for my independent project i have decided to research Gordon Craig, his theory of the ubermarionnette to be more precise. at first of course i wanted to do something different, i wanted to study puppets and the disappearance of the actor when they are used by him (if he is the actor, if the puppet is the actor, then i would've investigated why, etc) but this task proved to be too complex for the short period of time, especially when it came to getting resources to study from (books, puppets, etc). To be quite honest, my mind wanted to study every single area of theatre and some proved to be to simple to study. So along the same lines of the puppet investigation, i decided to study Craig's ubermarionnette, and luckily the disappearance of the actor was still very relevant.
before i begun my actual research, i knew little about the concept and what was behind it, and to be quiet honest, it just sounded as a very extremist point of view or desire for a puppet to do the director's wishes. Yet upon further investigation, I began to sympathize with Craig, in fact, some of his ideas and most part of his theory makes perfect sense.
to sort of summarize my findings in a very general, and very broad way, here are some of the most striking and very true parts of Craig's theory that i could explore:
- he speaks about symbolism, there's almost a kabuki air exuding from his ideas, he says: "they must create for themselves a new form of acting, consisting for the main part of symbolical gesture" this perfectly sums up his overall view on the perfect actor, and acting itself. He does not wish for theatre to represent or imitate real life, he wants it to be an art form, and art has form, it has a way to present things other than the way they actually are. although clear, craig does make me wonder: would this new, perfect form of acting that every actor must inspire to create give less credit to those actors that can perfectly reproduce the so called "tremors of the flesh"(emotions)? and if so, would acting itself become so abstract, we could go on and call it interpretative dance? and if I keep pondering (which is perfectly possible for me) I can ever wonder about facial expression, because the face is the key place to look to tell a person's emotions, so would this new form of acting concentrate on the body itself and not care about the face? would theatre become this new form of language that only the most devote people could understand and enjoy? On a personal note, I can appreciate an actor who is in perfect control of his body, and who, together with a director has come up with his own little language of symbols; however I cannot lie to myself and say i don't appreciate and admire an actor who can powerfully reproduce a person's emotions and move the audience and perhaps ( my apologies to craig, who must be rolling in his grave) even himself.
-to try to apply this to my independent i will have to get symbolism that is not too abstract yet abstract enough so that love is not represented by a kiss, especially if it happens after a character has professed his love for another one.
-Craig then speaks on about how "the greater artist is he who creates the impression of the whole genus of donkey, the spirit of the thing." referring to a painter who painted a donkey and labelled it donkey below, thus giving no form to his art, imitating nature. When directing the actors, we have to manage how to, instead of imitating one person, represent that person via symbolism and yet also represent the whole group of people that person belongs to, capture the spirit of "man" in this case. How will i manage to capture that spirit? because the spirit of man is made alive by his emotions, yet, Craig is against the literal representation of emotions.
I wonder, since Craig was a designer and many of his ideas seem rather superficial on the surface, does this make his theory superficial? since he speaks constantly about style, about an artist having to follow rules, or is it so abstract and has so much substance, that capturing the spirit of the thing is the ultimate test for an actor? how can this be done? Another thing i wonder about, say you have a play in which the protagonist is not a human being, but rather an animal,or a fantastical creature, yet he experiences emotions, would this imply that an actor trying to portray those emotions, maintaining the feel of the creature rather than trying to make him as human, be rejected by Craig's point of view? How can we capture the spirit of the thing, if the thing is something totally new to man? (say an alien, or a mermaid, or a dragon)
