NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THEATER AND CINEMA “I.L. CARAGIALE” BUCHAREST

Year: 2018

DOCTORAL THESIS

Techniques of development and training of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art

bogdan.dumitrescu@yahoo.com, © www.actingisdoing.info

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SCIENTIFIC LEADER: DOCTORAND:

Conf. Univ. Dr. Paul Chiribuță Dumitrescu Bogdan Mihail

Thanks

To write a PhD in 2018 in which you claim to offer viable answers to the questions that have preoccupied practitioners and theorists of the Actor’s Art since the conscious need to systematize the creative phenomena and processes specific to this profession has emerged is a difficult task.

In order to begin a truthful, organically assumed effort, an attempt whose outcome is currently unknown (both to me and to you, reader), I feel the need to honestly and bluntly describe the number one parameter of the situation we are both going through right now, me writing this introduction, you reading this beginning: I am Bogdan Dumitrescu, a 40-year-old actor-improviser, who graduated from the University of Theater and Film, Actor’s Art Section, class of 2001 of professors Ion Cojar and Gelu Colceag and who returned to the Ion Luca Caragiale National University of Theater and Cinema Arts for the Master’s Degree in Pedagogy of Actor’s Art. Master graduated in 2014, then he enrolled and was accepted as a doctoral student, his research topic being “Techniques of development and training of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art”, at the same U.N.A.T.T.C. I. L. Caragiale, a study started in 2014, the result of which will be summarized in the following pages.

These are the proposed circumstances of the situation I am going through right now, reader.

I allow myself this personal and colloquial approach precisely to exemplify from the very beginning the specific lexicon of the following pages, a technical dictionary born as a personal adaptation of the lexicon of some important names for us, names like Stanislavski, Spolin, Meisner, Johnstone, Strasberg, Del Close or Ion Cojar.

So: the situation we are going through has the subsequent parameters: from my point of view, what is happening to me right now, the truth of the moment I am going through as I am writing this, is: August 5, 2017, Saturday, 12:37 pm, at home, trying to put into words an introduction that will give you all the necessary data to understand, believe and accept the written approach that will follow, a doctoral project that aims to offer alternatives of approach to the creativity of the Actor’s Art, if not to find answers.

This is the general conceptual universe of my expectations.

At the other end of the communication process that has just begun is “YOU”, the reader, the person who, by chance or not, found or should have found this work. Who are you? You know best, but the role I can only intuit or assume moves within a subjective-predictable horizon that varies: from an acting student in search of answers to personal-professional uncertainties to a fellow actor/director interested in the subject, from a professor on a committee who has to evaluate me, to a former professor who is concerned about the fate of former students, from students who have been puzzled or helped by my explanations to students who are even now PhD students in search of ideas for their dissertations, the range of the horizon of expectation in which this “you, reader” can move is limited and somewhat predictable.

To all potential readers, thank you, to everyone reading this right now, whoever they are, thank you too!

Opening the series of thanks, I feel obliged to express my deep gratitude to all my teachers: Adrian Titieni, Ion Cojar, Vlad Massaci, Adriana Popovici, Tania Filip, Radu Gabriel, Gelu Colceag, as well as all the colleagues with whom I fought for years and nights about The Actor’s Art, Improv, Stage Improvisation, the role of the actor in society, or about the deep doubts about acting: Ioana de Hillerin, Radu Dragomirescu, Gabriel Răuță, Andreea Bibiri, Constantin Lupescu, Gabriel Călinescu and Marin Grigore.

Thank you to all the actors and students who have entrusted me with the role of a teacher in improvisation theater and acting, thank you to all the actors who do improvisation theater!

I come back to a name that for me is equivalent to performance: thank you, “Il Luce”, alias Vlad Massaci, for teaching me what improv theater was back then, in Romania in 2002!

Special thanks to my tutor, Professor Paul Chiribuță, for his tact, understanding and patience and thanks to psychologist Alina Anghel for her help in deciphering and organizing the psychological!

Thanks 1

Contents	4
LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS	8
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	9
Work plan	10
PART I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND	12
CHAPTER 1 – DEFINITION OF TERMS	13
1.1 Creativity seen as process, product and creative personality	13
1.2 Definition	15
1.3 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art	19
1.4 Creativity specific to Actor’s Art, seen as a process	20
1.5 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art as a product	22
1.6 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art, from the point of view of creative personality	24
1.7 Creativity in Acting Pedagogy	25
1.8 Theater and its history from the Actor’s Art perspective	27

CHAPTER 2 – COMMON CONTEXT OF THE EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY, ACTING PEDAGOGY AND IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA	36
2.1. Creativity – improvisational theater – actor’s art triangle	36
CHAPTER 3- LEE STRASBERG-	39
3.1. Emergence of the Method, approach and general principles	39
3.2 Actor training in the vision of the Method	44
3.3 Anticipating, improvising, repeating	48
3.4 Conclusions	50
CHAPTER 4 – STELLA ADLER	52
4.1. The relationship with Strasberg	52

4.2. Life and work 55

4.3. Adler technique 57

4.4. Conclusions 60 CHAPTER 5 – SANFORD MEISNER 61

5.1. Relationship with Strasberg 62

5.2. The Meisner technique 62 CHAPTER 6 – MARIA KNEBEL 70

6.1. Introduction 70

6.2. Life and work 72

6.3. Technical terms and implementation algorithms of action analysis 73

6.4. Technique of Action Analysis 75

6.5 Conclusions 75

CHAPTER 7 79

INTRODUCTION TO IMPROVISATION – CONTEXT OF EMERGENC THE PHENOMEN

7.1 Introduction 79

7.2 Life of Violei Spolin 80

7.3 Philosophy Violei Spolin 81

CHAPTER 8 88

IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER APPROACHES WITH SPECIFIC MEANS

NEUROSCIENCES

8.1. Context of current approaches	88
8.2 Creativity and improvisation	95
PART II: PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS	97
Introduction	98
CHAPTER 1 THE TORRANCE EXPERIMENT – TESTS OF CREATIVITY	99
1.1 Experiment description	99
1.2 Activity 1: Figurative creativity	100
1.3 The play	103

CHAPTER 2 – SPECIFIC PARAMETERS OF THEATER PLAY AND 109

STAGE IMPROVISATION: THE BENEFITS OF CREATIVITY

SPECIFIC TO THE ACTOR’S ART

2.1 Enjoyment of the game and attention to the partner 109

2.2. Real-time feedback	111
2.3. Understanding, accepting, practicing and operating according to the specific rules of each game	112
2.4. Creative enthusiasm and team bonding	116
2.5. Theater play, training for the present	117
2.6. Verbalization	118
2.7. Imagination and relaxation	119
2.8. Adaptability, spontaneity and malleability	120
2.9. Conclusions	120
CHAPTER 3- IMPROV MODULE – PARTICIPANTS’ OPINIONS	123
3.1. Introduction	123
3.2. General coordinates and keywords	123
3.3. General parameters of the improv module as seen by the participants	124
3.4. Conclusions	129
CHAPTER 4- THE EEG G.R. EXPERIMENT – A CASE STUDY	131
4.1. Introduction	131
4.2. Experimental design and hypothesis	131
4.3. General remarks	133
4.4. Operational and methodological framework for the case study	136

4.5. Correspondences and comparisons between cognitive-behavioral processes and 137

brain activity in the case study

4.6. Experimental conclusions	146
PART III: IMPLEMENTING TECHNIQUES FOR DEVELOPING AND TRAINING CREATIVITY SPECIFIC TO THE ACTOR’S ART	149
CHAPTER 1: THEATER AND SPORT	150
CHAPTER 2: SPORTS TRAINING	153
2.1. Sports training – general principles that can be applied in Actor’s Art	157
2.2. Stages of sports training	159
2.3. Specific parameters of sports training and actor’s training	161
2.4.Sport training variables	163

2.5 Techniques and processes taken from sport to maximize performance in theatre 163 CHAPTER 3: PRACTICAL MEANS THAT CAN DEVELOP 172

CREATIVITY SPECIFIC TO THE ACTOR’S ART

3.1. Pre-contextual improvisation	172
3.2. General directions of pre-contextual improvisation	174
3.3. Objectives of pre-contextual improvisation	174
3.4 General principles and specific approaches to precontextual improvisation	175
3.5 Definition of terms	179
3.6 Implementing pre-contextual improvisation	179
3.7 Role map, rehearsal diary and inner monologue	189
3.8 General conclusions	194
3.9 Closure	201
Bibliography

ANNEX I-Torrance Experiment students’ responses to the 209 feedback questionnaire

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS

Table 1 – Stanislavski’s system transcribed by Robert Lewis	207
Table no. 2- Activity 1 Figural creativity – Torrance tests	209
EEG G.R. EEG Experiment processing time graphs.	210
Figure 1 electrodes mounting	210
Figure 2 – Properties of removed components	211
Figure 3- Final ICA components	212
Power curve plots ICA Component 38, whole event, situation 2 vs. 4	213
Activation zones for ICA Component 38, whole event	213
Activation areas for ICA Component 39, whole event	214
Activation areas for ICA Component 39, electrode channels, whole event	214
Channel C2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4	215
Channel C4 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4	215
Channel FC2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4	216
Channel F2, main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4	216
Component 31, whole record, comparison situation 1 vs 3	217
Component 31, whole record, comparison situation 2 vs 4	217
The neural network of empathy, according to Nerdi	218
Table no. 3 – Quality of athlete training	218
Bompa’s overcompensation cycle	219

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Stanislavski’s System diagram as transcribed by Robert Lewis	207
The optical illusion of Franz Carl Muller-Meyer.	207
Task demand graph and division of attention (Kahneman)	208

Brain activity of pianists: sheet music vs jazzImprov	208
Photo Experiments PhD research	209

Brain map illustration, Dario Nardi	212
The structure of multiple training sessions on a training day, according to Bompa	220
Example of mind-mapping, according to Tony Buzan	221

Report map 2	221

Work plan

The current paper is the result of doctoral research undertaken between 2014 and 2018, with the final drafting belonging to April-August 2018 and the tehnoredaction in October 2018. Chapters 1 and 2, the ones that focus on the creativity specific to the actor’s art and general notions about creativity, chapters that were based on the literature and on personal observations grounded on my experience as an actor, pedagogue and improviser, were written during the first 3 years, while the third part, where the practical experiments carried out constituted the scientific support, was conceived in 2018. Together with the chapters reserved to the practical grounding and experiments, from the need for synthesis that arose in the last phase of writing, a last part was born, dedicated to centralizing the information that I thought to be the most relevant in terms of original contribution.

Also at the end of the paper I have added to the “Appendices” the participants’ responses to the Torrance Experiment and the results of the EEG case study, both experiments conducted in 2017. In the appendices I have also attached graphs and components belonging to the main event of the experiment, an event that spans about 7 seconds, as well as power curves of individual EEG components that span several hundred seconds. Also in the appendices I have added the description of some theater games adapted by me to serve as an example of the implementation of my personal methodological proposal.

The methodology applied to the decoding, analysis and processing of EEG data is by researcher Andra Băltoiu, with advice and guidance by research scientist Pierre de Hillerin.

The specialized interpretations of the Torrance Experiment belong to the psychologist Alina Gherghișan, and the decoding of brain activity areas was supported by the research on EEG imaging technique of Dario Nardi, researcher and professor.

I think it is important to point out that, since the paper was written over several years, some of the ideas put forth at the beginning have undergone nuanced changes in terms of both content and approach.

The subchapter on the parallels between sports training and theater rehearsal technique also appeared unpredictably and was due to my meeting with the world of performance sports and Sports Science, a meeting that I had not initially considered, but which provided me with the support for a documented approach to notions like ‘training’, ‘coaching’, important notions in my research entitled ‘Techniques for developing and training creativity specific to the Actor’s Art’.

The paper holds three main parts: the Theoretical Foundations, the Practical Foundations and the Implementation of the Proposed Techniques.

The first appendix provides a feedback questionnaire taken a month after the group of student-actors went through the Torrance Experiment, an experiment that sought to measure, using the Torrance Tests of Creativity, the impact on the group of an improvisational theater workshop I taught in May-June 2017. I believe that their responses have provided important support to the current research and I would like to thank them once again for their participation in the Torrance Experiment.

In the hope that the next reading will dispel at least some of the anxieties about the Actor’s Art and the means by which we can remove the obstacles in the way of its specific creativity, I wish you a pleasant and, above all, fruitful reading, “YOU, reader”!

PART I:

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNING

CHAPTER 1 – DEFINITION OF TERMS

1.1 Creativity as process, product and creative personality

“There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he sets to work, he has to forget all the roses that have ever been painted”^[1] , writes painter Henri Matisse.

Faced with the pristine white of the first unwritten page of this first chapter, I am urged by Matisse to forget all the studies on creativity that have ever been written. Fortunately for me, the painter to whom Matisse refers would have infinitely more roses to forget than studies and research on creativity. And yet, faced with the first unwritten page of the first chapter, I find myself totally uninspired. Concepts, theories, key words, viewpoints, definitions, methodologies, tests and characteristics, experiments, research studies and hypotheses, points of view, reference systems, creativity seen as a creative process, product or personality, synonyms, antonyms, inhibiting factors, originality, flexibility, fluidity, tolerance of uncertainty, adaptability, divergent thinking, serious creativity, come to mind… STOP! “Divergent thinking” seems to be a thread that creates something in me, a trigger is triggered: this is where I can start.

In the opening of this page I have tried to exemplify some important features of the creative process, an approach in line with the early theories (1950s) of J. P. Guilford. According to Guilford creativity is based on divergent thinking. The characteristics of this kind of thinking are: fluidity, flexibility and originality.

Throughout the history of the study of creativity, three broad approaches to the concept have crystallized: creativity as a process, as a person (creative personality) or as a product.

I consider it necessary to put these approaches in a page, trying from now on to look in particular, from these three points of view, at the main topic of the current research: the specific creativity of the actor’s art.

Continuing the idea of the approaches often used in the history of creativity, looking comparatively, we can already now recognize three possible paths for three important approaches: actor creativity seen as process, actor-creator and product, aka the role. Depending on the point of reference we will use, we will investigate different working principles and hypotheses in the hope that, after the application of both quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques of investigation, we will be able to draw some conclusions about the definition, development and training of creativity specific to the actor’s art.

In the proposed approach I will make use of both the specialized literature on the topic, as well as investigative techniques specific to neuroscience or psychology. Among the tools I will use are the EEG imaging technique and the Torrance Tests of Creativity.

One of the working hypotheses that we will try to test is the next: improvisational theater and the principles derived from improvisation can be a main technique for training creativity specific to the actor’s art, as well as an alternative training. We will analyze the benefits brought in training the actor’s art with text trying to identify which parameters could be improved.

A second step in the research is the investigation of the theories of Viola Spolin and Del Close, who, along with Keith Johnstone, are the most important figures of improvisational theater.

I believe that the approach of Del Close’s principles is very close to what could fulfill the creative conditions of contemporary actor’s art, that’s why I will pay attention to this pedagogue of improvisation. One of Del Close’s important achievements is the invention of the “Harold” format, a format which, through the proposed algorithm, offers viable solutions in terms of training originality, fluidity and fluency specific to divergent thinking, which, according to the Three Dimensional Model of Intellect proposed by J. P. Guilford, is closely related to creativity.

By approaching creativity as a process, we aim to improve the already measurable characteristics of divergent thinking: fluency, flexibility, originality. In specialized literature there are unanimously accepted tests that measure these parameters. (Considering creativity as a process, we consider it to be effective to research and bring to the specific particular Actor’s Art the concept of “flow”^[2] (flow) of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Moving the reference system and looking at the specific creativity of the Actor’s Art as a product, we consider that the role (or the character) is the product resulting from the creative process, and in the new equation a new reference point appears: the spectator.

In our search to find the methods that can enhance and train the actor’s creativity we will try to combine techniques, principles and exercises taken from psychology, on the one hand, with existing methods and training already existing in the field of actor’s pedagogy, or with training borrowed from Sports Science. We will also deal with the practical aspect of stimulating creativity, adapting specific exercises from improvisational theater and stage improvisation for role-playing.

We will pay attention to the role imagination plays in the actor’s work, considering techniques that use creative imagination and imaginative thinking, techniques that Stanislavski himself introduces and applies in his latest book Creating a role.

A special chapter will be the one in which we will investigate whether there is actor-creation even after the product, i.e. the performance, has gone out to the public. We will try to investigate in the literature the existence of techniques to stimulate the actor’s creativity after the premiere.

Returning to the first step of our research, I consider it necessary to review the emergence, development and evolution of the concept of creativity, trying to capture a definition. Once we have established the general framework of the term creativity, we will be ensure to investigate to what extent creativity exists and how we define creativity specific to the actor’s art. Only then will we be ready to investigate whether and how we can train actor creativity. We will also identify the barriers, the inhibiting factors that hinder creativity. This can be useful in discovering viable ways of stimulating creativity.

1.2 Definition

Attempting to define creativity has proved to be a complicated attempt, as the fields in which this notion conceptually manifests itself have migrated from the artistic sphere to other sectors.

As Edward De Bono writes, “Creativity is a complicated, unclear subject and seems to stretch from designing a new toothpaste cap to Beethoven’s writing of the Fifth Symphony. Much of the difficulty arises directly from the words creative and creativity. At the simplest level, creative means producing something that wasn’t there before. ^[3]

This concept has been studied from the point of view of several disciplines: psychology, aesthetics, cognitive sciences, philosophy, art, cybernetics or artificial intelligence.

Etymologically, the term comes from the Latin creare – to bring into being, to give birth. It is interesting to note that until the 17th century the term “creatio” referred strictly to the divinity (“creatio ex nihilo”). The Creator was God Himself, and the creation was His Creation. To create was a verb reserved to the divinity in the Christian sense. For Hinduism or Buddhism, creation was rather an act of discovery and imitation in a world dominated by antagonistic principles and entities. To create something out of nothing in a universe built on the yin-yang principle, for example, makes no sense in Chinese philosophy.

The ancient Greeks believed that the Muses were transmitting inspiration from the gods, in ancient Greek there was no such word, so they used the term “poiein” (to make), while the Romans used both “creation” and “making”. Even Plato believed that in art there is nothing new to invent, the only attempt for which artists are responsible is to imitate the world of ideas.

It was only in the 17th century that the Polish poet and theorist Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski first used the term as such in his treatise De perfecta poesi, giving it human qualities and arguing that the poet “invents and creates”.

In 1767 Wiliam Duff’s An Essay on Original Genius and its Various Modes of Exertion in Philosophy and the Fine Arts, particularly in Poetry investigates for the first time what qualities are necessary for creativity and concludes: imagination, judgment and aesthetic taste. One of the important semantic separations in the history of seventeenth-century creativity has as its main subject the individualization of the notion between concepts such as genius, originality or talent, contrasted with formal education. Geniuses were given their place of honor, and their recognition coincided with the acceptance of the infringement of formal education and freedom of expression. By the end of the 18th century it had become recognized that while many people were talented because of education or the acquisition through study of the necessary skills, true geniuses were exceptional and deserved their deviation from the rules and obligations of normal people. The process of trying to accept the concept in the general sense that we perceive it today has been a long process in which philosophers, aestheticians and artists first worked out the possibility of accepting the concept of creative imagination, a phrase first used in 1730, according to James Engell: “the growth of interest in the psychological origins of literary poesis-an inner sense, the association of ideas, the interest in the creative imagination (a phrase first heard in 1730)-all these create a basis in those times for the study of literature.”^[4]

The 18th century provided heated debates in the artistic and philosophical world on the controversies over the differences between genius and talent, and these disputes have since provided the common platform of creative personality, broadly the same general principles as today:

-the concept of genius has split from the supernatural;

-Genius, even if it sums up the exceptional, exists as potential in every individual;

-talent and genius were conceptually distinct from each other;

-creative potential depends on the political atmosphere of the time.

With the proclamation of creative freedom and the emergence of Romanticism, analogies between creativity and psychopathology are created, and artistic creation becomes deeply dependent on inspiration and emotion.

The evolution of creative ideation took an important turning point with the alignment of the collaboration between Darwin and Galton. The two exchanged ideas both as relatives (they were second cousins) and as scientists, but it was not until adulthood that contact was established. Galton’s adoption of Darwin’s principles after Darwin’s death thus led to Galton’s eugenic theory and the first attempt to study genius.

The term „creativity” was introduced into psychology with the meaning it still has today by the American psychologist Gordon Allport in 1937.

The A.P.A. (American Psychological Association) Congress in 1950 marked the beginning of a new period in the history of creativity research, with then president Joy Paul Guilford. Guilford’s address is clear, and his exhortation to research the field of creativity seems to be having an effect: 25 years later, the same A.P.A. Congress draws conclusions on the progress made, and they are remarkable: “It has been repeatedly shown that exercises designed to increase success in creative thinking have also increased the general abilities of the Structure of the Intellect. (SOI.) Torrance’s (1972) recent studies of various methods of training creative thinking have given the winner to Alex Osborn and his methods as they appear in his book Applied Imagination.”^[5] Since 1950, following this address, there has been a significant increase in creativity research: whereas in 1950 the percentage was only 0.2 studies investigating creativity, by 1975 the percentage had exceeded 0.5.

There are now dozens of definitions of creativity, and this is strictly due to the different points of view and the context in which this new notion finds its place, as in a semantic puzzle. Whether we refer to the definition given by Edward de Bono, which we quoted on the previous page, or whether we regard creativity as strictly problem-solving, one of the common denominators of many approaches is the novelty brought by the creative personality, the creative process or the resulting product. According to Ion Moraru, the new and the original, coupled with functionality and value, seem to represent the general coordinates that locate the azimuth of the definition of creativity: “Creativity can be defined as the essential and integral capacity of the person, resulting from the combined activity of all his psychic functions (intellectual, affective and volitional), conscious and unconscious, native and acquired biological, psychophysiological and social, involved in the production of new, original and valuable ideas.”^[6]

From what Ion Moraru writes, the integrality of this capacity emerges. This well-pagined characteristic helps to understand the complexity of the creative phenomenon, as the resources involved in the labor of creation need to be accessed on different and diverse levels of the human being. The creative personality proves to reach its individual creative potential only when functioning as a whole. This empowerment of the whole needs, I believe, first of all self-knowledge and secondly self-acceptance. The courage of self-discovery and self-acceptance are the basic ingredients of the creative endeavor. Flexibility is another indicator that favors the creative approach. Being malleable thus becomes one of the main conditions for creativity. A third factor without which we can’t define creativity is enthusiasm, the passion that accompanies both the creative personality and the creative process. Putting the above together, we arrive at one of the most beautiful definitions of talent, a definition authored by Chekhov himself. In the play “Uncle Vanya” Elena Andreevna asks Sonya: “Do you know what talent is? Courage, free spirit, enthusiasm.” Chekhov’s genius manages to immortalize in a single sentence what future studies have broken down, analyzed, „neuroscientized,” and categorized as true. This is yet another example demonstrating the viability and undeniable effectiveness of imagination in creating and anticipating the future.

The creative personality, the creative process and the product are all three facets of creativity, and the stages, stages and developments of creative routines have been the material for countless studies and research. Didier Anzieu describes the five phases of the creative process in his book „Psychoanalysis of the creative process” as follows: ‘the creative process goes through five phases: the feeling of a strong state of surprise; the awareness of an unconscious psychic representative; its elevation to the status of an organizing code for the work and the choice of a material capable of giving this code a body; the composition of the work in detail; its production in the outside world’.^[7] We notice the psychoanalytic framework of the definition of creative processes, a framework due to Anzieu’s specific field of expertise. This observation leads us to assert that the multiplicity of definitions of creativity is due to the points of view from which this vast concept is viewed. With a single, specific focus, psychoanalysts, aestheticians, philosophers or creationologists use their own means to instrument the inner springs, the cultural values, the genetic heritage of creators or the everyday applicability of creative products and processes. Each specific approach leads to different results, and this reality is overlaid by other grids like the conceptual tendencies influenced by the theories of the respective epoch or the cultural context in which they emerged and manifested themselves.

Creativity has shifted in approach throughout human history from Divine Creation to the inspiration of music, from the psychopathology of genius to the interrelationship between creativity and intelligence, from talent to originality or innate gift, and from art to science. In “The Talent Code” Daniel Coyle contacts talent nurseries all over the world and tries to find the common denominator of performance in fields as diverse as sport, music and literature. The discovery of a neural insulator called myelin and the creation of intensive training to enhance this protector of neural circuits specific to a particular type of performance all seem to be, according to Coyle, component parts of the “Talent Code”: “Every human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse – essentially a signal passing through a circuit. Myelin’s role in this process is to wrap those nerve fibers in the same way that synthetic rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing electrical impulses from leaking out.” ^{^[8]}

The definitions of creativity and the multitude of starting points of reference determine the next demonstration and conclusions, which is one of the reasons why we will not develop the generalization of a concept that is difficult to define in the literature. We believe it is important to list some words that indicate the indicators of the presence of creativity, whether we refer to the product, personality or process of creativity. These are: novelty, originality, effectiveness, product value.

1.3 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art

Returning to the specific creativity of the Actor’s Art, the first thing that can be done is to investigate how we can define this concept.

According to the general definition, creativity refers to either process, product or creator. Depending on the grid applied, our research approach also changes.

Nowadays, creativity is a concept that finds application in both everyday life and industrial /technical innovation. We are surrounded by products that remind us of this on a daily basis: famous software companies are guided by the principles of creativity, with their results largely based on innovative ideas and on keeping their employees creative. Google employees are known to spend 20 percent of their time on the job researching and developing products and projects that they consider useful for the company. The figure of Steve Jobs has also entered the international public consciousness as a leading innovator, inspiring generations, as a creative personality.

Principles like KISS (keep it simple stupid) have already made history in the technological and innovative evolution of the US Navy or in the software industry worldwide.

In a period such as the one we are going through, given the general trend towards interdisciplinarity, we can consider that certain concepts and approaches specific to scientific fields can be borrowed and used successfully in artistic research like this one.

1.4 Creativity specific to Actor’s Art, seen as a process

Let us try to define actor-specific creativity by looking at the phenomenon as a process- the creative process.

Applying this conceptual grid, we turn our gaze towards the creative laboratory, on the path that the actor goes through until the product is ready, his role and the theater performance. For ease of approach, we limit the situation-frame to the rehearsals for a future “product” (and when we write “product” we mean a future role). So, the first question that arises is this: when rehearsing for a production, is the actor going through a creative process?

We have to admit, the Romanian language is not very friendly to the creative condition of the actor, because, according to the 2009 Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian language: ‘a repeta, repét, vb. I. Tranz. To say, do, produce once more (or several times) what has already been said, done or produced. ♦ To read a text twice or several times in order to understand it well; spec. to rehearse a role, a play, musical, etc. -f (About pupils or students) To attend the classes of the class or year of study (in which he/she has remained a repeater) again. ♦ Refl. To occur, happen, take place again. [Var.: (inv.) repețí vb. IV] – –

From fr. répéter, germ. repetieren”. ^{^[9]}

“To rehearse a role” and “to make, to produce once more” seem to be non-creative formulations because, as is the framework definition of creativity, whatever variant we choose, it undoubtedly involves the creation of a new product. Perhaps another term should be assigned also in Romanian to the process of search that the actor goes through, just as in English there are two different verbs: to repeat and to rehearse. Let’s try to go beyond a strictly lexical analysis of the work that the actor does while rehearsing for a performance and look deeper into what happens during this process: let’s assume that we are dealing with theater with a pre-written text and that the actor sets out on the road with a director and a text written by the playwright. To capture the situation in as much detail as possible, let’s start from the assumption that the actor is being given the role for the first time.

So, he has never before “produced” the same role “X” in a show “Y”. In the first stage there are discussions between the director and the actor, discussions about the role, the show, the artistic project in general. Then it’s on to table readings, after which the text is learned and a new stage of work follows. Here other questions arise: should we call this stage a “rehearsal”? Certainly not, because we have agreed in the starting hypothesis that the actor has not played this role “X” before, so there is nothing to “repeat”, there is nothing to do “again”. Shall we call it “search”, “exploration”, “experimentation”, “discovery”? These questions deserve their own separate chapter, because the answers we give and the choices we make decide and condition future answers to the questions that interest us most:

-Is the actor’s art, seen as a process, creative?

and

-if so, how do we define as a process the creativity specific to the Actor’s Art?

We will devote to these questions the appropriate chapters in the research we will undertake, considering that “to seek” implies to be able to recognize what you will find, and “to discover” is synonymous with “to reveal”.

The research that we propose on the subject of creativity -seen as a process- will be qualitative, the methods used will include case study and comparative analysis, the tools of investigation will be EEG imaging technique and questionnaire, and the sampling will be students of the faculties of theater and film who have never worked improvisational theater before the date of the experiment.

Another aspect of research into the process of the actor’s art is the identification of inhibiting factors, the identification of the barriers that exist/may exist to the creativity specific to the actor’s art. We are dealing with a vast subject, already touched by most famous pedagogues: Viola Spolin, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Meisner, Maria Knebel or Stanislavski. Once the inhibiting/disruptive factors have been identified, we can have some possible directions in the search for ways to stimulate and train creativity.

The ‘flow’ concept

On the next pages a comparative analysis between the general principles of creativity (principles with which psychology operates) and the specific creativity of the actor’s art will be constantly attempted.

In keeping with the algorithm announced above, it is worth recalling and defining the concept introduced in the psychology of creativity by Mihaly Csickentmihaly, namely the concept of flow, an inner condition also present in top athletes under theterm The Zone. Here is what the author himself writes about flow:

“I called it flow because many of those interviewed described the feeling as a highly focused state of awareness in which things go well almost automatically, without any effort, as if they flow(…) Flow is the result of intense focus on the now alone, which frees us from the common fears that cause depression and anxiety in everyday life” ^[10]

In his last book, Stanislavski writes on the very first page: “Actors must be in a receptive state of mind. They must have the emotional concentration without which no creative process is possible. An actor has to know how to prepare an inner mood that will incite his artistic side, that will open his soul”. ^{^[11]}

I have referred to this last book by Stanislavski, “Creating a Role”, not only because in the title of the book we find the word “creating”, but also because Stanislavski himself seems to be unexpected, novel, innovative, in a word “creative”, in the last part of his System theories. The function he gives to the creative imagination as well as the entire approach proposed in the creative realization of the role, all these aspects constitute a starting point and an affirmative answer on Stanislavski’s part to the question: is there creativity specific to the Actor’s Art?

1.5 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art as a product

If we change the reference system and approach creativity by considering the end product (the role and the performance), then the point of reference to which we refer becomes the receiver, the spectator. He can appreciate the cultural product, he is the beneficiary who consciously or unconsciously measures the value of the product of creativity seen as a product. He pays, he choose some actors, he likes them or not.

In the research that we want to undertake from this point of view it is interesting to follow to what extent the spectator recognizes and appreciates the degree of novelty existing in the creation of the actor. We believe that it is difficult to isolate from this point of view the specific creativity of the Actor’s Art, because in the binomial product – spectator (where the product is the role and the spectator is the receiver) in a performance other arts intervene: direction, dramaturgy, scenography, choreography, music, light design, etc.

We will pay particular attention to this chapter during our research, as there is little information in the literature about the actor’s creativity once the performance has gone out to the public, and the source that can inform us in more detail is Helen Trenos’ book – Creativity: the Actor in Performance.

We quote: “there are actors who are spectacular in rehearsals but who fail in performance, where it really counts. Why? Because acting in performance requires something different, something beyond the demands of rehearsal, it requires a new creative act.” ^{^[12]}

One of the future projects, a project that will not be finalized during these years of doctoral research, could consist in monitoring the impact of an improvisational theater performance on the spectator. We will use one two mobile EEG systems (64-channel headset) as investigation technique plus more fixes for the audience. We want to track the communication beyond words both between spectators and actors and between scene partners: using mobile EEG systems for spectator-actor and actor-actor couples, respectively, we will look for moments of synchronization of brain activity. With boody-worn sensors for pulse, temperature, perspiration, we can, i think, analyze the emotional activity of the actors and audience members being monitored.(possible synchronization moments). We opted for this kind of performance (improvisational theater) because it is the only kind of theater that does not involve dramaturgy, direction, stage movement or set design, all of which can influence the strict reception of the acting. Without pre-written text and without direction, we believe that the actor can be better isolated in his or her creative condition. If in a classical theater performance the spectator can resonate to the story written by another creator (the playwright) or to the directorial moments carefully studied by the stage director precisely to move the spectator emotionally, in an improvisational theater performance the absence of these creators puts the focus strictly and exclusively on the actor.

Another aspect that motivated us to choose this kind of performance is the unrepeatable and always new, unique product with all that this unstructured, unedited uniqueness brings, together with all the fulfillments, the unfulfillments and the accidents inherent to such an experience.

Investigating how the audience influences the creativity of improvisers, knowing that in a short formula (improv – bar) the audience gives suggestions before each round, is another direction of the research, because it is possible that in such a show the audience is a Group Intelligence. (group mind ) ^[13]

Creativity seen in a generalized context and improvisational theater are closely related, and this relationship is documented, supported and demonstrated in the literature by leading creativity researchers. We mention Keith Sawyer, a name in the field of creativity, author of several books and studies, including Zig-Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Greater Creativity, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation.

We quote from the first page of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration:

“In 2006 CNN asked me to appear in a one-hour special on genius. (…) I spent 15 years studying the science of creativity, starting with my PhD in psychology at the University of Chicago(… .) It didn’t take me long to decide what to show on CNN-I took the team to Chicago to film onstage the collaboration of the iO troupe, the influential improv theater troupe that launched Mike Myers, Tina Fey and Chris Farley. The reason? Both my research and personal experience led me to the conclusion: collaboration is the secret that unlocks creativity. (…) I discovered after 10 years that group improv is the purest form of collaboration.” ^{^[14]}

In addition to the literature, case studies and experiments using neuroimaging investigation techniques, in the study I will do I will also draw on my experience as an actor and improviser in my 15 years of improvisation.

1.6 Creativity seen from the point of view of creative personality

According to a general definition, creativity can be approached through the prism of the “3 Ps”:

Product, Process and Person. We quote from the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Volume I: “Researchers discovered in 1960 the 3 P’s approach to researching the psychology of creativity. This approach involves:

Product (objects, machines, works of art, ideas, solutions to problems;
Psychological processes (dreaming, deviation from the ordinary)
the personal characteristics of the Person that favor and facilitate the production of novelty, including openness to the new.” ^[15]

Referring to creativity through the actor-creator’s prism, the degree of “novelty” inherent in the term takes on other meanings: novelty is defined strictly subjectively, and creation is reflected in the creator-actor by changing him, “renewing” him.

The actor is both instrument and instrumentalist and his work, his creation is embodied in himself. The question naturally arises: do the degree of novelty, the innovation, the novelty, all of this “innovates” in the case of an actor’s creation, both the work and the artist? In other words, if the point of reference is the subjective point of view of the creator (the actor-creator) himself, then to what extent is his creation related to his personal development?

If we discover that the actor creates by renewing himself (work and creator), then we can have a compass to guide our steps through the creative process.

We can then make the following working hypothesis: the creative actor renews himself with each creative role.

Let’s look up the meaning of the Romanian verb “a înnoi/(to renew, english)” in the 2009 Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language (2nd revised and added edition): “ÎNNOÍ, înnoiesc, vb. IV. 1. Tranz. and refl. To (make) as new (replacing what was old, worn out); to (remake), to (repair). ♦ Trans. To put a new thing in the place of an old; to repair; to change. ♦ Refl. To put on something new. 2. refl. Fig. To refresh, to revive, to reawaken, to regenerate.”

In conclusion, one of the indicators of the presence of the actor’s creativity is the degree of novelty brought by the actor in what will become the product of his creativity, namely the role. From a subjective point of view, the actor discovers himself, primates himself, remakes himself, replaces what was old, worn out, with something new.

1.7 Creativity in Acting Pedagogy

The Actor’s Art is and has always been closely related to pedagogy. Keeping the paradigm of the 3 P’s (product, process, personality), the product of pedagogy is the actor – creator.

Studies in the field of psychology have shown that there are ways in which we can train certain parameters specific to creativity: fluency, flexibility, tolerance of the unknown, divergent thinking, imagination, adaptability or spontaneity. One last and very important parameter remains: originality.

Originality is a given, it’s like a fingerprint or an iris: we cannot train originality, it exists in each of us. But from an actor’s pedagogy point of view, we can inhibit or encourage originality.

We consider that the fecundity of originality is a sine qua non, so we clearly delimit originality from eccentricity. This nuance is important in the definition of terms, because in the pedagogy of the actor’s art, the teacher often encounters, as a form of defense from the student, the answer: “yes, that’s how it must be, but I don’t do it like that, I do it differently”.

Turning to the factors that can inhibit originality and creativity, psychologists have identified barriers and behaviors that prevent creativity from manifesting:

overestimating effort: (Thomas Edison’s famous quote: “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”);

– fear of making mistakes;

– fear of asking questions;

– fear of being different in the group;

– authoritarianism;

– fear of free speech;

– afraid of the unknown;

-afraid of beeing out of control.

In our proposed research we will devote an important chapter to the teacher-student, respectively director-actor relationship, asking what can be done to enhance creativity. First of all it becomes necessary to review the history of theater from the Actor’s Art perspective, a chapter that we will need in order to understand in broad terms the contexts in which the theories that we take for granted today have turned out to be tributary to a certain cultural, political or even geographical context.

1.8 Theater and its history from the Actor’s Art perspective

Although ritual in ancient Egyptian and Assyro-Babylonian civilizations took the form of performance, the birth of theatre as we know it today is attributed to the Greeks. Among them, too, theater arose out of pilgrimages and processions connected with the cult of divinity, but they were the first to write texts to be spoken by actors (and chorus) and to build special places for theatrical performances. The first names in theater in the 6th and 5th centuries BC are those of the authors of tragedy: Thespis, Phrynicos, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. Then comes comedy and its most applauded author: Aristophanes. In Ancient Greece only men and boys could be actors, and initially, on stage, they wore masks to help the audience understand the nature of the part (male or female, fool, slave or sage, young or old). The first masks, ‘inherited’ from the Dionysus festivals, did not even imitate human features and were monochrome, they evolved into polychrome and wigs and beards were added. Masked play had the advantage of amplifying the voice, an extremely important aspect given the space of the play.^[16] After a while, comedians gave up masks and had the opportunity to make the most of their facial expression. So, alongside the study of the voice, the actor began to become preoccupied with the development of another instrument, and the performance became more nuanced and more valuable.

The Romans were not to be outdone and, in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, comedy appeared in public squares through its representatives: the fescenines and the satura – improvised performances with a strong satirical touch. These were followed by the histrionics (mimes) and the atellanas. Rome, however, did not love its actors: although it built its theaters on the Greek model, it despised them, considered them inferior beings and placed them on the fringes of society. Seneca, Plautus and Terentius are the names of the authors that Ancient Rome prided itself on. (Pandolfi, 1971, p. 32)

All that is left to us as a testimony of the existence of the Theater until the Histrionians and even until the Middle Ages comes from the ancients. There followed a very long and rather troubled period, X-rayed by Ovidiu Drimba in his work Theater from its origins to the present day as follows: “With the collapse of the Roman Empire, European theater goes into a long eclipse. The chaos of the first centuries of the Middle Ages, with the migrations of peoples at a stage of backward civilization, brought with it the destruction of theatres. The Christian Church also contributed to this: for the great Christian theologians, theaters were “devil’s haunts, shameful places, schools of debauchery”; theater-goers were “fallen and lost souls”, and actors, dancers “and all those who were possessed by the passion of the theater were to be banished from the Christian community”.

Nonetheless, despite the persecutions of the Church, ritual games, dedicated to the forces of nature and linked to labor processes, continued to be maintained in the life of the barbarian tribes (Drimba, 1973, p. 36).

With the advent of the medieval citadels came the birth of the histrion, who was a musician, singer, acrobat, actor and storyteller – highly prized in the citadel and invited to special occasions everywhere, in all social circles, from fairs to senatorial banquets. However, by the time the histrionics appeared in the medieval towns of the 11th century, the Church had changed its view of the theater. Specifically, the Catholic Church, in the 9th century, in an effort to make its teaching more accessible, introduced “liturgical drama” – Gospel texts transformed into dialog and performed by church ministers in the form of short skits – into the service. Over time (no less than three centuries), however, “liturgical drama” moved away from the Gospel, out of the church and secularized, gaining a wider audience: “The performers became actors, first amateur, and by the end of the Middle Ages, professionals. The audience turned from believers into spectators who came to be entertained”. ^{^[17]}

The following century, the 13th century, remains somewhat indebted to the church through dramatizations of ecclesiastical legends, called “miracles”. These, although inspired by the life of the city and of ordinary people, invariably had an ending in which a saint (or even the Virgin Mary) performed a miracle.

Characteristic of the 14th century in terms of performance-related events are “mysteries” – the dominant genre of medieval theater. The mysteries were based on biblical scenes, but included dances and songs, and were performed by members of confraternities or guilds, usually middle-class, exclusively male. The mysteries, written in verse, were impressive in size (tens of thousands of verses) and their performance often lasted several days. In terms of technical resources (scenography) the performances were impressive and the number of performers was in the order of dozens (sometimes even more than 100 actors), the preparation of such a performance lasted almost a year, but the means of expression of the actors were poor and the quality of their performance on stage was not a concern, “the style of interpretation oscillated between pathetic and caricatural” (Drimba, 1973, p. 38) The Mysteries maintained their popularity for almost two hundred years, but faded with the Renaissance.

Also in the 14th century, farces appeared as a dramatic manifestation, inspired by secular life and strongly critical of the privileged classes of feudal society. The life and mores of the medieval town are perfectly reflected in the farces.

The Renaissance is considered the second most important era in the history of theater, and the Italian Renaissance gave the world a phenomenon considered unrepeatable, about which much has been written and is still being written, and to which today’s theater owes a lot: Commedia dell´Arte. From the perspective of the actor´s art, it was a moment that had not been repeated until the middle of the 20th century – it was the moment when the actor was sovereign in the theater, and, as privileged positions never come with anything but the greatest responsibilities, the actor had to rise to the occasion and hold the Theater on his shoulders. The Italian Commedia dell’Arte has had and continues to have an influence on the performing arts, including contemporary directors.

Commedia dell’Arte was, in the mid-sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries, a genre of theatre featuring a series of standardized, archetypal characters. The main characteristic of Commedia dell’Arte was improvisation. Starting from a canava, the actors improvised, enriching and filling the script with small scenes called lazzi. Throughout the performance, the actors could make changes to the dialog or the way they ‘told the story’ and acted it, depending on the inspiration of the moment, the resources of expression and the virtuosity of the actors. The actors of the Commedia dell’Arte were physically very well trained, because the performances they gave were extremely demanding, they could verse easily, sing, dance and perfectly mastered the means of expression needed to embody the character they were playing, the ‘mask’ they were personifying.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Comedia dell´Arte became abstracted, and the genre progressively degenerated, but not before “penetrating and leaving deep traces in the rest of Europe” (Pandolfi, 1971, vol II, p. 83). At the same time, the great actors who had made its considerable reputation disappeared from the Commedia dell’Arte arena, giving way to vulgar histrionics, buffoons willing to use the reproachable weapon of triviality in the absence of brilliant talent.

The demise of the comedy of masks, very evident in the mid-18th century, led to a revival of fully written plays, like pre-existing patterns, established in the history of universal theater. If earlier the success of improvisational theater had somewhat hindered the development of the fully written dramatic text, now it begins to unfold unhindered, the Commedia dell’Arte disappears and Theater History enters a new stage.

The time frame of the Renaissance, although controversial, could be roughly defined between the second half of the 14th century and the first half of the 17th century. The Renaissance is a global cultural phenomenon and even a turning point in the evolution of the European world. This phenomenon is not only a return to the models of Greco-Latin Antiquity, not only a rebirth and reaffirmation of the world of ancient values, but, according to the renowned cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt, “the Renaissance civilization is the first to discover and highlight the human figure in its integrity and richness”^[18] .

But Renaissance theater is not limited to Italy. As well as street theater performed by all-male troupes, the Spaniards also had playwrights and famous writers like Calderon de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega.

England in the Elizabethan Age (the height of the English Renaissance) had Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare, with the first London open-air theater in 1576 on the outskirts of London. Made up of galleries and stalls, organized hierarchically for both the gentry and the common public, the theatre now called the Elizabethan was born in the courtyard of a rented inn, circular in shape and later of impressive capacity – it could seat up to three thousand spectators. After the first theater, the example was taken up and followed by others. Until the advent of public theaters, the amateur troupes performed only at the court or in university circles, but as soon as the theater had its own premises, the hitherto itinerant troupes settled in one place each and regularly gave paid performances, sometimes touring the provinces and performing in place of each other, but still in buildings dedicated for this purpose. Although the theater was equally persecuted and flourishing, and actors were both hounded and fawned on, in Shakespeare’s England the theater became a fundamental art, with the protection of the Queen. Theatrical companies were founded either under the patronage of the nobles or by the company’s principal actors, and a play’s popularity was measured by the number of performances in a single day, with Shakespeare and Marlowe’s plays sometimes running as many as six times a day. According to Ovidiu Drimba, “a troupe had between 8 and 14 actors, all male, cast in the female roles. Each troupe had its own playwright, paid only once for a play (…) the playwright also had the duty of explaining to the actors how they were to play his play, thus fulfilling, to a minimum extent, the function of director”. (Drimba, 1973, p. 89). Actors, as well as playwrights, professionalized during Shakespeare’s period and were concerned with perfecting their means of expression, as is evident from the accounts of theatre historians who have studied the Elizabethan period and who stress the importance of perfecting, for example, vocal expression: ‘The maturing talent of Richard Burbage, four years younger than Shakespeare, contributed to the creation as well as the successful performance of the great roles in the tragedies staged at the Globe. We don’t know whether Shakespeare exploited or shaped Burbage’s ability to make the necessary vocal leaps from the banal (“Pray, unbutton this butt”) to the operatic (“Blow, ye fart, till your cheeks crack”), but we can say that the whole course of Elizabethan theater was influenced by it. Complex traumas, marked by a succession of contrasting scenes, had to be clarified for a hurried audience. Clarity can only be achieved if the characters are clearly differentiated from one another. Costumes are certainly useful, but a precise differentiation of attitude is also necessary. This is what the Elizabethans meant by ’embodiment’ – the concretization of something as intangible as an invented personality. It’s something a good professional actor can do, even if the text is inadequate. But when a great actor like Burbage is invited to embody Hamlet, something remarkable happens. Mere impersonation cannot cover the complexities of a prince whose actual behavior is at odds with his personal proclivities, invented by the author. As in the case of later heroes such as Macbeth, Mark Antony, Coriolanus, this contradiction is where the anachronistic idea of ‘character’ lies. (…) By delivering Hamlet’s lines, Burbage was able to render both the duplicity and the human sincerity of expression under the pressure of events. Otherwise Shakespeare would not have written them.” (Brown, 2016, p. 200 ) Thus, it is easy to understand that if this favorite actor of Shakespeare’s, along with the great playwright, influenced the course of Elizabethan theater, they did so in terms of acting style (of which vocal technique is an important component).

