CHAPTER NINE
CASE STUDY: GEOFFREY RUSH. INTRODUCTION
Geoffrey Rush is the most successful and well-known Australian graduate of the Lecoq school. This chapter will focus on how Rush's Lecoq training has influenced his work as a director and performer. I will begin the chapter by providing an overview of Rush's career history, followed by a discussion of his experiences at the Lecoq school and their general impact on his work. An analysis of Rush's work in the context of the four key elements of the Lecoq pedagogy follows, with Rush's acting and directing considered specifically in terms of its movement-based approach, devised elements, use of improvisation and application of performance styles. Although this thesis has been primarily concerned with analysing the influence of the Lecoq school on performance practitioners in terms of their work in theatrical rather than cinematic contexts, here I will be analysing Rush's work in film as well as in theatre. My reasons for expanding the focus of the study to include film in this particular instance arise from a desire to conduct a close analysis of Rush's work and, for purposes of analysis, film obviously presents a far more tangible and stable record than an ephemeral stage production.
Career History: Geoffrey Rush is widely known for his award winning performance as David Helfgott in the film Shine. Prior to garnering the 1997 Academy Award for Best Actor, however, Rush had long been one of Australia's most acclaimed and distinguished directors and stage performers. His theatre career spans three decades and over seventy theatrical productions. He has consistently worked at Australia's major theatre companies where he has worked with many of Australia's leading directors including Simon Phillips, Michael Gow, Roger Hodgman, George Ogilvie, Gale Edwards, Robyn Archer, John Gaden, Jim Sharman, Louis Nowra, Richard Cotterill and Neil Armfield.
Born in Toowoomba, Rush's first acting forays were with the College Players, a semi- professional dramatic company formed originally as an amateur group by students at the University of Queensland. The company performed to school audiences as well as the general public, touring a repertoire of Shakespeare and popular musical theatre along the Queensland coast. Rush began performing professionally in 1971 when he joined the Queensland Theatre Company. In the years prior to his Lecoq studies, Rush performed in seventeen QTC productions in what he calls 'a fairly diverse if conventional repertoire' (Rush 1998:531, interview).
244 In 1975 Rush travelled to the UK and Europe where he attended a directors course at the British Theatre Association in London and began his studies at the Lecoq school in Paris. He returned to Australia in 1978, joining the QTC once again for his first Australian post- Lecoq performance as the Fool in King Lear.
After performing with the QTC for five years, Rush moved to Sydney in 1979 where he played Vladimir to Mel Gibson s Estragon in Waiting for Godot and Dave in On Our Selection at the Jane Street Theatre, a role he later revived for a film version directed by George Whaley. In 1980, Rush began his long association with director Neil Armfield, performing in Teeth and Smiles at the Nimrod. The following year, Rush performed under the direction of fellow Lecoq graduate George Ogilvie in the Sydney Theatre Company s production of You Can t Take It With You.
From 1981 Rush spent much of his time in Adelaide performing with the Lighthouse Company, (later the STCSA). He performed roles in twenty productions for Lighthouse between 1981 and 1987, including Oberon/Theseus in A Midsummer Night s Dream (1982); Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro (1983); Allen Fitzgerald in The Blind Giant is Dancing (1983); Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (1983/1984); and Autolycus in The Winter s Tale (1987).
Since 1986, Rush has spread his theatre performances more evenly among the major theatre companies, although he has increasingly worked at Belvoir Street under Neil Armfield s direction. His first Belvoir Street role was as Mouldy 2 in Robyn Archer s production of On Parliament Hill in 1987. Rush made his first appearance on the MTC stage in 1988, taking the title role in Tristram Shandy.
From 1988, Rush began performing many of the roles for which he has become renowned. In 1988 he premiered what was to be a much revived role as Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest for the MTC. In 1989, Rush played what is to date his most celebrated stage role as Poproshin in Gogol s The Diary of a Madman. Directed by Neil Armfield and premiered at Belvoir Street, the production s popularity and acclaim quickly took it to the MTC in 1990. In 1992 it played at the Adelaide Festival, before a triumphant return season at Belvoir Street. In October, Belvoir Street became the first Australian theatre company to tour to Russia, with The Diary of a Madman playing to critical acclaim in Moscow and St Petersburg. Rush collected three industry awards for his performance: the Variety Club of Australia Award for Stage Actor of the Year (1989); the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award for Most Outstanding Performance (1989); and the Victorian Green Room Award for Best Actor (1990).
245 Rush returned to Adelaide in 1990 to play the roles of Marat in the Marat/Sade and Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors, both under the aegis of the STCSA. In 1991 Neil Armfield embarked on another Gogol with Rush playing Khlestakhov in The Government Inspector at the Sydney Theatre Company. In 1992, Rush s portrayal of Astrov in Armfield s Uncle Vanya for the STC earned him a nomination from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle for Best Actor. In 1993 Rush received the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for an individual contribution. He performed as Cocledemoy in The Dutch Courtesan at the MTC and as John in Oleanna at the STC, for which he was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Rosemount Award. In 1994 he played Horatio in the Belvoir Street production of Hamlet, and was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. The production was also nominated for the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Shakespeare Globe Centre Award. In 1996 Rush performed as Subtle in Armfield s acclaimed production of The Alchemist at Belvoir Street. In 1998 he again played the title role in The Marriage of Figaro, this time for the Queensland Theatre Company.
In addition to Rush s prolific acting career, he has also distinguished himself as a director. He made his first foray into directing in 1978 with his production of Clowneroonies for the QTC, which he also wrote/devised and in which he performed as Roy the Wonderboy. The production was subsequently mounted at the Nimrod in 1980. Between 1984 and 1986 Rush was artistic director of the theatre-in-education troupe Magpie Theatre Company. Here he directed what Murray Bramwell describes as many lively productions (Bramwell, in Parsons 1995:337). These included David Holman s Small Poppies, researched and written while Holman was playwright-in-residence.
In 1986 Rush left Magpie but continued to direct independently. Productions included Pearls Before Swine, The 1985 Scandals and Pell Mell, all at Belvoir Street. In 1987, Rush directed The Merry Wives of Windsor for the Royal Queensland Theatre Company before embarking on what was to become his most acclaimed and popular directorial enterprise, The Popular Mechanicals or Pop Mex , as it has become affectionately known in the Australian vernacular. Rush collaborated with Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor in writing the play, which is based around the rustic clown characters from A Midsummer Night s Dream. The production began its meteoric rise to fame with a premiere at the Belvoir Street in 1987 but proved so endearing to audiences and critics alike that it was re-mounted at the MTC and the STC in 1988 before returning to Belvoir in 1992, accompanied by its sequel Popular Mechanicals II (or Top Mex II ). The Popular Mechanicals has played in every major city in Australia (Sheldon, in Parsons 1995:580).
246 Although Rush has been locally acclaimed and renowned as a stage performer and director for many years, it is only since his multi-award winning performance in Shine in 1995 that he has attracted wide-spread national and international attention. For his performance as the troubled but brilliant pianist, Rush garnered thirteen awards and an award nomination from critics associations in Australia, America and Britain. These included the 1997 Academy Award for Best Actor, the 1996 Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actor, the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, and the BAFTA award for Best Actor. Since Shine, Rush has performed in Peter Duncan s Children of the Revolution with Judy Davis (1995); A Little Bit of Soul (1997); as the narrator in Gillian Armstrong s Oscar and Lucinda; as Inspector Javert in Billy August s Les Miserables (1997); as Walsingham in Shekkar Kapur s highly acclaimed Elizabeth; as Henslowe in John Madden s 1998 film Shakespeare in Love; and most recently in Mystery Men (1999); House on Haunted Hill (1999); and Quills (2000).
