Week One -
Week Five
Week One
'Love
art in yourself, not yourself in art'
Tuesday
Although the
lecture was short this week, I felt it was still important to write an entry.
Firstly, to introduce myself, including my background and my expectations of the
unit and secondly, to convey my current beliefs in theatre and acting in
general. I feel it is important to demonstrate my current understanding in order
to observe new knowledge occurring within this unit.
As a child,
in both primary and secondary schooling, I was part of as many drama and
theatrical events as possible. This is not to say I was the best actor, just
extremely enthusiastic. After high school I ceased acting for almost a decade. I
always enjoyed acting but found it to be an area that required my full
attention, which during this time I was not able to commit. As I am endeavouring
to eventually become a drama teacher, a unit such as this is important to my
progress.
I would like
to record my expectations for this unit and by doing so allow myself time to
reflect back on my successes or failures in these areas. Firstly my desire is to
re-establish my confidence and competency in acting. After such a long absence
from acting I feel inept and completely unskilled for any stage work. I would
desperately like to improve in this is an area. Secondly, I look forward to
taking a monologue and dialogue and addressing the necessary skills to create a
professional performance. Finally I would like to broaden my knowledge of acting
concepts and theories. As I enter the world of teaching, these are invaluable
skills.
I realised
after completing Introduction to Drama, that I favoured the Stanislavski
approach to acting. I believe realism on the stage is a fantastic method. In my
mind, actors who become the role and believe in their environment would provide
a fantastic theatrical experience. The stage would also be important, as each
object is specifically relevant to the story. I realise, of course, to stage
such a production would be exhausting. I am therefore interested to see if my
interest in Stanislavski is still present at the conclusion of this unit.
As far as my
journal goes, my aim is to write one entry after the Friday tutorial and any
additional entries as necessary. This chronological order shall allow me to
demonstrate my logical progression and comprehension of the unit. It will also
allow me to reflect on this unit, and myself.
I have chosen to take a quote to begin each week’s entries from the
readings and my regular observation of theatre, television and movies. The
quotes I choose shall be relevant to each weeks subject, the way I feel or even
just a simple quote I couldn’t walk away from; simply an understanding of my
progression and a glimpse of me.
Week Two
'Acting
is like riding a bicycle, is easier to do than explain'
Friday
A great first
class today. We all got into groups and created a production on the basics of
bad acting. In groups, we improvised a scene we believed demonstrated bad
acting. People were forgetting lines, walking in on the wrong scene, talking
over the top of each other and appearing like imbeciles. At the end of the
presentations we were all reminded that bad acting only exists when the
parameters of good acting are explained.
In some
productions, talking directly to the audience is inexcusable. It is quite
acceptable however, for an actor in a pantomime to personally address the
audience. I’m currently taking Children’s Theatre and I’m fairly sure that
if the characters don’t talk directly to the audience the children will riot.
Why then did we complete such a task today?
One obvious reason
is to meet each other and the quickest way to achieve this is to work together.
Team activities build confidence and help create friendships, especially on the
first day. In addition ‘performance demands a state of physical relaxation’.
What better way to relax than a fun exercise illustrating a rather important
point. Acting is mainly concerned with context.
The purpose of a
play is normally to provide a message to the audience. Stanislavski was
concerned about discovering meaning and his productions were therefore focused
on real characters trying to find a sense of belonging. Stanislavski focused on
realistic staging and properties that reflected the time in history the
production was set. The context of a production therefore focused on a realistic
portrayal of events. In a vein to produce realism, actors ignored the audience
and treated the auditorium like the fourth wall of the stage.
The concept I
enjoy is the idea of ‘public solitude’.
The idea of an actor on stage in front on hundreds of people, acting as if they
are totally alone is brilliant! In this method, a bad actor would be someone who
talks directly to the audience, doesn’t get attached emotionally to their
character and uses properties that are representational rather than historical.
Speaking directly towards the audience and a non-realistic approach are quite
acceptable in a Brechtian production.
For something to
be described as bad, the benchmark and parameters of good need to be
established. Bad acting in fact can be quite entertaining. If the production
were billed to be a serious Shakespearian tragedy, actors forgetting lines and
turning their back to audience would appear to be bad actors. It only provides
further proof that acting has a variety of approaches and styles.
Saturday
Today I saw a
magician. I hear you say, YIPPEE and why is this important? Context! If I
witnessed an actor on stage speaking to the audience and encouraging the
audience to yell back, I may refer to this person as a bad actor. Today I
observed such an actor with apparently no regard for the theatrical profession
and basically destroying the line between stage and audience, why?
