Luane Davis Haggerty

PHYSICAL EXPRESSIONS IN DEVISED PLAYWRITING

Often theatre classes on the playwriting process will follow a conventional text-based approach.  At the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), improvisation is utilized to develop, connect, and imagine the progression of the playwright’s storyline from a visual perspective involving both hearing and deaf students. The work begins, develops, and completes itself by embodied language of the actor/writer using American Sign Language (ASL), universal gesture, mimed movement, and the unique application of Sign Mime techniques formally taught at NTID. Improvisational work with the actor/writer creates physical representations of theme and message connected to breathing exercises that help center the actor/writer. Use of eye contact is emphasized to provide an understanding of relational context based on the length of eye gaze or the withholding of eye contact between characters.  Spatial awareness is supported through improvisation exercises to help the actor/writer focus on how space, within a play’s structure, is used to define setting, develop meaningful interactions with specific settings, and provide strong use of effective entrances or departures. Finally, to achieve a full appreciation of the various exercises, a process is introduced using movement, posture, and gesture (MPG).

INTRODUCTION

It may seem counterintuitive to think that stripping away formal spoken language can foster student growth as they develop plays.  However, while language and diction are important elements, the driving force of all plays revolves around character, plot, and ideas. When teachers introduce a physical approach to playwriting, it creates a visceral reaction to physicality that supports students with varying levels of language ability and comfort with the writing process. Being able to concretely visualize the play’s plot and the resulting sequence of actions enables actor/writers to express themselves in a creative manner.

We have found through the iterative application of specific curriculum outcomes that a physically based, hands-on approach offers a firm foundation for student success. In an ASL playwriting classroom, where the students may seem to be at a disadvantage due to differences in cultural experiences, learning styles, social skills, and physical ability, the integration of physical exercises into the curriculum can guide a diverse student group towards the discovery of specific concepts to support the creative writing process.

We use a series of theatre exercises that help students identify and use specific dramatic elements, as well as demystify the process of writing by providing alternative ways to develop their plays.  These alternative physical approaches to playwriting allow students to physically explore and present their plots in a visual format. This process of physically scaffolding the play development process supports the eventual transfer of their stories into traditional written formats.

VISUALIZATION

Early in the process students are introduced to improvisational game play which enables them to develop their work in small segments that support the creation of a series of scenes. To begin the physical process, students explore exercises that support their understanding of visualization skills, character types and development, the one-act concept, and approaches to plot analysis.    These visualization exercises are introduced to the actor/writer progressively through several exercises.

Exercise One: Where?                           

The origin of this adapted exercise lies in Stella Adler’s techniques.[i] It is designed to build the actor’s imagination.

Goal

• To develop the actor’s imagination by first observing the world around them in detail.

How We Get There

Divide students into groups of two to five students. Have each group create a list of different room locations such as kitchens, libraries, bedrooms, classrooms, and offices.

From this list, they then choose one room location.  Each group identifies important pieces of furniture for their chosen room and then visually create the room for the rest of the class, taking on the roles of family members, roommates, or married couples as they mime bringing in specific furniture objects.

• Encourage students to discuss how the addition of character and relational context helps in understanding space and how it is used for stage.  In many cases, no literal setting is needed if the relationships are clear. 
• The class will guess the specific type of room based on the mimed action and relational interaction. This exercise introduces students to the structural aspects of play development based on location and setting as a part of the story development process, as well as the need for context in interaction and communication within the group.

Exercise Two: What’s Beyond?         

This exercise originated with Uta Hagen’s work[ii] and is similar to common exercises that ask actors to choose moments in their lives and recreate them.

Goals

• To develop an actor/writer’s personal connection to the work.
• To provide a platform for the actor to add layers of character depth and application of personal observation in their stage work, which in turn will influence their writing.

How We Get There

• Each group uses the room location developed in Exercise One; however, half the group leaves or turns away, while the other half re-create the “room.”
• The group members who created the “room” reenter the “room” improvising specific behaviors, such as coming inside after shoveling snow, getting the morning newspaper, or walking the dog. All action is still mimed, with no dialogue.

The other group re-enters the room, observing how the added antecedent action helps provide additional context to the created location and scene. This exercise helps students see how specific character choices and physical actions influence the storyline, can occur without dialogue, and influence subsequent scenes.

Exercise Three: What’s Next?                           

