Drama 360 FALL & WINTER 2009/10/Thursday October 1: Somewhere Between Truth and Lies: The Self as Character or Characterization of Self

Annemarie Matzke's article on performing games outlines 7 hypotheses in regards to 3 different forms of forced entertainment. The games are as follows: -Emanuelle Enchanted: this game involves a collection of signs with different types of people or characters written on them, above these signs are racks of used clothing. The performers task is to choose a sign and clothes to match and strike a pose as this character then choose another sign, change again and strike a new pose. -Speak Bitterness: For this game a pre-written text is scattered on stage, sheets with lists of confessions litter the stage and the performer is tasked with reading these confessions to the audience, he/she can see the audience and their reactions. -Quizoola! : This game has two performers, one who poses questions read from a text and one who answers the questions.

Each game is governed by a set of rules and the performer must adhere to these rules. Herein lies the challenge, creating an interesting or engaging performance while sticking to the rules. The player must use certain strategies to accomplish this. These strategies are touched on in Matzke's hypotheses.

1. Organize, arrange and test: The text becomes like a co-performer. The text may be pre-determined but spontaneity arises from the choices the player makes as to which confession he will read or which question he will ask or which sign he will choose. Patterns may emerge, creating a "friction" between the text and the performers.

2. Follow Rules: The players aptitude at the game is perceived by the how well or how poorly one follows the rules. They become not actors, but players in a game.

3. Repeat and Improvise: Following the framework of the game it is likely, if not necessary, that the same actions will be repeated again and again. The subtle differences between two virtually identical actions, while not creating anything new, reveal the self.

4. Use Strategies to Stage your Presence: Matzke speaks here of "the idea that common gestures are used by all of us to authenticate the image we wish to project." In a way the players are not themselves on stage nor are they acting as a character, but rather they are acting as themselves. The purpose of this strategy seems to be the creation of something that breaks down the walls between actor and character and script and performer and performance and content and speech and everything else that composes a "piece/performance work". Matzke states that "instead of discourse on the relationship between actor and text, the central concern is the relationship between staging of the self and performance style. In a distinct way, each performer becomes enactor of his own self. Self and performance become inseparable. Matzke aims to discern authenticity from parody. The forced entertainment performers are not acting genuinely as themselves; rather they are performing their own self.

5. Skilfully Fail and let Fail: The games are designed in such a way that they intentionally create stress and tension upon the players. In this way faults and mistakes become a revealer of the self.

6. Be a Good Director: The performer must keep a conscious eye on the event as a whole and make sure things progress to keep things entertaining. The performers role as director, actor, and player is part of the challenge.

7. Your Aim: A "Play-Biography" for the Evening: One should no longer identify with a character or role, but instead with the function of the performer and the challenge of staging oneself within a system governed by rules. Out of the performance, through recurring narratives, patterns, improvisations, adherence to rules, failure to adhere to rules, and progression of action a "play-biography" should emerge.

I found that Matzke's ideas of Performing Games would be the most intriguing thing to watch and a truly self revealing to be a part of. Not only do the 'games' sound interesting the rules would seem to me almost impossible to follow. The rule that struck me as the most intriguing was number four. Four because of the last line that was stated in the section, "self and performance become inseparable." I think I found this interesting because it is a challenging truth. As much as 'actors' like to believe that they have become this character, everything that goes into becoming the character, things like gestures and the way they speak, are all parts of the actors self. Which like Matzke's states is a part of self revealing.

In the article, Matzke explains that when you are take part in Forced Entertainment you are not engaging in “classical role enacting” but instead “hinting at character fragments” as well as still combining the traditional forms of performance such as improvisation and the usage of text and narratives. I found this particular type of performance unique and intriguing as I tried to picture what had been described to me on text through action. When reading this article I was also reminded of the one rule in Drama 360, “no acting” and it’s relation to the instructions in the game Emanuelle Enchanted, described in the article. One of the instructions was that you were not to enact a role; be a character on stage. Through Junior High, High School and even some classes in University I have been educated on the art of acting and being the character on stage and when I am in a given situation where the performance I am in asks for me to throw that knowledge away, I find it challenging at first. With time though, comes the ability to be open, break away from the traditional mold of performing and be creative.

