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ACTOR TRAINING IN TORONTO: THEORY IN PRACTICE

Laurin Marie Mann

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, in the University of Toronto

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Actor Trainins in Toronto: Theory in Practice Doctor of Philosophy, 1999 Laurin Marie Mann Graduate Centre for Study of Drama University of Toronto

The decision to examine acting theories prevalent amongst performance teachers in Toronto emanated from a perceived lack of research into the subject of acting in English Canadian theatre studies. When the project began, I did not realize that the more general subject of acting theory has received little attention in theatre scholarship as well. In order to study the acting theories of Toronto teachers, it became necessary to define acting and its theory, distinguish it from performance theory, and determine prominent concepts within acting theory which could serve as a framework within which to compare and contrast the ideas and practices of various theorists and practitioners. In Chapter 2, the key concepts of acting theory outlined

in Chapter 1 are employed in an examination of the ideas of some prominent acting theorists of the past century. The data engendered by the research leading to this portion of the

study served as a foundation for an historical as well as conceptual understanding of modern acting theory. This framework proved invaluable in the preparation and analysis of ii a survey distributed to Toronto performance teachers (outlined and analyzed in Chapter 3), and in an examination of the acting theories of six Toronto teachers studied in depth through interview and classroom observation (Chapter 4). When the primary materials examined for this study are compared in Chapter 5, several distinct tendencies are revealed concerning acting theories held by performance teachers in Toronto, These are: a view of the function of theatre as experiential, as well as enlightening; the primacy of the actuality of the actor, particularly qualities of instinct and impulse; the predominance of internal approaches to actor training and practice; a devaluation of the primacy of the play text and, thus of the author's intent; a dismissal of the technical areas of theatre as elements of actor study; a growing awareness that actors need training in the business as well as the art of making theatre; and an open minded and eclectic approach to actor training, suggesting a similar attitude towards theory.

iii I wish to thank my supervisors and thesis committee Dr. Joyce Wilkinson, Dr. Michael J. Sidnell and Dr. Richard Plant, for their invaluable assistance and support during the research process.

I also thank the Toronto acting teachers who gave so generously of their time and energies to participate in this study, particularly: Rosemary Dunsmore, Karen Hazard, Bernadette Jones, Alan Jordan, Kevin McCormick, and Tony Pearce-

This work is dedicated to my father and mother, George and Nellie Mann, and to my sister Debra for their unfailing love and support. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY ...... 1

CHAPTER 2: KEY CONCEPTS IN MODERN WESTERN ACTING THEORY ....28

CHAPTER 3: ACTING THEORY IN TORONTO: GENERAL SURVEY ..80

CHAPTER 4: ACTOR TRAINING IN TORONTO: CASE STUDIES ...... 128 Alan Jordan ...... 130 Karen Hazzard ...... 144 Tony Pearce ...... 157 Rosemary Dunsmore ...... 170 Bernadette Jones ...... 188 Kevin McCormick ...... 203

CHAPTER 5 : TOWARDS A TORONTO ACTING THEORY ...... 222

CONCLUSION ...... 276

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 289

APPENDIX A: SURVEY ...... 301

APPENDIX B: SUPPLEMENTARY ANSWERS TO SURVEY QUESTIONS .....305

APPENDIX C: LIST OF SURVEY PARTICIPANTS ...... 310 CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION AND I!+BTHODOLOGY

The subject of acting is a little explored area of research in English Canadian theatre studies. We have no definitive history of Canadian acting, and no studies of the techniques and ideas of contemporary acting teachers such as are available for our American and British counterparts. No articles by Canadian performers are included in Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy's Actors on Actinq, and articles and books on Canadian actors and their art are few and far between.' As our theatre artists pass away, the opportunity to document their ideas and their art is lost. This study, which explores the acting theories of contemporary acting teachers in Toronto, makes an initial investigation into this neglected area of research. To examine dominant acting theories in Toronto requires a working definition of the major term, but acting theory is as difficult to define as is the term theory itself, This study takes theory to be "a unified system of laws or hypotheses, with explanatory force," and, more generally, "a field of study" (Lacey 157). Acting theory has been examined in both these ways.

The most prominent of these are: Murray D. Edwards, A Staqe in Our Past: Enqlish-lanquaqe Theatre in Eastern Canada from the 1790 's to 191 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968) ; Robert B. Scott, "Professional Performers and Companies," Later Stases: Essays in Ontario Theatre from the First World War to the 1970fs, ed. Ann Saddlemyer and Richard Plant (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997); R,H. Thornson, "Standing in the Slipstream: Acting in English Canada," Contemporary Canadian Theatre : New World Visions, ed. Anton Wagner (Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1985); and Lynda Mason Green and Tedde Moore, comps. and eds., Standins Naked in the Winss: Anecdotes from ~anadian Actors (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997). A few biographies of Canadian actors have also been published. The most readily available are those on William Hutt, Amelia Hall, Mary Pickford and Marie Dressier. Certain theorists, such as Constantin Stanislavski, set out principles for actors to follow in order to attain a desired result, while the editors of the book of interviews, Actors Talk about Actinq, assume that any idea having to do with acting can be considered worthy of inclusion. Relationship between Actinq Theory and Performance Theory This project is an examination of acting theory rather than of performance theory. Performance (as well as the theory that examines it) is an inclusive concept that encompasses many disparate disciplines (including acting) which can be said to be performative. Richard Schechner defines the term in the introduction to his book of essays, Performance Theory: Theatre is only one node on a continuum that reaches from the ritualizations of animals (including humans) through performances in everyday life--greetings, displays of emotion, family scenes, professional roles, and so on--through to play, sports, theatre, dance, ceremonies, rites, and performances of great magnitude (xiii). Though I am aware that other kinds of performativity impinge on acting and theatre, this study assumes a distinctive art and craft of acting which participates in the art form of theatre practiced in western cultures since antiquity. Jerzy Grotowski, in his introduction to Towards a Poor Theatre, expresses a similar point of view, stating that his theatre company was "seeking to define what is distinctively theatre, what separates this activity from other categories of performance and spectacle"

(15)* 3 Michael Goldman defends acting and theatre as distinct arts in the introduction to his book The Actor's Freedom. He states: I use the word "theater" . . . to refer not only to the place where plays are given but to the entire occasion of acted drama--that is, to the performance of parts by actors according to some kind of shaping intent. The notion is broadly inclusive, not limited to performances based on a written script, or even to the actor's taking on a character entirely separate from his own. It applies, that is, as much to the Open Theater's Mutation Show as to Hamlet. Most readers, I imagine, will find the definition natural enough, but I call attention to it because some interesting recent criticism has approached acting under the general heading of "performance theory," and defined "theater"

to mean any occasion of performance. 1 use "theater" in the more restricted sense partly for convenience, of course, but I do insist on the difference between the theater of acting and other kinds of performance because I think it is a radical one. Acting is a type of performance, as speech is a type of communication, but in both cases the subclass is so distinctive, so rich and singular, that it can be misleading to treat it on terms of parity with other members of the general classification (ix).

Like Goldman, my examination of acting theory concentrates on those aspects of performance most closely related to theatre. For the purposes of this study, I define acting as any action (physical, vocal, mental, emotional) which is meant to be observed, knowingly undertaken by a human being who is at that moment engaged in the making of theatre. This definition, although not as inclusive as some associated with performance, is broad enough to cover the performative elements of classical Greek tragedy, commedia dell'arte, the work of the surrealists and the formalists, the political theatre of the 1930'~~ collective creations, modern television soap operas, and the creations of individuals such as Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman. Acting theory, then, is the field of study pertaining to the work of the actor, This conception of acting theory has not prevented my pointing out grey areas--those places where the distinctions between acting and other performative activities seem to blur--nor from quoting performance theorists and others who have a very different point of view from my own, where their ideas are relevant to the topic under discussion. Brief History of Western Actinq Theory In Europe, most statements on acting written before the eighteenth century (apart from those of an "antitheatrical" nature2) tend to be descriptions of performances or handbooks aimed at training the performer in specific techniques; little was written about the nature of the actor or of acting. Theory from these earlier periods has often been deduced from other sources such as works dealing with oratory (Quintilian) or play scripts, such as aml let's advice to the players in Shakespeare's play of the same name or ~'~rnprornptude Versailles by ~olisre.

See Jonas Barish, h he Antitheatrical Prejudice,I' Critical Ouarterly viii.4 (Winter 1966): 329-348. In the mid-eighteenth century, however, acting theory emerged with such seminal works as Pierre ~grnondde Sainte- ~lbine'sLe ~omidien,Francesco Antonio ~iccoboni's~'~rt du ~hggtre,Gotthold Ephraim ~essing'sHambursische Dramatursie and

Denis Diderot's Le Paradoxe sur le ~ombdien.Le ~omidien(1747), which focussed on an analysis of the personality characteristics necessary for successful acting, was translated by John Hill and published in English under the title The Actor: A Treatise on the Art of Plavinq in 1750, Other important theorists of this period include: Luigi Riccoboni, famous for his writings on performance of commedia dell'arte; Aaron Hill, theatrical manager and actor trainer, whose publication The Prom~terexplored drama and acting concepts; Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, who created a theatre devoted to dramatic literature and the aesthetics of performance, and whose rigid "Rules for ~ctors"influenced a generation of German actors; and a number of articulate performers, including Colley Cibbex, Charles Macklin, David Garrick, and Sarah Siddons. The nineteenth century was replete with theorists of the art and craft of acting. As these individuals have been examined at some depth in other publications, only a few who have had a significant impact on modern acting will be mentioned here.

George 11, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, provided Europe with many of the principles upon which the modern theatre is based. The productions of the Meiningers were notable for their ensemble

Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy, eds., Actors on Actins: The Theories, Techniques and Practices of the Great Actors of All Times as Told in Their Own Words, Rev. Ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1970) 187-234, 276-300, 326-396, 443-470, 481 -501, 543- 589. 6 playing, historical accuracy in costume, discipline, concept of the director as overseer and unifier of the production, and for the interrelationship between actor movement and set design (Cole and Chinoy 257, 284). Both Stanislavski and And& Antoine were influenced by the Meininger troupe. Richard Wagner and Adolphe Appia promoted the concept of theatrical synthesis, which they claimed could be obtained through unification of the theatrical arts. Appia concluded that the disparity between the three-dimensional performer and the two-dimensional painted stage settings was the primary deterrent to stage unity. He sought to harmonize the other theatrical elements with the physical presence of the actor, calling for the abolition of painted flats and the introduction of atmospheric lighting and three-dimensional set pieces--staircases, modules, platforms, ramps, curtains, screens. In his later writings, Appia promoted the concept of performer as creator, rather than interpreter. His ideas have had a lasting effect on set and light design, and his theory influenced Edward Gordon Craig, a prominent acting theorist of the twentieth century. By contrast with both Appia and Craig, in Germany and France, respectively, Otto Brahm and ~ndr6Antoine both promoted naturalism in acting. While Brahm focussed on the portrayal of true-to-life human beings on stage, Antoine concentrated on the concepts of observation and the direct study of nature. This led him to the development of "slice of life" naturalism in stage design. Like Brahm and Antoine, the great Russian actor Michael Shchepkin opposed the declamatory approach to acting that was still popular with many performers well into the nineteenth century. He developed an approach to acting (which he dubbed "realism"), in which the actor portrays psychologically-based human beings in true-to-life situations, making use of the actor's thoughts and emotions. Shchepkin had a pronounced influence on the acting theories of Stanislavski. It is my conviction that naturalistic and Stanislavski-based realistic approaches to acting are the primary methods used in North America today. Franpois Delsarte, like Aaron Hill before him, attempted to formulate laws of speech and gesture based on observation of human instinctual responses. Although based in "nature" rather than art, the formulaic structure Delsarte devised for the expression of emotion came to be perceived as artificial and is no longer in vogue. However, through the work of Delsarte's American disciple Steele Mackaye, this approach to acting had an extensive influence in North America at the end of the nineteenth century. 4 French actor Benoit Coquelin, who specialized in playing comic servants, is best remembered today for his writings on the art of acting--and in particular for his disagreement with ~ritain'sHenry Irving over the use of actor emotion in performance. The controversy between Coquelin and Irving, a co.ltinuation of a discourse originating with Sainte-Albine and Riccoboni, prompted William Archer to research and write Masks or Faces? A Study in the Psvcholosv of Actins. The concept of whether the actor does or does not, should or should not make use

See Donald Francis Hebert, "~teeleMacKaye: Actor Training ~ethods,"diss., Texas Tech. University, 1997. of personal emotion in the portrayal of character, is a significant concept in acting theory considered further in Chapter 2. In the twentieth century there has been a veritable explosion of writing about acting. Besides published works by such seminal theorists as Stanislavski, Gordon Craig, Bertolt Brecht, Jacques Copeau, Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Viola Spolin, and Lee Strasberg, bookstore shelves overflow with: works by specific acting teachers, outlining their philosophy and containing practical exercises; books by or about specific theorists, actors, and directors; works on performance theory and cultural anthropology; historical accounts of the art of acting; books about a particular theatre company, acting style, or technique; books analyzing acting from a particular standpoint (for example, feminist, semiotic, post-modern approaches); collected accounts of actors writing about their art; biographies and autobiographies of performers; books of interviews with famous actors; books about theatre from a particular country; works dealing with the psychology of acting; works concentrating on the relationship between the actor and the audience; books on the ethics of performance; works about actor education and training; and books dealing with specific aspects of the actor's work such as voice, movement, or mime. Review of Literature: Actins Theory In contrast to this abundance of writing on acting, there is very little literature of acting theory to examine from an historical or critical perspective. Although the term "acting theory" is present in many publications dealing with the work of 9 the actor, few of those writers using the term attempt to define acting theory or to determine its key subject areas. Michael Brian Friedman presents the state of scholarship with respect to this discipline succinctly in the introduction to his 1987 dissertation, Advice to the Players: Actins Theory in America. 1923-1973, He claims that most studies of acting theory:

. , . concentrate on a single theorist or a single approach to acting, and few surveys of acting theory exist. Toby ole's and Helen Krich Chinoy's Actors on Actinq is an invaluable anthology, but it makes no attempt to trace or connect ideas about acting. Edwin Duerr's The Lensth and Depth of Actinq makes such an attempt, and his account of acting from the Greeks to Stanislavsky is prescient and readable. But this work skirts much modern acting theory, as does Garff B. Wilson's History of American Actinq (6). My study of books and bibliographies of works on acting published in the past ten years has led me to conclude that ~riedman'sgeneral comments are still valid in 1998. Most of the acting books examined explore one particular acting method or the ideas of a single theorist, and neither those nor the few surveys and anthologies that have been published recently (such as ~arrilli'sActins (ReIConsidered and Reinelt and ~oach's Critical Theory and Performance) attempt to explore the area of acting theory itself. This lack of an accepted body of knowledge on acting theory has required my determining for this study a number of concepts which are key to acting theory, in order to provide a structural framework for my analysis of the ideas of particular theorists and practitioners. I began this process by examining three modern works that explore North American acting and its theory: nuerr's The Lensth and Depth of Actinq, ~riedman'sAdvice to the Players, and James

McTeague's "A New School of Dramatic Art: An Analysis of the Acting Theories and Teaching Practices of the Best Known American

Acting schools, I 875-1 925. '15 ~lthoughit contains no information on contemporary acting, the most comprehensive acting treatise available to the theatre scholar is still ~uerr'swork. Published in 1962, it is an historically-based survey of Western acting from the Greeks to the mid-twentieth century. The all- encompassing nature of ~uerr'sstudy prevents any specific theorist or actor from being explored in depth, but it provides an excellent overview of the history of Western acting. Duerr's acute awareness of the ephemeral nature of acting makes his book notable for its extensive use of anecdotes and eyewitness accounts, He does not, however, discuss acting theory as such. The text examines the work of the actor within the context of theatre history; thus, for each period and country Duerr tends to look at changes or developments particular to that time, place, or artist. Certain topics recur consistently, however: function of the theatre; function of acting; the relationship between art and nature; the nature of the actor; performance style; relationships between the actor and the audience, the playwright or text, the playing space, other actors, the director, and the

Much of ~c~eague'sdissertation was subsequently published in his book Before Stanislavski: American Professional Actinq Schools and Actins Theory, 1875-1925 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1993). character, Friedman and ~c~eague'sworks deal specifically with North American acting theory. Using an historical context, Friedman

claims that changes in the world at the close of the nineteenth century led to conflicting ideas about the art of acting and thus the development of four "streams" of acting theory in this century: one based on ~tanislavski'sprinciples, one on Edward Gordon Craig's, one on Bertolt Brecht's and the fourth on Antonin ~rtaud's,Friedman compares the four streams according to certain general underlying ideas, such as: what is being represented; the perceived function and/or purpose of the theatre and, thus, of the actor; and the notion of the relationship between truth and reality, art and life, He then compares and contrasts these four general streams of acting theory, as well as the ideas of particular artists/theorists within these groupings, on the basis of assumptions about: the director, the actor, the text (play script), audience, and acting space. ~riedman'sstudy is useful primarily for its sense of "the big picture." It also identifies the concepts listed above for inclusion in the discussion of what constitutes acting theory.

Phillip B. Zarrilli also claims that there are four streams or "paradigms" of acting/performance in contemporary Euro- American theatre- He agrees with Friedman that one is Brechtian and another Artaud-Grotowski-based, but opens up the "realism" stream to include pre-Stanislavski and non-Stanislavski approaches. Zarrilli's third category, thus, specifies "playing a character in which it is assumed that the actor must craft, shape, and embody an identifiable role, "mask" or dramatis persona played in a particular style and according to a set of conventions (melodrama, realism, etc.)." Zarrilli omits theories based on Craig and the Art heat re's precepts, but describes as his fourth paradigm a contemporary approach to acting "in which the performer repeats a sequence of actions which does not constitute a character." (333-334) Although historically beyond the bounds of this study, ~c~eague'ssurvey of North American acting theory analyzes the theories of early American acting schools by general categories. Like Friedman, he notes the importance of ideas concerning the relationship of art to nature, the function of acting and the actor, the relationship of the actor to the text, the relationship of the actor to the audience, and the relationship of actor to character. In addition to these areas, he also notes differences in acting theories concerning such ideas as characteristics of the "ideal" actor; the use of emotion in acting; the importance of the unconscious in acting; instinct versus intellect; and approaches/attitudes towards voice, body, and technique training. Key Concepts in Actinq Theory: Methodolosv of This Study Besides the above works specific to acting theory, I consulted fifty major works on acting to determine the particular aspects of the art of acting which seem most clearly to define particular theories or groups of theories. These sources included: theoretical treatises by practitioners and theorists as diverse as David Belasco, Lee Strasberg, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Viola Spolin, Antonin Artaud, Gordon Craig, and Julian Beck; acting textbooks; critical evaluations of actors and their work; 13 and statements of actors themselves (from books of interviews or critical anthologies). The bibliography lists the most relevant texts. I noted each reference to concepts considered significant by the writers of the three surveys- A separate list of subject areas which were not suggested by Duerr, Friedman, or McTeague, but which were key issues with individual theorists, emerged. I grouped the concepts which recurred most often on both lists into four general subject areas: Function of theatre and of the actor, Representation, Relationships, Training and education of the actor. These are the concepts I deemed most relevant to the subject of acting theory and the conceptual framework for my own exploration of the dominant acting theories held by acting teachers in contemporary Toronto. These concepts will be developed further in

Chapter 2. Relationship between Actins Theory, Practice, and Actor Traininq Catherine Belsey, in her work Critical Practice, states that "there is no practice without theory, however much that theory is suppressed, unformulated or perceived as 'obvious"' (4). This statement seems particularly relevant with respect to theories of performance, although one can make a case for distinguishing between conscious and articulated theory, such as found in ~rtaud'sThe Theatre and its Double, and unconscious understanding of theory, such as might be passed on by example in a production setting. Other sources of acting theory include acting classes, in which the theory is articulated verbally or 14 passed on by example, and acting manuals--books used as references or instruction guides by students and acting teachers. In my twenty-five years of attending and conducting acting classes, I have found that many modern teachers and students of acting do not articulate the ideas and beliefs underlying the training of professional performers. There seem to be two reasons for this: some teachers claim that intellectualizing interferes with the creative process; others seem unaware of the theoretical implications of their actions; they only know experientially that a particular exercise "works. I' Students often leave these classes unaware that alternative approaches are available, or that the practice is theoretically-founded. Much acting theory develops out of the dialogue between what is written or stated about practice, and practice itself. One example is the case of the American development of the Stanislavski system. On the basis primarily of Stanislavski's Actor Prepares, Lee Strasberg and others developed methods for training actors with a primary focus on the actor's internal, psychological work. When Stella Adler returned to the United States from her 1934 exchange with Stanislavski and informed the American theatrical community that ~tanislavski'ssystem actually was made up of two equal parts, with external training and technique as important as the internal, she created a schism within that community. The notion was particularly difficult fox practitioners who claimed to be teaching "the true Stanislavski ~ethod"when it was clear that they were not, or who did not want to change their approach but were not confident enough to question the master. Many of these practitioners and teachers ended up prevaricating--verbally supporting Stanislavski's theory while developing a very different, if unarticulated, one of their own. Even today, a survey of five of the most widely used acting textbooks in America reveals that although all five claim that voice and movement training are important, only one of these texts contains exercises for the voice and body. I noticed the same tendency in the acting classes I observed during this study. Those teachers who follow the methods of Stxasberg and Meisner, in particular, concentrate on exercises designed for the development of the "inner" resources of the actor. The students are then sometimes advised to take movement and voice training, but the fact that no training of this sort is done in acting class conveys a very specific message regarding the instructor's priorities. Not only do many acting theorists have definite views on how actors should be educated and/or trained, but because acting theory is so often passed on in acting classes, teaching methods also inform the subject of acting theory. For example, a study of the theory of a teacher of acting who advocates the need for a safe space in which students can explore and grow, and who then sets up in-class situations in which students constantly

The textbooks surveyed were: Uta Hagen, Respect for Actinq; Charles McGaw, Actinq is Believins; Robert Benedetti, The Actor at Work; Robert Cohen, Actins Power; Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares. According to Joyce Spivey Aldridge in her Ph.D. dissertation "The Tradition of American Actor Training and its Current Practice in Undergraduate Education," (University of Colorado, 1993) these five texts are in the top twelve required textbooks of undergraduate university drama departments in the United States. 16 experience competition, would have to take into account the discrepancy between these two concepts. Because teaching methods, class content and reading materials have an impact on the students' perception of what is being taught, these elements will be considered along with articulated theory in the analysis of the acting theories of the Toronto teachers. Research Methodolosv The three surveys of acting theory which served as the starting point for my own research derive their material primarily from written sources, as may be expected when one is working from an historical perspective. Friedman bases his concept of acting theory exclusively on written texts. McTeague supports his study by the inclusion of four interviews and advises the researcher to look at teaching methods and curriculum when studying acting theory and training, Duerr, as previously mentioned, supplies anecdotes and eyewitness accounts of actors and their work to supplement his history of acting. Since my conception of acting theory includes the theory and practice of actor training, prior studies of actor training in North America were also taken into account. Research instruments and methods used by these studies include: in-class observation aimed at obtaining information on teaching methods, curriculum, and facilities; personal and telephone interviews; analysis of required/recommended textbooks; descriptions of practical exercises; analysis of course catalogues; mail-out surveys; case studies; and analysis of statements of philosophy by teachers and/or administrators. 7 This study of contemporary acting theory in Toronto examines the subject from several perspectives. The conclusions are based on an analysis of explicit theories (written and oral) as well as on observation of practices embodying theory. Survey To obtain an overview of acting theories held by performance teachers in Toronto, I chose to employ a mail-out survey, which I tried to make available to every acting teacher currently training professionals, amateurs, or youth in the city. This process was hampered by the fact that there is no central registry of such teachers in Toronto. Partial lists were obtained (some of them, years out of date) from Theatre Ontario (a provincial government agency) and Equity Showcase Theatre (an independent training and producing organization). I spoke to office personnel, picked up brochures and checked for posted "classes offered" notices at popular actor meeting and greeting spots: in theatre greenrooms, the offices of Theatre Ontario, Equity Showcase, ACTRA, Actors Equity, and at Theatrebooks th or onto's most prominent arts book store). I perused the local

Sources consulted included: Philip Spensley, "A Description and Evaluation of the Training Methods of the National Theatre School of Canada, English Acting Course, 1960-1 968," diss., Wayne State University, 1970; Cecilia Pang, h he Angst of American Acting: An Assessment of Acting Texts," diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1991; Joyce Spivey Aldridge, h he Tradition of American Actor Training and its Current Practice in Undergraduate Education;I' Linda Lee Holder, "~n Assessment of Undergraduate Actor Training Practices in Selected American Colleges and universities," diss., University of Kansas, 1989; Eva Mekler, The New Generation of Actins Teachers (New York: Penguin Books, 1987); Lewis Funke and John E. Booth, eds., Actors Talk About Actins: Fourteen Intimate Interviews (New York: Avon Books, 1961 ). 18 arts newspaper, Now Masazine, for ads and scanned locally published actor information guides, I contacted the drama departments of the following Toronto-based educational institutions and mailed out surveys to be distributed by departmental secretaries to each acting teacher: George Brown College, Sheridan College, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Hwnbex College, Seneca College, University of Toronto, York University, and the Etobicoke School of the Arts,

In addition, 1 mailed out surveys to forty-two individuals and contacted groups such as the Toronto Association of Acting Studios, the Theatre Resource Centre, the Actors Lab, the Beach Arts Centre, Second City, and the Young people's Theatre School. Batches of surveys were mailed out to each of these institutions,

A notice was posted and a bundle of surveys dropped off at the offices of Theatre Ontario, ACTRA, Canadian Actors Equity, and Equity Showcase for drop-in pick-up. A notice was also posted at Theatrebooks, and ads were placed in the newsletters of Theatre Ontario, ACTRA, and Actors Equity, requesting all teachers to contact me by phone or E-Mail to obtain surveys. Although I believe the range of distribution to have been wide, as well as balanced, because of the manner of distribution the total number of surveys to have come into the possession of acting teachers is not known. As I was also unable to determine the number of teachers in Toronto, no statistics are available on percentage of surveys returned, Because of this lack, the results of the teachers' survey must be considered, to some extent, tentative, and further research in this area will be needed to verify my findings. I also assume that those individuals who 19 responded are the Toronto acting teachers most interested in research into actor training and acting theory--an inclination which may also affect the study results, For this survey, it was deemed necessary to define "acting teacher" in order to focus the research. Setting certain parameters was a straightforward process; instructors of acting courses only were to be considered. This eliminated teachers of academic subjects (such as dramatic literature and theatre history) as well as teachers of non-actor-based theatre areas (design, technical theatre, etc.). But when it came to performance-related courses, the decision was more difficult. Dance may be considered a separate art form from theatre, but is clowning, for example? Then there are the "adjunct" classes that are useful in actor training but which are not normally considered acting arts--such as tai chi, fencing, and gymnastics. The decision was made to include teachers of two types of training in this study: 1) instructors of performance areas usually titled "acting classes," for example, acting fundamentals; audition technique; scene study; theatre for children; improvisation; creative drama; and styles and period techniques areas such as cornmedia, clown, Shakespeare, comedy, and Method acting; 2) Although teachers with a narrow adjunct focus were eliminated (those who teach only dance, singing, stage fighting, for example), instructors who teach these areas in addition to more broad based acting classes were included in the study, as were all teachers who claim that their acting classes have a specific focus--such as "physical theatre" or "text and the performer." ~lthoughbased on certain preconceptions of what actor training is (before completing this study I would not necessarily have considered "tax preparation," "personal development," and "entrepreneurship" particular study areas for performers) I do not consider that the parameters set restricted the data unduly, Fifty surveys were completed and returned. Six were disqualified for use in this study because the instructor either does not teach in Toronto, or does not fit the research definition of an acting teacher. The survey, which appears in Appendix A, consists of a cover letter and a three-page questionnaire. The cover letter briefly describes the purpose of the research and offers several incentives for completion. For the ease of those filling out the forms, multiple-choice and short answer questions were used, with the option, always, of writing fuller responses or the insertion of "other" answers. The questions explore the following areas: Type of institution in which the instructor teaches; Background of the instructor, focusing on specific theatre training; Theoretical or methodological influences on teaching; Courses offered; Content of courses offered; Length of time the instructor has spent in the teaching profession; Theatre work other than teaching in which the instructor is, or has been, engaged; Skills instructors claim actors need to work in the theatre today, compared to ten years ago; 21 9) Actor skills which teachers believe are missing from common training programs. 10) Acting books that instructors recommend students read. "Other commentsffwere also invited. Six of the ten questions are specific to theory. Question 2, lease describe your specific theatre training", attempts to elicit information pertaining to developmental aspects of the individual teacher's theory. Questions 3, 4, and 10 each aim to access the teacher's general theoretical position- Question 3 asks the respondent to identify the names of modern theorists, listed randomly, whose work has influenced the content of the practitioner's acting classes. Question 4, which contains a list of acting exercises, in random order, each of which is associated with one or more of the theorists named in question 3, asks the teachers to check off the techniques typically used in their classes. Question 10, "If you could recommend one acting book to your students, what would it be? why?", is based on my observation that acting teachers tend to have their students read, or make use of exercises from books which echo the teacher's point of view or methods of work. Thus, these three questions serve as a triple-check of the teacher's fundamental theory. Questions 8 and 9 attempt to determine to what extent contemporary theatre practice may impact on acting theory. The questions: "what specific skills do you feel actors most need to work in the theatre today?"; re these requirements different than they were 10 years ago?"; and "Are there specific skills that should be taught at an acting school which you feel are missing from common training programs?, " were intentionally crafted to be the most open-ended of the survey. Information gathered from these questions (as well as the final request for "Other Comments?") could elicit indications of the directions in which actor training and the practice of theatre may be moving as we contemplate the end of the twentieth century. Questions 1, parts of 2, and 5, 6, and 7 contain independent variables which I felt might influence teaching methods and, thus, theory. These variables were: type of institution at which one teaches; dates and geographical location of training; type of course being taught; number of years of teaching experience; number of years teaching in Toronto; and whether the teacher is or has also been a theatre practitioner. Case Studies Since the short-answer survey format does not lend itself to the acquisition of detailed or thorough contextual knowledge, the responses to the mail-out questionnaire were augmented with a small number of case studies of individual acting teachers whose theory and practice could be observed and analyzed in some depth. For these case studies, I chose to limit the field to studio teachers. There were two reasons for this, both having to do with the time available for the research. In order to study six teachers, I spent no more than two months in any one class during my year of observation. Had I spent this length of time in a class offered by a college or university, most of which develop two-to-four year integrated programs with a number of separate teachers and courses, I would have emerged with an extremely limited and lopsided view of the curriculum, teaching methods, and theory. Also, when a teacher knows that he or she may be the 23 only acting teacher a particular student may ever have and that there are only six or eight weeks in which to inspire or train that student, the teacher tends to focus on fundamentals--of both theory and practice. For my purposes, that distillation was most revealing, I could have chosen a group of teachers at random, from the lists of names I had obtained. However, I decided to look at the work of the type of individuals Burnet Hobgood refers to as hob aster Teachers." For me, the term connotes respect within the theatre community, a decided influence, and mastery of acting theory and its practice. As a professional actor, acting teacher, semi-professional choreographer and director, and a member of the Toronto theatre community for thirteen years I considered my judgment (although not definitive) sufficient to select these experts. But I also approached a number of theatre artists for their recommendations. This group included three members of the professional theatrical community: Martha Mann, designer and theatre professor; Karen Hazzard, casting director and teacher; and Anna Migliarisi, actor and academic. Four administrators for theatre arts organizations were also consulted: Diana Belshaw, Professional Theatre Coordinator for Theatre Ontario; Christine Moynihan, Artistic Producer for Equity Showcase Theatre; Neil Daynard, Head of Professional Development at ACTRA; and David Caron, Communications and Special Projects Coordinator at Canadian Actors Equity. All of these individuals communicate with large numbers of theatre professionals and students, and have first-hand knowledge of the training opportunities in Toronto. All members of this group were verbally informed of: 1) the general area of investigation of the research project and perception of the need for the study; 2) their role in the study and the extent of their participation; 3) the criteria to be used to nominate individuals for inclusion in the study. Each individual was asked for a list of teachers he or she considers to be well-respected in the Toronto theatre community who have been teaching in the city long enough to have had an impact on a significant number of students. The seven lists were compiled. The ten teachers who had been recommended most often were contacted, These teachers were verbally informed of the three parameters above and also:

1) procedures to be used to study their acting theory and teaching methods: that is, classroom observation and interview; 2) the forum in which the information obtained during the research would be presented: that is, in a Ph.D. dissertation for the University of oro onto's Graduate Centre for Study of Drama. Of the ten who were approached, the six acting instructors who agreed to be studied became the six case studies documented in Chapter 4 of this thesis. Of these six teachers:

1) Three are female; three are male; 2) All are English-speaking, appear to be white and have no obvious physical disabilities; 3) Based on the responses to interview questions, four appear to be in their mid-forties; one in the late thirties; one in the late fifties; Four are from Ontario; one from Quebec; one from the maritimes; The number of years teaching in Toronto ranges from five to thirty-plus years; Although all six instructors teach independent studio classes, four also teach, or have taught, at colleges and/or universities; Three currently work as professional actors as well as teachers; two are professional directors as well as teachers; one is a casting director as well as a teacher; The majority coach privately as well as teach group lessons; Three began their formal theatre training with university degrees in drama; one has a degree in Classics; another obtained a college diploma in radio and television; 10) Four trained for an extensive period of time with a aster

~eacher": Meisner ( 2) , Kurt Reis ( 1 ) , Michael Shurtleff ( 1 ) ;

11) Three obtained some of their training in the United States, The case study aspect of the research consisted of eighteen to thirty-five hours of in-class observation of each teacher followed by an interview with each teacher studied. In each case, all sessions of one or two entire four-to-eight-week courses were attended (except where the teacher disallowed certain sessions). I quickly discovered that courses aimed at beginners elicit the most overt discussions of theory, so I attended these classes whenever possible. If a particular teacher taught several courses at different levels, I attended two, when possible. The acting theories of these teachers were deduced from: articulated theory (statements made in class to performance students or to the researcher during the interview); practice embodying theory (derived from an analysis of class content and teaching methods); analysis of the written theory contained in required or recommended readings. Structure of the Study The structure of this dissertation has been shaped by the progress of the research. The sections on acting theory in this chapter were necessitated by the Lack of existing documentation defining acting theory and its key concepts. In order to put the data obtained by the study of the theory of Toronto acting teachers (Chapter 3) into its historical and ideological contexts, it was necessary to explore some of the assumptions about actors and acting espoused by significant theatre theorist/practitioners of the past century. That examination follows in Chapter 2. Before starting the research, I had presupposed that documentation would be necessary on the practice and theories of Michel Saint-Denis (the inspiration behind the National Theatre School of Canada, in Montreal)* and on the British influence on Canadian actor training, in addition to American Stanislavski-based influences. The discovery of the prevalence of Stanislavski-based approaches in the city of Toronto (as demonstrated by the responses of the teachers involved in the case studies and the data obtained by the mail- out survey) persuaded me to examine intensively only the acting theories and teaching methods of Stanislavski and his American

* Chapter 3 explores the influence of the National Theatre School on current actor training in Toronto. disciples. In Chapter 2, the historical overview of Western acting theories of the past one hundred years, and in those sections of Chapter 5 that analyze the acting theories and teaching methods of Stanislavski and his American followers, I have concentrated on written sources. The Toronto teachers' acting theories and teaching methods were extrapolated from personal in-class observation and interviews. The acting theories of each individual, historical or contemporary, were analyzed according to the key concepts articulated earlier in this chapter and extended more thoroughly in Chapter 2. Throughout this study, I have chosen to allow the theorists involved to speak for themselves wherever possible, rather than to interpret by paraphrasing their remarks. I believe this is the most honest approach, particularly with contemporary, living subjects. In order to be consistent, the use of the authentic voice has been extended to all possible areas of the research. To some extent this has defined the discourse, which became through the writing process almost as theatrical as it is academic. For my purpose, which at one level is to create opportunities for dialogue between these disparate worlds, that outcome is beneficial as it moves acting and its theory more decidedly into the arena of academic scholarship. CHAPTER 2: KEY CONCEPTS IN MODERN WESTERN ACTING THEORY

For several reasons, it is useful to explore some of the range of ideas and beliefs which have been held by significant drama theorists in the past century. First, as previously mentioned, although there are literally hundreds of studies which examine the work of individual theorists, very few studies compare and contrast the ideas of various theorists, and there are almost no surveys of acting theory. Although only a general overview of the subject is presented here, I believe this will augment contemporary discourse on acting theory. Second, if one includes film and television with live theatre, it is evident that the most pervasive mode of actor- performance today is still "realistici'--playinga believably human character in true-to-life situations. According to ~older's 1989 study, despite the influence of alternative theories, Stanislavski-based approaches "remain dominant in the teaching of acting'' in North America. My own research shows that this is still the case in present-day Toronto, which indicates that the majority of audiences, performers, and teachers of acting in North America are "inside" one particular system of acting practice. Zaxrilli maintains that when this is the case, the practitioner accepts certain sets of assumptions which "often remain at the periphery of consciousness (if at all) since when one becomes enculturated into a system of practice it often feels natural" (Zarrilli 322)- Although I am aware that a number of significant "other" approaches to acting exist (such as Eugenio Barba's work with the Oden Teatret and more recently at his

28 29 International Schools of Theatre Anthropology, and Augusto ~oal's Forum Theatre), this tendency was evident in the actor training that I observed in Toronto studios. Fox example, in every class I attended, it was ftunderstood"that students were acting "badly" or "wrongly" if the spectators did not believe the emotion or action portrayed to be true to life. If contemporary students of acting are to appreciate the performance alternatives open to them, they must become aware that alternatives exist and that their own theatrical development may have prejudiced them towards one particular approach and away from others. Third, it appears that having followers who implement a theory or practice may be an important factor in bringing acting theories into widespread use. American producers of the art theatre movement of the 1920's attempted to translate ~raig's concept of the "uber-marionette" into a staged reality. For Sheldon Cheney, this involved the use of the actor's face as a mask, and the body as "an instrument of rhythmic expression'' (Cheney 103). Stark Young advocated replacing the traditional concept of character with an abstraction, developed by the actor making use of five resources: personal theatricality; a well- trained face, voice, and body; a sense of time, tempo, and rhythm; a sense of movement and line; and a mimetic ability (Friedman 108). Artists such as Grotowski developed performances and actor training based on the writings of Artaud. Grotowski's disciples and his own treatise, Towards a Poor Theatre (published in North America in 1968), subsequently influenced actor training in North America in the late 1970's. oro onto's now defunct

Grotowski-based theatre group, the ~ctor'sLab, was established at that time, In recent years there has been an explosion of written theory questioning the dominant approaches to acting and the study of performance--works by feminists, phenomenologists, psychologists, post-modernists, semioticians, students of cultural studies, and so forth. Although performances have occurred in which the ideas or concerns of some of these theorists have been explored, such productions have not yet entered the theatrical mainstream, and actor training for alternative approaches to theatre is sporadic.' It may well be that the principles espoused by the modern theorists have simply not yet been absorbed by the practitioners, the disciples who will influence the next generation of actors and audiences. If this is the case, then any exploration of these ideas will facilitate that process. Fourth, as discussed earlier, much acting theory is transmitted through holistic methods--often in performance and practical training situations. My own research (see survey results in Chapter 3, question #2) indicates that those theatre practitioners who become acting teachers tend to study with a number of diverse people, and their own teaching often becomes a mglange of techniques and theoretical approaches. An examination of some of the dominant viewpoints about fundamental issues of acting theory can inform the process of analyzing the acting theories held by teachers in contemporary Toronto.

' Notable here are: the growing interest in the Suzuki method in North America; the ~sian/~xperimentalTheatre Program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; mask work and other non- realistic approaches to theatre training at the National Theatre School of Canada. The following exploration of some of the possibilities inherent in the key issues of acting theory makes no attempt to be encyclopedic. Nor does it attempt to explore the complexities or changes which occurred in certain theoristsr discourse over time. The choice to explore a small number of divergent notions concerning fundamental issues in acting theory conveys a panorama of the range of views and practices which have been held by prominent western acting theorists and practitioners of the last century which are available to contemporary theatre practitioners in Toronto.

