How do impulses affect the performer A comparative study between Stanislavski and Grotowski - Essay Example

?How do impulses affect the performer? A comparative study between Stanislavski and Grotowski      Institution    Date Performances as a unique art of theatre require extensive actor training in order to acquire proficiency that can guarantee good role playing. The development of acting and theatre performances has been the basis of today’s mainstream media productions and theater performances. This evolutionary development of the art of acting is an effort that gradually developed through time, and the effort of various professionals in the visual arts. Earlier players simply relied on the imitation of characters, but as time went by, empirical observations from individuals interested in the field of acting led to the development of systematized models of training actors. The training of actors is essential for the sake of attaining the ‘make belief effect’ that is the essence of all theatre performances (Wolford, 1996, p. 38). This paper is going to evaluate the theme of imagination while considering how counter impulse and automatic impulse affects the performer in a comparative study between Stanislavski and Grotowski. The major highlight shall be the effect of impulse on theater performers. The development of literature containing principles of training actors has been a materialization that has gradually developed through time by various virtuosos in the field of acting. The process has been gradually and progressive with various professionals building upon other works by their predecessors in the field. The most renown amongst them is Constantine Stanislavski, Grotowski, Brooks, and Chekhov, just to mention but a few. Most of these contributors trace their ideas and their development to Stanislavski’s system of training actors (Wolford 1996). Stanislavski is known for developing and using the emotional memory concept in training, which later evolved to the “physical actions” method through self generated insight towards the end of his life. Stanislavski’s system is heavily dependent on the use of imagination, as experienced in the “magic if” part of the Stanislavski’s system (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). Stanislavski’s system is known to have been adopted and utilized in training actors by people like Grotowski, Stanislavski’s student. The system was designed to use a progression of techniques to aid the actors in drawing believable emotions in their performances. Grotowski’s work is quite different because it introduces the concept of impulses and their effects on the performance ability of the actors. Unlike Stanislavski’s approach that mainly focuses on physical actions, Grotowski’s system mainly emphasizes outward focused approach. In this approach, the actor focuses on channeling his or her inner impulses into action (Wolford 1996). Therefore, actions during acting are inspired or influenced by inner developed impulses. The current approaches to training are a combination of various contributions made by these forerunners in the field of actor training. Stanislavski’s method focuses on both the ‘external’ expression and the ‘internal’ generation of actions that humans engage in and tries to establish the connection between the two (Allen 2000, p .55). According to Stanislavski, the actions in the acting process generate emotions that are desired for the performance. For this case, each physical action has a psychological element, which is the psychological action which generates it (Allen 2000). On the converse, each inner psychological action gets physical expression in one way or another. This duality is basic to acting, and one may not solely exist without the other. Therefore, in this concept, an actor can begin by simple physical actions and penetrate the deep-most and complex experiences and feelings. The most important thing in ‘physical actions’ in acting is not the memory of the feelings, but rather what takes place that can lead to the creation of a feeling (Benedetti 2010, p. 71). In such instances imagination comes to play a critical part, and there is a need for a rich command of imagination in order to accurately visualize the actuality of the situation. According to Stanislavski, in every physically performed act, there is a motive that is innately psychological in nature and this motive impels the action. For example, an actor who acts the character of a lion should not only be in a position to roar, but comprehend the motives of a lion in life. Therefore, for every psychological inner action, there has to be a physically expressing action that portrays its psychic nature. This means that, the actor must contemplate all actions a lion would take, hunting, leaping and crawling. The union of the psychological and physical actions leads to what Stanislavski refers to as the ‘organic action’ (Allen, 2000, p. 54). This is supported by Peter Brook’s view that a performer should dig deeper inside the self for responses, as well as being open to the outer stimuli in order to establish a connection between inner psychological thoughts and outward stimuli. Brook further analyses that, the combination of the two results into a performance, which espouses naturalness or an appearance of reality in performances (Wolford 1996). According to Stanislavski’s definition an organic action is one that involves natural actions or ones that at least appear to be natural rather than artificial in stage performance. In Stanislavski’s work, a “character” is a new entirely imagined being that is build by combining the actor and the character contemplated by the author when he was writing (Wolford, 1996, p. 14). The performer starts from the “I