This article was very interesting, in that I haven’t ever heard of Forced Entertainment before. One thing I am not particularly fond of, is when she states that there are rules to follow. If you do not follow the rules, you are not a good performer, according to Matzke. How, then, are you to bring up something new, something no one else has ever thought of or performed, if you are confined to a box set of rules? If you are not acting, but rather performing, I don’t think that rules should apply, because how can you truly be yourself if you cannot be?

A constant theme that I have noticed throughout the responses, readings and classes is every element of performance (our different bodies, object, action, idea, performance) become one. We cannot, and do not wish to distinguish between each element of our performance. One thing different in this text is how we invest or fully commit ourselves to our work. Instead of being almost 'lost' in the experience so that you are able to discover new things, Forced Entertainment requires you to be constantly aware of your creation of a 'onstage prescence.' This involves being a good player of the game and also a good director. So often we find ourselves focused on one thing: light, sound, movement, but now we find ourselves multi focused both in our readings and in class. It is challenging.

I found this piece quite intriguing. It just revealed that there are many different ways, and motivations to get an artists mind flowing. When you start with a base such as the games Matzke discussed there are so many approaches and paths ,something completely new can be developed and created. In No. 5, Skilfully fail and let fail, To me was very interesting because some artists don’t seem to embrace some failures or mistakes. When Matzke discusses how the whole audience begins to laugh it just illustrates that even in boredom you can connect with the audience when all strategies fail by accepting the failure. I believe this is a good concept to understand because when creating art or putting on a production there are no boundaries.

I also particularly liked the idea of failure; how it is not to be feared, so as to depress us when we fail, nor is it to be embraced with a passive attitude. The best analogy, I thought, was the board game. As a player you are competitive and try hard to win with certain strategies and tactics, and yet when failure comes, as it always does (these games are designed to produce winners and losers), it's greeted with a small amount of distaste initially, but altogether gives the players knowledge, while at the same time entertaining everyone. You're not acting, and yet you're not necessarily behaving the way you would in "normal" circumstances. This however, is the result of being thrust into unknown circumstances and behaving accordingly to new terms, rather than behaving in a way that is not yourself, in a circumstance that you already know (acting).

The idea of Emmanuelle Enchanted amused me greatly, especially with it’s use of costume. Costume is one of the strongest and most basic elements we use to identify character. Who we are determines what we wear and how we wear it. So, in a game where the loss of character and acting is the focus, it is interesting how they are achieving this with the most fundamental element of character. I mean, many times I have seen actors take the step from simply acting out to becoming their character simple by putting on their proper attire. What I’m wondering is if the audience is “recognizing the actor and their character traits, believing one knows them personally,” or simply relating to the clothing draped upon the body. Would an mannequin be as equally ‘knowing’? Is the true creativity, the ‘art’ or ‘creation’, coming from the making of the placards with names/people and/or the putting together of the costumes? Are the costume items mixed upon the rack and the actor gets to select from a mass or is it simply an ensemble there for them to put on and pose?

I like the mystery behind a performance in which the audience doesn't know if the performer is acting or being themselves. The performer could go in between reality and fiction without the audience knowing the difference. It takes a true performer to be able have the same intensity and emotion throughout all of it. These games that Matzke plays on stage are fascinating. They could be very frightening for a performer that has only done work where they are told what to do and what to expect every step of the way. However, it is also a very freeing experience where the performance has very few restrictions. This way of playing can create works that otherwise wouldn’t have been discovered.

This piece made me think of so many things. The first rule made me think of Postsecrets, with people's private confessions read onstage, no one knowing whose they are or if indeed they are even true. Another of the rules reminded me of the Questions game made popular by Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Mostly though, I was reminded of Meisner's techniques on acting. Continually reacting to what is happening on stage naturally, not worrying about social rules, just reacting naturally, instantly, feeling and being as you are. I always thought that watching Meisner's exercises on stage would be entertaining, apparently I wasn't the only one.

