Reading a bit of Peter Brook's The Empty Space and
going on to read Marvin Carlson's What is Performance? made me begin to think
more about this connection between performers and their audience. Carlson speaks of the many definitions of the
word "performance" in his introduction, one of them being, "the
general success of an activity in light of some standard of
achievement." He goes on to say
that the task of judging the performance is not the responsibility of the
performer, but of an observer. This
struck me. As an actor, I’ve been taught
that this disconnect exists between performers and audience; that the way to
become the best actor I can be would be to build that fourth wall up really
thick and to completely forget about the audience, act as if they do not exist,
be in my “own world.” If I’m asked how I
performed in a show, I think about myself, not about the actual “performance”,
the whole, if we will. Is this definition
of performance true? I suppose, if I
think about it, only an “outsider” or an audience member can truly judge a
whole performance. They may say, “They
performed well” or “It was a good performance.”
Does it matter what, I, the actor feel? I find myself asking this a lot, particularly,
in class when I hear, “That didn’t really drop in” or “That wasn’t alive.” What if I felt it was alive? What if I felt it drop in? Does it matter what I think if I’m not the
audience? If the audience didn’t feel
it? Do we really train in an effort to
become better performers? What does that
mean exactly? Is training for me or is
it to more easily convince an audience member of my performance and, therefore,
perform well. I don’t know, but all of
these questions without concrete answers brought me back to another quote made
by Carlson on page 2 of his introduction in regards to “sophisticated disagreement.”
Carlson never truly defines performance and gives us a bit of a warning that he
won’t with this quote he shares from Strine, Long, and Hopkins regarding
performance as a concept. Participants
of this conceptual “sophisticated disagreement “do not expect to defeat or
silence opposing oppositions, but rather through continuing to dialogue attain
a sharper articulation of all positions and therefore a fuller understanding of
the conceptual richness of performance.”
I suppose it will just take some more thought.
These questions have been on my mind recently as well. This would be a great discussion to engage in our class...to remind ourselves what we hope to create as actors or performing artists. Carlson goes on to say, in the reading, that Hamlet is the true judge of whether he is really "performing" or "living" his actions. But you bring up a valid point: If you felt "alive" in your performance, but not necessarily so to an observer...does it count as an effective performance? Does it matter what the observer thinks if the actor feels they performed well? What makes it an effective or compelling performance? This reminds me of one of FM Alexander's principles from the Alexander Technique--"Debauched Kinesthesia" or "Unreliable Sensory Appreciation". Meaning, what we think or feel is happening, may not necessarily be the case. Alexander was speaking about the means-whereby, the process in the psycho-physical re-education of our "use", to attain the freedom and poise we were meant to have as humans in our movement and functioning. We as humans, since our childhood, are taught and encouraged to strive for a certain product, to "get it right". And much of the time we are focused on end-gaining. The means-whereby is the thoughtful process to prevent the end-gaining temptation to "get it right" and strive for a certain outcome that may not be beneficial to our "use".
ReplyDeleteCarlson goes on to say that this type of "performance" is framed and judged by its observers (referring to linguistic, scholastic, or even sexual performance). But he states that this type of performance is usually applied to "non-human activity". I wonder, since actors are taught to create a theatrical truth of the human experience, if the audience is judging some of our "non-human" behavior, or observing the performance. If we, as actors, worked on our means-whereby (our objectives, relationships, listening, all our acting terms, etc...), rather than our end-gaining aspirations to have a good and effective performance, then the observer doesn't judge our performance but experiences it.