Q: How did you alpha in concrete theatre?
A: If I was a jailbait I was absolute advantageous to accept formed with Dan Hurlin who is a astounding achievement artist, biographer and teacher. We didn't allocution about the plan as a brand like 'physical theatre' or 'realism' or 'absurdism' we just formed absolute physically. He accomplished me that acting was bathed and theatre didn't accept to accessory like absolute life. As I got beforehand and activate myself absent added than what my Stanislavsky-based plan was giving me, I started analytic for added styles that paralleled my plan with Dan, which eventually brought me to the Dell' Arte All-embracing Academy of Concrete Theatre.
Q: What is concrete ball and what are its appropriate factors?
A: Concrete ball is cogent a comedic adventure with one's physique insteaad of relying on words. Words can be used, but the amateur doesn't await on the words to get the adventure across. It's ball from commedia dell' arte, the old academy Jerry Lewis affectionate of thing. Things charge to be big in concrete comedy. A lot of concrete ball these canicule is apparent in cartoons, aggregate from Tom and Jerry and the Road Runner to the affection films like "Shrek." One of my admired movies is "The Triplets of Bellville" which is an activated blur that came out of Europe a few years ago. There is a little chat in the blur and the bodies and movements of these animation characters are so abounding with acceptation and beheld stimuli in their achievement it's amazing. It's an absorbing abstraction in how concrete theatre or achievement works and how you acquaint stories, physically, as against to verbally.
Q: What is Commedia Dell'arte?
A: Commedia Dell'arte is a Renaissance Italian anatomy of theatre and the appellation agency the "comedy of art." It was accepted in the 15th and 16th Centuries if troops of actors performed acceptable banal characters, mostly in three-quarter mask. The ancestry of these banal characters were accustomed to the audience, the appearance of acting was improvisatory, but actors didn't alpha algid as they would in an ad-lib bold these days. The basis of anniversary accurate book was standard, but what absolutely transpired was improvised. As these actors had formed calm for years and knew anniversary other's plan and characters able-bodied there was a belvedere to plan on, in fact and figuratively. They performed wherever they could accretion an audience's absorption - whether it was on a belvedere or wagon. They didn't draw a academician admirers paying lots of dollars to see them. They had to cull in an admirers and again canyon a hat to aggregate coins.
The influences of Commedia are actuality today. You can see it in The Marx Brothers. You'll even acquisition Commedia's banal characters and plotlines in Shakespeare's comedies such as "Love's Labors Lost." All art forms either change with the times or die off, and in a sense, that's what's happened to Commedia. Absolute few companies still plan in the Commedia style, but I anticipate actors can apprentice a abundant accord from alive in that style. I'm aflame about an avant-garde Camp Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Theatre Aggregation for adolescence this summer that I will teach. We'll plan with a accumulation of teenagers on improvisation, mask, and concrete ball and actualize a Commedia play.
Q: What distinguishes Commedia Dell'arte from added forms of performance?
A: Commedia Dell'arte is fifty percent concrete and fifty percent verbal. Because it's in mask, it has to be abundantly physical, some of the actors ability be tumblers or dancers. Broad concrete gestures are chip with amusing accent so that actors aren't continuing about talking or cogent their affections through baby gestures.
There was no such affair as a atramentous box theatre during the Renaissance; admirers associates couldn't watch an actor's abysmal affliction or joy through the actor's eyes. There was no - lights down on the admirers and spotlights on the stage. This was the time of lit audiences. Finding means of amplifying, communicating to the audience, what actors were accomplishing or experiencing was necessary. There were no programs for the audience; they couldn't apprehend in beforehand that this guy was arena this or that character. The things that we yield for accepted now didn't abide then.
Performers had to action to get an admirers in the Renaissance. They had to draw them in. If they were assuming alfresco on a wagon, they had to get people's attention, they had to plan with the audience. There were 2,000 humans in the Globe. It was a absolute altered admirers than we accept today. Humans absolved about affairs oranges and beer and if audiences couldn't hear, see, or accept the actors or story, they could lose absorption and their attention. Today it's simple to accumulate the absorption of the admirers because there's annihilation abroad to accessory at. The lights are out and the alone abode to accessory is beeline ahead. But that wasn't consistently the case. There were a lot of distractions for the audiences, they were blockage out what the ability was wearing, or who was sitting with whom, or searching for anyone to go out with. It was all absolute social.
Q: What about the banal characters?
A: Banal characters are archetypes - the old abject man, the adroit servant, the braggart soldier, or the adolescent lovers. They're with us even today - we can see them in the Simpsons" and they've been allotment of theatre for years. In commedia, anniversary appearance had acceptable costumes, mask, signature props, poses, stances, actions, artifice function, accord to the audience, accord to added characters. If the admirers saw the guy with the long, pointy, bent nose, cutting bound trousers over angular legs, they knew it was Pantalone. He was the ache old man of top amusing status. Arlechinno (Harlequin) was a servant, the agile one consistently searching for food. Anniversary banal characters had signature lazzis
Q: What are lazzis?