Function of Theatre, Function of the Actor In different historical periods and in the minds of different theorists, the function of theatre has been perceived as: entertainment, the provision of moral lessons, instruction, aesthetic pleasure, escape, emotional release or arousal, cultural cohesion, or for no purpose but its own being, that is, "art Zor arts sake. 'I Theorists as different as Stanislavski, Brecht, and Artaud all perceived theatre as having a utilitarian function. Although Stanislavski stated that he believed the fundamental goal of art is "to create the life of a human spirit" and "express it in a beautiful, artistic form," he also wrote that the theatre is "an establishment which must enlighten society" (Prepares 249). Brecht wrote that the epic theatre used the alienation-effect as its approach to writing, staging and performing, "to show the world as it changes (and also how it may be changed)" (Brecht 79). Artaud explained: The action of the theatre, like that of plague, is 32 beneficial, for, impelling men to see themselves as they are, it causes the mask to fall, reveals the lie, the slackness, baseness, and hypocrisy of our world; it shakes off the . . . inertia of matter which invades even the clearest testimony of the senses; and in revealing to . . . men their dark power, their hidden force, it invites them to take, in the face of destiny, a superior and heroic attitude they would never have assumed without it (Artaud 31-32). For each of these theorists a primary function of the theatre is to effect change--to either ennoble and elevate the soul of a human being (Stanislavski), liberate the savage nature of man in a search for spiritual truth (Artaud), or to illustrate the nature of social relationships and to demonstrate how these relationships may be changed (Brecht). In each case, the performance and its effect on the audience are perceived as a causal relationship. Contemporary aesthetic theories tend to have a more integrated view of the function of the theatre. Timothy Wiles, who claims that the function of the actor is one of the fundamental concepts in modern performance theory, states that: Earlier styles of acting, such as the one proposed by Hamlet to the players, sprang from the mimetic tradition which sees art as a reflection of reality; these styles indicate what men are and hence how they might be faithfully copied in art. The innovation of modern acting theory . . . is to move art from reflecting reality to being a kind of reality of its 33 capable of affecting the "real world" of which it

part, not a copy (wiles 4). For Wiles, "modem performance theory proposes models of what men ought to be, and hence how they might be enacted in life." Richard Hornby, like Wiles, points out that many contemporary aesthetic theories (and he includes structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, feminist criticism, psychoanalytic criticism and phenomenological criticism in this list) reject mimesis as a basis for understanding how works of art are created or how we respond to them. "~11these theories see a work of art as a system of conventionalized signs, communicating with its audience something like language (though differing from language in significant ways" (Hornby 8-9)- For Bruce Wilshire, whether it be mimetic or not, all art both changes and composes our lives. He maintains that it is primarily through art forms such as theatre that we learn how to be human beings : Theatre is concerned with illuminating through its fictive variations the actuality of mimetic relationships between persons. That is, bodies biologically human learn to become human persons by learning to do what persons around them are already doing. . . [Olnly when the body can experience itself in the terms in which it experiences others can it experience itself to be, and can it be, a self or a person. . . [Alctors standing in for characters in the theatre, engaging in deliberate and fictive mimetic enactments, can discover actual and nondeliberate mimetic enactments and standings in between persons offstage. The actor models modelling, enacts enactment, and reveals it, I think it plausible to hypothesize that since behavior and identity were laid down bodily, mimetically, and together, their recovery and recognition may very well be achieved only bodily, mimetically, and together--in the theatre, for example (Wilshire 16) - For Wilshire, theatre universalizes both objects and human beings (6), "thematizes and memorializes events of encounter that otherwise might fly by in our experience and get lost" (238), and serves as a metaphor for life: . . . into its "world" can be mapped the world, because elements of the world rooted ineluctably in lived situations are nevertheless also symbols of correspondence, and these symbols can themselves be symbolized and transposed in the theatre. They are lifted out of these lived situations in an act of concretizing abstraction and perceptual imagination. The result of this substitution is a compression in which a whole network of correspondences is displayable on the spot and within a limited duration of time. Instead of being engulfed in one symbol of correspondence and then in another, as we ordinarily are in offstage life, these symbols gather themselves together in a "world." Something that corresponds to something else substitutes for that thing in our comprehension and shares its power--breath, wind, potentiality; skull, roof, sky; pillars, backbone, supportive presence of erect human beings. Great theatre corresponds to these correspondences and shares

and focuses their power (Wilshire 238-239). And for Wilshire, a primary purpose of recreating the world in a "worldftof theatrical imagination is to "[make] us aware of conditions of the world's being and meaningfulness that had before lain in the obscurity of the taken for granted" (91). Thus, although Wilshire views theatre as more experiential than did the earlier theorists, like Stanislavski, Brecht, and Artaud, he sees the function of theatre as, to some extent, utilitarian, In general, theoristsF views concerning the function of the theatre are reflected in their attitudes towards the function of the actor. Those who see the theatre as experiential, for example, are more likely to view the actor as a creator than are those who focus on the theatre's capacity to teach. Whether actors are seen as interpretive artists or creative artists, is often related to the theorist's view of the actor's relationship to the play text, If actors are considered subordinate to the playwright, they are generally seen as being "interpreters" of the playwright's vision, and their job is to support the theme of the play by carrying out the actions of the characters as set out by the author. In this case, actors see the play as their primary tool, and analyzing the script becomes the major rehearsal task. Stella Adler expressed this viewpoint when she wrote: "The text of the playwright is the only point from which the actor can conceivably start" (Techniaue 115). "On [the actor] rests the high responsibility of interpreting the content of the play, of bringing the ideas of the playwright to lifef' (5). To those theorists who privilege the actor over the playwright, the script is often discarded or altered to serve as a tool to aid actors in creating their own characters, story, or experience. To some theorists who worked in this way, such as Jerzy Grotowski (in his work with the Polish Laboratory Theatre in the 1970fs), and Julian Beck (in his work with the Living Theatre), the actors' importance is connected to their function as guides to the audience. For Grotowski: If the actor, by setting himself a challenge publicly challenges others, and through excess, profanation and outrageous sacrilege reveals himself by casting off his everyday mask, he makes it possible for the spectator to undertake a similar process of self-penetration (Grotowski 34). Beck writes: I go to the theatre . . . . To serve the audience, to instruct, to excite sensation, to initiate experience, to awaken awareness, to make the heart pound, the blood course, the tears flow, the voice shout, to circle round the altar, the muscles move in laughter, the body feel, to be released from deathfsways, deterioration in comfort. To provide the useful event that can help

us (Life section 7)- Exciting performances have also been produced in which the actors and playwright have worked together to create a piece of theatre. One example is the Open Theatre and its collaborations with Megan Terry and Jean-Claude Van Itallie. 37 Bonnie Marranca is one of a growing number of contemporary theorists whose conception of the role of the actor in the theatre has expanded beyond the narrow confines of creator or interpreter. For her, actors "function . . . as media through which the playwright expresses his ideas; they serve as icons and imagest' (Marranca 78). Another semiotic approach might propose that although creation and interpretation may take place in the theatre, they are not the exclusive properties of the actors. A work of art comes to be, or is "created" by a number of individuals working both independently and collectively--actors, directors, playwrights, designers, technicians. This work may or may not be originally conceived as having a "meaning" as such. Audience members then experience this work of art. During and after this experiential process, individuals who participated-- not just the audience, but the performers as well--may explore the experience for "meanings" based not only on what the artists may have consciously tried to express, but on any number of wide- ranging personal and cultural systems of thought (Hornby 219). In such an approach, the concepts of the function of the theatre and of the actor become complex and full of possibilities. Qualities of the Actor The qualities any particular theorist claims actors must possess in order to be successful tend to be dependent upon that theorist's view of the function of the theatre. Lessing, in his Hamburg Dramaturqy published in 1766, expressed the opinion that theatre should enlighten and improve the masses. The actor can accomplish this by performing with truth and moderation. Lessing insisted on an absolute interdependence between text and performer and although he admitted that looks, charm, movement, and a good voice are all important to an actor, he stated that such qualities are not as important as the actor's understanding of the play text- "~emust everywhere think with the poet; he must even think for him in places where the poet has shown himself human" (Lessing 4). For Antoine, promoter of naturalism in the 18901s,an actor's physical qualities were of no importance. In his search for real human beings with which to populate his stages, Antoine praised personality and emotion as supreme qualities for the performer: "sincerity, ilan, a kind of conviction, and the special fever that grips the interpreter are the most precious gifts," he wrote (Antoine 215). David Belasco, master impresario, believed the actor's job is to affect and impress the audience. For this job he demanded a vivid and dominant personality as well as the qualities of extreme sensibility, quick and powerful intelligence, and imagination (Belasco 578). Appia, on the other hand, believed that the goal of theatre is to create an ideal realm into which the spectator is drawn by an overpowering empathic experience. To attain the required virtuosity, Appia suggested that the performer study voice, diction, and gymnastics, and avoid "all overt emotional activity if he is ever to attain that latent plasticity demanded of him by the dramatist" (Music 38). Talent is the word used to describe those indefinable qualities that set great artists apart from the rest of us. For most of the history of western theatre, it has been a commonly held belief that talent cannot be taught. For those theorists and practitioners who conflate the concepts of "acting" 39

and "talent," then acting, as well, is something which cannot be taught--or studied. This was particularly true between 1915 and

1925, As the film industry developed, the concept of acting as craft gave way to a belief in "personality." The art of the actor became perceived as something mysterious and personal, which could not be analyzed (Friedman 22-23). Robert Speaight, in a series of lectures published in 1939, claimed that the qualities needed to be a good actor--which for him were concentration, generosity, spontaneity, projection (of voice and personality), and timing--could not be taught (Speaight 72-73). More common, today, is the belief shared by theorists as different as Belasco and Nernirovich-Danchenko, that although talent cannot be taught, acting can. Belasco is reported to have stated that potential actors need five "all important" qualities: ability, imagination, industry, patience and loyalty. He maintained that a person with these qualities should then be put through a rigorous course of training to become a competent performer. This training should include: elocution, dancing, fencing, literature, languages, current history, and composition. inal ally, the young actor should be taught to observe--keenly and unceasingly" (Wilson 204-205). In present-day North America the list of qualities most prized in actors includes: imagination, intelligence, free access to the emotions, spontaneity, empathy, and self-awareness--all qualities necessary to the successful depiction of true-to-life characters in realistic or naturalistic drama based on the acting 40 theories of Stanislavski Actors with these qualities are then trained primarily in techniques aimed at either enhancing the actor's accessiblilty to spontaneous impulses, or freeing the body and voice so that they are able to express externally what has been developed internally, Once these "fundamentals" have been learned, student actors study elements of the actors' craft such as characterization, blocking, and vocal and physical projection, Stanislavski-based actor training will be explored specifically in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. A number of modern theorists claim that anyone can act-- although their reasons for believing so vary. Many followers of Stanislavski believe that everyone has the potential to portray every kind of emotional experience because all humans have experienced every emotion, at least to some extent, in life. These theorists claim that the actor should be able to take that kernel of experienced emotion and imaginatively enhance it to whatever level is needed to play any scripted emotion and, thus, every part. This theory presupposes that emotion is the primary requisite for successful acting. These theorists also see this potential ability as inhibited, however--often by the actor's awareness of being watched, by muscular tension or concentration limitations. Thus, Stanislavski-based actor training methods

* For this study, "realism" and "realistic acting," unless otherwise indicated, refer to the most general conception of these terms--the portrayal of human beings in lifelike situations. "Stanislavski-based realism" implies a focus on the psychological, also called "internal" aspects of character creation and situational development. Similarly, "naturalism" refers to a realistic acting style which concentrates on the minutia of everyday life, such as is found in much contemporary film and television. contain numerous exercises aimed at increasing the performer's ability to relax and focus. To Viola Spolin, as well, everyone is a potential performer, but because of our intuitive abilities, not our emotional understanding. She wrote: "lt is highly possible that what is called talented behaviour is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. . . . Experiencing is penetration into the environment, total organic involvement with it" (Spolin 3). This ability to experience, which Spolin claims can be developed in a performer, is achieved only in moments of spontaneity. For this to occur, she requires a non-judgmental "environment in which experiencing can take place, a person free to experience, and an activityf'such as game-based acting exercises, designed to promote freedom and spontaneity (Spolin 4). Joseph Chaikin, Julian Beck and Judith Malina all claim that everyone can act because acting is, to some extent, a demonstration of the self. Everyone can act because everyone is a living human being. Beck and Malina, in their efforts to remove the distinctions between art and life, denied the entire concept of talent. If art is life, and vice versa, talent has no meaning; one person does not live "better1' than another person. For the

Becks, "everyman" is an artist and, thus, "sublime" ( "~essages" 660). Chaikin, on the other hand, admitted to believing that there is a difference between acting and living; however, he saw the two processes as "absolutely joined". "when we as actors are performing, we as persons are also present. . . The actor draws from the same source as the person who is the actor" (Presence 6). How well one acts (which he states is affected by innate 42 talent as well as training) is still a concern for him, however.

Re~resentation One of the fundamental concepts within any piece of theatre is that of representation. In acting terms this traditionally translates as "what" or "who" the actor is representing. For much of theatre history, it was accepted that the actor represented a human being other than himself, a character. To the "art theatre" supporters of the 1920'~~however, the actor was asked to represent an idea or ideal. These theorists claimed that realism, and the acting and staging approaches that tended to accompany this form of the drama, was nothing but imitation and, thus, incapable of revealing truth. They sought a symbolic art form which would access spiritual truths (Friedman 99-100). This called for new approaches to acting and a different conception of

representation. The actor is called upon to portray: "an imaginary being who is not his own self nor yet any self in nature." Theoretically, this imaginary being is a complete abstraction, not human except insofar as a human actor embodies it. The perpetual struggle of the actor to represent this abstraction in concrete terms raises theatre to the level of an art. 3 In the modern theatre, it would seem that the actor is expected to be able to portray anything which can be imagined. In the past twenty-five years I have played human characters, animals, flowers and trees, mechanical and inanimate objects, spirits and

Stark Young, The Flower in the Drama and Glamour 15, quoted in Friedman 107. 43 gods, rain, and fire. In recent years, some theorists have developed concepts of representation which resonate to ideas associated with past theories. In some Medieval and turn-of-the-century expressionistic plays, the actor is called upon to represent I I everyman." Wilshire claims that this universalization occurs automatically in the theatre no matter who the actor is portraying: . . the actor cannot stand on stage without standing in for a type of humanity. This characterization will occur even though there is no script and his character

is given no name and he says nothing. We recognize him as a type in the family of man, and the fact that we abide in his presence and recognize him as such authorizes him as such; and since we stand in with the character only through his standing in, he authorizes

us (Wilshire 6) * In an effort to keep his audience emotionally detached, Brecht

required his actors to "present" a character in such a way that the audience could a+, the same time perceive the actor, figuratively standing aside and commenting on the character's actions (Brecht 139). According to Wilshire, the audience is always aware that character and actor are both present, even in

the most "naturalistic" portrayal : We are never aware merely of the character, as if it were an animated Platonic archetype viewed by the "eye" of the mind. We are always aware of Hamlet-played-by- this-actor, and often focally aware of this. Nor is the 44 actor aware only of the character (in the sense of his awareness being only the character's awareness), but he is aware of both this and what the character cannot know, and of the audience as aware of him-as-playing- Hamlet-in-this-manner, and so on (Wilshire 275).

And for Wilshire, it is this awareness on the part of the audience that allows for the identification basic to theatrical experience: The fact that the actor is not the character and the character is not ourselves allows . . . recognition of kinship to occur. The detachment of theatre, its aesthetic distance, reveals our involvement. If resemblances between persons disclosed by art prove inescapable in life, then essential characteristics of human beings are revealed (Wilshire 95). Perhaps this explains to some extent why audiences sympathized and identified with Helene Weigel's Mother Courage even though the actress was considered superb in her use of alienation techniques. Beck and Malina chose to deny the concept of representation and asked their actors to be themselves, in an effort to truly communicate with their audiences, human being to human being ("Messages" 653). Michael Kirby questions whether this is possible, maintaining that, in his opinion, in the Living heatr re's production of Paradise Now, the performers were not "being themselves'' when they talked to members of the audience, but were actually "acting their own emotions and beliefs." The distinction, Kirby claims, between not-acting and acting in this case is in an awareness of the audience. The performers, although not enacting characters, are acting because they "react to this situation by energetically projecting ideas, emotions, and elements of their personality, underlining and theatricalizing it for the sake of the audience" (Kirby 47). Although Kirby's viewpoint is intriguing, it does not take fully into consideration at least two factors which have been pointed out by other theorists: 1) Audiences do not exist solely in the theatre, they exist in life--both physically, as in those people present in a particular situation to observe our actions, and mentally, as in the "private audience" (God, Dad, that particular drama critic or eighth grade teacher) we all carry in our heads at all times and whom we attempt to please or defy (Cohen 9, 113); 2) It is entirely possible that when the actor is performing, the audience is always aware of the presence of the human being as well as the character and the artist (Wilshire xvi) . Thus, the issue of the relationship between art and reality, central to the concept of representation, is made more complex because, in the performing arts (unlike the visual arts) the artist and the artwork are, as Appia says, one and the same. For Goldman, it is this tension between the real and the conventional that makes theatre exciting. he fact that the actor is, inescapably, alive means that there is always extra reality thrusting to break into the convention. . . . We like to see the real in the theatre, but it threatens the play; we like to see it because it threatens" (Goldman 87). Gazing up at a live human being, the audience does not know (unless the acting is very 46 stylized) to what extent the actor is "acting." Often the actor does not even know. Even when the performer is sayi3g words he did not write to a character that he knows is another actor, moving where he has been told to go, dealing with problems which he knows have been manufactured and which will be resolved in Act 3, the actor has at his command his own mind, body, spirit, will, and emotions to portray this character and develop these circumstances. How truly involved he becomes--or should become-- in the fiction differs with every performer. And different theorists have strong opinions on this subject. Joseph Jefferson wrote : "Hold the mirror up to nature" if you like, but don't hold nature up--a reflection of the thing, but not the thing itself. How badly would a drunken man give an exhibition of intoxication on the stage! Who shall act a madman but one who is perfectly sane? We must not be natural but appear to be so (Jefferson 557). As mentioned in Chapter 1, the related subject "should an actor feel emotion on stage?" is the subject of a centuries-long debate. Even those theorists who agree that the actor's job is to move the audience emotionally cannot always agree on whether this is best done by an actor who remains detached, or one who tries to feel the character's emotions so as to "infect" the audience. Notable advocates of emotion in acting were Sainte-Albine (g

~om&dien,1747), John Hill (The Actor, 1750), Antonio Sticotti (Garrick ou les acteurs Anqlais, 1769), Marie-Francoise Dumesnil

(Memoirs, 1800) and Henry Irving ( he Art of Acting, I' The Drama, 1885). Those theorists and practitioners opposed to actors' feeling emotion while performing included Francesco Riccoboni (~'~rtdu ~higtre, 1750), Hyppolite Clairon (Memoirs, 1798) and Benoit Coquelin ("~ctingand Actors," Harpers Masazine, 1887). The most famous treatises on this subject are undoubtedly Denis ~iderot'sLe Paradoxe sur le ~omgdien,and William ~rcher's reply, Masks or Faces? Although in his early writings Diderot was less prescriptive, in Le Paradoxe, written in the 1770's but not published until 1830, he stated that not only should the actor not make use of his feelings on stage, but that in his opinion no great actors did so. He claimed that actors with "sensibility" have no self-control. They are not able to think clearly and cannot observe nature as they are too caught up in their own emotions. Diderot found the work of such actors uneven: From them you must expect no unity. Their playing is alternately strong and feeble, fiery and cold, dull and sublime, Tomorrow they will miss the point they have excelled in to-day; and to make up for it will excel in some passage where last time they failed (14-15). For Diderot, there were several other problems inherent in emotional acting, He maintained that an actor who is not in control of his own emotions cannot emotionally affect his audience; that actors who depend on their emotions rather than their craft tend to be good only at one type of emotion or one type of character; that in a long run, such actors cannot consistently attain emotional heights and eventually have nothing to give. Also, he stated that since stage life is not real life, real emotions are useless there. Finally, he concluded that it would be impossible for an actor consistently to feel the 48 emotions that he portrays--that to do so would be an overwhelming emotional burden, According to Le Paradoxe, the great actor is the one who relies on a well-rehearsed craft, one "who plays from thought, from study of human nature, from constant imitation of some ideal type, from imagination, from memory. ." (15): At the very moment when he touches your heart he is listening to his own voice; his talent depends not, as you think, upon feeling, but upon rendering so exactly the outward signs of feeling, that you fall into the trap. He has rehearsed to himself every note of his passion. He has learnt before a mirror every particle of his despair, He knows exactly when he must produce his handkerchief and shed tears; and you will see him weep at the word, at the syllable, he has chosen, not a second sooner or later (19). The debate between emotional and intellectual approaches to acting continued between actors and theorists into the late nineteenth century, where two of the major combatants were Coquelin, who agreed with arguments presented in Le Paradoxe, and Irving, on the side of the emotionalists. Out of this conflict of opinions emerged ~rcher'sMasks or Faces? (1880). By studying actors' written accounts and through interviews with countless reputable performers of his day, Archer came to several conclusions: that while acting, many great actors feel emotions similar to what the character in the scene would be feeling; that "mechanical mimicry of feeling, even at its best, lacks the clear ring of truth" that the accomplished actor who can yield to "sympathetic contagion'' can reach; and that those who promote acting with emotion do not (contrary to Diderot's opinion) advocate throwing away their actor's craft and trusting entirely to emotion. They simply want to add mimetic emotion (which Archer claims is "closely analogous to the emotion of real life") to their acting technique in order to enhance its emotional effect upon the audience (Archer 223). Finally Archer asks why stage emotion should be supposed to absorb all of a person's faculties when powerful real-life emotion does not. He states a nuher of examples in rezl life and on stage in which people exhibited divided mental activity-- thinking several layers of thoughts and performing diverse actions while feeling strong emotions. "There are many 'brownies'

. . in the actor's brain," he says, "and one of them may be agonizing with Othello, while another is criticising his every tone and gesture, a third restraining him from strangling Iago in good earnest, and a fourth wondering whether the play will be over in time to let him catch his last train (184).It ~iderot'sfinal major objection to acting from the emotions is his concern for the toll that such a burden of feeling would extract from the actor. Archer counters this idea, first, by stating that the actor, since he cannot "become" the character totally, never experiences the depth of feeling that the character would. He then points out the juxtaposition of feelings that takes place in an actor when he knows he is performing effectively. "It may even be that the more really and acutely he suffers--the more thoroughly he merges himself in his part--the greater may be his fundamental happiness; for he knows that he is triumphing, and his spirit is glad" (191). 50 Whether one agrees with either Diderot or Archer, their debate highlights a number of issues in acting which are still being discussed more than one hundred years later: What qualities make a great actor? Does an actor need to feel emotion in order emotionally to affect the audience and if so, what form should this emotion take? Is emotion uncontrollable or can emotion and technique co-exist? Is stage emotion actual emotion? Does actual emotion have a place on stage? To what extent can an actor "become" a character? What is the influence of the presence of the audience on the actor? What is the place of actor imagination with respect to character? Can actors play parts far removed from their own personalities? Is inspiration in acting desirable and, if so, what best stimulates this impulse? The fact that the actor's emotional involvement in his art is a fundamental concept in acting theory is emphasized by a contemporary study that comes to conclusions very similar to those espoused in Le Paradoxe. In their article "Effector Patterns of Basic Emotions," Susana Bloch, Pedro Orthous, and Guy Santibasez-H write that: [there] is quite good evidence that in order to appear "natural" or "true" on the stage, actors do not need to "feel" the emotion they are playing but must produce the correct effector-expressive output of the emotional behavior. If anything, in our opinion, subjective involvement and identification with the emotions may hinder the theatrical performance. In fact it is possible that actors often confuse the unspecific excitation they feel during acting with the belief that 51 they are truly "feeling" the emotion that they portray (214)- The use of the words "unspecific excitation" in the above quote is intriguing as these words were also used by Archer, who claimed that acting emotion is "not unspecified excitement" but is very similar to the emotion of real life. This statement is interesting, too, as Hornby points out that most theorists who advocate emotion in acting seem to imply that the successful actor feels exactly what the character is feeling (with the possible addition of the artist's controlling consciousness). Hornby suggests, like Archer, that acting emotions are actual, but are different from character or life emotions, His view of the subject is that real emotions are a direct response to immediate stimuli, while acting emotions are stimulated by the imagination (Hornby 117-120). Hornby's approach is simplistic as it does not take into account such issues as the place of the imagination in the evocation of emotion in life, and the effect of immediate stimuli on the human being who is also actor and character. However, his suggestion serves to expand the discourse of the subject of emotion in acting. Whatever acting emotions may be, according to acting teacher Robert Cohen most contemporary performers and theorists no longer view emotion and craft as opposite ends of the acting spectrum. He claims that most actors today make use of both feeling and technique, differing primarily in the degree to which one element is stressed in comparison to the other (Cohen 1-2). Lee Strasberg agrees, stating : The actor who has nothing but reason and calculation is 52 frigid. The one who has nothing but excitement and emotionalism is silly. What makes the human being of supreme excellence is a kind of balance between

calculation and warmth (Dream 34). Another concept that confuses the art/reality question is that of "truth," Artists as different as Antoine, Young, and Meyerhold all claim that the purpose of theatre is to present truth to the audience, They differ greatly, however, on whether there is a connection between truth and actuality. To Antoine and Brahm, truth is derived from observation, from the direct study of nature. Brahm suggested: Let the actor study nature, nothing more than that, Let him study nature in all her spiritual fullness: thus will he avoid banality and triviality. . . . the actor, turning from the theatre to nature, from the conventions of the four boards to truth, will ever win new strength; and he will learn to shun all stylizing, all arbitrary mannerisms, all stage affectations (Brahm 293). Meyerhold felt that ~tanislavski'smistake in the development of his acting system was that he confused actuality with truth. Influenced by Wagner and Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, Meyerhold rejected naturalism as espoused by Antoine and Brahm claiming that in its detailed settings and acting style "truth is lost in the clutter." The stage is art, he stated, and reflects the quintessence of life. he essence of human relationships is determined by gestures, poses, glances and silences" and requires a h conscious stylization1'on stage (Meyerhold 23-39). 53 The American followers of Craig, such as Young and Cheney, sought for a truth beyond reality, while Grotowski searched for it beneath reality. The advocates of an Art Theatre considered realism and naturalism "imitation," and believed truth was to be found in ideas, ideal forms, and symbols. Like Meyerhold, they claimed that "the aim of the theatre as a whole is to restore its art and it should commence by banishing from the Theatre this idea of impersonation, this idea of reproducing nature" (Craig 75). For Grotowski, truth is what is hidden behind the masks we wear every day. He sees theatre as a "place of provocation" which "allows us to transcend our stereotyped vision, our conventional feelings and customs, our standards of judgement . . . so that we may experience what is real . . . and discover ourselves" (Grotowski 256-257). For John Harrop, Sabin Epstein, and Charles Marowitz, any particular play text contains within it a truth of its own which is separate from an actor's truth and which should be discovered and physically expressed if the production is to be successful: here is some commonly experienced continuum in a work

of art which we are prepared to accept as its truth. A truth nurtured in a very special way by the material and its conceptions which, if they are consistent, persuades us to accept even if only temporarily, someone else's coherent view of life." An actor must come to terms with the inherent truth of each text, and not impose his own sense of truth upon it. While inner process is necessary, the simple manifestation of personal feeling by an actor 54 will not communicate the totally of a play. It is physical actions--signals and signs--that communicate, and these must take on a particular shape, create a particular style, in accordance with the given circumstances of a text. 4 Actor and Character In those plays in which the actor is not embodying an idea or an inanimate object, playing the self, or executing a sequence of actions, s/he is most likely portraying a character, a recognizable human being who is different in some way from the actor. For most of the history of western acting, this conception of character has been accepted. Bert 0. States, in his article "The Phenomenological Attitude," points out that in recent times, some theorists have questioned whether there really is such a thing as character, some kind of behavioral essence that is separate from action and incident, or actor, and remains constant even as the character "develops" (changes, due to events of the plot, self-reflection, and so forth). Both Sanford Meisner and David Mamet claim that, from the actor's point of view, character is nothing more than the doing of certain specific physical actions, They advise their actors to forget character and concentrate on ''doing" (Meisner 24, Bruder et al. 74). States makes the claim that character essence does exist: If one were pursuing an essence of Othello, it would be found through ~usserl'sprinciple of co-presence, or . . . the presence of one "side" of Othello in a given

------First paragraph, Marowitz , quoted in Harrop and Epstein ( 4 ) . 55 scene, and the absence of all the other "sides" of the Othello of previous scenes, "are what becomes present." If Othellofs character accumulates (changing as it goes), it is accumulating according to an Othello "law" determined, in the first place, by Shakespeare's sense of consistency in his creation and, in the second place by [the actor's] interpretation of that consistency. . . . In any event there is an essence of Othello on the stage at all times which never changes or at least never violates an invisibly circumscribed field of behavioral potentiality (''~ttitude"373). One element that is absent from the above discourse is any discussion of the function of character. Harrop claims that Stanislavski-based theorists and practitioners seem to view the function of character as to act as in life. For these thespians, characters must behave in accordance with modern psychological understandings of human behavior. Thus, a character may be expected to be consistent throughout a play, and the character's actions based upon a rational through-line of motivation. It is this school of thought that has prompted countless actors to proclaim: "~utmy character wouldn't do that!" in response to a playwright or director's instruction. Harrop recommends that characters be viewed as artifacts within a play, and that both character and play be seen as aesthetic constructs with structural functions to fulfil. Not only would this approach prevent realistic plays from bogging down in naturalistic detail, but it would serve as a viable approach to non-psychologically- based characters and plays--comedy, certain period pieces, plays by Brecht, Artaud, Pinter, the absurdists, and many contemporary works (Harrop 41 , 71 -82 ) . As mentioned previously, until recently the predominant modes of looking at the actor/character relationship in realistic theatre have been either to view actors as presenting their characters to the audience, that is using the body and voice to represent another human being, or "being" a character--a sort of embodiment in which actors attempt to think the thoughts and feel the emotions that they believe the characters would experience were those characters real. Several modern theorists have questioned this way of defining the actodcharacter relationship. David George suggests that "the actor-character "binary" is-- really--a polarity of performer and role in which it is not the disappearance of one in(to) the other which is experienced but the creative dynamism of their interplay." He states that the idea of a triad might be closer to actuality. "1 am actor and I am Hamlet and I am not Hamlet" (George 80)- Modern conceptions of identity as unstable further complicate this issue. Wilshire sees the self as dialectical (152) and claims: The distinction between self and not-self is not the clear and decisive matter that the words themselves suggest. The self comes to birth already permeated with not-self, and without the behavioral flow of the mimetic and the communal there would be nothing against which the conscious body could push in its irruptive moments of individuation. Nor is the individuation ever complete, nor it is ever completely grasped. We are 57 essentially particular and private and essentially communal and involved . (~ilshire286)- If, as Wilshire states, the actor when enacting a character is at all times artist, character, and human being, can we say that any of these aspects of the creative identity is stable? Perhaps ~eorge'sdefinition of performance should be expanded, thus: I am actor and I am not actor, I am Hamlet and I am not Hamlet, I am self and I am not self.

Several modem theorist-performers seem to be embracing this notion of the permeability of on-stage identity. Rachel Rosenthal claims, "I don't see a difference between performing myself, or a character, or a ritual'' (Lampe 293)- Philip Auslander, analyzing

Willem ~afoe'sperformance in the Wooster ~roup'sLSD (a deconstruction of The Crucible), remarks that Dafoe "makes no distinction between being himself in the first part [of the production], playing John Proctor in the second, and playing himself (stoned) rehearsing John Proctor in the third, All are manifestations of a single performing persona" (Auslander 308). As mentioned previously, for most of the history of acting, the emphasis has been on the actor showing the character to the audience rather than being the character. This meant that the actor did not necessarily have to feel any of the character's emotion, as long as the audience was moved. Today, all

Stanislavski-based realistic acting theories call for the actor to be emotionally involved, as it is commonly believed that the audience will not be moved unless the actor is. Where these theorists differ, however, is in whether the actor needs to be emotionally stirred, imaginatively, by the character's situation, 58 or whether any true emotion will transfer to the audience and be interpreted as character emotion. This concept will be further developed in Chapters 4 and 5.

~ctor'sRelationship to Self Several ideas concerning the actor and the self have been explored, such as the nature of talent, the fact that in acting the artwork and the artist are one and the same person, questions of identity and the grey areas between playing and being a character and playing and being oneself, and the debates that have raged concerning the definition of emotion and the use of emotion on stage. One commonly held principle in western theatre which has come under contemporary scrutiny is the idea of a rnind- body dualism. Zarrilli states that ever since Plato, Euro- Americans have experienced: a dichotomy or gap . . . between the cognitive, conceptual, formal, or rational and the bodily, material, and emotional. The consequence of this split is that all meaning, logical connection, reasoning and conceptualization are aligned with mental or rational operations, while perception, imagination, and feeling are aligned with bodily operations. . . (Zarrilli 12). Concepts of human nature as dualistic have led to actor training methods that isolate various aspects of the actor's craft, such as: . . . teaching speech and movement in classes isolated from those called "~cting,"which are usually devoted to improvisation and scene work. Treating speech and 59 movement separately from acting . . . inhibits using speech or movement in a creative way as a source of

inspiration (Hornby 244). The predominant twentieth century American acting theories have retained the idea of the dualistic nature of the performer, but have revised some of the elements, When Stanislavski wrote about the actor's creative state, he divided the work into two parts: external, into which he placed such elements as voice and speech, body training, external characterization and muscle relaxation; and inner, which included logic and coherence of feelings, internal characterization, emotion memory, sense of truth, attention, and imagination. Note that in Stanislavski's duality, emotion and imagination have become aligned with the internal rather than the body. Also, the duality is only partial; Stanislavski kept the fundamental concepts of mind, will, and feelings separate, stating that these three elements support both the internal and external creative states (Buildina a Character 261-265). There also appears to be a second dualism at work in his theory, concerning itself with what is conscious (rational, controllable), on the one side, and that which is unconscious (uncontrollable), on the other. In this dualism, mind and body are not split apart from each other but are split between functions of the mind and body which are controllable (will, rational thought, conscious movements, and voice production) and subconscious (emotions, unconscious reactions of the body and voice) . Much actor-training today concentrates on the students' 60 physical experience of the work, rather than on an attempt to come to an intellectual understanding of the process. The impression given is that thinking too much will inhibit creativity and spontaneity, and that the body is somehow connected to the subconscious and the emotions. Spolin developed a physical and non-verbal approach to theatre "as opposed to an intellectual or psychological approach." She wrote: "our first concern with students is to encourage freedom of physical expression. . . . The physical is the known, and through it we may find our way to the unknown, the intuitive, and perhaps beyond to man's spirit itself" (Spolin 15-16). Grotowski stated, "I£ you think, you must think with your body. However, it is better not to think but to act. . ." (Grotowski 204). Michael Chekhov, the great Russian actor and teacher who was trained by Stanislavski clarified: You may have noticed that the more your mind "knows" about the character, the less you are able to perform it. . . [Ylour mind can and will be very helpful to you in evaluating, correcting, verifying, making additions and offering suggestions, but it should not do all these before your creative intuition has asserted itself and spoken fully. . . [Rleason or intellect

, . . must at the outset remain in the background so that it will not obtrude and hamper your creative efforts (Chekhov 72-73). Much twentieth century philosophy has sought to reject the concept of a mind/body polarity; so too has some modern acting theory. David Edward Shaner states that "mind and body require 61 each other as a necessary condition for being what they are. The relationship is symbiotic" (Zarrilli 189). Hornby claims that: In place of Cartesian dualism, we need an integrated model of acting that sees it as a skilled, felt activity. . . . the actor is not really doing two separate things, and should not think of himself as being in two separate parts. Responding to both internal and external stimuli, he both thinks and feels, but most important, he is involved in the

activity rather than detached from it (Hornby 114). Many modern theorist-practitioners have turned to non-European methods in an effort to find a more synthesized approach to actor-training. Schechner cautions student actors against thinking of their bodies as being separate from their minds. "your body is not your 'instrument'; your body is you," he states

(Zarrilli 1 5 ) .

Relationship between Actor and Text Several attitudes held concerning the relationship between the performer and the play text have been mentioned previously. Some theorists such as Michel Saint-Denis consider the dramatist to be the main creator of theatre, and require the actor to submit to and support the author's themes and ideas. Stanislavski, for all his concentration on the actor's internal work, considered the play text to be the actor's second major resource. Within the script (directly, or from its inner content, its "subtext") the performer ferrets out the clues which enable him to develop his character and actions. Lessing saw the actor 62 and playwright as totally interdependent. Goldman would agree. For him, playwrighting "is an art of composing in the medium of the actor--of composing in action" (Goldman 101). Artaud, on the other hand, distrusted language and demanded the abolishment of literary theatre. He called for a new theatre based upon signs, not words, to be developed in space--a physical language of the stage "half-way between gesture and thought" (Artaud 89). Many of the experimental theatre companies of the 1960's and 1970's based their practice on the theoretical writings of Artaud, looking to ritual and improvisation to aid in developing non-literary "performance texts." Some modern theorists and practitioners who share ~rtaud's"antiliterary prejudice" are Lee Breuer, Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, and Andrei Serban. Their productions tend to either make no use of text or change the text drastically (Hornby 98). Grotowski, although obviously influenced by Artaud, developed his early performance texts by making use of classical scripts such as Dr. Faustus and The Constant Prince. For him too, however, the script had no use as literature or dialogue; it was seen as a tool for accessing cultural archetypes--symbols or myths. According to Grotowski:

[The] author's text is a sort of scalpel enabling us to open ourselves, to transcend ourselves, to find what is hidden within us and to make the act of encountering the others; in other words, to transcend our solitude. In the theatre . . . the text has the same function as

the myth had for the poet of ancient times (5?!; Treatment of text can be a very sensitive issue amongst 63 theatre theorists. As much as some practitioners advocate the changing, "exploding,I' or deconstructing of a script for any number of reasons, others see such actions as sacrilege. Hornby can visualize only one reason for altering a text--disdain for literature and the work of the playwright: . . . some directors, particularly American ones, have developed an outright contempt for play texts, which

they feel free to alter, adapt, update, or otherwise emasculate. . . . This prejudice has a lot to do with the poor quality of productions of classical plays today (Hornby 51). Another aspect of the actor-text relationship concerns the type of script which seems to become associated with a particular style of acting. Although Stanislavski claimed that his acting system would theoretically work for any play, he was forced to admit that Shakespeare and symbolic plays eluded him. For Friedman, this incompatibility is inherent in ~tanislavski's acting theory. He asks: "HOW can a theory that relies on the reality of the actor's own emotions cope with characters who do not behave in accordance with the actor's idea of reality?"

(Friedman 77). It is now accepted that Stanislavski's approach to acting works best with the genre of psychological realism, a concept explored further in Chapter 5. Adherents of the Art Theatre movement gravitated towards plays filled with atmosphere, ideas, and images that could be physically expressed, such as those by Maeterlinck, Yeats, and Wagner. The acting in these plays tended to make use of symbolic gestures and tableaux, and movement to music or particular rhythms. The experimental companies of the 1960's tended to develop their own texts (often through improvisation) in an effort to present contemporary social issues in a direct way or to allow the actors truly to express their own thoughts and feelings. If existing scripts were used, they were often rewritten to express the group's concerns or (as with Grotowski) used as a tool with which to provoke self-analysis. Grotowski claimed that in order for this process to occur, the actor and audience must have a common ground: For this we need either a classical text to which, through a sort of profanation, we simultaneously restore its truth, or a modern text which might well be banal and stereotyped in its content, but nevertheless rooted in the psyche of society (Grotowski 43).

Relationship between Actor and Director The artistic director as production overseer is a relatively modern development. The ancient Greeks had producers of sorts called archons, but plays were usually staged by the playwrights. Until Aeschylus introduced the second actor near the beginning of the fifth century B.C., playwrights performed their own work. They continued to act until the time of Sophocles. Around 449 B.C., an audition process was established, and actors chosen to perform at the city festivals were paid and had the opportunity

to win acting awards (Brockett 23). In the Middle Ages, a master of ceremonies was occasionally hired to oversee large-scale productions, which were acted in by unpaid amateurs. Until the mid-nineteenth century the task of overseer was variously undertaken by authors, stage managers, prompters, the leading actor of a company, or actor-managers. George 11, Duke of Saxe-

Meiningen is usually credited with having been the first modern director (Clurman 8)- Stanislavski was impressed by the Meiningen troupe and stressed the importance of both the director-actor relationship and the ensemble in his writings and productions. Although he called the actor the most important person in the theatre, he wrote that the director must serve as the actor's guide. In his own early work as a director, Stanislavski was a self-admitted

"despot" : In the stage director's copy of the play everything was written down--how, where, and in what way one was to understand the role and the hints of the author, what voice one was to use, how to act and move, where and how to change position. There were special drawings . . . for all the business of entrances, exits and changes of position. There was a description of the scenery, costumes, make-up, manners, way of walking, methods and habits of the roles played (MLA 322). The popularization of the idea of the all-powerful director in America was influenced by the warm public reception and critical acclaim achieved by Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre during their tour of the United States in 1923. American companies such as the Theatre Guild and the Group Theatre embraced ~tanislavski's directorial approach, and most American productions since that time have been under the artistic guidance 66 of a director (Friedman 29-30). Notable exceptions to this have been some of the experimental groups of the 1960's and 1970's and modern feminist theatre companies. Many of these groups are opposed to hierarchical structures and prefer to develop their work through collective creation rather than by having any one person in charge. For Beck and the Living Theatre, "no function [should be] more important than any other in the free society" (Life section 26). Craig believed that the only way for the theatre to truly be a perfect union of the arts was for a production to be under the control of one artist, the director. He wrote, ". . . the relation of the stage director to the actor is precisely the same as that of the conductor to his orchestra" (Craig 147). Although Craig devised no system of acting, his ideas influenced the symbolist and Art Theatre movements- Many of the powerful modern director-designers (Robert Lepage is one example) can be seen as direct descendants of Craig and like-minded theorists.

Relationship between Actors The topic of the relationship between actors tends to revolve around two main ideas: the importance of the individual star versus the idea of ensemble. It is common knowledge that the nineteenth century was dominated by the "star system," (increased by the popularity of touring) in which a star who was playing the principal role in a production often met co-actors for the first (and possibly only) time in front of a paying audience. From studying their writings, it becomes obvious that many divergent twentieth century acting theorists, including Antoine, 67 Stanislavski, Jacques Copeau, Sheldon Cheney, and Joan Littlewood shared a hatred of the star system. On the other side were such theorists as Meyerhold, Belasco and playwright-critic St. John Ervine who feared that the creativity and power of individual actors were in danger of being lost when subordinated to the ensemble. Ervine called the idea of ensemble "totalitarianism"

(Clurman 71 ).

Relationship between Actor and Audience Views about the actor-audience relationship are often based on a particular theorist's idea of the purpose of theatre and the function of the actor. In most naturalistic and realistic plays (whose avowed purpose tends to be to enlighten society by showing the audience a simulation of the real world), the relationship between the actor and the audience is an indirect one. Actors seek an emotional identification with the characters they are playing and with the other actors/characters and the play's situations. Stanislavski stated that "the concentration of the creating actor calls out the concentration of the spectator and in this manner forces him to enter into what is passing on the stage, exciting his attention, his imagination, his thinking processes and his emotion" (Life 464-465). For Wilshire, the very fact that this relationship is not usually a direct one, adds to its power: The intimate relationship between actor and auditor is not a face-to-face encounter, but a presence in a "mask" indwelling a presence "without a face." It is an anonymous indwelling and proxy standing in, but nevertheless intimate, for this very anonymity allows the sharing of secrets that a face-to-face encounter would discourage or make impossible (Wilshire 96). Brecht claimed that the traditional theatre lulled its audience into passivity and that only by constantly reminding the audience that they are attending a play and not observing real life could the audience members be inspired to think critically and to act. To help attain the famous "~-~ffect,"Brecht required his actors to take a critical attitude towards their characters, remaining emotionally detached from them in performance so as to be able to show the character to the audience without becoming the character. As previously mentioned, the idea was for the Brechtian actor to always remain present to the audience's sight along with the character. Brecht stated that: "The audience identifies itself with the actor as an observer, and accordingly develops his attitude of observing or looking on" (Brecht 93). There were occasions when Brecht the director allowed his actors to speak to the audience, thus forming an even more direct connection between the two groups. In Augusto Boal's "theatre of the oppressed," the spectator is given the opportunity to embrace the actor's power and "himself assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions [and] discusses plans for change" (Boal 122). Boal, like Brecht before him, rejects Aristotelian drama as he sees it "as an instrument of the established class structure to intimidate the spectator and eliminate 'badf or illegal tendencies in the audience" (Carlson 475-476). Like Brecht, Artaud and Grotowski (in his work with the 69 Laboratory Theatre) advocated direct contact between the actor and the audience in their efforts to change the audience and, thus, society. For them, however, the actor was more shaman than political activist and his purpose spiritual salvation rather than political reform (Friedman 143). Artaud called for performers willing to be "like victims burnt at the stake, signalling through the flames" (Artaud 13). In roto ow ski's "poor theatre," the actor used his role as "an instrument with which to study what is hidden behind our everyday mask--the innermost core of our personality--in order to sacrifice it, expose itff (Grotowski 37). He called for a spectator "who has genuine spiritual needs and who really wishes, through confrontation with the performance, to analyze himself" (40). In 1976 Grotowski disbanded the Laboratory theatre, and in his subsequent practical research has dispensed with spectators. In the past twenty years, the subject of the relationship of the audience to the performance has taken on new focus, as reception theory (which originally examined the reader's role in literature) has moved into the realm of theatre (Eagleton 74). Traditional views of the actor-audience relationship "in which either the former predicts the reception or the latter dictates the meaning" have given way to ones "in which the spectator complements the work of the performers by the act of relating" (George 80). Thus, the relationship is no longer seen as mono- directional but as "mutually reflecting and dialectical"

(Wilshire 19 ) . 70 Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance Wilson, in his history of American acting, defines style in acting as the result of both personal and socio-cultural factors. For the actor, style "means the individual characteristics of appearance, voice, movement and temperament which distinguish one actor from another . . .'I Style is also "the distinctive mode of presentation used by an actor in the performance of a role." Wilson claims that this distinctive mode is the result of at least seven determining factors: the player's physical endowments; facial characteristics and vocal endowments; mental and spiritual attributes; manners and customs of the period; aesthetic ideals of a period; training, example and experience (Wilson 6). For Harrop and Epstein, and Michel Saint-Denis, style is embedded in the play text. The "theatrical, social and personal values a playwright inevitably writes into a play" are revealed through dramatic clues: . . . theatrical conventions of the time in which the play was written--spaces, equipment, the physical manner of the actors; language rhythms and forms; dramatic conventions such as the use of verse, the employment of neoclassical or epic structure, and the mask approach to character; social, political, moral, and other perspectives of the age in which the playwright was working, and his response to them (Harrop and Epstein 4). If the actor responds to these clues, the text "determines the shape of the actor's physical choices and the form and 71 sensibility of the event (3). For Saint-Denis, the symbolic concept of style, as "the perceptible form that is taken by reality in revealing to us its true and inner character" (Style 62), was at the very core of his acting theory. He believed that ''a book or a play are [sic] as real as a cathedral or a statue. To have its meaning revealed, a classical play must be acted in the reality of its style so far as we can understand and achieve it" (Style 51). For theorists with this point of view, ignoring a play's textual style can lead to an imposition of a contemporary sensibility on a text, which can limit or warp it (Harrop and

Epstein 4). Saint-Denis believed that it is the director's job to discover a particular play's style and the actor's job to submit to the character and mode of performance as conceived by the playwright. In order that the actor be able to interpret any style demanded by any play, Saint-Denis required that his students study such techniques as gymnastics, speech, mime, mask, singing, and dance. Saint-Denis's search for style led him to make music an integral part of his work. Delsarte, Dalcroze, Meyerhold, Appia, and Rudolf von Laban all stressed the importance of music and rhythm to the art of the actor and as a unifying element in the theatre. Appia claimed that in the Eurhythmics of Jacques- Dalcroze he "found the answer to [his] passionate desire for synthesis": By closely following this musical discipline of the body, I discovered the living germ of a dramatic art . . . a dramatic art which will direct the body towards an externalization in space, and thus make it the primary and supreme means of scenic expression, to which all other elements of production will be

subordinated (Music 3-4). For theorists such as Craig and his American followers, style was seen as the physical embodiment of the symbolic elements of a script. Cheney wrote: h he first ideal of the art theatre . . . is the attainment of this illusive quality which makes for rounded-out, spiritually unified productions. . . . Call it spiritual unity, rhythm, style--what you will" (Cheney 58, 56). These theorists required an all-powerful director to translate the play script into an artistic and unified whole. Actors were to consider themselves works of art, a concept that calls for precise and conscious control of the actor's instrument, thus demanding extensive vocal and physical training.

