Encountering Ensemble 9781472538871, 9781408152003, 9781408166444, 9781408155189

Citation preview

Encountering Ensemble

ii

Encountering Ensemble Edited by John Britton

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Methuen Drama An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2013 © John Britton, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. John Britton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the editor. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-3887-1 PB: 978-1-4081-5200-3 ePub: 978-1-4081-5517-2 ePDF: 978-1-4081-5518-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Britton, John. Encountering ensemble/John Britton. pages cm ISBN 978-1-4081-5200-3 (pbk.) – ISBN 978-1-4725-3887-1 – ISBN 978-1-4081-5517-2 (epub) 1. Ensemble theater. I. Title. PN2297.A2B75 2013 792.02’2–dc23 2013020514

Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Acknowledgments  ix Contributors  xi

Part One  Defining ensemble  1 Introduction  John Britton  3 1 T  he emergence of studiinost: The ethics and processes of ensemble in the Russian theatre studio  Bryan Brown  49 2 More than the sum of their parts: Reflections on Vsevolod Meyerhold’s theatrical ensemble  Amy Skinner  61 3 Michael Chekhov’s ensemble feeling  Franc Chamberlain  78 4 Star or Team? Theodore Komisarjevsky’s early developments in ensemble playing in the United Kingdom  Jonathan Pitches  94 5 The French ensemble tradition: Jacques Copeau, Michel Saint-Denis and Jacques Lecoq  Mark Evans  111 6 The Berliner Ensemble: Bertolt Brecht’s theories of theatrical collaboration as practice  David Barnett  126

vi

CONTENTS

Part Two Contemporary ensemble  143 Snapshot #1 Ensemble  Chris Johnston  145 Snapshot #2 Michael Boyd on the RSC ensemble  Introduced by Duška Radosavljevic´  147 7 Stan’s Cafe: The vision of the ensemble  Adam J. Ledger  152 Snapshot #3 Collaboration, ensemble, devising  Peter Harrop and Evelyn Jamieson  167 Snapshot #4 Ensemble/improvisation: An experiment in drama/music interdisciplinarity  Paul Carr and Richard J. Hand  170 8 As important as blood and shelter: Extending studiinost into obshchnost  Bryan Brown  172 Snapshot #5 Ensembles, groups, networks  Julia Varley  182 Snapshot #6 Teatr Chorea: Synchrony in action  Małgorzata Jabłon´  ska  185 Snapshot #7 Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Pieśń Kozła)  Anna Porubcansky  188 9 Towards a syncretic ensemble? RedCape Theatre’s The Idiot Colony  Rebecca Loukes  191 Snapshot #8 Network of ensemble theaters  Mark Valdez  209 10 Locating the ensemble: NACL theatre and the ethics of collaboration  Brad Krumholz  212 11 Building Chartres in the desert: The TEAM, collective intelligence and the failure of ideals  Paz Hilfinger-Pardo  222 12 Elevator Repair Service and The Wooster Group: Ensembles surviving themselves  John Collins  234

CONTENTS

vii

13 ‘Whose fantasy?’ Five voices on Rachel Rosenthal’s TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble  Marianne Sharp  250 Snapshot #9 The Waiting Room: Practicing embodied cognition in performance  Kate Hunter  263 Snapshot #10 Ingemar Lindh and the Institutet för Scenkonst  Frank Camilleri  266

Part Three  Forming ensemble: ­Some ­approaches to training  271 Introduction  John Britton  273 14 ‘Self-With-Others’: A psychophysical approach to training the individual in ensemble  John Britton  313 Snapshot #11 Collaborating in time: The formation of ensemble through rhythm  Eilon Morris  363 Snapshot #12 Delicate codes and invisible lines: ‘Pulse’ – an approach to ensemble training  Tanya Gerstle  367 15 Psychophysical training and the formation of an ensemble  Phillip Zarrilli  369 Snapshot #13 The Suzuki actors’ training method as ensemble training  Antje Diedrich  381 Snapshot #14 Ensemble training and Meyerhold’s biomechanics  Terence Chapman (Mann)  385 Snapshot #15 Narrative images  Chris Johnston  387 16 Freedom and constraints: Jacques Lecoq and the theater of ensemble creation  Susan Thompson  389

viii

CONTENTS

Snapshot #16 Birthdays make the best training  Bryan Brown  405 Snapshot #17 Where I’ll be on Armageddon  Patrick Stewart  408 Afterword: What is it?  John Britton  411 Bibliography  415 Index  437

Acknowledgments

A book like this is a collective effort and there are many without whom it could not have appeared. The Editorial Advisory Committee whose advice, guidance and support were indispensible: Dr Kermit Dunkelberg: Pilgrim Theatre Research and Perfor­ mance Collaborative Dr Eric Hetzler: University of Huddersfield Brad Krumholz: North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL Theatre) Dr Deborah Middleton: University of Huddersfield Dr Simon Murray: University of Glasgow Dr Duška Radosavljević: University of Kent Editorial assistant: Rachel Horley I am particularly grateful to Bryan Brown and Eilon Morris for assistance with some minutiae that, at the time, seemed quite beyond me. Over the years, I have had the deep joy of training a huge number of performers in ensemble. All of them, every training session and each production have taught me something. None of this work has meaning to me, except in how it manifests in the spaces between performers and between performers and audience. In particular, I have had extended periods with two ensembles: The Quiddity Ensemble in Australia, to which the following made an indispensible contribution – Hilary Elliott, Luke O’Connor, Eilon Morris, Kim McClelland and Meredith Elton. Latterly, my work has been with DUENDE, and I thank all the performers who have contributed so much to that particular adventure: David McBride, Yuki Kondo, Anna Kavanagh and Rachel Horley (until 2010) and

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Eilon Morris, Aliki Dourmazer, Eva Tsourou, Jo Leishman, Stacey Johnstone, Alexandra Tsotanidou, Hannah Dalby, Luke O’Connor and Rico Wu who are currently members of DUENDE. And I thank Deborah for her unwavering support and advice. Without that . . . All these, and others, are due my thanks for their contributions. Ultimately, of course, the responsibility is mine, for both the things that enlighten and any mistakes that slip through. John Britton October 2012

Contributors

David Barnett is Reader in Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Sussex. He has published monographs of Heiner Müller (Peter Lang, 1998) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (CUP, 2005), the latter as a Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation. His study, A History of the Berliner Ensemble (CUP, 2014), was funded by a British Academy Research Development Award and an AHRC Fellowship. He has written several articles and essays on German, English-language, political and postdramatic theatre. Michael Boyd is a British theatre director. He trained at the Malaya Bronnaya Theatre in Moscow and worked at a number of significant theatres in the United Kingdom, including The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, The Sheffield Crucible and The Tron (Glasgow) before becoming Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2003 – a position he held until 2012. John Britton is Artistic Director of DUENDE, an ensemble performance company dedicated to interdisciplinary physical performance and international collaboration. He is a director, performer and writer and teaches his approach to ensemble training (Self-With-Others) extensively through workshops and residencies. Between 2004 and 2013, he was Senior Lecturer at the University of ­Huddersfield. Bryan Brown is a theatre artist with ARTEL as well as a producer and pedagogue with Art Via Corpora Performance Research and Development House, both based in Hollywood, California. His research centers on psychophysical training, ensemble creation and the theatre laboratory.

xii

CONTRIBUTORS

Frank Camilleri is Artistic Director of Icarus Performance Project and Associate Professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Malta. His main research interest focuses on the space between training and performance processes via the development of improvisatory structures. Paul Carr is Head of the Division of Music and Sound and Reader in Popular Music Analysis at the ATRiuM, University of Glamorgan, in Cardiff. His research interests focus on the areas of musicology, widening access, the music industry and pedagogical frameworks for music-related education – publishing in all of these areas. Franc Chamberlain is Professor of Drama at the University of Huddersfield. He has published a monograph and several smaller pieces on Michael Chekhov as well as co-editing a special issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training on Chekhov with Jonathan Pitches. Terence Chapman (Mann) is a Senior Lecturer/Course Leader on the BA (Hons) Acting course, University of Central Lancashire. Terence has 20  years’ experience as an actor/director, having trained and worked with Kaboodle (United Kingdom) 1995–98, Piesn Kozla (Poland) 1998–99 and Scarlett Theatre (United Kingdom and Poland) 1999–2001. Since 2000 to the present day, Terence has trained extensively in Meyerhold’s Biomechanics with Gennady Bogdanov. John Collins is an experimental theatre director and designer. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the New York-based ensemble Elevator Repair Service Theater. John is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a United States Artists Fellowship. He has directed or co-directed all of Elevator Repair Service’s productions since 1991 and has done design and technical work for ERS, The Wooster Group, Target Margin Theater and Richard Foreman. He holds a degree in English and Theater Studies from Yale University. Antje Diedrich is a Lecturer in Contemporary Theatre and Practice at Middlesex University London. She has studied the Suzuki Actor Training Method with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), SITI and Ozfrank Theatre.

CONTRIBUTORS

xiii

Mark Evans is Professor of Theatre Training and Education and Associate Dean of the School of Art and Design at Coventry University. He studied in Paris with Jacques Lecoq, and with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux. His previous publications include Jacques Copeau (Routledge, 2006) and Movement Training for the Modern Actor (Routledge, 2009). He is an Associate Editor of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, and recently edited the special issue on Sports and Performance Training. Tanya Gerstle is the Founding and Artistic Director of OpticNerve Performance Group, an international performance/research company. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Acting and Programme Director of Theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia. Her book on the Pulse process called Physical Acting will be published by Methuen in early 2015. Richard J. Hand is Professor of Theatre and Media Drama at the University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK. He has a commitment to cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and scholarship and has published in the areas of theatre, literature, radio, film, digital games, graphic narratives, as well as popular music. Peter Harrop is Professor of Drama and Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Chester. He gained his PhD (Drama/Folklore/ Ethnography) from Leeds University before going on to teach theatre at Addis Ababa University (1980–85) and Bretton Hall College (1985–96). Paz Hilfinger-Pardo is a dramaturg, writer and performer. As a dramaturg, she has worked with the TEAM, 600 Highwaymen and the Odyssey Project (among others); her writing has been translated into German and Portuguese. She was a 2012 Fulbright Research Fellow in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received her BA from Stanford University. Kate Hunter is a theatre-maker and researcher. Her crossdisciplinary work encompasses neuroscience, embodied cognition and performance. Kate is the recipient of a Vice Chancellor’s Postgraduate Research Award, enabling her to undertake a PhD in

xiv

CONTRIBUTORS

Performance Studies at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, where she is exploring the relationships between memory, imagination, the body and the brain. Małgorzata Jabłońska has been a member of Theatre Chorea since 2004. She is a regular collaborator of the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, and is currently completing a PhD on Meyerhold’s influence on European forms of actor training, at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Her other research interests include Polish performer training and theatre of musicality, performing autobiography and the neuroscience of performance. Duncan Jamieson is a founding co-editor of the refereed journal and book series Polish Theatre Perspectives (PTP). He is based between the University of Exeter, UK, and the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, Poland, where he has lectured on theatre and worked on various publications and research programmes since 2006. His current research project focuses on ethics and performer training in the work of Jerzy Grotowski. Evelyn Jamieson is Programme Leader for Dance and Senior Lecturer at the University of Chester. She gained her MA (Educational Theatre) from Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds in  1991. She has taught at Bretton Hall (1989–98) and was Head of Dance/ MA Programme Leader at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (1998–2009). Chris Johnston is a dramatist, making performance in different contexts and always exploring how best to do that, often in collaboration with others interested in the power of improvisation. Chris is the director of Fluxx and co-director of Livestock and Rideout. He has three books on contemporary theatre practice published by Nick Hern Books. Brad Krumholz is co-founder and Artistic Director of NACL Theatre (North American Cultural Laboratory). Since founding the company in  1997, he has created and directed almost all of its performances, co-directed the NACL Catksill Festival of New Theatre for ten seasons, and established the company’s theatre center in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York as a retreat

CONTRIBUTORS

xv

home for ensemble theatre creators. His article, ‘The Problem of Movement Theatre’ is published in the Allworth Press book, Movement for Actors, and he is currently working on his PhD at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Adam J. Ledger is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham. He has research interests in performance practice, and his book Odin Teatret: Theatre in a New Century is published by Palgrave Macmillan. He is joint Artistic Director of The Bone Ensemble, and recently created Caravania!. Rebecca Loukes is an actor-deviser and practitioner working with psychophysical approaches to training and performance. She is co-Artistic Director of RedCape Theatre, Associate Editor of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal and is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter. Eilon Morris is an actor, percussionist and educator who recently completed a PhD at the University of Huddersfield investigating the use of rhythm in psychophysical actor training. He is a Performer and Associate Director of ‘DUENDE’, as well as currently working with other groups including ‘Obra’, ‘Clunk Improvisation’, and is an associate artist at ‘Whitestone Arts’. Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance and Director of Research in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at Leeds University. He has research interests in all aspects of performer training, beginning with Russian approaches to actor training and expanding out more recently to the United Kingdom, the United states of America and China. He is the author and/or editor of four books, three of which relate to actor training and is the founding co-editor of the Routledge journal, Theatre Dance and Performance Training, now in its fourth year. Anna Porubcansky is a teacher, researcher and practitioner specializing in laboratory theatre practices. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London and is the co-founder of Glasgow-based theatre ensemble Company of Wolves.

xvi

CONTRIBUTORS

Duška Radosavljević is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Kent. She has previously worked as the dramaturg at the Northern Stage Ensemble, an education practitioner at the RSC and as a theatre critic for The Stage newspaper. She is the editor of The Contemporary Ensemble (Routledge, 2013) and author of Theatre-Making (Palgrave, 2013). Marianne Sharp is a performer and director and teaches contemporary theatre practice at the University of Winchester, UK, specialising in performer training, directing and devising. She has previously worked for several years as an actress in touring theatre in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, and as a director and workshop facilitator in a range of contexts including youth theatre and applied theatre. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance from Royal Holloway College, University of London. Dr Amy Skinner is Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Practice at the University of Hull. Her work focuses on the reception of Soviet Drama and Theatre in contemporary Britain, using both theoretical and practical models to explore points of connection between the two cultures. She is a contributor to Russians in Britain (ed. Jonathan Pitches, Routledge, 2011). Patrick Stewart: ‘For the first twenty years of my career the shortest contract I had was for a year (repertory theatre and The Old Vic Company). The longest was with The Royal Shakespeare Company for fourteen years. Even after I became a freelance actor I was often part of a group. Star Trek was seven years, then four movies, all with the same team and X-Men the same. I would change nothing’. Susan Thompson is a Boston-area performer, writer and director. She completed the two-year program and LEM at Jacques Lecoq’s International School in Paris and her PhD in Theater History at Tufts University. Her 2008 dissertation was Tout Ensemble: The Actor/Creator and the Influence of the Pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq on American Ensembles. She has been a core member of Pilgrim Theatre Research and Performance Collaborative since 1990 and teaches at Boston College and Commonwealth School.

CONTRIBUTORS

xvii

Mark Valdez is the Executive Director for the Network of Ensemble Theaters, a coalition of US ensemble-based theater companies. He is a director, writer and educator based in Los Angeles. Mark has directed across the country, led various workshops and has participated in numerous panels. Julia Varley has been an actress at Odin Teatret since 1976. Since 1990, she has taken part in the conception and organization of ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) and from 1986 in the conception and organization of The Magdalena Project, a network of women in contemporary theatre. She is Artistic Director of Transit International Festival, has directed various productions, is editor of The Open Page and author of Wind in the West (Odin Teatret Forlag, Denmark) and Notebook of an Odin Actress – Stones of Water (Routledge, UK). Phillip Zarrilli is the founding Artistic Director of The Llanarth Group. Recent performances include The Beckett Project at the Malta Arts Festival 1–10 July 2012 with performances of Happy Days, Ohio Impromptu, Act Without Words I, Rockaby; Beckett’s Play with Gaitkrash at the Cork Opera House (March 2012); The Echo Chamber (co-created with Kaite O’Reilly, Peader Kirk and Ian Morgan) at Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff, January, 2012); and Told By The Wind (premiere 2010 in Cardiff, touring to Berlin, Wroclaw, Chicago, and continuing on tour). Zarrilli is noted for his development of a psychophysical approach to acting using Asian martial arts and yoga. He is author of Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski (2009), which received the 2010 ATHE Outstanding Book of the Year Award.

xviii

Part One

Defining ensemble

2

Introduction John Britton

Defining ensemble What is ensemble? I will answer in the way Gordon Craig would have done – we can all feel that “ensemble” suggests something highly desirable. We can all instantly feel what it isn’t. No one can say what it is. Try and try again. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.1 It seems such a simple question: ‘What is ensemble?’ Or, perhaps: ‘What is an ensemble?’ Is ‘ensemble’ a noun (‘this company is an ensemble’) or an adjective (‘this is ensemble performance’)? Is Brook’s ‘desirable quality’ something that, once developed, a company has? Or is it an essence, a quality of presence perhaps, or of inter-reactivity, which needs to be created afresh each time a company works together? If a 1

Peter Brook: Personal correspondence with Author, 25 August 2011.

4

Encountering Ensemble

company is ‘an ensemble’, what happens when someone leaves? Or a new person joins? Is it the same ensemble? A new ensemble? An ­ex-ensemble? Years ago, when first my work began to focus on ensemble, I realized I did not know what the word meant, what essential quality it evoked – or even if there is an ‘essential quality’ of ‘ensemble-ness’. However, like Brook, and many other directors, performers, audiences, critics and thinkers, I sensed that ‘something’ existed. This lack of definition – the sense that I could taste the ‘desirable quality’ of a moment but could neither describe nor capture it – led me to start using the word ‘it’ to describe my sense of ensemble-ness. While training an ensemble I would ask performers to sense when ‘it’ was in the room. Sometimes, in the middle of a scene or an improvisation, ‘it’ would leave. Sometimes the performers (once they had finished) would tell me that they had felt highly connected when I, their audience, had felt no such connectedness. They may have felt ‘it’, I didn’t. At other times, I would sense deep and instinctive interconnections between the performers but they, after the event, would describe themselves as having felt a little lost. Then there were times when we all felt ‘it’, all knew ‘it’. So, we start this book with a simple, unanswerable question: ‘Ensemble – what is ‘it’?’ Just because the question has no answer does not mean that it is not worth asking. This book will be full of paradox and contradiction. One practitioner will flatly contradict another. One will write persuasively that the essence of ensemble is X only for someone else to argue that X is a myth and that the heart of ensemble is Y. My own practice has given me particular understandings, but they are not ones that other practitioners necessarily share. This book contains many voices. It is a conversation and you will find yourself wanting to agree with some contributors, and question others. This is as it should be. One of the things most practitioners agree on is that ensemble does not require unanimity. A book on ensemble should not require agreement either. However, amid the contradictions and diversity of voices, we will find common themes, repeated preoccupations, shared visions and passions. This introduction will point towards some of them.

INTRODUCTION

5

Definitions of ensemble In 2004, The Director’s Guild of Great Britain and Equity organized a conference to discuss ensemble theatre. Their definition of the term was this: Ensemble theatre occurs when a group of theatre artists (­performers, artistic directors, stage management and the key administrative staff) work together over many years to create theatre. Other artists (such as writers, performers, directors, designers, composers, choreographers, etc) will be brought in on an occasional basis to refresh and develop the work of the ensemble – although the focus will remain on its permanent personnel.2 This definition suggests that ensemble is a product of a group’s organizational structure. If people from all areas of the creative process work together for an extended period, rather than on a single project, they are an ensemble. As David Barnett explores in his chapter on ‘The Berliner Ensemble’ later in this book, organizational structures can contribute to the development of ­ensemble. Does this mean that organizational structure is the essence of ensemble? Robert Cohen sees longevity as central to any sense of ensemble: .  .  .  ensemble is a long-term relationship: a day-in, day-out collaboration in shared living, thinking and creating.3 This immediately raises the question that I suggested above – what if someone leaves? Or a new person joins? Is an ensemble still the same ensemble if all its members, over time, are replaced? These are questions John Collins, artistic director of Elevator Repair Service, examines in his chapter later in this book.

Introduction to Conference Proceedings. Available: www.dggb.org/files/Ensemble TheatreConf.pdf; accessed 3 October 2012. 3 Cohen, Robert, Working Together in Theatre: Collaboration and Leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. pp. 16–17. 2

6

Encountering Ensemble

In his book on the work of Suzuki, The Art of Stillness, Paul Allain quotes Ellen Lauren from SITI: In teaching as many students as we have in New York, there has now become quite a community who’ve had some exposure to this training. . . . This training can provide a very real vocabulary that actors can speak together; you can immediately become an ensemble, working in the same world with a similar sensibility.4 Lauren is suggesting that ensemble is a result of what performers have experienced before they even meet one another – a shared training which has given them the ability to inhabit ‘the same world with a similar sensibility’. As contributors to this book will assert repeatedly, shared training can be – some suggest must be – a core element in encouraging ensemble. But again, is ensemble only this? Does it need to be a specific type of training? Even if people share a specific and appropriate training, do they, when together, automatically form an ensemble? Katie Mitchell in her book The Director’s Handbook, writes: During this period of rehearsals, you could also consider calling the full ensemble occasionally for movement or voice work, or to relay any new research material. It is important not to lose the sense of a shared group activity or purpose. Do this once a week for an hour or so . . . Do not worry if . . . you do not have time to schedule these ensemble calls.5 We might assume that Mitchell is simply using ‘ensemble’ as a substitute for ‘cast’ or ‘company’. However, she cites, as formative influences on her own, highly successful work, Lev Dodin (The Maly Theatre of St Petersburg), Wlodzimierz Staniewski (Gardzienice) and Pina Bausch.6 These are significant figures in ‘ensemble’ performance so, in Mitchell’s use of the term, there seems to be an aspiration. She wants the cast to be more than just ‘a cast’, she Allain, Paul, The Art of Stillness: The Theatre Practice of Tadashi Suzuki. London: Methuen, 2002. p. 48. 5 Mitchell, Katie, The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre. New York: Routledge, 2009. p. 174. 6 Ibid., p. 222. 4

INTRODUCTION

7

aspires to ‘ensemble’ even if the practical realities of working in commercial (or state-subsidized) theatre make such an aspiration difficult to achieve. She suggests that bringing the entire company together, even if only briefly, helps reinforce the understanding that they share a common purpose. Organizational structure. Longevity. Prior training. Common purpose. These elements of ensemble will rear their heads repeatedly in these pages. All are significant. Are any of them, in themselves, enough to define ensemble? Indeed, does ‘ensemble’ really exist? As Brook suggested, ‘we can all instantly feel what it isn’t’ (op. cit), yet can we say what it is? Certainly, there are writers who suggest that their experience of ‘ensemble’ is qualitatively different to the experience of watching work which is not ensemble. In his foreword to Maria Shevtsova’s book Dodin and the Maly Theatre, Simon Callow writes of his first encounter with a Maly production: . . . the achievement was a collective one, like the playing of a great orchestra. What was exceptional was the melos, the underlying sense of the whole. More extraordinary, even, than the individual performances or the interplay between the characters, was the corporate life manifested on stage. The connectivity of the actors was almost tangible, an organic tissue which made them breathe as one and move with a profound awareness of everything that was going on within the group. . . .7 Callow’s phrase ‘corporate life’ suggests that ensemble is something created and sustained by performers, live, each time they work together. It is a function of something performers do. The other elements – the shared purpose, long life of the company, shared training and many of the other recurring features of ensemble practice explored in this book – perhaps are strategies various practitioners have developed to equip performers to ‘live collectively’ in front of their audience. This understanding of ensemble suggests that to understand ‘it’, we need to start by looking at what is happening between (and Callow in Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. xi.

7

8

Encountering Ensemble

inside) performers and between performers and their collaborators (directors, writers, teachers, designers and technical artists). We must examine relationships, looking at what performers do and how they do it. The origins of the story this book tells lie with the Moscow Art Theatre (Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko) and the Vieux-Colombiers (Jacques Copeau).8 Both companies originated, in part, in reaction to deep dissatisfaction with the quality of relationships that existed in mainstream theatre. In Moscow and Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, theatre was dominated by a ‘star system’, where contemporary ‘celebrities’ slotted into productions and delivered to audiences exactly what those audiences expected. The presence of a ‘star’ was considerably more important than the integrity and quality of the entire production. Stanislavski explained: We protested against the old manner of acting, against theatricality, against false pathos, declamation, against overacting, against the bad conventions of production and design, against the star system which spoils the ensemble . . .9 Mark Evans, writing about Jacques Copeau, writes: He intended his new company to act as a disciplined ensemble – a truly innovative theatrical ambition as, for many years, the pattern of employment had been based around clearly delineated hierarchies in which “stars” were hired to perform their “set pieces” alongside companies of jobbing actors.10 In reaction to their dissatisfaction with the status quo, these two extraordinary innovators turned to the idea of ensemble. The Moscow Art Theatre was specifically envisaged as an ensemble, its founders ‘agreed to create an ensemble which would place artistic

Their histories, and the lineages of ensemble practice they established, will be charted later in this introduction. 9 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 23. 10 Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 10. 8

INTRODUCTION

9

aims above individual vanity’.11 Toporkov, an actor who worked under Stanislavski towards the end of the latter’s life, quotes Stanislavski: Our art is an ensemble art. Brilliant individual actors in a show are not enough. We have to think of a performance as a harmonious union of all the elements into a single artistic creation.12 Evans writes about Copeau’s vision of the relationship between performer and company as: ‘a true ensemble where actors would play leading roles in one production and minor parts in the next’,13 an ideal that mirrors Stanislavski’s aspiration, quoted by Carnicke, that ‘Today – Hamlet, tomorrow – an extra, but even as an extra an artist’.14 Copeau and Stanislavski sought new relationships. They required performers to place themselves at the service of their work, rather than using theatre as a vehicle through which to present themselves to an adoring public.15 Both developed approaches to training to help performers realize their vision. Thus, training became integral to the notion of ensemble. The conception of the role of the performer was revolutionized by these approaches. An alternative perspective to the one reinforced by a hierarchical, celebrity-orientated star system opened up. This perspective suggested that training to perform was not simply a process of acquiring skills, but involved the systematic exploration and development of an elusive craft. Later in the century, Grotowski described this new perspective, pioneered by

Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999. p. 61. 12 Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich, Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001. p. 109. 13 Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 2. 14 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 24. 15 Jonathan Pitches describes the work of Meyerhold (who worked with Stanislavski before developing his own approaches to training and theatre-making) thus: ‘The ensemble is in effect bound by a common cause which breeds a humility in relation to the work’. (Cited by Leach in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 33.) 11

10

Encountering Ensemble

S­ tanislavski, as, within ensemble, actors engaging in ‘solid and systematic work on craft’.16 Lev Dodin, director of the Maly Theatre, sees a clear difference between ‘production line theatre’ and the sort of work pioneered by the Moscow Art Theatre. He suggests: Those actors in the Moscow Arts Theatre were united by one objective, one aim. . . . [T]heir life was regulated by certain moral laws, ethical laws. . . .17 Already we are encountering big questions. Our simple attempt to define ensemble is starting to address morality, ethics and the value of art. Before delving further into these questions, and into the history and lineages of ensemble practice, we will look at how various people have sought to describe this elusive sense of ensemble.

DUENDE Collision #1 (Rico Wu, Hannah Dalby, Aliki Dourmazer, Luke O’Connor and Jo Leishman): Mitilene, Lesvos; July 2012. Photo: Lydia Yeung. Grotowski in Richards, Thomas, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London; New York: Routledge 1995. p. 115. 17 Delgado, Maria M. and Heritage, Paul, In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. p. 71. 16

INTRODUCTION

11

Describing ensemble: Some metaphors A metaphor does not tell us what ensemble is, but can evoke elements of the experience of encountering ‘it’. It gives an insight – sometimes technical, sometime poetic – into how someone experienced this elusive phenomenon. There are three distinct ‘families’ of metaphors which recur frequently in discussion of ensemble: metaphors of the human body, of social structure and of musical performance.

Metaphors of the body The idea of ensemble as single body is used directly by Phillip Zarrilli when he writes of: ‘. . . (the) ensemble’s collective body’.18 I have already quoted Simon Callow writing of performers in The Maly Theatre linked by ‘an organic tissue which made them breathe as one’.19 He suggests the image of ensemble as a single body built from the individual bodies of the performers. Later he adds: It is the actors who hold you absolutely, not simply as performers nor even as individuals, but as some kind of collective conduit for the life-force.20 Elsewhere in the same book, Shevtsova writes of ‘a permanent group breathing as one’.21 A particularly rich use of a metaphor of ensemble-as-body emerged from a conversation between Grotowski, Nicolás Núñez and Helena Guardia; Núñez is director of the Taller de Investigación Teatral in Mexico City where Guardia is his main collaborator. Núñez and Guardia recall Grotowski describing ensemble as a single body comprising distinct but interdependent vital organs. A brain

Zarrilli, Phillip B., Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. p. 5. 19 Callow in Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. xi. 20 Ibid., p. xiii. 21 Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. 36. 18

12

Encountering Ensemble

is necessary, a heart, an anus.22 Núñez recalled a conversation in which Grotowski said: We have to take care  .  .  .  because as soon as we get together, we start and we build this body – as an ensemble. We all need this body to be alive, and he (Grotowski) told us not to kill, not to destroy, our structures, because he said many groups, many theatre groups, disappeared because they killed . . . the anus of the organism. Somebody says “I can’t stand him” “Neither can I”, “He’s not needed”,  .  .  . “Throw him away!”,  .  .  . And they throw this guy away, or this girl, and the ensemble vanishes – destroyed, because it cannot live without an anus.23 Núñez added that Grotowski believed the roles within the body of the ensemble were not fixed. One person might be the brain one day, another the next. Even the director has a mutating role: (Grotowski) said, also, these roles are not stable. So, if you direct, don’t feel that you have to have the last say, the last word, because maybe sometimes you will be stupid or maybe sometimes you will be the [anus] – even if you are the official responsible one.24 This metaphor is worth exploring a little. The idea that someone is the ‘anus’ of the ensemble, while both funny and provocative, is also complex. The anus is a necessary mechanism for removing toxins, wastes and poisons. Though perhaps not mentioned in polite conversation, it is essential to an organism’s survival. The metaphor suggests that for an organism to be healthy, to thrive, it must contain within it a repository for elements no one wants to acknowledge. It requires a place where accumulated undigestible waste products are stored and then eradicated. The metaphor suggests there needs to be someone who, at times, is willing to Grotowski originally used the word ‘bouc émissaire’ – French for ‘scapegoat’. When I asked Núñez for clarification of the origin of this metaphor, he wrote: ‘the metaphor of the ensemble as a single body with its different interchangeable roles and needs, is Grotowski’s. Instead of the word “anus” he used the term “bouc émissaire” (“chivo expiatorio”, in Spanish). I, being more rough, call it “anus”. But for the purpose of explaining the concept, it’s the same . . . because it does not betray Grotowski’s main idea’. (Private email: October 2012.) 23 Interview with the Author, New York, April 2009. 24 Ibid. 22

INTRODUCTION

13

‘drain the poison’, to say and do what others are too ‘polite’ to risk, to break the comfortable assumptions and cosy compromises that sometimes pass for collaboration. It also suggests that there must be someone who is the conduit for other people’s ‘psychic poison’ – who becomes the (sometimes unacknowledged) focus of the collective’s fears, shame, anger – all the ‘destructive’ emotions that are normally kept away from ‘healthy’ interpersonal relationship. Grotowski’s original word – ‘scapegoat’ – especially suggests this – that there needs to be an individual who ‘accepts responsibility for’ attitudes, thoughts and behaviours, that are present in everyone, but which no one wants to acknowledge. It is a metaphor that speaks to shifting roles within an ensemble, in which all are interdependent and all are different. The metaphor speaks to the need for complexity and individuation rather than superficiality and homogeneity. If members of an ensemble act on their sense of discomfort, try to make everything ‘nice’ by removing the ‘anus’ within the group, they risk killing the entire body/ensemble. This same sense of shifting complexity is suggested by Joseph Chaikin, director of The Open Theater: Problems within groups are often pinned on certain issues and certain people, but when those issues and people are taken care of, they are soon replaced with others because it is a deeper and irrational level that is being mined.25 Both Grotowski/Núñez and Chaikin are acknowledging that ensembles are complex organisms. They are not always (perhaps should never be) comfortable. They are at risk of death if awkwardness is eradicated and replaced by a ‘niceness’. A single body comprises interdependent differences. The same is true, these metaphors suggest, in an ensemble.

Metaphors of society A second major category of metaphor likens ensemble to various forms of ‘social structure’. Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 103.

25

14

Encountering Ensemble

Giorgio Strehler said: I have a deep-rooted and ancient idea of what an ensemble is. I love the theatre only when it is a family, a fraternity, a house filled with parents, children and cousins. I don’t mean by this that I think of the family as a pure harmony. For a family is also a space of dissent and of abandonment. But the theatre-as-home is the only one that for me is worth the effort.26 Ingemar Lindh, Swedish improviser and physical performer, draws on the idea of ‘hospitality’ in discussing ensemble: . . . the prime condition for working in a group is to have the capacity of being on your own – so as not to become a burden on the others. This is the principle of collaboration on the “floor” during improvisations; it is also the basic principle of hospitality . . . otherwise one ends up imposing on, rather than encountering, the other.27 Núñez and Guardia talk about ensemble as a dinner party attended by people’s essential selves – not their surface ‘personalities’. Núñez’s image is of a structured meeting between people who have ‘left their masks outside’.28 Chaikin writes from a similar metaphor: ‘We must unmask and be vulnerable all over again’.29 The metaphor of ‘community’ is evoked often when writing of ensemble. Shevtsova uses the word to describe The Maly Theatre.30 Chaikin also uses the word: ‘A company of actors – in relation to the work that they are performing – is a community’.31 Lev Dodin,

Delgado, Maria M. and Heritage, Paul, In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. pp. 266–7. 27 Quoted in Camilleri, Frank, ‘Hospitality and the Ethics of Improvisation in the Work of Ingemar Lindh’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2008): 252. 28 Interview with the Author, New York, April 2009. 29 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 26. 30 Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. 37. 31 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 28. 26

INTRODUCTION

15

director of the Maly, is quoted talking of his actors sharing a ‘common language’,32 almost as if the company becomes its own nation state speaking a unique language that those who come from outside will not understand. Working on any production can create intense, sometimes longlasting relationships. However, Shevtsova, Dodin, Chaikin and others are suggesting something more. They are suggesting that to encounter ensemble, as participant or audience, is to encounter relationships as complex and deep as those forged by living, growing and ageing together. It suggests that the heart of ensemble is a network of complex interrelationships, like those between blood relatives or within a small village. Some of these relationships might also be ‘friendships’, but friendship is not necessary. Indeed, Thomas Richards, Grotowski’s essential collaborator during the final years of the latter’s career, is adamant that the necessary relationships in a working environment are considerably more complicated than simple friendship. He writes: .  .  .  in a truly professional situation it’s fundamental that we aim towards good work not good feelings. Of course, to feel well inside what one is doing is a fundamental element in any activity. But if such a need is placed ahead of the need for good work, then the quality of the activity is destined to decline. The situation will turn into a fraternity of pseudo-friends who expect to continually pat each other on the back, no matter what they actually do.33 As with the metaphors of the body, explored above, metaphors drawn from social structures do not suggest a need for conformity or a lack of individuality – communities and families are complex structures which, to thrive, must balance individuality with conformity. Nor do they suggest that an ensemble, like a family or a community, is a place without struggle and dissent. Ingemar Lindh

Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p 36. 33 Richards, Thomas, Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008. p. 92. 32

16

Encountering Ensemble

is clear that: ‘Being part of a group does not mean being engulfed by it’.34 The relationship between individuality and the collective is one I explore in more detail a little later in this introduction.

Metaphors of music A third domain of metaphor comes from the world of music. Simon Callow describes watching The Maly as ‘like a playing of a great orchestra’,35 and Carnicke cites Pashennaya, a performer with The Maly: ‘The Moscow Art Theatre plays a “symphony”’.36 Working with a similar metaphor, Peter Brook writes; ‘in a piece of orchestral music, . . . each sound keeps its identity while merging into a new event’.37 Marshall and Williams explored Brook’s orchestral metaphor further when they examined Brook’s use of the word ‘tuning’: “Tuning” . . . represents a quality of listening and interaction in which the personal (individual instruments) needs to serve the supra-personal (the orchestral collective).38 Of course, there is an ancient link between musical and theatrical ensemble in the form of the Chorus in Greek Theatre. This was a link of profound importance to Copeau, who wrote: ‘The chorus is the mother cell of all dramatic poetry’.39 Joseph Chaikin writes of the need for his actors to share an ‘inner  rhythm’40 and one of Chaikin’s collaborators in The Open 34 Lindh, Ingemar, Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enter­ prise, 2010. p. 41. 35 Callow in Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. xi. 36 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 26. 37 Brook, Peter, The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989. p 106. 38 Marshall and Williams in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 190. 39 Copeau in Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 50. 40 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 59.

INTRODUCTION

17

Theatre, Lee Worley, in describing ensemble, uses a metaphor that combines both bodily and musical perspectives: I always think of (it) like music, like a jazz ensemble. A pulse holds it together- the heart pulse rather than the individuation of the head impulses.41 Worley’s metaphor places the underlying pulse of ensemble not in the domain of the head (individuated and rational), but in the domain of the heart (altogether more elusive and intuitive). She seems to be suggesting that, like the sense of ‘swing’ in jazz, which transcends any technical precision of note or rhythm, the underlying pulse of ensemble, is sensed rather than understood. The idea of a shared musicality between performers is at the heart of many approaches to ensemble and is explored in my introduction to Part 3 of this book.

Other metaphors Wlodmierz Staniewski of the Gardzienice Institute describes the job of creating the ensemble as: ‘finding and creating a proper constellation’.42 Lindh, whom I quoted earlier, also uses the image of a constellation: A group is a constellation of individuals who act independently. It is a network of diversities . . .43 Stars in a constellation have no real relationship with one another. They are distant in space and seem to achieve a relationship only in the eye of the observer. The metaphor suggests that ensemble is a ‘fiction’, an ‘image’, seen by an outside observer, but not requiring internal interconnectedness. Perhaps this metaphor suggests form­ ing ensemble is primarily a director’s job rather than a result of Interview with Author, Boulder, Colorado; December 2010. Staniewski, Wlodzimierz and Hodge, Alison, Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. p. 97. 43 Lindh, Ingemar, Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enterprise, 2010. p. 41. 41 42

18

Encountering Ensemble

the actions of performers.44 It is a complex metaphor. The training Staniewski has developed with Gardzienice is based in ‘mutuality’, which he calls ‘the paradigm of simplicity’.45 He describes it as: . . . a training based on a successive form of interaction in which two people can be close to each other and then leave. . . . You are coming to each other and leaving, coming and going. Everything happens within this paradigm.46 Both Lindh and Staniewski seem to suggest, through the metaphor of ‘constellation’, a vision of ensemble in which independent (rather than interdependent) individuals appear, to an outsider, to inhabit a particular, possibly externally constructed, configuration.47 Peter Brook evokes another interesting metaphor when he writes of ‘[a] story-teller with many heads’.48 Brook also uses the metaphor of ‘an incomplete jigsaw’.49 The former metaphor suggests that it is the narrative that creates the ensemble (many distinct mouthpieces that are brought into relationship by the story they share), the latter speaks of distinct elements that, only when put into appropriate relationship, reveal the totality of a picture. All of these metaphors – jigsaw pieces, orchestras or jazz groups, guests visiting houses, stars in the sky, families and societies, interdependent vital organs – evoke and express in some way a tension at the heart of ensemble, between collective endeavour and individual contribution. Ensemble is a communal, shared enterprise This is something Staniewski hints at when he says: ‘My task is to gather people into constellations. This is why I prefer to call such a function as mine “Gatherer”’ (Staniewski, Wlodzimierz. Gardzienice, Poland. Exeter: Arts Documentation Unit, 1993. p. 28). 45 Staniewski, Wlodzimierz and Hodge, Alison Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. p. 74. 46 Ibid., pp. 74–5. 47 Staniewski’s metaphor is further complicated when he piles a second one on top of the first: ‘. . . a kind of garden which blossoms in a special way, and which is able to produce a special sort of chemistry’ (Staniewski, Wlodzimierz and Hodge, Alison, Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. p.  97). The cultivation of a garden, of course, suggests the existence of a gardener. 48 Brook, Peter, Threads of Time: A Memoir. London: Methuen Drama, 1998. p. 197. 49 Ibid., p. 162. 44

INTRODUCTION

19

generated by unique, highly differentiated individuals (after all a violin and a timpani are different in every respect, but when the orchestra plays we hear their combination). We will return to many of these ideas later in this book when I examine themes, motifs and perspectives that recur across a range of ensemble practices. First, however, as we continue to try to grasp what has been meant by the word ‘ensemble’, we will look at three specific areas of practice that have been of interest to a wide range of diverse practitioners.

Three recurring focuses in ensemble practices Strong individuals and the functioning of collectives Peter Brook is clear that it is respect for difference that fuels the collaborative relationships he seeks to encourage. When he founded the International Centre for Theatrical Research in 1970, he brought together performers from diverse cultural backgrounds, with diverse training and technical skills. Of this process, he writes: Everyone outside who was interested in our work thought it was an attempt at synthesis. . . . This was not the case at all. No synthesis based on technical exchange was either desirable or possible.  .  .  .  Founding an international group gave us the chance to discover in a new way the strong and healthy differences between people . . .50 Ensemble requires negotiation and balance between the individual performers who form it, and the shared language and behaviours that emerges from their interactions. Individuality and collective orientation both benefit from attention, but where the balance lies varies from one practitioner to another. Brook, Peter, The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989. pp. 106–7.

50

20

Encountering Ensemble

Ingemar Lindh is clear: ‘The first premise for collective creation is the individual’s capacity to be alone’.51 Jonathan Pitches, discussing Meyerhold’s training, emphasizes the importance of individuality at the heart of collective activity: . . . with its emphasis upon collective, collaborative action, (the work) insists that each element of the ensemble comes together with a shared point of intense concentration whilst retaining each person’s uniquely individual stamp . . .52 The balance that any individual artist seeks to strike between individual and collective focuses needs to be understood in relation to their conformity to, or reaction against, the social and political conditions in which they are working. Bigsby, reviewing the growth of alternative theatres in the US, sees cultural difference between Europe and America as central to an understanding of how ensemble developed differently in these two cultures:53 For Grotowski, a product of a collectivist society, the path to the collectivity lay through the discovery of self; for Richard Schechner and others, products of a society that has enshrined individualism . . . the path to the self lay through the group.54 Bigsby further suggests: ‘for those in revolt against a fierce indivi­ dualism the group seemed a source of alternative values’.55 Richard Boleslavsky, the pupil of Stanislavski credited with the first introduction of the latter’s work to America, emphasized the necessity of working as ‘a team’ when he established the American Laboratory Theatre.56 However, the major strands of practice that 51 Lindh, Ingemar, Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enter­ prise, 2010. p. 41. 52 Quoted by Leach in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 33. 53 I discuss further the divergence of use of the term ‘ensemble’ between Europe and America towards the end of this introduction. 54 Bigsby, C. W. E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. p. 60. 55 Ibid., p. 124. 56 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 37.

INTRODUCTION

21

emerged from the American Laboratory Theatre and its successor, The Group Theatre, were highly individualized (especially Strasberg’s ‘Method’). This might be seen as the ‘individual’ side of the ‘individual/collective’ balance reasserting itself. Certainly, the approaches of American and European followers of Stanislavski’s ‘system’ were considered by Robert Brustein to be widely divergent. Writing after seeing work by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1965, he commented: .  .  .  The Stanislavski System bears about as much relation to the Strasberg Method as caviar does to hot dogs.  .  .  .  While the Strasberg actor is listening most intently to himself . . . the Stanislavski actor is listening most intently to others: the Moscow Art Theater obviously tolerate no star personalities, and all the actors play as if there were no such things as minor roles.57 Joseph Chaikin rejected the efficacy of Strasbergian Method training precisely because of its emphasis on individuality: My professional objection to (Method) training is that it prepares the actor to play alone – he is completely locked out of any ensemble experience.58 Chaikin’s phrase is significant – he is suggesting that not only does the individual focus of ‘method’ training not prepare performers to work in ensemble, it specifically works against their capacity to do so. They find themselves forcibly excluded from the possibilities of interrelationship (‘locked-out’). Sitting at the meeting point of European and American influences, Chaikin’s perspective on the relationship of individual to collective, is perceptive and ironic: There is nothing harder than actually getting along with other people, except for getting along with yourself.59 Quoted in  Allen, David, Performing Chekhov. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. pp. 126–7. 58 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 44. 59 Ibid., p. 102. 57

22

Encountering Ensemble

Musicality Meyerhold, originally trained as a violinist, saw musicality as core to performance.60 He wrote: The actor needs a background of music in order to train him to pay attention to the flow of time on stage.61 Rudlin points out the importance of musical training in Copeau’s work: Students at the Vieux Colombier School learned choral and solo singing, reading music and the basics of an individual instrument.62 For both Meyerhold and Copeau, musical literacy in performers was not primarily about developing ‘musical skill’, but about understanding the structures of music – rhythm, harmony, dynamics, phrasing and melody. They saw the elements of musicality as a language through which performers learn to construct individual performance in relationship to others – as a musician constructs performance in relationship to a collective.63 Meyerhold wrote: A performance organised in a musical way does not mean that music is played in it, or that people sing constantly behind the scenes; it means a performance with a precise rhythmic score, a performance in which time is rigorously structured.64

Pitches, Jonathan, Vsevolod Meyerhold. London; New York: Routledge, 2003. p. 4. Quoted in Law, Alma H. and Mel, Gordon, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biome­ chanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996. p. 50. 62 Rudlin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 54. 63 Shevtsova suggests a similar approach by Dodin at the Maly Theatre when she writes: ‘this (musical) . . . skill was required for the production, (but) it was developed into a musicality that extended them as people’. Shevtsova, Maria, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. p. 50. 64 Quoted in Pavis, Patrice, Analyzing Performance: Theater, Dance, and Film. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. p. 145: original emphasis. 60 61

INTRODUCTION

23

Stanislavksi was also clear about the value of a ‘technical’ under­ standing of music (as opposed to an acquiring of musical skills): How lucky to have at one’s disposal bars, pauses, a metronome, a tuning fork, harmony, counterpoint, properly worked-out exercises to develop technique, a vocabulary in which to describe artistic concepts, to understand creative problems and experiences. Music has long since recognised the importance of such vocabulary. Music can rely on recognised basic rules and not, like us, on pot-luck.65 Staniewski sees musicality as foundational: ‘everything in (Gardzienice’s) theatre practice comes from musicality and ends in musicality’.66 The foundational importance of musicality, as opposed to the skill of playing music, is emphasized in Staniewski’s statement: ‘I believe that instinct and intuition are real and I also believe that they cannot exist without musicality’.67 Joan Littlewood not only recognized the centrality of musicality, but, in a similar vein to Worley, quoted above, she linked it to a specific musical aesthetic. She worked at a time when, in England, jazz was ‘dangerous’ music, associated with heartbreak and drugs, African-American or Latino artists, late nights and illicit loveaffairs. According to Clive Barker: she characterised the work of Theatre Workshop as a jazz combo against the classical orchestra, which was the model of established theatre practice . . . based on the understanding that it is harder to create great jazz than to play in a symphony orchestra, requiring much rigorous investigation of form, structure and style, and greater instrumental flexibility and virtuosity.68 This emphasis on musicality in the way practitioners have discussed their work suggests their attempts to find a concrete vocabulary to Quoted in Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski, an Introduction. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1982. p. 37. 66 Staniewski, Wlodzimierz, Gardzienice, Poland. Exeter: Arts Documentation Unit, 1993. p. 31. 67 Ibid., p. 11. 68 Barker in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 131. 65

24

Encountering Ensemble

communicate the underlying slipperiness of ensemble-ness. It draws attention away from individual character concerns and towards relationship. It also suggests, as with Worley’s differentiation between a knowing-with-the-head and sensing-with-the-heart, that the foun­ dation of inter-performer communication is not to be found only in the technical skills of performance, but in deeper understandings – just as the techniques of playing music need to be brought to life by a deeper understanding – ‘musicality’. Not only do performers need to learn to have physical and verbal conversation, they also have to know how to make that conversation swing. A focus on musicality also reveals a concern with ‘the music’ – the overall effect of the relationships between the individuals – rather than simply with the individual ‘musician’ (which is where focus lies in star-orientated, ‘celebrity’ theatre). It emphasizes that the central concern of performers should be coherence and the internal logic of the whole performance rather than any individual’s desire to shine (or the desire of a star-seeking audience to witness such shining).

The relationship between process and product Phillip Zarrilli defines ‘acting’ as: .  .  .  that psychophysiological process by means of which a (theatrical) world is made available at the moment of its appearance/experience for both actors and audience.69 This definition recognizes that ‘performing’ is a process an actor undertakes in the presence of an audience. Concern with this creative process rather than with ‘making product’ has been a recurring feature of ensemble practice since the establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre70 and the Vieux-Colombiers. Osiński writes of

Zarrilli, Phillip B., Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. p. 44. 70 Indeed, Lev Dodin writes about the Moscow Art Theatre as an organization: ‘. . . where a theatre production is a sort of by-product’. (Delgado, Maria M. and Heritage, Paul, In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. p. 71.) 69

INTRODUCTION

25

the Reduta’s work: ‘The fundamental role of the Reduta actor was not so much to play a role, as to be, to live on stage’.71 Performing, especially in the context of relationship with others, is a continual evolution: .  .  .  the process of acting .  .  .  became a journey for (Copeau’s) actor, and the art of acting was always coming into knowledge and never fully achieved.72 Michel Saint-Denis, who trained and worked with Copeau, was explicit in rejecting a focus on ‘results’ when he founded the London Theatre Studio: The main objectives of the L.T.S. were to develop student initiative, freedom and a sense of individual responsibility as well as the ability to merge his individual qualities into an ensemble. . . . We were not interested in quick results, we were interested in the gradual growth of each individual talent.73 An emphasis on the processual and relational nature of performing was not purely a European concern. Bigsby quotes Josef Albers,74 a faculty member of The Black Mountain College, North Carolina, the institution that supported some of the first American ‘Happenings’: ‘The performance – how it is done – that is the content of art’.75 Joseph Chaikin, explaining why ‘systems’ of creativity fail, writes: All prepared systems fail. They fail when they are applied, except as examples of a process that was significant, at some time, for someone or some group. Process is dynamic; it’s the evolution that takes place during work.76 Osiński, Zbigniew in Allain, Paul (ed.), Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009. p. 22. 72 Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 88. 73 Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises. New York: Theatre Arts; London: Heinemann, 1982. p. 46. 74 Albers was, himself, a refugee from Europe, one of many artists who transferred approaches, ideas and attitudes in both directions between Europe and the US. 75 Bigsby, C. W. E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. p. 40. 76 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. p. 21. 71

26

Encountering Ensemble

While many contemporary practitioners pay attention to the detail of their creative process, the assertion that the quality and detail of process is more important than the resulting product is perhaps less widely accepted. This is not surprising. Audiences (and those who fund or subsidize performances) often see only the performance. The idea that artists should pay more attention to the detail of what takes place in the absence of an audience (the creative process) seems, at best, counter-intuitive and, at worst, arrogant or contemptuous. However, as Chaikin writes, ‘process is dynamic’. Without a dynamic creative process, the process of performing that Zarrilli suggests an audience witnesses, will be inert. Far from suggesting a lack of concern for an audience, detailed attention to creative process, a recurring feature of ensemble practice since Stanislavski and Copeau, suggests a desire that what audiences witness is dynamic, authentic and original. It evidences a commitment to making the act of performing ‘enlivened’.

DUENDE (Rico Wu, John Britton and Stacey Johnstone), training July 2012, Lesvos – focusing on the detailed use of the senses. Photo: Lydia Yeung.

Work on process, on the ‘how’ of each moment alongside the ‘what’ of each moment, is a foundation of much ensemble practice. Josef

INTRODUCTION

27

Albers, quoted above, though not writing specifically of ensemble, asserted: ‘Art is concerned with the HOW, not the WHAT’.77 Peter Brook describes the shift of perspective from concern with product to attention to process thus: It takes a long time for a director to cease thinking in terms of the result he desires and instead concentrate on discovering the source of energy in the actor from which true impulses can arise.78 Developing a sensitivity to ‘true impulses’ and the ability to react authentically to each moment have been at the heart of the creative exploration for many ensemble practitioners. If performers are to be truly ‘alive’ to one another, not simply ‘reproducing’ something rehearsed previously, they must react spontaneously and appropriately to the ebb and flow of impulses between them. Although it is rehearsed and structured, ‘live’ performance needs to be alert to its ever-changing inner dynamic. For many, enhancing and training this alertness and sensitivity is the heart of the creative process. Ultimately, a rich process, one that generates an authentic, reactive sensitivity, deepens the experience an audience has when they encounter ensemble. Toporkov, who worked with Stanislavski in the last phase of the latter’s life, notes the relationship between the quality of attention between performers and the attentiveness of their audience. He describes the first presentation of scenes from Moliere’s ‘Tartuffe’ to colleagues from the Moscow Art Theatre: The first moves, the first lines, when no one was doing any “acting”, only “adapting to each other”, “forming up with each other”, produced great concentration in the audience and that couldn’t but be reflected in the way the actors felt. We came together even more, and concentrated more.79

77 Bigsby, C. W. E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. p. 40. 78 Quoted in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 186. 79 Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich, Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001. p. 155: my emphasis.

28

Encountering Ensemble

Toporkov suggests that the nature of the attention between the actors, the quality of their interconnectedness, generated, in the audience, an enhanced quality of watchfulness. The enhancement of the audience concentration experienced as the actors were ‘adapting to each other’ fed back into the quality of the attentiveness that the actors themselves experienced. The creative process that the performers were engaging in as they were ‘adapting to each other’ enabled the audience, by the quality of its attention, to affect the unfolding of the performance it was witnessing – not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’. As performers ‘live’ their process in front of their audience, they create the opportunity for audiences to engage with them, to share in their work. Viewed in this light, ensemble performance is not ‘showing a product’, but is the living recreating of a creative process in the presence of an audience.80 The ‘it-ness of ensemble’ is not a product an ensemble can demonstrate, but the outcome of a process the ensemble undertakes. Thus far, we have explored a number of the definitions, metaphors and common concerns that recur across a range of ensemble practices. We have already encountered some significant practitioners. We have looked at three themes that recur in a range of ensemble practices – the relationship of individual and collective, musicality, and the tension between process and product. These themes will reappear. Before embarking on a deeper examination of some of them ­however, it is worth trying to form an overview of how ­ensemble practice developed, interconnected and evolved through the ­twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

A brief (and partial) history of ensemble Who are the major practitioners we will encounter in this book? How do they connect one with another? In this section, I outline some histories and suggest some connections. It is only a sketch, so I start with a word of caution: this is not a definitive list of who The idea that an audience can become, in some way, an extension of the onstage ensemble is explored in a number of chapters in this book.

80

INTRODUCTION

29

is – and who is not – ‘ensemble’. It is an introduction to some key practitioners, and to some of the links between them. There are other histories – indeed some of the chapters later in this book point towards alternative lineages. My aim here is simply to try to put into context some of the major names we will encounter elsewhere in the book. This account focuses almost entirely on European and American practitioners. This is not to suggest that significant and important work has not emerged elsewhere, but it is to acknowledge the (inevitably) limited scope of a book such as this. My hope is that readers will use this brief (and partial) history as a starting point from which to develop their own (equally partial) understanding of ensemble.

Copeau, Stanislavski and the early twentieth century Jacques Copeau was originally a critic. In  1913, incensed by the poor quality and limited aspirations of Parisian theatre, he established The Theatre du Vieux-Colombier. He wanted a theatrical revolution. In Copeau’s extraordinarily innovative work, explored by Mark Evans later in this book, we encounter many of the recurring themes of ensemble practice: retreat to the country, negotiation of relationships with local communities, commitment to training, concern with creative process, improvisation and ethics. We also see the enormous difficulties that can develop between a charismatic individual and the group she or he creates and leads. Many of Copeau’s innovations have entered the mainstream of contemporary practice, both in training and in performance. This process, through which the experiments of small, isolated, sometimes introspective groups gradually filter into the heart of the mainstream, is also a recurring theme of our story. Often, this wider dissemination of the innovations of a single figure happens not directly, but through the continuing work of those who trained with him or her. Copeau and his company moved to the country, symbolically and actually rejecting the Parisian world (and by definition placing themselves outside the ‘official’ culture of their time). They trained together, lived together and performed together. They attempted: ‘(a)

30

Encountering Ensemble

courageous admixing of family and working lives, (they) proposed kibbutzim-style to live and work and play ensemble’.81 Among those working with Copeau were Susanna Bing, Jean Dasté, Charles Dullin and Michel Saint-Denis. Bing, working with Copeau, was an extraordinary innovator in the field of actor training.82 Her work, especially in the areas of improvisation and mask work, laid the foundations for much of the work of the rest of the century, including that of Etienne Decroux (whom she taught) and who, in turn, trained Marcel Marceau. She also worked with Jean Dasté who, as well as having a significant career in his own right, trained Jacques Lecoq.83 Lecoq’s work, examined later in this book, is central to much contemporary practice from the most experimental to the entirely mainstream. Charles Dullin, also part of Copeau’s group, was a significant artist and trainer of others. Among those he trained were Barrault and Artaud.84 His approach also informed Grotowski’s work.85 Yet, there was another actor in Copeau’s group whose influence was perhaps even more profound. Copeau’s nephew, Michel Saint-Denis, after he had left the immediate sphere of his uncle’s influence, went on radically to ­influence the process of training actors in Europe and America. He ­pioneered ensemble practice in the United Kingdom, through the London Theatre Studio (where he trained Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness among others), he helped establish the Old Vic School which integrated a training school with a professional company, an ideal which had been central to Copeau’s vision. He was a founding director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and, in later life, was at the heart of designing and establishing the curriculum of Strasbourg’s Ecole superieur d’art dramatique, the

Rudlin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 49: original emphasis. 82 Ibid., pp. 55ff. 83 Baldwin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 90. 84 There is a useful outline of some of Copeau’s legacy in Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. pp. 151–8. 85 Wolford in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 208. 81

INTRODUCTION

31

Drama ­Division of The Julliard School in New York and Canada’s National Theatre School.86 From this one, small group, motivated by a restless desire to make theatre, which was at odds with prevailing fashions, many of the key developments of the twentieth century emerged. As Anne Bogart writes about a later generation of work: ‘Cultural and political revolutions begin in small rooms’.87 At the other end of Europe, a few years earlier, a similar revolution was unfolding. When Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko first met in 1897, a meeting which famously lasted some 18 hours, they agreed to establish a new theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre: In those eighteen hours they agreed .  .  .  to create an ensemble which would place artistic aims above individual vanity. They . . . selected those (performers) they considered capable of meeting the high ideals they had set.88 While Copeau developed a style of theatre based in reimagining Commedia Dell’ Arte, Stanislavski’s preferred style of theatre, especially in the early days of the Moscow Art Theatre, was more realistic. In a letter to one of his assistants, Aleksandr Sanin, Stanislavski wrote: I am returning with a firm intention to strive for truth and the most realistic action both in tragedy and in the emptiest farce. Only then can theatre make a serious statement. Otherwise it is a toy . . . and a very boring toy.89 This can be understood as his reaction against the demonstrative, superficial acting style prevailing at the time. Indeed, this letter was written in response to Stanislavski watching what he felt to be a poor performance of a French farce. He sought truth and subtlety Baldwin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training (2nd edn). London; New York: Routledge, 2010. pp. 81–96. 87 Bogart in Richards, Thomas, Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008. Front page. 88 Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999. p. 61. 89 Ibid., p. 94. 86

32

Encountering Ensemble

and, in a ‘realistic’ style of acting, saw ways to achieve it. This truthfulness was to be rooted in the ethics of ensemble playing, in a ‘permanent’ company structure with an expectation that actors should serve their art, not use theatre as a vehicle to enhance personal status. As Carnicke writes: Stanislavsky insisted that every actor chosen for the new company “love art, not only themselves in art”.90 The emphasis on the actor’s relationship to her or his work and on the ethics of interrelationship was at the heart of the Moscow Art Theatre, as is explored in the introduction to Part 3 of this book. The Moscow Art Theatre sought to reinvigorate what the public saw by reinventing how actors engaged in the process of making performances. This commitment had significant effects in Russia and beyond – through the quality of its productions, the systematic nature of the creative processes it established, and its encouragement of inno­ vators such as Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov and Vakhtangov. The studios that the Moscow Art Theatre established and supported also yielded significant results – some of which are explored later in this book. Beyond Russia, among the most important companies to use the Moscow Art Theatre as inspiration was a Polish company, the Reduta.91 The commitment to research into the performer’s craft and the high levels of self-discipline that characterized the Reduta’s work, meant that: From the very beginning, the Reduta’s work was a challenge to the theatre as it was practiced at that time . . .92 The Reduta’s focus was ‘strongly connected to the ensemble – to the ideal collective’.93 Like so much else, their work was curtailed by

90 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 25. 91 Osiński, Zbigniew in Allain, Paul (ed.), Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009. pp. 19–20. 92 Ibid., p. 22. 93 Ibid., p. 26.

INTRODUCTION

33

the onset of the Second World War in 1939, but they blazed a trail that influenced significant developments in Polish theatre that took place after that war.94 However, it’s time to turn our attention to the ways these European innovations began to affect American approaches to performance. The story of how Stanislavski’s ‘System’ first came to the notice of America has been written about elsewhere, including by Carnicke in her book Stanislavski in Focus.95 The quality of the work that American audiences and artists encountered during the Moscow Arts Theatre’s tour in 1923 had profound effects. The eagerness for knowledge about ‘Stanislavski’s System’, which the tour stimulated, underpinned the success of a series of lectures by ex-Moscow Art Theatre actor Richard Boleslavsky, entitled ‘The First Six Lessons’.96 Boleslavsky put his version of Stanislavski’s System into practice through the American Laboratory Theatre, supported and assisted by Maria Ouspenskaya, also from the Moscow Art Theatre.97 The American Laboratory Theatre was founded on similar ensemble principles to the Moscow Arts Theatre where both its founders had worked; In the school’s catalogue (1924–1925), Boleslavsky emphasized the need to train actors as a “team” rather than as “individuals”.98 Among those who worked in the American Laboratory Theatre were Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman,99 all of whom were also at the core of the Group Theatre, which emerged

‘In  1966, the Laboratory Theatre – following Grotowski’s initiative – took the Reduta’s emblem as its own, thereby publicly acknowledging that (the Reduta) had been and would be its ‘ethical heritage’ (Ibid., p. 31). 95 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. 96 These lectures were later published under the same title: Boleslavsky, Richard, Acting: the First Six Lessons/Richard Boleslavsky. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1978. 97 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. pp. 35ff. 98 Ibid., p. 37. 99 Clurman had also studied with Copeau in Paris (Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. p. 39). 94

34

Encountering Ensemble

after the demise of the American Laboratory Theatre. According to Carnicke, the similarities between the intentions of the founders of The Group Theatre and their predecessors at the Moscow Art Theatre are strong: Both companies wanted to reform commercial theatre by creating productions that could be considered serious art. For both, Realism initially seemed the appropriate stylistic path to artistic reform. . . . Central to reform for both the Group Theatre and their model was, of course, the development of an ensemble with a common approach to artistic work.100 Although the Group Theatre, as its name implies, was focused on ensemble, it is here that the story starts to complicate. Whether it was the absence of the underlying principle of studiinost which Bryan Brown writes about in this book, or the growing importance of film as a medium, or the personalities of key players, what emerged from the Group Theatre – the dominant ‘American’ strand of actor training in the twentieth century – was ‘The Method’ as articulated by Lee Strasberg and as disputed by Adler101 and Meisner102 among others. Strasberg’s method, as Chaikin (quoted above) suggests, is not an ensembleorientated practice; its dominant focus is on individual psychology. This is a difference of emphasis between the Group Theatre and the Moscow Art Theatre that Carnicke notes when she writes: In the early years of the Art Theatre a realistic stage environment, replete with the sounds of crickets, frogs, and dogs, inspired the actor’s belief in the world of the play. For the Group, the actor’s immersion in a character’s emotional life became key.103 While The Group Theatre in the US began to develop a distinctive American variant of their European inspirations, an unconnected Group Theatre in London sought to develop a literary-based Ibid., pp. 44–5. The origin of the division between Adler and Strasberg is described in Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. pp. 59ff. 102 For more details, see Krasner in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. pp. 157ff. 103 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. pp. 44–5. 100 101

INTRODUCTION

35

ensemble theatre, working with W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot among others. Their history is recorded by Michael Sidnell, who notes that when Brecht saw their work, he: . . . told Donne (of the Group Theatre) that “Sweeney” (Agonistes by T S Eliot) was “the best thing he had seen for a long time and by far the best thing in London” and he offered the Group a play.104 Also in London, as already noted, Saint-Denis introduced a version of Copeau’s work when he established the London Actor’s Studio. As Jonathan Pitches describes in this book, Komisarjevsky, a contemporary of Stanislavski, brought a distinctive brand of Russian ensemble practice to the United Kingdom. These innovations, like so much else, were subsumed in the cataclysm of the Second World War in 1939.

The mid-century Amid the wreckage of that war, and the consequent division of Europe into Eastern and Western blocs, two significant figures emerged who are central to this story – Bertolt Brecht, who had already been influential in the decades before the war, and, a little later, Jerzy Grotowski. Brecht had developed his work in Germany between the wars. He was part of the rich artistic world that flourished amid the political, social and economic chaos that followed Germany’s defeat in the First World War. His radical politics made it necessary for him to flee the Nazi government and he found refuge during the war, first in Europe, then America. When he was able to return to his homeland after the defeat of the Nazi government, it was to the communist east of Germany, under Soviet occupation, that he chose to go. There he established the Berliner Ensemble, about which David Barnett writes in this volume.105 104 Sidnell, Michael J., Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber & Faber, 1984. p. 103. 105 A concise outline of Brecht’s career and artistic development can be found in Mumford, Meg, Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. pp. 1–47.

36

Encountering Ensemble

The work of the Berliner Ensemble, and Brecht’s plays, many of them written when he was in exile, became a template for artists wanting to develop politically engaged contemporary performance. His approach can be seen as an important and necessary counterbalance to tendencies in the work of Copeau and Stanislavski who, at least at times, sought ‘escape’ from the realities of contemporary urban life, the very realities experienced by the audience for whom their performances were being made.106 Brecht’s political engagement and the requirement his work made of its audience that they engage ethically and politically with the unfolding of a performance, rather than adopting a passive role as ‘theatre consumers’, was, in itself, inspirational to, among others, Joan Littlewood and Peter Brook,107 Dario Fo108 and Augusto Boal.109 In the US too, Brecht’s political commitment was influential. Theodore Shank, writing about the development of what he calls ‘theatre of social change’, suggests that: Brecht’s plays and theoretical writings were especially important for demonstrating an aesthetic involving social analysis.110 While Brecht’s writing was enormously influential, less attention was paid to his approach to directing, which, as David Barnett explores in this volume, was intimately tied up with the notion of ensemble. That Brecht made a commitment to working with an ensemble is entirely consistent with the demands his vision of theatre made. He sought a shared political/aesthetic understanding from the performers, a shared training and a sophisticated engagement by the entire cast with all aspects of the ensemble performance (as opposed to an engagement primarily with the intricacies of

This is only partially true for Copeau who, with his company, specifically sought to make performances that spoke directly to the rural audiences among whom they lived. Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 31. 107 Esslin in Martin, Carol and Henry Bial, Brecht Sourcebook. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. pp. 149–51. 108 Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. pp. 76–7. 109 Boal, Augusto, Theater of the Oppressed. London: Pluto, 2000. pp.  83–115; Babbage, Frances, Augusto Boal. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. p. 6. 110 Shank, Theodore, American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982. p. 50. 106

INTRODUCTION

37

i­ndividual character).111 His approach to directing (and rewriting his own scripts) sought continual input from those around him and was highly collaborative.112 All these attributes are elements common to a range of ensemble practices explored in this book, elements which more mainstream practices – relying as they do on the temporary gathering together of disparate individuals within defined and hierarchical power relationships – struggle to achieve. Among the most significant ensembles influenced by Brecht in the US was The Living Theatre. The Living Theatre was established by Judith Malina and Julian Beck around the same time as Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel were establishing the Berliner Ensemble in East Germany.113 The major influences on The Living Theatre came from Europe, especially through an interest in Piscator,114 Brecht115 and Artaud (see below). The Living Theatre was intended as a radical alternative to both the American Theatre establishment and to the structures of American society itself. It was intended to offer an alternative model of living. The sense of moral purpose that underpinned its work, places the company in a lineage of practitioners who sought renewal through ensemble, that stretches right back to the start of our story in Moscow and Paris. The origin of The Living Theatre, according to Bigsby, was: . . . a respect for language as transformed by the poetic sensibility . . . a desire to transform perception and thereby to transform the real. Words were to be a revolutionary mechanism . . .116 Brecht’s approach to training performers is outlined by Thomson in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. pp. 117–29. 112 See both Barnett in this book and Mumford, Meg, Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. p. 44. 113 In fact, The Living Theater (1947) just predates the Berliner Ensemble (1949). 114 Co-founder Judith Malina had been a student of Piscator (Malina, Judith, The Piscator Notebook. London; New York: Routledge, 2012). In The Living Theater’s 1993 production ‘Anarchia’, Malina says directly to the audience: ‘It was Erwin Piscator who taught me everything about theatre’ (Dawson, Gary Fisher, Documentary Theatre in the United States: An Historical Survey and Analysis of Its Content, Form, and Stagecraft. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. p. 81). 115 Brecht had himself been significantly influenced by Piscator in the years before his exile from Germany (Mumford, Meg, Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. pp. 22–5). 116 Bigsby, C. W. E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. p. 78. 111

38

Encountering Ensemble

Although their origin might have been in ‘a respect for language’, the function of language, according to co-founder Beck was to establish community: Language is the key. It opens the doors that keep us locked in, our confining chambers, the Holy of Holies, the instrument of unification, communication, and from communication let us derive the word community. The community is love . . .117 The reality of this community was made concrete when, partly in response to difficulties they faced with the American authorities, The Living Theater left the US. In the mid-1960’s, the company began a new life as a nomadic touring ensemble. In Europe, they evolved into a collective, living and working together toward the creation of a new form of nonfictional acting based on the actor’s political and physical commitment to using the theater as a medium for furthering social change.118 While Brecht and Piscator were clearly influences on this work, so too was Artaud. While the former offered a sophisticated political stance, the latter, of whom Julian Beck said ‘the ghost of Artaud became our mentor’,119 opened an approach to performance located in the visceral presence of the human body. He opened perspectives on the inexpressible. Performance rooted in the enlivened presence of the performer’s body, imagined and theorized by Artaud (himself a pupil of one of Copeau’s performers), was most comprehensively researched and realized by Grotowski, whose visit to New York in  1969 offered American artists and audiences a radical vision of the possibilities of physical ensemble. This visit provided an enormous impetus to the work of those companies and practitioners developing in the shadow of The Living Theatre  – especially ­Richard Schechner’s Performance Group and Joseph Chaikin/The Open Theater.

Ibid. www.livingtheatre.org/about/history; accessed 8 February 2012. 119 Bigsby, C. W. E., A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. p. 81. 117 118

INTRODUCTION

39

Grotowski himself, initially based in a tiny theatre in Poland, clearly placed himself in the creative lineage of Stanislavski.120 Speaking during his 1969 visit to the US, he was unambiguous: When I was beginning my studies in the acting department of the theatre school, I founded the entire base of my theatrical knowledge on the principles of Stanislavsky. As an actor I was possessed by Stanislavsky. I was a fanatic. . . . I have a great, deep, manifold respect for Stanislavsky.121 Grotowski’s work emerges from a tradition informed by the notion of ‘studiinost’, explored in Part 1 of this book, a tradition that includes Reduta, the Polish company that also influenced Grotowski’s development.122 Working in a small, relatively unknown theatre space in Opole, Grotowski and a small group of actors explored intensively (and from a clearly articulated ethical basis) the foundations of the actor’s art. They worked to enhance the detail of a performer’s interaction with his or her environment through a process of sensitization. Though the work was focused on the individual actor, the heart of the process was relational – indeed Grotowski states, in his Skara Speech: . . . always do (an action) as a spontaneous action related to the exterior world, to other people or to objects. Something stimulates you and you react: that is the whole secret. Stimu­ lations, impulses and reactions.123 For those who trained with Grotowski, such as Lisa Wolford, the relational aspect was crucial in expanding her understanding of her own capacities: I discovered that working in connection with a partner was the most effective means of “not preventing myself” from The links between Grotowski and Stanislavski are explored in detail in the first chapter of Thomas Richards’ book: Richards, Thomas, and Grotowski, Jerzy, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1996. 121 Grotowski, Jerzy, ‘Reply To Stanislavsky’, The Drama Review: TDR, Vol.  52, No. 2 (2008): 32–3. 122 Allain, Paul (ed.), Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009. pp. 31–46. 123 Grotowski, Jerzy, Towards a Poor Theatre. Ed. by Eugenio Barba. London: Methuen, 1976. p. 185. 120

40

Encountering Ensemble

accomplishing something beyond my preconceived notions of what I could and could not do . . .124 The ethical basis that informs Grotowski’s work – articulated in the Statement of Principles with which ‘Towards a Poor Theatre’ concludes125 – created a framework of acceptable behaviour within which the ensemble’s creative research took place. They were the laws of the emergent community. This ethical framework, and the high moral tone it adopts, was as influential to those who followed it as was the actual detail of the training that the laboratory developed or the aesthetic of the work they performed. That the development of ensemble might be an ethical as much as a practical or aesthetic process was not an idea pioneered by Grotowski (ethics and morality were at the core of the vision that drove Stanislavski and Copeau and were intrinsic to the work of Reduta, which was so influential for Grotowski), but it is in Grotowski’s work that perhaps it is most powerfully and consciously foregrounded. Equally important, however, was the example that Grotowski’s work offered of the benefits that manifest when a community of practitioners make a long-term commitment to one another. The extraordinary work made possible by their decision to make such a commitment to being in a developing relationship with one another, offered a potent model for what was not achievable within the shortterm working relationships of the mainstream or commercial theatre. This desire to commit to ensemble, to a creative relationship beyond the presentation of a single production, is still resonant, as both Brad Krumholz and John Collins illustrate in their contributions to this book. It is also alluded to by Julia Varley of Odin Teatret (a company directly influenced by its director, Eugenio Barba’s relationship with Grotowski) in her contribution, where she writes: Theatre technique is embodied, it is thought in action, intelligence of the feet, it cannot be studied at a desk, but must be assimilated and defended day by day with years of practice. In a technological era, perhaps theatre is anachronistic, but I want Wolford in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. p. 209. 125 Grotowski, Jerzy, Towards a Poor Theatre. Ed. by Eugenio Barba. London: Methuen, 1976. pp. 211–18. 124

INTRODUCTION

41

to defend it precisely because it maintains the necessity of an embodied knowledge which is reached through self-discipline and self-learning.126 Grotowski himself was unambiguous about the centrality of the notion of ensemble to his vision of theatre. He wrote: ‘When I speak of “theatre company”, I mean the theatre of ensemble . . .’.127 Though both the ethics and the practice of the Polish Laboratory spawned innumerable, sometimes cliched or naive imitators, they also inspired a significant amount of genuinely innovative work in a new wave of ensemble performance. I have already mentioned The Open Theatre and The Performance Group, two of the most radical and important American groups of the early 1970s, but Grotowski’s influence can also be seen in the work of Peter Brook’s International Centre of Theatre Research, Theatre du Soleil, Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret, Taller de Investigación Teatral, The New World Performance Laboratory, Double Edge, in a swathe of companies that emerge directly from his work in Eastern Europe, companies such as Gardzienice, Song of the Goat, Farm-in-the-Cave and in many other companies internationally. His work also continues to be developed at The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards in Pontedera, Italy.

The end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first The ethical, interpersonal, aesthetic, political, communal and practical human enquiry demanded by the exploration of ensemble, echoes out from small, frequently exclusive groups, to affect wider culture. We have already seen how the work of Copeau’s ensemble, developed by Bing, Saint-Denis, Dullin, Dasté and Decroux, was, in turn, an influence on Artaud, Grotowski and Clurman (The Group Theatre) who in turn influenced . . . and so on. The dissemination of innovation proceeds from generation to generation. This book. Snapshot #5. As already noted, Grotowski is using the phrase ‘theatre company’ to describe a company dedicated to ‘a solid and systematic work on craft’: Richards, Thomas, and Grotowski, Jerzy, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1996. p. 115.

126 127

42

Encountering Ensemble

Peter Brook, another director whose work has had an influence well beyond its immediate sphere, writes of the founding of the International Centre for Theatrical Research in the early 1970s: Our first principle, we decided, was to make culture, in the sense of culture that turns milk into yoghurt – we aimed to create a nucleus of actors who could later bring ferment to any wider group with whom they worked. In this way, we hoped that the special privileged conditions we were making for a small number of people could eventually enter into the theatre’s mainstream.128 What of more recent work? What of the work that emerged in reaction to the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s? How has that connected with or diverged from the range of ensemble practices this introduction has pointed towards? In a way, it is too early to answer that question. It can take decades for the significance of work to become apparent. Certainly, however, we can identify companies who are connected to existing lineages or guess which companies and practitioners will perhaps, a half-century from now, be acknowledged as significant. But that acknowledgement really is for future generations to make. Among those companies most often considered to be ‘ensemble’, or influenced by ‘ensemble practices’, Peter Brook’s Centre for Theatrical Research continues to make new work. Theatre du Soleil and Theatre de Complicité, both influenced by the work of Lecoq, though each with their own distinctive voice, are internationally significant and almost universally feted. The Maly Theatre still exists, emerging from and continuing a Russian tradition linking directly to the innovations of Stanislavski and Meyerhold. In Poland, Gardzienice continues to make work. In the US, Anne Bogart and her company SITI integrates the work of Suzuki with Viewpoints to develop a new interculturally orientated American performance language. Also in the US, Steppenwolf Theater boasts 43 members in its ensemble; some, such as John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, are household names.129

Brook, Peter, The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989. pp. 105–6. www.steppenwolf.org/Ensemble/; accessed 31 August 2012.

128 129

INTRODUCTION

43

Other companies, such as Forced Entertainment, Goat Island and The Wooster Group, reinvent and reinterpret the notion of ensemble through a fractured, mediatised postmodern lens. Forced Entertainment describes itself as: . . . (A) group of six artists . . . questioning, pushing, stretching and breaking theatre in many different ways to see what can be built from the wreckage.130 Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment writes of the company’s: .  .  .  commitment to ensemble practice, to the building and maintaining of a group which shares a history, skills and an equal involvement in the process of making its work.131 Goat Island, though now disbanded, described itself as a ‘collabo­ rative performance group’.132 The Wooster Group, direct descendants of Schechner’s Performance Group, has a connection to (in part a direct reaction against) work that originated in the 1960s. Its ‘ensemble-ness’ – what that means in the context of their history – is explored by John Collins in Part 2 of this book. There is an explosion of groups in America that claim the word ‘ensemble’ as part of their self-definition. As I write, in 2012, the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NETs) in the US has 172 members.133 The NET’s chair, Mark Valdes, writes a little about what that means later in this volume. However, the fact that many American companies choose to name themselves ‘ensemble’ suggests something about how the use of the word may be changing. Certainly, there is an apparent eagerness to use the word in America that is not apparent in Europe. Why this might be is suggested in a number of chapters by contem­ porary American practitioners in this book. Brad Krumholz of the North American Cultural Laboratory writes: Ensemble practices similar to those used by NACL have been implemented and honed in the US since the early experiments of

www.forcedentertainment.com; accessed 31 August 2012. Etchells, Tim, Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. London; New York: Routledge, 1999. p. 17. 132 www.goatislandperformance.org/goatisland.htm; accessed 31 August 2012. 133 Information current in October 2012. 130 131

44

Encountering Ensemble

the Group Theatre in the 1930s and the Living Theatre beginning in the late 1940s. Since that time, artist-led companies such as the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Free Southern Theatre, El Teatro Campesino and Bread and Puppet Theatre, all starting in the 1960s, sounded the call for a radical rethinking of theatre that would later come to be taken up by countless ‘alternative’ and ‘experimental’ companies even up to the present moment. The common denominator of these companies is generally not aesthetic, but rather political, in that they are all decidedly positioned against the exchange relationship of commoditybased art-as-business.134 John Collins of Elevator Repair Service writes: Inventing an ensemble – sometimes simply by naming it – gives untested theater-makers an implicit stamp of approval and the suggestion of a consistent creative team with a recognizable style. Lacking physical space, a budget, and a history, taking this first symbolic step of naming the new ensemble can create a virtual artistic home for the individuals who constitute it.135 What both of these practitioners are suggesting about their reasons for adopting the description ‘ensemble’, is that the word represents an organizational/political statement, not a description, necessarily, of the nature of the relationships that exist between performers or between performers and audience. ‘Ensemble’ in this context does not rely on the existence of the ‘it-ness’ I have alluded to elsewhere in this introduction. More time will need to pass before it is clear whether this difference of emphasis is permanent or just a passing phase. Ensemble practice is not the preserve of the periphery or the experimental ‘fringe’. Mainstream companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company (UK)136 and The Sydney Theatre Company (Australia) have explored the possibilities of maintaining permanent ensembles in a commercialized and ‘celebrity’-orientated theatre ‘industry’. They are evidence of a continuing interest in exploring This book. p. 214. Ibid., p. 235. 136 Ibid., pp. 112–15. 134 135

INTRODUCTION

45

Cab Legs – Elevator Repair Service: Victoria Vazquez (pointing at ground), James Hannaham (on floor), Scott Shepherd (legs in air) and Rinne Groff. Photo: Clemens Scharre.

what ensemble means and how it can be nurtured. The experiments of the mainstream are, inevitably, fed by innovations at the periphery of previous generations. Certainly though, beyond the areas that seek to innovate, it is not hard to recognize a great deal of mainstream/commercial theatre as involving: (a) pattern of employment . . . based around clearly delineated hierarchies in which “stars” were hired to perform their “set pieces” alongside companies of jobbing actors.137 This description is, of course, of the theatrical context against which Copeau revolted in the early years of the twentieth century. There is no ‘recipe’ for ensemble, just as ‘there is no ideal system that could serve as the key to creativity’.138 There is only experiment Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. p. 10. Grotowski, Jerzy, ‘Reply To Stanislavsky’, The Drama Review: TDR, Vol.  52, No. 2 (2008): 32.

137 138

46

Encountering Ensemble

and exploration. Often, different practitioners explore similar concerns or systematically develop the work of those who preceded them. As we shall see in the introduction to Part 3 of this book, there are a number of recurring concerns, or domains of exploration, that taken together might, ultimately, represent the best attempt we can make to understand the word ‘ensemble’. This history, as I have written it here, is an orthodox history. There are many names I have not included. Jonathan Pitches, in his chapter, hints at some alternate histories and there are bibliographies at the end of each chapter to guide you towards further exploration. However, this history is intended to provide a context, a point of departure for some of the chapters that appear in Parts 1 and 2 of this book.

This book The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 looks at some major figures whose work in the twentieth century laid the foundations for contemporary practice. Our journey starts with an examination of the idea of ‘studiinost’ – an examination we return to in a contemporary context in Part 2. This is followed by chapters on Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov, Copeau and the French Tradition, Komisjarevsky, and Brecht and The Berliner Ensemble. We shall see how one person’s student became another person’s teacher, chart the international exchange of ideas and inspiration and consider how practitioners balanced looking backwards to their teachers with looking forwards to a vision of the theatre of the future. Each of these figures or companies made significant contributions to the twentieth-century’s understanding of what ensemble is and how it might be nurtured. Part Two looks at a number of contemporary companies whose work offers interesting perspectives on how artists today understand ensemble. Some of the companies written about are well known, others less so. Has the meaning of the word ‘ensemble’ changed? How are the recurring themes that we encountered in Part One reimagined in today’s more global, mediatised culture? What are the economic realities of pursuing ensemble in cultures and communities with scarce resources for creative projects? What

INTRODUCTION

47

has changed? What remains the same? It is not intended that the companies written about in Part Two represent some kind of ‘­official’ list of contemporary ensemble. There are many omissions and those that have been included have earned their place because, in looking at them, we can open up specific understandings of specific aspects of contemporary approaches to ensemble. All of the chapters in Part Two are intended to offer readers perspectives not only on a specific company, but also on wider questions faced by practitioners today. Part Three looks at some approaches to training ensembles. Since Stanislavski established studios alongside the Moscow Art Theatre and Copeau integrated a training school with his new theatre, practitioners have suggested that if you want performers to discard old, individualistic ways of performing and discover new ways to connect with one another, you need to train them to do so. Developing the capacity to ‘be ensemble’ is a learning process. The fundamentals of this learning will be encountered repeatedly through Parts One and Two of the book. Part Three will offer direct and practical examples of how this process might be undertaken in the studio. Peppered throughout the book are ‘snapshots’; short thoughts, provocations and manifestos from a range of practitioners and thinkers. They are intended to disrupt the main flow of the argument, to enhance longer contributions, to open possible doorways to alternative perspectives and to let you hear, as closely as possible, the voices of those who make ensemble. At the end of the book, I offer my own perspective on the question with which we started – ‘what is ensemble?’. It is a perspective based on a practical exploration of training ensembles139 and directing ensemble theatre. I offer one more metaphor to add to the list we have already encountered – one more voice to add to the complex conversation this book is intended to represent. There is, of course, much that this book does not address. There are hugely significant omissions. Most of the work we look at emerged from or it is located in Europe and America. There is much important work happening elsewhere but the scope of the book needed to be limited. I outline my approach to training in Chapter 14 of this book.

139

48

Encountering Ensemble

Even within the world of European and American perfor­ mance, there are omissions. There is little on The Maly Theatre of St ­Petersburg or Gardzienice, though both are enormously important. There is not much directly about Stanislavski or Odin ­Teatret. There is little mention of SITI and Anne Bogart or Steppenwolf. The list of omissions is longer than the list of contents. I have not included some work because it has been extensively written about elsewhere. Some work has not yet been adequately investigated as ensemble. Some work, though extensively written about elsewhere, is here, for the first time, viewed through the lens of ensemble ­practice. Sometimes omissions were simply down to lack of space.

Multiple voices As well as multiple perspectives, you will encounter a multitude of voices in this book. In collecting this material, I have encouraged writers, as much as is possible, to write in the way that feels most appropriate to them. Some contributions are primarily analytical, some more descriptive or historical. Some are relatively objective, some deeply personal and passionate. Some chapters – and especially some of the shorter snapshots – are polemical in their approach. Again, this seems appropriate – ensemble, as this introduction has continually suggested, is a collective experience that emerges from the interaction of distinct individuals. I hope the reader will emerge from this book with a complex, contradictory sense of what it is to encounter ensemble. That would be a reasonable reflection of the experience of most who have tussled with understanding and creating ensemble performance. So, as we launch into this journey, we come back to the core question of the book: ‘What is ‘it’?’. No answer, but many suggestions. There will be contradictions and disagreements, sometimes passionate. There will be paradoxes. Underneath it all, there is a sense of searching for the ungraspable. And perhaps that is as close, in book form, as we can get to the experience of making ensemble performance; strong, sometimes opinionated, creative individuals seeking to articulate and sustain something that none of us quite understand but that most of us know when we experience it.

Chapter One

The emergence of studiinost: The ethics and processes of ensemble in the Russian theatre studio Bryan Brown

In 1911, a small but committed group of young performers from Russia’s premier independent theatre – the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) – gathered in a flat to experiment with new acting processes. The majority of these performers had been drawn to MAT by its cofounder Konstantin Stanislavski, in particular his desire to discover new forms of acting that were true and sincere. Though his famous System was only in its infancy, a core group of these youngsters – the Adashev group – had already been trained in its basic principles by Stanislavski’s collaborator Leopold Sulerzhitsky. One of the Adashev group, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, had an aptitude for teaching and a keen grasp of Stanislavski’s principles. He had been close to Suler (as Sulerzhitsky was affectionately called) at the Adashev School, further assisting him on a French production of MAT’s The Blue Bird in Paris. Although Vakhtangov’s close relationship with Suler gave him a certain authority, the structure of this group was

50

Encountering Ensemble

that of a brotherhood devoted to the expressive and communicative power of their art. It was from this group that the legendary First Studio of the MAT was born.1 Today, a group of recent graduates or young professionals gathering to experiment with new forms of acting or ideas of performance that they learned in school may seem commonplace. But a century ago, this was a novel notion, made more extraordinary given that this group was working within the most prestigious new theatre in Russia. Even more remarkable, this group permanently changed the Russian theatre, in particular the ways in which it conceived of an ensemble. With the creation of the First Studio, there emerged a unique notion of ensemble that Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov called studiinost. Essentially meaning ‘the spirit of the studio’, studiinost could be translated into English as ‘studiality’, yet there is no immediate currency for such a word. Just as English adopted the French ‘ensemble’, it is proposed to take studiinost directly into English as well. The reason for this goes beyond linguistic currency. There is an innate tension in the word ‘ensemble’ whereby it is equivalent to both the English ‘together’ and ‘group’. The use of studiinost will help clarify this tension by focusing on ensembleas-relationship: the processual, constantly shifting negotiation inherent in the idea of ‘together’ rather than the idea of fixity suggested by ‘group’. Examining how this negotiation was assisted and maintained will provide a deeper understanding of the history of ensemble practices in Russia as well as provide a touchstone for consideration of non-Russian ensembles. Just as Stanislavski’s System is meant to be a grammar for acting, a foundation that provides for the creative individuality of the actor to be evoked at each performance, studiinost is meant to be a template for maintaining an ensemble, an ethos that allows each ensemble it generates to be unique. Thus, within a year of the First Studio establishing itself as a professional theatre, Vakhtangov used studiinost to bind and train another studio, one that would The creation story of the First Studio is not a simple one, nor is there space in this chapter to properly outline and argue its inception. Fundamental understandings can be found in English here: Leach, Robert, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. p. 77; and, Malaev-Babel, Andrei, The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. pp. 229–32.

