02 Part One Chapters 1-2 Everett
PART ONE.
"Where is Lecoq's school?" "It's here." "Are there any other students?" "N0, you are the first." And then I gave a lesson. He put on his tights and I gave him a lesson in movement.
(Jacques Lecoq, in Leabhart 1989:93)
1 CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
2 Jacques Lecoq has been called 'one of the finest teachers of acting in our time' (Esslin 1999). He has given workshops, seminars and lectures in Japan, New York, Australia, and in many European countries. He participated in the six mime festivals mounted in Europe between 1962 and 1971. He represented France at several international colloquies on actor training under the auspices of the International Theatre Institute. Since 1969 he taught students of architecture at the University of Paris. He collaborated with Jean Vilar, director of the Theatre Nationale Populaire, the Comedie Fran~aise, the Schiller Theater in Berlin. He has produced and directed a series of twenty-six silent comic films and has written a number of texts on theatre (Rolfe 1972:34).
Born in Paris in 1921, Lecoq began his career at the age of nineteen teaching physical education and physical therapy. In 1945 he joined the Comediens de Grenoble, a troupe established by Jean Daste and his wife, Marie-Helene Copeau. Working with Daste and Leon Chancerel, both former students of Copeau, Lecoq was introduced to Copeau' s work and the principles of the Vieux Colombier School (Frost & Yarrow 1990:84). In 1947 he returned to Paris and began teaching at the Education par Ie J eu Dramatique, an acting school established by Jean-Louis Barrault, Roger Blin and Jean Daste, among others. In 1948 he was invited to Italy to teach movement at the Teatro dell'Universita di Padova. Here he founded the University of Padua Theatre School and directed his first plays. In 1952 he went to Milan where he founded the Theatre School of the Piccolo Teatro with Paolo Grassi and Giorgio Strehler. During his time at the Piccolo, Lecoq developed his mime techniques and his abilities in dramatic choreography. He gained expertise as teacher, director and movement director/choreographer working on numerous productions. He encountered a variety of theatrical styles, working as assistant to Strehler on early productions of Brecht and premiere productions of some of Ionesco' s plays (Frost & Yarrow 1990:62; Rudlin 1994:200).
Following Lecoq's success at the Piccolo Teatro, theatre companies throughout Italy invited him to choreograph their productions. Between 1954 and 1956 Lecoq worked as director-choreographer on approximately sixty productions of differing theatrical styles. In 1956 Lecoq returned to Paris and, in December of that year, established his international theatre school in a small studio on the rue d' Amsterdam in Paris. Although he continued to direct productions and make television appearances, the majority of his energies were invested in the school and the continual development of his pedagogy (FeIner 1985:147). As the school grew, Lecoq brought in other teachers, almost all of whom had trained at the school themselves. Lecoq, however, continued to teach the core aspects of the pedagogy himself. The school has been under his direction since its inception until his death on the 19th January 1999. It continues to operate under the direction of Lecoq' s wife, Madame Fay Lecoq.
3 The Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq currently offers a two year course. Between eighty and one hundred students are accepted each year into the first year course and at the end of the first year approximately thirty students are invited to undertake the second year program. Virtually all of the acting classes are taught through improvisation. The first year begins with silent improvisations, followed by studies in the neutral mask, the expressive masks, character, and dynamic approaches to poetry, painting, music, architecture and objects. Parallel to this work is training in techniques of movement comprising preparation of the body and voice, dramatic acrobatics and analysis of movement. The second year is primarily concerned with the exploration of different performance styles. It begins with a preparatory phase of study that covers different gestural languages, consisting of pantomime, figurative mime, bande mimee and story telling through word and image. This is followed by exploration of different dramatic territories: melodrama, commedia dell'arte, bouffon, tragedy, clown and different comic styles including burlesque, the absurd, and the eccentric (Lecoq 1997: 153). The second year continues training in techniques of movement but here they are specifically applied to the different performance styles. A major component of both the first and second year programs is the auto-cours or self-directed study in which students work alone or in groups on a given theme to create performance material which is then presented to the staff and students of the school. Students attend classes for four hours per day, typically divided into one hour of study in the techniques of movement, an hour and a half of acting taught through improvisation, and an hour and a half of auto-cours (Frost & Yarrow 1990:64).
For students who complete the first and second years there is also an optional third year course. This is designed for those wishing to become performance trainers. Students undertaking the third year attend all of the first and second year sessions as observers and assistants to the instructors. They are also required to attend the Laboratory of Movement (LEM) which is an adjunct to the Lecoq school. The LEM is a department of experimental scenography designed for the dynamic study of space and rhythm through plastic representation. Studies in the LEM are for one year and are open to students at the Lecoq school and other interested parties from outside the school such as set designers, choreographers, decorators, dancers, actors, visual artists, architects and theatre directors (Lecoq 1997:163-164).
Since the Lecoq school began in 1956, it has attracted over five thousand students from more than seventy countries around the world (Popenhagen, L. 1999). The subsequent work of these students extends across a broad range of the performing arts, embracing areas of dance, theatre, circus, film, television, music and opera. Many Lecoq alumni have received international acclaim as performers, directors, dancers, writers and teachers of
4 theatre. Among them are actor Philippe Avron, writer Michel Azama, Steven Berkoff, director Luc Bondy, Antonio Fava, Dario Fo, teachers Philippe Gaulier and Serge Martin, Ariane Mnouchkine, playwright Yasmina Reza, director and puppeteer Julie Taymor, and the theatre troupes Barrabbas (Ireland), Cirque du Soleil, De La Guarda (Argentina), Els Comediants, Footsbarn Travelling Theatre, I Gelati (Britain), The Moving Picture Mime Show, Mummenschanz, Theatre de Complicite, Theatre de la J eune Lune and Theatre Spirale (Switzerland).
Through the work of these and many other former students, the Lecoq school has had a profound influence on theatre training and practice in many parts of the world. This influence is contextualised within a major paradigm shift in Western theatre, occurring during a period marked by significant ruptures in existing theatrical modes. As Phillip Zarrilli and others have noted, late nineteenth and twentieth century Western theatre found its ideological basis in Cartesian body/mind dualism. Many practitioners operated from assumptions of objectivity and absolutism, while others founded their theatres on subjectivity and personal 'truth'. As Zarrilli observes, however, 'Objectivism and subjectivism remain two sides of the same problematic, dualistic coin' (1995: 10). Dominating mainstream theatre training and practice have been approaches variously designated as 'psychological realism' and 'naturalism'. These have taken a particularly strong hold on American theatre training, but have been equally manifest in British and Australian approaches. And while these approaches vary within particular socio-cultural contexts, they are characteristically underwritten by the exigencies of the body/mind split, manifesting as suppression of the body and supremacy of the mind so that physicality becomes an adjunct in the theatrical equation.
The Cartesian paradigm cut across multiple facets of the theatrical project. As Zarrilli notes, it manifested as 'an assumed polarity between internal and external and between realism and style' (1995:223). It also manifested in the dominance of the written text and the spoken word and consequently the privileging of interpretation over and above the creation of original material, with 'interpretation' relying on the supremacy of the mind, on the 'rational', 'scientific' analysis of a text. Interpretation was concomitant with the rise of the director in 20th century theatre and with it the privileging of hierarchical processes. The ascendancy of naturalism and the written playscript also necessarily meant the suppression of other theatre forms and other theatrical approaches and processes. In many instances, the dominance of this paradigm has been enacted by training institutions and government bodies. The following comments by Nigel Jamieson give a personal impression of how this process manifested in Britain:
5 In the English traditions the text and the writers' theatre came to really pre-dominate in the 1940s. When they fonned the Arts Council they asked: 'What is art?', and their answer was: 'Well it's Shakespeare. It's what's written down'. So popular theatre traditions just disappeared and they were the things that had entertained people for thousands of years. So circus was given no support, vaudeville was given no support, the commedia traditions and the Pierrot traditions and all those other fonns of theatre going right back to the Mummer plays and the York Mystery Cycles and all those sorts of theatre that came up from the people and weren't a literary fonn, all those things got completely neglected [ ... ]. So then they fonned RADA and LAMDA and the Central School of Speech and Drama and about ten drama schools, all of which were about training the actor to put on plays under the direction of a director and the pen of an author. Well that's a fine and wonderful way to produce theatre but theatre around the world is produced in a myriad of different ways and most of them were not started as a literary fonn (Jamieson 1998:326-327, interview).1
While pockets of resistance to these dominant modes have emerged throughout the last century, Zarrilli positions the late 1950s and 1960s as a period of significant shift in tenns of the role of the body in theatrical practice and process (1995:14). What has ensued have been attempts, not only to de-privilege the mind and re-instate the body as integral to perfonnance, but to de-stabilise the body/mind dualism itself. Challenges have been mounted on multiple fronts, seen in the re-emergence of popular theatre fonns and the proliferation of new fonns that foreground the body in the theatrical text. The emergence and growing popUlarity of dance-theatre, new circus and the very tenn 'physical theatre' are indicative of this desire to break from the dominance of psychological drama and the hegemony of the written script. The burgeoning of these non-text-based theatre fonns has brought with it approaches that reject mainstream hierarchical structures and interpretive, analytical methods in favour of more visceral, improvisatory and collaborative processes.
The influence of the Lecoq school and the work of its alumni thus operates in this particular historical context. And while the school can be seen as one of a number of sources that have contributed to a major theatrical shift, it is a source that has fed and renewed several large currents of international theatre creation and perfonnance for over forty years. Notably, Lecoq's pedagogy does not operate within polarities of internaVexternal or realism/style. Nor does it enact a separation of the body and mind, or indeed the body and the voice. His school positions the integrated body as the
I Please note: transcripts of the interviews conducted for this study are collected in an ancillary volume held in the Theatre Studies Department, University of New England, Armidale. Page numbers indicated in reference to interviews with participants of the study refer to this volume.
