The Greeks or Shakespeare?
By ‘the Greeks’ I mean the ancient tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. By ‘Shakespeare’ I mainly mean Shakespeare, but some...
The mystery of the mask
At the core of the mystery of the (theatrical) mask lies the question: who is the mask primarily for, the one who wears it or the one who...
Strasberg on Brecht
For anyone sympathetic to Bertolt Brecht, proponent of the ‘Alienation Effect,' it would seem unlikely that the evangelist of 'the...
The three voices
You have a head voice, a chest voice and an abdominal voice. I briefly discuss these in Re-Imagining Your Body, Part One, with the goal...
A quick energy fix
If you feel lacking in energy, try reading a poem! No doubt that sounds odd, so I should add that you have to read it in a way that...
Physical theatre
Since all theatre is psychophysical, what do we really mean by ‘physical theatre’? In theatre, we only get access to the ‘inside’ by...
Playing the playing space
I suggested in an earlier post that the actor’s ‘instrument’ is not her body and not her voice but the space in which she plays. At...
The ‘Last Tango’ controversy and truth in acting
As jobs go, acting is both a peculiar and a difficult one. The essential problem is how to do something as if you’re doing it for the...
Diderot's paradox of acting
“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made,” said George Burns. This is a variation of the ‘paradox of...
The god of theatre
In Ancient Greece, plays were performed in honour of Dionysos – god of wine, of the mask, and of theatre. Above all, Dionysos is the god...