1

The Emergence of Studiinost

51

eventually become the Moscow theatre that bears his name. This chapter then will draw upon documents from both the First Studio and the Vakhtangov Studio to examine how this new notion of ensemble worked. Though the word studiinost was new, the concepts that informed it were not. Radical shifts were taking place in Russia in the early 1900s and art, in particular theatre, was to have an important role in guiding and serving the development of the Russian people. Stanislavski, Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov formulated studiinost from the milieu of philosophical, spiritual and national quests that comprised Russia’s nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two organizational structures that played significant roles in the development of these quests were central to the conception of studiinost: the kruzhok and the obshchina. What follows are two sketches of these terms and the ways in which they structured ‘togetherness’ for the studio. After these sketches, there will be an examination of the mechanisms that Suler and Vakhtangov implemented to practically maintain studiinost.

The kruzhok (circle) We make up a small group of friends in whose hearts the Studio should live, as it has lived til now – discreet, closed, strict and sparing of its affection for new people.  .  .  .  You mercilessly punished any sign of an un-Studio-like (nestudiinosti) attitude and were like children in your puritanism. And you were fused into one body. (Vakhtangov to his Studio 1918)2 While Vakhtangov lay seriously ill, inner tensions within his own studio threatened to tear it apart. In a letter sent from hospital, he implored the original studio members to shore up the kruzhok elements they had initially used to create studiinost. The word kruzhok (kruzhki, pl.) simply means ‘circle’, yet as an organizational structure, the kruzhok has a long history in Russia where it has been equated with secret societies, private clubs and focused study

Vendrovskaya, Lyubov and Kaptereva, Galina (eds), Doris Bradbury (trans.), Evgeny Vakhtangov. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982. p. 78.

2

52

Encountering Ensemble

groups. In the 1830s, under the intensely autocratic reign of Tsar Nicholas I, the kruzhok became the instrumental organization for passionate and vocal debate on the development of Russian culture and philosophical thought. Because of restricted freedoms and the very real danger of informants, a kruzhok was purposefully limited to roughly 20 people and had clear rules of membership, usually obtained by nomination from existing members. Best summarized as informal, domestic gatherings around food and drink that often met late into the night, kruzhki had one other important trait: they were vehemently anti-institutional.3 This trait is emblematic of a strong distinction between the ‘official’ and the ‘real’ that has permeated Russian culture, but it is also found in the language and motivations of theatre ensembles around the world. As official organizations, institutions are dull, cold, dead places where thought is expressed and received with indifference, as a matter of form. The Russian twentieth-century institution par excellence was the university. Academic lectures or conferences are often held up as the quintessence of official discourse, places where the speaker talks at his or her listener. Alternatively, kruzhki are hearths of vibrant, tempestuous exchange of thought. When they end, each member leaves having ‘the feeling that he has gained new insights that will require time and effort to process’.4 These hearths are places where the speaker talks with his or her listener. This type of exchange is the epitome of the ‘real’ perceived as a true and sincere reciprocity between people. Such hearths are possible because of the mutual trust generated by the egalitarianism and exclusivity of the kruzhok. The hearth was a central metaphor for Sulerzhitsky’s vision of the theatre, and for him the First Studio was a response to the institutionalization he perceived in the Imperial Theatres and the MAT itself. After the seventy-eighth performance of The Blue Bird, the MAT production he co-directed with Stanislavski, Suler remarked that it had become a factory where the actors speak,

Alexandrov, Daniel A., ‘The Politics of Scientific “Kruzhok”: Study Circles in Russian Science and Their Transformation in the 1920s’, in E.  I. Kolchinsky (ed.), Na perelome: Sovetskaia biologiia v 20-30’kh godakh (On the Edge: Soviet Biology in  20-30s). Saint Petersburg: Sankt-Petersburgskii Filial Instituta Istorii Estestvoznaniaa i Tekhniki Ran, 1997. pp. 255–6. 4 Ibid., p. 259. 3

The Emergence of Studiinost

53

shout and gesticulate at the audience devoid of life.5 To counter this, Stanislavski and Sulerzhitsky wanted to create a group of ‘real’ performers that spoke truthfully and sincerely with one another. Stanislavski believed this would come about through a nonperformance-oriented laboratory where young actors focused on the processes of acting. Sulerzhitsky understood that such a group would need the organizational structure of a kruzhok. Thus, Suler began teaching at the Adashev School. He did this not only to test how to teach the foundational exercises of Stanislavski’s burgeoning System, but also to test if his pedagogical approach could promote a mutual trust and brotherhood between the students. In his approach, Suler stressed the importance of ‘innerfused relations’ between the members of the group. More than a commitment to be good performers or to create a unified aesthetic, these ‘inner-fused relations’ are deep ethical bonds. To forge these relations, Suler enforced a strict but joyful discipline. He cultivated a respect and love of silence within the room, yet emphasized ‘that before starting to work (even before a drama) it is necessary to burst out laughing properly in your soul so that pleasure fills your entire being’.6 In her reminiscences of Suler and Vakhtangov, actress L.  I. Deikun time and again remarks that it was the bonds developed in the Adashev School and the enthusiasm to continue their studies that began the First Studio. She consistently highlights the studio’s kruzhok elements: it began domestically in a member’s flat, was informal, relied on the inner-fused relations, and was extremely disciplined.7

The obshchina (commune) From the vibrant debates of the kruzhki in the 1830s came forth a conception of the ideal social organization for Russia. Combining the peasant village assembly with elements of the kruzhok, this ideal organization was coined the obshchina. Though historically a

Polyakova, Elena (ed.), Sulerzhitskii. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970. p. 338. Ibid., p. 603. 7 Ibid., p. 595. 5 6

54

Encountering Ensemble

complex term, obshchina is akin to Western notions of ‘commune’. As such, the obshchina promotes a consensus-based form of decision making and prioritizes shared work. Work itself is valorized, as is a less mediated contact with nature, that is a non-urban way of life. Additionally, within an obshchina, life is perceived to have a wholeness of action and activity compared to the fracturedness of life outside it. The obshchina, even more so than the kruzhok, was the perfect model for Suler’s vision of the type of relations that epitomize studiinost. Thus, he took the First Studio to the countryside during the summer months and soon persuaded Stanislavski to purchase land in the Crimea on the edge of the Black Sea.8 In a 1915 letter, Sulerzhitsky states clearly how the obshchina was his ideal model for the studio: It’s true, my purpose, [is] the creation of a theatre-obshchina with its common governance, with its great tasks of a theatretemple, with its land in Evpatoriya, with common labour, with equal participation in profits, with the establishment during the summer of such a space where it’s possible to rest in freedom on the soil which is sowed and cultivated by us. I was especially happy with the nature of the soil which you bought for the studio in Evpatoriya, so desert-like and arid, where it was necessary for all of us to work so much to create the common hearth.9 By working the land and retreating from urban society, Sulerzhitsky aimed to deepen the ‘inner-fused relations’ of the kruzhok into a ‘fellowship of the one-minded’.10 This Russian phrase emphasizes the importance of wholeness in mind, body and action for both individual and group. Like a band of musicians that attains the feeling of being one person when they play, Suler’s fellowship built The First Studio began summering in Kanev on the Dnieper River in  1912 and moved to Evpatoriya in 1915.  9 Polyakova, Elena (ed.), Sulerzhitskii. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970. p. 381. 10 The Russian word edinomuishlinnik is commonly translated as ‘like-minded’, however edin means ‘one’. Furthermore, the phrase is ubiquitously used for groups of people united towards achieving a common goal. Sulerzhitsky believed that actors must be of one mind in order to create a harmonious ensemble. Such a unanimous, or one-minded, ensemble could more profoundly commune with an audience. Khersonskii, Kh. N., Vakhtangov. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1963. p. 111.  8

The Emergence of Studiinost

55

upon philosopher Konstantin Aksakov’s particular concept of the individual. A century before psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Aksakov formulated a type of individuated individual, one that could only be realized through the obshchina. The commune is a moral choir in which no one loses his voice  .  .  .  Thus personality is not lost in the commune, but, having abandoned its exclusivity for the general concord, it finds itself in a more purified form, in a concord of equally self-sacrificing persons  .  .  .  In this moral accord, each person is heard, not as a solitary voice but in harmony with others, and this represents the supreme manifestation of a harmonious totality of the being of rational creatures.11 Though wrapped in philosophical language and elevated with a high moral purpose, Sulerzhitsky did not allow the creation of the obshchina to become overly serious, dull or tedious. Always willing to break into songs to help the actors practically strengthen their ensemble bonds, Suler further turned every potentially gruelling task into an opportunity to improvise and fantasize. By so doing, Suler kept acting and performance integrated with other modes of life such as cultivating land and building living quarters. He guided the actors to the realization that ensemble, or more properly studiinost, was not something to be achieved only when they came to the theatre, but rather was a continual process of life, an affirmation of the wholeness of the obshchina.12 Through a removal from daily social life and service to a new group devoted to the ethical and transformative power of art, the Russian notion of ensemble was tremendously enriched, incorporating within it the philosophical heritage of the country. Yet, the kruzhok and obshchina are only models for the organization of the studio. Studiinost is a processual agreement, one that must be consistently reaffirmed; and so, Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov devised mechanisms to reinforce and perpetuate it.

11 Hamburg, G.  M. and Poole, Randall A. (eds), A History of Russian Philosophy 1830–1930: Faith, Reason and the Defense of Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. p. 42. 12 Leach, Robert, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. p. 80.

56

Encountering Ensemble

The mechanisms of studiinost In order to use and maintain studiinost, Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov implemented three main mechanisms: 1 Maxims or ethical principles 2 Physical signs 3 Logbooks

The first mechanism had its precedent within MAT. Konstantin Stanislavski was famous for formulating maxims, such as ‘There are no small roles, only small actors’13 and ‘Love the art in yourself, not yourself in art’.14 These maxims were meant to inspire MAT actors towards a consistent depth of expression in their acting and in their relations with each other. They also served as reference points for what was expected of the actors by the company’s directors. Building upon this tradition, Sulerzhitsky infused the maxim ‘no aesthetics without ethics’ into the philosophy of the Studio and the very fabric of its daily activities.15 Similarly, Suler borrowed an ancient maxim repopularized by Alexandre Dumas in The Three Musketeers, ‘All for one, one for all’. This maxim epitomized Sulerzhitsky’s conception of the theatrestudio as a separate group committed to the betterment of the wider culture and society.16 Furthermore, the maxim encapsulated the philosophical backbone of the obshchina and Russian philosophy: that an individual’s development would only properly be realized through the group, while conversely the group would only be fully realized if it was comprised of Aksakov’s individuated individuals.

13 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus: An Acting Master for the Twentyfirst Century (2nd edn). Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. p. 30. 14 Stanislavski, Konstantin; Jean Benedetti (trans.), An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008. p. 558. 15 Though the maxim ‘no aesthetics without ethics’ is often attributed to Stanislavski, there appears to be no verifiable reference for such a claim beyond those found in Soviet schoolbooks. First Studio member V. S. Smuishlyaev does, however, attribute the maxim to Suler, saying it was ‘the leitmotif of his conversations and activities’. Polyakova, Elena (ed.), Sulerzhitskii. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970. p. 580. 16 Leach, Robert, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. p. 80.

The Emergence of Studiinost

57

The contemporary catchphrase ‘do it yourself’ summarizes another of the First Studio’s maxims. Public performances were not in Stanislavski’s original plan for the First Studio, yet they happened because of the desire and the initiative of the young ­performers.17 An outgrowth of this performer initiative was the principle that the actors should do everything; thus, there were no directors brought in from outside the studio, and originally no technicians, stagehands, propmasters or even propbuilders. In this way, membership remained small and controlled, like a kruzhok. Furthermore, ‘do it yourself’ recalls the obshchina’s elements of shared labour and a wholeness of life that enhanced the studio members’ mutual trust and egalitarianism. The second mechanism, the physical signs, is an extension of the first, and was carried out daily by a rotating position of day captain. The signs are a literal reinforcement of the principles each member has agreed to uphold for the betterment of the studio as well as the individual. While Sulerzhitsky most likely used some version of these signs and a rotating day captain, the best account of these practices comes from Vakhtangov Studio member, Nikolai Gorchakov. Long out of print, his reflections are worth quoting at some length: When a pupil spoke of something even directly connected with the theatre but did it with exaggerated enthusiasm, with undue, ostentatious passion [. . . the day captain] would bring in a small board with the words “The Muses Do Not Tolerate Vanity,” written on it, hang it on the wall and leave quietly, without a hint of reproach or moralization, making no more fuss over it than he would hanging the rehearsal schedule for the following day. [. . . Furthermore] when anyone tried to be witty or joked too much, the man on duty would silently carry across the room a jester’s cap with bells, stuck on a pole. [. . . Or whenever] an actor started arguing or philosophizing with the director or any of his comrades  [.  .  .]  and the argument threatened to disrupt the rehearsal, the man on duty would start the record which hissed and tediously repeated the same phrase over and over again.18 Rudnitsky, Konstantin; Roxane Permar (trans.), Russian and Soviet Theater 1905–1932. London: Thames & Hudson, 1988. p. 20. 18 Gorchakov, Nikolai; G. Ivanov-Mumjiev (trans.), The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959 (probable year). p. 34. 17

58

Encountering Ensemble

Gorchakov’s account highlights once more the ways that mutual trust, egalitarianism and commitment support studiinost. The day captain did not have to rebuke or even act with any strong emotion in order to remind members when they were exhibiting qualities detrimental to studiinost. The third mechanism was the introduction of a book for recording the daily activities and impressions of the studio. Conceived to generate the fellowship of one-mindedness, the book was to be a place for sincere and authentic expression of the individual self to the whole group. In other words, immediate, intimate entries of the experience of working in the studio that could reinforce the bonds that create studiinost.19 In this way, the book further acted as a tool for the leader of the studio to understand, shape and cultivate the group. Often, this was done within the book itself, again highlighting the collective responsibility to studiinost. The majority of entries in the First Studio’s book as published in Polkanova and Andrusenko are not, however, the uplifting expression Suler envisioned.20 They are jocular in content and become increasingly acerbic and snide. Sulerzhitsky engaged these entries directly, chastising the authors and the entire studio for their pettiness and lack of artistic integrity.21 As with Vakhtangov’s 1918 letters to his collapsing studio (partly cited above), these records resound with the highly ethical purpose of art and are an appeal for understanding that such artistic elevation and attainment of one’s individual life purpose can only be achieved through studiinost.

Legacy Sulerzhitsky, Stanislavski and Vakhtangov believed in the power of art to inspire people to develop their full potential. Studiinost was formulated as the means to consistently reaffirm the commitment to the creation of relations between people that felt ‘real’, ‘truthful’ Malaev-Babel, Andrei, The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. p. 239. 20 Polkanova, Mariya and Andrusenko, Sergei (eds), I Vnov’ o Khudozhestvennom. MXAT v Vospominaniyax i Zapisyax. 1901–1920. Moscow: Avantitul, 2004. pp. 140–203. 21 A portion of Suler’s comments can be read in English in Malaev-Babel, Andrei, The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. pp. 239–40. 19

The Emergence of Studiinost

59

and ‘sincere’. Control mechanisms were further designed to maintain studiinost with the belief that this would keep the studio from becoming institutionalized, a belief that sadly did not come to pass. Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov lived tragically short lives and their studios, like MAT before them, became too large and too governmentally controlled to retain studiinost. Studiinost itself was deeply problematic for the Soviet government and all but disappeared from the Russian theatre during the height of Stalin’s dictatorship. However, in the 1960s, studios began to re-emerge and with them a renewed studiinost that has transformed some of the premier contemporary Russian theatres.22 Through numerous channels of influence, the small but committed group of young performers changed more than Russian conceptions of ensemble, they provided a lasting legacy that inspires ensemble practitioners worldwide. In a brief flagging of the lineage of studiinost outside Russia, it is worth considering the American Laboratory Theatre (ALT) begun by First Studio member Richard Boleslavsky. The ALT subsequently inspired and influenced the Group Theatre, which changed the American theatre and film landscape through its incubation of Lee Strasberg’s Method, the Stella Adler Technique, the Meisner Technique, the plays of Clifford Odets and the directing of Elia Kazan. Yet, no matter how much ALT and the Group Theatre spoke of ensemble and even shared similar jargon to create studiinost, both undermined their studiinost in order to appease what they saw as necessary commercial markets. In doing so, they achieved neither commercial success nor the integrity of art that studiinost was formulated to support.23 The balance of livelihood and artistic excellence is always a concern for those engaging in a committed and permanent ensemble but the visionary philosopher of studiinost, Leopold Sulerzhitsky, was clear: ‘I am absolutely not interested in the external success of my work, the success of shows, of the box office, God be with it, this is not what moves me and gives me wings, what does is the troupe-brotherhood . . .’.24 Such an exalted notion of the purpose See Chapter 8 of this book for examples of contemporary manifestations of studiinost. 23 The most thorough account of the Group Theatre is Smith, Wendy, Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931–1940. New York: Knopf, 1990. 24 Polyakova, Elena (ed.), Sulerzhitskii. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970. p. 383. 22

60

Encountering Ensemble

of theatre rooted in a rich philosophical conception of ensemble defined twentieth-century Russian theatre. Yet, commercialism (or its Soviet paradigmatic twin ‘propaganda’) continually threatens to mediate encounters with ensemble. This chapter’s challenge has been to quantify a processual experience, an intangible quality that is agreed, and consistently reaffirmed, by members of the group. Both the attempt to quantify and the acts of agreement and affirmation are precisely the act of encountering ensemble.

Chapter Two

More than the sum of their parts: Reflections on Vsevolod Meyerhold’s theatrical ensemble Amy Skinner

Meyerhold’s masterpiece: The Government Inspector Through the thick smoke, which began to gather on the platform, the faces of the motionless figures wavered and flickered.  .  .  . ­Suddenly, the platform was lit by spotlights and, extraordinarily, the figures which had seemed to be made of wax, began to come to life.  .  .  .  The music grew darker in tone and, as if he had emerged from the furniture, the mayor made his entrance . . . His voice, a rich baritone, seemed to sing on a single note as he spoke his opening line: “I have called you together,

62

Encountering Ensemble

gentlemen, to announce some very unpleasant news. Someone is coming to see us – a ­Government Inspector”.1 (Nick Worrall on the opening moments of Meyerhold’s production of The Government Inspector [1926].) * Everybody close together. Nobody over there. Everyone seated. Enter the Mayor . . . When everybody says “What, an inspector [revizor]!” it mustn’t be in unison. Some say “in-spec-tor”. There must be a variety of logical intonations, some saying it quickly, others dragging it out.2 (Meyerhold, working on the opening in rehearsal.) * Then suddenly, as though on a word of command, at a stroke of a conductor’s baton, everyone stirs in agitation, pipes jump from lips, fists clench, heads swivel. The last syllable of “revizor” [inspector] seems to tweak everybody. Now the word is hissed in a whisper: the whole word by some, just the consonants by others, and somewhere even a softly rolled “r”. The word “revizor” is divided musically into every conceivable intonation. The ensemble of suddenly startled officials blows up and dies away like a squall. Everyone freezes and falls silent; the guilty conscience rises in  alarm, then hides its poisonous head again, like a serpent lying motionless and saving its deadly venom.3 (Emmanuil Kaplan describes the moment in performance) * Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 play The Government Inspector begins with a single line of exposition: the Mayor of a corrupt small town announces to his officials that an inspection from central government is imminent. The line contains the central conceit of the plot, as the 1 Worrall, Nick, ‘Meyerhold Directs Gogol’s Government Inspector’. New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 7 (1972): 79. 2 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 223. 3 Ibid., p. 218.

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

63

Mayor and his colleagues will go on to mistake a travelling conman, Khlestakov, for the anticipated inspector. In Vsevolod Meyerhold’s 1926 version of the play, however, this line fed into an extended moment, which established the theatrical aesthetic of the production as a whole. The mysterious figures, suddenly animated through the smoke, the musical composition of the line, the interruption of the dialogue while the cast repeats one word, and, particularly, the close grouping of the performers, all combine to create a nightmare in which people emerge from furniture, wax figures come to life and power is equated with serpent-like deceit. The virtuosity of Meyerhold’s work on The Government Inspector is widely acknowledged. The production was key in the ­director’s oeuvre, remaining in repertoire for 12  years, and has, according to Edward Braun, ‘inspired a greater volume of critical literature than any other production in the history of the Russian theatre’.4 Among all of Meyerhold’s work, Jonathan Pitches calls the production ‘particularly remarkable’5 and eyewitness Harold Clurman summarizes: A strange feeling comes from this production: it is very funny and it is very tomb-like. It has a definite macabre quality – cold, beautiful, grimacing, distorted and graceful . . . Meyerhold’s Revizor [The Government Inspector] is a masterpiece, but somehow not a warming one: it leaves one slightly uncomfortable.6 The Government Inspector has become almost epitomic of Meyer­ holdian theatre in its attention to detail, its focus on the precise construction of the mise-en-scène, its strict musico-rhythmic structure and, above all, the close interaction of the performers. The production’s visual aesthetic, with the actors crowded onto small platforms forming the mainstay of the stage space, are striking examples of performers working corporately to maintain the stage image. These physically intertwining figures are echoed in Kaplan’s

Braun, Edward, Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998b. p. 236. 5 Pitches, Jonathan, Vsevolod Meyerhold. London: Routledge, 2003. p. 78. 6 Clurman, Harold, ‘An Excerpt from Harold Clurman’s Unpublished Diary’, Theater, Vol. 28 (1998): 80. 4

64

Encountering Ensemble

description of language in the production’s opening moments. What, in Gogol’s text, is one word (revizor) spoken by one character (the Mayor), is in Meyerhold’s production taken up and reshaped by the group. This is most apparent in the distribution of individual sounds, the actors taking collective responsibility for the performance of the word itself, sharing the phonemes of speech. The Government Inspector, as an example of Meyerhold’s aesthetic, appears to represent an ideal of group performance, where actors work together, towards one goal. Verbal text and visual image are manifest on stage through the interaction of a group, not by any lone individual. Meyerhold’s metaphor for this process is the orchestra. Speaking soon after the opening night of The Government Inspector, he notes: We saw that we had to unify the production according to the laws of orchestral composition, in such a way that each actor’s part did not sound by itself in isolation, but had to be integrated into the larger group of parts (or instruments) so as to knit this group into a complex orchestration . . .7 This orchestral metaphor reveals Meyerhold’s approach to the relationship between the individual actor and the performing group, or ensemble. Like the instruments of the orchestra, Meyerhold’s performers function not as isolated individuals, but as part of a larger artistic enterprise, the production. It also, however, shows an appreciation of the role of the individual within the performance process: it is the unique sounds of the individual instruments which work together to create the orchestral voice. Meyerhold’s metaphor hints at a unity formed through individuality, and the director’s ultimate goal, it seems, is the integration of the many individual parts into a complex theatrical whole.8

Meyerhold in Worrall, Nick, ‘Meyerhold Directs Gogol’s Government Inspector’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 7 (1972): 80. 8 Meyerhold’s career spanned four decades, three major political systems and an extensive range of artistic movements (including symbolism, constructivism and cubism). In order to draw any relevant conclusions within a chapter of this length, it has been necessary to impose restrictions on the volume of his work which will be covered. As such, this investigation focuses on Meyerhold’s work during the 1920s and the era of The Government Inspector. 7

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

65

Meyerhold and the ensemble This complex balance of individuality and unity is key in locating Meyerhold’s aesthetic within the frame of the ensemble. As Britton has suggested, ensemble theatre is notoriously difficult to define, requiring the negotiation of ideas of longevity, collaboration, devising and auteurship: [C]learly there is such a thing as “ensemble” performance which those who participate in it and those who observe it recognise as qualitatively different from non-ensemble performance. The problem is, knowing what “it” is.9 The complexities of defining the ensemble are multiplied when the theatre in question is historical: the ‘it-ness’ which Britton observes as apparent to the participant in the moment, is not as readily accessible to the observer a century later. There is also the question of where Meyerhold’s theatre fits into any matrix of definitions of ensemble practice. In terms of longevity, much of his work was carried out in theatre companies where members of staff were employed on a permanent basis, and repeated collaborative relationships, particularly with performers and designers, were common throughout his career: Erast Garin, who took the role of Khlestakov in The Government Inspector, joined Meyerhold’s Workshop in 1921, aged 18, and remained with his theatre until 1936. By contrast, the idea of collaborative decision ­making problematizes Meyerhold’s relationship with the ensemble. ­Meyerhold worked primarily as an auteur director, whose encompassing vision became the driving force behind his productions. Braun notes that The Government Inspector ‘establish[ed] once and for all the creative autonomy of the stage director’,10 and Norris Houghton, visiting the Meyerhold Theatre in  1934, suggests a reading of the director’s working practice which is almost

Britton, John, ‘What is it? The “it”-ness of ensemble’, in Encountering Ensemble (conference), 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield (unpublished). www. eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/; accessed 30 November 2011. 10 Braun, Edward, Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998b. p. 236. 9

66

Encountering Ensemble

dictatorial, emphasising directorial vision over the agency of the individual performer: Meierhold’s [sic] company of actors is rather like a collection of rubber balls. He throws them and they must be able to bounce . . . But that a rubber ball should bounce itself is unheardof nonsense; so is individual intelligence in the Meierhold Theatre.11 Houghton’s comments are an oversimplification of working practice. Meyerhold’s actors were not reduced to ciphers for him to arrange, but empowered as thinking performers: ‘I have no use’, he claims ‘for actors who know how to move but cannot think’.12 It is, however, impossible to ignore the degree to which Meyerhold’s vision controlled the creation of a production, from the composition of the stage space, through the delivery of lines, to the intricate details of actor’s work. Igor Ilyinsky, actor at Meyerhold’s theatre in the 1920s, recalls working with the director in rehearsal less as a process of negotiation, or even understanding, and more a call to watch and copy: When I would try to stop, to argue or to ask him to explain something which wasn’t clear to me, he would say “You’re not getting it because you’re near-sighted. Watch me carefully and repeat what I do. Then you’ll get it right”.13 The staging of The Government Inspector, where movement and sound are constructed with the group dynamic at their centre, demonstrates a concern with ensemble practice in Meyerhold’s theatre. How this ensemble is created, however, balances this collectivity in performance with the auteurship of an individual director’s vision. Meyerhold reconciles the potential paradox of a central individual within an ensemble framework by using his position to develop

Houghton, Norris, Moscow Rehearsals. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1938. p. 120. 12 Meyerhold in Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 104. 13 Ilyinsky in Schmidt, Paul (ed.), Meyerhold at Work. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1981. p. 27. 11

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

67

a unified approach to performance, creating a theatrical model where the auteur director and the practice of ensemble function side by side.

Collectivity and auteurship: Meyerhold in context Meyerhold’s theatre sits within two contextual frames of reference. The early twentieth century saw the rise of the theatre director: Braun identifies the theatre at Meiningen in the late nineteenth century as the origin of this move towards the ‘co-ordination of expressive means’ on stage through the agency of an individual, the director.14 Set against this frame of the new stage director however, is the wider frame of Meyerhold’s Soviet context. The rise to power of the Bolshevik Party, and the establishment of Leninist communism embedded the question of the collective, that is, the power and agency of group equality, in the centre of Russian society.15 Soviet policy appears to foreground the group over the individual, as William Henry Chamberlin, writing in America in the early 1930s, highlights: What is perhaps not generally realized is that man himself is the first and most important objective of Soviet planning and that the tendency to replace man, the individual, by collective man, the product of social groups and forces, is one of the most important  .  .  .  currents in Soviet life.  .  .  .  In the Soviet Union the balance which exists elsewhere between the claims of society and the autonomy of the individual has been heavily weighted in society’s favour.16

14 Braun, Edward, The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen Drama, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1996. p. 7. 15 Blum, Alain, ‘Identities in Soviet History’, Contemporary European History, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2003): 213–23; Lenin, V. I. ‘Speech Delivered at The Third All-Russia Congress of Economic Councils’, in V.  I. Lenin Collected Works, vol.  30 (ed. and trans. by G. Hanna). Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965. pp. 309–13. 16 Chamberlin, W. H. ‘Making the Collective Man in Soviet Russia’, Foreign Affairs; An American Quarterly Review, Vol. 10, No. 1/4 (1931/1932): 280.

68

Encountering Ensemble

Unlike his counterparts Stanislavski and Tairov, whose relationships with Bolshevism were notoriously ambiguous, Meyerhold intentionally aligned himself with the new government, referring to the Revolution as his ‘second birth’.17 Commenting on his Theatrical October campaign, designed to bring the ideals of 1917 onto Russia’s stages, Meyerhold makes the connection between his theatre and politics very clear: [It] is utter nonsense to speak of an apolitical attitude. No man (no actor) has ever been apolitical, a-social; man is always a product of the forces of his environment. And is it not this which determines the nature of an actor throughout all his individual, social and historical metamorphoses? It is this law which shapes the interpretation of any character by any actor.18 Meyerhold’s work brings together a documented commitment to Soviet politics with the auteurship of the director developing in twentieth-century theatrical practice. The result is a theatre that locates the development of the group within a tight structure of directorial authority, and it is, in fact, this authority which allows the group to function effectively, as Gerald Rabkin observes: When the great initiators of modern theatre – Zola, Antoine, Stanislavski, Craig, et. al. – looked at theatre at the end of the last century, they saw only an appalling absence of shared values . . . In order to recover lost values, to restore grandeur, to reconnect with the myths of the past and to forge new ones, a general was needed to marshal all interpretive forces and the director was granted authority . . . The rise of the director is, then, theatre’s defence against its own irrelevance and fragmentation.19 Meyerhold’s role as auteur director can thus be seen as an empowerment of, rather than a barrier to, the establishment of a theatrical

17 Meyerhold in Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 93. 18 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 168. 19 Rabkin, Gerald, ‘The Play of Misreading: Text/Theatre/Deconstruction’, Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1983): 56.

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

69

ensemble. This is reflected in his emphasis on the development of a common goal for each production, for example: An actor must know the composition of the entire production, must understand it and feel it with his whole body. Only then does he make himself a component of it and begin to sound in harmony with it.20 Although Meyerhold’s common goal may be defined by the director as auteur, rather than by the ensemble through negotiation, its function is still that of a collective purpose in performance. In addition, there is also an emphasis on team-working methods (although subject, of course, to the director’s ultimate authority). In Meyerhold’s words: Joint work on texts by the company is envisaged as an integral part of the theatre’s function. It is possible that such team-work will help us to realize the principle of improvisation.21 The reference to improvisation helps to clarify the collective–auteur relationship. Improvisation, that is, a deviation from the director’s set plan, is only permitted when a collective understanding of the text is in place. In other words, freedom in performance can only be achieved through teamwork in rehearsal.22 Ultimately, the members of Meyerhold’s company were to prioritize their roles as part of a collective over their individual status as a performer. Recalling the metaphor of the orchestra, this is not the rejection of individuality in the performer’s technique, but of individual stardom at the expense of the common goal. Mikhail Korenev, Meyerhold’s collaborator on The Government Inspector, records this reflection on the director’s approach to collective work: In each collective exercise, every participant must give up forever the constant desire of the actor to be a soloist.23 20 Meyerhold in Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 105. 21 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 170. 22 Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. pp. 160–4, outlines Meyerhold’s approach to improvisation. 23 Korenev in Law, Alma and Gordon, Mel, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 1996. p. 136.

70

Encountering Ensemble

Meyerhold’s approach to collectivity is encapsulated in his comments on the performance of an unnamed actor in rehearsal: You play very well in the Korsh style, and badly in the Meyerhold style. You’re playing only for yourself, forgetting the general compositional plan. In Korsh’s theatre you . . . weren’t suppose to upstage your partner, but that was all they demanded. But with us, if you change the layout by half a metre, everything is lost. There must be the artistic discipline of feeling a part of the overall composition.24 Meyerhold’s comments reveal more than his dislike of the Korsh, an institution that Aleksandr Gladkov calls ‘a typical commercial theatre’.25 Through comparing the two theatres, Meyerhold marks out the collective attitude of his performers as a distinguishing feature of his work. His criticism of the actor in question highlights not only an inability to work as part of the collective, but to feel part of the collective, and thus maintain the overall composition of the piece. Reflecting his Soviet context, Meyerhold envisages an actor who can prioritize the achievements of the collective over his or her own, individual, achievements.26 He implies that each individual has a part to play in the success of the group, and that the responsibility belongs to everyone: any person slightly out of place will ruin the work of the ensemble as a whole.

Biomechanics: Embedding ensemble in training Bringing the actor to a position where he or she works and feels as part of the collective, or ensemble, is embedded at the heart of the Meyerhold aesthetic, incorporated not just in rehearsal and performance, but also in training. Meyerhold’s understanding of 24 Meyerhold in Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 105. 25 Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 105. 26 Ibid., p. 109.

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

71

acting as a craft makes the reasons for his commitment to performer training evident: It is a vital condition of the theatre that the actor manifests his art through his technique alone; through his acting he interprets the material placed at his disposal by employing those means which are consistent with the properties of the human body and spirit. Therefore, we should note that as well as refining his material (by achieving maximum bodily flexibility) the actor must discover as soon as possible his own identity as an artist-histrion.27 Subscribing to the paradox of acting described by ConstantBenoît Coquelin, Meyerhold identifies the uniqueness of the actor as his duality: unlike any other artist, the actor embodies both the material to be used and the creative force to shape that material.28 Thus, as Meyerhold notes, the development of technique is vital, both in the sense of physical control over the body and voice, and in terms of understanding one’s purpose and function as a performer. Meyerhold’s desire for an actor who can ‘think’29 indicates his interest in performers who do not just copy physical forms, robot-like, but engage intellectually, bringing these forms to life. Meyerhold’s thinking actor also embodies an understanding of the wider aesthetic of the production, consciously engaging with the style of Meyerholdian theatre. It is this combination of physical skill and cognitive understanding which formed the basis of Meyerhold’s actor training programme, biomechanics. Formalized in the early 1920s, biomechanics combines basic training exercises with set patterns of movement termed études, or studies. The exercises develop basic skills, and include work with sticks and balls, an analysis of specific movements (such as running) and the development of the actor’s responses, for example, changing the direction of movement on demand. The études are serial movements, following a very loose narrative structure reflected in 27 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 155. 28 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 198. 29 Meyerhold in Gladkov, Aleksandr, Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. p. 104.

72

Encountering Ensemble

their title (‘Throwing the Stone’, ‘Shooting the Bow’). Performed by individuals, pairs or groups, they are striking in their rhythmic ­construction: each étude is broken down into a series of distinct movements or phrases, with each phrase constructed according to a tripartite rhythmic structure, the Acting Cycle. This cycle begins with the preparation to move, what Meyerhold calls the otkaz or refusal, intended to emphasize the movement by withdrawing slightly in the opposite direction. This is followed by the movement itself, the posil’, and then by the tochka, Russian for ‘full stop’, which functions as both the end of one movement phrase and the transition into the next. The result of this rhythmic structure is the distinctive pattern of stops and starts which defines biomechanical movement.30 Biomechanics is, in effect, Meyerhold’s aesthetic writ small. It embodies the fundamental concerns of his theatre: rhythm construction, physical precision and, vitally, interaction with other performers. Meyerhold places biomechanical training at the core of his theatrical programme: Physical culture, acrobatics, dance, rhythmics, boxing and fencing are all useful activities, but they are of use only so long as they constitute auxiliary exercises in a course of “biomechanics”, the essential basis of every actor’s training.31

Developing the collective mindset: The physically thinking actor Biomechanics facilitates the transition of individual performers into a performing group. This is achieved through a combination of linguistic and rhythmic means to create a sense of group identity. The ensemble is constructed in the training room as the actor learns to understand his or her role as part of Meyerhold’s theatrical collective, that is, to think about theatre in a certain way (the aesthetic language of biomechanics) and to experience that physically (the rhythmic function of biomechanics), which, in combination, build 30 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 201. 31 Ibid., p. 200.

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

73

a common ground in terms of aesthetics and communication. It is from this starting point that the performance can be constructed, and the ensemble can begin to develop a collective identity rooted in their areas of commonality. The actor is, in effect, learning in two interdependent spheres: that of the body (the technique of ­biomechanics and the experiential understanding of its rhythmic structure) and that of the linguistic or cognitive (the aesthetic of biomechanics). As such, the exercises and biomechanical études become the actor’s pathway to a specific understanding of performance. Rarely were biomechanical exercises transferred intact from the training room to the stage. Instead, biomechanics was intended to prepare the actor for rehearsal, in order, in Robert Leach’s words, to ‘widen the creative options available’ to the director and performer.32 Biomechanics becomes an underlying understanding between performers, a language of theatre which is embodied within each actor through their training. Jonathan Pitches notes: Meyerhold’s seamless assimilation of training and text offers us a model of how to relate “process” to “product” . . . the shapes and the rhythms of the études cannot simply be lifted, unchanged, on to a stage and imposed onto characters. They must be absorbed, embodied, made part of you in some way. Only then is it possible to exploit creatively the underlying theatrical skills developed by the training.33 In practice, Meyerhold’s system functions as a common starting point for creative work: a frame for the rehearsal process. Pitches makes the connection between biomechanical training and the development of the collective in performance explicit in his analysis of Episode 15 of The Government Inspector in which the town’s officials discover, through a letter read by the postmaster, that they have been duped: [Episode 15] was a scene which simply could not have been either conceived or achieved without an understanding of biomechanics. The overall structure of the moment mirrors that of an étude: the Leach, Robert, Vsevolod Meyerhold. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. p. 67. 33 Pitches, Jonathan, Vsevolod Meyerhold. London: Routledge, 2003. p. 105. 32

74

Encountering Ensemble

otkaz, or preparation, is extensive and drawn out as the Postmaster fights to get a seat; the posil’, or action, is marked by the ensemble’s rapid change of orientation; and the tochka, or “end point”, is the instant held by the Postmaster as he prepares to read the letter. . . . The rigid discipline of the ensemble testifies to the collective training of biomechanics, slowly building up an unspoken understanding between actors which is underpinned by a strong sense of rhythm.34 Pitches makes clear the significance of the rhythmic structure of biomechanical training. The rhythm contained in the otkaz–posil’– tochka cycle underwrites all biomechanical activity, and is ­embedded in the training through a repeated count of i-raz-dva (and-onetwo) which guides the actor through each stage of the phrase: on i (and), the actor prepares for movement, performing the otkaz; on raz (one), the actor moves (posil’); and on dva (two), the movement is completed and the actor transitions into the next cycle (tochka). Through the establishment of this set rhythm, the group can find a common pattern in movement. It functions as a gateway to everyone moving in unison, or as a way to coordinate different movements over the same rhythmic basis. Meyerhold’s understanding of rhythm, however, was more than the counting of beats. The director’s pianist, Lev Arnshtam, notes Meyerhold’s organic attitude towards the rhythmic: A slice of scenic action had . . . to be subordinated to an entire musical period. However, he did not like the word “subordinate”. Not to be subordinate to the music, but to breathe it, to live it – repeatedly he reiterated this.35 Just as the aesthetic language of biomechanics was to be absorbed by the performer, so should the rhythm of the training be embodied at all times. This common rhythmic structure functions as a metaphorical heartbeat for the performance, a life rhythm for the collective, bringing commonality into the company’s function at the most fundamental level. Ibid., p. 106. Arnshtam in Leach, Robert, Vsevolod Meyerhold. Cambridge: Cambridge ­University Press, 1989. p. 113.

34 35

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

75

Balancing the individual and the group: Biomechanics and integration Biomechanics is a complex balance of person and group that reflects both the need for individual training and skills, and the need for a functioning collective. Meyerhold’s concern with the integration of individuals and his commitment to developing a group with a unity of thought and function is apparent throughout the system. This is most evident in the structure of the training, which balances the individual’s work on the self with the development of their group or collective consciousness. Although much biomechanical training requires the actor to work in unison with others, Meyerhold’s system was conceived not to force uniformity, but to facilitate unity. This can be seen in the exercises and études which allow the performer to function in two frames at once: first, as an individual executing his or her own movements, and secondly, as part of a larger group, that is, in relationship to others. Although this is evident in exercises performed in unison, the frames are more clearly established when the actors must differentiate their movement from those around them. Biomechanics develops three models of movement which contribute towards this end: coordination, canon and counterpoint. Coordination is developed through biomechanical exercises where the actor’s ability to understand the actions of a partner is essential, for example, in throwing and catching exercises using sticks or balls. Pitches claims that these activities ‘generate a strong feeling of ensemble’, particularly as they are often one of the earliest stages at which the student of biomechanics encounters the rhythm of the acting cycle (i-raz-dva).36 The aim is the establishment of a group sense of awareness, an ability to locate the self in relationship to all the other elements within a space, particularly against other performers, and, ultimately, to learn to trust one another to realize their collective goals. Canon movement generally utilizes the biomechanical études for the individual, where movement is performed in pairs with

Pitches, Jonathan, Vsevolod Meyerhold. London: Routledge, 2003. p. 122.

36

76

Encountering Ensemble

a staggered start.37 Individuals are required to focus on their execution of the étude to the normal high standard of accuracy, while working alongside another performer whose movements are a step ahead or behind their own. The potential for distraction is higher, but so is the need for a collective approach – the rhythm of the performers must remain in synchrony, and the actor must move from perceiving their partner as a distraction to perceiving them as a compliment. Counterpoint movement builds on this basis, usually developed through études for pairs or groups, in which the actors will perform different movements which are related to one another within the frame of the exercise’s loose narrative. Here, the emphasis shifts from a strong focus on the individuals working side by side to a clearer integration, with the performers developing a reliance on each other’s movements, working together to maintain the ever-extant frame of the rhythmic structure.

Auteurs and actors: Meyerhold’s contribution to the ensemble Coordinated, canon and counterpoint movements place the relationship between the individual and the collective at the heart of Meyerhold’s training. As actors learn to think through the biomechanical frame, they not only share an aesthetic and rhythmic ­common ground, but they also learn to control and value their interaction with one another. Neither the individual nor the collective is neglected in biomechanics: the individual is acknowledged as the building block of the collective, but collectivity itself is also a legitimate aim of the work, not a by-product of the training. Reflecting on his ideal of theatrical creation, Meyerhold undercuts Houghton’s belief in him as dictator-director in favour of a model which brings

This technique can also be seen in the work of Gennadi Bogdanov, one of the two extant Russian biomechanics specialists who work in the UK. Bogdanov’s work, particularly in his connections to the British theatre company Proper Job (formerly Talia Theatre) and the B.  A. Hons. Acting Course at the University of Central Lancashire, has been seminal in the establishment of biomechanics in Britain. As a student of Nikolai Kustov, who worked alongside Meyerhold, Bogdanov is a secondgeneration practitioner of the system.

37

MORE THAN THE SUM OF THEIR PARTS

77

together the acknowledgement of individuality with the unity of the collective and the auteur role of the director. His description echoes Rabkin’s observations on the director as the facilitator of unity: The director describes his plan during the discussion of the play . . . But after the discussion all the performers remain completely independent. Then the director calls a further general meeting to create harmony from all the separate pieces. How does he set about this? Simply by balancing all the parts which have been freely created by various individuals involved in the collective enterprise. In establishing the harmony vital to the production, he does not insist on the exact representation of his own conception, which was intended only to ensure unanimity and to prevent the work created collectively from disintegrating.38 Through a training system which aims to develop actors who can think about theatre as a collective process, Meyerhold created a theatrical aesthetic which privileged the performing group, and both the principles and practices of biomechanics have much to contribute to the study of ensemble theatre. Beyond the literal contribution of his training system, however, Meyerhold’s work also challenges the function of the ensemble at its most fundamental level. Located within an era of political development which foregrounded the role of the individual within the collective frame, Meyerhold uses his individual position as auteur to construct a theatrical model in which systematic training shapes the actors’ attitude towards individual and collective roles in performance. Rather than mutually exclusive categories, the theatrical ensemble and the auteur director function as complimentary in Meyerhold’s practice. It is, arguably, in this provocative combination of seemingly oppositional ideas that Meyerhold’s theatre has the most to say to those striving to create ensemble performance today.

38 Meyerhold in Braun, Edward, Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. p. 52.

Chapter Three

Michael Chekhov’s ensemble feeling Franc Chamberlain

Michael Chekhov is, perhaps, best known for his advice to individual actors in To the Actor, yet he had been a member of The Moscow Art Theatre ensemble under Stanislavski and Sulerzhitsky, and had formed ensembles under his own direction in Moscow, Paris, Riga, Vilnius, Dartington and Ridgefield. Chekhov had begun work on To the Actor in 1937 when he was in Dartington, but he didn’t finish the first version until 1942 at a time when his Studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut, was, as Chekhov put it, ‘disrupted when most of its male members were called to arms’.1 A Russian-language version of To the Actor was published in 1945, but it wasn’t until 1953, two years before his death, that Barnes & Noble published the first English-language edition of To the Actor. By the time the book appeared, Chekhov was no longer working with an ensemble and, on a superficial reading, the book can seem to have very little to say about ensemble practice beyond a short chapter entitled ‘Improvisation and Ensemble’. There is, as yet, only a relatively small body of critical literature on the work Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. li.

1

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

79

of Chekhov and most of it would appear to follow the emphasis on the individual rather than the ensemble. Liisa Byckling,2 for example, significantly changes Chekhov’s words and claims that ‘most of the leading actors’ (my emphasis) were drafted after Pearl Harbor and thus appears to impose the values of the star system onto Chekhov’s Ridgefield-based ensemble. Yet, this apparent emphasis on the individual in some other recent texts3 should not be taken as evidence that the authors deny the importance of what Chekhov called the ‘ensemble feeling’. It is more the case that these authors take the importance of the ensemble as a given. As Daboo has recently noted, Chekhov’s Studio in Dartington, like Saint-Denis’s contemporaneous London Theatre School, was established to ‘challenge the emphasis on the solo actor’ (2012: 66)4 and to replace it with one on the ensemble. While Daboo is primarily discussing actor training in Britain in the 1930s, Carnicke5 affirms that the emphasis on the individual actor rather than on the ensemble was also the norm in the United States. Hollywood was, of course, the epicenter of the ‘star’ culture and hardly the obvious place for someone who championed ensemble practice to be based, but that was where Chekhov moved after the break-up of the Ridgefield ensemble. While in Hollywood, Chekhov acted in ten films, including Hitchcock’s Spellbound, and continued to teach. During this period of his career, Chekhov is known more for his teaching of highly successful individuals such as Ingrid Bergman, ­Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance and Marilyn Monroe than for developing a company. Such an association with accomplished members of the Hollywood star system could be seen as antithetical

Byckling, Liisa,‘Michael Chekhov as Actor, Teacher and Director in the West’. Toronto Slavic Quarterly 1, Spring 2002. www.utoronto.ca/tsq/01/chekhovwest. shtml. 3 Inter alia Petit, Lenard, The Michael Chekhov Handbook: For the Actor. London: Routledge, 2010; Ashperger, Cynthia, The Rhythm of Space and the Sound of Time: Michael Chekhov’s Acting Techniques in the 21st Century. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008; Meerzon, Yana, The Path of a Character: Michael Chekhov’s Inspired Acting and Theatre Semiotics. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005. 4 Daboo, Jerri, ‘Michael Chekhov and the Studio in Dartington’, in Jonathan Pitches (ed.), Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training. London: Routledge, 2012. p. 66. 5 Carnicke, Sharon, Stanislavsky in Focus (2nd edn). London: Routledge, 2008. p. 9. 2

80

Encountering Ensemble

to the promotion of an ensemble ethos, but ­Chekhov stressed the importance of maintaining an awareness that the ‘creative ensemble consists of individuals’ rather than an ‘impersonal mass’.6 Furthermore, the actor, even in films, should work to generate an ensemble feeling and thus there was no fundamental contradiction, for Chekhov, in working with film actors in Hollywood while believing in the importance of the ensemble. The emphasis on these individual names can obscure the fact that Chekhov was giving classes to groups of actors while in ­Hollywood. In addition, Chekhov’s student Mala Powers mentioned evenings of group improvisation at Akim Tamiroff’s house in Hollywood.7 Tamiroff, who had himself been a member of the ­Moscow Art Theatre but had emigrated to the United States in 1923 and pursued a successful career in Hollywood, was well positioned to introduce Chekhov to actors looking to explore new possibilities with a gifted former member of the world’s most celebrated theatre ensemble.

Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theatre When Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko established the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898, they were strongly influenced by the ensemble playing of the Meiningen Players. As Stanislavski put it at the time: ‘Today – Hamlet, tomorrow – an extra, but even as an extra – an artist’ and, more famously, ‘there are no small roles, only small actors’.8 By the time Michael Chekhov was invited to join the company in June 1912, the Moscow Art Theatre was well known for its ensemble work. In the same year, Stanislavski set up the First Studio under the directorship of Leopold Sulerzhitsky and including Chekhov, Richard Boleslavsky, Maria Ouspenskaya, and Evgeny Vakhtangov. Chekhov’s introduction to the First Studio didn’t begin well, however, as Vakhtangov said: ‘I will not work with this Suvorin Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 42. 7 Powers, Mala, ‘The Past, Present and Future of Michael Chekhov’, Introduction to Chekhov, introductory essay in Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 42, p. xl. 8 Carnicke, Sharon, Stanislavsky in Focus (2nd edn). London: Routledge, 2008. p. 30. 6

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

81

Theatre actor’.9 After graduating from the Suvorin drama school, Chekhov had joined the Suvorin Theatre in St Petersburg before being invited by his aunt, Olga Knipper-Chekhova who was the wife of Anton Chekhov, to audition for the Moscow Art Theatre. It is possible that Vakhtangov’s initial opposition was because he felt that Chekhov had only been allowed into the company because of his family connections rather than on merit. The reference to Chekhov’s previous company also suggests that Vakhtangov had little respect for it as it was part of the old system of theatre which the Moscow Art Theatre in general, and the First Studio in particular, was calling into question. Perhaps Vakhtangov was concerned that Chekhov would be out-of-step with the ensemble ethos of the Moscow Art Theatre and more concerned with being a star. Chekhov’s own evaluation of his work gives some support to the idea that he may not have initially appreciated the company ethos, or at least not yet been in tune with it. The first role that he played at the Moscow Art Theatre was a ragamuffin in the production of Hamlet co-directed by Stanislavski and Edward Gordon Craig. Chekhov later wrote that he ‘struck an iron door with my dummy axe in such an inspired way that the audience would have thought that the whole performance depended on me’.10 This suggests that Chekhov later considered that his performance was out of balance with the scene; full of passion and commitment, yes, but lacking an appropriate awareness of the whole. He also reports that he found it difficult to contribute fully to the work of the First Studio despite the suggestions of his colleagues. The reason for Chekhov’s inability to participate consistently as a member of the ensemble was that he suffered from an ‘unbalanced character’ and a ‘gloomy state of  .  .  .  soul’.11 This condition, which might be diagnosed as a depressive illness nowadays, led, on occasion, to him being ‘unable to understand why on earth all that was being done around me with such love and care was necessary’.12 Nonetheless, Chekhov developed as an actor with the First Studio and established a positive relationship with Vakhtangov. To some extent, Chekhov’s experiences with the First Studio will have Chekhov, Michael, The Path of the Actor. London: Routledge, 2005. p. 48. Ibid., p. 47. 11 Ibid., p. 52. 12 Ibid. 9

10

82

Encountering Ensemble

contributed to his awareness that an ensemble isn’t something that can be taken for granted but has to be created and maintained. Love and care are qualities which Chekhov came to consider essential in the maintenance of an ensemble and Sulerzhitsky was the role model who communicated and embodied the importance of this attitude.13 Chekhov and Vakhtangov were both inspired by the life and work of Sulerzhitsky who believed that the director’s role was to: create the most advantageous conditions for every individuality in such a way that this not only does not disturb the ensemble, but also does not contradict the idea of the play and, on the contrary, helps to reveal it with all distinction.14 Both Sulerzhitsky and Vakhtangov were of the view that theatrical ensembles had their own ‘individuality’ but, at the same time, considered that the best ensembles needed to be comprised of outstanding individuals.15 In other words, as Chekhov was to put it in To The Actor, ‘the creative ensemble consists of individuals and must never be considered . . . as an impersonal mass’.16 Chekhov’s theoretical and practical knowledge of a theatrical ensemble, therefore, was firmly rooted in his participation in the First Studio and his work with Stanislavski, Sulerzhitsky, Vakhtangov and Boleslavsky. Both Stanislavski and Boleslavsky had books published in English before To the Actor but neither included exercises explicitly focused on developing an ensemble. When Stanislavski does mention ensemble work, though, he is unequivocal as to its importance: Teamwork, which is the basis of our acting here, calls for an ensemble, and anyone who disrupts it is guilty of a crime not only against his colleagues but against the art he serves.17

Ibid., p. 51. Malaev-Babel, Andrei (ed.), The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2011. p. 10. 15 Ibid., p. 11. 16 Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 42. 17 Stanislavski, Konstantin, An Actor’s Work. London: Routledge, 2008. p. 564. 13 14

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

83

Harold V. Gould, in an early review of Chekhov’s To the Actor, wondered why ‘Improvisation and Ensemble’ came ‘so early in the book – long before all the methods for evoking the creative imagination have been presented’.18 Gould misses the point that not all of these methods can be practiced alone, some require collaboration with other people. In the To the Actor, Chekhov isn’t presenting an ideal process that begins with the individual and moves to the group. It is more the case that Chekhov is writing for the actor who does not have a regular ensemble with which to work. The actor always has individual work to do, either alone or in the presence of the group, but that work can be done alongside the ensemble work. As Chekhov wrote in To the Actor: ‘Simultaneously with the group exercises, it is highly advisable to continue with the individual exercises, because both complement but do not substitute for the other’.19 There is no fundamental difference between Chekhov and any of the other key teachers from the Moscow Art Theatre on this point: actors are required to do work on their own and in a group. To some extent, though, Chekhov in the 1950s was read by an American audience through the lens of the Cold War and a suspicion that ensemble work was a product of Soviet communism and Hollywood itself was seen by House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a ‘hotbed of communism’.20 Chekhov’s first film in Hollywood, A Song for Russia (1944), was described as a ‘pro-Soviet’ movie to HUAC and the careers of the scriptwriters were seriously damaged. This anti-communist fundamentalism may partly account for the lack of explicit emphasis on the importance of the ensemble, but it may also be the case that the notion of the ensemble was so central to the work emanating from Russia that it was taken for granted. The theatre is a collaborative art and this is axiomatic in Chekhov’s work. The problem is how to get individuals to work together effectively by establishing an ensemble feeling.

18 Gould, Harold V., ‘To the Actor on the Technique of Acting’ review, Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 1954): 84. 19 Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 46. 20 Marowitz, Charles, The Other Chekhov: A Biography, the Legendary Actor, Director & Theorist. New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2004. p. 200.

84

Encountering Ensemble

Opening the heart The feeling of the ensemble, for Chekhov, could be generated by an open-hearted contact with one’s partners and a willingness to put aside any personal differences and be open to the ‘creative impulses’ of the other actors in the room. This open-hearted connection, according to Chekhov, would lead organically to a positive atmosphere in which the actors would be able to play together even within the confines of a well-rehearsed production. For Chekhov: ‘Only artists united by a true sympathy into an improvising ensemble can know the joy of unselfish, common creation’.21 The members of a theatrical ensemble must, according to Michael Chekhov, ‘find the right connection with each other in order to establish a consistent harmony amongst themselves’,22 and he provides some examples of how to develop this harmony. The first exercise in To the Actor that is explicitly directed towards a group is Exercise 13 which Chekhov calls a ‘preparatory exercise designed to develop . . . the ensemble feeling’.23 The exercise is ‘preparatory’ for Chekhov in the sense that it helps to generate the conditions necessary for group improvisations. In the first phase, each actor is invited to ‘open [his or her] heart’24 to each member of the group. By this, Chekhov means that each individual must adopt a positive attitude towards each person in the room and put aside any negative feelings. Chekhov points out that this does not mean that the actor adopts some vague and generalized sense of being open to the group as a whole, but a precise inner action in relation to each individual. This inner action is explicitly linked to the process of actively receiving which Chekhov considered to be a key aspect of the actor’s work. For Chekhov acting was a ‘constant exchange’ of giving and receiving and the latter was not to be confused with simple passivity. The actor doesn’t wait to be impressed by the actions of others but inwardly supports them. As Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 35. 22 Chekhov, Michael, On the Technique of Acting. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 121. 23 Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 41. 24 Ibid., p. 42. 21

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

85

Chekhov explains: ‘To actually receive means to draw toward one’s self with the utmost inner power the things, persons or events of the situation’,25 which, in this exercise, means making an inner gesture of drawing towards oneself the presence of one’s partners.26 Such an inner gesture is related to Chekhov’s concept of the Psychological Gesture and is more than a simple silent affirmation of intent. For a group that is beginning to work together, the exercise described by Du Prey below is probably an easier starting point. Eventually, the repetition of these exercises will be informed and strengthened by the practice of key aspects of the technique, such as the Psychological Gesture. The opposite of an open-hearted contact, according to Chekhov, is an ungenerous and fearful attitude which isolates the actor and inhibits the flow of creative improvisation. Chekhov acknowledges that people have different feelings towards each other, a range of sympathies and antipathies, but argues that the actor needs to take positive steps to be friendly towards others in the ensemble.27 Chekhov warns against wallowing in sentimentality; the exercise is to generate an appropriate professional relationship for the work. This doesn’t mean that Chekhov wanted a kind of cold, ­clinical relationship where feelings are ignored; rather he was looking to establish a warm atmosphere which would support creative exploration and experimentation. The aim is to generate a supportive network of affective bonds where each individual is able to be in (inner) contact with every other individual while the work is in progress. Du Prey gives a slightly different exercise for generating this sense of an ensemble feeling that she received from Chekhov.28 The actors start by holding hands and give particular attention to the person on the left and the right and then expand their awareness gradually until they are aware of everyone. This seems to put more

Ibid. See, for example: Du Prey, Deirdre Hurst, The Training Sessions of Michael Chekhov. Dartington: Theatre Papers, 1978. p. 6. 27 Powers, Mala, Michael Chekhov: On Theatre and the Art of Acting – A Guide to Discovery with Exercises (4CDs). New York: Applause, 2004. Disk 4, Track 9. 28 Du Prey, Deirdre Hurst, The Training Sessions of Michael Chekhov. Dartington: Theatre Papers, 1978. p. 6. 25 26

86

Encountering Ensemble

stress on the feeling of the group as a whole but in addition to the awareness of each individual rather than in opposition to it: the actor is simultaneously aware of each individual in the group and the group as a whole. This seems to be an important addition to Chekhov’s instructions in To the Actor unless he had come to the conclusion that the process of making contact with each individual in the group necessarily generated the sense of the whole. Once each member of the group has been inwardly acknowledged and a feeling of ensemble has been established, the group then makes a selection of three or four simple actions. Chekhov suggests things such as ‘walking quietly around the room’, ‘running’ or ‘changing places’.29 Initially, the workshop leader may offer some help in determining appropriate actions. Once these have been decided, each actor, attempting to maintain the openness and contact, the ensemble feeling, of the previous part of the exercise, tries to sense which of the options the group is going to choose and see if they can all perform it at the same time. ­Chekhov acknowledges that there will be mistakes and that it may take several attempts before the group manages to perform the action ­collectively (and without consultation of any kind). The importance of this phase of the exercise is that it develops the sense of ensemble and encourages the actors to continue with their attempts at being open to each other. The third phase of the exercise is a group improvisation where a theme and setting are identified, various roles are allocated and a specific time limit is decided. The group decides the initial starting points and the end point but do not plan out the action. The preparatory work on ensemble feeling now finds its first application to a theatrical moment. By working first on a willingness to accept the contributions of each individual and developing sensitivity to each other’s impulses, the actors have prepared the ground for working together in an improvisation. This preparation, however, is no guarantee for success, and Chekhov warns that the first attempt is likely to be ‘chaotic’ even though good preparatory work has been done. Once the first attempt at the improvisation has been made, the actors run it again without discussion. The improvisation

Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 42.

29

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

87

is repeated until it ‘assumes the appearance of a well-rehearsed sketch’,30 but although the sequence has become relatively fixed, the actors are still free to improvise within the confines of the collectively devised piece. Chekhov discusses this exercise in considerably more detail and it is the core group exercise in the book. It isn’t the only exercise on group work devised by Chekhov and the 1991 edition of To the Actor, which was re-edited by Mala Powers and Mel Gordon and published as On the Technique of Acting, contains several more. There are also those listed by Deirdre Hurst du Prey as well as exercises passed on from teacher to student. Nonetheless, it is the case that there are far fewer group exercises than individual ones in the Chekhov technique, although it must always be borne in mind that many of the exercises which might be practiced by the lone actor would also be performed within the context of a group.

Expanding the concept of ensemble The concept of the ensemble was always a central one for Chekhov and the enhanced interpersonal receptivity, which was essential to the formation of an ensemble, was extended into further dimensions. This requires a shift away from simply thinking of an ensemble as a group of actors. For example, we might consider each actor as an ensemble of body and psychology, or explore the ‘ensemble’ of actor and character and actors and space. The opening pages of To the Actor, for example, are concerned with the relationship between the actor’s body and psychology. Chekhov notes the rarity of finding people whose body and psychology are in harmony but claims that it is the task of the actor to attempt to harmonize body and psychology. Just as the actors have to be sensitive to the subtlest impulses from their colleagues, the individual actor’s body has to be extremely sensitive to the ‘psychological creative impulses’.31 In other words, the actor must strive to create an ensemble of body and psychology and Chekhov’s

Ibid., p. 44. Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 32.

30 31

88

Encountering Ensemble

psychophysical techniques are designed to facilitate the development and maintenance of such an ensemble. The first exercise in To the Actor involves making large and simple movements in the space with significant energy but without muscular strain, in other words, moving with a Feeling of Ease. Then, he suggests that the actor stands in a fully open position, a star shape, and imagine that the body continues to extend beyond, becoming larger and larger. This is followed by a complementary movement where the body is closed, arms across the chest with hands on the shoulders, and the actor imagines becoming smaller and smaller. These two movements contribute to the harmonization of mind and body, but not simply by making the person present in the action of the body, but by energetically extending the psychophysical ensemble into space. The Golden Hoop exercise discussed by du Prey is an example of this kind of work being done as a group: once the actors have established a rapport, they move down together, lift an imaginary golden hoop ‘in unison’ and throw it upwards imagining it moving through the roof and ‘up into the sky’.32 The first eight exercises in To the Actor address this kind of psychophysical attunement. There were other layers of the psyche to which Chekhov considered the actor should be attuned and he addresses some of these in the second chapter of To the Actor. To begin with, Chekhov discusses the experience of resting at the end of the day and being receptive to the memories and images that arise. Chekhov identifies three levels of image. First, there are the memories of the day, then there are slightly altered memories from the past, and then, finally, there are images that are unknown to the individual. This third level is that of the Creative Imagination. At first, the actor is passive, and is drawn into the lives of the images of the Creative Imagination, which seem to exist independently, but eventually the actor’s feelings are awoken and there is an impulse to action.33 While these ‘Creative Images’ follow their own lines of development independent of the actor’s will, Chekhov insisted that the actor actively collaborating with the Creative Image by asking questions ‘as you 32 Du Prey, Deirdre Hurst, The Training Sessions of Michael Chekhov. Dartington: Theatre Papers, 1978. p. 6. 33 Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. pp. 21–2.

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

89

would ask questions of a friend’.34 Chekhov links this process to that of working on a character and uses the example of an actor working on Malvolio in Twelfth Night: Suppose you want to study the moment when Malvolio approaches Olivia in the garden, after having received a mysterious letter which he supposes to be “from her”. Here is where you begin to ask questions such as “Show me, Malvolio: how would you enter the gates of the garden and with a smile move toward your ‘sweet lady’?” The question immediately incites the image of Malvolio to action.35 This example is not one where the actor is simply following a daydream of Malvolio in the scene, nor is it one where the actor imposes anything on the character. There is a process of question and answer, of collaboration between actor and image, which involves the actor’s active receptivity. It isn’t the case, for Chekhov, that the character exists in some stable form of representation which the actor simply copies; the actor is concerned to find a form for the character that suits the interpretation of the play. In the account of the work with Malvolio, the actor is the one who initiates the conversation with the character, but it could be the other way around and the character could initiate the conversation. Chekhov recorded a moment when Don Quixote appeared to his inner vision and declared: ‘There is a need to play me . . .’.36 Either way, what is important here is that the character that appears on the stage can be seen to be an ensemble of actor and image where neither can be reduced to the other. The sensitivity of actors to each other extends, then, to their sensitivity to the information and impulses received from the character, which are developed in relation to the production decisions made by the director. In addition, this process of characterization doesn’t necessitate disregarding the text created by the playwright, nor does it involve a passive acceptance of it. In the expanded Ibid., p. 23. Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 23. 36 Quoted in Kirillov, Andrei, ‘Michael Chekhov and the Search for the “Ideal” Theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August 2006): 230. 34 35

90

Encountering Ensemble

ensemble so far, then, we have actors, characters, director and text. The playwright may also be counted as an implicit or an explicit member of the ensemble depending on the circumstances of the production. In addition, Chekhov stated that actors needed to create a ‘feeling of ensemble’ with the room, the objects in it, and the audience.37 He provides exercises to explore these aspects of the work as well. Ideally, all aspects of a production are brought together in one seamless whole. In Chekhov’s view, if the actors are not in contact with each other, the space and the audience, they will not be present in the performance. Contact, open-heartedness, atmosphere, creative improvisation, character, imagination and presence are all bundled together in Chekhov’s sense of ensemble feeling, which requires a conscious choice and a commitment from the actors in order to develop effectively. In other words, Chekhov doesn’t assume that an ensemble feeling will be naturally present, nor emerge as an inevitable by-product of working together, but requires the conscious development of a collective ethos. The feeling of ensemble is important whether a group of actors are working on a pre-scripted play with a director or are collectively devising their own work. In fact, Chekhov argued that it was important even if just one actor was aware of its significance. According to Chekhov, if an individual actor could open his or her heart towards another actor in a scene, it would have a positive effect even if the person whose presence was being received didn’t know the technique and couldn’t reciprocate (at least not consciously).

Ensemble in production Chekhov’s attempts to form a stable and long-lasting ensemble were thwarted by events outside of his control. The most promising situation was when he moved to Dartington, but the outbreak of the Second World War put an end to that. Ridgefield looked promising

37 Powers, Mala, Michael Chekhov: On Theatre and the Art of Acting – A Guide to Discovery with Exercises (4CDs). New York: Applause, 2004. Disk 4, Track 9.

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

91

and he managed to extend the work he’d done at Dartington but the entry of the US into the war following the attack on Pearl Harbour, on 7 December 1941, eventually led to the dissolution of both the school and the company, although it wasn’t until October 1942 that the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Ridgefield closed its doors. By that time, however, the company had produced The Possessed on Broadway and toured Twelfth Night, The Cricket on the Hearth, King Lear and Troublemaker-Doublemaker. Reviews of The Possessed, which opened at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, on 24 October 1939, suggest that the actors were inexperienced and, to some extent, lacking a Feeling of Ease, which inhibited their contact with the audience. In general though, the quality of the ensemble was praised.38 Brooks Atkinson, in The New York Times, however, described Chekhov as a despotic director who had destroyed the spirit of the actors. But even Atkinson admitted that the longest and most complex ensemble scene in the production was ‘brilliant’ and having the ‘genius of theatricality’.39 Of course, it is unfair to compare Chekhov’s young company with an established ensemble such as the Moscow Art Theatre or Copeau’s company in Paris but we can see Chekhov’s approach bearing fruit at this early stage. After The Possessed, the company returned to their training at Ridgefield and prepared two new productions, Twelfth Night and The Cricket on the Hearth. Rebranded as the Chekhov Theatre Players, the company toured 15 states in the autumn of 1940 with the two productions before returning to Ridgefield to add King Lear and Troublemaker-Doublemaker to their repertoire. After taking the repertoire out on tour once again, the company returned to Broadway with Twelfth Night (which unfortunately opened on the same day that the US delared war on Japan). The company were quite open about their ensemble ethos in the publicity for the shows. For example, the Playbill for the Little Theatre, included the statement that the Chekhov Theatre Players See, for example, Byckling, Liisa, ‘Pages from the Past: The Possessed produced by Michael Chekhov on Broadway in 1939’, Slavic and East European Performance, Vol.  15, No.  2 (1995): 32–45; Chamberlain, Franc, Michael Chekhov. London: Routledge, 2004. pp. 83–104. 39 Chamberlain, Franc, Michael Chekhov. London: Routledge, 2004. pp. 92–3. 38

92

Encountering Ensemble

were founded in the belief that ‘a group, or ensemble theatre, offered the greatest opportunity for developing their craft’ and: It is the policy of the Chekhov Theatre Players not to star or feature any one performer because of their desire to have the company recognized and judged as an entity in itself. They believe that, important though the individual performance is, ensemble acting is the highest development of theatrical art.40 Of course, it is one thing to make a statement of aims and an altogether different to realize those aims. There are several reviews of Twelfth Night, both on the 1940 tour and during the Little Theatre run of 1941, which highlight and celebrate the ensemble work. For example, Stark Young wrote: ‘On the whole, however, the best thing about the performance is . . . the ensemble playing’ going on to note that while ensemble playing sounds like ‘the simplest thing in the world’, readers need only cast their mind over Shakespearean performances they had recently seen to understand both the difficulty and rarity of effective ensemble performance.41 Other reviewers picked up some of the broader sense of ensemble: [Chekhov] uses “grips and prop-men”  .  .  .  in period costumes as integral parts of the production. They whirl the scenery into new arrangements before the audience’s eyes in synchronization with the movement of the play, thus gaining pace and providing novelty.42 This use of stagehands as an integral part of the production recalls some of Meyerhold’s work, but was quite a novelty outside of Russia. This observation that the stagehands were attuned to the rhythm of the play, not simply dressed in period costumes while carrying out their tasks, indicates that there was a broader feeling of ensemble in play. The Playbill for the Little Theatre, 8 December 1941. Marowitz, Charles, The Other Chekhov: A Biography, the Legendary Actor, Director & Theorist. New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2004. p. 90. 42 Coleman, Robert, ‘Chekhov Troupe has Amusing, Clever, Twelfth Night’, Daily Mirror, Wednesday 24 July 1940. 40 41

MICHAEL CHEKHOV’S ENSEMBLE FEELING

93

Closing words While Chekhov’s work at Dartington and Ridgefield was left incomplete and the passing on of his techniques were left to individual students after his death, rather than an ensemble, there remain ways of working that are included in his writings and, in addition, have been passed down from teacher to student for the past 50  years. While it is true that more can be learned from a teacher who is an expert in the technique, the exercises described in To the Actor can be explored by anyone and tested for their contemporary relevance. The rapidity with which a basic level of ensemble feeling can be established in a group is often surprising for those new to Chekhov’s approach.

Chapter Four

Star or Team? Theodore Komisarjevsky’s early developments in ensemble playing in the United Kingdom Jonathan Pitches

It is difficult to speculate how often the word ‘ensemble’ had been used in the British theatre before 1919 – the date of the Russian-born, Theodore Komisarjevsky’s debut as a director in England.1 But it is clear that this foreign word was by no means part of the vernacular. While there may have been isolated examples of group-oriented theatre practices in previous centuries – ­Shakespeare’s company and the Victorian family troupe for instance2 – by the  end of the nineteenth century, and well into the first decades of the twentieth century, the theatre was He directed an Opera, Prince Igor, at Covent Garden (24 November 1919). Simon Shepherd, Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 68.

1 2

STAR OR TEAM?

95

dominated by charismatic individuals, entrepreneurs and impresarios. As Simon Shepherd suggests in his section on ensemble in the Modern British Theatre: In the dominant British Theatre tradition of the 1920s and 1930s ensemble playing was a rare thing.3 Shepherd rightly identifies Michel Saint-Denis’ challenge to this individualistic hangover from the days of the actor-managers: another émigré director working in London in the period. SaintDenis, of course, founded the London Theatre Studio and is credited with introducing Jacques Copeau and Stanislavski’s ensemble principles to the British theatre establishment, working alongside the native-born George Devine. But, in highlighting the Frenchman’s hand in challenging a commercial star system, Shepherd overlooks the figure of Komisarjevsky, who as early as 1925, was demanding a different training for the British actor based firmly on notions of ‘common understanding  .  .  .  team work or “the ensemble”’4 and with whom the young Devine learnt his craft, at least four  years before he began collaborating with Saint-Denis.5 Komisarjevsky preached the spirit of ensemble with missionary zeal, spreading the word across the range of his activities: in his conservatoire teaching at RADA, in newspaper interviews and in his approach as a director. Given the extraordinary access he had to some of the interwar British theatre heavyweights – John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Charles Laughton, Edith Evans, Martita Hunt, Claude Rains and, as noted, George Devine – it would be foolish to underestimate the impact of this evangelism on the modern British theatre, and on what Shepherd calls the ‘twin elements’ of ensemble: organization and aesthetic effect.6 Shepherd’s simple distinction is Ibid. Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, p. 123. He taught at RADA from 1925 to 1928. 5 Devine starred in Komisarjevsky’s 1932 production of Le Cocu Magnifique at the London Theatre Studio, which ran from 1936 to 1939. In fact, Devine had heard of Komisarjevsky’s work at Oxford as early as 1930, grilling Peter Bayne about Komis’s OUDS production of Fourteenth of July in which Bayne had acted. Cf. Irving Wardle, The Theatres of George Devine, London: Jonathan Cape, 1978, p. 19. 6 Simon Shepherd, Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 73. 3 4

96

Encountering Ensemble

helpful in this context for it separates out the conditions necessary for the promotion of ensemble from its reception by an audience or critic; Komisarjevsky had a contribution to make to both areas, as we shall see. At the same time, the distinction foregrounds a debate about the relationship between the two: how far do principles of ensemble organization (including training, rehearsal and institutional context) impact on the theatrical product and its appreciation by a contemporary audience? My aim in this chapter is therefore threefold: to introduce Komisarjevsky as an artist with specific reference to his own definition of ensemble; to consider his contribution to organizational aspects of ensemble (some of which remained unrealized in this country); and to examine the look of some of his ensemble productions – the aesthetic effect. This will help me ultimately evaluate the interplay between the two categories and to assess the contribution of Komisarjevsky’s ensemble ideas in the context of interwar Britain.

Komisarjevsky and the ideal ensemble7 Komis, as the Russian director became known in the United Kingdom, came to the country with a quite glittering curriculum vitae, even if the people with whom he had worked were not, at that stage, household names in British theatre circles – as they undoubtedly are now. Half-brother to Vera Komissarzhevskaya, he joined her theatre in St Petersburg just as Vsevolod Meyerhold was causing a stir as the invited director of her experimental production house, the Dramatic Theatre. A trained architect with skills as a draughtsman, Komis acted as scenic design assistant for Meyerhold before he, himself, took up the reins after Komissarzhevskaya dismissed the innovative theatre director in 1907. His father, an opera singer, had trained Stanislavski a generation earlier and Komis maintained a love–hate relationship with the founder of the Moscow Arts theatre throughout his time in Russia, at once criticizing his System and appropriating some of its keystone principles. In 1913, he founded his own training space, the ‘Free’ Studio, and this ran in various For a more extended introduction to Komisarjevsky as a practitioner see my essay: ‘A Tradition in Transition: Komisarjevsky’s Seduction of the British Theatre’, in Pitches, Jonathan (ed.), Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Acting, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012, pp. 13–37.

7

STAR OR TEAM?

97

guises until 1919, along with an intimate theatre founded in the name of his sister; Meyerhold, in fact, took over the space Komis was using in that final year in Russia – the Zon theatre – and it became RSFSR Theatre number 1, a venue of great importance in a parallel theatre history.8 His own writings (four books in all) are the best place to find a working definition of the ensemble before we go on to examine how much this operated in practice. In an otherwise highly contentious and reactionary opening to his book, The Theatre and a Changing Civilization (1935), Komis outlined what he called the basic elements of theatrical art: Dramatic action expressed by the synthesis of an ensemble of players and of different arts.9 Despite its brevity, this definition is actually rather instructive: first it tells us that Komis’s vision is not solely confined to the actor (it embraces the rest of the theatrical arts too) and secondly it introduces a favourite word of his – ‘synthesis’. In truth, these are connected: it is the task of the actor to position himself or herself at the heart of this synthesis which, in ideal terms, would override the traditional boundaries of the performing arts. He elaborates in the earlier book, Myself and the Theatre: This division of the art of the Theatre into drama, opera and ballet is purely artificial and enforced, and perfection in Theatrical art can be achieved only by a synthetic union of the drama, opera and ballet in one single show, in which each of these would be the complement of the other, which would be performed by an ensemble of universal actors.10 These ‘universal actors’ were very different in conception from the ‘triple threat’,11 all-singing, all-dancing performers associated with See Robert Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, London: Routledge, 1994, p. 61. Theodore Komisarjevsky, The Theatre and a Changing Civilization, London: Bodley Head, 1935, p. 11. Three pages later he celebrates what he calls: ‘the all penetrating genius of Mussolini’, p. 14. 10 Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, pp. 144–5. 11 Triple threat is a term used both in sport and the arts to indicate excellence in three related skills, so in this context, singing, dancing and acting. 8 9

98

Encountering Ensemble

the Musical Theatre tradition – a commercial model that Komis derided. Instead, Komisarjevsky’s ensemble vision was based on several layers of connectivity: first the actors must be ‘innerly connected’12 to each other, irrespective of the weight of their part; second, as noted, they must be in harmony with the other elements of the mise-en-scene (‘costume, “props”, scenery, lighting, sound and music’13); third this synthesis of actor, environment and atmosphere must connect with the audience. As he states in Myself: ‘all of the arts utilized on the stage of the Synthetic Theatre should convey simultaneously the same feelings and ideas to the spectator’.14 Komis’ definition of ensemble was both inclusive and demanding, then, and it remains to be seen how successful he was in organizing the conditions to support this universal model, or how it was received by audiences. I will examine both of these areas in turn.

Ensemble organization For those who only know Komisarjevsky through his most visible contribution to British theatre history – six notorious and traditionbreaking productions at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre from 1932–3915 – it might seem strange to identify his contribution to the period as ensemble focused. Indeed, these now well-known productions16 in many ways symbolize a model of anti-ensemble, characterized as they were by very short rehearsal periods and compensatory stage settings, as elaborate as they were contentious. Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, p. 123. For Komis, this idea of being innerly connected relates back to his half-sister Vera’s belief in a common understanding and sensitivity borne from actors training together over many years. Cf. Pitches, Russians in Britain, p. 20. 13 The Theatre and a Changing Civilization, p. 21. 14 Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, p. 149. 15 There were, in fact, nine productions in this period but three were revivals. 16 See Ralph Berry, ‘Komisarjevsky at Stratford-upon-Avon’, Shakespeare Survey, Volume 36: Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century, Ed. Stanley Wells, Cambridge Collections Online, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 73–85; Michael Mullin, ‘Augures and Understood Relations: Theodore Komisarjevsky’s “Macbeth”’, Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1974): 20–30; and R. Mennen, ‘Theodore Komisarjevsky’s Production of “Merchant of Venice”’, Theatre Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1979): 386–97. 12

STAR OR TEAM?

99

In one media outlet of the time, Komis described them as ‘artists’ sketches’, rather than considered longitudinal projects,17 which, although overly dismissive as an assessment, does explain why these famous stage pieces are not best analysed under the banner of ensemble work. Instead, one needs to look outside of the largescale theatre context in Stratford to understand how Komis went about establishing a supportive environment for his ideals and to focus on specific examples of his practice. I will discuss two areas of organization in this chapter: (i) his ideas for a training school (realized in Russia but consistently frustrated in the United Kingdom); and (ii) his directorial approach in intimate theatres and amateur contexts. In a fascinating interview conducted by the Manchester Guardian in 1932, Komisarjevsky made his thoughts on actor training and its relationship to production work clear. In a section entitled ‘Star or Team’, the following distinction is drawn: There are, [Komisarjevsky] says, two kinds of theatre, the theatre of the individual actor and the theatre of a team of actors. By the first he means the production in which the star performer is everything, like a great virtuoso in music. The other theatre, where teamwork is everything, is in his view the ideal medium for artistic interpretation.18 But this ‘ideal medium’ can only be achieved by creating the right conditions for the actors: It cannot succeed unless the actors not only work but are trained together . . . The ideal theatre should be “a laboratory for actors” whose members work together for a long time, more or less irrespective of productions, experimenting with new methods and so forth.19 Way ahead of his time, Komis had made a similar argument just months after arriving in the country in 1920, calling for a teaching Komisarjevsky made this assessment of his Shakespeare production work in Play Pictorial (April 1936, p.  10). Cf. Tony Howard, ‘Blood on the Bright Young Things: Shakespeare in the 1930s’, in British Theatre Between the Wars, 1918–1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 152. 18 ‘A Producer on his Art: Komisarjevsky and British Theatres’, The Manchester Guardian, 27 December 1932, p. 9. 19 ‘A Producer on his Art’, p. 9. 17

100

Encountering Ensemble

that was based on the ‘psychological interplay between two or more persons’20 and rooted in the training methods his actors had received under his tutelage in Moscow. The article reports claims that Komis was ‘starting a school of opera, drama, song interpretation and ballet which will begin work in a week or two’,21 but sadly this initiative, along with all the other plans Komis made to realize his aspiration of a theatre laboratory in interwar Britain, came to nothing. For evidence of the training schema that he did manage to establish, we can turn to the American theatre critic Oliver Sayler, who witnessed the operations of Komis’s Moscow school in 1918, four years into its existence. Here, an ideal interplay of theatre and school was exploited, inspiring a meritocracy of actors looking for stage exposure and experience: I saw the school running side by side with [the theatre], providing actors from its advanced ranks for the smaller roles on the stage in the theatre. It is the director’s policy to advance his pupils as rapidly as they display progress and there is therefore an intensity and freshness and rivalry to be seen in many of the productions due to the effort of these students to justify advancement.22 This model of healthy competition for places seems more akin to the management of a football team, at least for a twenty-first century audience, but is interesting to consider alongside Komis’ other training principles. Far from creating a set of limelightseeking egoists, this approach seems to have achieved its aim of constantly renewing the energy of the wider ensemble (often a perceived downfall of long-standing companies, where the safety of the long-term contract and assured roles can lead to creative stagnation). For Sayler, the energy radiated by the competing cast was clearly palpable and this should serve as an important reminder that ‘ensemble’ is not a synonym for ‘cosy’. In fact, this approach, coupled with the other techniques that Komis used to develop the universal actor, was part of a community ethos he took from his Ibid. ‘The play and the Actor: A Russian Producer and His Theories, The Observer, 18 January 1920, p. 8. 22 Oliver Sayler, The Russian Theatre, New York: Brentano’s, 1922, p. 182. 20 21

STAR OR TEAM?

101

sister, Vera, although it was an understanding of community based on inbuilt hierarchy, drawing on several European examples: She [Vera] came to the conclusion – to which in their time came Stanislavsky, Eleanor Duse, Copeau and my humble self, that a theatre of ideas needs interpreters who have been brought up on the ideas and methods of that particular theatre. Every such theatre must be like a community following a “master”.23 Thus, for Komisarjevsky, ensemble training was achieved by several fundamentals coming together, principles that were reflected in the practices of the Russian and French traditions of theatre but which had yet to settle in a British context: a deep and enduring training in a school led by a charismatic master and aligned with a main stage offering performance opportunities based on merit. Stanislavski developed several studios in Moscow to realize similar aims, and later Saint-Denis and George Devine’s London Theatre Studio (or LTS – founded in  1935) shared many of these characteristics but Komis was the first in England to visualize such a harmonious relationship between a holistic actor training and a theatre. Compare the descriptions of Komis’s ideal ensemble training above with Jane Baldwin’s of the LTS: Saint-Denis believed that a drama school and a permanent theatre company committed to research should exist in symbiosis, one nourishing the other.  .  .  . At LTS all aspects of the instruction [acting, design, stage management and technical theatre] were integrated.24 Setting aside for the time being the question of why his ideas for a training school did not catch on in England, what was it that Komisarjevsky did, organizationally, to achieve an ensemble ethos as a director in the absence of a training space? First, being alive to the many restrictions associated with the commercial theatre sector, he sought out alternative opportunities Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, p. 82. 24 Michel Saint-Denis, Theatre the Rediscovery of Style, ed. Jane Baldwin, Abingdon: Routledge: 2009, p. 10. 23

102

Encountering Ensemble

that allowed him time to work with his actors. This led to the famous season of Barnes Theatre Chekhov productions, where he was paid very little but could spend considered time inculcating a collective identity for his cast. He also worked in various amateur contexts with the same idea of securing extended rehearsal times, including the Oxford University Drama Society, where he directed King Lear and The Fourteenth of July. Second, he treated his rehearsals as a training ground for his actors, introducing ideas of play analysis and character motivation and developing a sense of depth and complexity through sometimes very subtle directorial nudges. As an embedded researcher from the Observer witnessed in Komis’s rehearsals for the Seagull in 1936: He is the quietest of producers. I have never heard him give an actor an “intonation” or say how a line should be spoken. He will discuss what the character is feeling and leave it to the actor to work out. But at the end of a few weeks with him there is more underlying unity and rhythm in everything that happens on stage than most other producers approach.25 Third, he selected his repertoire carefully to achieve these aims, trading off his Russian origins to become the interpreter of Chekhov in the 1920s. As Peggy Ashcroft (his one-time wife and lead actress in his 1936 production of the Seagull) identified 30 years later in a Times article: ‘Chekhov’s work is . . . totally based on ensemble, completely orchestrated’.26 And finally, he used his talents judiciously to realize his ideal of a synthetic theatre, exploiting lighting, setting and stage composition with dexterous and musical control, and establishing a compositional framework for each of his signature productions in which the ensemble could thrive, even without a four-year training.

Ensemble aesthetics So, how was such a strong compositional hand as director perceived by contemporary audiences? How, in short, was the quality of Komis’s ensemble read? It is perhaps instructive to look at Komis’s The Observer, Sunday 10 May 1936, p. 13. The Times, 1 February 1960, p. 3.

25 26

STAR OR TEAM?

103

own assessment of his approach before answering this question, as this makes clear how he intended to engage his audience and, at the same time, reminds us of the ensemble ideals with which we began this chapter. In Myself and the Theatre, Komis makes his holistic conception of ensemble explicit, differentiating his project from the naturalistic, symbolist and biomechanical theatres: To make a fully harmonious impression on the audience a Synthetic Theatre requires something entirely new in the matter of décor – something dynamic in place of what is at present static. In the realistic Theatre the sets merely serve as an indication of locality; in the symbolic Theatre, as a “picture”, expressive perhaps of the mood of one single moment of the performance, but not in keeping with the different moods of other moments; in the so-called “biomechanical” Theatre, as a static construction devised for the purposes of moving and placing the actors. The dynamic rhythm of the music expressed by the action should be reflected in the dynamic environment of the actor. The dynamic décor of the Synthetic Theatre should be in harmony with the music and the ensemble of performers.27 Thus, in Komis’s vision, a dynamic synthetic theatre is the glue to bind actor, audience, mise-en-scene and music together. Though he did not have the ideal infrastructure in place in England to train his actors, he ‘always had those ideas in [his] mind when producing a play’, he claims.28 Later in his book, he relates this to one of his most lauded productions: The big success of my production of “The Three Sisters” in ­London at the Barnes Theatre was largely due to the fact that I evolved the way to convey Chekhov’s inner meaning and made the rhythm of the “music” of the play blend with the rhythm of the movements of the actors, giving the necessary accents with the lighting and the various outer “effects”.29 The hierarchy of thinking is important here – this is an actorcentred view of the theatre, where production aesthetics are driven Theodore Komisarjevsky, Myself and the Theatre, London: Heinemann, 1929, pp. 147–8. 28 Ibid., p. 171. 29 Ibid., p. 172. 27

104

Encountering Ensemble

by the needs and communicative capacities of the actor, not the other way round. Even though he was a designer and architect first, Komis’s sensitivity for the processes of performance remained strong throughout his career and his prioritization of the actor was consistent. Even when he was talking as a designer, in his historic survey, The Costume of the Theatre (1932), he did not forget this principle: ‘The essential part of the work of a producing director is to interpret a play by means of the acting of single actors and of the ensemble of actors and not by the invention of the scenic environment’.30 Such a clear statement of intent gives the lie to Laurence Senelick’s assessment that in his productions it was ‘form first, then emotion’ and that he was ‘uninterested in subtext or three-dimensional characterizations’.31 But, how did this translate to his audiences? With 56 productions (including revivals) to his name in the 20 years that Komisarjevsky was working in the United Kingdom, there are inevitably mixed reactions to his work from critics.32 A focus on some of the notable productions he directed for the stage societies and intimate theatres mentioned above should suffice to evidence the impact his ensemble work made on audiences new to foreign directors. This is not to imply that all of his productions achieved the kinds of response identified below – indeed there are examples of disastrous reviews, including those for the infamous Antony and Cleopatra (1936) at the New Theatre.33 But it is to argue that a significant minority of his productions, made in these specialized environments, drew near to the ideals Komis had set himself, drawing on his experience in Russia. Consider the Times critic on Komisarjevsky’s revival of Chekhov’s Vanya: It is a pleasure to see Uncle Vanya again, revived by the Stage Society in a much better English version than that used for the presentation of 1912 and with the advantage of “production” 30 Theodore Komisarjevsky, The Costume of the Theatre, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932, p. 154. 31 Laurence Senelick, The Chekhov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 156. 32 Ralph Berry lists all the Komis productions from 1919–39 in his article, ‘Komisarjevsky in Britain’, Theatrephile, Vol. 2, No. 5 (1984/85): 20–1. 33 ‘Seldom has a play been so tormented and twisted and stifled or a work of genius been so causally scorned’, The Times, 15 October 1936.