6 performer's primary means of theatrical communication and aims to broaden as far as possible the performer's expressive and imaginative capabilities. Lecoq's pedagogical approach is manifest in much of the work of those who have trained with him:
The Lecoq school has had a profound effect on the development of non-text-based theatre in the last three decades of the century, not only inspiring revivals of commedia dell' arte, but also the interconnection of mask, mime, vocalisation and, ultimately, text - a fusion which can be seen in the English-speaking theatre in the work of such Lecoq-trained troupes as The Moving Picture Mime Show and Theatre de Complicite, as well as a host of new troupes working at the international margins (Rudlin 1994:202).
[Lecoq's] work has spawned many exciting companies and solo performers whose style reflects his concern with plasticity and physical precision. Among them are Theatre de Complicire, whose work relies on exact observation and subsequent stylisation of movement and mood, sharpened by the interplay between idiosyncratic rhythms developed by each performer. From this they construct a texture of emotional situations inscribed in time and space as shape and rhythm and counterpointed by expressive grummelotage (Frost & Yarrow 1990:72).
[G]raduates from [Lecoq's] school have influenced actor training in many countries, including Australia, and generated a more physical performance style [... ]. The school is as renowned for the writers it has produced as for the actor-trainers. Its teaching process has produced graduates who can create theatre at every level of professional practice, and it has been part of the wave of influences that has restored the body and physical action to theatre (Pippen 1997:41).
Lecoq's pedagogical strategy actively encourages the creation of original material by students through approaches that are movement-based and collaborative. He teaches performance techniques through improvisation rather than interpretation of text, encouraging theatrical creation from spontaneous and random occurrences. His focus on theatrical form and style is marked by a rich diversity that offers multiple popular and traditional theatre forms as reference points for the creation of new and innovative forms.
It has often been said that Lecoq graduates bear no trade-mark and have no identifiable style of performance. What does characterise their work, in addition to physical control and expressive range, creation of original material, lively and spontaneous approaches to performance and process, is the prominence and diversity of form:
7 Those who have worked with Lecoq choose varied and divergent paths. Some return to the traditional theater, bringing to the text the vigor of movement. Others, such as Rufus and Pierre Byland, have continued the exploration of clown. The Mummenschanz seek the expressive possibilities of the mask and the phantoms of the subconscious. These divergences are the goal of the Lecoq system (FeIner 1985:166).
Lecoq trainees have produced shows based on a variety of mime styles and movement, using a range of masks and exploring to the full the possibilities of 'physical' theatre. All of Lecoq's proteges are different; and all of them work in differing fields of theatre. Ariane Mnouchkine, Steven Berkoff, Peter Brook and Dario Fo have all learned from Lecoq. The British group I Gelati has made a specialty of commedia work, yet their most recent project, for example, was a five actor version of Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan. The American Avner the Eccentric presents shows which are a mixture of circus skills and clowning. Moving Picture Mime Show gained their greatest successes using 'larval' mask work and mime. Footsbam are most noted for their vigorously physical interpretations of Shakespeare. What links these very disparate groups and individuals [ ... J is not a stylistic unity. Each group has its own artistic integrity. Each is making its own vision of a future theatre. They are not all, by any means, devoted to improvisational work: yet all of them share a common theatrical vocabulary, and that internalised repertoire of physical and imaginative skills which marks the successful Lecoq graduate (Frost & Yarrow 1990:72).
The influence of the Lecoq school has operated in these and other ways to significantly disrupt mainstream theatre's often, too narrow focus on psychological and text-based approaches to performance training and practice. The teaching of the Lecoq school and the work of its alumni has exploded theatre's potential and re-negotiated the critical relations between performers and their audiences. The role of performance in the production of culture is most potent at the sites of its reception, and if these sites are limited in form and content to a privileged few, then theatre addresses itself to a much reduced sector of that culture. As Robert Allen has written:
The potentially subversive qualities of the theatre have been obscured in modem times by its full incorporation into mainstream, middle-class culture: theatre is taught in universities and kept alive as a cultural phenomenon by government grants. Moreover, the usurpation of the dramatic theatre as a form of popular entertainment, first by the movies and then by television, has rendered it all but moribund as a social force (1991, in Dolan, 1993:438).
8 The often populist and visually rich nature of much of the work being done by Lecoq alumni has helped to tip the balance away from theatre that attracts limited and particular audiences to embrace multiple and varied audiences; in many cases bringing theatre out from under the proscenium arch and onto the street, to be seen and enjoyed by folk who may not ordinarily attend mainstream theatrical fare. Further, the international nature of Lecoq's school and the large number of its alumni has rendered it more able to engage with these socio-theatrical transformations. The Lecoq school and the work of its alumni has effected multiple sites of interaction with dominant modes, rendering it a greater force of legitimation not only in localised but in global contexts. In more than seventy countries around the world, the influence of the Lecoq school has been, and continues to be felt.
Australia is no exception. Touring performances by Steven Berkoff, Footsbam, Travelling Theatre, Mummenschanz, Theatre de Complicite, Cirque du Soleil and Els Comediants have been acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. Lecoq himself gave workshops as part of the inaugural Australian International Workshop Festival in 1991. Other workshops have been given by Philippe Gaulier, who visits Australia periodically, and by Steven Berkoff, who has also directed productions for the Nimrod and the Bell Shakespeare Company. Through the work of these visiting artists, Australian audiences, critics, performers, directors, writers and producers of theatre have been privy to alternative visions of what theatre can be and what theatre can do.
The most potent influence on Australian theatre, however, has come from within Australia's geographical boundaries. Approximately fifty-two Lecoq alumni have lived and worked in Australia as performers, directors, writers and teachers of theatre. Local alumni include internationally acclaimed actor Geoffrey Rush, directors George Ogilvie, Nigel Jamieson and Therese Collie; performers such as Russell Dykstra, Christine Grace, Russell Cheek and Isabelle Anderson. Alumni have spawned companies such as the bouffon troupe Red Weather, the Castanet Club, Double Take and the ridiculously popular Essendon Women's Police Marching Band. They have made contributions to the work of Rock 'n' Roll Circus, Zen Zen Zo, Circus Oz, Legs on the Wall, and to the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony. They have contributed significantly to community theatre, both independently and through companies such as West in Melbourne and Street Arts in Brisbane. They have given countless workshops throughout Australia. Some have started their own theatre schools based on their Lecoq training. Others have taught acting to performers at the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet. Alumni have taught at every major theatre training institution and almost every university in the country.
Like their international counterparts, Lecoq alumni in Australia have helped to forge new directions for theatre training and practice, challenging and undermining the paradigm of
9 text-based realism. Those alumni who have re-invested the skills, experiences and abilities offered by their Lecoq training have contributed to the rise of a vigorously physical theatre, one that often presents stunning and innovative original works, created not via the lone pen of the author, but through collaborative and improvisatory explorations of bodies in space. Their work has been marked by its diversity of fonn, its often overtly theatrical and richly visual nature. As well as creating new and innovative theatre forms inspired by and reflective of local contexts, alumni have introduced a number of performance styles not seen in Australia before. They have brought to this country a rich palate of dramatic possibilities that have been realised on vastly divergent canvases. And while some local critics continue to lament the lack of Australian playwrighting, these artists have been creating piece after piece of new Australian material.
Given the international success of the Lecoq school and its continuing influence on theatre training and practice in Australia, it is surprising to realise the paucity of material written on the subject. To date, there has been no substantive research into the work of Lecoq alumni in Australia or evaluations of any impact their work may have had on Australian theatre. Considering the extent of the Australian diaspora and the force of its impact, it is perhaps not extravagant to suggest that such a project is long overdue. This study has been undertaken with the desire of addressing this situation. It aims to give voice and visibility to a particular section of the Australian theatre community that has been notably absent from our historical record.
It is my purpose in this thesis to trace and map the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre. Unfortunately, the scope of this study does not allow for any assessment of the impact which visiting international Lecoq alumni may have had on Australian theatre. Consequently, the lens of this project focuses on the work of local alumni, those who have lived and worked in Australia as actors, directors and teachers of theatre. The study has the following objectives:
1. To identify alumni of the Lecoq school who have lived and worked in Australia as actors, directors and teachers.
2. To determine to what extent and in what ways the work of these alumni has been shaped and influenced by their Lecoq training.
3. To determine how, where and to what extent the work of Lecoq alumni has influenced Australian theatre training and practice in a broad context.
10 4. To identify and analyse the historical and theatrical conditions shaping the initial and developing interest in and dissemination of the Lecoq pedagogy in Australia.
Research strategies for the study have been modelled on oral history methodologies. I have attempted to locate as far as possible all of the Lecoq alumni who have lived and worked in Australia as actors, directors and teachers of theatre. I have conducted extensive interviews with these alumni and the material from these interviews forms the primary data of the study. Transcripts of the interviews conducted for this study are collected in an ancillary volume held in the Theatre Studies Department, University of New England, Armidale. Page numbers indicated in reference to interviews with participants refer to this volume.
The study finds a theoretical basis in post-modernist approaches to history and, using these as a model, attempts to position the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre within its relative socio-cultural, historical and ideological contexts. The thesis problematises the term 'influence', offering the concepts of 'diaspora' and 'leavening' as complementary alternative terms for understanding 'influence' as it relates specifically to the study. Key terms and concepts deployed and theorised in this study are: history; influence; diaspora; leavening. These are discussed at length in Chapter Three in conjunction with a discussion of the research strategies used in this study.
It should be stressed that the purpose of the study is not to provide an exhaustive account or analysis of the Lecoq pedagogy itself but to consider the effects of the training program manifest in the work of local alumni. I have provided a summary description of Lecoq' s pedagogy in Appendix D to which the reader can refer. For a more detailed description, please consult Lecoq's The Moving Body, published in 2000 by Methuen.
The study is divided into two parts. Part One is primarily concerned with detailing the research matrix that has served as a means of tracing and mapping the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre. Part Two of the study presents a narrative interpretation of the primary and secondary source material.
Part One: Chapter Two of the thesis aims to provide a comprehensive survey and critique of the literature considered to be relevant to the research topic. The survey demonstrates the lack of scholarship in this area, confirming the need for the study and indicating the contribution it will make to the current literature by situating the study within the existing textual milieu. The scope of the survey encompasses material in cognate areas comprising:
11 texts written by Lecoq; texts written about Lecoq; texts written by or about international Lecoq alumni working outside Australia; and texts written by or about Lecoq alumni working in Australia as actors, directors and/or teachers.
