From Mind to Body

Workshop Notes

 

Knocknacara Amateur Theatre Society

Host: Lorcan Mannion

28 October 2006

 

 

"Deep, deep within ourselves, within the treasure house of our souls are buried tremendous creative powers and abilities, but they remain unused as long as we do not know about them or as long as we deny them."

~ Michael Chekhov

 

Body movement

Practice four basic movements for warm-up.  Concentrate carefully on each: molding movements, flowing movements, flying movements, radiating movements.  Think of these four movements as representing the four basic elements of earth, water, air and fire.  This helps you to feel at one with your body.

 

Theory of Psychological Gesture

Many actors rely on changing only their psychology.  The mind-body connection marries the psychological approach to full-bodied gesture to create the Psychological Gesture.

 

What is the Psychological Gesture?

 

(i)	The psychology of a person consists of thoughts, feelings and desires.
(ii)	A gesture is a physical movement that has intention.
(i) + (ii) = (iii)	The Psychological Gesture is a physical movement that expresses the thoughts, feelings and desires of the character.

 

Analogy

A company logo tries to capture the essence of what the company is about in one image.  Similarly, the Psychological Gesture can be used to awaken the essence of the character in you.  This one movement can help you to align your thoughts, feelings and desires with that of the character. 

 

Result

One moving image can inspire your stage portrayal: your walk, your expressive mannerisms, your voice, your line delivery.  Performing the gesture prior to your scene can trigger your artistic nature.  If your inspiration weakens during a scene, you can envision the gesture to revitalize you.

 

Examples of Psychological Gestures and Qualities

 

 

How do you find the right Psychological Gesture?

Answer: Read the script with your whole being, rather than with your mind!

Reading with your mind	Reading with your being
Intellectual study of a play means your mind analyses characters and plot, compares with other plays, understands the literary source of the play, etc.  You can then provide critical comment, or answer intellectual questions on the play.	Reading a play with the mind’s eye enables you to identify the gestures that motivate will and the qualities that motivate feeling.  You can then express the play as an actor, without being a critic.  The play lives in your hands, feet, torso, limbs, voice…

 

Leading Questions

Finding the right Psychological Gesture can be helped by asking Leading Questions.

Example

Question	Answer
What does your character (e.g. a villain) desire?	Power
How do you get power?	By dominating
What gesture shows domination?	Pressing down
What quality (feeling) can accompany this gesture?	Rage

 

Physically executing various gestures with various qualities that come out of your answers to the above questions can lead you to feel the quality and desire to dominate in every cell of your being.  Often you need to try different gestures and qualities until you have the right combination for you.  This requires your full concentration on the image, and your full energy.

 

How many Psychological Gestures should I have?

You can have different Psychological Gestures for different scenes or even moments in a play.  Alternatively you can have an Overall Psychological Gesture that will help you perform any given moment in the play.  The important thing is to have your character’s objective “gesturised” so that your body and voice (the only parts of the actor that the audience actually experience) reflect that objective to the audience.

 

Rehearsing the Psychological Gesture in performance

(i) Take a passage of dialogue, for which you have settled on particular gesture(s) and qualities for your character, and physically execute them, without saying the lines.

(ii) Repeat the above sequence, while saying the lines.

(iii) Say the lines only, but feel the strength of the gesture(s) being poured into them.

 

Exercise 1

Find a sentence that needs to be said with a particular emotion.  Adopt a position of the body that seems to represent that.  Say the sentence.  Make slight adjustments to your body position and repeat the sentence.  Do you feel any difference in delivery?

 

Exercise 2

Create a vision in your head of your character’s (unspoken) Objective in a short scene.  Use a prop to help focus if useful.  Act scene with other character(s), each focusing on their Objective.  If Objectives are conflicting some business around a chosen prop can be a symbol of this.

 

Exercise 3

Perform a short scene in which a pause connects two different moods.  Radiate a chosen psychological gesture through the pause to communicate emotions.