Relationship between Actor and Performance Space Performance space is both the place where theatre happens and that which surrounds the actor- Realistic acting theory based on the teachings of Stanislavski requires a distance between the actor and the audience, In An Actor Prepares Stanislavski advised : Actors may not maintain contact directly with the audience, but they must do so obliquely. . . The difficulty is we are in relation with our partner and simultaneously with the spectator. With the former our contact is direct and conscious, with the latter it is indirect and unconscious. . . . But the spectators . . . can understand and indirectly participate in what 73 goes on on the stage only while this intercourse

continues among the actors (1 91 ) . For theorists such as Appia, Craig, and Young, who view the theatre as primarily a work of art, direct contact between actor and audience is also discouraged, as such contact would have the effect of mixing art and actuality- The spectator should look at the action through a frame so that he is free to imagine himself as a part of that action. If he is too close to the stage, "he is continually conscious of the actors as people" (Cheney 69). In general, theatre which has as its primary mandate the changing of individuals or society, seeks for direct contact between performer and audience. Companies such as Schechner's The Performance Group believed that changing the physical relationship between the actor and the spectator gives the actor an increased ability to affect the audience (Friedman 150). For some activists, such as R.G. Davis (San Francisco Mime Troupe) and Louis Valdez (El Teatro Campesino), this meant taking performance out of theatres altogether--acting on street corners, in factories, or union halls (Friedman 174). Grotowski, Chaikin, and Beck mixed audience and performance space in an attempt to create physical and spiritual contact, Wiles claims that the rejection of traditional stages and settings in favour of the use of "any place" for theatrical performance "asks for a continuity between theatre event and life event--that is, it claims that the theatre event is a kind of life event, not a copy of one" (Wiles 114). By encouraging spectators to take part in the performance, and by encouraging the actors to view their entire lives as performance, the Living Theatre attempted to erase distinctions 74 between theatre and life, artist and human being (Friedman 148). Harrop calls the attempt to create communion between audience and performer by changing their spatial relationships:

. . , one of the fallacies of the environmental staging

of the 1960's and 1970's. , . . It was quickly discovered that to put one's arms around a person is not necessarily to embrace him or her in any emotional sense; and to surround the audience with the performance does not necessarily mean touching it in any greater depth than in a proscenium theatre (Harrop 83-84).

Relationship between Actor and Technical Areas of Production Stage space and size; spatial relationship to and distance from audience; lighting, set, and costume design all have a profound influence on acting style. A Shakespeare production "in the park" on a bright Saturday afternoon played to families sitting on blankets on the grass eating picnic lunches, for example, calls for an entirely different acting approach than would the same Shakespeare play performed in Elizabethan dress at ~algary's3000-seat Jubilee auditorium, or in a university's

"black box" experimental space by performers in jeans and T- shirts, to an audience of thirty, Elements called for on stage often clearly reflect the theorist's view of the theatre's function. Stanislavski asked that the actor be surrounded by whatever was necessary to support the actor's inner truth. This idea has been translated in many ways both by Stanislavski himself, and by his followers--from box 75 sets and naturalistic props, to selected items vital to the action or atmosphere. Brecht, in his attempt to make the on-stage space appear "strange" or to allow the stage setting to comment on the incidents shown, thus allowing for a critical rather than a passive attitude on the part of the audience, called for the mechanics of the theatre to be visible. He used obvious light sources, projections and film, on-stage musicians, titles, screens, and so on. He also instructed his set designer to provide "no ' decor, ' frames and backgrounds," but to construct a

"space for people to experience something in" (Brecht 231 ) . Appia, who accepted ~agner'snotion that theatre should be a unity of the arts, was bothered by the disparity between the three-dimensional actor and two-dimensional painted scenery. Since he believed that scenic illusion is based upon the presence of the living actor, he sought to harmonize all other elements with the performer. He called for the abolition of painted flats and backdrops, and the introduction of structures such as staircases, modules, platforms, ramps, curtains, and screens, Walter Gropius, who designed a "~otal"theatre for Piscator in 1926, had a similar vision of a unity of the arts, Although never built, the designs for this theatre (which allowed for a variety of audience-performer spacial relationships and approaches to production) had a profound influence on modern design and architecture.

Trainins and Education of the Actor For those theorists who believe that acting can be taught, the theory of the teaching of acting is a key issue of acting 76 theory. Pedagogical frameworks range from general statements concerning the education of the actor, to descriptions of specific exercises or types of exercises which are believed to best teach actors their craft, Steele Mackaye, Delsarte's American protegg, who opened the first acting school in the United States, claimed that: There can never be a healthy vital drama until there is a safe and sure school where the dramatic aspirant may go as a student, and where he will be guaranteed the best social and moral associations, as well as the most thorough practical and aesthetic preparation for the profession. . . (McTeague Before Stanislavsky xiv). American actor Otis Skinner, on the other hand, felt that the best actor-training came "on the boards1': I am glad . . that my novitiate was one of hard knocks that compelled me to swallow my technique in great gulps; glad of the vast experience that gave me every sort of character--in two years I had played over 140 parts; glad of that compulsion of quick study and performance which renders the body supple and the mind obedient; and glad that my dramatic kindergarten was placed among men and women filled with the knowledge of their trade, and with honor for their calling. . . (Wilson 217). When one looks critically at advocated training methods, it quickly becomes obvious that any theorist's conception of actor- training is indissolubly connected to that individual's theory of acting. JuLian Beck and Judith Malina, for example, in their effort to reform society through direct contact with audience members "never advocated any formal system of training, believing that an atmosphere of individual creative freedom was more important than any specific technique" (Friedman 1 49-1 50 ) . Saint-Denis and his mentor Jacques Copeau visualized a theatre that communicates through "essential acts" that have universal significance. They claimed that "the actor should represent rather than impersonate and should place his emphasis on the text rather than the psychology of character and its emotional life" (de Vries 283-284). This focus led to actor training that emphasized the study of dramatic literature and text analysis, and called for required classes in music, mime, dance, mask, gymnastics, and vocal articulation. Although Strasberg, the Method teacher most associated with the actor's internal work, claimed that actors need vocal training, relaxation, movement work, and improvisations in sense and emotion memory, he admitted that in his classes he was most interested in the search for creativity stimuli (Dream 79). This focus is completely understandable when one notes that Strasberg defines acting as "the ability to respond to imaginary stimulif'

(Dream xii). Uta Hagen professes that: Ideally, the young actor should possess or seek a thorough education in history, literature, English linguistics . . . music, painting and dance--plus theatre history and orientation. Essential to a serious actor is the training and perfecting of the outer instrument--comprising his 78 body, his voice and his speech. She also claims that physical beauty and mental brilliance are not essential, but that "it is necessary to have a point of view about the world which surrounds you, the society in which you live; a point of view as to how your art can reflect your

judgment" (Hagen 7 3-1 5 ) . This is based on her belief that "the theatre should contribute to the spiritual life of a nation" (7). Peter Brook rejects most traditionally-accepted methods of actor training, as he claims they result in "deadly theatre":

If I had a drama school, the work would begin very far from character, situation, thought or behavior. We would not try to conjure up past anecdotes of our lives so as to arrive at incidents, however true. We would search not for the incident but for its quality: the essence of this emotion, beyond words, below incident, (Shiftinq 231).

Brook wants a vital and necessary theatre. Like Grotowski, he claims :

. . , the artist is not there to indict, nor to lecture, nor to harangue, and least of all to teach. He is a part of "them." He challenges the audience truly when he is the spike in the side of an audience that is

determined to challenge itself (Empty Space 134)- Like Peter Brook, Joan Littlewood envisions a collaborative theatre aimed at keeping the English theatre "alive and contemporary" (Littlewood 15). Toward this end, she dispensed with "solidified technique--the mannerisms and routine gestures which are the stock-in-trade of the established actor" (Goodwin 79 and Milne 11), and turned to improvisation and the extensive use of movement and vocal rhythm, mime and sound effects. Members of her Theatre Workshop studied voice and the movement analysis techniques of Laban, George Luscombe, long-time director of Toronto workshop Productions, was a member of Littlewood's Workshop from 1952-1957. When he returned to Canada, he brought with him many of her group theatre techniques--particularly the use of improvisation and Laban techniques in actor training, the use of mime and sound effects to portray realistic action in production, and a focus on the importance of vocal rhythms (Filewod 118-122). The various theorists and teachers whose acting theories and practices are analyzed in this study, are examined in accordance with the key areas outlined in this chapter. CHAPTER 3: ACTING THEORY IN TORONTO: GENERAL SURVEY

As outlined in Chapter 1, a survey with questions pertaining to general acting theory (Appendix A) was circulated to acting teachers in Toronto. The results obtained from the forty-four valid returned surveys follows. Multiple responses to the questions were accepted.

Question #I: Where do YOU teach?

Table 1 Institution or Place of Instruction Choices Responses (N=44) I private studio 29 university 111 1 college 7 public school (elementary, junior, senior 6 high school) theatre school, arts training centre 5 classes associated with theatre producing 1 5 organization I freelance workshops in various locations 3 my home/one on one coaching 2 model agency 12 I

"other" single mentions 13

The majority of the performance teachers responding to this survey teach private studio-type classes. Nineteen of the forty- four teach in more than one venue. Although there have been

Actraworks is a national training program aimed at expanding the skills of ACTRA members, particularly in the areas of "voice- over" and on-camera auditioning. independent acting teachers in Toronto from the city's early days, the major growth in studio training seems to have occurred primarily in the past thirty years, in concert with the burgeoning of professionally-oriented theatre training of various kinds across Canada (Cranmer-Byng, 1979, 4). Of the twenty-six independent schools and performance teachers in Toronto listed in the Canadian Theatre ~eview's1980 publication A Directory of Canadian Theatre Schools, nineteen were established in the 1970'5. Two long-time studio teachers in the city concur that the proliferation of professionally-oriented part-time studios in the city is a relatively recent development. Tony Pearce, who opened the New School of Drama in 1980, claims that in the 1970's the independent teachers in Toronto were few and not organized. Early studios he recalls include: Sears and Switzer, Maggie Bassett, Leah Posluns Theatre School, Centre for ~ctors'Study in Toronto, the ~ctors'Collective Training Space, and Kevin McCormick's Actors ' Tutorial. Other prominent studios in operation in Toronto during the 1970's were: the Actor's Lab, Dean Gilrnour Studio, Homemade Theatre's Theatre School (Barry Flatman), Studio Lab Theatre (Ernest Schwartz) and the Mime School Unlimited (Ron East) . Kevin McCormick claims that when he started teaching, in 1979, the university, college, and continuing education drama departments were the primary teaching venues available to budding pedagogues. By 1983, the Toronto Association of Acting Studios

Tony Pearce telephone interview, 14 May 1998. (TAAS) had seven members; it now has nineteen member studios and a number of associate members (individual teachers offering studio-type cla~ses).~Pearce views the 1990's as the principal period of growth in Toronto studio training, although he states that the recessions of 1982 and 1988 forced a number of theatre practitioners into teaching, This development seems to be supported by the numbers printed in Theatre ~ntario'spublications. For most of the

1970ts, Scene Chanses seldom had more than two classified advertisements per issue for workshops and independent classes, and none of these groups or individuals advertised for more than a few years. In 1982, a sudden jump in the number of advertisements for classes in Theatre Ontario News (which took over from Scene Chanqes that year) occurred. The next few years show a gradual increase, which suddenly doubles to ten separate entries in 1989. By 1994, the number has again increased--to fifteen. In 7994, Theatre Ontario published a booklet listing available Theatre Arts Part-Time training. Listed in this publication are twenty-six acting studios; thirteen dance and movement studios; three mime; four music, puppetry and miscellaneous studios; fifty-three independent acting instructors; five instructors in dance; seven in mime; thirteen

in movement; and thirteen in voice. As Theatre Ontario has not updated this publication, statistics for 1995-1998 are not available. McCormick sees part-time studio training as the "wave of the

Kevin McCormick, personal interview, 9 October 1997. future" in terms of actor training in Canada, Studio training gives students the freedom to choose programs, teachers and locales to suit their individual needs. It allows performers working in the profession to supplement or continue their training while working. md it allows adults to develop as actors while working at other careers. Although published thirteen years apart, two significant government-sponsored studies into arts training in Canada, the Report on Theatre Trainina in Canada, by the Committee of Inquiry into Theatre Training in Canada, published in 1978 (commonly known as the Black Report, after its chairman, Malcolm Black), and Art is Never a Given, the Report of the Task Force on Professional Traininq for the Cultural Sector in Canada, published in 1991, both stress the need for artists to have access to supplementary training throughout their careers, The second study also recommends arts training within the professional community. The acting studios can fulfil both those needs. An individual teaching part-time at an acting studio, for example, would most likely have more freedom to pursue professional theatre than someone teaching full-time at a university. The Report of the Task Force also recommended closer ties between the universities and the arts professions, indicating a perceived need for arts training institutions--even academic ones--to be aware of the requirements of the arts professions. It is a positive sign that of the forty-four survey respondents, all of whom claim to work in the theatre, eleven teach at least part- time at a university. The growing pressure from university 84 administrations for arts professors to hold Ph-D. degrees could seriously endanger this relationship. Wisely, the Toronto-area colleges have embraced the idea of professionals in the cla~sroom.~The public school system has recently instituted several programs in which community arts specialists are brought into the schools to work with students and teachers: Prologue to the Performing Arts, Learning Through the Arts, The Arts and the Homeless, and those projects developed by the Arts Education

Institute.' In Learning Through the Arts, for example, I I a range of artists--musicians, dancers, storytellers, actors, visual artists--collaborate with teachers to integrate the arts into the Lesson plan," Now in its third year, this program currently involves 3,000 students in north Toronto, and will be expanded next year (White El, E2).

In a study carried out several years ago into actor training in the colleges in and around Toronto, f learned that the colleges pride themselves in hiring accomplished theatre professionals to teach and direct in their acting programs (Mann 35).

Interview with Dr. Joyce Wilkinson, professor, Dept. of Curriculum, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 12 May 1998, Information on some of these programs is available from the following sources: Prologue to the Performing Arts brochures are available from their Toronto office; Leaming Through the Arts is described in Nancy J, white's article, here' s an Art to These Lessons," Toronto Star 11 May 1998: El, E2; Arts and the Homeless is outlined in Frank J. ~io'sdissertation h he Creation and Development of a Program of Study Derived from OJIBWE philosophy for a Proposed Centre of Learning and Research for the ~rts,"New York University, 1997. guestion #2: Backqround: Please describe your specific theatre trainins.

Table 2 Institution or Type of Training, General Choices Responses (N=44) university 37 studio classes 29 I theatre school, arts training centre 25 11 experience doing theatre I11 I I classes associated with theatre company 11 I college 17

The responses to Question #2 (Table 2) indicate that performance teachers in Toronto have received their training primarily in the following ways: at academic institutions; in private studio classes; at theatre schools; in classes associated with theatre producing organizations; and through on-the-job training, i.e., working in the business for a number of years. The high numbers of teachers receiving their theatre training at university departments and independent studios is understandable when one examines the dates during which the training took place. The majority of the given respondents undertook their primary theatre training during the 1970's and 1980's (Table 6, pg. 93). According to the Task Force on Professional Trainins for the Cultural Sector in Canada, university programs in the arts and culture "grew from 900 in 1970 to more than 1500 by the middle of the 1980's" (179). Don Rubin, in his article raining the Theatre ~rofessional," reports that between 1965 and 1974, thirty-three departments of theatre (undergraduate university and community college) came 86 into being (Rubin 289). The wide availability of theatre programs at the undergraduate level across the country during the 1970's and 1980's would make such institutions obvious choices for training. The majority of the teachers surveyed have subsequently supplemented their formal or long-term training with a variety of short-term courses and workshops with specific individuals. The studios were natural choices for such study.

Table 3 Training by Specific Institution and Location Choices Location Res~onses- (N=441 experience doing theatre various 11 I York University I Toronto. Ontario 17 11 - - - - Banff School of Fine Arts I Banff, Alberta University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta Equity Showcase Theatre Toronto, Ontario 4 Stratford Festival Stratford, Ontario 4 University of Windsor I Windsor, Ontario 4 1 I Sears and Switzer I Toronto, Ontario 1 3 H.B. Studio 1 New York, New York 1 3 CAST (Kurt and Diane ~eis) Toronto, Ontario 1 Royal Academy of Dramatic Art London, England 1 Yale School of Drama New Haven, Connecticut Neighborhood Playhouse School 1 New York, New York 1 2 II Stella Adler Conservatory New York, New York Brooke Studio Toronto, Ontario University of Calgary I Calgary, Alberta I Royal Conservatory Toronto, Ontario 1 single "other" mentions I (see Table 4) 1 54 I

Most of the training was undertaken in Canada (sixty-nine mentions), with the majority of institutions situated in Ontario and Alberta (Tables 3 and 4). This appears consistent with the Task ~orce'sfindings that schools specializing in professional arts training in Canada are concentrated in large urban centres in a very few provinces--on the national scale, in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta (180). Table 4 Training Institutions: Single Mentions Choices Location Responses (N=44 I I other universities I Canada 110 -- - other universities I United States other colleges Canada 6 other studios I Canada 17 other studios 1 United States 11 other studios England 1 other theatre schools England 6 other theatre schools Canada 3 other theatre schools United States 3 other theatre schools Croatia I other theatre schools Iraq 1 other theatre schools France 1 other theatre schools Russia 1 classes with theatre company Canada 4 classes with theatre company United States 2 classes with theatre company England 1

A significant number of individuals trained in the United States (twenty-one mentions) and England (ten)- Four other countries, France, Croatia, Russia, and Iraq, were represented with one mention each. Obviously, although the numbers of Canadian-trained theatre teachers in this country have steadily increased over the past thirty years, there are still those who go abroad to receive the training they need, or to supplement their Canadian training. As previously mentioned, three of the

Canadian teachers studied in depth and profiled in Chapter 4 took part of their theatre training in the United States. Also, thespians raised and/or trained in other countries emigrate to Canada and subsequently pursue careers in our arts organizations or teaching institutions,

Notable in the responses to Question #2 is the total absence of the National Theatre School of Canada. The forty-four individuals who took part in this survey mentioned seventy different training institutions--yet not one of these people attended the National Theatre School. There are several possible explanations for this. One, the NTS prides itself in choosing only the most talented theatre students and then preparing them thoroughly for the profession. It is possible that graduates of this institution either have little interest in teaching, or tend to find enough work in the profession that they have no time to teach or need to supplement their professional incomes. Two, since graduates of the NTS do not receive university or college accreditation, this could reduce their teaching opportunities. Three, the NTS accepts, at the most, fourteen English-speaking acting students per year. Only six-to-twelve of these individuals

Gordon Peacock, in the Canadian Encvclopedia notes that into the 1960 ' s the majority of faculty in Canadian professional training schools and departments of theatre had received their training in England, France, and the United States, but that by the 1980's three-fifths of the college and university teaching positions were filled by Canadian-trained drama faculty. 89 graduate after three years of training.' The large number of students who yearly receive their training at other institutions8 could easily overwhelm the teaching job market. It is also likely that a comparable study, carried out in Montreal (the location of the NTS) or with French-Canadian acting teachers, would disclose a stronger influence both from Saint- Denis and the National Theatre School. When the acting teachers in the current study were asked for the names of individuals who had had a significant influence on them during their training, 123 separate names were listed. Of those, only eighteen received more than one mention (Table 5, pg. 90). Of those eighteen, just over half have taught or teach in the city of Toronto. The 106 individuals who received single mentions teach or taught in such diverse regions as: London, England; New York, New York; Ohio; Iowa; Atlanta, Georgia; Los Angeles, California; Banff , Edmonton, and Calgary, Alberta; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Montreal, Quebec; Nova Scotia; Italy; Hong Kong; and Croatia. (See Appendix B). Approximately one third of the total number of individuals listed as memorable teachers taught or teach in Toronto,

National Theatre School of Canada Application brochure, 1 998-1 999 ; National Theatre School Annual Reports Numbers 1 1 ( 1 969- 70), 26 (1985) and 29 (1987-88); telephone interview, National Theatre School Public Relations Department, 14 May 1998. * Statistics published by the Canadian Conference of the Arts in 1993, show a total of sixty-three Canadian universities and colleges with programs in theatre and drama. These are in addition to those classes offered by independent studios and theatre companies. Table 5 Memorable Teachers Teaching or Place of Name of Teacher Theatre Area Contact David Smuckler voice York University, studios Joseph Chaikin Open Theatre studio workshops I Lloy Coutts voice Maggie Bassett studio, theatre II worksho~s,Toronto I Leon Major director in productions acting studio - Stella Adler Stanislavski- Stella Adler II based acting Conservatory, NYC 11 Neil Freeman Shakespeare studio workshops, Toronto ------Phillipe Gaulier clown, movement theatre school, London England II - -- - Michele George acting, Peter York University, Brook techniques Equity Showcase Ronnie Gilbert Open Theatre 11I Bernard Hopkins acting Banff School of Fine Arts I Keith Johnstone improvisation Univ. of Calgary /I Samantha Langevin acting Brooke studio, Toronto George Luscombe director in shows at Toronto I/ I workshop Productions Richard Nieoczym Grotowski I ~ctors'Lab Toronto IItechniques workshops mask, movement workshops Linda Putnam acting I Kurt Reis acting Centre for ~ctors' II Study, Toronto

The wide range of responses, and the significant number of single responses to this question seem to indicate that there is little commonality in the theatre training of performance teachers in Toronto with respect to influence by specific individuals, and only 33% commonality with regards to locality of training. In Canada, formal teacher training for theatre skills is not generally available. Although those persons with aspirations to teach theatre history, theory, and dramatic literature have opportunities to develop specific teaching skills (such as presenting a lecture or leading a discussion) in university seminars, individuals wishing to teach acting, directing, or technical theatre can only take classes aimed at training theatre practitioners. How useful these courses are for the aspiring teacher of professional actors is also often dependent on the priorities of the institution. A university with a mandate to provide a "liberal arts education'' will most likely structure its performance courses differently from an institution that sees itself as a "professional training school.'' Similar experience can be acquired through working on productions in these practical theatre areas. While a few Canadian university theatre departments provide teaching opportunities in performance areas to their graduate students, these students often receive little or no prior training in how to teach and little supervision or assistance during the Teaching Assistantship experience. Also, again, the institution's mandate will set certain curriculum priorities which may not necessarily be the optimum ones for professional actor--or performance teacher--training. The only formal training in teaching skills available to these budding pedagogues is through university education departments which train elementary and secondary school teachers. 92 Unfortunately, the child-centred emphasis on developmental drama in most education departments today (the use of drama and theatre techniques for the purpose of promoting a child's mental, physical, and emotional development) discourages many students interested in teaching performance for the theatre professional from taking these courses. Although survey participants were not asked specifically if they had taken university education courses, six teachers state that they teach, at least part-time, in the public school system- Although not all individuals who teach drama in elementary and secondary schools have degrees in drama education, those who teach full-time are required to have education degrees and, thus, would have teacher training. Informal training for acting teachers occurs in various ways. Although some acting students discover early that they possess analytical skills useful to teaching, many of the skills needed to be a good teacher develop with maturity and experience. Sometimes directors or actors with strong analytical skills enter teaching through coaching. Fellow actors may call on them for help when working on a difficult role, or when preparing for an audition, Occasionally, an established acting teacher will recognize a potential teacher in an acting class and assume an informal mentoring role. Other developing teachers discover a particular instructor they wish to emulate, or method that they want to pursue, and manage to set up some type of training/ apprenticeship with that individual or school, as Toronto teacher

Bernadette Jones did with Michael Shurtleff (see Chapter 4)- Other experienced theatre professionals accumulate a body of knowledge that they eventually sense should be shared, and they then move into teaching. Occasionally, a theatre professional is exposed to teaching for the first time when hired to work as "artist in residence" at a college or university, Table 6 Background: Decade of Training Decade Responses (N=33) '1950's 1 1960's 4 1970's 7 3 1980's 15

Finally, the responses to Question #2 were analyzed according to the decade in which most of the teacher's training appeared to have taken place (Table 6). As previously mentioned, the majority of acting teachers in Toronto who responded to this survey received most of their training in the 1970's or 1980's. This time period corresponds with the emergence of a viable professional theatre in canadas and the development of a significant number of training institutions. The statistics seem to indicate that the majority of acting teachers in Toronto are relatively young (thirties and forties) and, because of the decades in which they received their theatre training, more likely to have been instructed by other Canadians than those teachers of any previous generation (see footnote #2). The number of Canadians listed as memorable teachers in Table 5 and Appendix B, Question #2, supports this statement.

-- According to the Oxford Conmanion to Canadian Theatre, Canada was not economically able to support an entertainment industry until the 1970's. Question #3: Are there particular tl leorists whose methods have influenced your teachi1 A focus of this study is the development of acting theories within an historical context. In Question #3, respondents were provided with the names of fourteen prominent theorists/ practitioners of the past century and asked to note which, if any, have had either a "strong" or "some" influence on their work. Theorists listed, in random order, were: Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, Constantin Stanislavski, Viola Spolin, Sanford Meisner, Michel Saint-Denis, Julian Beck, Richard Schechner, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Lee Strasberg, Peter Brook, Antonin Artaud, Joseph Chaikin, and Eugenio Barba. Survey participants were also encouraged to write in the names of theorists not listed whom they felt had influenced their teaching.

Table 7 Influences: Total Mentions for Theorists.

Name Responses (N=44) Name Responses (~=44) II I 11 Stanislavski 1 39 Beck 8 I Brecht 29 Barba 6 Schechner 5 11 Brook 1 26 Linklater 4 - Meisner 25 Chekhov 3 Strasberg 24 Lecoq 3 Grotowski 21 Shurtleff 3 Art aud 15 Adler 2 Chaikin 14 Cohen 2 Meyerhold 14 Johnstone 2 Hagen 13 Vachtangov 2 Saint-Denis 9

When the responses to this question are compared with the 95 data provided on each teacher's training, it appears that most of these "influences" (other than single mentions) were transmitted via books or through training at least one instructor removed from the original inspiration.

Table 8 Influences

Strong Influence Some Influence Name of Theorist ReSDonSeS- (N=44) Name of Theorist Responses Constantin Stanislavski 1 26 Bertolt Brecht 1 23 Peter Brook 1 18 Sanford Meisner 117 11 Lee Strasbera Viola Spolin Peter Brook Jerzy Grotowski - .- .- Sanford Meisner 8 - - Bertolt Brecht 6 Constantin Stanislavski 13 Joseph Chaikin 6 Antonin Artaud 12 Jerzy Grotowski 5 Vsevolod Meyerhold 10 Vsevolod Meyerhold 4 Joseph Chaikin 8 Antonin Artaud 3 Julian Beck 7 Michael Chekhov 3 Michel Saint-Denis 6 Lecoq 3 Eugenio Barba 4 Kristin Linklater 3 Richard Schechner 4 Michel Saint-Denis 13 Uta Hagen 2 11 ------Michael Shurtleff 3 Kristin Linklater Stella Adler 2

11 Robert Cohen - - 11 Keith Johnstone Evgeni Vachtangov Julian Beck Richard Schechner 96

Of the 297 responses tabulated in Tables 7 and 8, only twelve respondents claim to have studied or worked with any of the prominent theorists listed as Influences: Chaikin (3), Adler

( 2 ) , Johnstone (2) , Hagen ( I ) , Meisner ( 1 ) , Schechner ( 1 ) , and

Strasberg ( 1 ) . The most prominent finding from the responses to Question #3

(Tables 7 and 8) is the pervasive influence of Stanislavski on the work of acting teachers in Toronto- Of the forty-four individuals who participated in this study, only five make no claim of theoretic or practical inheritance from this Russian master. In the area of "strong influence," Stanislavski received more than twice as many mentions as any other theorist listed or written in by respondents, His American followers Uta Hagen, Lee Strasberg, and Sanford Meisner all placed high as well, particularly Hagen (who was not on the list of 14 choices; thus, each of her mentions was a "write in" by a respondent). From the responses to Question #I0 (Table 17, pg. 1771, it appears that ~agen'sinfluence has been primarily through her popular book Respect for Actinq, Most often, the write-ins fox Question #3 were names of contemporary theatre practitioners/teachers, many of them, Canadian. (See Appendix B, Question #3, single mentions). Considering the number of diverse acting theories and practices that have emerged or have been re-examined in the past thirty years, I had expected less accordance. Many teachers who noted Stanislavski as an influence also mentioned one or more of his American adherents--Meisner, Strasberg, Adler, Hagen, Shurtleff, or Cohen. There does not seem to be much commonality among teachers who did not choose 97 Stanislavski as an influence. Two respondents who did not mention Stanislavski did, however, list American Stanislavski-based teachers (Strasberg, Meisner, and Hagen). Multiple mentions amongst non-Stanislavski-influenced teachers were Spolin, Meyerhold, and Lecoq. I was surprised by the number of respondents claiming that Brecht had influenced their teaching, considering that the acting and production approach most associated with his theory, alienation techniques, received fewer mentions than any other

training exercise listed in Question #4 (Table 9). Brecht did, however, leave a large body of written work, as well as well- documented theatre practice, Both his theory and practice changed dramatically over the years, and a modern acting class could make use of any number of his ideas or techniques. The low frequency of Schechner in the responses to Question

#3 was also unexpected. According to Don Rubin, Schechner has been "in Canada so often that he almost deserves citizenship" (Rubin 292). Although probably best known today for his writings on performance theory, Schechner's influence on theatre and actor training in the early 1970's evolved from his work with the Performance Group, which he founded in 1967. The group experimented particularly with environmental theatre, actor training techniques, and the relationship between performers and

audience. A number of rehearsal and actor training techniques outlined in Environmental Theatre, published in 1973, were seized upon by theatre instructors in the 1970's. These included: exercises with the body in space; physical touching; exercises to get in touch with the body systems--gut, spine, extremities, 98 face; and trust exercises (Environmental Theatre 12-155). It would appear that much of what was colloquially called "touchy- feely" actor training that was popular in Canada in the late 1960's and early 1970's was loosely based on schechnerts experiments. Toronto theatre audiences were introduced to Schechner's work in 1969, when Ernest Schwartz's Studio Lab theatre became the first group outside of New York to stage The Performance Group's Dionysus in '69: It caught the imagination of young audiences in Toronto and generated a cult following. In 1970, Schwartz remounted the play as Dionysus in '70; by the time it closed in Jan. 1971 it had played 168 performances (chiefly on weekends) to a total audience of 45,000 (Benson and Conolly 508-509). According to the results of the present survey, Schechner does not appear to have had a lasting influence on teaching of acting in Toronto, There were two other notable results in the answers to this question: One, the large number of theorists receiving multiple mentions, and two, the number of respondents who claim to have been strongly influenced by as many as nine theorists (many advocating divergent theories and practices), and somewhat influenced by as many more. Although the majority of teachers claim to have been strongly influenced by two-to-four theorists/practitioners and somewhat influenced by two-to-five others, I had not expected the responses to this question to reveal such a diverse range and depth of influence. However, when the answers to this question were compared to the answers to Question #4 (course content) and Question #I0 (recommended readings), the majority of answers confirmed the respondents' claims- If anything, it would appear that some teachers have been influenced by the practice of more theorists than they formally acknowledge.

Question #4: Course content.

Table 9 Techniques Used in Class Choices Responses (N=44) 11 actor as self, not character I non-verbal improvisation I theatre games given circumstances 1II emotion memorv 1- units and objectives

--- I elimination of obstacles to expression

ILKLrotivive creation -- - inner justification .- trust exercises

guided imagery mime ritual transformation mask biomechanics alienation techniques

In Question #4, a number of classroom exercises and 100 techniques commonly associated with particular practitioners/ theorists are listed. Survey participants were instructed to indicate the techniques they commonly use in their actor training. As previously mentioned, the number and diversity of responses to this question support respondents' claims that their class content has been influenced by a large number and significant variety of theorists. When Tables 7 and 9 are compared, certain tendencies are revealed. As expected, all techniques commonly associated with Stanislavski and his adherents (inner justification, given circumstances, sense memory, emotion memory and units and objectives) had a strong showing, receiving twenty-four to thirty-one mentions each, The common use of theatre games in class reflects the high frequency selection of Viola Spolin in question #3. If anything, Spolin and her colleagues have had more influence than some teachers recognize; five respondents who did not choose Spolin as an influence commonly make use of theatre games in the classroom. The low frequency of biomechanics supports the lack of strong influence of Meyerhold, as revealed in Table 7. Similarly, the relatively low frequency of prominent theorists Saint-Denis, Beck, Artaud, and Grotowski in Table 7 is reflected in Table 9 by relatively low numbers for exercises utilizing mask, mime, ritual, and transformation.

The surprise answers to question #4 were the frequent responses for: elimination of obstacles to expression; actor as self, not character; and certain exercises commonly associated with creative drama and improvisation--trust exercises, guided imagery, gibberish, non-verbal improvisation, movement to music, and collaborative creation. In setting up question #4, I had Grotowski's via negativa in mind for "elimination of obstacles to expression." In Towards a Poor Theatre, Grotowski writes that his method of actor training, rather than teaching a performer specific skills, concentrates on eradicating blocks to the individual's ability to react instinctively (Grotowski 16-17). Although Grotowski-inspired Toronto teachers did check off this item, so did a large number of Stanislavski-based teachers. It would appear that these teachers recalled that Stanislavski and his followers believed that the actor's creative process can be adversely affected by such problems as awareness of the audience, and muscular tension, and that they developed techniques (such as relaxation, and concentration on objectives and action) aimed at eliminating these obstacles. As the words used to describe both concepts are similar, survey respondents may have misinterpreted the question, I believe a similar misunderstanding took place with some of the responses to "actor as self, not character." I intended theatre practice in which the actor plays or is him/herself on stage (as was advocated by Julian Beck and the Living Theatre, among others) rather than playing a scripted character. Since three quarters of the respondents claim to utilize this technique, I believe my intent was misunderstood. Some clarification was provided by a written-in response by one respondent: "actor is always self, even when character." This same respondent also checked off "trust exercises" with the comment "all acting is trust," and stated that "all theatre" is

"collaborative creation. " 102 Although it is very possible that responses to some of the above exercises were enhanced by a misreading of my intent by the respondents, since exercises such as gibberish, guided imagery, non-verbal improvisation, and movement to music also received a significant number of mentions, one cannot overlook the distinct possibility that the ideas and practices of creative and developmental drama specialists such as Brian Way, David Kemp, and Keith Johnstone, and theorists such as Richard Schechner and Joseph Chaikin may have more influence on actor-training in Toronto than practitioners have stated. Certainly, one must consider the fact that drama classes in the public school system in Canada place a great deal of emphasis on games, improvisation, and creative drama techniques. The first experiences of theatre many of these teachers had as children may have been such creative drama exercises. One cannot predict the residual effect of such an experience on one's subsequent perception of theatre and theatre training. Further investigation with the respondents concerned would be required to assess this influence.

Question #5: Courses offered and brief descriptive titles.

The data cited in Table 10 (pg. 103) indicate that the acting courses taught most often in Toronto are: audition preparation and techniques, scene study, introduction to acting, and acting for the camera; followed by collaborative creation and improvisation, text analysis, acting (general), Shakespeare, voice, and theatre for youth. Table 10 Title of Course Choices Responses (N=42 audition technique/monologue coaching scene study I introduction to acting/fundamentals of acting acting for the camera I collaborative creation/improvisation/ writing and improvisation text analysis I acting/acting technique I )I - 1. 1. ~hakes~eare/classic~drama I voice/speech theatre for children/acting for youth advanced acting/master acting commercial acting/commercial audition techniques physical acting movement for actors/body techniques for actors introduction to theatre/approaches to theatre business of acting character creation/character study creative drama acting for singers mask 11 comedy I new age approaches to acting musical theatre I method acting unconnected sinale mentions (see A~pendixB) I

When the answers to Question #5 (course title) and Question

#3 (influences) were compared on individual surveys, a few general tendencies were noted: 1) Those who teach courses titled scene study, acting for the camera, and audition technique tend to have been strongly influenced by the work of Stanislavski or his American disciples. Thus, it would appear that a large percentage of actor training in Toronto is Stanislavski-based, and takes certain accepted forms; 2) There is a slight tendency among those who teach collaborative creation or improvisation to have been influenced by Spolin, Brecht, or Brook; 3) Those who teach theatre to young people tend to claim influence from Hagen or Spolin; 4) There is a slight tendency among those who teach Shakespeare or voice to have been influenced by the British theatrical tradition; 5) The majority of those who teach physical theatre have been influenced by Lecoq.

Question #5b: If you teach at an institution with an inteqrated actor trainins curriculum, how do your courses fit into the prosram? The answers to this question are inconclusive, Only seventeen respondents (fewer than half), answered the question, as the others do not teach in that sort of circumstance. Of those who did answer the question, every answer was unique to that individual's situation, However a few trends can be noted. There seems to be a tendency among institutions with an integrated actor-training curriculum to start the students with what are considered fundamentals of acting and to then work "up" to more complex processes. Non-scripted improvisation techniques are often utilized in beginning acting classes, and these students often also attend separate classes in movement and/or voice. Scene study (of realistic/naturalistic scripts) and text analysis are often situated in the second stage of training, with specialized training such as period style, classic text, camera work, or audition techniques reserved for a third stage. In the final year of acting programs the attempt is often made to incorporate the student's previous training into a full-scale production,

guestion #6: How lonq have you been teachins actinq?

Table 11 Number of Years Teaching Total years Responses (N=43) Years in Toronto Responses (~=43) less than 1 2 less than 1 3 1-5 years 9 1-5 years 9 6-10 years 13 6-10 years 9 11-15 years 6 11-15 years 3 16-20 years 6 16-20 years 1 21-25 years 3 21-25 years 2 26-30 years 1 26-30 years 1 31-35 years 1 31-35 years 0 I

According to time spent in the teaching profession (Table 11), the participants of this study vary from three months to thirty-two years; however, the average length is eleven years. The average length of time teaching in Toronto is eight and a half years, indicating that many of the teachers surveyed have taught elsewhere as well as in that city. This is supported by the fact that of the forty-three respondents who amwered this question, only ten specified that all of their teaching experience has been in Toronto. Although the respondents were not asked where else they have taught, the few written-in responses display a fair range: British Columbia (two mentions); Alberta; the Maritimes; Germany; United Kingdom; Croatia; and Russia.

Question #7: Are you or have YOU also been a theatre practitioner?

Table 12 Theatre Jobs Besides Teaching

Choices Responses (N=44) Choices Responses (N=44 I I I actor/performer 1 38 I stage manager 13 I I director 29 technician 2 writer 10 adrninis trator 2 I producer 8 single mentions (see 8 Appendix B) I dramaturge 4 I

Table 13 Number of Non-teaching Theatre Jobs Held Number of jobs Responses (N=44) two 15 one 10 three 10 four 3

seven 11 I did not specify 12

The most common non-teaching theatre job undertaken by the acting teachers surveyed is performance, followed by directing (Table 12). Writing and producing hold the third position, while 107 dramaturgy, stage management, technical work, and administration received two to four mentions each. The most intriguing finding in the responses to this question is that 100% of the teachers surveyed claim that they are or have been theatre practikioners, most stating that at present, while teaching, they also actively participate in theatre. The average number of theatre areas in which these individuals work besides teaching is two, with most claiming from one to three non-teaching positions (Table 13) - Most of these non-teaching jobs are freelance. The majority of teachers who work in only one other area of the theatre are performers. The high number of teachers in Toronto who also act is an intriguing discovery. Although those who believe in an experiential approach to actor training might think otherwise, from my own experience, it appears that the skills needed to teach acting are more akin to those needed by directors than actors: strong analytical skills, an understanding of psychology and group dynamics, a knowledge of the various aspects of the actor's art, a storehouse of techniques which can be used to help students develop their own acting process, a strong sense of self. So what might this predominance of teachers as actors indicate? Does acting fulfil some need that teaching does not? (Or, conversely, does teaching fulfil a need that performing does not?) Perhaps actor training is affected by that notion, so popular in many artistic disciplines, that one is not qualified to teach what one cannot do. Or do actors teach because it is economically necessary for them, because although teaching may be a poor second to performing, it is infinitely more rewarding than 108 waiting on tables. There is certainly evidence to suggest that, whatever other personal and professional reasons actors may have for teaching, economics is a factor in this equation. According to Tim Leary, who developed the actor training program for Equity Showcase, two-thirds of the professional actors in Canada live in and around Toronto (Rubin 291 ). In 1998, the number of performers in the city who are members of Canadian Actors Equity is approximately 1680--and this is only 70% of the total number of actors in the city. According to David Caron, Communications and Special Projects Coordinator for the Toronto branch of Actors Equity, in 1996 the average wage of actors in Toronto was close to $11,000 per year for an average of twelve weeks of work, He states that there has been a steady decline in the amount of work since 1990, when the average number of weeks of theatre work for actors was fourteen.1° Malcolm Black claims that many of the problems present performers in Toronto encounter, such as low salaries and too much competition for jobs, can be traced to training institutions that pump out far too many aspiring professionals for the number of theatre jobs available. " A number of respondents to this survey agree with lack's statement, many claiming that the situation in Toronto has become more acute in the last ten years (see Table 15). There are close to 3,000 actors and other theatre professionals in Toronto, many of whom are constantly striving to make a living. Statistics

lo David Caron, telephone interview, 12 May 1998. ' Malcolm Black, telephone interview, 7 October, 1 997. 109 Canada states that only 55% of a Canadian artist's total income comes from work in the cultural sector.12 It is entirely probable that some of the individuals surveyed teach (or, at least, started teaching) for reasons other than abject dedication to the demanding craft of pedagogy. One would imagine, however, that an individual who does not enjoy (or come to enjoy) teaching would not remain in the business. If such a teacher did not quit from a sense of frustrated creativity, students would probably detect the lack of dedication and avoid these classes. Certainly, in the classrooms of the six master teachers who were observed in depth (and detailed in Chapters 4 and 5), all of whom are also successful theatre practitioners, in each case the professional and teaching skills complement each other. In these classrooms there is an energy and excitement arising as much from the instructor's love of teaching as from a love of the art. This interest, combined with the ability to teach evokes enthusiasm and dedication from the students. The teacher's professional knowledge and abilities (whether these are in the areas of acting, directing, producing, or casting) provide an added dimension to the training that seems to both heighten and broaden the experience.

'' Statistics Canada, Education, Culture and Tourism Division, Canada's Culture, Heritacre and Identity: A Statistical Perspective, Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1997. Question #8: What specific skills do you feel actors most need to work in the theatre today?

Table 14 Skills Actors Need Today Acting Skills Responses (N=42 I voice work 11 movement training/physical agility

11 self-awareness/understandina of self

II access to emotions

craf t/technique/system of work I I text work/text analysis 11 create and develop own work I openness/generosity of spirit/trust I positive mental attitude/humour I life skills/healthy ego I literature/enjoy language I[ business skills 1 martial arts/combat 11 take chancedrisk-takina 11 sense of play/irnagination I styles/historical period acting I media technology training/television acting 11 character development -- honesty/sense of truth on stage appreciation, respect for the arts need to communicate unconnected single mentions (see Appendix B) 111 Considering the strong influence of Stanislavski and his American disciples on actor-training in Toronto, I find it interesting that internal skills (such as concentration, relaxation, imagination, and access to emotions) received relatively few mentions while voice and movement training topped the list of skills actors need to work in theatre today (Table 14). ~inging/musicalso occurred frequently. Perhaps the respondents are aware that training in internal acting techniques is readily available in Toronto, or they do not consider internal techniques i'skills"in the same way that dance might be viewed. Since actors in Canada must be able to work in a variety of genres and media in order to survive economically (Benson and Conolly 4), it is understandable that skills which would increase a performer's versatility would be mentioned. Of equal interest are the abilities commonly thought of as life-skills rather than performance skills considered by the teachers surveyed to be imperative to work in the theatre: flexibility, self-awareness, generosity of spirit, ability to take risks, perseverance, positive mental attitude, intelligence, ability to work as a team player, etc. This brings to mind R.H. ~homson'sstatement that the rewards of being a professional actor in Canada have never included fame and fortune. "There is satisfaction in the doing," he maintains, "but little fame, less money and no unemployment insurance." This tends to discourage "the actors who are not in it for the strugglef' ("standing in the slipstream" 298). guestion #8b: Are the reauirements for workins in the theatre today different than they were ten years aso?

Table 15 Changes in Past Ten Years Chanqes Responses (N=41 no, requirements have not changed (unspecified) yes, requirements have changed (unspecified) yes, fewer resources today yes, actors need to be more flexible -- -. yes, more actors seeking work today yes, more people creating and producing own work 2 today yes, more need of strong, flexible instrument today

- yes, unconnected single mentions (see Appendix B)

When asked if the requirements needed to work in the theatre have changed in the past ten years, thirteen respondents said no

(Table 15). Of the twenty-eight respondents who replied in the affirmative, the primary reason given is that with dwindling resources and larger numbers of actors competing for jobs, performers must be versatile, adaptable and able to generate their own work in order to make a living in the theatre business in Toronto today. 113 puestion #9: Are there specific skills whichvou feel are missinq from common trainins proqrams?

