Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Physicality, awareness of space

1. What inhibitions do you still have in using your body to express yourself? What are the strategies you can use to overcome this?

I’m inhibited in that, when acting, I am rather stiff when I have to interact physically with other actors. When I have to touch them, I hesitate before stepping into their personal space, much less touch them physically. It is an unreasonable inhibition as I do not have such problems off the stage with certain people. I still have them with most of them. It is most likely a form of stage fright. To combat this, I will work harder to slide into character and forget that I am on a stage and that people are watching, and the person I am acting with is a friend, but the character that mine is supposed to be interacting with. That way, the character is the one who initiates or receives the physical contact; my inhibitions in that area will be removed. By becoming the character whose personality is one that will not shy away from this physical contact, I will not be inhibited by this either.

A second of my inhibitions is that I am quite unable to multi-task fully. Thus, I’m only able to either say my lines or move physically, but not both at the same time. I tend to fall back to my frequent movements when I am not paying attention – particularly when speaking my lines. This detracts from my performance as the character I’m playing almost certainly do not have the same physical habits that I do, and it will cause the people who knows me to see me as ‘Justine’ and not as the character I’m playing. One of the strategies I can use to overcome this is to focus much more on my performance and to be more aware of my own body; not just when acting, but when I’m off the stage as well. By being more aware, I will know when I am reverting back to my physical habits and make a conscious habit to stop myself from doing it, thus getting rid of this inhibition.

My third inhibition is that I am unusually stiff on stage, especially my shoulders, neck and torso. While my arms and legs might move (sometimes involuntarily, as illustrated previously), I frequently neglect to express myself by moving my neck, shoulders or torso. In addition, whenever I remember, the movement looks stiff and unnatural. This is a great detriment as an actor has to be able to use his whole body instead of just his limbs. To combat this, with the script with me before any rehearsal, I will read through it closely and analyse it for when and how I will have to use these areas in order to express my characters’ emotions. Plus, I will imitate the way my character walk, stand and other such common physical actions, taking special note of when and how I use these parts of my body and improve on them.

2. Read up on the works of Rudolf Laban and Jacques LeCoq. To what extent do you think their works can help an actor be more adept in the use of space and their own physicality as an actor?

Rudolf Laban is the inventor of the Labannotation, which raises the actor’s consciousness about four things: direction of movement, part of body doing the movement, level of movement and length of movement. The Labannotation is useful to the actor in that it helps the actor to be more aware of his own body and his movement of it in comparison to the same of others. The actor will become fully conscious of how he uses his body, and as characterisation involves body language and physicality to a large extent, Labannotation will help the actor build the character better, down to his smallest, seemingly subconscious movements. The different categories of movement that Labannotation advocates teach an actor the difference between a jerky motion and a fluid one. As these categories apply throughout the body, the actor can now decide if his character’s movements will be flowing or erratic, building on his characterisation further.

Jacques LeCoq is a specialist on mime, stating that mime lets one rediscover the everyday actions that one makes – such as brushing the teeth – and be conscious of them. LeCoq’s methods help actors realize how different characters of differing personalities will do these everyday things different and move differently in the space they are given, and that it varies with their mood as well. One such example is how an impatient, worried character would walk or pace differently around the same room from a patient one. From being made aware of how one does everyday actions, actors will also be able to discover more about the character they are portraying when they act out how their characters would go through these everyday matters.

LeCoq also taught his students to be fully aware of the physical environment and to make use of it, whether when miming or when acting. This teaches actors how to maximise the use of props and space. The actor, from LeCoq’s previous teachings, learned to be conscious of his body movements, and LeCoq’s teachings now aids the actor in using his body to maximise the use of space and props in setting the stage and during the play itself. The latter is achieved by the spreading out of the actors and appropriate movement around the stage space.

~ Justine