The Basics of Acting Technique: Part Five

This chapter focuses on some of the more popular movement and physical theatre techniques that are taught in the United States. 

**NONE of these techniques are complete in the full scope of building the actor's craft.  They are ALL supplementary in nature, helping an actor build tools that will strengthen the actor's instrument.**

VIEWPOINTS
Viewpoints is an improvisation-based technique that provides actors with a tool box and vocabulary for exploring a play through movement and gesture.  It was developed in the 1970’s by choreographer Mary Overlie, who was on faculty with director Anne Bogart at The Experimental Theatre Wing of NYU.  Bogart and Tina Landau (playwright/director) then adapted it for actors in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

The Viewpoints Method is deconstructive in nature.  It allows performers to work on isolated issues that lie outside the standard narrative framework of modernist acting.  Viewpoints is primarily useful in helping actors build awareness, helping groups establish cohesive ensembles, and (most practically) in helping directors create staging with actors. 

“Instead of beginning with the idea of making theater, this approach begins with taking theater apart.  The Viewpoints process reduces performance to a code. This code acts like a flexible measuring device, much like a transit and rod used in surveying for mapping land. The Viewpoints, like the transit and rod, were devised to reveal structure… The structure we see through the Viewpoints is made in six basic windows of perception that are used to create and view theater.”  - Mary Overlie

There are Six Viewpoints - space, shape, time, emotion, movement, and story.   Bogart removes emphasis on emotion and story, because they are generally fundamental to an actor's mindset.  There are a host of exercises that include:

• Improv games.
• Moving around a room in different modes, methods, and tempos (paying attention to architectural and spatial relations
• Examining and mirroring movements of others, and engaging in different types of movements with the whole body and specific parts (the aim being to let the body move the way it wants to and to strengthen the connections between feeling and action).

The main principle of Viewpoints is to give actors a fuller understanding of their place in the our world - and by extension, the world of the play.

SUZUKI
The Suzuki Method was created by Tadashi Suzuki, a director, writer, and theorist based in Toga, Toyama, Japan.  He created the Saratoge International Theatre Institute (SITI Company) with Anne Bogart, and his techniques are typically taught in conjunction with Viewpoints.

Suzuki is an eclectic, hybrid approach to performance, which derives much of its structure from the classical forms of Japanese Theatre - Noh and Kubuki. 

"Noh" or "Nogatu", derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent", is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century.  Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles.

"Kabuki" is a classical Japanese dance-drama.  Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.

Suzuki training is a rigorous physical and vocal regimen which centers on the relationship between human beings and the earth.  Actors are encouraged to foster this relationship by sending and receiving energy to and from the earth, using a series of exercises that include rhythmic stomping and ultra-slow movement.  Many of these exercises are focused on the lower body, and the best way to describe them to a lamen would be to say they're like slow-but-constant-moving yoga poses.

The goal of the training, which requires a high level of physical exertion and bodily control, is to sharpen the actor’s perceptive abilities and to realize the body’s full potential as a tool of theatrical expression.

ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
Alexander Technique is a movement discipline with a focus on posture and physical self-perception, which aims to help students recognize and overcome harmful habitual limitations.  It was developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander in Australia in the 1890s as a personal tool to help him alleviate breathing problems and hoarseness that he'd developed, enacting Shakespeare's works.  It has extended as a widely regarded tool for public speaking, but has great application to acting as well.

Alexander surrounded himself with mirrors observed himself diligently after losing his voice and being told he was untreatable by doctors.  He learned that he was stiffening and elongating his neck in preparation to speech and began work to correct his posturing and develop physical relaxation.  In little time, he regained his voice and found that his oratory abilities vastly improved.

Alexander Technique has been used to treat everything from stuttering to post-surgical rehabilitation and post-traumatic stress disorder.  It is a hands-on technique best taught in private or small-group lessons.  The teacher analyzes the student’s everyday movement patterns (sitting, standing, walking, bending, reaching, etc.) - and helps him to overcome old, detrimental habits by releasing unnecessary muscular tension.

There are no set movements or exercises.   It is primarily a system of psycho-physical communication, so that students are urged to take a second and evaluate every movement in their everyday lives, giving their muscles the command to relax.  In this way, Alexander Technique is meant to be practiced throughout the day to build new habits of movement.  The lack of prescriptive exercises allows this practice to take place while doing any other activity - which is a large part of its appeal to actors (it can easily be used to address vocal or physical performance issues onstage, without breaking character or blocking).


Thanks so much for taking the time to look this over.  There are obviously lots of ways for actors to connect to their surroundings as well as physical and vocal instruments, so that they are better able to use themselves in their work.  Many teachers also suggest energy-based martial arts like Tai Chi, which help an actor to build what Yevgeny Vakhtangov (Stanislavski's protege) referred to as plasticity - the mental, vocal, and physical prowess and flexibility that is necessary for actors. 

SPEAKING OF WHICH...please stay tuned for next week's conclusion to this series, where we'll discuss the Russian movement and teachers that began this whole process of the craft of acting.

Please share your thoughts about your personal experiences in building your actors instrument.  Seriously.  This blog is best when it's a conversation - that way, we learn from one another.  :O)

To read other parts of this series, click here:
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four