To
the Actor: “….After studying and
rehearsing him for a length of time, you ought to know the movement of the
author’s thoughts. They must affect
you. You must learn to like them. Their rhythm must infect yours. Try to understand the author. Your training and nature will take care of
the rest…
The emotion of the character is the
only sphere where the author should pay attention to the actor’s demands and
adjust his writings to the actor’s interpretation. Or, an actor is justified in adjusting the
author’s writing to achieve best results for his emotional outline of the
part.”
INTRODUCTION:
The Actor/Writer: Hiding in Plain Sight
Imagine
that we embark on a social examination of actors and playwrights, agreeing to
omit all mention of gender. Imagine too
that this discursive experiment takes place before an audience, in whose
presence each artist’s career and personal particulars are examined at
length. Yet in this public weighing of
artist’s lives no clue to gender may be revealed.
Next,
we attempt to build statistics on our pool of genderless artists.[1]
Struggling to organize our data in a cohesive manner, we fall to arguing as to
‘which genius it was had this brilliant idea, to omit genus?’ Without the frame of gender, we find
ourselves proverbially at sea in our efforts to draw significant results. While similar in some respects, the lives of
male and female artists differ significantly.
To ignore gender is to ignore our own sociology, of which the theatre is
a part. In ancient Greek, the word
theatre can be found to mean “the seeing place”. Theatre is the mirror of society. The story of gender within the theatrical
professions tells an anthropological tale.
"For a woman artist is after all a
woman - that is her "problem" - and if she denies her own gender she
inevitably confronts an identity crisis..." [2]
Theatre
artists themselves generally fall into two camps: male and female, within which race, culture
and sexual orientation play significant roles.
I cannot escape my own worldview for it is the lens through which I peer
outward. Therefore, it bears stating that these articles are framed by my female gender, and my experience of working in British and
American Theatre as a bi-national, heterosexually identified Caucasian
actor. Theatrical traditions are
diverse, and vary throughout the world.
Unless specified, it is to be assumed that I am referring to
English speaking theatre and culture.
While
I have always understood that gender played a factor in my experience of being
a playwright and actor, it is not something I’ve discussed much with others. Often after a performance, and within the
confines of a pub, actors engage in discussions about acting processes and what
it ‘means’ to ‘be’ an actor. Viewed
anthropologically, such discursive habits allow for a ritual ‘unwinding’ after
theatrical events. Expressions of
dissatisfaction regarding ‘the industry’ at large and in particular may be
aired at length during such sessions.
For the most part, I haven’t enjoyed the anatomizing aspect of these
rituals: Dissection has never seemed as
appealing as doing. Until now!
My
artistic life has been rejuvenated by my experience of higher education. As a mature student I was exposed to artistic
processes via the analytical, awakening in me a new desire to debate matters
from a wider perspective than likely to be encountered in the post-show
ritual. One actor’s theatrical anecdote
may be entertaining, yet actors’ experiences have greater relevance and purpose
when placed within social and historical contexts.
Jacky
Bratton on gender and biography finds that “theatre people” of both genders
write about their lives not to assert their own “particular importance in the
world, so much as to construct a group identity in which their individual
identity is seated”. Furthermore,
female autobiography in general seeks to define self-identity in relation to
significant others: “interdependence and
community is key in the development of woman’s identity”.[3] I am a woman who takes to the stage and
writes for the stage. By identifying
myself within a community of women actor-playwrights, I opened a door to a personal
and collective historical past.
The
percentage of female playwrights produced lags well behind their male
counterparts as do the percentage of women acting on stage and screen.[4] Women artists are hiding in plain sight
through lack of access.[5] We fight for stage space, yet when granted
access we choose to possess this space indirectly through the curious
obfuscation of actor and playwright.
Working in a public forum, all actors reveal aspects of the self while
donning borrowed masks. Metamorphosed
personal truths are revealed in stories told by playwrights. Historically, artistic women have felt a
particular need to protect their identity even while they long to be seen, a subject
to be further explored in these articles.
The
innately hierarchical relationship of actor and writer creates a challenge to
the artistic process. Within a complex
social arena, what dynamics of revelation and control does the female
actor-playwright enact, towards the shared goal of character manifestation? Through the creation of the practical aspect
of my MFA thesis, of which this article formed a part, I investigated the dynamic and elliptical relationship of female
actor/writer, from dis/ease to productive collaboration.
[1]
Julie Jordan, Julie Jordan’s Speech, Town
Hall Meeting NYC (New York, NY: Town Hall Meeting, New Dramatists, 27th
October, 2008) www.womenplaywrights.org
[2] Sandra
Gilbert & Susan Gubar, The Madwoman
in the Attic: The
Woman Writer and the 19th Century Literary Imagination (New Haven, Connecticut:
Yale University Press, 1979) pp. 65-66
[3]
Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner,
Auto/biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance (Manchester,
UK: Manchester University Press, 2004) p.4
[4]
Patricia Cohen, Rethinking Gender Bias in
Theatre (New York, NY: The New York Times: June 24th 2009)
[5]
Statistics generally agree that while 40% of playwrights submitting their work
in the UK and the US are female, about 17% of new plays produced are by
women. If you add previously produced
plays to the number of women being produced, the number goes up to 19%.
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