am” status and proceeds towards the proposed character by keenly following and imagining the role of the character that is supposed to be depicted by the author (Benedetti 2010, p. 72). Finally, the actor reaches the quasi-identification state with the proposed character and thus becoming a new being. The act of theatre and performance is thus a journey away from the ‘self’ into the ‘other’ through a process of transformation in which the ‘self’ is obliterated, and the ‘other’ gets elevated (Benedetti, 2010, p. 72). This imagination-based-transformation is a metamorphosis, and not a mimesis, according to Stanislavski, and its aim is to create rather than to convince. Therefore, according to him stage reality is a result of creation rather than imitation (Benedetti 2010). As such, the performers are required to feel the sensations and emotions of the characters, which they are supposed to portray. If the character is, for instance, an orphan who is subjected to torture, the actor should be able to empathize and get into the emotions of the real tortured orphan. The performers’ belief, which is build through imagination of senses of actuality in a circumstance, is not enough in itself to guarantee their ability to evoke life on performance. The performance needs to be founded on their emotions’ pulse generated from imagination. This emotional performance is in most cases referred to as emotional recall. However, it should be noted here that imagination suggests otherness, which is specifically what art frees people of, and simple imagination is in actual sense imitation. There is a need to feel because to feel is actually to be, and that is the attainment greatly emphasized by Stanislavski in his imaginative approach (Benedetti 2010). This imaginative approach of Stanislavski greatly underlines the need to imagine and feel, but does not mention anything about the element if impulse. Impulse came as a later development by Grotowski and the development and effect of impulses is best highlighted under his work on actor training. Impulses may have not been highlighted in Stanislavski’s work because his focus on physical action was within the context of usual relations in daily life instances. On the other hand, Grotowski’s work highlights physical actions in the basic life stream and not in a daily life and social situation. In Stanislavski’s definition, a meaningful action should be real, and the reality is an element of reason. In the real acting situation, the performer is conscious of the fact that everything around him is a make believe scenario. Therefore, in order to try and influence its appearance of reality he or she has to preoccupy her/himself with the ideas of how it would appear “if it was real” (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). After drawing upon this imagination, the actual world stops to exist or interest the performer and instead, he or she gets transferred to a different plane, a plane purely created and influenced by imagination. The acknowledgement of actuality is not allowed to disturb the still peace of imagined truth through the conceptualization of the “if.” The conceptualized “if” also takes away from the actor the ability to accept the presence of ‘self’ (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). This results in the suppression of the performer’s usual self, and results in view of the “other” as the character (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). This process leads to the graduation of the actor from “If I” to “I” after the ‘if’ is withdrawn with the reinforcement of imagination (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). ‘If’ initially acts as a merger of the actor to his or her character. The belief of the actor in his or her imagined actions puts her or him on the truth path. Chekhov, who is also a virtuoso in the field of actor training, shares in the same thoughts, and holds that performers should ‘anchor’ their acting in the precise making of physical actions determined through closer empirical observation of actual human behavior. According to Chekhov, “The ‘small truth’ of physical actions stirs the ‘great truth’ of thoughts, emotions, experiences, and a ‘small untruth’ of physical actions gives birth to a ‘great untruth’ in the region of emotions, thoughts and imagination (Allen, 2000, p. 57).” It is apparent from this statement by Chekhov that he indeed shares in the ideas of Stanislavski on physical action. The effect of impulses on the performer is extensively highlighted by Grotowski, who greatly builds on Stanislavski’s work on ‘physical action”’ (Mitter, 2002, p. 6). Grotowski’s concept on impulses is first highlighted through the exploration of the concept of organicity. This concept was first put forth by Stanislavski, but later built on and furthered by Grotowski. According to Stanislavski ‘organicity’ stood for the normal or natural life which appears on stage by means of composition and structure to take the form of art (Richards, 1995, p. 66). Grotowski took this definition further and indicated that, organicity represents something akin to the potentiality of impulses of a current, which is quasi-biological and originates from the inside, and is channeled towards the accomplishment of a certain action (Richards 1995). This organic reaction, which results in specific natural acts, is exemplified to a cat’s movements which are natural as the body’s movements seem uninterrupted and able to flow seamlessly. In such a scenario, the body seems to think for itself, and there are hindrances from thought processes that would normally inhibit the seamless movement. Similar organicity in man’s movement may be realized, but it is hindered by the mind. The mind, in this case, does