To fail in spectacular ways

Thoughts on training from Chris Jacobs on the Facebook group Shakespeare Unleashed. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Chris is one of the most experienced, and perhaps the only, teacher of Meyerhold’s biomechanics training for actors in South East Asia. Thanks Chris!

Exercise Protocol for Actors:

An acting exercise is a repeatable action which is designed with very specific objectives in mind, with each intrinsic element of that exercise existing in such a form as to allow the actor to progressively work towards the successful attainment of those objectives.

Therefore the manner in which an exercise is approached and carried out, both physically and mentally, is critical to the success of  that exercise, and the further development of the actor.

Actors who think they are exercising or training only the muscles of their physical bodies, are cheating themselves.

Actors who modify each exercise in order to make it easier or more comfortable to execute, are cheating themselves.

Actors who approach each exercise as a ‘Starting Point’ for an improvisation performance, are cheating themselves.

Actors who exploit each exercise in order to illustrate their superiority or ‘Stage Cred’, are cheating themselves.

Actors who exploit each exercise in order to evaluate the abilities of others, are cheating themselves.

Training exercises are acting disciplines: in every moment of every exercise the actor must be, at one and the same time, exercising and training the muscles of his mind, i.e., Will, Focus, Concentration, Courage, Tenacity and Stamina, in addition to those of his physical being.

Training exercises are not treasure troves of knowledge: they build doorways that lead towards  knowledge.

Training exercises are not secret methods for showing one how to be expressive or to “reveal” oneself: they are work, and their true benefits are released through the time and the fatigue of long, monotonous work.

Training exercises are not pursuits of hedonism: they coax actors outside what is comfortable, deny them what is easy, dare them to risk what is frightening, and actively encourage them to fail in spectacular ways.

Chris Jacobs 2012

Human, too human

Following Decroux’s words, in technique training and sometimes in the making of a piece we strive to avoid falling into being “human, too human”. In practice it frequently amounts to talking exclusively about, and making corrections only to: geometry, getting lines straight enough, making curves curvy enough, placing your foot here, not there.

This meticulous precision is part of the technique, part of the form, but I’m beginning to think that this is not the whole story.

The struggle to do something absolute and beyond human and yet failing because of being human – I believe this is what an audience gathers to share and experience. Our common struggle against limitation, decay and inevitable death.

It couldn’t be more human.

So what is “human, too human”?

Is it maybe the opposite? To stay in the safe place, to hide weakness or make a virtue of it so as to protect our illusions about ourselves, to be concerned about looking good instead of giving all?

‘Pooping out’, taking the easier position or stance, taking only the familiar perfect stance, posing instead of finding true form. That’s being “human, too human.”

Because the form is so difficult we forget easily that we need to allow our human struggle to show, while simultaneously striving for, and holding true, to the form.

When the members of the SITI Company train and take each other’s Suzuki technique classes, which are physically challenging, rigorous and formal, they work to high and exacting standards. It shows. They are much better than the less experienced students in class. But they also work to challenge themselves at the very edge and limit of their abilities. So they don’t just show perfect form; they do crash and burn. More importantly they allow their struggle and vulnerability to show through. Not because they are trying to show off to younger students that they are working hard but because THEY ARE WORKING ON THEIR OWN WORK AND TEMPTING FAILURE.

I suspect they are also working on their ability as actors to be open and vulnerable to the audience. Being on the Suzuki training floor is to them a microcosm of being on a stage, performing.

Similarly, Beckett’s demands in his plays for “no colour, no colour,” in the text and absolute precision is tight Form. It’s in the very human struggle to hew to the form that makes his drama an experience between actor and audience. The container for his words (the form) bears out the truth of them. As Beckett himself said, “I do give a fuck about people!”

Doing scales

Why do we practice the scales and articulations? Is it simply for physical dexterity? No. Dexterity, strength, etc. are nothing when it comes to expression – they matter only as a strong base from which to start.

Tony Montanaro’s idea and description of ‘Premise Work’ gives a clue. The shape and movement a body assumes is as much a matter of how well you imagine it as how you do it. How is imagination made visible and real?

Doing scales and articulations isn’t about making parts of the body flexible. It is training for the imagination. It’s linking body and mind together so that what the mind can imagine the body can do or become.

When we do scales we imagine invisible lines that the body must follow, invisible planes and lines of force that affect how and what we move. It’s an act of imagination that creates a simple building block leading to more complex things. Just making the body follow lines starts the body connecting to the mind – something we’re not used to.

So the scales should be done always with the bigger picture in mind – of lines of force, diagonals, and planes extending away from the body. It’s not a mystical process.

The same is true in any other art form. Artists master their materials and techniques in order to give form to their imagination. Hands, eyes and mind must work together. The beginning exercises and steps are tedious and difficult but they form the simple linkages between hand, eye and mind that allow more complex imagining to take form – without forethought – later.

DOING SCALES IS FLEXING YOUR IMAGINATION MUSCLES!

Surviving

“A technique exists for surviving the hours that seem eternal, for fighting against the monotony and the sluggishness of footsteps one after another along a route that seems to take you nowhere, in order to resist the voice of temptation that constantly whispers: it is not worth going on.

You must project the whole of your mind, your will, your passion towards another person.

In ‘Vol de nuit’ Saint-Exupéry describes his wanderings in the Egyptian desert after his plane has crashed. It was as though, obsessively, in his thoughts, he embraced his friend Henri Guillaumet, one of the heroes of Aéropostale who, after crashing in the Andes, had walked for five days and nights, fighting against the desire to give up and lie down in the snow. Guillaumet had managed to survive by keeping his thoughts fixed on his wife, who would not have received a pension if he had disappeared and his body had not been found.

It is possible to cross the desert only if your concentration is ‘elsewhere,’ with someone else, and you become insensible to weather conditions, exhaustion, the intolerance of the body and the doubts of the mind.”

Eugenio Barba, Land of Ashes and Diamonds, Black Mountain Press, 1999.

Imagery and Movement

“The process of repeating actions exactly many times, working within strict limitations, then introducing small variations and memorizing them exactly, teaches the body to be very precise … – of being exactly in control of where each movement begins and ends – … .

One major challenge [is] … how to survive such a potentially monotonous procedure. … It seems that the way through this problem is for the actor to develop an inner life of imagery which feeds and is fed by the physical work. It is also essential to develop a sensitivity to and interest in minute variations of movement and to discover or forge links between these and personal images or emotional sensations. Thus, alongside the growth of the expressive ability of the body is the growth of the imagination and visual thinking.”

Lea Logie, Developing a Physical Vocabulary for the Contemporary Actor, New Theatre Quarterly No. 43, 1995.