Goal

• To create context through physical expression.

How We Get There

• Have the two groups switch. The new creating group will have a moment to discuss and agree on how to express through gesture, movement, or mime their characters’ exits from the scene, establishing where they are going and why they need to leave. Perhaps miming that it’s time to go to work, or escaping from an argument, or tending to a problem seen through a window.
• The new observing group must now identify what the implied action of the person is who is leaving the room. 

Through this exercise, students learn the difference between an ordinary action, such as simply exiting with no underlying context, and a dramatic action such as an exit that is a reaction to an event within the scene. The actor/writers can reflect how goals are physically expressed and how those goals need to be clearly presented to help others visualize specific destinations without relying on dialogue.

Drafting by Phone: Three Dimensions to Two

After students successfully complete these three improvisational exercises, they are then allowed to reenact the scenes and use their phones to video record.

•  Assign each group to transfer these video recordings into a formal script format.
• Introduce traditional storyboard techniques and online storyboard templates that allow them to include specific dramatic images, colors, and other information.
• Allow the actor/writers to find their own approaches to documenting the three-dimensional video work into a two-dimensional written form.
• Encourage the writing group to use the proposed tools to help them through the editing process as they transfer the physical and visual elements into dialogue, stage directions, and descriptions of setting and location for their scenes, ten-minute vignettes, and one-act plays.

This process of “drafting by phone,” coupled with the use of storyboard techniques, provides an effective way for students to flesh out the visual and physical elements of their scenes as they create a cohesive written draft of their work. 

CHARACTER BUILDING

Another challenge for playwrights, especially those new to the craft, is to develop characters that are not limited by dialogue or depth of background, natural psychology, and relationships. To support this process a series of character-building, theatre exercises are introduced to the actors/writers.

Exercise One: Safe Place to Play       

Michael Chekhov originated a psycho-physical approach to acting that nurtures the imagination while grounding emotion in physical action.[iii]  For students who struggle with written English, these exercises help to create a psychological shift to viewing their “writing” as something they do as naturally as having a conversation, to understand that they have already “written” the piece; they are they are simply copying from their natural communication method into English. 

Goal

• To shed self-consciousness and find ownership of the stage.

How We Get There

Ask the actors/writers to wander about the room to find their best place to work.  Ask them to remain aware of how they knew which space to choose. Which places are most comfortable? Least comfortable? What do they notice about the places others are choosing? 

• Move, sit, kneel, roll, and/or jump into the chosen spot. Use the space to express an emotion or a character.

Reflection

At the end of this exercise, discuss with the class the role of control and safety, how a person chooses to move in space, and what internal emotions influence their choices. Also, how is the space affected by their choices and the movement of the rest of the group? Physical safety needs to be monitored by all involved, but the dramatic elements of conflict that arise as each person moves in and out of various comfort zones can be especially useful to the actor/writer. This helps students comprehend that characters do not deliver lines. They respond, through dialogue, to their chosen actions and the actions of others.

Exercise Two: Stream of Consciousness      

This work is inspired by Tadashi Suzuki techniques.[iv]  

Goal

• To develop three crucial aspects of the actor’s body: energy production, breath calibration, and center of gravity control.

How We Get There

• Invite students to move about and locate themselves anywhere in the room.
• Encourage them to choose their own preferred warm-up exercise and begin.
• Instruct them not to judge what is going on around them, but to simply observe and allow for their own stream of consciousness to take their focus.
•  Suggest that they respond to emotions and thoughts that emerge by reflecting them in their warm-up. For example, if mind is racing, then run; if depressed, then huddle; if happy, then jump.

Reflection

After the exercise, ask students to discuss and analyze how their warm-up represents a potential symbolic or metaphorical movement on stage.

Exercise Three: Breathing Together

Breathing exercises are a foundation of Yoga and Tai Chi. This exercise pulls in positive energy and lets go of negative (distracting) energy in order. , to provide emotional grounding to help center the actor and create a calm place from which to begin developing the life of a character.

Goal

• To calm down, focus on the work, and alleviate stage fright or self-consciousness.

