The Physical Actor is a comprehensive book of exercises for actors. It is carefully designed for the development of a strong and flexible physical body able to move with ease through space and interact instinctively on stage. Annie Loui draws on her training with Etienne Decroux, Carolyn Carlson, and Jerzy Grotowski to bring contact improvisation (CI) into the theatrical sphere. She explains how it can be used to develop alert and embodied listening skills in the actor, and how to apply it working with texts on stage.
This book will guide the reader through a full course of movement skills, including:
• Partnering skills
• Spatial awareness for groups and individuals
• Fine motor control through mime
• Heightened coordination and sustained motion
New for this edition are additional partnering exercises, in-depth applications of contact improvisation to monologues and scenes, and a chapter on devising physical theatre performances.
Annie Loui works as a director/choreographer and is the Artistic Director of CounterBalance Theater. Her original physical theater pieces have been seen in France, Monaco, West Germany, Italy, and the United States. She runs the Movement Program for MFA Actor Training at the University of California, Irvine.
The Physical Actor Contact Improvisation from
Studio to Stage
Second Edition
Annie Loui
Second edition published 2019 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
The right of Annie Loui to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2009
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-29184-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-78934-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22284-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Univers by codeMantra
Warm -up: what we do and how we approach it 5
Warm-up sequence 8
The c at 8
The bridge 10
Neck stretch 13
The butterfly 14
The plough 18
Sternum lift 20
Spine undulation 23
Floating 24
Fast abs 26
Realign against the floor 27
Spine twist 28
Milling exercise 3 33
Passing diagonals 34
Amoeba exercise: “instant art” 36
Fishes exercise 37
Trust/nod exercise 1 38
Trust/nod exercise 2 39
Environment/group exercise 40
Parallel walking exercise 41
Samurai warrior 43
Freeze frames 44
Freeze frame exercise 1: physical extremes 44
Freeze frame exercise 2: given circumstances 45
Freeze frame exercise 3: partnering with imagery 46
Freeze frame exercise 4: intimacy 47
3 mI me
Why study mime? 49
Alignment 51
Isolations: to drill 52
Head 53
Shoulder 59
Chest 63
Pelvis 65
Direct application: improvisation 66
Bus stop improvisation 66
Isolation circle toss exercise 67
Isolation leading exercise 68
Mannequin exercise 69
Statuary garden exercise 70
Mime illusions: articulated action 72
Hand and wrist articulation exercises 72
Wall illusion 73
Small-object-drop illusion 74
Ball drop illusion 75
Ball throw to the sky illusion 76
Ball toss side to side illusion 76
Ball toss improvisation 77
Fixed Points 78
Slow motion 82
The three-minute sit 83
Crane rotation 84
Crane rotation inverted 85
Real time versus slow motion 87
4 p artne r I ng 89
The arc and the exercises 90
Group 1 exercises: weight and counterbalance 90
Group 2 exercises: weight support (skeleton) 94
Group 3 exercises: floor support 101
Group 4 exercises: lifts 114
5 c onta ct I mprov IS at I on pr act I ce a nd S cene S t udy 133
C ontemporary comedy: out of contact into realism 187
Monologues in contact 191
Monologue: out of contact into realism 195
How to get there 198
Devising
Movement theater creation: the early work 201
Generating original work 202
Preliminary exercises 202
Structural elements: building blocks for construction 204
Movement theater: the guidelines 206
Critique 207
Devising with a group:
CounterBalance Theater examples 208
Jane Eyre : our practical creative process in adapting literature for the stage 209
The Iliad: Menin (Rage) : slow motion as a combat tool 215
Reading Frankenstein : causality between live performers and technology 217
Elsewhere : isolations and physical theater as a metaphor 219
She : spatial orientation in staging 221
CounterBalance: steal from us! 222
Foreword
I have been invited to contribute a comment on contact improvisation (CI) and speaking. I have little direct experience of this apparently disparate mix. But looking at daily life, I see lots of examples. They are not so disparate. Conversation is mostly improvisational, as are many of the movement events with which we are involved. It is common to sing while working. It is natural to converse while engaged in activities from gardening to housecleaning to paperwork. If the physical continuum of CI becomes embodied, it is possible to converse or deliver a text without much influencing the flow of the improvisational movement nor having the movement much disrupt the flow of the voice.
