THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF MUSICAL THEATRE UTILIZING THE LINKLATER METHOD OF BREATHING TO CREATE AND RECREATE AUTHENTIC EMOTION LAURA GULEY SPRING 2020 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Musical Theatre with honors in Musical Theatre Reviewed and approved* by the following: Raymond Sage Voice for Musical Theatre Thesis Supervisor Raymond Sage Voice for Musical Theatre Honors Advisor Susan B. Russell Literature and Criticism, Playwriting, History of Musical Theatre Faculty Reader * Electronic approvals are on file. i ABSTRACT It’s no secret that many actors of any age, background, or level of success can struggle with their mental health. While there are many factors that contribute to this, such as feelings of rejection, and needing to be “good enough”, I believe there is a facet of acting taught in schools that contributes to the mental health struggles actors face. There is a technique of acting taught to students called Method Acting. This technique requires the student to draw on their own personal experiences and memories in order to understand or create a character. This could involve a student exploring negative memories, or living as that character for a period of time, in order to relate to the psyche of the character. However, forcing yourself to reopen healed wounds of heartbreak and grief, or making unhealthy choices for the sake of the character is not always a sustainable method of acting. Therefore, I am proposing that actors and teachers explore a different route to getting into character through breath. The Linklater Technique, created by Kristin Linklater, is a method of awakening your voice consciousness to explore the breadth of human emotion thorough your own body. The Linklater Technique is built upon the idea that once we free our voice of inhibitions, can we experience the world authentically. I believe that exposing an actor to the way they can use breath to create and recreate authentic emotion, through the Linklater Technique, will exponentially improve an actor’s performance onstage without the cost of declining mental health. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... vi Chapter 1 : Beginning .................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 : Survey ....................................................................................................... 4 Survey of Penn State Musical Theatre Majors and How Acting Affects Their Mental Health 4 The Subjects ..................................................................................................................... 5 Findings ............................................................................................................................ 5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 13 Chapter 3 : History ....................................................................................................... 16 History of Method Acting ................................................................................................ 16 Kristin Linklater ............................................................................................................... 18 Foundation and History of the Linklater Technique ........................................................ 19 Chapter 4 : To Start ...................................................................................................... 21 Understanding How the Voice Works ............................................................................. 21 Why Do We Have to Retrain our Brain? ......................................................................... 23 Preparation ....................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 5 : The Basics ................................................................................................. 28 Exercise 1: Alignment ...................................................................................................... 28 Exercise 2: The Spine....................................................................................................... 32 Exercise 3: Breath ............................................................................................................ 35 Exercise 4: Finding Center ............................................................................................... 39 Chapter 6 : Discussion ................................................................................................. 42 Personal Experience ......................................................................................................... 42 Things to Consider ........................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 7 : Conclusion................................................................................................. 45 Appendix A .................................................................................................................. 46 iii Appendix B .................................................................................................................. 47 Survey Questions and Answers ........................................................................................ 47 Results .............................................................................................................................. 50 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 59 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Are you an actor? ....................................................................................................... 5 Figure 2 About how many years have you studied or practiced acting? ................................. 5 Figure 3 Would you say that acting affects your mental health? ............................................. 6 Figure 4 If yes to the previous, would you say that acting affects your mental health positively or negatively? ....................................................................................................................... 6 Figure 5 Feeling down, depressed or hopeless ........................................................................ 9 Figure 6 Little interest or pleasure in doing things .................................................................. 9 Figure 7 Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed. Or the opposite, being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual .... 10 Figure 8 Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television 10 Figure 9 Feeling tired or having little energy .......................................................................... 10 Figure 10 Feeling bad about yourself - or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down ................................................................................................................................. 11 Figure 11 On a scale from 1-5, please rate your mental health state while performing or in acting class .................................................................................................................................. 11 Figure 12 Do you think that an actor's mental health would improve if they weren't encouraged to reopen old wounds in order to simulate a certain emotion onstage? ................................ 13 Figure 13 Anatomy of the larynx. ............................................................................................ 23 Figure 14 My voice as it is now. .............................................................................................. 26 Figure 15 My voice as I want it to be. ..................................................................................... 26 Figure 16 Where the difficulties with my voice are located. ................................................... 26 Figure 17 A poem to my voice. ............................................................................................... 27 Figure 18 How I imagined the spine. ....................................................................................... 29 Figure 19 What the spine actually looks like. .......................................................................... 30 Figure 20 Semi-supine position. .............................................................................................. 30 Figure 21 Neutral Spine. .......................................................................................................... 31 Figure 22 Overextended Spine. ................................................................................................ 32 v Figure 23 Imprinted spine. ....................................................................................................... 32 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Tess Dignan, who introduced me to the Linklater Technique in 2017, and has changed my life exponentially. 1 : Beginning Introduction When