Again about public? Never mind theory! Most recent practical story from my Acting class (Fall 2002).
After three weeks of monologue study I tried the usual -- improv, games, lectures about the golden triangle (actor1 -- audience -- actor2) and so on... Okay, maybe I can develop the sense of actor's main partner (spectator) through the scenes?
In practical terms they do not understand that drama takes place not on stage, but in minds and hearts of the public; I read their journals. Looks like I have to give up and go back to monologues without the breakthrough. Perhaps some of them will understand after a lot of stage experience... How much time will be wasted. Majority in class will never make it -- and only because the partnership with the public isn't developed. But how could you develop something you do not understand?
Actors? What about my directing class in the Spring?
All I did is posting the logo for "The Book of Spectator" -- should I rewrite (rethink) everything presenting all subjects from spectator's POV? I thought it's simple, we all are spectators a priori! All you need to do is to notice it and get used to it, applying to your acting, directing, design, scenes, monologues. What else do you nheed to find the answer? You have your script, your cast (or/and yourself) -- simple view everything from the audience perspective and you could have more ideas than you can express!
But how to connect the pages/texts of The Spectator's Book in a vertical fasion with all the ebooks? (They already have the horizontal hierarchy).
How come they don't understand that the Thought (Idea, Message -- structural element, according to Aristotle) can't even exist with the spectator and his/her interpretation (Bakhtin's application to the Grammar of Drama)!
spectator noun
one who sees or looks upon something
syn beholder, by-sitter, bystander, eyewitness, looker-on, observer, onlooker, stander-by, viewer, watcher, witness
rel gazer; perceiver; seer (c)1999 Prentice-Hall, Inc. All rights reserved
There is another page Spectator @ BioMechanics Director -- and more @ Ant Theare....
There are several pages on public @ vTheatre. Read and you will understand why....
Important page, much more important than "how to audition?" -- if you get the issues on Public - Audience - Spectator, you will know how to audition and act.
Questions
Stanislavsky: «Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm».
Notes
The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski by Edward Braun; Holmes & Meier, 1982 (quotes)
- I. The Meiningen Theatre
- 2. Antoine and the Theatre Libre
- 3. The Symbolist Theatre
- 4. Alfred Jarry
- 5. Stanislavsky and Chekhov
- 6. Edward Gordon Craig
- 7. Max Reinhardt in Germany and Austria
- 8. Meyerhold - the First Five Years
- 9. Meyerhold - Theatre as Propaganda
- 10. Piscator in Berlin
- Ii. Brecht's Formative Years
- 12. Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty
- 13. Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre
The Book of Spectator: Spectator as Actor, Spectator as Director...
AUDIENCE: BIRTH OF ACTOR
"If Stanislavsky said that the soul of the theatre was the actor, then Meyerhold's formula was:`The actor plus the spectator.'" [1]
"The mirror in the case of the actor is the audience."
Piscator[2]
Audience? What could be more easy to understand? We all are
spectators. All the time...
And this is a problem. That's the reason why we have such a
difficult time noticing ourselves. To understand the nature of
Public is to discover how Theatre works.
"Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the
audience is fifty percent of the performance." -- Shirley Booth
Any experienced actor knows it too well. I know it -- I'm a
director. I direct actors only for one single purpose -- they
have to direct the public. Public is their material. The final
stage of drama, the experience of the show takes place over
there. Does Audience perform? Each spectator does.
There's a moment when Theatre begins. "Empty Space" -- said
Peter Brook. The watched space isn't empty. It's full of energy.
Actors gave a name for this feeling of stepping in this "empty
space" -- "stage fright." The audience (even when it's only one -
a director) charge the stage with power (potential energy). What
actor does? How uses it. He releases it the way a nuclear reactor
does it. (Not a bomb, uncontrolled explosion of energy, madness
of crowd).
The Entrance -- not only stage space but audience imagination (actor's birth of "stage"). Missing this moment of appearance, actor wouldn't be able to function. Each actor's entrance effects the whole balance of stage space (gravity and space in Einstein's theory of relativity). Novice actors feel as if they are (personally) are the subject of public attention -- public cares less about actor, only his role in the space of the show. Role is a relation (product) of the character and the show. Next -- character, we need to understand how it function in order to anticipate the future action. Actor still is and should be not noticeable behind his role (mask, as they say).
NB. Vakhtangov School: the extreme theatricality of the director
(Meyerhold) and the complete naturalism of the actor (Stanislavsky).
Multiple nature of Spectator: creator, instrument, material.
Show business (spectator--spectacle), visual. But most dramatic
experience when he forgets that he sees, he is not watching
action anymore, he lives it (identification).
Spectator, a single member of the audience.
Partner(s): One and Many. "Spectator 1 -- Spectator 2" do not communicate but experiencing show together through stage identification. Two and more spectators create Audience. Audience
into Public. "Stage Pyramid" directed at the House; the same with
the Public. (Stage or Theatre?)
