Movement for Actors

288 Pages·2002·3.48 MB·english

by  Nicole Potter

Movement for Actors
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Movement for Actors
E d i t e d b y N I C O L E P O T T E R
© 2002 Nicole Potter
The essays in Movement for Actorswere written expressly for this book. Copyrights for individual
essays are retained by their authors, © 2002.
All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention,
and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
06 05 04 03 02 5 4 3 2 1
Published by Allworth Press
An imprint of Allworth Communications, Inc.
10 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010
Cover and interior design by Annemarie Redmond
Cover photo credits (clockwise, from upper left): Margolis Brown Theater Company, The Bed
Experiment, conceived and written by Kari Margolis and Tony Brown, photo: Jim Moore; Theater
Ten Ten, King Lear, 1998, directed by Rod McLucas, fight direction by Joe Travers, Jason Hauser
(Edmund), Andrew Oswald (Edgar), photo: Sascha Nobés; Shakespeare and Company, Sarah
Hickler, Rebecca Perrin, Mary Conway, Susan Dibble, photo: Stephanie Nash.
Page composition/typography by Sharp Des!gns, Lansing, MI
ISBN: 1-58115-233-7
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Movement for actors / edited by Nicole Potter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58115-233-7
1. Movement (Acting) I. Potter, Nicole.
PN2071.M6 M59 2002
792'.028—dc21
2002004246
Printed in Canada
For my parents, Maren and Macy Potter,
and my baby brother, Professor Dan Potter
I must offer my thanks to Tad Crawford and Bob Porter, Allworth’s publisher and associate publisher, who
allowed me to run with this idea; to my professional colleagues in theater and academia, who were gen-
erous with their time and their advice; to my contributors, of course; and to those members of Allworth’s
excellent staff who were instrumental in seeing this through to fruition: Jamie Kijwoski, Liz Van Hoose,
Michael Madole, and, most especially, Kate Lothman.
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
PART ONE: A LITTLE HISTORY
1
Biomechanics: Understanding Meyerhold’s System of Actor Training by Marianne Kubik . . . . . . . . 3
Michael Chekhov, Psychological Gesture, and the Thinking Heart by Floyd Ruhmor . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Theatrical Stillnessby Mary Fleischer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Teaching Charlie Chaplin How to Walkby Dan Kamin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
PART TWO: BODY BASICS
51
The Feldenkrais Methodby Alan S. Questel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Alexander Technique and the Integrated Actor: Applying the Principles
of the Alexander Technique to Actor Preparationby Teresa Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
An Introduction to Laban Movement Analysis for Actors:
A Historical, Theoretical, and Practical Perspective by Barbara Adrian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Breathe Before You Act by Caroline Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
PART THREE: TRANSFORMATIONS
97
Mask and Ritualby Shelley Wyant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Smallest Mask: The Red Nose by Jean Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Discovering Ensemble and Impulse through Improvisationby Paul Urcioli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
PART FOUR: BEYOND GLOVE AND FAN
117
Bringing the Past into the Present: Period Dance on the Stage
and in the Curriculum by Nira Pullin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Shakespeare Honors the Three Centers of the Bodyby Susan Dibble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Some Rehearsal Notes for Molière and Restoration Comedy Style by Rod McLucas . . . . . . . . . . . 144
PART FIVE: SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
153
The Williamson Physical Technique: The Physical Process of Actingby Lloyd Williamson . . . . . . 155
An Introduction to Margolis MethodTM: A Dynamic Physical Approach to Actor
Trainingby Kari Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Movement Training: Dell’Arte Internationalby Joan Schirle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Contents vii
PART SIX: INSIDE OUT AND OUTSIDE IN
197
Synergizing Internal and External Actingby Jill Mackavey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
The Actor as Athlete of the Emotions: Rasaboxes Exerciseby Michele Minnick
and Paula Murray Cole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
PART SEVEN: MOVING FORWARD
227
Mind-Body Juggling for the Camera by Erika Batdorf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Teaching Postmodern Choreography to Actors: Eschewing the Inebriation of Emotion
Nicole Potter interviews Annie-B Parson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
SITI: Why We Train, conversation between Ann Bogart and the SITI company,
compiled by Will Bond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
The Problem of Movement Theaterby Brad Krumholz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Suggested Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Bibliographies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
viii Movement for Actors
Introduction
Along time ago, my brother and I used to make up plays that we would produce by enticing the
neighborhood kids with promises of glory and then enslaving them in endless rehearsals on my
grandmother’s front porch. At that time, I had no training as an actress, and whatever I chose to
believe seemed true enough to me. My sense of truth was not disturbed when my brother wrote an opera
about a woman who lived in a bathtub (a wheelbarrow turned on its side, for the purposes of the Porch
Premiere), and whose death scene required that she slide down the drain with the bubbles.
Some time later, I went to theater school. My training started with the Method, as so often happens
in this country, and I was inculcated with a mistrust of work that I perceived as starting from anywhere
other than wherever I perceived Method acting as starting from (personal Truth, I think). I codified what
I learned into a strict set of rules, thus providing myself with a narrow and brittle idea of what was right
and what was wrong, what was good and what was bad. I fancied that I was becoming more discerning,
because I grew to dislike nearly everything, including my own ideas. This was a problem, for while I
enjoyed being able to analyze the work I saw from a specific point of view, I missed the trust in my own
ideas. It was as if I had two parallel tracks going: On the one hand, I had this (to me) amorphous tech-
nique, which I couldn’t quite figure out how to practice myself, and on the other hand, I had my once
beloved and now muzzled inspiration. The two were never going to merge.
While I was thus engaged in honing my critical ability, I happened to see both Andre Gregory’s Alice
in Wonderlandand Lee Breuer’s Shaggy Dog Story. Here were plays that defied my perception of “the
Laws of Good Theater.” They had schtick, they had style, they looked as if they had been created by kids
on a rainy day in a junk-filled attic, and they felt True. Of course, the actors in Manhattan Project and in
Mabou Mines had far more technique than I did, and their evocation of child’s play was a deception—a
deception of simplicity, the best kind in art. Why was this work so enthralling, and why was it so beyond
anything I could conceive of? My conclusion? I was missing something, a turnoff somewhere. There had
to be a way for my divergent pathways to become one.
What I was missing, what most novitiates are missing when they begin the arduous and ecstatic pil-
grimage into a performing life, is the ability to synthesize. Discipline and spontaneity, knowledge and
instinct, technique and inspiration—how do you reach the place where these are integrated? At last, a
sudden, laughably simple insight: The body is the instrument. The crossroads exist within the body.
Which is why, to make a long story short, this book has been created. In performance, the actor’s
body, and all that it entails—alignment, shape, senses, impulses, sounds, gestures—tells the story. If the
body is the place of synthesis, it is as important for the student, teacher, and director to be aware of an
array of approaches as it is for them to have knowledge of diverse styles of theater and acting techniques.
There are many—although by no means an exhaustive catalog of—body and movement disciplines
contained in this eclectic collection. Some writers included here offer insights into the discipline of a his-
torically well-known master teacher, and some have synthesized their training and their experiences and
gone on to create unique methodologies. Yet each one brings his or her own singular perspective and
ideas to movement for actors. Many of these approaches intersect with and build upon each other,
Introduction ix