adler wanted the actorâs work to be inspired by âthe play itselfâ and not âfrom the material of oneâs own personal lifeâ (Krasner 2000a: 141; see also Tom Oppenheim in Bartow 2006: 29â50).
In contrast to Strasberg and Adler, Meisnerâs approach does not begin with either emotion memory or text. Via his repetition exercise, Meisner emphasized acting as âthe reality of doingâ (Meisner and Longwell 1987: 16). Meisner removed âemotion, psychology, or âcharacterâ from trainingâ in order to stress the embodiment of impulses via listening as âan act of âdoingââ in the moment (Stinespring 2000: 102â103; see also Durham 2004; Victoria Hart in Bartow 2006: 51â93). For Meisner acting is reacting. The emphasis is on keeping the actor spontaneous. Discoveries are made in the immediacy of impulses and interrelationships built between oneself and others in the moment.
Preoccupation with emotion and the psychological has meant that most American method approaches to work on âthe selfâ and creating a character have been highly susceptible to some form of bodyâmind dualism. Meisnerâs emphasis on spontaneity and the reality of âdoingâ creates a language and approach arguably less prone to dualism than other early American method approaches.
When working on oneself, is the actor working on himself, on himself-as-the-actor, or on both? What aspects of the self are being worked on? At one end of the spectrum is the potential overemphasis on the actorâs personal, subjective emotional life. In its most extreme form, acting is reduced to what the actor-as-person feels emotionally in the moment. There is no clear articulation of the...