The Actor as Image Conjurer and Nothing Is As It Seems: Blog 39

 Morning!

The lergy is still very much present this morning, but must be a little on the wane as I am up for writing anyway.

I imagine that most people have come across the images I have copied here at one time or another. They are often used on training courses to illustrate that everything we look at and believe to be concrete and true, ie 'we have seen in with our own eyes' is of course at best illusory. 

These drawings are wonderfully useful in demonstrating the idea that the brain's wiring will give one immediate translation, and only if prompted by a trainer to work at seeing an alternative image does the 'Ahha' moment arrive. And then we are really proud of ourselves for having the intelligence to see both images. I'd put money on the fact that we then all play a 'switching' game to see if we can move effortlessly between the two different images. Of course we can, but it takes application and of course you have to know that there are two images there in the first place before you embark on the exercise.

Which brings me to my point. If this is true of these simple images, could it also be true of virtually everything we experience visually? The essential organising principle is perhaps also the key to prejudice and fixed positions, the swearing blind that something is 'so'.

Courts and lawyers make their money out of this. They painstakingly write down every detail of their client's account of events, to enable them to fight their corner and then they go into battle to determine this truth beyond reasonable doubt. They believe their own construction which of course gives them the conviction to persuade, influence and ultimately achieve their objective.

And so it is with the alchemy of theatre. Moment by moment the actor presents you the audience with an 'impression' or an image that is embued with meaning and feeling, and then in an instant he grabs that image and transforms it into the next.

Often when I am working with actors I talk about what I call the 75/25 rule. ie; the actor is present creating the momentum and drive of the dramatic narrative, but the key to its success is whether they have fully engaged the imaginations of the audience. So 75% of the performance is indeed what the actors bring to the text through expression of a feeling, and idea, a conflict, a relationship, but the critical 25% belongs to each unique audience member. This is their contribution to the act of drama. The simplicity of the actor's image enables the audience to fill in the missing bits and to create their own gestalt built on their personal biography and subjective narrative.  This is what in my view makes the performance whole. Once achieved the actor may then skilfully dismantle the image through conjuring of one kind of another. Its as simple as transforming in full view a piece of cloth from being a blanket to a much desired lover for example. Its all in the attention and intention and then the execution. 

Its a critical actor's skill to be able to shift mecurially from image to image, and she needs to be vigilant in remembering this to avoid absolute truth answers in the portrayal of a character. Holding the duality of a conflict for example requires a flexibility of mind and body to carve the ambivalence and contradictions inherent within the text, or life for that matter.

So a little glimpse into gestalt theory this morning. All grist to the mill.

Have a good one!