Lecoq Training: Geoffrey Rush trained for two years at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq between 1975 and 1977. He became interested in the Lecoq school after taking part in a workshop given by Lecoq graduate Marc Furneaux in the early 1970s. Rush subsequently wrote to George Ogilvie for information about the school. In a radio interview on Arts Today , Ogilvie recalled receiving Rush s letter:
I remember I got a letter from Geoffrey all that time ago asking me whether he thought Lecoq would be a good thing for him to do and of course I d been saying that for so long now it doesn t matter. Anyway Geoffrey went over and of course the change in him was astonishing. And I recently had dinner with Geoffrey and he was saying at that dinner how it actually was a total watershed for his life, how it completely turned him around. And what Lecoq does of course is not transform people but open doors for those people and people like Geoffrey just leapt through those doors and with that body of his he transformed himself virtually in the Lecoq studio into the actor he is today [...]. It s an extraordinary freedom that Lecoq gives to all of his students, he allows them to find out that they have in fact enormous possibilities (Ogilvie, interviewed by Martin Portus 1999).
Rush attended the Lecoq school when it was celebrating its twentieth anniversary. In his second year at the school, Lecoq moved premises into La Centrale, which has been the home of the school ever since. Rush considers he was at the school at a particularly high point in its history:
247 I suppose I was there in a little bit of a golden age when the school was twenty years old and we did have a pretty stunning array of first level teachers like Pierre Byland and Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux who have all subsequently gone on to create their own schools or their own teaching methods. It was a pretty good time [...]. And also at the time I was there the sort of work [Lecoq] was doing with bouffon was very new. It was only a couple of years into the discovery (Rush 1998:523, interview).
Rush says of Lecoq: I always knew when I was there that I was in the hands of a great teacher and was particularly struck by Lecoq s ability at perceiving talent in some very unlikely sources (1998:523-524, interview). Rush recalls a fellow student who, having displayed no particular signs of talent throughout the course, proved his mettle in the final stages of the second year:
I thought he was hopeless [...] and at that stage clowning was the very last thing you did, it was like the ultimate mask, the smallest mask, the most powerful personal kind of revelation. And this guy led the class, just came out of nowhere and flew. And I think that s also part of the teaching, is a discovery of the humanity around you. You sort of realise that people have hidden strengths, that not everyone s an Everyman and some people lead with skill in particular areas. And that s part of what you come away with from the school is that the most unlikely people can fly (Rush 1998:524, interview).
Rush describes the Ecole Jacques Lecoq as a school that happens to have an approach to creating theatre through various disciplines of movement , and he adds it was a real joy to experience that (1998:531, interview). Like most Lecoq students, he considers that the training does not imbue its alumni with an identifiable style and he views this as one of the key factors in the school s pedagogical philosophy:
I think the thing about the school is that there is no sort of [one defined graduate]. I mean I can probably identify an influence on people s work and think, "I ll bet you they ve spent time at Lecoq". I can sniff something out, but I m never quite sure what that is, as opposed to someone who may study with - well that no longer exists I don t think - but the Decroux school is actually like you learn a kind of discipline and you learn a particular approach and a particular look (Rush 1998:530, interview).
248 Lecoq Influence: Geoffrey Rush has made a tremendous contribution to Australian theatre as a director and as a stage and screen performer. His contribution was given due recognition in 1994 when he received the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, an award given to an individual artist who has displayed originality, initiative and daring in their work. Rush possesses a multitude of qualities as an actor and to speak of originality, initiative and daring is to name but a few. Others include his incredible stage presence, his total abandon to a role, his spontaneity and playfulness, his striking physical transformations, a chameleon quality that often renders him unrecognisable from one role to the next or even, as in The Diary of a Madman, unrecognisable from the beginning of a play to its harrowing conclusion.
Many of the attributes Rush possesses as an actor and director can be traced to his training at the Lecoq school. This is not to say he was void of talent or ability when he travelled to Paris in 1975. Indeed, Rush already had a well established acting career as a member of the QTC before studying with Lecoq. As Kate Wilson observes: Rush s movement work was always exceptional, even prior to Lecoq (pers.com. 7 Oct 1997). But the following comments by Lecoq graduate Therese Collie may stand in counterpoint to Wilson s:
I think that what Lecoq did [...] was to help me to understand what it was I d already been doing. And I think that s the beauty of Lecoq: usually people go back to the work that they ve done before but it s just renewed and more skilled and with more understanding (Collie 1998:133-134, interview).
Rush did in fact go back to the work that he d done before, but he himself has acknowledged a dept to Lecoq and speaks candidly of the influence his Lecoq training has had on his performance and directorial work:
I d like to think now that pretty much over the last ten years I can trace an influence back. I think the most overt examples of it are things like Clowneroonies and Popular Mechanicals and Diary of a Madman [...]. Like in rehearsals you don t find me saying, "Well at Lecoq s what we would have done is this". It s not like that. It s like somebody who s taught you something about colour if you ve been to an art school: you make your own personal discoveries and likes about colour or form or materials or whatever, and you bring those discoveries to bear on what you do or hopefully make some more (1998:530, interview).
I d always liked the chameleon actors and somehow that sense of transformation is really what I did discover in a big way at Lecoq s: about the transformation of your
249 own self, but it is very much your own self. I find sometimes in that Anglo tradition that you don t actually get a big enough whiff of the person themselves (1998:532, interview).
In many respects, the Lecoq pedagogy s primary goal is theatrical transformation: in its movement training; its study of style; its use of improvisation and in its emphasis on theatrical creation. These key aspects of the pedagogy are strongly foregrounded in much of Rush s work and can also be gleaned in critical comments about his performances. The following by Ken Healey are exemplary:
Geoffrey Rush is a stylish and sometimes stylised performer. His acute physical control is as remarkable as his imaginative characterisation. His Parisian training is obvious (Healey 1995:513).
This description could almost read as a tally of the Lecoq pedagogy as manifested in Rush s performance work. Healey s comments regarding physical control, style and characterisation encapsulate the Lecoq pedagogical elements of, respectively, a movement- based approach to performance training, the pedagogy s focus on style, and the auto- cours element, in which character as well as narrative is devised by students. The only pedagogical element lacking in Healey s account is the improvisational aspect of Lecoq s approach. However, taking into consideration the fact that the vast majority of Rush s work has been script-based, it is not surprising that improvisation is not a feature of his work that immediately springs to mind. It is, nevertheless, a performance element which is very present in Rush s work and one which has been observed by both audiences and critics.
I would like to turn now to an analysis of Rush s performance and directorial work within the framework of these four key elements of the Lecoq pedagogy by examining Rush s work in terms of its movement-based approach; its application of performance styles; its improvisational qualities; and creation of original material.
A MOVEMENT-BASED APPROACH
To say that the physical qualities of Geoffrey Rush s acting have been noted by critics would be to understate the case. As Rush indicates: If I get any comment more than
250 anything else it s what a physical performer I am (Rush interview 1998:2). HQ magazine has also observed this phenomenon, saying:
When critics and colleagues talk about Rush they inevitably reach for physical descriptions: dwelling on the way he uses his magnificent hands , long limbs, unusual and expressive features (Slee 1998:48).
