An Actor Remembers: Memory's Role in the Training of the United States
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An Actor Remembers: Memory’s Role in the Training of the United States Actor by Devin E. Malcolm B.A. in The Human Drama, Juniata College, 1997 M.A. in Theatre, Villanova University, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre History and Performance Studies University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Devin E. Malcolm It was defended on November, 5th 2012 and approved by Kathleen George, PhD, Theatre Arts Bruce McConachie, PhD, Theatre Arts Edouard Machery, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science Dissertation Advisor: Attilio Favorini, PhD, Theatre Arts ii Copyright © by Devin E. Malcolm 2012 iii AN ACTOR REMEMBERS: MEMORY’S ROLE IN THE TRAINING OF THE UNITED STATES ACTOR Devin E. Malcolm, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation examines the different ways actor training techniques in the United States have conceived of and utilized the actor’s memory as a means of inspiring the actor’s performance. The training techniques examined are those devised and taught by Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Joseph Chaikin, Stephen Wangh and Anne Bogart and Tina Landau. As I shall illustrate, memory is not the unified phenomenon that we often think and experience it to be. The most current research supports the hypothesis that the human memory is composed of five distinctly different, yet interrelated systems. Of these five my research focuses on three: episodic, semantic, and procedural. As I believe no one theoretical approach could do justice to the variety of ways the actor’s memory has been conceived of and used in U.S. training techniques I have chosen to explore the issue from three different theoretical perspectives. Beginning with a conception of memory that will, in all likelihood be the most familiar to my readers, I explore the ways in which contemporary neuroscience can help us to understand how Strasberg’s Method uses the actor’s episodic memory to achieve a state of affective remembering. I then use sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory to reveal how the techniques of Adler and Chaikin utilize the actor’s iv semantic memory system but to very different ends. Philosopher Edward Casey’s phenomenological study of procedural, or as it is more commonly known, body memory serves as the foundation for my examination of how Wangh’s acrobatic technique uses the actor’s procedural memory to stimulate a state of affective remembering in a manner which is remarkable similar to Strasberg’s use of the actor’s episodic memory. My study concludes with an examination of another highly physical technique known as Viewpoints, developed by Bogart and Landau. In Viewpoints we see a technique that utilizes not just procedural memory, but also the actor’s episodic and semantic memory systems in a manner that is unique in United States actor training v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................... X 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 MULTIPLE MEMORIES UNDER CONSTRUCTION ............................... 5 2.0 A GARDENER OF THE HEART .......................................................................... 22 3.0 MEMORY IN MIND: EPISODIC MEMORY AND LEE STRASBERG’S METHOD ................................................................................................................................... 48 3.1 EPISODIC AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC MEMORY .................................. 50 3.2 MEMORY COMES TO MANHATTAN ..................................................... 60 3.2.1 The Method ................................................................................................... 65 3.2.2 The Mnemonics Behind the Method ....................................................... 70 3.2.3 Some Conclusions ....................................................................................... 77 4.0 MEMORY IN SOCIETY: COLLECTIVE MEMORY, STELLA ADLER AND JOSEPH CHAIKIN ................................................................................................................... 81 4.1 STELLA ADLER AND CHARACTER BY TYPE ....................................... 92 4.2 JOSEPH CHAIKIN: SUBVERTING THE SETUP ................................... 118 5.0 MEMORY IN THE BODY: PROCEDURAL MEMORY, STEPHAN WANGH AND VIEWPOINTS ............................................................................................................... 144 vi 5.1.1 Marginality ................................................................................................. 156 5.1.2 Density and Depth .................................................................................... 159 5.1.3 Co-immanence of the past and present ................................................. 162 5.2 STEPHEN WANGH ...................................................................................... 164 5.3 VIEWPOINTS ................................................................................................ 187 6.0 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 214 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Viewpoints of Time and Space ................................................................................ 190 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Examples of Wangh’s Exercises Corporels (Acrobat, 64-69) ................................. 175 ix PREFACE This work is dedicated to all those who helped to make it possible. To all my teachers, notably Michael “B” Bodolosky, Dr. Robert Wagoner, Dr. Joanna Rotté and Dr. Attilio “Buck” Favorini. To the social frameworks of my families – the one I was born into and those I have acquired along the way; my wife Julie, my boys Quinn and Liam as well as those “friends turned family” who are spread out across the Philly, Baltimore and D.C. areas. Above all, however, this work is for my late grandmother Phyllis Eldora Edenbo whose unconditional love and support made me believe this was possible. I will always remember you. x 1.0 INTRODUCTION “Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit…” -William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act II, Scene ii Memory is versatile. Think of the variety of ways in which we use the word “memory.” In its most common usage, memory refers to those past experiences that stay with us. Memory can also refer to our capacity to recall past experiences, such as when we say “so and so has a good memory.” Memory is how we are able to learn from our past mistakes. Memory can be seen in a hundred little things that we do each day without a second thought – recalling a phone number, typing these words, tying my shoes or driving to work. Memory provides us with a sense of continuity in our lives - that today we are the same person as we were yesterday. It also connects us with other people, giving us a common ground upon which we can relate and connect with one another. Memory is, then, a mental, physical, and social phenomenon. Memory is also a performative act. When we remember something, most often we do so in order to carry out some kind of behavior in the present or future. I commit a phone number to memory for future use. I cover my desk with notes that serve as 1 reminders to do certain tasks in the near future. Even when we simply sit around reminiscing about days gone by, memory is a performance. Memory recreates and reconstructs for us events and actions that have long since been over and done with. The actors may have left the stage long ago, but their ghosts remain, forever reenacting their scene on the stage of our memory. Memory is a difficult thing to pin down because it slips easily across categories. One of the reasons why memory resists hard and fast definitions is that there is more than one type of memory. Some people have a good memory for faces, others excel at remembering numbers, and some can recall trivia with incredibly accuracy. All of these instances are examples of memory, but what is not commonly understood is that in each of the examples mentioned above, the object of the memory - a face, a number, trivia - represents a different kind of knowledge and as such a different type of memory. And what’s more, our memories aren’t fixed and unchangeable. Memory is alive, and how we experience it depends upon the ever-changing circumstances of our lives – eroding the distinctions in how we designate past, present, and future. Our word “memory” comes from the ancient Greek Mnemosyne. In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne was a Titan: one of the incredible beings of terrible power who could be considered the elder siblings of the ancient Greek gods. Also referred to as “she who knows all tales,” Mnemosyne gave birth to the Muses: the nine goddesses responsible for inspiring artists in a variety of fields. Mnemosyne, or Memory, then, turns out to be the mother of all the arts. The actor’s art, in particular, could very easily 2 and quite correctly be called an art of memory. Actors must be able to remember words and actions set down, more often than not, by another person. As an actor I have participated in a number