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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Between theory and practice

Phillip B. Zarrilli

Scientists of the body speak in figures, teachers of acting speak in images, artists
speak in words, theorists speak in propositions. To speak in any of these forking
tongues is to be split from the others. It is necessary, though perhaps not pos-
sible, that we describe a line that will join these several points. The gap between
performance and thought is not simple, but is composed of sub-gaps on either
side, between the pedagogical imagery of performance and the flesh which per-
formance possesses, between thought about the theatre and the metathought
which plays through theatre . . . The performer and the thinker could momen-
tarily meet in the sign’s provisional and already receding closure. The two might
be – is it too much to ask? – the same person.
(Hollis Huston 1984: 199)

There are many languages and discourses of acting, each written/spoken from a
particular point of view. Theorists often speak only to theorists; practitioners only
to practitioners. Too seldom do they speak to each other. This book invites us to try
to speak and listen across these gaps and boundaries to each other and to those
parts of our “selves” which might practice theory or theorize practice.
Like the seminal book of Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy, Actors on Acting
(1970[1949]), this collection, by juxtaposing historically diverse and often contra-
dictory views of acting, invites the reader to (re)consider both acting and discourses
on acting. I use “(re)consider” to mark clearly the implicitly processual nature of
“considering.” This view invites us not only to see performance as processual but
also to see that “both society and human beings are performative, always already
processually under construction” (Drewal 1991: 4).
From this point of view, theatre-making is a mode of socio-cultural practice. As
such, it is not an innocent or naive activity separate from or above and beyond
everyday reality, history, politics, or economics.1 As theatre historian Bruce
McConachie asserts, “theatre is not epiphenomenal, simply reflecting and express-
ing determinate realities and forces” (1989: 230); rather, as a mode of socio-cultural

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practice theatre is a complex network of specific, interactive practices (directing,

designing, acting, dramaturgy, devising, promotion, management, etc.) which helps
to constitute, shape, and affect “selves” as well as historical events and relation-
ships. The relationship between any of the doers and the done (directors, designers,
actors, etc.) is always actualized within a specific network of relationships and
material circumstances which, as a process and a practice, impinges on all those
doing what is being done.2
For the contemporary actor who is exposed to and/or expected to perform in a
wide variety of types of theatre/performance, the actor’s perception and practice
of acting is a complex, ongoing set of intellectual and psychophysiological
negotiations. These negotiations are between and among one “self” and a variety
of (explicitly or implicitly) competing paradigms and discourses of acting/
performance. The actor encounters these as a part of folklore, mass media, and
stage shows; in manifestos and/or scholarly treatises (on acting, feminism/s,
neo-Marxist thought, etc.); and in the specific training or “formations” through
which these negotiations are constantly (re)figured. Teachers and theorists alike
experience times when their perceptions of acting, and/or its practices, are altered.
For the actor, moments of (re)consideration are times when practice and thought
crystallize in an insight which clarifies his or her (embodied) performance practice
and technique. Yoshi Oida, in his 1992 book on acting, describes one such moment.
Before joining Peter Brook’s international company in 1968, Yoshi had been well
known in Japanese films and theatre as a Western-style actor. But he had also been
trained in no, kabuki dance, and bunraku. While on tour in rural Iran, Brook’s
company gave a performance of a work-in-progress.
After the show, Peter said to me, “Your acting is too concentrated and strong for this
style of work.” I realized that I was still performing in accordance with the principles
of no theatre where the actor’s concentration must be extremely intense. But popular
theatre requires another approach. And I realized that just as there are many levels of
performance, there is no one “right” way to act.
(Oida 1992: 72)

Or, there are moments when the actor’s relationship to his or her practice is
altered in a way that makes clear that there can be no “neutrality” in art. As Eelka
Lampe reports in this volume (Chapter 23), performance artist/feminist
Rachel Rosenthal’s (re)consideration of acting was prompted by her attendance at
a conference of women artists at the California Institute of the Arts in 1971:
Because she had been taught a history of art that considered only the contribution of
male artists, and because she thought of herself as an artist, she identified with men.
“Then I came to this conference, and I saw slides of extraordinary work. . . . And so
for the first time in my life, I began to shift my identification, and began to see that I
could be an artist and be a woman.”