Table 16 Necessary Skills Not Taught in Actor Training Institutions Missins Skills Responses (N=44) business skills 10 creating, producing own work/developing new scripts 15 I vocal training/voice/speech 5 I audition preparation, skills/cold reading techniques 4 text analysidtext work 3 I

dance 3 on-camera skills 3 technique/craft 3 ~tanislavski/approachto internal work 3 personal development/self-awareness 2 survival skills/how to handle rejection 2 ethics 2 movement 2 singing/music 2 integration of inner and outer technique 2 classical text 2 respect for art/pride in profession 2 unconnected sinsle mentions (see A~~endixB) 118

Building on the responses to question #8, it follows that in the seemingly competitive and uncertain theatre business of contemporary Toronto, business skills and the ability to generate one's own work top the list of skills acting teachers feel are needed to be taught at universities, colleges, and theatre schools today. Twenty years ago, theatre trainers across Canada made many of the same observations and recommendations as are expressed by the acting teachers participating in this study. The Black Report noted that even in 1978, there were too many graduates of theatre training institutions for the number of available jobs and that tenacity might prove a more valuable trait in an aspiring professional than talent (10, 29). The Black Report noted that theatre students are taught how to act, but need training in: generating their own work, the realities of the actual business of being a professional actor (29), and film and media techniques (31). It also recommended that, (even though training should be modified to fit each individual's needs), because of the diverse nature of Canadian theatre, any training students receive should be eclectic. Areas of training advocated included: life skills and business survival training, a good general education, an acting process, basic acting skills, musical theatre skills, and speech training (31, 55-57)--most of which are still considered inadequately represented in actor training schools today by the teachers surveyed. Although it would appear that little progress has been made in some of these areas in the past twenty years (Malcolm Black certainly seems to feel that way) ,I3 one can hope that while certain perceived weaknesses in Canadian actor training may have persisted, the degree of the problem may not be as acute as it once was. Since the publication of the Black Report, at least two prominent acting schools (the National Theatre School and Ryerson

l3 In a telephone interview on Oct. 7, 1997, Black stated: as he Report could have been written yesterday. If we were writing it today, it wouldn't need many changes." Polytechnic University) have instituted programs aimed at helping students develop the skills needed to generate their own work. The fringe theatres also serve as training grounds in this area. 14 Courses are readily available in the Toronto studios for on- camera acting and auditioning. Casting director Karen Hazzard teaches a course in the business of acting at Ryerson, while Peter Messaline specializes in teaching this area in Toronto. York University has instituted both a course in the business of acting, as well as one in theatre management. Several useful books have also been published dealing with the non-creative aspects of working in the theatre, such as: The ~ctor'sSurvival

-IKit The ~ctor'sGuide to Aaencies and The Canadian Performers Tax Guide. Students in the Toronto area wishing to develop their musical theatre skills can attend Sheridan College, which prides itself in training "triple threats1'--actor/singer/dancers.Both Sheridan and Ryerson now offer special programs in which studants can obtain a university education and accreditation while training for the profession. A number of excellent speech and voice teachers work in and around the Toronto area; David Smuckler, who received the most mentions in the responses to

l4 Fringe theatre is a type of Alternative theatre that originated at the Edinburgh Festival in the late 1960 ' s. In fringe theatre the "priority is placed on new writing and experimental work, partnered with a desire to tour this work to new audiences, who would not nromally have social and geographical access to it." Roland Rees, Frinqe First: Pioneers of Frinqe Theatre on Record (London: Oberon Books, 1992) 9. Fringe theatre came to Canada in the early 1980's when Brian Paisley, artistic director of the touring children's theatre company Chinook Theatre, started the Edmonton Fringe. 116

Question #2 as an influential teacher, being the most prominent. It would appear that many of the skills which the teachers surveyed feel are missing from current actor-training programs, are available to some extent in Toronto. Perhaps what is needed is a better information and communication network. Performers need to be made aware of the training that will be most useful to them, and then they must be informed of the specific individuals and programs available to provide this training. During a previous study of various college programs in the Toronto area, I was astonished to learn that many of the teachers interviewed had no idea what was being taught at other colleges in the city. As mentioned in the Introduction to this study, although various institutions in the city can supply small amounts of information on available training (Theatre Ontario is by Ear the best, and the TAAS has information on their member studios), a prospective student has to search for information on available classes and teachers. guestion #lo: If you could recommend one actins book to your students, what would it be? Although the acting teachers surveyed were asked to recommend one acting text, twenty-five percent of respondents who answered this question listed more than one text, for a total of fifty-five mentions. All responses were tabulated in Table 17, pg, 117. ~agen'sRes~ect for Actinq received the most number of recommendations from the acting teachers surveyed. The book is based on Stanislavski principles and seems to have been chosen most often because of its simple and straightforward approach, inclusion of practical exercises, and ability to be used with beginning actors (Table 1 8) .

Table 17 Recommended Texts Total Responses Responses Author Title (N=38) for author

Uta Hagen Respect for Actinq 7 7 My Life in Art 1 6

An Actor Prepares 1 author named only 4

Peter Brook The Empty Space 4 S I author named only Actins One 1 4 Actins Power I author named onlv 12 I Bruder, Cohn, Olnek, A Practical Handbook 4 Pollack, Previto, for the Actor Zialer Michael Shurtleff Audition . 4 4 --- Sonia Moore The Stanislavski I 2 System author named only 11 I Viola Spolin Improvisation for the 2 2 Theatre Sanford Meisner Sanford Meisner on 2 2 Actinq I single mentions (see Appendix B) 19 1

Of the texts that received two or more mentions, three- quarters are Stanislavski-based (Stanislavski, Cohen, Hagen, Moore, Shurtleff, Meisner, Bruder et al,). Spolin represents the theatre games and improvisation school of training, and Brook comes from the British theatre tradition, although his work also I18 reveals the influences of Artaud, Grotowski, and Brecht. Of the five teachers who recommend Brook's works, only one trained in

England. As expected, the majority of teachers surveyed recommend books written by theorists/practitioners who they claimed have had a strong influence on their teaching (thirty-one responses out of thirty-eight). Several others recommend business/survival "how to" books such as A Practical Handbook for the Actor or The ~ctor'sSurvival Kit. This reflects a perceived need (which a number of respondents noted by their answers to previous questions) for acting students to receive more training in the "business" of being a professional actor than is currently available,

guestion #lob: Why do you recommend the above text?

Table 18 Reasons for ~ecommendingText Reasons Responses (N=32 practical/contains practical exercises, information 10 simple/clear/straightforward 9 text presents foundation/contains fundamentals 5 supports working from who and where you are 4 inspirational/beautiful/illuminating 4 good for beginners/provides starting point 2 has no bias/provides variety of viewpoints 2 unconnected single mentions (see Appendix B) 4 Question: Other comments.

Table 19 Other Comments Comments Responses (N=12) training should be practical, not academic/ 3 students need tangible tools unconnected single mentions (see Appendix B) 12 P

"other comments?" (Table 19) elicited only fifteen responses, most of which appear unconnected. The only common thread is a request for actor-training to be practical rather than academic. Although the Task Force on Professional Traininq for the Cultural Sector in Canada agreed that arts students must receive the most current practical and technological training-- which they felt was most readily achieved by increased contact between educational institutions and practising professionals (23)--in no sense did they see the worlds of practical and academic training as mutually exclusive. The 1991 report makes the following recommendations: Generally speaking, it is important for aspiring artists to be taught how to use emerging technologies. . . . Nevertheless, in the quest to prepare potential artists better, professional training cannot be reduced to a technical apprenticeship. Any artistic training should include the aesthetic values and theoretical concepts which are part of the foundation of creation and creativity (24). From the answers to previous survey questions, it is obvious that the majority of acting teachers in Toronto believe that students need more than training in performance techniques, However, the response of a few teachers in "Other Comments1'does foreground a concern that has been widely acknowledged. In any two-to-four year theatre arts program, not every actor-need can be met, Choices have to be made concerning what will be most useful to the artist. In general, the universities have tended to provide students with analytical and life skills, as well as a useful background in theory, theatre history and dramatic literature. The weakness of many university programs has been in the professional skills areas. The professional training schools and colleges, noting this lack, have tended to concentrate on practical training. At times, this has resulted in technically skilled performers who are unaware of the social, cultural, and personal implications of their work. Obviously, there is a need for actor training programs to weigh the various needs of performers in Canada and structure their programs to supply those needs as best they can. Twenty years ago, the Black Report recommended that universities and colleges devote their energies to pre-professional training and let a small number of professional schools supply advanced technical training to those with sufficient talent. Such a system would certainly help to alleviate one long-standing problem for Canadian performers, "too many schools turning out too many 'graduates' for too few jobs in a traditionally overcrowded area of employment" (Black Report 10). Summary Although many of the responses to the survey questions were unexpected, there were two particularly significant results: 1) 121 the predominance of Stanislavski's theories and techniques in the training of actors in Toronto, and 2) the sheer number of theorists and wide range of techniques which acting teachers in this city claim to use in the classroom. Since ~anada'smost prestigious and only independent full- time professional theatre training institution, the National Theatre School, was set up under the theoretical guidance of Michel Saint-Denis, I had expected that the ideas and techniques advocated by Saint-Denis and his mentor Jacques Copeau would have a much stronger impact on performance training in Toronto,

Canada's largest cultural centre. As contemporaries, Copeau and Stanislavski shared certain ideas and practices, such as a hatred of the star system so prevalent in the nineteenth century; a belief in the importance of ensemble, and the primacy of the text; the exploration of a play's meaning through character; the importance of rhythm; the use of improvisation in actor training; an appreciation of artistic discipline and the aesthetic qualities of art; the importance of relaxation; the importance of a cultural education to performers; and the primacy of the play's circumstances to the actor's interpretation. But their theories of acting had some profound base differences which resulted in marked dissimilarities in their actor training and the resulting performances. In order to determine whether Saint- en is' theories or practice have influenced actor training in Toronto despite respondents' claims to the contrary, it is necessary to briefly review his theory, practice, and Canadian actor training techniques. According to Linda devries in her dissertation he 122 Influence of Jacques Copeau on the Actor-Training Theories of Michel saint- eni is," Copeau and Saint-Denis shared a theory of the theatre:

, . , founded on a desire to create a theatrical communion, an experience in which the dramatic text arose as a common expression of the spectator, the writer, and the producers, in which the theatrical architecture was inextricably bound to the form of the text, in which the actor served as the surrogate of the playwright as the embodiment of the dramatic action, and in which the experience of the audience was a direct experience achieved primarily through physical, non-verbal means (viii). This concept led to the development of specific modes of understanding and representation by performers: a) the ideal approach of the actor toward his use of his instrument [became] intellectual and objective rather than emotional and subjective, b) the actor's mode of expression as an emphasis on gesture over verbal poetry, and creation of character as textual

identity rather than character as psychologicaf personality, c) a theatrical vision expressive of the spiritual rather than the material and the ideal more often than the real, d) a stage which was predominantly presentational rather than representational, supporting theatricalist as opposed to naturalistic productions 123

(ix) 15 At the National Theatre School, saint-d en is' approach was slightly modified in an effort to incorporate "the best of the classical schools of England and France with the vigorous realism of the New ~orld"(Russel 73). In the early years, this ideology translated into a curriculum designed around five areas: improvisation, movement, voice, oral interpretation, and rehearsal (Spensley, Chapter 5). Over the years, classes have been offered in such areas as: mask, gymnastics and acrobatics, modern dance, mime, fencing, Tai Chi, Alexander technique, period dance, combat, singing, commedia dell'arte, costume, improvisation, storytelling, writing, and text analysis. Theatre history and theory tend to be incorporated on a practical, need- to-know basis. From the start, however, a Stanislavski-based internal approach to acting has also been incorporated into the NTS'S curriculum--perhaps as saint- eni is' nod to America's "vigorous realism" (Schechner, "Stanislavski at school" 206 ) . Thus, although none of the teachers surveyed attended the National Theatre School, and most appear to have been influenced more by the theories and practices of Stanislavski than of Copeau or Saint-Denis, it is perhaps possible that some of these teachers may have been taught by individuals who themselves attended the NTS and who obtained their Stanislavski-based approaches there. It is also possible that Saint- eni is' acting theories have

l5 Italics are mine, with the intent of emphasizing ideas and practices consonant with Stanislavski's theory and which contrast with those of Saint-Denis. 124 had more influence than practitioners realize; perhaps that influence has been subtle, rather than overt, Although few of us can pinpoint what it is that differentiates Canadian performers from American or British, we are all aware that there is a difference, One of the original mandates of the NTS was to try to develop a Canadian style of acting (National Theatre School 3). This was never accomplished at the School, probably both because of the choice of an "internationalist" and universalist as creator of the program, and because of an antithetical directive to create actors who can implement a wide variety of genres and period styles. (One of the main tenets of saint-Denis' theory was a belief in the importance of style--which he conceived as deriving from the play and playwright, not from the actor. To attempt to develop a Canadian style of acting following Saint- eni is' precepts, the NTS should--at the very least--have trained their students using only Canadian scripts). According to David Gardner and Lorraine ~Bbert,two distinctive Canadian acting styles (in Quebec in the 19601s, and in English Canada in the 1970's--arguably the heyday of the National Theatre ~chool'sinfluence on actor training in Canada) both developed from collective creations--most of which had Canadian themes and subject matter, In both cases, the acting style that evolved was a curious mix of intimate realism and theatrical physicality (Benson and Conolly 6-7); seemingly, a mix of Stanislavski and Saint-Denis. The second most significant response to the survey questions is the number of acting teachers in Toronto who claim to be familiar with a number of the prominent acting theorists of the 125 past century and to use this knowledge in their classrooms. This points to two aspects of the Canadian psyche which reveal themselves in our acting and actor training: One, an open- mindedness--in the case of actor training, an open-mindedness to alternate techniques. Compare this with the early American followers of Stanislavski, who seemed to spend more time and energy fighting over who had the "correct" interpretation of the master's intent than searching for workable methods of actor training. And two, based on this open-mindedness, is a subsequent eclecticism. This varied approach to the training of performers has been criticized by those who seem to want a particular brand of Canadian actor training. Denis Salter's well-known critique of the National Theatre School is a case in point: . . . the school has made a virtue of an eclectic, in a sense liberal humanist, approach to actor training,

which draws on a number of styles and methods--none of them distinctively Canadian, many of them resolutely conservative--and which doesn't require the staff to commit itself absolutely to the development of distinctive styles of acting--the kinds of things which would give the school not just a national but a worldwide reputation for being at the cutting edge of actor training methods (Salter 7). When I was studying acting in the 1970fs,the popular conception among Canadian theatre students was that Canadian actors are better than British or American because we combine British technique with American emotion to develop a hybrid approach that is more versatile than either of the other two 126 acting methods. Qualitative judgments aside, it would appear that Canadians have a tradition of incorporating "what works" from other acting traditions and making them a part of our own. Perhaps what is sometimes seen as an inability to define ourselves--both as a culture and as theatre artists--is that which finally does define both Canadians and our cultural creations. Conclusion In previous eras, theatre preceded actor training. Most actors learned their trade "on the boards," observing and imitating older actors in established roles. Today, it is harder to tell where the influence originates. Does actor training reflect the current theatre, or does the theatre reflect common modes of actor training? ~61511Beauchamp maintains that "the kind of process a person goes through and learns is directly related to the kind of theatre that person will do" (Beauchamp 19). Although it can be argued that most of the acting theories developed in the past century were produced by individuals who turned against their training and the dominant theatrical modes of their time, Beauchamp's statement is significant. Many contemporary teachers claim to deplore the mainstream or commercial theatre. While preparing their students to participate in this theatre, they encourage these same students to go out and change the theatre (Mann 33). If ~eauchamp'sstatement is correct, most of these students will be unable to change anything. I see two avenues around this dilemma. Either, one, students should be trained in the specific skills needed to do particular 127 types of theatre or, two, training should include a wide range of techniques that would prepare the young performers for any mode of theatre which they might later decide to create or participate in. Both of these approaches require educated performers. Only someone with an awareness of cultural studies, politics, economics, history--and acting theory--would be able to make the necessary choices. Without understanding how theatre functions, how can one decide what type of theatre to produce? Without knowing the theatre in which they wish to participate, how can theatre students choose a training program? Acting teachers, as well, must study the various theories and methods available to them, and then decide what approach they will take, based upon the kind of theatre they want to see performed. They should inform the theatrical community what they are teaching, and why, and they should subsequently instruct using the techniques which that theatre and theory require. CHAPTER 4: ACTOR TRAINING IN TORONTO: CASE STUDIES

Of the six teachers who form the case studies for this research project, five claim theoretic descent from Stanis- lavski. The sixth, Karen Kazzard, though professing no allegiances, is obviously working from a modern realistic acting base, and her approach to actor training shows the influence of Stanislavski-based philosophy and methods. Having explored the results of the teachers' survey, I find this tendency surprising, although not unexpected. Based loosely on the ratios revealed in Chapter 3, however, I had presumed that one or two of the individuals chosen for detailed study would be operating from a theoretical base distinct from Stanislavski's. Perhaps my decision to study aster teachers" with established reputations inclined my advisors towards recommending teachers of acting approaches considered "mainstream" (which ~tanislavski's techniques are seen by many theatre practitioners to be, currently), as opposed to experimental or alternative approaches. Further study will be needed into this area to verify that these six teachers are, indeed, representative of acting teachers in Toronto. Since the teachers profiled are all working from a theoretical base of Stanislavski-influenced realism, the acting theories of the six teachers documented in this chapter are very similar to each other, fundamentally, and certain general tendencies can be noted, They all see the function of theatre as primarily utilitarian, but social, rather than political. They expect the actor to represent a scripted true-to-life character 128 129 who, generally, has no direct contact with the audience. Actors are expected to identify with the characters they play and to utilize their own thoughts and emotions in the portrayal. Scripted characters are expected to be well-rounded, and their actions, motivated. The actor's primary resources are considered to be imagination; a gut instinct for "truth;" and the play script itself, which must be examined for clues to character, situation, and relationships. The actors' degree of involvement in the imaginary play circumstances or with their fellow performers is believed to have a direct correlation to the extent of the audience's response, It is expected that these actors will be primarily performing in naturalistic/realistic plays or films and, thus, the mode of performance aimed for is action and energy that are true to life. The teaching methods and training techniques employed by these teachers are consistent with their theory. The differences between the theory and practice of the teachers analyzed in this chapter are subtle and, in a sense, secondary to their fundamental beliefs, But it is in these subtle differences that the development of the theory can be noted. Following a brief biography, unique qualities of each teacher's theory and/or practice will be highlighted. Then the teacher's theory, practice, teaching methods, and recommended reading materials will be analyzed according to the key issues determined in Chapter One. Chapter 5 will compare and contrast the theory and practice of these teachers with each other, with their American predecessors, and with their original inspiration, Stanislavski, in an effort to determine tendencies distinctive to Toronto acting theories.

ALAN JORDAN Alan Jordan is an actor and teacher, currently living and working in Toronto. He trained with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where he worked as a professional actor and educator. He also taught at the Los Angeles High School for Performing Arts while working as an actor on television and film. After a stint performing at Ontario's Stratford Festival, Jordan moved home to Toronto in 1990 and resumed his teaching career. He does both small-group and one-on- one actor training, audition coaching, and career planning. He teaches both stage and on-camera acting classes on a freelance basis and at The Actors Workshop, where he is co-artistic director. The Actors Workshop is a member of TAAS, the Toronto Association of Acting Studios, Alan Jordan states that, besides "twenty-odd years" in the business, Sanford Meisner has been the strongest influence on his work as an acting teacher.' Like his mentor, Jordan stresses the importance of impulse and the reality of doing on stage. "Really do something," he states in class, "don't play at doing something." For this reason, he dismisses mime training for actors. Jordan utilizes ~eisner'srepetition exercise in class. He

' All quotes in this section are from a telephone interview with Alan Jordan, 8 December 1995, or from statements made in class, 11 November-3 December 1995. The researcher attended two complete courses: Acting Technique, and Monologues and Scenes, for a total of 24 hours of observation. 131 uses it to teach students to work moment-to-moment. "1t gets the other person really watching [the partner's] face, seeing what changes and when it changes--rather than thinking

. , . 'what's my next line,' or 'what am I doing?"' "~t'sreally about just watching and being, acting and reacting off of what you see and what you feel from the other person.'' Although, like his mentor, Jordan admonishes his students ''to work from your gut" and "don't think too much," he is not quite the anti-intellectual Meisner was. Jordan wfll freely answer students' questions concerning the purpose of any given exercise, and he is not above lecturing, when he feels there is a point to be made. Like Meisner, in his work with scripted scenes Jordan emphasizes emotional preparation followed by a concentration on the stage partner and the scene's imaginary situation. Meisner, opposed as he was to emotion memory, focussed on the actor's imagination to daydream oneself into a needed emotion. Jordan is more eclectic in his approach. He allows students to choose a method that works for them : emotion memory, "what if," sensory stimulation, whatever. "NO one can read your mind," he states.

"1f it works, if it gets you to where you need to be," use it. In a similar vein, although Jordan uses a number of internal approaches in his classes, he tells his students that "there are many ways to get to . , . the root of a character or the root of a scene, and believability, and it can be external as well as internal." He reasons that "everybody comes from a different life experience; what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. " He states, "I don' t think there Is a right way and a wrong way; there are just different ways." In class, he takes the students through three different external methods of approaching character: animal exercises, changing the centre of movement/energy in the body, and essences- -finding objects, colours, sounds, etc. that reflect the core of a particular character or individual. Qualities of the Actor Most of the qualities Jordan states an individual needs in order to succeed as a performer appear connected to instinct, or impulse: the ability to work from the gut, to take chances, to be spontaneous, to be able to play like a child. Actors must be in touch with their own emotions, be able to access them, and be willing to experiment with them. "I have dealt with people who just want to be happy and don't want to deal with anything," he states. "~hey'realso very rigid. They don't want to experiment with anything; they won't even comb their hair differently. And they shouldn't be actors . . . they are not going to be creative people. They are just going to be very safe and adequate." Jordan also believes that a powerful creative fantasy, as well as skills of observation, are useful for the actor. Representation He prefers acting that is "small and real" to that which he calls "big and artificial.'' Although quick to state that "acting is always acting, otherwise we'd be insane," Jordan believes that "the more real you can be in your thoughts and emotions as actor, the more believable you will be as character." Actor and Character Although Jordan states that "every role is a character," there is a strong sense that actor-reality is necessary to his conception of character reality. As previously mentioned, the actor is not to pretend, but to perform real actions on stage. In fact, he defines acting as "really doing something." He also encourages his students to deal on an emotional level with their scene partners, not just the characters those actors are playing.

And he admits, particularly with novice actors, that he doesn't want "to see a big difference between actor and actor acting." To prevent this, he eases his beginners into monologue work by having them tell stories--often based on their own real- life experiences. He also states that actors have to like the characters they play and must be able to justify the character's actions to themselves. Relationship between Art and Reality In conjunction with Jordan's strong base in the real, however, it is always obvious that he is training his students for the theatre. He constantly pushes his more advanced students to make bold, creative choices and is often heard extolling them to "increase the stakes," that is, to make the character objectives more vital and necessary. When questioned as to his reasons for this approach, he replies: "lt makes things more dramatic and creates conflict. If the stakes aren't high, if you just start having a conversation, nobody really cares about that. here's no reason to put it on stage or on television." Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process

As previously mentioned, Jordan is quite open to different creative processes. He tells his students that they can approach characters both externally and internally and supports this statement by doing exercises in class that explore both methods of work (for example, sense and emotion memory exercises, as well

as animal exercises) . He remarks : 'I. . . some people don 't want to have to dredge up memories, and they would rather work externally. . . . what's better for me is not necessarily better for you. So I really believe in not trying to make everyone do exactly the same thing." When working internally, he is also open to different approaches--from emotion memory to use of imagination based on the character's circumstances. What seems important is that, whatever approach actors use, they find something that connects to their own emotional being and, therefore, feels truthful to the spectatore2Like many Stanislavski-based theorists before him, Jordan states that tension is the actor's worst enemy and that concentration is the best way to prevent actor self- consciousness. Besides encouraging his students to work from the gut and to perform real actions, Jordan advocates the use of inner dialogue, the projecting of thoughts to another character. "1n life," he maintains, "we have an inner dialogue that goes on at all times. Our characters should have them as well." Another device Jordan uses to make connections between the stage reality and real life is "secrets." When coaching actors in scene work he will often take an actor aside and whisper a private message to that individual. Suddenly, the acting seems to take on new dimensions

All of the teachers profiled conflate actor emotion with audience emotion, to some extent. In each case it is "understood" that the audience's degree of emotional involvement is the direct result of the depth of the actor's feelings. 135 and interesting sparks fly between the performers. What he has done is give the character a new objective, or the actor a fresh insight into which the scene partner is not privy. He explains: I think secrets are very important--secrets about the actor you are working with, secrets about yourself, secret desires that you want to accomplish that the other person doesn't know. Because that's what life is like, We all have secret agendas- The other person doesn't know everything that is going on. He also points out a secondary advantage to this device--it forces the actors to work off each other and from moment-to- moment, no matter how many times they may have performed the scene. When your scene partner has a secret, you have to be on the alert; you never know quite what he or she might do "this time. " Jordan believes implicitly in actor-felt emotion on stage, arrived at organically. Unlike some teachers, he is not afraid to ask directly for strong emotions from his students, and in class, pupils explore different techniques for evoking emotions: sense and emotion memory, daydreaming, and finding personal emotional or situational parallels to what is going on in a scripted scene or monologue. He also encourages his students to prepare for an emotion and then relax and trust that it will happen--or at least be able to go with the flow when it doesn't: "Get to where you want to be [emotionally], if you want to be upset, if you want to be angry, whatever, and then give over to the scene. Don't hold on desperately to what you had planned." Jordan admits it takes practice to develop that ability, and trust, "to let [the I36 emotion] be where it is, rather than churning and churning and churning and 'Oh, 1'm not crying, oh, 1'm not this, 1'm not that."' He reminds his students that "the next night or the next time you can work on something different that may get you to the

[emotional] place that you want to be."

Since he knows actors work in various ways, Jordan admits that emotional preparation is not necessary for all actors nor at all times: "Some people can just fly by the seat of their pants," he remarks. "I£ honest feelings come out of the circumstances of the play, that is fine. If honest feelings from an earlier preparation make the emotion come easily, later on you may not need to prepare. " Like his mentor Sanford Meisner, Jordan does not believe the student must stay imaginatively in the play's circumstances when developing the emotion needed for a particular scene. Although he admits the objective is to develop truthfully the emotion of the character in the scene, he states: "1f you need to be in a particular emotion for a scene and the circumstances don't get you there, it is acceptable to make up a totally different scenario for yourself. "

Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance When Jordan was asked how he approaches different genres, styles, or periods, he replied that he tackles comedy in the same way as drama, with the same depth but possibly even more seriously. He sees it as a different style, however. Although he has acted in Shakespeare, he declines to teach it as it is not his specialty. When asked how he helps students to get a handle on characters very different from themselves, he recommends physical approaches such as animal studies (Boleslavsky, Strasberg) or movable centres (Michael Chekhov). Relationship between Actor and Text In the acting classes observed, Alan Jordan concentrated on naturalistic/realistic modern scripts such as Kennedv's Children, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Blue Denim, Serenadinq Louis, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. The least realistic work used was Spoon

River Antholocw, which was used by several students for monologue work. The monologues chosen were approached in the same way as the more traditional play scripts, as character studies, not poetry. To Jordan, playwrights provide only words; it is the actor who gives meaning to a script. He cautions his actors against letting the script dictate anything. "YOU decide what the scene is about,'' he states, claiming that this can change depending on the circumstances or emotions the actor brings to the dialogue. He feels the same way about character: there should be no set way a particular character should be played, dictated by a playwright. "Give it your own interpretation," he tells his students, He also stresses the importance of improvisation to fill in the subtext of any given scene. Within this format, however, Jordan demands a scene analysis (if not a script analysis) from his students. For every improvisation, monologue, or scene they perform they must answer "the five W' s"--who they or the people involved are, what is going on or has happened, why the characters do what they do, when this all takes place, and where, Thus, whatever situation or characters the students choose to portray (to accompany the author's dialogue) must be justified and developed in detail. Relationship between Actor and Director Jordan is quick to tell his students that different directors have different ways of working and that no one approach is better than another. He admits, however, that he prefers directors who make use of organic blocking, allowing the actors time to explore and develop the blocking to suit the situation. He also prefers rehearsal processes in which the actors are off book from the first rehearsal, freeing the actors to explore, improvise, and make the dialogue their own. Relationship between Performers Jordan sees the actor's relationship to the other performers on stage as vital to good theatre. He contends that actors must trust each other, and that a sense of ensemble is even more important than individual performances. "YOU are responsible not just for your role, but for all rolesft'he states, "for all other actors on stage with you.'' Vibrant theatre can only happen when human beings are really talking to, listening to, and dealing with other live human beings on stage. "work off your partner," he constantly admonishes, "you can't act by yourself. I' "That's why I lie on the floor, practically, I' Jordan admits, "to make people look at me, to get them to make eye contact, sometimes. we're not used to making eye contact every day. It seems to be something that the director needs to work on." To enable his students to connect on an intimate level, Jordan guides class exercises in which scene partners gently touch each other's faces, or gaze into each other's eyes and attempt to induce particular emotional reactions from each other. Relationship between Actor and Audience Like all Stanislavski-based theorists, Jordan sees the relationship between the performer and the audience as a potentially strong but indirect one. Following in ~eisner's footsteps he claims that what most fascinates audience members is seeing actors "really doing somethingf'on stage. This can be a simple physical action, such as eating an actual apple, or a psychological reaction springing from the actor's involvement with other individuals on stage. Traininq and Education of the Actor: Atmosphere In the classroom, Jordan attempts to create a supportive atmosphere for the students, stating that "there is no wrong" way to do his exercises, and encouraging them to trust themselves and their fellow-students. He states that he believes in positive, constructive feedback, which is evidenced in the classroom by his use of praise and the softening of criticism with warmth and humour. Teachinq Methods As previously mentioned, Jordan always explains the purpose of any particular exercise, and although he will state his preference for how things should be done, he mentions alternate approaches and will try different techniques if a particular student seems to require it. In his general approach to the work, Jordan uses a progressive method, never letting students attempt something too difficult too soon, but rather letting them move from simple toward more complex exercises in small steps. In the classes observed, I noticed that he uses three specific methods of approaching the work, whether the students 140 are doing improvisations, monologues or scenes. He asks them detailed and specific questions about their characters and the situation, hardly ever letting a whole speech or scene go by without further exploration; he uses side-coaching techniques, making suggestions on-the-fly to actors as they explore a scene without stopping; he makes use of secrets- Although there is a definite feeling in ~ordan'sclasses that he is the knowledgable one, there is nothing heavy-handed about his relationship with the students. He can be seen sitting in a circle of chairs with the students, at a desk lecturing, or moving from group to group side-coaching independent rehearsals. Although he does not generally take part in the classroom exercises, he does the short daily warm-ups along with the students and will take part in partner exercises if there is an uneven number of students. Jordan claims that there are a number of ways in which actors can supplement more formal training: by observing people and the world around them, by nourishing their fantasy life and the child inside them, by playing, by reading plays, and by learning what it takes to push their own buttons and then pushing the limits of their emotions. Trainins and Exercises Exercises Jordan utilized in the courses observed included: relaxation; sense awareness and sense memory; emotion memory; concentration and observation; Strasbergfs private moment exercise (to develop creativity and undercut self-consciousness) and animal exercises (to develop physical characterizations); trust exercises and physical or psychological exercises designed 141 to develop a sense of ensemble or intimacy; improvisations built around character, situation, emotion, or scripted words; ~eisner'srepetition exercise (to work from impulse) and approaches to emotional preparation; objectives; enhancement of physical objects; movable centres (Chekhov); character essences; and vocal mirrors (connection with partner), In his work with monologues and scenes, as previously mentioned, Jordan will ask a series of questions designed to help the actor to fill in the circumstances of the scene or develop character and relationships, He also utilizes: finding personal equivalents for scenic events or character aspirations, secrets, letting changes in emotion or situation change a monologue or scene, character interviews, cutting scenes into episodes, open scenes, and independent activity (Meisner) techniques. Advocated Trainins Methods Although Jordan never mentioned body or voice training in the courses observed, and the only vocal exercises done in class were a few minutes of simple relaxation sounds made during a short daily warm-up, when questioned during the interview he claimed that: It. . . speech is invaluable, otherwise you're going to wreck your voice . - . it's very limiting not to be able to breathe properly or move properly." He also states that skills actors need to work in the theatre today include: a solid two-year foundation of training in acting, movement, and voice; reading plays (particularly by playwrights such as Chekhov, ~oligre,and Shakespeare); and attending the theatre. "I see a lot of people who have pictures, resumes, agents, and who have never studied,I' he comments, "and 142 it . . . saturates the market with a lot of mediocre people," Recommended Readins Materials Although Jordan did not suggest any supplementary reading materials to his class, in the interview he recommended acting texts by Robert Lewis, Uta Hagen, and Sanford Meisner. Since Lewis and ~eisner'sapproaches to Stanislavski-based acting will be explored to some extent in Chapter 5, Uta ~agen'spopular textbook, Respect for Actinq, will be discussed here.

As mentioned in the last chapter, Uta Hagen is a Stanislavski-based actress and teacher. In conjunction with a broadway career, she taught at the HB studios in New York from 1947. Her book, Respect for Actinq, is one of the most widely used actor training textbooks in America, noted for its simple, straightforward approach and inclusion of practical exercises, advice, and personal anecdotes. ~agen'sapproach to acting concentrates on identification with the character, the discovery and performance of the character's actions, and a moment-to- moment subjective stage experience (Hagen 12). The book is divided into three sections. Part 1, The Actor, deals with internal approaches to the actor's work, primarily: substitution, emotion memory (utilizing the concept of release objects or emotional triggers), sense memory and sense awareness, connection of thought with inner objects, internal and external action, relationship of reality to art, and the purpose of improvisation based on the "magic if.'' In Part 2, The Object Exercises, Hagen sets up ten practical acting exercises, each of which is designed to solve a particular acting problem or develop a particular technique. These include: 143 recreating behaviour which leads to the achievement of simple objectives; utilizing given circumstances; preparation; dealing with problems of anticipation; public solitude; endowment of objects; how to approach monologues; using sense memory to recreate a sense of place; adding conditioning forces to one's performance (heat, cold, physical pain, darkness, etc.); finding reality within an historical period; and choice of objects to define character. Like Jordan, Hagen advocates the use of real properties in acting classes. Part 3, The Play and the Role, explores the development of a role starting with character analysis (from the point of view of

'who am I?') and script analysis (circumstances, relationships, objectives, obstacles, action) and then outlining typical stages of the rehearsal process. The next section contains practical tips, such as: dealing with nerves, getting a job or an audition, how to keep a role fresh in a long run, the actor's relationship to the audience, and costume and make-up for a role. Part 3 concludes with ~agen'sinterpretation of communication--"the empathy and identification" an audience has with the performer who is "presenting a character who is alive on stage" (213), and style--"the form, shape and sound" of a play, based on "the director's concept of the playwright's content expressed by the inner and outer life of the actor'' (217). ~agen'sconcept of acting seems much broader than that of the Toronto teachers observed, and more in tune with Stanislavski's advocated theory and practice.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, acting teachers tend to like Respect for Actinq for two primary reasons: It is simple 7 44 enough to be read and understood by young and inexperienced students; and it includes a number of excellent practical exercises which can be used to train actors in fundamental techniques, When I was a neophyte actor, I remember loving the

book for three reasons: It was quick and easy to read; Hagen's enthusiasm and dedication to the art of acting seemed to validate my dreams of a professional career; and the inclusion of personal anecdotes made it fascinating reading.

KAREN HAZZARD Karen Hazzard is one of Canada's foremost film and television casting directors. She started in the business at the age of seventeen as an actress and took Ryerson Polytechnic's radio and television arts course, as there was very little actor training available in Canada in the mid-1950's. She has been a producer and production manager; she ran the Red Barn theatre for ten years; and she has worked in casting since 1973, She has taught for about fifteen years and claims that what she teaches is primarily the result of "on the job training," from years of "being in the auditions and watching people, and watching a~tors.''~She currently teaches Audition for the Camera and a course in professional orientation. As well, she undertakes occasional private coaching. She teaches both at the Canadian ~ctor'sLab (a studio in downtown Toronto) and at Ryerson

All quotes in this section are from a personal interview with Karen Hazzard, 29 February 1996, or from remarks made in class, 1 5 January-1 2 February 1 996, The researcher attended one complete course, Audition for Camera, for a total of 18 hours of observation. Polytechnic University,4 Function of the Theatre Hazzard sees theatre as having multiple functions in society: "~romtime immemorial, it has been a reflection of the times, it has been a comment on the times, it has been a release

for people. , . . It has been a suspension of all the bad in the world and all the good in the world and all the tiredness." It is energizing. "It lets us know we're not alone," Primarily, however, she states that the purpose of theatre is to "make people feel things," to cause the audience to respond or react. And, according to Hazzard, the audience responds emotionally and they respond only to familiar emotions: . . . the reason you as an audience like something is because it touches you, because you recognize things, because it makes you feel something. And it can only make you feel an emotion you recognize. . . . What keeps your interest is your involvement, and you are involved through feelings. She clarifies this point: Ifwe identify" with what happens on stage or screen. "And what we identify [with] are emotional levels and feelings that we already know about. And that's [when] we come out feeling that we've been part of it," Function of the Actor, Relationship between Actor and Audience It follows, then, that Hazzard considers touching the audience emotionally as the actor's primary function. She refers

The Canadian Actors Lab is an actor training studio, run by Antony Cheetham; it has no connection to the Grotowski-based ~ctor'sLab theatre run by Richard Nieoczym in Toronto in the 1980's. 146 to the actor as "a master manipulator," and states that "the actor has to be able to touch and be in touch, and be able to work all these emotions, to bring them out in you." he actor does not create anything," Hazzard maintains; the actor "recreates feelings for the audience." To do this, performers must ask themselves the following questions: "what do I want the audience to feel? What do I want to make clear to them? What am I revealing about myself and, thus, about them?" Although her focus is on the audience rather than the actor feeling the emotion, in no sense does one get the impression that Hazzard advocates a presentational approach to acting. She states that once performers decide, intellectually, what emotion the respective character is feeling and what emotion they wish to evoke in the spectators, they must then access a similar emotion internally and subsequently reveal that emotion through the character on stage or screen. In order to "make the audience feel it, you have to feel it very keenly," Hazzard maintains. "We feel nothing if you feel nothing." Besides emotional identification, Hazzard notes several other techniques performers can utilize to involve the audience in the stage action. "1f you make us think and question, you draw us in," she states. "I£ you change the balance of power in a scene, you draw us in. If you focus, we focus." She stresses the importance of finding multiple layers in a scene or character that, as they are revealed, continue to pique the interest of the spectators. Relationship between Actor and Self: Emotion Hazzard does not advocate any particular method for accessing emotion. She does, however, recognize that unlocking the emotions is often difficult, and she blames North American society for this tendency in our actors. %et rid of the fear of emotion," she admonishes her students, "go for the gusto! 'I Although she claims no particular theoretical allegiances and cringes at any mention of "methods," like many of the Stanislavski-based teachers, Hazzard states that although actors must be familiar with all emotions, they do not necessarily have to have experienced all emotions in great depth in order to be able to understand and play them. She recommends utilizing sense and emotion memory, along with imaginative enhancement. h here is not an emotion that we have not to some degree experienced," she remarks, "Now we just play with that." She gives an example in class of trying to portray a character trapped at the bottom of a well. Although the actor may never have had that specific experience, anyone can relate to feelings of being alone, frightened, cold, etc. And one can build upon that emotional base. Qualities of the Actor Hazzard is eloquent concerning the qualities she feels combine to make an actor. First, talent is required, which she interprets as an inborn ability for artistic interpretation. Secondly, she feels strongly that actors have to be "incredibly intelligent. I' In addition: You have to want this more than life itself. . . - You have to be willing to share a great deal of yourself.

