#performers exercise

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The Director Continually Asks

A Director's Guide to Stanislavsky's Active Analysis by Maria Knebel

Chapter 3: Director's Plan, Action Analysis discusses the director's personal analysis process of the play.

Firstly, you look at the chain of external events - events being things that change the direction of the characters and plot. Generally defined as 'normally those that would not or should not happen: unexpected arrivals or departures, discoveries, misunderstandings or misidentifications, breaches of social norms, accidents of nature and so on.' I think this is a good way to look at the events of the play as it allows for minor and major things to happen and looks at what propels us forward outside of plot structure.

Secondly, you identify the seed (basis subject) of the play 'which consists of a special pattern of action underlying the chain of external events.' The seed is distinct to themes - many plays (for example) could have the seed of love, but have a different approach thematically and tonally that makes that specific play unique.

Thirdly, you identify the chain of internal events, which usually happen at each external event and relate to the seed. For example the seed of Romeo and Juliet is love, the external event is Juliet killing herself upon realising Romeo is dead and the internal event is she can't fathom a world without Romeo's love.

Chapter 5: Active Analysis in Rehearsal discusses the technique and it's realisation in a rehearsal space.

As director, it is my job to remember assurances and to create questions for my performers - 'the question for the director continually to ask is "what is really happening in this episode?"'

Active analysis can remind performers of their 'personal responsibility' to a role, to a scene and to their scene partner - it is also the job of the director to hold the performer to account by 'checking whether their table analysis was sufficiently specific and perceptive. Moreover, when the etude begins, the director is already checking to see whether they are correctly carrying out the actions they talked about in the preceding table discussion.'

'Etudes ensure that actors comprehend and express what lies beneath the text and not merely on the surface of it.'

There is also a section called Etude possibilities for scenes not in the play, which works brilliantly for me as I want to explore these "improvised" and inferred scenes that aren't actually within the text.

The section states that 'the framing event and its related actions must be specified prior to commencing each etude.' Therefore, I'm going to reframe my rehearsal process for session 3 and ensure there's a "table talk" of the improvisation that includes choosing transitive verbs.

Chapter 7: Conclusion, Rehearsal Realities discusses some of the setbacks of Active Analysis.

'The constant time pressure resulting from the necessity of a prescheduled opening night, for example, can have an unwelcome influence on what should ideally be a measured and patient process of creative gestation.'

As director, I think I need to be mindful of talking my performer's through the process and rehearsal plan - let them know where we are at, how I am feeling about it, ask them how they are feeling about it, addressing any worries and reiterating my own confidences in them and in the process.

Other useful quotes for my essay:

'Stanislavski could not accept definitions of the super-objective that were merely workable, merely general, and thus incapable of inspiring or exciting the actor.'

'Stanislavsky repeatedly stated that a true super-objective arises in the actor only when he manages to understand where the actions of his character lead.'

For this reason, I may introduce the super objective later on in the rehearsal process to allow time for that to build.

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The body has become a vehicle for a 'self' that lives above it

Introducing the Inhabiting Technique; hilighlighting the value of psychophysical processes originated by Konstantin Stanislaski, while showing that most aspects of Stanislavski's System of Active Analysis are inappropriate for use with Shakespeare; inviting the actor into the role of Psychopomp by Susan-Jane Harrison

Inhabiting is an interesting school of thought that advocates for a form of active analysis that focuses on the psychophysical elements and techniques; it heralds the body as "instrument."

Mostly, I'm intrigued by the idea that the body can arouse the imagination and in turn activate the emotion as a way to ease pressure in my actors, increase their confidence and emotional vocabulary and help them to access the scene via a shorthand.

Some really valuable ideas for exercises came out of this reading:

In the first etude of active analysis, dropping a bit of their character into their internal mood. The way it's described reminds me of Becky's call for us to imagine ourselves as water with drops of food colouring.

After an exercise, actors opening their eyes and seeing each other through the eyes of the character. I think this is a great technique to use for Session 2 as a way for my actors to access their emotions around the affair and building up the given circumstances.