Martin Portus, in addition to noting Rush s quicksilver use of his body observed that the word " rubbery" is often used about Geoffrey Rush s body especially on stage (Portus 1999). And while Kate Wilson may argue that these qualities could be gleaned in Rush s performance work prior to his Lecoq training, Rush has candidly acknowledged the impact of Lecoq s pedagogy on the corporeal aspects of his performance. He describes the first year of the Lecoq course as a way of dismantling performance prejudices or blockages or discovering undiscovered horizons and giving you a syntax through an education of your body (1998:524, interview). He says that at the Lecoq school he discovered,
an aesthetic sense in movement, an explanation of how people occupy space with a muscularity or physicality - and then it started to be meaningful to me (Rush, in Slee 1998:48).
I d grown up in a spooky kind of Queensland phys-ed environment where I was hopeless and shied away from anything that was vaguely physical or muscular. So for me in my early twenties to discover there was a way of finding that to suit my own aesthetic desires was absolutely fantastic [...]. Now at school, when they brought out the wooden horse and the vaulting board and all that sort of stuff I used to crawl up to the library in a cold sweat. So in a strange kind of way it was a real revelation to me (Rush 1998:524, interview).
Lecoq s movement-based approach to performance training permeates virtually every aspect of his pedagogy in its focus on the body as the primary means of theatrical communication. In all of the work, the qualities Lecoq aims to develop in his students are physical presence, physical precision and an extensive physical vocabulary. These qualities are eminently apparent in Geoffrey Rush s performance work.
Long before Rush trained at the Lecoq school, Alan Edwards was struck by his stage presence when, in 1971, he invited Rush to join the QTC. But if Rush had presence before, it has certainly only been intensified and rarefied by his Lecoq training:
251 Rush is an actor who seems to bring his own space onto the stage with him, and you never take your eyes off him as long as he occupies it (Kiernan 1991:67).
Rush s physical precision, and the physical control that enables such precision has been a subject broached by critics perhaps less frequently than his extraordinary physical range, but this is also an aspect of Rush s work that has received ample comment. Ken Healey, for example, has called Rush s acute physical control [...] remarkable (1995:513). In addition, many of the critical comments levelled at Rush s performance as Poproshin were directed towards his physical precision and exactitude. Leonard Radic called it a carefully crafted performance (1990:12) and Suzanne Olb an exquisitely paced performance (1988:11). John McCallum made particular mention of Rush s stopwatch timing and `attention to detail . Carrie Kablean also noted Rush s exquisite timing (1992:71), while John Carmody remarked on Rush s razor-sharp skills , saying His command of pace is as unsettling as it is impressive (1989:9). Rush s physical exactitude was also noted in critical comments regarding his role in The Government Inspector, with one reviewer calling it gloriously executed, finely drawn (Bennie 1991:68) and another observing: Not a ghastly simper or maladroit mince goes to waste in his wonderfully grotesque performance (Kiernan 1991:67). Rush s physical precision and control are perhaps most easily observable in his portrayal of Walsingham in Shekkar Kapur s film Elizabeth. Here Rush physicalised Walsingham as the stable centre of undivided loyalty in Elizabeth s turning world. In the intense stillness and focus of this characterisation, not one movement or gesture is superfluous, so that the flicker of an eye, a tiny movement of the head, or a slight gesture of the hand becomes intensely significant and rarefied.
But if these roles are indicative of Rush s physical precision, they are no less indicative of the immense physical vocabulary and range which allows Rush to make so many startling character transformations. From Poproshin in The Diary of a Madman, to Khlestakhov in The Government Inspector, to Figaro, to The Alchemist s Subtle and the eccentric pianist in Shine, Rush has created a vast array of characters who are finely tuned, multi-faceted, deeply woven, exquisitely drawn. In this astonishing range we can identify with full force the sense of transformation Rush discovered at the Lecoq school.
Walsingham occupies but one point on Rush s formidable scale of physical expression. Also in the vicinity of Walsingham lies Rush s depiction of Horatio in Armfield s production of Hamlet. Here Armfield gave Horatio a more prominent role than usual by placing him on stage, lurking in the shadows during most of the action. Horatio s presence, unseen by Hamlet, lends weight to the final promise to tell the world of the `carnal, bloody and unnatural acts Horatio has witnessed. In this theatrical context, Rush
252 portrayed Horatio as a self-possessed serene, solid presence (Hallett 1995:43), embodying a calm but intense quietness, a still and constant presence (Morel 1994:75).
For the academic John in Oleanna Rush fashioned a complex character to serve the complexities of the play, creating a persona that was not only patronising, supercilious, pompous and opinionated, but one also capable of compassion and care, despite his dreadful self-interest and self-concern. He is an individual, a human being with failings, but a human being nevertheless (Bennie 1993). One critic described the purposefully ambiguous characterisation as diamond sharp and at the same time elusive , one that cannot be quite pinned down, categorised. A smirk - or a snarl? or a sneer of loathing? - gloats behind Rush s affable, academic smile (Payne 1993b). In Rush s creation of John, we can once again observe his ability to physicalise his characters, even within the context of psychological realism. Paul McGillick commented, for example, that Rush endows the character with fascinating physical dimensions and communicates very well the sense of psychical exhaustion which overcomes him (1993b).
Rush s physicalisations of John, Horatio and Walsingham stand in stark contrast to some of his more energetic roles, Poproshin being a case in point:
He leaps around like a cricket. He prances, dances, sulks and cowers and, in adopting distorted, angular poses towards the end - especially as he believes himself to be the King of Spain - he achieves a gymnastic parallel to the fractured, closing diary dates. Gogol wrote one of them upside down. By then Rush had shed most of his clothing. His body looked as if it was half-drawn into itself - as a physical metaphor of his self-effacing introspection and slide into insanity (Carmody 1989:9).
Pushing tirelessly at the parameters of his persona, Rush gives us a cross between a cartoon character, a court jester, a Shakespearean fool and a comi-tragic anti-hero (Neill 1989).
Rush builds the foibles of his character: the delusions of grandeur, the sycophancy and the pettiness, the yearning to be appreciated and, later, the painful and bewildered loss of human dignity that recalls "the bare fork d animal" of Lear s unaccommodated man (Evans 1989).
In The Alchemist Rush created a Subtle who was crooked and pox-ridden [...] a scurvy, scheming, gaunt fellow who stalks, spins and exudes a spirit of desperate malevolence (LePetit 1996); One moment leadenly brooding, the next a glint-eyed extravagance of
253 high-sounding bunkum, obscene, childish, dissolute and disorderly (Payne 1996b). For the role of Khlestakhov in The Government Inspector, Rush created a stylised persona. The Australian applauded Rush s performance saying,
Rush brings to the pivotal role of Khlestakhov an extravagant, imaginative excess that no other cast member can match. Indeed, as he raids a roomy bag of performers tricks he makes normally talented actors look like they are gasping for inspiration [...] he here offers a character who seems drunk, stoned or both on his wild fantasising (Neill 1991).
It is not, however, Rush s ability to move or be still that is the measure of his physical prowess. As Carmody s comments indicate, it is Rush s ability to physically express the intricacies and complexities of character, to create physical metaphors and parallels that reflect and communicate character and situation. In Henslowe, for example, we find a crumpled, gangling physique, a stiff neck from constantly checking over his shoulder for the debt collectors as he scuttles along like a scarab beetle in a fashion designed to ease the pain of his scorched feet.
Rush s extraordinary physical range can be observed not only in his ability to transform himself chameleon-like into a myriad of personas, but in the transformations of those characters in response to the forces that act upon them. In Diary, Rush skilfully effected by subtle degrees the gradual decline of Poproshin as he descends from a mildly eccentric clerk of the ninth grade to an insane vision of himself as King Ferdinand VIII of Spain. This remarkable transformation was noted by many critics, with John Carmody saying Rush s chameleon vitality is extraordinary (1989). Other critics wrote:
Such power, such majesty in the ever-so-gentle decline from glorious, uproarious comedy to bleak, black tragedy [...]. It s a world of madness, of mesmeric insanity, as portrayed by Geoffrey Rush. A plunge from hilarity to darkness that takes us through the best and worst of times. A piece of genius (LePetit 1989).
