Sunday, November 1, 2009

PERFECT PERFORMANCE

The following is a draft of something I am trying to develop into a paper to be presented to the Philadelphia Theatre Research Symposium at Villanova in January. I really do not intend to be preachy, so I am trying to edit it to make it more presentable to a wider audience. Your comments are welcome.

Performance reveals relationship. All acting is “acting with” another. The solo performer may seem alone on stage, but remains in the presence of others who see and hear and respond as they will. The ensemble is always present in the context of some greater assembly gathered beyond the parameters of that particular troupe of actors. Humanity is always being with others in some way – presence and absence collapse into one another.

We are called to become imitators, mimetai, of God (Ephesians 5:1). Not only that but to be coimitators, summimetai, followers together with others (cf. Philippians 3:17). Such imitatio dei is contrasted with hypocrisy - we are to “take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them” (Matthew 6:1).

Our performance, time and time again, is less than perfect, inhibited by “all manner of concupiscence” (Romans 7:8, KJV). How, then, are we to perform that which is good?

We must recognize that we have not already become perfect, but are being perfected in living as we live in Love. Perfection brings something or someone to completion, allowing that one to be finished according to some appropriate end. Humanity is perfected in love, joining together in becoming imitators of God.

Faith begins in one’s imagination. Consciously conforming one’s conscience, not to concupiscience, but toTruth renews our minds (much more than mere mental manipulation) so that we may prove that which is the good and acceptable. All human action takes place in the context of some relationship and every human act is held to the standard of loving others as one loves oneself. Love never happens in isolation; in fact, isolation is a rejection of love.

What is Love like? Love is revealed through face-to-face interaction. We see in our meeting with others a reflection of God's presence, seeing in another's face "the face of God" (cf. Jacob before his brother Esau in Genesis 33:10). A hypocrite deliberately tries to deceive people; such a performance relies on pretence rather than presence.

Like an actor, the hypocrite is pretending; what the “audience” sees is not the actor’s person but some persona being portrayed by the actor. Pious practice becomes performative pretense. Such a theatrical display before an audience is done for the applause of other people rather than the affirmation of Love.

The problem with hypocrisy is that it deforms one’s conscience, which sits in judgment over our will. The conscience is not the means by which we tell what is right and what is wrong; training teaches us what is right or wrong. Our conscience insists that we do what we think is right and avoid what we think is wrong. This very important distinction needs to be remain clear. Conscience, not a safe guide by itself, can be very mistaken. Conscience merely gives approval or disapproval whenever we fulfill or fail whatever standard we have, whether or not that standard is right or wrong. Conscience can either prod or punish – it acts both before and after the fact.

Hypocrisy performs against the dictates of one’s conscience. The hypocrite then comes to possess a seared conscience. “Speaking lies in hypocrisy, some have their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (I Tim. 4: 2). This reference to a "seared conscience" is a metaphor that comes from the cauterizing of a wound. Like the skin of a cauterized wound, one's conscience can become insensible. Much is done with the intention to please God, yet one is left with no full sense of having pleased God in the doing them. Instead, the nagging sense that one has not done enough to please God remains. People goaded by an uneasy conscience can try to put their conscience to rest by religious activity. Such frenzy is ultimately unsatisfying for it certainly does not impress God.

Whose performance is it anyhow?

Crucial to understanding Christian performance is that the Christian Actor, one abiding in Christ, becomes Christ in the world through the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. This Actor is not some single embodied soul standing alone on stage, but a full member of the Body of Christ, a corporation of caring characters who together comprise one whole Person, that is Jesus Christ.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

HISTRIO-MASTIX

The players scourge, or, actors tragædie, divided into two parts.

William Prynne (1600-1669)

Wherein it is largely evidenced, by divers arguments, by the concurring authorities and resolutions of sundry texts of Scripture, That popular stage-playes are sinfull, heathenish, lewde, ungodly spectacles, and most pernicious corruptions; condemned in all ages, as intolerable mischiefes to churches, to republickes, to the manners, mindes, and soules of men.
And that the profession of play-poets, of stage-players; together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous and misbeseeming Christians. All pretences to the contrary are here likewise fully answered; and the unlawfulnes of acting, of beholding academicall enterludes, briefly discussed; besides sundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, health-drinking, &c. of which the table will informe you.

