The heart of my theatre work is based on what I call the three Actor Paradigm, which is grounded in the belief we call on many different aspects of our creative souls at different times for different projects.
The Three aspects I work with are:
1) TECHNIQUE/ CRAFT
2) CREATIVE RISK
3) EMOTIONAL TRUTH
In graduate school I wrote my thesis about three actresses who at the end of the 19th century were performing within a one mile radius of each other in London's West End.
My acting training was experienced in three stages: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, at The Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University, and with William Esper at The Esper Studio training based on the work of Sanford Meisner and Stanislavsky’s System
Each phase of my tutelage reflects one of these three great actresses' style and philosophy:
SARAH BERNHARDT, ELENORA DUSE, ELLEN TERRY
TECHNIQUE /CRAFT
Ellen Terry, an English actress was adored by both the public and her colleagues alike. Terry was a woman of great charm and generosity who also possessed a fiercely independent spirit allied to a resolute capacity for hard work. Henry Irving (a leading actor of his day and the model for Bram Stroker's Dracula invited her to join his theatre as his leading lady. A young Oscar Wilde saw her Portia and composed a sonnet in her honor. Ellen enjoyed a stellar career for over 50 years. She was an actress known for the clarity of her voice and the precision of her craft. When I attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art her picture was on the wall of legendary artistic ancestors.
CREATIVE RISK
Sarah Bernhardt was of mixed French and Dutch parentage, and of Jewish descent.. She was, however, baptized at the age of twelve and brought up in a convent. She toured all the European capitals as spending her nights asleep in a comfy coffin. By the time she was 35 she had played one hundred and twelve parts, thirty-eight of which she had created, including quite a few male roles. She supposedly staged an infamous acting contest once. She other great actresses, were taking a break from a large gala event in one of the ladies powder rooms. Sarah, on realizing that many there had played Camille (from the play La Dame Aux Camillias) decided that they ought to have a contest then and there, each reciting Camille one after the other. However, since she believed that judgement would be swayed by the glitter of costumes, she insisted that Camille be played in the nude. The story is that at least three actresses stripped and complied. Sarah won. She was a genius of artifice. At the Experimental Theatre Wing I had the great pleasure of working with the phenomenal cross dressing actor Charles Ludlum who had a picture of Sarah playing Phedre in his dressing room. He loved her luminous, inclusive, broad theatricality and her guts. He said “Sarah was an honorary Drag Queen.”
EMOTIONAL TRUTH
Eleonora Duse was recognized at home as Italy's greatest actress. Madame Duse's reputation as an actress was founded less on her creations than on her deep sense of simplicity and truth. In contrast to the great French actress she avoided all make-up, her art depended on intense naturalness rather than on stage effect, sympathetic force or poignant intellectuality rather than the theatrical emotionalism of the French tradition. She was the patron saint of all Stanislavksi based systems. George Bernard Shaw once wrote an article comparing the work of Duse and Bernhardt. In the article he spoke glowingly of Duse's sense of truth which was so deep that Shaw from his seat in the audience actually saw a blush of feeling creep over Duse’s face when her character was faced with her lover. My teacher Bill Esper who taught the Meisner technique (“living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”)
had Duse's photograph above his desk.
Meditation:
Using the work of Duse, Terry and Bernhardt as inspiration ask these questions:
Where do you use technique and craft in your work?
How to you take creative risks?
Does emotional truth in your work come naturally to you?
Which of these approaches is easiest for you? Which one would you like to develop?