Chapter Three is concerned with detailing the research strategies employed in this study. Here I discuss some of the current critical debates surrounding the historical enterprise in order to situate the present research project within a critical context. In engaging with these debates, I outline the philosophical orientations and the practical procedural strategies which I have adopted for the present study. I then deal with more practical aspects of the research process, focusing on the procedural strategies used for data collection and related issues. Here I identify the time frame for the study and discuss the practicalities of data collection, the strategies used for locating the participants of the study, interview preparation, format, questioning, and evaluation of interview material. I also address a number of the issues involved in oral history research and present a rationale for employing oral history research methods as an approach to data collection and using this as the primary data for the study.
Part Two: Chapter Four functions as a general introduction and overview of the research findings, discussing the influence of the Lecoq school in the broader socio-historical context of Australian theatre. The remaining five chapters deal with particular aspects of the research findings.
Chapter Five discusses the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre in specific relation to acting. Here I discuss the acting work of Lecoq alumni, their productions and processes, and the impact of this work on Australian theatre.
Chapter Six discusses the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre in specific relation to directing. I will discuss theatrical works directed by Lecoq alumni with a focus on how their training has impacted on their productions and their approaches to rehearsal, and the broader impact of their work on Australian theatre.
Chapter Seven discusses the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre in specific relation to teaching. This chapter focuses on alumni who have taught aspects of the Lecoq pedagogy through independent workshops, at major training institutions, at universities and at theatre schools that have been established in Australia by Lecoq alumni. I will also explore how the Lecoq pedagogy has been modified or adapted by alumni in Australian contexts and examine why these modifications may have occurred.
12 Chapter Eight discusses the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre in specific relation to community theatre. I have devoted an entire chapter to this aspect of Australian theatre because the Lecoq influence has been particularly felt here. The chapter looks at alumni's community theatre work with: West Theatre Company; Street Arts Theatre Company; Theatre of the Deaf; people with disabilities; unemployed people; youth theatre; and theatre-in-education.
Chapter Nine presents a case study of Geoffrey Rush. It provides a brief overview of Rush's career before exploring and discussing the impact of Rush's Lecoq training on his work as an actor and director.
Chapter Ten aims to provide a summary of the research findings, to draw some general conclusions and to indicate areas where further research might be undertaken.
Appendix A provides a list of international Lecoq alumni.
Appendix B provides a list of local Lecoq alumni, indicating the period each trained at the Lecoq school, and their status in terms of whether they have been contacted and interviewed for this study.
Appendix C provides a spreadsheet of productions that local Lecoq alumni have either directed or perlonned in.
Appendix D provides a description of the Lecoq pedagogy.
Appendix E provides a copy of the interview questions formulated for the study.
Appendix F provides a copy of the consent form given to participants of the study.
13 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW.
14 INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the literature which is considered of general and specific relevance to a study of the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre. The primary aim of the survey is to demonstrate the lack of scholarship in this subject area, confirming the need for this study and indicating the contribution it will make to the current literature. The survey also functions as a means of creating a framework for the study, highlighting areas which have been addressed by writers on the subject and those which have been neglected. Situating the study within the context of a larger historical and theatrical discourse will also offer indications of how the current study is positioned within the existing textual milieu. The scope of the survey encompasses research in cognate areas comprising: texts written by Jacques Lecoq; texts written about Lecoq and his pedagogy (including both general and academic studies); texts by or about international Lecoq alumni working outside Australia; and texts written by or about Lecoq alumni working in Australia.
TEXTS WRITTEN BY JACQUES LECOQ
In the late 1960s, Lecoq conducted a mock funeral in Prague at which he buried the corpse of mime (The Economist 11 Sept. 1999:89). An article entitled 'Le Mouvement et le theatre' accompanied this symbolic gesture. Appearing in Association technique pour l'action culturelle informations in 1967, the text was the first written by Lecoq after founding his school of mime, movement and theatre in 1956. The article is essentially an attack on mime as a formalised and isolated art form, such as that practised by Marceau and Decroux, in which Lecoq states that 'mimes have killed mime'. To distance himself from the proponents of such mime, which he calls 'pantomime', Lecoq replaces the word 'mime' with 'movement'. He apprehends 'mime' as the common mimetic base of theatre, dance and indeed all the arts and argues that it should be viewed fundamentally as a research art which informs these different modes of expression.
Since 1969, Lecoq has taught architectural students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in addition to the work at his school of mime, movement and theatre. He has also established the Laboratoire d'etude du mouvement at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where students study space in its relation to the human body and to architecture. Two publications resulted from this work. The first, 'Le Corps et son image' was published in Architecture
15 d'aujourd'hui in 1970. Lecoq begins the article with a discussion of how clothes create a particular image of the body, reflecting our relationship with our bodies in their intersections with age, culture, historical and social contexts. Lecoq points out how, throughout history, the dictates of fashion have privileged and foregrounded particular parts of the body, such as the ruff which draws attention to the neck, or the bustle which enlarges the female buttocks. In this, says Lecoq, we can observe that clothing is the 'idea' of a certain body. Lecoq continues with a discussion of movement in relation to the body and to space. He identifies the bodies' three points of support as the pelvis, the solar plexus and the head, which play in relationship to each other according to the body's movements, ages of life, the dictates of fashion and periods of history. Lecoq then moves on to a discussion of the body in relation to architecture, or what he calls 'imposed space'. Here he argues that the forms and qualities of architecture will condition the way of moving, in that constructed spaces predispose the body to certain gestures and negate others. Habitable spaces, therefore, must be made which are conscious of the principles of movement and the mechanisms by which the human body moves.
The next article by Lecoq, called simply 'L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq', appeared in French in Theatre de la ville in 1972. It was subsequently published in English in 1973 under the title 'Mime-Movement-Theatre' in the Yale Theatre Journal and appeared again in 1979 in the collection Mimes on Miming: Writings on the Art of Mime edited by Lecoq graduate Bari Rolfe. Lecoq commences the article with a discussion of common understandings of 'mime' as something confined to a 'silent formalism' and a strict set of codes and conventions (1973: 117). Lecoq indicates that the 'mime' taught at his school is by no means limited to this notion but embraces a much broader understanding of the word. Lecoq' s mime emerges as 'the fundamental principle of all human expressions' (1973: 117) and is the basis of all the work done at his school. The article subsequently provides a cursory explanation of the course content at the Lecoq school and the philosophy which informs it.
The second article to emerge from Lecoq' s work with architectural students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was 'Le Corps et son espace'. Appearing in Notes methodologiques en architecture et urbanisme in 1974, the article is a transcript of a lecture-demonstration given by Lecoq and covers similar ground to his earlier article 'Le Corps et son image'. Both articles focus primarily on the notion of an 'architecture of space', dealing with the relationship between the human body and space in an everyday and an architectural context. In this second article, however, Lecoq extends these contexts into the realm of the architecture of dramatic space or 'I 'architecture invisible du drame' (Frost & Yarrow 1990:63).
16 Lecoq argues that any constructed urban space proposes or imposes specific bodily gestures, attitudes and movements and, likewise or inversely, a body in a dramatic context can create the illusion or impression of any given space by its gestures, attitudes and movement. He proposes mime as a method for understanding space by means of the human body, with the neutral dramatic state as its basis. Lecoq goes on to argue that a body's physical relationship to space is dependent upon psychological, physiological, socio-cultural and historical contexts. He illustrates this by a demonstration showing how, in the simple act of walking, bodies are inscribed by culture, race, physiology and emotional states. Here he re-iterates the notion that throughout history different bodily attitudes or postures have been privileged or favoured according to the dictates of fashion. He stresses that constructed spaces should be made with respect for our gestures, attitudes and movements, mindful of the moving bodies which inhabit them.
In 1983 Lecoq contributed a short article called 'La geometria al servizio dell' emozione' to the book Arte della maschera nella Commedia dell'Arte, edited by Donato Sartori and Bruno Lanata. The essay contains personal recollections by Lecoq of the development of his career and his interest in mask work with a particular focus on his initial meeting and continuing collaboration with the world renowned mask maker, AmIeto Sartori. Lecoq begins his recollections in 1948, when he first met AmIeto Sartori soon after his arrival in Padua where Lecoq had begun teaching movement and improvisation to actors at the University of Padua. Lecoq brought with him the teaching skills and love of mask performance which he had gained from his work with Jean Daste in the Comediens de Grenoble in France in 1945. In Padua, Lecoq continued to work with and develop the neutral mask technique and the essay details how he and Sartori, through trial and error, rediscovered the leather mask-making technique. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the use of masks in actor training.
Le Masque: du rite au theatre, published in 1985, is an extensive historical and critical investigation of the theatrical use of the mask throughout the world. Early chapters examine mask in ancient Greek theatre, medieval theatre, the commedia dell' arte, Africa, South America, Europe and the theatrical traditions of mask use in Asia and India. Later chapters explore the re-emergence of the mask in twentieth century theatre, highlighting the work of Edward Gordon Craig, Meyerhold and Brecht. Essays by Giorgio Strehler, Jean Louis Barrault, Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine and Jacques Lecoq provide practical and critical evaluations of the use of mask in contemporary theatre. Lecoq's essay, 'Role du masque dans la formation de I' acteur' , contributes to this section as a counterpoint to the use of mask in performance. Here, Lecoq discusses the neutral mask, the expressive masks and the masks of the commedia dell' arte. The article conveys a sense of how Lecoq works with his students and the qualities and skills the different masks aim to
17 develop in the student. Lecoq' s narrative is interspersed with biographical material including his experiences with Jean Daste (student and son-in-Law of Jacques Copeau) and of his association with Amleto Sartori in Italy. The chapter also includes the transcript of an interview with Lecoq, exploring further Lecoq' s approach to teaching the neutral mask.
Two articles written by Lecoq appeared in Commedia dell 'Arte and the Comic Spirit: A Monograph from the 1990 Classics in Context Festival in 1990. In the fIrst, called 'Acting the Mask' , Lecoq explores the value of mask work for the student actor. Here he indicates the qualities of a 'good' mask and discusses his approach to actor training in the neutral, larval, expressive and commedia masks. Lecoq takes a more straightforward and pragmatic approach than in his previous articles, with explanations of what the different masks look like, how they are approached in training and the different skills each is designed to develop in the students (1990a).