To a child, the
concept of theatre has not been fully established. Children are fun and
therefore the theatre they view is fun as well. The purpose of the magician was
to entertain the children by developing an atmosphere of fun .
In doing so, the magician distributed a feeling of excitement throughout the
audience allowing the children to become part of the performance.
The character the
actor developed was an aging forgetful wizard, which in turn antagonised the
children. He forgot his helpers’ names and even basic things like ‘girls and
…and umm… boys!’ In doing so, he invited the children to interact with the
performance and even involved some of the children on stage. Was this really
acting or just some kind of entertainment?
This was an actor
performing the role of a wizard. He may not have used Stanislavski’s method,
placing his full emotion into the character, yet he was still acting. Perhaps it
was a Michael Chekhov approach as he developed an atmosphere of entertainment
that included the children as well as all the parents. By the end of the show,
everyone had become part of the performance and was entertained. This actor
presented a performance that was appropriate to his audience and therefore met
the correct context.
Week Three
'You're dammed
if you do and you're dammed if you don't'
Friday
The great divide
consists of two apposing approaches to acting, focussing mainly on the mind and
emotions or the body and reason. The great divide creates many contradictions.
It seems to present two methods that if followed place an actor in a position
that either creates a character full of emotion or faceless characters defined
by social status. I know these are the extremes, yet these methods are very
similar. How? At this moment in time I still see both approaches as extremely
different, yet both add to the area of acting. As this unit develops I am sure
this divide will look a bit smaller and I shall understand it better.
To produce a
character using the Stanislavski method, an actor must almost become possessed
by the role. To do so an actor must commit to the role producing real emotion to
‘real’ situations on stage. This process must be exhausting and therefore a
lot of concentration must be invested. I think that’s what it comes down to;
if a lot of effort is invested, a brilliant final product will be created. If an
actor invests no effort then they will receive nothing in return. That was the
focus of today’s workshop.
Focus is the key.
One activity that stood out today was the one where everyone lined up against
the wall and ran to the other side in slow motion. At first, my concentration
was about 10% on the task because people were talking and there were other
noises in the room. Due to this environment, I moved about a metre in a minute.
By the end of the task however, my focus was about 85%. Through concentration of
mind I imagined each bone in my body moving, each muscle changing and I walked
about one metre in two and a half minutes.
Concentration is
one of the keys to Stanislavski’s approach, ‘total mental and physical
concentration on stage’.
Without an actor’s full focus on a character, or even themselves, how can they
expect the audience to believe their performance when they don’t? I am
starting to favour the Michael Chekhov approach to focus, as he pays particular
attention to atmosphere. An actor who is focused can create an atmosphere on
stage that envelops all other actors and the audience.
This is an
extension of the talk that occurred at the end of the workshop in relation to
ethics. A true actor needs to respect their area, and therefore themself. When
we turn up to the workshop each week we need to show respect and ‘take the
right attitudes towards the object of each individual’ class .
It is also important for actors to respect their ensemble, the company and even
the theatre with which they are associated. Each actor represents, and is
therefore a kind of ambassador for their group. When you’re an actor off
stage, ethically, you are still acting.
Sunday
For my monologue I
have chosen Antony’s speech, ‘all is lost!’ One of my main reasons is,
rather embarrassingly, up until I read it last week I was unaware the play
Antony and Cleopatra existed. I find no better excuse than to discover more
about the play and learn the speech at the same time. Currently I am trying to
learn my lines ad nauseam, and then infuse the true meaning of the scene into
the play once I have researched.
From this week’s
class, some of the tasks and points mentioned will help in developing the
monologue. Firstly, I have decided to use the metaphor of being ‘stabbed in
the back’ literally. I will attempt to perform my monologue as if Antony has
been stabbed in the back with a dagger made of fire. The character of Antony is
strong, and will endure pain to express every last word. I will also attempt to
refrain from gestures as it may take away from the performance. This is
currently my plan and I will see how it develops.
Week Four
'Toto, I've
a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore'
Friday
In today’s class
I was a chimpanzee, my mother would be proud. The purpose of the lesson was to
discover the walk of your character. The theory being that once you can walk
like your character, you can then focus on presenting the character’s lines.
We started walking as 100% of an animal, and by the time we walked the full
spectrum of the stage we became 95% human and 5% our given animal. My first
reaction was that everyone walks their own way, don’t they?