A: Lazzis are the active gags, stunts, and pranks that were performed by the characters. Arlechinno ability accept a bit about a fly that is aggravation him that he tries to bolt and eat. It was addition way to physicalize and affectation appearance to the audience. The banal characters can ability above the acceptable fourth wall, as we apperceive it.
Q: What do you beggarly about extensive above the fourth wall?
A: Today, while actors accept that the admirers is there, the characters, themselves, don't. Astute ball and astute acting has a accord and yield with the audience, but it's subtle. Acceptable actors can faculty what's accident in the admirers and plan that, but it's abundant added apparent in these beforehand forms. If blur started, and with it the alpha of realism, that acumen wasn't made. Characters again performed with an acquaintance of the audience. In Shakespeare, it's absolute bright at assertive moments that the appearance is talking to the audience, and a lot of humans accept that it's in fact accident even more, it's just not as evident. Several Shakespeare companies yield aggregate to the admirers and actors accomplish a lot of eye acquaintance with the audience. Shakespeare and Aggregation in Massachusetts and the American Shakespeare Center in Virginia access their productions this way.
In clowning, admirers acquaintance is crucial. It's a accord and yield amid the admirers and the aerialist in a absolute absolute way. Some humans cramp at that, like it's the admirers accord thing, but it's altered - it's not about boring anyone up on date and authoritative them do brainless things.
There are altered worlds of absurdity alignment from the acceptable bazaar antic to the existentialist antic like with "Waiting For Godot." Clowns accept a arrangement of resiliency. Tragic things can appear about them, but they animation back, they are resilient, annihilation crushes them for too long. They're not baby or stupid, but there is a artlessness to them because the approved argumentation of our apple doesn't necessarily apply. Clowns tend to be absolute concrete and generally abounding of them don't use accent at all, so they accept a accepted anatomy of communication.
Q: Are there skits or are the actors just assuming improv?
A: Both, the actors accept their clowns' animal that they've developed and they ability accept an outline of what happens in their skit, arena or production, but how they get from anniversary point can change a lot anniversary time they do it. It's agnate to ad-lib theatre today, the aforementioned abilities are accepting acclimated - it's about demography in and responding to what's accustomed to you on stage, whether it's from your partner, or the audience, or the chair. Anything can be your accomplice in clowning, whether it's a animal or azoic object, and you yield advantage of that. In approved theatre, if your shoes squeaked, you'd try to amount out a way to abate it, admitting in clowning, you accomplishment it. You accomplishment your own faults in clowning. It's a arduous way to work. The history of absurdity is huge and you can acquisition clowns in a lot of cultures. In America, we accept a absolute audible bazaar antic classic - the Bozo or the sad hobo antic of the bazaar - with abundant makeup, billowing shoes and the squirting flower. But absurdity doesn't accept to be about walking on stilts and juggling. 500 Clowns out of Chicago doesn't abrasion red noses; they acrylic their aerial red and are arrangement of scarier looking. Bill Irwin, who is apparently the best antic we accept in this country, doesn't consistently plan in a red nose. He did if he aboriginal started out with the Pickle Bazaar in San Francisco, and he started developing a affected movement that he alleged New Vaudeville with shows such as The History of Flight and Largely New York, which congenital abundant of his absurdity ability and concrete comedy.
Q: Why don't we see added of these types of assuming now in Washington?
A: There's seems to be a reticence actuality for altered forms of theatre. Artery theatre and busking is illegal. In added cities about the world, there are all-embracing buskers' festivals, breadth all sorts of artery performers do amazing things.
The advance of Fringe festivals has accustomed artists to analyze and agreement with altered types of performances, and the Festivals acquiesce the admirers to acquaintance theatre in means they hadn't anticipation of or accepted about. In this city, humans say there's no admirers for altered kinds of theatre, but I'm not abiding that's true. Especially if you accessory at the success of the Capital Fringe Festival, and companies like Synetic. Added cities assume to advance concrete theatre bigger than this area, but I accept achievement for DC. Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia are apparently the three better areas for added concrete theatre, including puppetry, mask, clown, and multimedia and aggregate in between. Some of it's applesauce and some of it's amazing and a lot of it lies in amid - that's great. We wish all of that here, too.
Q: Would you allocution some about your accomplishments and training?
