8. The Physical Senses

One of the most amazing things to me about seeing Elizabeth Marvel onstage was the way, when she touched the silk dress her character coveted, I could feel the fabric as she felt it. I have rarely, if ever, seen an actor so sensitive--and equally capable of projecting those sensations to the audience.

In fact, sensory awareness seems to me one of the most undervalued skills to actors today. Perhaps because the film and TV world make us take it for granted. There they can simply show a closeup of the object, blood spilling from a fresh cut, steam rising from a hot shower. But it is one of the most powerful tools in the stage actor's arsenal. It is one of the things Duse was most known for.

Once again Hagen gives instructions for the direct, practical application of the imagination. Sensory recall is not an end in itself, she reminds us, and must always result in behavior that is applicable to the character's circumstances. In fact, she says that it is in trying to overcome the sensation (too hot, too cold, headache, etc) that we actually feel it. Waiting to feel the sensation will never work. How do you DEAL with it?

Physical responses, Hagen says, are accompanied by psychological ones. Behavior will induce feeling. As my acting teacher says, emotional choices are physical choices.

The key to successful behavior is to localize the sensation in a specific part of the body. If you are cold, do you feel it on the back of your neck? Does heat manifest itself as a trickle of sweat down your side or as the sun in your eyes? Is fatigue in your feet or your shoulders? By localizing the sensation we manifest specific behavior to deal with the problem.

A question: what if the sensation is pleasant? I suppose our behavior would be directing toward making the sensation last.

Awakening the physical senses, helping my students be aware (and, as Hagen suggests, cataloguing them for future use), seems to me one of the first steps. I've been thinking for a while that, for the first class, I will lead a guided improvisation through different environments and circumstances, so students may encounter their imaginations (or lack thereof). Afterwards they can journal about the experience and then we can discuss it. This work can then be combined with the beat, objective and action work I also plan to do in the first part of the semester. As we move in to the actual plays, we will then have a bit of a toolbox to work with and continually explore.

I think I will also have them keep a "sense log" in their journals outside of class. Each day they must spend 10-15 minutes writing about a particular object or sensation, cataloguing their reactions to sight, smell, touch, sound and taste.