Although the French did not have any dramatic works of such value in the Renaissance that they can be found in the universal histories of theater, France got its revenge in the Classical period with Racine, Corneille and Moliere. “The stylized, conventional, courtly nature of costume was transferred to the acting of the actors, who – whatever the role – had to impose themselves through distinction and poise. Certain fixed rules were also established. Thus the actors – always facing the audience – played a static role, but they had to ensure that their plasticity, gestures and declamation were flawless and beautiful. But this ‘beauty’ was rigidly fixed in canons. Every emotional state was translated into certain invariable, stereotypical attitudes and gestures”^{^[19]} . It was in the 17th century that the first female actresses appeared in France and England, whereas until then female roles had been played exclusively by men.

The 18th century is a particularly important one in the evolution of the actor’s art and his attitude to his art. The Age of Enlightenment brought to France Voltaire’s tragedies conveying revolutionary ideas, bourgeois drama devoid of pomp and conventional air and bringing people from the contemporary world to the stage, but also one of the most important works related to the actor’s art – Denis Diderot’s Paradox on the Actor – an essay that led to “the progress of the art of theater in the direction of realism” (Drimba, 2008, p. 114) and implicitly to the progress of the actor and his art. Diderot’s work, printed in 1830, more than a century after it had been written, shattered the entrenched view in European theater that art is more about inspiration and less about craft. For the French philosopher, the actor must be rational, master of his means, his art must not be left to chance, but polished, perfected, based on a profound knowledge of the human being with all that is human, but also of himself. Diderot’s actor does not ‘feel’ what his characters feel, but makes the spectators feel. Diderot says in his work about the model of the “great” actor: “I believe that he must be endowed with great judgment. I need in this man a cool and calm spectator. Thus, I require him to have a keen wit, but no sensitivity, to master the art of imitating everything, proving the same skill for all kinds of characters and roles. (…) If he were sensitive, what would be the use of playing the same part twice in succession, with the same warmth and success? Having shown great warmth in the first performance, he would be exhausted and cold as marble in the third. On the other hand, as a careful imitator and disciple of nature, the first time he appeared on the stage as August, Cinna, Orosmane, Agamemnon or Mahomed, as a rigorous imitator of himself or of his teaching, and as a tireless observer of our sensations, his acting, far from being weaker, would be strengthened by the new reflections he would have made, would be inflamed or tempered, and you would be more and more satisfied. Since he is himself when he plays, how could he cease to be himself? If he wanted to stop being himself, how would he feel the moment when he should stop? The inequality of actors who play from the heart justifies me in this opinion. Expect no unity from them. Their acting is sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, sometimes linear, sometimes sublime. Tomorrow they will not excel where they excelled today. Instead, they will excel where they failed the day before. The comedian who would play rationally, utilizing his reflections and learning about the nature of man, imitating unceasingly some ideal model, his imagination, his memory will be the same in all his performances, always perfect: everything will have been weighed, combined, learned and set in his mind. In the way he declaims there is neither monotony nor stridency. Emotion has its progress, its ups and downs, its beginnings, its middle and its end. The accents are the same, the positions are the same, the movements are the same. If there is any difference from one performance to another, it is usually in favor of the latter. It will not behave as in everyday life: but it will, instead, be like a mirror so placed as to reflect the objects and show them with the same clarity, the same force, and the same truth. Like the poet, let him plunge unceasingly into the unsearchable depths of nature, where before he would have seen the boundary of his own richness.^{^[20]} “

At the same time as Diderot, but in England, Richard Brinsley Sheridan proclaims simplicity and sincerity in his plays, and in Italy Carlo Goldoni puts Italian comedy on new foundations, “discovering its naturalness and the truth of life” (Drimba, O. 2008, p. 124).

In the Age of Enlightenment, the art of the actor follows the general trend of bringing the natural and the plausible back to the stage. The style of acting moves away from pathos, melodrama and exaggeration in search of the natural, and the actor becomes preoccupied with probing the human psyche in an attempt to perfect his tools of the trade through knowledge.

The first half of the 19th century is marked by romanticism, which, from the actor’s point of view, means a return to form, to pathos, the actor – who until now used to put on make-up lightly, aiming only to be “beautiful” – now carefully puts on make-up to obtain an “expressive” mask, in keeping with the “character” being played.

The stage movement in Romantic theatre is characterized by the broadness of gestures, exuberance, pathos, now dominating the constricting, spontaneous character. Everything becomes looser and freer, in order to express the tumultuous moods of the Romantic heroes, the authenticity of the mental and temperamental structure of the literary hero of this type. “The gesticism of the Romantic actor has breadth, passionate force, spontaneous outbursts, of a rhetoric that can easily become either melodramatic or emphatic. The dramatic actor’s diction aims at the same effects, with a predilection for high tones, strong exclamations, and very marked contrasts of voice.” (Drimba, O. 2008, p. 164)

Romanticism was followed by Realism and Naturalism, with names such as Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola (in France), N. V. Gogol, L. N. Tolstoy and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (in Russia), Henrik Ibsen (Norway). Theatre had once again reached an impasse in terms of forms of expression and the need was felt for the actor, who had until then learned by acting, to be helped in the creation of characters, to be guided. “Theater is dying because of its extravagance, because of lies and platitudes”, wrote Emile Zola in 1873^[21] .

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century meant, for countries with a tradition in the art of theater, the establishment of national theaters, important theater companies and the idea of establishing drama schools began to take shape.

In Paris, under the direction of Andre Antoine, the Theatre Libre (1887) appears, in Berlin Otto Brahm founds Freie Buhne (1889), in London The Independent Theatre (1891) is founded, directed by J.T. Grein, and in Moscow the Society for Art and Literature is founded, which in 1888 will become the Moscow Art Theatre. Realism and natural interpretation become the dominant direction.

In addition, if until then the actors rehearsed under the supervision of the company or theater manager, now there is the director, who, among other things, has to help the actor to bring to life the characters he plays.

One of the most important names in the entire history of the actor’s art is undoubtedly K.S. Stanislavski, who set out to discover the secret of the actor’s art and ended up creating the System that bears his name, an approach to the actor’s art that is the basis of the contemporary professional actor’s training. Stanislavski, realizing that the actor’s performance cannot be based on inspiration, talent and chance, was able, through experimentation, to map out a method of actor training (training that involves hard work, thought and systematic training, including physical training). Konstantin Stanislavski is a pioneer in the field of expression and development of the actor’s art, and his research is the basis for further discoveries.

The theater theorists and practitioners of Stanislavski’s time and those who followed them, each in their own way or starting from the Stanislavski System, came to the same important conclusion for the actor’s art, a conclusion that is still followed today, namely that on stage, the technique/psychophysics acquired through years of specific training is what helps the actor to control every movement, the deep and unceasing research of the human being and of oneself is what can lead to the construction of the role and, finally, to naturalness and organicity. Today, the actor must develop his bodily expressiveness, perfect his voice and, last but not least, the actor must use his mind. The modern actor does not create a character mechanically and externally, but learns to stimulate his own reality to resemble that of the character he is playing, so that on stage he can express life in its depths.

Adolphe Appia, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Antonin Artaud, Jacques Lecocq, Lee Strasberg, Meisner, Stella Adler, Michael Chehov, Jerzy Grotowski, Bertold Brecht, Peter Brook are just a few of those who have made essential contributions to the shaping of actor training, and today the modern actor uses a little of all of them, either as his own method of general continuous training or as a specific method of approaching a particular role, an actor’s score. These drama theorists and practitioners had their own drama schools/teams, and the methods they experimented with are a subject of study in modern drama schools.

In this brief presentation of the key moments in the evolution of the actor’s art, I have referred exclusively to the history of the West, considering that classical Indian theater, Chinese theater and Japanese theater have used other means of expression, being tributary to other mentalities, other transformations and a different culture. Once we arrive at the post-Sstanislavskian period, we consider that we have already entered the terrain of Contemporary Acting Pedagogy, and the study becomes centered on the almost simultaneous emergence of creativity, American acting and improvisational theater. The intersection of the three fields will provide the common denominator of the doctoral research that will find its synthesis in the pages to follow.

CHAPTER 2 – THE COMMON CONTEXT OF THE EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY, ACTING AND IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

2.1. Creativity – improvisational theater – actor’s art triangle

The next chapter aims to take a brief foray into the history of American acting pedagogy, attempting to capture the first wave of founders of the American school of acting. The figures of Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Meisner will take center stage, and in the second part of this chapter we will also address the early pedagogues of American improvisational theater, with a focus on the two seminal figures of the Improv phenomenon in the United States, Viola Spolin and Del Close.

The choice of only those listed is based on the objective of analyzing temporally and topographically unitary the beginnings of the art of the modern actor and the beginnings of the theories of creativity. Strasberg, Adler and Meisner, beyond the fact that they represented the same movement of the beginnings of acting in the United States, a movement influenced by Stanislavski and his disciples, represent the ground on which improvisational theater developed through Viola Spolin, Paul Sills, David Shepherd or Del Close.

I consider that the influences that Stanislavski left in The Group Theatre and the differences in approach between the theories of Strasberg, Stella Adler and Meisner are an important source for studying the techniques and methods through which the creativity specific to the Actor’s Art can be developed.

Another direction of this part is to outline the general context in which Viola Spolin was beginning to lay the foundations of American improvisational theater. The link between the two approaches, that of The Group Theatre and that of Viola Spolin, is made through the common specificity of the beginnings’ search, and the creativity of the approaches and the differences in method can provide us with important elements of the puzzle of the beginnings of actor pedagogy on the American continent.

Another argument for studying only these pioneers is the unity of time and space between the beginnings of research in the field of Actor’s Art and improvisation pedagogy and the beginnings of research in the field of creativity. Given that general principles of creativity can be found in the early theories of improvisational theater, investigation of the historical framework in which the two fields originated becomes an important lead in discovering methods of developing creativity.

The triangle of Creativity – Improvisational theater – Actor’s Art acquires important valences on the universal map, the common denominator of the specific searches of the beginning being the coordinates of time and space.

Both in the Actor’s Art and in improvisational theater in the United States of America, creativity has made its presence felt, the creative manifestations in these fields fulfilling the “three P’s” condition: process, product and creative personality (personalities).

The first three creative personalities in the field of acting pedagogy to whom we will refer are Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. In the chapters that follow, we felt it was important to present both information about the life epics of these three pedagogues and information about the techniques and methods that they implemented. The existence of both the epic and the descriptions of the personal component of the lives of the aforementioned educators is uniquely motivated by the attempt to give an overview of the beginnings of acting pedagogy in the United States. Although at first reading the descriptions concerning the eternal alliances and conflicts between Strasberg versus Adler and Meisner may seem sterile and insignificant, understanding the lives of the three in their entirety and in interaction provides possible technical and applied answers to the motivations that gave direction and relief to personal pedagogical approaches. Personal life and pedagogue coexist and mutually determine each other in acting and theorizing. We have preferred to keep the biographical pages that open the chapters on each pedagogue in the present work and not in the appendices, so as not to lose the unified flow of the present work. One of the constants in the appearance of each technique derived from Stanislavski’s System is, in our opinion, the personal character of the one who denied a principle or an entire pedagogical system. Centering the approach in this way from the outset, we can accept the biunivocal relationship between the creator of pedagogical theories and his personal life. The contours become, in our opinion, clearer, and the shadows fade if we have the patience to accept and receive the seemingly sterile information about the life of the creator-pedagogues as almost immediate responses to contextual-factual actions. The eternal dispute between Strasberg and Adler reveals, from this point of view, its springs and root causes, and Meisner’s account of Strasberg’s studio and the promotion he (Strasberg), in his opinion, was doing by using students from other schools provides a broad understanding of the context of the emergence and development of acting pedagogy on American soil.

I therefore beg the reader to have the patience to glean from the perhaps overly epic lines of each educator’s life information that gives a glimpse into the dynamics of the entire early beginnings of Actor’s Art Pedagogy in the United States. This is the reason why the few pages have not been appended. I firmly believe that behind the generally valid truths of the actor’s art have been, over the ages, personal truths and lifelong beliefs of some actors or directors who have disagreed with other actors or directors. The freedom of expression, tolerance, and fair play specific to the American context as well as the strength of the personal convictions of the teacher-creators of that era provided one of the most fascinating, effective, and controversial pedagogical beginnings. The results over the years due to the performance of the actor’s art that was founded in that period are quantifiable by the number of acting creations that the American film and theater industries have given to eternity.

In the hope that we have provided the reading key needed to intuit and decipher the approaches of contemporary acting pioneers, we open the Strasberg-Adler-Meisner triangle with the one who is synonymous with The Actor’s Art for most American actors: Lee Strasberg.

CHAPTER 3 – LEE STRASBERG

3.1 Emergence of the Method, approach and general principles

The first and best-known method derived from the Stanislavski System is Lee Strasberg’s “Method” itself.

We believe it is important to specify the vein through which Stanislavski’s theories penetrated in America, to try to surpass the accuracy of the information received by those who developed their own personal variants and interpretations of the Stanislavskian system.

Richard Boleslavski, a former student of Stanislavski’s at the Art Theater, leaves Russia after the October Revolution and arrives in 1920 in New York. In 1923, the year of Stanislavski’s American tour, he reunited with his former colleagues and, given the success of the Art Theatre troupe, began giving readings of Stanislavski’s writings in the United States, translating excerpts from Russian into English.

In 1924 Stanislavski’s troupe returned to America, by which time Boleslavski had already opened his American Theater Laboratory. He co-opted Maria Ouspenskaya, another member of Stanislavski’s troupe, to teach at the Lab, and she accepted and remained in America. Among the Lab’s first students were Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.

Important in terms of the unfolding of future events and especially in terms of the future relationship between Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler is 1924, the year in which Stanislavski’s system begins to be taught in America.

Creating a role, Stanislavski’s last book, was first published in Russian in 1957 and in English only in 1961. In 1934, Stella Adler studied intensively with Stanislavski for five weeks in Paris, where she learned from Stanislavski himself that he had abandoned the theory of affective memory and that the system was being revised, with the emphasis on physical action and the power of imagination. Back in America, Adler breaks off contact with Strasberg, whom she reproaches for not teaching Stanislavski properly.

Returning to Lee Strasberg, he develops, starting from Stanislavski’s System, what he will call the “Strasberg Method”, which has become known throughout recent history as the “Method”.

In this chapter we will analyze the basic principles of the Lee Strasberg Method and try to discover to what extent his training techniques can develop the actor’s creativity.

Turning to the personality of Lee Strasberg, we will go through the narrative thread of his becoming part of the Stanislavskian system and then breaking away from it. The differences between System and Method will be analyzed in a separate chapter.

The Stanislavskian theories will be approached from the point of view of the disciples and their interpretations, since we consider the last period of Stanislavski’s life as the synthesis of his work. Since our access to this reconsideration of the actor’s art is theoretically grounded only by his last book Creating A Role and Maria Knebel’s Analysis Through Action, in our references to Stanislavski we will use the reinterpretation of his work strictly by those who had direct access to it, pedagogical personalities who met him and came into direct contact with his theories in this last period of revision and development of the System. Among the guides we will let lead us on this journey are important names such as Maria Knebel, Sonia Moore and Stella Adler.

Although this chapter is devoted to Strasberg and the Method, the references to Stanislavski’s System are necessary, since names like Sonia Moore and Stella Adler have denied Strasberg and the erroneous relationship that, they both claimed, Lee Strasberg had with the Stanislavskian system.

Stella Adler’s views on the topic are already the stuff of legend, less well known are the views of Sonia Moore, who has been with Stanislavski in last years. Arriving in America in the 1940s, Sonia Moore founded the American Stanislavski Center and in the 1960s publicly expressed her theory that Lee Strasberg’s acting exercise “The Private Moment” “offends Stanislavski’s name and human intimacy”²² .

Considering it important to approach the theories of Strasberg’s Method without in any way comparing his Method with Stanislavski’s System or with the other techniques born as a result of Stanislavski’s implementation, we are interested in understanding the principles of Lee Strasberg’s Method and discovering how the specific creativity of the actor’s art is developed using the Method.

Focusing strictly on Strasberg’s point of view of The Actor’s Art, we will detach ourselves in the next chapter from the narrative thread of his professional life, refocusing on the pedagogical product known as “The Method”.

“The human being has an extraordinary capacity and can be trained. While other arts use different materials for expression like words, notes or colors (…) the actor himself is the instrument of our expression and needs special care like a rare Stradivarius.” ²³

So opens the book edited by Lola Cohen, which is based on recordings of Strasberg’s classes at the Actor’s Unit. One of the principles postulated by the Method is that the actor should be constantly trained and developed on a daily basis, assisted by a teacher.

Moore, Sonia, Training an Actor: The Stanislavsky System in Class, ed. Viking, 1968, New York, pp. 40-41

²³ Cohen, Lola, The Lee Strasberg Notes, ed. Routledge, 2010, New York, p.1

He refers to this aspect obsessively in his lessons, and his approach in this respect resembles the approach of the high-performance sports coach. From his point of view, no matter how experienced the actor is, if he doesn’t train every day, not only will he not progress, but he will get out of shape: “Our training encourages creativity, which is the most important material that can be used in art (…) When the actor stops training, then he is just imitating what has been done before.”^{^[22]} To imitate what has been done before is from Strasberg’s pedagogical point of view an act in an antithetical relationship to creativity, the emphasis on novelty and the discoveries the actor makes through his art being for the Method the main supporting center on which Strasberg builds his approach. Daily training and the encouragement of personal creativity are the constants of his pedagogy, and the sets of exercises proposed by the Method aim at the maintenance, the daily refinement of the actor’s sensitivity of the instrument, the discovery, acceptance and taking control of the emotional component.

In the introduction to her book The Lee Strasberg Notes, author Lola Cohen, who edited the material culled from hundreds of hours of video and audio recordings, explains the three imperatives that guided her in her editing:

-to keep the structure of the 4-hour course as it was normally taught by Strasberg: two hours of relaxation and sense memory exercises, then another two hours of applied work on text, scenes and characters;

-another criterion in selecting the material was to choose the parts that most faithfully reflect the essence of the ideas and theories about Actor’s Art and Method;

-Lola Cohen’s third aim is to capture Lee’s pedagogical personality in as much detail as possible.

Before going on to analyze Strasberg’s theories from the point of view of the actor’s creativity, we must pay attention to the definition of the word “Acting” that he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1957, which replaces Stanislavski’s text.

“Acting can only be understood once it is recognized as a creative medium that demands a creative act.”^{^[23]}

In the Encyclopedia Britannica article, Strasberg continues, “when acting is recognized as a creative art, it inevitably leads to a search for resources to stimulate the imagination and sensitivity of the actor.” In this article, Strasberg also raises the eternal question of whether the actor is interpretive or creative, and his final opinion is that as long as the acting journey does not imitate something that has already been done, then the resulting product

is a creative one: “if the actor’s art is seen as strictly interpretative, the outer elements of the actor’s craft are emphasized, but when acting is recognized as a creative art, then it seeks to unite deeper resources that stimulate the imagination and sensitivity of the actor.(…) The actor must learn to train and control the most sensitive material of any craftsman: the living organism of the human being in the fullness of its manifestations: mental, physical and emotional. The actor is both pianist and pianist.” ^{^[24]}

Creativity in the Actor’s Art is for Strasberg one of the most important themes of his research, and opening and crediting the actor with the role of creator has been the leitmotif of the years in which he has trained and led generations of actors, trying each time to move them away from the simple role of imitator and seeking, together with them, to acquire control over personal emotions and affects, emotions that can give creative value to the playwright’s text. For Strasberg’s Method, personal character, the truth of emotions and the training of the ability to give birth to, embody and control the affective score of the role are the milestones that have guided his pedagogical path, a path that has been controversial for other pedagogues such as Adler, Moore and Meisner, a path that has become a veritable religion for others, whether they be actors who have created roles that have gone down in the history of film or theater, or pedagogues who are followers of the Method. What the history of acting pedagogy has demonstrated over the intervening years is the innovativeness of Strasberg’s approach and the effectiveness of the Method for many important American actors. Starting from the principles laid down by Stanislavski and the concepts that he used and developed throughout his life, Strasberg innovated the art of acting, and the Method became, throughout the second half of the last century, a reference tool on the universal map of acting pedagogy.

The opening part of the theoretical foundation of the specific creativity of the actor’s art is not by chance linked to the name of Lee Strasberg, but is based both on the chronological development of the Stanislavskian system on the American continent and on the creative contribution made by the pioneers of acting pedagogy after the Stanislavski period. Strasberg is, from both points of view, the personality who brings together for the first time in a single binomial the Stanislavskian pioneering and the creativity specific to the American Actor’s Art, in a consistent approach, spanning several decades. These entire decades and the time elapsed from the 1930s to the current day have borne witness through the testimony of the roles realized by the Method’s adept actors. Among the unquestionable strengths of the Method are the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, the coherence of their applicability and the concretization of the creativity specific to the actor’s art in terms of process, creative personalities and roles that have remained in the history of film through the creations of such names as Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Al Pacino and Geraldine Page. The Actors Studio and its assimilation with Strasberg’s pedagogical existence is further proof of the importance that the personality of this pedagogue has had in the relatively recent history of the actor’s art.

In the next chapter we will deal with the practical aspects of the Method, trying to rely on theoretical documentation of the main notions that can be found in the definition of creativity. Once we will be able to isolate the specific parameters of the actor’s creativity, we consider to be closer to opening the way to the discovery of new techniques of development and training, techniques that will give results adapted to the context delimited by the temporal – geographical axes of the present. Personally, I believe that in the field of improvisational theater, a field in which I have been active for over 15 years, I have witnessed a paradigm shift both in terms of the means of expression of the actors and in terms of the different reception of the audience from year to year: if, for example, in the years 2002-2004, we, the actor-improvisers, “afforded” rounds that averaged 10-11 minutes, in March 2018 a 55-minute videorecorded show had 10 rounds in the making, which allocates a round an average of 5.5 minutes compared to the 10-11 minutes specific to the 2004 season. The answers probably have to do with the development of communication channels and the increased speed of audience response. As an anecdotal element, when I started to play improvisational theater, we, the improvisers of the first wave in Romania, were still using in the scenes – platform the fixed telephone, and all the cell phones in all the scenes performed at Rapsodia Theatre in the show “Theater-Sport” in 2004 by Vlad Massaci had characters who were using strictly “non-touch” cell phones. Since 2009 we have seen how fixed telephones have disappeared and mobile phones have lost the maneuverability specific to the pioneer generations, and gestures characteristic of touch-screen models have appeared for the first time in the perimeter of pantomimed stage actions. From this point of view, improvisational theater thus becomes a mirror of stage actions and their transformation according to the evolution of physical behavior in real day by day life.

Improv theater has been for me the proof of the transformation of the act of communication between actors and spectators, the differences in perception being quantifiable in seconds – the difference between the same rounds, separated by only a few years: for example, a scene with lines from the audience in 2004 lasted 9 minutes, while in 2014 it lasted 5 minutes. With the advent of faster ways of accessing information online, changes in tempo and stage rhythms have also occurred, and as a practicing improviser, I have seen these changes myself.

The permanent transformation of communication determines, in my opinion, a consciously assumed transformation of the means of expression specific to the actor’s and/or director’s art. Looking at things from this point of view, all the theories presented in this paper I consider to be subject to the permanent transformation of the act of communication, so that the theories of Strasberg’s Method as well as Stanislavski’s System must be contextualized temporally and spatially. The effectiveness or applicability of the techniques and methods presented in the current research are also subject to the subjectivity of the receiver, and understanding and accepting this state of affairs facilitates the theoretical foundation, which is supported by the literature. It is imperative to understand that the theories put forward by Strasberg more than 50 years ago must be seen in the context of the time, place and horizon of expectation created by the specific needs of the professionals of that time.

We will open the part of theoretical foundation with the Strasberg Method, trying to analyze the constitutive elements and applicability of the proposed exercises in the development of creativity specific to the actor’s art.

3.2 Actor training in the vision of the Method

According to Strasberg, the actor has to train every day.

Strasberg’s method can be seen as a reaction to the American theatrical world of the 1930’s. In the context of a theatrical landscape in which the American actor operated predominantly on the touring system with mostly commercial performances, Strasberg’s revelation with the tour of Stanislavski’s troupe was a trigger for the reconfiguration of the actor’s art on the American continent.

With the interest in Stanislavski and the systematization of the actor’s art, America, through Strasberg and the colleagues of the first wave of theorists, opens the modern era of the conceptualization of acting.

Initially born as a wish to borrow imported theatrical attitudes, values and behaviors from a world deeply rooted in universal culture, Strasberg’s Method came to proclaim its independence from Stanislavski’s System in a relatively short time. However, even though upon Stella Adler’s return from Paris, Strasberg told her that he was not teaching Stanislavski’s System, but his own Method, Strasberg remained grateful to the great Russian pedagogue for the rest of his life, and his participation as a representative of the American Theatre in the Stanislavski centennial celebration was a great honor for him: “There would be no Lee Strasberg if there were no Stanislavski.” ^[25]

The basis of the Strasberg Method is the acquisition of relaxation. From the point of view of the general principles of creativity, the presence of this goal in the pedagogical approach is a clear indicator of a creative approach. Strasberg believes that in a tense body, emotions and scenic truth cannot emerge.

Through his workouts he aims to relax, remove fear, tension and unnecessary energies.

“The purpose of relaxation exercises is to eliminate fear, tension and excess energy and to awaken every part of the body.” ^[26]

Lee Strasberg’s usual class schedule was four hours, with the first two hours devoted to relaxation and concentration exercises, training, and the other two to scenes and working with text and characters.

From this very division we can see how important it was to stimulate and train creativity: the time devoted to discoveries, to the process of personal development itself, is allocated in equal measure to the time devoted to the texts. The creative process-product ratio was perfectly balanced.

Another of Strasberg’s coordinates, closely linked to creativity, is the training of the imagination. The Method exercises train and develop relaxation, concentration and imagination.

The basic principle of the technique taught by Strasberg is that you should only use the technique when you need it, and this can only be achieved through relaxation.

Relaxation exercises aim to connect with one’s own being, a connection in which tensions have to be removed in a process of awareness and a thorough checking of tensions, both bodily and mental.

Some exercises are individualized and can be done anywhere without the supervision of a teacher, but for others, Strasberg argues that they are dangerous if practiced without a teacher.

Relaxation exercises

The immediate goal is to relax the body, the longer-term goal is to acquire control over one’s own instrument, which is the actor’s body. Another stated goal, a goal that requires a longer period of time, is to break the acquired behavioral reflexes, to rediscover natural organicity.

One of the important tenets of Lee Strasberg’s theory is that bodily tensions correspond to blockages that impede expressivity, and when he uses this term he is not referring to the aesthetic meaning of the notion.

For the Strasberg Method, the degree of relaxation is closely related to creative potential

of the actor.

Strasberg’s proposed protocol has clear steps to follow, and at the end of the exercise, anyone who has gone through it can see for themselves the differences between before and after.

Bodily tensions are matched by mental or emotional tensions, and the removal of one leads to the disappearance of the other: „When the body relaxes, we can access emotions that we weren’t even aware were locked in there. When the muscles move and relax, those experiences will arise, but you have to be relaxed enough to release those emotions. Emotions can be as fixed in our bodies as bones are.” ^{^[27]}

Acquiring organicity, natural being, getting rid of the rules that society has taught us become the pedagogical objectives that follow the acquisition of relaxation. Blockages must disappear, repressed emotions must be brought under control and original human nature regained. Only then, Strasberg believes, can the actor move on to the next stage, namely the exercises of sense memory. The gradual nature of the Method is one of the strengths of Strasberg’s approach, since the sequence of exercises and the transition from one stage to the next must follow a path which sets out clear and easily quantifiable tasks: the acquisition of bodily relaxation, sensory reconnection with one’s own person and the regaining of the organic component.

Sense memory

The second level of the actor’s preparation and training, in Strasberg’s vision, is the level of the senses memory exercises.

In a regular 4-hour course, like the ones Strasberg gave, the sense memory exercises were carried out in the same way as the relaxation exercises, also in the first 2 hours.

The aim of these exercises is to train the actor to recreate imaginary objects with the senses, based on his or her immediate experiences with real objects. The actor thus learns to become aware of and then to be able to relive, in the absence of the real object, simple experiences linked to the action of morning coffee, by sensory recomposing the coffee cup, the smell of coffee, the taste of a slice of lemon or the tactile reality of other objects.

Training the ability to re-create objects in their absence is, according to Strasberg, the first step towards what the actor’s art is all about: “When you use your imagination to unlock the doors of all the senses, you become real, alive and true. Only then will you have the confidence, the faith, and the imagination to create the vivid reality that the role demands.”^{^[28]} .

The approach to the world of re-creating reality based on the senses is a gradual one: to begin with, the actor works by re-creating the reality of objects that are in the immediate vicinity, objects that he can call on at any time to prove their reality, simple objects like a cup of coffee, or simple actions like looking in the mirror. Then it moves on to objects that existed in the actor’s personal past but are now no longer physically accessible to him. This new level develops and trains another essential component of the actor:

Concentration.

The power to relax and the ability to concentrate are the skeleton of the Method actor’s art. Examples of basic exercises that aim to acquire, train and take control of sense memory: morning drink, shave/shave or shower. These are examples of everyday actions or objects in which the focus is not on emotions or affect, and training the ability to relax in an attempt to re-create sensory realities is done in small steps and with allocated individual study.

Another level is represented by exercises like “Personal Object” or “Private Moment” in which the actor has to choose an object that is meaningful to him or her, or an action that he or she does in his or her private space.

As a technique for the next step, Strasberg suggests combining several exercises, noting that instead of it seeming harder for the actor to function by adding one, two, or even three exercises at once, experience has shown him the opposite, that it gets easier. This observation is demonstrated by the diagram that Kahneman attributes to monitoring outer space, the diagram is appended on page 208.

The “Private moment” exercise, which I referred to in the introduction to the chapter on Strasberg as having been harshly criticized by Sonia Moore, is an example of the stage preceding the stage of exercises devoted to emotional memory.

Emotional memory

Opening this topic, Strasberg feels compelled to clarify some points that he believes have been misunderstood and confusing: “It’s important to make a distinction: the exercise is not intended to capture emotions that happened during the relived experience. If you had a happy experience as a child and you go back to that experience now, you may cry. You are crying for something you have lost. How you are affected today by that memory becomes the emotional memory.” ^{^[29]}

Strasberg’s belief is that “emotional memory is the key that unlocks the secret of creativity that lies behind every artist”. ^[30] In order to capture the emotion, the actor must not think about it, but his job is to focus on re-creating the sensory reality of the original memory.

In the current context of acting pedagogy, one of the most controversial issues among theorists is off-stage and on-stage preparation. Strasberg believes that the actor should prepare before going on stage for the moments he will have to perform. The creator of the Method states that this training should be done without a partner, as an individual study. The first step in relation to the text, according to the Method, is to decipher the given circumstances: the situations the character is going through must be understood and deciphered, then, on the basis of exercises and personal analogies, the actor has to create the imaginary reality. Depending on the score he has to play, the actor chooses the exercises that are most useful to him. Strasberg uses Stanislavski’s “The Magical If” to create imagined realities, realities that may or may not be based on personal analogies.

In attempting to conclude this chapter, we note that Strasberg’s view of The Actor’s Art is pragmatic. The technique of the proposed trainings pursues clear goals, and the path followed has a gradual development from simple to complex. By training the ability to recall past personal experiences, the exercises are applicable and have a measurable result in the amount of emotion generated: „The real emotion continues after the scene is over. (…) That’s how you can tell if it’s real. It doesn’t stop immediately.”^{^[31]}

The applicability and pragmatism of the Method, together with its close connection with the actor’s personal experiences and emotional memory, are for Strasberg the truths from which he will not abandon his whole life. Stage reality has value, according to Strasberg, only when the actor is trained to access the innermost emotional truths, an exercise that Strasberg sees as a constant source of inspiration and creativity.

3.3 Anticipating, improvising, repeating

One of the problems Strasberg touches on in The Method is training the actor not to anticipate. Strasberg believes that anticipating events is often done unconsciously. Strasberg pays constant attention to this subject, and the training he proposes to achieve freshness and spontaneity is based on improvisation and “gibberish” exercises taken from his teachers Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, exercises that we will also find in Viola Spolin and in contemporary improvisational theater. A practical example of reconnecting with what’s happening in the present moment, Strasberg says, is the verbalized monologue. In rehearsals, whenever an actor encounters difficulties, he verbalizes what is happening to him, uncensored, unedited. This approach will also be found in the Stanislavskian system, mainly in the last stage, the stage of analysis through action. It should be noted that Strasberg is unlikely to have had real-time information about the stage of Stanislavski’s final research. The technique of the verbalized monologue can also be used in performance, according to Strasberg, with the difference that the unedited monologue becomes the actor’s inner monologue. The inner monologue is the actor’s permanent conscience, a conscience that notices and tries to remedy any problem that may arise for the actor. The natural questions that arise from this approach have to do with the definition of “problem”. If the actor knows that he has a problem, he has a pre-established image of what the ideal version of a problem-free scene is. Similar formulations are often used by Strasberg in his lectures, which reinforces the conclusion that, in his vision, the actor is constantly aware of what is happening to him and can judge in real time the success or failure of the scene he is just going through. This approach attests to the existence of a consciousness that monitors inner processes lucidly, even when the actor is emotionally involved in an exercise, the route set for the realization of the acting task having a clear ideal representation in the actor’s consciousness. This continuous duality of the two existences may seem paradoxical, but if through exercises the ability to function on multiple levels (sensory, emotional, textual, subtextual) is trained and perfected, then this phenomenon can be supported exactly in the paradigm of Diderot and his famous “Paradox of the actor”. The only way to reactivate emotion can be done, Strasberg argues, is through sense memory exercises that can stimulate emotional memory: “if the actor is blocked, use sense memory to stimulate the recall of emotional memory.” ^[32]

Another important tool in training the ability not to anticipate is, according to the Method, improvisation. Strasberg cites Stanislavski’s famous “études” and, building on them, believes that improvisation can be more than a tool used in rehearsal, he argues that it can be seen as a procedure that can also be used in performance. This doesn’t mean that we change the playwright’s lines, but what we think and feel outside the spoken word can be improvised each time to a greater or lesser extent.

3.4 Conclusions

The improvisation approach redefines the terms and gives an accurate measure of what Strasberg’s exercises are aimed at, in real time. The strategy of the exercises, of evoked memories or anchoring in the sense exercises can be modified, according to Strasberg, this strategy can be improvised according to the success or failure of a moment.

If we look at the term “improvisation” in this light, we can grasp, from the point of view of the attributes of creativity, the fulfilled requirements of the term seen both as a product and as a process, because if the world of the memory of emotions is different or if the imaginary reality created on the basis of exercises using the senses can be transformed, then the experience itself, the performance or the repetition, also become unique, spontaneous, vivid and unpredictable.

Let us now turn to Strasberg’s monitoring of the stage process: in his view, the actor’s consciousness is current moment by moment. Although it may seem a censoring factor of creative freedom, if we accept that this level of consciousness can function without interfering with the inner reality of the world of personal emotions re-created by the actor in the service of the character, then an equation is born in which 3 different entities coexist simultaneously:

actor, personal life of the actor and actor – character new life.

The actor is the consciousness that silently observes what happens in the scenic process. If something doesn’t work, if there is a problem, then he intervenes and gives themes to the Actor s personal life creator.

The Actor with his personal emotional background is the entity of the human material offered to this experiment, an experiment that uses the exercises of emotional memory or the senses to activate the imaginary reality, to transform it into a stage reality, a living, true and personal stage reality.

The third “I” becomes, in these circumstances, the Actor – Character. The Actor – Character emerges intuitively from the interaction of the first two planes, the dynamics of his appearance being different each time, even if, for the spectator who sees the same performance twice, the Actor -Character is the same each time. From the actor’s point of view, the experience of crossing the scenic path is unique each time, because the inner journey made is sensibly different each time.

The anchors that turn convention into reality help the actor to bring to life the Actor – Character of the series, an entity equivalent to the character himself for the audience.

Even if the algorithms seem complicated in describing, explaining and understanding the three entities coexisting simultaneously, if the protocols are followed and if the actor masters the Method, then the character’s path is traveled every time, and the actor’s personal emotions become, for the spectators, the emotions of the character, as Strasberg says.

In an attempt to get closer to the principles of the Strasberg Method we have identified the view that the actor’s creativity is closely related to the true, undisguised emotion that he creates with the help of sensory memory. According to Strasberg, the relationship between the scenic present and the actor’s personal past is the binomial that governs the whole Method, with the training of the ability to access emotional memory becoming a primary goal in the exercises inspired by Stanislavski.

Challenged by his contemporary pedagogues, idolized by some actors, and reviled by former colleagues such as Meisner and Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg remains one of the most relevant names in the recent history of acting pedagogy. As the initiator of The Goup Theatre movement and a follower of the Stanislavskian system, Strasberg succeeded in imposing in the United States of America a concern for the creative development of the actor’s art. Thanks to his approach, attributes such as imitative and interpretative, attributes that accompanied the reception of acting at the time, lost their relevance and the art of the actor came to be recognized as an art in its own right. The creations of many ‘Method actors’ have stood the test of time, and the uniqueness of the roles is the main advantage of Strasberg’s creative approach.

In the next chapter we will analyze Stella Adler’s implementation of Stanislavski’s System, considering it important for understanding the specific creativity of the contemporary actor to x-ray the context of the beginnings of contemporary acting pedagogy.

CHAPTER 4 – STELLA ADLER

4.1 The relationship with Strasberg

In this chapter we will deal with the pedagogical figure of Stella Adler, trying to find out what are the differences and commonalities between Lee Strasberg’s method and Stella Adler’s technique.

We can’t not broach the subject of the relationship that the two had, given that the beginnings of acting pedagogy on the American continent are inextricably linked to their names. They first met in 1927 at the American Laboratory Theatre, at that time the only place in the United States where the principles of the Stanislavskian system were taught by two former members of the Art Theater directed by Stanislavski (Richard Boleslawski and Maya Ouspenskaya). In 1931 Lee Strasberg with Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford found The Group Theatre, and Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner and Elia Kazan join. Lee Strasberg was in charge of training and teaching new actors according to the principles he took over from Boleslavski and Ouspenskaya, a role he took on with determination and from which he did not back down even in the most difficult moments of The Group Theatre.

In 1934 Stella Adler and Harold Clurman go to Paris and Stella studies for 5 weeks with Stanislavski. During these lessons she learns Stanislavski’s new theories on acting and, back in the United States, she splits with Group Theatre because of her differences with Strasberg over the System. These differences of opinion continued throughout their lives, the main theme being affective memory. While Strasberg makes full use of it as a main technique, Stella Adler, discussing this part of the System theory and Strasberg’s application of it with Stanislavski himself, abandons it and disavows this approach for the rest of her life.

In 1964, in an interview with Stella Adler, Meisner and Vera Soloviova for The Tulane Drama Review, an article titled The Reality of Doing^[33] , when asked about the concept of “emotional memory” and whether she uses emotional exercises as a teacher, Stella Adler replied, “As a teacher I discourage the student from seeking out any emotion, conscious or unconscious. (…) All emotion is contained in action. (…) to return to a feeling or emotion from your own experience I think is unhealthy. It will separate you from the play, from the action of the play, from the circumstances of the play and the playwright’s intentions.”³⁶

Investigating the major differences in the approach to Stanislavski’s system between the two camps – on the one side the supporters of Strasberg’s Method, on the other side the “anti-Methodists”, we find another answer by Stella Adler in the same interview, an answer that clearly positions her in the camp of the Method’s opponents:

“Question: An actress who plays Salome in Wilde’s play has to look into a pit, see the head of John the Baptist there, and scream. In order to scream as convincingly as possible she pretends it is her mother’s head. Do you agree with this actress’ methodology?(…)

-Adler: I would not encourage such an approach. It seems to me to be a lack of artistic control and I would not support such a methodology.” ^{^[34]}

Stella Adler’s answers are an accurate measure of the differences between her method and Lee Strasberg’s method, and the differences of opinion have developed into disagreements over the years, with conservative Stanislavski supporters not infrequently taking the view that Lee Strasberg, by emphasizing the theory of affective memory, has damaged Stanislavski’s system.

Strasberg’s line is already famous and dates back to the Group Theatre period when he replied to Stella, just back from Paris, that he was not teaching Stanislavski’s System, but the Strasberg Method.

In her book “STELLA! Mother of Modern Acting“, Sheana Ochoa quotes in the prologue Peter Hay who, in Broadway Anecdotes”, describes what Stella Adler said to the students in 1982, the day Lee Strasberg died. Elia Kazan also mentions the story in his book Elia Kazan: A Life.

“When she entered the classroom, the students realized something had happened. Stella used to slip quickly into class expecting applause, but not that day. Solemnly, Stella asked the class to hold a moment of silence: ‘A man of the theater has died,’ she said as if on ceremony. Once the students respectfully resumed their seats with equal piety, Stella remarked: It will be 100 years from now before the harm this man did to the art of acting can be righted.” ^{^[35]}

In the next chapter we will analyze the Adler Technique trying not to judge principles and theories comparatively. We will apply the same grid used for the Strasberg Method, trying to discover techniques or exercises that can develop the specific creativity of the Actor’s Art.

In an October 1979 New York Times article written by Suzanne O’ Malley, the two characterize each other in not very friendly words. Here is how the New York Times article opens, an article entitled “Can The Method Survive The Madness?” (“Can The Method Survive The Madness?”)

“-Lee Strasber? Stella Adler asked. I think what he’s doing is sick. Too many of his students have come to me ready to be hospitalized.“

-Stella Adler?” Lee Strasberg asked. What about her? There can be no comparison between the people who came out of my school and the people who came out of hers.” ^[36]

Essentially, the differences between the two points of view refer us to the eternal questions of the actor’s intimate process of truth of play, of lucidity, of true emotion versus control. Denis Diderot’s eternal Paradox about the actor returns obsessively in the modern and contemporary history of the actor’s art, and the Strasberg-Adler antagonism gives us today the opportunity to analyze the two approaches trying to frame them within the trends and needs of the third millennium and the acting of 2019. From Stella Adler’s point of view, Strasberg’s approach is harshly characterized: what he does is sick. Assuming the role using the actor’s personal affective memory is for her evidence of danger bordering on the pathological. The counter-argument offered by Strasberg refers to the performances that the two schools have achieved, Strasberg considering that from this point of view, the results are favorable to him and to the Method.

As an actor, an acting student, an uninitiated spectator or a “professional spectator”, I have experienced contradictory feelings which, in certain situations, have in turn proved each of the two teachers mentioned to be right. I have witnessed performances in which an actor wept as he relived painful events in his own life, and these deeply personal events became striking for me as a spectator, and I have also witnessed moments in which emotion was sought for the sake of acting vanity, and this aroused my disinterest. From my personal experience as an actor I can reinforce that accessing affective memory can block the theatricality of the stage process or unblock it. I believe that either approach is justified if it bears fruit in terms of the actor’s creativity, the only thing that can get in the way of applying the Strasberg Method or the Adler Technique is the fixism with which these tools are used. As a student-actor, my existence after the first semester of my first year was one marked by misunderstandings, blocks, and fears. However, I had two board-appreciated exams, both in my second year. Both exams were based on personal experiences and analogies: in one of the psychological realism pieces in the second year I was talking to the author’s lines about a love unknown to anyone, and in another I was thinking while in the exam that I totally disagreed with the way I had worked that piece with one of my teachers. Both pieces resonated positively with both the older fellow students who attended the exam and the committee members. The two approaches, the one in which I talked strictly about myself, relating my experience of unrequited love to the text proposed by the author, and the other in which I unconsciously questioned myself about what I had just done on stage, had in common the unwritten, unedited, unpredictable personal truth. I had not set out to have what had just happened to me happen to me, I was in a swirl of not-knowing and at the same time I knew and felt perfectly well what was really important in those moments. The raw and unexpected truth to which I was compelled to become a participant transcended and liberated theatrical convention. These two events have made me continually search for bodily relaxation and that taste when things happen and you just react, and the moments that I remember over the years, whether part of improvisational theater or theater with a pre-written text, are based on unrecognized events with a strong personal and emotional impact. They are both verb and adverb, they are both action and emotion. This is why I believe it is important to go beyond the historical context of the pedagogical disputes between Strasberg and Adler, and for this, it is important to contextualize and understand the bigger picture of the intersection of the lives and relationship of the two.