Rush s performance as he degenerates from amiable fool to certified madman is stunning (Kablean 1992).
Rush has taken us from clowning ridicule, along an edge of poignancy and laughter to a final agony of estrangement and insanity (Portus 1989).
254 In the course of those two hours Rush takes his audience on a journey of the mind that begins in unalloyed comedy and ends in delusions, madness and desolation of the spirit (Radic 1990).
In the institutionalised David Helfgott we find a physicalisation that is stiff-spined, pelvis tipped to the right creating a lop-sided shuffling gait where the left leg drags ever so slightly. The face is set in a mask around the perennial cigarette, the chest is visibly concave, drawing into itself. And with the eyes closed against the world, it is the hands which seem to see . Body slumped intensely over the piano, the expressive fingers tentatively caress the keys, as a blind person might read brail. In this profoundly disturbing vision, Rush has created a physical metaphor for a man crushed by emotional and psychological abuse. As Helfgott recovers, however, we can observe the subtle changes in Rush s physical delineation of the character: his eyes are not so often closed now, his face becomes more open and expressive, his back straighter, his gait freer, his body looser and more flexible as he bounds rapturously on a trampoline.
Rush has an uncanny ability to inscribe character in his body. This quality has often been noted by critics and, indeed, expressed in comparable terms. Rush s performance in the Diary of a Madman has been described in terms of its rich physical vocabulary (McCallum 1992:117), its physical eloquence (Gauntlett 1989:11) with Peter Goers calling Rush s physique a witty body (1992:34). But Suzanne Olb provides the most telling example:
In a performance of rare energy and expressivity, Geoffrey Rush inscribes his diary of a madman for his audience and the quill is his body. One entry is indelible: Rush is seated on the cross-bar of an upturned table, posturally distinguishing the `king from the madman yet suggesting that one is the delusion of the other (1989:11).
If Rush s physical performance has been compared to writing and speaking, it has been equally compared to dance. Brian Hoad called Rush s Poproshin an extraordinary sort of expressive choreography. Here is genuine fusion of dance and drama (Hoad 1988). Such an observation does not seem surprising, considering Neil Armfield s comments regarding their working process:
One thing that Geoffrey and I often do when we re working on a project is to talk about what we would do if this were a dance piece. If Pina Bausch were directing this as a non-verbal piece of theatre, how would you find that basic human
255 expression? What ways of playing with theatre, with form and convention and character? Audience interaction? If the words didn t exist in this piece, what would it feel like? (2000:7).
One final point to be made about Rush s extraordinary physical range involves, perhaps ironically, his voice. In the wide and wonderful array of personas he is able to manifest, Rush s physical transformations are always matched by an equally amazing vocal transformation. And it should be noted that this in no way stands in opposition to Lecoq s training. Indeed, Lecoq s pedagogy does not pit the voice in opposition to the body, but sees the voice as an integral part of the body. It takes the physical as the entry point for characterisation and considers that with physical transformation comes vocal transformation. The integrity of Rush s physical and vocal qualities are epitomised in the following description of the closing moments of The Diary of a Madman:
His last, irrelevant, bizarre question about the wart under the nose of the Dhey of Algiers then fell with the finality of his last drop of blood (Carmody 1989:9).
Rush has such a vast vocal range that, as with his physical transformations, his voice is often unrecognisable from one role to the next. The high-pitched twang and nervous giggle of David Helfgott stands in marked contrast to the deep, resonant calm of Walsingham s timbre, which in turn stands in contrast to the gurgling, guttural tones of Henslowe.
USE OF IMPROVISATION
Geoffrey Rush has described the Lecoq school as one that provides the actor with a theatrical syntax through a language of play and a means of discovering improvisation (1998:524, interview). Improvisation and play or le jeu are focal points of the Lecoq pedagogy. And while it might be imagined that Geoffrey Rush, who works primarily with script, would have little need of improvisational skills or an ability to play, the words `play , playfulness and play-pen are prominent in Rush s vocabulary and vital components of his approach to theatre work.
At the Lecoq school the notion of play embraces a visceral as opposed to a cerebral or intellectual approach to performance. In addition, play is not confined merely to light-
256 hearted theatre but encompasses the whole gamut of acting roles, including the nastiest. Rush recalls his tuition in play at the Lecoq school:
[Gaulier would] always say - and it was something that I never really discovered until long after, it s amazing how things keep reverberating long down the track - there s nothing pisses him off more than going to see a performance of say something like Richard III where the actor is putting all of their energies into being nasty and manipulative and evil. He said the only way you can achieve that is if underneath we can sense that you re seething with an absolute delight. And that s kind of true because you do see where people bring conscious form to their performance that is just getting in the way of it; you think, "You ve got an agenda here. You re after something". The same was true with Byland in terms of clown work. He d always say: "I don t want any illustrations. I don t want any demonstrations. I don t want any theories manifested. You just have to play. You just have to do" (Rush 1998:525, interview).
`Play is a performance element that is somewhat difficult to identify categorically, being a thing less tangible than Rush s physical prowess, for example. Certainly Rush s critics have not apparently noticed him seething with an absolute delight , but what they have often observed in Rush s work is its vitality, its effervescence and vivacity. This esprit de jeu can be gleaned in many of Rush s comic roles but also in his more serious performances, such as his chilling portrayal of Francis Walsingham in Elizabeth. As a director, too, Rush appears to be eminently capable of imbuing his actors with a plaisir de jouer. Mick Barnes in the Sun Herald observed of The Popular Mechanicals for example: This is a show the actors obviously enjoy as much as the audience (1987:22).
Although Rush s focus on scripted work obviously places certain limits on his use of improvisation, he has nevertheless used improvisation as part of the rehearsal process and also in his performances of scripted works. Rush s liberty to use improvisation as a rehearsal technique is, of course, largely dependent on the process of the director with whom he is working. But the freedom to explore the script in rehearsals through improvisation and play has certainly been a vital component of Armfield s directorial approach. As Armfield has commented:
You re just trying to make the strongest communication, the most playful environment in which people surprise themselves by what they find coming out (2000:14).
257 Rush particularly noted the importance of improvisation and play in the rehearsal process for The Diary of a Madman. Like so many of the comments made by Lecoq alumni, Rush demonstrates a commitment to, and preoccupation with spontaneous elements and random occurrences:
All Neil and I worked on - and I don t think Lecoq s name would have come up in the rehearsal period - but we certainly knew we didn t want it to be a drab brown evening of somebody in a rather depressing room going mad and giving the audience an uncomfortable but wordy experience. We said, "We want this to be like being at the music hall or being at some deranged cabaret or just being open". The stage has got to be as much a play-pen and a circus ring and a hallowed space as you can possibly make it and there are no rules, there are no holds barred on where you take it in terms of improvisation or whatever. But mind you a play like that eventually becomes reasonably set because we are primarily serving the Gogol story, but you serve it by making it your own [...]. People tend to think that, "Oh if you re going to do such and such a play that you kind of know what you re going to get". Well you shouldn t and I think people should bring that playfulness of imagination to any theatre project (Rush 1998:529, interview).
As Rush notes, Gogol s play, or any scripted piece for that matter, becomes reasonably set in performance. But Rush s extensive training in improvisation means that he is able to improvise in performance when the opportunity presents itself. Rosemary Neill, for example, commented that Rush s performance in The Government Inspector crackles with improvisatory energy (1991:66). Paul Fraser in the Mosman Daily also noted Rush s improvisatory elements at the preview of The Alchemist:
Rush and the rest of the cast obviously had fun on stage, with plenty of ad-libbing, double entendres and a couple of hilarious attempts at getting a stubborn audience member to participate (1996:11).
