Teaching Actors: Knowledge Transfer in Actor Training

Prologue

As so much of the actor's craft is learned unconsciously, it should not be too surprising to discover that not everyone is able to pinpoint or even explain what it is they do 'intuitively'. Hayes Gordon 1992

Training! Training! Training! But if it’s the kind of training which exercises only the body and not the mind, then No, thank you! I have no use for actors who know how to move but cannot think.

– Vsevolod Meyerhold.¹

A great deal of personal observation has led me to ponder the ‘teachability’ of acting. For many people actor training remains a unique and mysterious phenomenon of the theatre industry. Distinctive training techniques resemble at times a collection of ‘magic spells’ that are learnt and passed on. The sorcerer in the guise of the actor trainer weaves incantations in the name of Stanislavsky (1980 [1936]), Meyerhold (1921–2), Chekhov (1953) and Brecht (1992 [1964]). Maybe the answers lie with Grotowski (1975 [1969]), Chaikin (1972), Brook (1990 [1968]), Meisner et al. (1987), Strasberg (1987), Adler (1988) or Hagen (1973)? Who indeed has the answers? The methods and anti-methods, techniques and exercises are all part of the trainer’s seemingly mysterious repertoire devoted to the creation of the ‘prepared actor’. Institutionalised actor training, which is essentially a twentieth-century phenomenon, informs not only the concept and construction of role but also the entire dramatic process (Hodge 2000). Since its humble beginnings in the early nineteenth century,² however, western actor training has grown without a clearly articulated philosophy of teaching and learning practice due essentially to the kinds of trainers employed who do not come from a teaching background.

Choosing the best course content and the most appropriate methods of delivery in actor training are complex and often onerous undertakings for actor trainers. As Martin simply puts it ‘It is not difficult to appreciate that training an actor for such a diversified theatre, where the number of approaches has been so varied, is no mean task’ (1991: 154). The actor trainer must also prepare students for an ever-changing and diverse acting profession.

Sifting and sorting through the refinement of skills required to produce a polished actor is difficult, especially when the intangible ‘it’ factor is the measure. An actor is said to either have ‘it’ or not have ‘it’. Can a trainer ever really do very much in the cultivation of an actor anyway? When drama schools cull their auditionees from over 2000 hopefuls down to 24 who eventually make the entry grade,³ it may be argued that what the process leaves are 24 extraordinary young men and women who already have that special ‘it’. The acting teacher’s role might then be seen to refine and polish an actor’s performance skills. But is the teaching of skills the mechanistic answer to creating great actors? Gross believes ‘our job is not to teach acting so much as it is to help students become the kind of people who can act’ (1978: 2). The opening quote by Vsevolod Meyerhold (1921–2) suggests that he sought to train the brains and bodies of actors (Leach 2000), which suggests a philosophical fusion of both training and education, a notion that this book makes some attempt to deconstruct. Michel Saint-Denis (1982) revolutionised the training of actors (Martin 1991) by taking a holistic approach to body and voice. However, there are numerous proponents (e.g. Silverberg 1999) who suggest there is more than one path to an ultimate truth.

How do actor trainers characterise their practice? From the multiplicity of choices that surround the trainer’s craft, there is a deeper concern that relates to effectiveness. Larry Silverberg suggests that ‘student actors cannot succeed unless you do’ (1999: 14). How are notions of effectiveness addressed by the drama schools or the trainers themselves? Do great actors or directors make great trainers? ‘What one needs to know to act and what one needs to know to teach acting are two very different things’ (Gross 1978: 2). So, what is that special ‘it’ that trainers themselves require to perform their job effectively, however ephemeral or intangible their job may be? Is the ability to teach well also a product of ‘talent’? In part this book explores what the informants identify as trainer’s ‘it’ qualities. This book also explores what constitutes actor trainer knowledge by how they make meaning of their practice.

Within these pages I aim to go beyond the closed studio doors and seemingly ‘secret business’ of actor training institutions and attempt to investigate the ways actor trainers talk about their practice. This is not easy given the implicit nature of actor training pedagogy (if indeed pedagogy is even the correct concept). The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Report suggests that:

a drama school is not basically about facts and figures; it is about something much more intangible and in many ways much more important − approaches to drama and techniques of passing on acting skills.