. , , You have to be able to subjugate yourself to a role- You have to have that chameleon-like ability to 'be' other things. You have to be willing and able to work with other people, particularly a director. Hazzard also states that actors have to have control of their bodies and voices, and they must have the facility to make connections between their own emotions and experiences and the imaginary play situation. Finally, she makes particular note of "those other surreal" qualities actors must have, that are hard to describe: 1t's that ability to be able to touch within yourself

those innermost sensations and feelings. And it's that ability to be able to recognize them. ~t'sthe ability to be able to take things from life and suck them in

and translate them and give them back. And everyone cannot do that. . . . Actors do that. Representation, Actor and Character In the theatre Hazzard deals with on a daily basis, actors represent characters to which they are expected to submit. Although actors can play a wide range of characters and emotions by supplementing their sense and emotion memories with imagination or by borrowing ideas from other people's lives, other experiences, or what they have read or heard, as a casting director Hazzard has learned from experience that no actor can play every part. She claims that when an audience sees a poor professional performance, ninety percent of the time it is not caused by lack of acting talent but by poor casting. Hazzard makes a distinction between casting against type and casting against essence. A character's essence is its core; it is not changeable. And if an actor cannot relate to the essence of a 149 character, that actor should not be cast in that role. Changing type, however, does not trouble her: . . . you can change it from male to female, you can change it from young to old, you can change it from white to black, you can change it from tall and skinny to short and fat, you [can] change it from mean-looking old curmudgeon to beautiful young woman--but the essence of that character will not change. Hazzard recommends that actors start with internal characterization, concentrating on what is going on in the scene and how this affects the character's feelings and thoughts. Actors are prompted to use their understanding of sense and emotion memory to develop sense-based memories for the character which may be suggested, in the script, by anecdotes. Later on, external character elements such as accents, physical characteristics, and habits can be added- Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process

After emotion, thought appears to be the most important internal technique in the actor's creative process for Hazzard. Thinking in character has a dual purpose, First, it helps to give the impression of "the first time" to a rehearsed product. Secondly, on camera, thought is translated through the lens into action. According to Hazzard, the camera reveals the soul. The audience can see the actor thinking, feeling and reacting, "even if the only thing that changes are the eyes." Relationship between Actor, Text, and Director For Karen Hazzard, certain plays originate from a kind of possession, "because there is something inside [an author] that 150 needs to be voiced. To share." The director, then, "takes the printed word and translates it through the actor to the audience." Hazzard believes directors are necessary in order to end up with a completed product. She suggests, as an example, that she and another actor are to perform in a two-character play : We both are going to read it, and because of our own background, our own personalities, our own personal experiences, our own way of approaching things, we are going to approach [the script] differently. Now, unless we have a director to then hone and guide and suggest and help us with the vision of where this should be going, we're going to be two people on stage in a different play. The performer's task, with respect to the play script, is to "make the words come to life." Hazzard maintains that the actor's first approach to a script should be intellectual. The actor must make strong, active decisions as to the meaning of the words of the text and the surrounding circumstances, During monologue work, she encourages her students to ask themselves such questions as: "Who am I?" "What happened to make me say this speech?" "How much time has passed since the events described in this speech?" "To whom am I speaking?" 'Where am I?" "HOW old am I?" "How am I dressed?" "~rnI telling the truth?" "what do I want from the person to whom I am speaking?" Hazzard then states that the next approach actors should take to a script is emotional. As previously mentioned, the actor must decide what emotions would be most successEully used in the telling of the story and then set about accessing and revealing them, Finally, Hazzard cautions her students against getting caught up in the punctuation and sentence structure in which dialogue is often written, since real human beings do not speak in grammatically-correct sentences. "You must deal in thoughts, not sentences,'' she states. Hazzard shares the Stanislavskian view that the actual words of the text are not as important as the ideas expressed. "I£ your acting is strong, no one will care if you change the words a little bit," she tells her students. "what is important is the essence of the character, what makes

each of us unique. I'

relations hi^ between Performers

Unlike some acting theorists, Hazzard does not see the concept of ensemble and the practice of great individual performances as mutually exclusive. She points out that some of the best work on television combines the two ideas, such as the popular situation-comedy Frasier. "~rasierworks because individually you have terrifically fine actors, but you [also] have a wonderful ensemble who delight in each other's talents, who like to see each other doing well. And what that does is it spurs you all on to better and better work," Trainins and Education of the Actor Although Hazzard believes that talent is inborn, she states that training can provide the catalyst needed to help performers tap into their gifts: . even enormously talented people . . . need someone to help them release it, to know how to deal

with it, to know bow to temper it, to know how to dole 152 it out when it's needed, to understand how to reach certain places. ' hat's why we have directors. That's why we have teachers- Although Hazzard does not advocate any one method of actor- training, "because each actor has to pick up what works for him," she states that whatever form is used should match the content of what is being taught. For example, she believes her course works because its "down to earth" approach fits the subject matter, which is "the practicality of getting a job" as an actor in film and television. Advocated Trainins Methods Kazzard states that performers need to work at their craft continuously, even when they don't have paying work. And there are many avenues to training, h he entire world is your classroom, If she tells her students, "watch people, see everything around you as a lesson, . . . These are your tools, your ingredients to create wonderful characters." She also recommends that no matter how thorough one's formal training has been, "you should always be going out and trying new methods, new people, new things." Not only does continuous work keep the "acting muscles" toned, but "you take out of each [workshop] what works well for you. And you end up with what is your method, in effect,If When questioned about the importance of voice and movement training, Hazzard replies: I think every actor should take movement and dance, whether you're ever going to dance, or not, . . . I think every actor should take voice training, I think every actor should take singing. . . . The more you can do, the more you can understand about yourself and

about your body . . . the more hire-able you become. For Hazzard, the bottom line is getting jobs, and the most versatile, prepared actor is going to get the most work. "1n a field as competitive as this one is, where we are dealing with that vast range,I' she states, "the more that you can do to keep your craft and your instrument in the best possible form, and the more you have to offer," the better off you will be. She also gives short shrift to performers who aren't prepared when opportunity comes knocking. "I think [actors] should always have two or three monologues tucked in their back pocket, ready to go at any second. nnd a song or two,If she states. hat's why actors drive me crazy, because they are not always ready- They are not prepared the way dancers and singers are. . . . And so they scramble for two to three days, trying to work something up, and that 's stupid." Teachins Methods Hazzard, who has had a long-standing reputation for terrifying neophyte actors brave enough to test the generous open-door policy of her casting office, claims that actors need a safe place in which to develop. "YOU learn nothing by negativity," she states. In the classroom, this attitude is borne out. She creates a tight-knit "us" and "them" atmosphere, reserving most of her famous wit and sarcasm for those outside the studio walls. She encourages students to ask questions and always asks "~oesthis make sense to you?" after giving advice. On the other hand, there is a definite feeling of competition in ~azzard'sclassroom, whether caused by the teacher's demands, the ever-present video camera, the fact that students are not encouraged to get to know or trust each other, the context of the training--auditioning (an inherently competitive event), or the undeniable fact that many performers take ~azzard'scourses in the hope of being noticed by one of ~anada'smost powerful casting directors. Karen Hazzard is a dynamic force in the studio, When lecturing to the students, she is animated and very physical, She comes across as a true raconteur, full of wit and humour, using visual aids and analogies to make her points, anecdotes and gossip to entertain, and her very real reputation to add weight to her words. Traininq and Exercises Hazzard's class was one of the most technically practical of the courses observed, aiming to teach actors camera-audition skills. While the course is chock-full of practical advice on the acting business in Canada and technical exercises aimed at increasing students' marketability, Hazzard also aims to teach her students how to be their own directors, ''1 am not smarter than all of you," she says. She states that they must learn to ask themselves the same probing questions she asks when they work on their monologues and speeches. They must be willing to throw out one interpretation and try another. "We are laying a foundation for something you can carry on yourself," she maintains. "YOU will learn a method that you can adapt to your own needs." 155 When it comes to interpretation, however, Hazzard can be quite unyielding, (an attitude possibly justified by her belief that the students need to learn to take direction). If she decides a particular approach is right for a speech, there is little room for negotiation. If a student doesn't understand a suggestion, she is not above giving a line reading. Class structure is straightforward. In the first session, students perform on camera monologues that they have rehearsed at home. After they have all been taped, Hazzard and the students watch each performance, after which she criticizes the monologue, generally pointing out one major area for work. In the following session, the students tape the monologues for a second time, after having worked at home to incorporate Hazzard's suggestions. Besides the series of questions that Hazzard utilizes to help students develop their characters, emotional levels, and the circumstances of the scenes, she also concentrates on: technical advice concerning acting for the camera; finding the core of a scene or character; emotional and intellectual preparation; letting specific words evoke different emotional levels, rather than performing chunks of scenes at one level; speaking words as if for the first time; allowing one's character to make discoveries during the scene; playing the moment, rather than anticipating; taking time to think, in character; listening with the senses; reacting to imagined words or actions from a non- existent acting partner--the camera; the need for variety, layers and emotional levels; dividing long speeches into sections or moments, or the development of a key line. In each succeeding class, the scripted speeches Hazzard hands out-tothe students 156 become shorter, culminating in the last class with a speech of only one or two lines, for which the students must create detailed circumstances and a full-bodied character. In the first class, Hazzard also shares her theatre background with the students, gives them a brief history of television in Canada, and lectures for an hour on the techniques and business of auditioning. Most of the monologues and lines of text Hazzard hands out to her students are excerpted from movies such as Broadcast News, The Birdman of Alcatraz, and Last Tanqo in Paris. Generally, the students are not informed of the sources of the speeches and are not encouraged to read the plays or see the movies from which scenes are taken. Recommended Readins Materials Hazzard did not recommend any supplementary reading materials to her class, but she did hand out a one-page list of quotes from famous actors. Quotes which particularly seemed to reflect her own viewpoint were: he best actor in the world is the one who feels the most and shows the least"; "An actor must share experiences familiar to the audience. Otherwise, you're making faces in a vacuum"; "In front of the cameras I have to be careful of what I think, because it all shows"; "1n short it is a creative business, dependent, as almost no other business is, on the emotional reaction of its customers." When asked if there are any acting textbooks which she could recommend, Hazzard replied: "1f I had to say only one . . . Uta Hagen, probably." relations hi^ between Actor and Performance Space Hazzard has a unique approach to the actor's relationship to the performance space, concentrating as she does on camera techniques. Rather than dealing with such elements as blocking, properties, or the actor in space, her concentration is on the performer's ability to treat the camera lens as if it were an intimate friend. TONY PEARCE Tony Pearce rediscovered theatre while studying Classics at the University of Toronto. After some work as an actor, director and co-founder of a small theatre company, he eventually chose professional theatre over academic life. Professional acting jobs followed, dominated by a lot of touring. In the early 19701s, Pearce decided on further training and headed for New York and the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied with Meisner for two years. After several years working as an actor in New York, Pearce had an opportunity to return to Toronto to pursue theatre work. He opened The New School of Drama in 1980, and has been teaching under that banner ever since, while continuing his acting career. Pearce considers Meisner the primary influence on his teaching--particularly its course content. He credits Meisner with developing techniques (such as the repetition exercises) for accessing and developing specific, vital acting skills such as "really working off the behaviour of the other person, really paying attention and reacting to another person," which he feels no other actor-training method has been able to acc~mplish.~

All quotes in this section have been taken from a personal interview with Tony Pearce, March 1996, and from notes taken in Acting class, 5 January 1996-16 February 1996. Thirteen class sessions were attended by the researcher, for a total of 34 hours of observation (23 hours Pearce, 11 hours Nolan). Pearce uses the basic repetition exercise in his class, but he gives his students more freedom than his mentor, particularly if their variations do not countermand the intent of the exercise. co hat basic exercise is the hardest thing to teach," Pearce explains, "because you're trying to get such incredible honesty and simplicity, and yet you want to make sure that you're not inhibiting the spontaneity. So sometimes that's why I'll let people go . . . just so that they can have the freedom to do that." When discussing the exercise afterwards in class, Pearce emphasizes the importance of making an offer to one's partner and then accepting what the partner offers in return. "~nrepetition, everything one says is an offer," he states. By repeating what is said, one accepts the offer. He also advises the students to: It . . . let words come out impulsively, don't try to find the right or appropriate words;" accept what is said to you, don't refute it; don't ask your partner questions, that blocks the interaction. Pearce has also developed a variation on the repetition exercise. Students are told to invent and write down a set of circumstances that would force them to call someone on the telephone and try to get something from that person, In the improvisation, one student makes a call; a second student answers the phone. The first makes offers (comments) which the second person must accept. Both students have objectives which they are not allowed to pursue directly. Pearce advises the students not to concern themselves if, during the exercise, they never get a chance to reveal their objectives. hey will permeate the work" regardless, and will also inject the scene with "energy and 159 drive, The students seemed to find this exercise quite difficult and somewhat frustrating, a reaction often encountered with the repetition exercises. Acting pitfalls of the telephone exercise include a tendency to try to playwright, rejecting offers, and losing track of objectives. This exercise seems to integrate a number of acting techniques at one time: truly listening to the partner, being in the moment, reaction and thought in character, pursuit of objectives, and layers of subtext and action. Like Meisner, Pearce stresses the importance of instinct. There is a sign on the classroom wall which reads, "act before you think." He is quick to point out to the students, however, that instinct is not always enough and that sometimes it can even send an actor in the wrong direction if that actor's impulses differ from those of the character, Like Meisner and Adler, Pearce rejects the use of emotion memory as an emotion stimulator, noting that Meisner suggested that it is "unreliable over the long term" and that Stanislavski, himself, discarded its use, claiming that it gave actors emotional problems. Pearce depends on the imagination, particularly the use of "what if." This is the primary approach he uses when tackling emotional preparation with his students. Like many other Stanislavski-based theorists, Pearce states that actors have no control over their emotions and that inspiration cannot be commanded. What one can control, he stresses, is emotional expression, "your will and your actions." On an off day, he states, an actor can save a performance by doing the right actions. 160 ~earce'sdefinition of action is very similar to Robert ohe en's f'tactics"--"themeans by which we win, or seek to win, our ideal futures" (Cohen 68), or, more theatrically, what we do to get what we want from another person. Pearce, however, prefers the older term, as he feels the word tactics implies manipulation, a strategy Meisner disdained. "Manipulation for me is being dishonest, or even more importantly, not being emotionally involved yourself and standing back and pulling strings," Pearce states , I' , . , when somebody's committed to an action, or doing something, or trying desperately to get somebody to do something, they're not manipulating them; they're trying to change them." His approach to action involves both parties and centres around their relationship, rather than having one actor/character remaining uninvolved while coercing the partner.

I I . . . it usually turns out that . . . what's going on in the relationship is the most important thing anyway," Pearce notes. "what the person's fighting for is what they believe is going to be best for the relationship." Action holds a central position in ~earce'sactor-training.

He considers it even more important than emotion. ". . , I don't care if anybody has any emotions if they're not dealing with something," he states--if they're not "there in the present." He qualifies this remark by adding: "1f you can bring more emotion to it, that's wonderful. It makes it more human, more alive." But: "You don't need emotion to do actions. You do the actions, If you're doing them fully . . . it will probably be more affecting to everybody, including your partner." But the most important thing, he is quick to emphasize, is the interaction with one's acting partner. Pearce points out that one area in which his approach may differ in degree from other Stanislavski-based teachers is in the concreteness of the actions he demands from his students. "people would say, 'Well, I want his respect,' or something like that.

1'11 say, 'No, What do you want the other person to do? . , . You want them to do the dishes? Then you'll know that they respect you.' But you don't want an abstract thing." Function of the Theatre Pearce believes theatre is important because "it really shows the life of the human soul. . . . If it's good," he continues, it "shows people something about life that they may not have looked at; something about themselves," about "the human condition." He adds that the condensed nature of the theatre allows us to see the results of the actions which people make in their lives, and to learn truths in two hours which would otherwise take a lifetime to discover. Also, theatre gives us the opportunity to "affect people'' emotionally, to "make a real connection. " Dualities of the Actor When asked what particular skills or abilities he considers most useful to actors, Pearce replies that they should 1 ' . . . love themselves. So that they'll really want to present themselves; [so] that they'll really want to be seen; [so that] they'll really want to express themselves." Performers should also "love what they do" and "feel it's valuable. " He claims it is important for actors to feel that people know they have something vital to offer. He believes this "will bring out what's 162 best in them, will open them up." He also states that: "TO be a really wonderful actor you have to have more , . . humanity, more understanding of other human beings and feeling for them" than others have. Representation, Actor and Character For Pearce, although the actor represents a character, this character draws on the performer's instinct, intelligence, physicality, and sense of truth for its reality. Although he prefers actors utilizing imagination based on the character's circumstances to emotion memory, he adds that in character work

'I. . , you can't help but use yourself because everything is filtered through you." He quotes David ~amet'snotion that there is no such thing as character, there are only "some lines and some actions," to support his concept of the primacy of action and to caution actors against wasting valuable rehearsal time theorizing about character elements extraneous to the play. However, in no sense does Pearce claim that an actor doing an action automatically becomes a character. ". . . you're playing the character when you're totally committed to the actions of that person," he states. To do those actions fully and without judgment, "to be able to do things that seem foreign to you," takes "an educated person" with a thorough understanding and acceptance of human behaviours other than one's own, When asked how he would help an actor develop a character very different from the self, Pearce readily admits that not every actor can play every part. Citing Meisner, he quotes: here are a lot of things you can do to help an actor, but if I63 you cast an actor to play Othello and he comes to you and says, 'I don't think I understand about this jealousy thing,' fire him." On the other hand, Pearce believes that when actors have problems with a character's emotion, it is generally a problem with expression, not with feeling. "I . . . think that probably everybody feels the same things, but how they express them can be very, very different," he states. With long-term training, actors can have their means of expression expanded, At The New School of Drama, Pearce will often work with a particular actor for up to two years. Once he discovers a student's weak areas, he will choose scenes for that performer designed to stretch that individual's creative limits. Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance When dealing with non-naturalistic modes of performance such as farce or Shakespeare, Pearce starts by determining the character's basic human values; he then adds external, historic, and stylistic elements into the matrix as additional circumstances. For example: "~verybodyin Shakespeare has to be a poet," he explains. But underneath the poetic words and rhythms, "Viola is desperately in love with Orsino," Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process

As previously mentioned, for Pearce, the actor's process is centred around the idea of action, as required by character and situation. To make for exciting acting, he requires that circumstances be important, stakes high and actions strong. During scene work, students work in pairs, studying their scripted scenes and determining the successive beats, or moments of interaction. When a heat has been decided upon, the students explore it with Pearce by acting it out, concluding precisely where the beat begins and ends. The students are then required to choose character objectives and actions for each beat. Pearce believes active verbs define objectives best; he supplies the students with a two-page list of verbs entitled Behavior Vocabulary. Although the students must decide what is going on for each beat of a scene, Pearce does not encourage the relatively inexperienced students to study the film scripts from which he chooses classroom scenes. Thus, generally these performers decide their characters, relationships, and circumstances based on clues from their scenes and their own imaginations. In acknowledgement of the importance Pearce places on interaction, students are urged to choose objectives that are partner-centred; not simply "what do I want?" but "what do I want from her?" or "what would I like her to be to me?" To assist the in-the-moment, give-and-take between performers, Pearce recommends that actors "play" with their acting partners as much as they play with the characters those people are portraying. Although ~earce'semphasis is on the internal aspects of actor training, he does not ignore the physical. During scene work, students are cautioned to "be aware of what your body is saying." In one class, he stated that when instinct does not take the actor to where the character needs to be, sometimes "a necessary mechanical movement can lead to belief." Relationship between Performers, Actor and Audience Aware that performers tend to be self-centred, Pearce encourages his students to think in terms of the audience's overall reaction to the production, not their individual performances. He says he tells them: he best thing that could happen to you is that nobody notices you as an actor, that you all create the story so well that they're not saying hat actor did well,' but that they had an experience." Traininq and Education of the Actor Pearce teaches in a unique situation. Although he teaches what appear to be individual six-to-twelve-week acting courses at various levels, in actuality these courses are part of a larger two-year program at his studio, The New School of Drama. He primarily teaches naturalism, Meisner technique, and scene study, and hires specialists (voice, movement, sensory work, creativity) to come into the studio as needed to supplement the students' theatrical education. In the six weeks during which his class was under observation, students spent one hour out of every three working with actress/teacher Louise Nolan on developing their creativity. Teachinq Space Unlike the other teachers observed, Pearce has his own studio space, which has been set up to approximate a small proscenium theatre. Curtains, flats, and a few theatrical lighting instruments define the stage space, and two rows of chairs on risers form the auditorium, where students sit when taking part in discussion or watching their classmates work. Furniture and props are readily available for students' use. Atmosphere Pearce is a quiet, warm, soft-spoken man of few words. Like his mentor Meisner, he does not lecture, seeming to prefer that 166 his students learn by doing and from each other rather than from any authoritarian pronouncements. He is relaxed with the students and they with him; the classroom atmosphere is one of supportive friendship. Teachinq Methods Generally, Pearce will not stop an exercise part-way through to tell students that they are doing it wrong. He will let it play itself out, side-coaching if necessary, and then he and the students discuss the experience and he points out what could or should have been happening. In a similar vein, when working scenes he generally allows the actors to go through the entire scene before discussion. Usually after a scene or exercise, the students clap for their classmates' work. Criticism of others is not encouraged. Class progress seems slow, possibly because of the flexible time frame. Pearce makes no appreciable demands on his students and many of them appear to take a fairly casual approach to the course, doing very little work outside of class and attending intermittently. Trainins and Exercises Pearce's curriculum is set up according to ~eisner's principles. This involves development of the instrument in stages, starting with exercises such as repetition designed to cultivate an ability to work from instinct and recognize a sense of truth. In the early stages, "you're not talking about character. you're not talking about your history of the person, or , . about [the] relationship or any of the things that go into acting." Those elements are "added, bit by bit," while the performer tries to retain the sense of truth and the ability to react spontaneously that was acquired in the early training. Pearce claims that, technically, what he teaches is pure Meisner, Where he and his mentor differ is in teaching methods and class atmosphere. According to Pearce, Meisner "was going much more for blood and guts," and "people were fighting" in his classes. Pearce prefers developing actors through love and an understanding and acceptance of human nature, and he attempts to instill such qualities in his students. In the sessions observed, ~earce'scurriculum was straightforward. The first few classes were spent on the repetition and telephone improvisational exercises. The students were then paired off and given film scenes, Scripts worked on included: Julia; Ordinary People; They Shoot Horses, ~on'tThey?;

The Goddess; Saturday Nisht Fever; Alice ~oesn'tLive Here Any rMore- Network; and The Boys in the Band. After an initial exercise in "cold reading," the scenes were worked on for several weeks. The emphasis was on beats, action, and objectives, with some discussion of the facts of a scene (circumstances) and relationships. Near the end of the scene work, a video camera was brought in and the scenes were filmed in their entirety, as well as cut into shots and close-ups. Pearce stated that since he knows the camera is distracting, he usually saves its use until the students are practically finished work on their scenes. In the sessions witnessed, he utilized the camera shots primarily to "introduce [the students] to breaking down the script into even smaller beats" than they had been able to find during their previous work. When the students are watching themselves on video, Pearce 168 steers them away from negative criticism by asking them to watch for "what is being communicated." When viewing the camera close- ups, students are not encouraged to comment negatively about each others' performances; they are asked only about their own work-- "what would you do differently?" Afterwards, the scenes are re- taped so that the performers can incorporate desired changes. Unique to this study, Pearce's students put on periodic short performances in the studio, primarily attended by family and friends. For these performances, simple stagings--costumes, properties, lights, set pieces--are utilized. Pearce implies that these performances introduce the students to the rehearsal process and performance in a safer and more controlled environment than they might encounter outside of the studio walls. He also states that a public performance provides an excellent context for a discussion of the actor-audience relationship. In two of the acting classes observed, Pearce took extensive class time (35-45 minutes) to do a floor relaxation and vocal warm-up. In the second session, a sense memory exercise was done as well. Advocated Traininq When asked about voice and body training, Pearce states that he considers both "extremely important. 'I He recommends the Linklater and Berry approaches to voice, but states that "really workingffin a consistent and dedicated way is possibly more important than the method one uses. Recommended Readincr Materials Books Pearce recommends include: ~tanislavski'sAn Actor 169 Prepares; Cole and ~hinoy'sActors on Actinq (an historical and chronological compilation of actors' writings on their craft); the British actor Simon Callow's autobiography, Beins an Actor,

I I , , . because he [Callow] had all kinds of trouble in his training which he's very honest about. So people can see what it takes to be succe~sful;'~and a couple of books on Eleonora Duse, "the first really realistic actress," who also struggled with her art, Supplementarv Traininq: Louise Nolan As previously mentioned, during the course observation period, students working with Pearce also spent one hour out of every three with Louise Nolan. Nolan studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Quebec and later with Meisner. Although the classes were very different in content as well as form, Pearce

states that both teachers share the same goals: h he complete human being. Emotional honesty. spontaneity." Nolan tells the students that what she wants for them from her class is: " . , . to experience accessing your creativity." To this end, class activities include: collaborative drawings; expressing emotions and personality through art and sculpture; physical, vocal and psychological warm-ups; accessing and experiencing personal energy and rhythm; physical movement to music; developing imaginary circumstances and corresponding actions; partner-based sharing and trust exercises; monologues developed out of poetry; physicalization of emotion; sense awareness and sense memory exercises; the speaking of actor and character subtext; and creating physical, vocal, and emotional atmospheres to accompany particular poems. In class, Nolan tends to be calm, quiet, warm, and protective, although she will also become enthusiastic and energized with the work, She uses imagistic and poetic language, but her instructions to the students are clear and simple. Her first priority seems to be to protect the students, to give them a safe space in which to create. At all times they are encouraged to express their concerns, to disagree with her, and to share with her and with each other how they are feeling--either in general or in relation to the work. Within these parameters, Nolan demands that the students participate fully, as she sees the work as a joint effort and any individual slacking affects the whole. About their collaboration, Pearce states that ~olan'swork seems to complement his training, exploring different areas of the actor's process from those he works on in his classes. "I think, in principle, we dovetail," he says, and "people really seem to benefit from doing the two."

ROSEMARY DUNSMORE Rosemary Dunsmore began her serious theatrical training at York University in Toronto in the early 1970's. Robert Benedetti, author of several popular acting textbooks, was in charge of the program at that time. Dunsmore claims that the extremely eclectic training the students received was useful to her as an impressionable and "authority conscious'^ young woman, since a single, unified approach would have been too difficult for her to questionW6She states that her years at York were notable for the training she received in voice and movement and for the influence of two individuals: Charles W. Moore, visiting director and acting teacher from Brandeis University in New England; and Kurt Reis, who taught a scene analysis class. Having trained to be an actor, Dunsmore performed in a children's show at Stratford after graduation and then spent three years in the touring company of Ten Lost Years. Returning to Toronto, she spent most of the following two years studying acting with Reis at his newly-formed studio, the Centre for Actors Study in Toronto, commonly known as CAST. Besides having a familiarity with the theories and methods of Hagen and Strasberg, Reis had trained with Charles McGaw, author of the popular textbook Actinq is Believinq.

MCG~W'Sbook reveals a strong Stanislavski base. The section on the actor's personal work concentrates on finding a score of physical actions; given circumstances based on the questions who, what, when and where; character as self in given circumstances; objectives; relaxation through justification; concentration; observation; sense memory; and emotion memory. Vocal and physical training techniques are also included. There are exercises in relaxation, centring, and alignment, for the body; the vocal work concentrates primarily on the voice in relation to subtext and verbal action. Other sections of the book deal with script analysis and the work of a role from rehearsal through

All quotes in this section are from a personal interview with Rosemary Dunsmore , June 1 996, or from notes taken in her Scene Study class at Equity Showcase, 21 May-31 May 1996, for a total of 32 hours of observation. performance. ~unsmore'straining with Reis was followed by a successful ten-year stage acting career, culminating in a two-season stint at Stratford and a demanding one-woman show. At that time, Dunsmore switched her focus to television and film and her primary residence to Los Angeles. She spent the next eight years working in the film media, She now divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles. Dunsmore began teaching at CAST in 1979 and has taught as an adjunct to her acting career since that time. She has also taught at Equity Showcase and the Maggie Bassett studios in Toronto, at the University of British Columbia as a visiting director, at Workshop for the Performing Arts in Vancouver, and for the last couple of years, she has taught a fourth-year scene study class for the undergraduate department of the University of Toronto, Function of the Theatre For Dunsmore, theatre serves both utilitarian and social functions. In one class she called theatre "a celebration of life." In another session, she told her students: "I£ the theatre has a higher function, it is to make us all more compassionate." She believes that the play exists to serve the audience: "I come to the theatre to watch other people show me how to fight," she states; "I come to the theatre to learn how to live my life better. " Function of the Actor The actor is the means through which the theatre's purpose is realized. th our job as an actor,'' Dunsmore states, "is to be the priest who goes into the fire and comes back out and tells the congregation what it was like." Relationship between Actor and Text Like Stanislavski, Dunsmore privileges the actor's work, and yet qualifies this by maintaining that the actor must support the ideas contained in the play text. The actor must remember, she states, that: . . . the bottom line is the play, and that you are in service to the play. . . . Instead of trying to make the play fit you, you have to fit the play. If in the world of this play, people speak in iambic pentameter and are extraordinarily articulate, then that's the way everybody is and you have to fit into that world and be liberated into that world. Dunsmore prefers to see the relationship between actor and

text as a partnership, rather than either in submission to the other:

, . . your relationship with the play must be as in marriage. The two of you are promised to love and honour each other, The problem with the play is that the play is the silent partner, So you have to do some of the play's work for it to figure out what it is trying to say. But the two of you are in service to each other. . . . You are equal partners, and both must be fully realized in order to have an effective marriage. Qualities of the Actor When asked what qualities are necessary to preA~~uce a successful performer, Dunsmore replies that (as Brian Bates notes in The Way of the Actor) actors have to be "two completely opposite things. . . . you have to be a very extroverted person but you also have to be a very introverted person," something she believes most people are not. In addition to this, she states: . . . to be great, you have to have gigantic curiosity, compassion, humility. You also have to have a kind of arrogance. . . . But it's all got to be fuelled by a huge curiosity about being alive, and also fuelled by a sense of wonder at the mystery of it all; so that you are prepared to be living in the question as opposed to living in the answer. Because you have to have an ability for tolerance, or better-stated, compassion. Which isnrtto say you can't have opinions in your life about what's right, what's wrong, what you like, and all of that; but you have to have the ability to set all that aside and enter into somebody else's shoes, and take on their prejudices, and their loves . . . and not be threatened by that. Dunsmore adds that actors need talent and intelligence, and that they should be well read, "because you have to be developing an eye, an appreciation for the details of life, which is what great novelists do. Or else you have to be reading essays that are going to be triggering your thinking and knocking your thinking off any rut that you might be in." Actors also need "commitment and the willingness to work." Re~resentation,Actor and Character Like the other teachers interviewed for this study, Dunsmore believes that the actor represents a character that is 175 an amalgam of the author's concept and the actor's presence, On the one hand, she states that the performer must be "in service to the character, rather than the other way around," and that "you must honour and respect your character." On the other hand, she goes to some length to convince her students that they, as human beings, must be present and available to their acting partners and within the characters they portray. here is nobody else; there is only you," she states: "what you transform is not yourself, but how you see the world." She says: "~nexperienced actors tend to have acting energy, 'now 1'm acting' and 'now I'm being me'. . . . I [want] to give people the opportunity to have a feeling that acting feels like real life." The students must come to see that "they are the ones who are on the line, not some character. And they are not on the line as an actor; they are on the line as a human being involved in [a] particular struggle," Distancing one's self from one's character can also be a sign of a lack of actor self-confidence, Dunsmore says that actors tend to think they "have to do something to themselves in order to make themselves interesting, instead of believing they are inherently interesting." She challenges her students with the statement that: "YOU are much more interesting than any imaginary idea of a character you have." Dunsmore defines character as "behaviour based on circumstances and background . . . ." She encourages her students to ask themselves: ''what would I do if I were the character in these circumstances?'' She expands: 'I, . . it's you doing it, working upon yourself imaginatively. It's not somebody else and you are not transformed into anybody else. You are you under 176 different circumstances. 'I Character is best revealed through action. "YOU cannot not be you, without going insane," she notes, "but you can execute actions that you would never do." Like Pearce, Dunsmore believes that when an actor has difficulty playing a character, it is often because the actor is judging the character. She notes two different pitfalls into which actors fall: they either see the character as "badf'and think they are better than the character; or they envy the character--"they think that the character is better than they are--smarter, prettier, more successful, whatever." She combats both problems by encouraging her students to see the similarities between themselves and the characters. Relationship between Performers In order to help her students connect and respond on a human-to-human level, Dunsmore will make use of Meisner's repetition exercises. Occasionally she will also encourage her students, when rehearsing scenes, to call each other by their Christian rather than character names, since "if you hear your own name spoken, you are reminded that it isn't 'she;"' it "reminds you that you are the one who's there." And by having to use the other person's name, you realize "that you are not talking to a character, that you are messing with the other actor. " Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process Although she acknowledges the importance of reaction and real feeling to acting, Dunsmore believes that it can be dangerous for a performer to rely on emotion and instinct, "YOU want them to come to your party," she states, "but you don't want them to organize it." For her, the actor's primary tool is action, and again, it is partner-centred action: "~ou'realways doing something to the other person." Working out actions, she claims, allows the actor to be both in control and consistent, and to feel safe enough to be free to create. "I so often see . . . working actors who don't actually play actions," she states : ~hey'renot actually doing it. They're describing it, or they're playing at it; but, if they do it well and they have a nice voice and it's an intelligent reading of it, it sort of tricks the audience. To a discerning eye it's not exciting, because it's completely self- serving and safe. Besides encouraging her students to find similarities between themselves and their characters, Dunsmore makes use of personalization of circumstances to bring the actors to an emotional understanding of the character's situation. For example, when an actress playing Elizabeth I in a scene from Mary of Scotland had trouble connecting to her relationship with "~ary,"Dunsmore used an acting analogy to broaden the actress's understanding. She had the woman imagine herself an established older actress come to confront a young upstart determined to usurp her position. "what would you do in that situation,?" she asked. Once she has broken down the barriers between the actor and the character and has helped her students come to an "emotional understanding of what's going on," Dunsmore concentrates on intention and action. Allowing these elements (emotional understanding, intention, and action) to work 178 together, "can then release you into doing what has to be done in a scene."

At the same time, Dunsmore will admit that not every actor can play all roles: ". . . there are parts you are well cast in and there are parts you are not well cast in, that [are] not your essence,It she states. hat ' s an ongoing struggle for an actor," she continues, "to recognize your limitations but at the same time be not limited by that," to not 'I. . . put yourself in a smaller box than you need to be in." One area in which ~unsmore'sactor-training differs from that of many of her contemporaries, is in her focus on the "whole play," first, before looking at or working it moment-to-moment. In her scene study class, the first question asked the students is: "what is the play about?" Other questions follow, such as:

What is my character's role or purpose in the play? What really are the stakes? If the play is about X, then what is this scene about? "I want to address that before I get into the acting," she states, "so that the actors are clear about what it is they are working on. " Dunsmore says she has discovered over the years that most people do not know how to read a play: They don't know how to get beyond their judgment on the play, or their literary criticism of the play, to move beyond that into an actor perception of the play.

what's the play really about? what's it addressing? And

therefore, how do I see myself in it? Why is it important? To trigger people's imaginations beyond the intellectual so they begin to actually become involved 179 themselves in the play. As previously mentioned, after crystallizing what the play is about, Dunsmore then moves on to helping the students gain an emotional understanding of the situation using "the magic as if," or substitution, finding a situation analogous to the play's that strikes an emotional chord with the performer. Like many Stanislavski-based teachers, Dunsmore stresses the importance of the imagination and of subtext to transform the two-dimensional play script into a three and four-dimensional world. Inexper- ienced actors, she states, get "stuck on the words flat on the page, and they just keep trying to bring more to those words instead of rounding the words. I' Other actors : "perceive the play as a prison, [and feel] that they are confined within the play, instead of seeing the play as a road map. It's a map or a journey that you get to go on," she enthuses. "1t's full of open space and full of possibility, 1t's not something that's confining you. II Finally, the students work on "determining intentions and actions within the scene," and then playing those actions-- specific actions, not generalized ones. he more specific you become within the moment, the freer you become,'' Dunsmore states. Like several of her fellow teachers, she too asks that the stakes be high: as an actor, you "should make choices that get you, the character, into trouble--whereas in real life we do the opposite," she notes. For the theatre: "we want to make the journey as exciting as possible." Although not the anti-intellectual that many modern acting teachers (schooled in the Western view of the dualistic nature of 180 the actor) are, Dunsmore stresses the need for balance between instinct and understanding--both of which, she claims, should be explored through action. For example, she believes that although actors must have an understanding of what the play is about, they must not play their preconceptions, but should make the "leap of faith" to let go of that and play in the moment with their acting partners. hen you step back out of the scene and you do more of [the intellectual] work; then you step back in and do it. The danger comes," she warns, "if you are doing C the analyzing] at the same time that you are acting the scene. Then you are not really doing it. " On one level, Dunsmore states, "acting is all about thinking." Many inexperienced actors think acting is:

, . . something spontaneous, something instinctual, something magic that happens, and that they'll just be swept along. That isn't the way it works except on a

very rare occasion. It's about thinking the most specific and interesting thoughts. . . . The danger of it is . . . it's very easy to get trapped in the talking about it. So that you're not actually working on the thinking, you're working on thinking about it. What the actor has to concentrate on, Dunsmore says, is: "what's my thinking? Then you do it, and see what thinking that thought makes you do." Again, one has to find the balance between understanding and instinct, as discovered or revealed through action. Dunsmore has no time for actors who wallow in self-indulgent emotionalism. She calls emotional recall "bull shit," and faults 181 it for not being "forward moving.'' 1t's "all churning inside and winding yourself up,If she claims. And although "it can be useful in the very initial stages of training--particularly for men who are afraid to express their emotions'' by providing students "practice having those emotions in front of people," thatfs as useful as it gets, she states. "1n a scene study class there is very little place for that kind of work because it doesn't have anything to do with serving the play. It has to do with serving yourself.'' Similarly, Dunsmore looks askance on actor-training that aims for sheer emotional display, as she thinks this type of work also draws the actor into the self instead of putting the focus on the requirements of the play and on "doing things to the other actor." When the circumstances of the play require the actor to be emotional, Dunsmore recommends the use of imagination (as if) and (if necessary to make the emotional connection) substitution of an analogous situation for the play's circumstances. To help these emotions develop as in real life, Dunsmore suggests two indirect approaches: work against the feelings rather than for them, since in real life we usually try to dampen our emotions; and make the emotion be dependent upon the other character/actor and let it lead to action--for example, "this person is making me feel this way, so I defend myself, or attack. I' Although Dunsmore believes actors should develop "the director in our heads," a critical eye that notes the state of our creative work (and can prevent us from rushing our lines, upstaging ourselves, etc.), she says it is dangerous for an actor to take on the role of director when acting. he director is an observer,'' she states, Performers who continually direct themselves easily fall "into the intention of doing the scene right as opposed to really doing it and letting the cards fall where they may." This approach often leads to the actor trying to control the scene, and then trying to control and direct their acting partners. "YOU cannot control the other actor, you can't direct the other actor," she tells her class, "you can only do

[actions] yourself. " Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance Like Pearce, Dunsmore sees period and style as other circumstances to be added on to the basic "what's going on" of any scene. For example, she states: If I have to wear these clothes, how does that affect me? What does that make me do? Or: if these are the rules of the day, if society dictates that we behave in this way, how do I have to behave in order to be accepted into society? If this is the man that I love, what is the form of behaviour that he is going to be attracted to? So therefore, I learn how to do those things in order to impress him. Thus, the action is not put on to conform to some theatrical style manual, but is "outward-based. Any changes that you do to yourself, you're doing in order to affect something out there." And this is dictated by the play: "What is the play about? and what is the world of this play? what is appropriate behaviour for this play?" Traininq and Education of the Actor As a professional actress herself, Dunsmore has enormous I83 respect for the difficulty of the actor's craft. She feels that one of her virtues as a teacher is that she has an "I know what you're going throughf' relationship with the students. For this reason, she never teaches for longer than three months at a time,

I I . , . because 1 found that if I taught longer than that, then I started to get too comfortable sitting and watching. here's a danger in placing yourself above the students, I' she says, " a kind of arrogance" that 'I you know more about them than they know about themselves. . . . Fihenever I felt that happening to me, I knew it was time for me to be up there , . . ." Dunsmore has a range of exercises and techniques she draws on to suit individual student's needs- h here is no one approach to the work," she tells them. "use what works; it may change with every play." Advocated Traininq Dunsmore agrees with John Guilgudfs claim that it takes twenty years to become an actor. For that reason, she believes training should start slowly and simply. "~ctingis like learning to play the piano,'' she states. "You have to start slowly. Learn the hands separately, then put them together slowly, then put it up to speed.'' She recommends that all actors take clown class. It provides release, teaches one to play and "allows performers to learn [their] own vulnerabilities, and to feel comfortable being vulnerable. " Dunsmore also believes an actor's body and voice should be free, strong and healthy. How one gets there, she states, depends on the actor and on that actor's stage of training. She has studied voice extensively with both David Smuckler (who teaches the internal, Linklater approach) and with Patsy Rodenberg (who I84 works "from the outside, in)." She has practised various approaches to body work--Spolotti, dance, yoga--but says that "as far as gaining a sense of the body and having a free instrument, I think you can learn about that as a beginning acting student and then own some knowledge about that. You don't have to necessarily be continually relearning." Dunsmore is vocal about what she considers constitutes harmful training for performers: guru-ism; an impatient attitude that can create fear in the classroom; "self-indulgent emotional work;" accepting general rather than specific thinking; "thinking too much without doing;" not playing actions; criticism without help; concentrating on result rather than teaching the actor a process. Teachins Methods, Atmos~here In the classroom, at first Dunsmore is businesslike, almost stern, as she sets out rules and procedures for the course, She quickly warms up, however, and is soon captivating the students with animated personal theatre anecdotes. Her love of theatre and of acting is obvious and palpable, and her delight in good work is infectious. When working with the students, she is clear and consistent, and when she points out problems and areas that need work, her ego seems so removed from the exchange that it is impossible to take her comments personally. However, although Dunsmore is supportive of, and sympathetic to, students who are trying, even if failing, she does not hold back the criticism if she feels an actor is not committing time, energy, and will to the work. Although Dunsmore has a method of approaching the script I85 that she knows works, she does not force it on her students at first meeting, or necessarily at all. First, she likes to establish her acting class as a safe place where the students feel they have control over their own work. For this reason, for the first few sessions she concentrates primarily on discovering each student's individual method of working. "I ask a lot of questions initially," she says, "because 1 want to hear their thinking. I want to hear how they're working. . . . Rather than just land something brand new on top of them, I would rather take what they've got now and work with that.'' Traininq and Exercises Each day in class, Dunsmore works three scenes, each for one to one-and-a-half hours. The students run the scene, then they are encouraged to comment on the work. Afterwards, on occasion, the other students are asked for comments, which Dunsrnore pushes for clarification. She seems determined to train performers to observe and analyze, and in support of this end all students are required to read all plays from which classroom scenes are taken. She then explains or fills in as necessary. Finally, she makes her own observations. Then she and the students work slowly through parts of the scene, working on specific problems. During this section, Dunsmore will often use acting analogies to connect play situations and relationships to the supposed lives of the students, or will make use of acting exercises for specific problems. Like Alan Jordan, she will sometimes give individual actors whispered secrets to try in the scene, or may have the students improvise a situation analogous to that of the play as a 186 launching pad into the scripted circumstances. She will occasionally use Meisnerfs repetition exercises for performers who try to "playwright" or who are not working from impulse. She also has a similar exercise designed to elevate the interpersonal communication and emotional commitment of a moment. Two actors whose characters are in conflict are sat down and given a word or a short line each that encapsulates their situation, such as: "come with me," and "I can't." They repeat the lines back and forth, dealing with whatever happens between the two actors. Slowly, Dunsmore will add a few more lines and limited movement. If the exercise succeeds in increasing the stakes and the interaction, she might have the students go into their scene from this state, incorporating the feelings engendered by the exercise. On one occasion, when the two actresses working on Mary of Scotland were having trouble with the power struggle between the two women, Dunsmore had them physicalize the conflict by using the abdication papers that Elizabeth wants Mary to sign as a physical sign of power, giving and taking the papers from each other as the power shifted in the scene. On another occasion, when an actress wasn't trying hard enough to "win" in her situation, the class was divided in half and each of the actresses in the scene was given a cheering section to respond verbally to her successes and failures. Dunsmore states that actors should do their homework and then come to rehearsal able to set the concentration on that work aside and simply work with the other actors in the moment. However, this improvisational exploration of moments is not the 187 end point for Dunsmore; it is but one stage of rehearsal. There comes a point, she states, when one has found the most appropriate action for each moment. Then it is time to stop improvising and make choices, which should then be set in a logical progression. Then, when actors are in performance, all they need to worry about is doing the first action, Recommended Readincr Materials One book Dunsmore recommends is Robert Cohen's Actins Power, Fundamental to his theory is playing the situation, action with a purpose, that of winning--of influencing the attitudes and behaviours of one's acting partners/characters. His concept of character is outward rather than inward directed, applying the "magic if" to the other actors rather than the self: h he question the actor asks is not 'what if I were ~thello?'but

' what if she were ~esdemona?"' ( 1 0 6 ) . Much of the book concentrates on intentions and tactics and on what Cohen calls "relacom victories." He claims that in real life we have a tendency to characterize other people by their functional relationships to ourselves, "and we also seek to redefine that function favourably to ourselves. We may feel, for example, '~liceis my friend, but I want her to become my lover.' This is an intention toward a relacom [relationship communication] victory" (57). Cohen supplies the reader with a substantial list of relationships to which the actor/character can aspire. Actins Power is also notable for its approach to the actor- audience relationship. Unlike most Stanislavski-based theorists, Cohen tries to deal with that paradox of realistic theatre of the 188 actor "trying to 'live the life of his character"' while in the presence of the "apparently artificial . . . audience" (8). Cohen reminds the reader that in real life we seldom perform any action that is not observed either by real people or by the imaginary audience that we all carry in our heads, ready to criticize or cheer our every effort. He suggests that actors should try to imagine the audience as one of these two groups, supporting their characters, trying to help the characters win. In order to do this, the audience must be able to see and hear what is going on and must understand what is at stake. Thus, much of what is generally thought of as theatrical necessity--blocking, projection, presence of the audience--becomes necessary to the characters and, therefore, to the play as well, thereby integrating the two realities, The influence of Cohen on Dunsmore's actor-training is obvious.