STAR OR TEAM?

105

by a Russian who knows all about it, Mr Komisarjevsky. The atmosphere  .  .  .  remains uncontaminatedly Russian or rather Chekovian [sic]. And it remains one atmosphere, an all-important point. For here it is the atmosphere that constitutes the unity of the play – its preservative from the mere haphazard incoherence which English disciples mistake for Chekovism.34 Five years later, Komisarjevsky – the Chekhov ‘expert’ who had never directed Chekhov before he came to the United Kingdom – was making the same impact at the tiny Barnes Theatre in West London run by Philip Ridgeway: It requires the highest imaginative powers to read Chekhov without missing the rhythm of his moods, and the work that Mr Komisarjevsky is doing in London now is to bring us the Moscow tradition of production, which goes back to the time of Chekhov’s actual companionship with Stanislavsky’s team of players. Not one in a hundred playgoers could in his privacy conceive the beauty that Mr Komisarjevsky throws over these plays . . . [He] has an able team at Barnes now but he gets more than ability out of them. He stirs the sparks in their English bodies and translates them  .  .  .  to the Russian world of fitful moods, swift ecstasies and menacing life weariness.35 Again it is Komisarjevky’s Russianness, which is highlighted and once more it is assumed by the critic, Ivor Brown, that Komis was part of the Chekhovian tradition begun in Moscow by Stanislavski’s revival of the Seagull at the Moscow Arts in 1898. He was not – although he did witness his half-sister as Nina in the first production of The Seagull at the Aleksandrinsky Imperial Theatre in  1896. Komis did not, in fact, bring Moscow Arts teaching to England, nor was he translating Stanislavski’s principles of staging into the British theatre. He was realizing his own vision of an ensemble, acting-centric theatre, exploiting the longer rehearsal times and the greater artistic autonomy afforded to him by an off-West End context. Central to this was the intelligent manipulation of the stage space and its lighting, in the service of the actor. The Times, 29 November 1921, p. 8. The Manchester Guardian, 18 February 1926, p. 18.

34 35

106

Encountering Ensemble

Another five years later in 1931, this synthesis of actor and setting was celebrated by an actor who was central to the Barnes season, John Gielgud, who played Tuzenbakh in the 1926 Three Sisters. Commissioning Komis to direct Ronald Mackenzie’s Musical Chairs, again for an intimate stage space, Gielgud recognized the intuitive relationships Komis made between motivation and setting: There was originally an outdoor scene in the second act when the oil-well catches fire. This would have been difficult to stage in a small theatre. Besides, Komis thought the change to an exterior setting would destroy the feeling of claustrophobia  .  .  .  So in the end the whole play was acted in the one interior scene. Komis devised this himself .  .  .  Mackenzie had written a very conventional curtain to the second act which Komis developed into something subtle and original without adding a word, merely by the atmosphere which he created with pauses and effective lighting and grouping.36 This sensitivity to the stage environment as an acting stimulus also benefited Gielgud directly as he recounts in his autobiography, Early Stages: He was brilliantly clever in the way he helped me too. The plot of the play concerns a consumptive young pianist whose fiancée had been killed in an air raid . . . At the first rehearsal Komis led me to the middle of the stage to explain the arrangement of the furniture. “There is your piano, and there on it is the photograph of that girl who was killed. Build your performance around those two things”.37 There are many more reviews of Komis’s work during this period and they point to a consistent quality in his small-scale productions that was seldom evident in the larger-scale work he did (with the one exception of the West End Seagull he directed with Peggy ­Ashcroft and Gielgud, again in 1936). This quality was a combination of subtle atmospheric control (achieved by delicate lighting and ingenious settings) with nuanced performances from his actors, who

John Gielgud, Early Stages, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987, p. 121. Early Stages, p. 121.

36 37

STAR OR TEAM?

107

were encouraged to develop their characterization as part of a wider dynamic stage environment. Thus, Komis’s threefold understanding of ensemble outlined at the beginning of this chapter – inner connection between performers, synthesis with the settings and close relationship with the audience – was achieved, at least in one strand of his directorial career in Britain.

Komisarjevsky’s contribution to the British understanding of ensemble It remains, then, to sketch the significance of this set of ensemble practices, both from an organizational and aesthetic perspective, and to trace how actors and directors picked up these ideas after the Second World War. Before I do, though, there is one unanswered set of questions: why did Komis’s ideas for training ensemble never bear fruit in Britain? Why could they not succeed in London, when they were highly developed during his time in Russia and surfaced again in the acting schools he founded in New England, when he moved there in  1939? What was it that made the ground so fallow in the United Kingdom? There are several answers to these questions. First, the idea of ensemble itself, as has been shown, was alien in a British context where the reign of the actor-manager, though on the wane after the First World War, had fundamentally determined the theatre culture.38 Komis was a decade too early in calling for a theatre founded on ensemble in  1920. Secondly, he lacked the finance to establish his own school without help from the State and was not sufficiently connected politically, or influential in the early conservatoire sector, to secure such support. He was a visiting teacher at RADA, not any kind of key player. Thirdly, he lacked the skills in diplomacy and negotiation; he was irascible and condemnatory of the mainstream theatre scene in Britain, particularly the commercial sector. Although he partnered up with several theatre impresarios, he lacked the staying power to turn these into actual concrete projects. Even his eight  years cf. Clive Barker, ‘Theatre and Society: The Edwardian Legacy’, in British Theatre Between the Wars, eds. Clive Barker and Maggie Gale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 17.

38

108

Encountering Ensemble

at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was a series of short-term seasonal contracts, and each year he had to wait to see if he was invited again the next year. Finally, and relatedly, he never found a permanent partner or collaborator who was inside the culture he sought to influence – the equivalent of George Devine for Michel Saint-Denis. While he was in Britain, he struck up a friendship with actress Phyllada Sewell and called on her after he left the United Kingdom to provide material help, but Sewell was not sufficiently immersed in the theatre scene of London to influence its developments; she was just starting out herself. The landscape was simply not right, then, for a shift in teaching emphasis and a wholesale embracing of the ensemble as he had envisaged it. But this is not to say that his ideas failed to take root in some form. There are several means by which Komis’s ensemble practices became absorbed into the British theatre scene, after he left in 1939, some of which are now part of the established theatre history of Britain, with the development of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court being the most obvious example. If Philip Roberts’ assessment of the Court is to be believed, that ‘no other company has had a comparable effect on post-war theatre writing and production’,39 then understanding Komis is to help make sense of the modern British stage and its ambivalent attitude to training. Again, the relationship of school to theatre dominates this story and again it is necessary to relocate Komisarjevsky in the lineage of ideas which led to the founding of the London Theatre Studio and later the Old Vic Theatre School. Irving Wardle makes this clear: According to Marius Goring, [Devine] “clung to” Komisarjevsky for several years, absorbing two beliefs which shaped his career. First, that good work can often be done by stealth inside a philistine system; second, that the theatre can only fully escape from bondage through the growth of like-minded companies with acting schools attached. If Komisarjevsky had had a company, no doubt Devine would have joined: but the Russian had put that kind of idealistic slog behind him, and was living up to the hilt as a meteoric free-lance.40 39 Phillip Roberts, The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. xiii. 40 Wardle, p. 27.

STAR OR TEAM?

109

Whether Wardle’s assessment of Komis’s choice ultimately to reject a school-theatre model is correct remains to be seen and this chapter I hope serves at least to question that notion. But the centrality of Komis’s influence on Devine’s thinking – shap[ing] his career’ – is persuasive and helps balance the traditional story of Devine’s sole dependency on Saint-Denis for the pragmatics of theatre training. True, the details of the actual training methods taught at the LTS were determined by Saint-Denis (with Devine and Byam Shaw) but the imperative to see these in a larger organizational context was part of Komis’s contribution to Devine’s thinking and the Englishman pursued this urge until the debacle of the Old Vic Theatre School in 1952. It is worth recalling the details of this failed project because the rejection of an ensemble training and production ethos at the Old Vic, established by Devine and Saint-Denis but so in keeping with many of Komis’s principles, ironically returns us to the central dialectic of this chapter, inscribed in the interview Komis did for the Manchester Guardian in 1932. Ewan Jeffery explains this tension, quoting the Arts Council governors’ statement in The Times in 1951, which led to Saint-Denis’s departure, ultimately from Britain: It is the governors’ view that the great parts in classical drama can adequately be played only by artists of exceptional personality, if standard is to be maintained [at the Old Vic]. It is their intention to develop leading artists inside their companies but at the same time the director must feel himself free to seek the services of established stars when it is considered financially and artistically desirable. To avoid too close an attachment to particular schools of taste, there will be frequent recourse to guest producers.41 Thus, the whole philosophy of nurturing talent within the confines of the School, of a spirit of ‘no small parts only small actors’, of a consistent director-master as visionary (Saint-Denis in this case), was exploded by what Wardle calls above: the ‘philistine system’. SaintDenis was forced out, Devine moved to develop the Royal Court Ewan Jeffrey, ‘Theatres of Resistance: Michel Saint-Denis and George Devine’ in The Golden Generation: New Light on Post-War British Theatre, London: The British Library, 2008, p. 108.

41

110

Encountering Ensemble

and the pursuit of a British take on Russo-French ensemble training was quashed. Whether this was an early example of the celebrity culture that pervades the arts today or a late manifestation of the cult of the actor manager, it is impossible to say. But it indicates how unstable the ensemble urge is in the theatre and perhaps explains why Komisarjevsky could only make a momentary contribution to its realization.

Chapter Five

The French ensemble tradition: Jacques Copeau, Michel Saint-Denis and Jacques Lecoq Mark Evans An “ensemblier”, according to the dictionary, is “an artist who aims at unity of general effect”. We were “ensembliers”. We set out to develop initiative, freedom, and a sense of responsibility in the individual, as long as he or she was ready and able to merge his personal qualities into the ensemble.1

Jacques Copeau and the Vieux-Colombier (1913–24) Jacques Copeau (1879–1949), through his work as a critic, through his ensemble theatre companies Le Théâtre du Vieux Colombier Saint-Denis, Michel, Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style, London: Heinemann, 1960, p. 92.

1

112

Encountering Ensemble

and Les Copiaus, and later through the influence of his students and disciples,2 was to provide one of the most significant and long-lasting challenges to the commercial system dominating theatre in Paris in the early twentieth century. In his work at the Vieux-Colombier in Paris and with Les Copiaus in Burgundy, he developed a model of the theatre ensemble that redefined the notion of the professional actor through its emphasis on continual training, physicality, rhythmic play, improvisation, collaboration and creativity. Copeau’s career did not begin in the theatre itself. Inspired by the changes that he saw happening in the arts and by friends who supported his literary abilities and ambitions, Copeau, by his late twenties and early thirties, had instead developed a significant career as a journalist and critic. Eventually, his passionate criticism of the boulevard theatres, and of the star system that underpinned them, led him to the point where he realized that the only logical step was to found his own theatre.3 Copeau had become appalled by the commercialism and vulgarity of much of the theatre on offer: ‘one finds fakery everywhere, excess and exhibitionism of all kinds, all the usual parasites of a dying art that no longer pretends to be otherwise’.4 He had also become skeptical about the ability of naturalism (as proposed by André Antoine) to respond to ‘the essential theatricality of theatre’.5 All the same, founding what was in effect a privately financed, independent theatre company of the kind he proposed was a bold and radical step to take for a relative novice. Copeau opened Le Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in  1913 in a renovated Parisian variety hall on the Left Bank. Copeau’s aim was to set up an ensemble company of actors able to create a new theatre that explicitly rejected the old star system, and that also brought a sense of theatrical poetry and moral purpose to the stage. He recognized that in order to achieve the theatre of which he dreamed – a theatre that was physically expressive, collaborative and founded on the creative skills of the actor – he would also need to train a For example, Michel Saint-Denis, Suzanne Bing, Louis Jouvet, Charles Dullin, Jean Dorcy, Étienne Decroux and Jean Dasté. 3 For a more detailed discussion of all of this period of Copeau’s life and work, see Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau, London: Routledge, 2006. 4 Copeau in Rudlin, John, Jacques Copeau, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. p. 3. 5 Ibid., p. 4. 2

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

113

new generation of actors. It is the effective realization of this dual innovation that places Copeau at the heart of the early twentiethcentury history of ensemble theatre. For Copeau, the models for this process lay in the work of the great theatre practitioners of the past. In this sense, Copeau’s impulse towards the ensemble was in part a conservative impulse. His models were the theatres of Molière, Shakespeare and the Japanese Noh Theatre; theatre traditions built around families, professional groupings and conceptions of a complete and coherent vision of theatre centred around the actor and the writer/poet. Unlike Edward Gordon Craig, who dreamed of rejuvenating theatre by launching into a visionary future, Copeau’s idea was to return to the past to rediscover the simplicity, purity and essential physicality, as well as the collaborative nature, of theatre performance: ‘Copeau realized that the essence of theatre is not literary, but ritualistic and physical. He wanted to return to the sources, to primitive theatre, following through this the trend of the other arts of that period’.6 To achieve this purity and to enable the work of a creative ensemble, Copeau realized he needed a new kind of stage space, a space cleared of falseness and unnecessary decoration. To achieve this he created a bare stage, ‘le tréteau nu’: ‘The whole stage was an acting area, in contrast to that “box of illusions” – the proscenium stage’.7 Copeau placed himself at the centre of the whole enterprise – artistically, financially, administratively and socially. He became ‘le patron’, the father figure of the company, ceaselessly raising funds, planning seasons and driving the artistic vision of the company through his choice of actors, playwrights and collaborators. This meant that the model of the ensemble that emerged was very much an ensemble shaped in the image of its director. Copeau’s need for control over the work and its direction would in this sense continue to complicate his various attempts to create ensembles over his working life – each compromised in the end by his own reluctance to give up ultimate authority. Key factors in the development of the Vieux-Colombier company as an ensemble were the periods of time spent preparing and training for performance. The first of these periods took place before the Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 31. 7 Ibid., p. 27. 6

114

Encountering Ensemble

company’s first season in  1913. Copeau took his new company to a family property in Limon, where as well as rehearsing, the actors undertook physical training, movement work, discussion and improvisation. The company lived and worked together for the duration of this ‘retreat’8 – a condition that greatly enhanced the ensemble ethos, even if it also led to some interpersonal tensions. The impact of the Vieux-Colombier Theatre was profound. Copeau’s productions of classic plays and the work of new writers promoted a simple, expressive and natural new style. Copeau had the vision and the good fortune to draw around him a richly talented and committed group of actors and collaborators, each of whom variously contributed to the company’s development. In 1920, Michel Saint-Denis (1897–1971), Copeau’s nephew,9 also joined the Vieux-Colombier company. He gained his professional training by working his way up through the most menial of tasks, eventually leading to his appointment as general-secretary to the company – effectively Copeau’s right-hand man.10

The Vieux-Colombier School (1920–4) Despite the critical success of the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier, Copeau was never completely convinced that his actors truly left behind them the tricks and cabotinage11 of the boulevard theatres. As Copeau remarked to Saint-Denis in 1923: I always know in advance what they are going to do. They cannot get out of themselves; they love only themselves. They The idea of a retreat from the city to the countryside was part of a cultural trend of resistance towards urbanization that can be seen across a number of art forms and that was to be repeated by Copeau a decade later with the group that became Les Copiaus. 9 Saint-Denis was the son of Marguerite, Copeau’s elder sister. For more information on Saint-Denis’ life and work, see Baldwin (2003) and the Michel Saint-Denis website at: www.michelsaintdenis.net/msd/. 10 Baldwin, Jane, Michel Saint-Denis and the Making of the Modern Actor, London and Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. 19. 11 For Copeau cabotinage was a disease, ‘the malady of insincerity, or rather of falseness. He who suffers from it ceases to be authentic, to be human’ (Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p.  253). It represented all the qualities that he most vehemently despised in the commercial actor. 8

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

115

reduce everything to the level of their habits, their clichés, their affectations. They do not invent anything.12 Copeau throughout his life despised the commercial actor’s tricks, and sought at various stages in his practice to ‘re-normalize’ actors, taking them ‘outside the theatre and into contact with nature and with life’.13 However, he eventually came to realize that re-education would always be limited in its effect, and that the way forward lay in beginning that process with teenagers, less tainted and constrained and more open to new methods. Starting a school was therefore the logical next step. Saint-Denis recalls how Copeau ‘envisioned a kind of laboratory attached to a theatre, but outside it, where gradually a new kind of actor, an instrument of a new revitalized dramaturgy, could be evolved’.14 The school was in this sense to be a ‘sacred place’,15 a place where body, mind and spirit would all be educated to create an actor able to respond to what Copeau understood as the deep moral, social and artistic purpose of theatre. The young students worked at the school from 9 a.m. through to 6 p.m. They wore gymnast’s outfits or overalls; simple, practical clothes suitable not just for training classes, but also for their other tasks such as sweeping the floors, washing up and cleaning tables. The students were to be totally immersed in a culture of shared work and creation: ‘We shall always have in view the development of individual talents and their subordination to the ensemble’.16 The school’s focus on physical skills and techniques, and on the importance of movement, was a particular innovation in the training of actors. Much of the school’s approach came together in the work on masked improvisation, which helped to develop spontaneity and inventiveness: ‘The mask demands both a simplification and an

Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 31. 13 Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 24. 14 Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, pp. 31–2. 15 Dorcy in Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 239. 16 Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 24. 12

116

Encountering Ensemble

extension of gesture; something forces you to go the limit of a feeling being expressed’.17 While the school produced a group of young actors bound together by a shared vision of theatre and a shared theatrical language, it could still only lay the foundations for the kind of ensemble of which Copeau dreamed. The students gave few performances, most of which were ‘works in progress’ presented for a restricted audience. The improvisation work created a sense of confidence in play and in the primacy of movement and action over psychological detail. One of the high points of the school’s work was the rehearsing of a Japanese Noh play Kantan (directed by Suzanne Bing), which although never performed, inspired Copeau with its vision of what might be possible with his young disciples. Saint-Denis, who was not a pupil at the school although he did attend classes on a regular basis18 remembered Kantan as ‘the incomparable summit of our work in Copeau’s School/Laboratory’.19

Les Copiaus (1924–9) In 1924, Copeau once again sought radical change. He took the bold step of closing down the Vieux-Colombier Theatre, sensing perhaps that the full realization of his vision was slipping out of reach while he was tied up with the demands of running a Paris theatre. Taking with him a group of family, collaborators and students, he set off for Burgundy, ending up in the village of Pernand-Vergelesses. They set up a producing company, seeking to turn their endeavours from training towards performance – basing their work on the style that had begun to emerge at the Vieux-Colombier School, a style that combined mask, mime, movement, chorus and song. The local people gave the company the name of Les Copiaus (the ‘little Copeaus’ in the local dialect). With the loan of costumes, props and some financial help from Copeau, the company set out to

Dasté in Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 237. 18 Baldwin, Jane, Michel Saint-Denis and the Making of the Modern Actor, London and Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. 20. 19 Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 33. 17

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

117

create a repertoire of pieces that might appeal to their local audience as well as make use of their new skills. Copeau’s own presence in Burgundy was intermittent; although still ‘le patron’ other responsibilities drew him away. Unfortunately, his strong personal vision and sense of mission seemed gradually to be at tension with the increased democracy within the group that had emerged in his absences. His natural inclination was towards a seriousness that the young company did not instinctively share. The typical work pattern for Les Copiaus was a mix of ‘classes, physical training, research exercises, and rehearsal’.20 The company members shared their expertise among each other, with teaching generally led by Michel Saint-Denis, Marie-Hélène Copeau (­Copeau’s daughter), Jean Dasté and a few others. The days started early, at 7.30 a.m., with gymnastics led by Dasté, followed by mime exercises and improvisations. The afternoon was taken up with music composition, mask and costume construction, and administration; rehearsals and performances happened in the evening.21 The creative process that led to new pieces was fuelled by improvisations that they undertook both as individuals and as a collective. The productions toured local villages – often playing in the open air and echoing theatre’s roots in popular entertainment. Les Copiaus was a project based on the idea of collective creation, creative collaboration and choral performance skills and practices. In its aims, its practices and its relationships with its audiences it drew on historical precedents: ‘We turned backwards in order to check what we knew, learn what we did not know, experiment with what we vaguely felt’.22 Copeau, for instance, saw the Greek Chorus as his model for: the ideal troupe of actors, made up of various people whose sole ambition is to do their share with perfection. Nothing is more exciting than forming such a company . . . I don’t think there is another profession where one is ready to make so many sacrifices to the quality of one’s work.23 Baldwin, Jane, Michel Saint-Denis and the Making of the Modern Actor, London and Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. 32. 21 Ibid. 22 Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 169. 23 Ibid., p. 168. 20

118

Encountering Ensemble

The notion of the Chorus – a group of people bound together through a shared performance language and serving a common collective purpose within the drama – was central to Les Copiaus work and defined much of what made the company an ensemble. The quality of performance was never an end in itself for Copeau. What evolved from the work of Les Copiaus was the development of a style of acting and performing that emerged from the actor’s whole being, and as such was ‘postulated both in him and in his acting’.24 In this manner, theatre and life would be linked in the company’s work, an approach that at a deep level undermined conventional notions of theatrical virtuosity and imitation. He can, in this respect, be seen as a line of influence for the early work of Grotowski, who shared an equally fierce belief that theatre should aspire to transcend technique. The group’s reliance on the local rural audiences also meant that their public became their teacher – the work was driven as much by what worked within this particular social context as it was by any underlying ideology: Because there was never a barrier between players and audiences, the spectators sensed how much they influenced the actors, how they could affect their performances, indeed, how at times they could lift the actors to a rare degree of exhilaration.25 Style and context thus combined to create a new sense of how theatre could be created and who for: our plays were virtually improvised, according to circumstances, the season, the place, the audience. They were healthy, vigorous, almost completely free of the dust of the theatre.26 One notable success was an adaptation of Corneille’s L’Illusion (first staged by Copeau in  1926 and subsequently revived and toured several times), in which theatre and life, text and improvisation became intimately entwined in all aspects of its creation and Ibid., p. 169. Saint-Denis in Baldwin, Jane, Michel Saint-Denis and the Making of the Modern Actor, London and Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. 33. 26 Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990. p. 177. 24 25

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

119

presentation. The whole company engaged in the realization of the performance; either by contributing an idea for its composition, or by conceiving a dance step, a mimicry, a game, a mask, casting and painting it, creating a backdrop, fabricating a green sward, a prop, a section of staircase, a lighting fixture.27 The key elements that formed the heart of the company’s work and training – mask work, silent improvisation, play and gymnastics – all demanded the continuous development of skills and understandings intrinsic to successful ensemble acting. Copeau’s direction of the company and its work was clearly focused on the creation of a community wherein the working lives of the group were intimately linked to the work that was produced.

Michel Saint-Denis: La Compagnie des Quinze (1929–34), two London drama schools (1937–52), and the Royal Shakespeare Company (1962–6) There was no doubting the artistic achievements of Les Copiaus by the time they disbanded in 1929: Towards the end of the Burgundy period (1924–1929) we were beginning to possess a more complete mode of expression, one rich in possibilities; we could act, dance, sing, improvise in  all kinds of ways, and, when necessary, write our own dialogue. We were ready to devise shows that used these special techniques.28 Many of the group had worked together for ten years, since the beginnings of the Vieux-Colombier School. Not only had they acquired confidence and skill in improvisation, mime and music, but also their Ibid., p. 171. Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, pp. 26–7.

27 28

120

Encountering Ensemble

shared experience meant that this ability was underpinned by the kind of communion that only prolonged collaboration can bring. If there was a disadvantage it was that they were, as a consequence, less well equipped to find work outside of what they now excelled at: ‘we were a chorus with a few personalities sticking out rather than actors ready to act the usual repertory, classical or modern’.29 La Compagnie des Quinze was formed in 1929 by the core of Les Copiaus, who decided to continue with their work under the direction of Michel Saint-Denis. The most notable development was the decision to work more closely with a writer. The company still undertook almost all the preparatory and backstage work themselves – designing and making costumes and sets, for example – and recognized that the presence of a writer would greatly assist the process of creating and structuring their performances. The only condition was that ‘the author become a member of our ensemble and adhere to its orientation’,30 so that the script emerged from a process informed by their improvisatory approach. Despite the undoubted quality of La Compagnie des Quinze’s work, the pressures of communal living, the demands of international touring and the lack of money all became too much. They tried to set up a laboratory and school of their own in Aix-en-Provence; but the project only lasted six months. Years of experiment and innovation could not in the end give them the financial success necessary for survival. As the company disbanded in  1935, Saint-Denis sought a new base for his own work. The success of the company’s performances in London, and the support and recognition offered him by many of the leading figures in British theatre at the time, all helped to persuade him that the studio and school of which he dreamed might find a successful home in London. The actor Marius Goring, who had worked with La Compagnie des Quinze in France, introduced Saint-Denis to George Devine,31 who became a close ally in the foundation of his new project, the London Theatre Studio. The new school opened in 1936, based in a disused chapel in Islington. Strikingly different from the drama 29 Saint-Denis in Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 234. 30 Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 33. 31 George Devine (1910–66) was later to found the English Stage Company at the Royal Court in 1956.

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

121

schools of the period in its emphasis on paring away the actor’s comfortable habits, and on developing skills in physical expression, improvisation and ensemble acting, the school’s chief problem was that it was preparing students for a theatre that did not yet exist. The British theatre industry was not yet ready to make use of the skills that these actors had acquired. Despite its successes, the London Theatre Studio was brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of war in 1939. Saint-Denis’ success as a director and his reputation as a teacher meant that when the Old Vic Centre, an ambitious project centred around the Old Vic Theatre, was planned in the years after the Second World War, he was a natural choice for the leadership of the elements that focused on experiment and education. The Old Vic Theatre School (1947–52) was to be linked to the Old Vic Centre, a working theatre with a classical repertoire, as well as to a young company, the Young Vic. Saint-Denis was able once again to return to the development of his vision, in a context that more or less mirrored the Vieux-Colombier model. The Old Vic School, in Saint-Denis’ mind, had a clear focus on the ‘evolution of new theatrical forms’,32 with silent improvisation, ensemble performance and the natural physical expressivity of the actor at the heart of this process. We have . . . to form an actor equipped with all possible means of dramatic expression, one capable of facing up to any challenge and meeting the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s ever-changing theatre, an actor who is capable of participating in these changes and who is himself inventive enough to contribute to them.33 The Old Vic School was hugely influential in the later development of the drama conservatoire system in the United Kingdom, and many contemporary drama schools still share its basic ethos and structure.34 ­Saint-Denis also influenced theatre training in France (L’École Supérieure Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 53. 33 Ibid., p. 80. 34 Several of the leading figures in the history of British drama schools during the last half of the twentieth century have been former colleagues or pupils of Saint-Denis: John Blatchley, Litz Pisk and George Hall. 32

122

Encountering Ensemble

d’Art Dramatique, 1952–57), Canada (The National Theatre School of Canada, 1960) and the USA (Juilliard School Drama Division, 1968–69), building similar models to his initial enterprises in London. In  1962, Peter Hall asked Saint-Denis to join the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) as one of its three founding directors, alongside Hall himself and Peter Brook. Hall’s ambition was to establish the RSC as one of the great international ensemble companies. Although Saint-Denis was by this time suffering from health problems, Hall recognized that there was no one else with Saint-Denis’ track record and experience. Saint-Denis’ main role was to lead on the establishment of a studio for training and for experiment. The plan was to provide training and experimentation opportunities for members of the company, but also to have a specially selected nucleus of ten young actors with whom he would work more intensively. The ‘curriculum’ for the young group would include voice, movement, improvisation and mask-work. They would perform contemporary plays and some experimental work, as well as understudying and playing small parts in the main company.35 In effect, they were to be an ensemble within a larger ensemble, nurturing the central ethos through a return to the core skills which underpinned it. The project was eventually curtailed by the financial imperatives driving the company as a whole. SaintDenis’ health also deteriorated to the point where he found sustained engagement difficult. Nonetheless, the work of Buzz Goodbody36 at the RSC’s Other Space and the continuing commitment of the RSC to company skills development and experimentation all would not have happened without Saint-Denis’ initial impetus.

The Legacy, Jacques Lecoq and after Copeau’s and Saint-Denis’ legacies are profound and extensive, so much so that their influence, their practices and their pedagogies have become an almost invisible part of the fabric of our contemporary theatre scene. Echoes of their work and their approaches to Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises, London: Heineman, 1982, p. 74. 36 Mary Ann ‘Buzz’ Goodbody (1946–75) was associate director at the RSC in charge of The Other Space (1974–75). She was the first female director to be employed at the RSC. Her intimate productions of Hamlet and King Lear were heralded as seminal interpretations. 35

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

123

theatre are clearly evident in the practice of major theatre organizations, major international drama conservatoires, the work of leading international directors,37 and in the ensemble ethos and working methods of companies such as Kneehigh and Footsbarn. So much of what is now taken for granted – devised performances, theatre workshops,38 physical theatre and mime – had its origins in their experiments and working methods. Copeau sought to bring a unity to theatre – ‘the unity between the written word and its performance; actors, scenographers, musicians and authors forming a whole, even down to the last stage-hand’.39 As with all attempts at collaborative creation, success and failure are, in part, defined by the ways those involved resolve the tensions between clear vision, leadership, unity and coherence, and democratic process, diversity and renewal. The writer and dramatist Roger Martin du Gard, writing in 1917, near the start of Copeau’s theatrical journey, expresses very well the power of Copeau’s vision for an ensemble, but also hints at its cost: There is an indefinable but undeniable unity between all his conceptions – his stage, décor, choice of plays, mise-en-scene, acting, costume . . . He is looking for workers: artists of the second rank who can carry out someone else’s idea once they’ve grasped it. He’s open to advice. But in future I doubt whether he will entrust the smallest decision to anyone else. There’s nothing for us to say. We are in the presence of a creator of genius who has a clear vision of an ensemble which includes not only questions of performance but even the actors’ moral lives: the creation of a simple and honest society of theatre workers, a troupe involving everything down to educating children at schools of rhythm and gymnastics.40 Such as Peter Brook, Georgio Strehler, Ariane Mnouchkine and Simon McBurney. Charles Dullin set up his own ‘Atelier’, or workshop as ‘a laboratory for dramatic experiment’ (Dullin in Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p.  223). He chose the name because ‘it seemed to correspond to our idea of an ideal corporative organization in which the strongest personalities would submit themselves to the needs of ensemble collaboration’ (Ibid.). This was one of the first explicit examples of what we understand as a theatre workshop. 39 Strehler in Copeau, Jacques, Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. & eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 243. 40 Roger Martin du Gard in Wardle, Irving, The Theatres of George Devine, London: Jonathan Cape, 1978, p. 56. 37 38

124

Encountering Ensemble

The influence of Copeau’s and Saint-Denis’ teaching can be seen in the structure, syllabi and teaching practices of many of the Western world’s leading drama schools and conservatoires. However, the contemporary theatre school that most impressively lives up to the pioneering spirit of Copeau’s enterprises, showing the same desire for innovation, ensemble creation, and the rejuvenation of the great theatre territories, is the international school set up in Paris by the French theatre, mime and movement teacher Jacques Lecoq.41 Lecoq, who trained initially as a sports coach and a physiotherapist, had briefly been a member of Jean Dasté’s Compagnie des Comédiens in Grenoble, where he trained the actors and played small parts. In  1948, while in Grenoble, Lecoq met Copeau, and through Dasté he would have had experience of many of Copeau’s ideas and practices, and of Georges Hébert’s natural gymnastics. After a period performing, directing and teaching in Italy, Lecoq opened his own school in Paris in December 1956, and since then the School has taught several generations of actors, directors, writers and theatre artists. From the 1960s onwards, a key part of the school’s teaching has been the auto-cours, a weekly element of the course within which the students are required to create their own ensemble work in response to themes and provocations. Although the overall shape and structure of this process was designed by Lecoq, he allowed students the freedom to discover their own theatrical voice within this part of the course. The process takes the student from a point where the auto-cours functions initially as an extension to the students’ experience in the improvisation classes, towards a point where they are challenged to explore the use of different theatrical devices in order to present their investigations into particular milieu. The work done in the auto-cours eventually therefore deals explicitly with the processes of production, playwriting, ‘the necessity of collaborative work in the theatre’ and the value of ‘placing oneself at the service of others’.

For further information on Lecoq’s work, see Lecoq, Jacques, Theatre of Movement and Gesture, trans. David Bradby, London: Routledge, 2006; Murray, Simon, Jacques Lecoq, London: Routledge, 2003; Murray, Simon, ‘Jaques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Philippe Gaulier: Training for Play, Lightness and Disobedience’, in Hodge, Alison (ed.), Actor Training (2nd edn), London: Routledge, 2010.

41

THE FRENCH ENSEMBLE TRADITION

125

During their two years at the school, students ‘discover strengths as directors, authors, actors’,42 and gain an understanding and experience of the internal dynamics of a theatre ensemble – its struggles, tensions and crises. In the second year, the exploration of dramatic territories such as tragedy, bouffons, Commedia and clowns43 provides the students with models for the ways in which the ensemble can function both to create and to present theatre. The challenge to the student is to create a new theatre in which the integration of text and improvisation, collaboration and direction, and the actor’s understanding of the creative and playful potential of the moving body, is achieved with a similar level of poetic integrity. This is a difficult process, as the problems previously confronted by Les Copiaus and La Compagnie des Quinze attest. Lecoq’s pedagogy, though it owes a clear debt to Copeau’s earlier work, is finally more successful in its production of self-sustaining theatre ensembles; probably because Lecoq was more fascinated by his students’ own journey than either Copeau or Saint-Denis, and therefore more able to let them go their own way. Copeau, Saint-Denis and Lecoq are important because they represent a consistent and organic approach to ensemble theatre training and making, based on the physical skills of the actor, which has informed the training of ensemble theatre makers and the practice of ensemble theatre throughout the twentieth century. Their work has stressed the importance of the theatre company as a selfsufficient theatrical unit, the worth of a shared theatre vocabulary based on common training experiences, and the value of embedding a culture of ongoing training and development within a company or school. Their work has drawn on historical ensemble traditions such as the commedia dell’arte and reinvigorated these traditions for the modern audience, and through their students and disciples they have achieved nothing less than a change in the theatrical landscape of Europe and beyond.

Lecoq Jacques, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre, trans. David Bradby, London: Routledge, 2000, p. 93. 43 Ibid., p. 108. 42

Chapter Six

The Berliner Ensemble: Bertolt Brecht’s theories of theatrical collaboration as practice1 David Barnett

Bertolt Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel founded the Berliner Ensemble (BE) theatre company in East Berlin on 1 September 1949, a little over a month before the foundation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on 7 October. The GDR was the first and indeed only German state to be run on the socialist principle of public ownership. It was no coincidence that Brecht and Weigel chose to establish their company in a society that opposed capitalism in favour of what they perceived to be a fairer and more egalitarian system. Brecht had encountered the works of Karl Marx in the mid-1920s and Marx’s ideas had informed his approaches to conceiving of and practising theatre in the years that followed

I would like to thank the British Academy for its Research Development Award and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for its Fellowship (grant AH/I003916/1) without which this chapter would not have been possible.

1

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

127

in Berlin. However, Brecht was forced to emigrate in  1933 when Hitler came to power and had precious little access to working theatres in his 15 years of exile. In lieu of practical opportunities, he wrote both the plays for which he is mostly remembered today and a vast corpus of theoretical papers and notes, most of which were not published in his lifetime. This chapter will consider both the theoretical foundations of Brecht’s understanding of ensemble and their practical realization at the BE as a means of gauging the relationship between the two and reflecting on the ways in which political positions influenced how Brecht made theatre.

Theorizing ensemble as a site of collective discovery Brecht’s close associate, Ruth Berlau, claimed in an interview conducted in 1959: The suggestion to call our company the Berliner Ensemble came from me. It came about quite simply. Because people were always saying that we needed to have an ensemble in place if we wanted to make good theatre, the name came about pretty much by itself.2 Quite whether Berlau did coin the name has been disputed,3 but is not of central importance here. What is, is that the new company was to be founded upon the principle of ensemble, and this was something about which Brecht had been thinking for some time, not only in terms of working practices but also in terms of politics. A short essay written in  1926 made the link between class and theatre as institution, noting that ‘the theatre has too long been the property of a small elite . . .’.4 This was hardly a radical observation Ruth Berlau, Brechts Lai-Tu. Erinnerungen und Notate von Ruth Berlau, ed. by Hans Bunge. Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1985, p.  218. All translations from the German are mine, except where otherwise indicated. 3 See Werner Mittenzwei, Das Leben des Bertolt Brecht oder: Der Umgang mit den Welträtseln, vol. 2. Berlin: Aufbau, 1997, p. 365. Mittenzwei suggests it was Weigel who came up with the name. 4 Brecht, ‘Young Drama and the Radio’, in Brecht, Bertolt Brecht on Film and Radio, ed. and trans. by Marc Silberman. London: Methuen, 2000, pp. 33–4, here p. 33. 2

128

Encountering Ensemble

but what Brecht derived from it was. In his thoughts on The Threepenny Opera, written in  1931, he identified the difficulties new plays encountered when confronted by the systems of theatre operating under capitalism: ‘the necessity to stage the new drama correctly  .  .  .  is modified by the fact that the theatre can stage anything: it theatres it all down [‘es “theatert” alles “ein”]’.5 Here Brecht posits a link between the potential effects of a play and their neutralization by an apparatus which seeks to turn it into a consumable product. The apparatus in question was one of strict hierarchies in which the realization process was determined solely by the director. Brecht desired a different kind of theatre, and this had implications for the way the theatre as institution was organized, something which would then affect the way plays were produced. Brecht summed up his stance in a simple aphorism which, as we shall see, applied to all those involved in the theatrical process: ‘the learner is more important than the lesson’.6 Brecht strove to refashion the theatre itself in order to realize this principle. Having recognized the problems of the theatrical system as it existed at the time, Brecht went on to consider alternative structures for the rehearsal room, and these were derived from a need to apprehend a dynamic kind of reality on stage. For Brecht, reality was not something that could simply be presented as that which we encounter in everyday life: ‘reality isn’t only everything that is but everything that will be. It’s a process. It moves by way of contradiction. If it isn’t understood in its contradictory character, then it isn’t understood at all’.7 In other words, reality is never static; it is a series of unstable states and the tensions between them are defined by contradiction. When the contradictions become too great, a new state arises and ‘reality’ alters. This is to paraphrase Brecht’s preferred terminology: dialectics. The dialectic is the mechanism by which change occurs and suggests a continual dialogue between, in more philosophical terms, a Brecht, ‘The Literarization of the Theatre’, in Brecht, Brecht on Theatre, ed. and trans. by John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964, pp. 43–6, here p. 43. 6 Brecht ‘[Wichtiger als die Lehre]’, in Brecht, Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe. 30 vols. ed. by Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei and Klaus-Detlev Müller. Berlin and Frankfurt: Aufbau and Suhrkamp, 1988–2000, vol. 21, p. 531, here p. 531. Future references appear in the main text as BFA followed by the reference’s title, volume and page number. 7 BFA ‘[Realität als Prozeß]’ 22: 458. 5

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

129

thesis and that which opposes it, an antithesis. Put more concretely, change is brought about by the contradictory relationship between individual and society, for example. However, the dialectic is not deterministic; it does not suggest ‘if x plus y, then z’ because the components of the dialectic, be they a human being or a social system, are far too complicated. It is thus impossible to predict what will happen when elements of the two go on to form the third part of the dialectical process, the synthesis. A synthesis, however, becomes a new thesis over time, which will be opposed by a new antithesis, from which a new synthesis will be born, and so on ad infinitum. If we think of Hamlet, for example, in this context we see how he is transformed by the encounter with the ghost of his father. The dialectical tension between Hamlet and society is no longer predicated upon a natural order but murder. Hamlet realizes that a world of honour, represented by his father, has been superseded by one of self-interest, represented by his uncle. Hamlet is a new man at the end of the exchange with the ghost, and the rest of the play charts the many new tensions that arise from the seismic social shift. Hamlet undergoes a series of dialectical syntheses as he encounters ever-changing situations. He decides to follow a certain course of action in this newly uncertain world but then has to realize that he does not govern events as he had imagined. His attempt to convince Ophelia of his madness does not lead to a calming of her passion but her suicide, and Hamlet then has to respond to that situation, too. It is perhaps no surprise that Brecht intended to stage Hamlet with the BE, (but was forced to abandon the plan when his chosen actor for the lead refused to work in East Germany). That detail aside, we can see that Brecht needed to develop a special kind of performance practice to deal with the dialectical view of reality. The discovery of dialectical contradictions was a way of accentuating discrepancies in a character’s behaviour rather than passing them over. One method of identifying such moments was when the character did ‘not’ do one thing ‘but’ another. Brecht recommended the ‘not/but’ technique as a way of building a character.8 The actor Regine Lutz reports that her understanding of character at the BE

See Brecht ‘Short Organum for the Theatre’, in Brecht, Brecht on Theatre, pp. 179– 205, here p. 197.

8

130

Encountering Ensemble

was defined by two concepts: ‘“turning point” and “break”’; she adds that the difference between the two was merely a question of degree, not quality.9 Käthe Rülicke, one of Brecht’s dramaturgical assistants, offers an insight into how actors approached the dialectical view of a character when describing the way in which a positive character might be portrayed: ‘it’s not a question of whether the positive hero may be shown as a secret drinker or someone who treats his wife badly, on the contrary, it’s a question of showing the positive as a process, as a development’.10 For Rülicke, good and bad do not simply exist as facets of a character but are produced by social forces with which the hero has to interact. This reading is closely connected to Lutz’s experience of ‘turning points’ and ‘breaks’ – change comes about through situations which transform their participants. That is how dialectical rehearsal was understood at the BE. Old ideas about character were jettisoned. If character no longer existed as a stable whole, it could only be pieced together as the actor made discoveries in rehearsal, yet these discoveries were not to be made in a vacuum. Instead ‘characters emerge from the knowledge of their behaviour towards other characters’.11 No man, or woman, is an island any longer, and the new type of production thus depended on a new type of director to facilitate the process.

The director’s role redefined Brecht despised ‘originality’ in direction because he believed that directors with a vision ‘don’t really rehearse, that is only bring a fixed idea’.12 Instead, Brecht proposed an inductive method by which learning took place, not the realization of preformed ideas. He saw [the director’s] task as waking and organizing the actor’s . . . pro­ ductivity. Under rehearsal he [sic] understands not the drumming Regine Lutz, Schauspieler – der schönste Beruf. Einblicke in die Theaterarbeit (Munich: Langen Müller, 1993), p. 120. 10 Käthe Rülicke-Weiler, Die Dramaturgie Brechts. Theater als Mittel der Veränderung (Berlin: Henschel, 1966), p. 178. 11 BFA ‘Der Nachschlag’ 21: 390. 12 BFA ‘Über die Probenarbeit’ 21: 387. 9

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

131

in[to the actor] of that which is already stuck in his own head. Rather, he understands a process of trying out. He has to insist that at any one time several possibilities are brought to bear.13 This strategy is all about teasing out interpretations from the material to be performed, and the role of the director is very much one of a facilitator of good (dialectical) practice, rather than necessarily being a singular driving force. Brecht demonstrates his redefined understanding of the role when he lists the theatre workers involved in the contradictory realization of a play as ‘actors, stage designers, mask-makers, costumiers, composers and choreographers. They unite their various arts for the joint operation, without of course sacrificing their independence in the process’.14 That is, the different elements of the theatrical production can offer counterpoints to each other to highlight contradiction on stage. However, what is peculiar about this list of creative personnel is that it omits the director. This ‘invisibility’ is something to which I will return below, but for now it is worth noting that the director is subservient to ‘reality’ and it is his or her job to make sure that the production contains as much realism as possible, as defined in terms of dialectical contradiction. In order to achieve this, Brecht insisted that the director work ‘inductively’. Inductive and deductive reasoning are terms taken from philosophy and describe ways of understanding the world through premises about how it works. As William Hughes, Jonathan Lavery and Katheryn Doran write: inductive arguments are distinguished from deductive arguments by the fact that they lack the ability to guarantee their con­ clusions. . . . The ability of valid deductive arguments to guarantee their conclusions derives from the fact that deductive reasoning merely draws out or makes explicit, information that is already contained in the premises.15

BFA ‘Haltung des Probenleiters (bei induktivem Vorgehen)’ 22: 597 Brecht, ‘Short Organum’, in Brecht, Brecht on Theatre, p. 202. 15 William Hughes, Jonathan Lavery and Katheryn Doran, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills, sixth edition (London: Broadview Press, 2010), p. 203. 13 14

132

Encountering Ensemble

So, deductive reasoning might work like this: Premise one: It is human nature to be greedy. Premise two: Capitalism is based on greed. Deduction: All human beings are natural capitalists. The examples of premises I have given are not, however, based on what philosophers would call ‘strong premises’, that is, premises that are watertight. Both premises are clearly open to critique: in the first we might ask exactly what human nature is and whether it is universal and unchanging; in the second we might wish to interrogate the notion of capitalism itself, and wonder whether greed might be a by-product of the system and not a cause. (Despite all of this, the premises and the ‘deduction’ may be expounded by some ideologues of capitalism to justify its excesses.16) The inductive process, on the other hand, is necessarily cautious. As Antony Tatlow notes: ‘in Brecht’s open, inductive process, reality, like the work of art, is not given; it must be interpreted, engaged with, constructed, produced’.17 The idea that reality is the result of the processes Tatlow lists means that actors have to look behind what is written on the page and engage with that material dialectically as a starting point for performed responses. This process of experimentation was necessarily inductive as it could take nothing for granted. The inductive method of direction was one predicated upon discovery together with the actors, not transmission of preconceived ideas down to them. In order to achieve this, Brecht sought to instil a naïve attitude both in himself and in the actors at the beginning of the rehearsal process: ‘the correct point of departure is to start with nothing’.18 By starting without a finished interpretation, the director and the actors could work together to discover how to perform the dramatic material. To work naïvely is to perform or respond to material without reducing it with

See, for example, the reference to Henry Blodget in David E.  Y. Sarna, History of Greed. From Tulip Mania to Bernie Madoff. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2010), p. 15. 17 Antony Tatlow, ‘Bertolt Brecht Today. Problems in Aesthetics and Politics’, in Tatlow and Tak-Wei Wong (eds), Brecht and East Asian Theatre. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982), pp. 3–17, here p. 13. 18 Brecht, ‘Über das Ansetzen des Nullpunktes’, BFA, Vol. 22: 244. 16

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

133

prejudices or preconceptions. Naïvety in rehearsal perceives reality without collapsing it to fit particular agendas. This did not mean, however, that there was something artless at work here. Brecht wrote disapprovingly that ‘our narrow bourgeois [spectators] can’t imagine naïvety and complexity living together’.19 That is, naïvety about approaching the world does not equate with the world itself being in some way uncomplicated. The director needs to be able to look at the complex world with wonder, thus leaving it open for the actor to make connections between its dialectical contradictions. The dialectic is an eminently political category because it proposes that both society and human beings are changeable, and this changeability is connected to the exercise of power. Certain changes, such as an acceptance of harsh policies, would be licensed by those in power, whereas mass protest and insurrection almost certainly would not. Characters no longer have fixed characteristics or a static ‘human nature’ but transform over time, sometimes drastically. There is something liberating in this principle because it suggests that human beings are not prisoners of an innate self but capable of great change themselves. It is also clear that everyone on stage is affected by social, political and historical conditions, and so rehearsal does not just focus on the major characters but on the cast as a whole. Brecht realized early that the way to apprehend reality on his terms was to engage an ensemble as a multifarious and complex unit. His rehearsal methods were thus closely tied to his politicized understanding of the world, and emphasized the social rather than the personal.

Realizing the Berliner Ensemble The generous state subsidies of roughly one and a quarter million Marks per annum20 conferred a financial freedom upon the BE that allowed Brecht to radicalize his vision of an ensemble beyond the rehearsal room. He had been interested in notions of collective

Brecht, journal entry of 11 December 1940, BFA, Vol. 26: 447. Contract between Helene Weigel and the Verwaltung für Volksbildung, 24 September 1949, in the Bertolt Brecht Archive, uncatalogued file ‘Aktuelles’. 19 20

134

Encountering Ensemble

creation ever since his youth and had a string of collaborators while he was writing plays, making theatre in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic and at most stations of his exile. Collectivism may have echoes of Stalin’s policies but for Brecht it was a practical solution to expanding the limited perspectives of individuals on their place in society. For Brecht, individualism, so highly valued by capitalism, had to defer to the productivity of teams, groups and ensembles. The founding of the BE allowed Brecht to realize a more wide-ranging sense of collaboration and this process began with a fundamental restructuring of the institution of the theatre company itself. The German theatre system had, like many others, a pyramidal structure with the figure of the Intendant (general manager) at its apex. Beneath him, and it was almost always a ‘him’, one finds the directors, the dramaturges, the actors, the technical and the backstage staff. Brecht attempted to reduce the discrepancies between the different echelons in a bid to promote more inclusive work. He proposed Helene Weigel as Intendantin (the feminine form of Intendant), and himself as artistic director. From the very outset, then, Brecht removed himself from direct control of the company. The view that Weigel was given the thankless task of managing the day-to-day running of the BE while Brecht enjoyed himself directing plays is, however, rather simplistic. Brecht was often involved in matters concerning the very survival of the BE in the face of attack from the GDR’s ruling political party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), for example.21 Weigel, on the other hand, was not only Intendantin but the company’s leading actress. As artistic director, Brecht sought to bring established directors to his new company but he was also aware that he would have to train a new generation of directors and dramaturges. His main pedagogical tool in this task was to disseminate his own modes of approaching theatre by example and then to encourage learning by doing. He actively solicited contributions from his assistants (as members of an ensemble which extended beyond the edge of the stage) during rehearsals and ideas he considered useful were directly attributed to the contributor when he passed them on to the actors. Brecht also wanted his young collaborators to be active See, for example, Stephen Parker and Peter Davies, ‘Brecht, SED Cultural Policy and the Issue of Authority in the Arts’, in Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone (eds), Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 181–95.

21

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

135

and knowledgeable. Before the BE was a month old, a flyer was posted obliging the assistants to attend lectures. Further suggestions were ‘expected . . ., which . . . enrich the individual’s theoretical “toolkit” and make it serviceable’.22 The BE’s leadership was thus not interested in passive vessels into which knowledge and experience could be poured. Brecht’s theatrical method was subject to debate and interrogation, but his assistants had to be up to the challenge in the first place. As noted earlier, Brecht saw himself more as a facilitator with respect to his actors, something I will examine below, but this was also the case with his young directors and dramaturges. A protocol of a discussion for the BE’s production of Molière’s Don Juan in 1953 shows Brecht at the centre, even though the work was being directed by his most accomplished ‘student’ of the time, Benno ­Besson.23 Brecht’s role is not, however, to dominate the discussion but rather to provoke it. As Peter W. Ferran notes: ‘what is most instructive about this discussion, with its constant posing of contradictions to apparent conclusions, is that it does not seem urged to settle these matters’.24 Brecht fired off a series of questions which continually queried his collaborators’ assumptions as a model of how one retains a liveliness in the production process. The aim was to open up the material in the hope that his directing staff would replicate the method in the rehearsal room. Brecht also elicited feedback from less experienced and less qualified sources within the BE. His driver reported that Brecht would ask his opinion about productions on occasion and members of the technical staff were also encouraged to air their views.25 The practice of opening the review process to those not directly involved in creative realization was another attempt to forge an ensemble which was able to enrich the theatrical work by incorporating a broad range of perspectives. The integration of both specialized working people, in the form of the technical staff, and others also

Anon, ‘Pflichtbesuch’, 25 September 1949, Berliner Ensemble Archive, File 2. See Brecht et al., ‘Über die Komik in Don Juan’, in Werner Hecht (ed.), Brecht im Gespräch: Diskussionen und Dialoge (Berlin: Henschel, 1979), pp. 126–33. 24 Peter W. Ferran, ‘Molière’s Don Juan adapted for Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble’, Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1997): 13–40, here p. 22. 25 See, for example, Werner, L., in Hubert Witt (ed.), Erinnerungen an Brecht (Leipzig: Reclam, 1964), pp. 228–9. 22 23

136

Encountering Ensemble

underlined Brecht’s concern to connect with a less ‘middle-class’ audience, yet an audience for which his new type of theatre was nonetheless intended. One sees how Brecht’s critical starting points – namely, that the theatre as institution was structurally inhibited from realizing certain types of radical plays and that individuals were not best suited to compassing the complexities of reality – led to the development of a new kind of theatre organization. And once the less hierarchical system was established, it applied itself to the task of producing plays.

Brecht as ensemble director It was, of course, Brecht’s work with actors, supported by his assistants, that ultimately built the BE’s reputation. Yet, a tension still existed between a set of qualities that marked the BE’s practices in performance as distinctive and Brecht’s insistence that the director remain an unseen facilitator. A way of understanding this contradiction that ran through the heart of Brecht’s direction was articulated by one of his favourite actors, Angelika Hurwicz. She noted that the first impression she got of Brecht’s practices appeared to be ‘entirely one of a normal director, different from conventional direction only perhaps by his greater patience. It was only after some time that Brecht’s characteristics as a director converged from many single qualities to a complete whole’.26 She observed that Brecht did not seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, yet, over time, an approach emerged which was unmistakably his. The key to resolving this tension is to be found in the way that Brecht interacted with his ensemble of actors. The idea that there is a dialectical relationship between individual and society already provided the basis for ensemble work in that everyone on stage was in dialogue with the society being represented. Simultaneously, though, the very imposition of a dialectical worldview was itself an act of interpretation. Brecht was therefore constructing a version of reality from the very start. Clearly, human activity in a dialectical world is limited; there are laws, customs and

26

Angelika Hurwicz, in Witt (ed.), Erinnerungen an Brecht, p. 172.

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

137

rules which govern behaviour at any one time, and Brecht founded the work of his actors upon these constraints. The dominant construct in Brecht’s rehearsals was the constant deferral to what he called the Fabel of the play. While this untranslatable term refers directly to the play’s plot, to what happens, the Fabel is an interpreted version of the plot and so does not directly mirror it. The Fabel came in different versions: there was usually an overarching interpretation of the play as a whole which was then complemented by minute versions which detailed the interpreted action of scenes themselves. The Fabel represented the universe within which the ensemble was to perform. This universe was made concrete by the organization of bodies on stage. These Arrangements, as they were known, were a visual way of telling the Fabel. As Brecht wrote: ‘in this way, the reasoned groupings in our theatre are not “purely aesthetic” devices’.27 Early rehearsals were mainly concerned with arranging the bodies on stage, a procedure which was discussed in advance with the team of assistants but not with the actors. The actors had the opportunity to add their input at this stage. Brecht was thus not instituting an ensemble-based free-for-all: the actors were presented with a set of ideas which had been discussed for some time, even before tentative casting took place. The point at which the actors actually came into their own were the ‘detail rehearsals’, so called because this was where they could work on the details of movement, comportment and delivery within the Arrangements, something that may remind us of more conventional rehearsal practice for actors. Yet once again, we find that these rehearsals had a special function, too. It was here that ‘the actor builds the relationships [Verhalten] of his [sic] character to the other characters and acquaints himself with the qualities of his character’.28 Actors were involved in a process of realization which was no longer based on viewing their characters in isolation but working through the twists and turns of a series of relationships. BFA ‘Aus einem Brief an einen Schauspieler’ 23: 173. Anon, ‘Phasen einer Regie’, in Berliner Ensemble/Helene Weigel (eds), ­Theaterarbeit. 6 Aufführungen des Berliner Ensembles, first edition (Dresden: Dresdner Verlag, 1952), pp.  256–8, here p.  257. This section of the book gives a 15-part overview of the realization process at the BE from the textual analysis of the play to the first night of performance. 27 28

138

Encountering Ensemble

Brecht, as an inductive director, fostered an atmosphere in rehearsal that saw his strategic withdrawal from openly directing the actors in favour of input from the cast as a whole. Brecht’s first thoughts on how to approach an ensemble of actors, written around 1930, made an important distinction: some theatres have tried to nurture an “ensemble spirit” [“Ensemblegeist”]. It usually involved every actor sacrificing his [sic] ­egotism “for the good of the play”. It’s much better to mobilize every actor’s egotism.29 It was not a case of trying to rein in the actors but to give them a more active say in the way their character interacted with the others. As Manfred Wekwerth, a former directing assistant to Brecht in the 1950s and the BE’s Intendant from 1977 to 1991, noted: ‘the actors are to make offers [“Angebote”]. The director develops [the offers] through correction. To repeat: the Fabel decides everything. The final character only comes about in the interplay’.30 ‘Making offers’ was a crucial activity for a number of reasons. Primarily, actors showed that they were participating in a rehearsal as process in which nothing was necessarily fixed. One actor’s offer of delivering a line or carrying out an action could have profound effects on the other actors involved in the scene, provoking new offers from them in response. Rehearsals could often entail multiple renditions of a scene, each retained until the next rehearsal of that scene in the descriptive and analytical notes taken by the assistants. The practice of making offers also pointed back to Brecht’s inductive philosophy, that that which was performed was not a guarantee of a solution to the problems of representing human activity. An offer is necessarily open – it need not be accepted at all. Brecht’s approach to activating his actors did not differ from the one that was to activate his assistants, discussed above. He laid the ground rules for their collective activity and then, through his questions and observations, sought to promote independent, constructive input. As actor Käthe Reichel said in an interview: ‘the actors were supposed to learn how to think “like dramaturges” BFA ‘Über die Probenarbeit’ 21: 388. Manfred Wekwerth, Schriften. Arbeit mit Brecht, second, revised and expanded edition (Berlin: Henschel, 1975), p. 111.

29 30

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

139

with him’.31 Here, the aim was to develop actors who were able to make valid offers to the director. The key word here is ‘valid’ because the actors had to learn a series of skills that satisfied the tenets of the Brechtian stage. These included an appreciation that characters were not free but in dialogue with both the Fabel and the other characters; a willingness not to harmonize contradictions in a character or a situation but to accentuate them; and the imperative to show everything clearly. This last point was crucial to the social mission of the BE. Brecht rejected naturalism, which was defined in the glossary of Theaterarbeit as ‘an artistic direction which strives for the most painstaking accuracy in the reproduction of natural appearances but which often smothers any meaningful connections by pedantically accumulating arbitrary details’.32 That is, the mere replication of surfaces obscured the important elements of social interaction in favour of unimportant details. Actors had to strip away a character’s personal tics and focus on movements and gestures that pointed to larger social or political issues. Such issues often concerned the wielding of power, of what one was or was not allowed to do in any given situation. The ensemble work carried out at the BE addressed every member of the cast, because everyone on stage was as subject to the dialectic of individual and society as the next person. Consequently, Brecht took great pains to work with every actor. In the rehearsal notes of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, which Brecht directed from 1953 to 1954, one finds, for example, an exhaustive search for suitable actors to play a peasant couple who appear in one brief scene. Assistant Hans Bunge wrote of the one hundred and tenth rehearsal: ‘Brecht repeats [the scene] untiringly and patiently, just like at the beginning of the play’s rehearsal’.33 Brecht’s work with his actors was concerned with collective involvement in the realization of complex plays. This involvement was predicated upon a series of constraints, set down by Brecht, Käthe Reichel, quoted in Christa Neubert-Herwig, ‘Wir waren damals wirklich Mitartbeiter’, in Neubert-Herwig (ed.), Benno Besson. Theater spielen in acht Ländern. Texte – Dokumente – Gespräche (Berlin: Alexander, 1998), pp. 33–6, here p. 33. 32 Ensemble/Weigel, Theaterarbeit, p. 433. 33 Hans Bunge, Tagebuch einer Inszenierung. Bertolt Brecht führt Regie bei seinem Stück ‘Der kaukasische Kreidekreis’, p.  231 (Hans Bunge Archive, file 1145, Akademie der Künste, Berlin). 31

140

Encountering Ensemble

which mainly addressed the limits, as he understood them, imposed by society, politics and history. Within these contexts, he actively sought creative contributions from the whole ensemble and taught them how to make offers by ‘osmosis’, so to speak. Actors could observe suggestions which were accepted, but perhaps more importantly, could learn to understand why certain suggestions were not used further. ‘Training’ the actor was actually a continuous process of promoting qualities of observation and reflection. The work that emerged from this relaxed mode of ensemble production gained the BE a reputation which echoed around the world.

The BE as an integrated ensemble The BE was frequently praised in newspaper reviews for its ‘ensemble spirit’, something reviewers only observed on stage, of course. They were unable to look behind the scenes and appreciate the ways in which the traditional German theatre had been refunctioned in the interests of a dialectical representation of reality. Rigid hierarchies had been weakened by ideas about ensemble that led to an organic integration of the company’s personnel into the creation of dialectical theatre. It should be noted, however, that the BE was not a magical democracy of equal players. The reforms that Brecht introduced targeted the realization and modification of his methods, means and ideas. He absolutely refuted, for example, the role of psychology in rehearsal, preferring behaviours and characteristics to emerge from the actions and events on stage. The deference to social structures was crystallized in the centrality of the Fabel in the rehearsal process, and this principle was non-negotiable. His actors were charged with finding their contradictory place within a complex of human interrelations. They were not responsible for the interpretation of the Fabel; their task was to realize it as fully, clearly and ‘realistically’ as possible. Yet even with these conditions set down, Brecht actively promoted offers from the actors and suggestions from as many members of the BE as possible. While he determined the model of reality he employed, his co-workers, either in conclave or in the rehearsal room, had a right, or perhaps more accurately, a duty to make an active contribution to the realizing of this model. Besson, when asked what distinguished Brecht’s work in the theatre replied: ‘the exceptional

THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE

141

thing was that he made many people productive’.34 Bunge noted that Brecht did not like actors who waited for direction.35 This was not laziness on his part but the desire both to work in a collective and to make the best use of everyone’s experiences, to enhance the realism of the work on stage. Brecht’s enthusiasm for ensemble work had its roots in his political philosophy, that the world is constructed of contradictions, and that hope for concrete social change springs from reality as an active process and not as a passive state. His dialectical worldview proposed that everyone, whether they liked it or not, was subject to dialectical interaction, and so it was a nonsense to pretend that the stage included those who were and those who were not. Brecht pushed the idea to its logical conclusion: it pervaded the whole institutional make-up, structure and practice of the BE itself. The BE became one of the most famous and fêted theatre companies in the world, and this can all be traced back to these founding ensemble principles.

34 Benno Besson, in Thomas Irmer and Matthias Schmidt, Die Bühnenrepublik. Theater in der DDR (Berlin: Alexander, 2003), p. 39. 35 Ibid., p. 19.

142

Part Two

Contemporary ensemble

144

Snapshot #1

Ensemble Chris Johnston

The idea of ensemble stands as a necessary corrective to prevailing notions of the desirability of personal advancement through individual achievement. There’s a battle always between these two pole stars for influence within the theatre landscape. Given the way things have been moving, ensemble’s star has probably waned while the promise of stardom is all over the shop. Factors economic, political and cultural have contributed to this swing of support for professional mobility over shared commitment. So the effective maintenance of ensemble practice now requires at the very least stubbornness and usually more; sheer bloody-mindedness. One by-product of this situation is the occasional presence of the short-term community ensemble comprising largely non-professionals, facilitated by a professional director with perhaps some pro actors in the mix. When an ensemble like this chooses devising as a strategy over working on an existing text, the group may well play to its strengths. Going this route to performance gives this ensemble the edge for the very reasons that that the company would likely fail on any technical comparison with a professional company presenting a written play: it’s because of what they don’t know rather than what they do. Experienced actors, because they have a familiarity with theatre language, tend to travel instinctively along creative pathways which are familiar. This means, for example, playing characters and character attitudes that they know ‘work’. They find a way of creating shape

146

Encountering Ensemble

in a scene which feels dynamic and authentic because it has been previously tested. In turn, this means operating within a more limited circumference of possibilities than someone would who hasn’t really worked out what success or failure in acting actually is. This is not to suggest that the newcomer isn’t similarly circumscribed by other, different psychological imperatives; but it does mean that the new recruit, by definition, won’t be limited by a familiarity with the territory, so he or she can take more radical permissions. Blundering about in the half-dark is a good way to make work. When improvising, the community actor is guided more by instinct than craft. Reactions to stimuli can be more honest; more crudely expressed perhaps, but more honest. Such actors have little resistance to taking on what may appear stock themes if they can see their own life experiences mirrored there. They can also be more daring sometimes in terms of the dramatic language employed. Playing the role of Death or The Past or A Bad Fairy can seem no less daunting than Man Home From Work simply because all these are equally daunting. While the pro might be tempted to play Death with rather too much timbre, the untrained actor may just treat it ‘as a laugh’ – which is probably just what we need. The magic of discovering the universal in the particular and the archetypal in the temporary is no less accessible, perhaps more so, to the community ensemble because there’s a different reward system operating. There’s no career advancement to worry about, no bills to pay, no angling for supremacy on the stage, just a need to work something through, a drive to express feelings and thoughts that have no place elsewhere and a desire to bond with others through creativity, perhaps finding a kind of intimacy there. But almost certainly none of this is possible without a strong directorial hand in evidence. Such creative freedom and risk-taking is almost entirely dependent on it. For the truth is, the community ensemble is unlikely to find its own way into devising unaided without a bitter struggle. The director’s presence aids a journey via knowledge of theatre games and improvisational strategies into, hopefully, a creative and playful practice where people feel safe. The task then for this facilitator is to go further and shape and order the dramatic material as it emerges. If these tasks can be managed sensitively and well, then the ensemble will very likely produce work which will rival professional output, not in technical skill perhaps, but in an articulacy of its own inner life.

Snapshot #2

Michael Boyd on the RSC ensemble Introduced by Duška Radosavljevic´

When Michael Boyd came to the helm of the Royal Shakespeare Company in  2003, he was faced with a series of challenges. Just over 50  years into its existence, the world-famous British theatre institution was experiencing an internal communications breakdown, a growing economic crisis and a loss of morale. Originally conceived in 1960 by Peter Hall as an ensemble company, by the year 2000 the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) was fragmented, and by 2002 it also lost its London base which had been vital to its visibility as a national institution. The core values of Boyd’s mission as an artistic director were integrated around the idea of the ‘ensemble way of working’ and an unwavering commitment to returning the RSC to this founding principle. Crucially, however, Boyd believed in applying this principle not only to the acting company, but also to the organization as a whole. Boyd’s implementation of his vision did meet with resistance, suspicion and criticism from some more conservative quarters – in a public interview at the Central School of Speech and Drama in January 2010, Boyd noted that he encountered accusations of being ‘foreign’ or ‘communist’ for using the word ‘ensemble’. On the other hand, he also made efforts at changing the stereotypes of

148

Encountering Ensemble

conservatism associated with the company itself by diversifying the profile of artists that the company employed or collaborated with – the increasingly popular Kneehigh Theatre was commissioned twice by the RSC, Kathryn Hunter joined the company as an associate artist, the Australian comedian and musician Tim Minchin was brought in to collaborate with writer Dennis Kelly on an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and finally a Movement Department was also created during Boyd’s leadership. A recent DEMOS report charting the organizational changes at the RSC in the late 2000s, emphasized that Boyd’s vision of the ‘ensemble’ should be thought of not as a management tool ‘but as a way of being, based on a set of moral principles that guide leadership decisions and administrative actions’.1 Its authors summarized the moral principles at the core of Boyd’s vision as being: altruism, trust, empathetic curiosity, imagination, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness, magnanimity, love, rapport, patience and diversity. These were drawn from a speech given by Boyd at the New York Public Library on 20 June 2008. Although Boyd’s insistence on these core values might be perceived as overly idealistic within a business environment, it is also important to note that Boyd is very sober-minded when it comes to seeing the RSC as a company rather than the more informal notion of a ‘family’, often attributed to ensemble companies. In an interview he gave me in 2011, Boyd explained: I don’t usually talk about the RSC as a family; a Shakespearean company should be distrustful of the word “family”. Family is usually dysfunctional and exploitative in Shakespeare. We’re not a family, we’re not related, we’re colleagues. I suppose I try to replace the word “family” with “community”.2 Indeed, in its own conclusion, the DEMOS report recommends this model of organizational leadership to other organizations, not only in the arts but also in other fields. Meanwhile, in considering Hewison, Robert; Holden, John; Jones, Samuel (2010) All Together: A Creative Approach to Organisational Change, London: Demos, available on www.demos. co.uk/files/All_Together.pdf?1268865772; accessed 15 August 2011, p. 46. 2 Radosavljević, Duška (2013) The Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers, Abingdon: Routledge. 1

MICHAEL BOYD ON THE RSC ENSEMBLE

149

the RSC in the context of Russian influences on British theatre via Boyd who had trained as a director in Moscow, Jonathan Pitches detects ‘a new confidence at the heart of mainstream British theatre practice, one that does not see the ensemble as something peculiarly foreign or eastern European’.3 In January 2012, Michael Boyd and his executive director Vicky Haywood announced that they wished to step down from their respective positions at the RSC. Asked to contribute his final thoughts on the RSC as an ensemble company for this volume, Boyd selected an extract from his Address at the New York Public Library in 2008 – a document described as ‘[o]ne of his most crafted statements on the topic’.4 ***

Michael Boyd Over the life of the recent Histories Company we have found that our ensemble approach to theatre-making both enables and requires a set of behaviours that are probably worth looking at, because they create our conditions – what we call the conditions for creativity. And they also create the conditions for community. The first and most obvious behaviour is cooperation the intense and unobstructed traffic between artists at play. That in turn allows the surrender of self to the connection with others even while making demands on ourselves. Ensemble work also demands altruism: the moral imagination and the social perception to see that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s about the stronger helping the weaker, not the weaker being choreographed to make the stronger look good. The latter leads to sterile staging, traffic jams and, ultimately, diminishes the strong. Ensemble provides an opportunity to overcome the vertigo that I think we can all feel in all walks of life: the fear of success; the headiness that you can get when you know that you’re achieving something, but you’re outside your Pitches, Jonathan ed. (2012) Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 207. 4 Hewison, Robert; Holden, John; Jones, Samuel (2010) All Together: A Creative Approach to Organisational Change, Demos: London, available on www.demos. co.uk/files/All_Together.pdf?1268865772, accessed 15 August 2011, p. 46. 3

150

Encountering Ensemble

comfort zone, you’re flying but are you going to fall? Ensemble, the altruistic focus on the work of each other, can overcome that, both for the weak and the strong. This work requires trust, otherwise you’re not going to be able to experiment or be honest without fear. It requires empathetic curiosity; caring for others with a forensic curiosity that is continually seeking new ways of being together and creating together. It requires imagination, and time allowed for the play of that imagination, so that we can keep ideas in the mind long enough to allow them to emerge from the alchemy of the imagination rather than the factory of the will, to allow us to access a deep voodoo rather than a shallow magic. It requires compassion, engaging with the world and each other, knowing that there may well be mutual pain in doing so.

Katy Stephens as Joan of Arc in Michael Boyd’s production of Henry VI, Part 1 2006. Photo: RSC/Ellie Kurttz.

There were plenty of corns trod on in the life of our Histories Company. Plenty of moments when everyone realised how different they were, how different their politics were, how different their temperament was, how different their race, their cultural background, their inheritance was. And that was painful. So we move on to the next qualities, tolerance and forgiveness. To allow mistakes, to

MICHAEL BOYD ON THE RSC ENSEMBLE

151

forgive the excruciating pain of your corn having been stamped on. To allow and recover from very big mistakes. Humility. The person who has nothing to learn is certainly incapable of creative dialogue because the answer is already “known”. This person is probably well on their way to being incapable of creativity, period. Humility also, straightforwardly, to be prepared to be part of a greater whole. Magnanimity: the courage to give away your ideas and your love. The courage to make yourself look less than perfect in order to save the asses of others. Contributors to Wikipedia don’t make any money: there is a magnanimity about that gesture. Work of this kind over a sustained period of time does require a kind of love. The ability to be inspired by your whole self and by the whole self of others. That it’s not just admiration, respect, “putting up with” – it’s something that moves towards love. Rapport, by which I mean the magic language between individuals in tune with each other. Patience – patience is only really possible and only really called upon in a company that stays together this long. Patience to “stalk the beast”. Patience to develop relationships with each other as fellow artists that are not forced rhubarb, promiscuous relationships that can easily be dumped like Kleenex at the end of the short gig. Maybe keep yourself to yourself during the first month or two, and only slowly, when you’re ready, when you know and trust someone to come out and start playing, and when you do you’re playing at a deeper level. You’re not pretending. Another kind of collective quality that’s required is the accommodation of diversity. Far from imposing homogeneity, a true ensemble requires dynamic difference. The most successful open-source projects on the web have involved extremely diverse and different skills. If you have the same skills rushing towards the project they’ll just bump into and hinder each other, and the same is true of a theatre company. Only with diversity can the larger brain of the swarming bloggers emerge, sharing a new kind of intelligence.

Chapter Seven

Stan’s Cafe: The vision of the ensemble Adam J. Ledger

Based in Birmingham (UK), Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company1 has been called ‘one of our quirkiest and most ingenious companies’2 and has produced a body of diverse work. At the heart of each Stan’s Cafe production is a strong central idea, often allied to an inventive theatrical form. The company was founded in 1991 by James Yarker and Graeme Rose and now has a core staff as well as a set of associates.3 The company has appeared at festivals and by invitation in North and South America, throughout Europe and in Australia. Stan’s Cafe might be known more abroad than in the United Kingdom, but when at home, projects in the community, in schools and other educational settings have also long been important to the company.4 Although I will focus my discussion on selected productions, Stan’s Cafe has an especially varied body of work: its range demonstrates how an initial concept is played out through ensemble imagination

Pronounced ‘caff’, and never written ‘café’. Gardner, Lyn, ‘Home of the Wriggler’. The Guardian, 27 April 2009. 3 Rose left the company in 1995, but returned as an associate artist from 1999. 4 See www.stanscafe.co.uk/education-and-training.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 1 2

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

153

and collaborative methods. Home of the Wriggler (2006), about Birmingham’s car industry, incorporated verbatim material and was lit by performers pedalling bikes with dynamos. The Just Price of Flowers (2010 and 2012) was rehearsed in only six days and concerns the 2008 financial crisis, told via the analogous ‘tulip mania’ of seventeenth-century Holland, ‘recycling’ props and costumes from previous shows. It’s Your Film (from 1998) is a four-minute performance for an audience of one. A frequently performed piece, Of All the People in All the World (from 2003) is closer to installation. Performers carefully weigh out rice, which is then arranged in labelled piles to illustrate human statistics. By comparing piles of rice in this evolving, durational event, global statistics are brought ‘startlingly and powerfully to life’.5 So far, two versions have used enough rice to represent the entire world population: 104 tons in 2005 and 112 tons in 2008. Improvisation is key to many of the shows’ creation as well as, sometimes, part of the final performance. Tuning Out with Radio Z (2010) is an improvised radio show, which takes place live in front of a theatre audience as well as via a webcast. Spectators contribute ideas during each themed performance via email or text message. The Steps Series (2009 and ongoing) is a collection of pieces inspired by teach-yourself dance mats. Versions incorporate foot, hand and object prints, which are stuck to the floors and walls of venues, as well as fragments of text, so that audiences ‘perform the show themselves’.6 In several of these examples, an audience is often made complicit either as participants or through making connections within a performance’s fragmented and allusory narrative.

Ensemble In this chapter, I think of ‘ensemble’ in terms of Stan’s Cafe’s work in three key ways: ●●

●●

5 6

Group authorship through devising, which relies on shared play within structures. The development of a collectively imagined aesthetic.

www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-of-all-the-people.html; accessed 2 January 2012. www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-steps.html; accessed 2 January 2012.

154

●●

Encountering Ensemble

Familiarity between performers who work together frequently and whose roles are typically of equal size.

This ensemble ethos links to the dramaturgy, action and aesthetic of a production. Stan’s Cafe also maintains a wider alliance of theatre practitioners as well as other artists, with and for whom work can be made. A production can thus remain in the repertoire and be revisited and toured using different performers for individual roles, leading to developments with each version.7 I consider four productions: Good and True (2000–04) was devised though closely scripted; by contrast, The Cleansing of Constance Brown (2007 onwards) uses only six words and is a particularly good example of Stan’s Cafe’s visual refinement. This ­multiscene performance also makes extreme demands on an ensemble of 7 performers who play 68 characters in  70 minutes. The impact of numerous performers working together on stage is more acute in two examples from Stan’s Cafe’s early youth theatre work: No Walls, Just Doors (1997) and Adult Child/Dead Child (1999).

Devising and the ensemble In their survey of devising, Heddon and Milling draw attention to a mode of working often assumed to concern group input and collective decision making, fundamentally, and often idealistically, destabilising hierarchies.8 Govan et al. find that ‘new collaborative practices and new visual and physical languages . . . enabled actors to explore their experiences and feelings as part of the process of generating material’.9 Devising is often assumed as actor-centric, concerned with the ideals of the group and points to innovative performance methods. But, if devising rejects the single-authored play text in favour of collective creativity, decision making, and

For example, the content Of All the People in All the World is often reimagined, depending on the particular performers involved. 8 Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling, Devising Histories: A Critical History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 9 Govan, Emma, Helen Nicholson and Katie Normington, Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, London and New York: Routledge, 2007, p. 40. 7

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

155

new and varied performance forms, as with Stan’s Cafe, this can complicate the role of the director. Some devising companies are clearly led by visionary directors; other directors are more aligned to a position of facilitator or co-creator: each director has to negotiate – or declare – his/her position within a group and in relation to evolving decisions about a performance. It is Yarker who determines the starting point to Stan’s Cafe’s shows. Heddon and Milling quote Yarker’s online assertion that, I tend to bring the core ideas to the table . . . These may well have been influenced by discussions  .  .  .  they may arise out of previous shows we have worked on or common lines of thought, but I tend to set the agenda first off.10 Despite his eventual ‘letting go’ of a source idea, Yarker writes text (for example, for Good and True and The Just Price of Flowers), though this can move through several drafts as it is laced back into devising. And he remains a partly hidden authorial presence in Tuning Out With Radio Z, where he acts as a conduit for spectators’ suggestions, selecting which of these are fed to performers as a necessary, if authoritative, member of the ensemble. Stan’s Cafe clearly has a strong director who takes the lead. Harvie and Lavender challenge the rhetoric around devising that suggests that it is inevitably non-hierarchical. They suggest that, after decades of attempts at democratic practice which were at best sometimes frustrating and at worst grossly compromised, many practitioners are now exploring strategies for negotiating democratic practices and relationships, in recognition that dispersed power is not necessarily democratic power and also that negotiated leadership can facilitate group agency.11 Stan’s Cafe performers have a clear-cut position in relation to their own creative contribution: they improvise as an ensemble to create text or visual sequences, have sometimes gathered verbatim Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling, Devising Histories: A Critical History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 213. 11 Harvie, Jen and Andy Lavender (eds), Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010, p. 4: original emphasis. 10

156

Encountering Ensemble

material, constructed props or sets, researched statistics for each version Of All the People in All the World and, often, author the content of shows together in real time in actual performance. Through devising, an ensemble creates sequences, which are then assembled; this was the basis for The Cleansing of Constance Brown and Good and True. Heddon and Milling ally such experimental, multimode, plural devising strategies with the oft-seen dramaturgies of contemporary performance. They conclude that devising finds a ‘structure that in some senses reflects its collaborative creative process  – typically compartmented or fragmented, with multiple layers and narratives’.12 Despite Yarker’s artistry, this suggests that many Stan’s Cafe’s shows turn out the way they do because of the shared nature of their creation. Thus, a definition of ‘ensemble’ theatre making can be how strategies, or even a company ideology, are harnessed to outcomes. Turner and Behrndt conclude, most simply, that ‘theatre is finding a new relationship with representation – one in which stories can be told, while the modes of telling, the tellers and even the stories themselves may be suspect, ambiguous and multiple’,13 pointing to how, for instance, The Cleansing of Constance Brown or It’s Your Film expect – and value – the audience’s intelligence in creating meaning. Hans-Thies Lehmann’s discussion of the ‘postdramatic’ articulates the aesthetics of this ‘new theatre’,14 which is not ‘subordinated to the primacy of the text’.15 Postdramatic performance celebrates ‘sensuous subject-matter’:16 for example, the actuality of the body, perhaps drawn attention to by the strategy of slow motion, or the real effort of task-based performance, or the efficacy of ensemble movement, or the force of music. Lehmann also sees the influx of media practices, either embedded in performance or, as in Stan’s Cafe’s case, the visual influence of the filmic, as symptomatic of our contemporary concern with ‘the materiality of communication’.17 Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling, Devising Histories: A Critical History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. p. 221. 13 Turner, Jane and Synne Behrndt, Dramaturgy and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 187. 14 Lehmann, Hans-Thies, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jűrs-Munby, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 18. 15 Ibid., p. 21. 16 Ibid., p. 43 original emphasis. 17 Ibid., p. 16. 12

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

157

Nevertheless, we are still drawn to ‘human bodies and their warmth, with which the perceiving imagination cannot avoid associating human experiences’,18 evident in, for example, Stan’s Cafe’s attention to the audience, fragments of situation and the sheer bodily effort of its performers.

Good and True Good and True appears to be about an interrogation, but rather than rooted in concrete fictional circumstances, it is the shared activity of questions, and the increasingly desperate attempts at answers, which drive the production. Stan’s Cafe explain the performance concerns Four lost interrogators  .  .  .  thrashing around in areas they’re hopelessly underqualified to deal with.  .  .  .  Facts slide around, become crystal clear for a moment, but then are gone.  .  .  .  It is about the motivations, tactics, revelations and assumptions embedded in questioning. . . . Except in the loosest possible sense it is not a story, though it can be found to contain fragments of many stories.19 Unusually for a company and director so attuned to the conceptual and visual, the ensemble nature of Good and True is founded on the intricacies of word play, allied to an elliptical narrative and the shifting and playing of roles. The challenge in rehearsal for the tight ensemble of four performers was to create and sustain verbally based improvisations, within which certain threads were developed. This resulted in Good and True’s shared textual games. This precision of the text stemmed from ensemble authorship through ‘improvisations by the cast which have been transcribed then edited, rewritten, rehearsed, edited and rewritten again’.20 Yarker’s production notebooks reveal some of the strategies used as stimuli: questions asked as if ‘knowing the answer already’ in order to force a desired response, or ‘ludicrous in their suppositions, Ibid., p. 95. www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-g&t.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 20 Ibid. 18 19

158

Encountering Ensemble

their level of detail’, or ‘you may know the answer but not trust yourself with it’.21 Broader improvisations were ‘restricted language interrogation’ or ‘performing for the tape’.22 Craig Stephens recalls being given instructions on pieces of paper, such as ‘having to lie to every question’,23 which helped generate the playing of roles (at one point he claims to be a plumber). Further verbal modes and role shifts emerged, including ideas such as ‘Female: who out of loyalty says nothing until the last minute’ or ‘Male: interrogating subject about his own relationship with interrogator #2’.24 These methods show how the devising process found clear, strategic ways to proceed in order to open up potential structures, before drawing selected patterns together into a script, but, crucially, relied on ensemble verbal development within shared rules. After other experiments, the piece was staged simply. The set comprised a black table and plain chairs. The stage revolved at times, turning the action between scenes, as if for the audience’s scrutiny. The main props were pens and a notepad; the latter filled up with what may or may not be the story of what happened the previous night. An accumulating mass of mugs grew as figures entered with yet more tea or coffee. Costuming was plain and functional. Physicality was limited: there were some gestures used to signal between interrogators, though, as if to reinforce the irreality of the word-based situation, a slap between too-distant performers was clearly not actual. This is a production where the mutual linguistic games of rehearsal could be carried through rehearsal to form the unencumbered dramaturgy and aesthetic of the production. Despite the proliferation of strategies, Yarker quickly realized in rehearsal that, unlike other examples of text in contemporary performance,25 ‘we can’t let it be a lists show’26 (though lists do appear, as well as madcap questioning via an Italian phrasebook). So, questions initiated fuller sequences: from the loaded ‘what are you worth?’ or ‘are you an over- or under-achiever?’, to the seemingly banal. The devising strategy of questioning, therefore, goes beyond Yarker, James, unpublished production notebook for Good and True, 2000. Ibid. 23 Stephens, Craig, conversation with author, Birmingham, 20 December 2011. 24 Yarker, James, unpublished production notebook for Good and True, 2000. 25 Perhaps most clearly seen in the work of Forced Entertainment. 26 Yarker, James, unpublished production notebook for Good and True, 2000. 21 22

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

159

notions of performative text to become a way to create fragments of narrative logic and role-play that are dropped as easily as they are created. Lehmann finds that in performance such ‘rupture between being and meaning has a shock-like effect: something is exposed with the urgency of suggested meaning – but then fails to make the expected meaning recognizable’.27 As Lehmann suggests, it is the sheer action and effect of question and answer, not necessarily intrinsic content, which Good and True continuously highlighted, in a piece that represents a kind of ensemble writing as a means of devising, and, in performance, the ensemble task and aesthetics of speech.

Youth theatre: No Walls, Just Doors and Adult Child/Dead Child In  1997, Yarker directed Birmingham’s Stage two youth theatre in No Walls, Just Doors, following this up with an adaptation of Claire Dowie’s Adult Child/Dead Child in 1999, which toured to the Edinburgh Festival with great success. In its ‘revelling in the number of bodies available on stage’,28 No Walls, Just Doors was founded on cumulative hints of narrative through repeated motifs of action, on a virtually bare stage, stemming from the predetermined theme of ‘life choices’. By contrast, Adult Child/Dead Child added a few lines to Dowie’s original monologue, and shared out this text among the 16-strong cast. The piece is revisioned as being ‘set in the instant before a school photograph is taken’,29 a tension which was held for nearly the entire 70-minute performance. This model of ensemble practice is one of choosing an extant text, but treating it collectively and with the potential of a group aesthetic in mind. Involving 40 young people aged between 10 and 20, No Walls, Just Doors was explicitly ‘an attempt to subvert prejudices about theatre made by young people’.30 Yarker explains that, ‘my principle prejudice around youth theatre work was that it was hierarchical, Lehmann, Hans-Thies, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jűrs-Munby, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 146. 28 www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-no-walls.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 29 www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-adult-child.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 30 www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-no-walls.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 27

160

Encountering Ensemble

not “ensemble”, both in casting and process. I also wanted the acting to be very controlled, [and] the cast not to have to play adults’.31 So the piece’s aesthetics are described as those which for an hour  .  .  .  wordlessly passed performers across stage; built and broke tableaux performer by performer; framed and reframed a single figure with different contexts; represented actions in a series of stills and split their directions; obsessively replaced figures in group photographs.32 Here, Stan’s Cafe’s attraction to the visually precise yet narratively enigmatic again appears. Further, No Walls, Just Doors celebrates the ensemble weight and theatricality of performer numbers, possible given the youth theatre setting of the work. Stan’s Cafe associate artist, Jack Trow, performed in both No Walls, Just Doors and Adult Child/Dead Child.33 Trow is one of two Stan’s Cafe ‘regulars’ to have appeared in these early youth theatre shows as well as, later, The Cleansing of Constance Brown, Of All the People in All the World and The Just Price of Flowers. Thinking back, Trow draws a sharp distinction between the two youth theatre projects. He recalls the positive ensemble characteristics of No Walls, Just Doors as something ‘you can only do if you have forty people’, but also ‘the panic . . . the near mutiny’ of the cast in the face of Yarker’s seemingly unusual ideas and requests.34 Despite the theatrical possibilities of a large cast, ‘ownership’ of the material authored through ensemble work seemed at stake, especially as so many were involved. While retrospectively acknowledging that ‘it might have been more steered than we were aware of’,35 Trow is enthusiastic about the ensemble ‘ownership’ of Adult Child/Dead Child. Since the text was distributed among the cast, Dowie’s original became a multivocal performance. Only absolutely essential props appeared, performers only occasionally acknowledged each other, at one point all faces Yarker, James, correspondence with author, 11 March 2012. www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-no-walls.html; accessed 2 January 2012. 33 At the age of 15 and 17, respectively. 34 Trow, Jack, conversation with author, Birmingham, 12 December 2011 – my emphasis. 35 Ibid. 31 32

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

161

were covered except one, and any relaxing of the fixed position became significant in contrast to the physical discipline elsewhere. As the company’s website explains, ‘emphasis [was] placed on the choral distribution of text. Tension is cranked up through extreme restraint until the inevitable fight, which is not “acted out”’,36 but, as Stan’s Cafe put it, ‘“is”’.37 This actuality of tasks nuances the fabric of a production that, in ensemble terms, used the stillness of what is effectively choral speaking. Despite the controlled aesthetic of the performance, Trow describes that ‘we were all at the coalface; we knew that “yes, there’s something in this”’.38 Rehearsals seemed, at least at times, entirely open and shared in terms of creative solutions: he remembers Yarker’s wondering out loud ‘what happens if we just run around at this point?’39 Recalling Harvie and Lavender’s authorial orientation of the devising director, this is Yarker’s framing, though where responsibility for some kind of more or less instantaneous outcome, which could later be refined, rested with the ensemble of young people.