4.2 The life and work of Stella Adler

As I mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, Stella Adler’s name cannot be separated from Lee Strasberg’s, at least in the attempt to define her point of view on the Actor’s Art. Also, Stella Adler’s whole existence cannot be separated from theater: born into a family of actors, raised and spending her childhood in her father’s theater, Stella Adler has been on stage since the age of 2. Born Ester, as the last of the four Adler sisters, at 85 East Tenth Street in 1901 on February 10, Stella, not Ester, was inextricably linked with Stanislavski’s name. Stella Adler’s entire teaching career was an attempt to carry on the legacy of Stanislavski. In her book STELLA! The Mother of Modern Acting, Sheena Ochoa writes that in her last lesson with Stanislavski, Stella vowed to him that she would bring his teachings back to the United States and correct the misinterpretations of the master’s System. This was in 1934. Stella was 33 years old at the time, and she couldn’t wait to return to The Group Theatre with the clear evidence of Stanislavski’s System, evidence that affective memory was merely a technique within the System, it was just a tool, like many other methodologies and techniques. Having just returned to America, Stella Adler convened a meeting in which she explained to everyone, with the help of a diagram of Stanislavski’s system, the latest part of his discoveries. Coming with the freshest information about the System from its creator herself, Stella put Stanislavski’s theory that the method of physical action entails emotion but does not establish emotion as the main goal, in clear terms to her fellow actors and to Lee Strasberg. Emotion arises through action, Stella concludes, there is no need for the actor’s personal affective memory. (we append to the end of this paper, on page 207, the diagram of Stanislavski’s System, as copied at the time by Robert Lewis.) The next day, Strasberg also convenes a meeting, at which he informs the Group that the method by which they have worked and will continue to work is not the Stanislavski System, but the Strasberg Method. Stella’s separation from The Group Theatre will happen shortly after this event, and the two – Strasberg and Adler – will never reconcile their divergent positions.

Going back to the beginnings of the context that would bring them together in their youth, it is interesting to note that the two met in Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya’s studio as early as 1925. In her book STELLA! The Mother of Modern Acting, Sheana Ochoa describes the day that would change Stella Adler’s life as a fall day in 1925, a day when 25-year-old Stella Adler visited the New York Public Library in search of books on acting techniques. Among other titles, she finds the title of Stanislavski’s My Life in Art, a book that had been translated into English only a year earlier. A young man there noticed the book Stella had asked for and asked her if she had seen the performance of Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy’s play “The Cloak of the Sea Woman”. Stella said no, and the young man led her to a downtown apartment where a theater was operating. This was her first encounter with the American Theater Laboratory, the place where Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman were also students in the only directing class, with Richard Boleslavski as their teacher. It was that evening that Stella Adler saw for the first time the actress who would become her acting teacher with Boleslavski at the American Lab, Maria Ouspenskaya. Stella Adler’s nephew, Tom Oppenheim, summarizes the emergence and development of the Adler Technique by situating her experiences in Jewish theatre, The Group Theatre, and meeting Stanislavski in Paris as points of reference: “From these two experiences, together with her study with Stanislavski, Stella Adler developed a technique that upholds the tradition that evolution as an actor is synonymous with the evolution of the human being.”^{^[37]}

In our research we will analyze in more detail Stella Adler’s technique, the theories, principles and approaches of the proposed Actor’s Art, trying to differentiate them from Strasberg’s or Stanislavski’s theories. If as far as the Strasberg Method is concerned the differences can be clearly made, as far as the Stanislavskian System is concerned the distinction requires a more thorough degree of research, because its technique is an assumed extension of Stanislavski’s principles, a translation into its own terms of his work and an emphasis on its applicability to the everyday life of every actor.

4.3 Adler Technique

In the previous chapters, in an attempt to penetrate and understand Stella Adler’s theories on Actor’s Art, we have framed and defined the context in which Actor’s Art pedagogies were born on the American continent.

There was an initial period when the only information about Stanislavski’s system was taught by former disciples Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya. A second period of research takes place during the years of existence of The Group Theatre, a period in which, through experiments and research led by Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, what will become the Strasberg Method crystallizes. The third stage corresponds to the years after the break-up of the group, the period when Stella Adler broke away from Strasberg: he continued to walk the path of emotional memory exercises, while Stella paved the way for physical action and the principles of creative imagination.

In this chapter we will analyze in more detail the principle of physical action as it is brought by Adler in the United States and we will try to draw from her philosophy possible exercises or principles that can find their applicability in the training of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art.

Synthesizing the practical aspects of Adler Technique, we can notice the presence of some recommendations that come to define and particularize Stella’s own way of seeing the specific training of acting: understanding the given circumstances of the play, text analysis, stage action, trust in the power of imagination and openness to the outside world. Beyond the differences between her technique and Strasberg’s method, we can also find an important similarity: the cultivation, training and pursuit of stage truth.

The legacy of Stanislavski’s system lies in the veracity of acting. This attribute is the common denominator of all the American theories derived from the System, be it Strasberg, Adler or Meisner, the pioneers of American actor pedagogy. The personal development that Stella Adler demands must be mediated by study. Curiosity, imagination, documentation, the ability to observe a particular event in everyday life, all these key words found in Stella Adler’s lectures are attributes and conditions necessary for creativity seen as a process, personality and product, in our opinion.

One of the new additions to Stanislavski’s system made by Stella Adler following her 5-week study with Stanislavski is the approach and continuation of the notion of creative imagination. Stanislavski, in his last book, Creating A Role, emphasizes the power of imagination and advocates its training. This aspect becomes one of the basic pillars of Stella Adler’s technique, because, according to her, the actor must see reality through the eyes of imagination. In his lessons he often suggests students exercise their imagination in art galleries or reading poetry. Being able to see reality through someone else’s eyes is one way to train the creative imagination. For Stella three important areas can personally develop the actor: the study of nature, art and history.

We believe that a few clarifications are needed: when it refers to nature it also refers to the study of human nature, when it refers to art it is not limited to theatrical art, and when it urges the study of history it is not limited to the historical facts, but it aims especially to capture the way in which the history of humanity manifests itself in the present we live today. Stella sees imagination as a specific research tool for the actor. The information in the text has to be re-created by the actor with the power of imagination, the deciphering of the text can only be done if for each word the actor generates personal images, images generated by his real past or only by impressions created in the first place by imaginative contact with the given circumstances. The actor’s personal development is mediated by the information in the text. Personal analogies are never enough, Adler believes, because the character acts on the actor’s dynamics, transforming his or her personality through the research work the actor does to create the role. A theory contrary to the Strasberg Method is the idea that you can discover yourself starting from the character, looking for the truth of the dramatic situation in the first place, not the personal truth broken from the playwright’s context. Adler does not deny emotional memory, the method of looking for personal analogies with the situations the character is going through is also used by her, but the difference with Strasberg is that the Adler Technique is not only this approach. Even if scenic truth remains a prerequisite, this truth must not, in her opinion, be endorsed by the actor’s directly personal experience. The role must be approached without the main aim being to achieve emotion at all costs, and this, in my opinion, is the difference between the two approaches: if for Strasberg we can say that acting is about feeling, then for Adler acting is synonymous with action.

To exemplify and more clearly define this imaginative and action-based approach, we will describe one of the simple exercises that differentiate her technique from Strasberg’s method.

The task in this exercise is for the student to observe a flower, a leaf or a rock, an object in nature and to study the object in detail. The ultimate goal is that, by describing the observed object to the audience, they will be able to see as much of what the student has seen as possible. The actor’s goal is to communicate a personalized message to others.

Suppose the exercise had been invented by Strasberg. Following the protocols of his method, the student’s first task would have been to observe the object through the five senses: he would smell the flower, touch it, look at it, then try to re-create the object in its absence. All this work would in no way involve the participation of anyone else, only the actor. A second step would have been to actualize an important memory of a flower, and this unblocked memory could have become material to work with, so that it could trigger genuine emotion in the actor. So the major difference between the two approaches is that for Strasberg acting is about emotion, while for Stella it is about action and imagination.

One of the stated aims of Stella Adler’s technique is to train the imagination. In one of the films in which she demonstrates what it means to actively read Ibsen’s “Nora”, Adler unpacks the text according to the technique described by Stanislavski in Creating A Role. An important segment in Stella Adler’s pedagogy deals with the realization that acting is more than just lines. In terms of her technique, the text is the work of the author, and this product should not be confused with the creation of the actor.

Another of Stella Adler’s exercises is an exercise in which student actors have to convey in their own words to their peers the ideas of a writer’s essay, a literary essay written on general themes. Starting from this essay, the actor has to bring those words to life.

4.4 Conclusions

In my opinion, Stella Adler and her technique are both a conscious extension of Stanislavski’s system, an unconscious continuation of the Adler family’s acting tradition and a denial of the Strasberg Method.

As she herself admitted in a videotaped interview, referring to the experience of The Group Theatre, she could never be part of a group, probably this inability was also at the root of all the divergences and conflicts she had over time. The question that arises from the analysis of Stella Adler’s pedagogical work is whether the Technique is its own creation or just an extension of Stanislavski’s System. This question entitles us to extend our judgment to other American pedagogues who have tried to come out from under the Stanislavskian umbrella. Naturally, the influence of the great Russian pedagogue has been overwhelming for the whole world of Actor’s Art pedagogy, and we consider it absolutely necessary to analyze the weight that his principles have had in the articulation of other pedagogical systems, the degree of novelty brought by each of the pedagogues deserving a detailed study.

CHAPTER 5 – SANFORD MEISNER

5.1 Relationship with Adler and Strasberg

Meisner’s approach, together with Stella Adler’s and Strasberg’s, represents for the present analysis an applied narrowing of the perimeter of the search for the means of developing and training creativity specific to the Actor’s Art.

Contemporaneous with the other two pedagogues mentioned above, Sanford Meisner was an important member of The Group Theatre, being part of the first wave of 28 actors admitted by Strasberg and Clurman. Framing the Meisner Technique in the historical and pedagogical context of The Group Theatre phenomenon provides an overview through which both the Strasberg Method and the Adler Technique are brought into relief by comparison. As in the previous chapters, it proves necessary to evoke Meisner’s creative personality while keeping to the rule of approaching the pedagogical work, the proposed technique, and the approach to the creative personality. Recall that one of the definitions of creativity refers to three attributes: the creative personality, the process and the product. For a clearer understanding of the product of pedagogical creativity, we cannot separate Meisner’s technique from the path of the creative personality, since the relationships he had within the triangle formed with Stella Adler and Strasberg influenced his principles and theories. Only four years younger than Strasberg and Adler, Meisner was with Stella Adler and against Strasberg all his life. His pedagogical existence is in no doubt due to Stanislavski and his meeting with Stella Adler.

Meisner describes the relationship he had with the two in one of the classes he taught each year with professional actors at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre: “I love Stella. I really do. She’s my best friend. She is! I’ve learned so much from her.”^{^[38]} In the same chapter, asked by one of the actors participating in the workshop what Strasberg was like as an actor, Meisner responds and catalogs his relationship with Strasberg:

“He was a very bad actor. (…) He was a librarian is what he was. I don’t want to go into this, but on the back of the brochure that we at the Neighborhood Playhouse send out to prospective students is a list of our graduates. If you want to be amused, look at that list and then look how many of the people on there were then invited to him at the Studio so he could say, “He was my student.”” ⁴²

Going beyond the personal context of the relationships of the three and analyzing strictly the product of their pedagogical creation, we can observe, broadly speaking, the three positions: Lee Strasberg develops the Method, an extension of the first part of the Stanislavskian system, Stella Adler imposes and brings to America the last part of the Stanislavskian system, and Meisner, contradicting Strasberg and taking from Adler the theories brought by her, creates the Meisner Technique, a pedagogical technique in which applicability, originality and pragmatism impose new and personal directions in the American Actor’s Art.

5.2 Meisner technique

The main thread of the scaffolding of the technique Meisner created lies in the actual stage action: “The foundation of acting is the reality of doing.”^{^[39]} Progressively, from very simple acting themes and goals such as observing the partner, repeating sentences spoken by the partner, to working with the text, Meisner is constantly trying to realize the need to act on the partner with truth and without the actor assuming anything other than what is actually happening in front of him, here and now. Meisner’s technique aims to detect the realization of the stage reality and to gain the creative functioning of the actor freed from the grip of acting prejudices. Meisner’s vision is centered on freeing the actor from the traps of the theatrical cliché, his belief being that the character is only the result of stage actions taken by the actor himself, real, credible, plausible and necessary, actions dependent on the circumstances given by the playwright. The training Meisner proposes aims to create the reflex to act on impulses dictated by instinct. The first stage of Meisner’s technique proposes not to alter the reality of the profane present through any theatrical aesthetics.

In the two-year Meisner courses, the first year is dedicated to the phrase I in the given situation, the character being in this period only a literary fiction, a score that must be deciphered and then brought to life by the actor by truthfully traversing the situations given by the playwright. At this first level of the actor’s development, Meisner’s technique has as its declared aim to get rid of theatrical prejudices and to reach the degree of truth necessary to help the student-actor to see the reality in front of him with the same eyes with which he observes another colleague when he is working. I encountered this concern as a student of acting under Professor Ion Cojar, who considered in our acting courses that the greatest enemy of the actor’s art was theatrical prejudice. The exercises conducted by him were also based on the actual observation of an object or on necessary, non-theatrical and real physical actions.

“To observe” is an important verb in Meisner’s philosophy. This principle underlies the repetition exercise, an exercise designed to accustom the actor to the undivided, undifferentiated attention of the partner. The stated aim of this exercise can be considered equivalent to the aim of Viola Spolin’s pedagogical system, namely to get out of your mind. As in the case of Violei Spolin, the methodology aimed at achieving this goal makes use of the game principle, with the difference that Violei Spolin’s dictionary is centered on the concept of game, while Meisner uses this concept in an adjacent way, the reality of doing occupying, as mentioned earlier, the central role in Meisner’s Technique. There is also an important area where the two pedagogical systems meet, and this area delimits a common perimeter in which desires such as stage truth, spontaneity, unpredictability or personal discovery are the foundations of the Actor’s Art in both approaches.

In describing the rehearsal exercise we can grasp some important principles of the technique proposed by Meisner. The text is improvised, line after line, based on the partner’s observation. Nothing is fixed a priori, each exercise is unique and unrepeatable. The initial step of the exercise is to observe something in the partner in front of you, something that is tangible, verifiable and true. “Replication”, i.e. verbalizing your partner’s observation, occurs only when necessary, as a reaction to the observed reality. Two important principles of Meisner’s work can be deduced from this very beginning: that of doing nothing until the real need to act arises, and the principle that Actor’s Art is to react. After the first actor has observed a detail in the other actor and verbalized it, the second actor has to listen and repeat exactly what he has heard. The aim is to be able to respond without thinking too much, without editing their answers. This first stage of the exercise helps the actors, by simply repeating a sentence, to communicate with each other beyond any theatrical expectation proposed before the act of communication. The text can only be modified if a new and true impulse appears in the partner, an impulse that can change the algorithm of repetition, correcting or spontaneously and unpredictably developing a new act of communication. Thus two different realities are born, each reality constituting a personal, spontaneous and improvised point of view. About the repetition exercise Meisner says: “This is a ping-pong game. It is the basis of what will eventually become an emotional dialog.” ^[40]

I opened the parallel between Viola Spolin and Meisner by announcing common pedagogical goals for both. In support of this assertion I will quote from Meisner, a quotation that seems a paraphrase of Viola Spolin’s famous phrase get out of your head:

“Do not think. Just take what is there. Listen. I suggest you go with the repetition game just working with each other and the more without rational control you work, the better. The exercise is just about repeating what you hear, don’t make anything up, rather say: got stuck, let’s stop. Then start again from another angle. Thinking has no place in this process.”^{^[41]}

The aim of the exercise is to release spontaneously, unpredictably, the actor’s unedited truth, a truth born on the basis of a simple game, whose rules are mutually accepted by the two players, and the degree of success or failure of the actions is quantifiable. In this exercise we find some general principles of the Meisner Technique. The central pillar of his philosophy is built around the notion of unsesteticized, unsconceived, unchallenged scenic truth.

What makes Meisner new in the context of actor theories is the pragmatism of his approach. Even if Strasberg, Adler, Boleslavski or Michael Chekhov frequently use the term “truth” borrowing this concept from the Stanislavski System, the stage truth of each pedagogue is understood and promoted differently. This personal note is easy to exemplify in Meisner’s case by looking comparatively at his notion of stage truth in relation to Strasberg’s stage truth.

While Strasberg’s scenic truth is subject to subjectivism, given that the events that occur due to the engagement of affective memory are verified and verifiable only by the subject who goes through the experience(the actor), in Meisner’s case scenic truth can be verified, validated or invalidated also by the observer. At the same time, the actor, or player if we use Viola Spolin’s term, the player himself verifies in real time the degree of success of the exercise, adapting himself moment by moment to the actions of the other player.

This measurable, realizable scenic truth materializes in the actions taken and can be recognized and deciphered through physical behavior. If in Strasberg’s case, the truth of the emotions experienced could be judged predominantly by the actor, this truth being tributary to subjectivity, in Meisner’s case, scenic truth materializes in action directed towards the partner in cognitive-behavioral terms. Meisner’s scenic truth negates any preconceptions related to the text, offering the actor the possibility of expressing himself personally, vividly, unpredictably and, most importantly, second by second, in close connection with the concrete actions of his partner.

The first year of Meisner’s syllabus deals only with unrepeatable, unique exercises, the purpose of which is to establish a fair relation to what prejudice about the actor’s art can mean.

Having come to this point, it is necessary to understand the birth of theories of acting in the whole historical, methodological and cultural context. Each pedagogical current can thus be defined and understood by seeking to understand the context in which it emerged. The Meisner Technique can thus be seen as a response to the Strasberg Method, just as Strasberg’s method arose as a reaction to the Stanislavski System. Stanislavski’s system also arose as a reaction to an acting reality in which the actor represented emotions, mimed actions and emphatically sought ways of uttering the dramatic text.

Looking at the overall map of the emergence of acting pedagogy on the American continent, we can frame and understand Meisner’s technique as an adaptation of Stanislavski’s to the needs and identity of the American actor.

Focusing the comparative analysis of methods and techniques on the teacher-student relationship delimits and defines the identity of each teacher. Thus, Strasberg is situated as a teacher in the position of the all-knowing tutor, while Meisner’s positioning is comparable to that of Stela Adler, the relationship with the student being that of a coach-sports.

Returning to the Meisner Technique and analyzing two of its principles, we can see similarities with the rules of improvisational theater in the approach to the scenic relationship.

Meisner says: “What you do is not up to you, it’s up to your partner”.^{^[42]}

It is a phrase also found in the positioning of Violei Spolin, a phrase that I personally encountered in the classroom formulations of Professor Ion Cojar, who used to say: Your truth is in your stage partener.

The fixation of attention on the other is defining for the essential differences in Strasberg’s approach versus Stella Adler, Viola Spolin or Meisner. Strasberg’s case, in this context, is unique in that he does not devote fundamental principles to attention to the partner, the priority for the Method being the actor’s attention to the self.

Attention and the attention paid to attention within the pedagogical systems of Actor’s Art is worth lingering over, since this concern seems to be common to all ideological currents. Attention and practicing it seem to be the only common points between Strasberg’s method and the techniques of Meisner or Adler. For Viola Spollin, too, attention plays a very important role, and in the description of each exercise, the focus of concentration plays the main role.

As an improviser, I believe that training attention and keeping it alive are coordinates that help the actor gain spontaneity, unpredictability and creative freedom. One of the principles of improvisational theater is make your partner look good, a phrase often used in improvisation, and Meisner, by clarifying the relationship with the partner, brings the term into specifics, exemplifying both the relationship with the partner and the notion of justification of the text in a simple way: He asks one of the actors to hold up the one-liners, Mr. Meisner, and turn around. Without being seen, Meisner kicks him in the back, and what a few moments before was just a line, comes to life, became o exclamation, a verbal reaction. The actor, without thinking, uses the line to react to the action of his partner, in this case Professor Meisner himself.

This example demonstrates what it means to need to say the lines and justify them. My actions are determined, caused, born in immediate response to my partner’s actions. Acting in Meisner’s conception is equivalent to reacting.

Another process used in Meisner’s technique is the training of moment-by-moment attention, attention born of the belief that the partner’s actions can’t be anticipated. Not anticipating is one of the behavioral reflexes that the actor needs to acquire and train constantly, according to Meisner. He makes use of the creation of real points of concentration, points of concentration that keep his attention alert and make him open to everything that might arise in the relationship with his partner. Repeating what the partner says is a way of capturing the attention for the partner and at the same time it is a numbing of the censor of the rational. The creation of several points of attention gives the student the possibility to be fully engaged in the scenic existence, the aim being to forget about being an actor.

The path proposed by Meisner can be synthesized and staged as a progressive path that begins with the liberation from theatrical prejudices and rests on achieving the authentic organicity of real behavior in imaginary circumstances. The immediate next-step method makes Meisner’s technique rely on receiving, second by second, the stimuli coming from the outside towards the actor, the continuous flow of decoding actions directed at him, giving the actor the opportunity to keep his attention alert at every moment. According to Meisner’s theory, by training the partner’s capacity for real observation and using exercises such as the rehearsal exercise, the actor can gain the necessary training to transform convention into stage reality, aided by the emotional component, and in a final stage becomes able to work with the playwright’s material. Justification of the text is the first stage of real and undisguised action under the playwright’s imaginary circumstances.

The transition from exercise to the written scene is made consciously and only when the student is ready. All the skills gained during the exercises must be kept and kept as fresh and fresh even when the text is no longer personal, born as a result of the immediate necessity of improvised exercises. According to Meisner, stage improvisation is the actor’s daily training, necessary both to keep in shape and to explore the dramatic material. Meisner believes that the literary value of improvised texts is irrelevant, and yet he gives primacy to the everyday text born out of the actor’s real need to act. The transition from verbal improvisation to text is described by Meisner as a natural, effortless process, once the steps have been followed. Meisner also gives guidance on learning the text, recommending learning the lines neutrally, without any preconceptions about how they should be interpreted or performed.

In the second year of study, Meisner therefore brings the previously written texts into the program, but the approach and lexicon remain the same as in the first year: the student moves methodically through familiar concepts, easily quantifiable acting tasks, and relationships with self and partner based on observation, attention, and responsiveness. The path remains one focused on next-step technique and development from simple to complex. This new stage of study introduces a new term into the actor’s technical dictionary: preparation or preparation.

In Meisner’s view, the purpose of preparation is to awaken the actor’s imaginary circumstances. In this new approach, the imaginary circumstances dictate the rules of the play. In order to fulfill them, to bring them to life, the actor is accustomed to working in private, outside the acting class. The process of bringing given circumstances to life is an imaginative one, and the techniques used may be associative, deductive or intuitive. The ultimate aim of this preparation is not, as in Strasberg’s method, to elicit emotion, which is the fundamental difference between the two approaches. And yet, about emotion Meisner says in 1980, in the videotaped Master Class: “Acting is an emotional profession. You ask questions not to find the logical answer, but the emotional answer.” ^{^[43]}

The emotional preparation can be given as homework, but once the scene is rehearsed with the partner, the preparation is only the starting point of the experimentation with the partner, the scene developing second by second only according to the reality of the actions of the other actor and without anticipating or predicting anything in advance of what the experienced scene will become. In the same Master Class, a few minutes later, Meisner summarizes his theory of acting in the following sentences, “The foundation on which a scene is built is the nip and the response to it, the ‘auch’. This is a principle which will operate your whole career. It’s not the word, it’s the pinch, it’s the behavior that gives birth to speech.” ^{^[44]}

About emotional training, in the same videotaped Master Class, Meisner says it must be personal and secret. The only thing that matters in this emotional training is whether it works or not. The paradox that Meisner talks about on this topic is that emotional preparation done well gives the opportunity for unanticipated, unanticipated and unimagined events to occur. So the better we prepare ourselves emotionally to begin the scene, the greater the chance we give ourselves of not knowing what will happen to us and of creating something new and unexpected. Meisner uses synonyms for emotional preparation such as daydreaming, imaginative thinking, or the fantasy you need to create the emotional reality you need to get started.

The technique of deciphering the given circumstances, both from a factual point of view, of the events through which the character passes, and from an emotional point of view, is also personal, but Meisner suggests some means by which to decipher the circumstances and approach the situations proposed by the text: starting from Stanislavski’s “The Magic What If”, Meisner imposes the term “As If“. This technique of text transformation uses personal analogy as a methodology of research and investigation of the dramatic text. With the help of As If, the actor can understand the role by trying to find similarities between the character and himself, translating the actions of the literary character into personal terms. Understanding the behavioral actions and the emotional reality that the character is going through can be done in solitude, at home, but proving the soundness and functioning of these realities is up to working with the partner. As in the case of Stella Adler, for Meisner imagination also plays an important role in the personal activation of the circumstances given by the writing.

A final practical aspect related to the Meisner Technique concerns the relationship Meisner sees between the literary text and the actor’s spoken text on stage, one of his beliefs being that the text should not have any punctuation marks. Meisner believes that punctuation marks choke the actor’s stage existence, suggesting that the text should be learned without any punctuation marks, and that the intentions born of the need to act should, in real time, place punctuation marks where they are needed. With regard to the dramatic text, Meisner uses in his exercises the paraphrasing of the literary text by the actor, the aim being that the actor uses, for a first level, his own linguistic universe in an attempt to act verbally according to the scenic situations proposed by the playwright. As the situation will become more and more assumed, the actor will need more and more the specific text, the words written by the playwright becoming organically necessary.

CHAPTER 6 – MARIA KNEBEL

6.1 Maria Knebel and Action Analysis – introduction

In the next chapter we will try to discover techniques and methodologies of creativity training specific to the Actor’s Art through the prism of the last part of Stanislavski’s theories, the period corresponding chronologically to the last years of his life. In terms of pedagogical conceptions, this part of his work is the missing link for the disciples who exported the System to the American continent, Stella Adler’s month-long work with Stanislavski in Paris being the only connection with the last stage of his research.

The way in which the System has spread and been assimilated in the United States has been the subject of the previous chapters, chapters devoted to Strasberg, Adler and Meisner. We consider it important to delimit the two distinct realities of the System, the American reality, mediated by Adler, Michael Chekhov, Richard Boleslawski or Maria Ouspenskaya, and the reality of the last years spent in Moscow by Stanislavski with the young actors and directors with whom he surrounded himself, as well as the immediate following period necessary to decant and formulate the information for those who witnessed that last stage. We have attributed the main source of technical information to Maria Knebel, one of Stanislavski’s disciples who was present with him during all the important stages of the System’s development.

Together with Maria Knebel, we have also relied on the books of Vasily Toporkov, Gorkyakov, and on the personal account of the main character of “My Life in Art”, Stanislavski himself. Even if this work corresponds to the first part of Stanislavsky’s life, the analysis of the facts described here can be beneficial for understanding the process of further development of the author’s pedagogical researches. Along with Knebel, Toporkov and Gorceakov witnessed this last period of research, testing and refining the theories of action analysis, but the one who dedicated herself to the step-by-step description of action analysis is Maria Knebel. Action analysis represents the latest version of the System and can provide us with answers and an overview of how the System was received, understood and then further taught in Russia.

In the research undertaken in parallel between the narrative thread of the context of these last years of Stanislavski’s life and the creative period corresponding to the analysis through action, we were attracted by the fragments describing the relationships he had with the playwrights of his time. We will thus refer to the chapters dedicated by Stanislavsky to Chekhov in his autobiography “My Life in Art” and pay attention to the relationship he had in the creative process with the dramatic work.

My Life in Art provides some of the answers to questions about how the System penetrated America, given that the first edition of the book was in English.

The narrative dimension of the need for the emergence of the System, its emergence as well as its conceptual development up to the last phase influence each other, and the analysis of the interpretations that have emerged overseas can be clearer once we also decipher the legacy left in our own country through the Action Analysis Method. Although it was published in English early in 1924 in the United States, My Life in Art complements, from a certain point of view, both the explanations of the technique of action analysis presented by Maria Knebel later, and the wealth of material written by Stanislavski to which Strasberg, Clurman or Meisner had direct access. The early theatrical behaviour of the Group Theatre movement takes on a new significance, recognizing, in the history of this movement, algorithms for organizing summer rehearsals inspired by the descriptions in “My Life in Art”. The very choice of the name “The Group Theatre” seems to be an unconscious tribute to the Stanislavski System, as the value of the Art Theater ensemble was the first thing noticed by future American pedagogues on the tour of Stanislavski’s collective.

Before we open the chapter reserved for the analysis through action, we return to the importance that Stanislavski’s creative and collaborative relationship with the leading representatives of the dramatic literature of the time, names that have entered universal literature such as Chekhov, Gorky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov or Maeterlink, had in the development of the pedagogy of the Actor’s Art. The question naturally arises: to what extent could Stanislavski have been as prolific if life had not intersected him with these playwrights? The temporal arc is opened by these meetings in the first period of his life, and the conclusions are drawn and crystallize only in the last part, after 1930, when the analysis through action becomes a subject taught to Maria Knebel, Gorkyakov or Toporkov. Although he did not consciously address in his pedagogy the art of dramatic writing as a tool for training improvisation for the actor, we believe that in the last stage of research Stanislavski opened the way dedicated to this level, and we will devote due attention to this aspect in the chapter dedicated to the techniques of training stage improvisation and the advantages of developing fluency and verbal imagination, techniques found in the second part of this research in the chapter entitled “The Torrance Experiment”.

In order to provide a more detailed picture of how Maria Knebel managed to capture and convey in her books the last link of the Stanislavskian system, we consider it necessary to find out the main coordinates of the life of the pedagogue who structured analysis through action.

6.2 Maria Knebel – life and work

Maria Knebel was born in the house where her father, a famous publisher who arrived in Russia in the 1860s, had his publishing house and bookstore. Growing up among books, having the opportunity to meet in her parents’ home all that was at that time the artistic and intellectual elite, Maria Knebel managed to complete two publishing projects of great importance for the pedagogy of the Actor’s Art: the publication of the works of Mikhail Chekhov, her first teacher, a Mikhail Chekhov who became Michael Chekhov in the United States, and the recording, adaptation and publication of the Analysis Through Action by her second mentor, Stanislavski. The meeting with Mikhail Chekhov was defining for what Maria Knebel would become years later. When she became his disciple, the high school student at the time was thinking of studying mathematics, but Chekhov’s Studio and the great actor’s personality steered her towards the world of theater. That was in 1918, and in 1921 she was admitted to the Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre, and in 1924 she joined the troupe of the Moscow Art Theatre, her first role in the troupe being that of Dr. Stockman’s daughter, a role played by Stanislavski himself in the play An Enemy of the People. Her acting talent made Meyerhold come backstage after an Art Theater performance and ask Maria Knebel to join his company. He tried to convince her by telling her that she would have no future at the Art Theater. Maria refuses and remains faithful to Stanislavski, whom she will never leave until the end.

In 1936, she was invited by Stanislavski to be his assistant and to learn the last part of the method he had discovered, analysis by action. Maria’s task was to capture as faithfully as possible the theoretical and practical aspects of this method, which could then be systematized and structured for future generations. After 1938 he continued acting until 1949, and from 1950 he worked at the Central Children’s Theater, where he became director in 1955. Since 1960 she will teach at the Russian Academy of Theatrical Arts, where she taught many famous directors such as Anatoli Vassiliev, Adolph Saphiro and Leonid Kheifetz. The work of researching and testing the method of analysis through action lasted for years, and the Central Theatre for Children offered him the peace of mind and the freedom necessary to teach young actors, directors or playwrights, the legacy left by Stanislavski, a legacy finalized, finished and developed by Maria Knebel.

The care with which he has systematized and structured the notions and principles of the new technique transforms the two books into veritable tools that find their applicability for both directors and actors. Anatoli Vassiliev’s adaptation is also responsible for this impressive synthesis and applicability. What is unique for a work based on Stanislavski’s creation is its total independence from the other parts of the System presented in Stanislavski’s other works. The pragmatism and the applicability of analysis through action make this technique a tool that fully serves the contemporary actor of our days, and the merit is certainly also Maria Knebel’s, because the simplicity with which the notions are presented and the way the work is organized are entirely hers. Stanislavski left only a few notes, what is left is due solely to the effort and skill of Maria Knebel, and the French translation is due to Vasiliev and the team of translators coordinated by him.

6.3 Technical terms and implementation algorithms of action analytics

In this chapter we will deal in more detail with the technical part of action analysis, trying to follow the steps that Stanislavski proposes and their order. We will proceed to explore the technical dictionary that Maria Knebel and Stanislavski implicitly propose, bringing to the forefront some notions that make up the technical dictionary of Action Analysis.

The first term introduced by Stanislavski in a new context is the notion of “proposed circumstances” which, at the semantic level, we will also find in American pedagogues such as Meisner or Adler whose theory has been analyzed in the previous chapters. Quoting Pushchin, Stanislavski considers that Pushchin’s literary manifesto can be borrowed and thus put at the foundation of his System: “The truth of the passions, the truthfulness of the feelings in supposed circumstances-that is what our intelligence demands of a dramatic author.”^{^[45]} Stanislavski’s intervention in the quotation from Pushkin is to replace the word “supposed” with “proposed”, as Knebel himself says.

Understanding the narrative thread of the play, the era in which the action takes place, the parameters of the situations proposed by the playwright is the deciphering of the score proposed by the writer. The sequence of facts and a detailed understanding of the sequence of objective events constitute the first part of the analysis through action, a first part of documentation known as “intellectual exploration”, as Stanislavski calls it. Whereas in the last century, when Knebel was putting the last part of Stanislavski’s system on paper, the means of documentation were predominantly books, in today’s digital age, the sources of information are much richer: information is immediately accessible, and the actor has the Internet, virtual reality and the whole constantly developing arsenal of technology as means of exploration and documentation, in addition to traditional libraries. As a technique for deciphering the specific parameters of each situation, Stanislavski proposes to identify the present time in close connection with the past and the future, for the present would not exist if it had not had its causes in a more immediate or more distant past, just as the present we are just passing through is unconsciously defined by the future we wish for or imagine.

Deciphering the proposed circumstances is very important for Stanislavski, because a more detailed understanding of the parameters of the situations given by the author provides the future etude with a higher potential for success in terms of discoveries. For Stanislavski, deciphering, testing and then confronting the data proposed by the playwright through the technique of improvisation is an organic, relaxed approach, in which any forcing to learn the text is harmful to the actor’s creative process. Equally, misreading the score is an impediment to discovering the role and the character. The approach proposed by the technique of analysis through action thus begins with intellectual exploration, Stanislavski even insisting that the actors verbalize aloud the synopsis of both the entire play and the moment they will study through improvisation. Intellectual exploration is synonymous with deciphering the musical score, where the conductor is the director and the score of each instrument corresponds to each role in a play. It is only after the whole role is known in both major and minor events that the technique of rehearsal through action and improvisation studies can be used.

To achieve this first aim, namely to know the role in detail, Stanislavski proposes that each actor narrates the line of his role from the beginning to the end of the play. In this way, the degree of knowledge acquired of the level of logical actions, events and sequence of events becomes measurable. Once this first level has been accomplished, we move on to the improvisation study, the actors knowing in advance the given circumstances of the situation to be traversed with the improvised text. Once through the study, the actors re-enact the playwright’s original scene, the scene they have just improvised in their own words. Stanislavski emphasizes that the purpose of this rereading is not to verify the degree of similarity between the two texts-the actor’s text and the playwright’s text-but one of the purposes is to study and assume the lexical system with which the playwright has chosen to express the thoughts, desires, and feelings of the character in question. The unit of measurement of the degree of assumption of the inner life of the role is given by the degree of similarity between the two lexical universes: that of the actor’s text and that of the playwright’s.

The tools proposed by Stanislavski within the method of analysis through action are: studies (étude), mental representations, inner monologue, verbal action, physical action, evaluation of facts, intellectual exploration, logical pauses, second plan and tempo-rhythm.

6.4 Action Analysis Technique

Mental representations

According to Knebel, the actor’s personal mental representations are images that the actor has while acting verbally with the help of the playwright’s text. In life this happens automatically and every second; in stage life, however, this ground has to be carefully prepared, acquired and then maintained. Stanislavski believes that the process of acquiring the material of the inner visions of the role must be patiently and consistently traveled by the actor, and that this is his permanent theme both in and out of rehearsals. To convey to his partner and to the audience what he has to communicate, the actor must see what he is talking about: “The more developed the actor’s ability to see the living realities behind the author’s text, to bring into being in himself a representation of what he is talking about, the greater the impact on the audience. When an actor sees what he is talking about, what he has to convince his partner of, he will capture the general attention with his visions, convictions, beliefs and feelings.” ^{^[46]}

In order to acquire the ability to create and re-create the mental images of the role, the actor needs daily training that involves the development of creative imagination. An important and novel aspect of the theory and principles of action analysis is the mention of the term “communication”: “In order to be able to stamp his partner with his visions, to communicate his own images, the actor himself must have collected and put in order the material of this communication: he must know the facts of which he is speaking, the proposed circumstances of which he must think, and have created in his inner vision the corresponding mental representations.” ^{^[47]} The birth of this material is done, according to the technique of analysis through action, with the help of questions that spark the creative imagination of the actor. Communication between partners on stage, on the one hand, and between the actors and the audience on the other, is done with the help of mental images behind the spoken words. These create and sustain, Stanislavski argues, both the vivid attention of the audience and the behavioral authenticity of the actors. Bringing into discussion stage communication between partners and between actors and audience is a premiere in Stanislavski’s theories, taking into account the actor-spectator relationship representing a point of support in the approach that we will propose in the next chapters.

The inner monologue

Along with the practice of mental representations, another important process proposed by action analysis is the process of inner monologue. The inner monologue shows the actor-character’s unspoken thoughts. In theorizing the inner monologue Stanislavski once again links this working method to the communication and creative process. In concrete terms, Stanislavski suggests verbalizing aloud the inner monologue as a training process, within the rehearsal scene or improvised study. In this way, the teacher can accurately assess the degree of authenticity of the inner monologue and its active dimension.

Personally, during the first two years of college, I worked using the technique of inner monologue, but I believe that the results were not as expected because the inner monologue I had was born mainly intellectual, rational. In this regard, Stanislavski emphasizes and sheds light on the specificity of the inner monologue, arguing that “the inner monologue is always emotional”. ^[48] This remark clarifies the attributes of an inner monologue useful to the actor’s creative act and defines the inner monologue as a web of active thoughts that transform themselves, by their stakes and importance, into emotion. Looking at things from this point of view, we get rid of the trap-meaning of the verb “to think”, which reduces or even annihilates the dynamics of the action of “thinking”. The action of the inner monologue, defined as emotional, escapes from the constraint of the prejudice of ordinary thinking and thus takes on an active and unpredictable character. But this dynamic occurs only when the generation of the inner monologue is due to actions that happen here and now, in the scene, not to actions prepared in advance. The success of the involuntary birth of the emotional inner monologue is conditioned by the personal character of the mental representations as well as by “the truth of the passions and the veracity of the feelings in the circumstances proposed by the playwright.” ^[49] Stanislavski insists on the necessity of neither forcing the inner monologue nor mental representations. In the chapter dedicated to the inner monologue, Maria Knebel also uses the term inner dialogue, precisely to emphasize the degree of interactivity of the inner monologue with the actions of the scene partners, actions that happen in real time, here and now, each time they are perceived by the actor as if for the first time. The inner monologue dynamic is born out of contradiction, out of conflict, because the inner monologue is an unspoken emotional retort that arises as an uncontrolled reaction to stimuli that unbalance the system. To make it clearer, I use a spontaneous analogy: if the inner monologue were a water, then it would not be a lake but a waterfall.

The above personal considerations regarding the inner monologue are intended to understand the active, dynamic and emotional aspect of this process. I consider it important to separate the inner monologue from any forced intellectual discourse, the appearance of the involuntary inner monologue being a sign of active stage existence in the circumstances proposed by the author and a measure of the degree of closeness of the actor to the role.

Tempo – rhythm

Tempo – rhythm meant for Stanislavski during the period of action analysis a subject to which he paid special attention. Even in the early part of his life his preoccupation with this level of the System led him to theorize that there is an indissoluble relationship of mutual influence between tempo – external rhythm and the world of feelings. Tempo-rhythm is, according to Stanislavski, a psycho-technical tool that can help the actor to understand the essence of his role and its course. The trainings proposed by Stanislavski for the education of rhythm had their origins in the first part of his research, the first wave of actors of the Art Theater working since the period of writing the book The Actor’s Work with Himself with the help of rhythmic exercises dictated by the metronome.

In concluding this chapter we recall the main aspects proposed by the action analysis, this last part of Stanislavski’s life’s work. The basis of the pedagogical philosophy of analysis through action is the creation of the role through impromptu study known as ‘étude’. The technique proposes that the actor, after having previously gone through with the director the stage of intellectual exploration of the course of the role and the play both in broad outlines and in detail, to improvise with his own words, various situations – event in the play. The steps proposed by the technique of action analysis involve deciphering the circumstances proposed by the author, acquiring mental representations of the role and discovering the role through improvisation. The protocol to keep in mind involves returning after each improvised study to reread the scene as it was written by the playwright and analyzing the events uncovered in the study just completed. Stanislavski insists on not learning the author’s text mechanically, believing that the text must appear as a necessity to express in the most detailed way possible the life beyond words.

In the second part of the paper we will take up and develop the theories of action analysis, trying to identify algorithms and training procedures that can be useful to stimulate the creativity of the today actor’s art.

6.5 Conclusions

We believe that the hypothesis from which we start, according to which stage improvisation and improvisational theater are basic tools for training the actor’s creativity, finds in action analysis its main ally and supporter. Both action analysis and improvisational theater make use of the technique of stage improvisation, the principles and approaches are different. In the following chapters we will try to analyze both the differences and the similarities between the two hypostases of stage improvisation, in an attempt to outline in the first stage at a theoretical level the triangle Creativity – Actor’s Art – Improvisation. Once theoretically reasoned, we hope to prove and experiment the practical usefulness of a creativity training technique specific to the Actor’s Art, a technique born from the common perimeter of the above-mentioned fields.

CHAPTER 7- INTRODUCTION TO IMPROVISATION

-THE CONTEXT OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE PHENOMENON

7.1 Introduction

The opening of the second part, the part of practical foundation, will need the theoretical completion of the approach so far with the specific principles of improvisational theater and theatrical games, because in the practical testing of the means by which the actor’s creativity can be developed we will use specific approaches of improvisational theater.

The main emphasis will be placed on the applicability of the proposed theories, for this reason a constant concern of the future approach is the formulation of practical exercises that put the actor in creative form.

The first practical part of the research consisted in training for one month a group of 14 second year student actors of the National University of Theater and Cinematographic Arts I. L. Caragiale, a sample tested both before the module and after the improvisation workshop with the Torrance Creative Thinking Tests. The second experiment consisted of a case study in which we tried to monitor by EEG imaging technique the differences in an actor’s brain activity when improvising the playwright’s text, compared to the initial situation in which the author’s text is said as it was written by the author.

The analysis and deciphering of the tests was provided by the sports psychologist Alina Gherghișan, and the theoretical background and methodologies of the case study that will have as protocol the monitoring of brain activity areas between the situations of the actor who says the author’s text versus the same actor who verbalizes with his own words, improvising on the structure of the playwright’s monologue, were carried out by the scientific researcher Andra Băltoiu.

The second part of this paper consists of a description of the experiments I conducted between April and December 2017. One of these experiments, the one I named “The Torrance Experiment”, aims to observe the impact that improvisational theater and theater games have in terms of creativity on a group of 14 student actors. The second experiment is a case study in which, using EEG imaging, I am trying to discover differences in brain activation between the situation in which an actor says a monologue written by the author and the situation in which the same actor says the monologue in his own words.

I believe that it is necessary, for a better understanding of the Torrance Experiment, to create the context in which improvisational theater emerged, and its emergence is due to Viola Spolin.

Before we explore the life and work of the one who will be, over time, recognized as the rightful father of contemporary improvisational theatre, we must mention, in the context of the emergence of improvisational theatre, the Spontaneity Theatre, founded by the creator of psychodrama and sociometry, the Romanian-born psychiatrist Jacob Levy Moreno.

On April 1, 1921, in the auditorium of the Vienna Comedy Theatre, with the help of his friend, the actress Anna Hollering, daughter of the director of the Vienna Comedy Theatre, Moreno gave the first performance of the Spontaneity Theatre, a new kind of theater that was not based on a written text and relied on audience participation. The Theater of Spontaneity, although it continued to serve a non-theatrical purpose as an integral part of the techniques of psychodrama, is worth mentioning in the opening of the modern history of improvisation. In 1931, Moreno repeated the same form of improvisational theater, the Theater of Spontaneity, at Carnegie Hall in the United States, but this time the show was not open to the general public, but only to a small number of actors, theater critics, artists and specialists in various fields. Also in 1931, on April 5, at the Guild Theatre in New York, Moreno opens the Theatre of Spontaneity to the general public in America. The Theater of Spontaneity has not survived independently of psychodrama, but in terms of the chronology of the emergence of the phenomenon of improvisational theater, we consider it necessary to mention the name of its founder, Jacob Levy Moreno, born in 1889 in Bucharest. Before moving on to Viola Spolin’s contribution to the phenomenon of improvisational theater, the social aspect of the necessity of the emergence of improvisational games must be noted, both in the case of Viola Spolin and Moreno. The work with children is also a common point in the early period of improvisation, as, like Viola and Neva Boyd, Moreno himself used to work with the young or marginalized social groups.

7.2 Life of Viola Spolin

In order to get to the essence of the pedagogical principles of Viola Spolin, we must not forget the context in which the theater games emerged.

Born in Chicago on November 7, 1906, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Viola Mills graduated from high school and studied for three years – starting in 1923 – with Neva Boyd. Neva Boyd teaches at the Recreational Training School at Hull House, the famous volunteer center founded by social work pioneer Jane Addams, who also created the context for Neva Boyd to work. The legacy of Boyd’s legacy to Viola Spolin is reflected throughout her philosophy, with principles from recreational therapy being reflected in Viola’s theories of theater.

The social and educational side of the theatrical games is, in the initial period, predominant in Viola Spolin’s research, the theatrical games and artistic activities that Neva and Viola performed with immigrant children having as main goal their integration into the community, their learning of English, as well as their educational development.