not do its job, but always tries to direct the body by quickly thinking and instructing it the way to act about it. The interference caused by the mind causes a broken motion and hinders the realization of organic acting due to the generation of conflicting impulses (Richards 1995). The desirable organic acting that should be attained in performances requires believing, experiencing and living imagined actions and circumstances in theatrical imaginary living. Organic acting that is impulse driven entails the recreation of experience using the performer’s emotions, imagination, intellect, senses, experience and will-all of which are transformed to create the character (Mitter 2002). Real experiences in day-to-day life may be reproducible through imagination, recreation and observation in performance and rehearsal, following justified, truthful and natural steps. In order to attain this level of organicity, the human mind must be trained to occupy itself with its tasks or be passive and avoid getting on the way of the body so that the body may think for itself. For example, when an actor is required to act crying or laughing, he or she must be able to occupy the mind with an emotional situation that induces tears. Therefore, organicity entails living a natural life according to the laws of nature (Richards 1995). Impulses generated from the ‘internal sphere’ may lead the actor to either act appropriately or get interrupted, because the delayed body would always be tripping over the thought process (Richards, 1995, p. 68). The body may also lead to further interruptions by generating impulsive emotions that try to alter the emotional state through the change of muscular tension or the breathing rhythm. The highlight of impulses in Stanislavski implies that impulses are related to facial expressions and eyes-the peripheral part of the body of the actor. However, according to Grotowski, the impulses are more than peripheral in influence and he goes on to state that: Before a small physical action, there is an impulse. Therein lays the secret of something very difficult to grasp, because the impulse is a reaction that begins inside the body and which is visible only when it has already become a small action. The impulse is so complex that one cannot say that it is only of the corporeal domain (Richards, 1995, p. 94). From this statement by Grotowski, we can infer that all actions are as a result of impulses and these are generated from the interior, but find their expression on the exterior. This push from the inside is what Grotowski refers to as the “Impulse” (Lowery, 2008, p. 1). The impulse is, thus, responsible for physical action, and it almost always precedes it. The invisible actions are thus firstly born as impulses which find expression in the form of action. According to Grotowski, the fact that one can “develop preconceived actions” as impulses, could be utilized in preparing for physical actions in a performance by internalized rehearsals that stimulate the development of impulses, but leaves them at that-just impulses (Lowery, 2008, p. 1). The actor can, therefore, train the physical actions without actual actions, by simply maintaining them at the impulse level. This implies that the physical manifestation of impulses as actions does not appear immediately because these actions are maintained within the mind and body as ‘impulse’ (Richards, 1995, p. 94). Therefore, in training the physical actions may be rooted in the performer’s nature, if the impulses are trained more than the actions. The training of impulses leaves them placed in the right reaction awaiting a performance. Therefore, an in-built impulse, which is well trained, acts as a memory blue to print to the actions that an individual is supposed to undertake. Thus actions are to a great extent determined by internally generated impulses, which eventually influence state of organic acting attainable depending on how well the impulses have been trained. Prior to the manifestation of the physical action, there occurs an impulse that gives a push from the inner part of the body. It is thus possible to only work on impulses and be able to make sufficient preparations. In actual sense, if any physical action does not results from an impulse, then that action becomes a conventional thing, which is almost like a gesture (Gillet 2007). According to Grotowski, once the impulses are thoroughly worked on every aspect of a performance is rooted within the body. Therefore, impulses are things that push from ‘inside’ the body and stretch outwards, towards the periphery (Lowery, 2008, p. 1). Grotowski analyses that impulses are subtle and uniquely born within the body, but they do not originate from a corporeal domain. Grotowski clearly states that, by virtue of being the essence of all acting actions, impulses are termed as the bits of elemental essence that makes up acting. The impulses prolonged in to actions make up the performance. The derivation of this relation also implies that poor acting may also result from the development of poor sharpening of impulses or premature development of impulses, which are prolonged into acting action (Richards 1995). Stanislavski never highlighted much about impulses in his works; he nevertheless seemed to be aware of the question on impulses as highlighted within some quotations from his works. In his work, Stanislavski states that an actor may have the possibility to “stimulate and reinforce the impulses interior to the action (Gillet, 2007, p. 47).” This could be made possible through a rich imagination drawn in the ‘what if’ format and which may lead to the development of the right impulse necessary to generate an appropriate action (Gillet, 2007, p. 61). Through this statement, it can