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Some thoughts on Acting Theory Dramatherapy & GestaltI have often been asked (by both clients and colleagues) how I have integrated my background with my current practice. They have been particularly curious about the different fields that have played a part in how I work - acting theory, dramatherapy, improvisati on and gestalt psychotherapy. In this piece of writing I'll try to explain how these fields connect.From as far back as I can remember I had always found myself drawn to the intricacies of how people defined themselves – how they adopted, developed and varied their subtle characteristics. I began to pay considerable attention to exactly how people lived; how this matched how they carried themselves in the smallest of moments. In play I would sometimes imagine myself as another child with a different life - and another personality, developed from a different field. If I caught on to this with sufficient grip, I could believe all sorts of fictions to be truths. So, I was developing an interest in transformation……. It was a natural development for me to begin to explore this through my interest in acting – to think, become myself into the body and soul of another – and from that new place, discover how my perceptions of the world might alter. If I went through a Stanislavskian process to “psychological truthfulness” (Stanislavski, 1937) then I could feel the other’s mannerisms (both external and internal) forming as responses in my own body – and felt what I’d paraphrase at that time as their soul trickling in. Of course there would always be a gap in perception between the character and myself. To a degree, a true match to the person I was portraying could never have emerged – as there are so many different perceptual points from which people view the world. When I experiment with my own perceptions and orientate myself (Philippson, 32, 2001) as being an equal co-creator of my current situation (and not separate from it) there is a noticeable and profound perceptual shift in me…… The paper that I initially wrote this upon had an equal part to play in the co-creation that my pen filtered and displayed. At that time I felt myself to be in good company – the ticking of the clock, the glow of the lamp, the smells lingering from my cooking – we all sat symphonically in the room. The touch of the stone “glass” upon my lips, the deep red wine velveting loosely down my neck – all of us were “in this together”. We were all playing a part/doing a bit of the picture. And I notice I felt a little sunken in “bonhomie” and “with many” in my kitchen. [I originally wrote this paragraph in the present tense and caught myself sounding like the descriptive “scene-setters” of certain novels’ opening paragraphs – writing from a point of view that I had ofetn found difficult to uderstand - not pulled in deeply enough to want to read more. I had previously imagined such narrators to be looking around them – going to great pains to paint a literal picture for the reader – one painted with objectivity and a sharp eye for what anybody else would have seen if they were there. I speculate that they were simply saying “what is”- in a way requiring/displaying only subjectivity – a kind I hadn’t yet felt at the time of my reading them.] As an actor I could not unconsciously sustain this shift beyond the time I’d allot for the experiment. I cannot imagine that I could make a change in myself to this degree for each new character I played – inhabiting a different place in perceiving the world from such a fundamental level. Neither, I think, could I sustain it for the length of a performance. I imagine that, should I succeed in making such a long-term shift in my own perceptions, then this would stay with me in my actual life (until it shifted again) and so I would view each new character I played from a completely different place in myself. In my earlier training, as I studied some of the characters around me, and their “presentations” of themselves in “every day life” (Goffman,1971) I was more drawn to their unconscious role-plays - often their confluences with their chosen group (and their own temporary audience). I was drawn to the nuances in their particular use of stock-phrases and stock-mannerisms – a gentler kind of “character-armour”? (PHG,1951,218.) As if playing a similar version of the same character from a naturalistic play (in that their interpretations of the role were the same). And – in theatre, in Dramatherapy and in Gestalt Psychotherapy - my particular interest has been in that delicate space between the authentic self and it's many dissipated versions. This included the ways in which people can diminish themselves and “sell out” to the comfort and safety of confluence with their audience; their social group, at their own expense. The infidelities to ourselves that we scarcely notice, catching only their remnants; the trails of betrayal as they leave us feeling besmirched in some lazily unarticulated way. Often born out of our fears of the implications of our difference. And of following the script - even to the tiniest pattern of punctuation – mirroring the surrounding group-think. Not causing any rippling of the waters lest the player suddenly sense/feel themselves to misfit the mould, even momentarily. A difference in tone or lack of correct facial grimace giving them away - and alarm beginning its jangled crescendo. One piece of experimental theatre involved groups of women making regular use of the same facial accompaniments to the same stored-up sentences, confirming with each of them their entitlement to a place in the neighbourhood. Filling themselves with the group in place of their own identity – sometimes without a sense of something unacknowledged, sitting underneath. And of the men placing their bodies in postures mirroring the masculinity of those around them – their body-phrases of agreement and relief. Vocally and verbally, the women may achieve confluence through their modes of expression; the men through their modes of restraint. This interested me – both in life and when acting such a character in a piece of contemporary naturalism. I was excited by the depths possible within a stereotypical portrayal – stereotypical only because the character lived stereotypically. My excitement and challenge was in trying to achieve an (unnerving) accuracy of portrayal – and, although the character depicted may not themselves be aware of the fear or void beneath their way of interacting with the world, that somehow this would be seen or sensed by the audience. So as actor in this case, I would have to sit within both awareness and unawareness for me to sense the subtle changes in relation to another – and also how the character adapted to them. I wanted to know more about the psychological patterns that informed aspects of people’s living. This lead naturally to my training in Dramatherapy and, in time, it was another natural step for me to train in Gestalt Psychotherapy. Interestingly, Gestalt Therapy’s founder (Fritz Perls) also brought to Gestalt his own important perspective from the theatre. Through my Dramatherapy training I was able to pay attention to approaches to “being” - and how these could be dovetailed with what I was exploring in my approach to naturalistic acting. We used psychological methods to explore this interplay of the authentic self and its parts and personalities – sources of postures, body movements, thought-patterns, core beliefs, adherence to the scripts. We could explicitly explore our awareness of these aspects of ourselves to varying levels of sophistication. Emerging from/parallel to this acting and dramatherapy world and hidden within the question, “how can I authentically be/be with another?” (including another who is inauthentic) was the question how can I authentically be myself. And also how can I facilitate, through authentic relationship, the same in another, with me. To combine terms from gestalt and Acting Theory, I'd speculatively suggest this simultaneously requires the full identification with "other" of Constantin Stanislakski alongside the differentiation from "other" from Bertolt Brecht. And that these are simultaneously experienced in the improvised present-moment space of authentic (if interrupted) relating. Gestalt Psychotherapy has enabled me to integrate these aspects of my field into a single therapeutic approach. References: Stanislavski, C. (1937) An Actor Prepares. London. Methuen.
Philippson, P. (2001) Self in Relation. New York. The Gestalt Journal Press. Goffman, E. (1971) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London. Penguin Books. Perls, Hefferline, Goodman. (1951) gestalt therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. London. Souvenir Press. Copyright Sarah Fallon |
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