7.3 Viola Spolin’s philosophy

As a student, then as an actor, improviser and doctoral student, Viola Spolin has always been my reliable helper and compass when navigating the murky waters of the incomprehensible waters of acting. Every time I reread material written by her I find new information, I discover a power to synthesize truths that transcend the Actor’s Art, improvisation or theatrical game theory.

As an improviser originally developed in the Keith Johnstone method, for years I didn’t consciously make the connection between improvisational theater and Viola Spolin, considering that her theories are created for the classical actor and strictly refer to a first step in the path of becoming a future actor, the step of stage improvisation and theater games. I believe that, stepping on the ground of Viola Spolin’s pedagogy, some clarifications are needed regarding the context of the emergence and development of her method, because I appreciate that in the way the Spolin method was taken up in Romania some important information about the initial framework and motives for which Viola Spolin and Paul Sills created and then enriched the theatrical games have been forgotten.

The Spolin method must be seen and understood bearing in mind that it emerged as a need for the integration of immigrant children through play, that it then developed as a training method specific to improvisational theater and that the reality of the years in which it emerged and developed excluded, with small exceptions, the training of the actor for a role earlier written by a playwright. Framing Spolin’s method more in the realm of improvisational theater than in that of classical theater can give today a key to reading that clarifies some aspects present in her theories. I think it’s important to consider what was the conjunctural necessity for the emergence and systematization of theatrical games, according to that period: Viola Spolin was working with her son Paul Sills and his groups of improvisers in the Compass Players, then Second City, to develop dramatic material through improvisation. Taken from Neva Boyd as games for integrating and educating immigrant youth and carried forward as a method of training and developing dramatic material for her son’s fellow improvisers, the theater games may be confusing to a reader unfamiliar with improvisational theater. In the analysis that follows we will take all these aspects into account while trying not to forget for a moment that in 1963, when the first edition of the whole method was published, Viola Spolin was teaching improvisers in Second City who were strictly trained in the art of improvisational theater, trying to create their own improvised texts to be performed in front of an audience or in improvisational theater performances.

Viola Spolin’s artistic existence was mainly contained within the triangle of amateur theater with young people and children, Paul Sills’ improvisation theater and education through play and theatrical means. The interpretation of his theories should not be separated from the context of their emergence, and the leap made by improvisational theater and the Actor’s Art in general after 1963, the year of publication of Improvisation for Theater, are aspects to be taken into account in the reinterpretation of the notions proposed by Viola Spolin.

Taking into account the specific framework of the emergence of Viola Spolin’s theories and the fact that the development of these theories was done only with Paul Sills, we will try to re-understand the basic principles of Viola Spolin, trying to capture the aspects that serve the specific creativity of the actor’s art. We will focus our attention in particular on the methodological and theoretical parts, to the detriment of the set of practical exercises, because we believe that the understanding of the general principles of the Spolin method must be detached from the pragmatic context of improvisational theater. The improvisational theater exercises presented in her book are eloquent, so there is no need for commentary or reinterpretation, but the principles reflected in these examples deserve a thorough analysis, as they can serve to train the actor’s specific creativity, whether the final product is a role with a pre-written text or an improvisational theater performance.

An important part of Viola Spolin’s exercises consists of working with imaginary or “invisible” objects, as Mihaela Bețiu, the Romanian translator of Improvisation for Theater, Mihaela Bețiu, pointed out. Many of the exercises presented in Violei Spolin’s book, exercises that involve working with invisible objects, have the pragmatic and concrete aim of getting the improviser accustomed to the world of “pantomimed” objects, as one of the constants of improvisational theater since the 1950s and up to the present day is the absence of objects and scenery, the actor-improviser had to make use of invisible objects in his scenic existence then (when the first edition of Improvisation for Theater was published) and still has to use invisible objects in his stage existence, only two chairs being accepted in the long form of improvisational theater.

This technique, based on simple elements of pantomime, has gained independence over the years, with already well-established gestural codes and codes of stage organization of movement. For example, improvisers who are not taking part in a scene can stop the scene from unfolding or edit it through a series of gestural interventions: they can clap their hands to start a new scene, replace one of the improvisers in the unfolding scene by tapping him lightly on the shoulder, or end the whole scene by crossing the stage.

Returning to Viola Spolin and the beginnings of improvisational theater, many of the exercises listed in the book Improvisation for Theater are closely related to the two conjunctural coordinates of the improvisational phenomenon of that period: the invisible stage object and the development of dramatic material through stage improvisation.

Both coordinates can still be found today as frequent approaches of improvisational theater – still the objects used are invisible, and still improvisation is also used as a working method for discovering dramatic material, dramatic material that is then fixed and replayed in front of the audience, as in the case of the Second City school, founded by Paul Sills, where Viola Spolin tested her theories and worked. One of the first obstacles to creativity specific to the actor’s art is the fear of being exposed to the gaze of others. Viola Spolin pays particular attention to this subject, in her approach she manages to capture both the causes and the conditions that favor the emergence of such blocks. A relaxed, non-judgmental climate is one of the main aspects that contribute to an atmosphere conducive to creativity. In order to allow intuition to manifest, the individual needs to feel protected. Functioning outside the approval/disapproval paradigm is beneficial to freedom of expression, a freedom fostered by a safe climate both for the collective regarding the teacher-director and for the individual regarding the collective.

The existence of the actor or student-actor must, Spolin believes, be free from the fear of making mistakes, and this philosophy is at the basis of his method, a method in which the emphasis is strictly on the Concentration Point, with post-exercise evaluations conducted in terms that exclude the notion of mistakes.

“Create equality in workshops and avoid imposing teacher authority. Let the exercises work. When students feel like they have solved the problem/scene themselves, it means the teacher has accomplished his/her mission.” ^[50]

The fear of exposure or interfering with this condition to either gain approval/confirmation from observers or to give viewers only what we think is good for us, are all obstacles to creativity, Spolin believes. The remedy against these obstacles lies in creating the necessary climate of security for each individual, together with the effort to understand and accept the condition of being a player exposed to the eyes of others. The set of exercises proposed by Viola to train the ability to tune out the observers’ gaze is based on the technique of finding a PDC (point of concentration) that diverts attention from the false problem of exposure. It is a technique also described and used by Stanislavski in the famous example of the action of picking up nails accidentally scattered on the stage, an example from The Actor’s Work with Himself.

We consider the approaches to the main notions specific to the Spolin method to be essential, because the observations and methodology presented in Improvisation for Theater are not only limited to improvisational theater.

Discovered and brought to the perimeter of improvisation theatre in the middle of the last century by Viola Spolin, notions such as intuition, talent, creativity, spontaneity, concentration point, freedom of play, creative climate, collective agreement, freedom of expression, physicality, are still astonishing today by their actuality, raising major questions about how it was possible to synthesize them so articulately. The answer is given by Viola herself, who used to say: “My vision is a world of accessible intuition”^[51] . Intuitively, Viola Spolin has developed a system that in terms of assumptions places actor-improviser specific training at the basis of personal development, some of the concepts she invented breaking new ground in pedagogy, parenting or acting only today.

The understanding of the importance of intuition both in the art of acting and in education through play, the identification of obstacles to the creative process and the offering of a viable alternative to train creativity represents an important discovery for the 1960s, in the context in which in 1950, at the American Psychological Association Congress, J.P. Guilford opened the way for research on creativity, a topic that was almost non-existent in the studies of universal psychology. In the following we will pay attention to the principles of the Spolin Method, trying to clarify some simple aspects related to the birth of improvisational theater.

In Improvisation for Theater, we recall, the general context of the description of the proposed exercises is that of improvisational theater.

Only in 1985 Viola Spolin publishes Theatre Games For Rehearsal – A Director`s Handbook, a work explicitly addressed to the theater with pre-written text. In the first book, the application of the exercises described in the first book is not aimed at the final product of a performance with a text previously written by a playwright, even if the principles presented are also used in a classical acting approach. For a more effective understanding of the proposed approach, we will accept the premise that Viola’s principles can be applied in the art of the actor with a pre-written text, while her applied exercises must be understood and interpreted primarily as serving the purposes of the actor who evolves predominantly in improvisational theater.

The main pillars of the Spolin method’s scaffolding are: the game, the Focus Point, the Collective Agreement, the Course Indication and the Evaluation. Suggested steps in carrying out an exercise include presenting the problem, working on the PDC (point of focus), pointing along the way and evaluation (or feedback). We will focus on some of Viola Spolin’s principles aimed at clarifying aspects concerning the working method and elementary notions.

“The planning of How makes the process impossible and turns into resistance to the PDC; thus the explosion or spontaneity cannot take place, making any changes or modifications in the student-actor impossible. True improvisation reshapes and modifies the student-actor through the very act of improvisation. Understanding the Focusing Point, direct contact with it, and a living relationship with partners leads to change, modification, or a new understanding of it.” ^{^[52]}

The question of how the actor solves the exercise is a spur to action, as any hint of anticipating or scripting becomes a hindrance to creativity and intuition.

Perhaps Viola’s most famous saying is get out of your head, a phrase that captures the intuitive, unprejudiced, unbiased, hands-on and playful approach of Viola Spolin’s method. “Getting out of your head” is equivalent to discovery through action, according to Viola. The Spolin Method is a technique for the actor-improviser that uses theatrical games and stage improvisation to train and develop the spontaneity, intuition and creativity specific to the actor-improviser and the classical actor. The most important contribution I consider to be the approach to intuition from the Actor’s Art point of view, an approach due to working with children and the philosophy inherited from Neva Boyd. Working with children has helped Viola Spolin to more easily identify problems that can get in the way of creativity, and this has been an important focus of her system.

Creative freedom and teacher-student or director-actor relationships are found in several important chapters of her writings, the role of the teacher or director being, according to Violei Spolin’s theory, a role similar to the positioning of the coach who gives indications from the sidelines. This kind of reporting, unique at that time in the pedagogy of the Actor’s Art, will be found in the Viewpoints technique in both Mary Overlie’s writings and those of Anna Bogart after the 1970s. The chapter on the teacher-student relationship is about how the atmosphere in rehearsal or the study of improvisational theater influences creativity. Viola emphasizes the importance of a relaxed climate, free from fear, tension or the desire to prove, which facilitates creative freedom, spontaneity, self-confidence of each student and trust in the collective, and the creation and maintenance of a non-combative but mutually supportive environment for the scene partners is echoed in the very creative power of the group and the individual.

Viola Spolin’s approach helps both the actor-improviser and the traditional actor, because the exercises and principles proposed aim to awaken the actor’s personal creative potential, and the techniques developed are aimed primarily at stage existence dictated by games with clear rules and objectives, objectives whose fulfillment is measurable in real time. The use of the P.D.C. (Point of Concentration) frees the actor from the grip of the theatrical artificiality thought out before the action, and the friendly atmosphere and non-invasive evaluation lead the actor into areas of personal discovery that offer unpredictable, paradoxical and deeply intuitive solutions: ‘The actor in improvisational theater must listen carefully to what his partner is saying and hear every single thing he says if he is to improvise a scene. He has to watch and see everything that is going on. (…) The exercises that follow are also useful for actors in ordinary theater. If actors in traditional theater see a partner in front of them, and not a character, they will stop acting.” ^[53]

The exercises that Viola Spolin invented, took over or adapted over the years have transformed from training themes into theatrical performance games, games that will define this new contemporary theatrical genre known today as the short form of improvisational theater. Whole palettes of improvisational theater continued by Keith Johnstone or Del Close have their origins in the material developed by Viola Spolin. Exercises such as stories composed in common, musical rounds or those with rhyme as specific rules, the whole series of exercises derived from “unintelligible speech”, exercises with movement compulsories or the “experts” series.

Viola Spolin’s creative existence was always closely marked by her work with the two moral co-authors of the Method she developed: Neva Boyd and Paul Sills. This is why the main aspects of her theory cannot be separated from the educational games of the Neva Boyd period, nor from the beginnings of the short form of improvisation as performance of The Compass troupe, nor from the theatrical games of the Second City period. The advantages of using Viola Spolin’s principles in improv are represented in the very product of the improviser’s creativity, namely in the improvisational theater performance, which in its short form uses whole structures from the theatrical games invented by Spolin.

As for the theater with a pre-written text, theater games can be used in the training and rehearsal stage as adjacent techniques to solve some of the actor’s blockages or as tools for experimentation through improvisation of the creative context proposed by the playwright.

The Spolin method was applied in the Torrance Experiment in May and June 2017, therefore I believe that understanding Viola’s principles helps the future approach and structures the approach proposed in this research.

CHAPTER 8 – IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER APPROACHES WITH SPECIFIC MEANS NEUROSCIENCES

8.1 Context of current approaches

The following chapter aims to create the general framework needed to describe the EEG experiment conducted in December 2017, the preliminary experiment in April 2016 and the Torrance Experiment in May 2017.

In order to describe our own experiments in the most nuanced way it is necessary to outline the context in which neuroscience, improvisation and creativity meet. In the literature such a niche topic is not often found in the territory of scientific studies, this aspect constituting one of the needs of centralizing specific information in this chapter. To start with, we will refer to Clayton D. Drinko’s PhD thesis Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition, published in 2013 in the United States of America. The author is a professor at Tufts University and in his research, based on literature, studies and interviews with improvisers, he has sought and made connections between improvisational theater, psychology and cognition.

One of the aspects of his research is the use of improvisational theater to make learning in education more effective and to gain new perspectives through improvisational games applied in faculties and colleges.

The research he is doing aims to study the pedagogical theories of improvisational theater and investigate them with the present means of neuroscience. The final objective is to investigate the effects that improvisational theater has on brain activity.

One of the directions was to compare the theories of names like Viola Spolin, Del Close and Keith Johnstone with neuroscientific studies that deal with topics such as spontaneity, improvisation, the concept of “group mind” or “flow”, concepts that are within the field of creativity. Centralizing the neuroscientific experiments as well as citing relatively recent important studies is an important step towards the recognition of improvisational theatre as a “serious” field of creativity.

This chapter, in which I will refer to neuroscientific studies and cognitive-behavioral research, serves my doctoral research by providing a solidly reasoned basis that will open the presentation of the experiments I have undertaken in the last year of my PhD.

In terms of the perimeter of my proposed research and the difference in approach between my research and Clayton’s study, I believe that what separates the two approaches is that, as far as I am concerned, improvisational theater is seen mainly as a tool for developing and perfecting the specific training of the actor with a pre-written text, while his approach is delimited from the laboratory of the actor with a pre-written text, his objectives being mainly in the field of behavioral psychology. While Clayton D. Drinko’s research focuses on improvisational theater and the study of the psychological processes that take place in the improviser’s brain, in my research, improvisational theater is a technique for developing creativity specific to the Actor’s Art. For Clayton, the focus is strictly on the improvisational theater actor, the references he makes to the classical actor, the one who has a pre-written text, are non-existent.

As far as the field that my PhD explores, the ultimate goal is to improve the means of training and developing creativity specific to the “classical” actor, by “classical actor” I mean the actor with a pre-written text.

I believe that stage improvisation can be detached from improvisational theater by using and adapting specific principles and techniques, principles that originate from the pedagogy of Viola Spollin, Del Close and Keith Johnstone. What I claim to be a very important thread to follow is the applicability of these techniques and principles in the training of the classical theater/film actor.

Even if the subject has been approached in the pedagogy of the Actor’s Art since Stanislavski and his famous “études”, an updated approach, which incorporates and pragmatically applies the principles of improvisational theater, I believe that it is beneficial to develop the creativity specific to the Actor’s Art.

Returning to Clayton, chapter 4 of his book, The Improvising Mind: On Stage and in the Lab, offers some testimonials from experienced improvisers in the United States, testimonials that confirm what I, as an improviser, have experienced during improv performances. Clayton brings up several neuroscientific experiments investigating principles and behaviors specific to the actor-improviser, all of which constitute an important segment of the literature.

The technique used in the experiments mentioned by Clayton is fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), a technique that in Romania is used strictly clinically. Thanks to the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative-Creative Technologies (CINETIc) in Bucharest, I benefited from the EEG imaging technique, and the experiment that I will describe in a following chapter is part of the studies presented by Clayton.

The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to situate the general framework of neuroscientific research and interpretations of improviser-specific brain processes.

The first name I will focus on is Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics.

A psychologist by profession, born in 1934 in Israel and raised in Paris until the age of 12, he studied psychology and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and between 1958 and 1961 he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also received his PhD.

In his 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman defines two distinct systems of human thinking: System 1, the intuitive, and System 2, the rational. The difference between them, according to Kahneman’s theory, is that we often fall prey to the errors intuitively provided by System 1. He attributes this to the automatism of System 1, which is effortless, unlike System 2, which, being rational, requires cognitive effort. Kahneman’s theory is that very often our brains choose the easy option, and this can lead to errors. (For example the optical illusion below by Franz Carl Muller-Meyer, attached. ^[54])

System 1 perceives the two parallels as having different lengths, even though System 2 measures and convinces itself that they are equal. Kahneman believes that System 2 needs self-control, while System 1 works automatically, without effort: “System 1 is able to complete a sentence as soon as someone else has started it, to know when someone is angry before that someone speaks, to understand short sentences, to drive a car.”⁵⁹ System 2, according to Kahneman, has the primary task of monitoring its own behavior.

Clayton, building on this theory, hypothesizes that Viola Spollin’s point of focus or attention to decipher patterns in Del Close’s long form or Keith Johnstone’s concept of status, respectively, all mean attention directed away from you, and this attention leads to less self-control, giving System 1 the opportunity to surface. This statement will prove to be true in the light of one of the experiments I have undertaken (the Torrance experiment and the interpretations of psychologist Alina Gherghișan, experiment described in detail in the next chapter). Clayton hypothesizes that this is how the collaboration of scene partners will work in optimal parameters: “The key to understanding the effects of improvisation on the mind is the conscious condition. By focusing outwardly on the partner, the game algorithm, or the space, experienced improvisers can consciously command System 1 or intuitively to surface in competition with other ways of thinking.” ^[55]

While in improvisational theater, attention directed away from you is useful, in real life, the two systems are in a constant struggle, and the total supremacy of only one of the two systems contradicts human nature.

By approaching the paradigm so specifically, by recognizing and claiming the superiority of System 1 over System 2, Clayton and his study stand out from the perimeter of my research: I consider that the actor, whether an actor-improviser or a “classical” actor, is often put in situations where he works on stage using System 2. Also, as far as the definition of System 2 is concerned, it is possible that the interpretation of the terms is partial, because when referring to System 2, Kahneman does not say that it is responsible for self-censorship, for self-control, but defines the operations for which it is responsible: “The various System 2 operations have one feature in common: they require attention and are interrupted when attention is no longer maintained. Here are some examples:

waiting for the starting gun in a race;
maintain a higher traveling speed than you’re used to;
telling anyone your phone number;
parking in a tight spot;
count how many times the letter a appears on a page;
monitor your behavior in a given social context.” ^[56]

Analyzing what Kanhneman wrote above, we can identify the System 2 operations as also being directed off-topic. These points of attention can always be mistaken for Violet Spollin’s points of concentration or the rules of an improvisational game.

In support of what I wrote immediately above, namely that System 2 can be found with specific tasks in an improvisational game, in the following I will describe some similarities between an experiment proposed by Kahneman and an improvisational exercise known as “Cardinal Points.” Here’s the experiment described by Kahneman: “when you’re comfortably strolling along with a friend, ask him to calculate in his mind what 23 X 78 is and do it immediately. He will surely stop walking. Experience tells me that I can think while I’m walking, but I can’t do that while engaging in a mental task that makes intense demands on short-term memory.”^[57] This example is similar to the Scenic Improvisation exercise known as “The Cardinal Points” or “The Cross”: an actor is in the middle of a cross made up of 4 other colleagues. His ongoing task is to play Violei Spollin’s “Mirror” game with the partner in front of him without stopping for a moment to imitate his partner’s movements. During this time, from time to time, he is asked arithmetic and personal questions, alternately, by 2 other colleagues. The third, who sits behind the protagonist, i.e. in the South, has to make up a story, also alternately with the other two, which the main actor will reproduce word for word at the end of the exercise.

In all the exercises that I worked on or saw in class with the students, there were stops in the mirror’s movements, stops caused by the arithmetic operation that the student in the center was doing. System 2 was blocking System 1, precisely to keep resources to help with the arithmetic task. This is System 2, according to Kahneman, and in addition to this theory, in the field of Actor’s Art, the “WYSIATI” theory – “what you see is all there is” – can also be approached. For the actor, the concept of “what you see is all there is” urges not to assume things, not to be prejudiced about what will happen on stage. Kahneman, in his “WYSIATI” theory, describes that our mind is quick to jump to conclusions based on what is in front of it, assuming things, automatically filling in the blanks, without looking for evidence or proof. This ability of the brain to take the easy way out, to frame the reality in front of it as quickly as possible into a known or a preconceived fact, is an important topic of debate for the actor with a previously known text. If the actor-improviser really does not know what will be said or done to him on stage by his partner, the classical actor also knows the text and knows the stage movement, so that the most demanding task for him becomes the gaining of the spontaneity specific to the “first time”.

In the 1970s, Kahneman wrote a book entitled Attention and Effort. We will turn to the second chapter, Toward a Theory of Mental Effort, in which he explains the relationship between the difficulty of the task the subject has to perform in the experiment and the effort expended, as measured by the number of errors committed: “An important observation in studies of the psychology of arousal and performance is that arousal varies with the difficulty of different tasks as measured by the error rate. At an intermediate level of difficulty, the subject makes a significant number of errors. He still does not work as hard as he could, since he exerts more effort when the difficulty is increased. Why then, doesn’t the subject work harder at the beginning, when the difficulty is not so high, to avoid all the errors? The answer is that the subject cannot try as hard in a relatively easy task as when the task becomes more demanding”^[58] .

Kahneman also deals in his early research with a very important aspect for both the actor-improviser and the classical actor: how do you stop being aware of being watched? His studies attest to Stanislavski’s famous example in which he recounts how stage fright magically dissipated when a stagehand inadvertently dropped a handful of nails on stage, and the student actor, once he started collecting them, gained the relaxation of being watched. (See the diagram Kahneman attributes to monitoring outer space. ^[59] Spare capacity is attributed to the attention that divides, involuntarily, in the subject’s surroundings. This spare attention can be used by the student-actor or improviser for other purposes outside the acting task, when that task is not demanding enough for him/her. The surplus of availability can make him notice himself from the outside, become aware of his actions as an actor, that is, to paraphrase Viola Spollin, get inside his own mind.

The greater the demands of the task and the greater the effort required, the lower the spare capacity, i.e. there are fewer resources available for anything other than the task itself. In other words, to “get out of your head”, Viola’s supreme indication, requires an effort of attention directed on the task and a task that raises real problems, problems that are hard to solve, but not impossible. In improvisational games, for example, this is simple to follow: as in sports training, if the task is too small and we are in danger of undertraining, we shorten reaction times or complicate the task, thus reducing the attention overload.

Let’s take the “Cardinal Points” exercise as an example. If the task is too simple, i.e. if the effort put in by the one in the middle allows him to benefit from spare resources, resources that can keep his attention alert to the viewer – then we can complicate the mathematical calculations given to him by the other two colleagues to his left and right, or we can make the protagonist attentive whenever he lags behind the mirroring movement of the actions of his partner in front.

In the experiment proposed by Kahneman, the measure of spare capacity (spare capacity in the diagram on page 208) can be obtained by studying the subject’s response to a test signal, shown at a random time interval while the main task is in progress. We close Kahneman’s two systems theory by recalling the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris.

Experiment description: subjects are shown a short movie and their goal is to count the passes that the basketball team dressed in white makes. Most of the volunteers did not notice how, in the middle of the test, a man dressed in a gorilla suit crossed the frame. The experiment proves that people often overestimate their ability to multitask. Kahleman also mentions this experiment and comments on it from the point of view of the two systems, noting that System 1 often automatically assumes certain scenarios: in this case, System 1 cannot take into account the scenario that in the middle of a pass exchange a man in a gorilla suit will pass through the players.

Personally, I find the analysis of this experiment useful from the actor’s point of view: it is yet another proof that the actor has to train his attention to capture every unpredictable aspect of stage reality and, most importantly, to trust that every time, at every performance or rehearsal, new events will happen, as long as he is ready to accept and discover them. The “Invisible Gorilla” experiment teaches us that we are often slaves to prejudice. For the actor, having a preconceived opinion about what will happen on stage is akin to not accepting that unpredictable things can happen, events that one could not have thought of before going through the experience that day in rehearsal. This experiment also serves as an example of what is meant by Kahneman’s earlier diagram of spare capacity (p. 208).

There were two reasons why the element of surprise went unnoticed:

System 1’s assumption that it can’t happen;
high level of focus on the main task – counting white team steps.

“We experience much less of our visual world than we think we do. If we were aware of the limits of our attention, the illusion would disappear”^[60] .

In the next chapter we describe a neuroscientific experiment that prepares the context for the EEG experiment in this paper. We consider it to be valuable as an example for the theme we have set, and the responses found by the researchers support the confirmation of theories in acting and improvisational theater.

8.2 Creativity and improvisation

Narrowing the proposed context, we will now present a neuroscientific experiment that proposes creativity as a possible brain product. We refer to an experiment involving jazz musicians specialized in improvisation.

Charles Limb and Allen Braun, two American researchers, set out in 2009 to answer the question “is it possible for researchers to study creativity scientifically?” To this end, they monitored the brain activity of jazz musicians while improvising a piece of music versus when they played a piece they knew in advance. The pair also conducted experiments with freestyle hip-hoppers improvising lyrics in real time. The aim of these experiments was to capture whether there is a universal pattern of brain activity in creative activity. For this, the two researchers used functional neuroimaging research (fRMI). They set out to investigate the concept that “artistic creativity is a neurological product”⁶⁶ . The experiment aimed to investigate what happens in a musician’s brain when they play a previously known piece on the piano versus when they improvise. It was observed that when they improvised, the brain activity in the prefrontal cortex changed: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – DLPFC – decreased its activity considerably, while the medial prefrontal cortex – MLPFC – increased its activity (DLPFC – inhibitory area, responsible for self-control, abstract thinking and planning, and MLPFC – medial prefrontal cortex – plays a role in decision-making, self-expression, motivational side, rapid learning and memory).

So, when improvising, the area of the brain responsible for self-control (the DLFPC, also known as Brodmann Area 46) decreases its activity and the area responsible for self-expression (the medial prefrontal cortex – MLFPC) increases its activity.

In conclusion, the experiment compared brain activity when a musician performs a known piece versus the same musician improvising. It was observed that when improvising, the musician decouples the part of the brain responsible for self-control and intensifies the self-expression part. “Get out of your head” is one of the ever-present guidelines in Viola Spolin’s pedagogy. This formulation, elevated to the status of a principle, is worth reconsidering in the light of the experiments described above. It seems that the intuition that Viola Spolin stubbornly pursued has not failed, for 50 years after the principle was first enunciated, thanks to fRMI imaging, it has been scientifically proven: “get out of your head” is synonymous with “get out of your DLPFC” (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). It is important to note that this part of the brain is the brain formation that reaches maturity the latest, between the ages of 15 and 19^[61] .

Conclusions

We have used this chapter as an introduction to the part detailing the experiment carried out in 2017, a case study using EEG to monitor the brain activity and activation areas of an actor in two poses:

the actor says a monologue with the author’s text learned beforehand;
the actor verbally improvises the monologue, on the playwright’s structure, but with the words

him.

The perimeter delimited by experimental design is, in my point of view, at the intersection between action analysis, theater play and improvisational theater.

The collected data have been interpreted and post-analyzed, but we believe that the raw material of all this information can be processed and re-analyzed in the future from a different perspective. This can also be applied to the preliminary EEG experiment, carried out on 21.04.2016, an event supported by CINETIc, an experiment that involved two subjects, one of them an actor, the other a non-actor, working in relation to each other, both performing together some theatrical games taken from Viola Spolin and from the subject of stage improvisation.

PART II:

PRACTICAL GROUNDING AND EXPERIMENTS

Introduction

In the next chapter I will describe the experiments that I carried out during the three years of my doctoral research, experiments in which I tried to discover methods of developing creativity specific to the Actor’s Art. One point of interest was to study the impact that stage improvisation and improvisational theater have on the actor in terms of brain activity.

Two of these experiments were designed using the EEG imaging technique and the support provided by CINETIc (International Center for Research and Education in Innovative-Creative Technologies), and the third experiment focused on measuring the impact of a 12-module improvisational theater training module on a group of 14 student actors who had never worked in improvisational theater before, using the Torrance Tests of Creativity. The Torrance tests were used as standard tests, with subjects being tested before the start of the series of 12 trainings and retested at the end of the 4 weeks. Psychologist Alina Gherghișan analyzed and interpreted the data.

Chronologically, the first experiment took place in April 2016 and consisted of a commissioning of the EEG machines, the second took place in May and June 2017 (the Torrance Experiment, i.e. the one-month improvisational training module), and the third experiment, which was based on the EEG technique and the preliminary experiment in 2016, was a case study and took place in December 2017.

The approach of this second part – Practical Grounding and Experiments – will be modeled on some common points and some similar steps as in Part I: I will present the experimental design, methodologies, expert conclusions, conclusions based on the processed data, conclusions and feedbacks from the participating subjects, as well as my personal observations

The Torrance test was supported and interpreted by psychologist Alina Gherghișan, and in the case of EEG instrumentation, data processing, post-processing methodology and independent component analysis (ICA protocol) were performed by researcher Andra Băltoiu.

EEG post-processing coordination and scientific advice was provided by research scientist Pierre de Hillerin for the “Improv vs Text” EEG experiment.

CHAPTER 1 – THE TORRANCE EXPERIMENT – TESTS OF CREATIVITY

1.1 Experiment description

In May 2017, using the Torrance Tests of Creativity as an instrumentation methodology, we probed the effect that improvisational theater can have on a group of 14 second-year student actors.

The protocol was coordinated in terms of psychological testing by the sports psychologist of the Romanian Olympic Fencing Team, Alina Gherghișan. The results are attached, as are the participants’ feedback questionnaires.

We set out to observe whether there is a measurable creative impact of a series of 12 trainings (3 per week for 4 weeks of 3.5 hours/training) on a group of student-actors who had never before had contact with improvisational theater. Subjects were tested according to the Torrance Tests of Creativity protocol, and then retested after a month of improv theater training according to the same Torrance methodology. These tests were supplemented by two alternative forms of the Torrance Tests, this choice being motivated by the psychologist Alina Gherghișan by the need to provide a more detailed picture of the differences between testing and restesting, differences studied and interpreted both from the point of view of the general parameters of creativity, and from the point of view of possible improvements in such coordinates as task entry, tolerance of the unknown, adaptability, spontaneity or reaction speed. In the chapter that we will call “The Torrance Experiment” we will use three approaches: that of the psychologist, that of the trainer-pedagogue and that of the improviser who recognizes in the course of those he trains his personal beginnings in improvisation, the obstacles, the joys, the taste for discovery and the enthusiasm for regaining the playful component.

The sessions were aimed at both general training, an introduction to improvisational theater, and specific training, training aimed at acquiring, strengthening and developing specific skills such as verbal fluency, distributive attention, speed of reaction, active relaxation or self-confidence and group confidence.

In addition to the technique of acquiring and developing skills, an important aspect of the main pedagogical goal was to eliminate the obstacles to creativity: fear of taking risks, fear of the unknown, mental and physical tensions, prejudices, demotivation, lack of communication and attention for the partner/partners or fear of making mistakes. The daily protocol followed the development of the training in 4 main parts: technical introduction, warm-up, main exercises, feedback and final relaxation.

The duration of each training was 3 and a half hours, with a break halfway through, the training days were initially Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but from the second week they became main Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

All the trainings were group trainings, they took place in the first part of the day (10:00-13:30), and the final part of the month of trainings consisted of a workshop with the public in the framework of the Creative exam of the second year of Acting, workshop held during the time dedicated to the regular trainings (we specify this because we consider that the aspect of the change of the time slot can also bring changes for the actor, in our case the workshop took place between 12:00- 13:20). This experiment followed the route of both the group as a unit and the individual, the observations were made by the psychologist and myself from both points of view, the qualitative research was complemented by the case study. In the next chapter I will insert the table with the interpretation of the results and the general tendencies of the group, considering that these results have brought to light an important aspect of the vision of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art, an aspect to which we will refer later. Although we started from the hypothesis that the training specific to improvisational theater will bring improvements in the main characteristics of creativity, the general observations based on the differences between testing and retesting led us on another hypothetical path, and the final conclusions of the psychologist Alina Ghergișan brought out interesting aspects related to the shift of the focus of attention from the self to the scene partners.

1.2 Activity 1: Figurative creativity

I will open this chapter by quoting from psychologist Alina Gherghișan’s final remarks, remarks that summarize the overall transformation of the group at the end of the 4 weeks of improvisation training:

“Observations: there is a significant increase in elaboration ability (mean:4, standard deviation:1.86, compared to mean 5, standard deviation:1.50 in retest after one month of training). The ability to produce more details is associated with divergent thinking, which corresponds to the development of creativity. Significant increases are also observed in the originality component. Originality is expressed more effectively in the drawing than in the title, which is probably linked to an ability of the actors to think more in images, being characterized more by imagistic thinking. From a qualitative point of view, there is a tendency to keep the theme from test to retest, changing the nuance. From ego to alter, from divinity to fatality, and from introspection to turning the attention outwards, towards people, towards the environment.” ^[62]

We will dwell in the following on the last sentence of Alina Gherghișan: “From ego to alter, from divinity to fatality, from introspection to an orientation of attention towards the exterior, towards people, towards the environment”.

I sought to understand what this shift of attention from the self to the partners and the external environment meant for the student actors, and the explanations I found are based on personal observations made while working in the experiment, but also on personal considerations made over the years as an actor, improviser, or master’s student in the Department of Theatre Pedagogy. The conclusions we reached about the possible explanations of the shift of attention from the self to the environment justify the applicability of theatrical games and stage improvisation not only at the beginning of the acting pedagogical path, but also in the future stages of students’ training.

Another conclusion I came to refers to the readaptation of stage improvisation, improvisational theater and theatrical games according to this new period in the student-actor’s development, namely the period when the shift from theatrical play and improvisation to working with text. The rereading, development and refinement of the principles governing acting, stage improvisation and improvisational theater during the period of the second year of Acting proved, in the case of our experiment, to be effective for the subjects, because an actor anchored more in relation to the partner than to the self is a “more alive” actor. We use the degree of comparison being aware that “vivid” is equivalent to “non-acting”, so an actor centered on the partner and the external environment will be more anchored in the dynamics of the stage reality, which will make the spectator forget that he is watching a play or a movie, thus favoring identification with the story and its characters. In support of this we will use an excerpt from Declan Donnelan’s book ‘The Actor and the Target’: „There is always a target. You never know what you are doing until you know on what/whom you are exerting that action. For the actor, every act must be done towards something/someone. The actor can do nothing without a target. The target may be real or imaginary, concrete or abstract, but the first infallible rule is that in every moment, without exception, there must be a target”^{^[63]}

Also in the second chapter Donnellan continues: ‘the target always exists outside, at a measurable distance’. ⁷¹

Returning to the Torrance experiment and its results, the final observation of the psychologist Alina Gherghișan, an observation that concerns the group as an entity, is synonymous with the actor’s calibration towards the outside and finding the target to which Donnellan dedicated his book The Actor and the Target.

The same preoccupation with the stage relationship and with directing the actor’s attention outward is also found in Meisner and Stella Adler, a preoccupation described and analyzed in the chapters dedicated to the two in this work. As a reminder, one of the differences and divergences between these two and Lee Strasberg refers precisely to the subject of affective memory, the major exercises of the Strasberg Method being based on the actor’s own focused attention on the actor’s own person, attention directed in relation in the case of the two mentioned above, namely Adler and Meisner.

In the next chapter we will analyze which were the factors that contributed to a closer connection with the environment and especially to a positioning of the group as a unit regarding the partner. Once we will be able to identify the parameters that favored during the trainings the refocusing of the point of attention from the self to the outside, we will be able to understand and capitalize on principles and models of putting into practice the creativity training of theatrical games, stage improvisation and improvisational theater.

We start from the premise that by identifying the specific characteristics of improvisation that have produced the process of anchoring in external reality we can improve and develop general techniques and principles that will facilitate the creative process. We refer strictly to the process necessary for the work of the theater actor with a pre-written text or the film actor in acquiring the final product, i.e. the role written by the playwright and presented to the audience by and through the actor’s creation. (For visual support, please find attached a screenshot of the interpretation table by the psychologist. ( see Figural creativity table, page 208 ) ^{^[64]}

Looking at the tests from the psychologist’s point of view, the criteria that were followed represent the main parameters of creativity according to Torrance: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. The four aspects of creativity that were noted by the psychologist Alina Gherghișan are among the theoretical principles of improvisational theater. Originality indicates independence of reasoning, the integration of diverse elements in the same perceptual field, and the ability to produce ideas independent of the usual established meaning. From the point of view of stage improvisation and improvisational theater, the concept of “originality” can be translated as the capitalization of any intuitive – personal impulse, a large part of the training the group underwent having as a rule the famous saying of Violei Spolin “get out of your head”. We believe it is necessary to delimit and nuance the term “originality” seen from the two semantic fields specific to the psychology of creativity and improvisational theater, because in stage improvisation originality is necessary to manifest itself in the horizon of expectation of the rules of the game, as well as the stage actions must be possible and necessary. The originality of a scenic resolution thus takes on the valence of a personal discovery that goes beyond any reasoning prior to the actual play. Fluency, another parameter quantified by the Torrance Tests, indicates speed and ease of association between images and the ability to produce a large number of ideas. Training fluency through specific means of improvisational theater and theater games was one of the pedagogical goals of the series of 12 trainings, and my conclusions as a pedagogue and trainer of the trainings are broadly in line with the conclusions of psychologist Alina Gherghișan.

The enhancement of the skills that influence the increase of fluency is the declared goal of the theater games we practiced, shortening the response time and increasing the volume of new ideas explicitly relying on specific rules for a whole level of improvisational theater exercises. In my personal experience as an improviser and as a teacher-improviser, I have noticed that the development of aspects related to fluency favors the attenuation of critical spirit and self-censorship, giving the actor-improvisers the opportunity to be more anchored in what is just happening and less concerned with the final result, a result that materializes in a projection into the future.

The third parameter taken into account in the Torrance Test measurements is flexibility. Flexibility is the ability to restructure thinking in relation to new situations, ease of transfer and the ability to produce different categories of ideas. In terms closer to stage improvisation, flexibility finds its expression in the adaptability to new algorithms, as well as in the ease of abandoning a given task and exercise in order to enter a new exercise as quickly as possible and without the inertia of previous rules.

In the first period of training (first 2 weeks), fluency and flexibility were the main desiderata for the whole group, increasing adaptability and reaction speed, and bringing an active relaxation manifested by regaining the joy of play..

1.3. The play

This sub-chapter will contain two parts: one descriptive, in which the methodology and protocols used will be explained, and the second will contain the structuring of new principles that can favor the identification and definition of methods for training creativity specific to the Actor’s Art derived from improvisational theater and theatrical games. The final aim of the approach will be to offer a complementary system of work for the actor whose final goal in the creative process is to realize, under the guidance of the director, his/her role in a theatrical performance with a pre-written text, with direction, stage movement or choreography fixed and respected during rehearsals. We believe that bringing to the field of theater with a pre-written text some specific coordinates of improvisational theater such as unpredictability, the joy of play, real-time feedback or outward-oriented attention can become useful in stimulating the creativity of the actor with text. While until now improvisational theater was either used as a tool to generate the dramatic material for the next performance with a pre-written text, or as a creative process that ultimately identifies with the improvisational theater performance itself, we consider it possible to adapt specific principles of improvisational theater for the development of the actor with a pre-written text in the context of role realization under the guidance of a director. This approach is not new, what I propose different from the previous approaches of Viola Spolin is the conscious and declared pursuit of pragmatism in the implementation of principles derived from improvisational theater in theater with pre-written text and in film acting.

The conclusions from the interpretation of the psychological tests led the research to reconsider the theatrical play, theatrical play seen as the decisive factor that determined the shift of attention from the self to the environment and the partner.

In trying to understand in more detail the algorithms that favored the emergence of this phenomenon, I recalled the transition from first-year theater games to working with text and the period of adjustment needed to function in the new paradigm. For me then as a student, and now as a teacher, there was a fracture between the two worlds: with the shift to text, the games are forgotten or are used only for the purpose of getting the student-actors in shape at the beginning of the acting class or when they get tired during the work. What in the first semester was the main part of the syllabus becomes from the second semester on complementary, optional or even forgotten altogether. So far I have not been able to identify an organic transition from theater games to working with text, much less have I been able to observe the development of games and their incorporation into new principles, exercises and techniques. The session of improvisation training with the group of student-actors reminded me of an unresolved step, in my opinion, in the pedagogy of Romanian Actor’s Art: the articulate and consistent transition in principles from theatrical games to working with text. Exercises based on theatrical games are present to a large extent in the work with text, but a unified approach that would carry forward the initial directions of the first semester of specialized university education, an approach applicable to role-playing and coherently centered on the notion of theatrical game, does not exist.

I catch myself just now using the word “transition”, involuntarily referring to the need to end one stage, that of the games, and move on to another stage, that of the texts. The reality of contemporary theater pedagogy shows us that, in practice, this is exactly what is happening: the stage of the games, once completed, gives way to another stage. This new stage represents a new beginning for the student of the second semester, because the principles that used to govern theatrical games do not find an organic development, based on a theoretical system dedicated to this transition. As far as the creativity specific to the actor’s art is concerned, I consider a continuation of theater games and their specific skills and attitudes to be effective also in what seems to be a new stage, the stage of working with text. The development of a training that allows to preserve and perfect the skills acquired during the time of theatrical games makes the acting pedagogical process more efficient, as it creates unity in the structuring of the school curriculum and a simplified initial platform of elementary notions.

One of the first negative effects of the transition to text is the disappearance of the joy of play. If during the first semester’s theatrical games, students couldn’t wait to get up and play, with the transition to text, both as a student and as a teacher-in-training, I have noticed that the excitement fades. More and more often the discomfort of being watched arises, body tenses appear, and the student-actors become dependent on the teacher’s authoritative feedback.

Looking back to the stage of theatrical games, we try to find out how we can keep the unpredictability that governs the unfolding of a game. For example, one of the important questions, defined by the personal goal of each participant, is “who will win the game?” When playing a game, any game, nobody knows anything outside the rules. There are many unknowns in front of everyone, and the journey made here and now attempts to turn the unknown into the known. At the end of the game, and only then, every question is answered.

But when the texts appear, we get the answers to all the questions. We know everything that will happen in a scene, however simple or complicated, once we read it. With the text, we get all the answers, it’s up to us to find the questions ourselves. We know what is going to happen, we know what each of the characters is going to say, we know how that scene is going to end, we know whether we are going to be losers or winners in this game. This is the ultimate reality of being on stage: I know the outcome from the very beginning, and yet I have to act continuously, according to a purpose, in order to succeed in my actions, firmly believing that what I want can happen. But along the way there are many obstacles that prevent me from acting to succeed. It is time to turn our attention to these obstacles that stop us from playing the game in the knowledge that we will win.

“Acting is about wanting… wanting, desperately needing something. If you win, you win, if you lose, you still win. Either way, you have to fight to the death.”^{^[65]} . This working assumption is simple to assimilate on the part of the student – the player of the first semester. As a player, he knows that it is possible to win, just as it is possible not to win. He fights to win, according to the specific rules, adapting to unpredictable situations that arise during the course of the game, finding personal solutions to solve problems in real time, trying strategies born “here and now”, often unplanned strategies born out of the real need to overcome unexpected obstacles. The moment the texts appear, consciously or unconsciously, because the denouement is written in black and white, the weight of believing that you can still win the game comes. This is the variant in which, according to the text, your role is that of the loser. In the situation in which the text makes you the winner in the end, it is also hard to accept that you have to fight for this ending – it is only written in black and white that you will win, so what’s the point of fighting to win? Remember: ‘if you win you win, if you lose you still win. Either way, you have to fight to the death,” says Susanne Shepherd.

This means that to “fight to the death” you have to forget the outcome, not anticipate. But how is it possible to forget? The first step we can take is to try to escape the text trap. As long as we are addicted to the text, as long as the text is only literature to us, we cannot forget the outcome, we find it hard to believe that anything else can happen other than what was written on the paper.

For the student-actor it is important to escape the role of mere reader. A reader, when he comes into contact with a text, imagines the story that the characters of the book are living, this is his finality, whereas an actor has to live the story. He (the actor) only sees reading the text as a means of deciphering the rules of the specific comportamental game he is going to play. Reading, for the actor, is not an end in itself, it is simply an opportunity to gather information to prepare him to rehearse the events presented schematically, synthetically. If the reader is a third party witness, through imagination, to an event, then the actor is the event itself. The reader comes into contact with the text in the third person, while the actor documents, by reading, in order to be able to move from the third person to the first person. The reader sees a third person’s event through the eyes of the imagination, the actor goes through the event in first person. But to manage to move from being a third party, a witness to an event, to being a player who goes through this event in the first person, requires sustained, consistent, step-by-step work. Our job as actors is to transform the text into stage action. First and foremost, we need to know the specific rules of this comportamental game that can be called the written scene. We need the tools to decipher the rules of the game.

The greatest trap of the text is the text itself. If there are no clear, measurable, simple objectives that go beyond the text, then the student-actor is a slave to the text. He no longer has anything concrete to lean on, he feels exposed to the eyes of the spectators and tries to mimic the actions of a “character”, he represents a third party. This third party is just a fictitious figment of his role as a simple reader who has formed an opinion, in the course of the reading, about how the scene should be “played”. In this thankless situation, the student becomes incapable of reacting normally to the simplest challenges arising from the environment. He is paralyzed, unable to adapt to the most banal stimuli: “we are creatively paralyzed. We see with other people’s eyes, smell with other people’s noses, and wonder “Who am I?”″ ^[66]

To be able to play the game, we need to operate according to specific rules. Unlike theater games, assuming the rules of the new game requires specific training. Using the ‘magic if’ and analogies with our own experience, we try to create bridges between the situation proposed by the author and ourselves. We analyze the situation, using reason to access the affect, finding similarities between the text and what we have experienced, or imagining ourselves in contexts similar to those presented by the text.