be inferred that Stanislavski may have been conscious of the presence and effect of impulses on acting, but his work never focused much on that. This was later to be pursued and comprehensively developed by Grotowski; a student who greatly drew much of his ideas and insight from Stanislavski. Stanislavski’s greater difference with Grotowski on the understanding of impulses is based on Stanislavski’s association of impulses with facial expression, and eyes only. On the other hand, Grotowski associated impulses with internal development and external manifestation in any part of the body (Gillet 2007). Apart from directly and positively being linked to performance improvement in acting, impulses are also linked to tension. Impulses appear in tension whenever a performer intends to do anything. Therefore, whenever there is an intention to perform anything, a right tension builds on the inside, and this tension is outwardly directed. In his 1986 Liege conference, Grotowski highlighted the issue of intention (Richards 1995). He stated that proper muscle mobilization led to development of intention in readiness for action, and the lack of this appropriate muscular mobilization means that intention may not be able to build and the resultant actions will be missing (Richards 1995). Grotowski states that ‘intention’ leads to muscular contractions and de-contractions that appear on different instances in a performance of real life scenario (Richards, 1995, p. 94). Actors mostly apply the act of de-contraction whenever they intend to relax, and contraction whenever in action on stage in order to be ready for some action. The intended flow of contractions and de-contractions, that occur as influenced by impulses, never always occur in an intended format and as such they may negatively alter the performance of an individual. For example, at some points in a performance an actor may be required to relax and de-contract, but circumstances such as stage fright may drive him or her into a state of contraction, and therefore, negatively influence his or her performance by eliciting totally unwanted actions and confusion (Richards 1995). The aspect of contraction and de-contraction may, however, be positively harnessed by an actor in improving his performance. For example, an actor who notices tension that causes contractions in certain parts of his or her body may opt to specifically relax that part and lead to a de-contraction. This decision eventually leads to de-contractions and subsequent relaxation of the rest of the body parts. The simple recognition and relaxation may dispel all superfluous contractions. Therefore, it is good to note here that internally generated impulses may have both positive and negative effects on the performer, if not handled appropriately. The key to a better performance in this is learning both the arts of contracting and “de-contracting” (Allen, 2000, p. 87). In conclusion, Stanislavski’s work lays foundation for the modern day actor training principles and procedures. Stanislavski’s work mainly relies on imagination and emotional memory concepts to define the appropriate actor training program, with very little mention of impulses. The seemingly shortened exploration of Stanislavski’s work is continued by Grotowski who finally makes a full exploration of the impulse concept. Stanislavski’s work focused on physical action in the context of basic relations in day-to-day real life instances on a social convention. On the other hand, Grotowski looks at physical actions not in day-to-day social life, but in the “basic” stream of life (Richards, 1995, p. 98). The approach by Stanislavski looks more at the creation of a feeling that is passed into acting through physical action. On the other hand, Grotowski focuses on the creation of a situation that will later be accompanied by emotions. Stanislavski’s work also greatly focuses on imagination and the subsequent “creation of physical actions” using appropriate internally generated imaginations of the would-be situation (Mitter, 2002, p. 1) Imagination, therefore, forms the basis of the development of the physical actions that create a performance and enhance its realistic appearance. Stanislavski managed to weave his earlier emotional evocation approach and physical actions to elicit better on-stage performances. On the other hand, Grotowski’s work lays greater emphasis on the internal generation and use of impulses to drive the actions in a performance. In this refined work, which drew greatly from earlier work by Stanislavski, the impulses are recognized as the main influencers of all action in acting. The insights from the two virtuosos, however, show that there is a common ground, which inheres from the fact that all processes, to any performance action, are internally generated. Additionally, the merging or marriage of the inner and the outer is what makes up the actual performance. The duality is essential for the materialization of all stage performances, and actors have to express it. Reference Allen, D 2000, Performing Chekhov, Routledge Publishers, New York. Benedetti, J. (ed.) 2010, an actor's work on a role, Routledge Publishers, New York Gillet, J 2007, Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach: A Practical Workbook for Actors, Methuen Drama, London. Lowery, J 2008, Jerzi Grotowski-Towards the essential theatre, viewed on 17 December 2012, . Mitter, S 2002, Systems of Rehearsal: Stanislavski, Brecht, Grotowski, and Brook, Routledge Publishers, New York. Richards, T. and Grotowski, J 1995, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, Routledge Publishers, New York Wolford, L 1996, Grotowski's objective drama research, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson: MS. Read More