One experience I did have in this was early CI demonstrations. My partner and I would discuss the principles of CI while performing it. However, later one of the teachers, Peter Ryan (now Lola), who witnessed that demonstration began to teach delivery of a set text during full-on CI. The texts were Shakespearean dialogues. I was surprised how fresh and recast the texts became when the bodies of the actors were fully involved in the nuance and sheer survival of duet improvisational movement.
To the students of this approach, I would say this: study of one’s own body as a medium is normally a very lengthy event due to the factor of having to grow the brain and body to perform advanced physical feats. Many martial arts for instance require years of study and not only for the development of the body to high levels of strength and reflex but also for the development of neurons that correspond to the ability to perform these previously unknown accomplishments. Ballet is said to require ten years.
The skills of CI are natural ones; the skills of speaking are also natural, and it won’t take long to get the coordination going. I think the element you might attend to is time. CI employs reflexes, very fast if still within conscious observation. In CI, however, I use standing to explore time; time, that is, as subjectively known, because “the stand” is maintained by miniscule movements which micro-adjust the skeleton to maintain balance. As you experience it, they can be seen to become smaller; your mind will see a larger pattern at first, but as you observe, it will be revealed that the reflexes are firing very subtly all over the body all the time. It is a window into the physical world. It remains for you to make what you will of this substrate of our movement spectrum. An essay or a teacher can only show you materials and help you practice. I will advise you to practice seriously. The body learns by activity, so do what you can to gently guide its growth, learning by doing, failing, improving—remembering that the goal you imagine can be reached by perseverance, which is the job of consciousness.
Steve Paxton
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my parents, the theater director Wayne Loui and Professor Tuck Loui, for being shining examples, and always encouraging their children to create.
Thanks to my colleagues at UC Irvine for their congenial support especially Robert Cohen and Richard Brestoff for sage advice, friendly coffee, and c areful reading. Large thanks are due to Talia Rodgers, my editor, who had faith. This second edition was supported by the patient Stacey Walker, gracious technical editing of Franc Chamberlain, and thoughtful comments from my colleagues in movement practice, Charlie Oates, Loretta Livingston, Dick McCaw, and Libby Worth. Thanks for technical support from Carmen Burgess and Adalid Aguilar.
A nd finally, thanks to my students over the years of practice in the studio. If you had not gone on the journey, this book would not exist.
Illustrative photos: Michael Lamont and Skye Schmidt.
Practitioners: Annie Loui, Karin Hendricks, Evans Jarnefeldt, and Ethan Sawyer.
Additional practitioners: Michael Calacino, Kayla Kearney, Chris Mansa, Gavin Mueller, Xander Ritchey, Grace Theobald, and Thomas Varga.
Additional contact improvisation photos: Adrian Alita and Sean Tarrant.
This manuscript was written in Torre San Severo, Italy, and in Silverado, California.
Endorsements
The Physical Actor might well be titled “Actor as Dancer,” so choreographically honed are its descriptions and analyses. At once manual and survey, the book is an engaging and inclusive overview of body techniques and their emotional connotations. In its specificity and precision, The Physical Actor is an essential resource for anyone who aspires to act or move.
Yvonne Rainer (choreographer)
Annie Loui’s remarkable new book not only offers a unique step-by-step approach for integrating movement training with an actor ’s text, it also teaches actors how to live a deep moment-to-moment life with their scene partners physically. By clearly detailing a technique that connects impulse-driven contact improvisation with scene work in styles ranging from Shakespeare to Chekhov, Loui shows actors something new: how to listen with their bodies. An indispensable book.
