Photo is from their 1991 production of "Overcoat" based on Gogol's but without a single word, movement only.
When I met them in 1992 they were under influence of "break dance" ideas, but I or them had no time to explore the theoretical connection between biomechanics and popular culture.
First Level of Biomechanics is at biomechanics.vtheatre.net (new), BM II (old).
ACTING CLASS
Acting is a criteria of being human. Actor is a first artist.[1]
DRAMATIC INSTINCTS. 1928. (see Pasternak's letter to Meyerhold, in Russian).
Metaphor, symbol, parabola. Dramatic poetry according to Aristotle. Theatre
is a poetry of life. And poets are actors. Imagination is Theatre Model (?) or
Theatre Medium.
Live Space and Life of Space.
THEATRE AS A METAPHOR OF LIFE (Shakespeare)
"What did in essence Meyerhold see in life, in people? His imagination
always led him to archetypes (that's how I should put it). For him there was no simply a character... never! For him only types did exit, more than types, -- they were some deformed reincarnations of the human nature itself... directing he acted as a merciless... psychoanalytic." Michael Chekhov (Book 2).
GAMES: We Play Ourselves?
"Child Game. 1. Element of Imitation (`like
adults'), and 2. Fantasy. And children are divided on `monkeys' and `make
believers,' who compose and create their own world. The same with actors --
`eye-dropping'(borrowing from life) and creating. In grotesque `stealing from
life' is allowed because from noticing to creating a figure (image) lays an
enormous distance." From Meyerhold's lecture described by Sergey Eisenstein.[6]
Audience: Game Maker.
ACTOR = HERO
In Meyerhold's Theatre the hero was actor playing character; actor, creating his stage image in front of the
audience (Rule One).[7]
PERFORMANCE?
Akterskaya Igra (Acting translated literary as
"Acting Game"). Difference between Game and Play (we don't call a script --
written drama -- a game).
LANGUAGE of the GAME
"When we say `to play on stage,' our first instinct is to be transformed. When we strive for transfiguration and when we aim to play, do we have in mind, even for a moment, a question -- to reproduce it exactly as in life?" Grotesque: to take only most expressive. "Not a
photography, but a game." (That's why actor must be an artist; and his face must be seen through his mask).
SELF AND SELVES
Trickster:
"Actor lives on stage a double life, he lives in two worlds -- in the world of his role, he created; and in a world of his own `I.' He is an executive, a manager; sometimes an adventure seeker, sometimes a prophet, he knows how he has to re-distribute all he needs." (144)
From Eisenstein's notes on Meyerhold:
"Actor's creativity drastically
different from a playwright's or a director's: he creates on public (A.A.), and having his improvisational possibilities influenced of the audience -- his
creativity not all could be foreseen (p.ex. rejection by the public -- necessity to overcome it immediately, or to redesign it right away, to adapt and etc.). Contact with the public visibly sensed (breathing, noise etc.). This way Public gives `its lines,' which actor must receive and to make use of it."
"Actor immediately reacts through improvisation to all demands of the public."[8] Acting is articulated dramatic sense of the public. Actor is an expression of spectator's nature.
The basis of play-makers: "Never there's an equality of personal mood of
actor and his character."
Actor's exitment comes out of relating to the idea not because of psycho-physiological emotions.
Relations Actor--Image
(Character) must be open. Public should see actor's transformations. Actor =/=
Character is an old tradition of folk theatre. "A parte" (to the public) --
second line of communications with audience. Game (artificial action) asks for a mask. A-effect[9]: face and mask, not face on face. Goldoni and Gozzi. Carnival. Realization of actor's intentions (main task), theatricality.
Michael Chekhov:
"We never express ourselves directly, always indirectly. In order to express ourselves on stage, we use masks. True actors among us are only those who knows how to create a mask, and after that how to wear it and to use it. The moment you reject the necessity to wear a stage mask or to neglect it, you immediately would lose your connection with the art."[10]
Actor's Amplua[11] (Stock Characters) comes out of different stage functions: tragic, love, errors obstacles. Meyerhold: "When I stage the play the most murderous task is casting."
"Must see in reality its fantastic (essence)." (Poetry) Actor is not just a poet, but the subject of his poetry. Actor's psychology shouldn't be a character's psychology. Spectator's psychology. Collective psychology. Themes, human sides of social phenomena -- role.
"Actor is higher than his character." Mikhoels.[12]
Grotesque (Meyerhold) -- eccentricity, theatricality, game; and Epic Theatre (emotionless). Anti-Stanislavsky: two ways.
SPORT, GAME, PLAY
[ I don't know where the footnotes -- [1] and so on. ]
"The more man is civilized, the more he is an actor." Kant.[13]
Acting is the art of hiding my true Ego. Child gets used to human mask and he doesn't remember that his adult virtues are only his role which became his second nature. This mask becomes his human face. Acting makes us humans. What's our true face? In rage we "lose our face" and we can see -- Animal.
WHERE AND WHEN GAME BECOMES MORE SERIOUS THAN LIFE
Action, Game, Spectacle are not Theatre yet. Or should we call it
"theatre-before-theatre." I don't understand sport, they don't play with me
(even through identification with players I am only a spectator). Influencing
the game through screaming still leaves me passive. I watch, they play.
Improvisation? Sport is an extreme of the Forth-wall concept, and --
non-dramatic. They can have their game without me.
We play games. Theatre game? Stage against Public. Yes, against. That's how
the game begins. We win if we would make them forget about the division, if they would end up with us -- in show's world. How do we play this game? We play imaginary people (they have to be non-real). We introduce masks, rules, etc. My character isn't me, it doesn't belong to me and therefore could be a good (neutral) media for my communication with the public.
Actor's feelings =/= personal (human) emotions. Theatre is a special
behavior. It's an illusion that we all are ready to act. Social acting (roles
and functions) has a different nature (non-aesthetic). We have a foundation of
it build in us which we have to develop into a culture of aesthetic performance. Acting isn't so natural. Children are bad actors. Animal do not act, at all. They play games. At the best.
Organization of a game is hidden within the nature of a show. Time after time in acting classes I see my students' frustration when they can't cover the distance between non-theatrical behavior (normal) and "parts" they have to play. They don't understand that there is a distance between stage and public. They are in the house, even when they are on stage. They think that theatre is there; costumes, lights, text." And only when they understand that they are the theatre, the real work begin.
SPECTATOR --> AUDIENCE --> PUBLIC:
Actor is an organizer of Audience (many into a group and a group into one).
Stage brings within the audience the IDENTIFICATION. Role (performed character) is a method of organizing the audience into collective conscience:
actor
/\
spectator 1 == spectator 2
Mechanics of stage-audience dynamics:
Message: 1. Actor --> 2.
Character --> 3. Role --> 4. Audience.
Energy: 4 --> 3 --> 2
--> 1
Moving through live space (stage), actor is a focal point for the audience to experience this space (through the identification). "Reading Stage" (frame,
according to Performance theory) could be done only with actor within this
space. The stage lighting revolution of the twentieth century visualized this
audience energy. The set brings in a concrete definition of the show.
PS
Again, see BioMechanics directory and the intro page Act Cycles. How do BM relate to Method? Do they contflict or compliment each other?
Homework
Read Biomechanics pages!
NB
The last work of Stanislavsky was about the Method of PHYSICAL ACTION (the time when Meyerhold was out of work and later executed, 1940).
(c)2004 * This page must be incorporated into BM pages (still "notes" like). As well as BM pages in BioMethod (Acting I) and Method (Acting III). Also, BM-related pages in Theatre Theory Directory *
