What is Physical Theatre?
"Physical theatre is a form of presentation that strives to enhance or augment the level of communication with its audience through imagery and an appropriate energy level of performance. This is not to be confused with excessive, exaggerated movement or loud noise per se.
At the start of the last century the trend was to sweep away the exaggerated and showy styles that had flourished during the industrial revolution. Spearheaded by Stanislavski's work in Russia and certainly facilitated by much improved lighting techniques, theatre performances could now aim at "truth" in performance.
This was a salutary leap forward and the style of performance known as psychological realism began to assert its dominance of theatre. The advent of film and then TV only served to entrench this prevailing style. On either the big or small screen any other style appears ridiculous or arty-farty. Unfortunately, however, a significant baby was thrown out with the 19th century bathwater, the magic of make-believe when the audience is invited to do a fair share of the work!
Directing Shakespeare brings this home as one notices just how much he expected his audiences to fill in for themselves. Not only did they have to "see", within the unchanging confines of the "Wooden O" stage, the different locations he indicates but in his heightened language he constantly encourages the audience to make their own connections with the multiplicity of allusions and references he offers. The more they put in the more they can get out of the experience. This is possibly why Shakespeare is still so popular today, audiences actually enjoy doing a bit of work for themselves.
As for Shakespeare's actor the game was to stimulate that audience into participation, not by working out in rehearsals what Julius Caesar might have eaten for breakfast (a la Stanislavski) but by ensuring that all the clues were audibly and visually well planted.
So many of today's audiences, in the English speaking world at least, have been lured into passivity by being spoon-fed works whose authors have dotted every i and crossed every t, leaving very little to the imagination. Of course, we also have directors who prefer not to leave much for audiences to do, and in fact there are now working with certain Australian flagship companies a number of "Imagination Consultants" who presumably assist the "Creative Team" in which, rather curiously, actors are not listed.
Many producers and directors encourage the development of production components such as set design, costuming, lighting, soundscaping; the practitioners of which are only too eager to be noticed and whose own artistic, technological and indeed imaginative urges are uppermost. Their prevailing maxim seems to be that "more is better". The result is "spectacle" which can be very impressive and bound to get bums on seats, though, when set to perform amid such excesses, the actor ; surely the keystone of theatre - appears to diminish in size if not in importance. Spectacle is not theatre. |
The world, thank goodness has a rich panoply of performance styles that are still appreciated by audiences today ranging from the Indian Kathakali to Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre, from Javanese shadow theatre to the Habimah in Israel. Seldom in the West does one sample these styles, yet they make a powerful impact on their audiences. The director Robert Wilson is one of the few who manages to borrow from such sources and not surprisingly his work makes a considerable impact and is highly regarded on the International Festival circuit.
Our own domestic audiences have generally lost the desire to work for their entertainment. Seldom is the public encouraged to be on the edge of their seats, working things out, participating with their concentration and engagement.
Nevertheless it would seem that slowly, an increasing number is getting tired of being offered sets of characters that are little more than talking heads, however psychologically realistic or truthful, perhaps audiences are starting to have their fill of looking into a mirror and are now seeking something a bit more challenging.
A physical theatre production worthy of the name will tend to shake audiences into participating again, the more so if the images produced are penetrating. Feeding the audience"s visual perception and imagination the spectators are encouraged to create their own play. The more "work" they do the deeper the enjoyment. I use the term image here from an audience point of view as it is manifest and presented on stage - an embodiment of an action, a configuration of forms, a "sculpture", a "tableau vivant", perhaps picture would be a better word if it did not imply something so static. On the other hand "image" for an actor is a virtual or mental picture that the actor personally conjures up to use internally to help the actor not to "act"!
A well written play may give spectators a bite-size fragment or two of dialogue, a line or two, to remember, like a catchy tune but an appropriate image may continue to haunt them for years to come.
With physical theatre one does not have to rely on a work that has been thoroughly cooked beforehand by the playwright, especially if that playwright writes for the audience as opposed to writing for the actor. Why employ actors at all? Why not write a short story and hand it out to the audience to read? Ah, but then the readers would have to visualise and hear for themselves, in their minds" eyes and ears (= imagine) everything the black fonts signify on the white page wouldn"t they? For some this would be too much like hard work.
So, following that old line of least resistance, what is frequently offered as performance is little more than glove puppetry with the playwrights" hands in the gloves, the performers mere mouthpieces for the stories, ideas and conflicts set down by the author. Let us not forget that the ability to generate emotions in an audience is still a magic ingredient that actors alone possess, people may be awestruck by the décor and costumes and indeed music can create mood but for anything more precise or varying it's only an actor that can deliver.
Jean-Pierre Voos |