Richard Brestoff (actor and author, The Camera Smart Actor )
When I got a callback for the Angels in America revival on Broadway, the first person I told was Annie Loui. The re-imagining of the Angel in this production was intensely physical utilizing all my contact improv and devising skills as well as puppetry and the ability to integrate all of this with text It ’s as if Annie knew one day I’ d be asked to wear all of these hats at once and systematically prepared me for that moment in time. I wrote to her again to tell her I’ d booked the job and to thank her for the care she put into our time together and for the courage her work continues to inspire in mine.
Beth Malone (Tony Award nominee)
Annie Loui is the real deal. I love her insights into the craft and her reminders of why we do this and why the physical work is important to the actor. Physical awareness is one of the elements of the craft that you must experience in order to recognize its importance and power in your work. When we watch artists who understand their bodies and physicality we are drawn to the story and that actor in particular. The physical actor completes the image, the story, the moment. While I am no longer a performer, I continue to use the training and awareness that I learned from working with Annie Loui every day.
Elliot Fox (Co-Director of the Fordham/ Primary Stages MFA in Playwriting)
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Palmetto, as a child of thirteen, runs away from the only parents she has ever known, but whom she instinctively feels are only foster parents. She finds a refuge in New Orleans with a kindly fisherman who adopts her and brings her up as his own daughter. Associated with him is David Cantrelle, a lad of good birth whose family is genuinely shocked at his choice of occupation. He loves Palmetto from the first, and when her heart awakens and responds to his, they become engaged. But his family objects to the match, on account of
+ the mystery of her birth and she determines to show them she is worth while. So she goes to New York where she makes a conspicuous success as an actress. One of her southern admirers follows her there, makes ardent love to her and almost succeeds in replacing David in her heart. But she learns in time that her love for David is deeper than any Hartley can command. The mystery of her birth is eventually cleared up and she finds she has as good blood in her veins as either David or Hartley.
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PETERSON, SAMUEL. Democracy and government. *$2 Knopf 321.8
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PHELPS, EDITH M., comp. Selected articles on the American merchant marine. (Debaters’ handbook ser.) *$1.50 Wilson, H. W. 387
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Booklist 16:291 My ’20
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PHELPS, EDITH M., ed. University debaters’ annual; constructive and rebuttal speeches delivered in debates of American colleges and universities during the college year, 1919–1920. v 6 *$2.25 Wilson, H. W.
808.5
Seven subjects of timely importance are included in this volume of the debaters’ annual: Government ownership and operation of coal mines; The Cummins plan for the control of railroads; Affiliation of teachers with the American federation of labor; Compulsory arbitration of railway labor disputes; Compulsory arbitration of labor disputes; The closed shop; Suppression of propaganda for the
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PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. As the wind blows. *$1.50 Macmillan 821
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PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. Evander. *$2 Macmillan
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“Evander is an apostle of plain living and high thinking in the early days when the gods of Olympus had not settled their respective rights in the hierarchy of worship and when marriage was still a rare thing among humble folk. Festus and Livia were perhaps the first among their neighbours to wed, under the auspices of Bacchus, while Evander, as the votary of Apollo, endeavours to convert her to the higher worship of his god. He succeeds for a time in gaining her allegiance, and she leaves her husband to follow him, but finds the mental atmosphere too rarefied for her, and finally returns to her home and husband, Bacchus being able to show his half-brother the unwisdom of vengeance on Festus.” Sat R
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PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.
Macmillan
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Miser’s money. *$2
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“Mr Phillpotts keeps us almost too near to life. He presents us with one more faithful and consistent study of Dartmoor people, but of Dartmoor people principally in their heavier and less significant moments. The plot, though simple and pastoral, is a very good plot; but no plot could survive this flood of conversation.” The Times [London] Lit Sup p186 Mr 18 ’30 400w
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.[2] West country pilgrimage.
il *$9 Macmillan 914.2
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PILLSBURY, WALTER BOWERS.