I have encountered acting teachers who believe that analyzing dramatic text using the method of personal analogies is unhelpful or even harmful. They justify this by arguing that personal analogies, inner monologue or automatic dictation create prejudice. It is worth emphasizing an important observation: whatever analysis is done before experiencing the scene and whatever discoveries have been made, they must be forgotten once the play has begun. Only if we are anchored in the here and now can we play the game. Just as in the Ninja game you can’t think about the rules you’ve learned before or other editions of the same game, so once you’re in the text game, you don’t have to “think” about anything other than the game that is just unfolding and that you are part of right this very second. You know the rules, all you have to do now is to carry out the clear goals and stage actions you have set yourself, in the firm belief that they can be achieved. But in order to play the game, situations must not only be believed and analyzed. They must be assumed. The actor has a duty to create the emotional map of the role, so that the affective components of the scene he is playing have become, through home study, hot analysis and actual work, assumed, alive.

In “Creating a role”, Stanislavski wrote about the analysis of the text: “The evaluation of the text is labor-intensive and complicated. It is performed not only by the mind, but mainly by feelings and creative desire. This work is done on the level of imagination”^{^[67]} . Exercises of imagination are a necessary training to be done consistently so as to acquire the emotional map of the role.

One of the positions against analyzing situations and text through the power of the imagination is the belief that preparing before going on stage is inefficient, detrimental to anchoring oneself in the reality of the game that is happening “here and now”. This is true if you “prepare to make a good scene”. If, however, you prepare by paying attention to the goal you want to achieve, if you prepare with the goal of holding every point of concentration and struggling to solve every problem, then the more you believe that you can achieve the clear goal you have set for yourself, the more you struggle to solve every problem, the less time you will have to see yourself outside, that is, to act conventionally. Thus, by stubbornly clinging to the point of focus, convention becomes play, and play becomes psychological reality. The importance of the concentration point is paramount, for, as Viola Spolin has written, “the concentration point is a new beginning and acts as a springboard to the intuitive. Thanks to it the past relaxes its grip.”^[68] .

The Torrance experiment and its results have reopened the perspective of reconsidering the importance of theater play in the equation of creativity training specific to the Actor’s Art. The impact that the improvisation module had on the whole group, an impact also reflected in the feedback questionnaires completed by the students, as well as in the results of the Torrance measurements, this impact made me reconsider specific principles of approach to improvisational theater and wonder how the accumulations of the period of theatrical play can be preserved during the stage of working with the text.

Looking back retrospectively at both my personal experience as a student and the way things went in the improvisational theatre and theatre games module with the current students, I feel the need to review the pluses gained in the first semester through theatre games, which the second year student actors have rediscovered during the training sessions of this research. These pluses will be described in the following chapter, considering them to be the very parameters specific to theatrical games and stage improvisation.

CHAPTER 2 – THE SPECIFIC PARAMETERS OF THEATER PLAY AND

STAGE IMPROVISATION – THE ADVANTAGES OF THE CLASSICAL ACTOR’S CREATIVITY

2.1. Enjoyment of the game and attention to the partner

The joy of play accompanied the entire module, its acquisition being a consciously assumed and planned pedagogical goal that was given the first two weeks to consolidate and transform into a reflex. To achieve this objective, the first week of training revolved around the notion of play, to the detriment of that of game. It was a compromise made to the rigors of strict adherence to the rules of the game, a compromise necessary to bring to the forefront a quality without which one could not move forward: the courage to act outside the notions of right and wrong. Acquiring the courage to be wrong and annihilating self-censorship were the first steps taken from the fear of acting to acting by playing the game, and finally to acting by playing the game. As a coach and leader of the whole process I have witnessed all the steps and I consider the acquisition of the joy of playing the game to be the main indicator of the sparking of the creative process. As far as the improvisation workshop is concerned, gaining the joy of playing the game required a complex journey of gaining and building confidence, active relaxation and accepting risk as part of the process.

Beyond quantifiable results and data interpretation, the shift of attention from the self to the external environment is closely related to the most important aspect of theater play: unpredictability. We don’t know what the partner will do, so we have to have our attention focused on him or her second by second, and this concern is real, it cannot and should not be faked, because the act of shifting attention to the external environment is based on the real need to receive all new information, information that is constantly changing during the play. This inner condition must be maintained, trained and reinforced during the transition to working with text, as it is one of the most important parameters for maintaining spontaneity, the joy of discovery and playful freshness. Of course, attention to the partner and the environment is also present in working with text, but unlike in a play where the ending is unpredictable, in a scene with a pre-written text, attention has a different quality, as the outcome is known to both partners. Regaining the degree of attention that is specific to a game whose outcome is not known in advance is a major point of interest in our research, because this quality of attention is closely related to the confidence in discovery. Believing that every second can bring a breakthrough becomes akin to the principle of tolerance of the unknown, a mandatory parameter in creativity. The need arises to understand and re-create in the scenic process one of the inner conditions permanently present in an unpredictable play: openness to the unknown, or in other words, acceptance of unpredictability. The questions arising from the paradox of the dual condition of the actor with a pre-written text find their answers in the study of behavior when the acting tasks that define his stage existence have their origin in the theatrical play or in stage improvisation.

Learning the exercise of functioning unpredictably, preserving the structure and construction of the performance and its path when the outcome is predictable is the ultimate goal of this research. Training the ability to function as an improvisational theater actor in an exercise or performance with a pre-written text ensures the scenic act the freshness, spontaneity, novelty and verisimilitude that raises “interpretation” to the rank of creation and rehearsal to the degree of discovery.

Another aspect closely related to the attention paid to the environment and to the partner is the ability to place oneself, as an actor, in the inner condition of the explorer, of the one who knows what will be and at the same time gives himself the freedom to discover what will be different this time, rehearsal by rehearsal and performance by performance. The simultaneity of stage existence subordinated to both the known and the unknown is a necessary ingredient for the emergence of the creative nature of the actor, and the behavioral patterns that feed these manifestations find their imprint in the real unpredictability of theatrical games. The student-actor knows perfectly well the specific rules of a theatrical play, but the result of today’s play is unknown to him. Training the acquisition of the freedom of not knowing the outcome of the game becomes directly proportional to being anchored directly in the present through as many points of attention as possible: the more our attention is truly anchored in what is just happening, the more we can give ourselves the freedom to forget what will happen to us, a statement supported by Kahneman’s diagram presented in the appendices on page 208.

2.2. Real-time feedback

The degree of success or failure in achieving the goal in a theatrical game is measurable second by second for the player playing the game, and the adaptation of the strategy is made second by second according to the actions of the partner and the rules of the game. The partner’s actions are unpredictable, the rules are known, agreed and followed, and the achievement of the game’s objectives is measurable for both the player and the spectator.

One of the major differences between theater with known text and improvisational theater is the collective assumption and understanding of the specific rules of an improv round, both on the part of the players and the audience. In theater with pre-written text the players often lack real time feedback, the degree of success or failure of the actions of the players in the text game is often unknown to them. While in a theater or improvisation game the actor-player is aware moment by moment of the effect of his stage actions and can measure for himself whether he will win or not, in a text game this is not self-evident, because the outcome is predictable, the words are known in advance, and so is the winner of the game, and spontaneity, acceptance of the unknown, openness to discovery, the unpredictability of the ending, all these parameters that are self-evident in improvisation and in theatrical games must be recomposed, regained and relearned in theater with a pre-written text. Having real-time feedback I consider to be one of the most useful acquisitions borrowed from theater games and stage improvisation to pre-written text acting. Real-time feedback is an ingredient present in a sports competition, a computer game, improvisational theater and stage improvisation, and its existence certifies that the players and observers are provided with the context necessary for the game to function well. Feedback in real time guarantees that the unpredictability of the ending is accepted. If we look at the notion of play by assuming and accepting the unpredictable ending, then ‘acting’ is no longer synonymous with and tributary to the pejorative meaning, but becomes the most important desideratum for both the theater player and the theater viewer.

When the actor receives moment-by-moment information from the partner and the environment while “playing the theater game”, we can say that the actor has accepted the paradox of the unpredictability of the outcome of a text that is already known. When the real-time feedback of the actor coincides with the real-time feedback of the spectators, we can say that the ‘play-acting’ benefits from all the attributes of sports and/or theatrical games: capturing the attention and interest of the audience, identification of the viewer with the players, passive play of the game by the viewer, prediction of the outcome of the game, creation of a horizon of expectations, a horizon which may or may not be contradicted by the final outcome, and self-forgetfulness. And when the spectator is won over as a viewer, when the spectators actually watch the “game of theater”, they are watching themselves and are taken over by the imaginary reality proposed by the play or film they are watching.

2.3. Understanding, accepting, practicing and operating according to the specific rules of each game

The notion of real-time feedback presented above is closely related to the respect of game-specific rules. The rules of theatrical games without a pre-written text or of theatrical games with improvised text turn out to be easier to enforce, as the quantification of compliance or non-compliance is visible to both players and viewers. Given the less complex nature of the rules of a theatrical game in which the degree of success of the players’ actions leaves no room for ambiguity or interpretation, in theatrical or improvisational games the rules of the game alone perform the difficult task of determining the outcome and the winner(s) of the game. Since neither the players nor the spectators can compare the game that has just been played with a game played in another edition, even if the rules are the same, even if the players may be the same, no one can know the outcome of the game before it is played. This phrase is often used in Viola Spolin’s approach, but I think it is necessary to make a nuanced comparison between the two approaches: that of theater with a pre-written text and that of the theatrical game. While in a simple theater game we can quickly observe whether or not the rules of the game are being respected, in a “theater game” (i.e. a play with a pre-written text) observing the rules of the game becomes a subjective and interpretable matter from the point of view of the players as well as from the point of view of the observers. Let’s continue the analogy with a concrete example: the game “Ninja”, a game we have already referred to in this paper, versus a first semester first year scene with pre-written text.

“Ninja” rules: all players in a circle, each player must remove as many as possible by hitting another participant in a single move, one at a time, palm over palm. If the palm is hit above the wrist to the elbow, it is considered a non-winning hit. If the order is not respected, the person who has broken the order is out. The game is over when there is only one player left, at which point the player is declared the winner. In my pedagogical experience, this game is one of the favorite theater games of first or second year students from 2014-2018, and this observation is based on studying two generations of students, generations in which I was an associate teacher/doctoral student. In December 2017, I had the joy of leading a theatrical games workshop of the group of 2nd year students at the Meetings of Theater Schools, workshops and conferences held at the National Theatre in Bucharest and organized by the Ion Sava Centre for Theatre Research and Creation. On this occasion, in an active dialog both with the group I was coordinating and with the other students present in the hall, I invited the students to play a game together, and the game unanimously chosen by the students of the acting faculties from ClujNapoca, Bucharest and Iasi was the game “Ninja”.

The game is played with the same enthusiasm in the second year as in the first year. The determination, the spontaneity, the joy of the game remain the same, no matter how many editions have been played to date, no matter how many editions will be played. Today’s winner is the only unknown of today’s edition, all the other parameters are known: rules, partners, running time, audience. The rules are clear, there’s no need for a referee, and the person who makes a mistake or is eliminated by a partner goes out alone without comment. The game starts conventionally and takes on personal stakes as time passes. Players draw on conditioned reflexes acquired over dozens of hours of study or strategies and discoveries born adhoc. The two approaches, that of acquired reflex and that of on-the-spot discovery, do not cancel each other out, but coexist, manifesting themselves according to the immediate needs of the game and the player. They are united by necessity, and they are driven by an awareness of the unpredictability of the endgame: each player has entered the game believing that he has a chance of winning it, while knowing that he may lose. The game can end for each player very quickly or, on the contrary, it can last until the end. The acceptance of unpredictability is part of the unwritten rules of every theatrical game, and the declared rules are unanimously understood, accepted and respected by all players.

In the following, let’s analyze a “theater game”, i.e. a game with a known text.

We invent a simple situation, which is coded and translated into the following simple script:

“HE:- Where were you

SHE:- I had a meeting

HE:- With him

SHE:- What do you mean

HE:- I know everything”

Following the title of this chapter, the first step is to understand the specific rules of the game. Keeping with the reference system proposed in this chapter, once understood, the specific rules need to be accepted, practiced, then they need to come to life, to work for the players and the viewers. For the most creative approach and to give freedom to the players, we have omitted any punctuation, considering that this task is part of step number 1, i.e. understanding the rules. Recall that this approach is often used by Meisner, who urges that the text be learned without punctuation marks, as we wrote in the chapter on the Meisner Technique.

While in the “Ninja” game everything that happens is unpredictable, in the text exercise the words and a possible course of action are known in advance. This is the first difference between the two exercises, with or without pre-writen text. Another difference is that the “Ninja” game is a non-verbal game, while the scene invented above is also a verbal game. Keeping within the hypothetical framework, if the unpredictability already present in the “Ninja” game could be transferred to the written text exercise above, then many of the questions of Actor’s Art would be answered, as the actor would operate more freely and perhaps then the achievement of the stage goals would be quantifiable. The rules would be clear, the criteria of appreciation would also be clear, and the pedagogical subjectivity of the reception of the act would be removed. I dare to write that the Art of Acting would be closer to performance sport, a field in which the times achieved, victories in combat sports or the marks given by the referees determine the winner without room for subjective interpretation. The result is clear, we have winners and losers, just like in theater games, and the rules are not open to interpretation. There are refereeing mistakes, but they are mostly sporadic occurrences.

Now let’s go back to the invented game-text and try to see what might be the similarities and differences with the game “Ninja”, proposing to analyze to what extent we can borrow and adapt the principles of theater games in working with text.

“HE:- Where were you

SHE:- I had a meeting

HE:- With him

SHE:- What do you mean

HE:- I know everything”

The first and most noticeable difference between the two types of games concerns the appearance of the text obligatory: while in “Ninja” there are no lines to say, “Where have you been” is a game that contains pre-written text.

The existence of the pre-written text and the reading of it transforms the player of the future game into a reader in the first stage. This detail and this first role of the actor -that of reader- createsa series of mental representations specific to the act of reading, representations which, for the player of the game ‘Where have you been’, can act as obstacles to spontaneity and unpredictability if they do not follow the organic course of the unraveling of the specific rules of the future game. On the basis of my personal pedagogical observations gained by studying the path of first and second year students, what confuses them most in the transition from theatrical games to working with text is this very “knowing” whose seeds are to be found in the very act of first reading. Recurrently, the “I know” syndrome will return at various stages of rehearsals, and will be found in the actors’ guild in expressions such as “it’s been mechanized” or “it’s nothing”. In antithesis, about no theatrical play have I heard such formulations so far.

A second difference concerns the unconscious creation of an ideal model in the case of the text, which is not the case in the theater game: no participant in the “Ninja” game will have any image of how the game will be played perfectly. It will be perfect if he wins. How he will do it, how and whether or not he will meet a predefined ideal standard, these issues are not within the horizon of the student-actor’s expectations, whereas in the case of the text game, each of us will, consciously or unconsciously, form a representation of what “perfect” means. Laurence E. Morehouse, an American sports researcher and psychologist writes, in his book Maximum Performance, (which Keith Johnstone admits is his favorite) Morehouse writes, therefore, about the stumbling blocks we often set for ourselves: “Another huge fallacy according to which we act is the belief that there is a perfect way of doing things. (…) In reality, there is no one perfect way to make a movement or perform a task.”^[69]

Another specific feature of text games is that the rules behind the text are not visible, they have to be analyzed, discovered or even invented. Compared to theatrical games, scenes with pre-written text have rules and behavioral goals, and in order to play the game, these rules must be understood, accepted, acquired and trained to work. If in a simple theatrical game, with clear rules, with tangible and measurable objectives, the rules can be understood and followed relatively quickly, in a scene with text the difficulty of making the play work unpredictably in its predictability, spontaneously, vividly and according to the established rules is infinitely greater, and this process requires understanding, accepting, acquiring, practicing, and reinforcing the rules. Only then can the comportamental game be played. Just like an online gamer, before starting to play the game for real, the actor needs to learn, step by step, each specific rule of the game. Before being able to enjoy the game, any gamer will need a learning period, during which he or she will acquire skills that will allow the fictional character to move around, dodge obstacles, interact with other players and so on. This stage will only come to an end when the game starts to be played for real. Only then will the joy of the game, the exhilaration, the ad-hoc solutions, the real-time discoveries, the thrills and the challenges. All these stages occur in theater games. In text work, however, there is a danger that at some point during rehearsals the actor may stop the process of discovery and think that he has found the ideal model of the stage solution. From this point the process is sacrificed to the final product, and if the emergence of the final product (performance, acting exam, public release) does not correspond to the peak of the rehearsal journey, then the actor may be on a creative downward curve. In the case of theatrical games and stage improvisation, given their unique and unrepeatable character, the danger of this phase is minor or non-existent, which is one of the main arguments in favor of borrowing the approaches specific to theatrical games even after the transition to working with texts.

2.4. Creative enthusiasm and team bonding

The technique of improvisational theater, whether short-form or long-form, or whether we refer to schools derived from Del Close, Keith Johnstone or Viola Spolin, revolves around the principle of acceptance or collective agreement. This principle, the “Say YES!” principle, remains the constant of the phenomenon beyond the years, continents or generations of improvisers. Not blocking your partner is the basic rule of improvisation thanks to which improvisers from different cultures can meet and improvise together even if they are seeing each other for the first time. The inner comfort of the non-denial principle can be trained and borrowed into classical theater with a pre-written text, and the benefits are reflected in the theatrical product as well as in the collective and interpersonal relationships.

Closely linked to trusting and valuing one’s partner, the principle of collective agreement generates positive energies, making the workspace a safe zone for each actor. The inner comfort due to the lack of criticism results in increased creative relaxation and enthusiasm, as well as team bonding. According to Keith Sawyer, specific improvisational theater exercises can train the “group mind”: “Based on my research working with Csikszentmihalyi, I discovered that groups of improvisers most likely achieve a collective state of mind that I have termed group flow. Group flow is a peak experience in which a group performs at the top level of their abilities.” ^[70]

In his book entitled Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, Sawyer approaches creativity by studying several case studies of American improvisers and groups of improvisers, and the conclusion presented above is based on informed research spanning more than a decade.

From my own experience both as an improviser and as an improv coach for professionals, non-professionals, students or pupils, being with your scene partners fully exposed to the unpredictable in front of spectators or fellow – observers is a team-building experience that strengthens trust in the group and in the partner.

The welding of the team of actors through specific means of improvisational theater and stage improvisation we consider to be useful also in the case of working on a theater performance with a pre-written text. Here is what the famous director and pedagogue Lev Dodin said about his group of actors in an interview with Raluca Rădulescu: “It is good to have in the troupe great personalities and talented actors, but to create something in common, a common soul must emerge in them, as a result of complex processes. Otherwise, I will see the great artist A on stage, or the great artist B, but nothing in common, I will not see a whole, there will be no soul of the work. Therefore, this union to create the common soul of a work is the main goal of our research.” ^[71]

Improvisational theater trains the individual’s ability to transcend ego in an attempt to put the performance even above their own acting achievement. In an improvisational theater performance there are no lead roles and supporting roles, each actor is a “supporting actor” for the others, as one of the golden rules of improv is make your partner look good, a principle attributed to Keith Johnstone. Improv training allows the acting troupe or class of students to get to know and accept each other, and the bonds between partners created in the limit-situations of an improvised performance remain in the collective memory helping the group to function more effectively in a pre-written scripted theater performance.

Throughout the many performances I have had with my improv theater colleagues, we have experienced moments that were truly telepathic, moments when we intuited each other’s thoughts, and the scenic result made the audience believe that nothing is improvised and that everything is pre-established in the smallest details. This kind of communication goes beyond the conscious level, and the relationships created in such contexts remain landmarks in the shared past of the partners on stage.

2.5 The play, training for the present

Improvisational theater and stage improvisation in general, by their specificity, create opportunities for the actor to study and train the acceptance of the immediate: with an unknown stage future and a past that has just become a present that has aged too early, the only support that remains for the improviser is the “here-and-now”. By suspending the past and having the courage not to think about the future, the improvising actor fulfills the moment, giving himself the privilege of no longer “pre-doing”, but only “doing”. For the actor with a pre-written text, forgetting what the future holds for the stage is the sublime desideratum, and improvisation can serve this purpose as a means of training.

Without being able to have access to information received prior to the actual scenic action, the actor-improviser benefits from the creative freedom necessary to relieve him of the burden of any projections into any kind of future.

Once this reality is accepted, the actor has nothing left to do but to investigate what has just happened as efficiently as possible. For him, the present becomes the only source of his stage existence, and to make the most of all the information that the environment has to offer, he needs to turn his attention outwards. Decisions have to be made quickly, and to make an informed choice he needs as much information as possible gathered and deciphered ad hoc. Like a processor whose resources are stretched to the limit, the actor is forced by the improvised act to work hard at choosing from the multitude of possible futures the future that best satisfies the present just happening. In doing so, the future and the present often merge into a ‘pre-future’. And when the “pre-future” of the scene partners is chosen jointly, seemingly telepathic phenomena can occur between the actors. I have personally experienced this with my colleagues, and the literature also describes similar situations. We will refer both to Clayton D. Drinko and his 2013 book Theatrical Improvisation, Counsciouness, and Cognition, and to Keith Sawyer and the concept of “group mind” that he describes, in a future chapter.

2.6. Verbalization

Another level that can be borrowed from improvisational theater refers to the ability to discover using one’s own lines situations proposed by the playwright or to explore unwritten events. Thus, keeping within the coordinates imposed by the author, the actor can move on the time axis in a time before the action described by the author or after what the author has written, without pursuing the literary value of his discoveries, but only verbalizing what is necessary to experience the extratextual moments. Maria Knebel describes this technique of Stanislavski’s in Analysis by Action, and in the previous chapter devoted to Maria Knebel we have dealt in detail with the technique of improvised studies.

In the long form of improvisational theater, there are entire performances improvised entirely in the literary spirit of a playwright, just as in written theater there are playwrights who carry on famous literary works or famous characters from world drama. In the actor’s attempt to approach stylistically the linguistic universe proposed by the author, important answers can be found in relation to the degree to which the actor assumes the role. Training the ability to verbalize as if the improvised scene had been written by the playwright himself can have beneficial effects for the actor’s work on the role. Maria Knebel’s Action Analysis deals with this aspect, but does not bring the stylistic approach to verbalization into the discussion, considering the verbal action to be important only as a tool of the stage action.

2.7. Imagination and relaxation

From creating stories by developing verbal imagination to acting boldly in a fantastic stage space, improvisational theater gives actors the opportunity to develop their imagination moment by moment. By eliminating the concept of mistake, improvisation educates the actor to treat any deviation from the personal acting project as an opportunity to discover something new. Instead of his partner’s mistakes, the actor-improviser will see only new challenges to spark his imagination. To be able to function in this way, the improviser needs complete trust in both himself and his partner. Confidence in himself helps him to know that whatever happens he will be able to deal with it, and confidence in his partner will give him support and security.

Relax

Being relaxed on stage is a goal pursued by most pedagogical systems. From the exercises of Stanislavski or Michael Chekhov to the exercises of Strasberg or Utta Hagen, relaxation has become a goal throughout the history of Actor’s Art pedagogy, to which resources have been allocated, theories have been born and methods have been developed.

I consider it necessary to nuance the term or bring it up to date, because human performance in other fields proves that the ‘relaxation’ of a world-class athlete is not the same as the relaxation of lying on a deckchair by the sea with a cold drink in your hand. “Being relaxed” doesn’t exist in real life outside of a frame situation. “Relaxing” a tennis player when he has the match ball is different from “relaxing” the same player in the same tennis match two hours later, when his opponent this time has a match ball. Each situation has its own specifics, just as each individual has his or her own average relaxation index. In borderline situations, an individual characterized as a relaxed type may show the exact opposite of this statement, as his desperate efforts to bring balance in the midst of an unbalanced event may give rise to bodily tension.

We believe that a more detailed appreciation of the concept of stage relaxation is needed. If the situation the character is going through organically gives rise to bodily tension, then it is safe to say that although the actor was not relaxed, he was not showing any bodily tension.

It is the bodily tensions of the actor who feels uncomfortable because of the exposure to the eyes of the observers that are the subject of our discussion. Another cause of the appearance of these bodily tensions lies in the volitional action on feelings and emotions: out of the desire to “feel” the actor believes that he is obliged to honor the artistic project imagined before and, taking as a standard of perfection the image he has formed himself, he feels disappointed by the reality which, more often than not, does not fully match his expectations. In both cases the tension belongs to the actor, not the role or the character. It is necessary to distinguish the two types of tension: on the one hand, the tension of the actor who either wants too much or is not comfortable with his public exposure, and on the other hand, the physical tension of the character. Not always the lack of relaxation is harmful, just as not always the existence of relaxation corresponds to the assumption of the situation. This is why we will describe as beneficial only the relaxation that comes from the situation, the active relaxation. As we wrote above, a high-performance athlete has a specific type of relaxation. In his book Maximum Performance Laurence E. Morehouse has a chapter entitled Optimal Anxiety, in which he describes the ability to relax under pressure: “Performance requires tension, without tension your muscles would become disorganized, you would stumble and fall. The trick is to perform with just the right amount of tension: just enough to make you perform, not too much to get in the way. Anxiety accompanies all performance and is not only unavoidable but desirable, if in the right amount. This delicate measure, the ability to relax under pressure, is lacking in many of us. It is this skill that often makes the difference between the winner and the loser in world-class competitions where physical qualities and athletic performance are almost identical” ^[72]

In trying to function within the parameters of the stage situation and the specific rules of the play, the actor needs active relaxation. In any first-year theater play, student actors act in a relaxed, adaptive manner, exerting as much effort as is necessary to achieve immediate or long-term goals. In playing a game such as “Ninja” the actors may be tense, physically tense when waiting to be attacked by an opponent, but the lack of relaxation at such a moment is beneficial because it is subordinate to the immediate goal of getting away from the next attack. In a fencing attack, both relaxation and tensing up are needed, the mastery being to function optimally according to the immediate needs, adapting quickly to the unpredictable.

2.8. Adaptability, spontaneity and malleability

There is certainly not much explanation needed about the development of adaptability and spontaneity due to improvisational training. Confronted each time with unique and unrepeatable situations, the improvising actor is obliged to adapt to the new moment by moment. Beyond this truth, it remains to be seen how we ( we, the classical actors) will be able to use the adaptability trained through improvisation. The immediate answer relates to the stage accidents that can occur in a theater performance with a pre-written text, accidents which, in theory, the actor-improviser can cope with more easily by improvising the optimal reaction in good time. But, beyond these one-off situations, training in adaptability can also bring advantages in rehearsals, not just in performance. The notion of adaptability brings with it terms such as unpredictability, spontaneity or malleability into the adjacent conceptual sphere. To adapt on stage to the impulses received from one’s partner means first and foremost accepting the unpredictability of his or her actions. The ability to treat each moment as unpredictable gives the actor with a pre-written text the possibility of being surprised by what he knew would happen. The act of wonder can be practiced, and the reflex to receive the information each time as the first time can be created. By paying attention to real points of focus, by throwing anchors into immediate reality with the help of the senses, we can give ourselves the chance to be truly surprised by what we knew was going to happen anyway. Hunting the surprise accident, the actor-improviser retraces the route each time sensibly differently. Even if for an observer the two performances are identical, even if the text, stage movement, paralanguage and behavior are the same, for the actor the path must each time be adapted to new information which, added to the information already known, gives rise to a unique and unrepeatable experience for the actor-creator. Adaptability implies first and foremost the need to cope with the new, and for the actor to exercise this quality he must first of all accept the new, knowing and not knowing at the same time what is going to happen. This inner condition, the ability to fool yourself into not knowing what will happen to you as a character, can be realized, accepted and developed. By training ourselves to keep our attention always grounded in the present, using our senses as anchors dropped into reality, we can increase our chances of being surprised by the scenic future.

2.9. Conclusions

In concluding this chapter I will recap the benefits that can be borrowed from improvisational theater in classical theater with written text: the joy of the play, attention directed towards the partner and the environment, creative enthusiasm and team bonding, an acutely present-time-oriented stage existence, training of the imagination, tolerance of the unknown, relaxation, development of the ability to create one’s own linguistic universes by letting oneself be inspired by the linguistic universe proposed by the playwright, development of intuition adaptability, malleability and spontaneity, the next step technique, breaking the whole down into elements simple enough to allow real-time feedback, moving the referential system creatively from product to process, the divergent entrainment technique, creative shaping and thinking through action.

The improvisation module proves to be useful in giving the opportunity to discover the link between the stage of theatrical games and the stage of moving on to working with text. The pedagogical pathway thus becomes more articulated, and the skills acquired during the theatrical play period are not lost. Enthusiasm, enjoyment of the game, confidence, courage to take risks and the creativity specific to drama will also accompany the student during the rehearsal stage with a pre-written text.

Maintaining the reflex of daily training and occupying his mind with simple but necessary things to take him out of the zone of self-censorship, using the technique of the next step and the technique of breaking attention, the actor trains the creativity specific to his art: that of acting unpredictably, as the first time, deeply human and unedited, spontaneous and innovative as in an improvisational theater performance, in the rehearsal where he knows perfectly well what the author has written that will happen to him or in the last of the 20 takes of the day of shooting.

CHAPTER 3 – IMPROV MODULE – PARTICIPANTS’ OPINIONS

3.1. Introduction

Within a month after I finished the series of 12 improv trainings with the second year Acting group, without communicating the results of the Torrance Tests of Creativity, I sent them a feedback questionnaire via google forms with the request to fill it in honestly. The questionnaire was guaranteed anonymity, and the students’ responses reinforced my personal beliefs about both the qualities developed through improvisational theater and the advantages that improvisational theater brings to theater with a pre-written text.

In the next chapter I will deal with the interpretation of the answers given by the students participating in the Torrance Experiment, trying to identify common areas between the pedagogical objectives I set myself, the observations of the psychologist Alina Gherghișan, the interpretations of the tests and the principles stated in the literature specific to improvisational theater. As a general line of the questionnaires, the students amazed me by their ability to synthesize and by their awareness of the effects that improvisation training had on them, encouraging me in the research undertaken on the borderline between improvisation, theatrical play and pre-written text. The identification of the advantages brought by the improvisation module also led to an awareness of the bottlenecks that hindered their normal functioning, often their explanations were composed of antagonistic terms such as “courage-fear”, “openness-isolation”, “I-us” or “relaxation-failure”.

3.2. General coordinates

I will fix from the outset the general coordinates of the student actors’ responses by transcribing in full the answers given to one of the items on the questionnaire, which went like this: Choose one word to describe your month-long experience of the improv module.

Here are the 13 words of the 13 students: (please note that one student did not fill in the questionnaire)

“breathe, respite, smiles, helpful, play, play, big-up, clean-up, revitalization, serene, freedom, simple, workout, play.”

We can see semantically related groups or semantic analogies:

play-play-play, breathe-breathe-breathe-revitalize-big-up-freedom, clean-smile-smiles, useful-training-simple.

In the next chapter I will pay attention to these key words that from the subjects’ point of view summarize the process of the trainings they participated in May 2017.

3.3. General parameters of the improv module as seen by the participants

“game-play“

Play were the general coordinates of the daily development of each meeting during the 4 weeks, since the whole skeleton of the improvisation trainings was based on this binomial: playing becoming game. By approaching the short form of improvisational theater the ground on which we started our exploration was very close to Viola Spolin’s theatrical games. Viola’s principles were with us all the time, and regaining the playful component was an important pedagogical goal that, in my view, the whole group achieved. This gain, once achieved, became the basis of the whole scaffolding on which skills and attitudes specific to improvisational theater were built and consolidated. Playing became the daily protocol according to which the whole group acted and reacted moment by moment. The pleasure principle of play gave birth to relaxation, joy, confidence and courage. The classic teacher-student relationship was suddenly transformed into a coach-player relationship, and this had immediate effects in team bonding and freedom of expression.

I believe that rediscovering the joy and pleasure of acting is an important gain for both the improvising actor and the classical actor.

There arises the need to find out what are the conditions that favor the emergence of these parameters, and the first answer that comes to mind is the apparent “non-seriousness” of improvisational theater and theatrical games. For any actor who has not had the opportunity to train under the competent guidance of someone who has mastered the phenomenon, improvisational theater is “first-year little games”. I put quotation marks because these have often been the words I’ve heard uttered since 2003 in various conversations with theater people, fellow actors, or students. The diminutive “little play”, sometimes used pejoratively, actually hides the great quality of improvisational play: its seemingly simple and unreliable character. These attributes of theatrical games, simplicity and non-seriousness, are the strengths of training based on principles derived from improvisational theater. Clarification: “to be unrehearsed” becomes equivalent in this context to “to play”, and what distinguishes play from the actor’s work is the ability to focus more on the process, more on the here and now than on the result. When a child is playing they are not pursuing anything else, they are not worrying about whether they are playing well or not, nor are they thinking about the repercussions their play will have. When there is concern about the effects that the present will have on the future, play turns into something serious: it turns into work. And work excludes the notion of relaxation. We don’t like work, we like play. Theatrical play frees the improviser from work, reintroducing him to the pleasure of playing with his partners on stage.

One of the main sources of joy in theatrical games is the absence of the dust of casting for roles and characters. Without a predetermined role, the actor feels relieved of the responsibility of successful acting, so his attention is focused solely on the game, on the process that is taking place. His inner resources are not clouded by the false problems of the success or failure of the final product, and this reality gives his actions a creative dimension. In my view, play, have fun and acting are the main pillars on which the techniques taken from improvisational theatre and stage improvisation are based. Once lost, forgotten or not maintained the joy of playing, regaining the pleasure of playing is a real gain for the actor of any age, and the game and play used as tools to reactivate the original condition of the actor find their applicability within the perimeter of improvisational theater.

“breath-breathe-breathe-revitalize-big-up-freedom“

The principle that governs all forms of improvisational theater is Violei Spolin’s Collective Agreement, found in modern improvisation in the simple form of “Say Yes!”.

“Saying yes” refers to accepting the partner’s proposal, but this principle can also positively change the teacher-student or director-actor relationship. “Saying Yes”, beyond the strictly technical character of improvisational theater, has the advantage of excluding right and wrong concepts from the equation of the training process. Once actors have become accustomed to this way of seeing things, one of the biggest obstacles to creativity will have been removed: the fear of getting it wrong. Only by practicing being wrong as much as possible can the actor get rid of the fear of being wrong. Befriending one’s own or one’s partner’s mistakes is part of the improviser’s permanent existence, and consistent exposure to being wrong or being wrong annihilates the unconscious preoccupation with getting it right.

“Breath-breathe-breathe-revitalize-big up-freedom” are the words that 5 of the training participants chose to describe the improv module experience. They define one of the functions that improvisational theater in its unprocessed form can offer as a complementary training to the rehearsal rehearsals for a performance with a pre-written text. In the discussions we had in 2016 with the then coach of the Romanian Olympic Fencing Team, Mr. Podeanu, he mentioned after the improvisation session in Poiana Brasov the compensatory and decompensating role of an improvisational theater training on high performance athletes.

Athletes, (Olympic fencing golden champions in Rio) also, in the questionnaires that Ioana de Hillerin gave to complete as a case study for her PhD thesis, also gave answers containing these parameters: “joy, active relaxation, energization, fitness or release.”

The answers given by the students confirmed their need to go back to the first year and to the theater games and stage improvisation module. 100% of the group found the experience of the improvisational drama module useful and all those who took part expressed a desire for a further module. Among the arguments offered about the usefulness of improvisation, I will quote some answers that are eloquent in their simplicity:

-“It helps a lot because it relaxes you, gives you self-confidence and, most importantly, it takes your stage fright.“

-“It seems a kind of necessary training for the creative condition of an actor. An artistic refresh.“

-“We somehow got back to playing as it was in first year of acting and that was cool.“

-“Because it helps us stay fresh and play.“

-“Because I keep my means of expression alive.“

-“My senses, my ideas, my imagination, my confidence, my body, everything is developing harmoniously and uncontrollably.”

All answers and questions of the questionnaire will be found in the appendices of this paper.

The answers that the students have given are within the scope of psychologist Alina Gherghișan’s interpretations, completing the overall picture of the impact of the training on the subjects.

As far as I am concerned, I believe that the pedagogical objectives I set myself have been achieved, and this has given me confidence in continuing to implement training techniques specific to improvisational theater in acting with a pre-written text. The gains that the principles and methodologies borrowed from improvisational theater can bring to the role training of the classical actor can be structured on several levels, and the responses of the group of students argue the effectiveness of the specific approach of improvisation. The link between theater play, stage improvisation, improvisational theater and role work with written text begins to take shape systematically, a necessary first step is to regain the playful component and the joy of playing.

In the answers of the students participating in the improvisation workshop we find in a significant percentage the specific parameters of improvisational theater that we described above as a real gain, borrowed from improvisation to classical acting with a pre-written text.

I will recall the benefits that improvisational theatre can bring to classical theatre with written text, benefits summarized in the conclusion of the previous chapter.

Arguing my hypothesis and with the help of specialized literature, but also on the basis of personal observations made as an improviser, pedagogue and actor, I consider it useful from the point of view of training the creativity specific to the Actor’s Art that the specific parameters of improvisational theater and theatrical games be implemented to work with pre-written text. The usefulness of implementing the specific factors of improvisation and adapting them both during the rehearsal period of a performance and as complementary and maintenance training is a major point of interest in this research. The responses of the improv workshop participants corroborated with the interpretations of the Torrance Tests and my personal observations provide a big picture, a picture that points in the direction of our research: The joy of play, attention to the partner, creative enthusiasm, team bonding, training the imagination, developing relaxation, spontaneity, adaptability and tolerance to the unknown, the next step technique or discovery through play are just some of the advantages of improvisation that we find both in the students’ answers, in the interpretations of psychologist Alina Gherghișan and in my own observations.

In concluding this chapter, I will transcribe some of the May-June 2017 responses from students participating in the Torrance Experiment. I point out that the entire questionnaire and student responses can be found in the appendices of this paper, and I would like to point out that this group of students was not the group of students I normally worked with, but I met them for the first and only time at work on this module. Their responses, whatever they were, were subject to anonymity and in no way influenced the class work. The year teachers did not receive these questionnaires until the end of the terminal undergraduate year, i.e. at the end of the third year.

If so, how? (13 replies)

“Trust that whatever I do, it will be okay. To listen to my partner/partners. Be active-minded. Always looking for solutions.

I gained courage, confidence, relaxation on stage and trust in my partner. Plus, I learned to lead, but also to let myself be led.

Exercises for overcoming emotions, accepting mistakes in my work without getting angry with myself, I gained more courage.

The improvisations brought our group together a lot, even now we remember all kinds of funny stories and we would love to play again without fear, with courage, relaxed and creative.

They helped me gain self-confidence.

They made me feel more free and intuitive on stage.

Disinhibition, courage, confidence in my proposals. To be confident in my ideas, to be freer in applying them and I developed my ability to think and react much faster. They have restored my naturalness and pleasure, developed my spontaneity, and even more than that, confidence in my own spontaneity.

I have gained a freedom of expression, or rather, I have shaped it and emphasized my ability to interact spontaneously and humanely.

They reminded me to always start small, to enjoy what I do and how important focus is.

It helped me in the process of stage relaxation̆ and gave me a kind of flexibility in my thinking.

They gave us back the freedom to be creative and the confidence to act.

What are the most important things you learned during the improv sessions?

(13 replies)

First of all I found the concept of not saying “no” to your partner extremely important and interesting. That in improv you don’t use “no”. Again, through various games, we have learned to listen to our partner all the way, to listen to what they have to say so that we can give our “cue”. “Irish song” was called one of the improv games and although its role would be to give good rhymes, more important in this game, I think, is to listen to your partner.

I relearned to feel good, to get over my fears and to force my imagination to work at all times. I even learned to accept my mistakes as normal and beneficial.

The important thing is not to be afraid, not to be stubborn and to enjoy what others are doing.

Attention on the partner, everything comes from the partner and from our head.

That whatever proposal I receive I don’t close the road, but go on adding to it.

There’s no wrong, there’s carelessness and fear.

Nothing is wrong, try to assume the mistake, out of the mistake comes the comedy.

Adapt quickly to any situation and don’t be ashamed of your ideas.

That it can turn out extraordinary without having to prepare anything beforehand, if you have the courage to throw yourself into it, within the limits of certain rules; that you are good enough as you are, you are good enough;

Relaxation, first and foremost and real interaction – here and now. Plus those specified in the previous point.

It was the moment I began to understand what “relaxing” on stage meant. Also focusing in the present, leaving mistakes behind. It trained my ability to easily change ideas.

One careless moment and you’ve missed it, always accept a proposal!

Being present, accepting your partner’s proposal, having confidence in your proposal and seeing it through to the end, not having vanity and knowing how to pass when you get stuck. There is no me, there is us.

Would you like another improv module?

(13 replies)

If so, why?

(13 replies)

It helps a lot because it relaxes you, gives you confidence and most importantly, it takes your stage fright.

Because it helps me unwind, collect myself and calm down, especially during college when all the demands become a pressure.

And special.

I feel I have done something really constructive for the future of my career.

They are great training for thinking on the edge.

It’s a useful pleasure.

This module, for me, is like a shower that washes away everything we do during acting class and, clean, I can get back to work in the classroom.

My senses, my ideas, my imagination, my confidence, my body, everything is developing harmoniously and uncontrollably.

Because I’m convinced that it will help me (because I felt the effects even during the not very long period of the first module).

It seems like a kind of necessary training for an actor’s creative condition. An artistic refresh.

Because I keep my means of expression alive.

We kind of went back to playing from year 1 and that was cool.

Because it helps us stay fresh and play.

3.4. Conclusions:

The improvisational theater workshop held in May-June 2017 confirmed the effectiveness of using the principles and approaches borrowed from improvisational theater to develop, maintain or regain creative enthusiasm and joy of play.

The permanent return to simple truths and to the ability to discover questions where only answers begin to lie in wait, the interrogative leaning on the known and the permanent training of the act of wonder, all this increases the actor’s chance to “repeat himself” as little as possible from role to role, from rehearsal to rehearsal or from one performance to another. Improvisational theater, seen as a process of training openness to the unpredictable, brings benefits that other methods and pedagogical systems of acting do not address. The introduction of improvisational theater and stage improvisation among the effective means of developing creativity specific to the actor’s art benefits, in the case of the present work, from the results of the Torrrance Tests of Creativity and from the impact that the improvisation module had on the group of students with whom I worked. Of course, these results alone are not in a position to recommend improvisational theater as a subject and as a module in the university curriculum, but they can offer some insights, both from the student-participants and from the psychologist who interpreted the Torrance test and retest.

Developing the imagination through the act of storytelling, welding a group, intuitively accessing one’s own scenic solutions, training reaction speed, spontaneity and adaptability become through the training diverted from improvisation theater the gains that any actor will acquire once the specific techniques of improvisation will manage to make their presence felt on the field of the actor’s art with a pre-written text.

I should point out that my intervention on these questionnaires consisted only in adding diacritics, and the content belongs entirely to the students. I have not censored anything, I have not edited anything. I would like to thank them once again for their help and for the things that I, too, have learned from them.

CHAPTER 4 – THE EEG G.R. EXPERIMENT – A CASE STUDY

4.1. Introduction

In December 2017, following the preliminary experiment in April of the previous year, I set out to simplify the EEG experimental design and try a case study approach. From the outset, I required from myself that the data collected should fulfill the requirements of the standard of scientific research in this field, so that both the protocol of data collection and the post-processing and interpretation of the data should benefit from the expertise of professionals. To this end, we called on interdisciplinary help, each stage of this case study benefiting from specific scientific research protocols. Thus, both data collection, data processing and data interpretation were based on scientific methodologies undertaken by scientific researchers and specialists in fields such as EEG imaging, computer science, psychology or sports science.

Thank you to all those who helped me, starting with the volunteer actor, continuing with Andra Balțoiu without whom the data processing, their transformation into graphs, intensity curves, compared channels and I.C.A. analysis would have been impossible and ending with the scientific researcher and Professor Pierre de Hillerin who advised me on the steps to follow during the data processing.

I would like to thank the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative and Creative Technologies CINETic, Claudiu Papasteri, Alexandru Berceanu, Alexandra Sofonea and Alexandra Huh for all their support.

4.2. Experimental design and hypothesis

The case study I proposed was to investigate the brain activity and activation differences between the condition of an actor performing a monologue with a pre-written text and the condition of the same actor who verbally improvises on the same dramatic structure. Using as a starting point Charles Limb’s study and his conclusions that dorso-lateral prefrontal brain activity is more intense in the case of piano performance of a previously known piece of music than in the case of musical improvisation by the same subjects, we investigated whether the improvised text is subject to the same paradigm in the case of the actor as compared to the text learned by heart.

The subject, a 40-year-old professional actor with 17 years of experience in classical theater and 7 years in improvisational theater, voluntarily agreed to participate and was not paid.

The subject is righthanded.

The data were acquired with an ANT Neuro eego mylab EEG system with 64 active channels, the technical methodology of data collection and post-processing will be broadly presented in the next chapter quoting Andra Băltoiu, research scientist, and the graphs of intensity curves and frequencies will be attached at the end of the paper.

