1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Between theory and practice Phillip Philli p B. Zarrilli Zarril li
Scientists of the body speak in figures, gures, teachers of acting speak in images, artists speak in words, theorists speak in propositions. To speak in any of these forking tongues is to be split from the others. It is necessary, though perhaps not possible, that we describe a line that will join these several points. The gap between performance and thought is not simple, but is composed of sub-gaps on either side, between the pedagogical imagery of performance and the flesh which performance possesses, between thought about the theatre and the metathought which plays plays through theatre theatre . . . The performer performer and the thinker thinker could momenmomentarily meet in the sign’s provisional and already receding closure. The two might be – is it too much to ask? – the same person. (Hollis Huston 1984: 199)
There are many languages and discourses of acting, each written/spoken from a particular point of view. Theorists often speak only to theorists; practitioners only to practitioners. practiti oners. Too Too seldom do they t hey speak to each other. This book invites us to try to speak and listen across these gaps and boundaries to each other and to those parts of our “selves” which might practice theory or theorize practice. Like the seminal book of Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy, Actors on Acting (1970[1949]), this collection, by juxtaposing historically diverse and often contradictory views of acting, invites the reader to (re)consider both acting and discourses on acting. I use “(re)consider” to mark clearly the implicitly processual nature of “considering.” This view invites us not only to see performance as processual but also to see that “both society and human beings are performative, always already processually under construction” (Drewal 1991: 4). From this point of view, theatre-making is a mode of socio-cultural practice. As such, it is not an innocent or naive activity separate from or above and beyond everyday reality, history, politics, or economics. 1 As theatre historian Bruce McConachie asserts, “theatre is not epiphenomenal, simply re flecting and expressing determinate realities and forces” (1989: 230); rather, as a mode of socio-cultural 1
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practice theatre is a complex network of speci fic, interactive practices (directing, designing, acting, dramaturgy, devising, promotion, management, etc.) which helps to constitute, shape, and a ff ect “selves” as well as historical events and relationships. The relationship between any of the doers and the done (directors, designers, actors, etc.) is always actualized within a speci fic network of relationships and material circumstances which, as a process and a practice, impinges on all those doing what is being done. 2 For the contemporary actor who is exposed to and/or expected to perform in a wide variety of types of theatre/performance, the actor’s perception and practice of acting is a complex, ongoing set of intellectual and psychophysiological negotiations. These negotiations are between and among one “self” and a variety of (explicitly or implicitly) competing paradigms and discourses of acting/ performance. The actor encounters these as a part of folklore, mass media, and stage shows; in manifestos and/or scholarly treatises (on acting, feminism/s, neo-Marxist thought, etc.); and in the speci fic training or “formations” through which these negotiations are constantly (re) figured. Teachers and theorists alike experience times when their perceptions of acting, and/or its practices, are altered. For the actor, moments of (re)consideration are times when practice and thought crystallize in an insight which clari fies his or her (embodied) performance practice and technique. Yoshi Oida, in his 1992 book on acting, describes one such moment. Before joining Peter Brook’s international company in 1968, Yoshi had been well known in Japanese films and theatre as a Western-style actor. But he had also been trained in no, kabuki dance, and bunraku. While on tour in rural Iran, Brook’s company gave a performance of a work-in-progress. After the show, Peter said to me, “Your acting is too concentrated and strong for this style of work.” I realized that I was still performing in accordance with the principles of no theatre where the actor’s concentration must be extremely intense. But popular theatre requires another approach. And I realized that just as there are many levels of performance, there is no one “right” way to act. (Oida 1992: 72)
Or, there are moments when the actor’s relationship to his or her practice is altered in a way that makes clear that there can be no “neutrality” in art. As Eelka Lampe reports in this volume (Chapter 23), performance artist/feminist Rachel Rosenthal’s (re)consideration of acting was prompted by her attendance at a conference of women artists at the California Institute of the Arts in 1971: Because she had been taught a history of art that considered only the contribution of male artists, and because she thought of herself as an artist, she identi fied with men. “Then I came to this conference, and I saw slides of extraordinary work. . . . And so for the first time in my life, I began to shift my identi fication, and began to see that I could be an artist and be a woman.”