As well as feeling confident in impromptu situations that are intended as part of the performance, Rush has been able to employ his improvisational skills in situations that are not intended. This was the case at a particular performance of The Alchemist, where part of the stage mechanics went terribly awry. But because of Rush s improvisational skills, he was able to transform what might have been a disastrous situation for a less skilled actor, into an hilarious adjunct to the performance.
Rush s ability to improvise and to play are key factors in bringing a vitality to his scripted work and operate as the spontaneous element of performance, particularly in nurturing a
258 complicity with his audience. In The Diary of a Madman, Rush s playful asides to his audience were such that the Melbourne Times called it interactive theatre (Boyd 1990:14). Martin Portus and Clark Forbes also noted Rush s playfulness and complicity, saying:
[Rush s] compassionate engagement with an audience have an ideal platform in The Diary of a Madman [...]. At the play s start Poproshin is already agitated and eccentric but Rush engages us immediately, pausing in his penning to address us directly. Then his journey into madness begins (Portus 1989:12).
All the while Rush is playing to the audience and making asides to the two-person orchestra that supplies some of the comic relief to stage left (Forbes 1990 :14).
The vitality and the spontaneous energy with which Rush is able to imbue his performance is epitomised in the title of the 1999 Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture, given by Rush and Armfield. Tearing the Cat , explains Rush, is a reference to a line by Bottom in A Midsummer Night s Dream when he enthusiastically puts his hand up to play the role of Hercules, calling it a part to tear a cat in . For Rush and his colleagues, tearing the cat became part of their common theatrical vocabulary:
There was a zone that you could go into. You ve done the work. You ve reached a degree of technical efficiency. You re on top of it, but you ve got to topple off the edge, dive off the high tower, go somewhere that s personally yours and you know what it is and don t be afraid of going there. So tearing the cat entered our lexicon as a way of defining, if not virtuosity as a goal - but I think that s part of it - a sense that there s that extra sort of 20% of mystery that s beyond the pragmatic clockwork that makes up a performance or any piece of art: that you need to tear the cat (Rush 2000:6).
In Lecoq s pedagogy, improvisation and play are all about tearing the cat . They are about moving out of the comfort zone of acting clichés and habits to dive into the abyss, embracing the unknown and discovering performance dimensions which surprise even yourself.
259 A REPERTOIRE OF PERFORMANCE STYLES
Geoffrey Rush has been described by Ken Healey as a stylish and often stylised performer (1995:513). Style is another word that is frequently coined in reference to Rush s theatre work. It is also one of the key aspects of the Lecoq pedagogy, and the study of a repertoire of performance styles at the Lecoq school has impacted considerably on Rush s theatre work in obvious as well as subtle ways.
Rush describes the second year of the Lecoq curriculum as much more professionally orientated and is a study of style . As a Lecoq student, Rush explored the forms of Greek tragedy, melodrama, commedia dell arte, clown and bouffon. Of these, it is perhaps not surprising to discover that it was the study of clown which left the most striking impression on Rush: I would say I ve probably bounced more off the clowning dimensions as it was when I was at the school (1998:526, interview). He considers Clowneroonies and The Popular Mechanicals as the most directly derivative of the styles he learnt at the Lecoq school:
The first thing I did that was probably a conscious derivation of how I d gleaned things from the school was a piece called Clowneroonies which I created originally with the Queensland Theatre Company and then it found its way into a Sydney Festival sort of tent performance in extracts and then the whole show was done again at Nimrod in the early 80s. And in some ways that was very much the quality of the clowning influences of the school, very much brought to bear with my childhood memories of the tail end of the Australian vaudeville tradition that I d seen in the late fifties with travelling tent shows and stuff (1998:527, interview).
I will be discussing The Popular Mechanicals at length in the section on the creation of original material in this chapter, but it can be noted here that Rush garnered high praise for the clowning elements inherent in both Clowneroonies and The Popular Mechanicals, with one reviewer saying of The Popular Mechanicals that the high art of clowning has rarely been brought to life so well on stage (LePetit 1992:72), and another describing it as `inspired clowning (Payne 1992:73).
Apart from these more directly inspired clown pieces, the study of clown has informed much of Rush s performance work. He was dubbed by Paul LePetit, for example, as the leading clown in The Government Inspector (1991a:69). His portrayal of Poproshin in
260 The Diary of a Madman has been noted for its subtle clowning skills (Hoad 1988) as well as its tragic aspects, being described by one reviewer as half Chaplinesque clown, half ruined Lear-like majesty (Brown 1989). Neil Armfield has himself declared of Diary: We wanted to explore a theatrical relationship between Poproshin as a kind of clown and the two musicians (2000:15). Rush adds:
People who experience bouts of mania are hilarious. When they re on they will hold court and just fly, you know, about anything, the most banal things, which was an absolute key for me because we suddenly realised that he wasn t just pages of somebody talking a lot in the theatre. You know, when you go, "Oh God, how long is the interval? And then we ve got to come back and there s more talk" (2000:15).
While clown is the primary stylistic influence on Rush s work, bouffon is another that is often foregrounded. Indeed, in many of his comic roles Rush appears to have drawn on and kneaded these two forms in lively combination. He indicates this particular stylistic concoction as contributing to his role in Shine:
It s the sort of repertoire I think I find myself in - David Helfgott is a great clown and he hovers somewhere between the territory that we looked at in bouffon and the territory that we played with in clowning. In the make-up of his particular psychology [...] you do tend to think of Don Quixote or Lear s fool or something. There were a whole lot of other references for me, as well as creating someone that s sort of credible under the scrutiny of the camera (Rush 1998:530, interview).
Rush s clown/bouffon combinations can be identified in many of his roles. In the bumbling figure of Henslowe in Shakespeare in Love we can observe a grotesque but lovable clown with a touch of the commedia s Zanni thrown in for good measure. And if `grotesque can be seen as indicative of the bouffon form, we can include Rush s direction of The Popular Mechanicals II, and his roles as Subtle in The Alchemist, Khlestakhov in The Government Inspector, and Poproshin in The Diary of a Madman, all of which have been described by critics in terms of the grotesque. The following provide a few examples:
Rush has the perfect vehicle for his idiosyncratic style, technique and celebrated sense of comedy and grotesquerie (Goers 1992).
Rush is magnificent: scabrous, vile, grotty, energetic, febrile - an exultantly life- affirming cockroach (McCallum 1996).
261 But Lecoq does not include the study of particular theatre forms in his pedagogy for the purpose of replicating them verbatim in performance contexts. They are taught as a means of understanding style per se: as a means of understanding the constraints imposed by different theatrical forms; as a means of understanding the level of performance energy required by different theatrical forms; and as a means of providing theatrical reference points which can then be applied by the student to a multitude of performance situations. In short, Lecoq taught style as a structuring device and reference point for performance and theatrical creation.
Geoffrey Rush exhibits a particularly deft understanding of what Lecoq s training in style was aiming to develop, as the following description of commedia dell arte indicates:
[Commedia is] basically taking a strong physical discipline and taking the game of performance to a level where it can become acrobatic, where a character sneezing can be an acrobatic moment [...]. And with text, it s the level of mask played with text and a very extraordinary set of character reference points and it is centred in the heart, the head and the genitals I think is where the energy of the work comes from [...]. [Commedia] comes out of fairly specific cultural and social types that belong to another culture where almost everything they say ends in a vowel. It s different, so you can t really go, "How would I make Pauline Hanson a commedia character?". It doesn t work like that, you know. But you can use the principles of: "How can I find the physical centre of a character that I can express on a level that inhabits a very flexible and enormous kind of space, physically?" (Rush 1998:532- 533, interview).
