Inspirational Work

Stanislavski - The Actors Hand Book

In my opinion Constantin Stanislavski is one of the most influential drama practitioners of all time and is the foundation to most dramatic performances. His system is the handbook and guide for many actors. The book An Actor’s Work was particularly inspiring to myself. ‘To be good, the actor must “live the part”, tapping into his or her “emotion memory” in order to animate the “three masters who play on the instrument of our souls”, feeling, the mind, will’. This quote particularly resonated with me and I finally understood how to completely enter the world of the actor. This allowed me to portray the character's life as it is actually lived on stage. Gaining a balance of the “three masters” is not easy and requires practice, determination, patience and understanding, you must be open to all suggestions. A starting point for any training Actor would be to ask these three questions:

• Who am I?

• What just happened?

• What do I want?

Use these as your base when looking at performing any character before diving into the more complex elements of Stanislavski’s system.

Psycho- Physical Theatre

During my training, I found inspiration in the psycho-physical theatre practices. Especially in the practitioners Eugenio Barba who was the founder of Odin Theatre and the International School of the Theatre of Anthropology: The Theatre of Anthropology is the study of the pre-expressive behaviour,which is what lies beyond the actor. I also found inspiration in the practitioner Jerzy Grotowski, the founder of Poor Theatre. Poor Theatre is the stripping back of elements such as set, lights, makeup, costumes etc and it focuses purely on the actor.

By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc. (Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre p19)

This was very interesting to me, it was almost as if the actor has nothing to hide behind, you fully open yourself up to the practice and become one with it. To a certain extent this practice helped me to understand the naturalistic characters which are found in many modern day plays.

These practitioners were influential in opening myself up to the limitless possibilities. . Before encountering these practitioners sometimes my work would be a little wooden and I found it difficult to find the flow. As this type of theatre was heavily driven through the body my imagination was opened to many possibilities. Barba and Grotowski worked together and developed the pre-expressive level. The pre-expressive level of connecting with yourself as an actor, the work is not scripted but developed through scores and later layered with text if desired. It is an intense form of improvisation, music was always used and often a stimulus based on history, tribes and traditions.

It is a very interesting art form to practice, develop and train in.

Interested to know more? Visit the Classes page.