(1975: 46)

In my research for Teaching Actors I have discovered that rarely are the voices of current drama school practitioners heard by anyone other than their own students. I have documented and examined some of those voices in an attempt to determine the ways trainers discuss their practice and produce an understanding of those models of current teaching in various Australian and English drama schools. No absolute claims about all actor training can be made here, as the often-elusive phenomena of reflection examined in teaching practice must be, by its nature, incomplete (O’Mara 1999: 7). My research presented within this book relies upon what the interviewed acting teachers said they understood about their practice. The trainers are challenged to articulate what it is that they do and since this book explores articulated knowledge there is special interest in how the trainers create meaning and their ability to pass this on.

Through the use of case study, the research represented in this book examines the interview responses given by key trainers, heads of acting and principals/directors of ‘elite’ actor-training institutions. From these interviews emerge underlying beliefs and perceptions of the individual trainers’ practice. These case studies assist to inform our understanding of the issues that surround vocational actor training both in Australia and the United Kingdom. The choice of two countries may enrich the book’s contribution to the field and provide an exchange of valuable data. The work may also assist American actor trainers in studios to understand and question their own orthodoxy.

Teaching Actors also raises the question of how much trainers may be influenced in their practice by their environment. This book attempts to illuminate what the trainers say about their practice in relation to the context in which they practice. Are there significant differences or are all institutions generating isomorphic conditions for the trainers? Isomorphism, the process leading to homogeneity among organisations that experience the same set of environmental conditions (Powell and DiMaggio 1991), has the potential to create similar conditions whether they are in Australia or the United Kingdom or from one drama school to another.

In his advice to potential students of drama school, Nigel Rideout suggests to ‘read carefully the philosophy of the training’ (1995: 16) and of course research each school carefully. Rideout’s advice is based on the knowledge that drama schools vary in their approach and one needs to fully investigate the stated rhetoric. The purpose of the research contained within this book is to understand and penetrate the rhetoric of the drama schools by talking directly with the trainers in an attempt to understand actor training from their perspective. In turn it is hoped that this will assist all actor trainers to interrogate their own practices and that of their schools or studios.

The importance of the work explored in this book is found in the contribution it makes to an aspect of the field that regrettably has until now been very much under explored. There is little evident research surrounding the notion of how trainers learn to teach or develop their practice within drama schools. Numerous texts have been written about acting methods and some have even addressed ‘great acting teachers’ (Brestoff 1995). To date, the murky waters of actor training remain relatively uncharted. Teaching Actors in part clarifies the identity of actor trainers and examines their perceptions of what it is that they do. I hope that this book may lead actor training institutions to further develop existing models for teaching and assist with appropriate ongoing professional development for their staff. A wider application of this work may assist in a more comprehensive understanding of practice at post-compulsory level education in theatre/drama teaching, not just in ‘elite’ drama schools. Further, this book may assist in promoting more informed practice within the field.

I believe that in claiming vocational aims and objectives, drama schools must continue to prepare those wishing to enter the industry for the future needs of that industry. Trainers need to ensure that they are indeed meeting the requirements of the profession and have the ability to understand their particular function as actor trainers. From my own survey of drama schools it appears that many schools are still favouring theatre rather than the application of film and television within their courses. Many courses appear to give scant consideration to new media possibilities. This leads me to ponder just how actor training is taking into consideration the industry’s future.

Jacqueline Martin, who adds weight to the necessity to conduct ongoing research, supports a forward-looking view by writing that actor training needs to take into account its changing nature:

There is no doubt that the acting ideal has also undergone enormous changes during the twentieth century as the theatre has advanced so rapidly, and the risk is that one is training an actor for a theatre which has become, or is on the way to becoming, obsolete. Another important consideration is that the world has become somewhat more homogenous […] and influences are felt more rapidly than ever before from one country to another, particularly in the theatre. Therefore, it is important to compare English actor training with that of other countries.