While much of Rush s work can be linked to specific performance styles studied at the Lecoq school, his extensive training in theatrical form has also impacted on his work in less obvious, but no less significant ways. In cases where a particular Lecoq style is not noticeably evident in Rush s work, his training in style per se is. That Ken Healey chooses to describe Rush as a stylish and sometimes stylised performer is indicative. That his performance as Poproshin in Diary has been described as stylistically eclectic is also indicative (Gauntlett 1992a). Rush s style was also noted in his performance as Khlestakhov in Armfield s The Government Inspector. In this production of Gogol s tale about a minor civil servant who is mistakenly identified by provincial townsfolk as the infinitely more important government inspector, Rush was able to employ style for style s sake in revealing his character s superficial and shallow social pretensions:
[T]his production s crowning glory is the brilliant Geoffrey Rush, executing his delicate steps, elegantly draping himself across the furniture, as the ineffectual civil
262 servant, Khlestakhov. Here is playing, indeed. Here is form, gloriously executed, finely drawn down to its last, beautifully carved detail, an exquisite shape in the air, a well-wrought urn - utterly empty of its content. Style, playing at, is all (Bennie 1991).
But Rush s stylistic talents do not extend only to non-naturalistic theatre. In Rush s highly praised portrayals of John in Oleanna, Astrov in Uncle Vanya and Horatio in Hamlet, we find that Rush is equally at home with realism as he is with any other performance style:
It is the juxtaposition of non-naturalistic staging and the demands of good, psychologically realistic acting that sets this production apart [...J. Geoffrey Rush gives us an Astrov destroying himself with self-loathing. It is a finely judged performance (Review of Uncle Vanya, Healey 1992b).
Here is lovely work from Rush, at his most disturbingly credible (Review of Oleanna, Gauntlett 1993b).
Geoffrey Rush is a Horatio of calm but intense quietness, a still and constant presence. He is the observer, the non-actor. His self-possession provides a foil against which Roxburgh can play, in every sense (Review of Hamlet, Morel 1994).
Geoffrey Rush commendably underplays Horatio (Review of Hamlet, Herbert 1995).
What seems to have been realised for Rush in his explorations of various performance styles at the Lecoq school was a connection to great theatrical traditions :
I would say the broad repertoire of things that I suppose I m identified with here - let s say Diary of a Madman, Figaro, Government Inspector, Alchemist, the Shakespearian clowns, Autolycus the Fool, whatever - they are all from a great theatrical tradition of theatre being a very kind of fantastical and magical medium. It s not from the school of psychological study. So in some sense whether you talk about masks as archetypes or a sense of there being a kind of interplay with the audience s imagination, I think that all of those properties are there as part of what the school offered. I try to bring that as a performer to those kind of plays rather than say a slightly more intellectual analysis of them (Rush 1998:526, interview).
263 What Rush has taken away with him from the Lecoq school is not so much the idiosyncrasies of individual performance styles, although certainly there is that. But also, and perhaps more importantly, Rush has brought back theatrical points of reference that he has imaginatively applied to a multitude of performance contexts.
CREATION OF ORIGINAL MATERIAL
Each week at the Lecoq school, students are presented with a theme or topic from which to create a theatre piece that will be presented to the other students and staff at the end of the week. Students work in small groups to create their pieces, discovering the demands of collaborative creation, directing, costuming and mise en scene as well as the rudiments of devising character and narrative. Character is also devised by students in the Personnage section of the Lecoq curriculum, where each student must create and adopt a character, attending classes in the costume and persona of the role they have created for themselves.
Although Geoffrey Rush has worked mainly with scripted rather than devised texts, the devising sections of the Lecoq course have impacted on a number of aspects of his theatre work: creating character, working with text, directing and, in the cases where he has created performance material, on the devising process itself. As Rush comments:
I think the other thing of making a complete piece of theatre was also very much [part of the teaching]. The seeds of the teaching at the school gave you that (1998:527, interview).
I mean I've created stuff and that's certainly influenced how I approach, you know, Figaro or The Alchemist. I don't see them as, "How do we make this text work." The text is the imagery and the narrative that you're working from and you can unleash in that a tremendous amount of stuff (1998:526, interview).
Rush has devised and directed a number of productions. As artistic director for Magpie Theatre between 1984 and 1986 he directed eight pieces. Two of these, Animal Acts and Teen-Ages, were devised with the company members. In addition, Small Poppies was written by David Holman in collaboration with Rush and the company of Magpie actors. Rush has also directed seven productions for various theatre companies, the most acclaimed being Clowneroonies for the QTC in 1978/80 and The Popular Mechanicals I II in 1987, 1988 and 1992, which he co-devised with Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor.
264 Here Rush s devising skills were put to imaginative use in pitting the characters from A Midsummer Night s Dream against other Shakespearian texts to create an original narrative:
In the case of Popular Mechanicals I wanted to create a play where we used the poetic texts of Shakespeare. Well, you know, we ransacked Shakespeare. I wanted to see how it would be for the clowns in pique moments of passion or in their big moments, like Quince in a fit of pique being able to just fly with a great spiky bit of Richard III, bitchy rhetoric or to summon these amateur actors and use the Once more unto the breach dear friends speech from Henry V. Because I like that dimension, that duality of playing with great texts rather than just making them the prose characters who are a little bit earthbound (Rush 1998:527, interview).
In the following comments by Rush concerning costume and production design, we can see a link to Lecoq s visceral and impromptu approach to the creation of theatre:
People tend to want to design as an illustration or design as a reference point, you know say: "If we put them in white shoes then we ll get a sense of Queensland". Audiences aren t that dumb. We don t just sit there objectively reading symbols. We read so many shades of things. It s an association of space that you create where you can imply references and you can kind of hint at things, but unless they ve got an imaginative spark that you find exhilarating and can relay, it doesn t kind of happen [...]. It s the actors feeling that and finding that. Like Paul Blackwell found that his trunk hose became like a nappy, but it was never intellectually conceived, "It must be a nappy", or "It will be a nappy". It just happened to wear itself like a nappy. So you kind of transform the object very subliminally and give the audience a lot of options and a lot of choice and a lot of fun (1998:533-534, interview).
Critics have raved about The Popular Mechanicals. One reviewer called it, the most strikingly original comedy of the year (LePetit 1987) and another, one of the cleverest pieces of original theatre seen here for a very long time (Bredow 1987). Large amounts of praise were not only heaped on the originality and quality of the theatrical material, but also on Rush s direction of the piece:
[G]reat clowning, sheer lunacy and mad, joyous foolery. Much of this is the consequence of Geoffrey Rush s skilled, tight direction. His comic sense is a finely tuned one: he allows hills and troughs in the pacing of the action and its phrasing. It is not all custard-pie antics and gag-a-line comedy. He allows the comic tension to
265 build until the audience can contain their collective need to burst into loud, roaring belly-laughing no longer. Then, like an angler with a particularly juicy fish on his hook, he reels them in as one, writhing and contorted with mirth (Bennie 1987).