How We Get There

• Have the students form a circle.
• Instruct a volunteer to make eye contact with another person in the circle and exhale.
• Have the receiving person inhale.
• The second person then makes eye contact with a third person and exhales. This process continues until everyone in the circle has participated.
• Context can be added to the process through mimed gestures, which the receiving person must respond to before sending their breath and a new gesture to the next person. For example: Joe mimes smoking, so Julie coughs as she inhales. Then Julie makes eye contact with Jack and changes the gesture to blowing bubbles. Jack pops the bubbles with his finger as he inhales, and so on.

Reflection

This exercise physically demonstrates the power of focus. Paying attention and respect to each participant’s choices expands awareness from individual to group dynamics. In Deaf culture, eye contact, the length of time directly shared in eye contact, and the withholding of eye contact are part of the relational foundation of American Sign Language and interpersonal communication. Even the simple process of inhaling and exhaling can have context and a corresponding response.

Exercise Four: Handshape Hand-Off           

This work originated with Sanford Meisner. His theories on imagination are fused with Deaf cultural and linguistic gestural play, resulting in the creation of elementary Sign Language poetry. In the creation of an American Sign Language poem, one of the most basic forms is a handshape poem. By using the shape of the hand that forms letters or numbers, you can create a variety of stories or images that follow poetic structures of rhyme (in English, rhyme is defined as words that sound the same, but in ASL, it is hand shapes or signs that look the same), imagery (use of the five senses to create a picture in the mind of the receiver of the communication), and many other literary techniques.

For example, a description of a Clayton Valli poem using only handshapes, titled “Hands,” might be described in this way. By using an open palm you can create the shape of the world, the sign for express (hands open out on chest), all (one hand circles the other), spring (one hand open up and out from the other,), summer (create the image of many growing plants), fall (open palm used in the sign for tree while the other hand mimics the movement of a leaf falling from the tree,) snow (open palms mimic the movement of falling snow). This poem suggests that all things in the world can be expressed using your hands (a metaphor or Sign Language) and then illustrates all four seasons. Compare this with a Meisner exercise where an object is employed by each actor in a different way. For example, a stick becomes a golf club, a toothbrush, a baseball bat, a back scratcher.  Clearly the ASL usage is more complex, but in playing with language in a Deaf cultural way by using handshapes rather than an object, the approach to creating a story–by handing off either the shape of a hand or an actual object– is similar.

Goals

• To expand natural gestural vocabulary.
• To help students become aware of their fundamental strengths when using language or expression. 
• To encourage students to play with language and alternative forms of expression.

How We Get There

• Form a circle and explain how to use the shape of your hand as an object (open palm or point on finger, etc.) 
• Each student must use this handshape to communicate differently. For example, the leader may start with a full open hand as might be used for the natural gesture representing the concept stop. Each subsequent person retains that handshape and creates a new representational meaning. The open hand could then slap the forehead as in duh, or put the hand over their mouth as in uh-oh, and so on. The exercise can include accepted grammatical handshapes used in American Sign Language. However, at more intermediate levels, the exercise can include universal gesture or mimed movements, as well.
• At more advanced levels, each of the handshapes can be connected to create a complete thought as produced by the whole group. In other words, as the shape is passed to the next person the thought and images need to be connected by acting and reacting. For example, after the natural gesture stop, the next person shakes this shape to indicate no, the next person reacts by putting hand over mouth as if shocked, the next person shows what is shocking through gesture of an open palm, and so on.

This exercise helps the writer see how physical qualities of the body can support the underlying context of their dialogue and assure that the audience clearly understands the intent and meaning behind spoken or signed dialogue.[v] 

MOVEMENT, POSTURE, AND GESTURE (MPG)

The goal of MPG is to physically feel the change of inner emotion with the alteration of physical presence.  In this way, the student can inhabit characters who might otherwise be inaccessible on a visceral level, potentially leading to shallow representations in both performance and writing. The exercises that follow are adapted from François Delsarte’s codified movement studies. Delsarte created charts mapping out nearly every part of the body and analyzing it for emotive communication.[vi] 

Movement

• Instruct the class to line up on one side of the classroom.
• Have individually walk across the room using a variety of movements (skipping, crawling, hopping, short steps, long steps, tiptoes).
• Initially, each person uses the same type of movement.  For instance; all of the students skip. But each student needs to find a reason to skip in a different way (one might be acting as a character who is a four-year-old, one might be tripping over something, and so on).  As you continue, ask them to choose their own sequence of movements: a hop, skip, and jump perhaps. 
• View the “choreography” and discuss with the class. What sort of character might move in this way?  What does the sequence of movements suggest as a story?
• Finally, place two actor/writers side-by-side to do their movement sequences. Many times, the actors will start to find ways to use the movement sequences to communicate and connect. Often a story or relationship organically emerges, simply from the movements.

