The purpose of playing : modern acting theories in perspective / by Robert Gordon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gordon, Robert, 1951 November 28-

Series:

Theater--theory/text/performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Acting.

Acting--History.

History.

Physical Description:

418 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2006]

Summary:

The Purpose of Playing provides the first in-depth introduction to modern critical acting, enabling students, teachers, and professionals to comprehend the different aesthetic possibilities available to today's actors. The book presents a comparative survey of the major approaches to Western acting since the nineteenth century, their historical evolution, and their relationship to one another. Author Robert Gordon explores six categories of acting: realistic approaches to characterization (Stanislavski, Vakhtangov, Strasberg, Chekhov); the actor as a scenographic instrument (Appia, Craig, Meyerhold); improvisation and games (Copeau, Saint-Denis, Laban, Lecoq); political theater (Brecht, Boal); exploration of the self and other (Artaud, Grotowski); and performance as cultural exchange (Brook, Barba). The synthesis of these principal theories of dramatic performance in a single text offers practitioners the knowledge they need to contextualize their own practice within the wider field of performance, while encouraging theorists and scholars to be more sensitive to the material realities of artistic practice.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Nineteenth-Century Acting 8

Chapter 2 Acting as Psychological Truth: Stanislavski's Legacy 37

Chapter 3 The Actor as Scenographic Instrument 89

Chapter 4 The Legacy of Jacques Copeau 121

Chapter 5 Michel Saint-Denis and the English Tradition 141

Chapter 6 British Approaches to the Teaching of Speech and Movement 169

Chapter 7 Improvisation and Games for Devising and for Performer Training 191

Chapter 8 Brechtian Theater as Political Praxis 221

Chapter 9 Augusto Boal and the Theater of the Oppressed 259

Chapter 10 Antonin Artaud, the Actor's Body, and the Space of Performance 274

Chapter 11 Jerzy Grotowski 286

Chapter 12 From Personal Encounter to Cultural Exchange: The Theaters of Peter Brook 310

Chapter 13 Performance as Cultural Exchange: Eugenio Barba and Theater Anthropology 333.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 400-404) and index.

ISBN:

047209887X

0472068873

OCLC:

65978640

Publisher Number:

9780472098873

9780472068876