The Cleansing of Constance Brown The Cleansing of Constance Brown takes place in a corridor 2 metres wide and 14 metres long. In front of an audience of only 50, as David Tushingham eloquently puts it, the corridor is a place of passage, of transition, somewhere for chance encounters and meetings that just fail to happen. It is a place that is marginalized, where people are excluded from real power, separated from the scenes of momentous decisions and key acts by the thickness of a wall or a door.40 What is extraordinary is the chronological reach the piece achieves within the corridor’s framing function. Fragments, scenes and www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-adult-child.html; accessed 2 January 2012. Ibid. 38 Trow, Jack, conversation with author, Birmingham, 12 December 2011. 39 Ibid. 40 www.stanscafe.co.uk/helpfulthings/essays-vienna-constance.html; accessed 3 January 2012. 36 37

162

Encountering Ensemble

sequences spanning several centuries are combined, involving some characters we see for only a few seconds: the military, office ­workers, cleaners, a wartime Jewish wife, a priest.  .  .  .  Later, an enormous, billowing, orange cloth, reminiscent of the disturbing, iconic colour of Guantanamo Bay, balloons into the space. As Lyn Gardner puts it, this is ensemble playing of ‘astonishing technical aplomb’.41 Since the performance used few words, and instead relied on clear, ­powerful images, No Walls, Just Doors can also be seen as something of its forerunner.

The Cleansing of Constance Brown. Photo: Graeme Braidwood.

While the ensemble developed work that was slick yet highly detailed, The Cleansing of Constance Brown began, as with other Stan’s Cafe shows, with Yarker’s definitive starting point: he envisaged the corridor from the outset and that Elizabeth I should appear

Gardner, Lyn, ‘The Cleansing of Constance Brown’. The Guardian, 14 March 2011.

41

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

163

(the figure does so at the end). While Turner and Behrndt find that ‘theatre, like the lens of a camera, also has a tendency to place a focus on the performer, rather than on the space, which becomes relegated to a background or ‘backdrop’,42 the corridor has, rather, a status of the ‘73rd character’.43 In this production, the corridor is no mere ‘backdrop’, but conceived simultaneously as framing the ensemble, peopled by it and part of a collective effort. In contrast to devising strategies discussed earlier, the piece was storyboarded by everyone involved. This collective pictorial imagining helped envision what might appear and created some sense of a mutual aesthetic. Certain ‘rules’ were established: each ‘scene’ had to feature the presence of a woman – this is ‘Constance’, a female figure at the margins of a situation – as well as a power transaction and the action of cleaning. The material was sifted to provide the basis of what became an extraordinarily complex production, aided by a long rehearsal period of around nine weeks. Costume changes were and remain tough: while early run-throughs took some three hours or more, as Stephens puts it, ‘from the beginning, the characters had to look spot on’,44 revealing the preempting of cinematic refinement shared by all concerned.45 Puncturing the potentially comfortable ethos of maintaining a set of associate artists, new members were deliberately taken on for this production. While Stan’s Cafe has no fixed approach, in contrast to some ensemble companies that share a training or a more or less defined work method, new performers helped to resist entrenched patterns and refreshed creative processes. The production is, as Stephens says, ‘about the people who made it’,46

Turner, Jane and Behrndt, Synne, Dramaturgy and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 196. 43 www.stanscafe.co.uk/project-constance-brown.html#introduction; accessed 3 January 2012. 44 Stephens, Craig, conversation with author, Birmingham, 20 December 2011. 45 Yarker writes, ‘one of the most challenging things to work out in rehearsals and subsequent revivals/recastings is which performer opens or closes what door at what point. The stage management script – how to change costumes fast enough, at what point other performers need help/cueing – is very elaborate. After seeing the show so much from out front, I was amazed and emotionally gripped by watching the show from backstage: in certain venues tickets have been sold for this backstage experience’ (Yarker James, correspondence with author, 11 March 2012). 46 Stephens, Craig, conversation with author, Birmingham, 20 December 2011. 42

164

Encountering Ensemble

but, like other shows, has also been performed by different casts (and one performer now plays opposite his previous characters). A new cast member will do things slightly differently of course, and Stephens speaks of how a particular individual’s timing necessitates ‘the re-gauging of the performance, which brings a new energy; that can be really refreshing’.47 This is, then, the moment-by-moment negotiation within the ensemble, performing a piece in the wider repertoire. Not least in its acknowledgement of the earlier It’s Your Film, The Cleansing of Constance Brown develops a filmic aesthetic. Because of the relatively large cast and the extended ‘ensemble’ of characters, the montage of short scenes employs a vocabulary of cuts, juxtaposition and edits and, exaggerated by the long, narrow corridor, the perspectives of close-ups and long shots. Gardner too finds that the performance ‘unfolds before your eyes like a movie rather than a theatre show: a series of unsettling and ambiguous moving images that melt into each other’.48 Just as we understand the televisual ‘language’ of shots and edits used in screen media, we can similarly ‘read’ The Cleansing of Constance Brown. The piece is an extreme example of what Lehmann calls ‘visual dramaturgy’, almost dispensing with words, and instead relishes ‘sequences and correspondences, nodal and condensation points of perception and the constitution of meaning . . . defined by optical data’.49 The production’s visuals intertwine too with a continuous soundtrack, another familiar film device, heightening the action as it unfolds through the incessant activity of the ensemble.

Ensemble making Stan’s Cafe is not an ensemble company which shares a fundamental training or who train together, a feature often seen in other examples. There may be shared cultural touchstones (for example, key members were at Lancaster University and the work of Ibid. Gardner, Lyn, ‘The Cleansing of Constance Brown’. The Guardian, 14 March 2011. 49 Lehmann, Hans-Thies, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jűrs-Munby, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 93. 47 48

STAN’S CAFE: THE VISION OF THE ENSEMBLE

165

Pete Brooks is an influence50), but, in terms of making the work, ensemble skill or technique appears in rehearsal as a set of creative strategies teased out between collaborators. A wider definition of the company as an ensemble is how it expands and contracts around a nucleus as needed for each project. In addition to issues of group authorship and devising, I find that an ensemble characteristic of Stan’s Cafe is the playing out of action defined by a collective task: often this is game-like, is physically challenging or concerns, as Turner and Behrndt put it, the ‘now’ of performance,51 suggesting its real, not fictional, aspects. However, after some years performing The Cleansing of Constance Brown, Stephens relates how his ‘body knows how to do it, where to be. You can think about the acting then; I’m aware of being convincing visually, what shapes I’m making on stage, the information I have to get over, as well as the interaction with fellow performers’.52 The Cleansing of Constance Brown in particular is compelling in its multiple, wellchosen, mutually authored and demanding visual sequences, but its impact equates to its efficacy as a well-oiled ensemble machine. In its comparative simplicity, Good and True’s virtuosity as an ensemble performance does not lie in highly visual group work, exuberant physicality, or large numbers of either performers or characters, but in its linguistic evolution in both devising and performance. This production also usefully resists the too-easy elision of ensemble theatre with physical theatre and is fairly simple theatrically. Instead, the construction and destruction of narrative reflexively draws attention to the fact that this is a group of performers creating a performance together. If Good and True exists because of the linguistic complicity, No Walls, Just Doors celebrated the size of its ensemble cast, a theatrical human mass possible outside of commercial restraints, yet where familiar dramaturgies were resisted, typical of much of Stan’s Cafe’s work. In each of its productions, Stan’s Cafe’s work demonstrates different elements that may be considered as ‘ensemble’, though an www.stanscafe.co.uk/helpfulthings/essays-stan-theatre-company.html; accessed 3 January 2012. 51 Turner, Jane and Behrndt, Synne, Dramaturgy and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 190. 52 Stephens, Craig, conversation with author, Birmingham, 20 December 2011. 50

166

Encountering Ensemble

under­lying feature of all of the work is the value of working as a group and, if there is a Stan’s Cafe aesthetic, the evolution of a shared, bold, central idea and its connection to an audience. Although devising may complicate the position of the director, Yarker’s authority as instigator of this often remarkable and visionary idea is clearly defined, but does not prevent ensuing ensemble development. The task of the ensemble is how to manifest a concept through collective rehearsal, a process that regularly adopts mechanisms or rules in order to proceed, and often finds ways to place unusual characters or themes on stage. While the ethos of the ensemble doesn’t militate against a clear-sighted and authoritative director, Stan’s Cafe’s work also often relies on the availability of a mutually aware collective and an experienced Stan’s Cafe ‘family’; lacking this, No Walls, Just Doors was problematic in both process and shared aesthetic. Nevertheless, as Stephens puts it, ‘we don’t know how to make the show before we start; we have to learn how to make it’,53 a task that simultaneously involves and defines the ensemble. For Stan’s Cafe, there is an ensemble trust in each other, the importance of process and the clarity and shaping of material, and the intelligence of the audience. With thanks to Zelda Hannay and James Yarker for comments on earlier versions.

Ibid.

53

Snapshot #3

Collaboration, ensemble, devising Peter Harrop and Evelyn Jamieson

Western performance history suggests a well-defined process and structure for the creation of new work. The composer or author produces a form of notation, which passes to a conductor or director who works with performers to realize the piece.1 Over the last 50 years, in some quarters at least, such practices have come to be regarded as undemocratic, hierarchical and unhelpfully sequential. But given that collaboration is ‘the action of working with someone to produce something’, it shouldn’t make any difference if that act of ‘working with someone’ is hierarchically arranged or not. Similarly, since ensemble is ‘a group of musicians, actors or dancers who perform together’ (presuming the act of performance involves the production of something) then the presence or absence of hierarchy is an irrelevance. Thirdly, since devising is the ‘planning

We note here that the repetition, re-making, re-creation, revival or re-presentation of pre-existing performance has been a mainstay of Western tradition and is itself enjoying something of a revival. For example, see details of the Remake Symposium held at the Arnolfini Auditorium, Saturday 15 September 2012. www.bristol.ac.uk/ arts/research/performing-documents/symposia/remake-symposium/#tab2. For the purposes of this chapter, we have considered issues arising from making new work.

1

168

Encountering Ensemble

or invention of a complex procedure, system or mechanism by careful thought’2 (presuming that performance is all those things) then the presence or absence of hierarchy still shouldn’t matter. But, in all three cases, we know (as performers or performance makers if not as spectators) that it isn’t irrelevant: It matters. It is an echo of the deference we’ve shaken off and interferes with faith in ‘a sense sublime/of something far more deeply interfused’ (Wordsworth 1888)3 that we occasionally find in other ways of working. The term ‘devising practices’ has come to mean a shared creative process; a rejection of inherited theatrical taxonomies, job descriptions and role descriptors. The more recent phrase ‘making practices’ perhaps better incorporates elements of the ‘Art into Theatre’ noted some years ago by Kaye,4 seeking to make space for the interplay of individual reflective practice within the more resolutely collective. The present performing arts/live arts encounters, often engaging digital technologies, have broadened the scope of interdisciplinarity – previously most explicit in opera and musicals – to embrace a greater range of performance forms. More people now experience the initial difficulty and excitement of working with those from different discipline traditions. Along with the magnetic attraction of our own comfort zones, this can layer onto the personalities and idiosyncrasies that already make rehearsal studios occasionally uncomfortable places. Even when we seek common cause, our discipline communities tend to create their own boundaries. As Necdet Teymur notes, ‘they form solidarities, define common-purposes and invent defence mechanisms’5 in order to protect their knowledge or territory bases. He goes on to say

Collaboration – ‘the action of working with someone to produce something’; Ensemble – ‘group of musicians, actors, or dancers who perform together’; Devise – ‘plan or invent a complex procedure, system, or mechanism by careful thought’; www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/; accessed 8 September 2012. 3 Wordsworth, W., 1770–1850 ‘Poem composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour. 13 July 1798’. In The Complete Poetical Works, by William Wordsworth, London: Macmillan and Co., 1888; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/145/; accessed 10 September 2012. 4 Kaye, N., Art Into Theatre: Performance Interviews and Documents (Contemporary Theatre Studies). Amsterdam B.V.: OPA/Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996. 5 Teymur, N. 2002. ‘Space Between Disciplines’. In Critical Studies: Special Volume Cultural Studies: Interdisciplinarity and Translation, Herbrechter, S. (ed.), Volume 20, September 2002, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2002, p. 98. 2

COLLABORATION, ENSEMBLE, DEVISING

169

that ‘a typical field of inter-disciplinarity is . . . a field not so much of agreements, alliances or co-operative intentions as protected boundaries, walls and barbed wires’.6 More optimistically, Etienne Wenger7 suggests a group that works on a collaborative creative engagement as a ‘community of practice’ can achieve a shared identity and heightened sense of ownership in the process. When we apply this to the arts, we can see our colleagues drawing on past experiences, committing to the enactment of ideas, to what may be discovered together, to the task of finding a collective and collaborative ‘space’ in which collaborator’s performances and sharing of selves might forge a generous narcissism. All collaborative working processes are of course inherently performative – we are first and foremost a performative species. There are a myriad moments of performance and reception in every rehearsal, in every working process, and while they may be fleeting and transitory, they are also cumulative. They form part of the memory and embodied knowledge we take to the next rehearsal, the next working process. But these moments are not held prisoner in the creative process. Implicitly and explicitly, overtly and covertly, they are re-enacted within and via the subsequent act of performance. The point here is to ease from Teymur’s ‘barbed wire’ toward ‘flow’ in Csikszentmihalyi’s usage.8 Many persist in collaborative work despite the frustrations. We think that those who do, have gathered sufficient experiential evidence to argue that they feel different within that work, and we suggest that this feeling can imbue and enhance the meaning of that work – for spectators as well as performers. Ensemble is a special application of our everyday social and cultural performances whereby, to borrow from Zygmunt Baumann, we enact and embody ‘the making and unmaking of strangers’.9 Is it the case that collaborative working processes ‘unmake strangers’ and we sense the traces in consequent performance?

Ibid., pp. 101–2. Wenger, E., Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 8 Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, p. 4. 9 Baumann, Z. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997, p. 17. 6 7

Snapshot #4

Ensemble/improvisation: An experiment in drama/ music interdisciplinarity Paul Carr and Richard J. Hand

In 2005, we undertook a Palatine-funded1 project to investigate the viabilities of interdisciplinary practice in the areas of Drama and Popular Music at the University of Glamorgan, UK. While Drama was well established, Popular Music was a recent development with new staff recruitment. The expansion of the department offered tremendous potential for symbiosis and yet we were determined to develop genuine interdisciplinary projects without rendering either discipline into a subsidiary, ‘supporting’ role. The ‘eureka’ moment occurred when we located a figure who had equal potential for both music and drama: Frank Zappa. Zappa was a postmodern cultural figure with a rich musical legacy and substantial theatrical elements with enough practical, contextual and theoretical considerations to satisfy the interests of both disciplines. Zappa’s oeuvre was rich enough to provide challenging examples of composition and musical P A L A T I N E (Performing Arts Learning and Teaching Innovation Network) was the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music (2000–11). See www.palatine.ac.uk for more details.

1

ENSEMBLE/IMPROVISATION

171

virtuosity and the more theatre-related concerns of provocative comedy and satirical narrative. In embarking on this project, the place of shared (yet starkly different) terms such as ensemble, improvi­ sation and role-play would prove to be a fascinating point of liaison. We ran preparatory workshops which enabled participants to engage with the raw materials (both practical and theoretical) within the remit of our individual disciplines prior to working together. Music experts were introduced to a theatre studies approach to practice and analysis; drama specialists were immersed into a context of musical performance and interpretation. Drama participants would ‘have a go’ at singing and even improvised musicianship, but these untrained efforts were underpinned by the bedrock of skilled rock musicians. Similarly, drama experts nurtured skills of performance comedy and theatrical status within the musicians. A key guiding principle was the issue of territory. By immersing themselves in the theatre-studio, musicians learned the codes of drama: the dynamics of stage acoustics and space; the practice of theatre warm-ups, stage management, lighting, sound desk, costume and props; the etiquette of stage rehearsal and production. By venturing into the music facilities, the drama group encountered the world of popular music: the high-tech environment of the mixing desk and recording studio; musicians’ warm-ups, tuning and interpretation; the protocol of studio practice and production. In developing our interdisciplinary ensemble, we ensured that rehearsals and performances took place equally between the domains of the drama space and the music studio. This guaranteed the project’s interdisciplinary identity and came to characterize the ensemble itself: the participants became comfortable in either realm and it was at this point that the ensemble fully cohered. Ultimately, we created an original, ensemble-based, music-theatre adaptation Zappa-Fish: An Anti-Off-Off-Off Broadway Musical which deployed colleagues in a variety of roles that presented a symbiosis of aptitude and enthusiasm from across the disciplines. The piece was structured around a corpus of Zappa songs and an overarching narrative loosely based on Zappa’s ‘musical’ ThingFish (1984). In and around the storyline and songs, the work was driven by improvisation and role-play with the close-knit ensemble playfully exploring each other’s disciplines. The project found ways to share methods, spaces and principles in the creation of an exquisitely balanced interdisciplinary ensemble.

Chapter Eight

As important as blood and shelter: Extending studiinost into obshchnost Bryan Brown

After the death of Joseph Stalin, theatre-studios began to re-emerge in Russia and with them returned the specific notion of ensemble-asrelationship called studiinost.1 As the grim mundaneness of Soviet life wore on, theatre-studios became one of the few places where people seeking a more open exchange of ideas and sentiments could gather. And as they did so, the relationship between performer and spectator took on a new dimension. A need developed for an immediacy to be experienced between a theatre and its audience, one that contained a sense of mutual support. Developed within the ethos of the Moscow Art Theatre’s First Studio (1911–24), studiinost was formulated to create a mutual trust between performers that allowed for a depth of sincerity and authenticity to be expressed between them, and then directed out to the audience. The new dimension of performer and audience relationship that arose in the second half of the twentieth century expanded studiinost to include

1

See Brown in Chapter 1 of this book.

AS IMPORTANT AS BLOOD AND SHELTER

173

the audience in its conception of ensemble. This expanded studiinost I am terming obshchnost. Studiinost and obshchnost both refer to an almost intangible contract, a processual agreement between each member of the ensemble that creates a particular atmosphere. The use of these Russian words should not dissuade the reader, rather the opposite. Not using an English translation is intended to remind the reader how non-daily the relations are that this type of ensemble demands. Etymologically, obshchnost means ‘the sense of coming together’ or ‘the quality of being as one’. The New Dictionary of Russian Language further supplies two definitions of obshchnost that inform my use of it: (1) an unbreakable bond, a unity; and (2) the mutual relationship of all parts. Within a theatre context, obshchnost refers to the bonds of immediacy forged between the performers and spectators. It is also the atmosphere created by the mutual trust and support of all participants that allows them, however briefly, to overcome the mundaneness of daily life. At the heart of obshchnost is the realization that unique art cannot be created without a unique audience. This chapter will look at the ways in which two contemporary practitioners have conceived and used obshchnost to create their unique art. Both practitioners have achieved international fame, yet there is very little written about them in English. So this chapter offers a rare glimpse into their practices. The first practitioner is perhaps the greatest living Russian clown, Slava Polunin, whose performance Slava’s Snowshow has been touring the world for 15  years. Snowshow developed from Polunin’s St Petersburg theatre-studio Licedei, which formed in the last years of the Soviet Union and was emblematic of the desire to overcome the staleness of Soviet life.2 The second practitioner to be discussed is Sergei Zhenovach who has quietly been making profound theatre in Moscow for ­decades. In  2005, Zhenovach established one of post-Soviet Russia’s only independent theatres, the Theatre Art Studio (STI).3 Unlike ­Polunin’s Licedei’s history is largely dependent on personal narrative. It began in 1968 with Polunin and a few other core members but officially took the name Licedei in 1978, gathering influential members over the next five years. The studio celebrated its death in 1988, though it continued to create larger projects, and then by 1992 had split into two camps, those with Polunin and those not. 3 The Theatre Art Studio in Russian is Studiya Teatral’nogo Iskusstva, thus its acronym is STI. 2

174

Encountering Ensemble

Snowshow which can achieve obshchnost in any language and any culture, Zhenovach’s delicate sincerity is firmly rooted in Russian classical text. Twenty years apart and completely different in aesthetics, Licedei and STI offer excellent examples of how obshchnost is unique to each ensemble and yet traceable through a shared language and set of practices that define relations between the audience and performers.

Positive anarchy Although Slava Polunin was the acknowledged leader, Licedei began as a ‘theatre of open structure’ where each performer was considered ‘a whole world’ in and of herself/himself.4 Egalitarianism was built into the formation of the studio alongside an anarchy that made the studio dependent on the mutual relations between the ‘whole worlds’. This is the basis of Licedei’s studiinost and was extended into their cultivation of obshchnost. Initially inspired to learn and revitalize the art of classical pantomime, Polunin has stated that Licedei’s real purpose was to return ‘simplicity and sincerity’ to the theatre.5 As they developed mastery in pantomime, however, it became clear that the form was an obstacle to the ‘simplicity and sincerity’ they sought. This is not an innate fault of pantomime but rather of the type of relationship between performer and spectator that theatrical form itself can cause, particularly when devoid of the immediacy that obshchnost supports. There is always a tension between form and expression. Mastering an art form such as mime places emphasis on the physical skill of the performer. This mastery can then lead to an audience expressing awe at the dexterity, control and rhythm of the performer, rather than delighting in the expression of the performer. Even more importantly, the audience and the performer can forget that they are there to create a shared experience. Polunin makes this distinction simply between ‘awe’ and ‘love’. Love is a relationship, a shared experience. Awe is an objective 4 Smirnyagina, Tat’yana Yur’evna, Rossiiskii Teatr Pantomimui V Kontse XX-go ­ toletiya (Na opuite teatra “Litsedei” Vyacheslava Polunina, Performteatra “CherC noeNebobeloe”, “Russkogo Inzhenernogo teatra AKHE”). Moscow PhD thesis: The State Institute of Art Studies, 2005, p. 16. 5 Ibid., p. 25.

AS IMPORTANT AS BLOOD AND SHELTER

175

deference. Licedei devised work from the starting point of the person – ‘the whole world’ – rather than a dramaturgical or textbased narrative. The person aimed to share something of herself/ himself with another (the spectator). Licedei was seeking love, not awe, from the spectator. To achieve the marriage of form and expression that provokes love, joy has to be the foundation from which each performer shares herself/himself. To foster this joy, the proper atmosphere is necessary. The words ‘work’ and ‘rehearsal’ were banned within the studio. All creative action was to be a celebration or holiday. But to provoke love, an audience must be present, one that understands the uniqueness of the atmosphere being created. And so, Licedei began cultivating obshchnost. A cabaret of sorts was created, called Vsyaki-Byaki, in which studio members had the opportunity to perform anything they wanted no matter if it was a sketch of an idea or a semi-polished performance. The phrase vsyaki-byaki is deliberately childish; a literal translation might be ‘any yuckies’. Cook translated vsyakibyaki as ‘nasty-basties’6, and the negative or darker connotations of ‘nasty’ are not to be dismissed. The ‘anything goes’ policy for content was crucial for the performers to discover their unique expression. The naïve anarchism of Licedei’s studiinost was, importantly, contained in the cabaret’s name. This naïve anarchism was extended into the creation of the rules for Vsyaki-Byaki. A rich history of theatrical discussion, criticism and debate has been encouraged in Russia over the last century. This is not confined to professionals or specialists but permeates the majority of the theatre-going public. Just as ‘rehearsal’ and ‘work’ had been banned from the studio, any sort of negative feedback or criticism was barred from the audience’s participation at VsyakiByaki. This rule then was the primary mechanism by which Licedei maintained obshchnost. There was to be no negative feedback from the audience to the performer. Nothing was forbidden except one thing: you could not critique, you had to adore what was happening. Somebody could have been on stage for an hour and there’s only one bit in that hour that

Markova, Elena; Kate Cook (trans.), Off Nevsky Prospekt: St Petersburg’s Theatre Studios in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Routledge, 1998, p. 92.

6

176

Encountering Ensemble

was really amazing; it could have been just one gesture, but that would be the thing that everybody really likes. And everybody would be crying and screaming and lifting [the performer] in their arms and throwing him up to the ceiling because he found that gesture.7 There were two ways in which Licedei chose the audience for Vsyaki-Byaki. The first was rather obvious. Performers invited guests they believed would contribute to the obshchnost. However, a control mechanism was put in place: if a spectator did not add to the obshchnost, if they were negative in their reactions, if they were unable to find humour or joy in the performances, or quite simply were unable to love the performers or other audience members, then they were not invited back. What’s more, the performer who had invited them was not allowed to invite another guest for a specified amount of time (usually a month). The second method for cultivating obshchnost was that Licedei continued to perform publicly and when they did, the house manager would be on the lookout for spectators who particularly seemed to resonate with Licedei’s studiinost. In such cases, the manager would then get the spectator’s number and invite them to Vsyaki-Byaki. In both of these methods of audience cultivation, the kruzhok element of studiinost with its exclusive and regulated membership is clearly apparent.8 Vsyaki-Byaki was also reminiscent of the kruzhok in other ways. The guests would be asked to bring cake and a gift. A table would be placed between the audience and the stage and the nights started with eating, drinking and singing. Food and drink (generally non-alcoholic) would be available throughout. This simple way of communing established a sense of mutual trust. Furthermore, the vibrant, tempestuous exchange that identifies a sense of egalitarianism within the kruzhok was replicated in the manner of performance generation at Vsyaki-Byaki. In between eating, drinking and singing, someone would jump on stage and begin Polunin, Slava; Olya Petrakova (trans.), transcription of public talk held at Art Via Corpora. Los Angeles, 2007. 8 Kruzhok is a gathering of like-minded people with clear regulations that support the creation of mutual trust and fuel the dynamic exchange of thought and feeling. See Brown in Part I of this collection. 7

AS IMPORTANT AS BLOOD AND SHELTER

177

their performance. It would not take long for a cheer or positive comment from the spectators to encourage someone else to jump up and add to the performance or start a whole new performance. Lastly, there was no time limit on Vsyaki-Byaki. Often they began at 6 p.m. and ended at 6 a.m.. ‘You couldn’t stop the flow. It was done when it was done’.9 But when they were done, everyone would exchange the gifts they had brought, and particular gifts were given to those performers who did something unexpected. This gift exchange concretized the love shared within the obshchnost and further induced an anticipation for the next Vsyaki-Byaki. The majority of Licedei’s productions, including portions of Slava’s Snowshow, were created from a series of such inspiring evenings of obshchnost.

Walking towards each other Licedei was driven to cultivate obshchnost by its desire to return simplicity and sincerity to the theatre, but the collective began as the majority of Russian theatre studios do – as a group of enthusiastic amateurs seeking the development of their own potential. In distinct counterpoint to Licedei, STI under the direction of Sergei Zhenovach is comprised of a graduating group of students from GITIS, Russia’s pre-eminent professional training institute.10 In order to understand the creation of STI, it is necessary to explain broadly how GITIS operates, for it is quite unlike its Western counterparts. GITIS was constructed on the model of a medieval guild workshop where the master teacher functions not only like the master of the workshop, but also an artistic director of a theatre, hence the name given to this role: Khudozhestvennuii rukovoditel (‘artistic director’ or, more appropriately for this context, ‘master teacher’). The master teacher handpicks students from auditions and will be their master for the entire four  years  9 Polunin, Slava; Olya Petrakova (trans.), transcription of public talk held at Art Via Corpora. Los Angeles, 2007. 10 GITIS is the Soviet acronym for what is now called Rossiiski Universitet Teatral’nogo Iskusstva – GITIS. GITIS remains the name used in everyday conversation with contemporary Russians and the university itself has adopted it as an addendum to its own title, therefore GITIS shall be used throughout this chapter.

178

Encountering Ensemble

of their training. Often the master teacher is in actuality an artistic director of a Moscow theatre and upon successful graduation, a very small number of students from his group are accepted into this theatre. The remaining majority of students, if they are lucky, have been offered positions in other theatres based on their work in GITIS productions. Still others are left with no theatre upon graduation, becoming essentially freelance, but during Soviet times, and to some degree still today, being freelance is literally like being homeless, and therefore an impossible position from which to work.11 While it is not without precedent, it is, nevertheless, very rare for a Soviet or Russian group of graduating students to remain together

This photo of STI was taken in the lobby of its theatre, the former Alekseev (Stanislavski) family factory. Though Zhenovach sits front and centre, the studio’s warm familial atmosphere permeates the photo. The individuality of each actor emanates from the photo, surrounded and supported by the domestic furniture that welcomes guests to the theatre. Photo: STI. See the introduction to Markova, Elena; Kate Cook (trans.), Off Nevsky Prospekt: St Petersburg’s Theatre Studios in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Routledge, 1998.

11

AS IMPORTANT AS BLOOD AND SHELTER

179

and form their own theatre. Zhenovach, however, took it one step further. For their final two years at GITIS, he had his group perform as if they were an independent theatre. They performed over 100 times prior to graduation, an unprecedented amount for a student group. Yet, student-actor Sergei Pirnyak made it clear that this was not about acquiring skill or comfort in front of an audience, rather he stated that ‘meeting with the spectator is our experiment’.12 Pirnyak’s phrase is a version of one that Zhenovach himself has stated in numerous interviews, one that is in essence a maxim for STI. In 2007, Zhenovach expressed it this way, ‘[we aim] not to lock ourselves into the theatre for theatre’s sake, but to walk towards the spectator. And those who walk to meet us are our audience’.13 In the early 1990s, Zhenovach created what he calls the ‘theatre of thought’; a theatre epitomized in his production of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot where every word of dialogue from the novel was spoken on stage.14 The ‘theatre of thought’ is not simply an excessively literary theatre, but rather a theatre that attempts to create ‘zones of affections’.15 Here, ‘affections’ is used in the archaic sense of the word, as the act of affecting someone, the audience as well as the players. In such a zone, the thought that the author communicates appears as a revelation and affects those who hear it as well as those who speak it. To create a zone of affection, the proper atmosphere must be cultivated. As with Licedei, Zhenovach knows that such an atmosphere is not created solely by the performers. Theatre is not only a difficult, unexplainable work – it demands an entrustment of the most treasured thoughts to one another, because without revelation you cannot get involved in theatre. What’s necessary is a circle of people with whom one is not shy, in front of whom one is not afraid to be ridiculous.16 Novikova, Irina, ‘Ne roman, a putanitsa’, Dosug & Razblecheniya (3 March 2005), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. 13 Volkov, Sergei, ‘Poiskovuii Teatr Sergei Zhenovach’, Literatura (20 August 2007), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. 14 A feat that took 11 hours split across 3 evenings. 15 Roginskaya, Olga, ‘Sergei Zhenovach: Eto schast’e – iskat’ i nakhodit’ chto-to novoe’, Chaksor.ru (18 February 2009), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. 16 Aref’eva, Anastasiya, ‘Sergei Zhenovach: Derzhat’ tseloe, cokhranyaya ordel’nuyu lichnost’’, Kul’tura (3 February 2005), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. 12

180

Encountering Ensemble

The Russian words Zhenovach chooses to use, sokrovennikh and otkrovennie (here translated as ‘most treasured’ and ‘revelation’), share the Old Slavonic root, krov, which is tellingly the same word for ‘blood’ and ‘shelter’. Theatre for Zhenovach, then, is a need as basic as blood and shelter. This is evidenced by the audience that returns again and again to the performances. In fact, STI began because a group of committed audience members consistently came to the GITIS performances. This group of spectators comprises the beginning of STI’s obshchnost. Contemporary critics commonly refer to STI as the twentyfirst century embodiment of the theatre-home, a conception of ensemble that has its roots in the Moscow Art Theatre along with its correlative term the ‘theatre-family’. Yet, STI’s understanding of the theatre-home and theatre-family is not limited to the artists who comprise the theatre, but includes building a home for the audience and making them into blood-friends (krovnuie druzya). STI’s production of The River Potudan is emblematic of the obshchnost they are cultivating. The production inaugurated STI’s small theatre and each performance was purposefully limited to 35 guests. Received in the lobby of the main theatre at a long wooden table, the guests were served tea, unpeeled potatoes, black bread and cured fatback to the accompaniment of the play’s protagonist on the accordion. This beginning was a mechanism for generating obshchnost, as Zhenovach stated, ‘It was important for us that an atmosphere of trust would emerge. People who just sat at the common table, who ate potatoes together, will see the play differently’.17 With The River Potudan Zhenovach found a new frame for his ‘theatre of thought’: sokrovennuii razgovor or ‘innermost conversation’. The theatre of thought requires an audience to be actively engaged in its creation, so ‘innermost conversation’ also became a way of describing STI’s obshchnost. We [as human beings] are always afraid of innermost conversations and also in life we are afraid of these. We hide, we are used to hiding behind irony, behind erudition, behind cultural idle talk. Here it is necessary to come face to face . . . and converse one Roginskaya, Olga, ‘Sergei Zhenovach: Eto schast’e – iskat’ i nakhodit’ chtoto novoe’, Chaksor.ru (18 February 2009), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011.

17

AS IMPORTANT AS BLOOD AND SHELTER

181

on one. Here there is a special role of the spectator – here there can be no spectator as a gathering of people. It is a gathering of individualities. [. . . H]ere what is important is the breath of each human being, the eyes of each person, and his inclusion into this story.18 Such an obshchnost is a very different ensemble than that of Licedei’s raucous Vsyaki-Byaki, but one that likewise centres on communion through extension of the principles of studiinost: exclusivity, mutual trust and egalitarianism. Though STI has a completely different origination story and aesthetics from Licedei, the two studios share a desire to return sincerity to the theatre and a belief that the way to do so is through the cultivation of obshchnost.

Again and again Polunin’s ‘theatre of love’ and Zhenovach’s ‘theatre of thought’ can only exist with reciprocity, the audience cannot be general or universal recipients, but must be engaged co-creators. For the latter, they are needed to accept the thought, process it, justify it, and possibly develop it further. This is why Zhenovach loves to sit in the courtyard of STI and converse with his audience post-performance. For the former, the audience is needed to love the clown-mimes, to provoke them to new expression. This is why Polunin’s troupe stays on stage after the performance of Slava’s Snowshow to hug, dance, gaze and remain with their co-creators for as long as is needed. It is also why Polunin himself often sits in the auditorium after each performance, hugging and taking photos with the audience, absorbing the obshchnost that has been created. Obshchnost is this atmosphere of reciprocity. It is an atmosphere to which people return again and again. It is the sharing of celebrations that lift art and life to a higher level.

18 Timasheva, Marina, ‘V Teatr Sergei Zhenovach zashel Andrei Platonov’, Radio Svoboda (18 February 2009), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011.

Snapshot #5

Ensembles, groups, networks Julia Varley

There are two themes that interest me when I think about the relationship between Odin Teatret and the younger generations who, like us, make theatre today: the meaning of ‘group’ in relation to artistic and cultural production, and the capacity to withstand extreme workloads. ‘Ensemble’ means together. At Odin Teatret, we use this word only to differentiate the performances in which all the actors take part from the solos or productions with few actors. Otherwise, we call ourselves a ‘theatre group’ and by this we mean a strategy of survival which is independent from buildings and official institutions; a condition of existence which is the consequence of an artistic vision; a group-culture rooted in the know-how and the creative autonomy of its members; a net of relationships and collaborative alliances based on affinity and concrete goals. A theatre group shares a history, chooses its own ancestors and founds a new small tradition. ‘Ensemble’ evokes a company, like Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner, while ‘group’ denotes the individual needs, the political aspirations and the spirit of rebellion that emerged in the 1960s. The group is an independent micro-society, centred around the craft, but with effects that go well beyond.

ENSEMBLES, GROUPS, NETWORKS

183

An aspect that characterizes Odin Teatret as a group and theatre laboratory is the everyday sharing of activities that are not directly connected to the result (performance) as, for example, the daily training. Since 1964, we have continued to meet every day for nearly 50 years. It seems much more difficult today for young people to maintain such a feat. The autonomous and concrete steadfastness of the different individuals at Odin Teatret, and not the obligation to conform to ideology or methods, gives persistence to our group. The daily encounter and an acceptance of the need to grow slowly, each according to her or his rhythm, has permitted Odin Teatret to let original results emerge from the work, focusing on physical and vocal impulses, on their simultaneity, in concordance or in opposition to narration. Every actor at Odin Teatret has passed through a long period of apprenticeship during which they have tested their endurance and have discovered energies beyond the threshold of tiredness. Today, the impatience to reach results, economic instability and geographical uprooting mean that many are satisfied with collaborating in short-lived projects; however, I feel that, to connect what is different, our need for challenge, exchange and being part of something that transcends us, may also be materialized through networks. The physical encounter happens once or twice a year, but the contact is maintained regularly. A common voice emerges from a composition of individualities and realities that come together to mark simultaneously their difference and sense of belonging. If the network persists, it creates references for production, it forms a shared history and recognition. An example is The Magdalena Project, a network of women in contemporary theatre which has existed since 1986 and is still expanding throughout the world. How can a young person today find a teacher or a situation that demands they go beyond the known limits and engage at the maximum? Theatre groups have provided this context before and maybe a network does this now. Theatre technique is embodied, it is thought in action, intelligence of the feet, it cannot be studied at a desk, but must be assimilated and defended day by day with years of practice. In a technological era, perhaps theatre is anachronistic, but I want to defend it precisely because it maintains the necessity of an embodied knowledge which is reached through self-discipline and self-learning. Each time I am on tour in Latin

184

Encountering Ensemble

America, I have the confirmation that many theatre groups there still share this necessity. We need to belong and to act, to be part of society and autonomous, to build our own history. The answers to this need can be called with different names: ensemble, groups and networks.

Snapshot #6

Teatr Chorea: Synchrony in action Małgorzata Jabłon´ska

In  2004, three former core members of the renowned Ośrodek Praktyk Teatralnych ‘Gardzienice’ (Centre for Theatre Practices ‘Gardzienice’) – Dorota Porowska, Tomasz Rodowicz and Elżbieta Rojek – established Teatr Chorea, an investigative performance company based in Łódź, Poland. The choice of name was inspired by the principles of the Ancient Greek chorea, which – through their transposition to contemporary cultural and social contexts – were conceived as forming the aesthetic, ethical and technical paradigms for the company’s future work. Since its foundation, Chorea has created a series of ensemble performances based on a dynamic interpellation of the distant past and the present, and on close collaborations with other international artists, such as the dancer and choreographer Robert Hayden, and the groups Ultima Vez and Earthfall Dance Theatre. In ancient Greece, the concept of chorea designated the unity of music, movement and speech exemplified by the work of the chorus. The chorus would sing or intone verse while moving to the rhythm designated both by the metre of the dramatic text and by the accompanying music. For Chorea, this lyrical-musicalchoreographic coordination shapes their basic understanding

186

Encountering Ensemble

of ensemble action, and has become integral to the company’s technique. In order to master the intricate musical structures of ancient Greek texts (which are often comprised of highly irregular or unusual rhythms, at least as seen from the perspective of much contemporary Western music), the group has researched and developed its own distinctive etudes, which require the precise conjoining of simple dance moves, clapping, stamping and ‘vocal actions’. These etudes were soon acknowledged by their devisers to be a highly effective way of cultivating a somatically rooted, shared rhythmic understanding within the ensemble. They now serve as an essential foundation for long-term creative work among Chorea’s performer-musicians. In rehearsals, actions improvised and developed from these etudes are weaved together to form the complex, polyrhythmic structures that underlie the company’s theatre productions. This ‘layering’ presents a significant, ongoing challenge for the performers, due to the need to sustain an extremely demanding interrelationship between movement and voice – and between multiple modes of attention – throughout their entire time on stage. However, despite the considerable challenges, the resulting potential for arriving at new and surprising interpersonal dynamics, acoustical resonances and extended periods of synchronicity among the group enables Chorea to explore genuinely collective actions and discoveries during the course of their ensemble work. The group sees its practice as being grounded in the participants’ sensorimotor apparatus and in a tendency towards synchronization that they observe to occur frequently in nature. In their view, the human brain has an innate, inductive response of kinship and sympathy towards those who echo our own movements or behaviours. The starting point and affective pattern for ensemble work in Chorea is thus the full psychophysical experience of ‘belonging’ and of responsiveness to others that can be perceived from moment to moment in the evolving, rhythmic structure of the action – and especially in the highly acrobatic sequences that often emerge within it. In the most demanding moments of training and performance, each lift, leap, catch, adaptation and readjustment is understood to be an action of the entire group. Optimally, the risks and the burden are shared, and the individual obligation towards each partner should not diminish at any point. However, due to

TEATR CHOREA: SYNCHRONY IN ACTION

187

their shared basis for action and interaction, this co-responsibility is not primarily conceived verbally or in terms of ‘duty’, but as part of an underlying ‘being towards each other’. Chorea has found this seemingly idealistic view to be a core aspect of their practice, since the combination of shared psychophysical behaviours and the corresponding focus placed on the efforts of each company member towards the others have served to provide a tangible sense of security across the spectrum of the group’s activity. In subjective terms, this foundation seems to have minimized the performers’ anticipation of potential individual ‘failures’, errors, self-exposure and other attendant complications encountered in demanding new situations, while also augmenting collective sensations of trust, ease, flow and organic interaction. In pragmatic terms, it has enabled unusually rapid upward shifts in difficulty and complexity among the group when undertaking unfamiliar dance and vocal actions, or quick-fire acrobatic manoeuvres. Furthermore, it has been deployed as a set of transferable competences across the various non-theatrical tasks undertaken by company members, who are encouraged to apply the same coordinating principles in diverse situations arising in the life of the ensemble. Taking on administrative, promotional or workshop duties is to be approached in the same way as learning challenging performance skills. Although the overriding atmosphere within Chorea is one of collegiality and common purpose, it is impossible to determine the extent to which this is the result of a rare confluence of genuine friendships, complementary abilities and shared interests sustained over time, or the outcome of a cultivated synchronicity within a company practice that grants certain tools (not to mention the time and space) with which to foster particularly immersive experiences between people. Translated and edited from Polish by Duncan Jamieson

Snapshot #7

Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Pies´n´ Kozła) Anna Porubcansky

Song of the Goat Theatre is an international ensemble based in Wrocław, Poland, that grounds its performance practice in fostering powerful connections between its actors. Continuing a rich tradition of Polish theatre developed by companies such as Reduta Theatre, Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre and the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices, Song of the Goat has shaped an approach to performance that is rooted in the lives of its actors not only as performers but also as human beings. Director Grzegorz Bral specifies that his aim is to create ‘a profound actor training that teaches a person to become a sensitive, open, and honest instrument’.1 Through physical training, rhythm work, improvisation, acrobatics, vocal exploration and song, the group has developed a unique training, devising and performance process that actively seeks to create theatre as a live, energetic experience of human connection.

Grzegorz Bral as cited in Anna Porubcansky, ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Artistic Practice as Life Practice’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 263.

1

´ Kozła) Song of the Goat Theatre ( Teatr Pies´n

189

Fundamental to the group’s theatre work is its understanding and practice of ‘coordination’. Drawn from Bral and co-founder Anna Zubrzycki’s own spiritual practice of Tibetan Buddhism, where mindfulness and compassion are taught in order to reduce the suffering of life’s impermanence,2 coordination for Song of the Goat is a search for balanced harmony between every component of performance.3 This is a search for the seamless interplay between theatrical forms such as text, music, rhythm and movement. Within the ensemble, coordination is a deep commitment to an integration both within and between the actors’ bodies, voices, imaginations and energies. Bral’s aim is that the actors operate as ‘one body’, where each actor is in a state of perpetual and open response towards the actions, sounds, gestures, emotions and expressions of the others.4 As the actor Ian Morgan asks: ‘How can I get into the place where I, today, can be undivided and receptive to the material and my colleagues, and just be here and now? If we do that, and are honest to our tasks as actors, and honest to ourselves as humans, . . . then something special can happen’.5 As a result, Song of the Goat’s work is a powerful blend of emotion and expression, song and movement, text and rhythm. Since its formation in 1996, the group has produced four full productions: Song of the Goat – A Dithyramb (Pieśń Kozła – dytyramb) (1997); Chronicles – A Lamentation (Kroniki – obyczaj lamentacyjny) (2001); Lacrimosa (2005); and Macbeth (2008). The group’s most recent project is Songs of Lear (Pieśni Leara), which premiered at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to wide acclaim. These performances draw on rich material gathered during intense periods of research and expedition: the lamenting tradition of women in Epirus, the fire-walking ritual of the Anastenarides in

2 For more information, see: Akong Tulku Rinpoche, Taming the Tiger: Tibetan Teachings for Improving Daily Life (London: Rider, 1994); and Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Introduction to Buddhism (Ulverston: Tharpa Publications, 2007). 3 The relationship between Buddhist teachings and Song of the Goat’s practice is discussed in more detail in: Anna Porubcansky, ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Artistic Practice as Life Practice’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 261–4. 4 Anna Porubcansky, ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Artistic Practice as Life Practice’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 264. 5 Ian Morgan, interviewed by the author, Wrocław, 26 February 2010.

190

Encountering Ensemble

northern Greece, the complex polyphonies of the Corsican a capella group, A Filetta, and ancient mythology such as the Sumerian tale of Gilgamesh.6 For the actors, culturally rooted art forms such as these provide deep insights into the diverse ways that humans connect to and express the world around them. By fusing their personal responses to this living cultural material with their deep training in coordination, the actors of Song of the Goat dedicate their work to an exploration of themselves as interconnected human beings in an attempt to create theatre that offers audiences a visceral experience of life itself.7

See: Loring M. Danforth, Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American Firewalking Movement, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989; Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002; Stephen Mitchell, Gilgamesh: A New English Version, London: Profile Books, 2004. 7 For further information on Song of the Goat, see: Anna Zubrzycki and Grzegorz Bral in conversation with Maria Shevtsova, ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Finding Flow and Connection’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 248–60; and Niamh Dowling, ‘Teatr Piesn Kozla and its integration into Western European theatre training’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2011): 243–59. 6

Chapter Nine

Towards a syncretic ensemble? RedCape Theatre’s The Idiot Colony Rebecca Loukes

Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking it.1 This case study uses RedCape Theatre’s 2008 devised piece The Idiot Colony to explore how specific practices and histories of ­performer training disciplines both inform and problematize each other. I will be asking what challenges are faced in attempting to create an ensemble from diverse approaches to training from different traditions and cultures and how an interdisciplinary ‘meeting/exchange’ of training and approaches to performance can create an ensemble. In addressing these questions, I will, of course, also be asking what ensemble means in RedCape’s work and, therefore, how this particular example of contemporary working practice might contribute to a broader understanding of the notion of ensemble. Antonio Machado (translated from the original Spanish by McCaw), in McCaw, Dick, ‘Claire Heggen Goes Fishing’ in John Keefe and Simon Murray (eds) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 15.

1

192

Encountering Ensemble

Company context RedCape Theatre was founded in  2007 by Claire Coaché, Cassie Friend and Rebecca Loukes. We met at Lancaster University in 1992 and spent the years following our theatre studies degree pursuing a diverse range of training – maintaining the desire to work together when the time was right. Friend trained at École Jacques Lecoq, Paris, and she is also a member of Pig Iron Theatre Company, Philadelphia. Coaché also trained at École Jacques Lecoq. My background is in the body awareness work of Elsa Gindler (1885– 1961) with Eva Schmale (Germany) and Charlotte Selver (US) and Phillip Zarrilli’s approach to martial/meditation arts. RedCape was formed and has been run as a working cooperative ensemble of actor-devisers who invite guest practitioners to work with them on a project-by-project basis. The Idiot Colony, RedCape Theatre’s first piece, was co-created by Coaché, Friend and Loukes, Andrew Dawson (director) and Lisle Turner (writer). It opened at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2008, where it won both a Fringe First and Total Theatre Award for Visual Theatre. It toured the United Kingdom for the next two years.2 The piece told the fictional stories of three women (Joy, Mary and Victoria) admitted to an asylum in the 1940s after being classified as ‘morally defective’, as described in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. It was inspired by a story uncovered by Coaché’s father, who used to fix hairdryers in salons in the West Midlands. One of the hairdressers he met used to work in the salon of St Margaret’s Hospital (also known locally as the Great Barr Idiot Colony). The hairdresser said how she had cut the hair of women in the salon inside the hospital. These women had told her stories of people who had been ‘locked away’ in the hospital for having illegitimate children. Who were these women? Why were they incarcerated? What happened to them? And how might we be able to tell their story? Turner led an intensive research process involving interviews with former staff at St Margaret’s as well as mental health service users, local and national archival research and work on the history of mental health in the Venues included ICA as part of the London International Mime Festival, Warwick Arts Centre, Birmingham Rep, Plymouth Theatre Royal and Tron Glasgow. For images, reviews and other information, see www.redcapetheatre.co.uk/idiotcolony. html and for short trailer see www.youtube.com/watch?vpuhE0DGgoQI.

2

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

193

United Kingdom. The piece we created moved between the worlds of the hospital, the hairdressing salon and scenes of reminiscence for each of the three characters, gradually revealing their stories in fragments, as pieces of memory are uncovered.

What training for what ensemble? What training lineages did participants bring to the creative process? Coaché, Friend and Loukes had experience of sharing each other’s training in a project run by Anna Helena MacLean (formerly of Gardzienice Theatre Association) called Theatre Exchange in 2005. This project brought together practitioners from a diverse range of movement-based lineages in an attempt to share principles and practices and create something new. While the experience was fascinating and led to a number of artistic developments, it was also a challenging experience. We realized that each person’s longterm training was a deeply embodied experience with different languages, rhythms and perspectives on the logic and construction of devised material. A short project such as Theatre Exchange was really only able to identify potential areas for development of any kind of shared ensemble rather than create something new. The training that the RedCape founders brought together in 2007 are all approaches with the potential for the creation of an ensemble at their heart. In my own training this can be characterized by key examples from both the work of Elsa Gindler and the work of Phillip Zarrilli – both of which have informed the way I move, interact and create work on stage. The training I have undertaken for 17 years (with Eva Schmale and Charlotte Selver) is rooted in the legacy of German somatic awareness practitioner Elsa Gindler (1885–1961). This ‘radically simple’ practice involves gentle experimentation with breath and its influence on awareness of the whole body in space.3 Beginning with observations of more and more detailed psychophysical processes 3 For more information on Elsa Gindler’s work see Gindler, Elsa [1926], ‘Gymnastik for People Whose Lives are Full of Activity’, in D. H. Johnson (ed.) Bone, Breath and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Press, 1995: Loukes, Rebecca, ‘“Concentration” and Awareness in Psychophysical Training: The Practice of Elsa Gindler’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2006): 387–400, and publications by the Sensory Awareness Foundation (www.sensoryawareness.org).

194

Encountering Ensemble

in the body, the training develops an awareness that, I argue, is essential to ensemble work. Gertrud Falke-Heller, a dancer and student of Gindler, in her work with dance students at the JoossLeeder School describes this as ‘contact’. As the awareness of their own body grew [the students’] began to sense the effect of the space as a dynamic quality; at the same time the awareness of each other developed and true contact began to be established . . . Awareness and contact are fundamentally dependent upon each other; there is no real contact without conscious awareness and no conscious awareness without contact.4 In this training, awareness of one’s own body and awareness of others in the space are mutual – one cannot exist without the other. This ‘contact’ is utterly dependent upon the ability to change moment to moment. Falke-Heller goes on: Understood in this way, there can of course be no contact preserved in stone, as we are inclined to imagine. Environment and people change their form of existence, everything moves and alters. That which we comprehend today, with which we have contact, we might easily misunderstand tomorrow if we rely on our “unchanged” contact.5 The quality of ‘contact’ described here is fundamental to an understanding of ensemble in RedCape’s work – it is rooted in a deep and whole body awareness in space. It can also never be static or ‘preserved in stone’ as Falke-Heller writes; it is utterly dependent on a dynamic engagement with one’s partners on stage. Phillip Zarrilli, with whom I have trained for 13  years, also develops this sense of awareness in his work – drawing on his own long-term engagement with three non-Western sources of training (hatha yoga, Wu style taiquiquan and South Indian martial art kalarippayattu) to develop his own approach to ‘psychophysical’ Gertrud Falke-Heller in Loukes, Rebecca, ‘Gertrud Falke-Heller: Experiences of Work with the Gindler Method in the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance, Dartington Hall, May 1937–June 1940’, Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 1:1, 2010: 110. 5 Ibid. 4

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

195

awareness. Each of the three disciplines allows participants to ‘garner and manifest their energy in qualitatively different modes of embodiment and expression’.6 Though the development of these different qualities of ‘energy’ takes place in the learning and repetition of specific individual forms or structures (yoga stretches, a taiquiquan sequence lasting up to 20 minutes, and specific poses, steps, kicks and jumps in kalarippayattu), the emphasis from the first moment is on opening up this ‘energy’ and awareness to the space and the other participants. ‘Sense the space behind you, above you and to the sides’ is a key instruction given in training. This ability to deploy and direct awareness is essential for both a full engagement in the forms and the transposition of the training through structured improvisation into performance.7 This cultivated ‘energy’ in Zarrilli’s work is, I argue, also at the heart of ensemble practice. For Friend and Coaché the work of Jacques Lecoq was the foundation of their approach to both performing and making work, though both experienced the work differently and at different times.8 My understanding of Lecoq’s work and the way that it later shaped the dramaturgy of The Idiot Colony can be epitomized by one exercise called ‘balancing the stage’. It is detailed in Lecoq’s seminal account of the pedagogy of his school The Moving Body and is an exercise specifically developed for the ‘Tragic Chorus’: A chorus is not geometric but organic  .  .  .  it has its centre of gravity, its extensions, its respiration. It is a kind of living cell, capable of taking on different forms according to the situation in which it finds itself.9 The qualities of chorus described here by Lecoq could serve nicely as a description of ensemble itself. The ‘balancing the stage’ exercise

Zarrilli, Phillip, Psychophysical Acting, London: Routledge, 2009, p. 29. ‘Meyyu kannakuka: literally “the body becomes all eyes”. A Malayalam folk expression encapsulating the ideal state of embodiment and accomplishment of the actor and the kalarippayattu practitioner. When one’s “body is all eyes” . . . one is like an animal – able to see, hear and respond immediately to any stimulus in the immediate environment’. Zarrilli, Phillip, Psychophysical Acting, London: Routledge, 2009, p. 1. 8 Friend studied with Lecoq from 1995 to 1997 and Coaché was at the school from 2003 to 2005. 9 Lecoq, Jacques, The Moving Body, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 139. 6 7

196

Encountering Ensemble

is specifically designed to develop and enhance these qualities by moving the actors around the stage in a game of listening, responding, leading and following.10 Through this exercise the actor learns ‘to experience the sensations of fullness and emptiness’ of the stage space.11 Friend introduced a version of this exercise to RedCape, which like the work derived from Gindler and Zarrilli begins and ends with awareness. This awareness of, and sensitization to, one’s own body opens out to an ability to ‘listen’ to the other players on stage. From a short glance at the key principles of the ‘source’ training that we brought to RedCape Theatre, it is possible to see how each of these approaches could aid the development of a coherent ensemble. However, shifting from building an ensemble derived from each approach to an ensemble that not only bridges the differences between them, but actively creates something new is an entirely different matter. How could we allow these particular qualities of engagement and attention to speak to one another?

An intercultural ensemble? This challenge became very clear when we began working together on The Idiot Colony and can be illustrated by the first exercise we set ourselves in the studio. Turner had created three imagined characters drawing from the extensive research period undertaken in the year prior to devising The Idiot Colony. On the first day of rehearsal, he presented us each with a page of prose describing a key event in the life of the character. We then individually created a short performance ‘response’ based on this writing. The preliminary differences between the three pieces of material we created that first session were clear. Coaché used voice and abstract movement, Friend’s was comedic with a clear narrative and mine was slow with simple repeated ‘dance-like’ actions. Each piece was shaped by the structures and languages of our own training. Each piece was tentatively offered to the others as our own ‘starting point’.

Ibid., pp. 141–5. Ibid., p. 142.

10 11

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

197

In attempting to understand these starting points and consider how we created an ensemble through this working process, I have turned to research on intercultural performance. I wondered if it was both possible and appropriate to see our individual training as ‘cultures’ and to explore the ways that they both collide and align through selected intercultural theories. Patrice Pavis in The Intercultural Performance Reader cites Camilleri’s definition of culture as: ‘A kind of shaping, of specific “inflections” which mark our representations, feelings, activity – in short, and in a general manner, every aspect of our mental life and even of our biological organism under the influence of the group’.12 Although the three founders of RedCape are from similar domestic cultural backgrounds (i.e. we were all born in the United Kingdom, all university educated, etc.), our way of seeing and creating theatre was ‘shaped’ in very different ways according to our performance and training cultures. But what about the appropriateness of this approach? The ‘sources’ of our training have originated in different cultures: the roots of my work with Zarrilli, for instance, lie in specific Asian traditions of martial arts and yoga and Lecoq’s approach developed in mid-twentieth-century France but was inspired by a range of Western approaches to movement (including sport and the work of Jacques Copeau). The relationship between these ‘sources’ could certainly be described as intercultural. But, clearly, I must also acknowledge that the three of us are white, Western practitioners working within a British context. My rationale for this approach first is to be clear about the roots of this training, before acknowledging that transmission of training (embodied knowledge) is never linear or straightforward. As sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote, What is “learned by body” is not something that one has, like knowledge that can be brandished, but by something that one is, (and so) the body is thus constantly mingled with all the knowledge it reproduces.13 Camilleri in Pavis, Patrice, The Intercultural Performance Reader, London: Routledge, 1996, p. 3. 13 Bourdieu, Pierre, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990, p. 73. 12

198

Encountering Ensemble

I am, then, drawing on these intercultural theories to consider whether they can be used as a practical strategy to understand this particular approach to developing ensemble from both Western and non-Western source training (albeit reconfigured in a ‘British’ context). As Pavis writes, ‘actors simultaneously reveal the culture of the community where they have trained and where they live, and the bodily technique they have acquired’.14 Lo and Gilbert describe cross-cultural theatre as inevitably entailing ‘a process of encounter and negotiation between different cultural sensibilities’.15 In the early stages of the devising process for The Idiot Colony, we were very much ‘encountering’ each others’ work and our three individual ‘starting points’ or voices were very much in evidence. In fact, they permeated not only our individual ways of seeing and shaping the material but also in the dramaturgical structure we created that eventually became the final piece. Each of the stories had its own ‘texture’/language which was a combination of (a) the differences in the stories and characters themselves; (b) the mechanism/method/vessel of telling each story; and (c) our individual differences as performers shaped by our training. For instance, much of Joy’s (Friend) story was revealed sitting underneath a large, hood hairdryer. She speaks both directly to the audience and to the other two characters to literally begin to ‘tell’ her story of having an affair with a black American GI during the Second World War. In direct contrast, Victoria’s story (my role) was revealed through what was not said, gaps, spaces, waiting. Victoria does not speak at all throughout the play, so the audience learn about her through tiny fragments of what the other characters say, but mainly through a movement score that develops throughout the piece and ends with her drowning herself in the hospital’s lake. The language of Mary’s (Coaché) story is somewhere between the two. Her rape as an adolescent is described in a monologue near the end of the piece delivered to an empty salon. Only when no one is there does the full story emerge. But, until that point, the reason why she is in the hospital is never mentioned; only hinted at through movement motifs. The final reveal, that she also gave birth Pavis, Patrice, The Intercultural Performance Reader, London: Routledge, 1996, p. 3. Lo, Jacqueline and Gilbert, Helen, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, The Drama Review, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2002): 31.

14

15

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

199

to a baby that was then taken away by the authorities, is shown through a very simple image after her monologue. She holds the towel for a matter of moments, before it is briskly taken from her. As these three strands developed, there was ongoing discussion between the co-creators about the level of clarity for the audience of each of the stories. This was particularly true in reference to ­ Victoria’s story which was by far the most ambiguous. My way of shaping material during this process was guided by an assumption about acting rooted in my training derived from the work of Elsa Gindler. In reflecting on this, a memory returns to me – I was participating in a month-long workshop with Charlotte Selver in California in  2000 (Selver was 99  years old at the time).16 I was in the studio concentrating on a particular experiment in psychophysical awareness when Selver commented to me, ‘Don’t make a performance out of it!’ By this she meant that I should focus on a clear engagement with the action, rather than any attempt, conscious or unconscious, to show or demonstrate the movement. Acting, in this context, means something exaggerated. This relates to Eva Schmale’s notion of performance: Sometimes you can see the actor acting or you see the dancer dancing . . . When there is a quality of really being in contact with what is going on this is different. This cannot happen without awareness; being sensitive to the inside and to the outside, you cannot separate it. This is visible.17 This training combined with my previous experience of perfor­ mance was rooted in an aesthetics derived from dance theatre18 and also inspired by my engagement in non-Western performance dramaturgies.19 This meant that, ‘encultured’ through my training

Charlotte Selver (1901–2003) studied with Gindler in the 1920s and 1930s before developing her own practice of sensory awareness in the USA. Selver and her students established the Charlotte Selver Foundation, which was later renamed the Sensory Awareness Foundation (www.sensoryawareness.org). 17 Eva Schmale in conversation with Pam Woods, Exeter, 8 January 2003 (unpublished interview). 18 From my work with Eva Schmale over the years and from performing in her piece Underneath Thought, Exeter, 24 September 2005. 19 Through my work with Phillip Zarrilli and performing in his production of Ōta Shogō’s The Water Station, Exeter, December 2000. 16

200

Encountering Ensemble

practice, I was comfortable developing a score of movements in The Idiot Colony generated by a psychophysical response to an image from the text rather than primarily being driven by explicitly telling the story. These images were very clear to me and, I hoped, that with my engagement and ‘contact’ with both the material and the space around me, they would also be tangible to an audience, while not necessarily explaining issues of the plot. One example of this was my use of stones. A collection of six small stones become for Victoria, at various points in the play, pills, memories and/ or ‘talismans’ representing the possessions taken from her as she entered the hospital. None of these meanings were ever explained but after performances, audience members often remarked on the significance of the stones, sometimes ‘getting’ their meaning and other times reading alternatives. Friend’s initial way in to the material was to ask concrete questions – what are the key events that we need to show and how do we create those scenes on stage? Coaché’s first questions about Mary were to do with how an actor can embody two extremely traumatic moments – a rape and a baby being taken away. We certainly wondered if these approaches would sit too uneasily against each other to create something coherent. The process of discovering ‘our’ ensemble began as we were asking these questions and was facilitated in several ways. The choice to use only a very limited set of props and materials on stage (three chairs, a hairdryer on a stand, towels, buckets and hairdressing equipment, such as rollers, combs and hats) was one of these. It meant that we were relying on our own bodies to be, for the most part, the generators of the material. This pushed us, I think, to work together to create material that enabled us to find ‘common ground’. A sense of ensemble developed earliest within the scenes where the three of us directly interacted with each other. One such scene developed from a task set by the director, Andrew Dawson: create a choreography inspired by interactions with hairdressing equipment – the hood hairdryer, rollers and towels – performed to a Glenn Miller dance hall tune. This scene was infused with a sense of play from the very start of the improvisation process. As much of the material we were working with was extremely serious, we very much enjoyed ‘messing around’ in order to develop dance moves. I remember a feeling of freedom in relation to devising this

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

201

section, that perhaps was an important entry point to ‘uniting’ three differently ‘encultured’ bodies. As Claire Heggen says, “Theatre must be played before it is written”. This means that you don’t start with a story and then look for forms with which to express it. Instead you begin by working on forms, and little by little things appear and you can compose your story from the things that result from this exploration.20 Devising this scene allowed us to start to go beyond our own individual training through ‘playing’ around the material. Then, when we started to fix the choreography and execute the same actions at the same time, we were, of course, ‘forced’ to take account of each other and integrate our own individual styles of movement to create something coherent. This coherence was mirrored in the choreography of the scene changes we devised. Having decided early on in the process that we did not want to use blackouts to indicate the beginning and end of scenes, we used a variety of devices to move between the worlds of hospital, hairdressing salon and memories of the past. These shifts involved moving chairs, towels, hairdryers and what started as a functional question of how to get from scene a to scene b became pieces of choreographies in their own right. The transitions also became one of the ways that we were able to emphasize the dominance of ‘routine’ of the hospital. The daily repeated rituals of pill taking, waiting, being washed, sleeping and waiting again, over a period of many years, was an important aspect of the way the material developed and this theme was supported by these transitions. The overall rhythm of the piece became shaped by these choreographies in order to show how precise repetition of these rituals led to institutionalization and it was this rhythm that began to unite the diverse solo pieces (see Figure 9.1). The director, Andrew Dawson, also played a key role in negotiating these differences. He set us tasks that challenged us each individually as actors – pushing each of us beyond what we ‘knew’

Heggen in McCaw, Dick, ‘Claire Heggen Goes Fishing’ in John Keefe and Simon Murray (eds) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 15.

20

202

Encountering Ensemble

The routine of the hospital. Photo: Nik Mackey, courtesy of Turtle Key Arts.

(in Bourdieu’s sense of the word, as mentioned above) into ‘new’ creative territory. At one point in the process, for example, we had being struggling with how to create Earl (Joy’s black American GI lover) on stage. The moment Earl ‘returns’ to Joy was the apex of her story and prompts her subsequent unravelling, followed by her lobotomy which culminates the play. We had tried several ideas – the hairdryer becomes Earl, Earl sends a letter to Joy, but Dawson suggested that Joy actually ‘becomes’ Earl. This scene, as it became in the finished production, begins with Joy preparing herself to ‘meet’ Earl and them dancing together before finally painting herself in black make-up. The image of Joy as Earl ultimately epitomized the utter futility of all of the characters attempting to conjure or make real the memories that belonged to a distant past. This scene could be understood as one of the ways in which the making of the piece itself challenged what we had previously known and pushed us towards something new. Although it seemed that our ensemble was beginning to emerge during the devising process and in the early performances of The Idiot Colony, a far greater depth of awareness of each other became manifest after multiple repetitions of the performance during the following two years (96 performances in total). And, interestingly,

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

203

this refinement of our ensemble over time directly affected not only the quality of the execution of the piece but the material of the piece itself. For example, I mentioned above the choreographed dance with hairdressing accessories. The vocabulary of this scene developed to integrate movement motifs generated in an earlier improvisation exercise which attempted to physically chart the life ‘journey’ of each character. Over time, the scene became more than the light kind of musical/movement interlude to the main action it was at first, to serve as a foreshadowing of some of the main action of the piece. As the basic structure became more and more sedimented through each performance, so we were no longer consciously trying to remember what came next, or which chair or towel needed to be moved where. ‘Play’ became possible again and freedom developed within the form. In this respect, The Birdie Song scene changed significantly over repeated performances. In this scene, we all performed a simple sequence of actions along with the 1980s’ pop tune The Birdie Song by The Tweets. We each developed a particular response to the song for each character: Victoria joins in with enthusiasm, Joy silently rages and Mary engages with seeming bemusement. These responses, in contrast to our individual ‘starting points’ in the devising process discussed above, no longer seemed so clearly marked by our individual training ‘cultures’. Space seemed to have opened up to allow not only ‘play’ with each other but with the audience too, so our performances of The Birdie Song also became affected by the audience’s reaction. This reaction ranged from small titters to raucous laughter when we began the Birdie dance. We, in turn, ‘played’ these moments in response to the laughter, dancing ‘for’ the audience quite explicitly for a time. Needless to say, no performance was the same as the next. As we continued touring The Idiot Colony, the transitions I mentioned above developed in depth and texture. One particular moment was devised as: ‘Joy takes a towel from Mary and lays it on the floor for it to become her bed in the next scene’. This slowly progressed over time to become a rare moment of tenderness in the brutality and banality of the hospital. Mary had ended the previous scene with the towel partially stuffed in her mouth in order to stifle a scream. Joy gently pulls the end of the twisted towel and it extends out like a rope between the two women. She then delicately pushes back a strand of hair from Mary’s face before leading her gently

204

Encountering Ensemble

to the next scene. What had originated as a functional transition became, very gradually, a scene in its own right. These changes in the material of The Idiot Colony were, for the most part, not consciously decided or discussed. They were part of a deepening of awareness of each other that was facilitated by these multiple performances. Our source trainings created the show but what I have come to realize is that the show then became our training. Although we shared specific aspects of our own trainings with each other throughout the process (using, for example, one of the kalarippayattu exercises as part of our group pre-show warm-up), these diverse training ‘cultures’ had been reconfigured to become something new, implicitly, through the work itself. As Dick McCaw writes, Training . . . is not some accumulation of ever greater quantities of knowledge (the gourmand or guzzler), but the development of a palate capable of making ever finer distinctions of taste, and which learns through successive tastings (the gourmet).21 In this context, the development of our collective ‘palate’ was made possible through the ‘successive tastings’ of repeated performances. This might be elaborated further by looking for a moment, at an example of material that was developed as a direct result of a deepening group awareness over numerous performances. As I have described, while the ‘reveal’ of each of the three stories happened mostly in solo ‘scenes’ featuring one main character at a time over the course of many performances, subtle nuances of response and reaction from the other two characters began to emerge. While one character’s story was playing out, the other two were often seated on chairs around the edge of space – either in the world of the salon or the hospital, observing or listening. I have already mentioned how Victoria’s story culminates in a scene where she drowns herself in the hospital’s lake. This is shown by Victoria laying out a towel on the floor, stepping onto it and slowly descending to the ground as a twisted, soaking towel is held above her by the other two and wrung out to allow water to fall

McCaw, Dick, ‘Claire Heggen Goes Fishing’, in John Keefe and Simon Murray (eds) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 15.

21

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

205

over her body like rain. During the devising process, the problem we identified was how and where to locate this scene. The ‘reveal’ of all three characters needed to serve the overall rhythm of the piece, but when we started performing the piece after only a short, initial devising process, the ‘logic’ of the placement of the material had not become fully embodied. The question of what provoked Victoria to drown herself at that point in the ‘story’ was not yet clear to me. The ‘answer’ that I eventually found, through repeated cycles of the piece, emerged as a direct result of psychophysical listening and sensing the other actors, in what I see as a concrete example of our new ensemble. From my chair, ‘observing’ Coaché performing the monologue which directly precedes Victoria’s drowning, I undertook the following actions: 1 Listen to the words Coaché is speaking. 2 Stare at a fixed point just above ground level. 3 Do not blink and allow water to form in eyes. 4 Allow body shape in sitting to ‘collapse’ very slightly.

When Coaché finished her speech and I stood up, the audience’s attention shifted to me and they could see tears rolling down my face. My subsequent drowning was charged with this sequence of movements and now ‘made sense’ for me as a performer. As Merleau-Ponty writes, At each successive instant of a movement, the preceding instant is not lost sight of. It is, as it were, dovetailed into the present  .  .  .  [Movement draws] together, on the basis of one’s present position, the succession of previous positions, which envelop each other.22 This is only possible, however, due to the elaboration of the ‘basic’ structure of the piece which was utterly dependent on a finely tuned awareness of each other. This awareness was rooted in our own training ‘cultures’ but had simultaneously surpassed them to create something new through the material itself.

22 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Phenomenology of Perception, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962, p. 140.

206

Encountering Ensemble

Towards a ‘syncretic’ ensemble? Lo and Gilbert define ‘syncretic theatre’ as integrating ‘performance elements of different cultures into a form that aims to retain the cultural integrity of the specific materials used while forging new texts and practices’.23 The meaning of the term syncreticism is rooted in comparative religion and ‘denotes the process by which elements of one religion are absorbed into one another and redefined’.24 Could this iteration of ensemble in RedCape’s work be described as syncretic theatre? Christopher Balme expands the definition further: Syncreticism designates a process of cultural exchange based on mutual respect and sympathy for the cultural signs and symbols being adopted . . . Applied to the theatre, this means that theatrical syncreticism proceeds from a perspective predicated on the bridging of cultural dichotomies, liberated from aesthetics and normative rules, performance traditions are viewed as cultural raw material from which new works can emerge.25 What is key here is that the exchange is based on ‘mutual respect’. It was through a process of creating material from our own training heritages and then bringing it together to make something entirely new, that our ‘syncretic’ ensemble could be said to be created. It is important to note, though, Lo and Gilbert’s words above on ‘retaining the cultural integrity of the specific materials’ in this process. We all had a long-term, assiduous engagement with our own training practices and these individual languages were given their own space within the piece – particularly through the solo material that rendered in space the stories of the three characters. However, what was ‘retained’ in The Idiot Colony, I think, had moved far from the individual ‘starting points’ that began our devising process. These ‘languages’ had also infused the show with Lo, Jacqueline and Gilbert, Helen, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, The Drama Review, 46:3, 2002: 35–6. 24 Pavis, Patrice, The Intercultural Performance Reader, London: Routledge, 1996, p. 180. 25 Balme, Christopher, Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncreticism and PostColonial Drama, London, Clarendon Press, 1999, p. 272. 23

TOWARDS A SYNCRETIC ENSEMBLE?

207

a specific rhythm and atmosphere. The slowness of some of early material I devised, for example, drove the overall pace at times (along with evocative original music by Johnny Pilcher) but this was punctuated by surprising shifts of this rhythm derived from material created by Coaché and Friend. Audiences and reviewers commented on the ‘slickness’ of the choreography and the pervading bleak, mundane atmosphere of the hospital, but did not seem to explicitly identify the diversity of our individual training ‘cultures’. Rather, these differences had been transformed through the making and performance of the piece, just as the piece has been both formed and transformed through them. Ensemble for RedCape Theatre was something that emerged and was made concrete through the process of first creating the work and then repeating the work again and again and again. We never said to each other ‘aha, now we’ve done it, we’re there, we’re an ensemble’. For us it was an implicit deepening and strengthening of a shared quality of attention that developed over time. In this sense, ensemble cannot ever be considered as a ‘thing.’ There is no end point and nothing that can be fixed. It is dependent on, in the words of Gertrud-Falke Heller, ‘calm, absolute openness – an attitude that is prepared for all, but expecting nothing’.26 In talking about this attitude to her students at Dartington Hall during the 1930s, FalkeHeller uses the example of photography, saying that ‘one needs a new unused plate for every snapshot’. She goes on, [The students] must have the courage to discard any pre-conceived ideas and to surrender themselves completely to the unknown, as the photographic plate surrenders its receptive quality to the influence of light.27 This seems an appropriate way to view the ensemble we created, and continue to create. I am reminded also of Japanese philosopher Yasuo Yuasa’s words on the difference between a Western and Eastern perspective on the mind–body relationship. He writes that while Westerners ask the question what is this relationship? Loukes, Rebecca, ‘Gertrud Falke-Heller: Experiences of Work with the Gindler Method in the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance, Dartington Hall, May 1937–June 1940’, Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 123. 27 Ibid., p. 124. 26

208

Encountering Ensemble

Japanese philosophy instead asks, ‘How does the relationship between the body and mind come to be (through cultivation)?’28 Likewise, RedCape’s ensemble is a ‘process’, something that is ‘cultivated’ through ongoing practice and reflection – the cultivation of trust and openness, the willingness to play, to risk and to create something new.

Yuasa, Yasuo, The Body, New York: SUNY Press, 1987, p. 18.

28

Snapshot #8

Network of ensemble theaters Mark Valdez

The general field of theater in the US has, until now, considered the ensemble form to be a somewhat aberrant organizational structure, admired in theory and practiced in Europe, perhaps, but of no significant artistic value to theater making in the US. As the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) is revealing, through its convening of ensemble artists, its documentation and dissemination of best practices, and its festivals of ensemble performances, the artistic value of ensemble theater making in the US is tantamount to the next generation of theater evolution in this country, following the emergence of the regional theater movement in the mid-twentieth century. The range within the field of ensemble theater is from traditional forms of European theater such as commedia dell’arte reinvented within the aesthetics and social interests of a small American town in the red wood forests of California, to the reinvigoration of the American Naturalism aesthetic informed by the blue collar, MidWest values of Chicago, from Puerto Rican theater traditions amalgamated in the cultures of the South Bronx, to experimental inquiries into performance that voice the culture of youth in Austin, Texas, from the use of Appalachian story-telling as a foundation

210

Encountering Ensemble

for expressing the currents of life in the coal fields of the Southern mountains, to the creation of iconic figures in the struggle for social justice in New Orleans, Louisiana.1 What we are seeing as our field matures is the tendency for ensembles to focus their efforts on developing a unique style and body of work, serving a more targeted fan base, much like a rock band. In this respect, ensembles have become the research and development wing of theater, defying genre and blurring disciplinary lines. As a result, much of the work feels vibrant, rigorous, exciting and, well, just more fun. As defined by NET, an ensemble is a group of individuals dedicated to collaborative creation, committed to working together consistently over years to develop a distinctive body of work and practices. More than aesthetics or structures, our focus is on values: collaboration, inclusion and multiple perspectives. For many companies, this might manifest in a commitment to social justice and human rights; for others, it merely reflects their own organizational practice where all artists have a stake and a say in the work. When NET formed 16 years ago, we crafted a manifesto before a mission statement. Here’s an excerpt: By joining together in a Network of Ensemble Theaters we strive to give strength to each other; to share our resources; to create a forum for controversy and debate; to document and articulate the heritage and body of work of ensemble practice; and to maximize our ability to bring about change in the world beyond ourselves through the transformative power of collaborative theater.2 We prize most highly the benefits that arise from artists working together over long periods of time. By joining in coalition, we maximize our ability to bring about change in the world beyond ourselves through the power of collaborative theater. NET is committed to building a consortium that is culturally and socially inclusive, a support system for the extraordinary experimentations that permeate this field . . . and this field is growing. Some current Companies referenced are (in order): Dell’Arte International, American Blues Theater, Pregones Theater, Rude Mechanicals, Roadside Theater and Junebug Theater.

1

NETWORK OF ENSEMBLE THEATERS

211

examples: funding programs, specifically for ensembles, have emerged in the past years (e.g. National Theater Project); national awards are given to ensembles/ensemble artists (e.g. Ann Bogart, Elizabeth LeCompte, Meredith Monk, etc. are recipients of the inaugural Doris Duke Performing Artist Award; US Artist Fellows include Jerry Stropnicky, Lee Breuer, John Collins, Nancy Keystone, etc.); increasingly, large theater institutions are providing residencies, development support and presenting ensembles (e.g. The Public Theater, Center Theater Group, La Jolla Playhouse, PlayMakers, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, etc.); and colleges and universities are offering classes and training in devised/ensemble theater practices. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that ensembles are gaining in interest and visibility. Politically, we’ve come out of a period of fear and obfuscation to a time of hope and a belief in collaboration; there is a genuine interest in creativity and a belief that art is part of the solution to the problems we are increasingly facing. The role that ensembles play in this new landscape is NET’s work . . . and what great work it is!

For the full mission statement and information on NET, please visit our website: www.ensembletheaters.net.

2

Chapter Ten

Locating the ensemble: NACL theatre and the ethics of collaboration Brad Krumholz

The decision to label oneself by one name or another is a choice with political implications. So, when my colleagues and I choose to call our theatre company an ensemble, we are making a political statement. In the United States in  2012, using the term ‘theatre company’ without qualification tends to indicate a complicity with/ in the machinery of the mainstream business model of theatre. We choose not to call North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL) just a theatre company, but rather something other. Because such choices are not made in a vacuum, but interactively with a host of real-world factors, analyzing them can illuminate both our intentions and the often-obscure nuances of local cultural practices. Put another way, we can see an image of the dominant culture by looking at that which defines itself in opposition to it. In this chapter, I take a look at the implications of ensemble, as a label, as a practice and as a reflection of the culture in which it exists, by examining some of the choices NACL has made during its life as an ensemble theatre in New York since 1997.

LOCATING THE ENSEMBLE

213

NACL is an ensemble theatre. How can I claim that NACL is an ensemble? We have no permanent group of actors, which one could argue should be central to any conception of ensemble. Another common notion of ‘ensemble’ includes the presence of a large number of actors on stage in a given performance. We do not fulfil this requirement, either, as we have often created shows with only two or three actors and even solo performances. Can a company consider itself an ensemble if it has only a small core of permanently active members, or if its performances feature, say, only one actor on stage? Are there minimum requirements to be considered an ensemble? And why would one want to claim such a thing? Of what use is such a claim? Rather than focusing on the number of actors on stage or of permanent members, NACL locates ensemble in its process. On an artistic level, our work prioritizes the creative potentialities and contributions of performers, developing work that springs from a long-term practical research into how actors might transform subconscious impulses and associations into visible and tangible performance material. Our training and creation techniques have developed as a result of this search. They are intended to encourage actors to go beyond their temporary limitations and discover ways to become increasingly precise and powerful in their expressivity. Much of this work happens in the studio as the actors work together as a group – an ensemble – moving together, singing together and coming up with ideas together in a safe, nurturing creative space. We have found that, especially during the training phase, the presence of more than one actor is extraordinarily important. Having trusted colleagues to play with and off of, can make it much easier to overcome the issues of self-consciousness that often plague developing actors. Simply put, the act of focusing one’s attention on a partner allows for the creative process to flow in ways that are exceptionally difficult to achieve when working in isolation. On an organizational level, we have taken steps to remove ourselves both geographically and ideologically from mainstream theatre. Our theatre center, where the NACL collaborators can live and work together during various phases of creation and production, is located in the Catskill mountain region of upstate New York. While we are close enough to take advantage of the various cultural offerings of New York City, we are far enough to feel

214

Encountering Ensemble

removed from the market pressures so starkly present in day-to-day city life. This literal and conceptual distance from overt commerce affords us not only time and space to explore new modes of artistic creation, but also the flexibility to experiment with various models of organizational structure, collaborative techniques and audience engagement. Ensemble practices similar to those used by NACL have been implemented and honed in the US since the early experiments of the Group Theatre in the 1930s and the Living Theatre beginning in the late 1940s. Since that time, artist-led companies such as the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Free Southern Theatre, El Teatro Campesino and Bread and Puppet Theatre, all starting in the 1960s, sounded the call for a radical rethinking of theatre that would later come to be taken up by countless ‘alternative’ and ‘experimental’ companies even up to the present moment. The common denominator of these companies is generally not aesthetic, but rather political, in that they are all decidedly positioned against the exchange relationship of commodity-based art-as-business. This is not to say that they exist, or even could exist, totally outside of the capitalist marketplace; however, the driving intention of these companies is to challenge the fundamental assumptions of hierarchy and commerce inherent in capitalist market structures by organizing and operating along lines that run counter to the traditional corporate models found in mainstream theatre practice. These types of companies unsettle the power structure common to mainstream theatres, often placing the responsibility for both creative direction and organizational stability in the hands of everyone involved in the process of artistic production. Even though the roles of the collaborators may be clearly differentiated and the final decision-making power may lie in the hands of one individual, in such companies there tends to exist a radical redistribution of labor, and a sense of collective ownership over both the process and the product is held, cultivated and encouraged by all. For NACL, this sense of collective ownership and shared mission is earned, as if it were its own reward for commitment to it, in a self-perpetuating loop of input and output: the more you give, the more you get. Once earned, the sense of involvement and ownership is not limited by place or even by time. Our collaborators often come and go, working on some projects and not others, but even

LOCATING THE ENSEMBLE

215

if a particular performance only includes one actor, the traces of ensemble are still felt inside the performance, both as a residue of the process of creation itself and lived in the body-memory of the performer. For example, in The Passion according to G. H. (a solo performance I directed based on a novel by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, cocreated and performed by NACL co-founder Tannis Kowalchuk), not only was the performance material generated in ways that we had developed through our work within an ensemble context, but because Kowalchuk had spent so many years training her body to be reactive in dynamic relationship to her fellow actors, those interactive tendencies could be felt even when another performer was not present with her on stage. It was as if it were impossible for her ever to be truly alone on stage. In the course of creating the performance, perhaps because of this quality, it became necessary to constantly provide her with partners to play with – a chair with which she danced, sheets of paper with which she built the walls of the space during the performance, a feather boa that transformed from costume piece to duster to the very cockroach that was at the center of the play’s narrative, etc. This feeling of a multitude of presences appearing and disappearing from and back into nowhere evoked the existential haunting so important to the themes of the text, while also engaging the spectators on a more visceral plane than would have been possible were Kowalchuk simply ‘by herself’. Additionally, because of the reactive and intimate nature of her relationship to the space and the objects in it, it was clear that this actor was not simply a hired gun – her profound investment was essential to the substance of the performance, and she knew it. Our choice to invest our labor and to place our commitment in a process that feels owned by the collaborators is a choice not to accept heedlessly a standard practice that tends to alienate many of the collaborating artists, both from the ‘product’ and from each other. Of course, I am generalizing here, and not all commercial theatre operates in the same way, but we can point to certain characteristics that are common to most ‘mainstream’ theatre in the US. First, the rehearsal period – the time from the first meeting of the actors to opening night – of commercial theatre is generally around three or four weeks; in ‘the business’, a six-week rehearsal period is considered extensive. Second, the cast of mainstream theatre

216

Encountering Ensemble

The Passion according to G. H.: NACL co-founder and co-artistic director Tannis Kowalchuk. Photo: Brad Krumholz.

productions is made up of individuals with little or no prior working relationship. This may not be the case for the design team – director, scenographer, composer, lighting designer, etc. – who frequently will have some experience working together, but the actors are chosen for each project from a large, anonymous pool of auditioners. Third, there is a fairly strict and hierarchical differentiation of roles in the commercial theatre. On occasion, there can be some overlap, but mainly actors act, technicians operate the stage machines, designers design, and so on. Additionally, the members of the central design team are positioned atop the pyramid of importance, power and pay (with the director occupying the highest seat), and generally finish their collaboration with the opening of the show. It is the job of the stage manager to ensure that the artistic vision of the design team is carried out faithfully for the remainder of the run in their absence.