Posture

• Add movement sequences to the posture choices. For example, bodies that are expanded, contracted, maintain a low center of gravity or high center of gravity.
• Ask how those postures affect the perception of the characters and the movement dialogue.
• Discuss how it felt to present the movement piece in a different posture. For instance, did the character age? Did a human character become animalistic?

Gesture

The last level of this exercise is to permit communicative gestures into the movement pieces.  It adds specificity to the scene and provides a foundation for writing the scene down in proper playwriting format. Suggestions for natural gestures could be Hello, Stop, No, Yes, all added while the actor/writer preserves original movement and posture choices. 

Consolidation of MPG

• With the final cross, have all students incorporate the three elements (MPG) by using their choices to build a character (person, animal, spirit).
• In the follow-up discussion, analyze what these specific MPG choices could represent. Human, spirit, animal, or magical? Which MPG provided a clear identification of character?  What could be modified to help make some MPG actions clearer? 
• This exercise can also be completed in reverse to enhance character analysis by naming a commonly known character.  For example, individual students might represent Little Red Riding Hood using their different MPG actions.  As the class sees different MPG actions for the same character, it effectively demonstrates there is no one right way to establish character.

Next Steps

For the final stage of this exercise, have students use this process to write character monologues from the perspective of a commonly known character (such as Mary Poppins or a superhero) with the intention of revealing their inner truths. For example, how does Mary Poppins really feel about having to move on every time she is able to heal a family? Or does a confident superhero have identity issues?  The goal is to translate the work with MPG into the ability to show characters we think we know in an unusual or unexpected light.

CONCLUSION

These exercises, conducted over a series of several weeks, introduce actors and writers to methods for visualizing their work beyond the use of dialogue. Exploring visual aspects of play development can lead to plays with stronger action, language, and plot elements, as well as more creative development of memorable characters.

REFERENCES

Adler, Stella, and Howard Kissel. Stella Adler: The Art of Acting. Applause, 2001.

Chekhov, Michael. To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2002.

Hagen, Uta, and Haskel Frankel. Respect for Acting. Wiley, 2003.

Padden, Carol, and Tom Humphries. Inside Deaf Culture. Harvard University Press, 2006.

Meisner, Sanford, and Dennis Longwell. Sanford Meisner on Acting. Vintage Books, 1990.

Shawn, Ted. Every Little Movement: Book about Francois Delsarte. Dance Horizons, N.Y., 1953.

Spolin, Viola. Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher’s Handbook. Northwestern Univ. Press, 2000.

Suzuki, Tadashi, and Kameron H. Steele. Culture Is the Body: The Theatre Writings of Tadashi Suzuki. Theatre Communications Group, 2015.

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[i] Spolin Theatre Games for the Classroom as seen through the eyes of a practitioner of Stella Adler’s acting technique during a class in 1981 at Hunter College.

[ii] Hagen, Respect for Acting. Although this information appears in her book, much of this information is received knowledge by the writer through practice in a class with Ms. Hagen in 1978.

[iii] Chekov, To the Actor; on the technique of Acting

[iv] Suzuki, T. Culture is the body

[v] Handshapes and gesture are clearly foundation elements of American Sign Language. Using handshapes in this way parodies a Deaf children’s game of poetic language play (Padden and Humphries, 1988:91). It is also similar to the Meisner acting game of taking an actual object, a pole for instance, and having each actor use it in a different way (Meisner, 1961:10). Michael Chekhov discusses a similar process in which he suggests that the process helps in “molding the space around the actor” (Chekhov, 1953:8).

[vi]. For instance, in Delsarte’s chart describing the emotion connected with the shapes of the hands, having your hand clutched is the same handshape used in the sign “anger” as well as being the same handshape used by Delsarte to naturally express anger. Delsarte’s expressive analysis shows that body movement and ASL vocabulary using the same body language, handshape, or facial expression match up nearly exactly. This matching of observation and technique led us to use the idea of motion, posture, and gesture or MPG (easier for the student to remember and apply in analysis and practice). See Every Little Movement, T. Shawn.