(1991: 179)

The importance of Teaching Actors rests in the ability to provide a largely unheard dialogue about how actor trainers characterise their practice in Australia and the United Kingdom. As our actors continue to play in each other’s countries and appear in each other’s films, our international dialogue is becoming increasingly important. So, too, is it an important direction for the future that an international dialogue between trainers is heard and understood. No longer is it logical to assume that London ‘does it best’ and that past practices will serve the industry’s future and globally changing needs. Similarly there is a necessity to examine practices in the USA and in other countries. However, to be specifically useful this book deliberately focuses on two countries with strong historical and structural links in their actor training⁴

My own enquiry reveals that actor training as a field of documentation and research endeavour has tended to concentrate on acting methods and techniques rather than writing on the effectiveness of the delivery and learning. From an educator’s point of view, this is surprising; however it needs to be recognised that actor trainers, for the most part, are drawn from the practical side of the industry and in many cases may have little interest in research, especially teacher research. In part, Teaching Actors may assist in more completely understanding actor training processes and unravel the ‘mystique’ of the trainer’s role. This book aims to authentically capture the voice of a number of trainers and begin to lay bare to scrutiny their understandings. Current researchers see the value of investigating practice is in ‘opening up one’s practice to other practitioners’ (O’Mara 1999: 14) in order to learn and develop professionally.

My research and writing into actor training is influenced by the wider field of drama that encompasses drama in education and theatre arts. My enquiry follows existing qualitative research such as case study research into higher education drama by Hoepper (1996) where individual lecturers were interviewed and their answers collated. Arguably drama education is not so concerned with acting skills as much as the depth and quality of the learning experience. However, it has produced a sound body of extensive teacher research (O’Toole 1992; O’Neill 1995; O’Mara 1999, Gallagher 2001; Taylor 2000; Ackroyd 2004), which unsurprisingly has a wider application to actor training and learning. Other writers have had a particular interest in an aspect of actor training such as Voice (Berry 1974; Martin 1991; Linklater 1976) or Movement (Meyerhold 1921–2; Laban 1980). There are some who have written with a particular focus on actor training practices such as Zarrilli (1995, 2001), Cohen (1998), Rideout (1995); and others.

I share with Uta Hagen the belief that ‘the learning process in art is never over’ (Hagen 1973: 3). Hagen insists that acting is a craft that is honed all throughout one’s life and is therefore deserving of great respect: ‘More than in the other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic’ (1973: 4). Like Hagen who called for ‘respect for acting’, I now call for a renewed and informed respect for teaching acting. This, of course, originates with actor trainers themselves truly respecting the art and science of teaching…

… and that begins with understanding.

The Structure of this Book

This book is not intended to offer practitioners yet another system or method of actor training – there are more than sufficient of these available already. Teaching Actors aims to inform acting teachers about the nature of their work and to break down some strongly held misconceptions that have developed through time. It is also a celebration of practical knowledge(s) that have traditionally been hard to capture in meaningful ways and have, as a result, often been represented as a weaker alternative to theory.

We begin our journey in Chapter 1 by providing an overall context of actor training, outlining the historical origins of the drama school and several key influences that have helped shape actor training to date. I have presented an overview of both the development of actor training in the United Kingdom and Australia, exploring each for their close relationship.

In an attempt to develop a deeper understanding of actor training, Chapter 2 looks at the theory and practice of actor training by bringing together a range of theorists in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to examining the field. The chapter explores various conundrums such as the question of talent, acting as art or craft, and methods and techniques of actor training.

Chapter 3 details the polemic binaries that have become accepted divides in thinking within the minds of actor trainers and many other skill-based practitioners. Although ‘binary oppositionals’ have for sometime been the focus of academic attention, this chapter highlights some of those great divides, which have often served to hinder our deeper understanding of such areas as ‘practice and theory’ or ‘education and training’.

Chapter 4 details current organisational practice in drama schools across Australia and the UK. I examine the role of drama schools in relation to the broader industry. The chapter gives attention to the way in which drama schools and acting teachers are accredited, and what difference this may make in the delivery of acting programmes.