BERNADETTE JONES Bernadette Jones graduated from Concoxdia University in Montreal with a degree in drama and English, in 1978. She recalls having set up a practical program for herself, studying dramatic literature, mime, movement, singing, dancing, production, acting, and directing. Acting work with an English-language theatre company in Montreal followed. Jones also taught theatre at Montreal's Vanier College for three years. In 1982, she made the move to Toronto, and the next year directed Female Trans~ortfor Equity Showcase Theatre. In 1984 two major events occurred in Jones's theatrical life: she created the independent theatre company, Theatreworks Productions, for which she still directs; and she met Michael Shurtleff (director, casting director, playwright, teacher). Shurtleff had been invited to Toronto to conduct his first major audition workshop in the city that year; Jones was hired as his assistant. "Of course, all the bells and whistles welit off in my brain," Jones recalls. "I went, 'Oh, this man is talking my language. This man is cutting through all the . . . esoteric, the mystical, the confusing aspects of acting . . . . I felt his [approach] was simple without being simplistic, lit] cut through a lot of the talk and got into action, which is acting. 11 7 Subsequently, Jones decided to pursue study with Shurtleff, and trained with him for nine months in Los Angeles during the 1984-85 season, directing scenes and assisting him in his acting classes and with his research, She had been back in Toronto only a few weeks when Shurtleff was invited back to the city to run a three-week workshop. Again, Jones worked as his assistant. Afterwards, interest in Shurtleff's approach was strong in the city, and Jones was requested to teach workshops in his techniques. Besides her work as a teacher and director, Jones also worked as an acting coach on film sets for three years, which has influenced her current approach to the teaching of Shurtleff's method. In 1978, Michael Shurtleff published Audition, a book on acting organized into bites of information--twelve concepts on which an actor can focus in an audition situation for immediate

All quotes in this section are from a personal interview with Bernadette Jones, 13 May 1996, or from notes taken in her On- Camera Audition workshop which ran from 26 April 1996-29 April 1996, for a total of 24 hours observation. 190 acting results. In subsequent years, Shurtleff came to believe that these concepts are fundamental to the acting process and more universally worthwhile than useful only in audition situations. He, and followers such as Jones, now teach "the guidepostsff(which have since been expanded to thirteen) in intensive actor-training workshops. The thirteen guideposts cover: Relationships between characters; discovering what the characters are "fighting for;" preparation, or what happens in the moment before the scene starts; finding the humour in the scene; determining one's character's motivation, as well as its opposite, and playing both; making discoveries--finding out something new about another character, your character, or the situation; making sure you communicate--exchanging feelings with fellow actors, and competing with them (winning in the relationship game); imbuing the situation with importance, making the stakes high; pinpointing the events of the play, what is happening, what changes occur; deciding where the scene takes place, and how your character feels about this place; determining what roles or games your character plays in different situations; having a secret, letting a touch of mystery underlie your performance; finding an opportunity to be mischievous, to play. Jones has adapted ~hurtleff'sapproach to on-camera actor- training and auditioning. Function of the Theatre Jones believes theatre originated from a basic human desire to share or communicate an experience. "~ndwhy?" she asks. "TO enlighten. To entertain. . . . I think actors want to make statements," she adds. "I think they want to change a piece of 191 the world." Also, she readily admits, "they want to play like children, in many ways." For herself, Jones claims she does theatre because "I want to affect people. I want to jolt them into something, [make them] feel something. Not the everyday numb

existence. You want to shake the everyday life up . . , to be

able to move people. " Function of the Actor, Relationship between Actor and Audience To effect this purpose, she states, the actor must create a reality--"a fantasy you can believe." The actorfs belief stimulates the audience and fellow performers into belief. And it is this shared acceptance of the fictional truth that allows for identification, empathy, and ultimately, communication. Qualities of the Actor Besides the desire to play, social conscience, and a need to communicate, qualities Jones considers essential to actors are: "insatiable curiosity;" a childlike innocence and sense of "total wonder;" the ability to react spontaneously; open-mindedness, particularly with regard to training (like Dunsmore, Jones is opposed to teachers who play into students' desire for a guru); and "raw talent." Jones defines talent as the ability to freely access one's emotional life. She believes that society, with its need to force conformity on its members, inhibits or destroys that ability, as well as our unique qualities and unpredictable behaviours. Those individuals who never become totally socialized make the best actors, she states. She also claims that in order to survive in the contemporary theatre--particularly the world of television and film--actors must be "strong and self-sufficient." Film directors "don't come 192 from an acting background; they don't really know how actors make it work. . . . A lot of directors don't know how to serve an actor, or help an actor through something." Jones finds Shurtleff's method "the most appealing'' of those approaches she has studied, because "it makes the actor self-reliant, You don't have to rely on a director; you don't have to rely on your fellow actors even, if they're going to be 'not there."' Actor and Character In his book Audition, Shurtleff does not discuss character development as such, Jones says this is because in an audition situation the actor doesn't have the time or the information with which to develop a character. So the actor must concentrate on relationships, use of the self, and actions, Like Dunsmore, Jones feels most actors sell themselves short when doing character work. our personality is your uniqueness, and that is your value, '' she states. When looking at the relationships in a given scene, an actor must decide, first, what the facts of the relationship are: mother and son, husband and wife, etc. Then, and more importantly, the actor must decide how s/he feels about the other character. Jones suggests that performers personalize other characters in a script by calling to mind (and emotion) someone in their lives about whom they feel in the same way that their character feels about the other scripted character. When running a scene study class or directing a play, Jones does more specific character work, such as utilizing the magic "as if" to help an actor emotionally connect to the character's situation; working out a character's history, or daydreaming or improvising key events in that person's life; or breaking down a part into the roles we assume in life: for example, I am a teacher in this circumstance or with this person, I am a lover here, a mother there. Jones approaches the "magic if" from the position of self in the character's circumstances, She states that if she were playing Hamlet, for example, she would approach the part by: "taking Bernadette and saying it's 'as if' I suspected my father was murdered by my uncle, his brother. It would be as if that happened.'' If that leap of imagination fails to bring her to the necessary emotional state, Jones might then set up an improvisation to make the concept organic, rather than an intellectual exercise. Jones also states that a "character can be approached from the outside in, or the inside out" and that actors usually utilize both techniques, not one or the other. "They trigger each other, " she adds. For example:

External actions can affect your internal actions, , . Take the telephone book and, with all your might, heave it across the room. Heave it into a wall. Your adrenalin is going to pop. you're going to feel excited. You're going to feel angry. Jones states that she will often use such physical exercises in rehearsal or class to help unblock a student who has trouble finding or expressing anger or other uncomfortable emotions. Jones employs a number of means to help an actor approach a character very different from the performer's self. Sometimes she will encourage actors to observe and explore the physicality of 194 different types of people, in an effort to find a physical stance or way of moving that makes them feel unlike themselves and closer to the character. She also feels that it is important for the performer to be sympathetic towards the character and to have an understanding of why the character does what s/he does. To aid this process, Jones will encourage the actor to create a psychological history for the character, and she may use improvisation to explore pivotal childhood events. To help an actor get a feel for a character that is over the edge, Jones may use game-playing and push the game to the limit-- in the safe environment of the rehearsal hall or classroom. Say an actor has to play a serial killer or psychopath, there are a variety of game choices, she says: Taking a tickling game and going into danger. Torturing someone, but in a way that is so-called safe, to a point, and letting it get out of hand. Just to see how that can be titillating to a person to have that kind of power over somebody, The actor can discover that. Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process From the guideposts delineated in Audition, it is obvious that the Shurtleff approach to acting is based on Stanislavski principles* Jones herself says that "Shurtleff is pure basic Stanislavski," as both methods "focus on action." Shurtleff's vocabulary, however, is aimed at helping the actor to make strong, active choices. Rather than asking actors vague questions about their objectives or motivations, Jones is direct and to-the -point, "what are you fighting for?" she demands. She then recommends that her students choose objectives that can be 195 obtained directly from their fellow actors, through the use of tactics, Like many of her contemporaries, Jones is very particular that her students be specific in their choice of actions, thoughts, etc. "~on'tplay generalities," she stresses. Like Stanislavski, when working as an actor, Jones analyzes the script in an organic way, utilizing her imagination to evoke an emotional understanding of the situation and relationships, For her, script analysis as an intellectual exercise is of no use to the performer; it separates the art from the artist, Her students are encouraged to develop the circumstances delineated in their scripts. "~ichael's[Shurtleff] work promotes actors to think beyond the text," Jones states- "~ndit's not to distort the text; it's to enrich it, He has total respect for the script, but the words don't do it all. The actors have to bring those words to life," she states, and make the characters more three- dimensional than the author is able to accomplish, Jones encourages her students to make use of basic sense and emotion memory to aid in this effort. For the location of the play or scene, students are asked to call to mind a real place they know that can serve to ground them; as previously mentioned, relationships with real people are to be recalled in order to evoke the emotions needed for scripted relationships. Like several of her contemporaries, Jones is quick to point out to her students the dangers inherent in acting too much as in real life. "~ctingis not about every day,'' she stresses. "1t is about excitement, drama, pain, joy." The stakes should be high and the characters must be intent on winning, To actors affected by nerves, Jones advises that they "concentrate on the task to be 196 done--as character--and on the relationships: 'what do I need from this person? " Like many teachers of Stanislavski-based performance, Jones believes that it is possible for an actor to take the germ of an emotion that one has experienced and, imaginatively, "blow it out of proportion.'' Students are discouraged, however, from worrying overly about creating emotion. "~ctingis not about feelings,'' Jones states, "it is about actions. I' She recommends that students set up "the moment before" as the emotional trigger that sets a scene, utilizing "something from your life that parallels the emotion you need" to evoke the required state. Then, she advises: "concentrate on communicating and on what you are communicating and the emotion will come." She adds, however, that in the moment before, the actor should concentrate not so much on creating an emotion as on creating a need to "go for" what the character is fighting for. ones's approach to character thought is also outward, rather than inward-directed. Following ~hurtleff'slead, she advocates the use of inner dialogue rather than inner monologue, thinking to another character rather than to the self. For example: "it is better to think 'YOU interest me, ' rather than h hat is interesting."' Jones claims this technique is particularly valuable in film acting. Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance Other areas that work differently on camera than on stage are the actor's use of energy, and circles of attention. For stage acting, Jones contends, we teach actors to send energy out to fellow actors or audience. (One recalls ~tanislavski'sconcept 197 of "rays.I I ) On camera, Jones states, the performer must "be the energy." Also, on stage the actor is taught to think in terms of three circles of concentration: the self; the self plus other people in the scene; and the above individuals, plus the audience. "1n film there is no third circle," Jones states. She claims that ~hurtleff'smethod is ideal for audition and film acting situations, and also for much modern theatre. It supplies the actor with a limited number of fundamental and precise "questions to be asked" that lead to "strong, exciting choices . . . . No matter what confusion is around you, you have strong anchors," she states. "A lot of times, on camera, . . . you are doing your heart-breaking monologue to a light stand and a piece of tape. How do you make that happen?" she asks. Or you 're : . . . working out of sequence. You have to be able to have continuity in your performance without any continuity; you have to be ready and jump in. And ~ichael'swork is good for that because 'moment beforef is what it's about. And you can attach it to whatever you want, to make you drive through the scene, be it subtly or explosively. In this kind of theatrical situation, Jones insists, "you can't rely on this organic process that we've been indulged in . . . in our theatre school training. . . . I think it's wonderful to be able to process," she adds regretfully, but "that isn't the actor's experience in modern-day theatre, or modern-day film and television. " In a play or scene study situation, Jones uses Shurtleff's 198 guideposts as actor homework. However, she warns her students against "playing their preconceptions'' in a scene or audition situation. "1t is OK to have ideas about what to do," she states, "but stay free to go with the moment. ~on'tlet your homework set you into patterns that cannot be broken." "A predictable actor is a dull actor," relations hi^ between Actor and Text, Actor and Director Jones does not believe that any text contains within it some one definitive meaning that is available to analysis, So she claims "it's all the people involved in bringing that piece of literature to life that create the production." In order to allow various members of the production team to participate in the creative effort, when Jones directs, she tends to work improvisationally, before tackling the script. "I look at the structural dynamics of the script, 1: look at what appear to be the main conflicts between the two characters. And then 1'11 just take the two characters and play with them. Create physical improvs, to anchor it organically." Traininq and Education of the Actor Jones believes actors need to be trained, as "acting is a craft as well as an art." She states that freedom comes as a result of technique. However, formal training is not absolutely necessary, h he real world is your classroom, your laboratory,'I she says. If actors are willing to spend time every day watching and wondering about people, doing creative imagination exercises, reading biographies, and working on their bodies and voices, they can do much to prepare themselves for the profession. She feels that the main danger one can run into with actor- 199 training is becoming caught up in one particular method to the exclusion of others which might prove useful. She says she suspects "people who say this is the only way to approach acting, or this is the only way to approach voice, or this is the only way to approach movement" of not having a true knowledge of what they are teaching. he more you do know," she adds, "the more you realize there isn't one method or One approach." Besides, she claims, most actor-training methods are not in conflict; "if you really look at it more deeply, you'll see that [the different teachers] are all saying the same thing, just [using] different language." Jones admits that her own training was very eclectic; she studied Grotowski, mime, classical theatre, Stanislavski, and Barba. She claims that her background has definitely helped her as a director, because different play texts often seem to require different approaches, and she is flexible enough--because of her training--to be able to respond to the varying demands of the work. Advocated Traininq Jones is a firm believer that actors need body and voice training, as these form part of the performer's "acting tools." As with acting training, Jones does not advocate a particular method, although she suggests that Feldenkreis and Alexander techniques are useful for body work, and Linklater, Smuckler, and Berry are strong vocal approaches. She is quick to point out, however, that "not all techniques are suitable" for all performers. You must find what works for you. Like Dunsmore, Jones feels clown work is very useful. "I 200 find that people don't know how to play . . . . So I advocate clown work to a lot of people [who seem] closed off, or too intellectual, or too serious." She also feels that training in stage combat can make an actor more saleable in the film and television market, and can also help actors protect themselves in potentially dangerous performance situations. The particular kind of training one receives does not seem as important to Jones as that whatever training is undertaken be continued throughout one's creative life, "AS an artist, you are never a finished product," she states. ones's attitude towards teaching mirrors her attitude towards training. Teaching is "about sharing," she says. "It's about offering. 1t's not about trying to tell them you have to do this. ~verybody'sa willing participant in the experience." And not every student can be helped. "YOU make . . . intuitive assessments as you're going along: How far to push; when to hold back; when to really challenge; when to demand. You do these things," but "sometimes they're just not ready. You can't do anything about that.'' Jones feels teachers must accept that they are not ultimately responsible for what their students learn. We must do our work and then "just let them have their experience." Teachins Methods, Atmosphere On the first day of class, the atmosphere seemed somewhat formal, at first. Jones handed each student four pieces of script (mostly from television shows), and several hand-outs. The hand- outs consisted of: 1) a list and description of Shurtleff's thirteen guideposts; 2) tips for auditions and improvisations; 3) a description of actions and mental states to avoid if one wants 201 to succeed as an actor (indifference, indecisiveness, worry, procrastination, complaining, lack of discipline), and 4) a short statement on acting by David Mamet from Writins in Restaurants, Jones then gave an introductory talk, focusing on Shurtleff's approach to actor-training, and her own background and approach to Shurtleff. This led into a discussion of auditioning and working on camera. After an hour or so, the classroom atmosphere warmed up and Jones seemed to become much more accessible. Throughout the course, Jones provided the students with a wealth of practical information on auditioning and interviewing, and lightened the proceedings with entertaining personal anecdotes. Possibly in order to connect with the students and to help them feel less vulnerable, Jones occasionally spoke of her own creative shortcomings, fears and failures, Her respect and affection for Shurtleff are obvious, and Jones mentions him and concepts from his book or his classes constantly. In the course attended, although Jones dealt with any of ~hurtleff'sguideposts that seemed relevant to a particular scene, her concentration was on the first five concepts: relationships, objectives, preparation, humour, and playing the opposite. She was clear and consistent on Shurtleff's principles, and by the end of the workshop so were the students. Traininq and Exercises The class structure was straightforward, and any instructions given were clear. Starting with the shortest pieces of script (1-5 lines) and working up to scenes from feature films, Jones had one student at a time go in front of the camera, state name and agency, and then perform the scripted lines. Afterwards, Jones would provide feedback and then the monologue or scene would be repeated--sometimes several times. She would often spend up to thirty minutes with a single student. Usually she would include the rest of the class in her advice and suggestions. She was also open to questions from the floor, but seldom asked for input from the students. After each student had worked in front of the camera a couple of times, Jones added trial interview questions to the on-camera procedure. During the second session, Jones varied the structure of the class to include an exercise she developed while teaching at Vanier College. Two lines of students sit, facing each other, about three feet apart. One line are observers. Students in the other line are told to "think of a moment in your life that was a pivotal moment, that turned your life around." They were then instructed to remember the sensations experienced at that moment- -what was to be seen, felt, heard, tasted at that moment. Then they were to find a way to sit that "feels right for that moment." At that point they were told to freeze physically, but to continue the emotion/sense memory. The observers were then instructed to recreate with their bodies the physical position of their partners and then to open themselves up to any emotions that the position evoked. Besides the obvious exploration into sense and emotion memory, physicalization of emotion, and observation, Jones claims that this exercise teaches the observing students empathy, teaches the performing students to commit to specific choices, and teaches both that "you don't have to make people see what you are feeling. If you are truly committed to the circumstances it will be real and obvious." Recommended Readins Materials A11 of ones's students are expected to be familiar with ~hurtleff'sbook Audition. Other books she recommends are:

Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares and Buildins a Character, and the modern compilation, A Practical Handbook for the Actor-

KEVIN McCORMICK Born and raised in the Maritimes, even as a teenager McCormick had a passion to communicate. He graduated from the University of New Brunswick with a BA in drama, and a desire to direct. Chance led him to the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1975, where he met several teachers from Ryerson Polytechnic-- particularly Me1 Tuck, who turned McCormick on to the concept of working organically ("from the heart"), and invited him to attend the Toronto school. After two years in the acting program at Ryerson, McCormick switched to the newly-instituted directing program. Upon graduation, in 1979, he began teaching with the continuing education department at Ryerson. Five years later, he opened his own studio, the Actors' Tutorial. Besides his extensive teaching credits (eighteen years with ~yerson'scontinuing education department, thirteen years at the ~ctors'Tutorial, and eleven years on the faculty of Equity Showcase Theatre, as well as additional work with the Young people's Theatre School, Leah Posluns Theatre School, Canadian College of Dance, George Randolph's Studio Dance Theatre, Ryerson Theatre School, York University, Seneca College, and the National Ballet of Canada), McCormick has continuously worked as a director and producer. He was the founding Artistic Director of Theatre Collingwood, a position he held for eleven years, and Artistic Director for the Laughing Water Festival for five seasons. He has produced over forty shows and directed countless plays and musicals. He also helped to establish the Toronto Association of Acting Studios, of which he was chairman for two years and remains a member, McCormick has recently launched a production company, Victory Artists. Function of Theatre, Oualities of the Actor McCormick unabashedly calls acting a "sacred and noble" art form.8 He is not, however, exclusionary about its uses. He sees a strong correlation between actor training and personal development. He encourages his professionally-oriented students to work on "themselves" as much as on their acting skills. he richer and more conscious you become as a person--the more empathetic--the better actor you will be," he maintains. He also promotes acting training for individuals who have no interest in pursuing a career in the theatre. Acting, like wearing a mask, he contends, releases one physically and emotionally. In the last ten years or so, he has noted a marked increase in the number of people taking studio classes for enjoyment, personal and creativity development, or empowerment. For his students whose goal is performance, McCormick stresses the need for commitment and an acceptance (and celebration) of their own unique qualities. Besides a knowledge

All quotes in this section are from a personal interview with Kevin McCormick, 9 October 1997; from statements made in class, 29 May--3 July and 7 August--11 September, 1996; or from printed promotional material submitted by McCormick. Two courses were attended by the researcher: Acting Fundamentals, and Scene Study, for a total of 30 hours of observation. 205 of the craft and techniques necessary to the art, McCormick states that "the key to acting , . . lies in learning how to be present in the moment, to be vulnerable, receptive, to listen, to work from the heart, to trust in instincts and [be] authentic." Representation: Relationship between Art and Reality From the above statement, it is obvious that McCormickls conception of theatrical truth is embedded in the notion of the actor's emotional truth and instinctive reactions, based on how these are experienced in life. McCormick believes that most acting teachers today share both a similar vision of acting and a similar process. "~ostacting starts with the premise that acting must be believable and emotionally truthful," he asserts. Itwe have decided that the best way to achieve this is an approach that starts with the internal, the inside, out, way of working.

As most of our mentors are American," he adds, "we tend to use their way of doing this, which was strongly influenced by

~tanislavski. I' McCormick sees acting as both an art and a craft. When working with one student, he remarks: "YOU are creating a piece of art here that has a thousand specifics." Particularly when working with beginning students, however, he stresses the idea that "first and foremost . . . [acting] is like life. On stage, we do all the things we do in life: think, feel, want, do, react, verbalize, physicalize, etc." He constantly admonishes the students to "work from the heart," which he alternately refers to as "the gut" or "the emotions. " "~ehonest, l1 "listen," and "believe" are common suggestions, It appears that McCormick may see the potential for acting to be even more authentic than 206 life. "1n real life," he states, "we rationalize and get diplomatic. We often betray our emotional truth." He encourages his students to fully explore the range and depth of emotion that they feel, as part of their duty to the audience, In spite of his insistence on actor truth and reality, however, unlike some contemporary Stanislavski-based teachers McCormick insists that the actor's truth must never take precedence over the character's truth. He instructs his students to "live in the moment," but only once they have discovered the foundations of the scene and character. He also cautions them against making choices which may be right for the actor, but wrong for the character. Actor and Character Like all of the other teachers in this study, ~cCormick's concept of character is a combination of actor and scripted personality, Like them, he envisions the character as lying within, rather than outside of the actor. In ~c~ormick'sclasses, what the actors supply are their personal emotions, thoughts, instincts, and particularly, a strongly-trained creative fantasy. The playwright supplies information about the characters--their psychology, based on their histories and details of the scripted circumstances. Through the use of imagination and empathy, the students amalgamate the character's psychology and their own emotional being in order to answer the fundamental question, "who am I?" (as character). Once this is accomplished, they are advised to "surrender to the character," and "live from the character's thoughts and emotional life" as much as possible.

McCormick stresses two points with his students: 1) "YOU can never know enough about the psychology of your character," and 2) character requires more than actor truth. "You have to get beyond your own psychology and get into the psychology of the character," he states, "~etout of your own skin and into fantasy." He does admit, however, that the further removed a character is from the actor's personality and actions, the more difficult it can be to make the emotional connection between actor and character. He advises students that if their character "does things you as an actor would not do, you must give the character reasons to validate what 'you' do." To help actors develop characters very different from themselves, McCormick starts by helping the actors unlayer the character's psychology, develop an understanding of this psychology, and then make internal connections with it. Character movement, voice, habits, etc., are then incorporated (using imagination or observation) based on the understanding of the character's internal being. McCormick adds that "mime, clown, mask, movement, and voice training all help to enable an actor to more easily develop characters different from the self." Relationship between Actor and Self: Creative Process Like the majority of the other teachers in this study, although McCormick has developed his own approach to the acting process which is extremely successful, he is quick to point out that his way is not the only way to learn to act. And that holds true whether he is dealing with fundamentals (such as working from the inside, out, or from the outside, in), or specifics, such as techniques aimed at evoking emotion. What is important, he claims, is the result. "Use what works for you, I' he tells his students. "But you must know what works for you." The process McCormick chooses to follow in the classroom reflects his conception of what is important to the art of acting--particularly emotional truth, and the facts, ideas, and themes embedded in the play. He asserts that acting is made up of two processes: organics, the ability to work from the heart; and craft, a more technical and intellectual process, which covers such areas as text analysis, physical character development, line memorization, blocking, etc. "~ctingis doing, feeling," he maintains. "1t is not an intellectual art form, although that comes into craft and [actor] homework." His fundamentals class concentrates on the organics, while the more experienced students start with the organics and then add more technical elements as appropriate. McCormick differs from many contemporary Stanislavski-based teachers in that his acting process does not centre around character intentions, He states that intentions are important-- "fight passionately for what you want, as character," he stresses--but they should not be the most important element in acting. on' t get stubborn about your wants, " he advises. "on your way to the corner store for a jug of milk, you could get detoured eight times. You may never get the milk." He elaborates: "You need subtext as well as action and intention." Also, "you have to go with what is going on, moment to moment. Your 'wants' may change, depending upon what goes on between the characters." McCormickls conception of working moment to moment is play- centred, rather than partner-centred. He states that although working moment to moment with one's fellow actors is important 209 and is often stressed in acting classes because it is a skill that must be learned, in a rehearsal or performance situation the reactions must come out of the play, not the other actor. He advises his students to "go through the script moment by moment and decide what you are thinking and feeling and wanting and doing," He is quick to point out, however, that this is not to be approached as an intellectual process. "~ryto stay out of your head," he cautions, "YOU can't be thinking about how to act the moment." "set the character and scene foundation, and then live in the moment. If ~cCormick'sacting process starts with what he calls the foundation, which seems to be the actor's emotional and intellectual understanding of character and scene. As previously mentioned, the character's foundation revolves around the question, "who am I?" and is based in the psychology of the character, all the layers that make up that person. The foundation of a scene is built upon three areas: the psychology and history of the character; the relationships between play characters (current, as well as in the past); and the thematic layers of the scene--which includes given ciscumstances, past events, etc. Students are encouraged to ask themselves initial questions, such as: Who am I? Who am I relating to in the scene? Where am I (country, city, room)? When (year, time of day)? What is going on? What do I want? What is at stake? As they work, they are encouraged to ask more and more detailed questions, to further develop this foundation of character and circumstances, The actor's primary task is to connect on an emotional level with all of this factual material, (Unlike some of the teachers 21 0 in this study, McConnick concentrates exclusively on the imaginary circumstance of the characters in the play. There is no attempt to personalize the play situations to the actors and their lives). McCormick has a remarkable facility for supplementing the given circumstances of any scene with thoughts or visual images that strike powerful emotional chords in his acting students, "~antasizeanything that will support the play," he prompts. This approach appears to be very similar to the process Stanislavski (and his American protegi Stella Adler) advocated--the use of the creative imagination to connect the actor/character with the play's given circumstances. For McCormick, the feelings which are evoked by the imaginative use of thought and image trigger character intentions, or "wants." The "want" then triggers interaction between characters. McCormick's belief in the power of the imagination over actor reality affects the choice of techniques commonly used in class, Although he introduces his students to three ways of evoking emotion: emotion memory; the "what if"--imaginatively putting oneself into the character's circumstances; and empathy (feeling for one's character or other characters in the script, or with real people who have similar problems); he does not make use of emotion memory in class. He claims that the well of emotional memory "can dry up." He also cautions his students that "using emotion memories that are too strong can bring on a strong emotion that you cannot work with artistically-" Similarly, to develop the actor's emotional connection to the play's given circumstances, he prefers using fantasy and imagination over substitution. Fundamentally, his belief is that "the more character foundation you build, the more emotional you will be." If a student is unable to respond emotionally to the specifics of a scene, however, McCormick may suggest a parallel situation or may break the situation down to its essence. "You may not relate to the specifics of a scene," he states, "but one can always relate to the essence of a scene--loss, being used, being abandoned." He also counsels his students not to force emotion. "If you are not where you want to be [emotionallyl, . . . go with the thought process and maybe the passion will click in. " McCormick prefers that the internal and external aspects of acting be developed together. e ever isolate parts of the process," he warns. "~on'tremove movement from thought and emotion." However, he is aware that this ideal process is not always possible and that blocking and character movement must sometimes be superimposed on the organics of a scene for reasons of craft--for example, to point up transitions or illuminate

thought. McCormick suggests starting with the actor/characterls emotional connection to the play circumstances, and then

developing the physical actions later, once the foundation is

secure. He also warns his students that they must keep the foundation "clear and alive when you add style, movement, moments, etc., or the moment-to-moment won't have emotional truth. Relationship between Actor and Mode of Performance When McCormick tackles non-realistic performance modes-- historical periods, farce, and so forth, he uses a similar process. He starts by setting the character and situational 21 2 foundations, has his students connect to the basics--"two people communicating, truth of the situation, emotional connection"--and

then incorporates style, language, or movement as required by the script, Relationship between Actor and Text McCormick, like Dunsmore, sees the play script as the actor's fundamental resource. As previously mentioned, McCormick expects his students to develop both their characters and their understanding of what is going on in each scene based on clues

derived from the script--either from the text itself, or from the subtext. "Stay with your text," he advises. "Trust it." Relationship between Actor and Director Since actor training involves process, and directing for production must of necessity concern itself with product, discourse concerning the director-actor relationship is largely absent from ~c~ormick'sclassroom--as it is generally from the c~assroornsof the other teachers observed, as well. Although he readily admits that directors can be useful in helping actors interpret a script, McCormick encourages his students to become "director-proof," that is, able to work without a director. He advises them to "develop your own way in, your own triggers . , . your own process--in case the director doesn't have one." The fact that McCormick, a well-respected director, would give this advice to his acting students--and he is not by any means the first teacher in this study to have done so--may have more to say about the quality of directing in Canada than about the actor-director relationship. Don Rubin, writing about Canadian directing in the mid-19801s, claimed that our directors are inadequate in two areas: "One of our major problems--and this is probalby true right across the country--is a tremendous lack of directors with an interest in and an ability

to read new scripts. . . . As well, there seems to be a dearth of directors with the nerve--or perhaps the ability--to do more than simply shuffle actors around the stage, to dare a genuine, perhaps even a new, theatrical concept.' Relationship between Performers Although McCormickfs focus tends to be on character rather than on actor, within that structure he expects his performers to relate to each other on a human-to-human level. He instructs his students to be "vulnerable and receptive" to their fellow actors. He also cautions them against letting the script dictate all aspects of the scene. "YOU must first have your foundation for the scene," he cautions. hen look at your partner and take what is given to you. You can't predict" what this might be, he adds. Relationship between Actor and Audience One function of the actor, for McCormick, seems to be to serve as a link both between the playwright and the audience, and between individual audience members and their own emotional inner selves. As previously mentioned, McCormick senses that modern society has closed many people off from their authentic selves. The opportunity to observe other human beings (actors) who are open and vulnerable to their emotions may help spectators to be more receptive to a similar process. Also, even though McCormick

' Don Rubin, ru he Toronto Movement, " Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readinss, ed. Don Rubin (Toronto: Copp Clark Ltd., 1996) 400-401. 21 4 admits that "an audience can get information and be emotionally affected by a play even if an actor is not," he feels that the play will have considerable more impact--that is, the audience will be "more profoundly affected1'--if the actor is emotionally involved. Like most of the other teachers in this study, McComick stresses the need for the theatrical "stakes" to be high. "people aren't interested in watching something that doesn't have conflict," he asserts. "AS audiences, we are drawn to passion, volatility, and expressiveness. " Traininq and Education of the Actor: Atmosphere The two courses observed took place in different spaces and with two different studios. The fundamentals class was sponsored by Equity Showcase and took place in one of their rehearsal spaces. (Jordan, Jones, and Dunsmore's classes all took place in this venue, as well). The rooms are spacious and bright, with wooden floors, painted walls, and large windows. The space seemed visually busy, however, with projects obviously produced by other classes covering the walls, and visible duct work above. At times the students' focus was interrupted by noise--trucks outside the building, or the sound of voices from adjoining rehearsal rooms. The scene study class, run under the auspices of McConickts studio, the ~ctor'sTutorial, took place in the library of an old church. Although small for an acting space, it is cosy and welcoming, with carpet, soft lights, comfortable chairs, leaded glass windows, and bookcases adorning one wall- Both courses were limited to six students, which McCormick claims "places the focus on the actor and provides personal attention to the individual needs." McCormick deplores guru-ism and aims for "an intimate and sensitive tutorial environment where [students] can develop and practice their craft, enrich their own process of discovery and connect to and explore their own creative power." ~c~ormick'spersonality helps to create this atmosphere. He exudes warmth, and seems to care as much for his studentsf personal growth as he does for their work as artists. Education Like most of his colleagues, McCormick encourages his students to "observe the world. It is your best textbook." He reiterates his belief in the correlation between actor training and personal development. As previously mentioned, he has noted that many non-performers are studying acting for reasons of empowerment or to increase creativity. He adds, "today, more actors are pursuing personal enhancement, to feed into their acting, hoping that what they discover will eliminate blocks or improve their acting." McCormick prefers approaches to body and voice training "that don't isolate the instrument, that don't see movement or voice training as just technique.'' He recommends David Smuckler and Patsy ~odenberg'svocal methods, and likes Evangeline ~achlin'stext on the subject. For movement training, he suggests students take Kelly ~c~venue'sAlexander technique class. Teachins Methods McCormick suggests that his unique contribution as a teacher lies in his ability to create an environment in which his students are empowered to develop their own personal creative process. He feels he helps them "to learn to look for the layers 21 6 in a character and situation and to understand the psychology of a scene and its characters." He believes in "encouraging his students to live more consci~usly,~'to be aware of their lives and what surrounds them. McConnick stresses that "in the creative process there is no right or wrong, good or bad, particularly when you are learning." He counsels his students never to treat a class or a rehearsal as a performance, but as a tool in which to develop themselves in acting. In the beginner class, particularly, McCormick always explains to the class the purpose of an exercise and what is expected of the students, before commencing. Some teachers claim this approach can inhibit creative freedom, but particularly with inexperienced performers it certainly seems to alleviate actor fears. After an exercise, McCormick encourages the participants to ask questions or to comment on their work before he shares his observations or creative input. When actively working with a student, he will ask questions aimed at drawing out the student actor's ideas, and then use his ability at creative fantasy to fill out the circumstances of the scene or help develop the characterization. He directs more than the other teachers observed, particularly with his advanced students. Besides helping them to develop their character and scene foundations, he may work transitions with students, suggest blocking, or help them to choose physical character traits. Since he believes that experiencing strong feelings while acting "can lead to residual emotion, " McCormick generally allows class time for the students to "cool down" emotionally. He also 21 7 believes in emotional "warm-ups," a process which prepares the actor for a demanding scene or exercise.

When doing improvisations, he advises his students to ''react, based on the scenario,I' not to "intellectualize." He may then side-coach, or halt an improv to add additional elements, before letting it continue. To students rehearsing scenes for class, he suggests the following techniques: 1) "~aketime to get connected to the foundation before starting;" 2) "~ecidewhat to use from your homework;" 3) "~achtime through, give yourself a specific goal; It and 4) "~lwayskeep asking yourself, 'what else is this scene about? "' Although ~c~orrnick'srehearsal process is primarily a time of exploration and experimentation, as a director he is fully aware that the ultimate goal of rehearsal is performance. Thus, he advises his students to explore the script, work organically, and "then make creative choices and keep them." In this respect, his class structure is similar to Dunsmore's. This is not to imply that he would expect, or want, a performance to be exactly the same every night, however. He states: very time you do a scene, you want to feel the excitement of discovery, something that connects you emotionally." So "every time you perform, you should find something new to add into the mix of what you already know, so that the acting is fresh and exciting." Trainins and Exercises In the acting fundamentals course observed, the first four classes were primarily spent on exercises and improvisations aimed at evoking emotion, acting and reacting with fellow performers, and learning to develop the circumstances surrounding an imaginary situation. The exercises tended to be cumulative. An initial exercise in rousing personal emotion was followed by one in which an emotion was experienced and then projected onto a partner, requiring a response. A simple improvisation in which two actors were given a basic relationship and an issue or situation, was further developed by the additions of: a few specific lines, further background details, character thoughts, and additional actors to play other characters- This was followed by an exercise in which the students were free to develop their own characters and situation, based on such questions as: Who am I? What is my character's background? What are my character's dreams? What is my relationship to the other characters? Where am I? What is going on? What do I want? What is at stake? After preparing themselves emotionally, the situation and relationships the students had determined were explored through improvisation. Afterwards, McCormick helped the students to improve the scenes with such techniques as: defining the space, raising the stakes, and developing the circumstances and, thus, the students' emotional response to the situation. Each student then developed an improvised monologue following the same fundamental process. In the last two sessions, the students worked on short scripted scenes, which they developed as they had the improvisations. Based on information gathered and inferred from the text, the students made decisions concerning their character traits, circumstances and intentions. They developed an emotional foundation connecting their emotions to the imaginary circum- stances. With McCormick's help, as they rehearsed the scenes the 21 9 subtext was enriched through the addition of such elements as: specific character thoughts, further development of the circumstances and the character relationships, particular movements, a defined space, physical character traits, a more detailed exploration of each beat, and improvising the "moment before" the scene takes place. McCormick started most classes by asking the students if they had any questions concerning topics covered in the previous session. This often led to a short discussion and clarification of techniques and terms used. In both courses, classes often ended with questions as well, or with student reactions to the day's experience. At this time, students often questioned McCormick about the business of acting- There were discussions concerning: the best way to memorize lines, how to prepare for a "cold reading'' audition, research needed for historical dramas, career planning, and how to keep creatively alive in Toronto, Like the fundamentals course, the work in ~cCormick'sscene study course is cumulative. Students have one substantial scene which they work on for six sessions. An initial reading of a freshly-chosen scene is generally followed by a discussion of the major plot elements of the play, the characters' relationships and backgrounds, and the general circumstances. As soon as a basic foundation has been laid, McCormick helps the actors to connect emotionally both with the material and with their scene partners. This is often accomplished by having the actors make eye contact and then either answer emotionally-charged questions in character, improvise a monologue to the other character, or improvise a moment of conflict with the other character. 220 In each subsequent class, the scripted scene is run and then McCormick works to help the students to deepen their emotional connection to the material and fill out the circumstances and characters with emotionally-charged imaginative detail. This is accomplished through a variety of approaches: discussion, evocation of visual images, question and answer, and improvised key moments. While continuing to develop these fundamental aspects of the actor's relationship to the scene, further rehearsals slowly add such elements as: physical character traits, blocking and necessary physical actions, development of organic transitions between units, definition of the acting space, props, and costumes. Recommended Readinas McCormick states that "the best books for actors are ones totally unrelated to theatre.'' He recommends works dealing with human psychology, such as Soul Mates, or case histories. He suggests that his students look at Healina the Child Within and Victims No Lonqer (which deals with abuse), both of which give insights into the human condition. For creative inspiration, he suggests Julia ~ameron'sThe Artists Way. Though admittedly not a big fan of acting books--(McComick recognizes his creative ability as largely visual, so he prefers watching videos on acting or watching actors work, to reading about the subject) --he is familiar with most of the popular acting textbooks. He particularly likes ~agen'sRespect for Actinq; and also recommends Stanislavski; ~cGaw'sActins is Believinq; and ~hurtleff'sAudition, as all of these theorists/practitioners advocate working from the heart. 221

Chapter 5 will explore the acting theories of these Toronto teachers from both historical and conceptual aspects; and, in conjunction with the data obtained from the teachers' survey in

Chapter 3, attempt a clearer understanding of the unique qualities of acting theories held by teachers of acting in Toronto. CHAPTER 5: TOWARDS A TORONTO ACTING THEORY

This chapter examines the distinctive nature of Toronto acting theories. The data are analyzed from several perspectives. To determine common elements, section one compares and contrasts the work of the six Toronto teachers documented in Chapter 4, according to the acting theory criteria established in Chapters 1 and 2. Section two examines these emergent areas of consonance within the historical and conceptual framework of North American Stanislavski-based acting theory. In the Conclusion, the material analyzed in this study (the survey of acting teachers in Toronto, the theory and actor training methods of the six Toronto teachers profiled, and prominent acting theories of the past one hundred years--particularly those of Stanislavski and his most prominent American advocates) are compared in order to derive a group of characteristic factors with which to assess the present status and possible future development of contemporary English-language acting theory in Toronto. Function of the Theatre, Function of the Actor The Canadian teachers profiled tend to see theatre as utilitarian and experiential. The four Toronto teachers who particularly dealt with the concept of the function of the theatre and of the actor (Pearce, Hazzard, Jones, and Dunsmore) a11 claim that affecting the audience emotionally is a primary function of theatre. Other indications of an experiential attitude towards the actor's art are comments referring to theatre as a means of release, or as an experience which energizes and transports the spectators (Hazzard), or as a 223 celebration of life (Dunsmore). Although certain other modem theorists (such as Julian Beck with the Living Theatre) espouse this concept, among Stanislavski-based theorists theatre as

I I experience" seems unique to the Canadian perspective- In recent decades, some modem aesthetic theories, such as that revealed by phenomenological criticism, have been moving in this direction as well (Hornby 9). The majority of teachers interviewed describe the theatre as a method of enlightenment. Pearce and Jones use this specific term; for Hazzard, it illuminates and reveals; and for Dunsmore, it teaches. Jones and Dunsmore also describe the theatre as a means of communication. For Pearce and Hazzard it develops a sense of community; theatre connects people or "lets us know we're not alone." In the classes observed only Jones mentioned theatre as a place of entertainment, and when aesthetic considerations arose, the emphasis was on truth, not beauty, Although McCormick, Dunsmore, and Bazzard freely speak of acting as serving ennobling functions, only McCormick dwells on its power as an art form. The qualities which these teachers believe actors most need in order to effectively fulfil the theatre's functions include: compassion and empathy, the ability to react spontaneously and to take chances, intelligence, curiosity, commitment, access to the emotions, imagination, vulnerability, and a sense of wonder or innocence. All of the qualities mentioned are internal, based in the emotions, the intellect, the will, the instinct, or the imagination. This focus seems to indicate a conception of acting as a psychologically-based process. In the interviews and classes observed, only Hazzard made a point of describing physical or craft elements as essential actor qualities: skills of artistic interpretation (her definition of talent), and control of body and voice. Representation Comments by several of the Toronto teachers interviewed reveal the ambiguous relationship which exists today in much acting theory between acting and actuality. For Jones, good acting is "honest and real." To Jordan, believable characters are only possible if the actor incorporates "real thoughts and emotions." For Dunsmore and McCormick, acting feels, or is, "like real life." Dunsmore further cautions her students that they must not think of themselves as "acting," but as "being. I' McCormick adds that acting must be "honest and believable" as well as "emotionally truthful." As previously mentioned, there is a definite movement amongst all of the teachers observed towards a valuation of performer actuality. All of the teachers interviewed expect actors to make use of their own thoughts and emotions on stage; there is an increased use of substitution of personal events, circumstances and relationships as a supplement to the imagination; and the ability to react spontaneously, particularly between performers, is a required rehearsal and performance skill - Steve Vineberg contends that there is a tendency amongst certain North American theorists to equate artistic truth with actuality and, therefore, to view the actor's primary function as that of "reproduction of recognizable reality--verisimilitude--on stage (or screen), based on an acute observation of the world" 225 (Vineberg 6). The Toronto teachers observed seem to fit into this category of theorist. They all use predominantly realistic and/or naturalistic scripts for scene study purposes, and in classroom exercises and improvisations concentrate on true-to-life actions and situations, utilizing actor thought and emotion. Actor training tends to concentrate on connecting performers imaginatively to the scripted situation through an emotional identification with the character and circumstances based on the actor's sense of emotional truth and imer creative urges, Actor and Character Based on their class work, it appears that for all of the Toronto teachers profiled actors represent lifelike human beings --characters--whose backgrounds, immediate circumstances, and psychological and physical attributes are often suggested by a playwright. These attributes are then supplemented by the actor's use of personal instinct, emotion, thought, will, voice, physical presence and actions. Five of the six teachers studied promote the idea of imagining the self in the character's circumstances as the best way to fuse actor and character into one individual. Only the Meisner-trained Jordan suggests an alternate approach to the "magic if." Meisner considered the actor's emotional involvement and truthful responses and actions to be more important than the playscript's imaginary circumstances. Jordan, like his mentor, recommends dispensing with the character's circumstances if they do not provoke an emotional response in the performer, and substituting others from the imagination that will enable the actor to feel the particular emotions called for or perform an action required in a particular scene. Although all of these teachers impress on their students the importance of portraying a character, only three of the Toronto teachers observed made a point of emphasizing the primacy of character over actor. Hazzard expects the actor to "subjugate the self to the role." McCormick insists that his students explore the character's psychology and then "surrender to the character's thoughts and emotional life." Dunsmore visualizes the actor as

I I in service" to the character, although she also maintains that the relationship should be an equal partnership- Neither Jordan nor Jones, however, believes that the delineation of character is the playwright ' s privilege. And although Dunsmore and McCormick point out to their students that their characters may view the world differently than they do, there seems to be a growing tendency in the practice of these Toronto teachers to concentrate on the similarities between actor and character (as well as those between actor's and character's immediate circumstances) rather than the differences. Again, this focus reveals both a valuation of the actuality of the performer and the privileging of actor "truth" over that of character and circumstance. There is a marked tendency for the character work undertaken by these Toronto teachers to be predominantly internal. Of the teachers interviewed, only two (Jones and Jordan) suggested using physical approaches to character development--and for Jones, this was deemed necessary primarily when attempting a character far removed from the self. In this case, Jones recommends appropriation of the physical stance and movement of observed