I guess the walk
of a character represents their characteristics. In The Wizard of Oz for
example, the three companions of Dorothy all had a different method of
presenting their characters. The Scarecrow was made of straw, and his walk was
therefore loose and unstable. The wind had a strong influence on the way he
walked and the lack of body structure insured the Scarecrow had no strength,
which also affected his character.
An opposing
character was the Tinman. He was strong and firm, yet confined to small
movements due to rusting. Being made of tin only allowed him small movements, so
each movement of the tinman was therefore very important. The stature of the
tinman was tall and proud unless the lack of heart was mentioned. This made the
tinman unhappy and depressed, quickly demonstrated in his body posture.
The lion also had
two main stature positions. The
lion had a strong, firm upright stance as the king of the jungle. This was lost
when it came to courageous situations, as the lion would be reduced to a ball of
fur shaking nervously. Can these three different characters all have been
achieved with the one acting approach? How would a Stanislavski approach work on
these characters?
Stanislavski
believes the actors own emotions can help create a character. ‘This begins
with the sharpening of the senses’.
An actor needs to understand their surroundings through all senses including the
sixth sense, which Stanislavski dubbed emotion. Through exercises such as
recalling their moods and the ‘magic if’, actors can develop an
understanding of their character.
The ‘magic if’
presents to the actor a situation they have dealt with previously. This exercise
asks the actor to respond in their character. This allows the actor to think of
all aspects of their character’s emotions to develop an understanding. The
purpose is to consider the fictional character as a real person by visualising
‘the detail of a character’s world’.
Aspects of the
Stanislavski approach may have been used to develop the characters in ‘The
Wizard of Oz’ yet it was not the only acting approach. Animals and inanimate
objects talking, singing and dancing is non-naturalistic, and therefore not
Stanislavski’s approach. Two questions remain; what method is most prevalent
in creating such characters and can I use an animal walk or similar to improve
my character?
Monday
In Friday’s
class we were asked to write a story about a stranger. What would be the point
of this task? I assume one of the main reasons is to look at a person as if they
are an actor performing. Pretend a stranger on the street was using a
naturalistic approach to acting, now what is their body telling you?
Naturalistic acting method leaves the audience believing the emotions of the
actor, or in this case a real person. It is important for this story to centre
on the detail of the stranger, and how this confirms their realism.
The story of
Trudy
A lady sits at the
bus stop. A rather attractive woman about thirty-five, blonde shoulder length
hair, long eyelashes and a large beauty spot on her left cheek. She is dressed
in a green button up shirt and dark blue jeans. She wears six bangles on her
wrist, each one representing a previous boyfriend and a ring on her finger
indicating her husband.
Even though she is
married, she can’t stop touching the bangles as it reminds her of her past.
They are always good memories; she tries never to remember the bad times. Her
name is Heather, which she hates. Her friends call her Trudy, a nickname that
was coined by a past boyfriend. A ‘true buddy’, and that’s what she is.
Trudy always thinks about the future and never dwells on the past, and that is
the main problem she is having now.
The bus stop is
conveniently located outside the front of the supermarket. It is not the short
walk that has caused Trudy to perspire, nor the mildly hot day unusual this late
in March. Trudy sits exhausted, arms draped over her three shopping bags, deep
in thought; scared. She is not scared of the past, but for the first time ever
she is scared of the future. She is in love, not with her husband, nor just with
one person.
Trudy is in love
with two different people. The first is a kind man around her age; he’s funny,
charming and honest. They flirt with each other suggesting sexual acts but have
never followed through with anything. The other person is a twenty- six-year-old
woman. They both understand each other and love each other’s company. They
have never developed a relationship although have both talked freely about doing
so. Trudy loves them both. They are in fact a couple, man and wife.
Trudy sits at
the bus seat drinking water and continuously sweating. Her doctor has no cure
for her illness; the doctor has no idea what the illness is. The fact is Trudy
has only months to live, obvious from her eyes. Just by looking at her you can
see her soul. Every decision in her mind runs through her thoughts, ‘do I
destroy a marriage and leave one person I love happy and the other alone?’ The
truth is someone will be left alone and unhappy because whatever she chooses,
she will leave everyone when she dies. One thing is for sure, the bus is here
and it is time to go.
Week Five
'Once you go
through the door and close the door, you're completely absorbed. I couldn't
tell whether it was five people in the audience or five thousand, because
you're completely absorbed with what you're doing'.
