The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience (review)

{ 235 } Book Reviews The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience. By Rhonda Blair. New York: Routledge, 2008. xiv + 138 pp. $37.95 paper. The advent of noninvasive techniques for studying the brain—FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging), EEG (Electroencephalogram), and others—­ has ushered in a new era for cognitive scientists. And the publications of such neuroscientists as Damasio, LeDoux, and Ramachandran, among others, have made the discoveries of this field readily accessible to the nonspecialist. It was perhaps inevitable that neuroscientists’ views of consciousness would come under the scrutiny of theatre practitioners. In The Actor, Image, and Action, the theatre practitioner’s view of consciousness is informed by the recent developments of neuroscience and yields both theoretical and practical insights into the craft of acting in the twenty-­ first century. The book is intended as a manual for actors, and its twin purposes are to improve “our understanding of the actor’s process” and to “provide practical techniques for applying what science has discovered”(xiii). These two purposes seem innocuous enough, but the far-­ reaching impact of “what science has discovered ” about the nature and processes of human memory and imagination means a radical rethinking of received acting terms and concepts. Constructs such as character identity, for instance, when seen by neuroscience, are less an entity than they are often perceived by actors; to a neuroscientist, a character is much more of a process than a construct. Emotion and reason and physicality, both for the actor and for the actor’s construction, the character, are more intimately connected than previously thought. Blair spends the first two chapters of this text discussing the relations of twentieth-­ century science to Stanislavsky and the major Stanislavsky-­ influenced { 236 } Book Reviews acting teachers—Meyerhold, Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner. The points of contact between neuroscience and the work of each of these twentieth-­ century acting teachers are delineated and established as the pattern for future development of acting theory. Chapter 2 closes with a look at two researchers who have recently begun to develop acting theory along these lines: Susana Bloch, with the Alba Emoting Technique, and actor-­ researcher Elly Konijn. Chapter 3 is devoted to the extrapolation of imagination, consciousness, emotions and feelings , the self, and memory as these concepts are understood by neuros­ cience. The actor, reading this chapter, will perceive both differences from and similarities to the accustomed way of considering each of these concepts, and thus this chapter is the most challenging and stimulating of the entire book. The final chapter is a series of applications of this research. First, Blair considers a hypothetical exercise designed to engage the actor in the“to be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet. Three case studies follow, discussing Blair productions of Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl, Suzan-­ Lori Parks’s Venus, and Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Each of these applications features a different view of the intersection of neuroscience and acting, considering distinct ways of image-­ making and image-­ streaming and their aesthetic effects. These applications are an excellent launchpad for directors as well as actors who hope to use their resources more effectively, and the closing section, “Conversations with a Master Acting Teacher,” stimulates even more thought regarding the boundaries of acting talent and the possible applications of neuroscience in acting. The afterword considers more questions that neuroscience discoveries have raised. Mirror neurons and other physical structures have raised the question, “What really is the nature of the boundaries between ourselves and others?” (106), and Blair considers where this particular path may eventually lead theatre practitioners . An appendix discussing translation and its role in the production of Three Sisters mentioned in chapter 4, along with an extensive works consulted list and index, comprise back matter and open additional channels of inquiry. It is Blair’s hope that this text will give the actor and director new tools, and so it does. But it also delivers much more: insights into the shy world of our own consciousness and, perhaps for some, a curiosity that will lead deeper into the meaning of being—and representing—the human condition. Adrianne Adderley — Missouri Valley College ...