A: I went to undergraduate academy in New Mexico State and advised with Mark Medoff, the playwright, who was the arch of our program, and I got my MFA from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. While in college, I interned at The Actors Studio in New York. That was afore James Lipton and the enactment of the school. Aback then, it was just actors in a allowance accessory their American adjustment of acting sessions alert a week. It was during that internship that I ample out that the acceptable access was not for me. That's not to say I didn't acknowledge it; there are some ablaze adjustment actors, but I knew I'd never be one of them. All I knew at that point was that adjustment acting and accuracy were not for me, but I didn't apperceive what was. Luckily, in alum academy I was alien to a all-inclusive arrangement of modern, nontraditional, nonrealism theatre which I absolutely liked.
I was consistently absorbed in Shakespeare because it is so big and expressive, and like abounding humans about here, I toured with Shenandoah Shakespeare in Staunton, Virginia. Everybody knows Shakespeare's good, humans get that, but afore I formed at Shenandoah Shakespeare, I didn't absolutely accept why Shakespeare is so acutely good. If you're speaking those words every day for several years, you acquisition so abundant added in it. You acquisition out how amazing Shakespeare absolutely is and the Shenandoah Shakespeare appearance of working, I think, helps brighten the play and the argument for both the actors and audience. But even then, I still knew that there was this accomplished added apple of achievement that I wasn't absolutely borer into.
I afterwards formed in a aggregation in New York alleged the Collapsable Giraffe which is arrangement of a devised theatre accumulation or ensemble. We would be in a room, accept some afflatus or argument and just create. A lot of of the humans there, besides me, had formed or were still alive for The Wooster Accumulation in New York, which is a theatre which uses new forms and techniques in bearing new and accustomed works. The Collapsable Giraffe and The Wooster Accumulation allotment a agnate artful that I acquisition absorbing and exciting. From there, I accomplished at the Dell'arte All-embracing Academy of Concrete Theatre in Dejected Lake, California, breadth I was accomplished clowning, commedia, and all-embracing concrete theatre.
Q: What was that training like?
A: It was great, but it was difficult. They were harder on us acceptance and we apparently collectively cried added than laughed during training. We laughed too, but we all alone and collectively cried a lot. One abecedary was scary. At times, he yelled and threw tennis assurance at us while we were on date - with the best of intentions. He wasn't aggravating to aching us - his ambition was to accumulate us in the present and acknowledging on stage. Some humans approved to break in appearance and contrivance the tennis assurance and that fabricated him bandy even added assurance and bawl even louder. As actors, we were so built-in in our adjustment of acting and training that even in absurdity we put blinders on and banned to acknowledge to alfresco things. In clowning, that's absolutely what it's all about. It's accepting present and demography in what's accident in the space, whether it's in the audience, in the air ducts, or a cheep in your shoe. We all accomplished annoyance in aggravating to acquisition that ambiguous abode of absolutely active in that antic personage. We capital it so badly, and the added we capital it, the added it seemed to baffle us and the added balked we got. We didn't allege on date for months because their acceptance is that the movement comes aboriginal and the articulation comes after. Like children, we apprentice to airing afore we apprentice to talk.
Q: What's so difficult about clowning?
A: Absurdity is about traveling to a absolute alarming place. A lot of humans in absurdity aces what they acquisition a lot of base about themselves and accomplishment it. If you absolutely advance on those places you avoid, it opens you up to a lot of new and agitative places and freshness. You've got to accept a blubbery derma and be absolutely airy in clowning. If I started in absurdity I anticipation I was resilient, but in retrospect, I don't apperceive if I absolutely was. This affectionate of training is not for everybody, but it is absolute valuable. Affectation and absurdity abilities are absurd accoutrement for acceptable avant-garde realist actors to have. Jackie Chan is absolute clowny and absolute funny. It's ability how he understands concrete ball in an animated way in the bosom of violence.
Q: What do acceptance apprentice in your absurdity and concrete theatre classes?
A: It's arrangement of unlearning aggregate that we've abstruse about acting in some ways. Acceptance in acting classes accept been told not to accomplish admirers contact, that if it's done, it seems apish or contrived. But with clowning, that's the trick, abutting with the admirers and authoritative the achievement real. The amateur is still in appearance and has the aforementioned objectives, but is administration and interacting with the admirers and the ambiance instead of assuming for the audience.
This is breadth a accomplished affiliation happens, allotment of which is indescribable. If the affectation connects with the audience, it's arresting and dynamic, a affectionate of abracadabra happens that is inexplicable. Absurdity is added acceptable than avant-garde acting, but in our avant-garde appearance of acting, actors can get abroad with not accepting in the moment. With clowning, it's absolutely what it's all about - the actors accept to be accessible and acknowledge to whatever is happening.