Friday
In today’s class
we completed an exercise that, we were told, summed up acting. We accomplished
one simple exercise where two people are pushing shoulder-to-shoulder yelling
‘yes’ and ‘no’. The primary intention of a production is to present a
situation, normally some type of conflict. The drive of a production is to see
how conflicting views and opinions can be resolved. Similar to real life, good
can only exist with evil. The drive of most productions is the presentation of
binary oppositions, expressing two opposing opinions.
We then focused on
the Stanislavski technique of the ‘magic if’. It allowed us to develop our
emotions, but more importantly focus on the fact that emotions can only exist in
given circumstances. Assumptions in acting can propose that nervous people sit
still, and people scared of confrontation move slowly and without comfort. An
emotion can exist in any situation if appropriate. At a funeral for instance, a
mourner can cry, smile, laugh, scream or yell, as no one emotion is correct.
Stanislavski was
the first person to develop an approach to inject emotions into acting. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, the director was merely a ‘supervisor of
rehearsals’.
Stanislavski wanted to create the perfect character, believable and with
true emotions. He believed the three phases of the actor’s preparation are
concentration, imagination and communication. Each area develops an actor to
become aware of emotions and how to use them on stage; ‘the actor becomes the
character’. How?
The three main
aspects of Stanislavski method are to ‘develop sense of self by concentration,
imagination and communication’.
Concentration is developed through an understanding of senses used to create
‘public solitude’ on stage. Imagination is enhanced through exercises such
as ‘magic if’. Communication consists of not only what is said, but also
what is not said.
Subtext is an
important aspect of a Stanislavski production. A subtext is ‘anything a
character thinks or feels, but cannot put into words’.
Using the funeral example again, different people respond to the situation in
different ways. Not everyone mourns the same way at a funeral, and some do not
even mourn. The purpose of the subtext is to realise that not everything is
physically said; actions and movements can contradict the dialogue. Stanislavski
believed it was important for an actor to realise that not everything is spoken
on stage.
Stanislavski
actors create an awareness of their own emotions. Through this, the actor can
develop a way to understand their character and use this information to create
emotion for their character. The actor then begins to breathe and thinks like
the character they portray; they become the role.
The method actor however, looks at the stage and observes that it is like
real life.
The method actor
realises it is important for the audience to feel the emotion, not the just the
actor. More importantly, ‘emotions and feelings were replaced by actual
‘felt experiences’. An actor would go out and
experience events and situations, rather than try to recreate them through their
past.
Strasberg, one of
the founding members of the method acting approach, believed that ‘emotions on
stage should never be real. It always should be only remembered emotions.’
Where a Stanislavski actor feels all of their emotions, the method actor
believes the emotion should be shared with the audience. If an actor was to
present their full emotion, the audience would be left with nothing to feel.
There are many
similarities to the Stanislavski approach, however one main difference is the
method actor does not live the role on stage. Method actors avoid approaching
the stage as if it was real life, rather the ‘actors behave as if they are
living in the situation of the play’.
By doing so, the actors share the emotions with the audience.
As part of
today’s tutorial, our class had a brief preview of ‘The Void Room’. The
production looks at identity of cultures and presents the point-of-view from
characters that feel they are cultureless. The simple presentation of characters
and revealing monologues made it quite intriguing to watch. The stories seem to
be presented for entertainment value based loosely on truth although one actor
led me to question this.
I know one of the
actors on the stage; his name is Andrew (how could I forget). I watched the way
he delivered his monologue with extreme focus and direction. I was blown away by
the simple delivery of lines and I found myself questioning whether the story he
told was true. His movements were important and he appeared natural, speaking to
the audience as if he was everyone’s friend.
This production
appeared to be similar to the method acting approach. The actors on stage talked
about their life experiences; more than likely from events which have occurred
in their life. The presentation shared with the audience the emotion and feeling
experienced by each character. Rather than a Stanislavski approach, the actors
talked to the audience instead of ignoring them. Most approaches to acting
develop from Stanislavski’s theories. Alternative methods normally appear far
removed from Stanislavski’s approach; essentially they are still acting.
View other 'Acting' journal entries...
Week One - Week Five
Week
Six - Study Break: Week Two
Week
Eight - Week Twelve
Week
Thirteen
...or view other journals...
Semiotics
and Performance: The role of the Actor (2005)
Performing
Shakespeare in the Classroom (2005)
Drama
and The Curriculum (Summer, 2005)
Children's
Theatre (2004)
Acting
(2004)
...
or view...
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This
page last updated:
17th February 2006