The experiment carried out on December 4, 2017 aimed to compare brain activity and activation areas between two different conditions to which the actor is subjected: the first task consisted in saying a previously learned monologue, and the second situation consisted in improvising, based on the same structure, ad-hoc, with his own words, the monologue. Data collection was done only during verbal pauses and with eyes closed, because the preliminary experiment had imposed the need to record as few artifacts as possible. Thus, the actor would say the monologue, either improvised or unimprovised, and would either stop speaking on his own or be stopped by a signal from me, pause vocally and close his eyes, which were counted as the moments of interest. Stops were given by the subject as well as by me, as follows:

the situation 1- the monologue was the one written before by the author, and the stops were given by the participant whenever he thought it was appropriate, my recommendation being to hunt for moments when he feels that an event is happening to him, no matter how small, from an acting, psychological or emotional point of view.
situation 2 consisted in verbalizing the previously learned text, but this time the stops were given by me who, as an observer, stopped whenever I felt that something was happening with the subject from an acting, psychological or emotional point of view.

The observer still gave the signal to continue the monologue after each stop.

situation 3 consisted in the verbal improvisation of the monologue known beforehand, on the same structure, the stops being given by the subject, exactly as in situation 1, whenever he feels that something happens to him;
situation 4: the subject improvised the text, but the stops were given by the observer, not by the subject.

In pre-experiment discussions, the volunteer actor knew that he would be recorded saying the monologue from Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, but he didn’t know what would happen afterward. It wasn’t until the day of the experiment that he found out the protocol regarding verbal improvisation on the structure of the monologue previously written by Sam Shepard.

Although he had 7 years of experience as an improviser, not only as an actor, the subject had never worked according to this algorithm before, none of the improvisational theater games studied having similar rules. The subject is right-handed, as previously stated.

The subject was seated in a chair, and movements throughout the 34 minutes of recording consisted only of involuntary head movements caused by the rhythm of speech. Data collection was done with the subject being instructed not to move and to close his eyes when he sensed an internal event. Involuntary artifacts were detected even so, most of which were identified and removed according to the scientific protocols explained in the next chapter and appended at the end of this paper.

The first version of the monologue was with stops dictated by the subject, restarting the text and opening the eyes were also at the participant’s discretion. Before starting the monologue, the subject sat idle, relaxed, with eyes open for 60 seconds, then closed his eyes for another 15 seconds, these recordings being the hyperventilation counterpart used in the clinical protocol of EEG imaging.

In this chapter I will use strictly personal general observations, the next chapter being entirely devoted to technical clarifications, graphs or power curves. What I will describe in the present chapter represents the description of the events as the experience was perceived by me as observer during the experiment and afterwards, impressions correlated and verified by the videotaping – witness and the interview recorded immediately after the experiment with the actor R., our subject.

After this first monologue stopped by the subject, the second hypostasis was the one in which the text was also the author’s, but this time the stops were given by me who, as an observer, stopped when I felt that something was happening to the person in front of me from a psychological or emotional point of view.

The last 2 versions were reserved for improvised text on the monologue structure. The third variant left the actor free to stop when he felt that an internal event was occurring, while the fourth variant placed the command to me: when an event seemed to be occurring, I stopped the improvised monologue and the actor closed his eyes, during which time, without additional noise caused by the muscles involved in speech, EEG data were collected.

4.3. General remarks

The longest monologue was monologue 3, corresponding to the first of the two times the monologue was improvised (5 minutes and 50 seconds).

The longest data collection happened on monologue 1, when the text was the author’s, and the order of the stops was the actor’s: he considered that 17 events happened, for which he stopped 17 times, and the total duration of all the processing was 71 seconds and 47 hundredths.

The longest processing lasted 14.81 seconds and also took place in the first version, in which the monologue was spoken in the author’s own words and the stops were given by the actor alone. This pause corresponded dramaturgically to the most important moment of the structure, namely the climax where the information that the character killed his wife out of jealousy appears. This pause occurred during the line, “So one day… pause of 14.81 seconds, then the continuation of the line …I killed her“.

Variant 2 corresponded to the author’s original text, but unlike variant 1, the processing stops were given by the observer. The total time that the monologue was spoken was 4 minutes and 13 seconds, 12 processing stops were quantized totaling 62.05 seconds, and the actual main processing took 13.20 seconds and went like this: “So one day … 6.96-second subject-granted break with eyes open, then 6.24-second observer-dictated break… I killed it!”

In version 3, when the text was improvised this time, and he stopped himself when he thought that something was happening to him, our subject judged the existence of 13 events, the total value of processing pauses being 52.22 seconds, with the main threshold shifted one word later and lasting only 5.57 seconds: “so one morning…” , (this is the moment when the line is interrupted by a 9.18-second wide-eyed pause, followed by the processing and a new invented line: „ I… paused processing with the eyes closed for 5.57 seconds… strangled her throat”.

Variant 4, in which the text was improvised and the observer stopped, had a total of 11 events and processing times totaling 50.20 seconds. The main event was as follows: “… one afternoon … eyes-open processing pause for 6.40 seconds… I hit it and it died…. after which the observer dictated eyes-closed processing for 6.20 seconds”.

All the information and figures circulated so far in this chapter are included in an annexed table.

Notes: in variants 2 and 4 the processing times for the main event were cumulated, because the involuntary pauses made by the subject with eyes open were translated as event processing.

It is interesting to note how the processing time of the main event is almost equal between Monologue 1 and Monologue 3, i.e. situation 1 with the author’s text and the command to the subject and situation 3 with the improvised text and the command to the subject. The difference is minute: 14.81 seconds versus 14.75 seconds even though in the first case the text was the author’s and in the second case the text was a different one, improvised ad hoc by the actor.

Another interesting observation refers to the semantics of the main line of this monologue and the transformation it undergoes in the transition from one hypostasis to another: in event 1, where the text is the author’s, and the entry and exit of the event are coordinated by the subject, the line is: “so one day… I killed her.” This line changes unintentionally in case 2 of the author’s monologue-text, with entry/exit from the event dictated by the observer into the line, “so one day… I murdered her.” The difference is minor between the two formulations, the verb “I killed her” being replaced by the synonym “I murdered her”, with all other words being retained in the line: “so one day …. “.

In the cases of the improvised text, however, the differences between the original line and its improvised correspondence are major, this being manifested by particularization in the whole construction: ‘one day’ in the original text becomes ‘in a morning’/’in an afternoon’, and ‘I killed/killed her’ becomes ‘I strangled her’/’I kicked her and she died’.

From the point of view of the representation of the verbalized action, the improvised variants are certainly more concrete and effective than the original lines because in the process of creating mental images, more specific actions will help us more than generalizations: “I strangled her” and “I hit her and she died” are certainly more powerful verbal actions from the point of view of the actor’s laboratory and the effect that these specific formulations have on the actor who acts on stage and verbally. This is supported by Stanislavski’s late System theories on the actor’s personal mental images, theories borrowed and developed by Stella Adler and presented in this paper in the chapter on Adler Technique.

Another personal observation concerns the quality of attention. Looking comparatively and trying this time to understand which of the two hypothetical situations – the situation in which the actor stops himself and the situation in which he is stopped by the observer – is more demanding in terms of the attention allocated to respect the rule of the game, we consider the situation in which the command is given to someone else to be unpredictable. This hypostasis is exemplified by situations 2 and 4, situations in which the control of the pauses was held by the observer, not the subject.

The creation of new rules whose observance requires adaptation to the unpredictable breaks down automatisms and brings freshness by elevating to the level of the unknown what is already established for the future by the letter of the text.

In the next chapter I will present the technical methodology of data collection and data processing, steps described as the scientific researcher Andra Băltoiu transmitted them to me.

4.4. Operational and methodological framework for the case study

This chapter is one in which the explanations are mostly strictly scientific, the methodology applied and all the calculations made by Andra Bălțoiu being explained according to the procedures and algorithms according to which the intensities, power curves or independent components were identified.

The technical language belongs entirely to Andrei Băltoiu, my intervention on the submitted material being minimal and only where this intervention did not affect the unitary understanding of the procedures undertaken in the data processing.

Data were acquired with a Neuro eego mylab ANT Neuro eego mylab EEG system at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. The setup involved 64 electrodes positioned as shown in Figure 1 Electrode setup.

Data processing and movie generation were performed with the eeglab software, developed by the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience and available as opensource. ^[73] The data pre-processing procedure involved the following steps, according to Widmann et al., 2014^[74] :

Elimination of the continuous component for each channel
Application of a high-pass filter with 1Hz cut-off frequency
50Hz frequency suppression with an inverted band pass filter

(between 45Hz and 55Hz) to exclude electrical interference

The Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithm (Debener et al., 2010) was applied to the data thus obtained (Debener et al., 2010), in order to obtain an approximation of the cortical sources responsible for the spatial configuration of the signals measured on the electrodes. According to Winkler et al.^[75] , to obtain the best results, ICA weights obtained on the filtered data were applied to the raw data. The algorithm generated 64 independent components, which were individually analyzed to reject those corresponding to biological and environmental artifacts. The following figure shows the properties of the rejected components. The motivations for rejecting the components are as follows:

IC 1: The component appears to correspond to a motion, given its amplitude and frequency, both of which are large compared to the rest of the components.
IC 2: Component properties point towards an ocular artifact, given its frontal projection and the individualization of activity episodes (top right graph in the properties plot below)
IC3: The component corresponds to a singular artifact, most likely ocular.
IC18: Similar to IC2 component.
IC23: Singular events of ocular origin.
IC30: Singular events of ocular origin.
IC32: Channel affected by muscle signal, periodic, possibly myogenic.
IC35: The component most likely corresponds to movements.

Finally, the components remaining in the analysis are represented in the figure “final ICA components” in the annexes.

Following ICA decomposition, the two events of interest were extracted from the continuous acquisition, together with 0.5 seconds prior to the actual trigger, in order to gain insight into the transition to and onset of the event. Thus, the time intervals tracked were, for event 1, between 707.878 and 714.878 seconds, and for event 2 between 1470.007 and 1478.007 seconds.

Due to the fact that the experiment was performed with the eyes closed, only the delta (1-4Hz), alpha (8-12Hz), beta (12-40Hz) bands will be of interest, but the other frequencies will be presented. Band separation was achieved by filtering the data with a band pass filter for the respective frequency values.

This was the description of the methodology that was followed by Andra Băltoiu, and the results will be attached at the end of this paper, both the power curves and the assigned graphs.

In the next chapter I will try to organize and explain the differences that I have identified on the I.C.A. power curves or simple channels, trying to capture correspondences between cognitive-behavioral processes and comparative brain activity.

4.5. Correspondences and comparisons between cognitive-behavioral processes and brain activity in the case study

The EEG experiment was useful because it again brought to the forefront the advantage of not relating during rehearsals to what is happening by mentally superimposing a pre-formed filter with the ideal image of the final product of the role. The spicing up of each rehearsal with new rules designed to disassemble the whole and thus sequentially train each separate parameter brings added interest and challenge for the actor. Keeping attention and interest alive in each rehearsal, turning each scene into a game with sensibly new rules each time, helps the actor in his approach to the role to project himself less into the future and be more involved in the present. This was also the case with our subject when the command was given to the observer: having to keep his attention alert in order to respond as promptly as possible to the unpredictability created by the sign that had become the rule of the game, the actor unwittingly became a captive of the unpredictable present. From this point of view, the data collected in December 2017 can be reinterpreted by changing the elements of the comparison: rule imposed from the outside versus rule imposed from the inside, i.e. the situation where the stop is given by the observer versus the stop given by the subject. To get a more eloquent picture of the whole experiment, we maximized the temporal axis, thus managing to capture the whole picture. At the same time we lost some of the accuracy of the data first collected in the time interval of only 7 seconds, during which, recall, the subject was in vocal pause and eyes closed. This time, the entire experiment was divided into 4 periods equivalent to the 4 monologues spoken by the actor, without interfering with the natural flow of time. Using an analogy with the movie world, each monologue was recorded in a “frame-sequence” mode.

I have enclosed the map created by Dario Nardi, to recall the correspondence proposed, verified and documented by him during more than 10 years of laboratory research based strictly on the EEG protocol, strictly on right-handed subjects, as is the case of our subject, right-handed as well.

Based on this map and with the information that Dario Nardi has visually placed in

map cited above (Nardi, Dario, “Our Brains in Color”^{^[76]} , p. 8, Los Angeles, Ed. Radiance

House, 2014), we superimposed for exemplification some ICA components resulting from the data collection of our experiment. References will be made both to the main event segment and to the entire course of the 4 situations in which the subject was placed:

-1) situation 1: monologue with text and stop given by the subject;

-2) situation 2: monologue with text and stop given by the observer;

-3) situation 3: improvised monologue and stop given by the subject;

-4) situation 4: improvised monologue and stop given by the observer.

For the long segments, the graphical comparisons will have in the name included the frequency followed by the two digits equivalent to the two situations compared, and at the end the number of the component I.C.A. Attached at the end we have the graph on the whole segment of the component ICA 38, the comparison being made between situations 2 and 4 in the alpha band.

There are close maxima between the two situations, situation 2 with author’s text and situation 4 with improvised text, and a noticeable difference in the minima.

For the correspondence between the activation zones of our subject and the acting tasks we created as visual support a personalized activation map according to the neural pathways, map realized by superimposing Dario Nardi’s map with the 16 regions responsible for the cognitive processes assigned to them and the map of the component ICA 38, whose power curves have found their graphical representation in figure alpha_2_4_38 (see appendix Activation zones for Component ICA 38, the whole event).

The investigation within the EEG Experiment of the correspondences between the cognitive processes traversed by the subject and the neuronal pathways assigned to them provided the opportunity to identify, in broad lines, the values of the power curves according to the electrode montage map, a map realized by the researcher Andra Băltoiu. Cross-checking the processed data and superimposing them on the maps made by the American researcher Dario Nardi provides an overview of the activation zones that the actor involved in the task with a pre-written text and the actor involved in the task with an improvised text access. For the present research the importance of identifying the activation zones in the strict context of the experiment is kept within predictable limits, but the value of the EEG research lies in the desegmentation of the whole represented by the stage process in its totality into several separate processes, each of which has specific and identifiable tasks.

The landmark on which we based our deciphering of the cognitive processes of our subject and the physical allocation of the areas involved in each process was provided by the division of the neocortex into sixteen areas and the cognitive functions assigned to them, according to the research carried out over a period of more than ten years by Nardi using the EEG technique. I recall that the areas corresponding to the two hemispheres (left and right) have as indicative odd numbers for the areas located in the left hemisphere, respectively even for the right. The assigned letters indicate the cerebral lobes, namely Frontal, Parietal, Occipital or Temporal. The mirror correspondence works on the principle of Fp1- Fp2 notations, where Fp1 indicates an area located in the left hemisphere (odd number indicates that), in the prefrontal area. It corresponds to Fp2 in the mirror in the right hemisphere.

I consider it useful for a future reinterpretation of the processed data and activation areas in our EEG experiment to review each of the areas described by the author so that the decoding of the ICA components and processes involved in our EEG experiment can be done independently of our interpretation.

Fp1 is an area located above the left eye and becomes active, according to Nardi, when it detects an error, decides between several options, or makes a rational judgment.

It is our supreme judge, our executive censor, our main command center. It is the area of verbalized explanations, justifications and rational-decitional elements. Together with Fp2 it represents the command of the whole brain, Fp1 being characterized on focusing on a single goal or point of attention, while Fp2 becomes active predominantly in multitasking processes. Fp1 has among its responsibilities the observation of mistakes, and when working at full attention it conveys self-confidence, calmness and focus to the subject.

Mirroring Fp1, above the right eye, as we wrote above, is the other command of the cortex, Fp2, located in the right hemisphere. In contrast to Fp1, Fp2 is less involved in decision making, its main function being to monitor processes and count whether a task is started or stopped. In contrast to Fp1, this area is neither verbal nor directive, it is activated when the subject functions on the principle of creative disorganization by linking new ideas, discovering, exploring, remaining open to new information that may emerge. These two command centers, Fp1 and Fp2, try to integrate, monitor and direct the activity of all the other areas. It’s important to note that this broad division into such broad areas is simply a broad outline of the ways in which our brains work. The role of mapping the brain by areas of activation is strictly to provide an outline of the localization of cognitive processes in general, all these localizations and neural pathways are in reality unique and subject to change. Even if they are only indicative, some of the information present in this chapter may help our research to unravel at least glimpses of the cognitive processes involved in acting tasks. For example, it is interesting for any actor, I think, to learn that he or she has two different regions, located in different hemispheres, with which we hear and understand words, respectively hear and understand the intentions behind speech (T3 in the left hemisphere is in charge of analyzing the meanings of words, while T4, in the right hemisphere, is responsible for understanding intentions, tones in one’s voice, or decoding emotionally resonant speech).

For the most effective intuitive understanding, we move from Fp1/Fp2, located above the left and right eye, respectively, to the above-mentioned T3/T4, located near the ear, in the left (T3) and right (T4) temporal lobes, respectively.

T3 is therefore located next to the left ear and is an area responsible, according to Nardi, for speaking, composing complex sentences, paying attention to grammar and correctness of expression, and listening to what others say. The attention of this area is directed mainly on the content of verbal communication, on the technical understanding of the elements of language, without concern for the intentions present in the intonation or in the intention of the interlocutor.

T4 is referred to by Nardi as the “Intuitive Listener”, and this area next to the right ear has in its field of activity the recognition of the tone and intentions behind speech, the recognition of the falsity of someone’s speech and resonates strongly with affect, emotion and personal belief, given the juxtaposition of areas such as T6, C4 or F8. In comparison to the mirror twin area in the left hemisphere, which deals with what is spoken (namely T3), T4 deals with how it is spoken. A malfunction in this area leads to misunderstanding of the intentions behind what others are saying. Since this area is also concerned with what others say, but also with one’s own intonation, someone who does not use this region when speaking does so monotonously.

The F7 region is located to the right of the left temple and can be said to be the center of imagination. It’s the area that becomes active when we do “what if” exercises or imitate the actions and behaviors of others. F7 is where simulations of imagined scenarios with the mind’s eye originate. Another important role of this area is empathic, with mirror neurons found predominantly in F7. For our research, this area has particular significance in what we mentioned earlier as creative imagination. Closely related to creative brainstorming functioning, this region provides the key to the ‘magic if’ terrain of acting. One of its main features is contextuality.

Next to the right temple is, in mirror image and in opposition to F7, the F8 region. If Nardi says of F7 that it deals with contextualization, of F8 he says the opposite: F8 ignores context, it is the area responsible for our deep-rooted beliefs, our creed, the principles that matter, our passions or loved ones that transcend any particular situation. If we look at this region from the point of view of the role we have to play, this is where our character’s philosophy of life, his motto, his character concept resides.

In order to clarify the proposed approach, I invite the reader to look at the presentation of the brain area allocation of various cognitive-behavioral processes not as a set of dry, strictly technical information, and not as a set of information that is strictly technical and divorced from their applicability from the point of view of our research. Of course, neither can we assume that once we have clarified this aspect, the scenic processes will become simpler to approach. However, just as we acted discursively in the case of the Torrance Experiment, when we identified the specific parameters of theatrical play and the advantages of recognizing the existence of indicators such as play enjoyment or real-time feedback, so in the case of the EEG Experiment we can identify antagonistic pairs of processes and approaches that either serve the creativity of the Actor’s Art or inhibit it. I therefore ask the reader to look at the information presented contextualizing the approach of the presentation which is based on the 16 zones defined by Nardi. For example, the differences between F7-F8 or Fp1-Fp2 can help us in confirming or disproving the psychic processes that help or inhibit the specific needs of a creative approach to acting.

The applied analysis that we will propose for our experiment does not claim the benefit of neuroscientific expertise. This analysis is strictly based on the visual correspondences between the areas activated in our experiment and the cognitive process areas assigned to these areas by Dario Nardi’s research.

Looking at the areas activated in A.C.I. 38 we can observe a predominance of brain activity in the right hemisphere. Recall that our subject is right-handed, and Dario Nardi designed his maps following a research in which he studied only right-handed subjects.

The areas involved in this map of brain function are Fp2, F8, T4, FC6, C4 in the right hemisphere, respectively Fp1, with a lower activity than Fp2, in the left hemisphere and Pz in the middle area. Looking at the color intensity, we observe that the maximum intensities are found in the regions F8, Fc6 , T4 and Pz.

Fp1 and Fp2 are the command centers of our brain, as described above, with each of the two areas having specific duties. If Fp1 intensifies its activity when cognitive processes pursue single-task focus and convergence of attention, Fp2 is active when working on multiple focus points, making its presence felt in processes that utilize distributive attention and divergent thinking. Another characteristic of the activity existing in Fp2 is openness to new information and embracing opportunities, while Fp1 is tasked with noticing and correcting mistakes. F8 is, according to Nerdi, the area responsible for personal identity and for ideas that, detached from any contextual situation, are deeply rooted in personal beliefs and convictions. This region is also activated when we mention things that we deeply dislike, with which we profoundly disagree:

Recall that all the correspondences found between brain areas and the cognitive processes assigned to them belong to Nardi’s research: “This region drives our language and behavior to match what we think is really important, our beliefs, including religious convictions, personal values, and loved ones.” ^[77]

Another characteristic of this region is the attention to recall details. Ignorance of context, anchoring in personal beliefs and the accuracy of remembered details result in terms of emotional dynamics in possible violent reactions when the subject feels that his or her unconditional beliefs, values and personal convictions are being altered.

T4, the other active area of component 38, is, according to the author, responsible for decoding paraverbal information. Thus, for us, actors, the presence of activity in this region is necessary moment by moment, both in acting with a previously learned text and in improvisational theater. Nardi calls this area the “Intuitive Listener”, and its proximity to the F8 area presented above also gives this area the function responsible for resonating on hearing concepts or ideas that are part of the arsenal of personal beliefs mentioned in the description of F8. In addition to decoding the intentions behind the content of the words heard, this region often becomes active, according to Nardi, when people become angry, and the censoring of these emotions cannot be done by Fp1 and Fp2, the areas that are normally responsible for censoring processes.

People who show increased activity often tend to become irritable or even aggressive.

C4, located in the right parietal lobe, is a mirror image of C3, responsible for accessing memories. While C3 specializes in the recall of facts and specifics, C4 links memories to affect, focusing strictly on the general, holistic nature of memory. C4, according to Nerdi, can be described as the artistic zone, a non-verbal zone in which the aesthetic takes precedence over the factual. Subjects who in general have not habituated this zone to be active show neither artistic inclination nor interest. Nearby is the FC6 region, whose activity also stands out as one of the basic components of alpha_38. This area is referred to by Nardi as the “Character Champion” because it helps us to engage emotionally in a social context, to adapt to it, or to observe and recognize feelings and emotions. One of the reasons why we stopped on this component (ICA 38) is the activation of several brain areas, as shown in the image above, predominantly in the right hemisphere.

Another region involved in the processing of information from the plate we are referring to is F4, responsible for categorizing particular and contextual aspects of a situation into general concepts that make it easier to frame and decipher them. This function can refer to people, things or places, but also to ideas or concepts. Accessing this function denotes and requires expertise in a domain, a domain which thus becomes familiar and facilitates sorting or establishing a specific relationship between 2 concepts. Returning to the data collected by me and exemplifying component 38, I will also attach comparative graphs of situations 1 and 3 for the entire time unit. Situations 1 and 3 correspond to signals given by the subject himself, unlike alpha_2_4_38, where the signal was given by the observer. The differences can be observed in terms of the intensity of the power curves also between situations 1 and 3, but also combined.

Over the entire time interval the maximum is visible as belonging to situations 3 and 4, respectively the improvised text.

As a personal observation regarding the whole experiment, the data converge towards the supposition that the maximum intensities are obtained when the subject has more unknowns, i.e. when the text is improvised, which seems to confirm the hypothesis that by making the task of the actor more difficult and introducing the task of verbalizing the monologue in his own words, we obtain a more intense brain activity on component 38. This is only a personal observation based on the comparison of the attached graphs, as the final data results cannot be conclusive in terms of scientific standards.

For the comparison and interpretation of the collected data I will attach in the appendices all the processed components, both on the large time segments as well as on the 7 seconds interval corresponding to the main event.

In addition to the preponderance of activity in the right hemisphere, another reason for using component 38 in the above graphical presentation was due to the observation that this component had the most synchronously activated areas of all the components of the A.C.I., and this condition is compared by Nardi to the “flow” condition. It seems to correspond to “transcontextual thinking”, a condition in which several brain areas synchronize in processing information simultaneously: “From a cognitive point of view, this pattern is referred to as transcontextual thinking. Depending on the type of stimulus that activates the brain-picture, sound, smell, sensation, or whatever else-the brain responds by rapidly processing stimuli in multiple regions, including regions not normally applicable to that stimulus.” ^[78]

I attach for exemplification another component from the data processed in our experiment in which, still predominantly in the right hemisphere, the activity is emphasized, while Fp1 and Fp2 decrease their activity compared to alpha_2_4_38. (see Appendix Activation areas for ICA Component 39, whole event).

In addition to processing the A.C.I. and the resulting components according to specific procedures and protocols, the power curves on each channel corresponding to the electrodes placed as in the picture below were analyzed and extracted.

The image alpha_2_4_39_brut_channels was obtained by superimposing component 39, Nardi’s map and the map of the location of the channels corresponding to the EEG event undertaken in December

2017. We use this new image to identify activation areas and EEG channel intensity values (see attached Activation areas for ICA Component 39, electrode channels, whole event).

We will focus only on the 4 channels that appear to have the most intense activity, their placement corresponding to the most active regions, respectively the most intensely red colored.

The time segment to which we refer is reduced to the value of the 7 seconds collected with eyes closed. We opted to present only the seconds extracted during the main event because the data thus collected are free of artifacts caused by the muscles involved in speech and because this time segment represents the main event of the monologue, the moment in the dramatic structure when the character recognizes the crime.

The 4 channels to which we refer are mainly C2, C4, FC2 and FC4, and in addition to these, with less intense activity, colored in bright yellow, are FC6 and C6, which we will also refer to.

We will also append the power curves at the end, noting that we have extracted only the main event, and that the two situations compared, situations 2 and 4 respectively, represent the analysis of the author’s text said by the actor (situation 2) versus the situation of the text improvised by the actor on the monologue structure (situation 4). Both in the case of the author’s text and in the case of the improvised text the signal to stop speaking and to close the eyes belonged to the observer. (see appendix channel C2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4, respectively channel C4 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4).

As can be seen, both channels above show maxima belonging to situation 4, i.e. the situation in which the text is improvised. The same thing is repeated for the other channels involved in the area corresponding to C4, the area referred to by Nardi as “Flowing Artist”. This area corresponds to the perimeter delimited by the 4 channels that we mentioned above as the most active in the ICA 39 component: C2, C4, FC2 and FC4.

Although the EEG channel values indicate more intense brain activity in the C4 region for the improvised text situation, we consider that we cannot draw a conclusion regarding the final results of the EEG experiment in which we compared the brain activity of an actor when saying the text of a playwright versus the brain activity of the same actor when improvising the monologue with his own words.

The relative accuracy of the data recorded and processed prevents us from drawing firm conclusions. We put this state of affairs down to the complexity of the inner processes as well as to the lack of technical and imaging means to quantify the neurological pathways and their independent manifestations.

We also attach graphs of the other channels compared, channels that find their location in the same C4 region labeled “Flowing Artist”. We attach for illustration the power curves, with the amplitude peak visible for the improvised text. (annex channel FC2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs situation 4 )

4.6. Experimental conclusions

I tried as much as it was technically and logistically possible to investigate the comparative brain activity between the two inner conditions: that of the actor who knows in advance the text he has to say and that of the actor who improvises the text, not knowing it in advance, but knowing the dramaturgical structure of the monologue he has to say.

I believe that due to the complexity of the mental processes that were taking place during the recording, the experimental design deficient from the point of view of isolating the responses given by the actor to the tasks in progress, the partially processed results do not provide a conclusive picture of the starting hypothesis.

Comparing only the 7 seconds of the main event provided only general information, but lacked the specific context for the differences in the intensity values of the A.C.I. components to have relevance and accuracy.

The link between the areas of brain activation and the graphs obtained thus remains approximate, therefore any interpretation that would attempt to draw a firm conclusion would be subject to the danger of supposition. Although Charles Limb mentioned in his study differences in dorso-lateral prefrontal brain activity between improvised and non-improvised music, and although the corresponding dorsolateral prefrontal brain area is also found in our differences (reference to channels F3, F4, F7 and F8), we cannot say that what Charles Limb concluded with regard to musical improvisation was also found in the case of verbal improvisation. We recall the American researcher’s conclusion that, in musical improvisation, dorsolateral prefrontal activity responsible for self-control decreases and medial activity responsible for self-expression increases.

We also attach the power curves compared on F2 channels.

In the comparative interpretation of learned versus improvised text on the 7 seconds processing segment, differences in intensity are found in some of the channels, but the processing is essentially similar, as the unpredictability specific to improvisational theater was attenuated in the case of the improvised text. The collected data indicate similar patterns of brain activity, and this result may have its source in the fact that our subject knew, while saying the monologue, what was going to happen to him, the structure he had to follow. If in the case of an improvisational theater exercise that is not based on a pre-written text the unpredictability becomes an implicit condition of the process, in the case of the improvised monologue based on a pre-established structure the unpredictability is attenuated, taking on mainly lexical valences. The advantages of verbalization in our experiment consisted in the enrichment of the playwright’s meanings and in their completion with images born from the actor’s personal analogies.

There are also differences in which maxims belong to the situations of the written text, and component 31 is an example of this type to which we will pay attention in the following.

We will also refer to the large time segments, but we will also analyze the 7 seconds in which the main event of the monologue took place, an event put in antithesis through the two situations: text written by the author versus improvised text.

Component 31 is located in the left hemisphere, and its location corresponds to the F3 region, which Dario Nardi describes as follows, based on the literature and more than 10 years of personal research with EEG imaging by Dario Nardi:

“Region C3, the Store of Factual Memories, becomes active when you recall a fact or memory that contains specific information such as a birth date or an event in which factual details are important, or when you draw charts, tables or graphs.” . ^[79]

I also attach in the appendices the graphs of the component 31 power curves, the whole record, comparison situation 2 vs 4.

What is defined in modern acting pedagogy as organicity or integral functioning, thanks to this experiment, also acquires a visual representation of what is meant by the synchronized functioning of several brain regions, all subordinated to a single “macro-sarche”. This seems to happen, Dario Nardi argues, in the case of the flow state, a concept we have analyzed in this paper.

The identification of large areas of brain activity in the experiment we performed is itself, from the outset, subject to possible errors caused by the EEG imaging itself. The electrical signals are picked up at the scalp, presumably representing the correspondence with deep neocortex activity. However, this is not guaranteed by any scientific protocol and the isolation of ICA components does not certify the accuracy of the data. Navigating in eminently new terrain, the data collected and their interpretations are subject, however many graphs and power curves may appear on paper, to the error born of the uniqueness specific to each human being.

The very division into two cerebral hemispheres, the left hemisphere responsible for the analytical, verbal, deductive part, and the right hemisphere being predominantly characterized by non-verbal, intuitive and holistic processing, turns out to be a gross division.

In the economy of the entire PhD, the information presented in this chapter, information written and conceived in the previous year, benefited from the confirmation of a similar approach from the Russian acting school: in October 2018 the I. L. Caragiale National University of Theatrical and Cinematographic Arts in Bucharest received the visit of a delegation from the Gherasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (V.G.I.K.). During this event we attended the Masterclass on stage movement held with our students by the acting teacher Rustam Z. Minnibaev. The exercises he worked on used principles that aimed, through complex rhythmic movements involving different areas of the two cerebral hemispheres, to activate the whole brain. On the borderline between theatrical play and sports training, the rhythmic and coordination exercises presented followed principles common in improvisational theater and stage improvisation. I caught approaches similar to those I referred to in the chapter on the Torrance Experiment and its parameters: real-time feedback, the next-step technique or the arbitrary-step technique.

Over the past four years, inspired by the braingym concept and the way you can train through movements using fine mechanics and the opposite hand principle, I have discovered a similar set of movements, and this has led me to believe that the interdisciplinary neuroscience-art can give rise to connections that have the merit of sparking the creative intuition of others who are passionate about the pedagogy of the actor’s art.

In an increasingly technologized near future, in a world where watches already measure your pulse, physical activity, blood pressure, calories burned or can even process an electrocardiogram on their own, having real-time information about what’s happening in the microuniverse of your body seems like a dream come true.

After the EEG experiment that I have undertaken, I believe that all these tools are of value only if we manage to use them to get closer to ourselves and to better know ourselves. Once they have achieved their main purpose, which is to make us pay attention to ourselves in order to give us the opportunity to discover ourselves, I believe that these tools can be taken out of the equation and out of hand: they have done their job, they have accustomed us to what theater and art in general have been dealing with for thousands of years, except that we humans need proof from time to time to believe what we know how to feel anyway.

PART III:

IMPLEMENTING DEVELOPMENT TECHNIQUES AND

TRAINING CREATIVITY SPECIFIC TO THE ACTOR’S ART

CHAPTER 1 – THEATER AND SPORT

Throughout my four years of doctoral research, my search has pushed me in several directions in the hope of finding solid ground on which to stand in the unstable realm of the actor’s art. I take on the term “unstable” and try to explain it: the creativity specific to the actor’s art, seen as a product, that is to say as a role in a theater or film performance, is prone to factors that sometimes transcend the intrinsic value of the creative act and fall within the perimeter of the subjectivity of reception. The period of my doctoral research gave me the opportunity to interact on tasks and topics specific to the field I was investigating with specialists from other fields. I thus had the chance to work with psychologists, sports researchers, high-performance athletes, computer scientists or neurologists.

The frustration I faced in my attempts to organize, synthesize or scientifically demonstrate accepted taken-for-granted hypotheses in the field of Actor’s Art led me to seek to rely on the conceptual structure of a generally accepted branch of science, namely Sport Science. The need to objectify some specific parameters of Actor’s Art with the help of Sports Science was also motivated by the analogy between theater and sport, between sports training and rehearsals or competition and performance. Both actors and athletes train in order to adapt their bodies to the specific performance requirements of their sport or role.

The very title of this paper includes the terms entrainment (training), and one of the constants of the research undertaken was the attempt to be able to quantify and objectify components of the inner process carried out in the actor’s intimate laboratory, betting on a better understanding of psycho-emotional mechanisms, in the hope that this awareness will improve the actor’s creative performance.

During the four years of my PhD I had the opportunity to watch and work with high performance athletes, participating in two training camps of the Olympic Fencing Team, training camps in preparation for the Rio Olympic Games. I also witnessed the daily training of a cyclic sport, swimming, with David Popovici and Adrian Rădulescu. As I wrote in the opening of this chapter, the similarities between sport and theatre are important, but the differences in approach and testing give us actors the opportunity to borrow from sports training techniques and to benefit from the structure of “periodization”, a method accepted in the sports world as a way to increase performance.

At the same time, it becomes absolutely necessary to be able to identify and define performance from the actor’s point of view, taking the term borrowed from the world of sport as a model. Sports performance is simple to identify, because often the best times also indicate the best athletes, and in team or individual sports with an opponent, the scoreboard and the final score are clear indicators of performance. Unlike in Sport, in Performing Arts performance is not so simple and clearly identified. As it is an art in which the subjectivities of the creators and those of the receivers become the main characters that attest or deny value, the procedures to ensure success and, implicitly, performance, are less clear than in Sport, because the rules for scoring or de-scoring the artistic act are relative. More often than not, spectators’ inner processes occur unconsciously and are verbalized with a simple “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it”. However, we undoubtedly identify the actor who the spectators believe is the best performer. How and in what way this judgment of value happens for the spectator we cannot explain, maybe even he/she cannot be aware of it, but certainly after a theatrical performance, every spectator has his/her favorite among the actors on stage. Being a deeply personal manifestation, this honest “I like” of the spectator hides many hidden secrets of the phenomenon of theatrical reception, just as the phrase nowadays criticized by the professionals of the phenomenon, the phrase “got into the skin of the character”, can give us a clue as to what an actor’s performance means to the simple spectator, unfamiliar with technical terms.

In the chapter in which we tried to interpret the brain activity of the subject of the December 2017 EEG experiment, we aimed to identify some cognitive processes and to correlate them with the intensity of some A.C.I. power curves.

Dario Nardi, in his book Our Brains in Color, claims to have identified the network

neuronal empathy. (See attached the neural network of empathy, according to Nardi^[80] )

This neural pathway may be responsible for the theater-goer’s identification with the character – the actor who “likes” or “got into the character’s skin” the best, in his or her opinion.

From the point of view of the sports spectator, his subjectivity does not play such an important role in the reception and influence of the sports performance, even if, say, a football stadium of 50,000 fans is against the visiting team.

Another reason that prompted me to direct my research towards the parallel between sports training and actor’s training was the hypothesis that periodizing rehearsals and role work according to sports theory, we manage to improve the creative performance of the actor. Assuming specific principles, methodologies and concepts of sports training and using them during rehearsals and performances can be beneficial for the actor’s art by easing the path of becoming the role.

Trying to identify the similarities and differences between the actor and the athlete from the point of view of the training to which both are subjected, we will analyze in the next chapter sports techniques and methods that can be adapted to develop and train the creativity specific to the actor’s art. The approach to the technical universe of Sport will be made through specialized literature and personal observations due to the participation in sports training during the years of doctoral research.

CHAPTER 2 – SPORTS TRAINING

In Sports Theory Constantin Adrian Dragnea defines sports training as “a complex bio-psycho-pedagogical bio-psycho-pedagogical process planned, carried out systematically and continuously graded, to adapt the athlete’s body to intense physical and mental efforts, necessary to achieve performance in competitions”. ^[81]

The similarity with the rehearsal period is obvious, because the actor, like the athlete, tries to adapt to the requirements of the role, gradually, systematically and planned. It remains to instrumentalize the concept of “performance” in the Actor’s Art.

According to the theory of Professor Ion Cojar, the performance of the Actor’s Art consists in “the free and unpredictable manifestation of the dynamic and contradictory human nature as it appears to us from the only possible rational-realistic perspective: ACTOR = HUMAN” ^[82]

The actor’s ability to embody, to bring to the physical plane, to embody literary fiction is synonymous with the specific performance of the Actor’s Art, and the specific training becomes the understanding of the rules of the game, adapting to the requirements of the game, and then playing it in the presence of the audience.

By borrowing principles, methods and methodologies from Sport Science we can gain a new point of view on the actor’s laboratory.

By investing the director or teacher with the function of the coach we have the chance to rely on an articulated system of principles and methodologies, a system whose efficiency has been tested and measured in competitions. It remains to establish the dictionary that can ensure the translation of technical terms from Sports Science into terms specific to the actor’s art. It is also necessary to semantically nuance some concepts and principles from sport and bring them within the perimeter of acting. Among the notions that we will investigate are both the notion of training and technique, both notions representing the central pillars of the present work, a work that attempts to provide some answers in relation to the actor’s creativity and techniques of training and developing it. The pendulum between the two referential systems – Sports Science and Actor’s Art – may give rise to the emergence of new meanings about the efficiency of creative approaches in acting. In his book on periodization, Bompa defines some notions mutually shared by the two fields, notions such as adaptation, training, or preparation: ‘Adaptation to training is the sum of the transformations provoked by repeated, systematic exercise. (…) Physical training is only beneficial as long as it forces the body to adapt to the stress of exertion. If the stress does not constitute a sufficient demand, adaptation does not take place. On the other hand, if the stress is intolerable, the result may be injury or overtraining” ^[83]

Drawing a parallel between sport and acting, we can accept the hypothesis that the actor, in his rehearsals, adapts his body to the role. If, for the athlete, the adaptation is mainly physical, for the actor it is a psycho-physical and emotional adaptation.

The similarity also exists at the semantic level: repetitions-repetitions. Actors “rehearse”, athletes “rehearse”.

The concept invented by Yuri Hanin, the Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning (IZOF), is also part of the lexicon specific to Sports Science. It is important for athletes and their coaches to know how emotions affect sports performance, for better or worse. Hanin’s theory is that every athlete has a certain emotional imprint prior to a good result, an emotional imprint that can be compounded each time before the competition to favor performance. This concept can be useful to the actor as well, the athlete’s pre-competition emotions may well find congruence in the actor’s pre-performance trach.

If for Sports Science it has been shown that there is an Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning, borrowing this concept, the actor can try, together with the “coach”, to identify the Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning, and then find his own set of exercises that will get him in shape for both “training” (rehearsal) and “competition” (performance).

One important feature emerges from the IZOF principles: beyond the general principles of training, the personalized training plan is the key to performance. To put it in our terms, the teacher, the director or the actor himself has to find his own technique, his own set of exercises for optimal fitness, both before the “training” (i.e. rehearsals) and before the performance.

On page 22 of Bompa’s book Periodization: Training Theory and Methodology we find the following illustration which explains very clearly the factors on which the quality of training depends^[84] .

(see attached table no. 3: Quality of athlete training, Bompa)

The performance of the athlete depends on the quality of the preparation, and if we replace the athlete with the actor, we can get a diagram of the factors we have access to in order to change the final result: the performance.

Since the actor’s genetic data cannot be improved, we can see that the only parameter to which the actor alone has access and which can influence the quality of training is motivation.

Performance is directly influenced by the personality and knowledge of the coach, i.e. the teacher or director. The acting coach can also influence the actor’s motivation for better or worse.

I believe that the most important way to stimulate creativity specific to the Actor’s Art is to remove the obstacles that stand in its way, namely fear, mistrust in one’s own powers, fear of making mistakes, lack of motivation or loss of joy in doing.

Another aspect of sports training can be studied from the Actor’s Art point of view: the overcompensation cycle.

Overcompensation is closely related to recovery. According to compensation theory, effort leads to athlete fatigue and recovery is, from a performance point of view, as important as the training itself.

For the actor too, the “recovery” between rehearsals needs to be instrumented, translated into its own terms and correspondences found. ‘Recovering’ after a day of rehearsal or ‘recovering’ after a demanding performance can become useful concepts for the actor. By looking at the figure below we can discover another principle that can be applied to the actor’s work in the role: the principle of overcompensation (see appendix The overcompensation cycle according to Bompa^[85] ).

In his book Periodization: Training Theory and Methodology, sports researcher Bompa explains on page 25:

“The overcompensation cycle (Figure 1.5) is as follows: after training exercise, the body experiences fatigue (phase I). During the rest interval (phase II), biochemical reserves, although not replenished, exceed normal levels. The body fully compensates, followed by a phase of increase or overcompensation (phase III), when a higher level of adaptation occurs, followed by a functional increase in sporting efficiency. If the athlete does not apply another stimulus at the optimal time (in the overcompensation phase), involution (phase IV) occurs, which is a decline, with the loss of the positive elements gained in the overcompensation phase.”⁹⁴

The need for ‘another stimulus at the optimal time’ can be a useful principle for the actor in terms of making adaptation to the role more efficient. Finding another stimulus during rehearsals at the optimal time, a stimulus that is conducive to discovery and upward slope can be related to non-rehearsal, novelty, or improvisation.

The actor’s progress in relation to the role can be stimulated by maintaining alert attention and motivation with new tasks (stimuli) at the point when compensation has been reached. Overcompensation may, in this context, be equated to the degree of discoveries made compared to the past rehearsal.

From September 2017 through September 2018, I was the daily observer of my 8 year old son’s competitive swimming training. One of his coleagues was David Popovici, the gold swimmer. Coach for the kids group was Adrian Rădulescu, the Olympic gold medal coach.

Imagining that each of the athlet daily workouts is equivalent to one day of rehearsals for actors in one time, I tried to observe which steps the coaches follow each day and identify possible useful techniques for the performer during rehearsals. I also paid special attention to the steps that we as actors don’t do and that athletes do in every practice. One of these steps is warming up, which we actors often pay too little attention to. In addition to making training more efficient, warming up has another goal that is at least as important: injury prevention. If the term “injury” has a very clear meaning in sport, the same cannot be said of the injuries that an actor might suffer when rehearsing unheated. In this context, ‘injury’ can also be used in relation to the emotional side of the actor, because the actor’s field of expertise includes the emotional. Keeping the analogy of warming up in sport and injury prevention, warming up the actor is of similar importance, both physically, but more importantly psychologically and emotionally.

I even dare to use the term “personalized warm-up”, because the personal parameters that need to be activated and the specific risk of injury lead us to apply different algorithms depending on the personality of the actor and the role for which he or she is training.

As far as the sports training lesson plan is concerned, in addition to the warm-up, technical, tactical or physical training aspects may be among the objectives set. The parameters whose development is targeted during a training session may vary according to the coach, the training period or the athlete himself. Although training days in cyclical sports (e.g. swimming) may appear identical, although the main objective of an athlete’s whole life as an athlete remains the same from junior to senior – to achieve better times for the various events – periodization into training cycles ensures that the athlete remains motivated and breaks out of the routine of repetitive training.

Compared to him, the actor has the chance to train other parameters with each role, and the rules of the game also change from role to role.

From the field of Sports Science, I find it useful to pick up concepts such as overtraining, periodization, recovery, rest interval, undertraining, overtraining, overtraining or peak of the curve.

In relation to the atmosphere that favors athletic performance and acting performance, it is important to note the similarities as well as the differences. While sustained effort and pushing physical limits seem to be the everyday prerogatives of sports performance, for the actor, creative relaxation, curiosity and enjoyment are the ingredients of a successful rehearsal. Setting clear immediate, medium or long term goals, a technique that is constantly used in sports training, could provide benefits, once the principle of periodization is adopted in actor-specific training.

Having a clear overall rehearsal route segmented according to intermediate objectives is a common approach in a director’s work on the realization of a performance. Errors occur when the objectives are unrealizable for the actor because of either overly complicated tasks, unclear rules of the game, or not adapting the training plans to the actors’ actual performance.

In sports training, a movement is often segmented, isolated and practiced until it becomes automatic. It is only then that you move on to the next step, to strengthening or perfecting the movement or process. Maintaining this technique when working with the actor can also yield positive results, as often, despite not having mastered a simple parameter of a stage situation, the actor is placed in a situation where he or she is forced to follow rules that are too complex for the actual rehearsal stage. Not having the complex tasks broken down enough so that they become possible tasks, the planning error occurs, and the studied scenic parameters are not found in the actor’s real potential of assumption at the moment of rehearsal.

