Personal Experience Aiding the Actor's Development of Theatrical Character

1199 Words3 Pages

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[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.

More about Personal Experience Aiding the Actor's Development of Theatrical Character

Open Document