In the woods of Western Massachusetts lies a retreat center committed
to communal living, artistic exploration, and minimizing their environmental
impact. It was in this setting that I attended a 12-day acting intensive based
on the psycho-physical techniques of Jerzy Grotowski. The class, entitled “Acrobatics of the
Heart”, was directed by Steve Wangh, a professor emeritus at NYU’s Experimental
Theatre Wing and the author of two outstanding books (Acrobat of the Heart and The
Heart of Teaching).
A BOLD STEP
My decision to attend was a bold one for a number of
reasons. First, I came to theatre through
the word. I love the literature, the
language, and the story of this art form.
I’m a writer and a word nerd. As
a director, I’ve already worked to expand my focus into the visual. But to dive into the body work of the actor
was pretty far afoul of my usual artistic path.
All I knew of this technique and its iconic pioneer (Grotowski) came
from theatre history classes and textbooks.
I wasn’t personally convinced that physical training had the capacity to
connect me to the art in a meaningful way.
I had my share of anxiety as well. I’m probably not the only theatre artist who
would confess that a large part of my path toward theatre included a deliberate
avoidance of middle school sports and the giants of the gym. I found the stage because my intelligence and
sense of humor were firm legs beneath me in this arena. The idea that I might need to use my body to
explore this art form I love transported me to the days of dodgeball, floor
hockey, and musty locker rooms. It felt
like a violation to let P.E. on the stage.
It’s also worth noting that this workshop took place at a
retreat center that had an entirely vegetarian kitchen. I am not a vegetarian. That’s an understatement. I’m sort of anti-vegetables. I hate them.
More than I hate musicals or when people say “irregardless”. So, I knew it was going to be a
struggle. I packed a few pouches of beef
jerky like I was smuggling in contraband.
ARRIVAL
The retreat center was about what I imagined: beautiful
setting, dormitory style living, and a lot of unfamiliar rules designed to keep
us and our natural environment healthy.
The people were kind and enthusiastic about the workshop and their art
in general.
At our first group session, we each introduced ourselves and
said a few sentences about whatever we wanted.
The main instruction, was that we were to make sure we didn’t plan our
comments in advance. No thinking about
how we’d impress the group while others were speaking. We each said our name and had to wait fifteen
seconds. It was in those fifteen seconds
that we could think of what we wanted to say.
That was a struggle already, but it was such a perfect introduction to
kind of presence and in-the-momentness we’d be asked to practice for the next
to weeks.
When it was my turn I said “A friend took this intensive and
told me it was transformational for him.
Transformation is a big word, and I’m honestly pretty scared. But I’m
not sure if I’m more scared that it will
be transformational or that it won’t be.”
MEETING THE WORK
In the experimental theatre scene of the 50s and 60s, Jerzy
Grotowski was a hugely influential figure.
He called for a physically engaged stage artist and his work was known
for its sinewy actors and acrobatic blocking.
That’s about all I knew before arriving at this workshop.
I was interested to see what all the fuss was about, but in
those first days, I was what you might call a hopeful agnostic. I had never had
a “personal encounter” with the kind of theatre that was being pursued by these
teachers and students. While I might
have been one of the more experienced theatre artists at the camp, I was
totally green when it came to this psycho-physical stuff.
After a promising first night of personal connections and
open-hearted sharing, the first days of workshops involved a lot of physical
work. My doubts about my own physical
capacities were quickly confirmed. I’m
apparently a sub-par undulator. Despite many
assurances that being a perfect physical specimen was not the goal, I still
felt like I was the kid who finishes the mile run last in gym class. Two days of this kind of body-wrenching,
unfamiliar work took its toll on my psyche.
It didn’t help that I was barely eating the various green goops that
were being served over quinoa or cuscus. Also, sleep was elusive on the tiny
dorm bed nestled between not one, not two, but three very loud snorers.
I arrived on Sunday evening, and by Wednesday morning I had
decided that if I had another bad 24 hours, I would leave. I needed a carrot. And not the kind they were serving instead of
French fries; the motivational kind. But
I acknowledged that you have to move to get the carrot, so I decided to work
harder than I ever have on what could be my last day as an acrobat of the
heart.