In the second article, 'In Search of Your Own Clown', Lecoq speaks both practically and philosophically about his approach to teaching clown, the role of the clown in society and the burgeoning interest in clown work. He describes how, traditionally, clowns were confIned to the circus ring but have begun to inhabit a wide variety of theatrical spaces, including the street. Lecoq discusses the red nose of the clown as 'the smallest mask in the world' (1990:43), the upside-down logic of the clown and describes the different types of clown from Pierrot's white-face clown to the Auguste, to Beckett's tragic clowns in Waiting for Godat (1990b).
Le Theatre du geste: mimes et acteurs, published in 1987 and edited by Jacques Lecoq, is a collection of essays and interviews by and/or with French theorists and theatre practitioners. The book examines mime in aesthetic, anthropological, historical, and philosophical tenns. As well as exploring a defInition of mime via investigation of the concepts of 'imitation' and 'mimesis', it examines mixed performance genres such as dance, mime, theatre, and the place of the spoken word in text-based theatre. The book provides a history of mime from the Greeks to contemporary forms, with a strong focus on the French mime tradition including the work of Marcel Marceau, Etienne Decroux and Jacques Lecoq. There are a number of essays by and interviews with Jacques Lecoq which focus primarily on his philosophy of mime and his pedagogical approach to movement and gesture. Lecoq contributes to the essay on the historical evolution of mime at the point of transition from nineteenth century pantomime to modem mime. In' Le s Gestes de la vie', Lecoq re-iterates some of the points made in his earlier articles 'Le Corps et son espace' and 'Le Corps et son image', but in a much expanded form. Here he discusses how the human body has altered in different historical contexts and how
18 gestures vary according to culture, occupation and personality traits. His essay 'Le Mime, art du mouvement' is a more philosophical offering, where he asks the question 'What is mime?' and discusses a number of topics in relation to mime including the different directions or manifestations of mime, rhythm, space, the relationship between constraint and style, and qualities of silence with respect to language and movement. 'L' Explosion du mime - La pedagogie du mouvement' is an interview with Lecoq focusing on his early career history and its impact on the development of his pedagogy. In addition to these sections, Lecoq also provides introductions to a number of essays written by other theatre practitioners.
Le Corps poetique: un enseignement de la creation theatrale, published in 1997, is the first and only full-length text written by Lecoq on the subject of his school and his pedagogy. The book is divided into three sections entitled respectively, Le Voyage personnel (The Personal Journey); Le Monde et ses mouvements (The World and its Movements); and Les Chemins de la creation (The Ways of Creation). The first part chronicles Lecoq's early career in sport, his time spent in Italy and the founding of the school. The second and third parts of the book discuss Lecoq's philosophy and pedagogy. Part II covers improvisation, including work with the neutral mask, the expressive masks, character work, analysis of movement, and the auto-cours. Part III focuses on the performance styles which are studied in the second year of the course: melodrama, commedia dell' arte, bouffon, tragedy, and clown. The book closes with a discussion of Lecoq' s Laboratory of the Study of Movement (LEM).
Les Deux voyages de Jacques Lecoq is a forty-five minute documentary film made in collaboration with Lecoq in 1998. The film is divided into two sections entitled respectively 'Le Corps, Ie mouvement' and 'Le Jeu, la creation'. It interweaves footage of Lecoq discussing his pedagogy, Lecoq at work with students at his Paris theatre school, narrative and still footage chronicling Lecoq's career history, as well as interviews with and footage of productions by well-known former pupils of the school. These include Ariane Mnouchkine, Bernie Schirch from Mummenschanz, dancer/choreographers Joel Bouvier and Regis Obadia, Simon McBurney of Theatre de Complicite, actor Philippe Avron, Dario Fo, Paddy Hayter of Footsbam Travelling Theatre, writer Michel Azama and stage director Luc Bondy. The extensive footage of class sessions provide a rare insight into some of Lecoq's core exercises, while footage of student public presentations gives the viewer a glimpse of Lecoq's pedagogy of creation in action. The film covers Lecoq's approach to movement, the neutral mask, expressive masks, commedia dell'arte, Greek chorus work, bouffon and clown. The documentary was filmed in 1998 and on 11 th January 1999 Lecoq viewed the completed version, just seven days before his death.
19 TEXTS WRITTEN ABOUT LECOQ
Bari Rolfe is one of the Lecoq school's better known graduates, both for her writing as well as her practice. Rolfe has taught actor training at the University of Washington and published a number of texts based on her Lecoq studies. Her first, 'The Mime of Jacques Lecoq', appeared in The Drama Review in 1972 and was the first account in English of Lecoq's work. The article provides a brief discussion of Lecoq' s philosophy of mime and movement and the basic principles of his pedagogy. Rolfe begins her discussion by placing Lecoq in the context of the French mime tradition emanating from Copeau. Rolfe nominates Etienne Decroux, Marcel Marceau, Jean-Louis Barrault and Jacques Lecoq as the tradition's other exponents but indicates that Lecoq's work departs significantly from that of the other three, primarily in his understanding of the word 'mime'. Lecoq prefers to employ the term 'analysis of movement' rather than 'mime' because he feels the latter implies a 'rigid formalism' (Lecoq, in Rolfe 1972:35). For Lecoq 'mime' is the foundation of all performance training and functions as a means of research and development rather than as an art form in itself. Rolfe stresses that this open type of mime in no way dispenses with disciplined technique or rigour. Lecoq's course demonstrates a cohesiveness afforded by his philosophy of mime and movement which informs the training. Rolfe's commentary is punctuated by examples of exercises and improvisations from the Lecoq course and provides a brief overview of the course content. In many respects, Rolfe's article sets the scene for future writing on Lecoq, raising points which are later given extensive consideration by others.
Following Rolfe's article was another also based on personal experience of the Lecoq school. Published in Psychologie in 1973, 'A l'Ecole Lecoq j'ai decouvert mon propre clown' was written by Laurence Wylie, a Harvard anthropologist who spent a sabbatical year at the Lecoq school in 197211973 as an observer and participant. Wylie's academic research interests lie primarily in the cultural differences of physical movement, and it was the international aspect of the Lecoq school which originally attracted him. It appears, however, that Wylie's time at the school prompted him to consider Lecoq's work not only in relation to the anthropology of gesture, but to psychology as well. His article consequently takes dual paths, considering both the psychological and anthropological implications of Lecoq's pedagogy. Wylie goes to great lengths to describe the Lecoq curriculum, but with an emphasis on its movement aspects and Lecoq's clowning process. In terms of his anthropological observations, Wylie notes that although Lecoq's first-year program succeeds in reducing cultural differences in relation to movement and gesture, there were nevertheless some striking cultural anomalies to be observed. He discusses
20 these at some length, conceding that it is problematic to generalise on the basis of culture and then on the basis of a small sample. From a psychological perspective, Wylie notes that Lecoq's work has profound psychological implications, describing Lecoq as 'one of the most original and productive psychologists of our time' (1973: 17).
In 1974, Bari Rolfe's article 'Mime in America' appeared in the Mime Journal. Rolfe's stated aim is not to provide an exhaustive history of mime in the United States but rather to offer a survey that might serve to suggest further exploration of the subject and also to contextualise the work of mime artists under consideration. Rolfe's historical survey covers the beginnings of mime in America from the late 1700s, through mime artists of the silent film era, the use of mime by television performers in the 1950s, the screening of Barrault's Les Enfants du paradis , tours by Marcel Marceau in the late forties and early fifties, to mime used in theatrical contexts since the 1920s. Rolfe includes a small paragraph on Lecoq at the end of the MarceauIBarrault section of her survey. She focuses briefly on Lecoq' s particular definition of mime and points to his periodic workshops in America and his school in Paris as having spawned new solo artists and companies.
In 1975, Sears Eldredge submitted the first academic study of masks in actor training entitled Masks: Their Use and Effectiveness in Actor Training. This PhD dissertation begins with an examination of the renewed interest in mask during the latter part of the 19th century, noting how this revival also sparked interest in earlier forms of masked theatre such as those of ancient Greece, the commedia dell'arte and the Japanese Noh drama. Following a discussion of Copeau' s work as seminal in the use of mask as an actor training tool, Eldredge articulates the core of his research findings. Here he details the acting programs operating in the United States at the time of his study that employed mask work as a major component of their training techniques. Eldredge has gathered a large portion of his research material through extensive interviews with many of the faculty members who use masks in their teaching, including Lecoq. He supplements this data with his own observations of class sessions in which mask techniques were employed. Eldredge writes that the teachers of these programs are inheritors of a theatrical tradition stemming from Copeau via one of two branches: either former students of Michel Saint Denis (Copeau's nephew) or former students of Jacques Lecoq, who trained under Jean Daste (Copeau's son-in-law). Following this discussion, Eldredge looks at the types of mask used in the various actor training programs, their construction and design principles. Five chapters then focus on an analysis of the masks used at the training institutions under consideration, these being the universal or neutral masks, character masks, the commedia dell'arte masks and miscellaneous training masks. This section of the study examines and compares the training methods and approaches used at the schools. The concluding chapter offers an evaluation of the effectiveness and value of the mask as a central tool for
21 actor training. The articulation of Lecoq's work is positioned in this study within the context of the examination of the actor training institutions whose teachers are former Lecoq students and in this framework, Lecoq's approach to mask work is given due consideration. All the masks used in Lecoq' s work are examined in some detail, his philosophies on actor training with mask and descriptions of some mask exercises.
John Towsen's book entitled Clowns (1976) attempts the ambitious task of presenting a comprehensive survey of the clown throughout history and throughout the world, to trace the evolution of a theatrical phenomenon with a major focus on the last three hundred years. The twelve chapters in the book deal with the clown in history, including discussions of the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest, court jesters, circus clowns, and the Harlequinade. The book also explores the work of famous clowns such as Charlie Chaplin, the Fratellini Brothers, Joseph Grimaldi, Oleg Popov and many more. Chapter twelve focuses on 'The Clown-mime' and here Towsen makes a brief reference to Lecoq's approach to teaching clown (1976:353-354).
