Uncovering the Lived Experience of Actor Communication

THE SPACE BETWEEN: UNCOVERING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF ACTOR COMMUNICATION A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri - Columbia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by SHAWNA MEFFERD KELTY Dr. Cheryl Black, Dissertation Supervisor MAY 2009 © Copyright by SHAWNA MEFFERD KELTY 2009 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School have examined the dissertation entitled THE SPACE BETWEEN: UNCOVERING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF ACTOR COMMUNICATION Presented by Shawna Mefferd Kelty A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy And hereby certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Cheryl Black Professor David Crespy Professor Clyde Ruffin Professor Ellie Ragland Professor Michael Kramer To the shoemaker and his wife. and To you…each and every one of you. Yes, even you. Strange how I knew you’d open this book, isn’t it? Life’s uncanny like that. What is canny? Lollipops are canny. You can’t pull the wool over their eyes. …they don’t have eyes, silly. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are so many people I need to thank for making this endeavor possible. I am grateful to you all. First of all, to my crazy awesome committee: you rock the block!!! To Clyde Ruffin, for giving me wings and for helping me keep the faith. To Michael Kramer, for his methodological know-how, keen insight, rigor, and great advice. To Cheryl Black, for all of her tweaking, editing, and awesome support and all those “I’ve got a quick question” conversations that turn into 2 hours of exploring the world of acting theory, theatre history, and life in general. To David Crespy, for believing in my love of Lacan and the reality of its practical application in theatre. To Ellie Ragland, for being my mentor and my friend and for helping me understand when it seemed understanding was impossible. To Charles E Willis 3d, for his friendship, encouragement, humor and for listening to all my kooky ideas, even when they weren’t so kooky, sometimes down right dull, like oatmeal, and for learning more about my dissertation than any one person should ever have to know. To my mother and father, for their constant faith in my ability and talent…and for having me in the first place. To all my family for their support and for putting up with me and to my brothers in particular for not tickling me to death in my youth. ii To my participants for their drive, insight, humor and utter glee over participating in the project, even down to the smallest detail such as project code names, as if we were all on a deep-cover espionage mission or members of a secret society…maybe we were. To my dear friends and colleagues: Haidee Heaton, Kate Sinnett, Chad Doering, Mike O’Donohoe, Melissa Alpers-Springer and Dan Springer, Ronny Zank, Clay Baker, Matt Heapes, Cece McFarland, Adrianne Adderley, John Moran (my LCB), my murder of queens, IAT, the BMOC, the Poppettes, and the Lacan Study Group. To Becky Rowson, for helping me understand my own strengths. To Dean Packard, for loaning the recording equipment and the dose of sanity and calm in the crazy of theatre – thank you, Uncle Luan. To Weldon Durham, for being a great advisor and encouraging me to pursue my Ph.D. To Julia Curtis and Bob Welk – without you, I wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing…and when this is over I’m tracking you down and giving you a piece of my mind. To my acting students, for their enthusiasm and their ability to teach me a thing or two. To my great acting partners who still inspire me: Aaron Zavitz, Scott Kurz, Lissa Hall, Heather Jones, Megan Murphy, Kyle Roper, Stephen Van Hooser, Josh Clayton, Lauren Palmer, Charles E Willis 3d, Kevin Babbitt, Dewey Caddell, Weldon Durham, and many others. To Sesame Street & the late Jim Henson, for instilling in me the belief that learning is the best activity ever. (This dissertation is brought to you today by the number 437, the color red, and the letter B.) To KBIA’s wonderful classical programming, for keeping my mind focused while I wrote. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………..…i ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………ii CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….…1 2. DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE…………………...……..18 3. METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………..65 4. FINDINGS…………………………….…………………………………….89 a. INTRODUCTION b. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS c. THEMES i. CONNECTION ii. NECESSARY CONDITIONS iii. KNOWING iv. BLURRING/BOUNDARIES v. LOCATION vi. IMPACT OF PRESENCE vii. IMPACT OF ABSENCE d. THEMATIC SUMMARY 5. THE STRUCTURE OF TRANSFERENCE………..……………………..228 a. TRANSFERENCE b. TRANSFERENCE EFFECTS iv c. SUBJECT SUPPOSED TO KNOW d. DESIRE e. SUMMARY 6. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS………………………………….…242 a. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHAPTER b. REVIEW OF THE STUDY c. FINDINGS IN CONTEXT – UNBRACKETED d. SIGNIFICANCE e. FUTURE RESEARCH APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………273 1. INFORMED CONSENT FORM 2. PARTICIPANT SELECTION EMAIL 3. FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW GUIDE 4. SAMPLE OF HORIZONALIZATION 5. INVARIANT HORIZONS AND THEMES 6. SAMPLE OF CODING/ANALYSIS BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………..290 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………..305 v THE SPACE BETWEEN: UNCOVERING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF ACTOR COMMUNICATION Shawna B Mefferd Kelty Dr. Cheryl Black, Dissertation Advisor ABSTRACT Using the qualitative methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology, this dissertation documents student actors’ lived experience of actor communication in performance. The author locates this study in relation to actor training, rehearsal methods, director training, and psychoanalytic theory. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examines the lived experience of eight undergraduate student actors who had performed at the University of Missouri and had experienced actor communication in performance and/or rehearsal. Participants were interviewed in two semi-structured focus group interviews with follow up individual interviews. The data collected from the participants was transcribed, coded, and managed with HyperResearch software. Max van Manen’s thematic analysis was employed and participants verified the final analysis of the lived experience of actor communication. A brief secondary analysis using the critical lens of Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory was used to explore the unconscious structures of transference in actor communication. The actors’ lived experience of actor communication was found to be a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon described as: a connection between actors which is only vi understood through feeling or sense, having certain necessary conditions, obstacles and variable conditions which may impact the connection; a blurring of reality, identity, relationships, and emotions; and having a specific location with defined limits – a space between actors. The absence or presence of actor communication has significant impact on an actor’s process and perception of her acting partner. The strong emotional responses towards acting partners suggest that the structure of transference is also a part of the process of actor communication. vii Chapter 1 Introduction Haven’t you experienced it in similar circumstances, when something streamed out of you, some current from your eyes, from the ends of your fingers or out through your pores? What name can we give to these invisible currents, which we use to communicate with one another? Some day this phenomenon will be the subject of scientific research . Scientists may have some explanation of the nature of this unseen process. All I can do is to describe what I myself feel and how I use these sensations in my art.1 The “unseen process” described above by noted acting theorist Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) is a mysterious, ephemeral, and intangible phenomenon that has fascinated and frustrated acting theorists and practitioners alike.2 Stanislavski, who developed and articulated the most influential system of psycho-physical actor-training in the twentieth century, most succinctly expressed as “the creation of [the] inner life of a human spirit, and its expression in artistic form,”3 recognized the phenomenon as something he could “feel but did not know”4 and that in order for his students to understand the phenomenon they must experience and feel it for themselves. Stanislavski 1 Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares, trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood (New York: Routledge, 1989), 212-13. Since I began this dissertation project, Jean Benedetti has written a new translation of Stanislavski’s seminal work on acting: Konstantin Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary, trans. Jean Benedetti (London; New York: Routledge, 2008). Benedetti’s new translation is far more complete and eliminates the distortions and embedded terminology of Hapgood’s work. As however the study of Stanislavski currently is still rooted in Hapgood’s terminology, this dissertation will still explore terms such as “communion,” but I happily allow space for Benedetti’s work as well in my research. 2 In qualitative research, the phenomenon is the main concept that is experienced by multiple research participants. It may be a feeling, a culture, or a relationship – virtually anything that is possible for humans to experience. See John W. Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among the Five Traditions (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1998), 51. 3 Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work, 19. 4 Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares, 211. 1 expanded upon the phenomenon as “mutual intercourse,”5 a type of communication between actors

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