The physical training primarily consists of specific
movements, stretches, and contortions of the body that are designed to be “provocateurs”
and “containers” of emotion and imagery for the actor. The idea is that the physical exertion and
the stretching of the body can illicit (provoke) emotional responses within us,
and that once those are there, we can use those same movements to embody
(contain) the ideas that come to us. For
example, the undulation of one’s foot might elicit a memory of playing in the
wet sand on the beach. This might lead
to joy or nostalgia that would inspire the actor, to begin using the hand
motions to start playing in the sand, maybe building sand castles. This may, in turn, lead to memories of a
family member, which would lead to physical movements of gathering or embracing
for those loved ones we’ve lost or who have become distant. This can continue on for quite some
time. The physical provokes imagery or
emotion, and then becomes a vessel for us to bear and experience whatever is being
elicited.
USE IT IN THE WORK
One of the things I kept hearing the teachers say to their
students was “use it in the work”. When
they were frustrated, tired, coughing, or confused, the teacher encouraged us
to let those factors impact the way we were working. This is an interesting aspect of the training
because, in my experience it’s entirely unique.
The current dominant strategies for dealing with emotional baggage
within the actor fall into two camps:
“Milk it” or “Ignore it”.
“Milk it”
Many American acting teachers (especially in the late 20th century)
encouraged the mining of emotional memory as source material for acting. Some would even encourage reliving emotional
moments on stage in order to produce a desired effect. “If you need to cry, think of when your dad
died.” As one might imagine, this could
lead to a sort of hysterical acting, and then eventually, an extinction of the
emotions connected to the source memory.
“Ignore it”
This is the “professionalism model”
that encourages actors who are dealing with emotion to “leave it at the stage
door”. It purports that an actor has a
job to do, and that job is to pretend. Real emotion should not get in the way. As you might imagine, this leads to
controlled, polished, but often stale performance.
This idea of provoking emotion and finding a container for
it seems an exhilarating middle ground. Paying
attention to emotions provoked by physicality makes the work alive and present,
but the capacity to place it in a container and “bear it” gives a healthy
alternative to being flooded or emotionally dried up by the overuse of
emotional source material.
On that crucial Wednesday morning, I had my first brush with
this phenomenon. I worked harder
physically than I ever had, throwing myself fully into the physical training we
had learned. Sweat was dripping off of
me. I was exhausted. Then, I caught eye
contact with another actor in the room.
I was dealing with anger and frustration, thrashing and punching at the
air to fight my foes, most of which were internal voices berating me for not
being able to understand this work. And
when I caught her eye, I put them all in her face. I personified my enemies in her and fought
her with my learned movements. In response, she gave me a tremendous gift, she
didn’t back down. She fought back. For several
minutes we fought our demons by “fighting” with each other. I worked even harder, pushing my physical
limits as my emotions demanded. It was
abstract, there wasn’t any clear imagery attached to what we were actually doing,
but I was using my body to both provoke and contain emotion. It was satisfying and a little thrilling. What I didn’t know at the time, was that I just getting started.
MY FIRST FULL ENCOUNTER
In our next session, the director of the workshop, Steve
Wangh, led our class for the first time. And it was here that he opened two
doors for me into the work. First, he
told us to create our own movements (which are generally referred to as
“plastiques”) and secondly, he told us to imagine that we were not in control
of what movements we were doing; that an outside force was manipulating us to
do these actions.
It was under these parameters that I had my first full
encounter with this work. Through a
series of physical promptings I was led through a series of images that told
anew a story I’ve been living for 20 years.
It was extremely moving and revelatory.
And even though it stirred up serious emotion, I found myself using
physical “containers” to express what was causing the tears, and to even make
new discoveries within the sadness. I
walked away from that session knowing that I had been changed, artistically,
emotionally, and maybe more.
WHERE ARE THE NUTJOBS?
The interpersonal element of the workshop was a bit of a
surprise to me. To be totally honest, I
expected to find a strange group of people with whom I’d have trouble
connecting. But I was very wrong. There was not one person, in a group of 30+
students and 5 staff, with whom I didn’t feel a strong kinship by the end of
the camp.