Although Bari Rolfe's Behind the Mask (1977) draws on a number of texts written by prominent theatre practitioners, her book is primarily an exposition of Lecoq' s approach to mask in performance training. Rolfe deviates from Lecoq's pedagogy only in her discussion of the universal mask ofT'ai Chi Ch'uan. Elsewhere, Rolfe provides separate chapters largely based on Lecoq's work with the neutral mask, character mask, counter mask and the half-mask. In each chapter, Rolfe offers theoretical and practical discussion of each mask and concludes each chapter with sample workshop exercises.
Alan Levy spent 'A Week avec Lecoq' [sic] in 1976, producing this lively and humorous article which appeared in Mime, Mask & Marionette in 1978. Levy provides a brisk account of Lecoq' s career interspersed with comments by Lecoq and touching, once again, on Lecoq's disdain for mime of the Decroux variety. Through discussions with students about their experiences at the school, the recounting of Lecoq's advice and criticism during class sessions, and through Levy's own observations and experiences, the article offers an insight into life at the Lecoq school on a day-to-day basis. Here the Lecoq approach and course content are revealed via anecdote rather than through formal descriptive means, providing a glimpse of the personal struggles and triumphs of the students in their work at the school. Geoffrey Rush, who was a student at the time of Levy's visit, rates a mention in the article as the student with the 'most fantastic' bouffon costume (1978:59).
Following his PhD dissertation on the use of masks in actor training, Sears A. Eldredge published two texts based on his academic research. The fIrst, 'Actor Training in the Neutral Mask', was an article written in collaboration with Hollis W. Huston for The
22 Drama Review in 1978. The article has also appeared in Acting (Re)Considered in 1995, a volume of essays edited by Phillip Zarrilli. Eldredge and Hollis discuss the seminal work of Copeau and its formative influence on Decroux, Saint-Denis and Lecoq. Eldredge and Hollis name the latter two theatre practitioners as the inheritors of Copeau' s neutral mask work, but continue their discussion with a focus on Lecoq's rather than Saint-Denis' approach. With much reference to Lecoq, the remainder of the article deals with the concept of neutrality, the necessary characteristics of a neutral mask and the benefits of neutral mask work for the actor, including a discussion of the key aims and objectives of exercises in the neutral mask.
Two articles appeared in the early 1980s exploring mime in the 20th century which make mention of Lecoq. Both discuss Lecoq so briefly it is barely worth their attention here, except that they identify Lecoq as one of the major influences on the 'new mime'. The first, written by Annette Lust and entitled 'From Pierrot to Bip and Beyond', appeared in the Mime Journal in 1980. This article focuses on the rise of the different forms of mime in the 20th century and the accompanying difficulty of defining and categorising these forms when compared with those of the 19th century. It follows the evolution of modem mime from an easily defined art form to the problems of definition wrought by the burgeoning of diverse and often eclectic modalities. While Lust cites Copeau as the harbinger of the new possibilities in mime, she places the weight of the impetus for the movement fmnly with Decroux. And while the author mentions the Lecoq school as parallelling that of Decroux' s, and of the mimetic offshoots developing from both these schools, her attention is clearly on the latter. Indeed, Lecoq' s approach is afforded a mere two sentences. The article concludes by admitting that, despite the terminological difficulties accompanying modem mime, this century has seen a re-evaluation of mime and a broadening of previous definitions to accommodate other art forms.
The second article exploring mime in the 20th century was written by Peter Bu and entitled 'Mimes, Clowns, and the 20th Century?,. As with Lust's article, Bu begins in a similar fashion with the mime definition problem. He ostensibly explores the question 'What is mime?' in some depth, but tends to ask more questions than he answers. Issues raised include the difference between mime and dance as well as between mime and other types of theatre. This desultory article meanders from mime techniques, to the major mime schools, to the marginal nature of mime, to mime festivals, to clowns. Here, Lecoq' s school is mentioned as among the most important and well known yet, once again, this article focuses on Decroux rather than Lecoq.
As we have seen, a substantial portion of the literature on the subject of Lecoq' s work has been written, not in isolation, but within a broader framework of mime in the twentieth
23 century. To date, four books detail the French mime tradition, each with sections on Lecoq's work in this context. FeIner began the discourse with Apostles of Silence in 1985, picking up and expanding upon Bari Rolfe's statement that 'the four famous French names associated with mime: Decroux, Marceau, Lecoq and Barrault, all stem from Copeau; yet it would be difficult to imagine four artists who differ more in their professional choices' (1985:34). FeIner notes that Lecoq has not always been included as a legitimate heir to the French mime tradition:
Many proteges of Decroux and Marceau do not consider the work of Jacques Lecoq as fundamental to the mime renaissance. They claim his work to be a distinct discipline that followed the work of Messieurs Decroux, Barrault, and Marceau chronologically, but that it has no other ties to the earlier theories. But the genealogy offered in the introductory chapter clearly traces Lecoq' s roots back to Jacques Copeau - the common source of all this book's subjects. Further, where Lecoq departs from the schools of Decroux and Marceau, he does so as a conscious rebellion. Lecoq has initiated a countermovement that remains part of the modem French mime form. Although the impact of Jacques Lecoq' s theories and training is yet to be realized, there is a major new movement afoot, and it cannot be ignored (1985:167).
Through abundant examples of the work of the four 'apostles', accompanied by comments from contemporary critics and mimes, FeIner analyses the contribution of each theatre practitioner toward defining a new mime aesthetic.
The introductory chapter is important in its attempts to arrive at a definition of mime. Conceding the difficulty of such a task, FeIner claims that the term is contingent on, not only a generational aesthetic, but an individual one. She goes on to discuss mime in terms of its origins and development, tracing the evolution of the mime form in order to locate and analyse the 'apostles' in an historical context. Her first chapter positions Copeau as the original inspiration of the 'new mime' and examines aspects of his work at the Ecole du Vieux Colombier to the extent that they contributed to the styles and approaches of the four 'apostles'. A separate chapter is then given to each of the four mimes, highlighting the contributions and influence of Copeau' s work on their own and making a critical comparison of each, noting how they have fashioned a new approach to mime by distinguishing their own work from each other's and from the mime of the past.
Feiner, a former student of Lecoq, claims that he 'has the most consistent, logical and comprehensive body of theory' of the four mimes studied in her book (1985:174), and it is this 'body of theory' as well as the practice of that theory upon which the Lecoq chapter
24 focuses. Commencing with a brief introduction to Lecoq's career prior to the opening of his Paris school and linking his work to Copeau through his association with Jean Daste, FeIner moves on to a definition of Lecoq' s mime. Here the author likens Lecoq' s understanding of mime to Aristotle's definition as an imitation of nature and as a means of acquiring knowledge. From this starting point FeIner looks at Lecoq's mime in linguistic, anthropological and sociological terms, supporting her argument with citations from contemporary scholars in these fields. Lecoq's approach to mime is also analysed in contradistinction to those of Marceau, Barrault and Decroux, stressing Lecoq' s preoccupation with the creative freedom of the student. FeIner cites Lecoq' s strong dislike of formal mime and, as one critic noted, 'repeats many of the arguments accusing Decroux of formalism' (Wylie 1994:250). Following a close examination of Lecoq's philosophy of mime and movement, Lecoq's approach to practice is explored in some depth, detailing a sequence of the exercises conducted at the school including mask and movement work.
Feiner's conclusions point to the work of Decroux, Marceau, Barrault and Lecoq as belonging to a unique genre that is 'modem French mime' rather than as isolated phenomena. She argues that it is 'the Paris Modem' which is the point of correlation between their divergent mime styles. This term was coined by the critic Harold Rosenberg to describe a conflation of contemporary art, politics, psychology and science in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. As FeIner stresses:
[T]he Paris style is not a fixed form, but an ever-evolving composite of confluent trends, reflecting multiple influences. The only constants are conscious aesthetic theorizing coupled with a search for new forms, and the consistent repudiation of naturalism, with its literal replication of reality (1985: 169).
In the final analysis of the work of these four 'apostles' in relation to the Paris aesthetic, FeIner claims that each is representative of this cultural phenomenon in their own individual way so that 'modem French mime' is consequently an expression of a new aesthetic. She goes on to outline her own views of the work of the four apostles in her comments regarding those who may continue in the footsteps of the exponents of this mime tradition. She claims that Barrault has no disciples; that the 'hordes' of Decroux disciples have gone largely unrecognised and that Marceau's 'proteges have not advanced the art beyond his own accomplishments' (1985: 175). Consequently, it is to Lecoq's students that FeIner looks for the continuing development of modem mime:
It is to Jacques Lecoq that one must tum for a projection of the new mime into new forms. Much of what is new in modem mime appears to be the work of Lecoq's proteges. This should not be viewed as the projection of a single line of force. The
25 Lecoq training develops the mime in many diverse ways, and his disciples have chosen varying paths. His school continues to thrive as an international center for mime research, whereas the schools of Decroux and Marceau teach a preconceived technique. Although a few students of Decroux and Marceau apply the techniques with originality, most appear imprisoned by the rigidity of the imposed aesthetics. For this reason, Lecoq's mime remains the most open-ended of those studied (1985: 175-6).
Wylie has commented that Feiner, as a former student of Lecoq, tends to skew her discussion somewhat in his favour, but if this can be said of FeIner, it must also be said of the Decroux enthusiasts.
Bob Fleshman's edited volume entitled Theatrical Movement: A Bibliographical Anthology (1986) provides an extensive and detailed reference for those wishing to locate texts concerned with aspects of movement training for the actor. Divided into two parts, the first section entitled 'Preliminary Studies' comprises essays by various practitioners and academics covering a broad spectrum of movement topics including training, mime, pantomime, commedia dell' arte, body systems and dance. The second section is entitled 'Movement Performance of Other Cultures' and provides samples of movement-based theatres of Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Chapter three of the first section entitled 'Commedia dell'arte and Mime' has been written by Bari Rolfe and there is a small reference here to the Lecoq school as offering training in the commedia dell' arte (1986:48). In her discussion of mime, Rolfe again makes reference to Lecoq, here pointing to his conviction that mime should be a research art rather than a separate art form (1986:54).