Psychology of nationality and internationalism. *$2.50 (3½c) Appleton 321
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For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
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ROBERT EUGENE. Long traverse. il *$1.50 (2c)
20–12811
When Bruce Rochette comes into the northland he comes with a deadly hatred of the Hudson’s Bay Company and a determination to avenge his mother’s death which he holds the fur trading company responsible for. He wins the confidence of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s manager, Herbert Morley, and then uses every trick and stratagem at his command to establish a rival post at Fort Mystery. Everything is going well, until he meets Evelyn Morley, and falls in love with her. Judged by her absolute standards of right and wrong, his policy of all’s fair in war condemns him in his own eyes as well as hers. In an endeavor to straighten matters out, he very nearly loses his self respect, his girl, his job, and even his life. But finally everything is restored to him that is necessary for his happiness and Evelyn’s.
“A pleasantly written tale.”
Booklist 17:35 O ’20
PINKERTON,
MRS KATHRENE SUTHERLAND
(GEDNEY), and PINKERTON, ROBERT EUGENE. Penitentiary Post. il *$1.50 (2c) Doubleday
20–10313
A story of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Phil Boynton is sent to take charge of the fort known as Penitentiary Post, a place with an evil reputation. Behind him at Savant House, he leaves the girl he loves, knowing that John Wickson, the man who is sending him north, also loves her and is determined to win her, and half suspecting that personal motives were back of the appointment. At Penitentiary Post he finds himself fully occupied with the mystery of the “weeteego,” or evil spirit, that haunts it. His Indians desert the place in fear and the fur hunters refuse to come near it. Joyce Plummer, hearing tales of what he is undergoing, comes alone through the storm to find him, and Wickson follows. The three, who are forced to make common cause against hunger, come to an understanding, and the poor, crazed Indian who had watched his family die of starvation and is taking a weird revenge on the white man, meets his own fate.
Booklist 17:35 O ’20
“This book first appeared serially in El Norte Americano. Mr Pinochet is a Chilean and the author of seven books on government and kindred subjects. He came to this country some years ago for the expressed object of learning to understand the United States that he might tell his countrymen about us. He has selected an entertaining manner of setting forth the views of the two Americas. He has made no attempt to make a story of his book, yet he has introduced two distinct characters. The first is a Latin-American man, who, being in the United States, writes letters to his wife at home about whatever interests him in this country. The woman is an American, a member of the censor ’ s department during the war. She reads the letters of the husband and in her turn writes an accompanying letter, discussing the same subject.”—Boston Transcript
“The surprising thing about the book is that Mr Pinochet should so have entered into the United States point of view as to make one believe, while reading his instructive volume, that a native of this country had risen in its defense.”
Bookm 52:368 D ’20 300w
“The book should prove a link in the chain which should finally bind closer the two continents, so many of whose interests are the same. ”
Boston Transcript p7 N 24 ’20 390w
“Both the imaginary writers are interesting and neither writes a page that one can go to sleep over. ”
N Y Times p7 Ja 9 ’21 1750w
“The book has a temporary flavor, being written before the adoption of the suffrage amendment and more recent events. But it will prove interesting to anyone who wishes to know how a highly intelligent ‘foreigner’ judges our country from the front it presents to him.”
Springf’d Republican p7a D 26 ’20 290w
PINSKI, DAVID. Ten plays. *$2 Huebsch 892.4
20–9850
These ten one-act plays have been translated from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg. They depict the various weaknesses and passions of men: greed, selfishness, war hysteria, lust, war ’ s devastation, with at the end a dramatization of the Midrash legend. The titles are: The phonograph; The god of the newly rich wool merchant; A dollar; The cripples; The Inventor and the king’s daughter; Diplomacy; Little heroes; The beautiful nun; Poland 1919; The stranger.