This idea will be further developed in the section titled Relationships: 2) Actor and Text, people, improvisation based on the character's psychological history, and game-playing; Jordan recommends animal exercises, movable centres, and the use of essences. In general, however, for the majority of these teachers a change in point of view--an internal action--is the primary requirement for accessing a difficult character. The actor must develop an emotional understanding of the character's psychology (McCormick); or the actor should concentrate on the similarities between the self and the character, rather than the differences (Dunsmore); or the actor should like the character (Jordan, Jones), or at least be open-minded enough not to judge the character (Pearce, Dunsmore). Once the actor has made a psychological connection with the character, these teachers then allow for the addition of physical character traits such as habitual gestures and vocal rhythms. In the Toronto acting classes observed, although McCormick and Pearce occasionally considered the actor's physical manifestation of character or internal state, almost no attention was paid to the subject of character externals--costume, make-up, or personal properties. Pearce, Jones, and Dunsmore all claim that character is defined by action, but for these theorists (as well as for Jordan and McCormick) "action" refers to psychophysical, not physical action. When these teachers ask their students "what are you doing?", they are generally asking "what does your character want?", and "HOW are you going to get what you want from the other characters/actors on stage?" Thus, "action" is viewed by these teachers as a combination of intention and behaviour--which involves both internal and external action. For McCormick only, 228 emotion precedes action in the development of character. He is also the only one of the teachers observed to actively make use of character history in character work, although Jordan, Jones, and Dunsmore occasionally ask questions that require some knowledge of the character's past. It would appear that, for the majority of these teachers, a character's past (an area of actor study strongly influenced by Freudian psychology and its emphasis on determinism--that past experience dictates present behaviour) is not considered as vital as what the character wants and how s/he goes about achieving these desires. Thus, the focus is future-based, rather than past-based, with the emphasis on character intention instead of character history. Of the Canadian teachers studied, Hazzard, Dunsmore, Jones, and McCormick all stress the importance of thinking the character's thoughts as a primary method of fusing actor with character. Hazzard and Dunsmore recommend the technique of "inner monologue." This requires the actor (between and during the scripted lines of dialogue) to attempt to think thoughts which the character might be thinking in the play's situation, Jordan and Jones prefer the concept of inner dialogue. Inner monologue has the potential for isolating actors within their character's thoughts while inner dialogue encourages the actor to direct the character's thoughts outward to the other characters on stage, so that relationships are maintained at all times. Jordan and Jones also advocate the use of mental images that correspond with the character's thoughts. Relationships: I) Actor and Self Internal Creative Process All of the teachers profiled concentrate on internal techniques in their actor training. Although Jordan, Jones, and McCormick inform their students that acting can be accomplished working from both external or internal processes, both Jordan and McCormick are quick to point out that they prefer to work "from the inside, out" or organically--from the heart, emotions, or gut * When working with scripts, all six teachers concentrate on subtext (what is actually going on in the scene irrespective of the dialogue). The predominant approach to analysis of this subtext seems to be question-and-answer, based on the given circumstances of the play: "who am I? What do I want? what's going on? What are my relationships?'' The technique is simple and direct, and concentrates on facts and events specific to the world of the play rather than the production. Dunsmore and McCormick particularly stress the need for the actor to come to an emotional understanding of, or make an emotional connection to, the circumstances of the play. These practitioners use various means to fuse the actor's creative and emotional being with this factual information. All of the Toronto teachers observed make use of the concept of the "magic if," although only Pearce, Dunsmore, Jones, and McCormick used the specific term in the classes observed. Most also use some form of substitution. Jordan and Dunsmore use substitution of parallel circumstances if the actors cannot relate to the circumstances of the play's story. Hazzard and McCormick 230 concentrate on finding essential aspects of the play's circumstances that can strike a universal emotional cord, For example, an actor may have never been trapped underground as a result of a mine explosion, but anyone can relate to feelings of being alone, abandoned, cold, and confined. Use of the "magic if" draws the actor into playing in the moment, or, as some acting teachers call it, "in the here and now-" This leads logically to the concept of the "sense of the first time1'--amethod of acting in which the performers, although knowing the series of actions they will be performing, try not to anticipate what is to come, but concentrate on being present at each moment. This approach is intended to give the audience the impression that each action is happening for the first and only time--that is, that the actions are "realw--which serves to heighten the impact of the performance. The concept of "playing in the moment" is fundamental to all of the Toronto teachers, but is particularly emphasized by Jordan and Hazzard. And the pursuit of a character's momentary intentions or objectives (considered of primary importance by Pearce and Dunsmore) is central to the actor training of all six teachers. However, only Pearce, Jordan, and McCormick work with the concept of beats, or units, and only Pearce follows the traditional process of dividing a script up into beats, naming these units with active verbs, and then determining character objectives and actions for each beat. As prominent as this technique is in Toronto actor training, both McCormick and Jordan point out that there can be a danger in pursuing intentions against all odds. Objectives must change, McCormick states, 231 depending upon what takes place in the interactions between characters. This attitude was reflected generally in the actor training observed. In the playing of the moment or beat, the focus tended to be placed on achieving what one wants from the other characters/actors and on dealing with these individuals on a human-to-human level as well as a character-to-character level. The concentration was then on feedback and interaction between the scene partners, as McCormick and Jordan suggest. For all of the teachers studied, the stakes are expected to be high--a concept advocated by Meisner (Meisner 104). For Pearce, this translates as a sense of urgency or importance; for Hazzard, emotional intensity; for Jones, a feeling of life-and-death. Dunsmore and McCormick claim that when performing, actors must embrace conflict and emotion, not avoid them as is the tendency in life. This emphasis on playing in the moment with one's scene partners reveals the valuation of impulse and spontaneity in acting held by most of these teachers. Dunsmore, Jordan, Jones, and McCormick all caution their students against allowing the intellect to interfere with impulse or emotional involvement. Meisner claimed that for stage life to be exciting it must not only have the appearance of the first time; the action on stage must, in actuality, be happening "for the first time" at every performance. This can only happen if the actors are open to each other and to their own momentary impulses. Another way to be in the moment is to really perform every action on stage rather than to pretend to do actions--starting with such simple tasks as reading a real letter or drinking actual coffee. The two Meisner- 232 based Canadian teachers (Jordan and Pearce) privilege the doing of real actions on stage, and the importance of spontaneous reactions with acting partners "in the moment." Both use variations on ~eisner'srepetition exercises to help develop these qualities in their students. Dunsmore and McCormick also promote the importance of spontaneity, while all of the Toronto teachers observed stress both being present "in the moment" and the value of moment to moment interaction with scene partners- When spontaneity becomes highly valued, however, form can

suffer, "If, for instance," Robert Lewis states : - . you are improvising a scene from a play you're rehearsing in order to regain some lost freshness and you wander away from the form of the scene, start to ramble on with inappropriate material, or stray from your character, that kind of "freedom" can distort your understanding of the ingredients of the scene rather

than clarify it (Advice 81 ) . Dunsmore and McCormick, like Lewis, stress the importance of balancing impulse with form in the art of acting. Dunsmore will use variations on ~eisner'srepetition exercises with her students if she senses they are not connecting with their acting partners on a human-to-human level as well as on a character-to- character level, However, unlike Jordan, who privileges the work of the actor over that of the playwright, Dunsmore claims that the actor must fulfil that character's function as envisioned by the playwright. McCormick states that where his concept of moment by moment interaction differs from some other theorists/ practitioners is that he envisions each moment as structured by 233 the demands of the play, whereas others conceive of moments based on the actor-to-actor interaction. In the classes observed only Pearce and McCormick dealt with scene objectives, and McCormick and Dunsrnore with play objectives. It would appear that concepts of superobjectives and through-line of action seem to be considered primarily the director's domain with these teachers; the director is expected to maintain an overall structure, leaving the actor free to react spontaneously in the moment. Of the Toronto teachers observed, only Dunsmore actively pursues questions of the theme of the play, or the character's overall purpose in the play with her acting students. This development seems to indicate a privileging of actor instinct and interaction over the idea of the actor serving a structural function specific to the needs of the play. For all of these Toronto teachers, character relationships are explored through a technique of active questioning, generally based in the moment, and with future-looking intentions, For example, students are encouraged to ask themselves "what do I want from this person?" rather than ''what have this person and I been to each other?'' Jones also encourages her students to break down their character relationships in the play into the roles we play in life, for example, I am a mother to this person, a teacher to that person. In all cases, the actors are encouraged to relate to their scene partners as human being to human being as well as character to character. All six teachers claim that the ability to bring actor emotion to the work is a necessary part of the acting process. However, Pearce, Jones, and Dunsmore make a point of stating that 234 "being emotional" should not be considered the central aim in acting. Even McCormick, for whom actor emotion is a primary focus, states that although it is a "big part" in the acting process, it is not "the only part." Jones claims that audience communication is more vital than actor emotion, while the general feeling in all of the classes except ~azzard'sis that partner- centred objectives or intentions are more important than actor emotion. Hazzard privileges audience emotion, which she sees as linked to actor emotion. The teachers studied use a variety of methods to help their students access actor emotion in class. Jordan will ask for emotions directly. The other teachers share the belief that emotions cannot be commanded, but can be cajoled. Techniques used include: use of imagination in combination with the play's given circumstances ("magic ifw)--used by all teachers; emotion memory (used by Jordan and Jones, opposed by Pearce and Dunsmore, proposed as an option by Hazzard and McCormick); use of intention and tactics, also called actions (Pearce, ~olan);and use of substitution (Jordan, Hazzard, Dunsmore, ~ccormick).To bring actors to a particular emotional level, Jordan suggests that his students daydream a situation that will access the emotion needed by the character in a particular scene. ~unsmore'suse of acting analogies works in a similar fashion; her student playing Queen Elizabeth had no experience with power politics, but she could relate emotionally to ~lizabeth'sfeelings toward Mary when she realized the similarity between that relationship and hers as lead actress threatened by a younger, prettier woman. The other two teachers promote the use of emotional essence. This is 235 similar to situational essence mentioned previously. For example, an actor who has never felt the fear associated with walking a tightrope may be able to access the kernel of that emotion by remembering the first time s/he jumped off a high diving board. The concept of emotional essence is similar to another concept shared by all of these teachers--emotional universality. There is a general consensus among these teachers that all people

(and thus, all performers) have experienced every emotion in their lives--at least, to some extent--though they may not be as familiar or comfortable with some emotions as with others. Thus, it should be possible to imaginatively enhance that emotional kernel to whatever degree is required by the play script.

Possibly because of their focus on the primacy of emotion, many of the American Stanislavski-based theorists use the notion of emotional universality as the basis for claiming that theoretically any actor should be able to play any role. For the most part, the contemporary Toronto teachers seem to have accepted that no actor can successfully portray all characters-- whether this is caused by varying levels of talent (a word which seems to have as many definitions as there are thespians), or psychological and physical constraints. Once stated, however, they do not dwell on this point, but make use of a wide variety of techniques aimed at increasing each student's versatility. External Creative Process The majority of the Toronto teachers profiled appear to conceive of the internal and external aspects of the actor's work as separate processes, When asked whether he thought this inclination is in part due to the western proclivity to isolate 236 the various creative aspects of the artist, rather than working holistically, as is more common in eastern and oriental theatre, McCormick (the most vocal of the teachers against isolating parts of the acting process) defends the North American approach, He states that acting is such a complex process that, particularly with students in the early years of training, it is only by isolating and cultivating the various aspects of the art (both internal and external) that the artist is eventually able to combine the disparate elements into a complete and synthesized whole. There also seems to be a consensus among these Canadian practitioners that no teacher can be an expert in all of the areas in which acting students require training and, thus, it is better for both instructors and students for teachers to specialize. One might be tempted to speculate that studio training, because of time constraints (most courses run from four to eight weeks) encourages this narrowing of focus- But this is not necessarily the case. Any two-to-four year actor training institution in Canada offers specific courses or classes in, for example, acting, dance, voice, text analysis, and stage combat, each taught by individuals considered specialists in each particular area of actor study. Although all six Toronto teachers studied in depth claim that physical and vocal training for performers are essential, none teaches these areas in his/her "actingt'classes. This might be understandable for the two courses aimed at camera techniques (although it can be argued that even though this medium may call for different skills from those required of performers by a large 237 theatre, voice and movement training and skill are as necessary on camera as on stage), but when all six teachers observed focus on internal training, this tendency becomes significant. Unexpectedly, of the Toronto teachers studied, it is the Meisner-trained Jordan who is most vocal about the usefulness of external approaches to character development and actor training, He and Nolan were the only teachers observed to make use of physically-based exercises in class for the purpose of general actor development, Types of exercises Jordan explored included: random physical movements leading to the development of scenarios, or particular emotions; mime; observing and recreating another's physical stance; and developing several different intentions to correspond with one particular physical movement. Jones, Dunsmore, and McCormick all advocate the use of physical exercises to help actors develop particular moments in a scene which may not have been totally captured through an internal process. Jones and McCormick will use physical exercises to unblock emotions, while Jones and Dunsrnore use physical improvisations to aid actors in feeling the proper dynamic of a scene. For example, if two characters are engaged in a fierce competition, Jones may have the actors rehearse the dialogue while arm wrestling. Although Pearce occasionally cautions his students to be aware of what their bodies are saying and Pearce, Jones, and Dunsmore admit that physical actions can affect thought and emotion, only McCormick and Jordan mentioned specific physical character elements in the classes observed. With his more advanced students, once they had a strong grasp of the psychological and emotional aspects of character and situation, McConnick would on occasion ask such questions as: "where does your character's emotion situate itself in your body?" Or, "what does your character look like?" He also mentioned that actors need to support a character's thought through the choice of physical stance, gesture or movement. When developing characters with these students, he would occasionally introduce specific actions to highlight a moment, or physical traits to accentuate particular aspects of character. Other than vocal warm-ups (carried out in ~earce'sand ~ordan'sclasses) no vocal training or voice-based creative exploration of text or character was undertaken in any of the classes observed. Relationships: 2) Actor and Text Vineberg in Method Actors: Three Generations of an American Actins Style claims that: "~llAmerican acting assumes what would be sacrilege to a classically trained English or French actor: that the actor and not the text is the most important element in a play or movie" (112). vineberg's statement is obviously a generalization and an exaggeration, but like many generalizations it holds a grain of truth and, perhaps, can be expanded to encompass some Canadian as well as American acting. The actor training observed in Toronto focuses on the importance of the presence of the actor. Meaning, which students at many British theatre schools are taught to extract from an examination of the words and structure of the written lang~age,~is extrapolated

The approach taught by Patsy Rodenburg at Britain's Royal National Theatre and on don's Guildhall School of Speech and Drama is outlined in her book The Actor Speaks (London: Methuen Drama, 1998) 161 -234. from a play's subtext, not its text. Although of the Canadian teachers studied, Dunsmore, McCormick, and Jones place the most value on the text, for the most part the words of the script appear to be deemed valuable to the Toronto teachers only in so far as they reveal clues to underlying meaning, not for any literary or aesthetic merit of their own, Hazzard goes so far as to tell her students that "no one will care" if they change the words a bit, as long as the acting is strong. Perhaps the emphasis would be placed differently were she directing these students in a production situation, rather than preparing them for auditions--a high stress activity that requires confidence for success- But as this point was not clarified, the comment is likely to be accepted by students as fact. Jordan told a student in one class to "paint images with words." This is the only incident I noted during the observation period of a student's being encouraged to delve into the scripted language for a creative impulse. These Canadian teachers (including Jordan and Dunsmore, who have performed the classical repertoire professionally) avoid poetic or verse plays in their acting classes. All use modern and contemporary realistic and naturalistic play and film scripts for their classroom scenes. Jordan, who has performed Shakespeare at Stratford, Ontario, claims he is not qualified to teach the bard. One wonders when the English language became something alien and difficult for Canadian actors, rather than something to savour and orchestrate, Strangely, along with this valuation of subtext over text, there seems to be a development in some Toronto actor training 240 towards a devaluation of the play's primary themes and ideas, to the extent that, in some cases, communication of the author's main idea to the audience has been endangered- For Jordan, the actor is not to allow the playwright to dictate what the play or character is about; the actor makes these decisions, Although Jones advocates respect for the script, she claims that no play contains within it some definitive meaning; the director, actors, and production team should work together to decide what the play is about, Of the Canadian teachers studied in depth, only Dunsmore and McCormick urge their students to read the entire play before deciding on character objectives, relationships, and subtext in any given scene or moment. It is entirely possible that these teachers would place the emphasis differently were they directing a play for production rather than training actors in an isolated learning environment- However, these students, trained on "moments" and scenes, not on whole plays, are certain to take their conditioned approach to the work from the classroom into their subsequent proEessiona1 theatre practice. A large part of modern actor training is concerned with script analysis--techniques developed to enable an actor or director to ferret out meanings inherent in a script by a dissection of the text. In some acting classes I attended in the 1970'~~this process of analysis was approached in a very linear and scientific way. Students were instructed to write down all the facts presented by the playwright as given circumstances, to cut the script up into units and beats to which active verbs were assigned, to decide the character's desires for every moment of the script, from the smallest beat objectives to the main idea of 241 the play, or superobjective, and to make note of every action a character makes, from the smallest physical action, to speech acts, to psychological decisions or desires. In these classes the intellectual analysis was often treated as separate from the creative training of the actor, often coming after a year or two of training. As an actor, the difficulty 1 found with this approach to the script was in trying to assimilate these dry facts into my creative process and being able to live truthfully in the character while making use of this information. Many modern theatre practitioners avoid detailed script analysis because they see it as primarily an intellectual process. The techniques employed by the Toronto teachers--the immediate, on-your-feet, question-and-answer approach to the script--may not elicit quite the detail of the more technical approaches, but they do seem to allow for an ease in combining the disparate elements of author's lines, subtext, and the actor's understanding, being, and imagination into an organic and synthesized whole.

Relationships: 3) Actor and Director The Toronto teachers observed tend to share a similar view of the actor-director relationship. Although most will caution actors against following a director's precepts blindly (especially when these run counter to their own instincts), generally, the director is seen as facilitator, someone with a vision of the entire project who helps the actors to coordinate their efforts into a unified whole. Jones and McCormick spoke of the need for actors to become "director proof," This viewpoint could have been influenced by several factors, such as: a 242 perceived lack of talented directors in Canadian theatre; the privileging of the actor in current theatre theory; and by contemporary movements away from the concept of the all-powerful director, to ones in which certain or all members of a production team work together to decide how a production will be staged. Further research into this area would be necessary to come to any definitive conclusions.

Relationships: 4) Relationship between Performers As previously mentioned, two of the techniques most zealously advocated by the Toronto teachers are communicating actor-to-actor with one's scene partners, and pursuing partner- based intentions. This supports the tendency, previously noted, to value the physical presence of the actors with their organic impulses and actions, Sustaining this inclination, most of the Canadian teachers interviewed place ensemble above individual excellence when asked to choose between the two approaches to theatre work, Hazzard pointed out that the two concepts need not be mutually exclusive- -that great individual performances can inspire an ensemble to create even better group work, if all are creating for each other as well as for the audience, Trust, as well as a feeling of relaxation and comfort between performers, is necessary for an atmosphere of ensemble, Jordan and Nolan explored a number of intimacy/trust exercises in class, while McCormick used them as necessary with particular performers, Relationships: 5) Actor and Audience Although theatre spaces and modes of performance are more flexible today than they might have been in Stanislavski's time, very little has changed over the years in realistic theatre in the conception of the relationship between the actor and the audience. The Toronto teachers studied are in agreement that the audience is drawn imaginatively into the action by the extent of the actor's commitment to the work rather than by their concentration on the audience. Thus, a spacial distance tends to be maintained between actors and audience, and student actors are cautioned both against playing to the audience and being overly aware of the audience's presence. Concentration and relaxation exercises aimed at helping to lessen the impact of knowledge of the spectators' presence on the actors' performance were observed in several of the Toronto acting classes.3 Relationships: 6) Actor and Technical Aspects of Production Canadian theatre of the last century has seen the technical aspects of production move in several disparate directions. In the theatre, the staging of lifelike plays moved away from the naturalistic box sets replete with properties (which reached their apex in North America in the productions of David Belasco), to "selective realism," a technique in which, for example, a doorway, window frame and a few selected pieces of furniture are used to suggest a specific or generic place, or a particular object or piece of costume may be selected to reveal character or foreshadow a forthcoming action. On the other hand, sets, props, costumes, lighting, and so forth in film and television have moved increasingly towards the detail of actuality, Other

Jones conducted concentration exercises; Pearce and Jordan did relaxation exercises, while McCormick, though not using them in the classes observed, advocates relaxation exercises. 244 productions, such as the "mega musicals," seem to exist primarily for the sake of sets, costumes, and special effects. In many of these spectacles, actors seem superfluous.

In the contemporary Canadian theatre, even in performance- based stage plays, there seems to be a trend away from actors' participating in the choice of technical elements such as costumes and properties, Performers also often have little time to rehearse with and absorb creative influences from make-up, set pieces, lighting, sound, costumes, and properties* This tendency is reflected in contemporary actor training. In the acting classes observed, no attention was paid to any of these areas except properties. Generally, students were encouraged to use actual physical objects if the scenes called for props, rather than miming them. Simple set pieces were also used by the students, but their use, choice, and position in space were never specifically addressed. Is it possible that the contemporary focus on the internal aspects of the art of acting has codified to such an extent that all other aspects of production--from external characterization (including body shape, costume, and make-up), to blocking, properties, set pieces, sound, and lighting--are now considered outside of the actor's sphere, and therefore, extraneous to actor training? If so, this is a significant development in modern Toronto--possibly Canadian-- acting theory. Further research into this area is required. Relationships: 7) Actor and Mode of Performance The Toronto teachers (except for Pearce, whose students, because of team teaching, are exposed to alternate texts and ways of approaching scripts) are obviously preparing their students 245 for performance in realistic and naturalistic plays, films, and television. In all cases, the emphasis is on the actor being emotionally, physically, and vocally true-to-life. Concepts of form, beauty, or art did not come up in the classes observed, and the only noticeable concession to the theatrical seems to be the general consensus that "the stakes must be high," in order to make the action and conflicts exciting fox the audience. Although this point is never made manifest in class, each of these acting teachers is a specialist in internal acting techniques. This focus, with its corresponding lack of attention to training for khe voice and body, tends to be an inadequate approach to the preparation and presentation of theatrical styles calling for vocal or physical expertise (such as classical Greek, Shakespearean productions, or physical theatre). Thus, the concentration on realistic texts--which are acknowledged the best medium for exploring and developing internal acting techniques-- and the use of a naturalistic acting style, would appear the most productive approaches for these teachers to pursue in these classes. The growth of the film and television industries, which tend to require a high degree of naturalism in acting in the portrayal of true-to-life characters and stories has probably contributed to the prominent place that psychologically-based approaches maintain in contemporary actor training. Since ~azzard'sand ones' courses are aimed at developing on-camera acting skills, the naturalistic focus in these classes is doubly understandable. However, the results of the general survey of Toronto acting teachers seems to indicate that the majority of courses commonly thought of as "acting classes" in Toronto focus on internal training. Again, one must wonder whether this gives students the impression (unaffected by any number of remonstrations to "take voice and movement training") that acting is primarily a psychological process aimed at the reproduction of recognizable reality. And, if so, could this be deterring student actors from exploring and developing the potential of the art and craft of acting? Traininq and Education of the Actor, Theory and Methods Atmosphere Classroom atmosphere has a profound influence on the student's ability to learn and develop. The personality of the teacher is arguably the strongest element sffecting atmosphere in the classroom. In comparing the six Toronto teachers, it is quickly obvious that successful teaching is not restricted to any one personality type. All of the Toronto teachers studied are very popular; yet their approaches run the gamut from quiet and undemanding, to warmly supportive, to challenging, to business- like. They all share three convictions, however: a belief that actor training should take place in an atmosphere of support; a view of the teacher's role as facilitator, rather than instructor; and a love of the theatre and of actors. Of the Toronto courses attended, all classes (except ~earce's)took place in general purpose rooms with no particular theatrical attributes. All were clean, and most were brightened by good-sized windows. Pearce utilizes curtains and risers to delineate performance and audience spaces, and students have access to properties, costumes, set pieces and simple stage lighting. Pearce is also the only one of the teachers observed to incorporate public performance into the training process. Teachins Methods

A method of work consisting of practical exercises with lecture and/or discussion is used by all of the Toronto acting teachers profiled- Although the majority start with the practical work, Jones and Hazzard tend to lecture first and then get down to practical applications, while Pearce avoids discussion unless absolutely necessary. All, however, concentrate their attention on experiential learning- Teaching and coaching methods commonly practiced include: stopping the action to work problem areas, side-coaching, and waiting until the scene or exercise ends before discussing the material or reworking it- Only Pearce and Hazzard make use of the technique of erecting signs on the walls of the classroom with advice or inspirational messages. This may be partly due to the fact that the classes of the other four teachers take place in multi-purpose spaces, shared by various groups or available for short-term rental. A central concept in contemporary Toronto actor training seems to be the provision of a "safe space" in which students can feel free to create. This is a popular notion, advocated by Stanislavski and Spolin, among others, This concept became the primary impediment to the successful completion of this study. Although several of the teachers observed are in the process of documenting their actor training approaches and could understandably have been fearful of their creative ideas being appropriated, the main fear expressed was what effect a non- participating observer might have on the students' experience. Several teachers I would have been honoured to study, refused on these grounds. Education The most common advice given to students by the contemporary Toronto teachers is to "observe the world around you." This confluence of the idea of theatrical truth with that of the natural world is, as previously mentioned, a continuing trend in realistic theatre and coincides with the prevalence of "the actual" in contemporary Canadian actor training. Several of the Toronto teachers recommend that their students read, but only one, Jordan, suggests the reading of plays. Dunsmore suggests essays and novels, while Jones promotes the reading of biographies--all of which would develop the students' understanding of human nature, in a similar fashion to that obtained by observing the world. Although McCormick encourages his students to "nourish the artist," and Jordan recommends attending the theatre, this is an attitude that seems to be losing ground in Toronto actor training, even though at least two prominent studies of performance training in this country have recommended such an approach.* The Report of the Task Force on Professional Traininq for the Cultural Sector in Canada states that: "~nyartistic training should include the aesthetic values and theoretical concepts which are part of the foundation of creation and creativity" (24). The writers of this statement define art, and thus, theatre, as an experience that "reveals the deeper reality

* These are the Black Report, pages 31 and 55, and Art is Never a Given. Professional Trainins in the Arts in Canada: Report of the Task Force on Professional Training for the Cultural Sector in Canada, page 24. 249 of the human condition'' (Report 15). Although this view of the function of the theatre is shared by most of the Toronto teachers interviewed it is obvious that concepts of aesthetics and culture do not necessarily conjoin with the idea of theatre as a means to enlightenment. The contemporary teachers in Toronto seem to believe that revelation can occur through an essentially naturalistic acting style, which requires no training in art, culture, or theatre history. Approach to Traininq Actor training in these Toronto studios is predominantly structured according to the concept of incremental learning. That is, students generally start with simple exercises and concepts and slowly add on additional techniques until a complete method of work has been established. In his autobiography Slinqs and Arrows, Robert Lewis outlines his mode of training, which follows a typical structure: My approach . . . is based on an idea of the normal growth of a student actor's technique: start with a complete set of exercises to prepare the actor's performing instrument; go on to the analysis of scripts and roles and the preparation of realistic scenes; and finally, tackle special problems of style--the Greeks, Shakespeare, Restoration, ~oliire,avant-garde, and so on (269-270)- This basic structure is followed by most three-to-four-year formal acting programs in Canada, with the possible addition of full-scale productions in the final year. In the Toronto classes observed, Dunsmore and Jordan particularly emphasized the need to approach the work slowly and in a progressive manner, and to start with simple exercises and gradually incorporate more complex processes. Those teachers (Jordan and McCormick) observed in both introductory and more advanced classes also seem to follow this pattern, with the beginner classes concentrating on a small number of basic concepts and the scene study classes being more specialized and incorporating a number of acting elements. This approach to actor training, which is based upon a scientific model, has been questioned by Homby, who states that the craft that is acting is not normally learned incrementally, but ''cyclically: " The actor does not advance by adding skills on top of other skills, but by improving and refining the same basic skills, over and over. . . . Teaching acting incrementally comes down to first teaching speech, movement, improvisation, and interpretation (first in monologues and then in scenes), before allowing the student to act in a play for an audience. There is nothing wrong with studying speech, movement, and improvisation, but they are not a basis for acting in plays; they should be studied concurrently with it (Hornby 249).

1 believe both approaches to the actor's work have advantages as well as disadvantages. For example, working incrementally prevents student actors from being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of technique to be mastered in an acting process; it also allows for detailed and focussed work. Unfortunately, it is a slow process; it also allows for that segregation of acting elements which tends to result in perceived hierarchies concerning the value of specific aspects of the craft, as well as difficulty in assimilation of the parts into a viable whole. Working cyclically prevents this partitioning of the acting process, but may result in "general" acting, without the layers enabled and more easily distinguished by the progressive approach, Working "on one's feet" seems to be the primary mode of actor training in the Toronto studios observed. Other than the first read-through of a new scene, the student actors spent almost no class time analyzing with book and pencil in hand. Even in the scene study classes, analysis was done in motion. Moments, character thoughts, conflicts between characters, were explored through improvisation. Or, with book in hand, students worked through their scenes, developing moments through a question-and- answer format, or by trying various approaches to particular moments or in reaction to their acting partners. Much of the training in these classes is done through the use of scripted scenes from plays and films. This is to be expected in courses titled "scene study," as were Jordan and McCormickls advanced classes and ~unsmore'sclass; however, only one of the courses observed, Jordan's fundamentals class, did not make use of scripts. The first scripts students in these courses tend to be given are in the genre of modern realism, with fairly straightforward characters of their own ages, simple plots, and an accessible range of emotion. There seems to be a consensus among the Toronto teachers interviewed that working on scripts close to the actor's reality will develop a sense of truth and 252 belief in situation and character that, once part of the actor's understanding, can later be stretched to accommodate Greek tragedy or Shakespearean verse. All six of the Toronto practitioners observed use improvisation in class, a technique popular with a number of modem acting theorists including Saint-Denis, Spolin, Chaikin, Brook, and Littlewood. Early improvisations in acting classes aimed at beginners tend to centre around performing simple actions with objectives, or placing a character into a particular environment. Later improvisations may place a character into a particular situation, a natural step towards working on a scripted scene with a similar set of circumstances. In the scene study classes observed, improvisation tended to be used hand-in- hand with the script work, rather than coming before it. Students generally work with the words of the text, stopping whenever necessary to discuss or explore a particular moment. This exploration often takes the form of improvisation. Perhaps these teachers have discovered that working cyclically, in this particular instance, is more useful than working incrementally.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, performers and acting educators in contemporary Toronto tend to see actor training as an ongoing process. Hazzard, Jones, and McCormick all advocate continuous training for actors. The growth in the number of Toronto studios over the past twenty years is ample evidence of this tendency, as is the fact that a number of professional working actors took part in the courses I observed at the Toronto studios. Four of the six teachers interviewed (Hazzard, Jones, Dunsmore, and McCormick) also recommend eclectic training. Hazzard and 253 McCormick encourage their students to explore a variety of techniques and then develop "what works" into a personal method. Jones and Dunsmore, who both experienced eclectic training in their artistic development, claim that there is no one best approach to the actors' work; if performers have a range of techniques to choose from, they can use what is most effective for each separate acting situation. Course ~ontentl~xercises Although each of the teachers profiled and classes attended were unique and made use of a number of diverse acting exercises and techniques, I noted three common foci in the work of these teachers which reveal general tendencies in Toronto actor training. 1) All of the teachers observed made use of imagination enhancing exercises and processes, particularly the "magic if" in conjunction with character or a scene's given circumstances. This, in conjunction with the use of sense memory exercises by

Nolan, Jordan and Jones, and emotion memory techniques by Jordan and Jones (and recommended by Hazzard and McCormick) indicates a tendency to value the performer's use of self in the acting process. 2) The emphasis placed on partner-centred intentions by Pearce, Dunsmore, Jordan, Jones and McCormick; the use of variations on Meisner's repetition exercises in ~earce's,

~ordan's,and Dunsmore's classes; the use of whispered secrets by

Jordan, Jones, and Dunsmore; and intimacy/trust exercises by Jordan, Nolan, and McCormick indicate the high value placed on actor impulse and spontaneous interaction between performers. 3) Four of the teachers interviewed (Hazzard, Jones, Pearce and Jordan) make use of the camera in class, while five discussed 254 with their students the business of being an actor in Toronto- Jordan advised students on their professional photographs and resumes. ~azzard'sand ,Jonesf classes were set up to train performers in on-camera audition and interview techniques; they also provided general advice during lecture and class discussion, McCormick and Pearce allowed students opportunities before and after the scheduled class work to ask questions. In all cases, even in those classes where training in the business of acting was not a formal part of the curriculum, there seemed to be a tacit awareness on the part of both teachers and students that an understanding of this part of the actor's work is--if not as vital as performance techniques--necessary, if one is to succeed as a working actor in Toronto.

Influence of Stanislavski and his North American Adherents To thoroughly comprehend the intricacies of the acting theory of these Toronto teachers, their ideas must be examined in juxtaposition to modern acting theory. Since five of the six teachers claim theoretic descent from Stanislavski and certain of his American adherents, an understanding of the developments in Toronto acting theory is not possible without considering general areas of confluence and dissimilarity between these Toronto teachers, the Russian master, and his American followers in the general subject areas of: perceived function of the theatre and of the actor, representation, relationships, and education and training of the actor.' When the work of these leaders is compared, it quickly becomes obvious that although the theoretical foundation of the Canadian teachers is Stanislavski- based realism, that theory and its practice have evolved in several distinctive directions. The Canadian teachers share three views of the function of theatre with Stanislavski: that theatre can provide enlightenment, and ennoblement (Lesacy 2), and that theatre should not serve overtly political ends (Life 380). There are also three areas of difference: Stanislavski championed aesthetic and entertainment functions of the theatre (Gorchakov 19, Lecracy

5), while the focus among the Toronto teachers on theatre as experience is a concept absent from Stanislavski's theory. Two of Stanislavski's American disciples, Strasberg and Meisner, speak of theatre as experiential, but their concentration is on the performer rather than the audience. Meisner claims that "art expresses human experience," while Strasberg states that for acting to be considered art, it must "[reveal] what is experienced" (Dream 105 ) - In contrast to the above, most of Stanislavski's American followers have concerned themselves primarily with the

The following discourse is based on an analysis of seven of Stanislavski's books available in English translation: Mv Life in Art, An Actor Prepares, Buildins a Character, and Creatins a Role; two books of collected quotes, Stanislavski's Lesacy, and An ~ctor's Handbook; and Stanislavski Directs, which consists primarily of quotes from the master, painstakingly transcribed by his protege, Nikolai Gorchakov, during Stanislavski's lectures and rehearsals between 1924 and 1936, The writings of nine of Stanislavski's followers prominent in the United States have also been examined: Richard Boleslavsky, Maria Ouspenskaya, Michael Chekhov, Morris Carnovsky, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Robert Lewis, and Sonia Moore. 256 utilitarian functions of theatre. Generally, this seems to involve interpretation and communication of ideas central to the human condition- For Boleslavsky, Chekhov, and Adler, this function is expansive--theatre reveals universal truths or encourages an audience to think about "the larger questions of life" (Adler Technique 106) For Carnovsky, Strasberg, and Meisner, focus on the actor's individuality has an effect on individual aulience members, For Carnovsky, the actor's understanding of self assists each spectator "to reach a level of Self in our own experience which is unique" (Eye 34). For both Strasberg and Meisner, the revelation of human experience to the audience by the actor's unveiling of his/her private being constitutes art (Strasberg Dream 105). Stanislavski would have agreed with the internal qualities which the Toronto teachers feel actors should possess in order to aid in the fulfilling of the theatre's functions. Of equal importance to the master, however, were concepts of artistic selection and presentation (Gorchakov 193-194, Lesacy 68-69), elements noticeably absent from current realistic performance discourse in this Canadian city- Like the Canadians, Stanislavski's modern American followers have concentrated on internal qualities: imagination, intelligence, self-awareness, and ease of access to the emotions. Earlier theorists, such as Boleslavsky and Carnovsky, also promoted educational, cultural, and presentational attributes, while later theorists have focussed on factors such as the ability to determine "truthfulness of expression" (Strasberg), and the facility to connect to emotional impulses or react instinctively (Chekhov, ~eisner). 257 Both the Canadian and American Stanislavski-based theorists have embraced the master's precepts that actors represent human beings on stage, characters, and that they must try to transform themselves physically and spiritually into these characters, utilizing personal emotions and creative impulses (Lecracv 19), rather than simply "showing'' their characters to the audience. From these initial concepts, over the years interest in the actuality of the actor has grown steadily in North American Stanislavski-based actor training. Various American teachers required actor-emotion, thought in character, the use of personal memories, and real action. As previously mentioned, there is a definite movement amongst the teachers observed towards a valuation of performer actuality, to the extent that although the Toronto teachers, like Stanislavski, see character as a synthesis of the actor's self with the author's conception, the preeminence of the playwright in ~tanislavski'sdiscourse and practice seems to have been compromised by the concept of the importance of the performer . Another area of character in which the Toronto teachers conform to ~tanislavski'sconception is in the use of the "magic if" as it applies to character creation. "You must say to yourself, 'what would I do if all that happens to this character, happened to me?"' (Gorchakov 120). The employment of the imagination, based on the concept of the "magic if," is probably the most universally used of Stanislavski's techniques. It was particularly popular with his American followers Chekhov, Boleslavsky, Carnovsky, Adler, Meisner, Lewis, and Moore. Adler considered imagination the key to the subconscious and to acting. 258

She wrote: ÿÿ he actor has in him the collective consciousness. 1t's as if all knowledge and all wisdom are contained in his mind. Through his vast imagination he inherits the wisdom of his ancestors without having had the personal experience'' (Technique

4) - Although making connections between actor and character is vital to ~tanislavski'stheory, both his American and Canadian followers tend to ignore the second section of Stanislavskits premise in which he states that the actor must also take into account (once the imagination is engaged by the "magic if") the differences in behaviour between the self and the character, and all the circumstances affecting the character's actions (Gorchakov 85). This includes cultural, historical, and biographical information, as well as the immediate circumstances of any particular situation. The tendency to concentrate on the similarities between actor and character (as well as between actor's and character's circumstances) rather than the differences may be the result of growing interest in the contemporary theatre in both actor instinct and actual emotion (aspects of the actuality of the performer), both of which are easier to achieve when there is a perceived psychological connection between the actor and the character being performed, This concentration on correspondence over divergence is one of the most significant developments in modern Stanislavski-based theory. It has had far-reaching effects in Toronto, from a trend towards type-casting based on personality and age, to the seemingly exclusive use of modem realistic plays for acting class scene study, and to an 259 indifference towards external aspects of character creation, such as selection of body shape and movement, costume, make-up, and personal properties. This is a major departure from

~tanislavski'stheory. Even in An Actor Prepares, the book which deals most specifically with the actor's internal work on the role, it is obvious that Stanislavski believed character externals to be a vital part of the development of character (Prepares 7-8). Kostya, a fictional student used for illustration purposes in several of Stanislavski's books, is constantly searching for the right beard, make-up, coat, or accessory to help him discover an evasive character (Character chapter 2). The Toronto teachers' focus on the importance of spontaneity reveals another area in which Stanislavski has influenced their theory and practice--in this instance, as refracted through ~eisner'stechniques. In his work with, and observation of, actors, Stanislavski came to believe that what marks the geniuses of the profession is their ability to effortlessly tap into their own subconscious minds and act out of intuition and inspiration (Leqacv 184). His interest in the intuitive nature of the actor's creative state developed, in his North American followers, into an increasing valuation of spontaneity, reaching its zenith in the work of Meisner. ~eisner'sacting theory is focussed on two primary ideas: the privileging of instinct and impulse in acting and the importance of performing real action, "the reality of doing" (Meisner 16) . ~eisner's famous "repetition exercise," in which a pair of students repeat simple observations back and forth until an inner impulse forces a change in wording or tone, forms the basis of his teaching technique. Its aim is to force 260 actors truly to connect with their fellow actors in the present. Meisner's influence on actor training in Toronto is obvious. Because, through the years the name Stanislavski has become synonymous with emotion, one might presume that since most of the Toronto teachers profiled do not give emotion a central place in their actor training, this marks a deviation from Stanislavski's theory. Such is not the case. Stanislavski actually believed in a triumvirate of what he called "inner motive forces" (the basis of a human being's psychological life and the elements needed, therefore, by an actor in order to create a live human being on stage). These three inner motive forces are mind, will, and emotions (Handbook 82-83). However, in analyzing the three inner motive forces, Stanislavski spent the most creative energy struggling with the subject of emotion, since he considered feelings to be the one psychological element that cannot be consciously controlled (Leaacv 187). For this reason, he spent decades searching for methods with which to induce emotions in his actors. Although the evocation of emotion has been considered an important element in all Stanislavski-based actor training, it became the focus of ~trasberg'sMethod. Like Carnovsky before him, Strasberg felt that the only truth the actor can access is his/her own truth--and for Strasberg this meant the truth of personal emotions. He set out to find the most efficient means to recreate and control the actor's emotions on stage (Dream 151). All six Toronto teachers expect their students to make use of actor-emotion in their work, but the importance of emotion is not as emphasized as with Strasberg devotees. The Canadian teachers are more open-minded than their American predecessors to alternate approaches to the summoning of emotion, however. (Of particular note were the virulent reactions to Strasberg's development of ~tanislavski'sconcept of emotion memory.) The primary approach to emotion evocation used by the Toronto teachers is a fusing of the actor's imagination with the play's given circumstances through the technique of the "magic if," a method developed and advocated by the master, Stanislavski believed that when an actor understands a character and can imaginatively put himself in the character's situation, this "will arouse feelings in the actor that are analogous to those required for the part. Those feelings will belong, not to the person created by the author of the play, but to the actor himself" (Handbook 16)- He saw the use of the "magic if," which he had used so successfully in characterization, as a way to stimulate the actor's creative imagination and thus, the emotions

(Prepares 48) , Two of ~tanislavski'sAmerican followers focussed particularly on this concept. Adler, who made imagination the cornerstone of her acting theory, concentrated on its power to evoke actor emotion: h he actor has enough resources within himself to get the emotion that he needs from the play, from the character. A11 the emotion required of him can be found through his imagination in the circumstances" (Techniaue 47). Lewis, too, got his emotional impetus from a combination of imagination and play text. he first (and best) source of true and appropriate feeling for an actor is the lines and situations of the play itself," he wrote (Advice 123). 262 Although the Toronto teachers concentrate on imagination and the play's given circumstances to induce emotion, as did Stanislavski, certain of his followers took other approaches to the imagination in an effort to better evoke actor emotion. Strasberg (who claimed that the actor's emotions cannot be stirred directly by the events of the play) developed a method of personalization to take the place of the "magic if." Meisner devised an approach similar to personalization, but while

Strasberg tended to have his actors tap into their personal histories for circumstances to substitute, Meisner encouraged his students to daydream. Influenced by Adler, he claimed that "our imaginations are every bit as strong, if not stronger, than the experiences we can recall from our pasttt(Meisner 79). As discussed earlier, Jordan's work shows ~eisner'sinfluence in this area, while most of the Toronto teachers are open to various forms of substitution. One area in which the Toronto teachers' practice has deviated from Stanislavski's is pychophysical action. Although Stanislavski continued to advocate the use of the "magic if" and the actor's imagination in the creative process, he moved away from the use of emotion memory and turned to the idea of action, or what has been called the "method of psychophysical action" as an emotion-stimulus. He perceived action as both external (physical) and internal (psychological) and came to the conclusion that an approach that combined the two was a way to connect the actor's physical presence with the inner creative state (Handbook 8). The method of physical action is seen by many theorists as Stanislavski's attempt to dispense with Cartesian 263 dualism--an expression of his perception that mind and body are interrelated, not separate entities to be trained and worked apart (Harrop 54-55). Moore claims that the "method of physical actions" was stanislavskifsgreatest discovery, and she centred her actor training around this concept. The Toronto teachers' emphasis on internal action makes their work less integrated than Stanislavski proposed. Modern American and Canadian Stanislavski- based actor training leans toward separation and thus isolation of the performer's mind, physical apparatus, and psychological being. The Toronto teachers also differ from Stanislavski regarding depth of emotion considered appropriate for the stage or screen. Although Stanislavski asked the actor to feel true emotions at every performance, his dictum that the actor avoid the deepest feelings on stage so that the performance be artistically controlled seems no longer to be given credence. Performers, teachers, and audiences of contemporary realistic theatre in Canada and the United States seem to desire and applaud unbridled emotion, The only caution levelled at performers is that they do not become so out of control as to be unintelligible. Certainly, few North American thespians today would consider curbing the emotions for aesthetic reasons. It is in the actor's physical and vocal training that the Toronto practice seems most estranged from that proposed by Stanislavski and subsequently practiced by certain of his American advocates. Stanislavski contended that the actor's work "on the selff'should be equally divided between internal and external training (Character 263). The American theorists who most seemed to take this concept to heart--and practice--were Boleslavsky (and his colleague Ouspenskaya), Lewis, and Moore. Although ~oleslavsky'spopular book Actins: The First Six Lessons concentrates on only six aspects of Stanislavski's approach-- concentration, emotion memory, dramatic action, characterization, observation, and rhythm--the American Laboratory Theatre school offered an intensive two-year program with a diverse curriculum. The actor's internal work (with particular emphasis on emotional reality and improvisation) was always a primary focus, but throughout the years other classes included: mime, ballet, fencing, gymnastics, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, body rhythm, plastique, make-up, phonetics, diction, singing, theatre and art history, and music appreciation-6 Lewis stressed what he considered the "forgottenr'side of ~tanislavski'sapproach to the actor's work on himself--the external elements. His students trained vocally and physically, and were taught to interpret a play's style as well as its emotional content. He wrote: Brought up in the realistic school of the Group Theatre, I rebelled at the premise that truthful feeling for the actor was the whole answer. I felt that the performer must use his sense of truth to create a specific character in all its stylistic manifestations, inside and out, that the behaviour of that character must be created as well as the emotion (Slinss 354). Moore advocates internal psychological training based on