Because there had been such a dearth of written material on Lecoq for so long, two newspaper articles came to be used as prime source material by those wishing to write about Lecoq's work. Both appeared in 1988 when Lecoq visited Britain to conduct workshops and present his performance-lecture Tout Bouge for the International Workshop Festival.
The first, 'Moving Heaven and Earth' (1988) by Jim Hiley and with ample comment from Lecoq, emphasises strongly the physical and creative aspects of Lecoq' s pedagogy. Taking this as its focus, the article makes implicit comparisons with the RSC and the National Theatre's focus on interpretation and vocal delivery. With what might be interpreted as a tone of regret, Hiley views the large attendance at Lecoq' s workshops as a measure of the burgeoning interest in 'wider theatre', noting the defection by prominent RSC and National trained actors who signed up for Lecoq's workshops.
26 Irving Wardle's newspaper article 'Unearthly Movement at Large' (1988) lacks the nationalistic fervour of Wiley's and confines itself to a discussion of Lecoq' sTout Bouge. Wardle is also more generous with his praise of Lecoq in his claim that, 'What Nadia Boulanger was to modem music, Jacques Lecoq is to the modem stage: an immensely influential teacher' (1988). Wardle continues with a relatively detailed description of Lecoq's performance-lecture, discussing Lecoq's demonstration of his work with the four elements, pantomime blanche and the masks of comedy and tragedy.
Thomas Leabhart is the founder and editor of the now defunct Mime Journal. He studied and taught with Decroux for many years and is a mime performer and teacher in the United States. His book, Modern and Post Modern Mime, was published in 1989. While similar to FeIner's in its organisation, (with individual chapters on the work of Copeau, Decroux, Barrault, Marceau and Lecoq), Leabhart provides important additions including a section on post-modem mime. Leabhart also engages with the mime definition problem, noting that, with the advent of modem and then post-modem mime there has been much debate over issues of identification and classification. The kaleidoscope of mime forms has made the convenient definitions of 19th century pantomime obsolete:
Up to this point there has been some confusion between the words 'mime' and 'pantomime'. Now we are going to have trouble distinguishing among words such as 'actor', 'dancer', 'mime' and 'clown' (1989: 119).
The introductory chapter extends beyond the theatrical development of mime and pantomime to incorporate an historical discussion of the impact of the changing cultural milieu which, Leabhart argues, exerted a formative influence on the evolution of modem mime. Here Leabhart claims that renewal in mime came, not from within the performing arts, but rather from the new developments in science and technology, and the growing interest in gymnastics. He cites the heightened understanding and changing perceptions of movement as contributing factors in altering the face of mime in the early part of the 20th century. Through exposure to the work of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the French philosopher Paul Souriau, the voice and acting teacher Fran<;ois Delsarte and the anatomy professor Paul Bellugue, the exponents of the French mime tradition fashioned their mime methods.
The chapter given to Lecoq' s work provides an overview of the evolution of his mime philosophies and teaching approach and, as with FeIner, points to influences from Copeau and the Ecole du Vieux Colombier. Leabhart also includes descriptions of class exercises, although not to the same extent as FeIner, but provides a brief description of the mask work conducted at the school. Of the chapters on Decroux, Barrault, Marceau and Lecoq,
27 the Lecoq chapter is unique in that it also contains a section on the Mummenschanz company, a troupe formed by former students of the Lecoq school. Leabhart uses this discussion as a lead-up to his examination of post-modem mime. Here he alludes to the company as the vanguard of post-modem mime, positioning them as being 'on the borderline between high-modern and post-modern' (1989:108). Not surprisingly, he locates Lecoq in the same frontier:
Lecoq is already something of a post-modernist in that he foresaw the synthesis that was to come and has in fact encouraged it. He assumes a more flexible, less austere, more pragmatic approach than Decroux (1989:100).
In the subsequent chapter, Leabhart examines the evolution of post-modern mime from modern mime, formulating his discussion within the framework of post-modern movements in art, dance, music and architecture and their emergence from their relative modern forms.
The final chapter explores examples of post-modern mime in the form of the exponents of 'new mime' and 'new vaudeville', a term coined to describe descendants (direct or otherwise) of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Through discussions of the work of a number of these performers, 'new mime' emerges as eclectically composed theatre utilising multi media and a range of diverse styles, while 'new vaudeville' draws upon the imagery of silent film, vaudeville and music hall clowning.
Improvisation in Drama, by Frost and Yarrow, provides a general introduction to those interested in both the theory and practice of this performance and training technique. It includes an overview of the early history of improvisation and a guide to the general principles of its practice. The first part of the book focuses on twentieth century theatre practitioners who have employed improvisation as a major component of their work. Distinguishing between improvisation in mainstream and alternative theatres, the authors examine, among others, the work of Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Le Theatre du SoleH, Grotowski, Dario Fo and Jacques Lecoq. The second part of the book offers workshop exercises and games for those interested in using improvisation in their theatre work, either in text-based rehearsals or as a way of devising performance material. Lecoq's work is given attention in the discussion of improvisation practitioners and his techniques are also referred to in the section on mask in the second part of the book. The section on Lecoq gives a brief career history and a cursory examination of the course content, but focuses mainly on Lecoq' s use of improvisation. While exploration is consequently limited to a particular aspect of Lecoq' s work, this is one of the few texts on Lecoq which actually addresses his pedagogical use of improvisation. Written in 1990, the authors examine this
28 technique from a structural and semiotic perspective, analysing improvisation within the context of Lecoq's approach to movement and highlighting how the concept of 'play' is central to it.
Of all the literature surveyed thus far, Thomas Koller's Die Schauspielpiidagogik Jacques Lecoqs (1993) provides the most comprehensive account of Lecoq's work and, to date, remains the most detailed description of the pedagogy and the school. After introducing the book, Koller charts a biography of Lecoq' s artistic development, tracing his beginnings in sport, the influence of Copeau via his work with Jean Daste, the seminal time spent in Italy at the Piccolo Teatro and his return to France to found the school. In chapter three, Koller moves on to a discussion of the theoretical and philosophical concepts which inform Lecoq's practice, incorporating discussions of the anthropology of gesture, mime, Lecoq's preoccupation with the artistic development of his students, the importance of the multi-cultural nature of the school, Lecoq' s aesthetic, and his work in the context of popular theatre traditions. Koller then outlines the principles of Lecoq' s pedagogy including the didactic objectives of the competitive teaching style and learning environment of the school.
Chapter four covers the pragmatic aspects of the school: the cost of attendance; organisation; the curriculum; conditions of entry and so on. What follows is an extremely detailed account of the curriculum covering work with: the neutral mask; the larval masks; utilitarian masks; expressive masks; character; dramatic approaches to painting, music, poetry and literature; the auto-cours work in both first and second year; and the work with melodrama, commedia dell'arte, Greek tragedy, bouffon and clown. Koller includes photos and diagrams of movement sequences as an adjunct to his commentary.
In chapter five, Koller makes comparisons between the Lecoq school and three theatre schools situated in Germany's north-west. Chapter six is based on extensive interviews Koller conducted with former students of the Lecoq school. Here he discusses their impressions of the pedagogy, quoting extensively from his interview material. His concluding chapter places Lecoq's work on the borderline between mime, 'speech' theatre and dance theatre, culminating with the transcript of an interview he conducted with Lecoq. Here Lecoq discusses the constantly evolving nature of his pedagogy with the rules of motion as the stable point of reference.
John Rudlin's Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook, is arguably the most comprehensive text on its subject to date. Written in 1994, it covers the history of commedia, the different masks, movements and plot functions of all the stock characters and includes a section on leather mask construction. Part III of the book examines the
29 restoration and renovation of the commedia form in the twentieth century through a discussion of exponents of the traditional. As well as examining the work of pioneers such as Edward Gordon Craig and Copeau, the exploits of more contemporary artists are also given consideration, including The San Francisco Mime Troupe, TNT (The New Theatre) and Dario Fo. In comparison to the consideration given to theatre practitioners elsewhere in this part of the book, Lecoq' s work with commedia occupies a small portion of this section and relies heavily on previously published material by other authors. Rudlin re-iterates Lecoq's dislike of 'pure' mime and highlights his concern for commedia as a reference point and springboard for theatrical innovation rather than as a museum piece. In the conclusion of this section, Rudlin acknowledges the contribution the Lecoq school has made to commedia dell'arte revivals.
Published in 1994, Satyric and Heroic Mimes is the most lucid articulation of mime and its continuing problems of definition to date. Unique in the mime literature, this book by Kathryn Wylie not only examines the reasons for the mime definition problem in the first instance, but offers sound criteria for defining mime. The introductory chapter points to 'muddied discussions' and the absence of a 'coherent aesthetic' on the part of mime critics arising from a 'lack of clear articulation of the means proper to the mime' (1994: 1). Adding to this problematic, notes Wylie, is the common practice of categorising mimetic performance into the two distinct types of mime and pantomime. Wylie goes on to offer and examine a means of resolving these dilemmas, claiming that an understanding of mime in the light of ritual mimesis found in the rites of shamanism and possession trance provides a set of defining criteria for mime and pantomime respectively. Divided into two parts, the book then explores those performers in whose work can be seen the manifestations of the satyric impulse of possession trance and, secondly, those whose work has manifested the heroic impulse of the shaman. The first chapters of each part of the book establish the elements relative to these two ritual forms before proceeding to individual chapters dedicated to mimes 'belonging' to each ritual type. Part I, entitled 'Satyric Mimes', deals with the evolution of possession trance into Western mime, examining in separate chapters Greek mimes, the commedia dell' arte and the work of Jacques Lecoq. Part II, 'Heroic Mimes', traces pantomime back to shamanic ritual, examining the Noh mime dance, the Greco-Roman pantomime, the pantomime blanche of the 19th century, and the work of Marceau and Decroux. In the chapter given to Lecoq, Wylie systematically analyses aspects of all the mask work utilised in the Lecoq training program within the framework of her argument. She relates and explores each of the masks to ritual possession trance in connection with the previously defined elements of dissociation, identification, posture and attitude and concludes by arguing that Lecoq is a teacher of the satyric mime rather than the heroic.