Limbo etude - placing random objects in the space during active analysis. I think this will start random and build into viable (introducing the bedsheets/foldable bed and the book.) Great for Session 4.

Improvising given circumstances (once again, great for session 2 and links to bullet point number 2.)

Ensemble paired up to randomly eye-gaze and are prompted to notice where laughter resides in their own bodies, then in the bodies of their partners. This works wonderfully for the idea of "peripheral" that I am deeply interested in and builds on the actor's intuition as well as their trust and awareness of each other. Would be good to use in warm-ups.

Actors encouraged to make the shape of the emotions, breathe the breath of the emotions. Would make a great warm-up, especially if I get the actors to brainstorm what emotions they think come up for them in the scene. Could work well for a warm-up in session 4, following a brainstorm at the end of session 3. Could help them to tap back into that energy.

Definitely going to work these into my session schedule!

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Week 6 - Active Analysis Notes

Agree with actors on the task for each unit – it needs to work with the actors although you should also come prepared with alternatives and your own opinions

Make sure to assure actors, test out what they want, let them know the verbs are flexible

Naming the unit – “what’s the game that we’re playing right now?”

Longer units, suggest to the actors that you can break it up into smaller units and revisit that

Let actors know when you struggled to define units

When getting actors to decide on tasks – “what lights a fire under you?”

Exploration of relationship and sense of the scene, once establishing units, get it up on its feet with silence and movement

Feeders and whisperers – external people feeding the line to the actors and stage the scene that way, the actors never have to break relationship and also helps actors to learn why they are saying something, get the lines to come from within, prevents script analysis, unlock characters and relationships

After getting actors to test out the movement and silence of the scene (through the eye contact, walk forward, walk back) asking them if there was an inner monologue, what it was, how it felt, what they learnt about the characters, what they discovered?

In doing the above task, is there anything the actors want to change in the units or the tasks?

Re-read the scene then do the actor stare-out (whilst adding in improv dialogues) then ask what they discovered… focus on feeling and inner monologue for the actors!

When doing the atude (actor stare out) you can play around with things to unlock the actors or relationships – getting them to do it back to back, adding in chairs etc.

Block nothing. Hurt nobody. Force nothing.

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Week 6 - Come Up with a Vocal Warm-Up

This warm up was taken and developed from Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater

Lying on your back, let your whole body give in to gravity.

Send your mind into the soles of your feet and think of relaxing your toes and feet so that they appear to drop away from your ankles.

Imagine your ankle joints are filled with air.

Let your calf muscles relax so that the flesh, skin and muscles seem to dissolve off the shinbones.

Imagine your knee joints are filled with air.

Let your thigh muscles relax so that the flesh, skin and muscles seem to dissolve off the thigh bones.

Imagine your hip joints and thigh sockets are filled with air. Your legs no longer attached to the body.

Let your buttock muscles, pelvic muscles, groin and lower belly muscles relax so that the flesh, skin and muscles seem to dissolve and melt.

Be aware of your spine giving in to gravity from the tailbone to the skull.

Let the small of your back relax, but realise there’s a natural curve there too - don’t try to flatten it.

Let the whole stomach area dissolve and melt.

Picture the part of the back that is between the shoulder blades spreading away from the spine to either side.

Imagine the rib bones as soft as the belly: let them give in to gravity.

Imagine your shoulder sockets are filled with air, so that your arms are no longer attached to your body.

Be aware of the weight of your arms and hands, your fingers, heavy and abandoned on the floor.

Let your attention travel back up to your arms, through your shoulders and into your neck.

Let your neck-spine give in to gravity, but realise there is a natural curve there too - don’t try to flatten it.

Let your throat relax.

Feel the weight of your head on the floor.

Let the jaw muscles relax so your teeth aren’t clenched.

Let the tongue relax inside your mouth so it isn’t clamped to the roof.

Be aware of your face muscles, let them melt so that the skin of the face feels heavy on the bones. Let go of the cheeks, the lips, the forehead, the eyelids.

Let the scalp muscles relax.

PAUSE

Now let your attention sweep back down through your whole body, abandoned on the floor.