Pang 120-126; Aldridge 28; Hirsch 62-63. 265 Stanislavski's system for actors, but she believes just as strongly in the obligatory study of speech, diction, voice, Shakespeare, historical ceremonies, the wearing of costumes, dance, fencing, and acrobatics. "I warn you," she wrote, " you cannot neglect physical training. No matter how well your psychological instrument is trained, this is only half of your preparation" (Traininq xii, 82). Despite these examples, classes in Toronto (like many elsewhere in North America) concentrate on the internal, psychological aspects of the craft. Development of the expressive qualities of the body and voice, when available, seems to be relegated to classes considered supplemental to actor training, Also, although several of Stanislavski's early followers (most notably Michael Chekhov) experimented with physical means of developing character, that practice in Toronto today is primarily the province of classes aimed at training performers in Second City-type improvisation, physical comedy, or clown. For the Canadian teachers observed, internal action coupled with tactics are the focus in acting classes. And, owing to the increased interest in actor impulse, these inner actions have come to be partner-centred in order to result in a dynamic give- and-take between the performers on stage. To this end, Stanislavski's concept of inner monologue has been largely superseded by the notion of inner dialogue. As previously discussed, the majority of Stanislavski's North American advocates have stressed psychological action (generally seen as objectives or intentions) over physical action in the pursuit of a creative process and emotional truth, even though Stanislavski, 266 himself, (and his followers Adler and Moore) concentrated on a blending of physical and psychological action and Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, and Chekhov focussed on physical action. Although Stanisfavski visualized objects as both external (as in physical objects that one can touch or look at) and internal (concepts, images, memories), Boleslavsky shifted the emphasis to internal objects. When this happens, actions relating to those objects tend to become internal as well--desires, as opposed to physical acts (although intentions may ultimately lead to physical action, as in some of the tactics we use to achieve our desires), The Toronto focus on internal action can be traced through Strasberg to Boleslavsky . The valuation of subtext over text observed in the Toronto studios and common to Stanislavski-based practice throughout North America may be the result of a misinterpretation of ~tanislavski'sintent, based on his published writings. Stanislavski was devising his system at a time when much Russian acting was overtly declamatory. Freud's ideas were current; Chekhov and Ibsen were launching their dramatic experiments in portraying human behaviour based on ideas from the new science of psychology. Although Stanislavski had enormous respect for the text and saw the written word and subtext as inextricably linked (Character 108), in his writings he tended to promote the new concept--subtext. He cautioned his actors against allowing the playwright's words to interfere with their emotional relationship to the subtextual content of the script; in early play

rehearsals, he would often take the script away from the actors and have them improvise around the main action and ideas of the play. Until they had achieved an emotional connection to the work, he would not return their texts (Role 139-141). Among his American and Canadian followers a valuation of subtext over text has been a continuing trend. Strasberg and Meisner centred much of their work around attempts to prevent the author's words from inhibiting actors from having authentic experiences. Both made extensive use of improvised situations, while Strasberg carried this concept further into the paraphrasing of scripted dialogue. ~trasberg's"anti-literary bias" extended beyond the words of the text to the playscriptsl themes and ideas. According to his son John: "~ewould tell actors 'Express yourself, forget about the story "' (Hirsch 222) . Dissent prevailed amongst Stanislavski's American adherents over whether the content of the play (Adler, Lewis), the actor's emotion (Strasberg), or the actor's spontaneous reactions (Meisner) are more important. For the Canadian teachers a similar process seems to be in effect, with the playwright's themes and ideas on one side and the physical presence of the actors with their organic impulses and actions, on the other. Several of the teachers interviewed seem quite willing to give up form and continuity (facilitated by such techniques as superobjectives and through line of action) for spontaneity, the central concept in ~eisner'sacting theory. When subtext becomes more important than text, language suffers. The dismissal of the import of the words of the script, noted in the Toronto studios, reveals a tendency common to all North American Stanislavski-based theorists who champion subtext. This is a decided departure from Stanislavski's theory. The 268 Russian loved language and believed it was through the word that

the subtext is both discovered and revealed (Character 108-109). Of Stanislavski's nine American followers studied here, however, only Carnovsky, Adler, Lewis, and Moore promoted a reverence for language amongst their students. Hirsch wrote about ~dler'slove of theatrical literature and her devotion to the author's text: Unlike work at the Studio [Strasberg], where literary values, themes, and styles are virtually never referred to, ~dler'sclasses are filled with comments about plays and playwrights. "You must know why you're on the stage, from the author's point of view," she says. . . he ideas are in the words, and you have to fall in

love with the words" (Hirsch 21 5 ) . A devaluation of language seems to be a continuing trend in modern actor training. For the most part, the Toronto teachers observed are preparing their students for productions requiring realistic and naturalistic acting styles, such as suffuse contemporary television and film. One might presume that this tendency comes from Stanislavski's influence, since he is most often associated with Anton Chekhov and the literary genre of realism. This point is debatable, however. According to his colleague Gorchakov, Stanislavski directed successful productions in a wide range of genres--romantic drama, classic verse, vaudeville, French satire, and historical melodrama--to name only a few (Gorchakov ix). Meyerhold, however, claimed that the Moscow Art Theatre succeeded in mastering only Chekhov and that attempted productions of Greek classics, Shakespeare, Ibsen and Maeterlinck were all failures 269 (Meyerhold 61). Although both Carnovsky and Lewis succeeded in utilizing a Stanislavski-based approach to Shakespeare, the American Stanislavski-based teachers are primarily associated with "drama which attempts to reproduce a recognizable American reality on the stage" (Vineberg 115). Stanislavski also claimed that each stage genre demands a different approach from the actor and director (Gorchakov 284). Hirsch points out that Adler was like Stanislavski in this respect, whereas Strasberg used his particular Method for all styles and genres: One of the trends I found disconcerting at the Studio was the unspoken assumption that every kind of part in every kind of play could be approached in the same way, whereas Adler insists that "there is a difference between classical truth and modern truth" and that . . . the most important thing you can teach actors is to understand plays (Hirsch 215). It would appear that Jones and Dunsmore may be more like Stanislavski and Adler with respect to this issue, while the other Toronto teachers reflect a more Strasbergian attitude. In terms of the actor's relationship to the director, to fellow performers, and to the audience, the Toronto teachers' views seem very similar to Stanislavskifs.The director is seen as facilitator, someone with a vision of the entire project who helps the actors to coordinate their efforts into a unified whole. The concept of ensemble has remained prominent in modern Stanislavski-based actor training. It was one of the prime tenets of the Group Theatre, organized in 1931 by ~aroldClurman, 270 Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford, which lasted for ten years and influenced a generation of theatre practitioners. Even though Strasberg, himself, moved toward the development of individual talent in his subsequent work with the Actors Studio, the value placed on ensemble today is still high. Stanislavski describes several ways in which actors on stage should relate, the main ones being communion, adaptation, and infection. Communion seems to be ~tanislavski'sway of describing truly "beingrfwith another person on stage--to be aware of that person's presence, to make sure that you are heard and understood, and vice versa (Handbook 38). Stanislavski also notes an energy current that sometimes seems to stream out from the eyes and the fingertips of actors who are in true communion on stage. He claims that it is this type of intense communication between performers that is necessary to hold the attention of a large audience (Handbook 38-39). For this same reason, Stanislavski advised his actors to "infect" their partners on stage: "Insinuate yourself into his very soul, and you will find yourself the more infected for doing so (Character 118). "~daptation[refers to] both the inner and outer human means that people use in adjusting themselves to one another in a variety of relationships and also as an aid in affecting an object [person]" (Prepares 211, 219). One aspect of adaptation seems to be the means we use to get what we want from another person, today called actions or tactics. Although the terms used may differ, it would appear that actor communion and adaptation are, if anything, more strongly pursued today than in Stanislavski's time. As previously mentioned, two of the techniques most 271 zealously advocated by the Toronto teachers are communicating actor-to-actor with one's scene partners, and pursuing partner- based intentions. With respect to the actor's relationship to the audience, the Toronto teachers seem to agree with ~tanislavski's declaration that the strongest impact is made through the emotions, and that this is best achieved unconsciously and indirectly, with the audience members swept along by their empathy for, and identification with, the characters created by the performers--a bond that would be disturbed by any loss of focus or breaking out of character by the actor (Character 280). All of Stanislavski's followers have agreed with the master's claim that the audience is drawn imaginatively into the action by the extent of the actor's commitment to the work. But while he focused on the actor's depth of concentration, the Toronto teachers also consider intensity of emotion, and ability to connect with fellow-performers as additional lures. One area in which the Toronto teacherst and Stanislavski's theories diverge are in their proponent's attitudes towards the relationship between the actor and the technical areas of production. Although ~tanislavski'sdictum that that which surrounds the actor should serve only to aid the performer in believing in the on-stage fiction (Prepares 173) may have helped lead theatrical practice towards a selection process, the apparent attitude among many contemporary theatre artists that the actor requires no knowledge of the functions of set pieces, lighting, and so forth is definitely not Stanislavski-based. Stanislavski claimed that his "realistic" method of work is applicable to plays in any style. The apparent contradiction lies in his use of the word realism, which connotes the literary genre of Ibsen and Chekhov and the acting style associated with that genre. But for Stanislavski, realism was not so much a physical style of acting as it was a feeling for a sense of "truthu7 in any given work. He believed that if truth, art, a sense of higher purpose, and an understanding of humanity were present, the physical representation did not necessarily need to be akin to actuality (Life 487). In spite of these claims, one cannot help recalling that although Stanislavski was interested in non-representational drama to the extent of setting Meyerhold up with a studio and funds to experiment with the genre of impressionism, he was never satisfied with the outcome of the work and closed the studio before any performances were given (Life 430-438). It is also obvious that although Stanislavski envisioned performances making use of a wide range of physical and vocal modes of presentation, he either could not conceptualize--or believed his method could not be effectively used for--productions in which the actor represents something other than a psychologically-based human being. The Stanislavski system would probably be useless, for example, to an actor in Robert Wilson productions, which tend to be characterized by slowly moving pictures (often formed by

Stanislavski defined truth as: "the truth of emotions, . . . the truth of inner creative urges which strain forward to find expression, . . . the truth of the memories of bodily and physical perceptions . . . the truth that is within myself, the truth of my relation to this or that event on the stage, to the properties, the scenery, the other actors who play parts in the drama with me, to their thoughts and emotions (Life 465-466). actors ' bodies ) that replace plot, character, and dialogue (Mordden 307). It is ideally suited to most film and television acting, however, which tend to require psychologically-based human beings in true-to-life situations. This is obviously one reason why Stanislavski-based acting approaches have remained popular in North America in spite of the assaults of a number of alternative theories and practices during the past half century. Amongst ~tanislavski'sAmerican followers, several theorists have called for a return to form and structure in training and stage presentation. Lewis demands a return of style, form, and poetry to the theatre. Carnovsky also reveres style, while he and Boleslavsky speak of the importance of the Stanislavski system for enhancing the actor's conscious control of his instrument and his work. Meisner and Strasberg, on the other hand, privilege spontaneity and impulse to theatre, at the expense of form. It is no wonder, then, that the former theorists call for physical and vocal training for actors and discuss ways of physicalizing the role, while the latter two theorists concentrate on internal training. Strasberg's and Meisner's approaches appear to have more in common with those of acting teachers in contemporary Toronto than those of the earlier theorists. The two areas of Stanislavski's theory that are most conscientiously followed in Toronto today are his approaches to the actor's internal work on the self, as outlined primarily in An Actor Prepares; and his views on education and training. Training concepts advocated by Stanislavski and employed by these contemporary Toronto teachers include: a consensus that performers need training and that an actor's education should 274 include more than theatrical training; a view of teachers as facilitators whose goal is to provide students with a safe space in which to create; and a belief in experiential learning, with lectures reserved for supplement; and training that starts with simple concepts, activities, and scripts, and builds incrementally towards more complex processes and material, Different Toronto teachers make use of various Stanislavski teaching methods. Improvisation is a popular technique with all of the teachers observed, as it was with most of his American followers--particularly Strasberg. So is "side-coaching" during exercises and scene rehearsals, stopping the action to deal with problems, or waiting until the students have completed a scene or exercise and then reworking or discussing the material. On the whole, these contemporary Toronto teachers appear to be more open to alternative and supplemental approaches to training than their American colleagues, With a number of the early Stanislavski-based American teachers, the emphasis seemed to be placed on interpreting Stanislavski's intent rather than on developing actors. With the easing of that focus, a notable spirit of eclecticism seems to be emerging, Many of the internal techniques Stanislavski developed to help actors achieve a creative state are still central to actor training in contemporary Toronto, These include: subtext exploration, imaginative development of the given circumstances, "magic if," improvisation, objectives, sense of first time, evocation of emotion, character thought, substitution, communion, and adaptation. Concepts and techniques utilized to some extent but which were more stressed in the earlier American training 275 include: concentration, relaxation, observation, sense memory, and emotion memory. Techniques employed by the Toronto teachers which are not Stanislavski-based, include: ~eisner'srepetition exercises, emotional preparation techniques, and independent activities; animal studies (developed by Boleslavsky and Strasberg); the use of "secrets," (an Elia Kazan device, popularized by Meisner); specific business advice and training; and on-camera work.

~tanislavski'sconcepts and exercises, described in An Actor Prepares and Buildins a Character, which were not generally emphasized in the Toronto acting classes observed were: script analysis by units and beats, superobjectives and through line of action, character histories, vocal exercises, external characterization, vocal and physical tempo-rhythm, movement to music, and exercises in plasticity- Summary These shifts in focus in Stanislavski-based theory in the last seventy-five years have resulted in actor training in Toronto that tends to advance internal technique over external, spontaneity and impulse over structure, actor as character over scripted character (based on concentration on similarities between scripted character and actor rather than differences), "doing" over "beingt'(action rather than essence) as a method of character revelation, intention over motivation (behaviour generated by the future rather than the past), and outward, rather than inward-directed energy (use of inner dialogue, and emphasis on give-and-take between performers). CONCLUSION

The decision to examine acting theories prevalent amongst performance teachers in Toronto emanated from, to some extent, a perceived lack of research into the subject of acting in English Canadian theatre studies. When the project began, I did not realize that the more general subject of acting theory has received little attention in theatre scholarship as well. In order to study the acting theories of the Toronto teachers, it became necessary to define acting and its theory, distinguish it from performance theory, and determine prominent concepts within acting theory which could serve as a framework within which to compare and contrast the ideas and practices of various theorists and practitioners. For the purposes of this study, I chose to define acting as any action which is meant to be observed, knowingly undertaken by a human being who is at that moment engaged in the making of theatre. This definition, although not as broadly inclusive as some associated with "performance," is broad enough to encompass the work of the performer in most theatrical pursuits. Theory of acting, then, is the field of study pertaining to the work of the actor . Acting theories tend to be distinguished from one another by their proponent's views concerning specific issues, and, in particular, by two fundamental concepts: the perceived function of the theatre, and the means by which this function is understood to be most readily realized. Ideas concerning the function of the theatre directly influence concepts pertaining to 276 277 the function of the actor; education and training of performers; and desired effects on participants in the staged event, be they spectators, performers, or both. Issues emerging directly from the perceived function of the actor are: relationships between actors and audience; concepts of representation (such as who or what is being represented and how this is best achieved, actor's relationship to character, and actor's use of aspects of self in the work); and inherent and/or developed personal qualities deemed essential. for acting success. Issues emerging from questions concerning the most effective way to attain the goals inherent in the function of the theatre include: approach to and use of creative materials (play text, ideas, participants); preferred mode of presentation (includes issues of theatre and performance space, design, performance style, relationships between art and reality with regard to scenic truth); and relationships between the various creative arts and artists common to the theatre, Thus, the key concepts of acting theory tend to be in the general areas of: function of theatre and of the actor, qualities of the actor, representation, relationships, and training and education of the actor. Prominent theorists of the past century, such as Brecht, Artaud, Copeau, Craig, Stanislavski, and Spolin can easily be distinguished according to their views on these primary issues. For example, although both Brecht and Stanislavski stated that theatre should be entertaining and enlightening, Brecht tended to promote the impact of theatre as a force for social and political change, while Stanislavski supported its aesthetic qualities and power of ennoblement. To achieve his ends, Brecht required an 278 audience that was alert and questioning. This called for a physical presentation and acting style that constantly reminded the audience that what they were watching was not actuality.

Stanislavski claimed that his theatrical goals were most readily met when audience members emotionally identified with the characters and the situations on stage. This is achieved, he stated, when the presentation is "truthful," artistic, and concerned with creating the life of the human spirit. In Chapter 2, the key issues of acting theory outlined above were employed in an examination of the ideas of some prominent acting theorists of the past century. The data engendered by the research leading to this portion of the study served as a foundation for an historical as well as conceptual understanding of modern acting theory. This framework proved invaluable both in the preparation of the survey distributed to Toronto performance teachers (outlined in Chapter 3) and in the analysis of the survey responses. Once I had an understanding of the views of a number of theorists pertaining to these key concepts, it was possible to extrapolate the teacher's theory and practice from two simple questions: Is there a method or approach to theatre which has particularly influenced your teaching? What techniques are typically used in your acting classes? A knowledge of modern acting theory was doubly useful when analyzing the teachers studied in depth. When most of these teachers claimed to have been influenced primarily by Stanislavski, it first provided me with data concerning the teachers' possible views and teaching practices. Second, it provided a framework against which to view the teacher's actual theory and practice, The portions of the teachers' survey aimed at determining the theoretical foundations of performance teachers in Toronto revealed two distinct trends. One, the majority of acting teachers in this Ontario city have been influenced by the theories of Stanislavski and utilize some of his actor training techniques in class--particularly given circumstances, emotion memory, units and objectives, sense memory, and inner justification. Two, many of these teachers are also aware of alternative theories to Stanislavski (predominantly Brecht, Spolin, Brook, and Grotowski) and make use of exercises and techniques in class which are not Stanislavski-based, such as theatre games, movement to music, gibberish, trust exercises, and collaborative creation. In order to attain a deeper understanding of acting theories prevalent among acting teachers in Toronto, I decided it was necessary to study a small number of teachers in some depth and to compare this analysis to that obtained from the general survey, Five of the six Toronto teachers chosen for analysis claim to teach according to Stanislavski's precepts, thus initially supporting the findings of the survey in this area. However, upon examination it became clear that when these teachers say they have been influenced by Stanislavski and utilize his techniques and exercises in class, they are responding primarily to two areas of ~tanislavski'stheory. These are: ~tanislavski'sadvocated approaches to the actor's internal work on the self, as outlined in An Actor Prepares; and Stanislavski's advocated teaching methods. Physical and technical approaches to character creation, the training of the actor's 280 physical and vocal apparatus, and techniques of selection and presentation are not covered in these acting classes, although all three elements appear to have been significant to Stanislavski's actor training and theory. When the primary materials examined for this study (the survey of Toronto acting teachers, the six studio teachers, ~tanislavski'stheory, and the theories of his most prominent American followers) are compared according to the criteria that emerged from the study of acting theory of the past 100 years, several distinct tendencies axe revealed concerning acting theories held by performance teachers in Toronto. These are: a view of the function of theatre as experiential, as well as enlightening; the primacy of the actuality of the actor, particularly qualities of instinct and impulse; the predominance of internal approaches to actor training and practice; a devaluation of the primacy of the play text and, thus of the author's intent; a dismissal of the technical areas of theatre as elements of actor study; a growing awareness that actors need training in the business as well as the art of making theatre; and an open minded approach to actor training, suggesting a similar attitude towards theory. At first glance, it appears that the eclecticism in training suggested by the results of the teachers' survey in Chapter 3 is not sufficiently supported by the case studies detailed in Chapters 4 and 5 to be accepted as a unequivocal trend. Although the majority of the teachers interviewed recommend training with other teachers or in diverse approaches, only two of the total of seven teachers observed (Jordan and ~olan)actually used non-Stanislavski-based 281 techniques in the classes observed, and none mentioned in class modem theorists other than Stanislavski and those influenced by the Russian. Although further study will be necessary to determine the extent of the influence of alternative modem acting theories on actor training in Toronto, the seven tendencies listed above suggest a more diverse range of influence than is immediately apparent. Only one of the trends listed, the predominance of internal psychologically-based actor work, is exclusive to Stanislavski- based theory. The importance of the actuality of the actor, although a significant aspect of Stanislavskifsacting theory, was pivotal to, for example, Chaikin, Beck, and Grotowski, Chaikin, as previously noted (and in accordance with a number of contemporary theorists), acknowledges the presence of the actor in conjunction with character at all times; while Beck and Grotowski (along with a number of other individuals and groups) explored dispensing with character and using the actor as self in performance. Where many of these theorists differ from the Toronto teachers is in the emphasis placed by activist groups on the function of theatre for political or social reform. Although Stanislavski spoke of the importance of instinct and spontaneity (concepts subsequently privileged by Meisner), this issue was also central to the work of two very diverse modern theorists--Delsarte and Spolin. While Delsarte structured his acting method around what he considered universal human instinctive responses, Spolin, who stated that acting involves three processes--intellectual, physical, and intuitive, focussed her actor training method on creating opportunities for the 282 spontaneous release of intuition, claiming that "the intuitive,

most vital to the learning situation, is neglected" (Spolin 3). Although devaluaticn of the technical aspects of production is not necessarily connected to the lack of actor training in these areas of theatre observed in the Toronto studios, a number of modem acting theorists (such as Copeau, Meyerhold, Grotowski,

Chaikin, and Stanislavski) wrote that these elements of the theatre should be either subordinate to the work of the actor, or should be dispensed with so as to place focus on the actor. The devaluation of the play text noted in the attitudes of half the Toronto teachers profiled, seems to be a widespread phenomenon in this century, with Artaud as the text's most ardent critic. Strasberg, Brook, and a number of experimental theatre groups in the 1960's and 70's freely rewrote existing texts, or improvised new performance texts. Spolin uses no written texts in her theatre games, while a number of modern theatre practitioners (such as Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, and Lee Breuer) use little language at all in their productions.

An open minded approach to actor training and the art of acting, although distinctively Canadian, is not new. The acting theories of Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Chaikin, and Brook, for example, are characterized by these individual's lifelong searches for new approaches and techniques aimed at developing the art and craft of acting. Theatre as experience, a central concept in Spolin's theory

(Spolin 3, 4), resonates for a number of diverse theorists. Like Dunsmore, Chaikin calls theatre "a celebration" ("Open heatr re" 196). Cheney, of the American art theatre movement, spoke of 283 theatre as does Hazzard--having an emotional impact on the audience. Copeau, Meyerhold, Artaud, Grotowski, Appia, Beck, Chaikin, and Brook all wrote of the communal aspects of theatre, such as elements of: ceremony, religion, communion, ritual, myth, or mysticism. The need for training in the business of being an actor is a concept that receives little attention in modern acting theory, Perhaps it is considered of "understood" importance. Or perhaps, as is suggested by the results of the teachers' survey, the probability of success as an actor in Canada is so minimal that every opportunity to enhance one's chances must be pursued. From the above discussion, it appears that several modern acting theorists (who teachers taking part in the Toronto survey claim have influenced their work--particularly Chaikin, Spolin, Brook, and Grotowski) may indeed have had more of an effect on actor training in Toronto than was originally assumed. More studies aimed at determining the theories of individuals and institutions in this city are needed before a complete picture can be assembled. Of the Toronto acting theory tendencies noted in this study, two trends seem particularly significant. The first of these is the increasing interest in the actuality of the performer (supported by a view of theatre as experience, the prevalence of internal acting techniques, and the devaluation of text and, possibly, technical areas of production). Note the prevalence, in character work, for the actor to be encouraged to concentrate on the similarities between the self and the character, rather than the differences; the importance placed on spontaneity, impulse, real action, on playing "in the moment;" the use of partner- centred, short term objectives; the focus on the give and take between performers on stage; and the evocation of largely uncontrolled emotion, Note also the lack of contemporary interest in the training of acting elements that expand performers beyond their immediate reality: verse, tempo-rhythm, external characterization, and work with non-realistic play scripts. Should this trend become the dominant practice in Toronto acting, the implications are staggering. Plays may not be needed, only situations which allow for actor interaction. Characters will not be needed; actors will play only themselves. Actor training will continue to concentrate on releasing actors from any psychological inhibitions they have to accessing their intuitive and emotional natures. Peripheral training in voice and movement may continue, as North American theory has tended to view these elements as part of the actor's instrument, which must be kept supple and strong in order to properly reflect that which is going on inside the performer. We could end up with some sort of psychologically-based commedia dell'arte, in which individual actor/characters (who will become known to the audiences, as each will be unique and unchanging) will interact improvisationally with other actor/characters in ever-changing scenarios. The development of Theatresports, founded by Keith Johnstone at ~algary'sLoose Moose Theatre Company in 1977 (Benson and Conolly 550) was a movement in this direction. The second tendency, explored in the summary to Chapter 3, is the open minded approach to divergent theories and practices evident in the attitudes and practices of acting teachers in 285 Toronto. This eclecticism (which Salter in 1992 condemned as deterring the development of a unique Canadian approach to actor training, and thus, the art of acting) may, in fact, be our contribution to the theatre of the new millennium. It is only fitting that this country, which was formed and peopled by immigrants, and which has become increasingly inter-cultural in recent decades, should see this diversity reflected in its artists' creative pursuits. In theatre, this seems to have resulted in integrated actor training methods that, while characteristically Canadian, may also presage the future development of world theatre. So, why is actor-training in Toronto characterized by these two tendencies: eclecticism, and an increasing valuation for the actuality of the performer? Certainly, both trends could be partly the result of the development of modern technologies and their use in the arts. To keep up with other areas of human endeavour, the arts have recently been scrambling to incorporate new concepts and techniques into their work. Conversely, with the development of multi-media, one cannot help but become increasingly aware that it is only the living presence of the performer that ultimately distinguishes certain performing arts from other types of .artistic enterprises. Or, perhaps the answer lies with contemporary attitudes towards the function of the theatre. As previously mentioned, there is a connection in acting theories between the perceived function of the theatre and ideas concerning education and training of performers. Two particular views of the function of the theatre are primarily taken by teachers in Toronto; they see 286 this function as one of enlightenment and/or as communicating or sharing an experience. Those who take the more utilitarian view speak of the theatre as having the power to enlighten, teach, reveal something about life, comment on the times, or make us more compassionate. This function is readily achievable through modern North American Stanislavski-based theatre with its emphasis on actor and audience identification with psychologically-based character and true-to-life situations. However, Stanislavski-based realism is but one approach of many that can serve a similar function. A Brechtian production using alienation techniques in acting and staging could as easily-- possibly more easily--enlighten its audience. Perhaps these teachers are seeing past the dogma so common to acting theories of the past--the "my way is the only way" attitude towards the central issue of how the espoused functions of the theatre are most readily realized. Perhaps they perceive that different types of theatre can serve different functions, or can serve certain functions better than another style of theatre, and that different types of theatre may require different skills, and thus, training methods. They may be organizing their training approach to reflect this point of view. The second most common attitude amongst Toronto teachers is seeing theatre as experiential. These teachers speak of the purpose of theatre as allowing for release, affecting people emotionally, celebrating life, or communicating an experience. This viewpoint is interesting, as it echoes the conception of theatre held by a number of post-modern aesthetic theories, particularly phenomenological and semiotic criticism. These 287 approaches see a work of art as communicating indirectly through a system of signs. The point of concentration is on how a particular piece of theatre functions, how it affects the audience. Meanings derived are considered to be unique and subjective to each individual participant in the experience. Although it would appear that any form of theatre could conceivably provide its audience members with an experience, many modern aesthetic theories reject the concept of mimesis, as this approach seems to suggest that meaning in theatre is directly related to its apparent similarity to actuality. Thespians opposed to this concept have been less likely to produce theatre using scripts aimed at reproducing realistic situations, or to train actors in ~tanislavski'sinternal techniques based on identifying with and "becoming" the character. Is it possible, however, within realism to create a more authentic experience? Perhaps the movement in contemporary acting towards--not an appearance of reality--but true human spontaneous impulses and reactions, and the doing of real actions on stage, is an attempt at blending a conventional method of acting with a contemporary theatre sensibility, This approach certainly creates an immediacy for the performer. Participating in this type of event would undoubtedly be a different experience for the audience members from participating in a rehearsed, mimetic event. It is open to debate, naturally, as to whether this type of experience should be considered more valid than that offered by traditional approaches to realism. What is important in this discussion is not whether the exploring and experiments undertaken by Toronto acting teachers 288 are successful, but the fact that they are occurring. Acting teachers in Toronto are following the examples set by some of the great acting theorists of this century: Stanislavski, Meyerhold,

Grotowski, Brook--they are actively engaged in the creative development of the art and craft that is acting, Perhaps this study, which makes an initial investigation into the acting theories of Toronto acting teachers, will foster further examination of acting, actor training, and acting theory in Canada--theatre research areas that have been neglected for too long. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Reinelt, Janelle B. and Joseph Roach, eds. Critical Theory and Performance. Ann Arbor: university of Michigan Press, 1992. Reinhardt, Max. he Enchanted Sense of Play." Cole and Chinoy 295-299. Reis, Kurt. "~efendingNTS." Canadian Theatre Review 74 (1993): 81 -84.

Roach, Joseph R. The Players Passion: Studies in the Science of Actinq, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1985. Rodenburg, Patsy. The Actor Speaks. London: Methuen Drama, 1998. Roux, Jean-Louis and Michel Garneau, eds. The School: The First guarter of a Century of The National Theatre School of Canada. Canada: Editions internationales Alain Stanke, 1985. Rubin, Don, ru he Toronto Movement." Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readinqs. Don Rubin, ed. Toronto: Copp Clark Ltd., 1996. 394-403,

--- a "Training the Theatre ~rofessional."Contemporarv Canadian Theatre: New World Visions. Anton Wagner, ed. Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1985. 284-292, Russel, Robert. "The National Theatre School." The Tamarack Review 27 (1963): 71-79. Saddlemyer, Ann and Richard Plant, eds. Later Staaes: Essays in Ontario Theatre from the First World War to the 1970's. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1997. Saint-Denis, Michel. Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style, London: Heinemann, 1960. --- . Trainins for the Theatre. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1982, Salter, Denis. "~odyPolitics: English-Canadian Acting at National Theatre ~chool."Canadian Theatre Review 71 (1992): 4-14. Sawyer, Deborah C. earning to Love Theatre: The Leah Posluns Theatre School." Scene Chanqes 7.8 (1979): 23-25. Schechner, Richard. "~ctuals:A Look into Performance Theory." The Rarer Action: Essays in Honor of Francis Fersusson. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers U.P., 1970. 97-138. --- . Performance Theory, Rev. Ed, London: Routledge, 1988. --- . "~tanislavskiat school." Tulane Drama Review 9.2 (1964): 198-211. Schyberg, Frederick. "The Art of Acting, Part 2" TDR 6.3: 106- 137. --- . "The Art of Acting, Part 3" TDR 6.4: 66-93. Shurtleff, Michael. Audition: Everythins an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part. New York: Walker Publishing Company, Inc. 1978. Silverberg, Larry. The Sanford Meisner Approach: An Actor's Workbook. Lyme, NH: Smith and Kraus, Inc,, 1994. Smith, Patricia Keeney. "Humber College's Theatre Department: Could You Go here?" Scene Chanqes 7.2 (1979): 27-29. --- . "~yerson's Theatre Department : Could You Go here?" Scene Chanses 7.4 (1979): 25-27, 42. --- . "sheridan College: Should You Go here?" Scene Chanses 9.4 (1981): 30-33. --- . "~ork'sTheatre Department: Could You Go here?" Scene Chanqes 7.1 (1979): 30-32. Speaight, Robert. Actins: Its Idea and Tradition. London: Cassell, 1939. Spensley, Philip. "A Description and Evaluation of the Training Methods of the National Theatre School of Canada, English Acting Course, 1960-68." Diss, Wayne State University, 1970. Spolin, Viola. Im~rovisationfor the Theatre. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1963.

Stanislavski, Constantin. An Actor Prepares- Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1977.

--- , An ~ctor'sHandbook. Trans. and Ed. Elizabeth R. Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1963. --- . Buildins a Character. Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood, New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1977. --- . Creatins a Role- Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1 961 - --- . My Life in Art. Trans. J-J. Robbins. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1952. --- . Stanislavski's Lesac~.Ed- and Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1968.

States, Bert 0. h he ~ctor'sPresence: Three Phenomenal ~odes." Zarrilli 22-42. --- . "The Phenomenalogical Attitude." Reinelt and Roach 369-379. Statistics Canada, Education, Culture and Tourism Division. Canada's Culture, Heritase and Identity: A Statistical Perspective. Ottawa: Minister of Industry, 1997. Stephenson, Tony. "CAST - Honing the Craft at the Centre For ~ctor'sstudy." Scene Chanses 6.10 (1978): 11-12.

Strasberg, Lee. A Dream of Passion. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987. --- . "Acting and the Training of the Actor." Producinq the Play. Ed. John Gassner. New York: Dryden Press, 1953. 128-162.

Suzuki, Tadashi. The Way of Actins: The Theatre Writinss of Tadashi Suzuki. Trans. Thomas Rimer. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 1986.

Symons, Thomas Henry Bull. The Symons Report: An abridqed version of volumes 1 and 2 of To Know Ourselves, the Report of the Commission on Canadian Studies. Book and Periodical Development Council, Pub- Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Distributors, 1978. Thorn son, R.H. "standing in the Slipstream: Acting in English Canada." Contemporary Canadian Theatre: New World Visions. Ed. Anton Wagner. Toronto: Simon and Pierre, 1985. 293-299. Vineberg, Steve- Method Actors: Three Generations of an American Actinq Style. New York: Schirmer Books, a Division of Macmillan, Inc ., 1 99 I . Wiles, Timothy J. The Theatre Event: Modern Theories of Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Wilshire, Bruce. Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982.

Wilson, Garff Bell. A History of American Actinq. Bloomington: Indiana gniversity Press, 1966. Young, Stark. The Theatre. New York: Will and Wang, 1966. --- . Theatre Practice. New York: Charles ~cribner'sSons, 1926. Zarrilli, Phillip B. ed. Actins (Re)Considered: Theories and Practices. New Yoxk: Routledge, 1995. Zorn, John W., ed. The Essential Delsarte. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1968.

Interviews

Black, Malcolm. Telephone interview. 7 October 1997. Caron, David, Telephone interview. 12 May 1998. Dunsmore, Rosemary. Personal interview. June 1996. Hazzard, Karen. Personal interview. 29 February 7996. Jones, Bernadette. Personal interview. 13 May 1996. Jordan, Alan. Telephone interview. 8 December 1995. McCormick, Kevin. Personal interview. 9 October 1997. Pearce, Tony. Personal interview. March 1996. Pearce, Tony. Telephone interview. 14 May 1998. Public Relations Department. National Theatre School of Canada. Telephone interview. 1 4 May 1 998. Wilkinson, Dr. Joyce. Telephone interview. 12 May 1998. Newspaper

White, Nancy J. "There s an art to these lessons. " Toronto Star. 11 May 1998: El, E2.

Brochures

National Theatre School of Canada Application Brochure, 1998- 1999.

Prologue to the Performing Arts brochure, 1998-1999 Season. APPENDIX A: Survey

Dear Theatre Colleague:

As you may be aware, studies of Canadian theatrical practice are few and far between -- and certainly don't come close to documenting the abundance of performance activities and actor- training opportunities available in this country. This is one reason I have chosen to orient my Ph.D. dissertation towards discovering some of the theoretical ideas and practices now operating in Canada in the training of actors.

I hope that you will take a few minutes to answer the enclosed questionnaire- If you have brochures or other materials which would answer some of the questions or provide additional information, please include them. If you have colleagues who teach acting classes in Metro Toronto, feel free to make copies of this survey and pass it on to them. My hope is to reach as many teachers in this area as possible. The usefulness of the data obtained by this questionnaire will depend on the number of responses, so I sincerely request that you answer and return it as soon as possible. All participants will be formally acknowledged in print.

You are welcome to contact me for any further information you may require. Thank you for taking time to support this research effort.

Laurin Mann actor and theatre scholar (416) 255-7118) Name : [Feel free to use additional sheets or write on the back, as Address : necessary]

Phone number and/or E-Mail address:

1) Where do you teach? private studio , public school -I college , university ,- other (please specify) . 2) BACKGROUND: Please describe your specific theatre training, [This can include memorable teachers, schools or courses attended, on-the-job training, etc, [Please include where you received your training and when, if possible.]

3) INFLUENCES: Although I am aware that many acting teachers develop their own systems based on what 'works,' is there a particular method or approach to theatre which has particularly influenced your teaching? Please indicate the degree of influence from the following theorists/practitioners which you see reflected in your acting classes Strong Some Little or No ~nfluence Influence Influence Jerzy Grotowski Bertolt Brecht Constantin Stanislavski Viola Spolin Sanford Meisner - Michel Saint-Denis Julian Beck Richard Schechner Vsevolod Meyerhold - Lee Strasberg Peter Brook Antonin Artaud - Joseph Chaikin Eugenio Barba Others? Please specify. 4) COURSE CONTENT: Please place a mark by any of the following techniques which are typically used in your acting classes, elimination of obstacles to expression gibberish inner justification non-verbal improvisation actor as self, not character emotion memory trust exercises movement to music/sound alienation techniques theatre games given circumstances ritual - guided imagery units and objectives biomechanics trans£ormat ion sense memory neutral ox character mask mime collaborative creation

5) COURSES OFFERED: Please list a brief descriptive title (e.g. Fundamentals of Acting, Acting for the Camera) for all acting or acting-related classes you teach,

Also, if you teach at an institution with an integrated actor-training curriculum, how do your courses fit into the program?

6) How long have you been teaching acting? How long in Toronto?

7) Are you or have you also been a theatre practitioner? [performer, director, technician, agent, etc.1 Please specify. 8) What specific skills do you feel actors most need to work in the theatre today?

Are these requirements different than they were 10 years ago?

9) Are there specific skills that should be taught at an acting school which you feel are missing from common training programs?

10) If you could recommend one acting book to your students, what would it be? Why?

Other Comments?

Please complete and mail to: Laurin Mann, c/o Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of Toronto, 214 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 229, FAX: (416) 971-1378 Or E-Mail your input to: [email protected],ca Questions? (416) 255-71 18 If you have additional biographical material or information (flyers, etc) on your courses or school, please send these along. Thank you for your help with this research project, APPENDIX B

Single responses to survey questions. Question #2: Single mentions, memorable teachers

Judy Silver Arthur Lessac Tom Diamond Rose Dubin Ivan Markota Martin Doyle Roger Stevens Gene Lasko Greg Tuck David Barnet Jim McTeague Tom Peacock Lewis Monica Dora Mavor Sheldon Baumander Pagnerix Moore Patinkin -- - - Paula Garbourg Jerry Tessler Nana Ruth Gordon Del Close Terrence Ross Deborah Hecht Hume Cronyn Kate Reid Powys Thomas Gary Stromsnoe Bill Espes Robin Phillips Bill Glasco Eli Wallach David Jones Sean Mulcahy William Oliver Leah Schaetzel Steven Kent Victoria Santa Richard Mita Scott Richard Cruz Pochinko Hedges Armstrong Phil Gushee Peter Melnick Louis DiBianco Ron Singer Dean Gilmour Reid Needles Ann Wooten Paul Zimet Yuriko 1 Anna Halprin Larry Lillo Andrew Wade I Roger Hodgeman Marrie Mumford Bruno Bigoni Uta Hagen Michael Patsy Alberto Madeleine Shurtlef f Rodenburg Fortuzzi Sherwood I Lee Strasberg Joy Fisher Linda Mussman Ho Ying Fung Bathsheba Steven Penelope Richard Garnett I Rumbelow I Stella I Schechner Kelly Handerik Patrick Young Kim Stanley Jim Garrard Richard Sanford Christina Janez and Cieslak Meisner James Andrei Va javec Sonia Moore Mark Ned Vukovic Diane Reis Christrnann Terry Tweed James Dugan Marc Diamond Ian White Ron East 1 Frank Baker 1 Kelly McEvenue I Maxine Heppner 1 I Brian Doubt Luciano Brogi Bill Martyn Peter Hinton I Kevin Richard Peter Anne McCormick Greenblatt Froehlich Hardcastle Bill Maxtyn Fred Euringer Tom Hass James Conover Karl Fiona Raymond J. Alexander Wentersdorf Griffiths Barry Housvater Frank Witton A-J- Henderson I

Question #3: Single mentions, influences Sears and Switzer Anthony ~hur'sbook Samantha Langevin Richard Cieslak Jim Garrard Richard Nieoczym Peter Melnick British Theatre John m art on's Playins Shakespeare Philippe Gaulier Jim Guedo Raymond Storey Pierre Tetrault Augusto Boa1 Ben Bennison Angela Landsburg Rosemary Dunsmore Patsy Rodenburg David Rotenberg Neil Freeman George Luscombe Fiona Griffiths Dr. Ewni Kerrumi Se'ed Erdesh Cecily Berry Edith Skinner Bari Robert Lewis Linda Mussmann Steven Rurnbelow Ho Ying Fung Tadashi Suzuki Kas Piecowocki

Question #5: Single mentions, courses offered Theatre workshop Epic acting Stage fighting Personalization ~lown/bouffon Acting for directors puppet/story theatre ~tanislavski'sacting method Melodrama Public speaking Rehearsal process

Question #7: Single mentions, theatre jobs business manager set designer production manager lighting designer theatre designer adjudicator publicity fight choreographer Question #8: Single mentions, skills actors need Ability to work with directors. Ability to find what is compelling to act. Meditative practice. Biomechanics. Ritual techniques. Audition preparation. Immediate access to acting skills. Relaxation. Sense memory, sense awareness. Script development. Intelligence. Ability to work as a team member. Idealism. Attendance at the theatre. Physical, emotional, and vocal grounding. Humility. The ability to discard idea of mind/body schism. Showmanship. Grant application writing. Integration of inner and outer technique.

Question #8b: Single mentions, changes in training requirements Students today have less opportunity to work with classic texts. Today more focus on contemporary Canadian texts. More need to understand the business today. Use of microphones--less vocal training needed today. Today more heightened use of language. Industry is taking over art. Today less work with text. Today greater demand for use/awareness of self in work. Actors today are lazy and undisciplined.

Question #9: Single mentions, skills missing from training Finding your own process. More teacherddirectors who work in business. Martial arts. Rituality of acting. Theory and application of media technology. Emotional connection to work. Dialects. Theatre administration. Thorough acting process. Improv . Awareness of Grotowski. Build on what student brings to work. Training too short (2-3 years) and too many students. Openness to different styles, genres, cultures. Ensemble acting, Question #lo: single mentions, recommended texts Michael Chekhov, To the Actor Jerzy Grotowshi, Towards a Poor Theatre John Barton, Playins Shakespeare Stella Adler, The Technique of Actinq Lee Strasberg, A Dream of Passion treatises of Zeami Motokiyo Harold Clurman, The Fervent Years Joseph Chaikin, [The Presence of the Actor] Ron East, Movinq images: experiential learninq and the physical theatre Cole and Chinoy, Actors on Actinq Anthony Sher, Year of the Kinq Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play Hyrum Smith, The Ten Natural Laws of Time Manasement Keith Johnstone, Impro [Brian] Bates, The Way of the Actor Messaline and Newhouse, The ~ctor'sSurvival Kit Michael Caine, Actins in Film Booth and Lundy, Improvisation

Question #lob: Single mentions, why recommend text? Emphasis on ritual. Allows for spontaneity in acting. Writer influenced my work. Supports respect for art.

Question # Other Comments: Responses Students should be given tangible tools. Training should be practical, not academic (three mentions). Few actors in Canada willing for extensive study of acting art. Two goals not met by college and university teachers: discover and express the student's creative individuality; instill in the student the need to work on him/herself during entire career. Acting teaching in Canada should be legislated and controlled as it is in the United States, Too many idiots calling themselves teachers. Training needs to be clear and easily understood, Students need to learn to listen, More Stanislavski-based training is needed. It is fundamental to realistic acting- It is very difficult to get students to read anything. Early schooling leaves students with enormous gaps in their cultural knowledge. I am horrified by "gurus" who inculcate a technique or approach as "the ansxer, " I believe that acting teachers should be encouraged (required?) to periodically return to classes themselves. An acting teacher is a guide to students' self-discovery, not a teacher. Canada can develop a unique theatre if industry gives some attention to multicultural artists, ------APPEXDIX C Survey Participants

Cynthia Ashperger Dwight Bacquie Don MacOuarrie Marye Barton Catherine Marrion Vladimir Bondarenko Marianne McIsaac Burlua Bretton Catherine McNally Steven Bush Mimi Mekler Anne Butler Anna Migliarisi Anthony Cheetham Mari Naumovski Sergei Dombrovski Jeff Peller - -- Ron East Alan Peterson - --- Christine Gaidies Donna Preising Alan Goodlev Virginia Reh Barbara Gordon David Rotenberg Richard Greenblatt Andrew Scorer Paulette Hallich Wenna Shaw - - Gerhard Hauck Philip Shepherd Jennifer Higgin Judy Silver -- Mark Ingrarn James Simon -- - Susan J. Johnson Ron Singer - -- Saed Kakei David Smuckler Jackie Laidlaw Miriam Laurence Paula Thomson Julia Lenardon Lynn Weintraub