30 In March 1994, a two week festival dedicated to Lecoq was held by ex-students at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The festival, entitled 'Theatre of Creation', consisted of workshops, panel discussions, seven productions created by former Lecoq students, as well as a master class by Lecoq and his public demonstration-lesson 'The Body of Things'. To mark the festival, Geoff Gehman wrote an article for American Theatre entitled 'Moving with the Master'. Gehman calls Lecoq's master class 'the spine of the program', and he records here some of the pedagogical principles he gleaned from the class via anecdotal material. This is interspersed with quotes from interviews with Lecoq and former students. Gehman provides a brisk description of a select few of the student productions and fleetingly points to the Lecoqian influences that can be observed in the work of Mummenschanz, Peter Brook, Steven Berkoff and Ariane Mnouchkine.
As with Bari Rolfe's Behind the Mask, Sears A. Eldredge's Mask Improvisationfor Actor Training and Peiformance published in 1996 is a text which is based on rather than about Lecoq's pedagogy. As with Rolfe's text, it is primarily directed towards the teacher of mask performance rather than the theorist or academic. The book is in the form of a large workshop manual and is the first text to offer detailed mask exercises for teaching purposes. Many of these exercises are based on Lecoq's own, particularly those for neutral mask.
Following Lecoq's death on the 19th January 1999, obituaries appeared in newspapers in many parts of the world honouring Lecoq' s work and indicating the theatrical legacy he has left behind. It seems fitting here to mention at least one such article and I have chosen Martin Esslin's 'Mask over Matter' which appeared in the Guardian Weekly February 7, 1999. Esslin distinguishes Lecoq as 'one of the greatest mime artists, and perhaps more importantly, one of the finest teachers of acting in our time'. The obituary describes Lecoq's early career history, emphasising his passion for the commedia dell' arte and provides a cursory discussion of Lecoq' s pedagogy, highlighting its movement, mask and clowning aspects. Esslin draws the article to a close with a personal recollection of attending the Odin Theatre in 1969 where Decroux, Dario Fo and Lecoq were also in attendance. Esslin comments that 'Lecoq surpassed both of them in the exuberance and depth of his genius' (1999:26).
The most recent treatise to emerge on the history of mime is Annette Lust's book published in Spring 1999 and entitled: From the Greek Mimes to Marcel Marceau and Beyond: Mimes, Actors, Pierrots, and Clowns: A Chronicle of the Many Visages of Mime in the Theatre. I have been unable to acquire a copy of this text for review in this thesis, but I have been able to glean the following information regarding the book's contents from an advertisement of the book's release. Although Lust covers similar
31 material to earlier studies on the subject of mime, this text updates the previous histories in its discussions of post-modem mime and its exploration of mime used in verbal theatre, film, dance and clowning. As with previous works, Lust also incorporates an extensive study of the four twentieth century mime masters: Decroux, Barrault, Marceau and Lecoq. In addition, the book documents training programs, schools of mime and mime festivals, providing contact information for those interested in the study of mime forms.
Until recently, the only information to be gained about Lecoq's school from the internet was a site displaying the address and telephone number of the school. There is now an extended site at www.lecoq.com which has information on the school, a biography of Lecoq, news, masks, coming events associated with Lecoq' s school and alumni, and 'memories' in which alumni can exchange recollections of their training and their work.
Another site of interest is situated at [email protected] (1998). Entitled 'La Lec;on de theatre et les lec;ons du mouvement', the text is an extended interview with Lecoq by the author of the website. Lecoq speaks here philosophically and at times enigmatically about his teaching and his pedagogy. He discusses the difference between teaching as a transmission of knowledge and his own approach which positions ignorance, unknowing and a state of discovery as departure points. This approach enables the students to discover their own 'knowledge', to find their own forms of creative expression using the teaching as a matrix of reference points. He discusses the pedagogy in terms of two voyages taken by the student, one horizontal and one vertical, exploring the 'other' and the 'elsewhere' of oneself as a means to personal creation.
TEXTS WRITTEN BY OR ABOUT INTERNATIONAL LECOQ ALUMNI
As an addendum to this survey, I have included a list of international Lecoq alumni in Appendix A. It should in no way be considered a comprehensive list, but it will provide some indication of the more prominent alumni of the Lecoq school and the diversity of the work they are undertaking. My primary objective in conducting a survey of material written on the subject of international Lecoq alumni was to ascertain if there have been any major studies conducted of a similar nature to the one undertaken here. By locating specific studies designed to track the influence of Lecoq alumni on a particular geographical, socio-cultural site, theoretical and methodological models may have been found which could serve or be adapted for the present study. However, as far as I have been able to ascertain, no major studies have been completed on this particular topic.
32 However, Susan Thompson is currently undertaking a PhD in Theatre History at Tufts University which is of a similar nature to this study. Thompson's dissertation is concerned with locating and interviewing Lecoq alumni working in America, Latin America and Canada (Thompson 2000).
Three Masters theses have been written which, though not specifically focused on the influence of Lecoq' s training on the work of alumni, incorporate this topic as a significant component of their research. Two of these were submitted to the University of Guelph in 1991. The first, by Flora Wellsman, is called Richard Pochinko' s Clowning Process: An Integration of Jacques Lecoq's Mime Techniques and Amerindian Traditions. Using a Jungian approach, this study documents and analyses the evolution of Richard Pochinko' s clowning process from his time as a student at the Lecoq school to his studies of Amerindian myths and traditions of the clown/trickster figure. Pochinko combined aspects of both these to create a new form of theatrical performance and his research and teaching have been recognised as contributing significantly to the Canadian clown renaissance. The first chapter provides an overview of Lecoq' s philosophy and general approach to actor training before detailing the particulars of Lecoq's clowning process. This descriptive analysis is interspersed with commentary highlighting those aspects of Lecoq's work that Pochinko adopted and those he rejected, thus communicating the points of departure in Pochinko' s work. Remaining chapters focus on the bulk of the research material, describing Pochinko' s own clowning process and its contributions to Canadian theatre.
Contradictions in Columbus's Clowns by Katherine Allan was the second Masters thesis to emerge from the University of Guelph in 1991 dealing with aspects of Lecoq's training in relation to former students. The thesis positions itself as a materialist investigation of the Toronto-based clowning company, Theatre Columbus. It explores the contradictions between the company's theatrical techniques which subvert hegemonic ideologies and the company's ambiguous political and ideological approach which, the author argues, tend to undermine this subversion. Both founding members of Theatre Columbus trained for two years at the Lecoq school, which has greatly influenced the company's meta-theatrical techniques and also their philosophical and ideological orientation. The author argues that the company's belief in a transcending universalism is due, on the one hand, to the company's interpretation of the teachings of Lecoq and, on the other, to ruling patriarchal and capitalist ideologies. Any exploration of the influence of Lecoq' s training is consequently limited to the framework of this particular argument.
The third Masters thesis incorporating aspects of Lecoq's pedagogy was written by Martine Julien in 1992 at the University of Quebec. The thesis is entitled: Le clown poete
33 en action: demonstration puhlique d'une direction d'acteurs; suivie d'une reflexion critique et comparative sur Ie travail de Lecoq et du Bataclowns. Here Julien makes a critical comparison between Lecoq' s approach to clown and the work of a group called the Bataclowns of Toulouse, situating her own work as director in relation to these two sources of inspiration. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first section provides a detailed account of Lecoq' s approach to teaching clown in the context of his pedagogy. The second part of the thesis details the work and clowning approach of the Bataclowns, discussing their philosophy and work practices. Part three of the thesis compares the work of Lecoq and the Bataclowns within the context of Julien's direction of Houba! Clowns, presented at the University of Quebec in 1991.
One further study worth noting here is Murray Edmond's PhD thesis entitled Old Comrades of the Future: A History of Experimental Theatre in New Zealand 1962 - 1982. Edmond's thesis focuses on a number of prominent 'experimental' theatre companies working in New Zealand during the period under consideration. The section given to the Theatre Action company is of relevance here. Theatre Action was founded in 1971 by New Zealander Francis Batten and four other Lecoq alumni. And although Edmond's thesis is designed as a history rather than an analysis of the influence of the group's Lecoq training on their work, much of Edmond's discussion focuses on this very topic, if only by default. This is due to the fact that the group's work was so overtly based on their Lecoq training:
[Theatre Action] planned a performance programme which would systematically work through the Lecoq training: a show using 'white pantomime'; a show using 'larval masks'; a show using 'clown'; a show using 'movement and music' (something not quite dance); a show using large masks in the streets; and finally a show of their own devising which would talk about their experience in New Zealand. Alongside this performance programme was the teaching programme. The company would teach others the truths of Lecoq's method (1996:101).
Edmond describes many of the company's productions with an overt focus on the influence of the group's Lecoq training. He also emphasises the impact which Theatre Action's performances and training programs had on other 'experimental' companies under consideration in the thesis.
In addition to these larger studies, there have been two minor studies focusing on the influence of Lecoq's training on the work of international alumni. The first is Sara Brady's article entitled 'Looking for Lecoq' which appeared in the American Theatre journal in January 2000. This is the only material I could discover on the influence of the
34 work of Lecoq alumni on a specific geographical, socio-cultural site. Brady's five page article provides an overview of alumni working in the United States. The scope of her survey encompasses solo and group performers, and also looks at areas where Lecoq based performance training occurs, including community arts programs, universities, conservatory programs and the K-12 school systems. Brady notes that full-time Lecoq based actor training programs are rare. She states no theoretical or methodological perspective, except to say that she 'went in search of the lineage of Lecoq' s work' (2000:1).
In addition to Brady's article is a piece which appeared in The Economist (11 Sept. 1999:89) discussing Lecoq's influence on the international theatre scene. It stated that Lecoq's legacy endures in the US, the UK and other countries throughout the world in the work of performers but also through Lecoq-trained teachers working in performance training institutions. The author places Lecoq' s pedagogy in an historical perspective, stressing Lecoq' s physical approach to actor training in contrast to an emphasis in the West on psychological approaches to acting in the 20th century. Some of the more prominent alumni of the Lecoq school are given brief attention, including Theatre de Complicite, Steven Berkoff, Footsbam Theatre, Mummenschanz, Antonio Fava, Luc Bondy, Ariane Mnouchkine and Theatre de la Jeune Lune. Certain elements of the Lecoq pedagogy are also touched on, such as Lecoq' s work with neutral mask, and his emphasis on 'play' and creativity.