2.1. Sports training – general principles that can be applied in Art

Actor

“Training is a process by which an athlete prepares for the highest possible level of performance. The training process is aimed at the development of specific attributes in conjunction with the execution of a variety of activities. These specific attributes include: multilateral physical development, sport-specific development, technical procedures, tactical skills, physiological characteristics, health maintenance, injury resistance and theoretical preparation.” ^{^[86]}

Tudor O. Bompa’s definition of sports training includes all the important information that can be useful to the Actor’s Art. The rehearsal process can benefit, by analogy, from all the attributes listed above. Just as in sports training, in the actor’s work on the role it is necessary to acquire a general multilateral development along with the development of specific attributes of the role, the director’s requirements or the mastering of technical procedures.

Just as there are performance sports and high performance sports, I believe that the Art of the Actor can acquire similar valences when personal motivations, level of expertise, conjuncture and public recognition transform the actor into a professional who performs. Like an athlete, the actor-performer needs to be in good health, injury-free and fit night after night for the competitive season that the theatrical performance becomes. The emotions, the expectations, the successes and failures are similar to those of an athlete in competition, even if the stakes for the actor may seem less high compared to a sports Olympiad or a world championship. From the point of view of the actor who invests confidence, expectations and feelings, the stakes are comparable and the degree of emotional commitment is comparable.

A generally accepted division of sports into individual sports and team sports may create similarities with the Actor’s Art, as these two categories are equally found in the specific activities of rehearsal in the theater and the performance itself. The journey to the performance and the performance stage contain the main elements of both individual sport and team sport. The actor’s work in the role is both an individual sport and a team game.

Another division of sporting activities is, according to Bompa, the division into cyclic, acyclic and combined acyclic sports. Cyclical sports such as swimming, rowing, cycling, running or speed-skating have as their main motor characteristic repetitive acts, whereas acyclic sports such as team sports, figure skating, wrestling, boxing or fencing are motor procedures performed in a single action. One of the basic concepts in training science is adaptation, which is closely related to training: “Adaptation is an organized process, during which the athlete’s mind and body are constantly subjected to stressors of varying volumes (amounts) and intensities”^{^[87]} .

Improved performance only occurs when the stimulus is appropriate for the adaptation to take place, otherwise, if the stimulus is too small then plateauing occurs, and if the stimulus is excessive then maladaptation occurs, i.e. a decrease in performance.

The systematization and progressive nature of training induces adaptations that result in improved performance.

From this point of view it has been found that variation of the training stimulus is more effective than the application of the same stimulus, which is also observed in a certain period of rehearsals for actors, when it seems that the enthusiasm disappears, things are known, and mental processes seem to be mechanical. These symptoms require the application of new and varied stimuli, according to Bompa’s periodization theory of sports training. We can thus get a plausible explanation for the inefficiency of “rehearsing”, an action involving the application of the same stimulus.

2.2. Stages of sports training

The main stages of sports training are: pre-adaptation, compensation, stable or pre-competitive adaptation and competitive training. These stages usually follow training plans and training cycles that may vary according to the competitive program.

Pre-adaptation is the progressive adaptation carried out during the first months of the training plan. One of the principles to be applied to this period relates to the intensity of the training stimuli: “If the training load and the resulting physiological stressors are not excessive, the first weeks of training will lead to a much more sustainable adaptation, with increased work capacity and increased tolerance to more intense training demands”^[88] .

I tried to apply this principle during the Torrance Experiment with the students, the first 10 calendar days being strictly a settling-in period. That period was important for the acquisition of the playful component, to the detriment of visible and immediate accumulations, but with beneficial effects in the following periods. In this first stage, the aim was achieved through a large amount of information, with special attention paid to the diversity of the exercises worked on and to gaining individual and group confidence, enjoyment of work and creative enthusiasm.

Compensation is, according to Bompa, the second stage, a stage preceding stable adaptation. The body’s responses to training become visible, and compensating for the difficult level is done as a short-term reaction to the training plan.

Stable or pre-competitive adaptation is the stage in which the athlete begins to approach adaptation to maximal stimuli and shows a greater capacity to recover than in other periods to date. This period corresponds to training matches and the stressors applied begin to approach what will happen in competition. In the theater, this phase could correspond to the “strings”, i.e. rehearsals that simulate the performance as it will be when it is performed.

The last level is competitive training, in which the athlete is physically, technically and tactically prepared and masters the necessary skills to perform competitively.

Even if the information presented so far may seem too technical, dry or unhelpful in its scientific rigor for the Actor’s Art, I believe that it can provide an articulate point of view on planning training aimed at performance for actors. And since the physical components matter more and more in The Actor’s Art, just as the psychological and emotional ones matter more and more in performance sport, borrowing principles from one field to the other can be effective at least in terms of the main approaches. By understanding the approach to sports training we can become more effective in approaching rehearsals in theater, whether as actors, directors or pedagogues.

We can familiarize ourselves with managing fatigue more carefully, perhaps by introducing terms such as ‘recovery’, ‘recuperation’ or ‘individualization’ into the individual technical lexicon.

One of the important training methods is known in Sports Science as Weigert’s Law of Supercompensation, and Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome Theory emphasizes the need to systematically alternate training loads, volumes, intensities or speeds of execution. This streamlines the supercompensation cycle and allows recovery between sessions. The systematized ratio between effort and regeneration is the key to effective overcompensation. Efficiency is closely linked to avoiding the onset of fatigue and overtraining, according to the supercompensation theories cited by Bompa and Haff.

Analogizing the concepts briefly presented so far, we can conclude that attention to recovery is as important for the actor as it is for the athlete. If for the athlete the term recovery refers mainly to the physical body, for the actor the psychological and emotional body often requires recovery.

Paying attention to mental and emotional recovery after each rehearsal, being able as a director or pedagogue to be able to apply individualized and optimal stimuli to avoid both undertraining and overtraining can become beneficial behaviors for the rehearsal process and for the final product, namely the role that the actor often wants to be synonymous with performance.

I attach for example the graph with the stages of the effects that supercompensation training has on the athlete. (see attached chart of the response to training in a supercompensation cycle according to Bompa ) ^[89]

2.3. Specific parameters of sports training and actor’s training

Without going very much into technical details, trying to lift from the specific sphere of sports training and to draw out notions, principles or theories that can be borrowed in the actor’s training, we have tried in the previous chapter to define sports training with the help of specialized literature.

Given the scientific, measurable nature of the models used in Sport, it is impossible to prove the advantages of implementing these theories in the work of the actor, but as far as the Torrance Experiment is concerned, I can say that the guidance that the general principles of sports training offered me made the workshop more efficient and facilitated my pedagogical work.

Since during my doctoral years I have had contact with people from the world of performance sport thanks to the collaboration with Ioana de Hillerin, whose doctoral research studies communication techniques and Actor’s Art in the service of performance sport, I believe that the reverse route, namely from performance sport to Actor’s Art, can also offer us, those of us from the world of theater, the possibility to gain new insights on common topics such as increasing performance and streamlining the preparation periods of a performance.

One of the concepts that caught my attention is that of individualization of training, a concept that I find useful in Actor’s Art pedagogy, directly related to pedagogical performance.

Placed strictly within the perimeter of training, the principle of individualization is one of the basic principles of modern training. Its approach proposes that each training plan should take into account and be modified by the athlete’s personality, aptitudes and real assimilation capacities, even emphasizing the invention of a personal set of exercises, necessary to provide the optimal personalized stimuli that determine the individual adaptation reaction in optimal coefficients. Such approaches can also be found in Actor’s Art pedagogy, with the teacher-student relationship occupying a central place in Viola Spolin’s literature from this point of view. The principle of individualization can also be used in rehearsals for a performance, with the director playing the role of a coach who adapts his approach and requirements to the individual, intervening in the development of each actor individually, according to the specific requirements and maximum potential of each. One of the constant concerns thus becomes avoiding over-training and under-training. To be able to apply personalized stimuli, the director needs to know each actor and know how to communicate with each of them in specific terms. Another aspect that can make the director-actor relationship more effective is a realistic assessment by the director of the actor’s current stage of development and adapting the pedagogical approach accordingly.

Various loading patterns are used in sports training, and all these patterns have a common denominator of progressiveness. The variations required to pendulate between effort and recovery also individualize training, with one of the central theories in sports training being structured or sequenced loading:

“With proper structuring, each segment or stage of training will enhance the next.” ^{^[90]}

2.4.Sport training variables

According to sports training theory, “the effectiveness of a physical training program is given by the manipulation of volume (duration, distance, number of repetitions or load), intensity (load, speed or force input) or density (frequency)- which are the key variables of training.”^[91] (BOMPA, p. 79)

According to Bompa, the individualized training plan must adjust these variables according to the specifics of the sport, the athlete, the proposed objective, and the estimation of the effectiveness of the training plan must be done periodically.

This set of requirements implies several conditions to be fulfilled. The first and most important one concerns the constant monitoring of the athlete’s development in relation to the model created and the proposed training and competition objectives.

Handling these variables must be done progressively, otherwise there is a danger of overtraining.

Borrowing the technique of varying the frequency of rehearsals, their intensity or volume can also bring advantages in the field of theater training, because any novelty in rehearsals breaks the routine, creates interest and reactivates inner motivation.

2.5 Techniques and processes from sport to maximize performance in theatre

One of the most important aspects in which performance sport can offer alternative approaches to theatrical rehearsals is the peak of form for competition. Maximizing individual and group potential for the theatrical premiere is the result of effective periodization and structuring of rehearsals.

In performance sport, clever management of the training-fatigue binomial can make the difference between medals, and every percentage improvement in personal efficiency can put an athlete on or off the podium.

One of the processes most commonly used a few days before a competition is called unloading or narrowing.

Offloading is the reduction of stress placed on the athlete, whether it is a reduction in activity, workload or training frequency in order to increase peak performance during competition.

Looking for peak form and preparing for it to coincide with the premiere period can pay dividends in the performing world. Periodization of rehearsals, tracking peak form and adapting/changing ‘training plans’ according to mid-term checks are the conditions that ensure the premiere is the optimal peak. While there are myths in the Romanian theater world that “if you have a bad rehearsal before the premiere, then the premiere will be good”, we believe that tracking and planning for peak form can bring real benefits to theatrical performances.

Another aspect that deserves attention is the notion of “training cycle”. Training cycles are divided into two categories in sport: macro-cycles and micro-cycles. Since sports competition calendars differ from the rehearsal period for a theater performance, we will use the microcycle as a unit of measurement in theater, taking into account that in the sports universe a microcycle is structured over a maximum of one week of training, while a macrocycle can last up to 2 months. The training microcycle is the basic tool of sports training, it fully reflects the quality and objectives of the entire training period.

According to Bompa, the origins of the microcycle can be found in Ancient Greece, in the texts of the philosopher Philostratus, who invented a tetra-system, a 4-day training plan.

Structuring microcycles according to objectives and varying parameters are the basic elements of the sports microcycle. Structuring rehearsals into microcycles can also be useful for actors, directors or teachers. The only difficulty is the lack of means to verify the achievement of intermediate goals: while for athletes and their coaches the achievement or non-achievement of microcycle objectives is quantifiable, for actors and directors this aspect is deficient. As a profession in which subjectivity and personal character are specific attributes, the objectification of the achievement of goals can pose real problems.

The sports theories described in this chapter do not set out to issue indubitable truths about the Actor’s Art, but one of the aims is to offer another possibly useful point of view.

The classification of microcycles can be done according to the objectives and the training stage: developmental, shock, recovery or unloading, respectively training, pre-competitional and competitive. The training sessions are also divided according to the objective or structure, and the training sessions can be: learning, repetition, improvement, evaluation or group, individual, mixed and free. I won’t go into detail, but the examples given may suggest the types of rehearsals that we can support as actors, directors or pedagogues.

Awareness of the goals we are aiming for in a rehearsal or in rehearsal micro-cycles brings with it important benefits in terms of objectification of the rehearsal path.

The intervention on different levels, isolating and rehearsing separately each parameter of the stage situation is an important gain for the actors’ training. The varied structuring of the training plan and the training session, together with the periodization in macro-cycles, micro-cycles and training sessions can stimulate the actor’s creativity due to the pursuit of clear, simple and varied tasks.

In the Torrance module I have tried to keep the interest of the group alive by approaching each training with lesson plans with different goals.

I mainly used the learning training, in the third week I used the refining training, and towards the end a couple of times even the repetition training. I didn’t actually repeat something that the students had done before, but I repeated training plans from before. As with sports training, the process was progressive. I also identified 2 peaks of form, in the last week. (3 days before the exam – show one peak and on exam day the second peak of form.)

Structuring a sports training session contains a few mandatory steps:

introduction, warm-up, the main part of the training and the last part, relaxation. Within the main segment, up to 4 different activities can be distinguished: learning a new element, developing speed, strength, agility, or strengthening and perfecting technical elements and procedures.

The recommended duration of a sports workout should not exceed 2 hours, and some training plans advocate 4 workouts a day. However, the optimal number has been found to be 2 workouts per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

With regard to general training methods, among the most important such methods are modeling and algorithmization.

The modeling method, a method based on the part-whole relationship, aims to train a subject in correlation with an elaborated model. Adrian Dragnea distinguishes between modeling as a method and modeling as a principle in sports training.

Modeling can be done by analogy, simulation and cybernetic modeling.^[92]

According to T.O. Bompa, “sports training modeling has a relatively short history, its origins being in Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Romania, GDR) of the 1960s. Modeling in sports training (approached as a method from a cybernetic point of view) is, on the one hand, the process of creating training models” according to the types of opponents encountered in competitions and, on the other hand, the process of organizing short and long-term training programs in order to ensure the presence and approach in advance in training, based on the concept of periodization, of all the elements to be practiced…”^[93]

Modeling starts with developing a model. A model is a simplified means or process that imitates all or part of an organized (more complex) system.

From the theatrical world’s point of view, the modeling technique is applied in the period close to the premiere, when the performance begins to be rehearsed in its entirety, and scenic elements such as scenery, lights and sound are also added to the composition of the whole. For the actor, however, we consider the modeling technique to be less useful, as creating an imaginary model of what the actor thinks the performance will be can vitiate the creative discovery process. The intermediate modeling technique can also have benefits for the actor, especially if the models created correspond to the verification periods.

In order to understand the term modeling in a nuanced way, it is important to know that in sports training “there are three types of models:

final, valid for the end of the sports training stages;
intermediate, valid for each year of sports training;
operational, which are the drive systems, the means used to realize intermediate and final models. ^{^[94]}

Going back to the training-rehearsal parallel, we can adapt the three types of models listed above and bring them into the specifics of role-playing for the actor:

The three types of models thus become:

-final, valid for the end of rehearsals and the beginning of the performance period;

-intermediate, valid for each distinct stage of the rehearsal; (table reading, transition to movement and string period)

-operational, i.e. the systems for achieving and implementing the objectives specific to each interim period.

As the ultimate goal of sports training is competition, there are also competition models, developed according to the characteristics of the competitions to be participated in. ^[95]

The technique of modeling can be adopted by the actor in order to streamline the acquisition of the specific rules of the play. The rehearsal period of a performance unwittingly configures a unique operating model in which the cast, director, set designer, musicians and technical staff consciously or unconsciously redefine themselves.

In the 2017 improvisation training (Torrance Experiment), I predominantly used the technique of intermediate modeling, and this approach motivated the collective of students at each training. The technique of checking as often as possible periodically created challenges for the group of students, and organizing once a week a verification training streamlined the approach of the following week, with adaptations of the training plans being made according to the results of the verification.

Another important aspect that mattered in the development of the May 2017 workshop was the collective approach to each exercise: since there are no dedicated roles in improv theater, each actor can enter any round at any time, depending on personal impulses and the demands of the round being developed. Thus, unlike the natural conduct of rehearsals in a performance with a pre-written text, where each actor has his role, his scenes, and his rehearsal times, in improvisation the scenes, roles and rehearsal times belong to everyone. This state of affairs can be borrowed from working with pre-written text, and while it is often not possible for everyone to play every role, in a classical performance, one can find times when the group can be engaged periodically in group exercises as well. Personally, in my work as a teacher, I have observed and tested the beneficial effects of putting the actors in the condition of frequent pendulum swing between the role of spectator and that of actor. This dynamic specific to the period of first-year theater games is lost with the transition to working with the text and dedicated roles. Passive times thus appear in which the student-actors involuntarily pass into an inner condition of non-involvement.

In applying the modeling method to sports training there are several essential steps, according to Adrian Dragnea:

“- delimiting or knowing the boundaries of the original system;

obtaining essential and non-essential general data about the original system;
making assumptions about the properties of the original;
model building;
model experimentation;
model optimization;
extrapolating conclusions from the study and application of the model”^[96] .

Adrian Dragnea also says, in Sports Theory, that “models must be essentially informational, integrated and finalist, allowing the learning and formation of logical dependencies between the present, past and future of the original system”^[97] .

For two systems to be analogous, says Adrian Dragnea, several conditions need to be met:

both systems must have a set of receptors that encode the information received from the external environment into their own language, in order to be able to carry out reasoning, judgment, operations;
both systems must have a set of information processing and interpretation, in order to arrive at solutions according to the intended purpose;
both systems exhibit a set of reactions
both systems have a feedback link

Another training method we mentioned earlier is the Algorithmization Method.

Algorithmization and algorithms in physical education and sport represent, according to Gheorghe Cârstea, “the last phase of non-heuristic methodological orientations, i.e. an extension of programmed instruction”^[98] .

Gheorghe Cârstea proposes three categories of algorithms in the case of the instructional-educational process, drawing attention to the fact that sports theory focuses almost exclusively, at this time, on the last of them (the instructional process):

– Algorithms specific to the instructor’s activities

– Algorithms specific to the activities of the subjects to be trained

– Algorithms specific to the training process.

Although the algorithmization method has many limitations, due to the fact that it is difficult to develop algorithms for every situation that may arise in the activity and because there are situations in which the application of algorithms cannot be done or is not recommended, algorithmization is valuable and useful in typical problem situations, in typical deployment and typical schedule.

In sports training there are several types of algorithms, divided into two groups, depending on: the purpose of their use or the beneficiaries of their use. According to Dumitru Colibaba-Evuleț, “the methods that govern sports training are analogy and modeling, to which are subordinated the following groups of methods and methodical procedures: practical, intuitive, verbal, creative training.”^{^[99]} The category of practical training methods includes the practice, competition and game (ludic) methods, the competition training (game) method and the combined method^[100] .

Within sports training there are various particular methods designed to develop certain motor skills. These include: the plyometrics method, the weightlifting method (a type of training emphasizing continuous load increase), continuous raising and lowering, step or wave raising, the Power-Training method, used for explosive strength training, the circuit method, used for the anatomical adaptation phase, or the Fartlek method (a type of training designed to develop exercise capacity, where athletes train in natural conditions, using varying tempos and distances depending on the terrain and the training tasks.

Looking beyond the seemingly rigid technical lexicon specific to Sports Science, I think we can summarize this chapter by noting that for the present study it would be more appropriate to redefine the general concept known in the Actor’s Art as “repetition”, looking for terms borrowed from sport such as preparation, training, coaching, training, improvement or development.

Also, using theories taken from sport and bringing them into the field of the Actor’s Art can offer innovative approaches in the preparation of a performance.

In order to be able to rely on principles taken from Sports Science, principles that we want to borrow and adapt to the Actor’s Art and to the work of acting, we need to start on the road of discovering the similarities between the Actor’s Art and sport.

The advantage of the sports science paradigm over any other system/method is the measurement of results: if, after a competitive cycle, the athlete achieves his/her objectives (all measurable), it means that the training plan, the methodology, the protocols, have worked. If the goals are not achieved, then the training methods did not work.

From the Actor’s Art point of view, the quantification of achievement is questionable: there are no world records, no measurable records in “Hamlet – seconds”, nor can we say that “Hamlet of actor X” has beaten “Hamlet of actor Y”. We are, therefore, in an ocean of the unknown when it comes to measuring creativity specific to the Actor’s Art.

In the third part of this paper we will offer viable solutions through which, taking principles from sports training and improvisational theater, we will manage to implement the advantages of various methods and approaches to develop the actor’s creativity.

The characteristics of stage communication that are found in improvisational theater, once borrowed to work with text, would be a real gain because, as Boris Zahava wrote in 1951 in Teatr magazine: “True value – spontaneity, liveliness, personality, novelty and charm – can only have the scenic color (intonation, movement, gesture) that comes from the process of living communication with the partner. Adaptations outside of communication will always be artificial, technical, and sometimes even worse, they will be stenciled, tasteless and will look craft. The adaptations that occur within live communication as a spontaneous improvisation of the actor’s organic nature are experienced by the actor who gives rise to them and will be a surprise to the actor himself. In this case, his conscience can barely keep up with the joyful wonder: “Alas, what am I saying, what am I doing?”^{^[101]}

Returning to the characteristics of creativity as a process, I propose a five-step approach:

Step 1 – to recall the attributes of creativity as a process: the flow of ideas, lack of censorship, enthusiasm, tolerance of the unknown, courage, self-confidence, spontaneous analogies(free associations), reorganization and rearrangement of known information in real time, reorganization resulting in new information, divergent thinking, creative imagination, curiosity, the ability to experiment, lack of prejudice, unpredictability, innovation, self-expression, malleability of ideas.
Step 2: to remember the obstacles to creativity: we usually find antonyms of the above notions, namely: fixity of ideas, censorship, relying mainly on known information, convergent thinking, lack of enthusiasm, fear of the unknown, self-confidence, blaséness, prejudice, predictability, conservatism, rigidity of ideas.
Step 3: remember some of the principles of improv theater. Many of these principles have been synthesized by Viola Spolin, Keith Johnstone or Del Close:
get out of your head!
say Yes! (accepts)
say “Yes… and!” (accept and move on)
make your partner look good!
there is no correct or wrong.
Drive and be driven!
do not block!
do not delay!
Play!
be relaxed!
do not anticipate!
be surprised!
Listen!
take arbitrary steps!
justifies and incorporates!
play the comportamental game by the rules!
Step number 4: remember that the obstacles that prevent us from functioning in improvisational theater are: denial, anticipation, fear, procrastination, procrastination, tension, prejudice, critical thinking, planning, fear of being wrong, lack of attention to your partner, failure to justify and motivate your actions, not knowing or not following the rules of the game.
Step number 5: Let’s link, as in a cross rhyme, point 1 with point 3, respectively point 2 with point 4, trying to look for similarities: so, let’s look for similarities between the attributes of creativity and the principles of improvisational theater, on the one hand, and between the obstacles to creativity and the obstacles of improvisational theater, on the other hand.

It is obvious that the similarities between the attributes of creativity and the principles of improvisational theater are undeniable, just as in the case of points 2 and 4 the similarities of the obstacles to creativity and improvisation are clear.

So there are similarities between creativity and improvisation, both in terms of attributes and obstacles.

Now let’s try to look at creativity as a product from the specific point of view of the Actor’s Art: the product of the creativity of the theater or film actor with a pre-written text is the role he plays: how valuable it is, how original and how credible are the conditions which, if fulfilled, become the attributes of a creative product.

We will open a third part of our research reserved to the synthesis of the practical means that can develop the creativity specific to the Actor’s Art, and the first technique is the precontextual improvisation.

CHAPTER 3 – PRACTICAL MEANS THAT CAN DEVELOP CREATIVITY SPECIFIC TO THE ACTOR’S ART

3.1. Pre-contextual improvisation

Next, since the attributes of creativity are similar to the attributes of improvisational theater, I propose precontextual improvisation as a technique for developing acting creativity in working on the role with a pre-written text.

When I thought of choosing the “pre-con-textual” word I had in mind both the meaning acquired by the prefixes pre- and con- (“before- the text”, respectively “together with the text”), but also the meaning derived from the root pretext (false motive).

The initial option I opted for was pretextual improvisation, a term that defined stage improvisation until the actors get to the author’s text, a period similar to the studies (étude) in Action Analysis. However, I realized in the latter part of my PhD, after having undertaken the experiments, as I developed and tried to organize the material written over the 4 years in a unified way, that stage improvisation should not only be pretextual but also contextual.

The concept of periodization of sports training has given me the opportunity to delimit two stages in theatrical rehearsals that make use of the pre-contextual improvisation approach:

the pretextual stage (the stage that corresponds to the discovery of personal creative material in the playwright’s dramaturgical material, a stage similar to action analysis);

and

the contextual stage (the stage that runs in parallel with the work on the role, once the author’s text has been taken on board).

A third stage is the stage of stage improvisation within the performance, after the premiere has taken place. However, we will not go into this stage in detail, as the subject might be misinterpreted in the sense that directors might understand that the actor will improvise by changing stage directions, movement, intentions, texts or subtexts. From this point of view, the stage improvisation of the actor who is already performing in a directed performance with a text written by a playwright becomes only the intimate training of keeping the inner path alive and discovering nuances, meanings and emotions, without altering anything that was already fixed with the director in the theatrical project. Boris Zahava, in an article in Teatr magazine in 1951, considered that improvisation should also exist during performances with an audience: ‘Thus, in the process of setting the contours, any adaptation becomes an action: the boundary within which the actor can improvise becomes narrower and narrower, but the actor’s creative possibility and obligation to improvise the adaptation not only remain in force until the end of the preparations for the performance in question, but also continue during the performance on the stage. (…) If this improvisation disappears altogether and the actor’s acting is perfectly similar from one performance to the next, then his acting will be regarded as dry, mechanical, lifeless, dead. The true artist’s motto is to be a little different in every performance.”^{^[102]} Personally, as a student, I had the opportunity to see at least 15 times the performance Regina Mamă at the National Theatre in Bucharest with Mrs. Olga Tudorache, directed by my teacher Gelu Colceag, on a text written by Manlio Santanelli. Every performance I saw at that time perfectly exemplified the motto to be a little different in every performance, and improvisation appeared even verbally, which was often due to the verbalization of the inner monologue. The process of improvisation became for actress Olga Tudorache a strictly intimate means of updating and discovering new adaptations and new justifications of the acting tasks or of the scenic solutions fixed during the rehearsals by the creative director-actor binomial.

Returning to the two stages that the actor goes through until the premiere, namely pretextual improvisation and contextual improvisation, the approach I propose is based on principles, exercises and algorithms taken from improvisational theater, aiming for the whole improvisational material to draw its inspiration and support from the text of the play itself. From this point of view, pre-contextual improvisation resembles Stanislavski’s famous études, but the algorithms used are specific to improvisational theater. The focus is not at all on the value of the text invented through improvisation, or of the story, but only on sparking the actor’s creativity to realize the final product, his role with a pre-written text.

I propose as conceptual approach the point of view of Viola Spolin (improvisation as a process), the training models and methodologies taken from performance sports (training periodization, peak of form, recovery and competitive period), and the techniques, exercises and principles taken from the improvisational theater of Keith Johnstone and Del Close.

The novelty of the approach lies in the application of the principles and exercises of improvisational theater not in itself, only as a development of the dramaturgical material (the case of the Second City school) or with the final result of an improvisational theater performance on a certain format (for example Del Close’s “Harold” format or Keith Johnstone’s Sport Theater), but seeking, pragmatically, openly and consciously, to realize the role of the theater actor with a pre-written text through pre-contextual improvisation.

3.2. General directions of precontextual improvisation

Similar to Maria Knebel’s “analysis in action”, pretextual improvisation would aim, through improvisational exercises, at the creative realization of the final product: the realization of the role.

Similar to Viola Spolin’s improvisation for theater, pretextual improvisation would follow the process, the training of spontaneity, of intuition, through Viola’s theatrical games. (Improvisation for the Theatre is the title of Viola’s book, first published in 1963)

Similar to Keith Johnstone’s Improvisation and the Theatre (Improvisation and the Theatre is the title of Johnstone’s book, first published in 1979), pretextual improvisation would rely on the technique of storytelling, the art of not blocking and the exercises he suggests.

The two fields, namely improvisation and theater, at the level of the history of approaches, have met in the case of both Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone. From the titles of their first books we can intuit the differences in the dogmatic relationship that the two imposed between the two parameters: Viola structured Improvisation for Theater, while Keith demarcates the two notions Improvisation and Theater.

Pre-contextual improvisation is situated in the common horizon of the intersection of the approaches of analysis through action, improvisation for theater and improvisation proposed by Keith Johnstone and Del Close, and the implementation of the principles is based on elementary notions from Sports Science.

3.3. Objectives of pre-contextual improvisation

The main objective is to provide support during rehearsals for a theater performance with text and direction. Precontextual improvisation can be used as a unique approach or as a complementary approach. The director can, in the complementary approach, mainly use his/her own approach and, as a parallel approach, the pre-contextual improvisation, an approach he/she can use whenever needed. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, nor do they negatively influence each other.

One of the advantages of improvisation is unrepeatability. Each improvisation is unique and unrepeatable. The actors’ attention is real, their words are real, created spontaneously, here and now. Because the actor has to respond to the unplanned actions of the partner, the improviser has no time to prepare or pretend.

Freed from the grasp of a “character” that would alienate him from himself, the improviser deals only with the specific rules of the game, having neither the time nor the resources to see himself from the outside or to censor himself.

As a training method, the games taken from improvisational theater can bring freshness where the work on the role has become a chore, can bring discoveries where there are only known things and can enrich situations that were previously crossed only with the help of the author’s text.

By stepping into the unknown terrain of improvisation, with his attention always alert to the unforeseen actions of his partner and to the specific rules of the game, the actor forgets to “act”, thus giving himself the chance to react vividly, spontaneously and unpredictably.

Unlike in improvisational theater where the suggestions are given by the audience, in pre-contextual improvisation all the suggestions for the actors are taken from the text itself. For example, if a normal scene is being rehearsed, and the ‘coach’ (director or teacher) says to an actor after a line “let me think”, then the actor who had just said the line has to step forward and verbalize the inner monologue of the situation he or she has just been going through. Once he or she has finished doing this, he or she returns to the partner, and the scene moves on.

Dismantling the text in improvisational games, a dismantling that the actors don’t know in advance, but find out as they rehearse, results in a higher degree of adaptability, lessens the censorship of the rational and invites thinking in action.

We believe it is important to apply precontextual improvisation whenever during rehearsals “acting behaviors” are installed to the detriment of personal discoveries. When the actor begins to “know” it is necessary to apply new stimuli, stimuli that unbalance creatively, bring back the pleasure of discovery, creative enthusiasm and self-expression. In the next chapter we will pay attention to general principles and approaches specific to precontextual improvisation.

3.4 General principles and specific approaches to precontextual improvisation

The principles that govern precontextual improvisation are underpinned by the parameters of improvisational theater, parameters presented in detail in the “The Torrance Experiment” chapter of this paper. The implementation is based on approaches whose main attributes are adaptability, malleability, fluency, discovery, real-time feedback and speed of reaction.

Using analogies with sports training, precontextual improvisation plays the role of relaxation exercises in a training lesson, which are presented in the chapter on sports training. From this point of view, their role is predominantly one of compensation, especially in the contextual phase, which concerns the second period of repetitions.

In the case of university theater pedagogy, regarding the course of the acting group in annual cycles, the compensatory role finds its usefulness in the second year of Acting, second semester.

The approach through precontextual improvisation requires for the pedagogue or the director of the project a thorough and assumed knowledge of improvisational theater, because one of the first steps is to find the algorithms of the games that can be applied to solve scenic problems or to open up new ground to explore in the territory of creativity. This detailed and nuanced mastery of improvisation and theatrical games with text is also necessary because the need to invent a game can often arise, not having a pre-determined algorithm corresponding to a real stage need or a creative block of the actors.

In the following I will try to identify the most important and simplest principles that can serve precontextual improvisation and role work. In order to contextualize as accurately as possible the practical application of our proposal, it is important to imagine that we are already in the third or fourth week of rehearsals, that the text is already known by the actors and that they have already started “rehearsing” in rehearsals.

These being the temporal data of the problem, let’s bring more in particular the situation in which we find ourselves and assume that the group is facing creativity blockages such as rigidity, predictability, boredom, tension, self-censorship, distrust, lack of enthusiasm, fear of the unknown.

The principles used by precontextual improvisation, starting from the exemplification of a situation – framework like the one presented above, gain meaning and value precisely because of the identification and naming of the difficulties that are faced, sooner or later, during the rehearsals of any theater performance. In an attempt to capture the active and simple character of the general rules of precontextual improvisation, we will use only imperative verbs:

-change!

-join!

-shrugs!

-he understands!

-imagine!

-risk!

-enjoy the game!

-relax!

Change! is the principle that governs the whole proposed approach, because the deeper meaning of this imperative captures most clearly the essence of complementary training, namely the liberation from all previous constraints. This conscious dismantling of known processes and outcomes does not permanently affect the theatrical project or the creative discoveries made previously, as a return to what was before can be very easily done. The role of change is to restructure the actor and put him or her in the working condition specific to the beginnings, a condition beneficial to experimentation, research and discovery. The fluidity of ideas, the unedited, hot search, without fear of being wrong and the ability to change any pre-established scenario according to the surprising and vivid element of the here and now is one of the main advantages of the training that underpins pre-contextual improvisation. To change becomes synonymous with accepting the unknown, one of the conditions of creative functioning being, let us recall, tolerance of the unknown. Increasing the speed with which actors let go of an acquired behavioral algorithm entails an improvement in adaptability, and an actor who adapts more easily to the rehearsal process will create fewer bottlenecks in terms of creativity specific to the actor’s art.

The principle of play yourself needs no further explanation, the description I gave in the sub-chapter The Joy of Play is eloquent about the advantages of winning the playful component. The importance of the rules that govern any game and of being aware of the closeness or distance from the ultimate goal of any game, which is to win, should be mentioned.

Making a purpose out of being wrong may seem wrong in itself, but this invitation (get it wrong!), once pronounced and accepted as a rule of the game, creates the premises for relaxation. Knowing that one of the rules of the game is even WRONG! allows actors to relax creatively, because attention is shifted from projecting the repercussions of actions into the future to the present moment, in other words from the product, attention is focused strictly on the process. It is interesting to note that when we let go of waiting for something important to role it can happen to maximize our chances of being creative. Relaxing to be wrong can become in the stage journey the only way to minimize our mistakes.

In 2018 I was asked by a famous company in the automotive industry to consult on a role-play in which their specialists were confronted with a situation that could possibly happen to them in their daily professional life. Each of the contestants (for it was a contest) had to accumulate the maximum score, and this score was monitored in real time by two specialists who noted in many tables how the contestants interacted with the subjects (customers) and how they followed the behavioral protocol. We observed in this simulation how contestants who did not give themselves the chance to make a mistake by stepping outside the perimeter of what they knew missed some important points in contact with the unedited and unpredictable reality. Because they had not considered the possibility of the scenario proposed by the organizers, they were not brave enough to “get it wrong” by risking an approach outside the known, and this paradoxically led them to act wrongly.

Watch for Intuition! should be seen as the ultimate goal of the improvisational approach to the scenic process, and the phrase closest to the context presented here is Violei Spolin’s “get out of your head”. Accessing intuition cannot be done without imagination, and the exercises taken from improvisational theater use the creative imagination in both the pretextual and contextual phases.

The actor, given the unrepeatable character of each improvisation, is forced to access imaginative resources every second, because every second he has to adapt to another stage reality, each time unknown. If in a rehearsed scene he knows both his own and his partner’s lines, in a pretextual exercise the known scene becomes an opportunity for immersion in the unknown. Freed of the responsibility not to err by the urge to err, the actor steps confidently into the realm of the imagination, curiously exploring all the mistakes he had not previously given the opportunity to manifest. This is also the value of the risk-taking principle, a principle which, once assumed, accustoms the actor to act courageously and freely.

The last two exhortations, enjoy! and relax! are essential parameters of the game, the absence of one of them indicating a wrong approach on the part of the actor or the pedagogue/director.

The principles listed above do not have an intrinsic purpose, they are just guidelines that confirm that we are calibrated as a group on the specific approach of precontextual improvisation. In order to manifest, creativity needs the presence of these indicators, because fear of the unknown, lack of enthusiasm, rigidity, rigidity, self-censorship, lack of a friendly climate, evaluative thinking, routine or self-censorship are obstacles to creative manifestations.

These principles synthesized in imperative verbs do not, as I wrote above, become goals in themselves: we are not going to train ourselves to be joyful, relaxed, courageous, intuitive or imaginative. These principles represent only what can be measurable in terms of climate and group atmosphere. The presence of these parameters indicates an atmosphere conducive to creative acting. The statement of principles at this stage of the research uses periodization of training and methodology that facilitates the practical application. Although obstacles to creativity such as fear of the unknown, self-censorship, fear of making mistakes or self-evaluative thinking may seem to be encountered only in students or beginning actors, the existence of these hindrances to creativity is also manifested in experienced actors. The pressure is often even greater for mature actors because the standards and demands they place on themselves are higher. This gives rise to fear of failure, fear of taking risks, routine (seen as a beneficial preservation of previously gained status) and a desire to rely on certainties. We thus identify the need to implement the principles of precontextual improvisation in both Actor’s Art pedagogy and professional theater. The reluctance that may arise is based either on a non-articulate implementation of improvisation or, on the part of the “beneficiaries”, on the pre-formed opinion that they have done it in the first year and no longer need it. These being the facts of the equation we are facing, we consider it necessary to carefully structure the implementation of improvisation in working on a theater performance with a pre-written text, and we can be supported by periodization of training, a technique taken from sports training.

3.5 Definition of terms

Precontextual improvisation is a complementary acting training whose purpose is to stimulate the specific creativity of the Actor’s Art in order to realize the role written by the playwright and directed by the director through techniques taken from improvisational theater and Sports Science.

3.6 Practical application of precontextual improvisation

Depending on the specific requirements of the theater project and the group of actors, the director or teacher may choose to make improvisation the main method of training or a complementary method. If complementary training is chosen, improvisation sessions can be dedicated separate training days or they can be integrated into each training lesson, with the aim of compensation and/or relaxation. The usefulness of the precontextual exercises can be diverse, adapting the approach and the structure of the microcycle supporting the subordination of several intermediate objectives such as: developing necessary behaviors or perfecting them, improving reaction times, strengthening attitudes necessary in the acting path, training spontaneity, malleability and fluency, giving up behavioral reflexes that are no longer needed or regaining the joy of playfulness. The function that the precontextual improvisation trainings fulfill varies according to the needs of the session or cycle, and the adaptation of the approach can be spontaneous or planned.

The first stage, the pretextual stage, aims at acquiring playfulness, active relaxation and getting used to making mistakes. The technique we used in the Torrance Experiment was centered on algorithmic variation and diversity. The emphasis was on the quantity of theater games run and diversity, at the momentary expense of rigor and refinement. The pace we imposed was fast-paced, and the transition from one theatrical play to another and from one improvisational scene to another was rapid. Indicators of the optimal time to change play were group attention, interest, enthusiasm, genuine engagement and enjoyment of the play. If one algorithm no longer seemed to arouse interest and enthusiastic involvement, we switched to another, and this pedagogical behavior gave the group a chance to gain confidence, enjoyment and playfulness.

The theatrical games approached are mainly specific to improvisational theater, games that belong to all categories: storytelling games, musical games, versification games, grammelot, construction, reaction speed, acceptance.

In the second stage, the contextual stage, the algorithms of the theater games lean more and more on the text and the structure given by the playwright. This is the period in which the attention of the director shifts from the volume of information delivered to the accuracy and rigor of its processing. The most important aspect of the beginning of this period is the preservation of the gains of the pretextual stage (the joy of the play, enthusiasm, dynamics and acceptance of mistakes).

The effectiveness of precontextual improvisation depends to a large extent on the quality of the improvisation themes that the pedagogue gives, so, finding suggestions and games that challenge the creativity of the actors is essential in improvisational training. This aspect finds its correspondence in the history of theater pedagogy in the Stanislavskian System. Stanislavski used to give themes improvised by him in the beginning stage, and in the analysis by action Maria Knebel describes how the study of improvisation becomes structured predominantly on the situation-frame of the text.

The implementation of precontextual improvisation requires the mastering of some basic notions of improvisational theater and the acquisition through training of some specific behaviors. Using the sports periodization method, a method presented in this paper in the chapter entitled “Techniques and procedures taken from sport to maximize performance in theatre“, we will identify the main microcycles of the main training path of pre-contextual improvisation.

The main stages are the pre-textual stage and the con-textual stage, each of these two stages being made up of several micro-cycles, differentiated according to their specific purpose. The pre-textual stage corresponds to the pre-adaptation and compensation period, and the contextual stage corresponds to the stable adaptation period and the competitive preparation period.

In the pre-adaptation stage it is important, as I wrote, quoting Bompa, in the sub-chapter Stages of sports training, that the tasks are not excessive, so that the results are more sustainable: “If the training load and the resulting physiological stressors are not excessive, the first weeks of training will lead to a much more sustainable adaptation, through increased work capacity and increased tolerance to more intense training demands”^{^[103]} . Thus, the first period is one of getting used to the specific improvisational theater training and reviewing all categories of exercises, as well as getting used to as many algorithms of theatrical games as possible.

Microcycles of the pretextual stage:

microcycle of learning the basics of improvisational theater;
microcycle of development of the notions learned;

Microcycles of the contextual stage:

the micro-cycle of refresher courses;
recovery micro-cycle
pre-competition microcycle.

The stage when the performance is already going out to the public finds its correspondence in the theories of sports training in the competitive period.

Thus, in the pretextual stage, precontextual improvisation can be used strictly as complementary training, in parallel with the table readings and as soon as the text has been learned. The principles that govern the first two microcycles (learning and developmental respectively) are the principles of improvisational theater, and the sets of exercises attempted should cover the full range of the short form of improvisational theater.

The contextual stage aims to bring all the exercises into the particulars, as well as to create links between the content proposed by the playwright and the suggestions and themes given for the contextual improvisation. The microcycle of recovery refers to the meaning of the term “recovery” in Sports Science. The rounds taken from improvisational theater aim at the closest possible connection with the text of the play, and the goals of the contextual stage become closely related to the creative exploration of as many possibilities as possible that could be found in the final product of the actor’s creativity, namely his role. We can also delimit the pretextual stage from the contextual stage in terms of the attributes of creativity, suggesting the analogy between the pretextual stage and the creative process, respectively between the contextual stage and the product of creativity.

Practically, the pretextual stage is an improvisational theatre module in which the main objectives are to learn the basic skills necessary for improvisational theatre, and the contextual stage adapts algorithms and sets of exercises to the requirements of the role score, the thematic universe proposed by the playwright, improvisations and theatrical games thus becoming tools for stimulating the actor’s creativity framed and contextualized by the literary structure and the director’s proposal.

Below we will give some examples of adaptations of theater games that can be used either as complementary training or as compensatory and/or remedial training in the contextual stage.

Note that, depending on the need, it is effective for the teacher or director to choose any improvisational theater game to adapt according to the immediate objectives and training plan. Content mastery and in-depth understanding of theater games are the main coordinates of precontextual improvisation. The attitude we propose is inspired by that of Violei Spolin, who used the technique of theatrical games to solve blockages or problems of actors in the process of training through improvisation techniques.

As an example, we will list some improvisation games, in order to understand how they can be adapted so that the course of the work on the role with the text written by the playwright can be made easier for the “classical” actor.

EXAMPLE:

“Change”

Description: this is an improvisational theater exercise in which two actors improvise a scene, and a third actor, offstage, can give the command “change!” after any line of the two actors. The one who had just said the line has to improvise another, unrelated line, on the principle of spontaneous analogy, and the scene goes on with the two trying to justify and motivate anything new.

This exercise can be adapted to precontextual improvisation as follows: the scene written in the text is worked out and, whenever “change” is said, the actor has to change the line of the text with another one of his own, after which the scene ends improvised, depending on what is spontaneously created. The command ‘change’ can be given as often as you like.

It trains: reaction speed, intuitive functioning, malleability and adaptability.

“Says he, says she”

Description: after each of the partner’s lines, the other actor verbalizes the caption he wants for his partner, and the one who had just said the line executes. Then the one who just delivered the caption says his line, without moving, and waits for his caption.

Example:

(He: Hello!

(She gives him the caption) he said kissing her hand!

(She’s giving her cue now): Her: Why have you come?

(He gives her the caption now): she said slapping him across the face.

(He replies now): He: Ow!

(She gives him the caption): he said rubbing his cheek.

Comments: this exercise can be done on any stage with any pre-written text.

Train: attention to partner, the principle of physical action, distributive attention, imagination.

“Voices from Heaven”

Description: the general context is that, after their deaths, four characters in the play take turns recounting how they all died in the same place. The monologues happen one at a time, with each of the actors having the task of paying attention to what has just been said about them by someone else, so that they can justify and motivate the conditionings received from the other partners.

It trains: the creative imagination of the actors and facilitates the widening of the playwright’s specific imaginative universe.

“Object Story”

Description: an object is chosen and each of the actors invents the story of this object, paying attention to the conditionings they receive from the others. The objects can be chosen from those provided by the scenography and the props of the performance, i.e. objects that “play” in the performance, or possible objects from the fictional universe presented by the author of the text.

It trains: creativity, storytelling, dramatic construction.

“That sounds like a song”

Description: after any line in the scene written by the playwright, while rehearsing the scene, one actor can say to the other “that sounds like a song”, and the actor who has just said the line written in the text must improvise, accompanied by the musician, a song with the title given by the line. By focusing mainly on the dialogue with the musician and on improvising the lyrics in real time, the actor can give himself the chance to discover, in the action of the play, emotional realities and personal analogies that can be used as material for the role.

It trains: voice, musical ear, self-confidence, freedom of expression, tempo – rhythm, lyrical creativity (rhyme, versification).

“Coincidence in common”

Description: two actors recount, after the scene, each from his or her point of view, what they felt and thought as the event unfolded. They speak in turns, taking each other’s words out of each other’s mouths, in a fast and fluid rhythm.

Each of them can receive as an extra task an adjectival/adverbial status or conditional.