Imagine you could melt down through the floor.

Take some time to enjoy this sensation.

PAUSE

Now become aware that in the middle of your still and relaxed body, there is an inevitable, easy rise and fall of your breath.

Feel the cool air being drawn in from outside through your nose or mouth, travelling down to the centre of your torso, being released through your hip joints and thigh sockets.

PAUSE

Flop a hand onto the breathing area so that you can feel from outside what is happening inside.

Notice that on the outgoing breath, the area under your hand can fall straight toward the ground.

PAUSE

Maintaining the same breathing, feed a deep sigh of relief far down into your body, imagine that sensation of the sight, of the relief falling out of you.

When you’re ready, take that sigh.

PAUSE

And again, maintaining the same breath, feed a deep sigh of relief far down into your body and when you’re ready, take that sigh.

PAUSE

And again, maintaining the same breath, feed a deep sigh of relief far down into your body.

This time I want you to think of a vowel sound. What shape does that vowel take in your mouth? Is it a low pitch sound, a medium sound, a high sound? Is it loud, is it quiet?

When you’re ready, take that sigh using your vowel sound.

PAUSE

And again, maintaining the same breath, thinking of your vowel sound, feed a deep sigh of relief far down into your body and when you are ready, take that sigh.

PAUSE

And again.

PAUSE

And again.

PAUSE

Now send your mind into the soles of your feet and think of putting your body back together again.

Let your limbs reconnect to their sockets, let your melted muscles and skin drift back towards your bones like clouds, feel your body and your spine slowly rise from the ground, and when you are ready, open your eyes.

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Week 4 - Write up on activities

Vocal warm-up

First chunk of the warm-up required us to repeat after Bell. I enjoyed this section of the warm-up because the lines we repeat are quite long, twisted and fun or challenging to say, which creates a sense of play as well as getting our vocals ready and making us feel that we can overcome any mistakes in rehearsal.

I did feel the chunks of each line given to us to repeat were too big, and so difficult to repeat, especially for those who didn't have English as their first language. I've done similar exercises before where the leader would start quite slow and break it up a lot more, then pick up the pace gradually and saying more and more of the line. This helps performers to pick up the rhythm to begin with and get into a flow.

For the second chunk, we stood in a circle and moved as far back as possible, so that we were all practically at the walls. We then had to determine the person who was as far from us as possible and "send them a note." This could be at any pitch and be said in any way, the idea was to make that note stretch and reach the farthest place from us in the room. This was fun to play around with as Bell guided us to do low notes, high notes, to just test ourselves and what we can do. This task felt like it was an opening up, to each other and to ourselves. It was also fun. It helped us to consider dynamics, volume, tempo. It also built a bond as we would applaud each other after if somebody was holding a particularly long note.

Physical warm-up

"Form banana, form, form banana. Peel banana, peel, peel banana. Go bananas, go, go bananas." Did the same thing with walls. Very physical exercise that allows you to just run around and go a little nuts.

It's a good exercise as it introduces play into the space. Also because it's a little silly, it helps to create ensemble and bond because you are laughing together. From previous readings (mostly from week 3 - belief and truth) there's been mentions of holding onto a childish nature, because this helps us to believe what we are acting (the same way that children play make-believe and truly believe it.) It's an access in to that childish mindset. It's also a great way to leave whatever baggage you may have from the day outside the door.

Art gallery

Treated the space we were in as an art gallery. We'd queue up outside and each time we went in we'd have to go in as either "intellectual," "emotional" or "physical" based on Stanislavsky's ideas. Each time that we did, we had to take note of how it impacted our physicality and our interaction with the environment.

This exercise was great for: making actor's aware of their bodies, their own toolkit, bodies as instrument, stillness vs physicality, how you perform something intellectual and something emotional etc. Also good for becoming aware of themselves and their environment, specifically the ways that their characters may come out.

Would be awesome to do this exercise in a completed, detailed set (for example in a Punchdrunk setting.)

