In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Awakening the Performing Body
  • Lisa Jackson-Schebetta
Awakening the Performing Body. By Jade Rosina McCutcheon. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008; pp. xii + 173. $57.00 cloth.

Jade McCutcheon begins her study by pointing out that some of the most formative thinkers of the theatre utilized the terms "soul" and "spirit" in their writing, practice, [End Page 221] and theorizing. Despite this, using such vocabulary in contemporary Western actor training is often considered eccentric. McCutcheon calls for a deeper investigation of these terms, and in her analyses of Stanislavski and her articulation of Body Energy Centers (BECs), she offers some promising insights. Ultimately, however, her project is overwhelmed by generalizations, errors, and inconsistencies.

In the Introduction and chapter 1, McCutcheon summarizes the work of four practitioners: Stanislavski, Artaud, Michael Chekhov, and Grotowski. McCutcheon is clearly familiar with the corpus of Stanislavski's writing. By contextualizing his theoretical evolutions with a contemporaneous rising interest in theosophy, she begins to posit possible meanings for "spirit" in his work and traces compelling links between Stanislavski's ideas and yogic philosophies of creativity, focus, and prana. Unfortunately, these tantalizing insights are left underdeveloped as she moves on to a clumsy and confusing treatment of the other three men.

The summaries of Grotowski, Artaud, and Chekhov are superficial. McCutcheon suggests that Grotowski never engaged with yogic practices (30), but he discussed his experiments with yoga in Towards a Poor Theatre, the work from which she quotes. A large block citation from Artaud's "The Theatre of Cruelty (First Manifesto)" (25) lacks explication. As McCutcheon's overall argument has to do with the soul and the breath, one wonders why she did not comb Artaud's writings for those that explicitly address these concepts, some of which, such as "An Affective Athleticism," are also included in The Theatre and Its Double. McCutcheon adapts only one of Chekhov's principles—the "Higher I"—but neglects to fully explain its relevance to her work (32).

McCutcheon's explanation of BECs (chapter 2) is more articulate. She has adapted the chakras—physical energy centers distributed throughout the body that are associated with emotions, "consciousnesses," and elements (such as ether or fire)—as a practice for actors. After a concise description of each BEC, she clearly outlines a process in which an individual performer may move through the seven BECs, from root to crown, in order to gain a familiarity with his or her physical and imaginative self. The actor may also move through the BEC sequence in character, noting changes as they occur in the body and the imagination. The foundation for the BECs is breath, relaxation, concentration, and visualization. McCutcheon's descriptions and principles will be familiar to those who have worked with a number of acting teachers or vocal or psycho-physical approaches to performer training, including the work of Moni Yakim, Kristin Linklater, Patsy Rodenberg, or Stephen Wangh. Still, McCutcheon offers a particularized vocabulary and system that may appeal to teachers and students.

In chapter 3, McCutcheon attempts to apply BECs to character work, and here her pedagogy breaks down. In the first eight pages of the chapter, actors are instructed to score their script by marking, line by line, the BEC they intend to play as open, closed, or "leaking." The following twenty-seven pages exhibit textual samples, gleaned from McCutcheon's directorial work or the journals of her students. Rather than belaboring her notational system, she would have been better off explaining BEC application or progression in the studio, rehearsal room, or onstage. We have examples of textual analysis, but few examples of the work's evolution in practical application.

If McCutcheon could have placed herself and her students in the classroom, we would have gained greater insight into the possible effectiveness of BECs as well as McCutcheon's pedagogical strengths. A wide range of historical and contemporary acting texts utilize student experiences to demonstrate a teacher's processes. William Esper's The Actor's Art and Craft (2008) describes classroom situations and incorporates dialogue in order to document the give-and-take among actor, exercises, and instructor. John Barton's Playing Shakespeare (1984) includes lengthy conversational transcriptions. We learn how Patrick Stewart worked through...

pdf

Share