As a final aside, Rush s training at the Lecoq school in devising theatrical material and having that material constantly critiqued seems also to have manifested behind the scenes in rehearsal time with Neil Armfield, who says of Rush:
He s constantly questioning what we re doing, where the show is heading as a piece of theatre, particularly - and this is probably the most significant thing I ve learnt from working with Geoffrey - "How can we make this as extraordinary, as extraordinarily revealing of human behaviour as the kind of moment will allow?". And so I find that there is an encouragement - and in fact if you don t do that you get nagged until you do do it - but that there is an ambition to continue to delve and to drive, to open up what could be the most kind of covered moment. Always a questioning of cliché, of how we re always very clear about how we don t want something to be, of what kind of theatrical pitfalls might be in the work we ve seen and how to really try and release the absolutely original moment in any kind of sequence of behaviour (2000 13).
Armfield s comments bear an uncanny resemblance to many of the comments Lecoq alumni have made regarding Lecoq s critiquing of their work at the school. In the rejection of cliché and the striving for originality; in the via negativa approach of finding what you do want by knowing what you don t; in the constant demand for excellence and the refusal to settle for the mediocre, the mundane and the obvious; it would appear that Rush s encounters with Jacques Lecoq have left an indelible mark on his approach to the creation of theatre.
CONCLUSION
Geoffrey Rush has occupied a particularly prominent role in Australian theatre. Like Horatio in Armfield s Hamlet, he been a constant presence on mainstream stages for the past thirty years. During this time, he has often been a vocal opponent of Anglo theatrical traditions, taking inspiration instead from his experiences of popular theatre forms like vaudeville, variety, and circus. These forms, which were largely quashed in Australia by the ascendancy of naturalism and the advent of television, have helped to shape Rush s
266 vision of theatre as something that is infinitely more interesting than walking around talking in a good English voice (Waites, in Slee 1998:48). For some, Rush s performance in The Diary of a Madman has come to represent a watershed in Australia s theatrical history. Having loosed the apron strings of Mother England and survived the pubescent searches for self-identity, Diary seemed to herald a sense of maturity for Australian theatre, becoming a benchmark for all that we are capable of achieving. At the Lecoq school, Rush discovered theatre s potential for magical transformation, and through this discovery he has made a significant contribution to the transformations in Australian theatre.
267 CHAPTER TEN
CONCLUSION. This study has been an attempt to trace and map the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre, using the oral testimony of Lecoq alumni as the primary source material. In this final chapter I would like to firstly re-cap the developments of the previous chapters. I will then discuss the overall findings of this study and draw some general conclusions. Finally, I will discuss some of the implications of this study for professional practice and a scholarly understanding of the field, indicating the significance and contribution this study can make to both theory and practice and provide some indications for further research.
Summary of the Thesis: The general introduction to this thesis aimed to situate the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre within the broader context of the school's international influence. Here I provided a brief description of the Lecoq pedagogy, discussed the work of international alumni and the impact of this work in many countries around the world. The international influence of the Lecoq school was contextualised within a major paradigm shift in Western mainstream theatre that is characterised by significant challenges to the dominance of text-based realism. The influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre was thus positioned within this historical and theatrical context. I then outlined the objectives of this study as follows:
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.
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.
Chapter two of the thesis provided an overview of the literature which was considered pertinent to the study. Here, I surveyed literature in cognate areas comprising: texts written by Jacques Lecoq, texts written about Lecoq and his pedagogy; texts written by or about international Lecoq alumni working outside Australia and texts written by or about Lecoq alumni working in Australia.
269 Chapter three of the thesis focused on the theoretical and practical issues of data collection, analysis and narrative presentation, outlining the research matrix that has been constructed for this study. Here I discussed a number of the positions and approaches currently available to a study of history, named by Alun Munslow as `reconstructionise, 'constructionist' and 'cleconstructionise schools of thought. In so doing, I endeavoured to situate the study within a critical context and to outline my own position in relation to Munlow's concept of `deconstructionise history, which served as a model for the study. In the second section of the chapter I problematised the word `influence,' offering the concepts of `diaspora' and 'leavening' as complementary alternative terms for understanding 'influence' as it might be applied specifically to the study. In the third section of the chapter I proposed a set of four 'co-ordinates' or reference points which have been used to map intersections between the Lecoq pedagogy and the work of alumni in Australia. I nominated these co-ordinates as: creation of original material; use of improvisation; a movement-based approach to performance; a repertoire of performance styles. The final section of the chapter focused on the practical aspects of the research process through a discussion of the procedural strategies used for data collection. Here I indicated that oral history methods were the model for this aspect of the research process and discussed the rudiments of data collection procedures which involved extensive interviews with the participants of this study.
Part two of the thesis presented the research findings. The introductory chapter provided a general overview of the findings, contextualising these within a broader socio-cultural, historical context and offering some possible reasons for the initial and continuing interest in the Lecoq school in Australia. Chapters five to eight of the thesis focused on, respectively, the acting, directing, teaching, and community theatre work of Lecoq alumni in Australia. Chapter nine presented a case study of Geoffrey Rush. Focusing on the four key elements of the Lecoq pedagogy, I examined and discussed the influence of Lecoq's training on the work of these alumni and the impact of this work on Australian theatre.
Findings and Conclusions: This study has found that the Lecoq school has had a significant and positive influence on Australian theatre. This influence can be contextualised within a major paradigm shift in Western mainstream theatre that is marked by significant ruptures in existing theatrical modes. These modes have operated according to the imperatives of Cartesian dualism, enacting the body/mind split and privileging the mind over the body. The Cartesian paradigm cut across multiple aspects of the theatrical project and manifested in the dominance of: text-based realism; interpretation and analysis; hierarchical
270 approaches and processes that privileged the role of the director. In addition, the dominance of these modes meant the suppression of other theatrical forms, processes and approaches, with the consequence that many popular theatre forms were relegated to marginal status.
Throughout the 19th century, but particularly since the 1960s, the supremacy of text- based realism in Western mainstream theatres has met with serious challenges which have attempted to re-instate the body as integrated and integral to performance. The Lecoq school and the work of its alumni have contributed significantly to these challenges. Both in Australia and in many other countries around the world, Lecoq alumni have helped to forge new directions for theatre training and practice through the development of: non-text-based, non-realist forms; movement-based approaches to performance; approaches which rely on improvisation rather than analysis; collaborative processes; and the creation of original theatrical material.
While the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre thus operates within the broader context of this major paradigm shift in Western theatre, it has also been particularised within Australian socio-cultural historical contexts. In Australia, the supremacy of text-based realism was concomitant with a longstanding pattern of English and American domination of mainstream theatres. Since the 1960s, this domination has been seriously challenged. The new wave in Australian theatre sought to develop indigenous forms, processes and approaches. As an historical/theatrical formation, these developments have been subject to recurrent re-distribution, considerably rupturing previous theatrical modes and manifesting in diverse but cognate ways in contemporary preoccupations with physical/dance/image/circus theatres.
The work of Lecoq alumni in Australia has contributed significantly to these transformations in Australian theatre. As actors, directors and teachers, alumni have introduced and developed non-text-based theatre forms which position the movement of the body in space as the actor s primary means of theatrical communication. In addition, they have created many new theatrical works using improvisational and collaborative approaches, introducing new and traditional popular theatre forms to this country.
In the field of directing, alumni such as George Ogilvie and Nigel Jamieson have worked particularly forcefully in these directions. Ogilvie s work with the APG, MTC, STCSA and as an independent director for virtually all of Australia s state theatre companies has impacted on two generations of theatre practitioners. He is greatly responsible for the initial introduction and dissemination of Lecoq s pedagogical
271 principles to mainstream theatres. If Ogilvie were the only Lecoq alumni to have worked in Australian theatre, his contribution alone would be considerable. Nigel Jamieson s impressive direction for Legs on the Wall and many large-scale, outdoor events has secured him a place in contemporary Australian theatre as a pioneer of theatrical forms which successfully and innovatively integrate the physical and the theatrical. His work has been acclaimed by critics and witnessed by thousands of audience members, both here and overseas.
