Students in the course are required to post on this blog several times over the course of the semester, but anyone else should feel free to comment on the ideas presented here. Part of the idea is to help student actors connect the work they are doing in rehearsal with members of the various communities in which they live, and to find ways in which theatrical processes of all kinds can inspire important conversations, so I hope participants from the community will actively engage with what we are trying to do here.
Below is the long description of the course I put at the beginning of the syllabus. If you are interested in seeing the full syllabus, please send me an email and I will be happy to send you a copy as an attachment.
Also, the links and videos to the right, here, relate in one way or another to the topics of the class and the artists whose work we will be studying. Please take a look at these to get an idea of the people, ideas and processes that have inspired this syllabus. I will be updating this list all semester, adding relevant links as I find them, so please make suggestions if you have them.
And please feel free to contact me with any questions, thoughts or ideas. I'm really looking forward to this semester's work!
Acting is largely based on the difference between characters. An Italian designer, a Russian peasant, a Chinese diplomat, all behave in specific ways. They hold themselves differently, walk, talk, think, smoke cigarettes and laugh differently. Their backgrounds, education, physical manner, moralities and conditioning are wholly dissimilar.
- Stella Adler, from The Technique of Acting
Even as the actor has the potential to be the other, all others, the tension between the self and other is real. In House Arrest, the actors should play across gender and race. Yet, this does not mean that their evident race and gender is nonexistent or insignificant. The contrary is the case. Their evident race and gender is on one side of the bridge, and the other they pursue is across the bridge. The effort to cross that bridge is the drama, and it should not be denied.
- Anna Deavere Smith, from the Introduction to House Arrest
The common we share, in fact, is not so much discovered as it is produced. … Our communication, collaboration and cooperation are not only based on the common, but they in turn produce the common in an expanding spiral relationship.
- Antonio Hardt and Michael Negri, from Multitude
Course Description and Objectives:
Imagine this: you are Brad Pitt. You are a handsome and powerful Hollywood actor, and you have recently been cast in Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s film Babel. But instead of playing the role of Richard, the attractive white upper-middle-class American man, you are cast in the part actually played in that film by Adriana Barraza: Amelia, the Mexican woman who is caretaker for the American couple’s young children and is forced to risk losing the life she has made for herself to attend her son’s wedding in Mexico. And in preparation for that role, your job is to gather and perform interviews with women who are immigrant workers in the U.S., or with many different people worldwide about the issue of immigration in a global economy. And you are nominated for awards not because of how much revenue you generate for the studio, nor how good-looking you are, nor with how much emotional intensity and authenticity you portray a role you fit quite well. Your work as an actor is judged according to how deeply you learn to empathize with the situation of a character whose body, culture and experiences are almost completely different from your own, how much public conversation you generate about important issues, and how much the people that made connections with you and with each other through collective work on this role learn from participation in this new community
This class, which is based on the possibility that this theory of acting can be practiced, combines the history, theory and practical skills of acting, solo performance, and community-based theatre in order to for actors to use their presence and skills to connect with, build and develop communities outside of the classroom. We will begin the semester with three public readings of plays by Naomi Wallace, and, together with a group of people from the community, will choose which play will serve as the foundation for this semester’s work. In addition to working on a scene from one of Ms. Wallace’s plays, you will also be asked to perform a “character study” that will be developed through research and interviews with people outside of this class. The goal is to examine how, through your work as actors, you can engage more actively with the people and world around you in order to make your representations more responsible and relevant to your community, but also to encourage public discussion about the important historical, intellectual and emotional issues raised by the plays and characters on which you will be working.
The class will be divided into several sections. Because you will be composing your own performances, we begin by learning how to build a performance using Viewpoints vocabulary as a staging tool. As practice, you will study some of the history and theory behind solo performance, and create a short autobiographical piece based on the roles you play in your everyday life. The focus then shifts from yourself to others: we will discuss some community-based artists whose work is based on the experiences of existing communities, and examine how some artists incorporate interviewing and ethnographic work into public performances. You’ll be studying the principles involved in creating what is known as “community-based” art, and also practicing the skills involved in doing this kind of work.
Several weeks into the course, you will choose a scene partner and a character from whichever play we have chosen. Ideally, the character should be one who is very different from the person you imagine yourself to be (you don’t have to stick to your own gender, race, or age if you choose not to, for example). Then, after we complete our initial exploration of solo and community-based performance techniques, we will begin working toward a production of your scenes using community-based techniques in rehearsal. We will begin with dramaturgical research and table work on the play, and the rest of the semester will be devoted to creating and rehearsing two overlapping performances. One will be a solo performance in which you build your character through interviewing two or three people from the outside community, performing their responses to your interviews, engaging in ongoing conversations with those people, and doing other outside research. The other will be the performance with your partner of a short scene from the play, incorporating the character you’ve created through your research.
Throughout the process, you will invite your interviewees to have conversations about the meaning of your work. Most of the work on your characters will be documented on a class blog and on Myspace so that the public can be part of your whole process, and they will be invited to at least one rehearsal and to your final performance. The important thing to remember is that, in this course, you aren’t being evaluated on your ability to seamlessly re-create elements of a person’s mannerisms on stage (although you will try your best to do so, and will probably end up being quite accurate). The idea is for you to focus on what you, your interviewees, and your classmates can learn about each other, identity, experience and the world through conversations you have while creating characters and pieces of theatre.
So, by the end of the semester you will have some knowledge of and experience with:
- the plays of Naomi Wallace
- the history, theory and practice of solo performance
- the history, theory and practice of community-based theatre
- the history, theory and practice of ethnographic performance
- using Viewpoints and composition in the development of character
- interviewing community members and involving them in the process of performance
- using the Internet (blogging and social networking sites) to engage in public conversations about the issues raised in the process of creating work for the stage
- doing historical and dramaturgical research on a play and applying that work in rehearsal
- thinking critically about your training and rehearsal practices
- examining how involving an audience in training and rehearsal influences your acting process
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