“Plays which are often unpleasantly grim though not sordid. There is the same keen analysis of human nature as in earlier plays. The method is symbolic rather than literal, and sometimes the meaning is blurred.”
Booklist 16:338 Jl ’20
“Brilliant but not always clear.”
Cleveland p87 S ’20 20w
“There are few of his ‘Ten plays’ which can wholly escape the murkiness of inferior translation.” K.
M.
Freeman 1:548 Ag 18 ’20 450w
“Mr Pinski has become an unswerving symbolist. He has deliberately silenced the voice of nature that sounded so clearly in his earlier plays. He still cultivates the ironic anecdote in dramatic form but his mind is more fixed on the bare intention than on the stuff of life. His peculiar dangers are the fantastic and the obscure, and these make several of his plays ineffectual.”
Nation 110:693 My 22 ’20 250w
“Pinski may lack certain graces, especially graces of lightness and saving humor. But passion and power he does not lack, whether he writes in one-act or three. No American dramatist today gives such an effect of surging vitality. It will be a great pity if he does not identify himself more closely with American life and write ultimately for English-speaking audiences direct.” W. P. Eaton
N Y Call p10 Jl 18 ’20 350w
“The shortest of the ten plays, ‘Cripples,’ is the strongest. Force, indeed, gnarled and ungainly, is characteristic of Mr Pinski’s drama at its best. This force, however, is accompanied by a heaviness of tread and a density of fibre which are prolific of trials for the sensitive reader.”
Review 3:133 Ag 11 ’20 320w
“Every play in the volume is readable, most of them are actable. It would, in fact, be safe to say that they would all be actable if they were in the hand of the players of the Jewish art theatre, who know as well as Pinski does how to make the quick transitions native to the Jewish mind and heart—from tragedy to comedy, from irony to philippic, from joy to the depths of sorrow. ”
Arts Magazine 4:225 Jl ’20
PITT, FRANCES. Wild creatures of garden and
hedgerow. il *$4 (7c) Dodd 590.4
20–27527
A collection of papers by an English naturalist, who says, “The following account of some of the commoner birds and beasts around us is written in the hope of interesting boys and girls, and some of the older people too if possible, in the wild life of garden, hedgerow, and field.” (Preface) Contents: Bats; The bank vole; Two common birds (blackbird and thrush); Shrews; Toads and frogs; The longtailed field mouse; ‘The little gentleman in the black velvet coat’; Thieves of the night; Some garden birds; The hedgehog; Three common reptiles; The short-tailed field vole. The illustrations are from photographs.
“Her first-hand records are set out in an easy unpretentious style, and on obscure points she makes suggestions as illuminating as they are modest.” E. B.
p303 S 3 ’20 720w
Booklist 17:100 D ’20
“Miss Pitt’s book is beautifully printed and handsomely illustrated and is especially of value for the reading of young people, many of whom are glad to make friends with the living things of the world about them.”
Boston Transcript p4 D 11 ’20 400w
“Miss Pitt is to be congratulated on a book which takes its place in the first rank of works on field natural history. It is a personal record of clever, patient, and sympathetic observation.” J. A. T.
Nature 106:246 O 21 ’20 1700w
“The author’s work is not inspired or inspiring, but it is clean of sentimentality and of spurious nature philosophy, pleasant reading, and informative.”
N Y Evening Post p29 O 23 ’20 130w
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
Review 3:376 O 27 ’20 50w
Spec 125:710 N 27 ’20 30w
“The photographs of the little creatures in their haunts are most cleverly taken.”
“Even if they sometimes carry a rather too large conclusion, these histories of birds and beasts and creeping things are full of fine insight and the right enthusiasm.”