It is very interesting to think of performers as characters on stage, fictitious and mysterious. What is another interesting point to think about when talking about this idea of forced entertainment is, is that they follow a set of rules and guidelines like, follow rules, repeat and improvise, and use strategies to stage your presence. I think that without guidelines and structure, it would just be chaotic, everything needs structure, like improvisation, sure it is doing things off the top of your head, but it has rules like don’t block ideas, and I think that, that’s what’s important. We need structure to make the performance/games work. - Aziz

One thing the reading inspired in me was the notion of performers being identified through their function on stage. The last hypothesis she presents lead me to this idea, first through the quote, "Only during the play, by interacting with the other figures, it gains a personal history (the player)" (p.180). I feel one may identify with their function on stage rather than a character played, and it is the consistency of our functions on stage that gives us an identity to the audience. For example, if I am continuously trying to stir the pot, the audience will have insight on who I am on the stage through my perpetuating this function. This of course can made more complex, but I think this notion is fairly lucid.--Cody.thompson 15:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think what Annemarie Matzke has discovered in her article is something that classical acting teachers have strived for this whole time: real emotions and reactions. Through her use of games and the rules of these games, the performers are given the grounds to explore new possibilities. Whether it be psychological, sociological or whatever you choose to believe, I think to a certain extent all of us fear failure. But through Matzke’s games, failure is not only okay but almost seems encouraged. I think by doing this, it not only takes the pressure of a traditional “performance” away, but always for these true feelings and emotions to have an effect on the performers and the audience.

I think that what Matzke is trying to convey, as said before, is to learn to act, without acting. This same concept I have found, is being drilled into us early on in the semester, "don't act!", "whatever you do, DO NOT ACT." At first this concept was mind boggling, "how can I not act, if I am performing?", however this excersize, 'game', 'rule', whatever it may be, is becoming increasingly important, because an audience's attention, is naturally always drawn to the most natural action in a scene. I very much approve of one of Matzke's simple excersizes, "Imagine you handed sheets of paper, filled with nothing but confessions...choosing a sheet you begin to read out loud. As you are doing that you try to look as convincing and as authentic as possible. You try remember believable confessions or some of your own." this simple excersize is useful, but i also think it is key in an excersize such as this, to REALLY believe what you are saying, if you don't believe yourself, than who will? So therefore we must act, without acting,

Like the post above, when i was first told NOT TO ACT in this class i was quite confused. throughout my whole dramatic career i had been taught, like below, how to act. and now for the first time i was being told to completely disregard everything i had been told. as the class progressed however, i found it easier and easier to be "real" on stage and i understand the importance more now. i think that Matzke's exercise will be very useful to future dramatic students. i feel if they are taught these ideas along with traditional "how to act" instructions, they will be better for it. also there was a post above that mentioned failure and its importance. i also agree with this. in my creativity class we had an entire lecture on the importance of failure. it stressed that without failure and the ability to be comfortable allowing yourself to fail, creativity will stand still. i think that we all need to remember that it is ok to fail and when we do we become more real and natural to our selves and our audiences.

I felt the same thing as writer above me. When I was a child and discovered my passion for performing I used to say "I want to be an actress" to the loaded question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Therefore I began taking ACTING classes, and went to summercamps in which I learned HOW TO ACT. When I was growing up I took classes in high school and also went into university to better my ACTING skills. All of these leave a false sense of what I am doing. Because through this article I learned that rather than learning another role and learning how to ACT. I am learning to be myself. I am discovering who I am and what makes me tick. Maybe one day all of my ACTING training will be stripped away from me and I will just be myself on stage or the box or whatever you want to call it. It will be me, my emotions, my thoughts and I will learn to be without the security blanket of a paper, a role and a director. I will be alone and it will be amazing. -CK--Courtney Keen 02:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)