LOCATING THE ENSEMBLE

217

Ensemble theatres more often than not organize themselves in opposition to these basic standards. At NACL, for example, we rarely create a performance with less than three months of rehearsal, and often it will take a year or more to make a show. As mentioned earlier, we encourage collaborators to invest in a more long-term relationship with the company, and the actors in any given production almost always have some pre-existing NACL-related work ties. We rarely hold ‘auditions’, but rather develop connections with collaborators through workshops, residencies and other less formal means. Additionally, we attempt to create a culture of collaboration, in which everyone involved can participate according to his or her interests and abilities. For example, actors are often encouraged to take part in conceptual conversations, help create their own costumes, even design and build set elements. While the director still frequently holds the position of executive decision maker of the project, the fluidity of roles and the openness of communication and interaction serve to complicate and often dismantle traditional conceptions of hierarchical theatrical organization. While it is true that these organizational concerns are indicative of deeply significant differences between commercial and ensemble theatre, perhaps the most crucial distinction is in regard to the role of the playwright and the importance of text in these two approaches. As mentioned, the commitment to develop work together in an ensemble setting can bring about a very clear sense of ownership in the performer/collaborators. This sense of ownership can be seen, however, not so much in the traditional sense of possessing an object, but rather to feeling that the process and product have come into being as a direct result of the contributions of the active collaborators. In this way, the participation of an actor in an ensemble process is more like being an author than an interpreter. Commonly, however, the notion of authorship is connected to the written word, which is the usual starting point for mainstream theatre – more important than the director, producer or designers is the text, and the creator of that text, the playwright. While sometimes we have begun rehearsals in response to a written text – usually not a play but perhaps a novel, a theoretical text or a series of thematically connected stories – most frequently, we have developed our performances from nothing but an idea, which serves mainly as a ‘jumping-off’ point. While this is not the rule for all ensembles, NACL is certainly not alone in this

218

Encountering Ensemble

approach. Furthermore, for every ensemble, and even each project of a given ensemble, the exact relationship between collaborator and process is different. Some projects are organized as collectives, in which decisions are made through a process of unanimous consent, while others, like those of NACL, can be referred to as ‘led collaborations’ in which everyone involved contributes fully but follows the leadership of the director, who takes responsibility for steering the process and fostering a feeling of authorship among the various participants. Regardless of the nature of the decisionmaking apparatus, ensembles that create their own performances also frequently generate their own text, as well. When they do, the actors often play a crucial role, coming up with text through improvisation, writing in response to assigned prompts, researching and collecting writing from source texts, etc. In addition to writing with words, though, NACL actors also write with their bodies in action. Our theatre, along with that of many other ensembles, decenters the word and elevates the importance of what we sometimes call the ‘physical material’ – that which the actor does, a sort of writing with the body – that inscribes the various resonances and meanings of the performance text with/ in the actor’s body itself in space. The actors co-author the play in word and deed. It would not be mere wordplay to assert that the distinction between word and deed ceases to apply here, since the words become bodily, through a vocal practice that embodies the word in and through the actor’s voice. It is crucial to note that many ensembles, including NACL, carefully consider and employ a variety of training and creation techniques in their work – physical training, vocal training, methods of generating action and character, etc. This component of the creative process is generally absent from mainstream theatre practice, partly because of the elements of limited time and inconsistency of personnel detailed above, and also because of its focus on the spoken word. Theatre that emphasizes verbal communication does not generally pay any special attention to what the body is doing beyond the obvious sites of vocal production, whereas work that spotlights physical communication clearly requires bodies that are able to ‘write’ with clarity, precision and style. NACL, for example, has developed over the years a methodology of actor training that seeks to render both comprehensible and vibrant the actions of the performative body, which for us is not

LOCATING THE ENSEMBLE

219

to be separated from the voice. The voice is physical. It is both a product of and a vehicle for physical action. Therefore, when an actor speaks words, he or she does so as an inseparable part of an integrated whole of body, voice, imagination and intention. One could certainly counter that all theatre does this in some way, that the actor embodies the text and, in doing so, re-authors it in a sense. However much this might be the case, what differentiates ensemble theatre here is its intention to encourage authorship on the part of the actor. In the theatre, intention has great significance; it is that which determines what an actor does and how he or she does it. The intention with which an actor on stage performs an action determines the meaning and effect of that action. The intention of an ensemble to do certain things in certain ways is no less significant. For example, endowing collaborators with a sense of authorship is an intention that informs and constitutes the significance of the act of collaboration. Ensemble theatre intends to shift authority away from the dominance of the playwright and the word and to redistribute it among and through the thinking, speaking bodies involved in the living process of performance creation. It is important to understand that none of this is to say that ensemble theatre is necessarily anti-language. A process that decenters the word can take many forms. In the case of NACL’s work, text is (almost) never eliminated; it is placed in a more value-equal relationship with the other elements of performance. However, the choice to shift focus to, say, the body, is no small matter, and carries with it a good deal of political significance. In a dramatic culture, historically so dominated by the written word (written mostly by white male playwrights), the decision to give voice, as it were, to embodied experience and expression is already a bold action staged against deeply entrenched assumptions of the status quo. Additionally, any project that strives to unseat the prominence of the individual is also flying in the face of mainstream cultural and political tendencies, which lead to, for example, the overwhelming popularity of celebrities, in the arenas of entertainment, politics, business, etc. Against the culture of the individual, ensemble theatre encourages groups – group action, group ownership and group generation of meaning. This does not apply only on stage during the performance, and not just during the extended rehearsal process, which can last months and even years, but the group relationship, as we have discussed, is encouraged to last as long as possible, in

220

Encountering Ensemble

time and across space. Especially in today’s capitalist culture, which encourages privatization and discourages anything ‘public’ (public funding, public education, public healthcare . . .), placing value on the group over the individual can be seen as nothing short of a revolutionary act. A performance born from this deep commitment to group contains within it a very different sensibility than one that comes from a more corporate model.1 It communicates to the audience this commitment, as a substance. After performances of NACL shows, we have frequently heard from audience members that they could sense that we were an ensemble, or that the ‘ensemble playing’ was very good, or that that something between the actors was felt very clearly. Our long work together, which itself is infused with working practices that value interactions between and among actors, becomes not only an element that moves the audience unconsciously, but that is consciously present in the minds of the audience as material itself. Even in solo performances, the aura of ensemble process is sensed by the audience. Ever alert and actively perceptive, the spectators are aware that they are experiencing ensemble, and this fact carries great significance as they process the meaning of the entirety of the performance event. One might even conclude that the audience attending an ensemble performance, because of the embedded ethic of collaboration, is especially induced to experience itself as a group, to break the habits of automatic compartmentalization that promote the one over the many, that resist connection and communion in favor of self-preservation and self-advancement. In today’s economic climate, especially in the US, where companies like NACL operate, it is almost impossible to maintain a long-term, permanent ensemble of theatrical collaborators. The artists will almost always need to take ‘outside work’, as it is called. Perhaps this can be seen as productive, in that an active artistic I use the term corporate here to emphasize the isolation of a single body from the multitude, rather than the merging of many bodies into a shared one. While a corporation, in the sense of an identity created to operate with certain rights and protections within the capitalist marketplace, is certainly made up of the many individuals working together to give it strength, its primary characteristic concerns its distinction and isolation from other such bodies; the bodies that ‘work for’ a corporation are, by definition, forbidden to become identified with it. It is this built-in mechanism that ultimately prevents shareholders from personal, legal and financial liability for the acts of the corporation by which they are employed.

1

LOCATING THE ENSEMBLE

221

life can serve to feed the spirit and craft and allow for real growth. However, the ethical implications of ensemble commitments are also very real, and it is still possible – it is, in fact, growing ever more popular – to organize and operate under the influence of this radical orientation. The aim of the ensemble in the US today continues to be political, social and artistic: to promote a culture in which the varied multitude of human bodies might come together in work and in play to realize the transformative and generative power of collective action.

Chapter Eleven

Building Chartres in the desert: The TEAM, collective intelligence and the failure of ideals Paz Hilfinger-Pardo

Committing to creating a play with an ensemble always requires a leap of faith: faith in the group’s ability to stick together through what is often an arduous process, and faith that this process will produce work that is interesting. Any group can fracture, and the loss of members can sour the work for the remaining artists. Even groups that remain intact from inception to realization of a play often find that what they have made manages to contain everyone’s pet idea but no one’s heart. Based on over three years’ observation of the Theatre of the Emerging American Moment’s (TEAM) work and process, I argue that it is when this leap of faith is backed by the group’s resilience and collective intelligence that nuanced, emotionally powerful work can emerge. In this case study, I explore the TEAM’s interrogation of and reliance on these qualities. Founded in 2004 by a group of 6 New York University alums, the TEAM has grown to 13 members and an ever-expanding

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

223

group of associate artists,1 all deeply committed to the company’s collaborative process of devising performance. Mission Drift, following on the success of the TEAM’s earlier works Particularly in the Heartland (2006) and Architecting (2008), changed the perception of the company from a ragtag group of scrappy young performers to ‘the artistic conscience of a younger generation’.2 Hailed for their juxtaposition of heartfelt emotion with performance techniques that have traditionally been the province of deeply ironic postmodernists such as Elevator Repair Service and the Wooster Group,3 the company is part of a younger generation of contemporary theater makers in New York’s downtown scene. This environment is rich with ensembles. Paige McGinley, in her TDR article ‘Up Next Downtown’, declared that ‘ensemble-driven work is at the center of New York contemporary performance’.4 In the downtown scene, the word ‘ensemble’ usually refers to a group’s long-term commitment to each other, and to a collaborative process in which performers create their own material which is then curated by a director or a similar leader (all true for the TEAM).5 The TEAM  and its company members regularly collaborate with other ensembles – their work Waiting For You on the Corner The TEAM members are: Jessica Almasy, Frank Boyd, Rachel Chavkin, Stephany Douglass, Jill Frutkin, Brian Hastert, Jake Heinrichs, Matt Hubbs, Libby King, Jake Margolin, Dave Polato, Kristen Sieh and Nick Vaughn. 2 Cooper, N. ‘The Wheel Ten Plagues Mission Drift Futureproof Roll up, roll up for a magical history tour’. The Herald.  8 August 2011 [online]. Available at: www. heraldscotland.com/arts-ents/stage/the-wheel-ten-plagues-mission-drift-futureproofroll-up-roll-up-for-a-magical-history-tour.14668056; accessed 16 December 2011. 3 For more on the aesthetics of the Wooster Group and Elevator Repair Service, I recommend David Savran’s classic Breaking the Rules (Savran, D. Breaking the Rules. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1986) and Sara Jane Bailes’ chapter ‘Dislocations of Practice: Elevator Repair Service’ in Bailes, S. Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure. London: Routledge, 2011. It is interesting to compare these books to Gwen Orel’s 2009 New York Times profile of the TEAM, entitled ‘The Importance of Being Heartfelt’ (Orel, G. ‘The Importance of Being Heartfelt’. The New York Times. 11 January 2009, p. AR6 [online]. Available at: www.nytimes. com/2009/01/11/theater/11orel.html; accessed 16th December 2011). 4 McGinley, P. ‘Next up Downtown’, The Drama Review, Vol.  54, No.  4 (Winter 2010): 11. 5 McGinley writes: ‘Though [today’s ensemble companies] have a strong collaborative element, they are characterized by a firm, if sometimes nontraditional, leadership structure’ (McGinley, P. ‘Next up Downtown’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 [Winter 2010]: 13). 1

224

Encountering Ensemble

of . . . ­(anticipated ­premiere February 2013) is a collaboration with Sojourn Theatre, an ensemble from Portland, Oregon. ‘Ensemble’ is a descriptor in the TEAM’s mission statement. In the TEAM’s rehearsal room and network, ensemble is the rule, not the exception. The company’s process involves a chaotic mash-up of research (reading and interviews on a subject), individual writing and performance creation, group improvisation and long sessions of dramaturgical reflection. Within this process, the resilience of the group and its collective intelligence allows the TEAM to build the heartfelt and complex works that the company is known for. Group resilience and collective intelligence help create the environment within which Britton’s ‘It’ can appear – the moment when ‘an ensemble truly connects and its members transcend their individual performances to participate in something “other”’.6 Group resilience is implicated in Britton’s metaphor of ensemble as an extended body. Britton cites Nicolás Núñez’s interpretation of Jerzy Grotowski’s concept of the ensemble as a body, in which different members perform the functions of different organs: the brain; the heart; and, in Nuñez’s colorful phrasing, the anus (Grotowski’s bouc émissaire, reinterpreted within the corporal metaphor). If a group expels an unpopular member who is fulfilling the function of the anus, ‘the ensemble vanishes—destroyed, because it cannot live without an anus’7 (Nicolás Núñez in Britton 2010: 6). The anus, outlet for unsavory by-products of a process, is necessary to the group’s survival. Group resilience could be described as the company’s ability to tolerate the anus (and the moments of discomfort and stupidity it brings), and through this, to avoid vanishing (breaking apart). Collective intelligence is not an averaging of the IQs of the company members; instead, it is a function of the ‘common purpose’ that Britton describes as a foundation for ensemble. Britton talks of ‘a shared purpose that must be radically and continually embodied in the work of performers, not simply left as a ­disembodied

Britton, J. What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble. In: Encountering Ensemble, 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield p. 2 (unpublished) [online]. Available at www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/; accessed 16 December 2011. 7 Nicolás Núñez quoted in Britton, J. What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble. In: Encountering Ensemble, 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield p.  2 (unpublished) [online]. Available at www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616. 6

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

225

idea’.8 In order to explain the phenomenon of collective ­intelligence, I need to address the ‘disembodied idea’ and its function in the ensemble process. There is pressure, both internal and external, for an ensemble to identify a disembodied idea of what the performance they are devising is ‘about’ very early in the process – the TEAM, working on Mission Drift, rapidly identified the theme of capitalism in American history. This idea orients the ensemble members as they embark on the search for the thing they are creating, and allows the company to enter dialogue with potential producers and funders. Often, the disembodied idea relates only distantly to the embodied ‘purpose’ that appears in the final performance. This ‘purpose’ is the drive behind the performance: not simply the purpose of performing, but the emotions that are exorcised within the work. The collective intelligence of a group is the force that moves the focus from idea to purpose. It appears in unspoken decisions the group makes that result in the shift into embodiment. While this development makes the artistic product stronger (‘weak art decides in advance what the piece is about’9), it can also be seen as a form of failure or drifting from the goal, especially early in the process. The ensemble may fear that refocusing means they are lost; institutions may worry that the product differs from what they expected to support.10 Because of this, collective intelligence only emerges when the group is confident in its resilience. I was with the TEAM from 2008 to 2012, first as an observer of the final development of Architecting and then as the dramaturg on Mission Drift. During this time, I watched the company grapple with the ideals behind their choice to commit to ensemble creation. Throughout this case study, I trace the theme of utopia11 in the Britton, J. What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble. In: Encountering Ensemble, 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield p. 10 (unpublished) [online]. Available at www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/; accessed 16 December 2011. 9 Phelan, Peggy. ‘Marina Abramovic: Witnessing Shadows’, Theater Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4 (December 2004): 571. 10 For more on the institutional pressures on devising, see Magnat, V. ‘Devising Utopia, or Asking for the Moon’, Theater Topics, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2005): 73–86. 11 Jill Dolan (Dolan, J., Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005) and Jose Munoz’s (Muñoz, J., Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press, 2009) provide extensive discussions of utopia in performance. 8

226

Encountering Ensemble

company’s work in order to shed light on the qualities of group resilience and collective intelligence. Looking at a rehearsal for Mission Drift, I explore the mechanics of resilience and collective intelligence in the TEAM’s rehearsal room. Finally, in an analysis of Mission Drift, I show how the theme of failed ideals (foregrounded by the company’s collective intelligence) allows the group to process the disappointments encountered during the play’s creation.

No need for genius The TEAM presents an ideal of a collectively created utopia in the final speech in Architecting.12 The character of Carrie Campbell, a young architect, depicts this space as a resilient arena for the processing of negative emotions within a group context. Created at a time when the company was cementing its own understanding of its process and goals, the play can be read as a manifesto of the possibilities of collective creation. The play follows Carrie’s struggle with the legacy of her brilliant father as she attempts to rebuild a New Orleans neighborhood levelled by Hurricane Katrina. Before his unexpected death, her father had laid out plans for a Traditional Neighborhood Development, a utopian space based in a generic memory of ‘traditional’ American neighborhoods. Carrie (and through her, the TEAM), however, digs into architectural history to find an alternate model of rebuilding: CARRIE: [T]he story goes [Chartres] was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. Everybody from the poverty stricken to the nobles, everyone. And they worked until the building was completed. But they all remained anonymous. The most perfect piece of architecture in the world and no one knows to this day who built it. And this can happen here.13 For more on Architecting, see Wickstrom, M., ‘The Labor of Architecting’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter 2010): 118–35 and Daniel, R., ‘Art in the Age of Political Correctness’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter 2010): 136–54. 13 TEAM. Architecting. Unpublished script. 2009, pp. 56–7. 12

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

227

The ideal of Chartres – the anonymous architect, the collective rebuilding – is the seed of Carrie’s utopia. This is a far cry from the reality in Architecting, in which a non-local corporation is descending on the destroyed neighborhood to ‘develop’ it according to the plans of a dead genius. While Carrie is convinced that ‘this could happen here’, at this point in the play (the end of the first act) she is unable to articulate what the group might build. It is not until the final moment in the play that she is finally able to find words for her utopia. Still envisioning the process as one based in the rebuilding of Chartres, Carrie’s utopia rejects her father’s ahistorical approach and the importance of a singular genius: [It will be a] memorial. Something – a  .  .  .  vast building. A cathedral. A cathedral. In the building of which everybody will help who has lost his identity. . . . Everyone saying, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I forgive you I’m sorry.” There will be confessions. People will leap out of their seats – people will run up and down the aisles CONFESSING. . . . People will scream and weep, you can scream and weep, and [they] can butt their heads against the walls of this place – the walls won’t give. And you can pray in any language that you choose. Or (the vision is breaking her heart right now) . . . or you can just curl up outside, and go to sleep. . . . There will be no replica. For the builders will all be dead, and their formula too. . . . We have no need for genius. Genius is dead. Here we have need for strong hands. For spirits who are willing to give up the ghost, and put on flesh.14 Like Chartres, this utopian space will be created through a collective effort. Where, however, the full legend of Chartres imagines an ‘anonymous architect’, this cathedral-memorial demands no singular genius; building it requires only the commitment of the group. The TEAM extends the legend of Chartres to express their own ideal of collective creation. The company chooses to foreground the resilience of the group and the space: this utopia is not a land of milk and honey, but a land in which there is room to cry. This focus on the uncomfortable aspects of experience in a group fits with Ibid., p. 57.

14

228

Encountering Ensemble

the necessity of tolerating the ‘anus’ of the ensemble. The group, represented by both the people in the cathedral and the enduring container of the cathedral itself, is resilient enough to work through the threatening, negative aspects of individual experience. Returning to the idea of Architecting as a manifesto, this ideal of the group as a permanent and resilient space can be seen as a driving force behind the choice to take the risks of ensemble creation. During the three  years between Architecting and Mission Drift’s premieres, this resilience appeared in the rehearsal room even at times when the company seemed about to fracture. That said, the erosion of the actual team throughout the process of Mission Drift made the ideal of a permanent (and permanently resilient) group seem utterly unreachable.

Break down before the breakthrough 18 June 2010. The TEAM is in Las Vegas, two-thirds of the way through a month-long research and development period for Mission Drift. All of the work from previous workshops has been thrown out. Currently, the assignment is to improvise the company’s experience of Being In Las Vegas. Director Rachel Chavkin is interested in the idea of the performers’ experience being a part of the as-yet-uncreated play. The performers skitter from story to story, telling and re-enacting. As the group flounders through an attempt to describe their visit to the Atomic Testing Museum, Libby King stops the session. It doesn’t feel right, she says. It feels ‘ooghy on the inside’. Other performers concur – they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing; they feel like they’re doing cheap improvisation. The group struggles with the question of how to move forward, finally settling on a modified version of the same assignment. Instead of trying to tell the ‘real’ story of the company’s time in Vegas, the performers will improvise a ‘mythological’ version. The open session resumes, bumpily at first. Then Jessica Almasy asks Heather Christian to play a song. Standing in the center of the room, Almasy sings the ballad of Sam, a union leader the company interviewed the previous week. It is a simple song in the third person, a straightforward melody, beating out the exhausted rhythm of a man who struggles and fails to find jobs and homes for people seeking

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

229

the American Dream. In Britton’s words: ‘“it” is in the room’.15 Stories and characters flow out of the performers, emerging from the company’s research and abandoned scripts of previous workshops. Jill Frutkin and King play out a remembered scene about impossible possibility from a previous script. Almasy reads a quotation from John F. Kennedy’s acceptance of the presidential nomination, which marks the end of the dream of the frontier. The open session runs until the day is over. As Mission Drift coalesces over the next year, moments from this afternoon become linchpins in the play. The Kennedy quotation Almasy pulled stays in the script. The scene that King and Frutkin revived during this session returns as the final scene of the play. This day is a spectacular example of the mundane magic of the TEAM’s process: not the magic of a sudden lightning bolt of genius, but the magic of a group of people plodding through a painful process of crossed desires, miscommunications and compromise until one or two extraordinary moments finally arise. At the end of the day, the thing to celebrate about this rehearsal is that catastrophe was avoided. The group’s resilience allowed it to work through the discontent of the first half of rehearsal; its collective intelligence guided the productive second half, shifting the focus away from the problem that Chavkin posed (how does the TEAM tell the story of being in Las Vegas?) to the deeper themes that frame both Mission Drift and the company’s experience of its creation. This rehearsal displays a pragmatic version of the idealized resilience described at the end of Architecting. The group is resilient enough to take into account the individual experiences of the performers. King can stop what’s going on and use her own personal experience to affect an aesthetic shift in the task: her feeling ‘ooghy on the inside’ kicks off the discussion that results in the shift from an autobiographical to a mythological approach in the open session. The walls don’t give, the rehearsal continues, the company finds a new tactic to address the task at hand. The group can both tolerate and alleviate its members’ discomfort.

Britton, J. What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble. In: Encountering Ensemble, 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield p. 2 (unpublished) [online]. Available at www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/; accessed 16 December 2011.

15

230

Encountering Ensemble

Once the group’s resilience has been established, the functioning of its collective intelligence becomes apparent. It can be seen in the moment when ‘It’ returns in Almasy’s song of an ideal disappointed, and in the group’s response. Uncle Sam, as Almasy refers to him, does not have jobs or houses for all who need them. His goal, the American Dream, is unreachable. King and Frutkin pick up the theme of disappointed ideals with the remembered scene, in which a character runs from her failure in Las Vegas back through time and space, only to find herself confronted with the wide-eyed excitement of a sixteenth-century Dutch settler about to head West. The Kennedy quotation invokes the closed frontier and the death of the (earlier) American dream of heading West to make one’s fortune. These three examples share a quality of mourning: Almasy’s ballad could be a dirge; in the remembered scene, the Las Vegas character mourns a past that she has run from; the Kennedy quotation marks the loss of the frontier. The collective intelligence of the group, in shifting the focus from a ‘mythological experience of Las Vegas’ to a mourning of failed ideals, brought up an issue that had not previously been a major focus of the work. By 18 June 2010, two of the five company performers who had begun work on the show had stepped away from the project; before the piece’s premiere, four of the five would be gone. The ideal of a permanently resilient group was failing. A theme of mourned ideals, then, was not arbitrary. The collective intelligence, without any explicit conversation, brought the emotional experience of the group into the performance. The thematic shift during the rehearsal process is a manifestation of the collective intelligence, and part of a larger shift in which the failure of ideals became a touchstone in the play. The TEAM made reality’s failure to live up to a utopian ideal a central theme of Mission Drift, processing the group’s disappointment through the work itself.

The walls give Mission Drift follows American ideals through the history of the conquest of the continent, watching as they diverge, unscrutinized, from reality. Guided by the TEAM’s collective intelligence, a play that set out to examine the question ‘What is the particular character

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

231

of American capitalism?’ ended up being a eulogy for the failure of the American dream, processing the company’s disappointment at its own failure to build utopia.

Catalina (Libby King) and Joris (Brian Hastert) rechristening themselves The Eternal Frontier and the Wealth of Nations in Mission Drift. Photo: Rachel Chavkin.

Mission Drift examines the effects of the rapacious ideal of boundless growth that underlies capitalism and American history. Miss Atomic, capitalism’s hungry spirit animal showgirl, narrates the story of Catalina Rapalje and her husband Joris as they tear across four centuries and 4,000 miles of America, spreading capitalism and the hunger for growth as they go.16 It is not until Catalina is Daniel Sack’s article ‘Production and Destruction’ in American Theatre is a beautiful overview of Mission Drift, situating it within the TEAM’s obsession with the apocalypse. (Sack, D. ‘Production and Destruction: The TEAM’s Mission Drift Charts the Everyday Apocalypses of American Progress’, American Theatre, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January 2012): 102–6.)

16

232

Encountering Ensemble

c­ onfronted by Joan (a laid-off casino worker) and the 2008 financial crash that she begins to see what her reckless pursuit of boundless growth and the frontier has led to: MISS ATOMIC: Catalina finds herself lost in a sea of cul de sacs and identical communities. Foreclosure notices hang from blue tape. It’s like the film set for a western ghost town. JOAN: (Singing) That whole neighborhood Areas never finished Areas where there once was none Beautiful homes over there . . . MISS ATOMIC: Catalina finds herself  .  .  .  in a tent city, lost somewhere between resurrection and the land of the dead.17 This is a moment of awakening and a moment of mourning. As Catalina sees what is around her, Joan sings a song mourning what is not.18 Joan’s song draws circles around the holes left by the ideals that have driven Catalina even as Catalina confronts the broken system herself: empty, foreclosed houses (instead of beautiful homes) are bordered by tent cities of homeless families. The dream of the frontier is replaced with a facsimile of its corpse. Through Catalina and Joan, the TEAM processes an extreme version of the inevitable disjoint between ideals pursued and the reality to which they lead. Any mission, followed blindly, drifts from its goal as real life intervenes. Even as the play marks the distance between the ideal and the real, it reflects on the drive to keep going and the necessity of hope within that drive. Catalina, confronted with the reality that she has helped create, does not stop moving. Shouting ‘I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier’,19 the Kennedy TEAM. Mission Drift. Unpublished script. 2011, pp. 65–6. ‘Mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one’s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on’ (Freud, S. ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, in Strachey, J. and Freud, A. (eds), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914–1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works. 1917, p. 242). 19 TEAM. Mission Drift. Unpublished script. 2011, p. 71. 17 18

BUILDING CHARTRES IN THE DESERT

233

quotation Almasy pulled on 18 June 2010, Catalina turns and runs East, into the past, back to the colony of New Amsterdam where she first articulated the hunger that drove her across the continent and 400 years of history. Confronted by a colonist back where she began, Catalina rewords the ideal of the frontier: ‘You should go [west]. Everyone should . . . The sky, it’s big . . . it’s huge actually. And time feels different there. And it sort of feels—like there’s every possibility . . .’.20 This sequence remembers an ideal, mourns its disappointment and acknowledges the necessity of hope moving forward. With Catalina’s words to the Dutch woman who finds her, the TEAM acknowledges the continued drive onward – ‘you should go there, everyone should’ – and the hope necessary to continue – ‘every possibility (in the huge sky)’. As the audience and the company, sharing this final moment of the play, we know the West that Catalina built does not have every possibility. Hearing her say it, though, we wish it did. The performance provides a space to mourn the disappointment of the ideal that drove Catalina, and through her, the play. In the same space, the company mourns the ideal that drove it through the process of creation. The permanently resilient group, the promise of collective creation, did not make it onto the stage with Mission Drift. The collective intelligence of the company, however, built a different form of cathedral-memorial. The builders are not on stage with their words; every night, dances created by those who left animate the bodies of those who stayed. The TEAM processes its disappointment within the performance, and off stage life marches on: the company is developing five new works for premiere between 2013 and 2015, but has shifted its policy so that not every performer is invited into each new show. That said, nearly all of the members who left Mission Drift are involved with the new pieces, and they are still committed to ensemble creation. The group continues to take that leap of faith (albeit with a little more trepidation), believing they will make it through the process and continue creating nuanced, moving works. The company, three years older than when it wrote Architecting, knows its ideals cannot be reached. Knowing they will be disappointed, they recommit anyway: it still feels like there is every possibility.

Ibid., pp. 73–4.

20

Chapter Twelve

Elevator Repair Service and The Wooster Group: Ensembles surviving themselves John Collins

Aspiring to organize, founding an ensemble Many experimental theater makers of the last 20  years have organized themselves into non-profit theater companies.1 That organizational choice follows logically from the form itself – theater is, after all, a highly collaborative art form, a form that requires at least some degree of social organization. Every production of any theatrical endeavor, experimental or not and with rare exceptions,

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable guidance, advice and inspiration of Dr Sara Jane Bailes of The University of Sussex, a long-time supporter of and chronicler of ERS, without whose help I never would have managed to organize these thoughts.

1

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

235

requires the assembling of a group of artists.2 For most, that group disbands when the production ends. Yet, much of the better-known experimental theater work of the last 30  years is the product of ongoing ensembles. Unlike their peers in commercial and regional theater, these companies who organize as non-profits do not disband after a particular production, but instead move on to another production with many, if not all, of the same artists returning to collaborate on a new production. These include The Wooster Group, Mabou Mines, Forced Entertainment, my own ensemble, Elevator Repair Service and others – groups whose success is associated with their ensemble identity. Young theater makers graduating from universities where the work of these companies is now taught, may see this way of organizing as a starting point. Declarations of group-hood, even for those who have barely assembled a group, instantaneously confer an aura of legitimacy. Inventing an ensemble – sometimes simply by naming it – gives untested theater makers an implicit stamp of approval and the suggestion of a consistent creative team with a recognizable style. Lacking physical space, a budget and a history, taking this first symbolic step of naming the new ensemble can create a virtual artistic home for the individuals who constitute it. Self-branding an ensemble can set in motion a new group’s plan for creating a cohesive body of work; its trappings can also hinder creative progress. Experimental theater and devised theater  – two categories that frequently overlap and resist all but the most general definitions – are associated with innovation and risk taking. Ensembles that self-consciously strive for sameness in their personnel and in their styles may or may not achieve success and longevity. Nevertheless, a powerful mythology exists around the concept of the permanent ensemble. That mythology, of an egalitarian group of artists making work as a permanent community, confuses an organizational strategy with an artistic practice. Here, using two ­examples, I’ll attempt to disentangle the two applications of ‘­ensemble’. For Elevator Repair Service and The Wooster Group (as  well as

For the sake of argument, here, I will not consider the work of solo performance artists, monologists and street performers, though one could argue that many of these, as well, require the collaboration of technicians, designers, producers and stage managers to stage their work.

2

236

Encountering Ensemble

­ thers) an ensemble method is more essential to longevity than the o ­maintenance of an exclusive and permanent membership. I formed (and named) Elevator Repair Service at the very beginning of my career as a director in 1991. That moniker, though it had nothing to do with theater per se, suggested that our work would be unique or, at least, unusual; for the newly formed ensemble, defining ourselves this way promised a long-term experiment. It implied the commitment of the company to its members in exchange for their loyalty. I had adopted my concept of a successful experimental theater ensemble (the term ‘devised theater’ had yet to reach the parlance of off-off-Broadway) from The Wooster Group – from what I’d gleaned from seeing two of their pieces (Frank Dell’s The Temptation of St. Antony (1988) and Brace-Up (1991)) and from reading David Savran’s chronicle of their first decade, Breaking The Rules.3 The Wooster Group was, in 1988, a group of theater makers that authored original performance work with what appeared to be a permanent ensemble.4 According to their printed materials, the official group claimed an exclusive set of members and these seven – Elizabeth LeCompte, Ron Vawter, Willem Dafoe, Peyton Smith, Kate Valk, Jim Clayburgh and Spalding Gray – were collectively eponymous. There was also a notable contingent of ‘associate’ performers and technicians involved. Yet while these played a visible role in the execution of the shows, the company’s name and authorship of its work were clearly associated with the members.5 The earliest incarnation of Elevator Repair Service also consisted of a fixed group. Anxious to cement an ensemble of the kind apparently represented by the Wooster Group’s official members,

3 Savran, D. Breaking the Rules. Ann Arbor, MI: Theatre Communications Group, 1986. 4 Savran describes the group as ‘. . . artists who began to produce their own work in 1975 under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and who would, in 1980, re-form as the Wooster Group’. Ibid., p. 2. 5 Today, The Wooster Group website describes the organization as ‘. . . a company of artists who make work for theater, dance and media’. It goes on to identify three groups: ‘Company’, ‘Current Associates’ and ‘Founding and Original Members’, this last subcategory comprising the original seven listed here, with the first category identifying the current primary creators of the work. (www.thewoostergroup.org/ twg/twg.php?company.)

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

237

we incorporated under the company name in  1993.6 Exclusivity and permanence were elusive then (turnover was a reality even in the first few productions), but a Wooster-like ensemble was the goal. The idea of a utopian ensemble, one that eschewed traditional theater hierarchy for a democratic and highly collaborative process, took hold as an enduring aspiration. The group of about ten people, mostly performers, who considered themselves ERS members handled every aspect of producing the shows. Between 1991 and 1997, the ensemble solidified into a configuration of collaborators with whom much of the group’s work was associated. In 1997, we premiered Cab Legs, a piece that gained the attention of European theater festivals and a wider audience internationally and in New York. The name Elevator Repair Service began to take on a meaning to those audiences and within our downtown New York theater community. In addition to the familiar performers, the group’s collective tastes, tendencies and skills were recognizable to a small but growing following.

Evolving ensembles: The Wooster Group in 1997, ERS in 2002 Considerably further along in its professional life, The Wooster Group ensemble had become less recognizable by around the time ERS finished making Cab Legs. In 1997 as in 1988, it was still led by director Elizabeth LeCompte and still featured the performances of Kate Valk and, less frequently, Willem Dafoe; but four of the seven members of the ensemble were noticeably absent. Ron Vawter had left to pursue solo projects in 1992 (he passed away in 1994); Peyton Smith announced that year that she was moving to Arizona and leaving theater as a profession; Spalding Gray had long since left the group to perform his monologues; Jim Clayburgh, the group’s long-time designer, had moved to Europe and began handing off Elevator Repair Service’s first production, Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher, was mounted in December 1991 and we consider this to be the date of our founding. However, we did not officially incorporate as a non-profit theater company until 1993. As far as the State of New York is concerned, we have only existed since 1993; but we began work together in 1991.

6

238

Encountering Ensemble

set design duties to newcomer Jim Findlay. Nevertheless, programs and other written materials continued to list ‘The Wooster Group’ as these four plus Valk, Dafoe and LeCompte. On paper and as a concept, the original group still existed, though the active ensemble had changed radically. Not only were four of the seven original members no longer actively contributing, most of the familiar nonmember performers and staff had moved on as well. Some of the ensemble’s better-known pieces of the 1980s featured performers Mike Stumm, Anna Kohler and Jeff Webster. By 1997, these three were also absent from the group’s new work. Despite this apparent exodus, more designers and performers had come along to fill the vacancies. Some, like Paul Lazar and Scott Renderer, had first joined the group to stand in for founding members in remounted productions – Lazar for Vawter and Renderer for Dafoe – but were now beginning work on new projects with the company as full-time collaborators (if not full-fledged members). The group had reconfigured itself with LeCompte still directing and Valk still performing but now with an otherwise new contingent of actors. In 1993, the same year I incorporated ERS, I was hired by The Wooster Group as a sound designer and technician. By 1997, I had worked on six of their original productions and had joined the list of official associates. Judging from this expanding list of associates and shrinking list of official members, the plays of The Wooster Group seemed attributable to a collective neither permanent nor exclusive. Nevertheless, a Wooster Group identity remained – there were still a few familiar actors, LeCompte continued to direct and the shows bore recognizable trademarks. From 1988 to 1997, the body of work created under the ensemble’s name had grown from eight pieces to thirteen and the group had almost completely regenerated itself. I’d come to The Wooster Group when most of the original members bore the bulk of the creative responsibility and I’d seen almost all of them leave. During that time, several new titles were added to the ensemble’s body of work, including Fish Story, The Hairy Ape, House Lights and To You, The Birdie. Also during that time, whenever I wasn’t working for The Wooster Group, I was directing a growing, and changing, ERS. By 2001, as ERS became a full-time company, I began to recognize an evolution within my ensemble that resembled the gradual changes in The Wooster Group.

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

239

ERS created nine theater pieces in its first decade. The original members helped create and perform most of the work made in the first five years, sharing creative and administrative responsibilities. Our shows were not made from plays but from an amalgam of found text, improvisation and ensemble-generated physical performance. We felt a sense of exclusive ownership of each production. With our deliberately awkward choreography, slapstick sensibility and enthusiastic engagement with the absurd, we had cultivated a creative identity. Having a reputation and a growing audience, much of my 1991 ambition had been realized. But despite the dedication of that original group, the population of the ensemble was changing, a little at a time. By 2002, all but four of the original nine collaborators had stopped working regularly, or at all, with the company. Yet another original member, Rinne Groff, would be making her final ERS appearance that year.

The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928). Pictured, Victoria Vazquez, Annie McNamara, April Matthis, Randolph Curtis Rand, Vin Knight, Susie Sokol, Kaneza Schaal, Aaron Landsman, Kate Scelsa, Ben Williams, Mike Iveson and Greig Sargeant. Photo: Mark Barton.

In just ten years, Elevator Repair Service had outlasted almost all of its original members; yet this gradual upheaval did not erode its identity nor interrupt the arc of its history. ERS’ work of 2002 bore many hallmarks of its work of the past decade – the loose-limbed and ecstatic dances, cartoonish sound effects, a defiant theatricality

240

Encountering Ensemble

and a sense of experimental adventurism. Across that first decade, projects were rooted in experiments with form. Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher (1992) set a Tristan Tzara play in an office, blending ‘elevator’ music with Dada manifestos. Cab Legs (1997) featured long periods of uncomfortable silence and barely audible dialogue interrupted by dances inspired by Max Fleischer cartoons and Bollywood films. Room Tone (2002) featured a radical formal idea – near total darkness – interrupted by original choreography. Our preoccupations with formal invention, non-dramatic text and months-long (sometimes years-long) development periods had survived attrition and professional and social tumult within the company. Upheaval and off-stage drama do not, by themselves, distinguish ERS from other collective artistic endeavors. As with any longterm group-based project, especially one that so readily embraces chaos and unpredictability, ERS’ first decade saw relationships fray over romantic couplings, outside professional opportunities and genuine aesthetic differences. That the company itself continued to produce work as an ensemble even as so many of its members came of age, left New York or changed careers is noteworthy. The ensemble practice persisted after the original ensemble had all but disappeared. What defined ensemble, for this group, was not a fixed group of collaborators but an approach to creating original theater.

Sameness versus fluidity There were, and are, exceptions to the frequent turnover. There have been performers whose presence in consecutive productions created consistency throughout the ensemble’s history. Like Kate Valk in The Wooster Group, Susie Sokol has appeared in  all but the first ERS production. Her style of performance – inventive, unpredictable, quirky to the point of absurdity and infused with precise and rigorous physicality – embodies the ERS aesthetic. Her long creative partnership with me, one that predates the company itself, represents the company’s ensemble practice in microcosm. Her highly individual way of creating characters has had a tremendous influence over my practice as a director. Like Valk for The Wooster Group, she performs almost exclusively for ERS. Rarely does she

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

241

appear on stage in anything but an ERS production and rarely has there been an ERS production that did not feature her. While Sokol’s commitment to the company stands out, others also helped define its ensemble identity during periods of its history. James Hannaham, Katherine Profeta, Rinne Groff and Steve Bodow along with others like Victoria Vazquez, Scott Shepherd, Colleen Werthmann and Leo Marks all helped form a persistent core group throughout the 1990s (and many continue to be involved, if less consistently, now). While it is not uncommon for an ERS production to feature as many as three new performers, more often than not, ensemble members return after working on a prior production and most work on into the subsequent project. While there has been fluidity to the ensemble’s population, changes have tended to come only a few at a time. For two decades, there were more similarities than differences, from one production to the next, both in terms of the population of the ensemble and the aesthetic concerns of the performances. Only those who observed the group over many years would have the opportunity to recognize that the ensemble was always changing, slowly, and that only the approach itself and a few collaborators have remained constant since the early years of the company. I had assumed from my initial observations of The Wooster Group that an ensemble of this sort consisted of a permanent creative team. Their productions projected consistency, loyalty and commitment. ERS, too, holds these values; but the image of an ongoing ensemble masks a more complicated underlying reality.

The constant director: Directing from inside the ensemble Over more than 30  years, The Wooster Group has reconstituted itself into several iterations. As their sound designer for 14 years, I had a privileged perspective on that evolution, one that has informed my understanding of ERS’s trajectory. I came to recognize that a successful ensemble did not necessitate a rigidly fixed and exclusive membership. Leadership, however, is less easily compromised in these ensembles. During my time as a Wooster Group designer/ technician, I observed the impact that Elizabeth LeCompte had on the work of The Wooster Group and I began to understand my

242

Encountering Ensemble

own role in ERS, since, like LeCompte, I remain the most consis­ tent contributor to the work of my ensemble. In many (though certainly not all) forms of experimental, devised and/or avant-garde theater work, the director plays a critical role in the creative decision making. In some cases, where the director closely controls every aspect of the production, that role amounts to sole authorship – he/she is an auteur. Such highly stylized productions de-emphasize the role of the performer while accentuating other elements of the production personally crafted by the director, such as the design, the movement and even the writing. Though they may occasionally be based on an existing play and/ or feature a charismatic performer, the works of directors such as Robert Wilson (Einstein on The Beach, 1976), Richard Foreman (Paradise Hotel, 1998) or Romeo Castellucci (Hey, Girl, 2007) are regarded as the specific creation of those individuals.7 Yet, while LeCompte and I hold as much decision-making authority over the work of The Wooster Group and ERS, respectively, as Wilson or Foreman over theirs, our work is not attributed to Elizabeth LeCompte or John Collins. We attribute authorship to the ensemble. The same can be said of Tim Etchells and his work with British ensemble Forced Entertainment and of Lin Hixson and her work with performance group Goat Island. In each of these examples, ensembles, not individuals, claim authorship. LeCompte herself has explicitly resisted accepting sole credit. An interviewer once casually referred to her as the ‘director of The Wooster Group’. She quickly corrected him and insisted that she was not the director of the group; rather, she was the director in the group. She raises a puzzling problem: if the director is not set apart from the ensemble, steering it from the outside, who, or what, guides the group? A collective impulse? A democratic system? Is she directing? While some ensembles conduct themselves as microAthenian-democracies, offering each member a vote in whatever These auteurs do also produce their work under the auspices of production com­ panies. Foreman has, for decades, produced work under the name The Ontological Hysteric theater; Castellucci’s work is produced under the name Societas Raffaello Sanzio; Robert Wilson made many of his early works with a company he created called Byrd Hoffman School of Birds. While these organizations have been associated with much of the work of these artists, they are not known for working with ongoing artistic ensembles.

7

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

243

decision the ensemble makes, The Wooster Group is not such a group. Their collaborative structure, like ERS’, exists somewhere between egalitarianism and traditional theater hierarchy. Both companies rely heavily on the input of the group; nevertheless, in each case, the director’s word is final. Initially, my reaction to LeCompte’s assertion was skeptical. In Wooster Group rehearsals, my choices were always subject to her judgment. Yet, there was no doubting that I, as a collaborator, had significant creative latitude. I had worked for Foreman in a similar role, but had enjoyed no such artistic freedom. Likewise, my own level of authority within ERS is mitigated by the emphasis I place on collective action and agreement among the ensemble.

‘Just show me something’: The exchange between director and ensemble Whether LeCompte is the director in the ensemble or of the ensemble or both, my role as the director of (or in) Elevator Repair Service embodies a similar duality, if not outright contradiction. I am the primary initiator of projects within my ensemble and work created by ERS often begins only with an idea or theme. Even when a text does form the foundation of a new project, the determination of how that text should find its way into a staged production is often months or even years in the making. During that time, responsibility for what gets made changes hands frequently. LeCompte’s coy refusal to acknowledge her place in a Wooster Group hierarchy succinctly explains the particular role that ensemble practice can play within a group led by a single director. Unlike the auteur, the director in/of an ensemble like ERS, The Wooster Group, Goat Island or Forced Entertainment operates in symbiosis with the rest of the ensemble. In some cases in my experience with ERS, the balance of decision-making authority has shifted heavily away from me and to the performers. The Sound and the Fury (2008) was our second adaptation of an American literary work from the 1920s. Our first, Gatz (2006), a verbatim staging of the entire text of The Great Gatsby, had been a defining, and in some ways re-defining work for the ensemble. For the follow-up to this production, I commenced

244

Encountering Ensemble

work with only a strong impulse to hear Faulkner’s famously complex text spoken aloud. I trusted that hearing the text aloud would bring clarity to what seemed incomprehensible on the page. Though I had not articulated a plan or a hoped-for result, we were beginning work on the show with only the certainty that hearing that text aloud would yield something. I would need the ensemble to illuminate what that something was. In the first weeks of rehearsal, I gave creative responsibility to the ensemble, asking the actors to read the text aloud, to follow their own impulses for how to say the words and about who should say which words. The casting and many other fundamental decisions had not been made before we began rehearsals. This is typical. Some amount of initial uncertainty is common to our work. However, The Sound and the Fury stands out in that I had very little idea of even a conceptual framework for the piece. Instead, I required the performers to follow their own impulses and show me something. This exchange between director and ensemble is an essential element in ERS’ working process. It characterizes The Wooster Group’s process as well. ‘Just show me something!’ an agitated LeCompte would often demand in the early rehearsals of To You, The Birdie (2002). That something that I get from the performers is what I can interpret and shape and, in turn, give back to the ensemble to flesh out. Asking that the performers produce ideas that the director hasn’t already imagined is critical to the kind of ensemble theater practiced by ERS, The Wooster Group, Forced Entertainment, Goat Island and others. I am highly suspicious of plans, especially my own. The back-and-forth between the actors and me, the designers and me and the designers and the actors during the development, rehearsal and performance of the work can take unpredictable turns all the way up until the final performance and, though it diminishes over time, the attendant uncertainty is generative. It’s also a defining aspect of the process. A plan may be a necessary starting point but only in unpredicted departures from a charted path do genuine creative discoveries emerge. With the ground constantly shifting (or threatening to shift) under the work, a degree of familiarity and trust among the collaborators becomes an essential stabilizing force. While at any given time there may be a few new performers among the ensemble, the fact that most of the creative team are veterans of the previous production

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

245

creates comfort in risk-taking and facilitates the development of shared vocabularies. Toward the end of the creation period, I will have developed an understanding of the physical, scenic and aural language of the piece. While still allowing for accidents and surprise developments, I apply that understanding rigorously in giving the actors notes and new assignments as well as in rejecting ideas that do not serve the piece’s emerging logic. Once the show is in performance, the actors naturally reassert a degree of control. The unpredictable energy of live performance and the presence of an audience lift each show into new territory where another layer of ideas can appear, often by accident. Unlike most directors, I watch every performance of the shows I direct to mine for these serendipitous discoveries as well as to police less productive deviations. The back-and-forth between the performers and me never stops: they are the primary authors of the piece, then I am; I’m the director in and I’m the director of.

Gatz: A production creating an ensemble While this process is utterly dependent on the presence of an ensemble, and on a director who will entrust that ensemble with great responsibility, it does not depend on a permanent ensemble. The ideal of a permanent ensemble, when applied, encourages and rewards loyalty among collaborators from production to production and cultivates familiarity and trust within the ensemble. Usually, I gather the ensemble from the last completed piece to work on the next piece – even before I’ve decided what that production will be. But the ensemble approach of Elevator Repair Service, which entrusts both new and veteran collaborators with authorial responsibility and decision-making authority, is ultimately unconcerned with the varying seniority of the performers who assemble to make it. With each production, the ensemble’s composition varies but the ensemble approach itself remains consistent. When Elevator Repair Service began work on Gatz (a production that would require its largest ever ensemble) in 2004, the returning ensemble was minimal: only three original members remained. In the midst of work on Room Tone, in  2001, the core group, then down to six, planned for a hiatus to begin in 2002. It was not clear, at that time, if there would be a next piece. At a meeting among the

246

Encountering Ensemble

six remaining original members, we acknowledged that we were creatively exhausted and agreed that we would allow ourselves a genuine break from which we might not return. Either a watershed moment would come next or Room Tone would be our swan song. Gatz began as an experiment with just two actors. Feeling restless during our hiatus, I decided to rekindle a long-abandoned idea. Thinking this work would only be an exercise, we did not plan public performances. The four-year-old (and previously shelved) plan was to stage The Great Gatsby in its entirety. With our interest in taking on non-theatrical texts, we were attracted to the scale and scope of the novel and the problems it presented in the form of live theater. But, unable to secure the performance rights, we had left Gatsby behind and moved on to other projects. During time off after Room Tone, I was drawn back. That work with a couple of actors in  2003 showed surprising promise and we began making plans to mount a full production (rights issues notwithstanding). It would soon become clear that this project would not only re-energize the ensemble, it would require reconstituting it. As we began to understand how we might approach staging the novel, I could see that this major undertaking would require as many as nine new performers. This was an unusual problem since, until this point, we had not allowed any text to dictate the exact dramatis personae; instead, the current make-up of the ensemble always determined the casting. But even with a few veterans returning, theatricalizing an entire novel was going to require more bodies. In early 2004, though I was ready to make another ERS show, ERS was not enough of an ensemble to take on this ambitious project. Since the existing ensemble couldn’t make Gatz, Gatz had to (re)make the ensemble. It did so with lasting effect. The pieces that followed, The Sound and the Fury (2008), No Great Society (2006) and The Select (The Sun Also Rises) (2010), were all made by some configuration of a group that had formed to make Gatz. Each subsequent production saw the arrival of at least a few new collaborators and each saw the departure of a few. The cycling in and out, always a part of how we had organized ourselves, had resumed but Gatz demonstrated that, just as the performers and I shared responsibility for making the shows, there was also an exchange taking place between the ensemble and the productions themselves.

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

247

As much as we were an ensemble making shows, our shows were making and remaking the ensemble. A new constellation of collaborators then carried on the company’s core creative pursuits. The company’s personality and outward appearance had evolved over time; but that evolution had been catalyzed by the continuing priority placed on our ensemble-based approach.

Resisting change and maintaining an ideal Not all successful theater ensembles tolerate so much change. For many groups, maintaining a consistent and utterly recognizable contingent of performers is paramount. They organize themselves more like rock bands than producing companies. Radiohole, a Brooklyn ensemble creating work together since 1998, for years only made work that featured (and was written, directed, designed and produced by) four specific people. The TEAM, an ensemble formed out of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in  2004, consists of a larger group of artists but defines itself just as rigidly. Their ‘members’ have special privileges and responsibilities, greater and more serious than non-member participants, and are expected to collectively represent the ensemble. Forced Entertainment, formed 20 years before The TEAM in 1984, describe themselves on their website by saying ‘We are a group of six artists’,8 implying that the identity of the company is inextricably linked to six particular people and none others. That rock band approach embraces a go-it-alone, defiant selfreliance. It is a way of working where individual members take on specific roles but are equal in decision-making authority and where a set number of recognizable people define the public face of the work. It resists institutionalization and eschews the stratification of large, highly organized and well-funded regional theaters and commercial producers. These ensembles, unlike ERS, officially anoint their core members and organize themselves more as a utopian community, less as a hierarchical corporate structure. But even these have found over time that, like The Wooster Group found in the 1990s, the more utopian model is difficult to maintain. 8

www.forcedentertainment.com/page/3009/About-Us.

248

Encountering Ensemble

One of Radiohole’s founding members has departed the company and new performers are becoming familiar to their audiences. The TEAM’s 2011 creation, Mission Drift, features three performers (out of five) who do not have member status. By the late 1990s, Forced Entertainment found itself bringing in substitutes for members on leave. Eventually, the group formed an extended ensemble of ‘associates’ and began distinguishing between shows that featured these new, less permanent performers and ‘core performances’ that featured the original six. In the case of Elevator Repair Service, the elusive nature, over time, of a consistent member community never deterred a commitment to working as an ensemble. The acceptance of, even the embrace of, the cyclical regeneration of the ensemble might appear to undermine the attribution of the work to an ensemble. And yet, ensemble persists as a value among whatever constellation of performers and designers assemble around an Elevator Repair Service production.

Bodies of work: Defining an ensemble By 2011, the name Elevator Repair Service had taken on a meaning. What had begun as a shortcut to legitimacy employed by a group of inexperienced theater makers had ultimately delivered on its promise. The sum total of 14 pieces, all made under that name constituted the ensemble’s identity. Regardless of my personal responsibility, the work did not bear my name. While I may be the common ingredient, my total reliance on an active, engaged complement of collaborators and the authorship they retain preclude defining ERS as my personal body of work. Even as I take for granted the fluidity and evolving nature of the ensemble’s population, I place an absolute premium on making work from within a group. By prioritizing familiar and time-tested relationships, I resist change in that group and nurture a shared sense of history and common mission. At the same time, I embrace changes that are unavoidable and allow the ensemble to evolve and grow as members’ individual personal trajectories dictate. Whether to energize an existing configuration of artists or reconstitute one, that commitment to a collaborative way of working constitutes a complete approach to making theater. It is a practice that assumes

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE AND THE WOOSTER GROUP

249

that the group has collective authorship – even if the director has authority – regardless of the tenure of the individual group members. It is an approach that depends on a director who asserts the authority of an auteur in one moment and who, in the next, relies entirely on the impulses of the ensemble members. ERS’ first 20 years demonstrate that ‘ensemble theater’ depends as much on a philosophy of artistic practice as it does on a rigid organizational structure with a fixed membership roster. Arguably, for a company whose membership is so fluid, the identity of the ensemble could simply be a contrivance of the director, a label for work that is the creation of one person. Yet, even though I remain the one common ingredient in all the work attributed to Elevator Repair Service, I use an ensemble approach and an ensemble approach requires an ensemble, even if it is an ensemble reconstituted by the demands, constraints and ambition of each given work. The body of work of Elevator Repair Service, and its persistence as an ensemble, may create the appearance of a utopian ideal – of a collective of people working without hierarchy and in a democratic spirit. On closer inspection, however, this apparent ideal belies a dynamic and complex reality. Far from utopian, the underlying narrative of this ensemble suggests that maintaining exclusive, clublike membership may not be the only (or even the most effective) path to a theater company’s longevity. Instead, longevity may be best achieved through embracing a paradox: the most enduring ensembles are always falling apart.

Chapter Thirteen

‘Whose fantasy?’ Five voices on Rachel Rosenthal’s TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble Marianne Sharp

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to Rachel Rosenthal’s Extreme Theatre Ensemble and their improvised practice entitled: TOHUBOHU!. Performances given by the company are completely improvised. Nothing is planned in advance: neither form, content, aesthetic, lighting, sound, costume, props nor settings. The absence of formal planning for the performances – beyond the continued training of the company to become better at improvising – makes analysing the work a particularly challenging task, as there is no identifiable artistic ‘intention’ to any given performance. Rather, the intention of the practice is located in the quality of the relationships between participants from which the work emerges. The improvised nature of the work serves to maintain a focus on the ensemble’s moment-to-moment openness to the range of

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

251

artistic choices possible at any point during a performance. This requirement for openness is aided by the presence of Rosenthal’s dogs, Sasha and Fanny.1 Neither is trained to perform, but have free reign in the theatre space in all workshops and performances. The presence of the dogs and, when they choose, their participation in improvisations, accentuates the ‘nowness’ of the emergent creative act and is indicative of a broader ethics of inclusivity that incorporates all of the energies available in the theatre space in a particular evening, including those of the audience. Through the five ‘voices’ incorporated into the following text: audience-member, artistic director, company manager/lighting and sound improviser, performer and critic, I aim to offer the reader an experience that speaks directly to the nature of the ensemble practice that is TOHUBOHU!

Opening description TOHUBOHU! takes place over one weekend per month at ESPACE DbD: Rosenthal’s theatre-studio in Los Angeles.2 In each performance the company improvise approximately 6 or 7 pieces anywhere between 8 and 15 minutes in length. Adjacent to the performance space is an area containing a number of versatile set pieces (boxes, platforms and frames) and musical instruments for creating live sound, and Rosenthal’s extensive props and costume store: the performers can utilize any of the objects, instruments, costumes or set pieces in a given performance. The beginnings and endings of pieces are controlled by company manager, Kate Noonan, improvising with lighting, sound and live-camera projection. The current company has been working together for a minimum of four years at the time of writing.3 The performers have a diverse range of artistic backgrounds from the visual arts, dance (including aerial This chapter is dedicated to Sasha, a beautiful all-white German Shepherd and wolf cross, otherwise known as The Grand Duke Alexander, who passed away in January of 2013 and is deeply missed by Rosenthal and the Company. 2 For more information about the company and Rosenthal’s teaching of the Doingby-Doing (DbD) Intensive and her ten-week class, visit the company website: www. rachelrosenthal.org. 3 October 2012. 1

252

Encountering Ensemble

dance), to acting for film and theatre, and they continue with their individual practices outside of the company work. After every performance, Rosenthal hosts a discussion between company and audience in which she asks the audience for feedback about what they experienced during the evening. One striking and consistent aspect of these conversations is the recognition that the performances produce very diverse responses among audience members, not about whether they liked or disliked the work but rather about what they saw and experienced within a given performance. It can sound, during these discussions, as though different audience members on a given night have seen entirely different shows. The work is often abstract, in the broadest sense of the term, and it has a poetry of form that allows for the collision of seemingly disparate elements and energies from the absurd to the utilitarian at different times. While there are structures at work that give shape to the performances, there is a lot of space for interpretation within the work. Structure is often generated by the return of certain actions, objects, colours and textures within a performance, but actions can be performed with great clarity without there being a fixity of meaning. Images, sounds, rhythms, colours and textures continually appear and shift, producing multiple narrative suggestions that require the spectator to create meaning. The publicity materials for TOHUBOHU! flyers and programmes contain the question: ‘Your fantasy, or ours?’ and therefore situate both the performers and the audience as ‘dreamers’ in their relation to the improvisations. In this way, the audience are invited to create their own imaginative worlds in response to the narrative ‘triggers’ created for them by the ensemble. I return to this later in the chapter.

I An audience perspective A man stands in a black, rectangular wooden box in a pool of soft, red, light. He is carrying a large, white, wooden rectangular frame horizontally around his body. He places the frame gently down around him, balancing it carefully on the shallow sides of the box. He moves with precision, yet fluidity. He discovers an object, made out of paper in the box [Fig. 1a]. The object is precious. There is a tension at work in his arms, and torso that suggests a desirous, yet uncertain, relation with the object. Is the object pulling/slipping

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

253

away from him, or is he trying to hold on to the object, protecting it, or hiding it? A woman enters. She is outside of the frame. She mirrors the movements of the man, the shapes he is making with his body, until he extends the object in his outstretched arms, seemingly exhausted from his encounter with it. The woman gently takes the object and begins her own exploration as the man lies, one arm still outstretched, across the frame. The light has shifted, mutated from the soft red to a blue and lilac hue around the woman. Several hands and a foot appear through the fabric-covered flat that stands behind the man who now lies across the frame. The body parts move, enquiringly, adding texture to the different rhythm of movements by the woman with the object. Slowly, bodies emerge through the fabric of the flat, and create a crescendo of movement. The woman joins the man in the wooden box and two of the other performers lift the white frame over their heads. The frame is opened out and appears like the roof of a house, perhaps in a storm, sheltering the woman and the man. The roof/frame is lifted higher and is finally removed from the image, leaving the woman and the man clutching each other, still framed inside the wooden box [Fig. 1c]. The other performers ‘subside’ back through the fabric-covered flat until just a hand remains. It, too, disappears. The light slowly fades on the woman and man . . .

II The artistic director’s perspective. Rosenthal on her improvisatory practice Rachel Rosenthal, aged 85 at the present time of writing, has been practicing as an interdisciplinary artist for over six decades. Born in Paris to Russian parents, her family fled Europe and came to New York during the Second World War. After the war, she moved between New York and Paris, studying art, theatre and dance with Hans Hoffman, Merce Cunningham, Erwin Piscator and Jean-Louis Barrault, among others. After a solid grounding in European avantgarde movements, and being greatly influenced by her social circle of New York-based visual artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns (with whom she used to share an apartment block), she moved to California in the mid 1950s and created the

254

Encountering Ensemble

experimental Instant Theatre.4 Rosenthal was a leading figure in the LA women’s art movement during the 1970s, and co-founded Womanspace. Between the mid 1970s and 2000, when she retired from performing, she made 35 full-length theatre works, touring many internationally. She came out of retirement briefly to perform her early autobiographical work, ‘My Brazil’, for her 85th birthday in November 2011, but continues to teach and train her company in her signature improvisational practice. All the words in my company’s name are key.5 Tohubohu, from ancient Hebrew, sets the scene within the original Chaos. Theatre is where we live. Ensemble is how we are organized. The latter situates us as stem cells in an organism. The pieces we perform are the complete body, and the performers are the cells that live both as individual beings and as parts of the living whole, the psychic, intellectual and anatomical totality that constitute Life. But more than any other word, Extreme expresses the ‘intention’ of the way we approach our work. I like that word. It denotes a will to attain the beyond. It feels like attempting the impossible. It goes into unexplored waters, is risky, difficult and spiritually engorged. To create in the ‘extreme’ mode is rare. Few attempt it because it never reveals the result of an engaged journey. No other theatrical form dares to come on the boards in an empty state, ready to confront, accept and embrace the unknown, with no vision or scheme for a foreseen conclusion. In this way, the work is a surprise for all concerned, on and off stage. To achieve the hoped-for result of a totally satisfying theatrical art form, complete dedication and perseverance must be assumed. This is a rare state in our day and age. The members of my company have studied with me for many years, from a minimum of 3, to an ongoing present tally of 20. I hope to see them continuing for many more. TOHUBOHU! transforms the person. The people who have TOHUBOHU! is a later incarnation of Rosenthal’s ‘Instant Theatre’ work, that began in the 1950s. It is the form to which she has consistently returned throughout her artistic career. The first ‘Instant Theatre’ ran from 1956 to 1966, for part of this period with Rosenthal’s husband at the time, King Moody. Instant Theatre was revived briefly in the mid 1970s and then reincarnated as TOHUBOHU! in the mid 1990s for a spell before the current company began working together in 2008. For more information see Moira’s Roth’s book on Rosenthal listed in the bibliography. 5 As a reminder, the Rachel Rosenthal Company operates under the title: TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble. 4

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

255

accepted the extreme challenge have learned both art lessons and life lessons, and have grown significantly in the process. They have become more trusting, more open, more able to cope in their daily lives, and more accepting of what unexpected hurdles life can bring. They are less apt to mistake winning and competitive success as moral accomplishment or apotheosis. They can move on from lessthan-satisfying situations without withering. They get to the point where their world opens in depth and in breadth, and their place in the universe becomes clear and loses its debilitating awesomeness. I believe that this work makes us more fully human, in the best, creative and loving way. ‘Ensemble’ in French, means ‘Togetherness’. TOHUBOHU! offers togetherness with all there is, human or not, alive or not. A cosmic harmony in everyday circumstances.6

III Kate Noonan: The company manager/lighting and sound improviser’s perspective Noonan trained as an actor at the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City and worked in theatre, film and television for many years. She has taught directing, acting and ‘performance from scratch’ in a wide variety of theatre and educational contexts including at the Stella Adler Conservatory and at Rosenthal’s studio. Noonan, now the company manager, encountered Rosenthal’s work when she participated in a DbD Intensive in 1989. Since then, she has continued to work with Rosenthal, performing in an earlier incarnation of TOHUBOHU! in the mid 1990s. During this iteration of the work, company members would improvise the lighting and sound work as part of their role as performers. Noonan performs through improvising lighting, sound and live camera-feed projections for all workshops taught by Rosenthal and for company performances. Ensemble work is least satisfying when an individual insists on an idea being pursued, or a persona is presented for its own sake. In these moments, we experience struggle and a shift of energy that requires us as individuals to rally and ‘fix’ or ‘resolve’ the event. It

6

Rachel Rosenthal 18 November 2011.

256

Encountering Ensemble

sometimes happens that what follows is interesting, or engaging on one level, but the mind takes over. One can feel the audience thinking, ‘Uh oh, how’s s/he going to get out of this one?’ along with the performer, who becomes self-conscious and distanced from the audience (and sometimes from the other performers), defending him/herself from their judgment. For me, the most satisfying performance occurs when the ensemble is moving as a single organism, when as colors in the palette we all work together to create the composition and none of us know who is holding the brush. Call the painter what you will – intuition, chance, mystery – or simply the mood in the room. Sometimes the

Tohubohu! programme cover. Clockwise from bottom, Tohubohu! performance images 1a–e. Photos by: Marianne Sharp, Kate Noonan and Jason Jenn. Permission: Rachel Rosenthal. Cover art work by Tad Coughenour. (a) Craig Ng; (b) Joan Spitler; (c) Craig Ng and Sarnica Lim; (d) Mike Steckel; (e) Nehara Kalev and Doug Hammet.

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

257

entire performance is like this, and we are all transported out of time: audience and ensemble. Sometimes it happens in a moment and is gone. It’s a mystical state, hard to describe, but it’s a pure spiritual unison, when the demands of the moment coalesce into rapturous art. When the lights dim, and the audience settles in for an evening of theater, there is an undeniable expectation in place. Whether the expectation is to be entertained, moved, inspired or even bored, the most difficult thing for the performer is to trust that it will happen, without forcing the issue. Being empty, stepping onto the darkened stage after the house lights dim, without knowing what will happen next, requires a kind of mythic trust in the universe. Think of The Fool in the Tarot, looking up to the sky, dog at his heels, one foot poised over the precipice. The ensemble is the embodiment of that archetype, right down to Sasha and Fanny at our heels.7

IV Some performers’ perspectives This material is extracted from a longer group interview I conducted with the company on 2 August 2011.8 The discussion was framed by two main questions: (1) How would you define your function within the ensemble? (2) How would you describe or define the relationship between the individual and the ensemble in your improvisatory practice? For the first question, I began by giving the performers an example of the way Chris Johnston (2006) characterizes the different performer ‘types’ who often exist in ensemble improvisatory practices and asking the group to think about their ‘type’ in relation to how they function within the ensemble:9 Kate Noonan, 18 November 2011. At the time of this interview, the company performers were: Joan Spitler (Spitler has worked with Rosenthal for over 20  years); Josue Martinez; Craig Ng; Doug Hammett [Fig. 1e]; Nehara Kalev [Fig. 1e]; Dan Poirier; Outi Harma; Jarred Cairns; Sarnica Lim. 9 Johnston, Chris, The Improvisation Game: Discovering the Secrets of Spontaneous Performance, London: Nick Hern Books, 2006, p. 158. 7 8

258

Encountering Ensemble

Spitler: It’s hard to define what everybody is [in the work] because we are always switching [roles] and we’re all good at a number of different things . . . I have names for everybody’s roles. So Nehara [Kalev], Craig [Ng] and Sarnica [Lim] are what I would call the ‘weavers’, sub-divided into the wind, the water, and ‘heart’ [respectively]; Dan [Poirier] is the dreamer; Josue [Martinez] is the magician and the poet; and then I’d be fire, or bringing an energy of ‘fire’; Kate [Noonan] would be the ‘Maestro’, and Rachel [Rosenthal] would be the brain; and then Doug [Hammett] would be ‘earth’, and Jarred [Cairns] is the surrealist . . . Martinez: We can get attached to one of those labels, but I feel that in every performance the roles change. Especially if someone comes on stage and they establish something, we become conscious that that person started something, so they become the ‘driver’. Lim: I was thinking of the analogy of the human body . . . the different parts are all individual, but they work together. So if you were a body with all hands, you wouldn’t get much done . . . We’re all individual, but we come together to form this body, in order to function to achieve a goal, to emanate a meaning . . . Kalev: I love that analogy because if one part is out of whack, it can’t function. And even when there’s a moment for an individual to pull out your bag of tricks or to do your own [thing], bring out your personality or your skills onstage, it’s not about that it’s because the moment called for that, or for some other texture or some other idea to come into the picture: it’s about serving the group . . . Ng: [When] individuals come forward, I was thinking how in a dance company, when it’s specifically the choreographer’s vision, and everyone’s trying to fit into that, that individuality kind of gets lost because you’re trying to serve somebody else’s vision . . . you try to make sure your personality doesn’t get in the way. . . . In this work it’s kind of like the mirror exercise where one person is leader and the other is follower and it can switch at any moment. So, at any moment [we] can be the choreographer, or the leader or the solo, and there’s a different kind of listening [because] me, as my individual, unique ‘self’, can need to show up at any time as a solo. Cairns: [F]or me, it’s very similar to basketball, because it’s very back and forth. Say if you’re playing defence and you’re guarding, you’re half court defence and you’re half court offence and you get the ball: you drive it to the basket – you’re a solo. Then you come back to the team and you’re a core group again. So it’s kind of that

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

259

give and take and that doesn’t happen all the time . . . but when it does happen, ok ‘boom’, you’re done and you’re back to the unit. Spitler: I do think this is different to traditional improvisation because [in] creating the piece in the moment . . . for me it’s a lot like painting or creating a sculpture, every person is a different colour of paint. Sometimes we blend and create a wash, and sometimes what’s demanded for the overall evening is a big splash of blue – and that could be interpreted as text, or a movement solo or a duet, so . . . it is constantly an ensemble, but there are times when an individual’s talents are required. [So] Nehara will come flying down from the ceiling [because] that’s the colour that’s needed and we’re there to support it. . . .10 There’s a formal element in the creating of it that is [. . . like what is there] in pieces that are well thought out and rehearsed . . . and we’re trying to achieve that in the moment. . . . There’s a consciousness that we have [as a group] and then we constantly have to step outside of ourselves to see the formal picture and it’s very back and forth and we’re constantly relying on each other for the feedback. Poirier: There’s an attention that’s sort of like a gravitational pull . . . so that any one piece of it can get so far but every other piece of it is following, and then it all ends up coming back towards the centre every time, so the whole centre of that may shift to another area, but still all the pieces are going in that direction.

V A critical/analytical perspective In Section 1 of this chapter, I describe an example of one improvisation I experienced as an audience member at TOHUBOHU! The abstract nature of this improvisation meant that the actions of the players did not close down the possibilities for interpretation, but rather that the clarity of movement and image, moment to moment, gave rise to an openness of potential meaning. This openness of meaning is characteristic of TOHUBOHU! more generally and indicative of the way in which individual audience members – through the act of imagining the narrative, or narrative possibility, of a given improvisation – become co-creators in the production Nehara Kalev is an aerial dancer and choreographer.

10

260

Encountering Ensemble

of meaning in this work. As in the piece described above, most of the improvisations in TOHUBOHU! emerge with a sense of structural completeness about them. It is a little like watching a series of moving paintings, or dreams unfolding in the space, that have all the components of a finished artwork, and yet – because everything is improvised and there exists no ‘agreed’ performance, even in the moment of creation – the work remains in a constant state of ‘emergence’. The dream-like quality of the work more generally is useful as a focal point for unpacking the way the imaginations of participants (performers and audience) are activated in the improvisations. Psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas suggests that our identity situation in dreams, ‘uncannily re-creates . . . the infant’s relation to the mother’s unconscious, which although it does not “show itself”, nonetheless reproduces the process of maternal care’ (2006: 14). He writes that: The dream is an intelligence of form that hold, moves, stimulates and shapes us. When I enter the world of dreams I am deconstructed, as I am transformed from the one who holds the internal world in my mind to the one who is experientially inside the dramaturgy of the other. Gathered and processed by the dream space and dream events, I live in a place where I seem to have been held before: inside the magical and erotic embrace of a forming intelligence that bears me. (Ibid.) The performers continually shift between instigator of a new ‘dream’, and ‘one who is experientially inside the dramaturgy of the other[s]’, as the ensemble appear to be at times, in the same dream, or merging into a single consciousness with multiple bodies. As one example, performer Craig Ng describes his experience of performing in the improvisation detailed in my audience account. Ng had entered the space with the frame as one improvisation ended with the intention of clearing the set pieces from the previous improvisation and setting up the stage for a new piece. While he was setting the stage with the box and frame, Noonan saw a ‘moment’ and brought up a light on Ng. Ng recognized that a piece was starting and ‘realised I had to be prepared to just go with that moment even if my intention wasn’t to be there, or was something different’ (post-show discussion, 24 July 2011). Although at the start of this

‘WHOSE FANTASY?’

261

improvisation, Ng is performing a solo, he is already responding to Noonan’s instigation and hence allowing that possibility to discover himself ‘inside the dramaturgy’ of another. The birth of each new moment is nurtured into being as the performers ‘mother’ each other by finding where they are needed, in the moment, to enable the continued nurturing of the ‘dream-child’ that is the co-created artwork. Returning to the same improvisation, when the woman enters, the space for her to enter has been created by the actions of the first performer. She then supports the development of the man’s creation, by extending it and, in turn, creating a further offering. This is then extended/layered by the other performers who add texture to the actions of the first two until the group produce a structurally complete offering in the form of the new piece that is the whole improvisation. Each newly birthed moment is produced by the performers already being ‘inside the dramaturgy of the other’ as they go where they are needed to enable the ‘dreamchild’ to unfold.

Conclusion Returning to the question of ‘whose fantasy?’ is manifesting itself in the performance work, as an audience member I have found myself most imaginatively engaged when what I am seeing before me triggers multiple images, senses or narrative possibilities in my body and mind as the work unfolds. In these moments, I experience a heightened sense of my own presence at, or in, the work. This can often occur with the simplest movements, shapes, images and rhythms of the work. The work of the ensemble creates the possibility for the audience members to experience their individual presence and creativity in a very real way because the performance itself is in a constant state of emergence somewhere between the actions of the performers and the imagination of the audience. Rosenthal notes in her contribution to this collection of ‘voices’, how TOHUBOHU! ‘feels like attempting the impossible. It goes into unexplored waters, is risky, difficult’ and how ‘few attempt it because it never reveals the result of an engaged journey’. The ensemble make the continuous ‘attempting [of] the impossible’ the main principle of their practice by not distinguishing between rehearsal and performance. Every improvisation (in workshops or in

262

Encountering Ensemble

front of the audience) is aiming to have the quality of something that is rehearsed, while at the same time defying all of the conventions of theatre that attempt to hide its means of production (including the many forms of theatre that rehearse the staging of process). The risk taken by the performers in their willingness to step out in front of the audience when they, literally, do not know what they will do, creates a space in which a particular form of audience relationship is negotiated. It places performers and audience on a less hierarchical footing than in most theatre forms because it allows authorship of a given evening to be completely shared: both among the performers and, differently, between performers and audience. ‘Ensemble’, in Rosenthal’s work is radical in its form of ‘togetherness’, in that – through lack of planning of the content and form of performances – it unproblematically creates space for the incorporation of the multiple and diverse imaginations of all of the participants: human, animal, performers and audience. This ethics of inclusivity and the sense of connectedness between all participants in TOHUBOHU! is foundational to an understanding of the work more broadly. Helen Freshwater has noted how many contemporary interactive or immersive theatre forms make claims to be democratic or to ‘empower’ their audiences through making space for the spectator to physically interact within the frame of a performance, but in fact argues that many of these forms of theatre are, rather, coercive of their audiences and limit the scope for imaginative interaction by audiences (Freshwater 2009: 55–76). The risk that Rosenthal’s Extreme Theatre Ensemble takes in TOHUBOHU!, to really create in the moment, reveals the potential of ensemble improvisation to dream into being a genuinely democratic model of artistic creation, one that allows the audience – at least in their minds – to discover themselves, too, as both dreamer and ‘experientially inside the dramaturgy of the other’.

Snapshot #9

The Waiting Room: Practicing embodied cognition in performance Kate Hunter

The room is small, white, plain. It was a gallery once. It is filled with chairs, all in neat rows, spaced evenly. As the audience files in on a hot Melbourne night, they are faced with many choices. Where to sit? What is the performance space? Who are the performers? What are the rules here? The Waiting Room was first presented at Melbourne Fringe in Australia in 2010, and toured to Brisbane for The World Theatre Festival in February 2011, to critical acclaim. Many reviewers wrote about The Waiting Room with reference to the striking physical imagery that categorized the performances: the ordering and regrouping, the patterns and the chaos.

264

Encountering Ensemble

This is the highly distinctive aesthetic of Born in a Taxi,1 which joined together with The Public Floor Project to create the show. The Waiting Room was a physical theatre performance that was completely improvised. I was one of the six performers who, along with the musician and the lighting operator, had no idea what would happen, or when, on any given night. The small white room, night after night, became a world of possibilities. Audience members inadvertently, and always helpfully, became part of the work – they waited, they laughed, they danced, they moved, in a constellation of changing patterns, events and moments large and small. When The Waiting Room was first suggested, I was keen to participate in a project that incorporated large numbers of performers improvising in a very small space. Working with the group also dovetailed nicely into my research into improvisation, memory and cognition. I am curious about the process of choice that occurs in moments of improvisation – how the body chooses for us, and whether we can create new ways of working through attention to and articulation about the body’s choices.2 We undertook a group process which was part physical training regime, part movement ensemble improvisation. This was an ongoing weekly practice in which we established and maintained a highly developed vocabulary of shared physical grammar. We used techniques that were influenced by Taxi members’ long association with improvisation teacher Al Wunder. Other members complemented this with performance methodologies and experiences such as Viewpoints training. In order to provide an open but structured framework for the show, we incorporated scores that provided shape to the group dynamic, but allowed content to be open and dynamic. Practical examples of this ranged from ‘similar and the same’, changing physical facings and a very sophisticated practice of ‘school of fish’ (sometimes known as ‘flocking’). A key to this process was a proficient group awareness of ‘event’. Seven improvisers meant that we had many combinations to play with, and we needed to pay close attention at all times to patterns, choices and theatrical moments. We practiced a kind of embodied group decision-making process by acutely listening to each other, 1 2

For more details see: www.borninataxi.net. For more information, please see: www.katehuntertheatre.com.

THE WAITING ROOM

265

our bodies and ourselves. We were constantly asking ourselves: ‘What event is happening at this moment? When do I hold on to my own actions? When do I give way to the group? What is the best physical choice right now?’ Performers and audience found The Waiting Room a compelling experience – an exercise in chaos and precision, where anything could happen and probably would; a physical manifestation of the question: Where do we go from here?

Snapshot #10

Ingemar Lindh and the Institutet för Scenkonst Frank Camilleri

Swedish theatre-maker Ingemar Lindh (1945–97) founded his research laboratory the Institutet för Scenkonst (Institute for Scenic Art) in  1971. He studied with corporeal mime master Étienne Decroux in the late 1960s and had various encounters with Jerzy Grotowski in the early 1970s. His major contribution to twentiethcentury theatre involves the investigation of principles of collective improvisation as performance. The Institutet is currently co-directed by Magdalena Pietruska and Roger Rolin. Paradoxically, the primary element that Lindh identifies in the Institutet’s investigation of ensemble work in collective improvisation is ‘the individual’s capacity to be alone’.1 The improvising actor’s capacity to listen and react in a group context is considered as a direct consequence of one’s ability to work autonomously alone. The status of this autonomy is directly linked with a cultivated psychophysical awareness (which Lindh called ‘listening’2) that allows the improvising actor to work upon oneself as other. This

Ingemar Lindh, Stepping Stones, Icarus: Holstebro, Malta, Wrocław, 2010, p. 41. Ibid., p. 219.

1 2

INGEMAR LINDH AND THE INSTITUTET FÖR SCENKONST

267

work is done within a framework where technique and training process is not so much an ‘autonomous’ end in itself but the means that enable the actor to encounter others in the contingency of performance. It is as if before encountering and working with others, the actor engages in an ensemble work upon oneself based on perceiving and reacting to impulses. The Institutet’s formation work that facilitates its artistic practice is dependent on what Lindh called ‘mental precision’,3 which refers to the quality of the movement of the mind that precedes the physical manifestation of action. Rather than ‘psychological’, he preferred the term ‘mental’ to denote this element. For Lindh ‘mental’ indicates the exclusion of psychological mechanisms (e.g. need, desire and motivation) that filter the performance of an action by predetermining it. Mental precision thus highlights the status of action as an intention to do something without a (psychological) motive to do it. Such a mental capacity of the actor is representative of the centrality of individual work in Lindh’s perspective on collective creation. Higher levels of formation and composition processes that entail interaction between actors involve empirical forms of training that the Institutet developed. This kind of training is not based on prescribed forms of embodiment (e.g. corporeal mime or martial arts) but on a way of proceeding where tasks are formulated according to the outcome of the previous task. Examples of empirical processes include the isometric training for actors developed by the Institutet, which focuses on the isolation (stops) of the instant immediately preceding the most dynamic moment of an action, as well as the work on super-energy, which involves the generation of a flow of energy that cannot be manipulated and is thus resistant to predetermined corporeal stances. The rationale that informs empirical training is at the basis of the practice that contributed to the Institutet’s collaborative endeavour. It supports the claim that interaction with the others is mediated through and is the result of a sophisticated capacity to work on oneself. More immediately related to interactive and ensemble pro­ cesses are the dynamics and mechanisms of ‘social situation’ which play a pivotal role in Lindh’s collective improvisation. The term 3

Ibid., p. 220.

268

Encountering Ensemble

refers to the consideration of the whole context as material for the actor’s work and encapsulates everything that is outside of the actor, including colleagues, encounters with colleagues, time, space, actions, colour, clothes, objects, text and music. The dynamics of a ‘social situation’ are facilitated by the perceptual vigilance of ‘listening’ that is crucial for the improvising actor’s capacity to react to what happens in a given situation. The Institutet’s research in this area focuses on finding a balance between the dangers of provoking encounters artificially and those that avoid them systematically. Research on the ensemble mechanisms of ‘social situation’ provided Lindh with the means whereby collaboration among actors can be developed as a discipline with the aim of exploring improvisation as a method of organization distinct from directorial montage and choreography. It is not possible to discuss the Institutet’s practice of collective creation without considering the less visible dimensions that nourish it. More specifically, Lindh’s pursuit of ensemble work is indicative of an ethics that seeks to inhabit the instant of occurrence via a sensitized consideration of context. The modus operandi (way of working) of the Institutet’s research on collective improvisation is integral to their modus vivendi (way of life). Since human beings are constantly called upon to make choices and take decisions in life, the improvising actor’s refined capacity to do so in the context of theatre means that, potentially, the actor is working on the same mechanism that is in operation in an ethics of responsibility. Key aspects in the Institutet’s overall practice (in life as in art) are informed by the dynamics of hospitality. Lindh considers the capacity of being on your own not only as the basis of collaboration with others in theatre, but also as ‘the basic principle of hospitality’4 with regard to guests and students, that is that it must be a reciprocal attitude otherwise one ends up imposing on, rather than encountering, the other. The Institutet’s ethical dimension is reflected in their pedagogy. For example, workshops organized by the Institutet (as distinct from those organized for the Institutet) are usually residential, involving communal tasks (such as cleaning and cooking) and ample time for informal encounters and discussion, all of which are important elements in the Institutet’s work.

4

Ibid., p. 99.

INGEMAR LINDH AND THE INSTITUTET FÖR SCENKONST

269

The Institutet’s practice can be seen as an ensemble of individuals, with each individual having the capacity to work autonomously and ‘collectively’ on one’s own. This view is comparable to that of Lindh’s master, Decroux, whose artistic and pedagogical research in corporeal expressivity exacted a strong individual work. Decroux’s comparison of the corporeal mime to a keyboard is revealing in also suggesting the possibility of an ensemble-type work that the actor conducts on oneself, which is at the basis of encounters with others.

270

Part Three

Forming ensemble: Some approaches to training

272

Introduction John Britton

Forming ensemble The final section of this book looks at some approaches to ensemble training. An overview of historical and contemporary ensemble practices reveals recurring approaches and concerns. In this introduction, I am going to examine some of them and look at how they manifest in the work of different practitioners – and occasionally in my own practice. Each of these recurring features tells us something about the complex fabric that makes up ensemble. My aim is not to offer a comprehensive catalogue of ‘who did what’. Rather, I aim to identify common strands of ‘ensemble’ practice. However, as always, a word of warning! Just because someone is not mentioned in a particular section, does not mean that they are not important. The terrain and the questions we are exploring are enormous and all I am attempting is to suggest rough maps through it. This book is full of examples of practitioners engaging with many of the elements I explore in the following pages – but you will not necessarily find them mentioned in this section.

Shared training Practitioners concerned with developing ensemble have repeatedly found their attention drawn to the need for performers to share a common training. Copeau was a pioneer. He established a training school along­ side  his professional company, the former feeding directly into

274

Encountering Ensemble

the latter.1 He believed the only way to revolutionize the quality of theatre was to prevent actors becoming corrupted by training that entrenched the styles of ‘acting’ he so despised. He was not interested in retraining established actors; he wanted to catch performers young, before they could be corrupted by convention: What was needed was not remedial work with established actors during rehearsals, but preliminary work in an attached school.2 Sharon Carnicke suggests a similar perspective existed at both the Moscow Art Theatre and the Group Theatre in the US: .  .  .  both theatres needed young actors without ingrained pro­ fessional habits or expectations, who could be moulded to new ideals.3 Richard Boleslavsky, establishing the American Laboratory Theatre to introduce Stanislavski’s working methods to America (and creating the company from which The Group Theatre emerged), wrote: ‘In order to get the most harmonious results, a group should be trained collectively’.4 Though they were building on the work of the past, these practitioners, when it came to training the sort of performer they needed to realize their visions, saw a need to start anew. New actors, if they were to forge a new culture, required new forms of training. What is meant by ‘training’ in the context of ensemble? It is not simply learning a suite of performance skills or techniques. That was the sort of training Copeau sought to replace. Usually ‘ensemble’ training has an intention more fundamental than the acquisition of technique; it promotes the development of shared sensibility, enhanced sensitivity, common vocabulary, collective understanding and even, as I explore below, shared ethics. Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 24–8. Rudlin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training (2nd edn). London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 46. 3 Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 46. 4 Quoted in Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 37. 1 2

INTRODUCTION

275

Suzanna Bing, responsible for applying Copeau’s (and her own) ideas at his training school, taught existing skills, but used them to guide students towards shared, more fundamental understandings: . . . Bing utilised the study of a particular style of movement – ballet – to help students discover more general characteristics of style that they could apply to their own work.5 Students would learn not only ‘how to do ballet’, but, through learning those skills together, would develop understandings and principles they could, collectively, apply more widely in creative processes. This involves more than simply using balletic ‘technique’ as part of a movement vocabulary. Through learning ballet, trainees would develop ‘shared language’. In learning to speak a shared language, members of an ensemble start to negotiate both interpersonal and aesthetic relationships. Unless she6 is working in absolute isolation, a trainee is always in relationship. Different trainings focus on different aspects of her relationships. While all performance training is ultimately concerned with the communicative/expressive relationship of per­ former(s) to audience, some approaches focus initially on the relationship between director/trainer and individual, while others place primary focus on inter-performer relationship. The former generally encourage individuals to be more sensitive to impulse and reaction, and, through that process of sensitization, to become more subtle in interpersonal communication. The latter pay primary attention to relationship between performers, to interrelationship within the emergent ensemble. Most trainings, of course, combine elements of both approaches. Among those primarily focused on the relationship between director and individual performer was Grotowski. Most of Grotowski’s writing describes work developed in interrelationship Rudlin in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 55. As most people who train with me are women (and in the absence of an uncontroversial singular pronoun in English that includes both male and female), when I refer to an individual performer in this section, I use the pronoun ‘she’. I have no evidence that the experience of male performers is substantially different.

5 6

276

Encountering Ensemble

between actor and director. Although individually focused, it was relational work. Grotowski wrote: It is one of the basic principles of our method of creation to have (a) kind of interplay in which director and actors give as much as they take, ceaselessly exchanging.7 How this was experienced by the performers Grotowski worked with, is described by actor Zbigniew Cynkutis: Everything that we did that was any good was not even made by Grotowski, but was born between me and Grotowski. . . . It was the strong, direct relationship between Grotowski and each actor that enabled that actor to express something – something that originally may very often not have been the actor’s own but that in time came to belong to him.8 Though the focus of this training may have been the performer’s relationship to someone who was not a co-performer (the director), Grotowski was not indifferent to the importance of relationship between performers. Thomas Richards, Grotowski’s essential collaborator in the last stages of his work, writes: .  .  .  adjustment to the partner within a fixed line of actions is what Stanislavski and Grotowski considered true spontaneity.9 Lisa Wolford, writing about her time training with Grotowski, emphasizes the relational aspect of her experience, alluding to ‘the indispensable necessity for the actor to live in relation to something or someone outside the self’,10 thus acknowledging that, while the focus of this training may be the development of individual capacity, that capacity is tested through relationship with others. Wolford, Lisa, and Schechner, Richard (eds), The Grotowski Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2001. p. 117. 8 Quoted in Kumiega, Jennifer, The Theatre of Grotowski. London; New York: Methuen, 1987, p. 51; original emphasis. 9 Richards, Thomas, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1995, p. 81. 10 Wolford in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 213. 7

INTRODUCTION

277

As noted in my introduction to Part One, Grotowski himself asserted the centrality of ‘relationship’ to his work: When I speak of “theatre company”, I mean the theatre of ensemble.11 Phillip Zarrilli, another practitioner whose focus is on the training of individuals, clearly suggests that relationship with other performers develops out of attention to the development of the self:12 When we reach a high level of attunement . . . we enter into an inter-subjective relationship between self and object or self and other.13 What the experience of that ‘intersubjective relationship’ might be is alluded to by Thomas Richards when he writes of his own work: . . . suddenly something starts to appear that is not you, not your partner, but a third something, like a gentle wind, a substance.14 Among those who identify relationship between performers as central to their training is Nicolás Núñez. He sees interrelationship as core to learning: For [learning to be a performer] to take place, the work must be done in a group; this gives forth the possibility of collective confrontation and contribution to individual development.15

Richards, Thomas, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1995, p. 115. 12 An insight into Zarrilli’s perspective on the relationship between training the individual and enhancing ensemble can be found in Chapter 15 of this book. See also Loukes in Chapter 9. 13 Zarrilli, Phillip B., Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge: 2009, p. 85; original emphasis. 14 Richards, Thomas, Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 132. 15 Núñez, Nicolás, Anthropocosmic Theatre: Rite in the Dynamics of Theatre. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996, pp. 65–6. 11

278

Encountering Ensemble

Michel Saint-Denis also placed connection with others as the starting point of the ‘new’ training he advocated, not its destination. He wrote: It is of prime importance to establish from the beginning the idea of ensemble acting because what, in fact, creates life on the stage is the actor’s awareness of his relationships – spiritual, imaginative, perceptive, physical – with other actors.16 Saint-Denis is equally clear about why such training is necessary: The kind of actor I wanted was not to be found ready-made. Training and experiment seemed to me more important than the quick gathering together of a company without meaning or unity.17 My own approach to training also places its primary focus on relationships between performers. I call it ‘Self-With-Others’ precisely because it is to the details of interrelationship that a performer’s attention is continually drawn.18 Should we somehow consider there to be a conflict between these approaches? Or are they different routes towards the same objective? Certainly, I would suggest the latter. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about the role that contact with others can have in developing the complexity of ‘the self’:19 We  .  .  .  feel we have stepped out of the boundaries of the ego and have become part, at least temporarily, of a larger entity  .  .  .  Paradoxically, the self expands through acts of selfforgetfulness.20 16 Saint-Denis, Michel, Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises. Theatre Arts: Heinemann, 1982, p. 81. 17 Saint-Denis, Michel, Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1960, p. 44; my emphasis. 18 See Chapter 14 of this book for a full outline of Self-With-Others. 19 I have written elsewhere about the psychology of self-development in actor training, see Britton, J., ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’, Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 36–54. 20 Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity. New York: Harper Collins, 1996, pp. 112–13.

INTRODUCTION

279

DUENDE training (Rico Wu, Jo Leishman, Aliki Dourmazer, Eva Tsourou, Luke O’Connor, Stacey Johnstone, Alexandra Tsotanidou and Hannah Dalby): July 2012, Lesvos. Photo: Lydia Yeung.