20–17152
A book of advice on writing for the professional stage. The author says “I do most fervently believe that the dry bones of stage technique can be taught—in fact, all my personal experience goes to prove this. I have been handling plays now for more years than I care to remember, and have found in case after case that a little technical adjustment will turn an unmarketable play into a commercial proposition.” Among the topics covered are: What the public want; Things that are essential in a good play; How to choose a plot; How to select and differentiate the characters; Humour; How to sell a play when finished; Casting and production. A glossary of stage terms comes at the end. The author is an English woman writing with London conditions in mind but most of her discussion is general in nature.
“A beginner, provided he were only a beginner with no idea of the drama, would do well to read this book.”
N Y Evening Post p10 D 31 ’20 180w
PLUMB, CHARLES SUMNER. Types and breeds of farm animals. (Country life educ.
ser.) rev ed il *$3.80 Ginn 636
20–8897
A revision of a work published in 1906. The new edition contains “ a more detailed discussion relative to the great breeds, and considerable space is devoted to families of importance and to noted individuals. A large amount of new data has been collected relating to various phases of production, although it is a hopeless task to bring such records down to date.... The number of chapters remains the same, but several obsolete breeds have been omitted and other new and more important ones have been substituted. Maps and many illustrations have been added.” (Foreword)
“The book gives probably the best account published of modern farm animals and there are good illustrations. Another very interesting feature is the history of the families which the author has diligently worked out.” E. J. R.
+ + + Ath p384 Mr 19 ’20 50w
Nature 106:659 Ja 20 ’21 210w
POLLAK, GUSTAV. International
minds and the search for the restful. $1.50 Nation press 814
19–16675
The collection of essays in this book are gathered from articles contributed to the Evening Post and the Nation before the war. As the title indicates, they fall into two groups. The first group bears out the author’s claim “that intellect recognizes no distinctions of nationality, race, or religion.” He has selected a representative of each, from the literatures of Germany, Austria, France and America in the persons of Goethe, Grillparzer, Sainte-Beuve and Lowell and points out a certain similarity of attitude toward life and literature, of perception of the dignity of literary achievement, of keen-eyed observation and of a self-contained repose. The second group of essays is devoted to Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben, and his book on the “Hygiene of the soul” which of late years has achieved a new fame. One of the essays gives a resumé of the book. The titles of the essays are: Literature and patriotism; Goethe’s universal interests; Grillparzer’s originality; Sainte-Beuve’s unique position; Lowell: patriot and cosmopolitan; Permanent literary standards; Feuchtersleben the philosopher; The hygiene of the soul; Feuchtersleben’s aphorisms; Feuchtersleben’s influence.
POLLARD,
ALBERT FREDERICK.
Short history of the great war. *$3.25 Harcourt 940.3
20–26545
“Although several histories of the war have already appeared, only a few of them have been written by men who had an ante-war historical reputation. Dr Pollard is one of this small group. For many years he has held the chair of English history in the University of
London, and is the author of numerous historical works, besides having served as assistant editor of the ‘Dictionary of national biography.’ His record of the war is chronologically complete, and includes the work of the peace conference.” R of Rs
“Simply as an account of military events the volume leaves something to be desired, in spite however of what the book does not contain and one cannot say everything in four hundred pages the volume is well worth reading.” A. P. Scott
Am Hist R 26:331 Ja ’21 470w
“An excellent feature of Professor Pollard’s evenly balanced and temperately written narrative is that it corrects several popular misapprehensions.”
Ath p431 Mr 26 ’20 260w
Booklist 16:309 Je ’20
“An excellent record of the facts, combined with a true representation of their relative importance. Some of his opinions will not be generally accepted, and he has a strong prejudice against the present prime minister. Original views will not, however, detract from the great and patriotic interest of the book. The style is vigorous and sometimes eloquent.”
G. B. H.
Eng Hist R 35:477 Jl ’20 190w
“In contrast with some other writers on the subject, he has succeeded in being more historical than hysterical. Having mastered the sources, as far as they are available, he presents his conclusions