I have thought more about this in the days since, and I’m
pretty sure that what was strange
about these people was that they (and I) jumped into this experience with open
hearts. As I learned more about each of
them, there were things that I found unusual or very different from my own way
of life, but I was already in love with them by that point. We all shared such tremendous common ground
that our differences didn’t matter. We were all artists, vulnerable, striving,
and deeply flawed. The first encounter I
had with each person was to look into their eyes with no judgment. Why did we not find each other strange or
annoying? Because we leaped into each
other’s company with our humanity leading the way. No political parties, religious affiliations,
or other dividing labels mattered. We shared meals, living quarters, emotional
experiences, doubts and fears, and late night campfires together. These people tattooed themselves to me with
laughter and tears. I can honestly say that this group of disparate folks from
all over the continent, of various age ranges, sexual orientations, and world
views are my people. It’s a
connection like I’ve never experienced outside of my family. I miss them dearly.
PENTIMENTO
As a part of the training, we were each asked have a monologue
to work on over the course of the workshop.
I selected a monologue from a play entitled
Red, by John Logan. It’s a
biographical account of modern artist Mark Rothko. His paintings are generally large portraits
that employ various layers of color.
Rothko’s character describes his work this way in the monologue I
selected: “I use a lot of layers, like a
glaze. Slowly building the image, like
Pentimento, until the luminescence emerges and it’s done.”
One morning, before beginning our morning session, I did
what I should’ve done much earlier and looked up the word “Pentimento”. When I
read the definition, I began crying (dictionaries do not typically make me cry). Here’s what I saw:
As I have been doing this work, I find images emerging and
they largely have to do with personal experiences and the ways I have changed
over the years. I’ve been painting on
this canvas for some time now. There are hints of choices I’ve made (good and
bad) in the past, and there are places where I have changed my mind, or
circumstances have forced me to choose new shapes and colors. The definition made me realize that we have
one canvas in this life. We may have a
lot of starts and stops, redos, and undos, but we don’t get to wash the canvas.
At best, we wash the brushes. So, I am
this painting, with layers of color, and hints of earlier images. And it’s beautiful. The changes, the mistakes, all of it.
WHAT NOW?
In the wake of this experience, heck even during it, I was
mindful of what I’d bring home and how. I
have not become a vegetarian and will never eat mung beans. Ever. But there were certainly some poignant
takeaways.
Of course, I found a new way to think about acting. In my classes, I’ll bring some of this work
to my actors. I’m certainly not
qualified to teach the material with any sort of authority, but I’m hoping to
give them a taste of this thing. This
way of acting that both provokes emotions and gives them an array of vessels to
contain them. To take what’s inside and
place it outside so it might impact them and the work.
Yet, it’s about much more than that. “Use it in the work” is a metaphor for how to
live fully in the moment. As I go
through my life, I hope to be keenly aware of my emotions and how to contain
them. And by contain, I don’t mean, “keep
them boxed up.” I mean hold them, bear them.
This mindset is not about working through difficult emotions but to
acknowledging them and letting them impact us.
For example:
A student wants to talk to me after
class:
-
I want to impress him
-
I want him to do well in my class and in his art
-
I am hungry
-
I am behind on my planning for my next class and
feeling rushed
-
I am feeling sort of beaten down about university
politics
-
I know exactly what to tell this student and I
know it will be helpful
“Using it in the work” means embodying all of these internal
things honestly. It means leveling with the student and myself. It probably
means, scheduling a time when I can make his question and our conversation a
higher priority. And, finally, it means
recognizing that I probably need a little self-care to get back to a place of
calm and my best self.
On a personal level, as I write this merely one week after
our last day, I’m still a bit tender. As
I re-enter a culture that’s so full of political rancor and division, I find
myself feeling like an alien in this world.
I have had dreams almost every night that I’m going to have to advocate
for the voiceless in my world. I’ve had
dreams about using what I am thinking and feeling in my work with honesty and
boldness. And I’m a bit scared. When I started this workshop I was afraid
that I would be transformed and more afraid that I wouldn’t be. In retrospect, I think it’s safe to say that
transformation has occurred. Now I’m scared that my transformation may start to
impact my world, and more scared that it won’t.