It trains: verbal flow, reaction speed, attention to partner, collaboration and Viola Spolin’s principle “lead and be led”.

“Scene-adjective”-

Description: the scene written by the author is rehearsed as normal, except that whenever he or she wishes, while the scene is being performed, the play leader (the teacher or director) can call out an adjective or adverb from the sidelines, and the scene continues from the point of view of the actor who has been conditioned as directed. Prompts can be changed and given to several actors at the same time.

It trains: the actor’s speed of getting into the task and, in the case of students, getting used to the future actor-director relationship. Attenuates the critical and evaluative spirit.

“Let me think about it” (a game I invented)

Description: it is played in 4 actors, but it can also be played in 2. Two of the actors are in the front, in the 1st plane, and the other 2 are seated, on either side of the stage, each to the right of one of the first 2. Those in plane 1 are working on a scene with a pre-given text and whenever one of them, after a line from his partner, steps forward and says “Let me think”, his colleague in the second plane has to verbalize the inner monologue he thinks the character is having.

The version in two is the one in which the one who says “Let me think” verbalizes his inner monologue alone.

The two can also be worked with the indication “think about it for a moment” given by the other actor. This change hands the command over to someone else, which keeps the actors on the spot.

Train: inner monologue and subtext.

Press conference

Description: one of the actors is asked to step outside, and in his absence the group decides which character is one of the characters being worked on and the reason for the press conference he is holding. Once the two coordinates of the press conference have been decided, the actor outside returns and has to answer as if he knows all the questions that are put to him by the “fellow-journalists”. The final goal is to guess who he is and what the conference is about, and the intermediate goals are to answer without thinking too long.

Train: tolerance of the unknown, imagination, reaction speed.

A.B.C.

Description: a scene written by the playwright is replayed by transforming each first word of each line so that the scene is in alphabetical order. (the first line to start with the letter A, the second with B… and so on) If one of the actors makes a mistake, he is replaced by someone else who will have to improvise on the same scene structure, even if the scene was not his scene.

Train: attention to your scene partner.

Notes: the scene can also start with another letter (not necessarily A). For example, the first line can start with the letter R, the second with S… and so on until you get back to R.

“Voice of the Role”

Description: the format is that of a musical competition similar to American Idol. Two actors are the contestants, one is the host of the show, and another is the evil judge. The two contestants are two actors who have a scene together. They each get a line from their role, the line that will give the title to the song they will perform. The audience decides who wins the contest.

It trains: rhythm, musical ear, the ability to decipher the score.

“With the help of the psychologist”

Description: two actors, the framework-situation is therapy-a psychologist and his client. The role of the actor who is the therapist in the play is chosen for the client, and the actor-client has to respond from the point of view of the role, and the therapist who is trying to help the client in a therapy session.

The “actor-client” receives a note from the director and a diagnosis inspired by the psychological profile of the literary character. The other actor (the therapist) has to find out after the therapy session what the actor-client’s diagnosis is.

It trains: the ability to decipher the score of the role, attention to the partner, stage communication, tolerance of the unknown.

“Rhapsodies”

Description: an actor sings a song to a title inspired by a line in the text, while another actor dances in slow motion. Both the singer can influence the movements of the idler and the idler can influence the singer.

Train: attention to partner, stage communication, rhythm, voice, musical ear.

“Poets’ Circle ”

Description: An actor is given two words from the role or a line from a text that may be the character’s concept and is tasked with improvising a poem that has the two words or line as its main theme. Both the words and the line must be in the poem.

It trains: the creation of personal analogies, musical ear, rhythm and approach to the playwright’s linguistic universe.

“Before or after”

Description: a scene is played, after which the game leader chooses an extratext that happened before or after this scene. It can be about the near past or it can be about the far future.

Train: the ability to decipher the score, reaction speed and creative imagination.

“Viewpoint Blues Jam”

Description: an actor is given 5 things that make him sad, annoyed, upset the literary character he plays. From the point of view of his role, he must improvise, accompanied by a musician, a blues.

Train: role poetry.

“The tickets”

Description: slips are written, each slip having a line from the play. A scene is acted out and, whenever desired, an actor randomly picks up a note, reads it aloud, then the two carry the scene forward by adapting and justifying.

Train: justifying the unpredictable, motivating the scenic accident, tolerance of the unknown

“Poker by Statute”

Description: a minimum of 3 players make a scene, each player is given a playing card that they must hold to their forehead so that they can’t see their own card, but can see all the others. The scene is played in terms of status according to the playing cards, the highest card with the highest status. The relationships also change according to the playing cards.

At the end, the players are asked to line up according to their status, from high to low.

Train: stage relationship, adaptability, malleability, attention to the partner.

Notes: actors can exchange cards during the scene whenever they wish.

“Promo spot

Description: after having seen a scene, the actor-observers construct the spot promoting this scene. (can be a radio commercial, TV commercial, poster, etc.) Train: objectivity, teamwork.

Comments: the actors who acted the scene also act out the commercial created by their colleagues.

“Continuing emotions”

Description: A scene is acted, which is then interrupted and each actor gets an emotion, then the scene continues. Emotions can be changed as many times as desired.

Train: reaction speed, spontaneity, emotional intelligence.

“What did you say?”

Description: a scene is played and whenever, after an actor’s line, his partner asks him “what did you say?”, the first one has to improvise a rhyming line with what he just said.

Train: the ability to rediscover the text, verbal fluency, rhythm and versification.

“Pan Left-Pan Right”

Description: 4 actors in a square, 2 in the front, 2 in the back, coupled on 3 scenes with the playwright’s text. The two in the front start their scene, and the two in the back clear the stage. When desired, “Assembly!” is shouted, and the 4 actors restore the original square, followed by the command “Pan Left” or “Pan Right” and the square moves left or right, so now we have another couple in the front row, the couple who begins their scene. Call again “Assembly!” and “Pan Left” or “Pan Right” again, and that scene picks up where it left off.

Train: reaction speed

“Change/reverse”

Description: four actors, two in the front, two in the back. A scene is started between the two in the front, and whenever “reverse” is shouted, those who have the scene at that moment switch roles between them. Whenever “switch” is shouted, the two actors in the second line take the place of the actors who were doing the scene and carry the scene forward. If you say “reverse”, the two in the opposite line switch roles. It trains: speed of reaction, stage realness, adaptability, collaboration.

“Just Gibberish”

Description: A scene is acted out, then replayed in gibberish.

Train: the ability to use subtext

“Talk to the touch”

Description: the rule in a scene is that no one says anything until they have physical contact with someone.

Train: the ability to act physically.

“No P”

Description: A consonant is chosen, and that consonant is forbidden: all words in the lines containing that consonant will be replaced by synonyms without that letter.

It trains: the ability to re-evaluate the text, distributive attention, the linguistic universe specific to the role.

“Object Story”

Description: an object from the world imagined by the playwright is placed on a chair and an actor begins a short monologue about that object, after which another actor invents another monologue from the point of view of his role, then a third, etc.

Train: reintroduction of elements, attention to the partner, listening to the partner, malleability, creating personal material useful for the scene.

“Scene in brief”

Description: Play the scene, then from the whole scene choose only three, then two, then only one line for each actor, lines considered to be the most important. The scene is replayed each time with 3, 2, 1 lines by each actor.

Train: physical action, the ability to structure the scene, task entry.

“Poets’ Corner

Description: four actors improvise a poem, one verse each. The prompts given are: its author (a character in the play) and the reason that inspired the poem. (who, what, or why)

Train: collaboration, team spirit, rhymes, rhythm.

“Point of View

Description: a scene is played out on the author’s text, then the scene is replayed from the point of view of a character. The text is modified where necessary. It can be repeated several times, from several points of view.

“Story in 4 with boos”

Description: 4 actors are in a line with the game leader in front of them. A story title is given, and the four actors will jointly improvise the story. Whenever the leader points to someone, that person carries on the story, taking what the previous actor has just said to the syllable. If one of the actors hesitates or is not paying attention, the audience boos and the actor is out of the play.

Train: speed of reaction, malleability of ideas, spontaneity.

Note: the titles and suggestions are taken from the playwright’s material, and the characters in the story are those in the play.

“Instead of”

Description: a scene is played out on the playwright’s text, a consonant is chosen (e.g. R), which will be replaced in all the words by another consonant. (e.g. S)

Trains: imagination, reaction speed

This concludes this chapter dedicated to a brief presentation of the “little games” that can be implemented in order to spark the actor’s creativity. I have used the diminutive in an attempt to remind professionals of the principle used by the US Navy and the IT industry, a principle I referred to in the chapter on creativity in general, namely the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid).

In the last part of this paper I will try to offer practical, applicable, concrete solutions that can facilitate the active study of the actor’s role with pre-written text.

3.7 Role map, rehearsal diary and inner monologue

Among the tools that stimulate creativity is the “mind map”. Adapting and customizing the “mind map” we propose the “role map” as a tool to stimulate the creativity of the Actor’s Art.

In order to understand exactly, we first need to describe what the “mind map” is, what are the advantages of using it from the point of view of creativity.

A concept invented by Tony Buzan in the late 1960s, mind-mapping is a tool to activate creativity using both hemispheres of the brain.

The method is simple: on a sheet of paper, one by one, using ‘radial thinking’, you write down concepts, ideas, words, images.

We are therefore talking about a special note-taking technique: instead of writing in a linear fashion, linking information one under the other and from left to right, Tony Buzan proposes a visual arrangement of ideas, centered around the central image, the image that represents the problem whose solution is sought. The use of colors is also a matter of technique: while in the traditional way of note-taking, schools have taught us to use only two colors-blue and black-in mindmapping, as many colors as possible are used, each information tree having its own color.

The rules are simple:

-pictures and words are also used;

-in the center is the main idea, the idea to which other ideas are connected by branches;

-colors are used, because colors mean visual information, visual information that stimulates the creative cerebral hemisphere;

-the main branches are connected to the central idea, then from the main branches branch number 2, from 2 branch number 3 and so on.

-each main branch has a different color, as do the branches that connect to them;

– use only curved lines for branches, as straight lines are “boring for the brain” ^[104]

-only one word is used for each branch;

-pictures are used;

Advantages of mind mapping:

-stimulates creativity;

-links between concepts are immediately recognizable;

-works on spontaneous analogies;

-provides quick access to any information;

-allows you to constantly create new links;

-it is possible to come back and develop an area at any time, depending on the information acquired over time;

-encourages imaginative, fluid, free and malleable thinking;

-favor daydreaming, which develops creativity;

Role Mapping could become an effective tool in the Actor’s Art, as Role Mapping can be created during table readings as well as during rehearsals and performances. It is the visual, dynamic and ever-changing representation of the role, with discoveries, new connections, new ramifications and new information. The main value of this way of organizing information is the quantification, the concrete visual representation, of the discoveries made by the actor while working on the role. The ability to return each time with a fresh look at the role map provides daily opportunities to create unpredictable connections. The ability to constantly add new elements forces the actor to maintain a dynamic, living and constantly changing relationship with the role. The visual concreteness as well as the effort to synthesize in a single word the discovery or new informational link keeps the actor’s interest alive and discourages him from closing the case within a known perimeter. Just as in pre-contextual improvisation exercises the main task becomes that of recreating the inner condition of the first time, with the role map we can constantly add discoveries and contextualize events that we, as actors, consider routine.

In a role map, we can include both logical, factual and objective information as well as subjective, affective information, free analogies, the diary of repetitions and new discoveries.

Another advantage is the digital education of today’s young student-actors, visual education which, in this context, can become a common language.

The role map is the actor’s always open visual record of the role, to which information is added throughout rehearsals and during theater performances. The role of this map is to keep the material discovered while working on the role alive and constantly updated.

Technically, this map needs to be quite large, as Buzan suggests, and the branch spacing also needs to allow for several weeks or months’ worth of information to be added. The coloring of branches is also a rule of thumb, and the deeply personal visual character brings the advantages of intimate contact with areas of the brain that only cold judgment and orderly writing can’t access.

Thus, linking with a rehearsal log can also benefit the actor, as links with automatic dictation or rehearsal notes prove to be effective.

We believe that one of the most important aspects of creativity specific to the actor’s art is the development of affective material and finding the supports to support the fixation of this information. Based on Lee Strasberg’s theories and the sensory training exercises used by him, we believe that the actor can fix and develop personal information that becomes creative material for the role. One such informational support system for the role may be the role map described above, a tool that makes use of handwriting and color drawing of the role’s creative thoughts, images, and visions. The most important aspect is the assumption of the permanent transformation of this map. The very visualization of the new ramifications that are constantly appearing helps, in my opinion, the actor not to freeze his role, not to become tributary to I know. Not knowing benefits from the advantages of creative disorganization through a consistent exercise such as the role map. The role map helps to make the creative process of acting more fluid, because this tool offers the advantage of not editing intuitive responses, spontaneous analogies or immediate relationships.

Another support for the fixation and development of the acting material can be the rehearsal diary or the role notebook.

Rehearsal log

Used by Stanislavski all his life, and also found in the field of performance sports under the name of the training diary, the rehearsal diary can be an extremely useful tool, especially in the digitized times we are living through. As technology pushes us further and further away from handwriting, writing with pencil on paper is for the contemporary actor a necessary compensation for the speed with which information received off the shelf by internet means and a turning of attention to the information he receives from the inside, not only from the outside.

The usefulness of the rehearsal diary is closely related to the technique of automatic dictation, a means that theater pedagogy in our country no longer uses.

Automatic dictation and inner monologue are considered to be techniques that help create the linguistic universe of the role. The departure from the exercises of affective memory and personal analogies was the starting point of the dispute between Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg almost a hundred years ago, but the use of automatic dictation, spontaneous analogies and the inner monologue need not be harmful, as long as a few conditions are met, such as their strictly personal nature and their non-rational fabrication.

Personally, I worked on the role using the technique of automatic dictation, but I think that it lacked exactly the fulfillment of the conditions listed above. The automatic dictation was read in front of the colleagues, and I think this affected the effectiveness of the speech and the degree of freedom of the speech. Another application error consisted in forcing the dictation and the inner monologue: the applicability of the dictation is of value only when it appears by itself, unforced. The problem arises when, not appearing because it has nothing real to rely on, automatic dictation often becomes artificially fabricated. The actor tries to give birth to thoughts and dictations at all costs, instead of accepting that the absence of real, free thoughts is equivalent to the absence of the material of the role. This non-acceptance of the lack of automatic dictation often predisposes the actor to mimic behaviors or to prefabricate them rationally: by virtue of what the actor thinks it would be good to feel, think or verbalize, he gives birth to the artificial, and this blocks creativity.

If the language of the role map is visual, the rehearsal diary is the word-based fixation and development medium. Through automatic dictation, the actor can connect with personal memories, desires or reveries which, when made conscious and fixed in words, can help him to discover the role for himself. Thus, automatic dictation takes on a dual functional value for the actor: that of understanding the situations proposed by the text through personal analogies, but also the value of personal discovery through creative imagination and the freedom to listen to and accept one’s own feelings.

Although the automatic dictation and the interior monologue have the word as their means of expression, the aim pursued is outside the sphere of logos, because what the actor has to pursue has nothing to do with literature. The word is strictly a vehicle that invites the actor to discover deeply personal inner dynamics where the playwright has already packaged and delivered the feelings in literature. The automatic dictation, using the principle of creative disorganization, seeks to arouse the original emotional impact of the creator. The process, though using logos, is not one of organization but of disorganization; it is not one of closing meanings but of opening meanings.

We believe that automatic dictation, like free writing, should be part of the actor’s arsenal in the battle with the role and the character. The technique of automatic dictation complements the specific exercises of precontextual improvisation, exercises that take place in rehearsal, not at home. The role map, automatic dictation and the rehearsal diary are part of the tools that the actor uses in individual training. They are the most intimate part of approaching the written role through personal analogies and affective memory.

The inner monologue

The inner monologue is also a classified subject in the pedagogy of the actor’s art because it has, like automatic dictation, been erroneously used and explained. This error may have its origin in the conception that the inner monologue represents the thoughts of the role or the character in cold, as if these thoughts were related to a chess game. As in the case of automatic dictation, the absence of the inner monologue often entails the prefabricated invention of a simulacrum corresponding to the actor’s conscience. When the inner monologue exists for the actor, its appearance does not imply a volitional act. The actor does not give birth to the inner monologue, but the inner monologue is born. Its absence indicates the absence of the assumption of the stage situation, and its real presence certifies that the play has begun to be played and that the stage reality has taken on deeply personal valences for the actors. The inner monologue cannot be invented before the scene unfolds, it can only exist while the play is being performed and is based on the material accumulated through personal analogy with the situation proposed by the author and on the assumption through rehearsals of the new self which, seen through the eyes of the spectator, becomes the character. I believe that each role represents, seen in this context, another step along the road of self-discovery and personal development of the actor as a human being, first of all, and only then as a professional.

I allow myself to review, creatively disorganizing, what I consider to be the main obstacles to creativity specific to the actor’s art:

-the desire to do good;

-Fear of being wrong;

-crisp;

–self-acceptance;

-the loss of creative enthusiasm;

-Fear of being exposed;

-conformism;

–inability to laugh;

–growing on the studs;

-outside perception of the role/character;

-the joy of playing;

-Understanding the specific rules of the game and the score;

-familiarization with the specific rules of the game and the score;

-fixism of ideas;

-absence of malleability;

-ne-curiosity;

-blocking access to intuition;

-excessive rationalization;

-projection into the future;

-absence of live interest;

General conclusions

Precontextual improvisation can be seen as a compensatory, recuperative or recovery technique, or as an alternative training method. The implementation of improvisation on the rehearsal ground based on a playwright’s text is a viable option in removing obstacles that may arise during the course of performance work. The present study does not pretend to issue absolute truths, since the field of Actor’s Art is a field in which the manifestations of human behavior are deeply subjective, both in the reception of the act and in its emission. In the research undertaken, I discovered arguments that can justify the proposed approach and personal hypotheses born from the practice of improvisational theater, a practice started in 2002, uninterrupted until 2018. Although deeply personally involved in the improv phenomenon, the present research was meant to put me in a position to see the limitations that stage improvisation and improvisational theater have, as well as the advantages. I believe that if from the doctoral research here at least the hypotheses of new directions are born, directions that propose to contradict, complement or rearrange in the present terms specific terms of the Actor’s Art and stage improvisation, then I consider the undertaken approach as useful. I base this assertion on the realities known to me through direct contact: the permanent contact with the student-actors, their needs, their anxieties and the permanent contact I have with improvisational theater. I have chosen to limit myself to precontextual improvisation as the main means of developing creativity specific to the actor’s art because I consider this to be my field of expertise, and I believe that the approach to the pedagogy and aesthetics of the actor’s art must be personal, just as the Actor’s Art itself is deeply subjective.

The experiments undertaken had their limitations and, if I were to take up in a postdoctoral research themes such as the articulated transition from theater play to text play, I would not complicate myself once again with the EEG technique.

Interdisciplinary access to specific topics in the artistic field has given rise to the opening of new possible research directions, even if the processed results did not provide conclusive answers in terms of scientific research standards.

The results of the Torrance Tests of Creativity indicated the effectiveness of improvisational theater-based training (short form) in shifting attention from the self to the external environment. Another argument in favor of using pre-contextual improvisation training is the feedback provided by the 13 students who participated in the workshop, feedback indicating the usefulness of these trainings and the acquisition of useful behaviors also for the art of acting with text, as they themselves admitted in the questionnaires.

The EEG experiment, in my opinion, put on the page the usefulness of stage improvisation in working with text, a usefulness which, although it could not be demonstrated through quantitative research, provided some answers through the case study undertaken.

Another opening that can be used in future research concerns the principles that can be borrowed from Sports Science in the actor’s art. The periodization of training and the use of sport-specific training methods can be important starting points in experimenting with the effectiveness of their application in the development of actor-specific creativity. Assimilation of the skeleton in which some of the concepts of sports performance are anchored can be beneficial to the actor, the director and the pedagogue, because any point of view that offers concrete, measurable support can help the actor in the creative process of acquiring the role.

During the rehearsal period, the actor needs to set himself possible, realistic and achievable goals according to the micro-cycles pursued with the director and partners. The technique of the next step, as well as the technique of checking and perfecting, gives the study period a creative climate in which discoveries are constant, attention is always alert and the role is never entirely discovered.

Recalling the constants that accompanied the Torrance Experiment, we pay particular attention to the joy of play. The presence of excitement is the guarantor of a creative search, and the absence of excitement can hide a creative block or a period of overtraining. However, the joy of the search for the role should not be simulated; its very existence gives the creative act of acting the guarantee of a viable, effective and personal path. Taking care to get in shape every day in terms of the joy of experimentation is a daily workout for the actor for which he alone is responsible.

The joy of playing opens up opportunities for discovery, and an enthusiastic attitude is closely linked to individual relaxation and a safe collective climate. Just as there is a warming up of the various muscle groups for athletes, for actors it also proves necessary to put themselves in the inner condition of discovery, a warming up of creative enthusiasm. Just as the intrinsic motivation of the performing athlete cannot be put into words, we believe that the actor cannot always be aware of what is happening to him and of the inner motivations that can arise unpredictably, but by training his attention daily he can discover impulses both in his inner and outer world. The need to train daily attention on several points of concentration naturally arises, and this exercise is akin to the daily routine of improvisational theater and theatrical games. Looking proactively and relaxed becomes synonymous with taking the courage to discover in an algorithm invented now and here. Focusing on the present becomes an end in itself, and the techniques by which we foster total engagement with the stage action have as their core inner dynamic a belief in discovery. Knowing that at the end of the ‘rehearsal’ you will find something unrehearsed and unrepeatable becomes an ingredient that certifies an efficient path towards the creative acquisition of the role. The actor’s art thus becomes a technique of lying to ourselves, as actors, using as many truths as possible: the truth of breathing, the truth of touching, of speaking, of thinking, of seeing new things. Without the little continuous truths and without the belief that we will find a truth at the end of the lie that we go through as actors, the performance or the rehearsal remains dependent on the predictable, and this condition overshadows their authenticity from the actor’s point of view and from the audience’s point of view. The joy of acting is thus permanently interdependent with the confidence of discovery. It is only when you know that you will find out more in the rehearsal or in the performance that you can be creative as an actor. The goal of not repeating yourself by doing the same thing you know in advance, the reflex to deliberately change something, however small, from what is already written and decided by the playwright, all these habits prove to be viable recipes in the fight against the predictable. Searching, equally attentive to oneself and to the outside world, for the unknown in all that is already known becomes one of the few certainties in the cloud of uncertainties of the moment that has just happened.

Another aspect that negatively influences the actor’s creative potential while working on the role is the mental representation of the “character”. Having formed an opinion about the character beforehand, the actor unconsciously represses possible discoveries, because the range of what he is looking for is limited by prejudices. The desire to get out of the role can parasiticise the creative process, as the actor’s ideal image of the role can lead him to reject spontaneous behaviors that are considered unhelpful to the character that he believes in advance should be a certain way. Creative disorganization training uses the principles of spontaneous analogy, inner monologue, and the courage to recognize, accept and follow hot-born intuitive impulses, even while the actor is rehearsing. Developing the ability to function simultaneously on multiple acting tasks requires consistent training. The applied reintroduction of specific theatrical play methodology brings freshness to working with pre-written text, and the awareness of the need to train according to the principles of pre-contextual improvisation results in increased adaptability, attention, spontaneity and speed of reaction.

The efficiency of achieving the objectives of each micro-repetition cycle according to Sport Science approaches is an important aspect of the present research. By following the procedural steps described in the sport training chapters, the repetitions structured in microcycles become quantifiable in terms of achieving specific goals. Thanks to the rules that govern each round of pre-contextual improvisation, progress is made organically, following the next-step principle. The transition from simple to complex determines the organicity of the process of acquiring the behavioral skills necessary for the role under study, and the decomposition of the framework situation into several separately trained parameters provides the opportunity to consolidate and refine the various behavioral algorithms.

Increasing the capacity of personal verbalization of each scene by means of improvised scenes and rounds of improvisational theatre, a method also used by Stanislavski’s action analysis, becomes an important indicator of approaching the lexical universe proposed by the playwright. This goal is achieved through story-telling rounds adapted from improvisational theater for precontextual improvisation.

Using the specific rounds of improvisational theater as a means of assuming and practicing the parameters of the scenic situations proposed by the author proves to have the advantage of stimulating the actor’s creativity, because the unique and unrepeatable character of stage improvisation implies a high degree of attention on what is just happening. Continuous development through pre-contextual improvisation of the themes proposed by the playwright gives the actors the opportunity to rediscover the author’s text at the end of a process in which the actor’s personal linguistic universe is transformed into the playwright’s linguistic universe. This transition is made unconsciously, through daily training in which the emphasis is on stage reality, not verbal reality. Words become necessary from one day to the next, and meanings are refined in the search for the expression that best serves the improvised acting act. The encounter with the playwright’s text thus becomes a process of real search, and the distance between the actor’s improvised lines and the playwright’s text cannot be hidden. The closeness to the role being studied thus becomes measurable from one rehearsal to the next, any trace of mimicry of the acting being reflected in the improvised text.

The steps to be followed in order to benefit from the advantages of precontextual improvisation correspond to the different levels of improvisational theater. Each level of the requirements of the role rests on a particular level of improvisation. For example, the epic thread of the context of the events proposed by the author can be acquired through story-telling exercises such as “Story”, “Common Happenstance”, “Writing Machine”, “Object Story” or any round of improvisational theater that aims at dramatic construction. Techniques borrowed from the art of improvisational writing such as reintroduction of elements, platforming, plot twists, arbitrary pacing, blind proposal or carrying the action forward become tools that help to decipher the circumstances proposed by the author. The ability to verbalize any arc of the action confirms a real understanding of the score of the role, without which the direction of the search may be unintentionally misguided.

The emotional component of the role can be trained through exercises taken from the group of “unintelligible speech” or grammelot. Exercises such as “Dubbing”, “Polyglots” or “Speech with translator” give the actor the opportunity to practice, beyond language, the emotional universe of the scenes.

From the doctoral research the results of which are presented in this paper, the most important seems to me to be the impact that the improvisation module had on the students. Although initially the starting hypothesis assumed that progress could be found in components such as malleability, adaptability or fluency of ideas, the main change in the group was the shift of attention from self to partners and the external environment. Maintaining high levels of attention is the mainstay of precontextual improvisation. Superimposing and adapting algorithms taken from improvisational theater during rehearsals to a role from classical theater brings freshness to the role work and gives the actors the opportunity to forget what is bothering them. The main role of the implementation of pre-contextual improvisation is to create a unique “first time” feeling in each rehearsal. Thus, rehearsals turn into unique, unrepeatable events, subject to permanent transformation, which places the actor in an effective creative imbalance in working on the role.

One of the key principles in precontextual improvisation is that the rules of the game are evolves from rehearsal to rehearsal. More precisely, although the framework situations studied remain the same, in each rehearsal I consider it necessary that at least one of the acting tasks be modified. The modification of a single parameter is related to the subtle transformation of one of the rules and to finding a simple, attainable and, most importantly, measurable goal. If, at the end of the exercise, the actor has succeeded in achieving this simple goal, superimposed only in this edition of the rehearsal on the model of the stage situation given by the author, then his attention will sharpen and everything he knew beforehand will take on new meanings.

The overlapping objectives must, however, fulfill several conditions for their usefulness to bear fruit in the sense of the circumstances proposed by the author:

be clear, simple and measurable;
to be possible under the circumstances proposed by the playwright;
not to repeat.

An example of a simple objective is touch-talk. Following this simple rule challenges the actors’ creative imagination by putting their intuition to work so that each of their lines is spoken only when there is physical contact between the scene partners.

The overlapping goals can be given separately to the actors, so that they do not know which overlapping goal their partner has. The audience of the other actors is also actively involved in tracking and quantifying the achievement of the goals given to each partner. At the end of the exercise, each bystander should be able to say who made the fewest mistakes, i.e. who achieved the overlapping goal the most times.

Another advantage of the superimposed objective is active relaxation. By giving the actor an extra task, the actor begins to work in the zone of his or her optimal potential, thus focusing his or her resources more on the acting task and less on scripting or projecting into the future. Given a simple and measurable new task, the actor finds it easier to break free from the grip of the known, and the attention required to follow the new rule gives him the chance to rediscover the dramatic material in a different way each time.

Disassembling the whole of a scene into several exercises with simple rules is, in my view, a necessary daily workout. In doing so, the actor comes to reconsider daily what the need to be in control pushes him every second to move to the “news” chapter. I recall, in support of what I have written above, the division of Strasberg’s course into two distinct parts: the first two hours of training, developing the actor’s creative condition, and the second part with the last two hours reserved for applied work on texts, scenes and dramatic material previously given.

In my opinion, an ideal classical “rehearsal” is one in which the quality of attention, the wonder of what is happening, the spontaneity and the joy of doing are comparable to a round of improv theater (short form) or a scene in the long form of improv theater.

In concluding this paper I would like to recall the 13 words that the 13 students of the second year at that time chose to describe the 4 weeks of the workshop with me. These 13 words are, in essence, the motivation for this paper. They appear unpredictably, four years after the argument I wrote for admission as a PhD student. Unforeseeable, unexpected, these 13 words structure my present work in a way that I could not have done better myself. I strongly believe in freedom of expression, I strongly believe in the liberating power of art, and I believe that in times like these that we are just going through, the ability to change (perhaps antagonistic) points of view in order to experience other beliefs than personal ones can become a weapon in the fight against intolerance, non-communication and radicalization.

As a student I needed what the students define in the lines immediately below.

As an actor I need the same words, and as a doctoral student these 13 words were the motivation I returned to whenever doubts about doctoral research bit my optimism, my joy, my creative enthusiasm.

As an educator and doctoral student, I consider these 13 words to be the ultimate guarantor and the very reason for the existence of this work.

I end this work being aware of the scientific fragility of a PhD in the arts, but I sincerely hope that at least someone will be intrigued, challenged, challenged or inspired by what I have written.

Choose one word to describe your month-long improv training experience.

(13 replies)

I breathe

Respiro

smiles

useful

Play

Big-up

Cleaning

Revitalization

senin

Freedom

Simple

Training

Play

Final notes:

The questions about The Actor’s Art have been and will probably remain the same for as long as mankind needs theater. The means of communication will change, technology will evolve, we will be more informed, we will have more answers to more questions, we will perhaps discover new worlds. However, people from all corners of the Universe will come to the theater to recognize themselves, to empathize, to be moved. And however much the human species evolves, the tears of the people of the future will still be as salty as the tears of the ancient Greeks, and the laughter of people who have arrived at the speed of light in another solar system will shake the universe of our unrequited hopes, fears and loves…. just like in the time of Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Chekhov or M8535Drama4YOU (the name of a possible future Shakespeare), that brilliant M8535Drama4YOU who will be born somewhere, in another galaxy, in another few hundred or thousand billion light years. (dated: October 1st, 2018 )

Techniques of development and training of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art

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Stanislavski’s system transcribed by Robert Lewis

^{^[105]} Franz Carl Muller-Meyer’s optical illusion.

115

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Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation), [online] ¹¹⁶

¹¹⁵ Kaheman, Daniel, Attention and Effort, ed. Prentince-Hall, 1973, New Jersey, p. 15
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[online]

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table psychologist Alina Gherghișan Torrance Experiment graphs processing times Text vs Improv

Electrode mounting map (Andra Băltoiu)

Figure 2. Properties of eliminated components , Andra Bălțoiu, direct communication

ICA components (Andra Băltoiu, direct communication)

Nardi, Dario, “Our Brains in Color”^[106] , p. 8, Los Angeles, Ed. Radiance House, 2014

Power curve plots ICA Component 38, whole event, situation 2 vs. situation 4

Activation zones for ICA Component 38, whole event

Activation areas for ICA Component 39, whole event

Activation zones for ICA Component 39, electrode channels, whole event

channel C2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4

channel C4 main event, comparison situation 2 vs 4

channel FC2 main event, comparison situation 2 vs situation 4

F2 channel

component 31, whole record, comparison situation 1 vs 3

component 31, whole record, comparison situation 2 vs 4

the neural network of empathy, according to Nardi

Table 3: Quality of athlete training, Bompa

Nardi, Dario, Our Brains in Color, ed. Radiance House, 2014, Los Angeles, pp. 33
¹¹⁹ Bompa, Tudor O., Periodizarea: Teoria și metodologia antrenamentului, ed. TANA, 2001, Bucharest, p. 22

Bompa’s overcompensation cycle ^{^[107]}

Training response in a supercompensation cycle according to Bompa ^[108]

The structure of multiple training sessions on a training day according to Bompa ^[109]

Mind-mapping example, according to Tony Buzan ^[110]

Report 2 map, personal archive

APPENDIX I-Torrance students’ responses to the feedback questionnaire

Improv training – May-June 2017

1) Did the May-June 2017 improv trainings help you as student actors?

13 replies

If so, how?

13 replies

To trust that whatever I do, it will be okay. Listen to my partner/partners. Be active-minded. Always looking for solutions.

I gained courage, confidence, relaxation on stage and trust in my partner. Plus, I learned to lead, but also to let myself be led.

The exercises for overcoming emotions, accepting mistakes in my work without getting angry with myself, I gained more courage. The improvisations united our group a lot, even now we remember all kinds of funny events and we would like to play again without fear, with courage, relaxed and creative.

They helped me gain self-confidence.

They made me feel more free and intuitive on stage.

Disinhibition, courage, confidence in my proposals

To be confident in my ideas, to be freer in their application and I have developed my ability to think and react much faster.

They gave me back my naturalness and pleasure

developed my spontaneity, and even more than that, my confidence in my own spontaneity

I have gained a freedom of expression or, rather, I have shaped it and emphasized my ability to interact spontaneously and humanely.

They reminded me to always start small, to enjoy what I do and how important focus is.

It helped me to relax on stage and gave me a kind of flexibility in my thinking

They gave us back the freedom to be creative and the confidence to act

What are the most important things you learned during the improv sessions?

13 replies

First of all I found the concept of not saying “no” to your partner extremely important and interesting. That in improvisation you don’t use “no”. Again, through various games, we learned to listen to our partner all the way, to listen to what they have to say so that we can give our “cue”. “Irish song” was called one of the improv games, and although its role would be to give good rhymes, more important in this game, I think, is to listen to your partner.

I relearned to feel good, to get over my fears and to force my imagination to work at all times. I really learned to accept my mistakes as normal and beneficial.

The important thing is not to be afraid, not to be angry and enjoy what others are doing.

Attention on the partner, everything comes from the partner and from our head.

Like any proposal I get I don’t close the road, but carry on adding.

There is no wrong, there is carelessness and fear

Nothing is wrong, try to assume the mistake, out of the mistake comes the comic.

Adapt quickly to any situation and don’t be ashamed of your ideas.

that it can turn out great without having to prepare something beforehand, if you have the courage to throw yourself into it, within the limits of certain rules; that you’re good enough as you are, you’re good enough;

Relaxation, first and foremost and real interaction – here and now. Plus those specified in the previous point.

It was the moment when I began to understand what “relaxing” on stage meant. Also focusing in the present, leaving mistakes behind. It trained my ability to easily change ideas.

One careless moment and you missed the moment, always accept a proposal

Would you like another improv module?

13 replies

If so, why?

13 replies

It helps a lot because it relaxes you, you gain confidence and most importantly, it takes you off stage.

Because it helps me unwind, collect myself and calm down, especially during college when all the demands become a pressure.

It’s special 🙂

I feel I have done something really constructive for the future of my career.

They’re great training for thinking on your feet

It’s a useful pleasure

This module, for me, is like a shower that washes away everything we do during acting class and cleanse being I can get back to class work.

My senses, my ideas, my imagination, my confidence, my body, everything is developing harmoniously and unhindered

because I’m convinced that it will help me (because I felt the effects during the not very long period of the first module)

It seems like a kind of necessary training for an actor’s creative condition. An artistic refresh. 🙂

Because I keep my means of expression alive.

We somehow got back to playing from year 1 and that was cool

Because it helps us stay fresh and play.

If not, why not?

0 replies

No responses yet for this question.

What aspects of what you’ve learned in improv training do you think you could use in acting with pre-written text?

13 replies

Character creation. Improvisation training both challenges and develops your imagination. When an actor has a role to play, he doesn’t just rely on what is written in the text, he uses his imagination to make sense of his character and bring it to him. In improvisation you always have to keep your mind active. You have to find solutions all the time. The same thing happens when you start to construct a scene in a play. Together with your partner you have to look for solutions to make the scene work.

Imagination with confidence. Plus the willingness to try anything and everything, or the courage to get it wrong in the beginning.

If we remember the key words… the most important parts… we will be able to learn the text more easily.

Attention to your partner

Being open to my partner; not isolating myself in a plane of my own.

The importance of spontaneity, accepting proposals from colleagues

Confidence in your own ideas, thinking and acting fast.

All

naturalness, playfulness

Interaction, at the risk of repeating myself. You establish a relationship, a rapport, a path, a goal…it’s a long way before you open your mouth. You’re basically investing in creating the illusion of a life.

First of all the relaxation of approaching different proposals, focusing on the partner and not necessarily on the words I have to say.

Reaction speed

Trust in your partner, speed of reaction, always saying “yes”.

What did you find hardest during that month of improv training?

13 replies

At first it was hard to let my ideas come without judging them so harshly beforehand. But along the way i let them come and worked with them as they were. each of us had an exercise where we didn’t perform to our full potential, some at the inventiveness exercises.. some at singing..some at rehearsing movements. i had a harder time at creating stories in 4 or 5 people. at the beginning of the classes I really couldn’t cope, but after that I relaxed and started to concentrate on what I had to do. Waking up in the morning

I think there is an imaginary threshold that has to be crossed by improv. Me until I crossed that threshold I felt constrained by the exercises and felt like all the good ideas were stuck somewhere far away from me. But what’s nice about improv class is that it takes the focus off of yourself and focuses it on a finished product (in group improv), at which point you stop thinking that people are expecting something from you, and start expecting something from your fellow performers so you can take the exercise further. The moment I crossed that threshold every single Exercise became a pleasure and things came and merged and transformed themselves.

Overcoming inhibitions (see singing in rhyme)

To take my mistakes and make friends with them.

It was such a relaxed and pleasant environment that I didn’t find anything difficult

I found some improvisation exercises harder than others

I can’t think of a better way of expressing it – the “creative state” – which includes relaxation, spontaneity, joy, play, etc.

Rhyming games

Finding rhymes

To be always here and now, ready for action, with all your senses active, always.

What did you like best?

13 replies

Tot.

We had a really good time and homogenized as a group

I liked singing!

The energy with which we leave

Relaxed atmosphere

Moments of collective freedom

I liked the fact that I could play with any proposal, whether it was good or bad.

We’re serious

atmosphere; the way we were approached

Group homogenization during impro sessions

Games where the rule required frequent changes.

Finding rhymes

The pleasant atmosphere in the classes created a “safe place” to be creative and open. We had trust in each other no matter the insecurities in the work or bottlenecks that arise. And above all we remembered to play and work with joy.

When do you think the improv module is useful in college?

13 replies

Choose one word to describe your month-long improv training experience.

13 replies

Rasuflu

Respiro

zambete

useful

Play

Big-up

Cleaning

Revitalization

senin

Freedom

Simple

Training

Joc.

Have you applied any improv in your work with text? If so, what?

12 replies

I applied. What I said can be applied from improv games, happens on an unconscious level.

With certainty, but without necessarily realizing it (trust in the partner, listening carefully, overcoming the first blocks).

the list of rules you must follow

I don’t realize

Yes, trying from different points of view, changes of context, situation

Yes, confidence in your own proposals.

Openness to partners, acting on instinct, faster and more natural change of means

I don’t realize, I can’t give an example; maybe

I specified at a previous point. (Ratio, relationship, space…)

Relax

Not yet

To accept a proposal without judging it and say “yes, and”, then to develop it and carry it through with full faith

Which exercise did you like best?

13 replies

There really isn’t a favorite, but I remember the backwards-forwards, the Irish song, all the Rhyming Exercises and the songs.

“interior monologue”

the one with singing and rhymes

Interview from head to tail

All of imagination

Poetic rounds.

Each exercise came with something new and beautiful

generally the ones with clear, not too general themes – the one where we do the scene in reverse and then continue; optimistpesimist

Story in 4

Optimist pessimist

“Change”

The song in four.

Which exercise did you find the hardest?

13 replies

The one with the end-to-end interview.

Usually the ones where you’re alone.

“story in 4” , “interview from top to bottom”

Banana

The one where we were given words by colleagues and had to make up a melody and a chorus

Solo song

Irish.

As I said before, it is almost impossible for me to think in terms of hard and easy

haidi ho; and I’ve always had a hard time with the 4 story

Change!

Cantecele, 777

“interview from top to bottom”

Change

Which exercise did you dislike?

12 replies

None.

I didn’t dislike it as much as it didn’t turn out very well for me and my colleagues – banana.

“interview from tail to head”

Banana

None

–

I have no such thing.

I didn’t dislike any of them.

I think the “said Dan and slapped him” one

The one with the captions. (She/he said while…)

Rimele

Story in 4

Which exercise (or range of exercises) do you think was most useful and why?

13 replies

The most useful for me I think was the Irish drinking song. Because it forces you to pay attention on several levels: 1. Pay attention to what your partner says. 2. Try to find a good rhyme to what your partner said. 3. To pay attention to the chorus; if you’re the first person and they finish singing a verse, you go to the back of the queue. 4. Pay attention to the instrumental and come in when you’re supposed to. 5. Do not falsetto (if you want it to be flawless).

I bet on group ones, with stories or songs created on the spot, because it requires attention and concentration, plus trust in the partner and availability when he needs it. It’s just my opinion, and how they have helped me.

“forward-backward” helps you to be aware of the movements on stage

the one with rhymes

Those with movement and improvisation in motion. I think they are useful because they are similar to working with written text

All were useful

Exercise changes because I didn’t have time to think beforehand what I was going to do.

I think all of them. Because I was discovering myself and discovering how to take ideas from the present time.

the ones with rhymes and stories. because it forces my imagination under pressure

Those of interaction in 2. It helped me to play and drive and let myself be driven-interacting naturally.

I think that each of them helped me, probably the ones where I felt relaxed things settled in me more naturally. The ones that I disliked made me draw many conclusions, a bit theoretical, but at least they can be starting points in the future.

Song 4- I should have been 102% focused

The ones with singing because you always have to pay attention to all your classmates, be creative, pay attention to the rhythm. But also change because you have to be active and you have to be able to turn a situation around on all sides, with speed and when you stop to develop whatever it is.

Complete the following sentence starter: Compared to working with text, improvisation is…

12 replies

The way an actor creates without limits.

More fun and creative.

much freer in “expression”

A limitless place for creation.

May life

Jucausa.

Closer to plunging you into the abyss at any time, but it comes with an easier-to-use parachute.

like walking backwards, with no footsteps to step on

First stage

Panic if you don’t know the rules.

Like a bird that escaped from its cage

Hard to cheat.

Techniques of development and training of creativity specific to the Actor’s Art

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PhD

DOCTORAL THESIS

Thanks

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS

Work plan

CHAPTER 1 – DEFINITION OF TERMS

1.1 Creativity as process, product and creative personality

1.2 Definition

1.3 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art

1.4 Creativity specific to Actor’s Art, seen as a process

From fr. répéter, germ. repetieren”. [9]

The ‘flow’ concept

1.5 Creativity specific to the Actor’s Art as a product

1.6 Creativity seen from the point of view of creative personality

1.7 Creativity in Acting Pedagogy

1.8 Theater and its history from the Actor’s Art perspective

CHAPTER 2 – THE COMMON CONTEXT OF THE EMERGENCE OF CREATIVITY, ACTING AND IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

2.1. Creativity – improvisational theater – actor’s art triangle

CHAPTER 3 – LEE STRASBERG

3.1 Emergence of the Method, approach and general principles

3.2 Actor training in the vision of the Method

Relaxation exercises

Sense memory

Emotional memory

3.3 Anticipating, improvising, repeating

3.4 Conclusions

CHAPTER 4 – STELLA ADLER

4.1 The relationship with Strasberg

4.2 The life and work of Stella Adler

4.3 Adler Technique

4.4 Conclusions

CHAPTER 5 – SANFORD MEISNER

5.1 Relationship with Adler and Strasberg

5.2 Meisner technique

CHAPTER 6 – MARIA KNEBEL

6.1 Maria Knebel and Action Analysis – introduction

6.2 Maria Knebel – life and work

6.3 Technical terms and implementation algorithms of action analytics

6.4 Action Analysis Technique

Mental representations

The inner monologue

Tempo – rhythm

6.5 Conclusions

CHAPTER 7- INTRODUCTION TO IMPROVISATION

-THE CONTEXT OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE PHENOMENON

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Life of Viola Spolin

7.3 Viola Spolin’s philosophy

CHAPTER 8 – IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER APPROACHES WITH SPECIFIC MEANS NEUROSCIENCES

8.1 Context of current approaches

8.2 Creativity and improvisation

Conclusions

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 – THE TORRANCE EXPERIMENT – TESTS OF CREATIVITY

1.1 Experiment description

1.2 Activity 1: Figurative creativity

1.3. The play

CHAPTER 2 – THE SPECIFIC PARAMETERS OF THEATER PLAY AND

2.1. Enjoyment of the game and attention to the partner

2.2. Real-time feedback

2.3. Understanding, accepting, practicing and operating according to the specific rules of each game

“HE:- Where were you

SHE:- I had a meeting

HE:- With him

SHE:- What do you mean

HE:- I know everything”

“HE:- Where were you

SHE:- I had a meeting

HE:- With him

SHE:- What do you mean

HE:- I know everything”

2.4. Creative enthusiasm and team bonding

2.5 The play, training for the present

2.6. Verbalization

2.7. Imagination and relaxation

Relax

CHAPTER 3 – IMPROV MODULE – PARTICIPANTS’ OPINIONS

3.1. Introduction

3.2. General coordinates

From fr. répéter, germ. repetieren”. ^{^[9]}