In the field of acting, Lecoq alumni have been working solidly on the theatrical margins rather than in mainstream undertakings for the past thirty-five years. Heather Robb s female clown duo and troupes such as Double Take and Red Weather made a particular contribution to the re-emergence of Australian comedy in the 1970s. Other alumni such as Steven Bishop, Betty France, Michael Newbold and others have contributed to the growth of street and festival theatre in Australia over the last decade. Alumni have introduced Lecoq s clowning and bouffon styles to Australian audiences as well as creating theatrical works which tell their stories as much through movement and imagery as through words, using mime and movement sequences as key aspects of theatrical communication.
As teachers, Lecoq alumni have had an widespread influence on Australian theatre. They have taught Lecoq-based training at three independent theatre schools, at almost every university and many tertiary institutions in the country, and have given numerous independent workshops throughout Australia. They have taught at every major performance training institution in Australia. A number of alumni have taught aspects of the Lecoq pedagogy to school teachers through pre-service and in-service courses and/or workshops for the Department of Education. Alumni have taught acting to members of the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet. At NIDA, alumni such as Heather Robb, Isabelle Anderson, Richard Hayes-Marshall, Luda and Ron Popenhagen have introduced movement-based approaches to performance, working with the neutral and Basel masks, and performance styles such as commedia dell arte and clown. At the VCA, alumni John Bolton and Lorna Marshall have contributed similarly. It is impossible to measure or indeed substantiate the influence that all of these alumni have had on acting and actor training in this country, but if the breadth of their interactions with theatre students and actor training institutions is any indication, then this influence has been considerable.
Lecoq alumni have also made a notable contribution to community theatre in Australia, where Lecoq s training has given these alumni skills and abilities which are particular apposite for such theatrical contexts. Alumni have worked with West Theatre
272 Company, Street Arts, Theatre of the Deaf, the Humour Foundation and on community projects involving geographical communities, people with disabilities, unemployed people, and young people. Lecoq alumni have helped these community members to create their own theatres, providing a political and theatrical vehicle to those who are often marginalised and excluded from mainstream theatre contexts.
Like George Ogilvie, Geoffrey Rush has made an outstanding contribution to Australian mainstream theatre. His high profile both nationally and internationally and the fact that he has worked consistently in state theatre companies throughout his career, has served to significantly validate and legitimise Lecoq's pedagogical approach in this country. Rush has brought to his work a physical vitality and expressivity rarely seen on Australian stages. Like Ogilvie, Rush has successfully integrated Lecoq's approach in text-based contexts, exploding their potential by embracing multiple performance styles, and by foregrounding movement and improvisation as integral to the actor's engagement with text.
Nigel Jamieson has commented that non-text-based theatre 'has always been Australia's strength [...]. It's what Australia does spectacularly well. It's what Australia has become famous for really' (1998:interview). If the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics is any indication, then Jamieson's view is well founded. Here the work of Australia's physical/circus/image/dance theatre specialists was showcased to the world. Much theatre research in Australia over the past thirty-five years has tended to focus strongly on the work of Australian playwrights and, in a search for 'Australian theatre,' much of this work has been preoccupied with the themes and content of these plays. However, if the current work of the many successful physically-based theatre troupes is any indication, what has become identified as `Australian theatre' is not its subject matters, but its forms. The work of Lecoq alumni has had a significant influence on the development of these forms, yet this influence has received little attention from scholars. This study of the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre contributes significantly to our understanding of some of the forces which have operated to transform Australian theatre over the past thirty-five years into the many vital forms which are now frequently identified as defining `Australian theatre'.
Implications: No research has previously been conducted on the work of Lecoq alumni in Australia or the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre. This has been a notable gap in our knowledge and understanding of theatre training and practice over the last three and a half decades. This study makes a significant contribution in this regard, bringing to
273 the fore the work of many theatre practitioners who had hitherto been absent from the historical record. In addition, no similar studies have been conducted overseas which focus on the impact of the Lecoq school on a particular geographical, socio-cultural site. It is notable, however, that interest in the work of Lecoq alumni has increased since Lecoq's death in 1999 and one PhD is currently being undertaken which focuses on the work of Lecoq alumni in America and Canada. This situation positions the study as an important contribution, not only in a local context of Australian theatre history, but more broadly in terms of the influence which the Lecoq school has and continues to have in many parts of the world.
The study serves as a valuable resource for theatre scholars as well as theatre practitioners, offering multiple examples of how Lecoq's work can be applied in terms of movement-based approaches to performance, how various performance styles can be employed in a variety of theatrical contexts, the value of improvisational approaches to both text-based and non-text-based theatres, and approaches and processes that can be employed in the creation of original performance material.
The study also makes a significant contribution in terms of its research strategies. The literature surveyed for this study found a number of theatre research projects where interviewing methods have been used as core features of the methodological approach. Commonly, however, the interviewing processes were framed within ethnographic rather than oral history methodology and served to augment other sources rather than acting as the primary data for the studies. While this small sample is not necessarily representative of theatre research in general, it is some indication that interviews have not commonly been used as the primary source material for theatre history research. This study has highlighted the important contribution that oral history methods can make to the study of theatre history.
In addition, the study makes a significant contribution to the field in terms of its theoretical basis. Theatre history research has frequently been concerned with analysing and documenting the operations of 'influence' in relation to multiple aspects of performance training and practice. However, given the current critical climate and the problems which have been identified with empirical and positivist approaches to history, the word 'influence' has become a particularly problematic one. This study has attempted to address this issue by offering alternative ways of thinking about 'influence' which do not subscribe to empiricist and positivist notions. The terms `diaspora' and `leavening' have been theorised and proposed as complementary metaphorical concepts for engaging with the operations of 'influence'. Although these concepts have been
274 employed here in specific relation to the influence of the Lecoq school on Australian theatre, it possible that the terms have wider application in relation to other studies of `influence in the field of theatre history.
This study presents many possibilities for further research. In a study such as this, the data gathered can serve as the raw material for analysis from cultural, semiotic, feminist, post-colonial, or Marxist perspectives. Future studies might consider: the carnivalesque qualities of the bouffon work undertaken by alumni in Australia; the ability of the bouffon form to critique constructions of the normal body and normalcy; the subversive qualities of movement and visually-based theatre forms. In addition, because this study essentially provides a survey of the work of Lecoq alumni in Australia, there is ample scope for more in-depth research into many aspects of this study. Finally, the scope of this study has not allowed for any consideration of the influence which international Lecoq alumni may have had on Australian theatre. This area also offers possibilities for future research, particularly with regard to Steven Berkoff s work with the Bell Shakespeare company.
In conclusion, it seems apparent that the acting, teaching and directing work of Lecoq alumni has had a considerable and positive influence on Australian theatre. It has brought an energy and vitality to our stages, our streets and our festivals that is in many ways reminiscent of the hay days of Australian circus, vaudeville and variety. The ascendancy of text-based realism and the advent of television in Australia put paid to many of these popular entertainments, pushing them to the margins and in some cases threatening their very existence. At the very least, Lecoq alumni have helped to re- establish popular theatre as a legitimate and vital part of a country s theatrical and cultural expression. While this study has been able to trace a tangible influence from the Lecoq school on the work of individual alumni, the more subtle and less tangible influences, effects, reverberations and fermentations of this work throughout Australian theatre are impossible to trace or quantify. Like yeast in bread, the Lecoq influence on Australian theatre is, in many ways, invisible but everywhere.
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