Elsewhere he writes: At the most challenging levels, people actually report experiencing a transcendence of self, caused by the unusually high involvement with a system of action21 so much more complex than what one usually encounters in everyday life.22 Csikszentmihalyi asserts that one’s sense of self is enhanced, not diminished, by engagement – profound, immersive engagement – with a complex ‘system of action’. If we assume that a simultaneous, By ‘system of action’ Csikszentmihalyi is describing a network of activity that an individual is engaged in – interaction can be with inanimate objects (he gives the example of a rock climber) or with other people (he gives an example: ‘the surgeon feels at one with movements of the operating team, sharing the beauty and the power of a harmonious transpersonal system’) (Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 33). 22 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge; New York: ­Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 33. 21

280

Encountering Ensemble

detailed relationship with, and reaction to, a number of other performers represents just such a complex system of action, we can see how a training that approaches ensemble through focusing on interrelationships still supports the individual development of those who participate in it. Zarrilli, in this section, explores how training which pays primary attention to the individual can enhance sensitive interconnection with others. As a number of contributors to this book suggest, training in ensemble – whichever route is taken – can eventually expand to include the audience. If one can learn to be open to and with a fellow performer, one can learn to be open to and with an audience. Some practitioners have seen a focus on relationship as a mechanism for negotiating difference – either between individuals or differences of culture and/or ethnicity. This latter perspective is fraught with complications. In the last decades, there has been increasing awareness of, and sensitivity to, the unspoken, unacknowledged, sometimes unrecognized power dynamics that exist when performers of different cultures meet. When groups work together, is there a tendency to make ‘them’ more like ‘us’, or to treat ‘them’ as ‘exotic’, or ‘delightful’? Often, these dynamics have played out in the meeting of Western cultures with other, often older, cultures, but the same questions can arise in the meeting of male and female, heterosexual and non-heterosexual, traditional and progressive, able-bodied and disabled. There is not space to explore those dynamics here, but they are always potentially present in the dynamics of a relationship within an ensemble.

Here. Now. Another concern of many ensemble practices is with ‘being in the moment’ – with immediacy and spontaneous reactivity. This is not the exclusive preserve of ensemble practitioners, but has particular urgency for groups wanting to nurture the ability to react sensitively to evolving dynamics, live in front of their audience. Attention to spontaneity brings a performer to the heart of the conundrum of ‘live’ performance – recreating work while, simultaneously, experiencing it ‘as if for the first time’. For a performer to respond, in the moment, to the reality of an impulse, she must first notice that impulse. She must be

INTRODUCTION

281

attentive to the ebb and flow of impulses in her body and to the unfolding dynamic of what is happening around her. She cannot be distracted by trying to remember her next line, worrying about whether someone in the audience is having a good time, musing on a conversation she had with a friend at lunchtime. Practitioners, repeatedly, have sought ways to train performers to become present. As Joseph Chaikin put it: First, the actor must be present in his body, present in his voice. Second the body must be awake – all of it, the parts and the whole – and it must be sensitive to reaction through imaginary and immediate stimuli.23 A similar concern with the attention to the moment is, according to Climenhaga, central to the work of Anne Bogart: A further component of Bogart’s work is the necessity of spontaneity and reacting to the moment.  .  .  . The point is to respond viscerally to the conditions that have been set and let something happen, by-passing a more intellectual response to get at the essential core of the action.24 David Krasner suggests that in the work of Sanford Meisner, a performer with the Group Theatre before developing his own version of American Stanislavskian training, precise sensitivity of response to each moment is integral: Actors act on the relationship to the other actor, using the specifically observed behaviour of scene-partners . . . If a scenepartner changes their behaviour, the actor must adjust their own behaviour to correspond to the different signals and stimuli.25 One consequence of this attention to ‘the present moment’ is a continuing interaction between techniques for training performers 23 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991, p. 66. 24 Climenhaga in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 291. 25 Krasner in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 159.

282

Encountering Ensemble

and various meditative practices. It is a topic requiring more space than can be given here, but since Stanislavski encountered and was profoundly influenced by yoga,26 meditation-based spiritual and/ or bodily practices and performance have informed the work of a number of practitioners. Among practitioners most obviously informed by encounters with such practices are Michael Chekhov, Brook, Grotowski, Núñez and Worley. Attention to the ‘here and now’, whether pursued entirely through performative techniques or developed through techniques and processes derived from spiritual and meditative practices, has often been complemented by another focus seen in the work of many ensemble-orientated practitioners. Since the start of our story, many have sought to encourage ‘ensemble-ness’ through attention to psychophysicality and the education of the senses.

Psychophysicality and sensitization Joseph Chaikin uses a startling image of the divorce between the processes of thinking and use of the body that he saw in American society around him: In America many people live in their bodies like in abandoned houses, haunted with memories of when they were occupied.27 Developing strategies to overcome this disconnectedness has driven many of the practitioners with whom we are concerned. Toporkov, reflecting on working with Stanislavski, while the latter was developing his Method of Physical Actions, quotes Kedrov: What is this method? Stanislavski said that when we talk about “physical actions” we mislead the actor. They are psychophysical For a perspective not only on Stanislavski’s relationship to yogic practices, but also the effect that the ‘spiritual’ environment in Russia in the early years of the twentieth century had on many significant practitioners, see White, R. Andrew, ‘Stanislavsky and Ramacharaka: The Influence of Yoga and Turn-of-the-Century Occultism on the System’, Theatre Survey, Vol. 47, No. 1 (2006): 73–92. 27 Chaikin, Joseph, The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991, p. 15. 26

INTRODUCTION

283

actions, but we call them physical to avoid unnecessary discussion, because physical actions are real, they can be set. The precision of an action . . . is the basis of our kind of acting.28 ‘Psychophysical’, a word increasingly in evidence in discussions of training in recent years, is a term that originated in the nineteenth century.29 The word denotes a perception of the human organism that recognizes the holistic interrelationship of processes of the mind and actions of the body. A psychophysical training is an integrative training, one that recognizes that what one does and how one pays attention to it are intimately connected – and that both require training simultaneously.30 A psychophysical approach asks a performer to pay attention to her experience of her body’s actions, and to the processes of thinking that underpin those physical actions. Through learning to manipulate this attention, she learns how to construct her performance. For Zarrilli (and indeed in my own work)31 a performance is constructed by the performer finding an appropriate use of her body through an appropriate directing of attention.32 Attunement to the self, central to a psychophysical approach, needs to be complemented by sensitivity to ‘the other’. In seeking to develop the necessary sensitivity, practitioners, logically enough,

Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich, Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001, p. 158. 29 Zarrilli traces the use of this term in the sphere of actor training in Zarrilli, Phillip  B.,  Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 13–14. 30 Philip Zarrilli in his book Psychophysical Acting describes his approach as one that ‘does not begin with psychology or emotion, but rather with work on . . . preparing the actor’s body, mind, sensory awareness/perception, and energy for the expressive work of the actor’ (Zarrilli, Phillip B., Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009, p. 8; original emphasis). 31 In Chapter 14 of this book, I describe a performance as ‘what you pay attention to and how you pay attention to it’. 32 As quoted earlier, Phillip Zarrilli defines ‘acting’ as: ‘that psychophysiological process by means of which a (theatrical) world is made available at the moment of its appearance/experience for both actors and audience’ (Zarrilli, Phillip B., Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009, p. 44). 28

284

Encountering Ensemble

have attended to the mechanism we have for receiving and giving impulses to the outside world – the five senses. Mark Evans points out that education of the senses was fundamental to Copeau’s training: One of the fundamental principles . . . was the education of the actor’s senses through observation, action and imitation.33 Staniewski of Gardzienice, sees sensory engagement as an impera­ tive: ‘To perceive means to be able to absorb with all the senses’.34 Emerging from the quite distinct lineages of both Lecoq and Mary Wigman, Monica Pagneux, according to Simon Murray, also places sensitization at the core of learning: Pagneux (establishes) conditions whereby bodies can attend ­better and more sharply, not only to themselves, but also to the perpetual stimuli of the human and material world around them.35 The recurring attention to sensitization reflects an understanding that performance, even when tightly rehearsed and structured, needs to be alive to the tiny shifts and alterations at the heart of an evolving collective experience. For a performer to be able to react spontaneously (i.e. without having to make a rational decision about ‘how’ she should react), requires both that she perceives those shifts as they occur (via her senses) and that her performance tool (her bodymind) is able to respond spontaneously and appropriately. The attention to sensitization of performers, and to opening up their ability to react spontaneously through the integration of physical and psychic actions, is recognition that for many, reactivity has been the heart of the ‘aliveness’ of ensemble. Chaikin, pursuing strategies to counteract the psychic rift he described in the quotation that opened this section, strategies he

Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 117. Quoted in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 269. 35 Murray in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 227. 33 34

INTRODUCTION

285

hoped would enable performers to ‘play together with a sensitivity to one another required of an ensemble’,36 wrote: The basic starting point for the actor is that his body is sensitive to the immediate landscape where he is performing. The full attention of the mind and body should be awake in that very space and in that very time (not an idea of time) and with the very people who are also in that time and space.37

Rural retreats One strategy for enhancing performers’ sensitivity is to remove them from their familiar environment and take them somewhere new – placing them in contexts where they genuinely perceive things for ‘the first time’. If ‘(a) new orientation is possible only as the consequence of a disorientation’,38 then few things are as disorientating as removing a performer from the familiar texture of her daily life and asking her to reinvent her work and interrelationships somewhere new. A recurring feature of many ensemble practices has been the decision to move entire companies away from the habitual routines and perceived ‘distractions’ of urban life, relocating them to rural environments. Both Stanislavski and Copeau saw retreat to the country as offering significant benefits to the process of building ensemble. At the very start of the Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavski took his company on retreat to Pushkino. According to Jean Benedetti: Working in the comparative isolation of Pushkino proved beneficial. The new company lived as a community. As there were no servants, they had to keep the place clean and fend for themselves.39 Programme note for an early Open Theatre production (Hulton in Hodge, Alison, Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 175). 37 Chaikin, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991, p. 65. 38 Barba, Eugenio, The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1995, p. 171. 39 Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999, p. 69. 36

286

Encountering Ensemble

The retreat was not a ‘holiday’ where, pampered, the company could dedicate themselves to ‘being artists’. They were expected, obliged, to contribute to the daily running of the community, in addition to training and rehearsing. This ‘communal’ work was an integral part of the process of building the ensemble: It was a sign of respect for the art . . . Attitude was what counted. Application to domestic chores was part of a broader concept of the way an artist, an actor should behave, a concept of discipline and dedication which Stanislavski called his Ethic and which was the essential companion to talent.40 Mark Evans describes Copeau’s first retreat with his company thus: The period of training, rehearsal, discussion and preparation was a nourishing experience for all concerned – bonding the group of actors into an ensemble and helping to establish a company ethos, shared aims and ambitions. . . . Copeau . . . employed open air rehearsal, the simple setting intended to encourage actors to get used to a lack of technical effects. On a less pragmatic level, he may also have felt that working in the open air in a more rural environment encouraged a different kind of truthfulness and naturalness . . .41 America’s Group Theatre (including Harold Clurman who worked with Copeau) integrated the idea of rural retreat into their early work ‘to encourage the development of a community’.42 The (unrelated) Group Theatre of London, operating at about the same time, trying to develop a literary-based ensemble practice (and collaborating, as they did so, with writers of the stature of Auden, Eliot and Yeats), also integrated the idea of a summer retreat into their, occasionally chaotic, programme of work.43

Ibid. Bryan Brown in Chapter 1 helps us understand some of the philosophical foundations for such an expectation. 41 Evans, Mark, Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 10–11. 42 Carnicke, Sharon Marie. Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 45. 43 Sidnell, Michael J., Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984, p. 53. 40

INTRODUCTION

287

Peter Brook, preparing a version of The Tempest, withdrew his company from Paris to Avignon. He writes: The beginning of the process was to withdraw from our normal surroundings. . . . Here, in peace and absolute seclusion, we spent ten days in preparation. . . . We did group exercises whose sole purpose was to develop a quick responsiveness, a hand, ear and eye contact, a shared awareness that is easily lost and has to be constantly renewed, to bring together the separate individuals and form them into a sensitive, vibrant team. The need and rules are the same as in sport, only an acting team must go farther: not only the bodies but the thoughts and the feelings must all come into play and stay in tune.44 A rural retreat can encourage performers to drop ingrained habits and find new ways of coexisting. Living together, establishing new ethical and behavioural boundaries, can challenge and deepen bonds forged in rehearsal. In my company DUENDE, we often rehearse or run residential training workshops in remote, rural locations. They are rich, often very challenging experiences. They offer performers the chance, at the end of a training session, not immediately to immerse themselves in (and become distracted by) the thousand things life habitually demands of us. Instead, we have time to reflect, talk informally, process the day’s work and reflect on our experiences. While this might sound gentle and relaxing, it also means performers have no easy escape from the environment of the work. This continuing immersion in working relationships can create a ‘pressure-cooker’ environment. Experiences – both positive and negative – intensify. It gives a powerful added dimension to the development of individual and collective understanding and interrelationship. Carnicke quotes a member of America’s Group Theater recalling that the group’s first rural retreat as: . . . a stimulating but battering summer. I was unused to living in such close quarters, especially with extraordinary volatile actors; it was like living in a goldfish bowl; it frayed my temper.45 Brook, Peter. There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre. London: Methuen, 1993, pp. 107–8. 45 Carnicke, Sharon Marie. Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 45. 44

288

Encountering Ensemble

There is another important aspect to the idea of a rural retreat – that it is not a ‘retreat to’ the country, but a ‘retreat from’ the (usually urban) mainstream. Much ensemble work has been driven by dissatisfaction with the state of mainstream or establishment theatre. Seeing what exists, feeling it to be debased and sterile, ensemble innovators have sought new ways to create the art they believe to be possible. They retreat from the city, from the ‘mainstream’.

Performing at the Edge; a residential workshop (directed by DUENDE). Lesvos, Greece, 2012. The remote location is both a stimulus to the growth of each individual and the ensemble, and a significant pressure on that growth. Photo: Chloe Wong.

There is a psychic and symbolic quality to the rejection of the city (where art, money and power congregate) and to the embracing of ‘something other’. The return to a “simple life” was clearly intended (for Copeau) to mark a corresponding return to simple principles grounded in close association with nature, as well as a rejection of the more formal conventions laid down by the academies and the conservatoires, the official guardians of nineteenth century taste.46

46

Evans, Mark. Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 46.

INTRODUCTION

289

At times ‘going to the country’ can involve a problematic ignorance of the complexity of rural life. Sometimes this ‘retreat’ is to a highly idealized version of the ‘rural’, a romantic sense of there being ‘older and more natural’ ways of living. The psychic and symbolic resonances of a ‘return to nature’ are evident, and these resonances can be complemented, and sometimes challenged by the practical difficulties of the experience.47 Just because a company moves to the country, it does not mean that they belong there, or are welcomed by those who already live there. Nor does the company necessarily want to ‘belong’. Peter Brook clearly valued this sense of ‘not belonging’: The Centre was  .  .  .  a nomad, taking its mixed group on long journeys to interact with peoples never touched by a normal theatrical tour.48 Ingemar Lindh, who, in the face of what he perceived as official indifference, relocated from Sweden to a precarious existence in Northern Italy, describes his company in similar, slightly more extreme language: We were vagabonds who were not tied economically to, or dependent on, any country. Our only bond was with the work which we took with us wherever we went.49 Lindh is recognizing a significant factor inherent in a company’s decision to ‘retreat from’; a spotlight is thrown onto what remains between individuals when everything else is removed – their shared commitment to shared work. The rural retreat, a recurring element of ensemble practice, offers a chance to replace the familiar with the unfamiliar, to identify and deconstruct habitual reactions and behaviours. It is also, often, a way for artists to manifest their own sense of themselves as outsiders, as Noah Pikes’ description of the difficulties encountered by Roy Hart Theatre when they relocated from London to rural France give a powerful insight into practicalities and ideals clashing (Pikes, Noah. Dark Voices: The Genesis of Roy Hart Theatre. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books, 2004, pp. 139ff). 48 Brook, Peter. The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989, p. 105. 49 Lindh, Ingemar. Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing ­Enterprise, 2010, pp. 66–7. 47

290

Encountering Ensemble

searchers, and, reflecting the role of the travelling players of earlier centuries, as those who pass through the ‘mainstream’ world, but do not necessarily belong there. Eugenio Barba, listing some of the ‘particular necessities and conditions’ for his work and that of the company he runs, Odin Teatret, includes: ●● The desire to remain foreigners. ●● The impulse to travel far from the territories in which

theatre normally lives. ●● The meeting with other ‘emigrants’.50

The collective as community The wholesale relocation of a group of artists to an unfamiliar environment can create enormous stresses alongside undoubted benefits. Colleagues, who once met for some hours of the day but spent significant parts of their time in other environments – family, social organizations and other cultural contexts – now find interrelationship within ensemble is central. This intensifies if the ensemble relocates to somewhere with no immediate or easy point of contact between it and the local community, or when, as suggested above, the ensemble does not want to ‘belong’ in its new environment. The development of a group from a collaboration of performers to a total community is complex and yet is one many practitioners have attempted. Membership of a ‘group’ can seem, from the outset, to offer the promise of community and the opportunity to explore new ways of living outside the moral or political mainstream. The very act of ‘making community’ – whether in ‘exile’ from the mainstream or by creating new spaces within the existing structures of a culture – can be a significant ‘defamiliarization’. As Theodore Shank suggests, writing about the emergence of ‘alternative’ companies in America between the late 1950s and early 1970s: Participants . . . were drawn to theatre as a means of expression for their social and political commitment. . . . For the individual Barba, Eugenio, and Ferdinando Taviani. Beyond the Floating Islands. New York: PAJ Publications, 1986, p. 10.

50

INTRODUCTION

291

participant, the theatre companies frequently served as a total community.  .  .  .  The theatre group and the work in which they were engaged provided the individual with family, work, education and recreation.51 Miller writes of Ariane Mnouchkine as advocating a combination of collective and personal elements in the ensemble environment, describing a: . . . communal – even tribal – experience where, as (Mnouchkine) puts it, you can “have your friends and your lovers in the same place and you can still be a nomad”.52 Anne Bogart offers an even more passionate perspective on the communal nature of the creative experience: En route to rehearsal, I want the sensation of heading towards an exciting, romantic, turbulent rendezvous. A rehearsal should feel like a date. Both as a director and as an audience member, I want to find the actors attractive, uncategorizable and undismissable. The best productions I have directed issue from a rehearsal process charged with erotic interest.53 Thomas Richards offers a rather more austere perspective on communal development than the one suggested by Mnouchkine or Bogart. He warns against the dangers of establishing ‘superficial’ interpersonal bonds, as those bonds, so attractive to people trying to ‘get  along’ in strange environments, ultimately jeopardize the health and truth of the working relationship. .  .  .  in a truly professional situation it’s fundamental that we aim towards good work not good feelings. Of course, to feel well inside what one is doing is a fundamental element in any activity. But if such a need is placed ahead of the need for good work, then the quality of the activity is destined to decline. The situation will turn into a fraternity of pseudo-friends who expect Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 2. Miller, Judith. Ariane Mnouchkine. London: Routledge, 2007, p. 25. 53 Bogart, Anne. A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre. London; New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 67. 51 52

292

Encountering Ensemble

to continually pat each other on the back, no matter what they actually do. People enter into an unspoken emotional contract to serve each other’s good feelings. They barter easy acceptance. Such a situation will never arrive at creative work, which in fact, does not only involve acceptance, but also involves a kind of demand. What does it mean to be a colleague? It’s to aim your relation toward what’s serving the work at hand.54 Any collective seeking to establish a ‘new community’ must negotiate the relationship between the work they are doing and the social context in which it takes place. Professional and personal (sometimes romantic) relationships intersect in any emergent community. The balance between individual freedom and collective discipline needs to serve the development of the ensemble’s work if the community is to survive. How much these decisions emerge from the group and how much they are determined by its leader is a question requiring continual re-examination.

The charismatic leader At the heart of the internal dynamic of any ensemble is the relationship of the ensemble to its leader, assuming that there is a ‘leader’. This relationship is particularly complex when the leader, as is so often the case, is a charismatic figure who ‘drives’ the work of the group he or she directs. Are the ‘democratic’, ‘non-hierarchical’ working practices so valued by some who work in ensemble compatible with ‘structure’ and ‘leadership’? Can ‘group ownership’ of a creative process coexist with directors, writers, producers and other assorted ‘specialists’? Can charismatic individuals and ensemble coexist? In one sense the answer to the question is clearly ‘yes’ – most ensembles grow through the initiative of a charismatic individual. It is generally individuals who have the inspiration to assemble a team, the vision and drive necessary to sustain and develop it and, sometimes, the intrinsic personal flaws that will prove to be its ultimate undoing. 54 Richards, Thomas. Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 92.

INTRODUCTION

293

Copeau, reflecting his strong Catholicism, sought to impose a strict moral and even spiritual code on the (mainly young) community of performers who accompanied him on his self-imposed exile from Paris in  1924. This leader-driven creation of a new ‘family’ was undoubtedly effective in some ways,55 but, it should be noted, the community he established dissolved within months.56 There are instances where the rigorous dominance of a ‘leader’ in imposing new norms of behaviour is even more pronounced, as, for example, when, even before their relocation to France, members of the Roy Hart Theatre were expected publicly to seek approval for sexual and personal relationships from Hart himself: When a new relationship began, there was often a ritual performed in the studio in which the couple asked Roy and the group for their blessings.57 According to ensemble member Noah Pikes, for a while, Hart even intervened in the sexual orientation of ‘his’ performers, deciding whether they would ‘benefit’ from hetero- or homosexual relation­ ships.58 When the Roy Hart Theatre relocated from London to Maleargues in rural Southern France, ‘new’ social structures were imposed from above, a process made possible (perhaps irresistible) by the isolation of the group from ‘normalizing’ social contexts. Certainly, Hart, once the move had taken place, acted as leader of the ‘community’, not just as director of the ensemble.59 The possibility of an ensemble becoming a submissive, ­personality-worshipping organization is certainly enhanced when it abandons the ‘normalizing’ influences of mainstream society (though it should be noted that in the case of Roy Hart cited above, the explicit ­intervention into the ‘private’ lives of company 55 A review in The Times of ‘L’Illusion’ noted: ‘You feel as you watch them that they are indeed a community de famille et d’amitié’ (quoted by Rudlin in Hodge, Alison. Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 51). 56 Evans, Mark. Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 32ff. 57 Pikes, Noah. Dark Voices: The Genesis of Roy Hart Theatre. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books, 2004, p. 130. 58 Ibid., pp. 129ff. 59 Details of this time in which a ‘new community’ was developed in extremely difficult circumstances can be found in Pikes, Noah. Dark Voices: The Genesis of Roy Hart Theatre. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books, 2004, pp. 139ff.

294

Encountering Ensemble

members are reported as taking place while the group was still based in London).60 Joseph Chaikin was initially reluctant to assume the mantle of leadership of The Open Theatre and had to be prevailed upon to acknowledge what everyone else realized. Lee Worley told him: Nothing gets done without you  .  .  .  our future depends solely on what you care to focus on . . . You of course are the dictator and whether you believe in governing very little or a whole lot it amounts to the same thing.61 He ultimately reconciled himself to the role in terms he articulated in a speech to other company members: Some of you are very prepared for discipline and others are lazy. Some of you are more gifted and others less. My being able to say this is part of the tyranny of my position as the director, because there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t agree on who is which. But it’s my position that entitles me to make choices based on my assessment. On this score there has never been equality in any creative situation . . .62 The Open Theater had initially been set up not to have a single director. Robert Pasolli writes of how Chaikin earned his position within the group: The group had decided early that any member could set up and run his own project within the Open Theatre. Chaikin, however, was the only one to do it. Sessions which he did not dominate tended to be leaderless, and one can imagine the vacuum which his innovative abilities rushed to fill.63 It is worth quoting at length Pasolli’s analysis of Chaikin’s leadership. Pasolli’s book is a contemporary account, written while the Open Theatre was still evolving. It illustrates how, even within a group It should also be noted that some members of the Roy Hart Theatre deny vehemently that it was any such ‘dictatorship’ (Ibid., p. 161). 61 Quoted in Blumenthal, Eileen. Joseph Chaikin: Exploring at the Boundaries of Theater. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 26. 62 Chaikin, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991, p. 82. 63 Passoli, Robert. A Book on the Open Theatre. [S.l.]: Bobbs, 1970, p. 8. 60

INTRODUCTION

295

with a sophisticated understanding of the significance of structure and hierarchy, there was still a tension, albeit a productive one, between the collective and its pivotal figure: Chaikin is the charismatic figure of the Open Theatre. His personal magnetism draws people into his orbit. The atmosphere is heady, the relationships intense. There is a feeling of anarchic freedom: Chaikin has a knack for stepping off-center, especially at times of controversy, and people feel their influence within the group to be equal. This is an illusion. Everything actually happens by Chaikin’s instigation or sufferance. He maintains what you could call a diplomatic relationship with the group’s affairs, both personal and practical; he has at his disposal considerable powers of personal address. He does not try to block differences and often accedes to them: over the years he has welcomed several people whose approaches to theatre, workshop and group have opposed his own. He dislikes overt politics and avoids intervening directly in the relationships between the actors and a workshop leader, director, adviser or writer. But when he feels strongly about something, his view finds an almost automatic adherence in the troupe. He lobbies subtly but effectively: his mood changes, he worries out loud, and the will of the troupe begins to change. He says that he hates to say “no” to anything, but rarely does he have to say it. As in most cohesive groups, the will of the members evolves in step with the will of the leader. At the Open Theatre, however, the members tend to be unaware of the fact that their will is a reflection of Chaikin’s. Chaikin is the leader of the troupe but seems not to be; he controls practically everything while giving the impression of controlling practically nothing.64 Another core member, Jean-Claude van-Itallie, who is described in program notes as ‘Playwright of the Ensemble’,65 clearly saw the need for such leadership. He believed: ‘a non-hierarchized group will produce only chaos’.66 Ibid., pp. 10–11 The emergence of such leadership was not without cost. Catherine Mandas, who had originally instigated the establishment of the group, left the group in reaction to Chaikin’s growing centrality (Ibid., p. 8). 65 Ibid., p. 69. 66 Quoted in Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 119. 64

296

Encountering Ensemble

Another charismatic, dynamic, clearly ‘directorial’ leader, Ariane Mnouchkine of Theatre du Soleil, whose perspective on the ideal working environment I quoted earlier, combines a dominant, pas­ sionate and pivotal personal vision with an unwavering commit­ ment to collectivity: Although Mnouchkine exudes a powerful presence in her theatre, her approach calls on the actor, designer, playwright, technician, and administrator to be an active co-creator in the work, helping her to construct a utopian community of collective responsibility and vision.67 This may appear to be a paradox – the charismatic leader committed to collective creativity. How that leader encourages the collective creativity of her or his ensemble is, perhaps, central to any understanding of the difference between the role of a director in ensemble and non-ensemble performance. Clive Barker, writing of Joan Littlewood, like Mnouchkine a charismatic woman directing an innovative ensemble, describes her approach to the creative task thus: The work of the director who acts as a coach and trainer of an ensemble . . . is conceived as steering rather than ordering.68 Toporkov writes of the process by which he was invited to join the Moscow Art Theatre: ‘Actors, as Stanislavsky put it, must be “nurtured” inside the theatre’.69 Gladkov records Meyerhold, ebullient and charismatic, and clearly an auteur, encouraging a performance into life: . . . during my rehearsals I . . . often shout “Good!” to the actors. They’re still playing badly, very badly. But an actor hears your “Good!” and lo, he will in fact play well.70 Richardson in Hodge, Alison. Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 252. 68 Barker in Hodge, Alison. Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 138; my emphasis. 69 Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich, Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001, p. 12. 70 Gladkov, Aleksandr Konstantinovich, ed. Law, Alma H., Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic, 1997, p. 162. 67

INTRODUCTION

297

The language used in these descriptions offers some insight into the nature of the creative processes being described. Littlewood ‘steers’, Stanislavski ‘nurtures’, Chaikin ‘worries out loud’, Meyerhold, though he shouts, shouts encouragement not instruction. None of these words speak of the director adopting an authoritarian stance in relationship to the ensemble – notwithstanding the fact that the director will usually reserve the right to make the final artistic decisions. Performers are asked to co-create rather than to embody the will and pre-conceived vision of the auteur-director. This complex relationship, the interaction between collaboration, hierarchy and empowerment is one that we see recur throughout this book.71 A collective creative process, even if strongly directed, is different to one in which disempowered individuals are required to fulfil the will of a ‘superior’. This difference is alluded to by Eugenio Barba when he writes of his experience of what to him seems the antithesis of a creative environment: At fourteen I went to a military school. . . . the image is of an impassive and immobile me, lined up geometrically with dozens of my peers, supervised by officers who do not permit us the slightest reaction.72 It is against this corrosive form of directorship/dictatorship that many ensembles have placed themselves, notwithstanding the defining presence of charismatic and dominant individuals within the company. Nevertheless, there are some groups for which the very notion of a director is problematic, containing as it does, the suggestion of hierarchy. Some of the difficulties of negotiating between ‘democratic collectivity’ and the presence of a director are alluded to by Adam Ledger in his chapter in Part 2 of this book. A balance needs to be established – a tricky balance requiring continual revisiting. Tyrone Guthrie, suggesting that he be one Some of the practical detail of this negotiation between director as co-creator and director as auteur is charted by John Collins in Chapter 12 about his company, Elevator Repair Service. 72 Barba, Eugenio. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1995, p. 3. 71

298

Encountering Ensemble

of two ‘directors’ of the Group Theatre of London in the 1930s, wrote of it being better to ‘risk the dangers of an autocracy than of democracy or oligarchy’.73 However, Hilfinger-Pardo, in her chapter in this book on TEAM, a contemporary New York ensemble, writes of the search for ‘a collectively created utopia’ underlying their work, which is explicit in its rejection of the role of an overarching ‘architect’ or visionary. Between these poles, there are innumerable variations.

Maintaining ensemble/longevity One of the concerns that underpins the development of many ensembles is with the longevity of the group. As charismatic leaders age or withdraw and as founding members of an ensemble mature and seek more (or less) responsibility, how can the shifts in relationship be managed? Is an ensemble still the same ensemble when someone new joins? Strehler, whom I quoted in my introduction to Part 1 describing his ideal theatre as being like a family, believes the true test of greatness for a theatre is its endurance. He claims: A theatre which doesn’t last, which cannot bring together many different talents (women and men) so that they live together and stay together with a single aim  .  .  .  such a theatre isn’t worth anything.74 He sees, in this ‘permanence’, the key to evolution within the ensemble, speaking of: . . . the . . . ensemble has changed over the space of fifty years, necessarily, inevitably, not through rupture and conflict, but rather by the handing on of witness from the older members to the younger, who have then in their turn, aged and handed on their witness to yet others who have come after them.75 Sidnell, Michael J. Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984, p. 52. 74 Delgado, Maria M., and Paul Heritage. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 267. 75 Ibid. 73

INTRODUCTION

299

Stehler’s use of the word ‘witness’ both evokes the idea of the ensemble as a ‘spiritual’ environment and recalls older processes of transmitting skills and mysteries within families or guilds. While the definition of ensemble suggested by the Director’s Guild and quoted at the start of this book sees longevity as intrinsic, John Gillett suggests longevity in itself is not enough: Even a company working over years may lack the vital ingredient to make it a true ensemble, and that is the development of a common set of values, goals and artistic processes . . .76 While longevity per se may not be an adequate condition for generating a sense of ensemble, unless there is some endurance, the common languages developed through training or performing together need continually to be rediscovered with each new working process. There are twin imperatives in an ensemble’s development – the need for continual renewal and the need to deepen shared understandings. Both are necessary to promote the quality and longevity of an ensemble’s work. Perhaps, as suggested above, part of the skill of finding the balance between continuity and change comes in also finding a balance between individuality and a submission to the needs of the collective.

Politics of -/politics in I suggested above that a retreat to a rural or ‘alien’ environment can also be seen as a retreat from the urban/mainstream. It can be read as a deliberate statement of political and/or artistic self-identity. How and where a company works and the choice of ‘ensemble’ as aspiration, is a choice that can combine aesthetic and political considerations.77 It is to the politics of ensemble, and the politics within ensemble that we now turn. In this book, David Barnett suggests that for Brecht at The Berliner Ensemble, ensemble was both a political statement and Gillett, John. Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach: A Practical Workbook for Actors. London: Methuen Drama, 2007, p. 292. 77 Brad Krumholz, in Chapter 10 on his work with NACL gives a contemporary American perspective on this question. 76

300

Encountering Ensemble

a way to develop specific working relationships. Brecht’s explicit integration of politics with the creative process is embedded in his statement: . . . the learning process must be co-ordinated so that the actor learns as the other actors are learning and develops his character as they are developing theirs. For the smallest social unit is not the single person but two people. In life too, we develop one another.78 Barnett’s description of Brecht’s directing process suggests the latter’s view of the actor as ‘social being’ extended to his own view of himself as director – actively encouraging dialogue with, and suggestion from, anyone who saw work during its development.79 The interweaving of art and politics in ensemble can be seen in the flowering of ‘alternative’ work in America in the 1960s and 1970s. Bigsby sees the explosion of ‘alternative’ forms as being a direct expression of the political aspirations of a generation of American artists. He writes: The counter-cultural fascination with communes and a renewed sense of group identity  .  .  .  found a paradigm in the theatre group.80 Some practitioners, such as The San Francisco Mime Troupe and El Teatro Campesino, created ‘political’ work that explicitly addressed both national politics and the sociopolitical concerns of their audiences. For other ensembles (e.g. The Open Theatre), the quality of personal and professional relationships within the company and between company and audience were the dominant domain of political engagement. Whether the ‘politics’ of an ensemble is located primarily in the work’s content or the ensemble’s structure, the negotiation of power relationships that ensemble practices

Brecht. ‘A Short Organum For the Theatre’ in Willett, John (trans.) Brecht on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1964, p. 197. 79 See also Mumford, Meg. Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009, p. 44. 80 Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 25. 78

INTRODUCTION

301

require is consistently challenging. Some members of The Open Theatre left when Chaikin became its ‘director’.81 The San Fransisco Mime Troupe split along ideological lines.82 Questions of hierarchy, ownership and ‘equality’ can become intimately, passionately raw, as a group tries to define itself to itself or in relationship to its wider community. Often, inevitably, the fault lines for such tensions are the same fault lines as exist in broader culture, frequently located around questions of ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality and dis/ability, enhanced by the desire to reinterpret artistic titles such as ‘director’, ‘writer’ and ‘actor’.83 The Living Theatre both ‘performed politics’ and saw the politics of ensemble as intrinsic to their internal organization. The company’s political commitment was clearly articulated by co-director Julian Beck: Life, revolution and theatre are three words for the same thing: an unconditional NO to the present society.84 However, despite this explicit ‘revolutionary’ aspiration, Bigsby suggests: . . . despite Julian Beck’s anarchistic views the move to subvert the boundary between stage and auditorium derives less from a Passoli, Robert. A Book on the Open Theatre. [S.l.]: Bobbs, 1970, p. 8. Shanks characterizes the split thus: ‘The company was divided ideologically. The conscious Marxists believed that they should focus on playing for the working class. Davis (director and founder), however, was convinced that they should aim their work at pre-revolutionary young middle-class intellectuals. Furthermore, some were determined that the Mime Troupe become a collective in its structure with all decisions made by the group as a whole. Davis, however, was equally determined that he continue as the company’s sole director and make all important decisions himself. The conflicts resulted in Davis and the most militant Marxists leaving the company. Those who remained felt leaderless’. (Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982, pp. 61–2). 83 This tension between ‘political ensembles’ and ‘ensemble-as-political-statement’ is one origin of the increasingly distinctively American usage of the term ‘ensemble’ that has evolved since the 1960s. Krumholz (in this book) locates the predecessors of his work as occupying a distinctly American lineage, including The Group Theatre and The Living Theatre. Mark Valdez (also in this book) gives a contemporary perspective on what ensemble means – including its political implications – in contemporary American usage. 84 Quoted in Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 9. 81 82

302

Encountering Ensemble

desire to enact political rituals than a wish to assert a model of community . . . rooted in physical relationship.85 Bigsby writes of the Open Theatre, whose director, Joseph Chaikin, described the awakening of his aesthetic/political consciousness as happening while performing in Brecht’s Man is Man for The Living Theatre:86 The politics of a production lay less in its manifest content than in the nature of the relationship between artist and collaborators, between performers and audience, between theatre and its economic and social context. Liberation is thus to be less a subject than a theme expressed through relationship.87 Bigsby describes Chaikin’s political engagement thus: The power of (The Open Theater’s production) “The Serpent” does not lie in the text and in a sense it was never meant to. . . . The power lies in the physical fact of ensemble acting, in the muscular reality of cooperation . . . in a language literally shared out among the actors, each contributing syllables, words, phrases and sentences to the whole. It lies in the trust which . . . became part of both method and theme. It lies in the relationship between performers and audience.88 The internal processes of ensemble, the relationship performers have with their bodies (we might recall Chaikin’s comment about Americans inhabiting their bodies ‘like deserted houses’(op. cit)), the understanding of acceptable behaviours towards one another, the rejection and reformulation of ‘norms’ of behaviour in areas of sexuality, nudity, blasphemy, gender and elsewhere, made new Ibid., p. 95. Blumenthal, Eileen. Joseph Chaikin: Exploring at the Boundaries of Theater. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 11–12. 87 Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 105. 88 Bigsby, C.  W.  E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 117–18. 85 86

INTRODUCTION

303

‘alternative’ ensemble performance ‘political’, whether or not the subject matter of any particular production addressed politics directly. Ingemar Lindh, in an interview in  1986, articulated the political imperatives of his work in ensemble as being interpersonal, not ideological. He said: . . . we have never searched for or practiced an ideology; instead, we look for a possibility, to see each other, to encounter the others, to encounter the world, to encounter the work space, to encounter.89 It was a perspective mirrored elsewhere in the tumult of radical politics in 1960s America, captured in the title of Carol Hanisch’s 1969 feminist essay, ‘The Personal is Political’.

Acts of Resistance (directed by John Britton) MA Students at the University of Huddersfield, September 2011 (Dani Morris, Rico Wu, Alexandra Tsotanidou, Katherine Brown, Jo Leishman and Fionnuala McCool). Photo: Mike Thresher.

89 Lindh, Ingemar. Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enter­ prise, 2010, pp. 98–9.

304

Encountering Ensemble

The perspective of those who saw the communal nature of ensemble practice as inherently progressive is summed up by Theodore Shank who writes of American alternative theatre in the 1960s: The theater collective presents a model for a better society through the example of its own working conditions.90 The difference in political perspective between those who made ‘politics’ their subject matter and those who saw the politics of interpersonal relationship as their focus, were not always amicable: ‘Ronnie Davis, of the San Fransisco Mime Troupe  .  .  .  consigned Chaikin (of The Open Theater) to the radical right’.91 However, the differences are not irreconcilable. We might recall Brecht’s position, placing the Berliner Ensemble in the vanguard of attempts to advance political reform and renewal through the subject matter of its productions, the nature of its aesthetic and by the very process of negotiating its own working practices.

Ensemble as spiritual quest While some ensembles develop from (or into) clear political perspectives, others focus more towards the spiritual, ritual or religious dimensions of their work. Lev Dodin’s perspective on the Moscow Arts Theatre is that it was the prototype of the sort of theatre: . . . where people search for spiritual values and where a theatre production is a sort of by-product, but spiritual life, spiritual exploration and spiritual research are the main thing.92 He describes this as being a result of the attitudes of its two founders: Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko put an emphasis on the spiritual unity of the ensemble, on the actions of all those who worked in their theatre.93

Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 57. Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 117. 92 Delgado, Maria M., and Heritage, Paul. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 71. 93 Ibid. 90 91

INTRODUCTION

305

In an observation that echoes Julian Beck’s ‘. . . the community is love’, Fernando de Ita, speaking in 1987 about the work of Nicolás Núñez, makes links to larger ‘spiritual’ inquiries: . . . after a very materialistic moment in our society, many groups from many parts of the world, with many different attitudes, are suddenly going to finish the millennium seeking to recapture the original source of thought and action . . . to look into each other’s eyes and find in the other person what we have lost which is from the deep identity of the human being to the, also deep, meaning of life.94 Deborah Middleton writes of Núñez’s work that it is: . . . a theatre that attempts to provide an active arena for those individuals who seek personal individuation, communitas, or the experience of the sacred dimension in their everyday lives. . . . a sacred space in the context of an urban cultural institution.95 The idea that performance might serve a (quasi-) ritual, spiritual or even religious function is one that sits easily enough with an interest in ensemble. Religious and spiritual practices involve a notion of connection between an individual and something larger than (or other to) that individual. A sense of ‘communitas’ is intrinsic to one of the visions of ensemble this book explores, a vision involving deep-level connection between individuals in pursuit of a collective outcome.96 The distinction between political and ‘spiritual’ is not clear-cut. The choice to work in ensemble, especially when involving a rejection of prevailing fashions and trends, lends itself as much to spiritual enquiry, to questions about what it is to be human in relationship to Quoted in Núñez, Nicolás. Anthropocosmic Theatre Rite in the Dynamics of Theatre. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996, p. 137. 95 Middleton, Deborah K. ‘At Play in the Cosmos: The Theatre and Ritual of Nicolás Núñez’, TDR/The Drama Review, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2001): 43. 96 ‘Communitas, or social antistructure. A relational quality of full, unmediated communication, even communion, between definite and determinate identities, which arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, and circumstances’ (Turner, V. and Turner, E. L. B. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978, pp. 250–1). 94

306

Encountering Ensemble

other humans and to the world, as to political programme making. Performance can become the ‘defining ritual’, the point of contact, between the internal life of the ensemble (political or spiritual) and its wider community. Van Itallie of the Open Theatre uses specifically religious metaphors when he suggests that this is precisely the role performance needs to assume: This is the theatre’s uniquely important advantage and function, its original religious function to bring people together in a community ceremony where the actors are in some sense priests or celebrants, and the audience is drawn to participate with the actors in a kind of eucharist.97 Shank, describing the work of another American ensemble, The Bread and Puppet Theater, suggests their performances are a context in which communal relationships are renegotiated. He suggests how this differs from the objective of a more conventional performance: .  .  .  Bread and Puppet productions are intended to include the spectator in a community made up of performers and other spectators rather than aiming for individual psychic involvement in a fictional world to the extent that the audience is unaware of the actual world of performers and spectators.  .  .  .  The communal relationship is aided by making the spectators active participants. They are always invited to share bread with the performers. . . .98 The sharing of bread99 – with its clear ritual overtones – introduces into this renegotiation of relationships cultural references that question the underlying significance of the exchange that is taking place. It suggests that the work being presented might benefit from interpretation through values other than purely commercial or aesthetic ones. Quoted in Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 114–15. 98 Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 112. 99 Bryan Brown refers to a similar element of sharing bread in the work of Sergei Zhenovach in Chapter 8 of this book. 97

INTRODUCTION

307

When T. S. Eliot wrote Sweeney Agonistes for The Group Theatre of London, he was hoping to craft a theatrical event as much about moral and spiritual renewal as about entertainment or the telling of a story. In Sidnell’s analysis, we can see how the difference in approach between Eliot (a Christian) and Auden (a Marxist), reflects how these two writers saw the same company as being a vehicle for different types of exploration. In his . . . choruses, Eliot was trying to transcend the world and flesh; Auden, in his, to animate the body politic. Eliot’s poetry in the theatre was dedicated to the sacred: Auden’s poetry of the theatre celebrated the profane;100 Lindh described the objective of his ensemble work as having a clear spiritual function – in his case, an integrative one, pursuing the development of each individual and links between individuals: The entire creative process tends towards eliminating the dualism between me and the other, between me and the other thing, between me and cosmos. Everything tends towards that total unification.101 Those who establish and those who elect to be part of ensemble have a range of motivations – spiritual growth, personal development, aesthetic innovation, cultural regeneration and political engagement. How these motivations are pursued and realized is reflected in the way the ensemble is organized, in its internal dynamics. It is to the questions of the ethics that govern acceptable behaviours within an ensemble that we finally turn.

The ethics of ensemble Several years ago, I noticed a recurring feature in rehearsal processes for ensemble productions I was directing. There would come a particular rehearsal, usually about a week before the first 100 Sidnell, Michael J. Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984, p. 99; original emphasis. 101 Lindh, Ingemar. Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enterprise, 2010. p. 103.

308

Encountering Ensemble

performance, when the cast, profoundly connected, able to work in very subtle and detailed ways with one another, performs a run of the show. Everything is as rehearsed. The text, physical actions, sound, rhythms and images are all in place. Yet, the performance is not ensemble. ‘It’ is absent. Concerned with themselves, or suddenly aware that soon they will be watched by strangers, the cast forget how to be with one another. In doing so, they forget to be with their audience. The foundations disappear. This brings us to perhaps the most fundamental element in our review of recurring features of diverse ensemble practices. We have briefly considered politics and spirituality, sensitization and psychophysicality, the relationship of individual to group and of charismatic leader to collective. We have mentioned the history of rural retreat and of shared training. Underneath all of these, there lies a fundamental concern which, from time to time, practitioners have made explicit. It is a concern with the principles or rules that govern behaviours between individuals. It is a concern with ethics. A consideration of ethics may seem like a long journey from where we started – an attempt to grasp the indefinable ‘it-ness’ of ensemble. However, the idea that ethical questions are at the core of any attempt to develop ensemble is one that has appeared on several occasions in the preceding pages. For some practitioners it is a firm conviction. A word of explanation is necessary before we continue. ‘Ethical’, in much contemporary usage, has become synonymous with ‘good’ or even ‘morally better’. ‘Ethical choices’ are more praiseworthy than ‘unethical choices’. This is not an accurate use of the word. ‘Ethics’ refers to ‘a code of behaviour, especially of a particular group, profession or individual’.102 There is no necessity, in the word ‘ethics’, that this ‘code of behaviour’ be one that people outside a group understand or share. How do ethics manifest in a working process? In some creative processes it is acceptable for one performer to suggest to another how she might perform. In others, this would be unacceptable. In some groups, the director might ‘demonstrate’ to an actor what she ­

Collins Dictionary 2009.

102

INTRODUCTION

309

wants, in others that would never happen. Some groups permit the sharing of personal intimacies within the rehearsal space. In others, such exchanges are utterly unacceptable. Some groups would be appalled should any of their members discuss the work that happens during rehearsals with people in ‘the outside world’. Some processes require performers to wash the floor before training. Others ask people to bow on first entering the space. These ‘rules of behaviour’ are the ethics of a group. The ethics that underpin a creative process have a profound effect on the nature of the work produced. However, this is not to suggest that, in the pursuit of ensemble, one set of ethics is necessarily superior to any other. Jean Benedetti, discussing Stanislavski’s relationship to the question, writes: Attitude was what counted . . . (a) concept of the way an artist, an actor should behave, a concept of discipline and dedication which Stanislavski called his Ethic and which was the essential companion to talent.103 Dodin notes, discussing the ‘spirituality’ of the Moscow Art Theatre: The actors in the Moscow Arts Theatre were united by one objective, one aim, even though they were individuals and very strong individuals. Nevertheless their life was regulated by certain moral laws, ethical laws and one aim.104 Maria Shevtsova, writing of Dodin’s own work, remarks that: ‘its practice is symbiotically tied up with its principles’.105 Bryan Brown explores the notion of the ethical underpinnings of some Russian practitioners in his chapters on ‘studiinost’ in this book. One example of a practical ethical framework outside of Russia (though by a director trained in Russia) can be found in the Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999, p. 69. 104 Delgado, Maria M., and Heritage, Paul. In Contact with the Gods: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 71. 105 Shevtsova, Maria. Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004, p. 36. 103

310

Encountering Ensemble

Statement of Principles that concludes Grotowski’s Towards a Poor Theatre.106 Kumiega suggests that only through attention to ethical questions can we really come to understand Grotowski’s work: Ethics are what inform the use of technique – the how, when, why and which of technique. What we are dealing with, if we look at Grotowski’s training of his actor, is a veritable plethora of techniques, informed by a subjective and continually evolving set of ethics. And what is clear is that while there is a historic and analytic relevance in documenting the training techniques . . . it is the ethic, or attitude with which they are discovered, researched and performed that is of primary significance if we are to attempt to penetrate to the essence of Grotowski’s approach and work.107 A similar concern with the profound ethic of interpersonal interactions can be seen in Climenhaga’s view of Anne Bogart’s work that: You are not preparing a product to deliver to an audience, but creating a way of being in the world in which they may share.108 If there is an ‘it-ness of ensemble’, it lies not in what is done but in the parameters of appropriate behaviours underpinning how it is done. The value of training, indeed what separates ‘skills’ training from ensemble development, is not perhaps the techniques or exercises a trainee encounters, but the ethics that inform how those techniques are encountered and reflected on. Through training and rehearsal the ensemble develops a way-of-being with one another which they subsequently share, uniquely, with each new audience. It is the very 106 Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen, 1975, pp. 211–18. Another example, specifically detailing the ethical framework for interactions between Gardzienice’s performers and members of communities they are working within can be found in Staniewski, Wlodzimierz, and Hodge, Alison. Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 44–5. 107 Kumiega, Jennifer. The Theatre of Grotowski. London; New York: Methuen, 1987, pp. 111–12. 108 Climenhaga in Hodge, Alison. Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 303.

INTRODUCTION

311

slipperiness of these ideas that perhaps explains why it is so difficult to capture and describe the essence of ensemble. To return to my own practice: in 2010, my company DUENDE was a few days from performing its first production, The Shattering Man. As the creative process came towards its conclusion, I wrote the following in my blog: What we have created, the aesthetics of “The Shattering Man”, is the concrete embodiment of how this particular ensemble have learned to behave, to co-exist. If the ensemble had developed different ways of being together  .  .  .  then the ethics of our interactions would have been different and the work that emerged from those interactions would also have been different. The aesthetics of “The Shattering Man” are intimately an expression of the bonds that bind the performers one to another. . . . What does this mean for us as we move from the rehearsal period to the performance season? Strangely enough, my sense is that it means that nothing should alter. At the root of “The Shattering Man” is not a text, or a lighting plan or a story or a message or even a concept. At the heart of what we have made, what we offer to our audience, is the details of how we interact with one another. Our obligation, in full respect for our audience, is to behave ethically and to include the audience in that ethical behaviour.109 In considering ethics, we enter the terrain where many of the strands of this discussion recombine. Ethical considerations underpin interpersonal relationships, the (non)-hierarchical relationship of leaders and collectives, political and spiritual practices. Groups that endure, over time, discover and transmit to new members the ‘normal behaviours’ of that group. Ensembles that retreat to new locations must invent and apply codes of behaviour both in terms of their internal relationships and in terms of their connection (or lack of connection) to the new communities they operate in. The willingness of performers to be sensitized to one another and to

109 www.theshatteringman.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/continuing-the-process-rightto-the-end-ethics-aesthetics/.

312

Encountering Ensemble

engage in self-encounter, which is often intrinsic to psychophysical processes, requires them to feel themselves to be in a safe enough environment to take the necessary risks. This requires shared and accepted codes of appropriate behaviour. How performers learn to be with one another is the foundation of the work they make. An ensemble’s ethical framework underpins what is witnessed by their audience.110 It is in this sense that a process dedicated to the forging of ensemble – such as was at the heart of the Stanislavski’s vision for the Moscow Art Theatre – might be described as laying the foundations for a place ‘. . . where people search for spiritual values and where a theatre production is a sort of by-product’.111

Conclusion In this section, I have reviewed a range of common features of ensemble practices since the time of Stanislavski and Copeau. All of them are still significant in work being created today. What we have not examined is how these recurring elements of ensemble have, in practice, been developed. What is it that groups, with diverse origins and objectives, actually do when they work together? How do you train ensemble? This next section of the book looks at some answers to those questions. While diverse practices may reveal common interests and preoccupations, every practitioner’s work is individual and unique. In the pages that follow, we will encounter some approaches to training the undefinable.

‘Those attending the performances were treated like witnesses: the Reduta wanted to “show the dramatic event before the audience” or, in other words, to “instil the principles of life in the studio theatre before witnesses”, rather than – as in other theatres – have performances performed for the public’ (Osiński, Zbigniew in Allain, Paul (ed.), Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009, p. 22). 111 Delgado, Maria M., and Heritage, Paul. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 71. 110

Chapter Fourteen

‘Self-With-Others’: A psychophysical approach to training the individual in ensemble John Britton

We start, standing in a circle. We make the circle as precise in shape as we can; evenly spaced, no one hanging back or pushing forward. We stand calmly, with body relaxed; listening, looking. We meet each other’s eyes. Perhaps we smile, or just allow ourselves to look and be looked at. Gently, without force, we bring our attention to the sound of the room, the feeling of the floor beneath our feet, the temperature of the air. We bring our attention to being present, together, in this time and place. Together, we experience this shared here-and-now. If the circle is uneven, I do not tell people to move. Each person takes responsibility for deciding her1 own position. We adjust ourselves to those on either side of us. If everyone finds her As the majority of people who train with me are women, and in the absence in English of an uncontroversial pronoun referring to both male and female, I refer to performers as being female throughout this chapter.

1

314

Encountering Ensemble

appropriate place, the circle will exist. It is not made by negotiation or command, but by everyone finding her necessary place. The circle emerges from the appropriate positioning of each individual. An ensemble is not commanded into existence. I cannot make you ensemble, nor you make me so. Ensemble emerges from the relationship of each individual to each other individual. We cannot impose our will on others and expect a relationship of mutual giveand-take to emerge. So we stand. There is no need to defend oneself. The ensemble needs openness. Look and smile. It feels harder to defend yourself (or to take yourself too seriously) when you look into someone’s eyes and allow yourself to smile. Why not smile? Why not share the excitement we feel, starting this journey together? Is it wrong to be excited? Nervous? Is it somehow ‘unprofessional’ to pause on the edge of the unknown and enjoy meeting those who will travel alongside you? Might this openness, this honest excitement, offer a starting point, an acceptance that, together, we will travel from the reality of this here-and-now, into the unknown? Such journeys are exciting, a little frightening. We’ll travel together. Perhaps we can help each other take risks. This moment of arrival contains the seeds of ensemble. We have a circle. We take responsibility for positioning ourselves. We establish (or re-establish) relationships with others. We acknowledge and enjoy sharing a single time and place. We are here to work, together. We can relax. Everyone has brought everything they need, their body, their attention and a willingness to journey in relationship with others. The circle will be given life, made significant, by the quality of the attention we pay to ourselves and to others. This is the start of each day’s work.

The background to Self-With-Others I have been focusing on ensemble for 20 years. Initially, this interest developed from my work as a performer, but, increasingly, as I taught and directed more, it became a systematic search for approaches to training that would help performers experience and communicate a sense of ensemble. It was a search for ways to nurture the ‘it-ness’ of ensemble I have discussed elsewhere in this book. Self-With-Others developed from two sources of inspiration. The first is an interest in psychophysicality – an integrated view of mind

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

315

and body, thought and action. Originally, this interest emerged from encounters with work from, and writing about, the ‘European Laboratory’ approach to theatre. There are practitioners whose ideas have significantly influenced my understanding, including Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Chaikin, Barba and Zarrilli. At the heart of my approach is the via negativa. Via negativa describes training as a process of stripping away, of identifying and dissolving blockages. Via negativa suggests training that is ‘not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks’.2 The other core influence on my work is Al Wunder, an Americanborn, Australian-based teacher of movement improvisation who emerged from the modern dance scene in New York in the late 1950s. Wunder trained with Alwyn Nikolas and subsequently developed his own approach to teaching and performing improvisation which has been quietly revolutionary both in Australia and internationally. My experience of Wunder’s work has been supplemented by encounters with the writings of psychologists Maslow and Csikszentmihalyi.3 It is at the meeting point of European ‘laboratory’ psycho­ physicality and American dance improvisation that I locate SelfWith-Others. Psychophysicality represents my assumptions about the workings of the human organism, via negativa is my core approach to learning and improvisation is the predominant form through which the training operates. It is a foundational training, applicable across a range of aesthetics and styles. I train actors, dancers, musicians, circus performers, improvisers and also work more widely in the area of creativity. The training is not about how to perform this or that, but about how to perform. Self-With-Others is a pre-expressive training,4 Grotowski, Jerzy, Towards a Poor Theatre, Ed. by Eugenio Barba, London: Methuen, 1976, p. 17. 3 For more on the relationship between training performers and these two psychologists, see Britton, J. ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 36–54. 4 ‘The level (of organisation of a performer’s body) which deals with how to render the actor’s energy scenically alive, that is, with how the actor can become a presence which immediately attracts the spectators attention, is the pre-expressive level . . .’ (Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. The Secret Art of the Performer: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1991, p.  188). A full analysis of the idea of pre-expressivity can be found in Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. The Secret Art of the Performer: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 186–204. 2

316

Encountering Ensemble

encouraging the efficient and appropriate use of the bodymind5 in relationship to others. A subtle and responsive bodymind can serve any ‘style’ of performance.

Self-With-Others: An overview Self-With-Others offers a performer ways to train her bodymind by developing how she pays attention. It encourages her to do this through exploring relationships with others. The ‘others’ are the rest of the ensemble and, by extension, audience, architecture, music and all other elements of performance. The training involves detailed physical work through which individuals learn to pay detailed attention. Through this physical work they encounter and apply a number of fundamental ‘attitudinal’ principles. The physical tasks are types of improvisation and a specific use of the common exercise described later in this chapter – the Ball Game. The principles, which are the foundation of this training, are an interconnected suite of ‘ways of thinking’ – guides to useful, productive, developmental attitudes to engaging with one’s own training while learning to be open and responsive to others. The ‘principles of performance’ enable trainees to translate what they discover in one specific exercise to other tasks and different styles of performance. Performance is an act of communication. For communication to happen, a performer must structure her activity appropriately. Focusing on relationship, trainees rehearse how to structure communication. They practice giving clear stimuli to other performers and reacting clearly and authentically to stimuli received from others. The training is intended to help performers communicate openly, clearly and in detail with co-performers and with the audience. In keeping with the via negativa, individuals are asked to identify what blocks them from authentic and spontaneous reaction to impulse. The trainee works to deconstruct her blockages – her fears, habits, self-image and assumptions. Later, she learns to shape her responses

The term bodymind is used to describe the totality of a performer’s organism as a holistic, interdependent system. It is used to differentiate this perspective from those that suggest a dualistic understanding of the mind and the body.

5

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

317

in increasingly sophisticated ways so they serve the performance she is collectively creating in front of her audience. Elsewhere in this book, we have explored the apparent paradox of ensemble being based on relationships between strong individuals. As a systematic approach to training individual performers in ensemble, Self-With-Others recognizes and values this apparent tension. Self-With-Others is not a ‘method’ or a menu of activities, it is an approach to negotiating this paradox. The exercises I describe below are ones I return to repeatedly. The specific ways I ask a performer to pay attention within exercises, also outlined below, I return to repeatedly. What does not change, however, are the principles. The principles embody the foundational attitudes to this work. I encourage a trainee to apply them as she pays attention to, reflects on and shares her work. They are also the attitudes she is asked to develop towards paying attention to, reflecting on and reacting to the work of others. The principles articulate a shared attitude and appropriate language of communication within the ensemble. They become the ethical framework of ensembles trained through Self-With-Others. As trainer, I too operate within the ethical framework established by the foundational principles. I establish the environment of the work, introduce the principles that inform it, guide the performers’ attention, provide permission to take risks, judge when to push and when to pull back. I also represent the audience. I am the ‘other’ beyond the others of the ensemble. If I do not work through the principles, I undermine the entire process. A trainee learns from me, learns from the others in the ensemble (through a process of self-reflection and peer-to-peer feedback) and, crucially, learns to learn from herself. I intervene directly with individuals only when I think my intervention will not prevent their developing their own understandings. More often I am not teaching, but creating a space and an activity through which individuals might learn. There is an important difference! The training does not create a certain ‘type’ of performer – nor does it result in a specific aesthetic or style of performance. I have developed it working with actors and circus performers, dancers, musicians, improvisers and performers without any training. It is a foundational approach, which develops a common practical and ethical language through which performers from different disciplines can work, grow and create together.

318

Encountering Ensemble

This in itself reflects my sense of what ensemble means. It is not a thing, but a quality of behaviour. A group is not ‘an ensemble’, but can learn to ‘be ensemble’. The ‘it-ness’ of ensemble is a detailed quality of connectedness emerging from the unique individuals who gather together to work. Every ensemble is different. This training is intended to encourage performers to be truly individual while also putting themselves at the service of others. It is in the meeting of these two elements – self and others – that ensemble emerges.

The learning process The first step for a performer in Self-With-Others is to notice and start to address blockages in the relationship between impulse and reaction. Most of us need, continually, to (re)learn how genuinely to react to impulses. Too often we respond not to an impulse, but to our ‘idea’ of what the impulse will, or should, be. We rehearse something and then respond as if what is happening today is the same as we rehearsed yesterday. It never is. Today is always different from yesterday, and the more subtle that difference is, the more subtle the attention the performer needs to pay to the detailed reality of what she is encountering. Often, we react to our expectations and our fears. The first step of the training is to learn to notice these expectations and fears and to learn, instead, to react to reality. If all performers in an ensemble pay detailed attention to the communication between them, they create the possibility of crafting a genuinely shared performance. If unblocking reaction to impulse is the first step, the second step is to learn to react ‘appropriately’. Reactions need to serve the journey of the performance without breaking relationship with others, whether the performance is rehearsed or improvised. The definition of ‘appropriate’ varies, but is a combination of the demands of the content being performed, the chosen style or aesthetic, the shared principles/ethics of the ensemble and the evolving dynamics of any particular performance. To achieve this, there is a learning process: First experience. Then recall. Then reflect. Finally seek to understand.

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

319

You can only understand your work if you first notice its details. Only when you have understood can you make informed choices about how to change your way of working. If you think about work while you are doing work, you are not paying full attention to the reality of each moment. You are not live. This approach to training is based on three key observations about the nature of learning: 1 Learning is neither linear nor smooth.

I describe learning as a spiral. We constantly return to experiences that seem familiar. However, we also continually, subtly change. Each time we encounter a familiar activity, it offers new learning, new insights. We spiral inwards to deeper knowledge of self and outwards towards mastery of a wider range of skills and competencies. SelfWith-Others is not a training where a lesson, once learned, can be ‘moved beyond’. Even the most simple principle bears constant reassessment. Every exercise is endlessly variable. The deeper one moves into an understanding of an aspect of the training, the more questions and possibilities are opened up in all other aspects. 2 Learning is not smoothly incremental.

A trainee does not feel, each day, that she is getting a little bit better. Often, she feels ‘stuck’. There are times when she feels she is going backwards – each day getting a little bit worse. It can be dispiriting, devastating. We need to understand that periods of being stuck precede moments of breakthrough. Being stuck, getting worse, is learning. When stuck, we must learn to trust and apply the core principles. We must learn to trust the process of work. 3 Do before you reflect. Reflect before you decide.

The most powerful learning happens when a trainee, without distracting herself, pays full attention to her experiences. Unless I am specifically working on speech, I ask trainees not to talk while working. After most exercises, we engage in short conversations with each other. I guide these conversations, early in the training, by asking trainees to talk about what they noticed in what happened (reflection) and only later about how they interpret what happened (analysis). This separation of experience from reflection

320

Encountering Ensemble

and reflection from analysis encourages trainees to practice singleminded engagement with each task. If you are thinking ‘about’ (or having opinions about) what you are doing, you are not fully doing it. The quality of your reflections will be compromised. If you have not fully done something, you cannot fully reflect on it. Experience and reflection are both crucial to learning. If one does not pay attention to an experience because one is too busy ‘thinking about’ it, reflections will inevitably be superficial, for they have no real foundation. Analysis – forming opinions and making decisions – follows reflection. If I decide about something without first reflecting on it, my conclusions will usually reinforce my existing opinions. If I want to be changed by experience, I need first to notice it, then recall its details and only finally consider the lessons contained in it. Self-With-Others is a practical training process. It asks trainees to engage with detailed physical tasks, usually (though not always) tasks involving relationships with one or more ‘others’. It is intended to train a performer to pay attention to how she pays attention. In learning to change how she pays attention to a specific task, the trainee learns to alter how she does that task. Self-With-Others suggests that attention is the building block of all performance. Indeed, I sometimes say, while teaching, that performance is ‘what we pay attention to and how we pay attention to it’.

The process of embodiment Though Self-With-Others is founded on encouraging performers to use their attention – or direct their thinking – more effectively, it is not my intention that the resulting performance is cerebral or intellectual. Quite the reverse. The training is intended to liberate a performer’s ability to react spontaneously, intuitively and physically to impulse without, except when necessary, having to ‘think about’ her reactions. This requires that actions and reactions become embodied. Embodiment is a complex and frequently misunderstood process. It is the process by which an action (or a sequence of actions) comes to operate without conscious attention. Embodied actions are not ‘habits’ or things a performer does not know she is doing, They are actions that, having first been designed and rehearsed, can eventually

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

321

be performed without the performer having to ‘think about’ them. Embodied actions remain available to a performer’s thinking and, when she needs to, she can intervene in and alter them. Embodied actions can operate without conscious intervention, freeing a performer to direct her primary attention elsewhere. For many of us, one of the most common ‘embodied’ actions is driving a car. When we first drive, we pay attention to every detail. We grip the steering wheel until our knuckles whiten and tense every muscle in our body. Eventually, we can listen to music, talk, do things which, when first learning, would have seemed impossible. We drive without having to give it our total focus. However, in the event of the unexpected, we immediately intervene in and ‘take control of’ our ‘usual’ driving, responding immediately to unexpected circumstances. In Self-With-Others, the process of embodiment goes like this: 1 Do a physical action. 2 Notice (without opinion) anything that stops you doing it 3 4 5 6

7

easefully and efficiently. Attend to what you need to do to stop blocking yourself in the ways you noticed in point 2. Do the action again, making it more detailed by paying attention to subtasks. Repeat/rehearse until you think you can do it without having to think about it. Do it while concentrating on something else, monitoring yourself to see if it remains flowing and easeful. (Asking someone to watch you helps.) If yes, rehearse regularly. If no, redesign the action and/or make it more detailed until it flows without being ‘thought about’.

Essentially this involves a pattern of: Notice – Reflect – Redesign – Notice – etc. The process of embodiment and the disciplining of attention that precedes it, are both based on a performer learning to apply the core principles that underpin Self-With-Others. It is to these principles that I now turn.

322

Encountering Ensemble

Principles A principle is not a rule, it is a guide.6 In Self-With-Others, the principles guide performers towards effective, developmental ways of paying attention to their work. They address how a performer thinks. Though sometimes counter-intuitive when first encountered, a principle needs quickly to become self-evidently effective. Doing an exercise provides performers with evidence of the usefulness of a principle. The physical activities of the training are a way of encountering, applying and evaluating the underlying principles. I do not introduce a ‘list of principles’ before we start work, as some kind of gospel or ‘how-to-perform’ instruction manual. We meet principles through the work, discovering them as ‘practically useful’ rather than ‘intellectually interesting’. The principles that underpin Self-With-Others have certain key characteristics. ●●

●●

●●

They are precise and easily memorable, so that, immersed in the complex ebb and flow of work, a performer can recall and work with a simple phrase that encapsulates a profound idea. They are robust and adaptable. Though a principle might, on first contact, seem simplistic, this first impression dissolves as performers discover how a simple idea can mutate to fit any context. This is the core of their effectiveness – they serve a performer in extremis, not only in mundane or familiar activities. They withstand complex development as individuals move deeper into their training. Through this restatement and ‘complexification’, the fundamentals of a principle remain unchanged. Often, this leads performers to encounter profound paradoxes in their work.7

The core principles outlined below interconnect to form a suite of attitudes which are intended to encourage detail, responsiveness, Barba calls principles ‘particularly good “bits of advice”’ (Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. The Secret Art of the Performer: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1991, p. 8). 7 I offer an example of the evolution of one particular principle later in this section. 6

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

323

easefulness, presence and mental flexibility. They promote healthy and sustainable strategies for continuing development, both of each unique individual and of relationships within ensemble. The emphasis on ‘healthy’ mental engagement is fundamental, for these principles are designed to promote lifelong development, exploration and growth. As performers age, as ensembles deepen (and sometimes stagnate), these foundational principles facilitate continuing growth. The principles as presented here are not a hierarchy. Each has its own significance and is deepened though its relationship with other principles. They are not introduced to a training process in any particular order. They emerge through the process of collective work.

Pursue pleasure This is the heart of the training: we seek our pleasure. This does not mean doing what we like, but identifying what we like in what needs to be done. The principle asks a performer to find a precise, personal reason for doing her work. It is never enough for her to do something because she has been told to. Each time an activity is undertaken, she needs to decide what, within the task, she wants to focus on. I ask her to find ways of paying attention to her work that give her pleasure. This encourages her to work in detail. If she learns to pay detailed attention to her work as she does it, she will never work ‘on automatic’ and will never disconnect herself from the immediate reality of her performance. If she enjoys her work, she will want to continue and deepen her work – both today and in future. Tomorrow, she might seek a different way of engaging with the work with pleasure. This is her responsibility – always doing each activity ‘for the first time’.8 The core of being an ensemble performer is the detailed daily work of individual growth and ensemble interconnectedness. If a performer discovers, repeatedly, that she can find no pleasure in her

For a more technical explanation of the mechanisms and consequences of placing pleasure at the heart of training, see: Britton, J. ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 36–54.

8

324

Encountering Ensemble

work, or that her pleasure does not outweigh the effort it involves, perhaps she needs to reconsider her attitude to work or whether she wants to do this work at all. Perhaps she no longer has the necessary passion. It is better she discovers this for herself and is able to take responsibility for her own decisions rather than having an ‘omnipotent’ outsider (a trainer or director) telling her that she has, in some way, ‘failed’. Pleasure is at the heart of this training. It is what brings the ensemble together, drives communication with one another, guides reflective processes and makes each performer want to come back tomorrow, next week, next year. It is not a generalized sense of ‘having a nice time’, but a precise requirement to make work detailed. It requires each performer to identify why she enjoys being (and chooses to continue to be) in an ensemble relationship with others.

Have no opinion Asking a trainee to give up opinions might seem counter-intuitive. This is useful – it disrupts expectations. This principle reminds a performer to be attentive to, and present within, each moment. It asks her to work with what is actually happening rather than indulging in opinions about what ought to be happening. It encourages precise attention to co-performers and to the reality of each moment, not to an ‘idea’ of how a moment should be. Encouraging attention to the unique details of each moment trains performers to be present. If a performer does not pay attention to what is happening while it is happening, then she is not responding to the living flow of impulses within the ensemble. She is living with her own thoughts, not with her co-performers. If she is not present, there can be no ensemble. An opinion is an unnecessary thought, interposed between impulse and reaction. Giving up the need to have an opinion encourages a performer to stop making problems for herself. After all, the most common opinions are ones we have about ourselves: ‘I can’t dance’, ‘This is boring’, ‘I’m going to look stupid’, ‘I’m going to fail’. These opinions distract from wholehearted engagement with an activity. Opinions about others are equally distracting: ‘She shouldn’t have said it like that’, ‘He should be standing further to the right’, ‘The light is too bright’, ‘That audience member looks bored’. . . .

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

325

I am not suggesting a performer should never have opinions. Ambitions, objectives and informed opinions, especially if developed from genuine experience, are drivers to personal and collective development. The time for developing opinions is during reflection on work after it is over. While working, it is most useful to focus on the work. There is time for thinking about the work when it is finished. That way there is a genuine experience to reflect on.

Only pay attention to things you can do something about Our attention is limited by our brain’s ability to process information. This principle asks performers not to waste valuable attention on things they can do nothing about. How easy to say and how hard to do! We worry about something that happened a few moments before, or something difficult coming up. We worry whether a teacher/lover/agent/critic in the audience is enjoying himself/herself. We wonder (and perhaps form opinions about) why a co-performer said a line slightly differently. We drift away, snap back, worry about what we might have missed. Though all of us, periodically, get distracted, this principle points out that one can train attention, can make decisions about how and where to place it, just as one can make decisions about how and where to place a hand or a look. Some things require attention, some do not. The performer needs to know the difference and to make clear choices about the use of her scarce psychic resources. It is particularly important that a performer train herself to differentiate between what she needs to pay attention to and what is the responsibility of others in the ensemble. One of the strengths of ensemble is that not everyone has to do everything. This brings us to the next principle.

Don’t be helpful This principle too appears counter-intuitive and can be powerfully disruptive. Being ‘helpful’ is the most evident expression of collaboration and good intention. The principle might suggest an attitude of selfishness, competitiveness and excessive individuality.

326

Encountering Ensemble

It suggests that ‘being helpful’ does not necessarily aid collaboration. If I try to help someone, might I not be implying (or at least, might the person I am helping think I am implying) that they cannot manage without my help? Am I not implying that while I can manage, I suspect they cannot? If I help someone by trying to simplify their experience, am I not preventing them from experiencing precisely the sort of difficulty that will help them learn and grow? Am I not getting in the way of their learning? Is there not also a risk that if I am trying to do someone else’s job for them, I might be looking for a way to avoid paying detailed attention to my own tasks? The heart of the Self-With-Others is clarity of impulse and reaction. Appropriate clarity of response requires clarity of impulse. A performer trying to assist someone else is not concentrating on the detail and clarity of her own actions; she is compromising them by doing what she believes someone else wants of her. This means she is not offering clear, appropriate stimuli for others in the ensemble to respond to. Anyway, we never know what someone else really needs – we have to guess – so we are probably not helping anyway! In trying to ‘help’, a performer compromises her own actions and simultaneously compromises the ability of a co-performer to respond with clarity. I suggest the most useful role a performer can play in an ensemble is to do her own job, with a high degree of focus, detail and skill. This lets others get on with doing their jobs. The ensemble emerges through each individual doing her job. As I suggested at the start, the circle is made when everyone finds their place, not by everyone helping everyone else.

Know your hierarchy of tasks There are always too many things to focus on. Suggesting that performers know of (and adhere to) a ‘hierarchy of tasks’ offers a way of ordering multiple priorities. There is an overwhelming range of impulses in each moment. In the model of ensemble I work with, based on a performer’s sensitive responsiveness to the details of her own performance and the performances of others, one can easily experience an overload of competing demands for attention. The larger the ensemble, the

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

327

more overwhelming the experience can become. In any moment, I suggest that there are things that must be done, things it would be useful to do and things one should entirely ignore. This is what I refer to as the hierarchy of tasks. Constructing this hierarchy in each moment helps a performer allocate scarce attention in effective ways. The hierarchy of tasks is fluid. Each moment requires different attention and every action is changed by the unexpected – the sort of ‘unexpected’ that defines live performance. A performer can use the idea of a hierarchy of tasks both to structure a response to multiple tasks and to have permission not to respond to everything. The principle does not suggest that at each moment a performer should be rehearsing a mental checklist of ‘things to do’. This would destroy her ability to respond authentically to the moment. However, consciously applied in the early stages of training, this principle encourages individuals to rehearse the discipline of ordering priorities, a discipline which eventually becomes intuitive. Once the capacity to respond intuitively is developed, this principle offers a practical approach to structuring complex actions.9 Once this principle has become intuitive, it helps an ensemble maintain ‘live-ness’. Each impulse, anticipated or unexpected, becomes integrated and ordered. The ensemble lives in continual response to the ebb and flow of impulses between them, integrating each impulse into the overarching structure of a performance.

If there’s nothing to do, do nothing Like many of the principles articulated here, this appears simple and self-evident. That does not make it easy. The principle develops two important understandings. The first is that every action involves a relationship between doing and not doing. Activity emerges from and returns to inactivity. Often, there are pauses within an action. By identifying moments of activity and inactivity, a performer constructs a journey through a physical action. She finds its start, trajectory and ending – whether that action is a single gesture, a It is the process of embodying actions that enables a performer to move beyond thinking about a task to being able to undertake that task without conscious engagement with it.

9

328

Encountering Ensemble

scene, an entire performance or less tangible ‘actions’ such as the development of a character. At the heart of this is knowing when there is nothing to do and not filling up that valuable, essential time of inactivity with useless distraction. The second understanding this principle offers a performer is in recognizing her role within the shifting dynamic of the ensemble. The ensemble seldom needs everyone to be fully ‘active’ simultaneously. In fact, if everyone is permanently and insensitively ‘doing things’, the impression is not so much of ensemble, as of individuals competing for attention. Developing intuitive ensemble means performers recognizing what is required in each moment, and having the discipline to contribute appropriately. Sometimes, this means doing nothing – perhaps the most difficult request to make of any performer. ‘Doing nothing’ is not the same as ‘switching off’, being distracted or losing attention. Being distracted is not ‘doing nothing’, it is being distracted! ‘Doing nothing’ means precisely what it says. A performer does nothing but makes herself entirely present and available to respond. She is not indulging in irrelevant thinking or activity. When nothing is required, be attentive and present, doing nothing. That’s all. This is a complex and liberating principle for many performers. Complex because this apparently simple request brings her faceto-face with her tendency to overwork, lose concentration, pass judgement and interfere. Liberating because it gives her permission to be calm. She knows what she needs to do and not to do, so she can free herself from fear that somehow she is not working hard enough. Another way of stating this principle, which goes more directly to this relationship between activity and rest is: ‘Do everything that you need to do and nothing that you do not need to do’.

Other principles There are other principles I introduce if they are useful. They are usually restatements of the six principles outlined above. When I suggest to a performer ‘start from where you are’, I am suggesting she pay attention to things she can affect and have no opinion about how they might be otherwise. ‘Whatever you achieved yesterday,

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

329

you start afresh today’, is a way of asking her to pay attention to her hierarchy of tasks, and to use it to build performance from the reality of now. Some principles, stated baldly, represent too much of a shift in perspective for a performer to make in one step. A principle such as ‘Have no opinion’ can threaten the fundamental ways of working a performer has developed. If the aim of training is to ‘get better’, surely one needs an opinion about what constitutes ‘improvement’? So, the principle needs gradual introduction. At first I might say: ‘You can’t get this wrong’. Later: ‘You can’t get this wrong and you can’t get this right, so just do it’. Still later: ‘Although some responses to a stimulus are more appropriate than others, at the moment something happens, you need to respond to reality, not the idea of what you “should” be doing’. Finally, I might introduce the idea that, while engaged in action, any opinion obstructs attention to reality, hence, while performing (rather than during reflection), it is better to: ‘Have no opinion’.

Structures (exercises) The principles outlined above are encountered through practice. Trainees meet them, and apply them, while doing specific physical exercises. In this next section, I outline the core exercises I use in Self-With-Others. There are five main exercises, each with innumerable variations. They are: ●●

The Ball Game

●●

Pairs Dancing

330

Encountering Ensemble

●●

Walk/Run/Stop

●●

Scored and free improvisation

●●

The continual lift sequence

Each is revisited regularly. Doing familiar tasks, a performer can notice how she has changed, how she is developing and where significant blockages remain.

The Ball Game Standing in a circle, evenly spaced, we throw balls to one another in random patterns.10 Each throw is precise and intended to be easily caught, reaching its destination at roughly chest height. We do not need to make eye contact before we throw, as everyone should be ready to catch a ball – or several balls simultaneously. Sometimes, there are a lot of balls, sometimes only one. Sometimes, the balls are in pairs of the same colour, usually they are single. Unless we are training the integration of speech with action, we do not talk. We learn to pay attention. In the Ball Game, a ‘real’ element of communication (the ball) is passed from one person to another. We learn to pay attention and respond appropriately. The Ball Game is ‘impulse-response’ stripped of content and aesthetic. It makes ‘impulse-response’ concrete, so we can learn to manipulate and develop our ability to respond, spontaneously and appropriately, to what’s being asked of us. Although it’s a very physical activity, it is fundamentally a mental training. It is not a ‘learning-to-catch’ exercise. The exercise encourages flow; the flow of impulse to reaction. Flow is equally important (and equally possible) whether a ball is dropped or caught. The ball does exactly (and only) what it is asked to do by its thrower. If we pay attention to it, we can see exactly what we asked it to do. If we pay attention to how we react to a ball coming I use a latex-covered juggling ball, weighing approximately 130 g, in single or two colours (allowing me eventually to ask performers to differentiate how they respond to different coloured bags [or pairs of bags]). I prefer a juggling ball to a softer juggling sack as it requires a more deliberate and precise catching action.

10

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

331

towards us, we notice how we respond to something being asked of us. It’s that simple. Often, what we do with our bodies is not what we think we are doing. We think we are using out left and right sides evenly, but the balls, flying unevenly through the air, show us this is not so. We think we can deal with chaos, but the stresses that appear in our shoulders as three balls fly towards us, show exactly where our calmness ends and tension begins. We think we are good at concentrating, then we notice our mind wanders off the moment there is ‘nothing to do’. The reality of the ball shows us the reality of our actions.11

The Ball Game. DUENDE training (Hannah Dalby), Whitestone Arts Research Centre, August 2010. Photo: Simon Warner. 11 I have written elsewhere about the dynamics underlying the pedagogy and inten­tions of the Ball Game. See: www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.wordpress.com/theoreticalframework/ and www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/improvi sation-as-psychophysical-training-for-ept-website.pdf.

332

Encountering Ensemble

The Ball Game depends on the quality of attention paid to it. If you ‘stand in a circle and throw balls’ while chatting about something else, it serves no real purpose. If it is used as a distraction from potential embarrassment when a group first meet one another and need to learn each other’s names, then it has no inherent value as a learning strategy. However, if treated as a specific set of (psychophysical) actions, requiring detailed interconnection between individuals – an interconnection made concrete in the ball(s) being passed – it becomes an exercise that allows each trainee, in relationship to the others in the circle, to observe and learn to manipulate how she responds to impulse. I work with the ball at the start of every session. Initially, it offers time for each performer to pay attention to herself as a training session gets underway. A trainee asks herself a basic question: ‘How am I today?’ (or, perhaps, ‘Where am I starting from today?’). She does this, working in relationship to others, encountering herself in ensemble. We are different each day, and so the ensemble manifests differently each day. This first part of each ball session is a time, without opinions, to pay attention to oneself. Once some time has been spent paying attention to herself, the performer’s focus is directed more precisely, sometimes to areas that she decides require attention, more often to areas that I, responsible for the development of the session, suggest. The exercise begins to prepare the ground – in terms of principle or focus of attention – for the work that will follow. All of the points of focus discussed later in this section are first introduced and examined through the Ball Game.

The ball in pairs Sometimes, while working with the balls, we break the circle and work in pairs. This intensifies the experience and encourages precise focus on particular details. Versions of the Ball Game in pairs include: Right side/Left side: I give the following instructions: Stand about 3 metres from your partner, facing one another. A ball is thrown from your left hand to your partner’s right hand

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

333

(i.e.  without passing across your body). A second ball is passed from your right hand to their left hand. The balls flow back and forth between you, one on one side of the body, one on the other. The balls are entirely unrelated to each other. If one ball is dropped, the other continues to flow. Do not force the balls into rhythm with each other or hold them back to make it simpler (for yourself or your partner). Do not ‘help’ your partner by holding on to one ball as she or he struggles to retrieve the other. The left and right sides of your body work independently. Sometimes, the two balls are in rhythm, sometimes out of rhythm. The two impulses are experienced and responded to independently. You are neither competing nor cooperating – you are simply allowing the balls to flow independently. Paying attention to your spine helps identify the separation of left and right side. Looking into your partner’s eyes while doing this makes it simultaneously easier and more difficult. It also trains peripheral vision. Catching in rhythm: I play music while two of you pass a single ball between you. (The music needs both an evident beat and the possibility for subrhythms – often I use contemporary tango – joyous, soulful and rhythmically complex.) You focus on making it possible for your partner to catch the ball within the rhythm. You are not throwing in rhythm, but enabling your partner to catch in rhythm. At the point of throwing, you ‘imagine forward’ to your partner’s moment of catching, and throw accordingly. When your partner throws to you, you try to catch precisely at a moment you identify in the rhythm – choosing exactly when to pluck the ball from the air, rather than simply ‘catching it’. This is a way of introducing detail into the act of catching and throwing and encouraging detailed listening to music. Catch with the appropriate hand: This version helps focus on the detail of reaction. A single ball is passed back and forward between two of you. Catch the ball with the appropriate hand – if the ball is traveling to

334

Encountering Ensemble

your left, use the left hand and vice versa. You can play with your partner’s expectations, trying to fool her, but never impede the flow of the ball (there is always a temptation to ‘pretend’ to throw the ball, but not do so, but this is not within the rules of the game). Notice how often you start to move to catch the ball before it has even been thrown. Try to resist that temptation – respond to what you see, not what you expect. ‘Catch with the appropriate hand’ asks performers to respond to the reality of a stimulus (the ball flying towards them) rather than to respond, in advance, to the ‘idea’ of the stimulus (i.e. starting to catch the ball before it is thrown, anticipating where it is going to go). The sequence of the exercise is ‘see-then-respond’ not, as often happens when we engage in familiar activities, ‘respond-then-see’. This is another exercise that alters radically if participants maintain eye contact with one another. It is useful to keep the discipline of ‘appropriate’ reaction when the ensemble returns to the full circle. In responding to reality (a throw) rather than anticipation (an idea), trainees encounter a spaciousness (and calmness) opening up in their thinking. Often, they stop (stressfully) anticipating what they expect to happen and instead find they can (calmly) respond to the present moment. At its heart, this is the function of the Ball Game – it asks performers to respond appropriately to reality.

Pairs dancing This exercise is structured improvisation. Two performers move/ dance together, usually to music, within structures (or ‘scores’) I give them. Depending on the details of the score, they work closely with one another, work independently (but ‘in relation to’) one another, or mainly ignore one another, using each other only as occasional stimulus. Through this, they explore and manipulate the possibilities of their performative relationship with another person. Pairs dancing serves three distinct functions, each crucial to developing the type of interpersonal attentiveness and sensitivity that I place at the heart of ensemble. 1 It enables ensemble members to spend time in a detailed

performance relationship with one another. Ensemble is

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

335

based in the complex network of relationships between individuals. When starting to build an ensemble, pairs dancing lets performers develop performance relationships with one another – the foundations from which the unique character of the ensemble will emerge.12 Later, when the outline of the ensemble has been established, the exercise allows performers to reacquaint themselves with others, to discover new aspects of familiar relationships. Performers who know each other well discover they can still surprise each other. This is particularly important if an ensemble is not to become stale and complacent. 2 It is a way of rehearsing specific elements of a performance vocabulary. Trainees share an exploration of details of looking and touching, qualities of movement, responses to music. They create vocal landscapes to complement or contrast with physical performances. Every aspect of our expressive capacity benefits from rehearsal. Pairs dancing allows this rehearsal to take place. 3 It encourages specific attention to complex situations. Scores – simple or complex – require performers to pay attention to what they are doing, while they are actually doing it. They react to stimulus, but not just any reaction – the score defines ‘appropriate reaction’. They learn to explore reaction to impulse within a performance structure – developing the capacity always to perform ‘as if for the first time’. There is an infinite number of possible scores. What I ask performers to do on any particular day reflects the areas of training I am focusing on. Broadly, there are two types of scores: Sometimes I set scores that are very simple. The lack of detail challenges a performer to find ways of responding creatively. Can she find detailed responses to general instructions? Can she turn ‘generic’ instructions into personal performance? Can two performers create (and maintain) a vibrant, unique and specific relationship without detailed guidance? Examples of this type of score might I have mentioned elsewhere how, in my experience, two ensembles, encountering the same training, will emerge with distinct characteristics because they are based on different interpersonal relationships.

12

336

Encountering Ensemble

be: ‘play with the difference between big and small movements’ or ‘move continually’ or ‘expand and contract’. The second type of score is so complex that performers, both individually and in relationship, must discover a practical response to the near-impossibility of the structure. They cannot do everything, so must respond creatively (and with flow), choosing to focus on whatever is possible (and pleasurable). I build these complex scores up slowly, layering task on task through a sequence of improvisations. Eventually, the instructions might sound something like: ‘Look only at your partner’s eyes, your partner’s body or your own body, alternate between part-body and whole-body movement, work with big/small and sudden/gradual movements, pay attention to the playful or serious quality of the dance. Twice during your dance you can (separately or together) be entirely motionless for up to ten seconds – feel the intensification of experience during that stillness’. A performer will not keep those instructions fully in mind while dancing, but their complexity demands mental engagement and creative response.

Walk/run/stop The structure of this exercise is extremely simple. The trainees walk, with energy and focus. Each trainee heads for spaces in the room that are empty, or that will be empty by the time she gets there. This is the first objective – to keep the space balanced. Members of the ensemble do not connect on an interpersonal level, neither eye contact nor physical contact is necessary. They travel through the room, each allowing her or his energy to be seen and responded to by others. The intention is simply to walk. I ask that they notice and relax unnecessary tensions in the body – demonstrative swinging of the arms and noisy use of the feet are the most common. I am not asking that they ‘walk neutrally’ (that’s neither possible nor desirable), but to eliminate from the act of walking everything unnecessary. I might add: Pay attention to the actions of your own body while balancing the room. All other thoughts are distraction. If you become distracted, notice the distraction, forgive yourself (in other words, have no opinion about it), return to paying simple attention to the task.