The notions of ‘vocational expertise’ and ‘connoisseurship’ are investigated in Chapter 5 by examining the types of meanings generated in practice. Situated learning has become an area of interesting research and is applied here to the field of actor training. Meanings and knowledge types are explored in relation to the types of understandings exhibited in actor training. This chapter further draws upon the field of teaching knowledge, which has until now received very little explicit attention in actor training. This leads to an awareness and appreciation of embodied practices and practical knowledge peculiar to actor training.

A case study of actor trainers is provided in Chapter 6, introducing the reader to a selection of ‘pen-pictures’ of the actor trainers who are the participants in the study. The chapter looks at the role of the actor trainer and the histories of how these people have emerged to become teachers of acting. Importantly the qualities of what makes an effective trainer are analysed.

Chapter 7 investigates how drama schools are situated in terms of the industry and begins to examine their usefulness in terms of preparing actors for that industry. Perceptions of what makes an effective drama school are further examined in this chapter. Even the descriptive names given to our drama schools as indicators of their institutional philosophies are explored.

Chapter 8 interrogates acting trainers’ relationship to the whole training process by examining pedagogical and non-pedagogical imperatives. How training is defined and the key components of the training process are identified. This leads to an interesting examination of various ways of knowing.

Chapter 9 analyses the kinds of meanings actor trainers seek to communicate, and which centres on meanings communicated by the informants in terms of their ‘expert’ knowledge or ‘teacher knowledge’ and the ways people in ‘communities of practice’ specifically discuss such complex knowledge.

The concluding Chapter 10 offers the reader some thoughts about actor training over the next century and identifies potential issues for the theory and practice of actor training. It is hoped that drama schools, and initially the actor trainers themselves, may create re-informed ways of training while valuing themselves as reflective practitioners. The chapter reinforces the point that the need to know what to hold on to and what to let go of will become increasingly important if actor training is to remain relevant and innovative for generations to come.

Notes

1. Thoughts by Vsevolod Meyerhold cited in Aleksandr Gladkov (1997) Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, p. 104.

2. While privately run small-scale schools existed in the early 1800s it was not until the beginning of the 1900s that larger schools and academies were established.

3. Based on figures provided in the National Institute for Dramatic Art (NIDA) Annual Report 2009.

4. Many Australian drama schools were modelled on the British system of actor training. Noteworthy is the fact that a significant percentage of the Australian drama tutors/principals in this study have trained in the UK.

Chapter 1

Historical Background

HAMLET:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced

it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth

it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-

crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too

much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for

in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the

whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and I beget

a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O! it

offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-

pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears

of the groundlings; who, for the most

part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-

shows, and noise.

– William Shakespeare

(Hamlet, Act III, sc. ii, lines 1–13)

In recent times we have seen a proliferation of university degrees and courses in acting, drama, performance and various specialisms within theatre. Curiously this rise in interest has been at a time when there is a significant decline in available jobs within the industry. The increasing popularity of drama and theatre as secondary school disciplines indicates that this trend may continue for some time unless the growing rise in tuition fees slows it down. Undoubtedly the abundance of television talent shows has had something to do with the increased desire to seek fame. Whilst initially it may seem curious, I believe the answer also comes from an understanding and belief in theprocess of drama. As many educationalists know, the drama process offers new and engaging ways of learning. The broad applicability of drama as a way of understanding oneself, other people and the world, would seem to have something to do with this increasing trend. I believe we are seeing a global reaction to twentieth-century assumptions that suggested all could be measured and implicit trust given to scientific objectivity. Aesthetic education puts humans back in touch with their ability to feel as well as think.

Of course the ability to help peoplefeel in addition tothink has always been an actor’s job. But how has the job of acting been learnt? How has acting been taught and by whom? The history of actor training is an interesting journey that has been documented by other writers (e.g. Nicoll 1976; Harrop 1992). It is nonetheless worth reminding ourselves briefly of the origins of actor training and the eventual development into formalised drama school training with the birth of what is typically called the drama school.