Except for these texts, I have uncovered only scattered references indicating where particular aspects of the Lecoq pedagogy have impacted on Lecoq-trained individuals and companies. Bari Rolf's interview with Mummenschanz in the article 'Masks, Mime and Mummenschanz', for example, reveals the company's Lecoq training as the major impetus for their continuing interest in masked performance (Rolfe 1975:27). In the book Collaborative Theatre: The Theatre du Soleil Sourcebook, the author notes where specific aspects of Lecoq's training informs the company's work, such as: mask and movement (Williams 1999:xiii); a non-psychological approach to acting, Ie jeu, collaborative creation (1999:xvii); the company's devising process (1999:41); approaches to mask work (1999:85); and the use of choral work (1999:222-223). Another example can be found in an interview conducted by Richard Schechner with Julie Taymor for TDR in 1999, in which Taymor speaks candidly and at some length about the impact of her Lecoq training on her work as a director and puppeteer (Schechner 1999). It is notable that texts written specifically on the subject of the influence of Lecoq's training on his alumni have only emerged following Lecoq's death in January 1999. Prior to this, there has been little interest in documenting the work of alumni or analysing the impact they are having world wide. It would appear that Lecoq' s death has brought his
35 work and the work of his former students to the foreground of theatrical discourse, and it may be the case that the current interest in Lecoq will continue to increase, with further studies being conducted on his pedagogy and its influence on the work of his students.
TEXTS WRITTEN BY OR ABOUT LECOQ ALUMNI WORKING IN AUSTRALIA
It would be difficult to overemphasise how little has been written about the work of Lecoq alumni in Australia. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there are only two articles, a radio broadcast and a mini-conference dealing with this topic. Notably, the latter two both appeared after Lecoq's death in 1999. However, Zen Zen Zo member Lynne Bradley is currently engaged in a PhD study on the subject of physical theatre in Australia and it is my understanding that some reference will be made to the work of alumni in this country.
In the wake of Lecoq' s first and only visit to Australia for the International Workshop Festival held in Adelaide in 1991, Steven Gration wrote the first text that focused on Lecoq and the work of alumni in Australia. Called simply 'Jacques Lecoq', the article appeared in Lowdown magazine in 1991. Here Gration traces Lecoq' s career history and the development of his pedagogy. Discussion is given to the work of prominent international alumni of the school, before turning to Lecoq's influence in Australia. Gration cites the work of director George Ogilvie, Geoffrey Rush, Adelaide theatre-worker Russell Fewster and NIDA teacher Isabelle Anderson as instances of Lecoq alumni who have impacted on the Australian theatre scene. Gration notes that, for some of these alumni, their Lecoq training has met with strong resistance from theatre practitioners in Australia. Gration points out that the training is largely unknown and unrecognised in this country as a valid performance training. Perhaps attempting to rectify this situation, Gration devotes the remainder of the article to a fairly detailed description of Lecoq's philosophy and practice.
The impact of Lecoq' s training on Nigel Jamieson's work as a director featured strongly in an interview presented in article form in the October 1999 issue of Australasian Drama Studies. In his introduction, interviewer Gavin Robins emphasises the impact Jamieson has had on contemporary Australian circus and physical theatre over the last seven years. Jamieson discusses at some length the impact his exposure to Lecoq' s training has had on the development of his work as a director, with particular reference to his work in Australia with Legs on the Wall, Rock 'n' Roll Circus and others.
36 Following Lecoq's death, Radio National's 'Arts Today' broadcast a program focusing on the impact of the Lecoq school both nationally and internationally (Portus 1999). Here Martin Portus interviewed a panel of three Australian alumni: George Ogilvie, Luda Popenhagen and Andrew Lindsay. In discussion with the panel, Portus focused on the physical theatre aspects of Lecoq's approach, stressing that the pedagogy did not negate language or text. Luda Popenhagen' s comments focused on the impact of international Lecoq alumni visiting Australia, citing the work of Theatre de Complicite and performances by Lecoq-based companies Cirque du Soleil and Els Comediants at the 1999 Sydney Festival. George Ogilvie discussed Lecoq's impact on Australian theatre, and particularly text-based theatre, in more specific and personal terms, pointing to his work as a director with the MTC and workshops with the APG in the 1970s and 1980s.
In September 1999 the Centre for Performance Studies held a two day mini conference entitled Passing Away and Passing On: The Legacy of Grotowski, Strehler, Lecoq and MUller. The conference examined the influence of these European practitioners on the study and practice of performance and performance training. The conference took the intersection between the theatre profession and the academy, between theory and practice as its primary point of discussion. In addition to papers given by academics and professional practitioners, the conference included panel discussions on Grotowski, Lecoq, Strehler and MUller. The Lecoq panel was headed by two Lecoq graduates, Luda and Ron Popenhagen, who discussed Lecoq' s influence on alumni working in Australia and overseas. Their discussion covered Lecoq' s early career history, the evolution of the Lecoq school, the school curriculum and teachers at the school. The Popenhagens then moved on to a discussion of Lecoq's international influence, focusing primarily on the impact of his work in the United States, Britain and Australia. They concluded with an exposition of Lecoq' s influence on their own work as performers and directors.
Except for these meagre offerings, I have been able to locate only a small number of scattered references to individual Lecoq alumni working in Australia which mention the influence of their training on their theatre work. Geoffrey Rush has sometimes made reference to his training in interviews. Examples can be found in HQ magazine (Slee 1998:48) and the 1999 Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture published in the April issue of Australasian Drama Studies (2000:8). Judith Pippen's PhD thesis entitled Inscribing Actor's Bodies: Towards an Epistemology of Movement Praxis in Actor Training which she submitted in 1998 contains a brief reference to Lecoq's influence on her work as a theatre trainer.
The Companion to Theatre in Australia contains no indexical reference to Jacques Lecoq and the section on European influences makes no mention of Lecoq's impact. Further,
37 there is no indication of the two Lecoq-based performance training schools in Australia. Lecoq is mentioned, however, in the section on Mime (368-369) and here Lecoq alumni such as Marc Furneaux, Heather Robb, Geoffrey Rush, Isabelle Anderson and the bouffon troupe Red Weather are mentioned briefly. Geoffrey Rush and George Ogilvie both have individual sections given to their work and in both cases the bibliographical material notes their attendance at the Lecoq school. The section on Rush alludes to the influence of his Lecoq training on his work, with Ken Healey stating that Rush's 'Parisian training is obvious' (in Parsons 1995:513). The section on George Ogilvie also alludes to a Lecoq influence saying, '[Ogilvie's] training as a mime artist and a teacher contributed immensely to the development of the Union Theatre Repertory Company (later the Melbourne Theatre Company) and the South Australian Theatre Company' (Davison 1995:413). Therese Collie is also mentioned in the Companion in the section on 'Street Arts Theatre Company' but her Lecoq training and any influence on her work is absent (Fotheringham 1995:562). It is given a brief mention, however, by Steve Capelin in Challenging the Centre: Two Decades of Political Theatre (1995: 108). George Ogilvie and Geoffrey Rush's work has also been discussed in a number of other texts although their training is rarely mentioned. Ogilvie is included in John Sumner's Recollections at Play (1993) and is interviewed by Kevon Kemp in Theatre Australia (1977). Both Rush and Ogilvie are discussed in Peter Ward's A Singular Act: Twenty five years of the State Theatre Company of South Australia (1992).
The lack of documentation on the work of Lecoq alumni in Australia is perhaps some indication of the extent to which scholarship in this country has so often privileged text based theatre. As Peter Fitzpatrick noted in 1986, the majority of texts on the subject of theatre in Australia have concerned themselves primarily with text-based theatre, focusing on written plays and the work of playwrights as the major theatrical forms worthy of study (1986: 165). Mark St Leon has noted with regret that, to date, there has been no formal study of circus in Australia (1999:7). David Watt wrote in 1992 with rather more disgust than regret about the apparent lack of interest in documenting community theatre in this country (1992:3-15). It is heartening, therefore, to note the appearance of texts such as Peiforming the Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Peiformance Texts. However, it may be the case that this lacuna arises from some of the difficulties inherent in researching and documenting theatrical work which is physically-based and often depends on visual rather than verbal means of communication. In such cases the ephemeral nature of the theatrical event is brought sharply into focus where, often, no tangible record of the event remains, except for the odd video recording which is a different text again and as such harbours its own research problematics. On the whole, what remains is perhaps a few photographs or reviews of the production and, importantly, the testimony of those involved in the events themselves.
38 CONCLUSION
It has been my purpose in this chapter to provide an overview of texts relevant to a study of the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre. I have attempted to situate the study within the context of a larger historical and theatrical discourse and to offer indications of how the current study is positioned within the existing textual milieu. It is apparent from the material surveyed that little research has been conducted on the work of Lecoq alumni either in Australia or elsewhere. The survey thus confirms the need for the present study and indicates that it will make a significant contribution to theatrical research both here and overseas. As far as I can ascertain, it will be the first research conducted on the influence of the Lecoq school across a particular socio-cultural, geographical area. Notably, Lecoq's death has prompted increased interest in his pedagogy and its influence on former students of the school. It is possible that the current fore grounding of Lecoq in theatrical discourse will see more studies conducted of this nature.
The material gathered for this survey has served a number of purposes in this study. Firstly, the review of literature written on the subject of international Lecoq alumni has helped to identify whether there have been any studies conducted of a similar nature on which the present study may have been modelled in terms of theoretical and methodological approach. Secondly, material gathered on the work of Lecoq alumni living and working in Australia has served to augment and complement the primary source material gathered from interviews with the participants of this study. Thirdly, the material included in this survey has assisted me in understanding the principles and philosophy of the Lecoq pedagogy and the curriculum offered at the Lecoq school, which has helped to inform the interviews with Lecoq alumni.
39