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

337

Once the ensemble has mastered this simple (and difficult) attentional task, I introduce two other states. When I say ‘run’ everyone breaks into an easy run. Nothing else changes. The primary task remains to balance the room and to move efficiently through the space without ‘demonstrating’ running. When I say ‘stop’, everyone completes their step and becomes motionless. Nothing changes. Your attention projects forward to the empty spaces. Calmly and efficiently do everything needed to be stopped in space. Be present, in relationship with others. These three activities – run, walk, stop – are aspects of a single exercise. Moving between them requires mental discipline. I ask trainees to maintain unbroken focus on the core task – projecting attention into the empty spaces from an efficiently used body. There is no anticipation, no memory. The moment an instruction is given, it is enacted. The performer does not need to think ‘I am about to walk’ or ‘I am about to stop’. Nor, moments later, does she need to distract herself with: ‘I have just stopped running’ or ‘I have just started walking’. She does not need to anticipate (‘how much longer are we going to be running/standing still?’). Attention is paid to the physical task in the present moment. Though the structure of the exercise is simple, its effect can be profound. In the face of a simple task experienced ‘in the present moment’, the distortions of the body and the distractions of the mind can become clear. Sometimes, trainees become frustrated at their ‘inability’. Frustration is also a distraction. However much the mind wriggles, there is no escape from the utter simplicity of the task. Later, I introduce two developments: 1 I ask each performer to notice when she has an impulse

to alter the energy state. If she does, she should respond immediately, changing from walking to stopping, running to walking. If one person changes, everyone, immediately and with neither anticipation nor memory, does the same. Each individual starts to become aware of when the energy of the exercise is ‘live’ and when it is not (which is when they experience the impulse to change it). This is not an exercise in ‘everyone deciding at the same time’. A decision is made by an individual and immediately accepted by all. 2 I ask the ensemble to treat the exercise as performance – what does the ‘it’ need to keep ‘it’ live? I ask: ‘what does

338

Encountering Ensemble

the room need?’. The fundamentals remain the same – when an individual has the impulse to change, she does so. Her decision need not directly affect anyone else. At any moment, some will be stopped, some walking, some running (though at other moments everyone might be in the same state, or all might be stopped while one person walks – the variations are endless). The ensemble pays attention to the rise and fall of collective energy, an energy derived from, but independent of, each individual. Though only having three choices available to her, each performer is asked continually to be aware of (and perhaps alter) her activity to support or alter the overall dynamic. A performance emerges. Though built from a limited range of actions, it can, with appropriate attention, become profound, exhilarating, meditative – evoking the same range of responses any performance can offer.

Larger group improvisation The relationships developed in pairs dancing and the question ‘what does the room need?’ come together in larger group improvisa­tions. The larger the group, the more complex the network of relation­ ships a performer learns to negotiate. Ensemble is not made by performers responding to the ‘group’ in a generalized way. It involves detailed interpersonal relationship. Larger group improvisations offer performers time with one another during which to develop those detailed relationships. It encourages the performer to ‘know’ everything, but to respond only to impulses that require a response. Sensitivity of response to a complex network of relationships is foundational to the understanding Self-With-Others is based on. Group improvisations offer performers the chance to go on a performance journey together. Together, they encounter key questions: ‘Is this action finished or still developing?’ ‘Does this moment need an input from me?’, ‘Are we stuck?’, ‘What does the room need?’. Each performer, mindful of the evolving web of relationships, decides, moment-by-moment, how to serve the material, whether to initiate, respond, offer alternatives or do nothing. ­Having ‘stage time’ together is a way to discover and deepen the ‘shared language’ and ‘shared history’ of an ensemble.

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

339

I usually differentiate between a rehearsal improvisation and a performance improvisation. A rehearsal improvisation does not require performers to pay attention to being watched. The value is purely in the participants’ experience. The performers have time to focus precisely on the details of interpersonal impulse and reaction. They learn to pay attention to themselves. This is essential if, one day, they are going to ask an audience to pay attention to them. In a performance improvisation, the performers expand their awareness to include the fact that they are being watched. They seek to sculpt the ebb and flow of the improvisation in a way that creates meaning (or, at least, creates a coherent experience) for an audience. They need to be aware of where they are being watched from, to orientate the visual imagery towards their audience. They might choose to speak to or look directly at their audience.

Training Improvisation: DUENDE (Hannah Dalby, Alexandra Tsotanidou, and Aliki Dourmazer). Lesvos July 2012. Photo Lydia Yeung.

In performance improvisations, I expect performers not to split the focus of the work by getting involved in pairs or trios and losing attention on the ‘big picture’. Sometimes, I will articulate this as: ‘you can work on your own or you can work with the whole room. Nothing in between’. Sometimes, I tell performers they can leave the improvisation and become the audience. It is a significant moment of choice

340

Encountering Ensemble

for a performer to decide there is nothing for her to do, that the improvisation will be fine without her. She can, of course, always rejoin, when she experiences an impulse she wants to respond to. Leaving and rejoining requires clarity of decision. One way of forcing these decisions is to insist on there being a fixed number of performers. If there are ten people in the ensemble, I might rule that only seven can perform. The rest are the audience. Which seven performers perform usually depends on who volunteers first and changes as the improvisation evolves. If someone leaves, someone must join. If someone joins, someone must leave. Performers have to abandon actions halfway through. They might shift from watching to performing in an instant. I might offer greater flexibility, saying, for example, there must always be between five, six or seven performers. This offers performers some scope for sculpting the group dynamic. During group improvisations, the ensemble spends time learning how to perform together. It is rehearsal not of specific material, but of the act of performing. All live performance is, at some level, improvisational, based on the need to notice and respond appropriately to the unexpected. During ensemble improvisation, individuals encounter and rehearse the core discipline of being ‘live’.

Continual lift sequence This exercise trains the ensemble to allow actions to flow. A group of no more than ten work together. The instruction is simple: The group lifts someone, finds a momentary collective image with at least one person off the ground, then lowers that person back to the ground. The sequence is endlessly, seamlessly repeated. As one person (or sometimes more than one person) is lowered, the seeds of the next lift(s) are already in place. Someone, without ‘choosing’, is available to be lifted, others are in position to take the weight. If you find you have nothing to do except be part of the ‘image’ created at the zenith of the lift, then that’s your job. If you find you are to be lifted, allow yourself to be lifted. If you are to take someone’s weight, that becomes your responsibility. Your role within the ensemble will constantly change. Your job is to know what your job is. You don’t have to ‘make something happen’ but

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

341

to flow with what is unfolding, allowing one physically challeng­ ing image to flow into another without anyone making decisions. Lift – image – lowering becomes lift – image – lowering. . . . Sometimes the image will be of an individual high above the heads of others. Sometimes the ‘lifted’ person will scarcely leave the floor – more a ‘taking of weight’. Occasionally, two people are lifted simul­taneously – the potentially split focus immediately melding into a single, composite image. There are no ‘mistakes’ other than breaking the flow of action. Among the habits this exercise reveals is the desire to be ‘helpful’. Initially, there is usually a lot of shuffling and helpful ‘collaboration’ as the group tries to work safely with one another. Though understandable, this ‘helpfulness’ is not useful. I ask for attention to flow, to the smoothness of the journey through each lift and between one lift and the next. As a person is lowered, I remind the group, coaching from the side of the studio, that ‘the next lift is

Continual Lift Sequence. Here, two groups working simultaneously. To enhance the use of peripheral attention, when two groups are working I sometimes ask them to time their lifting, images and lowering to one another. Performing at the Edge – Residential Workshop (DUENDE) Lesvos, July 2012. Photo: Kostas Mougkolias.

342

Encountering Ensemble

already happening’. Safety is found in paying undistracted attention to the unfolding of each moment. This maximizes the possibility that everyone will react immediately to the unexpected. Safety and an aesthetic based in flow coincide. In this exercise a trainee notices whether she has a tendency to place herself in the centre of the group (always looking to be lifted) or at the edge of the group (never the centre of attention). Does she always want things to be ‘fair’ – with everyone having a ‘turn’? Perhaps she considers herself ‘strong’ and ‘reliable’, always taking the weight (depriving others of the chance to lift). Perhaps she hangs back, scared she is not strong enough. The exercise encourages her to see these tendencies in her work and to choose not to give in to them, paying attention instead to enabling the exercise to flow as seamlessly as possible from one moment to the next.

Other structures There are other exercises that I use, but those outlined above represent the core of Self-With-Others. Other exercises reveal or develop specific elements of the performer’s vocabulary. They are invaluable in offering precise access to precise discoveries, but are generally less useful as continually repeated activities. Some of them, such as The Dance Class, I have written about elsewhere.13 Others I invent and use only once as a response to something specific. A training process needs to adapt to those being trained. Through these exercises, a performer encounters herself in action. She learns about herself, and, if she applies healthy and developmental attitudes of mind (or principles), can find her place within the ensemble and make informed choices about what areas of her work she wants or needs to develop. The exercises are generic and adaptable. To operate as precise training structures, they need to be precisely focused. Just as ensemble is not based on generalized relationships, so learning is not based in generalized attention. It is to these ‘focuses’ that I now turn.

13

www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.wordpress.com/the-dance-class/

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

343

Focuses Each time we do an exercise, I suggest a specific point of focus. This helps performers pay attention to the exercise in detail, rather than ‘doing it on automatic’. I have already discussed that I see responding to detailed reality as a core element in building ensemble.

Stillness and movement The first focus is the most simple – stillness, movement and the transition between them. Through this focus, I ask a trainee to pay attention to what she is doing with her body. This attention is the foundation of Self-With-Others. In pairs dancing, I propose the following improvisation: For the duration of this piece of music, move continually, always knowing where in your body the movement is. Experience the difference between whole-body and part-body movement, experience the sensation of allowing stillness in one part of the body while another part is moving, enjoy moving in ‘secret’ ways, invisible to the outside world. You can copy, react to, interpret movements created by your partner, or follow your own journey. You can alternate between working ‘with’ your partner or just working ‘alongside’ your partner. Asking for continual eye contact intensifies the experience, ­reinforcing the sense of paying attention to self and to partner simultaneously. A more sophisticated version of this score goes as follows: One performer is still (i.e. making no voluntary movement), the other is in continual motion, dancing with and round her still partner. There is no physical contact. The mover must pay close attention to the still person, because the latter, when she wants, can start to move. Immediately she does so, the moving person freezes (where she is, not after reaching a comfortable and/or ‘interesting’ pose). Now the roles are reversed. The person who was originally still is moving and must pay attention to her stationary partner. As soon as the latter chooses, the roles will once more reverse. There is only one movement, shared between two partners. This score asks the performer to pay attention to the detail of her own activity while, simultaneously, paying appropriate attention to

344

Encountering Ensemble

her partner. The different roles demand different attention. The still performer need pay no heed to the mover – she can choose to start moving whenever she wants. However, as soon as she is moving, she must pay attention to her motionless partner, and must keep moving until, by her partner’s decision, she is instructed to stop. Again, a greater complication is introduced if, to this same score of one-moving-one-stopped, I add the instruction that: When you stop, ‘remember’ the quality and/or direction of the move you were doing when your partner forced you to stop. When you choose to start moving again, move from the echo of that memory. The transitions into and out of stillness should be experienced as significant moments. In the Ball Game, an emphasis on the difference between motion and stillness, and to the transitions between them, helps make concrete the principle ‘When there is nothing to do, do nothing’. If one allows oneself to be still (doing nothing, paying attention to everything), and to move (only) as much as is necessary to perform an action of catch/throw before returning to stillness, each interaction with a ball becomes a distinct and detailed moment, not part of a general state of ‘doing the Ball Game’. The main aim of focusing on stillness and motion is to ask a trainee to pay attention to herself. It asks her to notice the detail of her activity in each moment, to notice what she is actually doing, rather than what she thinks she is doing. It makes her curious about her own activity. We cannot start to change how we use our bodies unless we first learn to notice them.

The use of the senses Communication between the external world and our internal land­ scape takes place via the senses. In ensemble, based on spontaneous reactivity between performers, the precise and subtle use of the senses is essential. Developing the use of the senses, particularly sight, hearing and touch, follows a three-stage process. First, we notice what we are seeing, hearing, touching. Then we start to discipline what we are looking at, listening to, touching. Finally, we develop our expressive and communicative capacity by paying attention to how we are looking, touching, listening.

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

345

We actively engage our senses at the start of each session. As we stand in a circle, ready to start the Ball Game, everyone listens to the room, looks at each other (often in the eyes), feels the air on their skin or the floor beneath their feet. This encourages us to be present with others, rather than preoccupied with our own thoughts. Before we can work together, we need to arrive – not just turn up – truly arrive. Paying attention to our senses helps us notice reality. I encourage performers, in  all activities, to connect with their senses. Especially when doing complex tasks, an ensemble performer needs to notice and respond to what is happening around her. She is always a part of something bigger than herself. Work on the senses happens primarily through improvisation – pairs dancing and larger improvisations. I might set up a simple score for a pairs-dance by saying: Both performers must be in constant motion, maintaining continual (and I mean continual) eye contact with their partner. Listen to the detail of the music. This might develop to a more complex score: There are three places you can look – your partner’s eyes, your partner’s body or your own body. Pay attention to detailed and deliberate use of your eyes. Really see the thing you are looking at. Allow your dance to follow what you are looking at. Later, in trios: You can look at either partner’s eyes, either partner’s body, or your own body. Now you have five potential points of focus. Look only at the designated places, never carelessly allow your eyes to wander to the floor, ceiling, other performers, the clock on the wall or, blurring over, to look at nothing at all. During ball work in pairs, I might ask the performers to throw a ball, or pair of balls, continually back and forth, while looking into each other’s eyes. This encourages use of peripheral rather than direct vision. If I ask the pair to have a conversation while doing this, they work simultaneously with the detail of looking, listening and thinking/remembering. Initially difficult, they can eventually develop subtlety in the use of their senses and learn to resist the tendency to distract themselves. Performers become increasingly adept at paying appropriate attention to multiple tasks simultaneously.

346

Encountering Ensemble

Later, I introduce touch: You can touch your partner’s body, your own body or your own face. Be aware of the difference between touching and being touched.14 Looking and touching are later combined: You have three places you can look (partner’s eyes, partner’s body, your own body) and three places you can touch (partner’s body, your own body or your own face). Pay attention to the difference various combinations make to your experience of the relationship between you and your partner. What is the experience of touching your own stomach while looking into your partner’s eyes? Or looking at your own feet while touching your partner’s spine? Later, we might work with both how and where we use the senses: You can look at the three places already mentioned, and you have a choice of three ‘ways’ of looking (curiosity, love and indifference are an interesting mixture!). By this time, working with attending to different sensory stimuli simultaneously, trainees are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their ability to manipulate the complex use of their senses, I can ask that they apply one quality to looking and another to touching – look with indifference but touch with curiosity, for example. Look at yourself with love while touching your partner with indifference. Each combination creates different experiences for a performer. Narrative starts to emerge. Throughout the training, I ask a performer continually to return to noticing her senses – not only when a specific exercise requires it, but whenever she feels herself drifting away, becoming distracted. I am not trying to make a performer hypersensitized, every stimulus threatening to overwhelm her. She would not be able to work like this. However, attention to the use of the senses trains us to work

Of course, as a performer will often comment at this point, one’s face is a part of one’s body. This introduces the idea that touching a face (one’s own or someone else’s) has very different narrative/emotional associations than touching a foot, a stomach, a hand. This awareness forms the basis of later developments, when the work of this pre-expressive training is applied to expressive uses of the body. The narrative/emotional associations of an action can be seen as following rather than necessarily preceding a physical action.

14

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

347

in detail with the mechanics of giving and receiving non-verbal communication. Paying attention to ‘what’ disciplines the use of the body, paying attention to ‘how’ opens up narrative, emotional association, character and other expressive possibilities. I have occasionally been asked what I think the best advice I can give to a performer is. It’s this: ‘Look and listen’.

Responding to impulse To an audience it might seem as if an ensemble is ‘magically’ connected but, through this training, I suggest that ‘being ensemble’ involves performers becoming very good at noticing and responding to what is happening around them. In ensemble (or at least in the way I use the word) performers notice the nuances of an evolving performance and sculpt their responses accordingly. However, though a performer might try to notice every nuance, it is neither possible nor desirable for her to respond to everything she notices. She must make choices. I usually introduce the idea that she should: ‘know everything, but only do what needs to be done’. To develop this awareness and discipline, I spend some time asking trainees to notice how they experience an impulse in response to an external stimulus. Through this process of noticing, they come to realize that there is not an automatic relationship between something happening (a stimulus), their experiencing an impulse and their response. Not every stimulus causes an impulse. Not every impulse requires a response. Sometimes it takes a while before one notices a stimulus – there is a gap between a stimulus and one experiencing an impulse to respond. Usually there is a gap between experiencing an impulse and enacting the appropriate response. The performer, if she learns to observe the workings of her mind, can start to take control over whether and how she responds to what is going on around her. This is important because it begins to offer trainees ways of counteracting the sense of being overwhelmed by ensemble. Once several performers are working simultaneously, there is too much stimulus, yet our fears, our habits, our desire to be perfect or helpful, often make us feel we should try to respond to everything. This is both overwhelming and does not necessarily lead to a clear, disciplined, structured performance! This work on responding to

348

Encountering Ensemble

impulse helps performers discover a sense of calm and control within the chaos of possibility that can exist inside an ensemble. In introducing a focus on impulse, I suggest that there are four different common experiences of impulse. I do this through the Ball Game. I name these four types as follows: 1 We seem to have all the time in the world. We see the ball

being thrown in our direction and know that we will, eventually, need to catch it. We have plenty of time to respond (or plenty of time to distract ourselves . . .). In paying attention to this experience, we can learn that we do not have to respond to an impulse immediately, we can choose when and if a response is necessary. 2 We find we have started to respond to a ball before we are conscious that we have seen it. Of course we have seen it, but we experience the impulse and start responding before becoming aware consciously of seeing the ball. We have responded to a stimulus before, consciously, being aware of it. Sometimes this results in a performer catching a ball before she ‘knows’ it is coming in her direction at all. Recognizing this type of impulse emphasizes that ‘knowing’ something does not always involve the rational/verbal/ conscious part of the brain. We ‘know’, but do not ‘know we know’. It encourages a trusting of intuition. 3 We do not experience an impulse resulting from a stimulus until it is too late to respond. Sometimes the ball hits my body before I realize it is coming at me. Sometimes it flies over my head and out of the circle and, several seconds later, I realize and respond by going to pick it up. Though there has been a stimulus, it has taken too long for that stimulus to translate into an impulse – too long for the response to be effective. This does not mean a response is no longer needed. If the ball has left the circle, I need to retrieve it. If it has slammed into my body, I need to pick it up and carry on (preferably without making a fuss or wasting time thinking ‘who threw that?’). I learn that even if I miss a stimulus, I can respond to my realization that I missed it. 4 I experience an impulse to respond to a ball that was not intended for me. I reach to catch a ball that is actually being thrown to someone else. Sometimes I do not realize

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

349

this until after I have caught it. Sometimes I notice it while I am still responding and can make a decision whether to continue towards catching the ball or to make a new decision and choose not to catch it, leaving it for the person for whom it was originally intended. Sometimes this feels like ‘getting it wrong’, but it is not. If someone throws a ball which passes in front of my face, it is natural that I respond. If, in performance, an interaction takes place between two performers, I am altered by it. I experience an impulse even if my role requires that I do not show a response. Awareness of this experience encourages a performer to realize that, even if she experiences a clear impulse, it is still in her power to decide how and whether to respond to it. This is a crucial realization if the performer is to learn to structure her responses rather than, like Pavlov’s dogs, simply responding. Introducing this focus to the Ball Game is initially very technical, but often ends up provoking laughter and considerable excitement. It is a laughter of self-recognition. One sees the process of one’s mind in action – thinking becomes visible. Often, performers discover they are simultaneously extraordinary (‘how on earth did I catch that?’) and ridiculous (‘how on earth did I not see that one coming?’). I encourage trainees to treat both magnificence and absurdity with wry equanimity (‘Have no Opinion’). Whatever the internal experience of the relationship between stimulus, impulse and reaction, the performer’s task is, from the out­ side, to engage with the game easefully and with a sense of flow. Once introduced, awareness of the mechanics of stimulus-impulse reaction can be explored through any of the exercises described above. The aim is to make the journey of stimulus-impulse reaction as smooth and as inevitable as possible, removing blockages and keeping the journey within appropriate boundaries. At first, this requires a performer to recognize, without opinion, the value and reality of all impulses. Then, once the tendency to judge herself for having ‘got it wrong’ has been a little quietened, she develops the ability to respond more appropriately to each impulse, not by blocking it, but by channelling her response. Usually, the ‘appropriate’ response to a stimulus received in a rehearsed performance is to say the next line, do the next move, sing

350

Encountering Ensemble

the next note, though in a way subtly responsive to everything that has gone before. Sometimes the reality of a moment in performance radically changes, requiring an equivalent change from the whole ensemble. What has been rehearsed may no longer be the most appropriate response and each performer must have the sensitivity and intelligence to alter her performance accordingly. An ensemble continually reconfigures itself and its work, as it creates an absolutely live event.

DUENDE; Collision #1, Mitilene, Lesvos, July 2012. (Eilon Morris, Luke O’Connor, Aliki Dourmazer and Eva Tsourou). An improvised section based on a high level of spontaneous reactivity between performers. Photo: Daniel Anner.

Leading, following and smashing the groove Every response is, inevitably, a new stimulus. It is an unending cycle. To play a part in the evolving journey of a performance, a performer needs to know, in each moment, whether her primary role is to respond to what is happening or to initiate a new action.15 She needs to know what is required of her. The terms ‘Initiator’ and ‘Responder’ are particularly used by Al Wunder: (Wunder, Al. The Wonder of Improvisation. Ascot, Vic.: Wunder Publishers, 2006, p. 150).

15

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

351

Some individuals are reluctant to lead, not wanting to seem pushy or dominant. They never initiate and so disappear into the ensemble. They become passengers. Others are so busy initiating, generating brilliant ideas, they fail entirely to respond. They dominate, control, drive and become ‘leader’ of the ensemble. In doing so, they cease to be part of it. What a performance needs changes from moment to moment. Through paying attention to leading and following (or initiating and responding), performers learn sometimes to stay within the flow, sometimes to drive the flow onward, and sometimes to initiate radical dynamic shifts. Initiating a radical shift in the dynamic is what I refer to as ‘smashing the groove’. In ‘pairs (or trio) dancing’, I play with the idea of leaders and followers. I might set up this score: One of you decides everything – the language, dynamics, tone of the dance. The other(s) responds without having, consciously, to make any decisions (though how you respond is, of course, entirely up to you). Leadership in the dance changes when I shout ‘change’. When you take over leadership of the dance, first develop what is already happening, then change it, rather than stopping and starting afresh. In larger group improvisations, I suggest that anyone can be the leader – they nominate themselves by shouting ‘it’s me’. They remain responsible for providing stimuli until someone else yells ‘it’s me’. If two people nominate themselves simultaneously, the group needs to make an instant decision about who to follow, or perhaps to follow both, or whether someone else resolves the situation by yelling ‘it’s me’. This structure draws attention to the fact that, as a performance event develops, there needs to be a balance between allowing time for moments to grow or deepen and deciding to initiate a new direction. A performer needs to be willing sometimes to hold back and respond to existing material and sometimes to move the work on. Sometimes I ask the ensemble to undertake extended wholegroup improvisations (20–40 minutes). I might set it up like this: Pay attention to what you think the performance needs – initiation of new material or response to/development of existing material. Be willing to ‘smash the groove’ – to notice when the performance has become too comfortable, has entered a dead zone of familiarity. You might find being ‘in the groove’ really comfortable, it requires

352

Encountering Ensemble

no detailed attention. It’s predictable. Resist the comfort! One way of smashing your own groove, if you find yourself with nothing to do, is to leave the improvisation. If, having left, you sense a shift is necessary, re-enter, bring new energy and smash the ensemble groove. Another whole-group improvisation: Everyone stands in the room, simply looking and listening. I will provide an initial stimulus – I’ll gently push someone, move someone’s arm, run my finger up someone’s spine. The person who receives my stimulus reacts. Others react to her reaction. From then on, only react. No one consciously provide any new stimulus. The entire piece is reaction to what has already happened. If you feel the urge to ‘do something’ or ‘make something happen’, resist it. Instead, look around to see what there is to react to. Pay attention to the four different ‘sorts of impulse’ we worked with in the Ball Game. Enjoy all of them. The exercise in which the momentary shifts between initiation and response are most subtle, is the ‘Continual Lift Sequence’. As the lifting and lowering of individuals continually unfolds, a performer discovers that sometimes she is at the centre, sometimes she must assist, and sometimes be peripheral. If someone continually asserts her centrality, always being the person who ‘controls’ the lift (often because she feels herself to be strong and helpfully reliable), she destroys the organic flow of the exercise. If someone, despite it being evident that she is the one to whom the attention of the ensemble has turned, refuses to allow her weight to be taken, this too stops the organic unfolding of the exercise. In paying attention to the subtle shifts between initiation and response, performers move from paying attention to their will, to paying attention to what the performance needs of them. They learn, even when initiating, to work with the detailed reality of each successive moment. This detailed work on impulse and on leading/following deepens the internal dynamics of an emergent ensemble. It emphasizes that being ensemble requires balance between individual initiative and sensitivity to the bigger picture. It does not ask individuals to disappear, but to place their unique individuality at the service of the whole. As the whole is continually evolving, each performer must make intuitive guesses about how they might best be of service.

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

353

The shape and energetics of an action Paying attention to ‘the shape and energetics of an action’16 (actually two different focuses which I introduce simultaneously) helps a performer to notice the dynamics of performance – dynamics to which she contributes but which she does not control. Every action has a form (or shape) and an internal dynamic (or energetic). The shape and energetic of each action are the building blocks I use to construct performance. The Shape of an Action In the Ball Game, I ask participants to pay detailed attention to how each interaction with each ball affects them. Every time I move to catch a ball, transform the incoming energy into an outgoing energy, return to rest, the shape of the action I experience is unique. Sometimes, if the incoming throw is wild or unexpected, responding to a ball entails a large physical response. Often, the response is more subtle. Recognizing this uniqueness emphasizes the live quality of each moment. Each response is an action. Each action has a unique shape. We are never just ‘doing the Ball Game’, we are working with this ball, in this room, in this moment. Once participants have begun to pay attention to the unique shape of every action, we start working in the circle with pairs of balls. Each interaction with a pair comprises three unique actions. There is the action of the left hand and a ball, that of the right hand and a ball, and the composite action resulting from the simultaneous experience of the first two actions. Each of these three actions has its own unique shape. The concentration required to maintain continual awareness of all three shapes is profound. It is a useful rehearsal of the mental discipline required to pay simultaneous attention to one’s individual actions while maintaining awareness of the overall dynamics of an ensemble. This focus is emphasized when performers work in pairs, passing a pair of balls back and forward. After every throw, the performer By ‘action’ I mean any event that has a beginning, a duration and a conclusion. A single gesture is an action. A complex physical sequence is an action (comprising many smaller individual actions). A relationship is an action. An entire performance is an action. The word ‘action’ reminds the performer of the active nature and durational quality of every element of performance.

16

354

Encountering Ensemble

relaxes entirely, returns to a state of ‘doing nothing’. She pays precise attention to the moment each action starts and ends. This can help her define the architecture of her activity. One way of describing the shape of an action is that it has a start (not a moment but a process), a development, a decay and an end (again not a moment but a process). Though a simplification, this offers a way for performers to identify where they are within an action (and so perhaps more clearly to know what is required of them). Awareness of each action’s shape can be applied to any of the exercises I use. One example might be an improvisation where two trios work in relationship to each other. One trio is working together as a single unit. One trio is still, the other moving. The moving trio emerges from stillness, finds an action, develops it, senses when it starts to decay and, collectively, finds where and when it ends. This might take between ten seconds and a minute. You can use the still bodies of the other trio as a ‘set’ to move within, but make no physical contact. The other trio: sense when the work of the first trio is decaying and find the start of your collective action as the action of the first trio ends. You too follow the shape through development and decay to its end. The roles of stillness and movement swap between the two trios. The ability to work intuitively with the shape of an action is much enhanced by attention to energetics, to which we now turn. The Energetic17 of an Action The quality we are paying attention to here is not simply the ‘size’ of an action, but its depth, precision, resonance or any of the other qualities that give a moment significance. Though a simplification, I suggest that the energetic of an action can have three directions – increasing, remaining constant or diminishing. As always, first I ask performers simply to notice Chambers dictionary defines ‘energetic’ as ‘the properties of something in terms of energy’. I am careful about use of the word ‘energy’ as it is easily misunderstood. I use the word ‘energetic’ to describe the properties of an action that include its dynamics, intensity, trajectory and potential. All of these alternative words are useful, but can limit the performer’s response to the idea. The ‘energetics’ of an action embraces them all. Certain groups confuse the idea of ‘energetic’ with speed or size of action (i.e. something that is ‘increasing’ is automatically getting faster/bigger) so I sometimes use the word ‘intensity’. ‘Intensity’ though can provoke too much ‘acting’ and squeezing of meaning from every moment. I prefer ‘energetic’ because, with its scientific background, it has fewer associations for most performers.

17

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

355

that there is a direction to an action’s energetic. Later, we learn to manipulate that energetic, working with or against it, submitting to or altering the direction of each moment (the work on ‘smashing the groove’ has prepared the ground for this). In the Ball Game, I ask people to listen to the exercise. As the balls flow, some are dropped, some are caught. There are moments of crescendo, moments when everything seems to be falling away towards stillness, moments of unchanging dynamic. We hear that the exercise itself has a life, a breath, a trajectory, independent of the individuals creating it. If we start to pay attention to the energetic of our own actions, while also listening to the ‘music’ of the exercise, we notice that they are often different. While the exercise may be increasing in energetic, I might have absolutely nothing to do. While the energetic of the exercise remains constant, suddenly three or four balls come towards me simultaneously – my energetic spikes. As in an orchestra, there is the music of the whole, and the music of the individual instrument. They are not always doing the same thing. Awareness of the relationship between the personal and collective energetic is emphasized by a variation of the Ball Game. Each person has her own ball, of a distinct colour/pattern so she can recognize it. Anyone can enter her ball into the exercise whenever she wants. Anyone can withdraw her ball if it is thrown back to her. No one can withdraw a ball that was not originally hers. Everyone has some small level of control over the overall energetic, but is primarily dependent on the decisions made by others. In other words, there will be as many balls in play as the ensemble collectively decides.18 The exercise is run (as it usually is) in silence. Each performer pays attention to the rising, plateauing and falling of ‘the energetic of the exercise’ and, simultaneously, to the journey of her personal energetic. Individuals start to develop a clear sense of the direction the energetic of the exercise is following and, through the small measure of control each has (through making decisions about ‘her’ ball), begins to work with or against that direction. The ebb and flow of the exercise becomes significantly enhanced. A similar enhancement is noticeable in run-walk-stop. I have described a variation during which performers pay attention to the If there are more than ten trainees in the circle, I will have one ball ‘owned’ by two performers – usually standing across the circle from one another. Either can withdraw ‘their’ ball if it comes to them.

18

356

Encountering Ensemble

question, ‘what does the room need?’. This variation enhances the exercise’s performative quality. When we start to pay attention to the energetic, we can start to sculpt that performance. Initially, I ask everyone to notice and join in with the dominant energetic. If it is increasing, they increase their personal energetic. If it is decreasing, they decrease with it. The group will usually discover they all end up running, walking or stopping. This is fine – it illustrates that equating ‘energetic’ with the ‘amount of energy’ is too crude as a reading of this elusive element of performance. Eventually the performers will learn more accurately to identify that ‘other’ quality. They realize that, though they might not change their activity (walk to run, run to stop, etc.), they can alter how they are working within the activity. They can intensify their walking if the energetic asks it of them, or they can ‘lighten’ the quality of their running if the energetic of the exercise is decreasing. This does not involve ‘acting’, it requires an alteration to the quality of attention being paid to their activity. It is an awareness that starts to bring performers close to the elusive ‘it-ness’ of ensemble. When the performers have started to understand the possibility and complexity inherent in the energetics of action, we experiment, during run-walk-stop, with choosing when to contribute to the energetic and when to disrupt it. Disrupting does not involve imposing ones will on the exercise, but sensing when the overall direction of the energetic is in decay and the exercise requires a new impetus. This helps performers identify when and how to ‘lead’ a performance and when simply to respond to its unfolding. Of course, if someone chooses to alter the energetic of run-walkstop (for example, suddenly running when the overall movement is towards stillness) there is no obligation on anyone else to respond. The ensemble will respond only if the individual has judged rightly what the ensemble wants. If an individual continually finds that she is making ‘bold’ offers to which no one else responds, she discovers she is not yet very good at reading and responding to the underlying ‘desire’ of the ensemble.

Tasks and subtasks (multitasking) There is nothing inherently difficult about performing, each individual element is simple; we talk, move, gesture, remember words

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

357

and actions, pretend to feel emotions we do not necessarily feel, re-experience emotions we did once feel. We do all of these things every day. This is a challenging thought, especially when a performer finds herself struggling with the apparently simple tasks I set up. Performance is difficult not because of the complexity of any individual task but because a performer does many simple things, all at the same time, while someone else is watching.19 Learning to multitask encourages a performer to monitor and manipulate multiple elements of her work simultaneously, never losing focus on one element through paying attention to another. It trains her to maintain ‘appropriate’ focus on different tasks simultaneously, given that each separate element of performance requires its own quality of attention. All of the exercises I use offer an opportunity to look at multiple focuses. During the Ball Game I might set up the following score: Pay particular attention to smoothness of flow each time you catch and throw a ball. Simultaneously, tell a story of something that happened on your way here today. If, as you talk, catch, throw, you hear a snippet of the story being told by the person on either side of you, without stopping the flow of the balls, say ‘Really?’ to which that person replies ‘Yes! Really!’. Then you both carry on with your stories. In this structure, each individual pays attention to a physical task (facilitating the smooth flow of the ball), a mental task (recalling, or inventing a story), a verbal task (speaking her story) and an interpersonal task (listening and reacting to a neighbour). All those tasks should be carried out effortlessly. Focus on a task need not prevent or interfere with focus on any other task. If I want entirely to overload the performers, I add this: Each time you catch, lift from the floor the foot opposite to the hand you are catching with (catch with the left hand, lift the right foot).

Benedetti, in part quoting Stanislavski, writes: ‘The organic body-mind actually is the “simplest, most normal human condition”, and it definitely is disconcerting that it “disappears without a trace as soon as the actor sets foot on the stage”. . .’ (Benedetti in Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. The Secret Art of the Performer: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1991, p. 150).

19

358

Encountering Ensemble

The introduction of a counter-intuitive, entirely unembodied action, tends to wash away focus on the other tasks. People find themselves unable to do the simplest thing. Sometimes they fall over trying to catch a simple throw. However, eventually they discover that the ability to multitask is based on knowing what the appropriate attention demanded by each task is. They need to do what a task requires, they do not need to do more (or ‘over effort’). Giving up unnecessary ‘effort’ (which is a way of working ‘without opinion’ for it asks for the appropriate response to the reality of a stimulus, rather than to the performer’s interpretation of that stimulus) helps performers to ‘effortlessly’ perform multiple tasks simultaneously. We are moving towards a model of activity that requires performers to change how they view their work. I encourage performers, by the time the training reaches this level, to perform multiple tasks not by ‘doing’ each one, but by ‘allowing’ each to take place. She observes and monitors the unfolding of her work. First, she learns to do each task, then, as it becomes embodied, metaphorically she ‘steps back’ from doing it (what I call ‘getting out of your own way’). She observes herself, intervening directly in an action only when necessary.20 Another multitasking exercise involves the performers in pairs, passing a single ball back and forward between them: Look into one another’s eyes continually and pay attention to catching the ball with the appropriate hand. Maintain physical flow. Return your body to a rest position after each action (maintaining eye contact). Have a conversation – a genuine conversation in which you listen, reflect on and respond to what your partner has said. It is useful to build up this exercise step-by-step so that performers notice how the addition of each new task threatens to derail the flow and effortlessness of the existing task(s). Adding elements to, or removing elements from an exercise introduces the idea of a ‘sub-task’. The idea is a fiction. Subtasks are tasks looked at on a smaller scale. Nonetheless, it is a useful Almost inevitably, through these simple exercises we start encountering theories of consciousness and mindfulness. To avoid the training getting stuck in intellectual conjecture about what ‘I’ means, I keep a rigorous focus on the practical details of what each exercise requires.

20

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

359

fiction, offering concrete strategies for breaking complex activities into smaller units of attention. This is an exercise I might run over several days of a workshop, offering the chance for performers to create, edit, then embody their actions and interactions: Working in pairs, design (choreograph) a sequence of physical interactions (12 to 16 moves), based on a structure we have already used, one person is still while the other moves. Each ‘move’ in the sequence starts when one of you is touched by your partner. Receiving that stimulus, move from the point of contact, through a single journey, to make a fresh contact with your partner.21 At that moment of contact, you stop. Your partner responds with a single action away from the point of contact and towards a new point of contact. Each individual action has an origin, develops, decays and has an ending. The sequence needs to be strictly choreographed so that it is precisely repeatable. Be careful! The sequence must be precise. In each move you must have a clear experience of flow from the initial impulse to its end. You should not need a ‘new’ impulse half-way through a move. Once this sequence is established, I ask performers to pay attention to the details (subtasks) that underpin each individual movement – the shifts of balance, the changes in what they are looking at, the sequence of breathing. Paying attention to subtasks can make the flow of the primary tasks more easeful. Later, I ask a pair of performers to watch the sequence created by another pair, asking them to notice the complexity of detail in the subtasks that underpin each seemingly simple physical action. They also point out to the performers where the sequence is not flowing as smoothly as it might. This sequence needs to be rehearsed enough for it to become embodied. Then we look at multitasking. I introduce a second set of tasks, which must be performed without damaging the integrity of the choreographed sequence. I might introduce a vocal/verbal score for the performers to play with. Perhaps I will ask one pair to suggest ‘situations’ another pair’s sequence is representing (colleagues quarrelling, the last time a familiar performance will ever be publicly This ‘journey’ might only involve the movement of a single arm, hand or of the head – it need not imply that the performer ‘travels’ somewhere.

21

360

Encountering Ensemble

shown, a seduction). Sometimes I ask that sequences, created without music, be performed to an unexpected style of music (which I choose and the performers do not hear until they start performing). Perhaps two pairs will run their sequences simultaneously, both focusing on the detail of their precise choreography and allowing their work subtly to be affected by the other pair. While the introduction of any new set of tasks will influence the original choreography, it must not cause it to become less detailed, precise or flowing. Slowly, carefully, the training moves from ‘pure exercise’ towards activities the trainees recognize as ‘performance’. Calmly and without unnecessary effort, the performer is doing multiple simple things, all at the same time, while being watched.

The integration of voice I have scarcely mentioned vocal work. In many ways, I treat making sound as no different to any other physical task: a voice can be trained through the same principles and focuses as the rest of the body from which it emerges. However, this is not entirely true. There are specific technical requirements for the safe and effective use of the voice, which I prefer to teach, or have taught, separately. For some performers, using the voice is much more confronting than using the body. This vulnerability needs to be respected if a performer’s training is not to be derailed by sudden fear of ‘claiming’ her voice.22 As vocal confidence develops, I start to integrate the physical task of making sound with all the other physical tasks, usually at the point in the training when I am paying attention to multitasking. The Ball Game: We are going to work with several single or paired balls. We are going to sing (sometimes we work on a song, sometimes we maintain a single note). Nothing in the exercise will change – maintain flow, find moments of rest, know the energetic of each action. The This fear can be just as present in ‘confident singers’ as it is in vocally unconfident performers. ‘Learned techniques’ of voice production can offer a mask behind which an individual hides, just as learned physical techniques can offer a way for some performers not to engage personally with their work.

22

‘SELF-WITH-OTHERS’

361

sound does not need to fill the room, simply to fill the circle. We are not ‘performing’ to an imaginary audience, we are creating sound together. As balls fly between us, imagine them passing through the sound. Do not allow your physical tasks to interfere with the smooth, collective generation of sound. Catch, throw, sing, listen. Sometimes a specific movement – lunging for a wildly thrown ball, or bending down to pick one up – will impact on your sound. Anticipate those moments and stop sounding (only) for the precise moments when ‘appropriate’ sounding is impossible. We don’t want to hear the ‘grunt’ of you catching a ball. At the moment of extreme physicality, stop sounding. As soon as it’s over, restart. I will stand outside the circle with my eyes closed. I want to hear only smooth and effortless collective singing. The same score can be applied to the Continual Lift Sequence. One lift seamlessly develops out of another while the ensemble maintains the rolling development of collective sound. Sometimes we learn a song together. We improvise around the song, break it down and take it in new directions. Always though, elements of the original song must be present. If the original song threatens to disappear, we return to the melody and provide a foundation for the ensemble sound. This encourages performers to pay attention to the shape and energetic of sound, while also paying attention to their physical actions. As performers integrate voice with other physical tasks, I increasingly work without music. In the early stages of the training, music offers a safe environment for improvisation. Once the performers start to find confidence in their vocal capacity, recorded music can become limiting. As they gain vocal confidence and learn to integrate vocal and physical actions, the ensemble starts to create its own soundtracks. I apply the same points of focus to the task of making sound (and using language) as I do to every other task. Do we need to break the groove? Do we want sound to integrate with or challenge visual imagery? What is the shape of this sound – its development and decay? How do we respond vocally to visual stimulus and vice versa? As this integration develops, Self-With-Others offers performers the opportunity increasingly to work with the totality of their capacity – both during improvisation and rehearsed performance.

362

Encountering Ensemble

Conclusion Every step of the process outlined above is approached through the principles I described earlier in this chapter. Those principles underpin the process of noticing and clearing blockages. They guide the performer towards useful attitudes towards her own work and the work of others. The principles encourage a performer to stop judging her work and instead to pay attention to its detail. Once a performer’s work is embodied, she is more able to pay attention to the moment-by-moment shift in the dynamic that exists within the ensemble. It is awareness of this dynamic and the ability spontaneously and appropriately to respond to its shifts, that is the heart of the model of live, intuitive, psychophysically based ensemble that this training develops. Self-With-Others equips performers with the physical and thinking tools necessary to work in ensemble – the ability to undertake individual tasks while paying sensitive attention to what is happening around them. It encourages each performer to take detailed responsibility for her individual work while also reacting to a shared awareness of the reality of the performance she is part of constructing. How the members of an ensemble react – the ensemble’s collec­ tive response to the word ‘appropriate’ that I have used frequently in this chapter – is a combination of the individual characteristics of the performers who make up the ensemble and of the principles that underpin this work. These principles define the boundaries of acceptable relationship and behaviour in the ensemble. Different foundational principles would define different ways of working. This is why I describe the foundational principles of Self-WithOthers as the ethical framework from which this work grows.

Snapshot #11

Collaborating in time: The formation of ensemble through rhythm Eilon Morris

Does sharing a stage with other performers automatically make us an ensemble, or are there other aspects of our relationships and the work we are engaged in that set us apart from a random collection of bodies in a space? In defining an ensemble, I will argue here that more significant than our relationship to space is the shared attention given to time, and more specifically to rhythm. In a musical ensemble, such relationships are perhaps more transparent than in a theatrical context. In music, regardless of the quality of a score and no matter how good the individual musicians are, if they are unable to find a mutual agreement on the rhythm or tempo of the piece they are playing, then any sense of ensemble becomes seriously questionable. While the nature of rhythm and timing within a theatrical ensemble is less obvious than in its musical counterpart, the same principle of a shared sense of rhythm is present and essential. As will be discussed here, rhythm is a primary mechanism for achieving commonality, connectivity and dialogue across a group of performers and between individual artists.

364

Encountering Ensemble

Britton proposes that ‘. . . ensemble is generated and sustained by the quality of attention that the individuals who comprise the ensemble pay to themselves and their relationships’.1 Central to this ‘quality of attention’ is its rhythmicity, providing the basis or framework through which such interrelationships are realized and developed. As proposed by the musical psychologist Mari Reiss Jones, attention ‘. . . reflects an interplay of a rhythmical organism with rhythmicities in the environment’.2 Rather than the common image of a consistent spotlight representing the way we direct and shape our attention in space, ‘rhythmic attention’ is described as a dynamic process that varies across time. Rhythmic attention by its nature is attracted to some moments more than others, giving preference, weight and accent to these, and through the building of perceptual patterns, bringing together multiple simultaneous events into a unified perceptual field. We can observe these principles in the ways that rhythm affects our ability to attend to two or more events occurring within an ensemble at the same time. For example, if I am moving while a musician is playing music, it is far more difficult to listen to them while moving in a different rhythm than when our tempos are synchronized. Another example: in listening to a musical ensemble such as a jazz quartet, although I am exposed to a large diversity of simultaneous sounds, due to their rhythmic relationship, I am able to attend to all of these elements, as well as shift my attention between the various parts that make up the musical composition. I can, for example, take in a fast melodic line on a saxophone at the same time as the rhythmic chord sequence of a piano, while also perceiving their relationship to the wider spectrum of events that encompass the entire ensemble. However, if one of the members of the ensemble began playing ‘out of time’, it would require a significant increase in effort to attend to their part while simultaneously taking in the rest of the composition.3

Britton, J. ‘What is it? The ‘It’-ness of Ensemble’. Paper presented at the Encountering Ensemble Symposium, University of Huddersfield, 2010, p. 5. 2 Jones, M. R. ‘Attentional Rhythmicity in Human Perception’. In: James R. Evans and Manfred Clynes, eds. Rhythm in Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher Ltd. 1986, p. 19. 3 Keller, P.  E. (2001) ‘Attentional Resource Allocation in Musical Ensemble Performance’, Psychology of Music, Vol. 29, No. 1: pp. 20–38. 1

COLLABORATING IN TIME

365

Central to these examples is the perception of an underlying tempo, pulse or rhythmic framework, within and on which other perceptual elements are arranged. In a social context, such rhythmic elements also help us establish a common ‘temporal narrative’ that facilitates social cohesion, and the capacity to anticipate, respond and interject within conversation.4 We can view many forms of human interaction as a rhythmic dance enacted to the musicality of sounds and physical gestures, our bodies being moved by, and synchronizing with, rhythms that are produced, for the most part, unconsciously. Rhythm, therefore, is not only capable of directing our attention to temporal aspects (such as the order of events, their patterns and durations), but also facilitates our perception of nontemporal aspects (i.e. emotional meaning, physicality, intention and learning new skills). Rhythm’s capacity to bring about social cohesion and group bonding is also an essential aspect of many training processes, an attribute reflected in the commonalty of rhythmic training devices used by a wide range of theatrical ensembles.5 Ensemble performance requires the artist to perceive and engage with multiple elements and stimuli simultaneously, the performer often required to attend to their own actions while also following and responding to those of others.6 While such processes are, for the most part, innate, it is clear that for the performer these can and need to be further cultivated and realized actively through regular training. From my experience of performing and training in musical and theatrical ensembles over the last 19  years,7 one of the key

Malloch, S. and Trevarthen, C. (eds) (2008) Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5 Morris, E. (2012) Via Rythmós: An Investigation of Rhythm in Psychophysical Actor Training. A PhD thesis, submitted in October 2012: University of Huddersfield. 6 Keller, P.  E. (2001) ‘Attentional Resource Allocation in Musical Ensemble Performance’, Psychology of Music, Vol. 29, No. 1: p. 20. 7 My experience of performing and training with ensembles has included working with John Britton since 2001 within the ‘Quiddity Ensemble’ in Australia, and in ‘Duende’ in the United Kingdom and Greece, as well as working as an actor and musician within ‘Obra Theatre Company’ in France, training with the Taller de Investigación Teatral in Mexico, and playing as a percussionist in a number of musical ensembles and working as musical director of Brazilian percussion group ‘Braziloca’. My training as a percussionist has included extensive research into AfroCuban musical forms used with folkloric musical ensembles. 4

366

Encountering Ensemble

changes I can observe in my own development within ensembles is in the way that I use and locate my attention in time. What I experienced early in my training as a barrage of stimuli coming from inside and outside me, has increasingly taken on a clarity and quality of flow. The experience of disjointedness between my own actions and those of other members of the ensemble decreases, and my perception gains a greater sense of coherence. This is not just a question of my own and other’s actions being realized with more precision, it reflects a change in my use of attention as I rhythmically organize and group events in time. Most significantly, I have developed my capacity to bring together multiple experiences and actions into a united experience of simultaneity, which, as with a musical composition, allows me to experience my own actions as existing in relationship to the flow of the ensemble.

Snapshot #12

Delicate codes and invisible lines: ‘Pulse’ – an approach to ensemble training Tanya Gerstle

If a rehearsal room is a blueprint for a community, then Pulse is a model for cooperation, building upon ideas and honouring difference and diversity. A Pulse performer is willing to work within the process for the good of the whole, to allow the work to unfold within itself and not for their own ego. Pulse is an improvisational practice where the ensemble uses a shared performance language of performance and compositional principles to create fully realized and structured pieces of improvised theatre or Pulses in front of a live audience. Working from a place where the unconscious and conscious meet, the ensemble of performers attempts to synthesize inspiration with technical understanding. The only framework that exists for them is the shared language of Pulse. The training of a Pulse ensemble begins with single notes. Running, walking, standing and falling are the four notes that the ensemble initially play. They begin to play these notes, solo, in duets, in small groups and in unison. With the introduction of principles, the music of the Pulse begins. Initial training involves working

368

Encountering Ensemble

these notes through the lens of: development, duration, synchrony, repetition, juxtaposition and climax. Once these principles are embedded within the individual, compositional concerns are then focused upon including: the architecture of space, depth of field, layering, focus, recurring motifs and units of action among others. Eventually, running, walking standing and falling are organically replaced by alternative actions and language. The same principles are applied to language, creating segments of narrative, dialogue and character vignettes. The use of these principles to structure and develop the perfor­ mance means that the performers are simultaneously composers. Working from impulses, which may involve language, action, image, sound or song, they must filter and select them, choosing those, which will serve and develop the piece as a whole. They are dancing between control and inspiration, responding to impulse, but not automatically. The impulse is crafted, for mere automatic response requires a loss of awareness. The performers are continuously working with an awareness and sensitivity to the group creation, while at the same time remaining authentic and committed to the moment of action. The aesthetic of each Pulse arises from the particular nature of this process. The poetics of association thrive in this abstract performance environment yielding associative rather than linear narrative and metaphorical rather than literal meaning. The format of training involves repeated kinaesthetic application as well as the viewing of the work by others. Five to ten performers will be Pulsing while being witnessed by the rest of the ensemble. Through side coaching, the performers kinaesthetically imprint their awareness of the principles while the witnesses connect the coaches’ direction to the achievement of a performance moment. As the ensemble progresses, they can use the Pulse principles to train and to create work in any context.1

For a more in-depth description of Pulse as ensemble training towards structured improvisation and its use as a rehearsal tool for narrative text see website: www. doubledialogues.com/in_stead/in_stead_iss03/Gerstle.html.

1

Chapter Fifteen

Psychophysical training and the formation of an ensemble Phillip Zarrilli

. . . for the first time, through the other’s body, I see that, in its coupling with the flesh of the world, the body contributes more than it receives, adding to the world that I see the treasure necessary for what the other body sees.1 “Ensemble”: the English word is derived from the French, which in turn is derived from the Latin in  simul meaning “together”, or to bring together as “a congruous whole”. 2

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Visible and the Invisible. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. 1968, pp. 143–4. 2 Webster’s Third International Dictionary, Vol. I. 1976, p. 755. 1

370

Encountering Ensemble

From my perspective as a director/teacher/performer: Everyday, when crossing the threshold into the training studio, or when stepping onto the stage, it is necessary to begin, once again, at the beginning. There are no shortcuts. There is no “silver bullet”. The actor’s individual and collective work is ideally grounded in a fully embodied psychophysical process that returns over and again to the beginning, that is, the first breath . . . the first action . . . the first step . . . the first word . . . as the actor begins to open her attention, ki/qi (“energy”), and embodied, sensory awareness to the feeling-tone appropriate to each task/action at hand, and simultaneously outward to others. In that space between self and other(s) lies the possibility that “ensemble”—an inter-subjective exchange and frisson through which each individual becomes part of a “congruous whole”— arises in the moment of its appearance.

Formation An ensemble only exists if/as/when ‘it’ is formed, shaped, comes into being in each moment of performance. No matter how long a group of actor/performers work together, being ‘an ensemble’ and acting ‘as an ensemble’ are never assured. Actors are fallible human beings. At its best, acting is an unstable, risky proposition where the possibility of failure is (and should always be) present. In-depth psychophysical training provides each individual within a group and the group as a whole with a pathway for attuning and retuning every individual’s bodymind so that one’s ‘energy’ (ki/qi) is awakened, able to circulate, vibrate and resonate; one’s attentiveness is alive and focused; one’s sensory awarenesses are activated; and one’s ‘feelings’ are available. Each individual gathered together in the training/ rehearsal/performance space inhabits that environment as a sentient being. As anthropological ecologist Tim Ingold explains, To be sentient . . . is to open up to a world, to yield to its embrace, and to resonate in one’s inner being to its illuminations and reverberations.3 Ingold, Tim, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge Press. 2011, p. 12.

3

THE FORMATION OF AN ENSEMBLE

371

The process of training is one of reminding everyone that we are first and foremost sentient beings who can and do have an effect on one another simply by being in/sharing a space and process together. Sharing a common process and understanding of modes and techniques of psychophysical attunement establishes the kind of trust necessary to touch/vibrate/resonate both deep within oneself and with those with whom one works. Formation within an environment becomes possible.

First exercise in the studio: The process of attunement If ensemble is emergent, the seeds of ensemble should be sown at the beginning of every training/rehearsal process. In my approach to training and preparing actors, the potential beginning point for ensemble is with the drawing of the first breath together in the studio or rehearsal room. I provide below a brief description of the first of four preliminary, pre-performative breath control exercises that begin the psychophysical process of actor training developed over the past 30-plus years using exercises drawn from Indian yoga, the yoga-based Kerala martial art, kalarippayattu and Chinese taiqiquan (Wu style).4 This first exercise immediately immerses each individual and those in a group in a gradual and subtle process of embodied attunement – a psychophysical journey that optimally reaches both deep ‘within’ each individual while simultaneously ‘outward’ to others in the group by expanding awareness and sharing a palpable, felt energetic connection. Easier said than done. Breath exercise 1: Stand with the feet at shoulder-width, knees unlocked, hands at your sides, keeping the external eye/gaze focused straight ahead, but through the point on which your eyes are focused. Keeping the feet firmly rooted to the ground through the soles of the feet and the external gaze straight ahead, allow the ‘inner eye’ to focus on the breath. Keeping the mouth closed, follow the path of the breath on the inhalation, tracking its path with the ‘inner eye’ down through the nose, and down, to dantian – a place

See Zarrilli, Phillip, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Account after Stanislavski. London: Routledge 2009, for a full account of the training.

4

372

Encountering Ensemble

approximately two to three inches below the navel. As the breath arrives in this region, let it gently expand the diaphragm. Keeping the inner eye focused on the breath and the external eye focused directly ahead toward a vanishing point, with the ‘inner eye’ follow the exhalation from dantian up through the torso, out through the nose, all the time keeping the sense of the breath’s connection to the navel region as the diaphragm contracts. Repeat on an inhalation following the breath down, and on an exhalation following the breath back up and out. If there is a distraction, acknowledge it, then bring your attention and focus back to following the in-breath or the out-breath. Sense the moment of initiation of the in-breath, its continuation as it is drawn in and down, and the moment of its completion. Sense the space between this moment of completion of the in-breath, and the moment of initiation of the out-breath. This space between is that place where the potential for impulse and action reside; therefore, it is the space where acting begins – the space between.

Intersubjectivity: Enlivening the space ‘between’ Although in-depth psychophysical training necessarily begins with work on oneself, for actors this process should immediately and fully engage each individual in discovering not only what lies within, but also how to open one’s energy, sensory awareness and embodied attentiveness to others in the intersubjective space between. To explore this intersubjective space between, in Psychophysical Acting I elaborate a series of tactics, methods of coaching and exercises that prompt those in training or rehearsals toward actualizing a ‘mutual congruence’ between oneself and other(s). For example, as a simple extension of the opening breathing/ stretching exercises which begin long-term training, I gradually prompt participants in the first breath exercise: 1 To sustain the point of direct focus with the external eyes

ahead. 2 Continue to follow the in-breath and out-breath with the ‘inner eye’.

THE FORMATION OF AN ENSEMBLE

373

3 To open one’s peripheral awareness to the others in the

space, that is those beside, behind, in front, etc. This gradual ‘opening’ of one’s awareness begins to incorporate the awareness and energy of the other(s) into one’s own embodied, felt sense of breathing. Rather than breathing to/for oneself, one is breathing with/to/for others-as-one, in unison.

One of the opening breathing/stretching exercises in which over time and with repetition all those doing the exercises simultaneously work together as one. Each individual follows their in-breath with their inner eye down on an inhalation, and back up on an exhalation. Simultaneously, each individual opens her peripheral awareness to all those in the space doing the exercise together. Pictured are Jeungsook Yoo and Tray McConnell. Photo: Phillip Zarrilli.

Over long-term training, this opening of awareness and attentiveness to others is reinforced over and again when selected exercises (such as ‘the lion’) are performed through direct focus with partners who move together as one. It is also reinforced when the entire group moves together ‘as one’ in silence through the short form of Wu style taiqiquan for 15–20 minutes. This sustained process of breathing together with/in/through the embodied sequence of taiqiquan ‘forms’ self and other(s) in the intersubjective space-time between. An individual’s ‘I can’ becomes a collective ‘we can’.

374

Encountering Ensemble

This felt sense of attunement within and to/for others is also emphasized and reinforced in group work on ‘structured improvisations’ – a set of very simple psychophysical tasks organized into increasingly complex structures ‘played’ in a workshop setting.5 Here, the elements and principles of attunement and awareness are applied to structures that to the outsider look like performances. One of the most important things to emerge in the psychophysical process of breathing/moving/training together is a sense of how the tempo-rhythm appropriate to each exercise becomes manifest and ‘forms’ an energetic/perceptual link to others in this space between as the exercise is being performed. This sense of the appropriate tempo-rhythm must emerge in the moment of doing as awareness is opened to others. Anthropological ecologist Tim Ingold calls our attention to the constant dialectic between movement and perception.6 As a group trains together daily, eventually with repetition of the basic exercises, both for each individual and the collective the rhythm appropriate to each task/action emerges in the moment of doing. For rhythm to emerge in doing, movement must be felt  .  .  .  Rhythm, then, is not a movement but a dynamic coupling of movements. Every such coupling is a specific resonance, and the synergy of practitioner, tool and raw material establishes an entire field of such resonances.7 In ensemble acting, the actors themselves are the tools and raw materials. Their bodyminds constitute the ‘field’ where the resonance of inner/outer movement can sound and resound.

Creating ensemble in production and performance The application of training to structured improvisations prepares a group of actors to deploy the modes of attunement and awareness See Zarrilli, Phillip, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Account after Stanislavski. London: Routledge. 2009, pp. 99–114. 6 Ingold, Tim, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge Press. 2011, p. 59. 7 Ibid., p. 60. 5

THE FORMATION OF AN ENSEMBLE

375

they have absorbed in that process to rehearsals as they encounter, shape and learn how to intersubjectively ‘play’ a specific dramaturgy and performance score. To enhance this process (and to short-circuit the individual actor’s ego), whenever possible I create performance scores that ●● De-emphasize an individual in a role. ●● Utilize multiple casting. ●● Score some parts of a text chorally. ●● Choreograph collective, embodied, psychophysical tasks.

All of these tactics require actors to be totally dependent on one another. I have long been fascinated by Genet’s The Maids because of its inherent meta-theatricality [especially as captured in English in Bernard Frechtman’s early translation (1954)],8 and the constant necessity of shifts and quick changes as the actors ‘play’ between roles and between appearance and ‘reality’. Therefore, whenever I have directed The Maids (professionally or with students), to enhance the necessity of ensemble work and the meta-theatricality of Genet’s play, rather than casting three women to play the roles of the two sisters (Claire and Solange) and Madame, I have always used multiple casting and scored sections of the text chorally. I will focus briefly here on the most recent student production I directed with an international group of 17 actors at Exeter University – 15 women and 2 men from 6 different countries (Greece, China, Korea, Malaysia, India and the United Kingdom).9 Although the production made primary use of English, the textual score that I created for and with the actors during rehearsals was multilinguistic. It included significant use of six other languages including Welsh, Korean, Malay, Hindi, Mandarin and Greek. For example, the opening short scene in which Claire is playing Genet, Jean, The Maids, A Play. London: Faber and Faber. 1963. For the professional production with Theatre Asou at Kristallwert in Graz, Austria in 2005, ideally I would have liked to have had a much larger group of actors with whom to work, but was limited to the five permanent members of the company. In that production, I cast Klaus Seewald as a ‘solo’ Madame, but double cast the roles of Claire (Christian Heuegger, Uschii Litschauer) and Solange (Gernot Reiger, Monica Zohrer).

8 9

376

Encountering Ensemble

her version of Madame (while Solange plays her version of Claire-as-maid) was first played in Korean; then in Greek; Hindi and Malay; Welsh and English; and finally in English. Re-titled [Playing] The Maids, the mise-en-scene consisted of five identical versions of Madame’s bedroom where each cast of three actors ‘played’ The Maids. A sixth smaller platform stage was nestled into the centre of the other five stages – a ‘dress up stage’. This served as the ‘home base’ from which the sixteenth and seventeenth actors were cast as ‘two actual sisters’ who, throughout the production, were ‘playing’ their own ‘dress up’ version of The Maids as they used their own stage, or as they moved between, among and onto any of the other five stages.

Ensemble acting in a production of [Playing] The Maids. Pictured is the culmination of Solange’s final speech at the conclusion of Genet’s The Maids. The five actors playing Solange surround the two sisters (centre). All seven actors collectively share the lines of this final speech delivered by individuals and/or chorally. In the background stage left and right are two of the three Claires-as-Madame holding the cup of tea in their hands, and the three Madames (on stepladders). All focus front as they see the image of Claire rising up before them. (The ensemble of actors are an international group of actors on the MA/MFA Theatre Practice programme, and second year BA students, Drama Department, University of Exeter.) Photo by permission of Jon Primrose.

THE FORMATION OF AN ENSEMBLE

377

Like the opening short scene with Claire playing Madame, other sections of the text were played by one of five stages. Always making sure that sufficient English was used so that the audience would be able to get all the most important details, some of these sections were played either partially or fully in Korean or Korean/ Mandarin, Malay/Hindi, Welsh/English or Greek. Other major sections of Genet’s text were scored chorally and played entirely in English among the five primary actors playing each role and the two sisters. Some words/phrases were simultaneously voiced by five to seven actors without breaking the ‘flow’ or meaning of the sentence. One of the most important dimensions of the rehearsal process was allowing the actors to gain a sense of the emergent ‘rhythms’ of the highly complex, multilingual text we developed. These rhythms emerged from the language itself, and the movement/ actions/reactions embedded in the text. With its multiple stages and languages and two roving ‘sisters’ able to step in and join the action/text at almost any moment, this production emphasized the meta-theatricality of Genet’s text, and created a dense, highly complex performance score that demanded all the actors ‘play’ their scores moment by moment. In addition to all the multiple layers discussed thus far, for those sections of the text played on an individual stage, the actors did not know which stage would play that section until I called the number of a specific stage over a microphone. I could also shift the action from one stage to another in the midst of playing a section by calling out another stage number. Because the actors did not know whether they would be playing a specific section of the non-choral parts of the production and because the stage could shift at any moment of playing, they had to remain attentive, poised and ready to spontaneously ‘play’ at all times. For most of the actors it is safe to say that there was both a collective sense of ‘excitement’ at the complex challenges offered by this choral/ensemble performance score, as well as ‘terror’ at its complexity. During the rehearsal process, the actors began to understand the practical difficulty of actualizing a fully embodied, seamless, moment-by-moment playing of such a densely layered performance score! As the end of our rehearsal process drew near, I carefully coached the actors to ‘let go’ of their fear of the complexity of the task, and to ‘play’ freely by allowing themselves to ride the edge of the abyss of failure. I emphasized that all five actors playing

378

Encountering Ensemble

each role were to be ‘playing’ all the lines constantly, so that if a colleague dropped a line or got lost, someone else had to step into the breach to pick up the ‘playing’. They began to realize that if they worried overly much about a cue, or if they anticipated someone failing, then they failed to inhabit each moment of playing. They did fail miserably at several rehearsals. But having ‘failed’, as they began to actually play ‘freely’, when lines were inevitably dropped in such a complex score, other actors began to pick up the ‘playing’. By the time of our first performance, so seamless became the playing that the audience never knew when one actor covered for another. Happily, I think it fair to say that by the final performance this diverse group of 17 actors using 6 languages experienced the actual emergence of ensemble playing. I want to close this chapter with a brief glimpse at a second example of work on ensemble playing from productions of Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis.10 Similar to my reasoning for using a large cast for The Maids, when I have directed Kane’s very open text I have chosen to do so with a relatively large group of actors – from 12 to 20. I am not interested in casting an individual female in the primary role of the figure committing suicide. Working with a larger group of actors who all share in playing the central (female/ male) figure, I want the poetic text to resound as a choral text where issues of mental health cannot be reduced to the stereotype of an ‘hysterical female’. From my reading, the figure in Kane’s play makes a rational decision to stop her life. These issues touch all of us today. Among the 24 scenarios, each offers a particular view, recollection and/or experience of the primary figure within an ever-shifting state of psychosis. The work of the production ensemble together is to materialize the central ‘Figure’ between past and present. In a few of the 24 scenarios, the text is delivered by a single actor with the other actors often embodying/enacting psychophysical scores based on poetic images in the text. But the vast majority of the text is delivered by two or three actors, and in a few cases the entire ensemble. For example, the third scenario consists of a lengthy series of ‘I am . . .’, ‘I can’t . . .’ or ‘I have . . .’ statements, followed See Zarrilli, Phillip, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Account after Stanislavski. London: Routledge. 2009, pp. 188–98, for a fuller account of work on 4:48 Psychosis.

10

THE FORMATION OF AN ENSEMBLE

379

by four observations. This scenario was shared by the entire acting ensemble of between 12 and 20, but as if spoken by one individual. The text is the story of everyone on the stage.

Ensemble work in a production of 4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane at Knua, Seoul, Korea. In the closing montage as Sarah Kane’s highly poetic and evocative text is delivered by clusters of three actors, all the other actors in the ensemble perform a semi-improvised image-based psychophysical score. Each actor in the ensemble was to execute their score to set cues, but with an open awareness of all the other members of the ensemble. Photo by Phillip Zarrilli.

Psychophysically, all the actors were invited to inhabit a state of ‘being beyond tears’ – a state carrying a high degree of heaviness, weightiness or cloudiness. All the actors were to sustain an extremely strong sensory awareness of the space behind them – allowing this sense of weight from behind to press down on them. One group of actors were seated in a row of chairs with their elbows or forearms or hands resting on their knees, and with their focus slightly down toward the floor. Behind and above them on a large raised platform sitting in chairs at a long table was the second row of actors with their hands/arms resting in some way on the table. While listening to and absorbing each line as it is said, each actor not voicing a line is also silently delivering each line as part of her own story. Each

380

Encountering Ensemble

actor was expected to sustain an individual state of open auditory awareness to her own speaking/saying, and an auditory awareness to each individual in the ensemble so that whoever’s voice was speaking was ‘speaking through’ oneself. Similar to delivering text by Samuel Beckett, each actor was invited to sustain an internal/ kinesthetic sense of the ‘movement’ of speech-as-it-is-said. This creates a sensory loop by allowing each line voiced and/or heard to resonate within, along the spine, in one’s palms and in the soles of one’s feet – a direct use of the kind of kinesthetic, psychophysical awareness developed throughout the training process with the basic exercises. What I sought from the actors as an ensemble was a mode of ‘playing’ this scenario which did not show ‘depression’; rather, the psychophysical state arises from the group’s ‘playing’ in the moment, that is a simple but difficult to achieve mode of subtle psychophysical inhabitation, of listening, and of speaking. Productions like the two described above are designed to enhance the necessity of ensemble playing where the actors together manifest in the moment a ‘congruous whole’. Again, easier said than done. But this is what training is for – laying down through sufficient repetition the subtle psychophysical, kinesthetic, experiential, sensuous foundations of optimal work with energy and awareness within each individual that allows for the emergence of that ‘congruous whole’. Achieving such congruity cannot be predicted. It is only possible if/as/when the individual and the collective are acting ‘as one’.

Snapshot #13

The Suzuki actors’ training method as ensemble training Antje Diedrich

The Suzuki Actor Training Method (SATM) was developed by Japanese director Suzuki Tadashi and his company the Waseda Little Theatre from 1972 onwards in an attempt to apply the physical qualities of traditional Japanese theatre (No and Kabuki) to contemporary performance.1 The training consists of a number of physical and vocal disciplines (kunren) that trainees practice in a group, following the commands of a teacher. From the 1980s onwards, Suzuki and his (renamed) company SCOT (Suzuki Company of Toga) opened the training to foreigners, resulting in its dissemination on an international level. Companies, such as Frank Theatre in Australia (recently renamed Ozfrank Theatre Film) and the SITI Company in the United States, now offer regular training opportunities outside Japan. Accounts of the SATM predominantly focus on ways that the training develops the bodymind of individual actors, particularly their physical and vocal strength, energy and control, and their focus and concentration. The training is considered a diagnostic tool, Suzuki quoted in Brandon, J. R. ‘Training at the Waseda Little Theatre: The Suzuki Method’, The Drama Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1978): 31ff.

1

382

Encountering Ensemble

against which trainees objectively measure themselves to become aware of personal problems, which they then set out to master. This process of problem solving is open-ended; new obstacles emerge as trainees’ experience of the training and their grasp of its complexities increase, providing a lifelong learning tool.2 But the SATM equally develops the actor as an ensemble actor. Suzuki considers a shared physical and vocal vocabulary acquired through group practice as a prerequisite for the individual actor’s growth: In my theory, no actor can expect to progress in individual self-expression until he has mastered, together with the other members of the acting company, common patterns of movement and voice. . . . the whole basis of the disciplines’ effectiveness is doing them as a group.3 Three further aspects equally develop the individual as part of the ensemble: the extension of the actors’ awareness outside themselves, the intensity of the physical and emotional experiences the training offers and the sustained commitment it requires. In practicing the SATM, trainees combine awareness of self or ‘internal listening’4 with external listening, with ‘a tremendous sensitivity to that which lies outside “self”’,5 addressing the latter in a number of ways. First of all, the training is treated as a performance and is mostly practiced frontally to an imaginary audience. Trainees cannot stop or interrupt an exercise and consequently cultivate a ‘dynamic of showing and being watched’,6 projecting themselves out to their fictitious spectators. Second, the training uses the principle of hippari-ai, of two forces pulling in

Lauren, E. ‘In Search of Stillness: Capturing the Purity and Energy of not Moving is the Root of the Invisible Body’, American Theatre, Vol. 28, No. 1 (January 2011): 63. 3 Suzuki quoted in Brandon, J. R. ‘Training at the Waseda Little Theatre: The Suzuki Method’, The Drama Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1978): 35f. 4 Smukler, D. ‘Stomping with Suzuki: Locating the Voice in Canada and Japan’, Theatrum (February/March 1989): 15. 5 Nobbs, J. Frankly Acting: An Autobiography of the Frank Suzuki Performance Aesthetics. Brisbane: Frank Theatre Press, 2006. p. 135. 6 Smukler, D. ‘Stomping with Suzuki: Locating the Voice in Canada and Japan’, Theatrum (February/March 1989): 15. 2

THE SUZUKI ACTORS’ TRAINING METHOD

383

opposite directions and balancing each other out.7 Trainees imagine that these forces emanate from the centre of the body vertically and horizontally (upwards/downwards, backwards/forwards and sideways); they thus extend their awareness into the surrounding space and the ground. Third, the training teaches actors to manage their relationship with time and space. Often, they are asked to move the centre of their body precisely from one point to another in a specified time interval, such as a count or a piece of music. In some disciplines, such as Walks or Slow Motion Walk (tenteken), actors have to maintain the spacing between fellow trainees, sensing the actors next to, in front of and/or behind them. Fourth, in vocal work, actors speak in unison, following the same breathing pattern and creating a unified voice. Fifth, in disciplines to music, actors are asked to consider the music as a partner to compete with, attacking the beat,8 imagining that they are producing the music.9 The ensemble building aspect of the training is further enhanced by the intensity of the (shared) physical and emotional experiences it offers. The training’s focus is on difficulty; it creates moments of crisis, in which a given task may feel impossible to sustain. In such moments, trainees have to mobilize their will power and find hidden reserves of physical and mental strengths. These moments of crisis instil a sense of ensemble, since the group, by continuing with the task, ‘carries’ the individual through the experience and the individual sustains her/his efforts by diverting attention away from ‘self’ to others and to the shared goal in hand. Last but not least, the SATM requires long-term commitment for the trainee to reap its rewards and benefits. Whereas, early on, the training is about gaining physical strength and control, long-term engagement opens up complex questions about the function of the movements, about breathing, the voice, the actor’s imagination, her/ his relationship with the audience and fellow performers, about her/ his self and purpose for being on stage. Awareness of ‘that which

Carruthers, I. ‘Suzuki Training: The Sum of the Interior Angles’, in Carruthers, I. and Takahashi, Y. (eds), The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 80f. 8 Allain, P. The Theatre Practice of Tadashi Suzuki. London: Methuen, 2009. p. 116. 9 Carruthers, I. ‘Suzuki Training: The Sum of the Interior Angles’, in Carruthers, I. and Takahashi, Y. (eds), The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. p. 81. 7

384

Encountering Ensemble

lies outside “self”’, the working through problems and moments of crisis as well as long-term commitment require the individual to give up any notions of ‘looking good’ or ‘getting it right’, but to surrender the ‘ego’ to the services of the work, the ensemble and the audience; in the words of Ellen Lauren10: ‘While you’re doing the work, the thing that gets checked . . . is your ego. . . . I find that it’s the one thing you do not have time to feed, to fan. That’s an extraordinary thing . . .’.

Quoted in Coen, S. ‘The Body is the Source: Four Actors Explore the Rigors of Working with Master Teachers Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki’, American Theatre, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1995): 33.

10

Snapshot #14

Ensemble training and Meyerhold’s biomechanics Terence Chapman (Mann)

I am standing in a fixed stance, my right knee is bent so that most of my weight is on my right foot, the inside of the ball of my left foot is the point of its contact with the floor, my left knee is bent as if broken at the joint. This position of my legs throws my body into a diagonal angle, my left arm is held up away from my body and bent at the elbow, my left hand is open and relaxed, as is my right hand, which is in front of my solar plexus, some six inches away from my body. My head is turned to the left. I look over my left shoulder into my partner’s eyes. He stands opposite me in exactly the same position as me. We are not in a dead pose, our bodies are in a state of relaxed dynamism, our movement momentarily held like a frozen waterfall. Ten other pairs, all in the same position as my partner and I, surround us. We all await the moment when the group decide to make our next move. Simultaneously, all 20 actors drop the weight of their bodies toward the ground slightly, this small movement in the opposite direction to which we are about to move next is a natural movement that enables each of us to push up with our right leg as we rise up onto our toes, turn our feet –45° and shift our weight from the right foot to the left. Our torsos twist and we shake hands with our partners. As I grasp the hand of my partner

386

Encountering Ensemble

and look directly into his eyes, it strikes me that I am shaking the hand of a man, who shook the hand of a man, who shook the hand of Vsevelod Meyerhold. My partner in the description above is my teacher, Gennady Bogdanov, and the description is of a moment from a Biomechanical Etude called ‘The Slap’, during a workshop at UCLan in  2008. In 1970s Moscow, Bogdanov and his teacher Nikolai Kustov would have performed the very same action described above. Kustov was then in his seventies but some four decades earlier had been the principle teacher of Theatrical Biomechanics in Meyerhold’s ensemble in Soviet Russia during the 1920s and 1930s. Meyerhold’s actors, training in  1920s Moscow and a group of BA (Hons) Acting undergraduates training in Preston, Lancashire, UK, may seem worlds apart but this revolutionary actor training system is once again helping to train an ensemble. Meyerhold’s Theatrical Biomechanics has, in fact, become an integral part of the BA (Hons) Acting programme at UCLan. Training in Meyerhold’s Biomechanics is both systematic and sequential. Basic training exercises develop physical capacities such as strength, agility, coordination, balance, flexibility and endurance which improve the actor’s correlation between body and mind and force the individual to focus in great detail on the movement potential of the body. The consciously communal training at the heart of Biomechanics, with its collective movement and activity, quickly develops an appreciation of ensemble. At the core of Biomechanics are the Classical Biomechanical Etudes, a series of stylized movement sequences originally devised by Meyerhold and developed by Kustov. Actors work on the Etudes initially in pairs and eventually perform them collectively, requiring the group to become extremely sensitive in terms of kinaesthetic response. As training progresses, the individual/group consciousness increases and deepens. Through an ongoing daily practice of Theatrical Biomechanics, large groups of actors can develop a critical and embodied knowledge of performance and begin to share a unique aesthetic language. This aesthetic language becomes the root of communication, initially during training, then into rehearsals and ultimately brings about a deep understanding between actors during performance.

Snapshot #15

Narrative images Chris Johnston

Narrative Images calls on a drama technique that smacks of educational theatre from the 1960s and 1970s but here is re-engineered for a different purpose. The technique is ‘sculpting’; where one actor takes another and moulds him or her into a still, physical shape. Traditionally, this might be used to ‘express an emotion’ or ‘convey an action’. Then the audience is invited to ‘guess the answer’ to see if we’ve ‘got it right’. Like so many other drama techniques from that period, it now feels impossibly clumsy and artificial. Yet in pursuit of some of the ideas articulated earlier in respect of building community ensemble practice from notions of ‘unknowing’, I draw on this technique precisely because of the dissonance that occurs between the sculptor’s intent and the observer’s understanding (‘No, you’ve got it wrong, he’s supposed to be conveying Frustration!’). By removing the obligation on the watcher/audience to ‘get it right’, any interpretation offered in response to an ambiguous image reflects something of the audience’s preoccupations as if it was presented with a Rorschach test. It has particular value within any project to devise work for the stage. The process I use is as follows: once sculpting is understood, the group is divided into a number of sub-groups which should number between three and five actors (four is the optimum). The instructions given need to be

388

Encountering Ensemble

strictly observed otherwise the exercise fails. It relies on withholding the application of meaning during the creation of imagery in order that it can be given expression by the audience/observers. The small groups are instructed to make a sequence of still images each one like the frame of a cartoon strip. The sequence should be in length twice the number of actors in that group. First, Actor One takes the other three and sculpts them all into the picture he or she chooses, then places him or herself in the picture. The key instruction is that the content of the scene, the characters and the action, cannot be stated or speculated about. Actors can speak to each other but not discuss content. So the exercise is purely an abstract, physical one. Once Actor One has made the first picture, Actor Two will make the second, and so on until there are eight pictures (for a group of four). It should be made clear that in the series of images, each actor plays consistently the same character. Finally, the sequence is rehearsed so it can be presented to the rest of the ensemble in its sequence. The purpose of the ‘no interpretation’ rule ensures that the actors become creatively assertive, working impulsively with an abstract vocabulary removed from any obligation to literalness. Importantly, they don’t become locked into trying to fulfil what they believe is the narrative started by Actor One. For community actors, the exercise works especially well because they understand instinctively how the exercise disables professional vocabularies. As a result, actors are freer to assert personal meaning which they understand is beyond challenge. They don’t have to justify a creative decision to anyone: it’s important this right is respected. Then the audience is told it has the task of defining both the meaning of the story and its narrative line. They can’t be wrong since the actors themselves haven’t discussed anything on either count. And when the spectators do answer, they inevitably – in the act of making sense of what is in front of them – give much away about their own preoccupations, hopes and fears. This gives the director vital information to draw from in the devising process, as well as a rich assortment of narrative ideas.

Chapter Sixteen

Freedom and constraints: Jacques Lecoq and the theater of ensemble creation Susan Thompson

Discovering Lecoq in his students It is 1983 in a small stone theater on the plaza of Santa Catarina in Mexico City. Three mad scientists are building their ‘Frankenstein’, only this is the perfect woman – fragile and beautiful. She is wrapped in a cocoon of white material, hung from the ceiling, and attached by cables to a second-storey laboratory complete with flashing lights, bubbling potions, a multiple door entrance and a fire pole escape. The play that unfolds is a mad, twisted ride of desire and ambition. It is a physical tour de force. There are no words. Months later I see the same group – Grupo Tres – perform again. They use masks and miniature instruments including a toy piano. The piece is a completely different world from that of the first. Later, I see them perform a clown piece that is raucous and whimsical with song and poetry. Their next show is an action-packed detective

390

Encountering Ensemble

story. Then a legend from the sea on a small black table using only their hands and voices. Who are these actors? Where did this work come from? They obviously share a common language and a way of working; they are a versatile but disparate group of actors. Each piece they create is radically different in style and mood. I finally ask them about their training; they studied with Jacques Lecoq. Grupo Tres is my first intriguing experience with ‘ensemble theater’. After that I begin noticing Lecoq’s name popping up on actors’ bios, usually in small theaters and ensembles, off the beaten track or sometimes in the limelight.1 Eventually, I go and find out about Lecoq myself, completing the two-year program at this school. What remains engaging about the work of the companies I have seen over the years, is their creativity and their dazzling array of styles; each piece is unique in language and mood. At the same time, the companies usually maintain a playful and lively connection with the audience. It is a form of popular theatre – theater for today. For emergent ensembles, Lecoq’s pedagogy offers something unique – a language of creation and models for creating group work.

The school Jacques Lecoq (1921–99) founded a school in Paris for actor training in 1956. For over 40 years, he taught thousands of students from all over the world.2 Lecoq is most often cited for his contributions to movement theater pedagogy through his neutral mask training, and styles work such as commedia dell’arte, tragedy, clown and buffoon. Lecoq, however, was more than a stylist or a movement teacher; he sought to awaken the creative capacity of his students. His eye was towards the future and the work that his students would create, often in ensembles. He writes in The Moving Body: Sometimes groups have formed following the end of the second year, and have set themselves up as companies, preferring to Lecoq’s students include: Simon McBurney and Complicite, Moving Picture Mime Show, Footsbarn Traveling Theater, Mummenschantz, Pig Iron, Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil, Geoffrey Rush, Julie Taymor, Yasmina Reza, Avner Eisenberg and Theatre de la Jeune Lune to name only a few. 2 L’École International de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq continues to perpetuate his teach­ings in a two-year program that focuses on the actor/creator. See: www.ecole-jacqueslecoq.com. 1

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

391

pursue the collaborative work begun during their time at the school rather than to join existing theatres. This seems to me especially significant for the new young theatre which I hope to see come into existence.3 The latter half of the twentieth century produced not only numerous individual artists but an intriguing number of ensembles forged at the Lecoq School. How does Lecoq’s teaching inform and inspire creative work and what tools can it offer ensembles working today? While recognizing the ineffable and the poetic as an essential component of the creative process, Lecoq sought to deconstruct and teach creativity to his students: The aim of the school is to produce a young theatre of new work, generating performance languages which emphasize the physical playing of the actor. Creative work is constantly stimulated . . .4 Lecoq’s pedagogy demanded students create together, not merely by cooperating or brainstorming but alsothrough complicit and skilled play (jeu). The international nature of the school forced the students to find alternative ways of communicating besides language. The brilliance of the school was that one would learn to create on one’s feet not at the table theorizing. You had to demonstrate what you were saying . . . or thinking.5 The pedagogy required that student work ensemble with shared language and responsibility at its core. A rich mixture of freedom and constraints forms the basis of Lecoq’s pedagogical method. Functioning much like a visual arts studio with the body as the medium, Lecoq’s school laid a foundation for theatre artists by demanding weekly creative work, developing a shared language built on observation and analysis, and the mastery Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 161. 4 Ibid., p. 18. 5 Gwyneth Baillie, Interview with author. Toronto: March 2004. 3

392

Encountering Ensemble

of technical skills while, at the same time, leading exercises to free the imagination and create a spirit of jeu (play), disponibilité (availability and openness) and complicité (a sense of responsibility and ownership with others of the material). These skills are also not only essential tools for ensemble creation but part of what makes a group an ensemble – a shared language, a sense of responsibility and ownership of the group process (complicite), and an availability and openness to the others in the group (disponabilite). By the second year, his students functioned together essentially as one large company.

Auto-cour: Exercises in ensemble creation The most obvious application of ensemble work in Lecoq’s pedagogy was his weekly assignment of an auto-cour. Auto-cour means your own class or self-course. In this class, students collectively created original work stimulated by a weekly theme. These themes were given out each Monday to the entire year, and performed and critiqued each Friday in front of Lecoq, all LEM,6 first- and secondyear students and the entire teaching staff. Lecoq writes, The first theme I suggest is extremely simple. I ask them to form groups of between five and seven people, and to develop a perfor­ mance on the theme of four words: “A place, an event”.7 The assignments are often enigmatic and there is never any explanation beyond the phrase given.8 While the explicit focus of the work is to explore the weekly theme, the result encourages ensemble play and creation.

LEM is the Laboratory for the Study of Movement, a year-long studio course in experimental scenography that alternates between a movement work and studio work in a variety of media. 7 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 91. 8 Some examples of auto-cour assignments from my 1987 journal were; ‘you are in a place and something happens’, ‘the invisible man or woman’, ‘an extraordinary story’, ‘the world of a painting’ and ‘a story that moves us’. 6

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

393

The auto-cour was initially introduced in the school as a response to the nationwide student protests of 1968 against, among other things, an inflexible and outdated pedagogical system which was in place in most of France’s institutions.9 The paradox for the students is that they are asked to embark on the auto-cour before they have had the lessons of the week. As one student explained, They [the teachers] never let you understand what was going on, and if you did then there was no point in doing it . . . once you know it, you self-criticize . . . you second-guess.10 Lecoq never gave examples; he outlined the constraints of any given assignment but did not reduce it by defining it. The ideal response is for the student to discover and create what the teacher has yet to imagine. Dody Disanto, a Lecoq-trained American teacher, describes his approach, ‘What did he teach me? . . . I have always thought of Lecoq as a door closer, like, “No, don’t go down there”’.11 Lecoq wasn’t being negative in imposing constraints, he was urging his students to move beyond the first and most obvious choices, and to respond and engage with the assignments in new, surprising and profound ways. At their best, the short weekly performances of auto-cours not only fulfilled the objective of the work being covered each week at the school, but illuminated it. At their worst, the students would not even make it through their prepared autocour, Lecoq would cut them off with one of his infamous phrases such as, ‘bon, il n’y rien’ (well, there’s nothing there). During these assignments, students learn a lot about themselves. Lecoq stressed that students must find a way to work out in the world and, integral to that, to know their own strengths and weaknesses. In auto-cour, students can experiment with playing choreographer, director, designer, playwright and actor. They are confronted each

 9 On a practical level, the auto-cour allowed students to experiment, applying the weekly lessons to original work. At the same time, politically, the auto-cour allowed Lecoq to continue conducting the rest of the school under the mystique of an oldstyle master despite the pedagogic reforms. 10 Gwyneth Baillie, interview with author, tape-recording. Toronto: March 2004. 11 Dody Disanto, interview with author, tape-recording. Silver Spring, Maryland. 31 December 2003. Disanto did the third pedagogic year with Lecoq and served as his translator in various visits he took to the US in the 1990s.

394

Encountering Ensemble

week with the questions; with whom can I work? Whom should I avoid? How can I change or alter a group’s dynamic? What is my role in the group? Auto-cour can also be a terrible place of crisis and conflict but this too serves the developing artist. As Lecoq writes, Unlike short courses, after which everyone kisses, sheds tears and promises to meet again, the school is a place of struggle, of tension and crises, out of which creativity is sometimes stimulated. Occasionally a student will come to me and say: “They won’t play with me!”, to which I have only to reply: “Well, play with them!” By placing oneself at the service of others, one discovers an important dimension of theatre work. Through these tensions and crises, they begin to experience life as part of a company.12 Because there is this commitment over time to a process (one or two years in the case of Lecoq’s school),13 the auto-cours, like an ensemble’s work, can develop and deepen, but not necessarily get easier. Lecoq’s students are not encouraged to avoid conflict but rather to engage fully with others even if that entails moments of conflict. At the start of the first year the students do not know each other, they are very nice and polite with each other. Over the course of time, as their involvement heightens, their relationships change, opening the way for every conceivable kind of conflict.14 With experience the student can, hopefully, come to distinguish between personal infighting and the artistic struggle to create work. After a certain time, the students know one another well, they choose who to be with, and the tensions diminish. I suggest, nevertheless, that they should not always work with the same companions but allow themselves to be stimulated by contact with other personalities as well.15 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, pp. 93–4. 13 There is also a third pedagogic year at the Lecoq School but students are not expected to take that year as a continuum of training. 14 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, pp. 93–4. 15 Ibid., p. 94. 12

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

395

The frank discussion of the role of conflict in the creative process that Lecoq provides, can be extremely useful to an emergent ensemble when battles over collective creation, ownership of material and each person’s role in the group can threaten the ensemble’s very survival. At its best, the experience of auto-cour can be a terrible seduc­ tion which might explain why so many ensembles emerge from the school. Many of Lecoq’s students left their time in Paris with a strong memory of their most evocative work as collective creations in auto-cour, and with the temptation to form their own company to recreate the experience.16 Analyzing the elements that comprise an auto-cour is extremely useful. There is a time constraint; one week. There is a theme; dictated by an ‘outside voice’ and often accompanied by training in a theatrical style. Frequently, there is an ideal group size (dependent on each week’s theme). Finally, there is an audience. Auto-cours are not exercises that students grow into. They enter the school, from many different countries and with many different languages, and they begin to create together from day one. Perhaps this is the most invaluable lesson of Lecoq’s auto-cour for ensembles; you rigorously and religiously create from where you are each week, and you gather expertise as you exercise your creative muscles. Through action you learn that the task of an artist and an ensemble is to actually do what you dream and talk about, to move from conception and incubation to action.