Genesis of Actor Training

Actor training is firmly rooted in historical practices themed by a tradition of apprenticeship andlearning by doing. Acting, particularly in the western world, has been seen by some throughout the years as a rather dubious undertaking and at times as a challenge to the fabric of society itself. ‘Plato regarded actors as hypocrites, players of illusion and falsifiers of truth’ (Harrop 1992: 109). This began what appears to be a fascinating paradox, where actors were responsible for revealing truths; yet they were themselves pretending.

Although institutionalised actor training is largely a twentieth-century phenomenon (Harrop 1992), its roots are as old as acting itself – dating from the beginning of the fifth century bc. It is likely that the Choruses of Greek drama were trained, particularly in the area of voice control. In the canon of literature Thespis is credited with the distinction of having introduced the first actor as distinct from the choral leader in the sixth century bc. Ever since Pisistratus established the first dramatic festival (Nicoll 1976) the competitive nature of these events provided the necessary impetus for actors to develop their craft.

Medieval drama in France, Italy and England offered no such competition as was formerly evidenced in ancient Greece. One sixteenth-century record offers this fascinating critique of the actors who performed in mystery plays:

[Actors are] an ignorant set of men, mechanics and artisans, who know not an A from a B, untrained and unskilled in playing such pieces before the public. Their voices are poor, their language unfitting, their pronunciation wretched. No sense do they have of the meaning of what they say.

(Cited in Nicoll 1976: 112)

Whilst many participants in these dramas took their work seriously, they were largely amateurs. Professional entertainers such as minstrels andjongleurs(an early version of mime artists) were increasingly used to support the plays (Nicoll 1976), which no doubt offered audiences an element of observable cleverness and skill.

By the sixteenth century, professional and amateur players proliferated in English and European towns; however the court plays were becoming increasingly more professional. Queen Elizabeth I and her court came to depend more upon the skilled services of professional players than upon amateur actors. ‘Companies of boys [the Children of Paul’s, the Children of the Chapel and the Queen’s Revels, and the Children of Windsor] became, in Elizabeth’s reign, virtually professionals’ (Nicoll 1976: 199). However, these boys were disparagingly described by Rosencrantz in Shakespeare’s Hamlet as ‘an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for’t’ (Act II, sc. ii). A growing interest in the stage by adult males formed numerous professional companies of players. The construction of the Theatre by James Burbage in 1576 saw the beginning of many purpose-built theatres in London.

In the East, drama was also developing its own traditions and conventions of actor training.¹ The Japanese Kabuki, developed at the beginning of the seventeenth century and was derived from the Chinese culture. It employs precise, familiar, conventionalised movements and gestures. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Kanami Kiyotsugu and his son Seami Motokiyo developed Nō drama that also retained the precision of prescriptive rule-based traditional actor training (Nicoll 1978). Similarly, Kathakali from southern India is another example of early eastern actor training. Kathakali is described by Phillip Zarrilli as ‘a rigorous and arduous process of transmission of embodied performance knowledge achieved through constant, daily repletion of basic exercises’ (2000: 66).

It is quite possible to draw an analogy between Kathakali’s notion of the actor becoming one with the character and how some western actors trained in Stanislavskian methodology might describe acting (Zarrilli 2000: 65). Indeed, eastern theatre and its techniques began to influence western theatre training from the first part of the twentieth century (Hodge 2000) with a continual and growing interest in more systematic approaches to actor training.

Birth of the British Drama School

Drama schools, as we understand them today, did not exist in England at the turn of the twentieth century. Cohen (1998) claims that the American Academy of Dramatic Arts established in 1884 is the oldest acting school in the English-speaking world. Rideout (1995), however, claims that the earliest record of a drama school in England was located in Dean Street, Soho, on the site of London’s old Royalty Theatre. Rideout’s research suggests a Miss Fanny Kelly established the school there in 1834. By 1837 she had built a small theatre there called the Duke’s Theatre and the Royal Dramatic School was attached to it (Rideout 1995). Situated much further north in Glasgow is the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, formerly the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), which is reputed to be the first performance institution of its type established in the United Kingdom in 1847 (RSAMD Prospectus 2001–2002). The building originally opened as a music academy only, under the name the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and in 1950 the College of Drama was founded. In 1968 the academy adopted the name of Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), which reflected its new commitment to drama as well