T H E A T R E
S H O W
ACTOR
ROLE
CHARACTER
SPECTATOR
A U D I E N C E
P U B L I C
The two pyramids are connected through Role/Character. Role is performed character. Magic mirror (Stage) should be seen as
Spectator's Inner World, a foundation for His Field of
Imagination. The Public is the source of energy which creates
Theatre Space.
LIFE
---------------
\ /
STAGE
\ /
ACTOR
/ \
AUDIENCE
-----------------
PUBLIC
LIFE
Stage relations (all elements, not only actors) organized by
the public, for the public and of the public.
Two Partners (Second actor or The Scene, Two Interactive
Universes within World of Spectator).
Stage Distance and dynamics of Distance with the Stage.
Other body -- The Second Monologue.
Golden Triangle: Connections between actors through the audience only.
Actor 1----Actor 2
\ /
Audience
Basic Communication Model:
Sender/actor --> Media/show --> Receiver/spectator
ACTOR 1 <---> ACTOR 2
X
SPECTATOR 1 <---> SPECTATOR 2
AUDIENCE (tonight public)
PUBLIC
Dramatic Relations: Spectator is a part of the Message, because conflict can't be recognized (realized) without him. Without audience "parts" of drama make no sense. Audience is an external composition of drama.
How is actor born out of Spectator?
WATCHED NOTHING
The audience's stare alone creates dramatic tension -- every
actor knows it -- stage fright. Dramatic space is full of energy
created by many watching empty space (stage). Attention thrown at
nothing, expectations of drama (we know it's about to happened)
-- actor's fear before crossing the line. The mirage of actor is
already in there. That's how the world was created. The power of
watching for word (actor). It's a space full of time: it's not empty anymore. It's "watched space" ready for actor to be born into it. They, the public, provide time segment. Under God's eyes: not one par of eyes but several hundreds. Stage is space where nothing "real" take place; life with her accidents and surprises is separated in order to create a small spot of free space. Whatever about to happen in this clean sacred space wouldn't be real (nobody would be really hurt or killed); and such violation of nature make it dramatic.
How does actor create a stage-space for himself out of nothing? The Empty Space becomes a dynamic space as soon as the Actor/Medium is placed in it? Meyerhold further notes that very similar connections between space, time and matter exit in Einstein's theory of relativity; those three elements are inseparable. Movement/energy is essential quality of matter (147). Does it mean that the very absence of actor in "theatre space" is a violation of "theatrical laws" -- spot light asks for actor to appear.[3] The way actor enters this space (energy) give the space different weight, structuring time accordingly.
"Acting is melody, directing is harmony... I discovered that not long ago, and I astonished myself, the definition was so exact. Don't you think so?.."[4]
"The audience's emotion is a very infectious thing." (MS 319)
The sixties and the interest in rituals had return a religious
dimension into theatre. We're avoiding any talks about
Aristotelian "catharsis" -- not in actual, metaphysical terms.
What a pain to see somebody going through years of training
without a major breakthrough. They hold back. They fight you.
They're closed up structures, they don't want to try.
"I am who I am."
What a nonsense!
"I die every night." Nietzsche.
"I am born every morning." Paul.
Actor lives through this death and birth many times a day. That's how a child lives -- and therefore grows.
Bad theatre = without the audience, only with public. With no personal addresses. No meassage, was said.
PS
Audience: Public, second actor's ego is made up of those who
witness the event through dramatic (emotional, intellectual)
participation. In order to understand the concept of Chronotope, we need to see the border between stage and public as a bridge, where the vectors of action are merging. [ pix : axes of tention ]
STAGE
\/
^
^
PUBLIC
NB
[1] -- [5] notes (missing)
Between Stage and the House
Somewhere and somehow I have to collect all the pages, where I talk about ACTOR-PUBLIC relations. This "Book of Spectator," I am not working on, is so important; this is why it merged with the Virtual Theatre Files! The origins of theatre phenomena -- there! All answers!
The pages on the subject are all over the sites, in different places and directories. Should I start with the 200X Files?
Consider this page as an introduction to the Book of Spectator. One and Many: Three Faces: Public, Audience, Spectator. Several functions of PUBLIC: writer, actor, director and etc.
Spectator's Chronotope (define): subjective and objective time and space
Poliphonic Principle
Audience = audio = drama (words)
Spectator = Spectacle (Aristotle)
"Private in Public" (Stanislavsky) applies to Spectator more and first!
Acting is Reacting (left, link to react.html): reacting to the audience, your partner, text, set, light, sound and so on! The moment you understand it, you have a long list of things to worry about. Simple, think it through! Think how any spectator functions: reactions! To all the above. Do the same: actor or anybody on stage is nothing less than an active (aggressive) spectator. Very much like a writer is a good reader. All you answers are in Spectator!
Ask questions they ask -- and try to formulate the questions they feel. That's all. You can do it, you got the answers!
Consider this page as an introduction to the Book of Spectator. One and Many: Three Faces: Public, Audience, Spectator. Several functions of PUBLIC: writer, actor, director and etc.