Any (re)consideration is simultaneously personal, socio-cultural, and ideological, and therefore includes both idiosyncratic as well as collective/social dimensions. What may or may not prompt (re)consideration depends upon one’s “historical circumstances.” For the nineteen year old student of acting from New Glarus, Wisconsin, whose experience of acting theory and practice was limited to American versions of Stanislavskian-based acting, studying an historical account which 2
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clarifies the diff erences between the later Stanislavsky’s method of physical actions and Strasberg’s notion of a ff ective memory may lead to a profound (re)consideration of acting. So might encountering a performance (in the flesh or via type or tape) by Dario Fo, Rachel Rosenthal, David Warrilow, DV-8, Forced Entertainment, a Tadashi Suzuki-trained actor, or a performance of kathakali by Gopi Asan. Whatever prompts a particular (re)consideration, the reverberations of that encounter have the potential to a ff ect not only one’s acting but also one’s understanding of “self,” society, ideology, politics, etc. Acting (Re)Considered invites students of acting, actors, and theorists alike to put aside parochial preconceptions and points of view that propose acting as a truth (that is, one system, discourse, or practice). This book invites instead a pro-active, processual approach which cultivates a critical awareness of acting as multiple and always changing. Of course, in the moment of performance, the actor must embody a speci fic set of actions as if these were absolute. But every “absolute” viewed historically and processually is part of a multiplicity. (RE)CONSIDERING CONTEXT AND ENVIRONMENT
The critical awareness and re flection which (re)considerations can prompt does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers of acting, professional actors, directors, and producers have control over, and therefore responsibility for, the working/learning environments we create. To what degree are we actively making an environment which encourages critical inquiry and re flection, not only about “art” in the narrow sense but also concerning the material circumstances and issues implicit in the art we make? How theatre is made – from scene work and exercises, to rehearsals, to productions – includes attention to issues of race, gender, class, and ethnicity. Failing that, we abrogate our responsibility not only to train students’ acting skills but also to educate them about what they are being trained to perform. 3 THEORIES, META-THEORIES, AND ACTING (RE)CONSIDERED
Every time an actor performs, he or she implicitly enacts a “theory” of acting – a set of assumptions about the conventions and style which guide his or her performance, the structure of actions which he or she performs, the shape that those actions take (as a character, role, or sequence of actions as in some performance art), and the relationship to the audience. Informing these assumptions are culture-speci fic assumptions about the body-mind relationship, the nature of the “self,” the emotions/feelings, and performance context. 4 Enacting these assumptions is as true for the student as it is for the likes of Sarah Bernhardt and Yoshi Oida. Each embodies speci fic theories and practices of acting locatable within a set of historical, socio-cultural, and aesthetic/dramaturgical circumstances. Likewise, genres have specific theories and practices of acting which are also historically and contextually speci fic.5 In addition to the speci fic theories and practices of acting, there are metatheories re flecting more generally on the nature, practice, and phenomenon of acting. To bridge some of the gaps between speci fic theories and practices of acting and the meta-theoretical discussions, I have organized the essays in this collection into three parts, each with its own introduction and suggestions for further reading. 3
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In Part I, “Theories of and Meditations on Acting,” the reader is asked to re flect “meta-theoretically” on acting, while Parts II and III focus on the speci fics. The essays in Part II (re)consider “The Body and Training” and those in Part III (re)consider “The Actor in Performance.” Internally, the essays within Parts II and III have been organized in roughly chronological order. For readers who want to defer theory, reading Part II or Part III first makes as much sense as beginning with theory. I have selected essays not only from di ff erent parts of the world but also by practicing theorists, that is, that ever-expanding number who (thankfully) eschew the oversimplistic dichotomies between theory and practice.
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