Mimodynamics: The language of creation Psychologist Vera John-Steiner in her book, Creative Collaboration, notes that an essential element of an ensemble is ‘the shaping of a shared language’.17 What I had observed in Mexico with the company Grupo Tres was not only a shared language but a different

However, as one former teacher explained ‘Unfortunately, an auto-cour is not a theatre play. Later the students have to learn that a play has a different rhythm. Autocours are really exercises, exercises in style but also, the theme is given by someone; Lecoq! There is a captain steering the boat’. Lamar, Dorli Habicht. Interview with author. Paris, France: July 2000. 17 John-Steiner, Vera, Creative Collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000, p. 204. 16

396

Encountering Ensemble

shared language in each of their productions; a language responsive to each new project. This language is based on what Lecoq calls mimodynamics. In Lecoq’s pedagogy, the student develops an ever more complex language of creation as physical, improvisational and analytical skills are acquired. It has its foundation in ‘mime ouvert’ (open mime).18 Far from a formalistic, codified physical training which instructs the actor how to be a tree, walk in place or climb an imaginary wall, ‘open mime’ relies on, first observing and understanding a phenomena (a ‘source material’), and then replaying or miming, not only its physical structure, but its essential architecture, rhythm and dynamics;19 or its mimodynamics. It requires that the actor have, not only physical skills (grace, balance, control, strength, etc.), but also analytical and performance skills.20 This language of mimodynamics can offer a creative ensemble a way of seeing, analyzing and responding to source material. Lecoq writes: All these aesthetic elements can be found in any durable work of art, independent of its historical dimension. They can be sensed by anyone and an audience always knows perfectly well when something is accurate and true.21 While there may be consensus on the dynamic of the observed phenomenon, however, there is fluidity in the form that it may make in space. For example, while there may be many physical interpretations of a particular tree, there are rhythmic, architectural and The role of mime in Lecoq’s pedagogy is perhaps one of the most misunderstood elements of his training. Lecoq himself struggled with the word ‘mime’, attempting at first to redefine it and, eventually, eliminating it from his school’s name. Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, Les corps poétique: un enseignement de la creation théâtrale. Arles: Actes Sud, 1997, p. 34. 19 Mira Felner in her book Apostles of Silence differentiated between mime du fond or the natural mime of Lecoq and mime de forme or pantomime; Felner, Mira, Apostles of Silence: The Modern French Mimes. London: Assoc. University Presses, 1985, p. 149. 20 The Lecoq actor is trained to be supple, responsive and available for play (jeu). These physical skills are acquired at the school through neutral mask training, improvisation, mastering movement phrases (including his famous Twenty Movements) and classes in acrobatics among other subjects. 21 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, pp. 19–20. 18

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

397

dynamic essentials that are common to all the performers who are working in response to that tree because their work is based on observation. When there is doubt, the performer goes back to the source. Lecoq writes: Through the mimodynamic process, rhythms, spaces, forces and static objects can all be set in play. Looking at the Eiffel Tower each of us can sense a dynamic emotion and put this emotion into movement. It will be a dynamic combining rootedness with an upward surge, having nothing to do with the temptation to give a picture of the monument (a figurative mime). It’s more than a translation: it’s an emotion.22 A practical tool for ensemble creation, the language of mimo­ dynamics can be used to explore an endless variety of source materials. At Lecoq’s school, one first plays the familiar, observed world of daily life, then elements (fire, air, water, earth), then animals and characters. Observing the architecture, rhythm, duration and dynamics of the source material, one moves from observation to replaying to imposing theatrical structure. Later in the first year, a student or a small ensemble might perform a painting, a poem, a short story, a movie, a cooking recipe, a passion or a color. Lecoq teaches ‘transpositions’, where the observed source material that one mimes (e.g. fire), will become a character that one plays (a fiery person), or a visible group dynamic (news spreading like fire through a group of people), or a voice quality that one can assume (the unpredictable and volatile voice of danger). The task is to find a gestural language that is equivalent but not pantomimic, nor reductive nor explicative. The audience should not long for the original but rather be transported by the dramatic rendering. Something new must be revealed by the work. In the second year, this same mimodynamic analysis is applied to what Lecoq calls ‘geodramatic explorations’ in the territories of clown, melodrama, tragedy, commedia dell’arte, etc.23 Again, Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 47. 23 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 97. 22

398

Encountering Ensemble

questions are asked. What is the space, rhythm, dynamic, sound, duration of tragedy? Again, the theatrical challenge is to find a dramatic form that responds and corresponds to the source material ‘Tout bouge’ (everything moves), Lecoq stated, and thus everything can be analyzed, improvised and transposed to the stage. Working mimodynamically, the actor and the ensemble can play, not just characters, but the world: Most drama training focuses on the actor playing human chara­ cters usually within a figurative, if not naturalistic context. Lecoq bridges the gap between theatre and the world of dance, in that the human body is used to express not only the figurative world of animal, mineral and vegetable but also the abstract world of colours, music and emotions.24 This adroit movement between genres and mediums that the language of mimodynamics allows is fertile territory for ensembles that frequently source non-theatrical material. It was this language that I observed in Grupo Tres and their productions.

Freedom and constraints in ensemble creation Improvisation Lecoq writes: ‘Creative work is constantly stimulated, largely through improvisation, which is also the first approach to playwriting’.25 The heart of improvisation in Lecoq’s pedagogy is to create a spirit of play (jeu). Improvisation for a creative ensemble can be the opportunity to apply in jeu the lessons learned in more Bim Mason, ‘The Well of Possibilities: Theoretical and Practical Uses of Lecoq’s Teaching’, in Chamberlain, Franc and Yarrow, Ralph (eds), Jacques Lecoq and British Theatre. London: Routledge. 2002, p. 48. 25 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 18. 24

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

399

technical work.26 The demands on the improvisers increase as the ensemble accumulates skills. Lecoq writes: Improvisation is at the heart of the educational process and is sometimes confused with expression. Yet a person expressing himself is not necessarily being creative  .  .  .  In my method of teaching I have always given priority to the external world over inner experience. In our work the search for self-enlightenment and for spiritual bliss has little attraction. The ego is superfluous.27 Lecoq’s teaches that improvisation is not indulgent, and what distinguishes it from mere expression is the presence of the audience even if that presence is only notional. Improvisation is not primarily for the actors to feel but to relay, and questions following an improvisation focus not on what the actors experienced but on what the audience perceived. In Lecoq’s teaching there is a generosity in the audience/actor relationship; the audience’s perception of a theatrical experience is paramount. In Lecoq’s training, the actor/creators need to be legible for the audience, not obtuse. At the same time, the artist does not pander, the audience participates imaginatively. The audience is ever present as partner, not voyeur. Theatrical structure is applied to all student work including improvisation. Thus, an improvisation is expected to have a beginning, a middle and an end and a duration that is juste for the audience, the performer and the material. As an ensemble develops their improvisational skills, they can begin to apply theatrical time to their work. Lecoq begins with rejeu (replay), recreating life and situations, but once the student has understood the concept of rejeu, they are expected to raise the level of play and begin experimenting with form by economizing,

Jeu (play) is a state of flow in a performance where the actor is perfectly partnered with the space, props, text, scene partners, the audience and the material. Integrated into all the pedagogy of the Lecoq School is an emphasis on the actor-creator in a state of jeu. This same mixture of precision and play existed in Lecoq’s enigmatic presence as a teacher. 27 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, pp. 18–19. 26

400

Encountering Ensemble

compressing, jumping, shifting or expanding. Much like a playwright, the improviser may choose to ‘cut to the chase’ in a scene, break its linear line, dive into the interior landscape of a character, or become the room, objects in space or even the space itself. Likewise, students are expected to integrate elements of dramatic style (clown, commedia, melodrama, etc.) into their improvisational work and group creations as they are introduced to them. The introduction of masks, costume and other design elements are also explored in improvisations. The intense discipline and creativity demanded of the student point to a further goal – improvisation’s application to creating new work.

A buffoon tribe takes on the topic of incest at The Lecoq School, 1989. Photo: Christian Knecht.

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

401

Constraints To stimulate his student’s creativity, Lecoq often used constraints. Lecoq’s pedagogic voyage is marked by unsettling the student by disrupting their normal patterns of doing things; he writes, ‘I have to create a sense of uncertainty’.28 For example, he may impose a numerical constraint and ask a group that has been researching the French Revolution to reduce the whole revolution to 10 essential gestures or to have one actor play all the roles, or, on the contrary to have 6 actors play 20 discrete roles. He may impose a temporal constraint, perform the French Revolution in 1 minute or that lasts the duration of a song or a series of sound effects. There may be spatial constraints with the actor confined to work with a mask, a costume, to work with an object or, on the contrary, in an empty space where he must become a series of objects, people or places.29 At the end of the first year, large group projects, with themes such as the French Revolution, are performed on a tréteau nu, a platform around six feet by four feet. On these small stages, Lecoq would have groups of up to seven actors perform vast themes creating a multitude of spaces. It was the concept of a spatial constraint at its most extreme and often produced unforgettably creative work. The constraint requires that the performer move beyond the obvious first choices in the palette of creation. As a further creative provocation: There is no theoretical discussion in this approach and little explanation. Lecoq habitually uses rich metaphorical language in an attempt to keep the work at the level of a passionate search.30 Lecoq writes of teaching and imagination: We must grapple with them [the students] if we are to lead them into a place of true poetry. This can be difficult to achieve. When Ibid., p. 48. In addition to dramatic content, students at the school designed their own masks and costumes. 30 John Wright, ‘The Masks of Jacques Lecoq’, in Chamberlain, Franc and Yarrow, Ralph (eds), Jacques Lecoq and British Theatre. London: Routledge. 2002, p. 72. 28 29

402

Encountering Ensemble

they lack imagination we must goad them with fantastic visions of beauty, with the madness of beauty.31 Constraints, through limiting the possibilities of an actor or ensemble, force a deepening and a search that might otherwise have been skipped altogether.

Theatrical territories Finally, in Lecoq’s second year of his school he guides his students through a series of five theatrical territories or styles; melodrama, commedia dell’arte, bouffons, tragedy and clowns.32 These theatrical styles in themselves serve as constraints in that they limit and focus the actor’s body tension and architecture (high tension and energy in commedia dell’arte and often stillness and verticality in tragedy), the intent of the work (grand emotions in melodrama, humor in clown) and sometimes costumes or other objects (masks for commedia and noses for clown). Peter Hall writes of style, Any defined form in the theatre performs as a mask: it releases rather than hides; it enables emotion to be specific rather than generalized. It permits control while it prevents indulgence. Form frees, it does not inhibit.33 The ensemble working within a theatrical style will be guided to stay within its constraints of architecture, tension and shape, freeing them to focus on jeu and theatrical rhythm. ‘The constraints of style create a different kind of reality’,34 and within that altered reality the work transpires. Again, while the explicit work at Lecoq’s Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 23. 32 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 15. 33 Hall, Peter, Exposed by the Mask. New York: Theatre Communications Group. 2000, p. 26. 34 Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 14. 31

FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINTS

403

school is to finesse the style, the process requires that a group of actors move together within its constraints, bound by a common physical vocabulary, and, ultimately, laying the groundwork for the experience of ensemble. The unknown and the ambiguous are territories of an artist. The dramatic territories that Lecoq chooses to explore in his school are in no way exhaustive; they do not attempt to define the perimeters of style, but rather point out the vast territory of possibilities.

Ensembles And so we return to Mexico, to Grupo Tres and that series of intriguing and unique performances that began this exploration of Lecoq’s pedagogy. The ensemble was applying a different theatrical style to each of the performances and that clearly defined style made each of the shows distinct and memorable. The group was responding mimodynamically to their material, giving rise to creative new ways of performing. Lecoq challenges his students and the ensembles that emerge from his teaching to create new forms and new work. His rich pedagogy offers ensembles some essential tools for collective creation: 1 Auto-cour proposes challenging and exercising one’s

collective creativity by creating new work on a regular basis. 2 Mimodynamics reminds ensembles to build a common language of creation, to observe what is structurally unique in the chosen source material, and to pose questions much like a scientist would. How does it move? What is its rhythm, duration and architecture? 3 Improvisation reminds one to put the work on its feet and not get bogged down in endless discussion but rather work through playing with each other and the material. 4 Constraints and theatrical styles teach ensembles that limitations can be your ally, by shaping and moving your material from creative chaos to dramatic structure. Lecoq’s pedagogy offers ensembles, like Grupo Tres in Mexico, an ever expanding dramatic vocabulary. With Lecoq’s exercises in auto-cours, the language of mimodynamism, the provocations

404

Encountering Ensemble

of constraints and dramatic styles, ensembles are well equipped to explore the unknown that is the theater of the future. Finally, Lecoq says of his pedagogy: My method aims to promote the emergence of a theater where the actor is playful. It is a theatre of movement, but above all a theatre of the imagination.35 The Lecoq-trained ensemble ideally learns to play not only with each other but with the material, the space, the text, any costumes or props, the audience and everything that surrounds them. They are responsive and creative, in short, present in the full sense of the word.

Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias, The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen. 2000, p. 98.

35

Snapshot #16

Birthdays make the best training Bryan Brown

I’m squatting on the flat roof of our former petrol station turned theatre on route 66 in Hollywood, California, dangling a string down the open hatch into the studio. I want to make sure that when the time comes I can drop the necessary props down to the performers below. The women of the ensemble are inside the ­studio filling an old wash bucket, spreading roses and preparing for the improvised journey ahead. It’s Spring 2007; G.’s birthday. And once again we are combining it with Walpurgis Nacht: the night of Margarita’s transformation and a central scene from our long-term project-in-development based on the life and works of Mikhail Bulgakov. A year ago this training began, when my partner and I decided to combine two strategies for ensemble building into special events for our newly formed company, ARTEL. Our initial ensemble training consisted of rigorous psychophysical exercises inspired by the likes of Suzuki, Grotowski and the Open Theatre. These exercises imposed a sense of formality onto the ensemble that allowed for heightened awareness and a depth of physical challenge, but was hindering a jovial camaraderie. My partner is Russian and so introduced her native sensibility of prazdnik (celebration) as a strategy to provoke

406

Encountering Ensemble

hidden skills from ensemble members and to bond us more easily as a group. I hoped that some of those hidden skills would develop the use of space and objects. We began ARTEL with the vision that everyone in the ensemble would be actor-creators. The specifically psychophysical training was making us better performers, but it wasn’t yet integrating all the other areas of performance-making – writing, directing, designing and dramaturgy. So, I proposed to use birthdays as a way to explore how objects and spaces could be an extension of the psychophysical work. This led to many blindfolded sensory experiments, the creation of different snow machines and handmade paper bag masks, pies in the face, chicken feet and liver hanging from tree branches, the use of every space in and around our theatre as well as a whole celebration leading a member blindfolded through Fryman Canyon. All of these experiments were an outgrowth of our desire to blur the line between audience and performer by taking both on improvised journeys. Overall, the birthday celebration strategies were following our larger philosophy that every day we get to come to the studio is a gift. A gift is a surprise and a sharing with others. By focusing the celebrations on the person whose birthday it was, the experience of one person within the ensemble was highlighted. This person could be seen as a fellow performer who was soloing and needed the ensemble’s support or as the spectator for whom we needed to have the utmost care. As each ensemble member had different gifts to share with the birthday-person, we all needed to find balance between supporting and giving that person an experience. Which was as much about training the skill of ‘taking focus’ as it was about reading an audience and knowing when they were ready for something new. Back on the rooftop, a frustration is mounting. One that has been provoked by the leaks in our ensemble. We just returned home from our first performances ‘on tour’, a milestone in the bonding of any company; yet we haven’t heard from F. in days. Being in an ensemble means never being stable. You can never assume you know where your colleague is at because you are both sharing the ‘at’ that comprises the relations of the ensemble. Those relations are continually shifting. The larger the ensemble, the more shifts. The more shifts, the more relations to balance. And then the rattling

BIRTHDAYS MAKE THE BEST TRAINING

407

One of Artel’s birthday celebrations. Company member Olya Petrakova was led blindfold through Fryman Canyon, California, as the ensemble provided sensory stimuli along her journey. Occasionally the blindfold was lifted to reveal brief performer compositions or installations, such as a brook flowing red from dye or raw meat hanging from a tree (pictured) – (from an original Polaroid).

of the metal ladder. F’s returned. Pleasant smiles disguising a truth we’ll have to speak soon. But the present moment is not for us; it is for her. The ensemble can set aside its own concerns in order to focus on the experience of the audience. Though for this group this will be the last. F. will leave the ensemble for good in a few days as will G. in a few months. The important thing is he came to celebrate.

Snapshot #17

Where I’ll be on Armageddon Patrick Stewart

I believe that I was an ensemble actor from the very beginning, by instinct, not philosophy. At the age of 12 how could it be otherwise, I had never heard the term. What I discovered in my first play with grown-ups was that I loved the rehearsal room, the companionship, the bonhomie (alright, I was very precocious), all in it together, everyone scared, everyone not admitting it, everyone taking it seriously – but not too seriously and  .  .  .  everyone dependent on each other. And that’s what matters most, isn’t it? Dependency. Incongruously leaping forward from that northern school hall to Peter Brook’s Antony and Cleopatra rehearsal room, it is what Peter was talking about when one day he asked the full company, ‘Who speaks the first line?’. A youthful John Bowe put up his hand. ‘Well, me, Peter’. ‘What do you say, John?’ ‘Well, Peter, the first line of the play.’ ‘Yes . . . and what is it?’ Pause. ‘Nay . . .’. ‘Stop there, John. The first word of the play is “Nay”?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘John you have the most important word in the play, because until you say; “Nay” nothing else can happen. And how you say “Nay” determines what the next three hours will be like. How you say that word establishes everything that is important until the last word is spoken. You set the tone, the mood, the very quality of everything that lies ahead. The next word and the next and the next, each one different because of what went before. And every time it will be different. The kind of

WHERE I’LL BE ON ARMAGEDDON

409

ripple you make with that word will affect everyone as that ripple is transformed again and again.’ Well, in fact, Peter didn’t say that exactly. If he had said it, it would have been simpler, less dramatic. But that is what he meant. I think. I mean that is how I have interpreted it during the 32 years that have since passed. For the next nine months, performing A & C I used to get a kick out of standing in the wings at the top of the show watching John preparing to say; ‘Nay, but this dotage of our Generals o’erflows the measure’. There were nights when he took so seriously the responsibility he carried I thought he would never get the line out at all. But when it came out, it exploded like a volcanic eruption and we were off, everyone filled with the dynamism, fury and passion that came out of John Bowe’s mouth. So .  .  .  I was sold. I got it. Whoever is speaking is the most important person on the stage. Peter made me believe it then and I believe it even more today. (Maybe that’s why I created solo shows.) But to go back to being 12 years old. It was the shared experience – good title for an ensemble company – the community. The dependency. When I was Hopcroft Minor in The Happiest Days of Your Life, there were moments when everybody depended on me; my English teacher, the science master, the gorgeous Renee, even the headmaster’s wife who had directed the play. I was needed and I was connected. Now I am a leading actor with 52 years on the professional stage and I still feel the same. When we have run a play for the first time and then sucked up cups of coffee and tea, rolled our eyes at each other and embraced and not wanted to let the colleague go and then we all reassemble for the director’s notes, I always look round the circle of actors and think; Hamlet, or Macbeth, or Waiting for Godot no longer just exists on the page, it is alive in all our heads, we are all Macbeth and The Prince and VladimirEstragonPozzoLucky. And if the director asked us – and they have – to just run the whole play again, only better, we could do it. There are so many things an audience can experience during a performance and if the actors are doing their job properly the audience won’t know quite why they are feeling the way they do. And one thing that can make them feel fabulous is an ensemble working as a dazzling unit. Yes, it’s thrilling to see an amazing star performance but the performances that have moved and delighted me most are those when I have known without doubt that there

410

Encountering Ensemble

is a common spirit on the stage; The RSC’s Nicolas Nickleby, the original production of No Man’s Land, David Warner/Peter Hall’s Hamlet, August: Ossage County on Broadway, Assassins in the same place five years ago, The Power of Yes at The Royal National last year, Merrily We Roll Along at The Guildhall School in 1983. Of course, there are charlatans, bullshitters – directors as well as actors, who will drone on endlessly about ‘Ensemble’ and when they get on stage they fuck you over, you and the production. And audiences can love that too. But mostly we know who they are and we don’t work with them again. I am so happy that I have spent so much of my life in the company of actors – yes, even perhaps the bullshitters. Contrary to what the media would have you believe, they are generous, supportive, inspiring and so much goddam fun to be around. For a long time, I have felt that if that meteor can’t be deflected, or if the ‘big one’ comes or the ship of state is sinking, I’ll be in a rehearsal room with an ensemble of actors when it happens.

Afterword: What is it? John Britton

This book has aimed at complexity. I have not tried to define ensemble for, as I wrote at the beginning, and as you will have seen, there are many competing perspectives, and little value in trying to force them to agree. I have, periodically, in the course of the book, referred to my own work as a director and trainer of ‘ensemble’. This suggests that I have my own understanding of the word ‘ensemble’, my own metaphors and my own sense of what is significant, what less so. Perhaps I’ll risk adding one more metaphor to those we encoun­ tered at the start of the book. In his book I am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter writes about a phenomenon even more elusive than ‘ensemble’ – human consciousness. He writes of consciousness as a phenomenon that emerges from chemical and physical actions of the brain. The activity of all the neurons in the brain is not ‘consciousness’, but ‘consciousness’ is the result of that activity. He writes: In general an emergent phenomenon somehow emerges quite naturally and automatically from rigid rules operating at a lower, more basic level, but exactly how that emergence occurs is not at all clear to the observer.1

1 Hofstadter, D, I Am a Strange Loop, New York; London: BasicBooks. 2007, p. 68; original emphasis.

412

Encountering Ensemble

He calls this an ‘epiphenomenon’, which he defines thus: An epiphenomenon . . . is a collective and unitary-seeming out­ come of many small, often invisible or unperceived, quite possibly utterly unsuspected, events. In other words, an epiphenomenon could be said to be a large-scale illusion created by the collusion of many small and indisputably non-illusory events.2 Might this offer us a way of thinking about ensemble? Could we describe the ‘it-ness’ of ensemble as an epiphenomenon, an illusion emerging from concrete actions performed at a ‘lower, more basic level’ (the individual actions of each performer)? Each performer pays attention to her or his tasks but these tasks are not ensemble. However, when these tasks are performed with sufficient detail, in ways that accord with agreed, shared behaviours, with sensitivity, openness and an ability to react spontaneously to shifts in tone and dynamic, the ‘it-ness’ of ensemble appears to exist. ‘It’ emerges from a sophisticated and precise combination of interrelated individual actions. To describe something as an illusion, which is how Hofstadter describes consciousness, is not to dismiss it. Though an illusion has no concrete reality, it appears real to its audience. An illusion is as real as reality, until we try to grasp it or give it an exact definition. Perhaps this book has been an attempt to grasp an illusion, or at least to skirt round its edges. Practitioners seeking ensemble performance have spent lifetimes exploring and training the core, precise, necessary underpinnings of ‘ensemble’; the way performers use their bodies (psychophysicality and sensitization), the way they behave towards one another (ethics, politics, spirituality), the way rehearsal environments are structured (rural retreats and community structures). These practices represent attempts to create conditions for an appropriate network of relationships to exist from which can emerge the (epi)phenomenon of ensemble. Ensemble is a particular form of experience emerging from particular types of interaction. It does not actually ‘exist’ but is ­perceived (and therefore believed) to have existence by those who

2

Ibid., p. 93; my emphasis.

AFTERWORD: WHAT IS IT?

413

encounter it – performers and audience. To endure, it must be ­continually maintained; it is not something to be made in rehearsal and delivered to an audience. It is not a product but a process. My experience of what I seek in a creative process suggests that for performers to be ensemble, they must do ensemble – in every moment of a performance. Even if the external form of a performance remains unchanged, if the performers are not being with each other and their audience, in necessary and appropriate ways, ‘it’ will simply vanish. We cannot train ensemble, for it is ‘an illusion’. But we can train individuals to create and sustain that illusion. To bring together Hofstader’s view of consciousness and my metaphor of ensemble, does this mean that the ‘it-ness of ensemble’ is the collective consciousness of a group? Could we suggest that when performers, seemingly instinctively, react simultaneously to the live moment, in ways that, to the outside eye seemed choreographed, planned, intentional, that they are exhibiting a shared ‘thinking’ that emerges from their shared language? Might ensemble’s ‘it-ness’ be a group’s shared wisdom, created by all, but controlled by none? This would require understandings of the meaning of ‘consciousness’ that are considerably outside the range of this book. It’s an interesting thought though.

414

Bibliography

PART ONE Introduction Allain, Paul. The Art of Stillness: The Theatre Practice of Tadashi Suzuki. London: Methuen, 2002. —. Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009. Allen, David. Performing Chekhov. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. Babbage, Frances. Augusto Boal. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski, an Introduction. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1982. —. Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999. Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Boal, Augusto. Theater of the Oppressed. London: Pluto, 2000. Boleslavsky, Richard. Acting: The First Six Lessons/Richard Boleslavsky. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1978. Brook, Peter. The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989. —. Threads of Time: A Memoir. London: Methuen Drama, 1998. Camilleri, Frank. ‘Hospitality and the Ethics of Improvisation in the Work of Ingemar Lindh’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2008): 246–59. Carnicke, Sharon Marie. Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. Chaikin, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. Cohen, Robert. Working Together in Theatre: Collaboration and Leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Dawson, Gary Fisher. Documentary Theatre in the United States: An Historical Survey and Analysis of Its Content, Form, and Stagecraft. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Delgado, Maria M. and Paul Heritage. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996.

416

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Etchells, Tim. Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. London: Routledge, 1999. Evans, Mark. Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre, ed. Eugenio Barba. London: Methuen, 1976. —. ‘Reply To Stanislavsky’, The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 52, No. 2 (2008): 31–9. Hodge, Alison. Actor Training (2nd edn). London; New York: Routledge, 2010. Law, Alma H. and Mel Gordon. Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996. Lindh, Ingemar. Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enterprise, 2010. Malina, Judith. The Piscator Notebook. London; New York: Routledge, 2012. Martin, Carol and Henry Bial. Brecht Sourcebook. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. Mitchell, Katie. The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre. New York: Routledge, 2009. Mumford, Meg. Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. Pavis, Patrice. Analyzing Performance: Theater, Dance, and Film. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Pitches, Jonathan. Vsevolod Meyerhold. London; New York: Routledge, 2003. Richards, Thomas. Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008. —. At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1995. Saint-Denis, Michel. Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises. New York: Theatre Arts; London: Heinemann, 1982. Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982. Shevtsova, Maria. Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. Sidnell, Michael J. Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984. Staniewski, Wlodzimierz. Gardzienice, Poland. Exeter: Arts Documentation Unit, 1993. Staniewski, Wlodzimierz and Alison Hodge. Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks. The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

417

Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich. Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001. Zarrilli, Phillip B. Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge; 2009. www.dggb.org/files/EnsembleTheatreConf.pdf www.livingtheatre.org/about/history www.steppenwolf.org/Ensemble/ www.forcedentertainment.com www.goatislandperformance.org/goatisland.htm

Chapter 1 Alexandrov, Daniel A. ‘The Politics of Scientific ‘Kruzhok’: Study Circles in Russian Science and Their Transformation in the 1920s’, in E. I. Kolchinsky (ed.), Na perelome: Sovetskaia biologiia v 20-30’kh godakh (On the Edge: Soviet Biology in 20-30s). Saint Petersburg: Sankt-Petersburgskii Filial Instituta Istorii Estestvoznaniaa i Tekhniki Ran, 1997, pp. 255–67. Carnicke, Sharon Marie. Stanislavsky in Focus: An Acting Master for the Twenty-First Century (2nd edn). Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. Gorchakov, Nikolai; G. Ivanov-Mumjiev (trans.). The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959 (probable year). Hamburg, G. M. and Randall A. Poole (eds). A History of Russian Philosophy 1830–1930: Faith, Reason and the Defense of Human Dignity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Khersonskii, Kh. N. Vakhtangov. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1963. Leach, Robert. Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. Malaev-Babel, Andrei. The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. Polkanova, Mariya and Sergei Andrusenko (eds). I Vnov’ o Khudozhestvennom. MXAT v Vospominaniyax i Zapisyax. 1901-1920. Moscow: Avantitul, 2004. Polyakova, Elena (ed.). Sulerzhitskii. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970. Rudnitsky, Konstantin; Roxane Permar (trans.). Russian and Soviet Theater 1905–1932. London: Thames & Hudson, 1988. Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931–1940. New York: Knopf, 1990. Stanislavski, Konstantin; Jean Benedetti (trans.). An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008. Vendrovskaya, Lyubov and Galina Kaptereva (eds); Doris Bradbury (trans.). Evgeny Vakhtangov. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982.

418

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapter 2 Braun, Edward. The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen Drama, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1996. —. Meyerhold on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998a. —. Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. London: Methuen, 1998b. Britton, John. ‘What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble’, in Encountering Ensemble (Conference), 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield (unpublished) www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/ Chamberlin, W. H. ‘Making the Collective Man in Soviet Russia’, Foreign Affairs; An American Quarterly Review, Vol. 10, No. 1/4 (1931/1932): 280–92. Clurman, Harold. ‘An Excerpt from Harold Clurman’s Unpublished Diary’, Theater, Vol. 28 (1998): 79–80. Gladkov, Aleksandr. Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997. Houghton, Norris. Moscow Rehearsals. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1938. Law, Alma and Mel Gordon. Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 1996. Leach, Robert. Vsevolod Meyerhold. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pitches, Jonathan. Vsevolod Meyerhold. London: Routledge, 2003. Rabkin, Gerald. ‘The Play of Misreading: Text/Theatre/Deconstruction’, Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1983): 44–60. Schmidt, Paul (ed.). Meyerhold at Work. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1981. Worrall, Nick. ‘Meyerhold Directs Gogol’s Government Inspector’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 7 (1972): 75–95.

Chapter 3 Ashperger, Cynthia (2003) ‘Michael Chekhov Associations Conferences 2000–2002: MICHA and its Activities’, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 4, Spring. www.utoronto.ca/tsq/04/ashperger04.shtml —(2008) The Rhythm of Space and the Sound of Time: Michael Chekhov’s Acting Techniques in the 21st Century. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Autant-Mathieu, Marie-Christine (ed.) (2009) Michael Chekhov from Moscow to Hollywood. Paris: L’Entretemps. Byckling, Liisa (1995) ‘Pages from the Past: The Possessed Produced by Michael Chekhov on Broadway in 1939’, Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 15, No. 2: 32–45.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

419

—(2002) ‘Michael Chekhov as Actor, Teacher and Director in the West’, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 1, Spring. www.utoronto.ca/tsq/01/ chekhovwest.shtml —(2010) ‘Michael Chekhov’s Production of Twelfth Night at the Habima Theatre’, Assaph: Studies in the Theatre, No. 24: 53–74. Carnicke, Sharon (2008) Stanislavsky in Focus, 2nd edition. London: Routledge. Chamberlain, Franc (2004) Michael Chekhov. London: Routledge. —(2009) ‘Michael Chekhov et la question de la créativité’, in MarieChristine Autant-Mathieu (ed.) Michael Chekhov from Moscow to Hollywood. Paris: L’Entretemps, pp. 233–41. Chekhov, Michael (1985) Lessons for the Professional Actor. New York: PAJ Publications. —(1991) On the Technique of Acting. New York: Harper Perennial. —(2002) To the Actor on the Technique of Acting. London: Routledge. —(2005) The Path of the Actor. London: Routledge. Coleman, Robert (1940) ‘Chekhov Troupe has Amusing, Clever, Twelfth Night’, Daily Mirror, Wednesday 24 July. Daboo, Jerri (2012) ‘Michael Chekhov and the Studio in Dartington’, in Jonathan Pitches (ed.) Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training. London: Routledge, pp. 62–85. Du Prey, Deirdre Hurst (1978) The Training Sessions of Michael Chekhov. Dartington: Theatre Papers. Gould, Harold V. (1954) ‘To the Actor on the Technique of Acting’ Review, Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March): 83–5. Kirillov, Andrei (2006) ‘Michael Chekhov and the Search for the “Ideal” Theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August): 227–34. LMJ (1940) ‘Chekhov Studio’s Twelfth Night at UVM a Triumph of Dramatic Art’, Burlington Free Press and Times, Tuesday 30 July. Malaev-Babel, Andrei (ed.) (2011) The Vakhtangov Sourcebook. London: Routledge. Marowitz, Charles (2004) The Other Chekhov: A Biography, the Legendary Actor, Director & Theorist. New York: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books. Meerzon, Yana (2003) ‘Forgotten Hollywood: Michael Chekhov’s Hollywood Film Practice Viewed through Prague School Aesthetics’, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, Vol. 4, Spring. www.utoronto.ca/tsq/04/ meerzon04.shtml —(2005) The Path of a Character: Michael Chekhov’s Inspired Acting and Theatre Semiotics. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Petit, Lenard (2010) The Michael Chekhov Handbook: For the Actor. London: Routledge. Pitches, Jonathan (ed.) (2012) Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training. London: Routledge.

420

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Powers, Mala (2002) ‘The Past, Present and Future of Michael Chekhov’, Introduction to Chekhov, introductory essay in To The Actor, pp. xl–xli. —(2004) Michael Chekhov: On Theatre and the Art of Acting – A Guide to Discovery with Exercises (4CDs). New York: Applause. Stanislavski, Konstantin (1994) Building a Character. New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books. —(2003) An Actor Prepares. New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books. —(2008) An Actor’s Work. London: Routledge. —(2010) An Actor’s Work on a Role. London: Routledge. Willis, Ronald A. (1964) ‘The American Lab Theatre’, The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Autumn): 112–16. Zinder, David (2002) Body – Voice – Imagination: A Training for the Actor. New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books.

Chapter 4 Barker, Clive. ‘Theatre and Society: The Edwardian Legacy’, in British Theatre Between the Wars, eds. Clive Barker and Maggie Gale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 4–35. Berry, Ralph. ‘Komisarjevsky at Stratford-upon-Avon’, Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 36: —. ‘Komisarjevsky in Britain’, Theatrephile, Vol. 2, No. 5 (1984/85): 20–1. Gielgud, John. Early Stages. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987. Howard, Tony. ‘Blood on the Bright Young Things: Shakespeare in the 1930s’, in British Theatre Between the Wars, 1918–1939, eds. Clive Barker and Maggie Gale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 152. Jeffrey, Ewan. ‘Theatres of Resistance: Michel Saint-Denis and George Devine’, in The Golden Generation: New Light on Post-War British Theatre, ed. Dominic Shellard. London: The British Library, 2008, pp. 93–115. Komisarjevsky, Theodore. Myself and the Theatre. London: Heinemann, 1929. —. The Costume of the Theatre. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932. —. The Theatre and a Changing Civilization. London: Bodley Head, 1935. Leach, Robert. Revolutionary Theatre. London: Routledge, 1994. Mennen, R. ‘Theodore Komisarjevsky’s Production of “Merchant of Venice”’, Theatre Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1979): 386–97. Mullin, Michael. ‘Augures and Understood Relations: Theodore Komisarjevsky’s “Macbeth”’, Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1974): 20–30. Pitches, Jonathan (ed.). Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Acting. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

421

Roberts, Philip. The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Saint-Denis, Michel. Theatre the Rediscovery of Style, ed. Jane Baldwin. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. Sayler, Oliver. The Russian Theatre. New York: Brentano’s, 1922. Senelick, Laurence. The Chekhov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Shepherd, Simon. Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Wardle, Irving. The Theatres of George Devine. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978. Wells, Stanley (ed.). Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge Collections Online, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 73–85.

Chapter 5 Baldwin, Jane. Michel Saint-Denis and the Making of the Modern Actor. London and Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Chambers, Colin. Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company: Creativity and Institution. London: Routledge, 2008. Copeau, Jacques. Souvenirs du Vieux-Colombier. Paris: Nouvelles Editions, 1931. —. Le Théâtre Populaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1941. —. ‘An Essay of Dramatic Renovation: The Théâtre of the VieuxColombier’, trans. Richard Hiatt, Educational Theatre Journal, Part 4, 447–54, 1967. —. Registres: Appels, eds. Marie-Hélène Dasté and Suzanne Maistre Saint-Denis. Paris: Gallimard, 1974. —. Registres II: Molière, ed. André Cabanis. Paris: Gallimard, 1976. —. Registres III: Les Registres du Vieux-Colombier premiere partie, eds. Marie-Hélène Dasté and Suzanne Maistre Saint-Denis. Paris: Gallimard, 1979. —. Registres IV: Les Registres du Vieux-Colombier deuxième partie, America, eds. Marie-Hélène Dasté and Suzanne Maistre Saint-Denis. Paris: Gallimard, 1984. —. Copeau: Texts on Theatre, trans. and eds. John Rudlin and Norman Paul. London: Routledge, 1990. —. Registres V: Les Registres du Vieux-Colombier troisième partie, 1919– 1924, eds. Suzanne Maistre Saint-Denis, Marie-Hélène Dasté, Norman Paul, Clément Borgal and Maurice Jacquemont. Paris: Gallimard, 1993. —. Registres VI: L’École du Vieux-Colombier, ed. Claude Sicard. Paris: Gallimard, 2000. Evans, Mark. Jacques Copeau. London: Routledge, 2006.

422

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gontard, Denis (ed.). Le Journal de Bord des Copiaus 1924–1929. Paris: Seghers, 1974. Hodge, Alison (ed.). Actor Training (2nd edn). London: Routledge, 2010. Kurtz, Maurice. Jacques Copeau: The Biography of a Theatre. Carbondale & Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Kusler, Barbara Leigh. ‘Jacques Copeau’s School for Actors: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Jacques Copeau’, Mime Journal: Numbers Nine and Ten. Claremont, CA: Pamona College, 1979. Lecoq, Jacques (ed.). Le Théâtre du Geste: Mimes et Acteurs. Paris: Bordas, 1987. —. The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre, trans. David Bradby. London: Routledge, 2000. —. Theatre of Movement and Gesture, trans. David Bradby. London: Routledge, 2006. Murray, Simon. Jacques Lecoq. London: Routledge, 2003. —. ‘Jaques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Philippe Gaulier: Training for Play, Lightness and Disobedience’, in Hodge, 2010. Rudlin, John. Jacques Copeau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Saint-Denis, Michel. Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style. London: Heinemann, 1960. —. Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises. London: Heineman, 1982. Wardle, Irving. The Theatres of George Devine. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978. www.michelsaintdenis.net/msd/, accessed 13 April 2012.

Chapter 6 Berlau, Ruth. Brechts Lai-Tu. Erinnerungen und Notate von Ruth Berlau, ed. by Hans Bunge. Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1985. Berliner Ensemble/Weigel, Helene (eds). Theaterarbeit. 6 Aufführungen des Berliner Ensembles, first edition. Dresden: Dresdner Verlag, 1952. Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre, ed. and trans. by John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964. —. Bertolt Brecht on Film and Radio, ed. and trans. by Marc Silberman. London: Methuen, 2000. —. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe. 30 vols, ed. by Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, and Klaus-Detlev Müller. Berlin and Frankfurt: Aufbau and Suhrkamp, 1988–2000. Bunge, Hans. Tagebuch einer Inszenierung. Bertolt Brecht führt Regie bei seinem Stück ‘Der kaukasische Kreidekreis’ (Hans Bunge Archive, file 1145, Akademie der Künste, Berlin).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

423

Ferran, Peter W. ‘Molière’s Don Juan adapted for Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble’, Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1997): 13–40. Giles, Steve and Rodney Livingstone (eds). Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. Hecht, Werner (ed.). Brecht im Gespräch: Diskussionen und Dialoge. Berlin: Henschel, 1979. Hughes, William, Jonathan Lavery, and Katheryn Doran. Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills, sixth edition. London: Broadview Press, 2010. Irmer, Thomas and Matthias Schmidt. Die Bühnenrepublik. Theater in der DDR. Berlin: Alexander, 2003. Lutz, Regine. Schauspieler – der schönste Beruf. Einblicke in die Theaterarbeit. Munich: Langen Müller, 1993. Mittenzwei, Werner. Das Leben des Bertolt Brecht oder: Der Umgang mit den Welträtsel, Vol. 2. Berlin: Aufbau, 1997. Neubert-Herwig (ed.). Benno Besson. Theater spielen in acht Ländern. Texte – Dokumente – Gespräche. Berlin: Alexander, 1998. Rülicke-Weiler, Käthe. Die Dramaturgie Brechts. Theater als Mittel der Veränderung. Berlin: Henschel, 1966. Sarna, David E. Y. History of Greed. From Tulip Mania to Bernie Madoff. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2010. Tatlow, Antony and Wong Tak-Wei (eds). Brecht and East Asian Theatre. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982. Wekwerth, Manfred. Schriften. Arbeit mit Brecht, second, revised and expanded edition. Berlin: Henschel, 1975. Witt, Hubert (ed.). Erinnerungen an Brecht. Leipzig: Reclam, 1964.

PART TWO Snapshot #1 Beck, Julian and Judith Malina. The Life of the Theatre. New York: Limelight Editions, 1991. Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-actors. London; New York: Routledge, 1992. Johnston, Chris. House of Games: Making Theatre from Everyday Life. New York; London: Routledge; Nick Hern Books, 1998. —. The Improvisation Game: Discovering the Secrets of Spontaneous Performance. London: Nick Hern Books, 2006. Johnstone, Keith. Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. London: Methuen, 1992.

424

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.thecrunchyfrogcollective www.molebehaviour.com

Snapshot #2 Hewison, Robert, Holden, John and Jones, Samuel. All Together: A Creative Approach to Organisational Change. London: Demos, 2010; available on www.demos.co.uk/files/All_Together.pdf?1268865772 (accessed 15 August 2011). Pitches, Jonathan (ed.). Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Radosavljević, Duška. The Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.

Chapter 7 Govan, Emma, Helen Nicholson and Katie Normington. Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Harvie, Jen and Andy Lavender (eds). Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010. Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling. Devising Histories: A Critical History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jűrs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Turner, Jane and Synne Behrndt. Dramaturgy and Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Snapshot #3 Baumann, Z. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. Kaye, N. Art Into Theatre: Performance Interviews and Documents (Contemporary Theatre Studies). Amsterdam B.V.: OPA/Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

425

Teymur, N. ‘Space Between Disciplines’. In Critical Studies: Special Volume Cultural Studies: Interdisciplinarity and Translation, Herbrechter, S. (ed.), Volume 20. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, September 2002, pp. 97–111. Wenger, E. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Wordsworth, W. 1770–1850 ‘Poem composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour. July 13, 1798’ In The Complete Poetical Works, by William Wordsworth. London: Macmillan and Co., 1888; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby. com/145/

Chapter 8 Aref’eva, Anastasiya. ‘Sergei Zhenovach: Derzhat’ tseloe, cokhranyaya ordel’nuyu lichnost’’, Kul’tura (03.02.2005), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. Efremova, T. F. New Dictionary of Russian Language. Moscow: Russki Yazuik, 2000. Markova, Elena; Kate Cook (trans.). Off Nevsky Prospekt: St Petersburg’s Theatre Studios in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Routledge, 1998. Novikova, Irina. ‘Ne roman, a putanitsa’, Dosug & Razblecheniya (03.03.2005), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. Podkladov, Pavel. ‘Sergei Zhenovach, Studiinost’ – Eto Vnytrennee sostoyanie organizma’, Kul’tura (17.01.2010), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. Polunin, Slava; Olya Petrakova (trans.). Transcription of public talk held at Art Via Corpora. Los Angeles, 2007. Roginskaya, Olga. ‘Sergei Zhenovach: Eto schast’e – iskat’ i nakhodit’ chto-to novoe’, Chaksor.ru (18.02.2009), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. Smirnyagina, Tat’yana Yur’evna. Rossiiskii Teatr Pantomimui V Kontse XX-go Stoletiya (Na opuite Teatra “Litsedei” Vyacheslava Polunina, Performteatra “ChernoeNebobeloe”, “Russkogo Inzhenernogo teatra AKHE”). Moscow PhD thesis: The State Institute of Art Studies, 2005. Timasheva, Marina. ‘V Teatr Sergei Zhenovach zashel Andrei Platonov’, Radio Svoboda (18.02.2009), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011. Volkov, Sergei. ‘Poiskovuii Teatr Sergei Zhenovach’, Literatura (20.08.2007), www.sti.ru/press.php; accessed 30 November 2011.

426

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Snapshot #5 Adams, Gilly and Magdalena Project. TheMagdalenaProject@25 – Legacy and Challenge. Holstebro: Open Page: Odin Teatret, 2011. Barba, Eugenio. Theatre: Solitude, Craft, Revolt. Aberystwyth, Wales: Black Mountain Press, 1999. Varley, Julia. Notes from an Odin Actress: Stones of Water. New York: Routledge, 2010. www.odinteatret.dk www.themagdalenaproject.org

Snapshot #7 Alexiou, Margaret. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Danforth, Loring M. Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American Firewalking Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Dowling, Niamh. ‘Teatr Piesn Kozla and its integration into Western European theatre training’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2011): 243–59. Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Introduction to Buddhism. Ulverston: Tharpa Publications, 2007. Mitchell, Stephen. Gilgamesh: A New English Version. London: Profile Books, 2004. Porubcansky, Anna. ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Artistic Practice as Life Practice’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 261–72. Rinpoche, Akong Tulku. Taming the Tiger: Tibetan Teachings for Improving Daily Life. London: Rider, 1994. Zubrzycki, Anna and Grzegorz Bral in conversation with Maria Shevtsova. ‘Song of the Goat Theatre: Finding Flow and Connection’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010): 248–60.

Chapter 9 Balme, Christopher B. (1999) Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncreticism and Post-Colonial Drama. London: Clarendon Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1990) The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

427

Gindler, Elsa [1926] (1995) ‘Gymnastik for People Whose Lives are Full of Activity’ in D. H. Johnson, ed., Bone, Breath and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Press. Lecoq, Jacques (2002) The Moving Body. London: Routledge. Lo, Jacqueline and Helen Gilbert (2002) ‘Toward a Topography of CrossCultural Theatre Praxis’, The Drama Review, Vol. 46, No. 3: 31–53. Loukes, Rebecca (2006) ‘“Concentration” and Awareness in Psychophysical Training: The Practice of Elsa Gindler’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4: 387–400. —(2010) ‘Gertrud Falke-Heller: Experiences of Work with the Gindler Method in the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance, Dartington Hall, May 1937–June 1940’, Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1: 101–15. McCaw, Dick (2007) ‘Claire Heggen Goes Fishing’ in John Keefe and Simon Murray (eds) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962) The Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pavis, Patrice (1996) The Intercultural Performance Reader. London: Routledge. Yuasa, Yasuo (1987) The Body. New York: SUNY Press. Zarrilli, Phillip (2009) Psychophysical Acting. London: Routledge.

Chapter 11 Bailes, S. Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure. London: Routledge, 2011. Britton, J. ‘What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble’. In: Encountering Ensemble, 16 September 2010, University of Huddersfield. (Unpublished) [online] Available at www.eprints.hud.ac.uk/8616/ Daniel, R. ‘Art in the Age of Political Correctness’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (2010): 136–54. Dolan, J. Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Freud, S. ‘Mourning and Melancholia,’ in Strachey, J. and Freud, A., eds., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914–1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works. London: Hogarth Press, 1957, pp. 243–58. Magnat, V. ‘Devising Utopia, or Asking for the Moon’, Theater Topics, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2005): 73–86. McGinley, P. ‘Next up Downtown’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (2010): 11–38.

428

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Muñoz, J. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Phelan, Peggy. ‘Marina Abramovic: Witnessing Shadows’, Theater Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4 (2004): 569–77. Sack, D. ‘Production and Destruction: The TEAM’s Mission Drift Charts the Everyday Apocalypses of American Progress’, American Theatre, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2012): 102–6. Savran, D. Breaking the Rules. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1986. Wickstrom, M. ‘The Labor of Architecting’, The Drama Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (2010): 118–35.

Chapter 12 Bailes, Sara Jane. Performance Theatre and The Poetics of Failure. London: Routledge, 2010. Bottoms, Stephen J. and Matthew Goulish. Small Acts of Repair: Performance, Ecology and Goat Island. London; New York: Routledge, 2007. Etchells, Tim. Certain Fragments. London; New York: Routledge, 1999. Harvie, Jen and Andy Lavender (eds). Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 2010. Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling. Devising Histories: A Critical History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Kendrick, Lynne and David Roesner (eds). Theatre Noise. The Sound of Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011. Quick, Andrew. The Wooster Group Work Book. New York: Routledge, 2007. Savran, David. Breaking the Rules. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1986.

Chapter 13 Bollas, Christopher. Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and SelfExperience. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. (Originally published: Hill and Wang, 1992.) Freshwater, Helen. Theatre & Audience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Johnston, Chris. The Improvisation Game: Discovering the Secrets of Spontaneous Performance. London: Nick Hern Books, 2006.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

429

Roth, Moira (ed.). Rachel Rosenthal. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1997. Sharp, Marianne. Unpublished group interview with the Rachel Rosenthal Company, 2 August 2011.

Snapshot #9 Bogart, Anne and Tina Landau. The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition. Theatre Communications Group, New York, 2005. Cooper Albright, Ann and David Gere. Taken By Surprise: A Dance Impro­visation Reader. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 2003. Damasio, Antonio. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Penguin, New York, 1994. De Spain, Kent. ‘A Moving Decision: Notes on the Improvising Mind’, Contact Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1995): 48–50. Lehrer, Jonah. The Decisive Moment: How The Brain Makes Up Its Mind. The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 2009. Wunder, Al. The Wonder of Improvisation. Wunder Publishers, Melbourne, 2006. www.katehuntertheatre.com (Author website) www.borninataxi.net (Born in a Taxi website) www.ivarhagendoorn.com (Ivar Hagendoorn: dancer/choreographer and brain researcher)

Snapshot #10 Camilleri, Frank. ‘Collective Improvisation: The Practice and Vision of Ingemar Lindh’, The Drama Review, Vol. 52, No. 4 (2008): 82–97. —. ‘“To Push the Actor-Training to Its Extreme”: Training Process in Ingemar Lindh’s Practice of Collective Improvisation’, Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 18 (2008): 425–42. —. ‘Hospitality and the Ethics of Improvisation in the Work of Ingemar Lindh’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 24 (2008): 246–59. —. ‘Of Crossroads and Undercurrents: Ingemar Lindh’s Practice of Collective Improvisation and Jerzy Grotowski’, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 27 (2011): 299–312. Lindh, Ingemar. ‘Gathering Around the Word Theatre …’, in Knowledge is a Matter of Doing, ed. by Pentti Paavolainen and Anu Ala-Korpela (Helsinki: Acta Scenica, 1995), pp. 58–80.

430

BIBLIOGRAPHY

—. Stepping Stones (Holstebro, Malta, Wrocław: Icarus), 2010. Institutet för Scenkonst, www.institutetforscenkonst.com.

PART THREE Introduction Allain, Paul (ed.). Grotowski’s Empty Room. London; New York: Seagull Books, 2009. Barba, Eugenio. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1995. Barba, Eugenio and Ferdinando Taviani. Beyond the Floating Islands. New York: PAJ Publications, 1986. Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski: His Life and Art: A Biography. London: Methuen, 1999. Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-century American Drama. 3, Beyond Broadway. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Blumenthal, Eileen. Joseph Chaikin: Exploring at the Boundaries of Theater. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Bogart, Anne. A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre. London; New York: Routledge, 2001. Britton, J. ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 36–54. Brook, Peter. The Shifting Point. London: Methuen Drama, 1989. —. There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre. London: Methuen, 1993. Carnicke, Sharon Marie. Stanislavsky in Focus. Amsterdam [etc.]: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. Chaikin, Joseph. The Presence of the Actor. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi. Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Delgado, Maria M. and Paul Heritage. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. Evans, Mark. Jacques Copeau. London; New York: Routledge, 2006.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

431

Gillett, John. Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach: A Practical Workbook for Actors. London: Methuen Drama, 2007. Gladkov, Aleksandr Konstantinovich, V. E. Meierkhol’d and Alma H. Law. Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1997. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre/Ed. by Eugenio Barba. London: Methuen, 1976. Hodge, Alison. Actor Training. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. Kumiega, Jennifer. The Theatre of Grotowski. London; New York: Methuen, 1987. Lindh, Ingemar. Stepping Stones. Holstebro [Denmark]: Icarus Publishing Enterprise, 2010. Middleton, Deborah K. ‘At Play in the Cosmos: The Theatre and Ritual of Nicolás Núñez’, TDR/The Drama Review, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2001): 42–63. Miller, Judith. Ariane Mnouchkine. London: Routledge, 2007. Mumford, Meg. Bertolt Brecht. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. Núñez, Nicolás. Anthropocosmic Theatre: Rite in the Dynamics of Theatre. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996. Passoli, Robert. A Book on the Open Theatre. [S.l.]: Bobbs, 1970. Pikes, Noah. Dark Voices: The Genesis of Roy Hart Theatre. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books, 2004. Richards, Thomas. Heart of Practice: Within the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. London; New York: Routledge, 2008. —. At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge, 1996. Saint-Denis, Michel. Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1960. —. Training for the Theatre: Premises and Promises. New York: Theatre Arts; London: Heinemann, 1982. Shank, Theodore. American Alternative Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1982. Shevtsova, Maria. Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. London: Routledge, 2004. Sidnell, Michael J. Dances of Death: The Group Theatre of London in the Thirties. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984. Staniewski, Wlodzimierz and Hodge, Alison. Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice. London; New York: Routledge, 2004. Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich. Stanislavski in Rehearsal. London: Methuen, 2001.

432

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Turner, V. and E. L. B. Turner. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. White, R. Andrew. ‘Stanislavsky and Ramacharaka: The Influence of Yoga and Turn-of-the-Century Occultism on the System’, Theatre Survey, Vol. 47, No. 1 (2006): 73–92. Willett, John (trans.). Brecht on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1964. Wolford, Lisa and Richard Schechner (eds). The Grotowski Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2001. Zarrilli, Phillip B. Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London; New York: Routledge, 2009. www.theshatteringman.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/continuing-theprocess-right-to-the-end-ethics-aesthetics/

Chapter 14 Barba, Eugenio and Nicola Savarese. The Secret Art of the Performer: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology. London; New York: Routledge, 1991. Britton, J. ‘The Pursuit of Pleasure’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010): 36–54. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre/Ed. by Eugenio Barba. London: Methuen, 1976. Wunder, Al. The Wonder of Improvisation. Ascot, Vic.: Wunder Publishers, 2006. www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.wordpress.com/theoreticalframework/ www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/improvisationas-psychophysical-training-for-ept-website.pdf www.ensemblephysicaltheatre.wordpress.com/the-dance-class/

Snapshot #11 Britton, J. ‘What is it? The ‘it’-ness of ensemble’, Paper presented at the Encountering Ensemble Symposium, University of Huddersfield, 2010. James R. Evans and Manfred Clynes (eds). Rhythm in Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher Ltd, 1986, pp. 13–40. Keller, P. E. ‘Attentional Resource Allocation in Musical Ensemble Performance’, Psychology of Music, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2001): 20–38.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

433

Malloch, S. and C. Trevarthen (eds). Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Morris, E. ‘Via Rythmós: An Investigation of Rhythm in Psychophysical Actor Training’ (a PhD thesis, submitted in October 2012: University of Huddersfield). Teger, A. I. ‘The Rhythms of Interaction’, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 3 (2007): 219–20.

Snapshot #12 www.opticnerveperformance.tumblr.com

Chapter 15 Ingold, Tim. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London Routledge, 2011. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968. Zarrilli, Phillip. Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Account after Stanislavski. London: Routledge, 2009.

Snapshot #13 Allain, P. The Theatre Practice of Tadashi Suzuki. London: Methuen, 2009. Brandon, J. R. ‘Training at the Waseda Little Theatre: The Suzuki Method’, The Drama Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1978): 29–42. Carruthers, I. and Y. Takahashi. The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Coen, S. ‘The Body is the Source: Four Actors Explore the Rigors of Working with Master Teachers Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki’, American Theatre, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1995): 30–3, 70–1. Lauren, E. ‘In Search of Stillness: Capturing the Purity and Energy of not Moving is the Root of the Invisible Body’, American Theatre, Vol. 28, No. 1 (January 2011): 62–3. Nobbs, J. Frankly Acting: An Autobiography of the Frank Suzuki Performance Aesthetics. Brisbane: Frank Theatre Press, 2006. Smukler, D. ‘Stomping with Suzuki: Locating the Voice in Canada and Japan’, Theatrum (February/March 1989): 10–15.

434

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.ozfrank.com Ozfrank Theatre Matrix www.scot-suzukicompany.com/en. SCOT: Suzuki Tadashi – Suzuki Company of Toga www.siti.org. SITI Company

Snapshot #14 Meyerhold’s Theater and Biomechanics: Mime Centrum, Berlin (DVD), 2003. Pitches, J. Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting. London: Routledge. 2005. —. Russians in Britain. London: Routledge, 2011.

Snapshot #15 Beck, Julian and Malina, Judith. The Life of the Theatre. New York: Limelight Editions, 1991. Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-actors. London; New York: Routledge, 1992. Johnston, Chris. House of Games: Making Theatre from Everyday Life. New York; London: Routledge; Nick Hern Books, 1998. —. The Improvisation Game: Discovering the Secrets of Spontaneous Performance. London: Nick Hern Books, 2006. Johnstone, Keith. Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. London: Methuen, 1992. www.thecrunchyfrogcollective www.molebehaviour.com

Chapter 16 Bradby, David and Maria M. Delgado (eds). The Paris Jigsaw: Internationalism and the City’s Stage. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. London: Penguin Books, 1968. Chamberlain, Franc and Ralph Yarrow (eds). Jacques Lecoq and British Theatre. London: Routledge, 2002. Felner, Mira. Apostles of Silence: The Modern French Mimes. London: Assoc. University Presses, 1985. Hall, Peter. Exposed by the Mask. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

435

John-Steiner, Vera. Creative Collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Lecoq, Jacques with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias. Les corps poétique: un enseignement de la creation théâtrale. Arles: Actes Sud, 1997. —. The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated from Les corps poétique by David Bradby. London: Methuen, 2000. Thompson, Susan Wright. Tufts University, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2007. 3258345.

Snapshot #16 Brown, Bryan. ‘As Important as Blood and Shelter: Extending Studiinost into Obshchnost’. In this collection. Grotowski, Jerzy. ‘Holiday’ in R. Schechner and L. Wolford (eds), The Grotowski Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 215–25. Markova, Elena; Kate Cook (trans.). Off Nevsky Prospekt: St Petersburg’s Theatre Studios in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Routledge, 1998. Rudlin, John. Jacques Copeau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. www.academyoffools.com www.akhe.ru www.arteltheatre.com www.derevo.org

Afterword: What is it? Hofstadter, D. I Am a Strange Loop. New York; London: Basic Books, 2007.

436

INDEX

acting, definition of  24–5 actors one body  189 ‘Acts of Resistance’  303 Adashev group  49 Adler, Stella  33–4, 59, 255 Adult Child/Dead Child  154, 159–61 Aksakov, Konstantin  55–6 Albers, Josef  25, 27 Aleksandrinsky Imperial Theatre  105 Alexandrov, Daniel A.  52 Alexiou, Margaret  190 Allain, Paul  6, 25, 32, 39, 312, 383 Allen, David  22 altruism  148–9 American Blues Theater  210 American dance improvisation  315 American Laboratory Theatre (ALT)  20–1, 33–4, 59, 274 anti-ensemble  97–8 Antony and Cleopatra (Brook, Peter)  104, 408 Architecting  223, 225–9, 233 Aref’eva, Anastasiya  179 Arnshtam, Lev  74 Artaud, Antonin  30, 37–8, 41 ARTEL  405–7

The Art of Stillness (Allain, Paul)  6 Ashcroft, Peggy  95, 102, 106 Ashperger, Cynthia  79 A Song for Russia (film)  83 Atkinson, Brooks  91 Auden, W. H.  35, 286, 307 August: Ossage County  410 auto-cour  124, 392–5, 403 Babbage, Frances  36 Bailes, Sara Jane  223, 234 balancing the stage exercise  195–6 Baldwin, Jane  30–1, 101, 114, 116–18 ball game  330–2, 344–5, 348–9, 353, 355, 357, 360 ball in pairs  332–4 Balme, Christopher  206 Barba, Eugenio  40–1, 285, 290, 297, 315, 322 Barker, Clive  23, 107, 296 Barnett, David  5, 35–6, 126–41, 299–300 Baumann, Zygmunt  169 Bausch, Pina  6 Beck, Julian  37–8, 301, 305 Beckett, Samuel  380 Behrndt, Synne  156, 163, 165 Benedetti, Jean  9, 23, 31, 56, 285, 309, 357 Bergman, Ingrid  79

438

INDEX

Berlau, Ruth  127 Berliner Ensemble (BE) theatre company  5, 35–7, 126, 299, 304 dialectical rehearsal  129–30 director, role of  131 Don Juan (Moliére)  135 ensemble spirit  140 Fabel  137 review process  135–6 Berry, Ralph  98, 104 Besson, Benno  135, 140–1 Bial, Henry  36 Bigsby, C. W. E.  20, 25, 37–8, 295, 300–2, 304, 306 Bing, Suzanna  30, 41, 116, 275 biomechanics  70–7, 103, 386 The Birdie  238, 244 The Birdie Song by The Tweets (pop tune)  203 birthday celebration strategies  406–7 The Blue Bird  49, 52 Blumenthal, Eileen  294, 302 Boal, Augusto  36 Bodow, Steve  241 Bogart, Anne  31, 42, 48, 281, 291, 310 Bogdanov, Gennady  76, 386 Boleslavsky, Richard  20, 33, 59, 80, 82, 274 Bollas, Christopher  260 Born in a Taxi  264 Bourdieu, Pierre  197, 202 Boyd, Michael  147–50 Brace-Up  236 Bradby, David  124, 391–2, 394, 396–9, 402, 404 Bral, Grzegorz  188–90 Brandon, J. R.  381–2 Braun, Edward  62–3, 65, 67–9, 71–2, 77

Bread and Puppet Theatre  44, 214, 306 Breaking The Rules (Savran, David)  223, 236 Brecht, Bertolt  35–8, 46, 126–41, 182, 299–300, 302, 304 Britton, John  3–48, 65, 224–5, 229, 273–362, 364–5, 411–13 Brook, Peter  3–4, 7, 16, 18–19, 27, 36, 41–2, 122–3, 282, 287, 289, 408 Brooks, Pete  165 Brown, Bryan  34, 49–60, 172–81, 286, 306, 309, 405–7 Brown, Ivor  105 Brown, Katherine  303 Brustein, Robert  21 Bulgakov, Mikhail  405 Bunge, Hans  127, 139, 141 Byckling, Liisa  79, 91 Cab Legs  45, 237, 240 Cairns, Jarred  258–9 Callow, Simon  7, 11, 16 Camilleri, Frank  197, 266–9 canon movement  75–6 Canyon, Fryman  406–7 Carasso, Jean-Gabriel  391–2, 394, 396–9, 402, 404 Carnicke, Sharon Marie  8–9, 16, 20, 32–4, 56, 79–80, 274, 287 Carr, Paul  170–1 Carruthers, I.  383 Castellucci, Romeo  242 The Caucasian Chalk Circle  139 Chaikin, Joseph  13–16, 21, 25–6, 34, 38, 281–2, 284–5, 294–5, 297, 301–2, 304, 315 Chamberlain, Franc  78–93, 398 Chamberlin, William Henry  67

INDEX Chapman, Terence  385–6 Chavkin, Rachel  223, 228–9, 231 Chekhov, Anton  81, 102–5 Chekhov, Michael  32, 46, 78–93, 282 chorus  16, 116–18, 120, 185, 195, 307 Chronicles - A Lamentation  189 Classical Biomechanical Etudes  386 Clayburgh, Jim  236–7 The Cleansing of Constance Brown  154, 156, 160–5 Clurman, Harold  33, 41, 63, 286 Clynes, Manfred  364 Coaché, Claire  192–3, 195–6, 200, 205, 207 Coen, S.  384 Cohen, Robert  5 Coleman, Robert  92 collaboration  13–14, 89, 117, 120, 125, 167, 217, 220, 224, 268, 290, 326, 341 collective creative process  20, 117, 120, 226–7, 233, 267–8, 297, 395, 403 collective intelligence  224–6, 229–30, 233 Collins, John  5, 40, 44, 211, 234–49, 297 Commedia Dell’ Arte  31, 125, 209, 390, 397, 400, 402 compassion  148, 150, 189 continual lift sequence  340–2 Cook, Kate  175, 178 coordination  75–6, 189–90 Copeau, Jacques  8–9, 16, 22, 25–6, 29–31, 35–6, 40–1, 45–7, 91, 95, 111–14, 122–5, 273–5, 284–6, 293, 312 Les Copiaus  116–19 Copeau, Marie-Hélène  117

439

Coquelin, Constant-Benoît  71 counterpoint movement  76 Craig, Edward Gordon  3, 68, 81, 113 Creative Collaboration (John-Steiner, Vera)  395 Creative Imagination  88 The Cricket on the Hearth  91 cross-cultural theatre  198 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly  169, 278–9, 315 Cynkutis, Zbigniew  276 Daboo, Jerri  79 Dafoe, Willem  236–8 Danforth, Loring M.  190 Daniel, R.  226 Dartington Hall  78–9, 85, 88, 90–1, 93, 194, 207 Dasté, Jean  30, 41, 112, 117, 124 Dawson, Andrew  192, 200–2 Dawson, Gary Fisher  37 Decroux, Étienne  30, 41, 112, 266, 269 deductive reasoning  131–2 Deikun, L. I.  53 Delgado, Maria M.  10, 14, 24, 298, 304, 309, 312 Dell’Arte International  210 DEMOS report  148 detail rehearsals  137 Devine, George  95, 101, 108–9, 120 devising  90, 146, 154–7, 167–8, 198, 200–3, 205–6, 223, 225 dialectics  128–9, 133, 136, 140–1 Diedrich, Antje  381–4 The Director’s Handbook (Mitchell, Katie)  6 diversity  151, 207, 364

440

INDEX

Dodin and the Maly Theatre (Shevtsova, Maria)  7, 11, 14–16, 22, 24 Dodin, Lev  6, 10, 14–15, 22, 304, 309 Dolan, J.  225 Don Juan (Moliére)  135 Doran, Katheryn  131 Double Edge  41 Dowie, Claire  159–60 Dowling, Niamh  190 DUENDE  10, 26, 279, 287–8, 311, 331, 339, 341, 350 Dumas, Alexandre  56 Du Prey, Deirdre Hurst  85, 87–8 Early Stages  106 Earthfall Dance Theatre  185 Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2012)  159, 189, 192 Elevator Repair Service  5, 44–5, 223, 236–40, 243, 245 collective authorship  249 Eliot, T. S.  35, 286, 307 El Teatro Campesino  44, 214, 300 embodiment  180, 195, 225, 257, 267, 311, 320–1 empathetic curiosity  148, 150 ensemble, definitions of  5–8 Etchells, Tim  43, 242 ethics  10, 29, 32, 40–1, 49, 212, 251, 262, 268, 274, 307–12, 318, 412 études (studies)  71–3, 75–6, 186, 386 European ‘laboratory’ psychophysicality  314–15 Evans, Edith  95 Evans, James R.  364 Evans, Mark  8–9, 16, 25, 29, 36, 45, 111–25, 274, 284, 286, 288, 293

Fabel  137–40 Falke-Heller, Gertrud  194, 207 Farm-in-the-Cave  41 Feeling of Ease  88, 91 Felner, Mira  396 Ferran, Peter W.  135 Findlay, Jim  238 Fish Story  238 Fo, Dario  36 Footsbarn Theatre  123 Forced Entertainment  43, 235, 242–4, 247–8 Foreman, Richard  242–3 Frank Dell’s The Temptation of St. Antony  236 Frank Theatre  381 Frank Zappa  170 Free Southern Theatre  44, 214 Freshwater, Helen  262 Freud, S.  232 Friend, Cassie  192–3, 195–6, 200, 207 Gale, Maggie  107 Gard, Roger Martin du  123 Gardner, Lyn  152, 162, 164 Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices  17–18, 41–2, 48, 185, 188, 284 Garin, Erast  65 Gatz  243, 245–7 geodramatic explorations  397 German theatre system  134, 140 Gerstle, Tanya  367–8 Gielgud, John  95, 106 Gilbert, Helen  198, 206 Giles, Steve  134 Gillett, John  299 Gindler, Elsa  192–4, 196, 199, 207 GITIS  177–80 Gladkov, Aleksandr  66, 68–71, 296

INDEX Goat Island  43, 242–4 Gogol, Nikolai  62, 64 The Golden Hoop exercise  88 Good and True  154–9, 165 Gorchakov, Nikolai  57–8 Gordon, Mel  22, 69, 87, 296 Goring, Marius  108, 120 Gould, Harold V.  83 Govan, Emma  154 The Government Inspector  61–77 Gray, Spalding  236–7 The Great Gatsby  243, 246 Groff, Rinne  45, 239, 241 Grotowski, Jerzy  9, 11–13, 15, 30, 35, 38–41, 118, 188, 224, 266, 275–7, 282, 310, 315, 405 Grotowski’s Empty Room (Allain, Paul)  25, 32, 39, 312 group improvisation  80, 86–7, 224, 338–40, 352 group resilience  224, 230 The Group Theatre (UK)  34–5, 286, 298, 307 The Group Theatre (US)  21, 33–4, 41, 44, 59, 214, 274, 281, 286–7, 301 Grupo Tres  389–90, 395, 403 Guardia, Helena  11, 14 Guthrie, Tyrone  297 Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang  189 The Hairy Ape  238 Hall, Peter  122, 147, 402, 410 Hamburg, G. M.  55 Hamlet  81, 129 Hand, Richard J.  170–1 Hannaham, James  45, 241 The Happiest Days of Your Life  409 Harrop, Peter  167–9 Harvie, Jen  155, 161 Hayden, Robert  185

441

Haywood, Vicky  149 Heddon, Deirdre  154–6 Heggen, Claire  191, 201 Heritage, Paul  10, 14, 24, 298, 304, 309, 312 Hewison, Robert  148 Hilfinger-Pardo, Paz  222–33 hippari-ai  382–3 Hodge, Alison  9, 16–18, 20, 22–3, 27, 30–1, 34, 37, 40, 124, 274–6, 281, 284–5, 293, 296, 310 Hofstadter, Douglas  411–12 Holden, John  148 Hollywood star system  79 Home of the Wriggler  153 Houghton, Norris  65–6, 76 House Lights  238 House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)  83 Howard, Tony  99 Hughes, William  131 human body, metaphors of  11–13 humility  151 Hunt, Martita  95 Hunter, Kate  263–5 Hunter, Kathryn  148 Hurwicz, Angelika  136 I am a Strange Loop (Hofstadter, Douglas)  411 The Idiot (Dostoevsky)  179 The Idiot Colony  192–208 Ilyinsky, Igor  66 imagination  150, 260–2, 401–2 improvisation  30, 69, 80, 84–6, 112, 115–17, 119, 121, 153, 157–8, 171, 200, 203, 224, 259–62, 264, 266–8, 314–16, 338–40, 351–2, 374, 398–400

442

INDEX

Jabłońska, Małgorzata  185–7 Jamieson, Duncan  187 Jamieson, Evelyn  167–9 Jeffery, Ewan  109 Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre  188 John-Steiner, Vera  395 Johnston, Chris  145–6, 257, 387–8 Jones, Samuel  148 Junebug Theater  210 Jung, Carl  55 The Just Price of Flowers  153, 155, 160

Kaptereva, Galina  51 Kaye, N.  168 Kazan, Elia  59 Keefe, John  191, 201, 204 Keller, P. E.  364–5 Kelly, Dennis  148 Khersonskii, Kh. N.  54 King Lear  91, 102 Kirillov, Andrei  89 Kneehigh Theatre  123, 148 Knipper-Chekhova, Olga  81 Kohler, Anna  238 Komisarjevsky, Theodore  35, 95–110 Antony and Cleopatra  104 The Costume of the Theatre  104 ensemble aesthetics  102–7 ensemble organization  98–102 The Fourteenth of July  102 ‘Free’ Studio  96 King Lear  102 Manchester Guardian  99, 109 Myself and the Theatre  97–8, 103 RADA  107 Seagull  102, 105–6 ‘Star or Team’ 99 The Theatre and a Changing Civilization  97 Komissarzhevskaya, Vera  96, 101 Korenev, Mikhail  69 Kowalchuk, Tannis  215–16 Krasner, David  281 Krumholz, Brad  40, 43, 212–21, 299, 301 kruzhok (circle)  51–5, 57, 176 Kumiega, Jennifer  276, 310 Kustov, Nikolai  76, 386

kalarippayattu  194–5, 204, 371 Kalev, Nehara  256, 258 Kantan (play)  116

La Compagnie des Quinze  120, 125 Lacrimosa  189

‘Improvisation and Ensemble’  78, 83 in-depth psychophysical training  370–1 breath exercise  371–2 intersubjective space between  372–4 individuality  15, 19–21, 50, 64, 69, 77, 82 inductive method of direction  130–2 inductive reasoning  132 Ingold, Tim  370, 374 Institutet för Scenkonst  266–9 Intendant (general manager)  134, 138 Intendantin  134 The Intercultural Performance Reader (Pavis, Patrice)  197 International Centre for Theatrical Research, 1970  19, 41–2 Irmer, Thomas  141 It’s Your Film  153, 156, 164

INDEX Lallias, Jean-Claude  391–2, 394, 396–9, 402, 404 larger group improvisations  338–40 Laughton, Charles  95 Lauren, Ellen  6, 384 Lavender, Andy  155, 161 Lavery, Jonathan  131 Law, Alma H.  22, 69, 296 Lazar, Paul  238 Leach, Robert  20, 50, 55–6, 73–4, 97 LeCompte, Elizabeth  211, 236–8, 241–4 Lecoq, Jacques  30, 42, 124–5, 192, 195, 197, 284 auto-cour  124, 392–5, 403 constraints  401–3 ensembles  403–4 freedom and constraints  390–1 improvisation  398–400, 403 mimodynamics  395–8, 403 The Moving Body  390–1 pedagogy  391, 404 theatrical territories  402–3 Ledger, Adam  152–66 Lehmann, Hans-Thies  156, 159, 164 Leishman, Jo  279, 303 Les Copiaus  112, 116–20, 125 Licedei (studio)  173–7, 179, 181 L’Illusion (Corneille)  118 Lim, Sarnica  256, 258 Lindh, Ingemar  14–15, 17–18, 20, 266–9, 289, 303, 307 Little Theatre  91–2 Littlewood, Joan  23, 36, 296–7 Livingstone, Rodney  134 The Living Theatre  37–8, 44, 214, 301–2 Lo, Jacqueline  198, 206 London Theatre Studio  25, 30, 79, 95, 101, 108, 120–1

443

longevity  5, 65, 235–6, 249, 298–9 Loukes, Rebecca  191–208 Lutz, Regine  129–30 Lyceum Theatre  91 Mabou Mines  235 Macbeth  189, 409 MacLean, Anna Helena  193 The Magdalena Project  183 magnanimity  148, 151 Magnat, V.  225 The Maids (Genet)  375–8 ‘Making offers’  138 Malaev-Babel, Andrei  50, 58, 82 Malina, Judith  37 Malloch, S.  365 Maly Theatre  6, 10–11, 14, 42, 48 Man is Man (Brecht)  302 Markova, Elena  175, 178 Marks, Leo  241 Marowitz, Charles  83, 92 Martin, Carol  36 Martinez, Josue  258 Matilda (Dahl, Roald)  148 McCaw, Dick  191, 201, 204 McCool, Fionnuala  303 McGinley, Paige ‘Up Next Downtown’  223 Meerzon, Yana  79 Meisner, Sanford  34, 59, 281 Mennen, R.  98 Mental Deficiency Act (1913)  192 mental precision  267 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice  205, 369 Merrily We Roll Along  410 Meyerhold’s theatre  22, 61–77 auteurs and actors  76–7 biomechanical training  70–2 common goal  69 coordination  75–6 rhythmic structure  74 Soviet politics  67–8

444

INDEX

Meyerhold’s Theatrical Biomechanics  386 Middleton, Deborah  305 Miller, Judith  291 Milling, Jane  154–6 mimodynamics  395–8 Minchin, Tim  148 Mission Drift  223, 225–6, 228–31, 233, 248 Mitchell, Katie  6 Mitchell, Stephen  190 Mittenzwei, Werner  127–8 Mnouchkine, Ariane  123, 291, 296, 390 Modern British Theatre  95 Monk, Meredith  211 Monroe, Marilyn  79 Morgan, Ian  189 Morris, Dani  303 Morris, Eilon  350, 363–6 Moscow Art Theatre  8, 10, 16, 21, 24, 27, 31–4, 47, 49, 78, 80–3, 91, 180, 274, 285, 296, 309, 312 Moscow Art Theatre’s First Studio  50–4, 57–9, 80–2, 172 The Moving Body  195, 390–2, 394, 396–9, 402, 404 Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher  240 Mullin, Michael  98 Mumford, Meg  35, 37, 300 Muñoz, J.  225 Murray, Simon  124, 191, 201, 204, 284 music, metaphors of  16–17 Musical Chairs (Mackenzie, Ronald)  106 musicality  22–4, 365 mutual trust  52–3, 57, 148, 150, 158, 172–3, 176, 181 Myself and the Theatre  95, 97–8, 101, 103

Nacht, Walpurgis  405 Narrative Images technique  387–8 Nemirovich-Danchenko  8, 31, 80, 304 Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET)  43, 209–11 Neubert-Herwig, Christa  139 New World Performance Laboratory  41 Ng, Craig  256, 258, 260–1 Nicholson, Helen  154 Nicolas Nickleby  410 Nikolas, Alwyn  315 Nobbs, J.  382 No Great Society  246 Noh theatre  113, 116 No Man’s Land  410 Noonan, Kate  251, 255–8, 260–1 Normington, Katie  154 North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL)  43, 212–21 organizational concerns  217 not/but technique  129 Novikova, Irina  179 No Walls, Just Doors  154, 159–62, 165–6 Núñez, Nicolás  11–14, 224, 277, 282, 305 obshchina (commune)  51, 53–7 obshchnost  174–7, 180–1 definitions of  173 Odets, Clifford  59 Odin Teatret  40–1, 48, 182–3, 290 Of All the People in All the World  153, 156, 160 Old Vic Theatre  30, 108–9, 121–2 On the Technique of Acting  87 The Open Theatre  13, 38, 41, 294–5, 301–2, 306, 405 otkaz-posil’-tochka cycle  72, 74

INDEX Ouspenskaya, Maria  33, 80 Ozfrank Theatre  381 Pagneux, Monica  124, 284 pairs dancing  334–6, 338, 343, 345 Palance, Jack  79 Particularly in the Heartland  223 Pasolli, Robert  294, 301 The Passion according to G. H.  215–16 patience  151 Pavis, Patrice  197–8, 206 Peck, Gregory  79 Performing Arts Learning and Teaching Innovation Network (P A L A T I N E)  170 ‘The Personal is Political’ (Hanisch, Carol)  303 Petit, Lenard  79 Phelan, Peggy  225 Pietruska, Magdalena  266 Pig Iron Theatre Company  192, 390 Pikes, Noah  289, 293 Piscator, Erwin  37–8, 253 Pitches, Jonathan  9, 20, 35, 46, 63, 73–5, 94–110, 149 Poirier, Dan  258–9 Polunin, Slava  173–7, 181 Polyakova, Elena  53–4, 56, 59 Poole, Randall A.  55 Porowska, Dorota  185 Porubcansky, Anna  188–90 The Possessed  91 The Power of Yes  410 Powers, Mala  80, 87 prazdnik (celebration)  405 Pregones Theater  210 Profeta, Katherine  241 Psychological Gesture  85 Psychophysical Acting  11, 24, 195, 277, 283, 372

445

psychophysicality  282–4, 308, 314–15 4:48 Psychosis (Kane, Sarah)  378–80 The Public Floor Project  264 pulse  367–8 Quinn, Anthony  79 Rabkin, Gerald  68, 77 Rachel Rosenthal’s Extreme Theatre Ensemble  250–62 Radiohole  247–8 Radosavljević, Duška  147–51 Rains, Claude  95 reality  128, 132, 136, 140 RedCape Theatre  192–208 contact, quality of  194 morally defective  192 syncreticism  206–8 training  193 Reduta Theatre  25, 32, 39–40, 188 Reichel, Käthe  138 rejeu (replay)  399–400 Renderer, Scott  238 rhythm  363–6, 377 Richards, Thomas  10, 15, 31, 39, 41, 276–7, 291 Ridgefield  78–9, 90, 93 Ridgeway, Philip  105 Rinpoche, Akong Tulku  189 The River Potudan  180 Roberts, Philip  108 Roadside Theater  210 Rodowicz, Tomasz  185 Roginskaya, Olga  179–80 Rojek, Elżbieta  185 Rolin, Roger  266 Room Tone  240, 245–6 Rose, Graeme  152 Rosenthal, Rachel  251–8, 261–2 Roth, Moira  254

446

INDEX

Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)  44, 122, 147–9, 410 Roy Hart Theatre  289, 293 Rude Mechanicals  210 Rudlin, John  22, 30, 123, 274–5, 293 Rudnitsky, Konstantin  57 Rülicke, Käthe  130 rural retreat  285–90, 308 Sack, Daniel  231 Sacks, Glendyr  36 Saint-Denis, Michel  25, 30, 35, 41, 79, 95, 101, 108–9, 114–15, 278 La Compagnie des Quinze  120 Lecoq’s pedagogy  124–5 legacies  122–3 London Theatre Studio  120–1 Old Vic Theatre  121–2 Royal Shakespeare Company  122 The San Francisco Mime Troupe  44, 214, 300–1, 304 Sarna, David E. Y.  132 Savarese, Nicola  315, 322, 357 Savran, David  223, 236 Sayler, Oliver  100 Schechner, Richard  20, 38, 43, 276 Schmale, Eva  192–3, 199 Schmidt, Matthias  141 Schmidt, Paul  66 The Select  246 self-branding  235 Self-With-Others ball game  330–4 continual lift sequence  340–2 embodiment  320–1 energetic of an action  354–6 impulse, responding to  347–50

larger group improvisations  338–40 leading/following exercises  350–2 learning process  318–20 multitasking exercise  356–60 pairs dancing  334–6 principles  322–9 psychophysicality  314–15 senses  344–7 shape of an action  353–4 stillness and movement  343–4 voice  360–1 walk/run/stop  336–8 Selver, Charlotte  192–3, 199 Senelick, Laurence  104 sensitization  39, 196, 275, 284–5 Sewell, Phyllada  108 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre  98, 108 Shank, Theodore  36, 290, 304, 306 Sharp, Marianne  250–62 The Shattering Man  311 Shepherd, Scott  45, 241 Shepherd, Simon  95 Shevtsova, Maria  7, 11, 14–16, 22, 190, 309 Sidnell, Michael J.  35, 307 SITI  6, 42, 48, 381 Skinner, Amy  61–77 ‘The Slap’  386 Slava’s Snowshow  173–4, 177, 181 Smirnyagina, Tat’yana Yur’evna  174 Smith, Peyton  236–7 Smith, Wendy  59 Smukler, D.  382 society, metaphors of  13–16 Sojourn Theatre  224 Sokol, Susie  239–41 Song of the Goat - A Dithyramb  189

INDEX Song of the Goat Theatre  41, 188–90 Songs of Lear  189 The Sound and the Fury  239, 243–4, 246 Spellbound (Hitchcock)  79 spirituality  51, 189, 254, 257, 278, 282, 293, 299, 304–9, 311–12, 399, 412 Spitler, Joan  256, 258–9 Stalin, Josef  59, 134, 172 Stan’s Cafe Theatre Company  152, 160–2 devising  154–7 ensemble making  164–6 postdramatic performance  156 Staniewski, Wlodzimierz  6, 17–18, 23, 284 Stanislavski in Focus (Carnicke)  33 Stanislavski’s system  23, 31–3 Stanislavski, Konstantin  8–10, 32, 39, 47, 49–54, 56–7, 80–2, 95–6, 101, 105, 274, 282, 296–7, 312 star system  8–9, 79, 95, 112 Stephens, Craig  158, 163–6 Steppenwolf Theatre Company  42, 48 The Steps Series  153 Stewart, Patrick  408–10 Strasberg, Lee  33–4, 59 Strasbergian Method training  21 Strehler, Giorgio  14, 298–9 studiinost (studiality)  34, 172–6, 181 control mechanisms  59 kruzhok  51–3 legacy  58–60 logbooks  58 maxims/ethical principles  56–7 meaning of  49

447

mechanisms  56–8 obshchina  53–5 organizational structures  49 physical signs  57–8 Stumm, Mike  238 Sulerzhitsky, Leopold  49–59, 78, 80, 82 Suvorin Theatre  80–1 Suzuki Actor Training Method (SATM)  381–4 trainees  382–3 Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT)  381 The Sydney Theatre Company  44 syncretic theatre  206 Tadashi, Suzuki  381–2 Takahashi, Y.  383 Taller de Investigación Teatral  11, 41 Tamiroff, Akim  80 Tatlow, Antony  132 Taviani, Ferdinando  290 Teatr CHOREA  185–7 The Tempest (Brook, Peter)  287 Teymur, Necdet  168–9 Theaterarbeit  139 The Theatre and a Changing Civilization  97 Theatre Art Studio (STI)  173–4, 177–81 Theatre du Soleil  41–2, 296 Theatre Exchange  193 theatre of love  174–5, 181 Theatre of the Emerging American Moment (TEAM)  222–30, 232–3, 247–8 company’s process  224 members  223 theatre of thought  179–80 Thing-Fish  171

448

INDEX

Thompson, Susan  389–404 Thomson, Peter  36 The Three Musketeers  56 The Threepenny Opera  128 Three Sisters  103, 106 Timasheva, Marina  181 TOHUBOHU!  250–62 artistic director’s perspective  253–5 audience perspective  252–3 critical/analytical perspective  259–61 performers’ perspectives  257–9 programme cover  256 Toporkov, Vasiliĭ Osipovich  9, 27–8, 282, 296 To the Actor  78–88, 93 Towards a Poor Theatre (Grotowski, Jerzy)  40, 310 To You, The Birdie  238, 244 Trevarthen, C.  365 Troublemaker-Doublemaker  91 Trow, Jack  160–1 Tsotanidou, Alexandra  279, 303, 339 Tuning Out With Radio Z  153, 155 Turner, E. L. B.  305 Turner, Jane  156, 163, 165 Turner, Lisle  192 Turner, V.  305 turning point  130 Tushingham, David  161 Twelfth Night  89, 91–2 Ultima Vez Dance Theatre  185 universal actors  97, 100 utopia  225–7, 230–1, 237, 247, 249, 296, 298 Vakhtangov, Yevgeny  32, 49–51, 53, 55–9, 80–2 Valdez, Mark  209–11, 301

Valk, Kate  236–8, 240 van-Itallie, Jean-Claude  295, 306 Varley, Julia  40, 182–4 Vawter, Ron  236–7 Vazquez, Victoria  45, 239, 241 Vendrovskaya, Lyubov  51 via negativa  315–16 Vieux Colombier  8, 24, 29, 111–16, 119 Viewpoints  42, 264 Volkov, Sergei  179 Vsyaki-Byaki  175–7, 181 Waiting For You on the Corner of . . .  223 The Waiting Room  263–5 walk/run/stop  336–8 Wardle, Irving  108–9 Waseda Little Theatre  381 Webster, Jeff  238 Weigel, Helene  37, 126–7, 134 Wekwerth, Manfred  138 Wells, Stanley  98 Wenger, Etienne  169 Werthmann, Colleen  241 White, R. Andrew  282 Wickstrom, M.  226 Wigman, Mary  284 Willett, John  128, 300 Wilson, Robert  242 Witt, Hubert  135–6 Wolford, Lisa  39, 276 The Wooster Group  43, 223, 235–8, 240–4, 247 Wooster-like ensemble  237, 242–4 Wordsworth, W.  168 The World Theatre Festival, Brisbane  263 Worley, Lee  17, 23–4, 282, 294 Worrall, Nick  62, 64 Wu, Rico  10, 26, 279, 303

INDEX Wu style taiqiquan  371, 373 Wunder, Al  264, 315, 350 Yarker, James  152, 155–62, 166 yoga  195, 197, 282, 371 Young, Stark  92 Yuasa, Yasuo  207–8

449

Zappa-Fish: An Anti-Off-Off-Off Broadway Musical  171 Zarrilli, Phillip  11, 24, 26, 192–7, 277, 280, 283, 315, 369–80 Zhenovach, Sergei  173–4, 177–81 Zubrzycki, Anna  189–90

450

451

452

453

454