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Stage fright: Its role in acting
BOOK REVIEW
86
dreamer’s life force. Rather, it allows each participant to be free and in control. In this complex time of overwhelming external forces, we are required to take responsibility for developing a clear internal voice. For this reason this book is personally and professionally recommended. The how-to questions are brilliantly developed and immediately motivate one to work on his or her own dream material. The book creates an alive, action-oriented experience and is a valuable follow-up to the author’s original
Stage
Fright:
work in Focusing, putting it on the cutting edge of integrating body, mind, “sensory awareness,” spirit, and the power of active listening.
Elaine Rapp, ATR Pratt Institute Graduate Creative Arts Therapy Department 200 Willoughby Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205
Its Role in Acting
Stephen Aaron (Chicago:
University
of Chicago
Stage Fright was written by an accomplished theatre director and psychotherapist. It is a book of deep subtlety and authority. It draws on the acting experience of a group of successful actors and directors, and applies classical and current psychoanalytic theory to a rich and vivid experience. Through the mix of theory and practice, the reader receives a fresh view of acting, creativity, and anxiety, their application to work with patients, and to thoughts about roles and performance in everyday life. Dr. Aaron wonders why some of our finest Stapleton, for Burton, actors-Olivier, instance-have suffered nightly performance terror for years. Is stage fright a necessary part of an actor’s creative process? He concludes that it is. The actor who suffers no such panic has probably lost contact with his or her role and any hope for creative transformation into a character. It is an artistic problem for an actor, and this slim book explains why it is so. An actor must make a journey night after night from an everyday self into a performing self. One must give up personal movements, language, voice, context, and content and become someone else. This must be achieved by reaching into one’s deepest emotional and creative resources while being someone else. And it must be done in front of “a convincingly, “spontaneously,”
Press,
1986, 142 pages,
$19.95 est.)
thousand strangers.” Actors cannot see themselves act; they are without an observing ego. The director takes on the job of being this ego for the actor. The director, therefore, is as an analyst to a patient, or a mother to a young child. The director provides a holding environment while the actor creates a new self-the play’s character. The book beautifully describes the powerful developing relationship between director and actor as the mastery of the play occurs. After the last rehearsal, the director and actor separate, and the actor is left alone to face a roomful of strangers. Stage fright fills this empty space. Drawing on the resources of Winnicott, Mahler, Louise Kaplan, we learn that this fright signals the utter aloneness that a human being, whether actor or young child, feels when compelled to form a new self alone, without the protection of the director/mother. Thus, the actor who suffers no stage fright has not made the step of leaving the personal self and becoming the character. The fear leaves when the actor feels contact with an audience (even negative contact will do). When contact is established the actor is free to be the performing self; the audience and actor believe in its reality. There are many points of interest in this book. To demonstrate the feeling of danger an actor can have regarding the audience, Dr. Aaron cites
BOOK REVIEW the stage fright a group of actors playing despised homosexual prisoners felt; their terror remained in place until the audience applauded. The play often has the actors act forbidden material so that even though an actor is “just acting,” in truth he or she braves an audience’s censure. The actor has little margin for error; a false gesture can reveal the person behind the performer to an audience. The audience must believe an actor is not performing. Dr. Aaron’s de-
87
lineation of the performing self and personal self is thoughtful and evocative. The notes as an addendum are helpful and specific. This book will be of interest to actor and therapist. Alice Entin, Psychoanalyst National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) New York, NY
86
dreamer’s life force. Rather, it allows each participant to be free and in control. In this complex time of overwhelming external forces, we are required to take responsibility for developing a clear internal voice. For this reason this book is personally and professionally recommended. The how-to questions are brilliantly developed and immediately motivate one to work on his or her own dream material. The book creates an alive, action-oriented experience and is a valuable follow-up to the author’s original
Stage
Fright:
work in Focusing, putting it on the cutting edge of integrating body, mind, “sensory awareness,” spirit, and the power of active listening.
Elaine Rapp, ATR Pratt Institute Graduate Creative Arts Therapy Department 200 Willoughby Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205
Its Role in Acting
Stephen Aaron (Chicago:
University
of Chicago
Stage Fright was written by an accomplished theatre director and psychotherapist. It is a book of deep subtlety and authority. It draws on the acting experience of a group of successful actors and directors, and applies classical and current psychoanalytic theory to a rich and vivid experience. Through the mix of theory and practice, the reader receives a fresh view of acting, creativity, and anxiety, their application to work with patients, and to thoughts about roles and performance in everyday life. Dr. Aaron wonders why some of our finest Stapleton, for Burton, actors-Olivier, instance-have suffered nightly performance terror for years. Is stage fright a necessary part of an actor’s creative process? He concludes that it is. The actor who suffers no such panic has probably lost contact with his or her role and any hope for creative transformation into a character. It is an artistic problem for an actor, and this slim book explains why it is so. An actor must make a journey night after night from an everyday self into a performing self. One must give up personal movements, language, voice, context, and content and become someone else. This must be achieved by reaching into one’s deepest emotional and creative resources while being someone else. And it must be done in front of “a convincingly, “spontaneously,”
Press,
1986, 142 pages,
$19.95 est.)
thousand strangers.” Actors cannot see themselves act; they are without an observing ego. The director takes on the job of being this ego for the actor. The director, therefore, is as an analyst to a patient, or a mother to a young child. The director provides a holding environment while the actor creates a new self-the play’s character. The book beautifully describes the powerful developing relationship between director and actor as the mastery of the play occurs. After the last rehearsal, the director and actor separate, and the actor is left alone to face a roomful of strangers. Stage fright fills this empty space. Drawing on the resources of Winnicott, Mahler, Louise Kaplan, we learn that this fright signals the utter aloneness that a human being, whether actor or young child, feels when compelled to form a new self alone, without the protection of the director/mother. Thus, the actor who suffers no stage fright has not made the step of leaving the personal self and becoming the character. The fear leaves when the actor feels contact with an audience (even negative contact will do). When contact is established the actor is free to be the performing self; the audience and actor believe in its reality. There are many points of interest in this book. To demonstrate the feeling of danger an actor can have regarding the audience, Dr. Aaron cites
BOOK REVIEW the stage fright a group of actors playing despised homosexual prisoners felt; their terror remained in place until the audience applauded. The play often has the actors act forbidden material so that even though an actor is “just acting,” in truth he or she braves an audience’s censure. The actor has little margin for error; a false gesture can reveal the person behind the performer to an audience. The audience must believe an actor is not performing. Dr. Aaron’s de-
87
lineation of the performing self and personal self is thoughtful and evocative. The notes as an addendum are helpful and specific. This book will be of interest to actor and therapist. Alice Entin, Psychoanalyst National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) New York, NY