Any (re)consideration is simultaneously personal, socio-cultural, and ideological,

and therefore includes both idiosyncratic as well as collective/social dimensions.
What may or may not prompt (re)consideration depends upon one’s “historical
circumstances.” For the nineteen year old student of acting from New Glarus,
Wisconsin, whose experience of acting theory and practice was limited to American
versions of Stanislavskian-based acting, studying an historical account which

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clarifies the differences between the later Stanislavsky’s method of physical actions
and Strasberg’s notion of affective memory may lead to a profound (re)consider-
ation of acting. So might encountering a performance (in the flesh or via type or
tape) by Dario Fo, Rachel Rosenthal, David Warrilow, DV-8, Forced Entertain-
ment, a Tadashi Suzuki-trained actor, or a performance of kathakali by Gopi Asan.
Whatever prompts a particular (re)consideration, the reverberations of that encoun-
ter have the potential to affect not only one’s acting but also one’s understanding of
“self,” society, ideology, politics, etc.
Acting (Re)Considered invites students of acting, actors, and theorists alike
to put aside parochial preconceptions and points of view that propose acting
as a truth (that is, one system, discourse, or practice). This book invites instead a
pro-active, processual approach which cultivates a critical awareness of acting as
multiple and always changing. Of course, in the moment of performance, the actor
must embody a specific set of actions as if these were absolute. But every “absolute”
viewed historically and processually is part of a multiplicity.

(RE)CONSIDERING CONTEXT AND ENVIRONMENT

The critical awareness and reflection which (re)considerations can prompt does not
occur in a vacuum. Teachers of acting, professional actors, directors, and produ-
cers have control over, and therefore responsibility for, the working/learning
environments we create. To what degree are we actively making an environment
which encourages critical inquiry and reflection, not only about “art” in the narrow
sense but also concerning the material circumstances and issues implicit in the art
we make? How theatre is made – from scene work and exercises, to rehearsals, to
productions – includes attention to issues of race, gender, class, and ethnicity.
Failing that, we abrogate our responsibility not only to train students’ acting skills
but also to educate them about what they are being trained to perform.3

THEORIES, META-THEORIES, AND ACTING (RE)CONSIDERED

Every time an actor performs, he or she implicitly enacts a “theory” of acting – a

set of assumptions about the conventions and style which guide his or her perform-
ance, the structure of actions which he or she performs, the shape that those actions
take (as a character, role, or sequence of actions as in some performance art), and
the relationship to the audience. Informing these assumptions are culture-specific
assumptions about the body-mind relationship, the nature of the “self,” the
emotions/feelings, and performance context.4 Enacting these assumptions is as true
for the student as it is for the likes of Sarah Bernhardt and Yoshi Oida. Each
embodies specific theories and practices of acting locatable within a set of histor-
ical, socio-cultural, and aesthetic/dramaturgical circumstances. Likewise, genres
have specific theories and practices of acting which are also historically and
contextually specific.5
In addition to the specific theories and practices of acting, there are meta-
theories reflecting more generally on the nature, practice, and phenomenon of
acting. To bridge some of the gaps between specific theories and practices of acting
and the meta-theoretical discussions, I have organized the essays in this collection
into three parts, each with its own introduction and suggestions for further reading.

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In Part I, “Theories of and Meditations on Acting,” the reader is asked to reflect

“meta-theoretically” on acting, while Parts II and III focus on the specifics. The
essays in Part II (re)consider “The Body and Training” and those in Part III
(re)consider “The Actor in Performance.” Internally, the essays within Parts II and
III have been organized in roughly chronological order. For readers who want to
defer theory, reading Part II or Part III first makes as much sense as beginning with
theory. I have selected essays not only from different parts of the world but also by
practicing theorists, that is, that ever-expanding number who (thankfully) eschew
the oversimplistic dichotomies between theory and practice.