Actors can feel accessible because they can't await on techniques they're adequate with. Humans acquaint a lot through their eyes and facial expressions. Actors tend to act a lot with their faces because they've abstruse that from watching movies and television. By putting on masks, we've cut off that adjustment of advice and that leaves us with accepting to acquisition added means to communicate. The affectation becomes the translator, the transducer of the character, and those affections that would contrarily be bidding through our faces are beatific through our bodies.
Sometimes an amateur on date may cull back, and if that amateur has on a mask, that affairs aback is magnified. Things that formed after the mask, don't translate, they're not ample abundant to acquaint to the admirers what's traveling on. Alive with a affectation becomes additional attributes with practice. It's not a big accomplishment forever. Any address becomes easier with practice, it's just a amount of accepting acclimated to application your physique to accurate the characters and accomplish acquaintance with the audience.
Q: Would you allocution about your access to teaching absurdity and concrete theatre?
A: Acceptable agents of these forms don't necessarily teach, they provoke, they set up affairs for actors to plan through and apprentice by doing, as against to lecturing about it. I can acquaint acceptance to be in the moment and play with their ambience until I'm dejected in face, but they will not get it until they acquaintance it. The absolute accomplishing of it is breadth they're traveling to alpha to apprentice it and acquaintance it.
The adorableness of the teaching and acquirements of acting is that there are a actor altered approaches and what a lot of humans get accomplished is that you will apprentice a lot of things, some of which will plan for you and some won't. There are ablaze adjustment actors in this apple who are amazing, breathtaking. They activate a aisle that works for them. That doesn't beggarly it works for everybody.
For instance, I don't like the break of articulation and movement, breadth the concrete plan happens in one chic on one day and the articulation plan happens in addition on addition day. Even in my studies, we abstruse articulation a brace times a week, for an hour, that was it. I activate a abstract in acquirements how to bout what we were accomplishing vocally with what we were accomplishing physically. We were authoritative these big activating shapes with our bodies and activity our hearts out, but some humans had never had any articulation training and they couldn't be heard or accepted because they couldn't drag their choir up to what they were accomplishing with their bodies. One of my goals if I get my Ph.D. and become a assistant is to advance apprenticeship breadth actors' choir and bodies are accomplished simultaneously.
Q: What would the Avery address be?
A: I'm still developing it and that's why one of the affidavit I'm acquisitive to activate a Ph.D. soon. Appropriate now, it's all in addendum and ideas. There were some absolutely admirable moments at Dell'arte breadth we advised Tai Chi. For the a lot of part, Tai Chi is adequately bashful because it's a attentive aggressive art, but a brace of times the abecedary played music, which took us to addition level. One day, in articulation chic while alive on accord and singing together, we accomplished Tai Chi and that helped us acquisition altered connections. Abounding humans accept a addiction to authority their animation while accomplishing something strenuous. In acrobatics class, we did advanced rolls, barrow wheels, or whatever, down the mat, while bustling or singing. It's harder to do, but it's serves actors in two means - it keeps them breath and in blow with their voice, while advance themselves physically. Things like that are key.
Q: If did you get into the arts?
A: I was consistently about the arts as there are a lot of musicians in my family. My grandmother is an absurd applesauce pianist and she still plays in her applesauce bandage that jams every ages at her house. My uncle has been a singer/entertainer for at atomic thirty years. My mother is a artisan and an absurd singer. She advised music in college, teaches music, and plays standup bass. As a baby child, I abounding the rehearsals of shows for which she directed the music. My father, admitting not accomplished in any accurate one, was a abundant adept of the arts. My sister is a beheld artist, and as with me, her interests accept confused around. She went to the Parsons Academy of Design and while she's formed in a lot of altered media, she now has her own business authoritative custom mosaics and accomplishing asphalt installation.
As a kid I capital to yield ballet acquaint and to apprentice how to dance. I grew up in a absolute baby boondocks in New Hampshire so there wasn't abundant befalling for that, but as anon as opportunities for acting came around, I jumped appropriate in. I was aswell absolute lucky. An absurd aerialist and puppeteer called Dan Hurlin, who is aswell from New Hampshire, is a assistant at Sarah Lawrence. If I was a teenager, he ran a children's theatre in New Hampshire so I got to alternation with him. We admired him, we anticipation he was amazing, but alfresco of our little world, we didn't apperceive how admired and amazing he absolutely was. His work, admitting I didn't apperceive it at the time, formed allotment of what my artful is now - searching for arduous and new means of performance.
My ancestor accurate the arts and me in them. I was a biochemistry above in academy belief to be a abiogenetic engineer, but I bethink as a adolescent my ancestor adage to me, you know, you ability wish to act and he acclimated all kinds of little schemes to move me appear acting and the theatre alive that's absolutely breadth I'd end up. He consistently knew I'd be in the arts, even if I didn't apperceive it.