Through personal experience, reading and research an insight can be
gleaned into how improvisation can play such an important role in aiding
the Actor's development of theatrical character.
Through personal experience, reading and research an insight can be
gleaned into how improvisation can play such an important role in
aiding the Actor's development of theatrical character. To fully
comprehend how liberating improvisation can be as a doorway to one's
creative self, one has to experience and understand the process.
The Actor's tools begin with him or herself. The key to accessing this
inspired part of a self is through the process of playing games. It is
through games that a person of any age can act, evolve, developing new
skills, creating and inventing new ideas, and, through the game's
unique process, without even being conscious of it.
It is through play, in which children imitate more or less consciously
all human activities and sentiments, which is for them a natural path
towards artistic expression and for us a living repertoire of reaction
of the most authentic kind - it is through play that we wish to
construct not a system, but an educational experience. We seek to
develop the child, without deforming him or her, through the means
which the child provides, towards which he or she senses the greatest
inclination, through play, in playing, in games which are
imperceptibly disciplined and exalted.[1]
The skills necessary to create are basic. They are each installed in
every person from birth. It is only the accessing of these skills that
is sometimes seen as a difficulty, or more commonly the belief that
only very talented people can create or perform. In fact, it is the
performing that is often seen as threatening, this is often up to the
personal experiences and psychology of the individual. This mind-set
can be dissolved in the process of play. 'We observe the children at
play. They teach us. Learn everything from children. Impose nothing on
them. Take nothing away from them. Help them in their development
without their being aware of it.' [2] To play, and whilst playing free
one's mind, free one's self. To feel no threat, no judgment or
contest, just to play once again as if a child. To remember one's soul
and remind one's body of it's capability for creativity. To learn and
teach through one's self. ...
... middle of paper ...
...maginative and build a
character. The skills necessary to do so are built in to every
individual. Working in a group, a student actor can access his or her
imagination, realizing the ability to play, and through play discover
the mass of characteristics within themselves. Building confidence and
trust in one's self and others in their group. Believing their ability
to develop character and ideas through improvisation games the skills
they always possessed.
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[1] Jacques Copeau, Twentieth Century Actor Training, ed. By Alison
Hodge, (London, Routledge, 2000), p. 74.
[2] Jacques Copeau, Twentieth Century Actor Training, ed. By Alison
Hodge, (London, Routledge, 2000), p. 75.
[3] Keith Johnstone, Impro. Improvisation and the Theatre, (London,
Methuen, 1981), p.82.
[4] Mhari Hetherington, Notes from Drama on Stage, 30/9/03: Exposure
Exercise, (Unpublished), N.P.
[5] Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theater, (Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 24.
[6] Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theater, (Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 256.
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