The exercise also allowed for a unique experience for everybody in the space, which is important because not every performer will connect with every asset in your toolkit and so where you can, having broadness in your exercises will allow actors to find their own access points and their own ways to what you are trying to achieve. Focus without limitation.

It definitely allows for possibilities.

Circles of attention

Began with reading a specific scene with a partner. We were told to keep a line in mind from that reading, from that scene. Although it was never mentioned again, it stayed with me through the entire circles of attention exercise and informed the way I performed, which was really interesting.

During circles of attention, we'd do the usual thing of paying attention to breathing, breathing in the body, the four walls around the body and the space outside the four walls. One of my initial reservations about this exercise when we first did it was how open the idea of the space outside the four walls is, however Becky took time to contextualise it this time, telling us we could play around with it and limit ourselves. This helped me to remain within a certain boundary and stay grounded.

Getting us to feel what was in our body was also really clever - since we've done a lot of reading about actors bringing what's going on in their physical bodies into their performances on the day, I paid attention to sensations in my body such as neck pains and then brought that into what we did next.

We then had to think about what character we were in the reading of a specific scene and stand up as that character. My neck pains then informed how that character stands. That was thrilling as a performer, it felt freeing.

After that, we had to walk around the space using that body/stance. Becky did inform us that we can redo it and start again if it doesn't feel right, which was nice because I didn't love how I first stood or walked. In fact, when we were told to think of the character and stand on the character I felt a little put on the spot, because I felt like my mind had gone elsewhere before that. A little more time to really merge my mind with the character before standing would have been helpful, I think.

As we were then walking around, Becky asked us to become mindful of our previous scene partner as we moved around the space. Not necessarily looking at them or finding them, just being aware. This really created a sense of peripheral, which we've been playing around with in other exercises. I think it's an excellent way to raise awareness and trust within the ensemble, to create an energetic connection. Also creates awareness of the space!

She stopped and started us a couple of times, reminding us to be mindful of our partner and to stay close. She then got us to stop and face them from where we were. We were allowed to either step forward or back, or stay in the same place based on how we felt. This created a real intensity of emotion and suddenly a sense of our relationship was being created just from looking. My partner and I discussed afterwards and spoke about how we both felt compelled to move close to each other and wanted to, but were too hesitant and shy to actually take that step, worried that the other character did not want to. There was a massive sadness and anger between us. My line from the initial scene reading kept playing in my mind: "I don't want it."

This was exciting as a performer, and I think it constructed a real sense of what my character and that person's character's relationship felt like without analysing it from the play itself and then trying to bring that analysis in. I also experienced this feeling from week 3 during Mark's warm up, where we built a relationship with the house from August: Osage County and then connected with another person in the space and took steps forward/backwards.

I think these exercises do a brilliant job at giving performers access to the emotions, interrelationships, complexities and dynamics of their characters and the ensemble characters before getting to work on the play and relieves a certain pressure, whilst also creating an access point.

BONUS: Asked Becky a question

Have actors read the text by the point in which she is doing exercises with her ensemble that do not introduce the play?

By this point they would have done a table reading, she'd get each actor to simply read until they were bored and then the next person would read.

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Warm-up, Week 3 homework

Task: To come up with a warm-up based on the warm-ups from Week 2's session that is specific to invoking not only ensemble but the world of the play.

Beginning of the warm-up will be for the group to stand in a circle, listening to the ambience of crickets and fireflies that feel authentic to the Pawhuska setting.

I'll ask performers to be aware of their peripheral vision, and really explore the scope of that - to test how far to left and the right they can see without moving their eyes? how close to them they can see without moving their eyes? can they see everybody in the circle? who can't they see, is their mind able to fill in that gap? This is to build awareness of each other, center themselves and build ensemble.

Then I'll ask them when they are ready, to begin walking together. Doesn't have to be now, there's no rush, but as a group they should begin. This is to get them into the next task and to build ensemble.

Once they start walking, I'll ask them to think about how the sound may impact the way that they walk. The mood that they're in. The tempo. Their posture. This is to get them thinking about the environment of the play.

