From tyrant to clown and back an actor's practical study of archetype in performance

• Main Author: Saner, Goze
• Published: Royal Holloway, University of London 2009
• Subjects: 792.02
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.537517

My research explores how the presence, emergence, and collective experience of archetype can be sought in performance. While words such as essence and truth designate an aim and consequently a sense of direction for the actor, they run short of providing a concrete vocabulary or a precise methodology. Archetypal psychology's conception of archetype offers a framework which facilitates addressing these evasive concerns and indicates certain methodological principles with which they can be explored in training, acting and performance. I employ the process-oriented approach of 'archetypally' engaging with mythology and dreams while investigating questions pertinent to performance; archetypal figures like Sisyphus and Odysseus illuminate various aspects of training and performance, such as, the dynamics of repetition and difference in physical action, the momentary and processual nature of agency, and the composition of performance score within a temporal-spatial context that includes the spectator. The inherent critique of representation allows the performing psychophysical body to appear as the locus of an immediate relationship between actors and spectators; hence, archetype is conceived in the form of a rhizome, emergent and evergrowing through archetypal moments which can be composed, experienced and shared in performance. My work on the tyrant provides a point of focus to explore practically elements which can be traced across a range of traditions. The generic relationship with myth and the multiplied body ofthe actor in ancient pantomime, the relational mode of agency and the active memory of Renerici and lazzi in commedia dell 'arte, and the aporia of the clown can be interlinked with the dynamics of discipline and spontaneity and the actor's 'passive readiness' in the work of Grotowski. Distinguishing from the cross-sections of these traditions various containers for the work of the actor to generate archetypal material as well as to perform archetypally, and by incorporating them into my 'work on myself.' I aim to unveil language pertinent to archetype and perhaps to challenge the notion of the archetypal actor as sacrificial lamb by suggesting another: the clown/tyrant.