THE PROLOGUE

Such hath always been, and yet is, the perverse and wretched condition of sinful man, the cogitations of whose heart are evil and only evil before God, and that continually: that it is far more easy to estrange him from his best, and chiefest joys; than to divorce him from his truest misery, the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, yet set in endless grief. Man always hugs his pleasurable sins so fast, out of a preposterous and misguided love, which makes his reformation desperate, that if any soul-compassionating Christians attempt to wrest them from him, he forthwith takes up arms against them, returning them no other answer, then that of Ruth to Naomi, in a far better case: The Lord doe so to me, and more also, if ought but death part them and me: where they dye, I will dye, and there will I bee buried. And thus alas he lives, nay, dies and lies (as too, too many daily do) entombed both with and in his darling crimes.

How naturally prone men are to cleave to worldly pleasures and delights of sin, in despite of all those powerful attractives which might withdraw them from them; to omit all other particular instances, we may behold a real and lively experiment of it in profane and poisonous STAGE-PLAYS, the common idol and prevailing evil of our dissolute and degenerous Age. Which though they had their rise from hell, yea, their birth, and pedigree from the very Devil himself, to whose honour and service they were at first devoted. Though they have been oft condemned and quite exploded by the whole Primitive Church, both under the Law and Gospel, by the unanimous vote of all the Fathers, and sundry Councils from age to age, by modern divines, and Christian authors of all sorts, by divers heathen states, and emperors, and by whole Grand Juries of profane writers (as well historians and poets as philosophers) as the incendiaries and common nurseries of all villainy and wickedness, the bane and overthrow of all grace and goodness, the very poison and corruption of men's minds and manners, the very fatal plagues and overtures of those states and kingdoms where they are once tolerated, as I shall prove anon.

Yet we, we miserable and graceless wretches, after so many sentences of condemnation passed upon them, after so many judgments already inflicted on and yet threatened to us for them, after so many years and jubilees of the glorious Gospel-sun-shine which teacheth us to deny ungodliness and all worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for the coming, and appearance of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Yea, after our very vow and sacred covenant in Baptism, which binds us to forsake the Devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh, of which these Stage-Plays are the chief. As if we were quite degenerated, not only from the grace and holinesses of Christians, but even from the natural goodness and morality of pagans in former ages, do now, even now, in the midst of all our fears at home and the miserable desolations of God's Church abroad (the very thoughts of which should cause our hearts to bleed, and souls to mourn; much more our hellish jollity, and mirth to cease): as if we had made a covenant with hell, and sworn allegiance to the Devil himself, enthrall, and sell ourselves to these diabolical, and hellish interludes, notwithstanding all that God or man have said against them. And would rather part with Christ, religion, God, or heaven, than with them. Yea, so far are many men's affections wedded to these profane and heathenish vanities, that as it was in Saint Augustine's time, even so it is now, whosoever is but displeased and offended with them, is presently reputed for a common enemy.

He that speaks against them or comes not at them, is forthwith branded for a schismatical or factious Puritan. And if any one assay to alter or suppress them, he becomes so odious unto many, that did not the fear of punishment restrain their malice, they would not only scorn and disgrace but even stone or rent him all to pieces, as a man unworthy for to live on earth. Whereas such who further these delights of sin are highly magnified, as the chief contrivers of the public happiness. There was once a time (if Tertullian, with some other ancient Fathers may be credited) when as it was the chiefest badge and character of a Christian, to refrain from Stage-Plays: yea, this was one great crime which the pagans did object against the Christians in the Primitive Church, that they came not to their interludes. But now (as if Stage-Plays were our Creed and Gospel, or the truest emblem of our Christian profession) those are not worthy of the name of Christians - they must be Puritans and Precisians; not Protestants, who dislike them.

Heu quantum mutatus ab illo?

Alas, how far are Christians now degenerated from what they were in ancient times; when as that which was their badge and honour heretofore is now become their brand and shame? Quantus in Christiano populo honor Christi est, vbi religio ignobilem facit? How little doe we Christians honour Christ, when as the ancient character; and practical power, of religion (I mean the abandoning, and renouncing of sin-fomenting Stage-Plays) subject men unto the highest censure, and disgrace?

Conquerar? an taceam?

