There's definitely similarity between the concept of neutrality proposed by Jacques Lecoq and the idea of circle of attention mentioned by Stan. Circle of Attraction consist of 5 or more levels actually, but in class, we focused on the first 3 only. In the first circle, we deal only with ourselves, our body, mind, focus, attention, emotion and everything pertaining our cognitive, anatomical, psychological aspects. once we have an intuition of a clear intention, we are ready to proceed to enter the second circle of attention. The second circle has a radius of 1 meter around us. An object was placed in the circle and we are supposed to approach it with the intention we had in mind earlier on. We would only move towards the object, or carry out whatever responses towards the object once the impulse is set and when we feel the urge to do it. Once we are comfortable in the second circle, we step into the third circle - the room. We are allowed to interact with others only in the third circle. In the first and second circle of attention,we are supposed to live in our own imaginary world, the reality in high fantasy without acknowledging the existence of others. We have to be in character. Visual, audio or any other forms of distractions might affect our concentration. Technically, if we are distracted, we would have to go back to the first circle and redo the whole thing from zero.
The idea of the fourth wall in realism acting comes in in the first and second circle of attention. In theatrical context, the fourth wall refers to the imaginary wall created by the actor in detaching himself or herself from the audience to remain unsmitten by the reactions, responses and other visual or audio unintentionally caused by the audience. Even though the actor know that he or she is being observed by a large group of people, the actor still has to visualize himself as an individual or character in the character's world (the play) and do whatever the character would do in the play according to his impulse without adhering to the old theatre rule of the blocking movements. The actor will have to act naturally and live the life of the character in the theatrical reality. Basically, the actor has to create the character's world and live within it, show indifference towards the audience and develop public solitude to enhance one's concentration and at the same time, awareness.
The words "organic", "authentic", and "aesthetic" have been brought up a few times in the class, and what do they mean in the context of theatre study? In my opinion, those words reflect upon how realism is taken into account as a form of acting. In realism, an actor would have to react naturally in the character of the play. In other words, the actor would have to be mentally, psychologically and biologically prepared for the character, and the actor would have to forsake his own personality and adapt to the behaviours of his character. Suffice to say, reality in high fantasy could be a form of Realism too.
My "story line" in the learning process of circle of attention was quite different from the others. Christ's <Blue Pencil Case>, Janet's <Silver Flour Sieve>, Quin's <Orange rubber ball>, Ginger's <Old TuTu>, and Jem's <Neutral Mask> were all stories with a proper fictional story owing to their prior knowledge of the object. My object was a silver unknown object with an irregular shape. M story turned out to be an <Exploration of Imagination : An Argentum Puppet>. Okay, I know that sounds stupid. Ha-ha! Anyway, the initial thought I had once I venture into the second realm of the circle of attention was, "Is that a spacecraft accessory? Why is it here?" After taking a closer look at the object and after touching it, I decided that it looked like a lamp frame -probably an extra, unused lamp frame of the lighting system of the theatre room. "Alright! What......" and I was confused. At one moment I didn't know what to do with it. A moment later, my character decided to turn the object into a musical instrument. I made it into a percussion and I sang the melody in my mind. I felt happy. Intuitively, the impulse in me urged me to sing into the object, and so it became a microphone, or so to say, a speaker.
The hand gesture of holding it as a speaker reminded the me, as in the character, of a telescope- the one prevalently used by pirates and sailors in adventurous movies. "I'm a free sailor now !!" and I picked up the object and view into the hole. I see Jemmima acting in her neutral mask; I see Janet intermittently pressing on her innovative modern flour sieve; Christ turned his pencil case into a blue ribbon and was dancing or trying a gymnastic move with it; Ginger was making faces with that tutu on and it was hilarious.I nearly laugh out loud myself. Just as i was about to move out of the second circle into the third, I saw Ms Val and she stared back at me. I thought I can smile, because my impulse told me to do so. I was sent back to the first circle of attention......
The second round took me a relatively shorter time to proceed into the second and finally the third circle of attention. The taste of being a sailor stayed for some time in me and further evolved to the desire of transforming into a captain. I turned the telescope into a hand-guard and imagine myself as Captain. An impulse took me by surprise, urging me to create a hook for the silver object. I ended up with two fingers poking out of the object and I realize that it resembles a puppet. A silver alien-like puppet with two snail-like eyes. I began to interact with others, I hid behind the curtains and occasionally appear to prank on them.
It was fun, and I laughed out of my heart, the character's heart. I can really feel that.
After the class, Ms Val says that I have the vibe of a clown. Not the type of clown as in circus jester clown, but the clown that brings smiles and laughter to people around me. I'm glad that Ms Val pointed that out to me, though initially I didn't realize that I have such an attribute. I didn't know I can really resonate such an aura on stage. I do hope I can further explore my clownish style of performing and achieve something with it. ^^
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Once again in theatre class, I've obtained a conclusion that people get to be attached to things they claim possessive of. And those personal attachment to things do help the actor to enter their character. For example, if i pick up the same silver object next time, it would be easier for me to get into the puppet master character again. Attachments are like our anchors to the other character realms. It might be an object, a hand gesture commonly and naturally used by the character, an accent, a slang, the voice range and the talking pitch of the character, the costume or just any item symbolic to the character and anything of personal meaning/ relation of the character to the actor.
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