Muhsin Ibrahim
@muhsin234
INTRODUCTION
The art of
acting is the heart of theatre; direction breathes life into the heart, and
other crews, alongside the audience, put flesh and blood onto the skeleton carrying
the heart to make it fully functional. Everything—the story, stage, costume,
the audience, etc—revolves around the actor. This undoubtedly makes acting a
very gigantic task, challenging and it easily becomes problematic if not well
handled. This, therefore, calls for the use of many and different objects to
facilitate and further the action onstage, to make it more realizable, attention-grabbing
and entertaining. There is no boundary to this.
However, the
success of an actor calls for a collective works of many professionals in
harness with the director such as set designer, and costume coordinator, props
coordinator, make-up coordinator, etc who are in charge of selecting any object
seen befitting for a certain role, performance, and broadly, the setting of a
play. Actor could be asked to use anything as theatrical properties
(appurtenances of the stage ) to enhance his presentation which is to
communicate images, and the images have to be seen, felt, experienced, etc by
the audience. In a broader term, this is achieved through the use of internal
(i.e. mind, body and voice) and external (props and costumes) aids.
THE INTERNAL
AIDS
The actor uses
gesture, movement, facial expression and posture in a superior manner to create
physical nuances of the characters. The characters should be controlled,
precise and believable. All characters are sustained throughout performance.
These three (3) basic ways of acting
(internal aids) offer a priceless means to achieve the said depiction:
- Mind
- Body
- Voice
- The Mind
This calls for the application of mind
to understand and to analyze other characters as well as the personality,
psychology and objectives of the role the actor is to play. He is also expected
to put the expected response, action and reaction of his audience into
cognizance, therefore if need be, he adjust. Moreover, the actor, according to
the famous Russian playwright and actor, Constantine Stanislavsky, has to
imagine as “if” it were in real life. For instance, at the death of his mother
in the play, the actor is expected to behave as if it were his maternal mother
that died. In short, this aid is more internal than all others, for what is
there to apply is even “abstract” as it exclusively deals with mentality and
psyche alone.
·
The Body
One may be allowed to call this the
invaluable aid an actor could ever get. It refers to the application of hands,
legs, head and all parts of the body to enhance communication with an audience.
Every actor uses three distinct elements when he uses his body:
Stance: this refers to posture and gait of the actor.
For instance, bending back to impersonate an old man, etc.
Gesture: the way the actor uses his hands, legs, head
and other parts of the body to facilitate his communication with the audience.
Facial Gesture: or facial expression. It means how
the actor uses his feeling and mood—sadness, happiness, excitement, shock,
etc—to communicate.
Indian theatre, particularly,
developed a complex language of symbolic gestures, using prescribed movements
of the lead, cheek, nose, eyebrows, neck, chin, chest, eyes, feet and hands
(Devlin, 1989). Relatively speaking, there is what is called mime, where the
performer does everything with his body, without voicing a word, and,
sometimes, again, without using anything extra. This was more popular in the
early 20th century up to the end. The exponent figure of this
practice was the acclaimed French actor and mime, Marcel Marceau.
- The Voice
According to Sidwel (2008), “Voice
is the most specialized and most difficult of the elements of acting to master”.
Hence many ‘professional’ actors spend much time trying to control their voice
to the tune of their role. For instance, Stanislavsky (1950:06) recalls that:
“In order to disguise his bass voice my friend [Tortsov] uses only high tones
in speaking”. The point of that decisive, steady and often repeated effort is
that the spoken dialogue—the rhythm, accent, pitch, pace, etc. would lead the
actor to find the emotional essence of the character he is portraying.
THE EXTERNAL AIDS
“Unique among all the arts”, Devlin
(1989:53) asserts, “Theatre consists in presenting human behaviour directly”. The
aids are (or should be) very carefully selected, for they are expected to look
“real” if not “too real”. Real objects are not usually adapted because of their
size or nature or some other reasons. The external aids consist everything an
actor uses such as make-ups, clothes, artificial beards, masks, stick and any
other things that is not part or from his body. These are broadly categorized
into two, namely: Props and Costumes.
- Props
“Props” is the short form of
properties use by actors; for example, a crown for a king, a gun for a soldier,
or a wand for a magician. Mask is another old way of distinguishing different
characters on stage. Its use dates back to centuries in ancient Greek. Thespis
of ancient Greek is believed to be the first actor who introduced the use of
mask, where he used different masks to indicate different roles he solely
played in agora (marketplace).
- Costumes
Costumes refer to the clothing worn
by the actor that helps to determine character, time, theme and mood. Actors
often put on a disguise, changing their appearance from their normal selves.
This practice is more done in Africa and in many parts of Asia—India, for
instance—decorative masks are a striking feature of the performing arts. For
instance, the ancient Indian Sage Bharata’s Natya
Shashtra, which is a detailed treatise on dramaturgy, actors are encouraged
to use different kinds of the mask, for different performance. Worthy of note
is: a skilled actor can show character through his speech, movement and gesture
not necessarily by wearing a mask, or anything else, as the case maybe.
CONCLUSION
It suffices to say that there is no
actor without aids, both internal and external. However, the uses of such aids
differ from place to place (for example: context), time to time, culture to culture and so on. The
world, too, is in a constant state of flux, and it is a place for people of different races, religions, norms and cultures, and host of other differences; hence, the dynamism of the aids.
Nonetheless, very keen, committed and experienced coordinators and designers are aware of
this. Thus, the director, as the backbone of any
play, with their (the coordinators and designers) assistance, selects appropriate aid for a fitting role.
REFERENCE:
Devlin, Diana (1989). Mask & Scene: An Introduction to a World
View of Theatre. London: Macmillan.
Sidwell, D. (2008).
“The Performing Arts of Theatre”. http://ocw.usu.edu/Theatre_Arts/Understanding_Theatre/The_Performing_Arts_of_Theatre_1.html.
(Accessed on 10.09.2013)
Stanislavski, C. (1950) Building a Character. New Delhi: Research Press.
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