This being the dissolute and unhappy constitution of our depraved times, it put me at the first to this dilemma, whether to sit mute and silent still and mourn in secret for these overspreading abominations (which have got such head of late among us, that many who visit the Church scarce once a week, frequent the Playhouse once a day). Or whether I should lift up my voice like a trumpet and cry against them to my power? If I should bend my tongue or pen against them (as I have done against some other sinful and unchristian vanities), my thoughts informed me that I might with the unfortunate Disciples, fish all night, and catch just nothing at the last but the reproach and scorn of the histrionicall and profaner sort, whose tongues are set on fire of hell against all such as dare affront their hellish practices. And so my hopes and travail would bee wrecked at once. If I should on the other side, neglect to doe my uttermost to extirpate or withstand these dangerous spectacles, or to withdraw such persons from them as my pains and brief collections in this subject might reclaim, when God had put this opportunity into my hand and will into my heart to do it, my conscience then persuaded me, that my negligence and slackness in this kind might make me guilty of the death of all such ignorant, and seduced souls, which these my poor endeavors might rescue from these chains of hell, and cords of sin, and interest me in all the evil which they might suppress.

Whereupon I resolved with myself at last, to endure the cross and despise the hate and shame, which the publishing of this HISTRIO-MASTIX might procure me, and to assuage (at least in my endeavors, if not otherwise,) these inveterate, and festered ulcers (which may endanger Church, and State at once) by applying some speedy corrosives and emplaisters to them, and ripping up their noxious and infectious nature, on the public theater in these ensuingActs and Scenes. Which I thought good to style, The Players' or Actors' Tragedy - not so much for the style or method of it (for alas, here is neither tragic style, nor poetical strains, nor rare invention, nor clown, nor actor in it, but only bare, and naked truth which needs no Eloquence nor strain of wit for to adorn or plead its cause) - as for the good effects I hope it may and will produce, to the suppression and extirpation, at least the restraint and diminution` both of plays, and common actors, and all those several mischievous and pestiferous fruits of hellish wickednesses that issue from them. Which much desired success, and reformation, if I could but live to see; I should deem myself an happy man, and think my labour richly recompensed.


[Spelling and punctuation modernized]

Ruth 1: 17 - Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

attractives = attractions

degenerous = degenerate

Isaiah 28:15 - "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement".

schismatical = The most extreme English puritans separated themselves from the English Church, refusing to attend its worship; they were accused of the sin of schism - a deliberate and unwarranted break with the church.

Precisians = Puritans were regarded as being to rigidly precise in their insistence on proper religious forms and so were detractingly called precisians, e.g. Drayton (1612) "Like our Precisians. Who for some cross or saint they in the window see will pluck down all the church."

Heu "quantum mutatus ab illo [Hectore]" = Vergil, Aeneid, II 274-275 Alas "how changed from that earlier Hector"

"Conquerar, an taceam?" = "Complaint or silence?" Ovid, Ex ponto, IV.iii (To a faithless friend).

histrionicall = histrionic, i.e. theatrical, dramatic.

John 21,1-4.

emplaisters = plasters, a substance spread on a wound to close it.

Monday, July 13, 2009

IMPRO BOOKS

The following was retrieved from http://appliedimprov.ning.com/notes/Impro_books_in_English

Books in English

More reading (articles)

Books in Foreign languages

Activities from Improvisation Theater to develop creativity, leadership, teambuilding, communication skills,...in organisations

58 1/2 Ways to Improvise in Training: Improvisation Games and Activities for Workshops, Courses and Team Meetings, Paul Z. Jackson
A trainer’s step-by-step guide to amazing activities which teach communication skills, leadership and creativity. Good selection of clearly-explained simple-to-run games, organized by number of participants, visual/verbal/physical matrix, degree of energy and time taken to run.

The inspirational trainer: Make Training Time Flexible, Responsive, Paul Z Jackson,Creative Kogan Page, 0-7494-3468-6
A wide-ranging handbook for trainers who aspire to inspire. Practical and provocative, tips and ideas, drawing on AL, drama, sports and psychology- wih particular reference to improvisation. Introduces concept of Rehearsals for Success, combining elements of role play, forum theatre and coaching..
(previously published in hardback as Impro Learning, Gower)

Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook
Viola Spolin, Northwestern University Press
Exactly what the title says. A better organised book, with helpful bibliography and appendices.

Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning, Kat Koppett

Working with groups to enhance Relationships : 46 interactive exercices to build communication, encourage cooperation and rekindle companionship, Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin and Sue Walden

Improvisation applied to business or to life

Competing on the Edge : Strategy as Structured Chaos, Shona L. Brown,and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Harvard Business School Press 1998

Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less Robert Poynton and Gary Hirsch 2008

Experiencing risk, spontaneity and improvisation in organizational change: working live. Shaw Patricia, Edited with Stacey, R.D. Routledge 2006,.

Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, Steven Nachmanovitch

GameChangers -- Improvisation for Business in the Networked World,Mike Bonifer

Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, Keith Sawyer,

Improv Yourself: Business Spontaneity at the Speed of Thought by Joseph A. Keefe and Joe Keefe

Improv wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up, Patricia Ryan Madson, Bell Tower 2005

Improvisation, Inc.: Harnessing Spontaneity to Engage People and Groups ,Robert Lowe

Improvise This! How to Think on Your Feet So You Don't Fall on Your Face Mark Bergren, et al

Organizational Improvisation by: Kamoche, Ken; Cunha, Miguel Pina E.; Cunha, Joao Vieira Da

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) Garr Reynolds, New Riders 2008

The Flexible Thinker: A Guide to Creative Wealth by Michael Rosenburg (Author), Helen Bauer (Illustrator), Michael D. Rosenberg (Author)

Transcultural Experiments by: Berry, Ellen E.

When I Say This... ...Do You Mean That?:,: Enhancing on the Job Communication Skills Using the Rules and the Tools of the Improv Comedy Player, Cherie Kerr, Julia Sweeney 1998

Improvisation Theater in general

Acting on Impulse: The Art of Making Improv Theater, Carol Hazenfield

Action Theater: The Improvisation of Presence, Ruth Zaporah, North Atlantic Books, California 1995
A 20-day course of exercises, with instructions and discussion. Plenty of intensive activities, mostly theatre, some dance. Good understanding of the heart of impro - expressed in whimsical lines.

Book on Acting: Improvisation Technique for the Professional Actor in Film, Theater, and Television , Stephen Book

Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Augusto Boal, Routledge London 1992
Political improvisation from the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed. Lots of great games, also plenty of concepts and jargon.

Group Improvisation: The Manual of Ensemble Improv Games, Peter Gwinn

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, Keith Johnstone, Methuen, 1979,
Still the best introduction to impro for the theatre. Very readable, funny and illuminating. A major inspiration for staged impro in UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

Improv! A handbook for the actor. Atkins, G. 1994. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Improvisation: Use What You Know, Make Up What You Don't (2nd Edition) (Paperback), by Brad Newton

Improvisation for Actors and Writers: A Guidebook for Improv Lessons in Comedy Bill Lynn, Kip King

Improvisation for the Theater 3E: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques, Viola Spolin, Northwestern University Press
Johnstone’s main ‘rival’ as originator of theatre games as performance. Lots of exercises, thorough explanations, and useful ideas about things like side-coaching.

Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz, Routledge London 1994
Mixed bag of essays from Boal practitioners and watchers. Impro for politics and for therapy, links back to Moreno.

The Improv Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Improvising in Comedy, Theatre, and Beyond Tom Salinsky, Deborah Frances-White

Theater Games for the Lone Actor Viola Spolin, A Handbook, 2001

The Playbook: Improv Games for Performers, William Hall www.improvplaybook.com

Truth in Comedy :The Manual of Improvisation Charna Halpern,and Del Close 1952

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Acting Theory

I freely confess that I think acting is an essential aspect of being human. This idea formed in me first because I have found great pleasure in doing theatre since I was a young boy. Given, however, the profound place that Christian faith has in my life, theology further provoked this idea that acting defines humanity.

There is much that has been written about theology and about theatre. I have read and will continue to read these writings of others, although I will not let myself be limited by those writings. It is rare that they discuss my idea as I conceive it. As I wrote in another post (Monday, June 30, 2008), there have been four books in particular that do come close and I have since discovered others that do as well.

What I want to write is about theology/theatre - theatre in service of theology and theology implicit in theatre. Let all the world be a stage and all of us be players, always acting before an audience of One. That One will review our play on the Last Day, which means that every moment until then is laden with great theological/theatrical import.