Then I'll ask them to think about the heat. How does the heat impact how they walk? How does the heat impact how they interact with each other in the room? Does it slow them down, speed them up? What parts of their body sweats? What parts need cooling down, if at all? How do you achieve this? Encourage them to interact with each other, if needs be. This is to get them thinking about the environment of the play and how it may impact their performance, as well as their interactions with each other.

Once I feel satisfied that they've really got within that feeling, I'll ask them to stop where they are and make eye contact with somebody in the room. This acts as a "reset" but also as a way to build ensemble.

They now can continue walking around again, and when they are ready they need to come to a stop together. This is to get them into the next task and to build ensemble.

Now I want them to imagine that they are holding a bottle of pills. What is the colour of the bottle? What does it feel like, what material is it made from? What noise does it make when you shake it? What shape is it? What's the label like, what might it say? What's your relationship with this bottle of pills? Does it mean nothing to you, does it excite you, does it trigger you? What memories does it bring in for you?

Now open the bottle. Is the lid hard or easy to remove? How familiar are you with opening this bottle?

Now look at the contents inside. How many pills are there? What do they look like? What are your relationship with these pills? Do you want to have them, do you feel indifferent to them, do you feel disgusted by them? How does this make you react, does it make you react?

This is inspired by the student diary reading from this week, and the importance of giving reality and significance to props and miming.

Other props I could continue this exercise with, with walking and "resetting" eye contact in between:

Steve's bong

Jean's cigarettes

The papers on Bev's desk

Knife and fork at the dinner table

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The actor must become involved with the things he can believe in and take no account of things which are a hindrance to him

An Actor's Work, A Student's Diary by Stanislavsky, Konstantin (Belief and Sense of Truth, Chapter Eight)

This was a difficult read, but important.

Most striking to me was theme of balance throughout. Tostov, the tutor, strives for truth and belief in performance to a meticulous degree (down to the way we interact with props, how we mime) but also recognises how in striving for truth and pragmatism, performers can stifle themselves and become uncomfortable in a lie.

He asks performers to ask themselves: Am I doing what I should, or struggling against a lie?

I do adore the idea of really building up sensory details for actors especially when it comes to miming and to imagining set around them. As a performer myself, I have struggled with this before and turned up short regarding these details, which has hindered my performance. I think the role of the director is to really assist the performer in the realisation of their imagination, which is why this specific exercise has really inspired the warm up that I will be inventing for class.

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Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art

Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen, Haskel Franekl and David Hyde Pierce (Introduction - Chapter 3, Substitution)

This piece is definitely an interesting one for actors, and for myself as a director to get to know my actors more and be able to advise them on their practice.

Substitution was an especially helpful technique to learn about, where the performer will not only substitute an event in the play with something that feels more real to them in order to illicit an emotional experience, but will transfer the emotions from the real event to the play event. So even though there is a substitution, there is an expectation to still exist within the reality of the play.

The author also gives some intriguing examples of this that completely transform the way that they play out a relationship onstage, by using the emotional transference and substitution of the real life relationship between herself and her child to the onstage relationship between her character and her character's husband. A similar approach occurs in the other reading for Week 3 (An Actor's Work, A Student's Diary by Stanislavsky and Konstantin.) In creating a sense of belief and truth onstage, and to motivate more emotion from a particular performers character, this performer constructed a backstory in which his coworker was actually a handicapped brother-in-law he had hired out of pity.

Identity was another noteworthy chapter, that humbles the idea of character versus performer by intertwining the two in a way that prevents judgement of the character you play. I'll simply add the following passage to supplement what I mean, and leave it at that:

If I am to play a silly, fluffy creature, and I think I am not such a person, I cannot use myself. I mistakenly believe I can only indicate what she would do. Yet if I watch myself greeting dogs with gushes of baby talk and little giggles, I am silly. If I talk to a scientist, even to an electrician, I am stupid, though my cliché image tells me I am brilliant. If a drunken, bigoted doorman gives me a hard time, I appear snobbish and I pull rank, though my self-image tells me I am a humanist, a liberal at all times. I think I am fearless, yet you should see me with a mouse.