Actor Training Beyond Technique

- Vijay Padaki, Academy of Theatre Arts, Bangalore Little Theatre Foundation 

The Harold Clurman lecture at Stella Adler Studio, March 2011, drew substantially from this early essay, based on the author's continuing search for theoretical founda­tions in training methodology.  First prepared for a workshop on training methodology in the mid-90s. Later presented in an international conference. The methodology described here has been applied in advanced actor training courses in the UK and USA. The author is a life member, director and trainer in Bangalore Little Theatre Foundation, and founder-director at The P&P Group, a management research and consulting company. The Foundation has concentrated on Theatre Education and the training of trainers. Correspondence welcomed.

E-mail: vpadaki.theatre@gmail.com Tel. +91-98447-27399. 

THE NEED TO RE-EXAMINE ACTOR TRAINING

We begin by noting that in common usage the word actor includes actresses.

A brief statement about my interest in this subject should be in order before I proceed. I came into drama training quite acci­dentally in the mid seventies. It was a pleasant discovery, because it complemented rather nicely my involvement as a trainer (and a trainer of trainers) in my professional work in organiza­tional development.  Since then I have constantly experimented with hybridization, taking training methods from one sphere to the other. The experience has been good. And rewarding. In the process I have learned of the work of others in similar experi­mentation. For instance, theatre folks may be interested to know that the work of Augusto Boal in Brazil was first applied in small group develop­ment and community organization programmes in many parts of the world, and that several exercises employed by Badal Sircar in India have their origins in community organization work. My continuing interest in theory and methodology in behaviour change helped, I think, in looking beyond the neatness of tools and techniques to an under­standing of how and why some kinds of training actually work and (many) others don't.  That should do. We may now turn to the content of the essay.

"There are two ways of doing this", goes the saying, "the wrong way and the army way". It is the same in all institutionalized learning. Right and wrong. Good-bad, correct-incorrect, black-white. Drama training cannot be different, notwithstanding its claims of promoting individual creativity. There is very clearly an NSD way of doing things. Just as surely as there is a RADA way, a Strasberg way, a Yale way and a Peter Brook way of doing things.

There is of course nothing wrong in this if something works well and delights us. It is then to be disseminated and perpetrated for more people to experience the same delights in more places over more time. That is what any institutionalization is all about. But the process calls for a fair amount of standardization of inputs – codifica­tion, formulation and packaging a technique-mix – without which it cannot have certification and product identity. The gain from this effort is an assured minimum quality in the clones. The price to be paid for this quality control is the negation of the soul. It produces a large number of good per­formances but few great ones, a large number of good actors, but few great ones. This essay argues that it need not be so. The common explanation that some people simply have more potential and are the "naturals" is unhelpful because it is only partly true. It would help if we could put our finger on exactly what is meant by potential and how to assess it more reliably, scien­tifically. It would also help if we found more reliable ways to more fully release the potentials – to restore the soul in per­formance.

SOME BASIC IDEAS ABOUT TRAINING TO START WITH

In the sixties we were an insignificantly small number of train­ing professionals trying to get people to see the real difference between training and development. It was a steep uphill drive. It was not a change in catchphrase, but a change in mindset that was needed. By the end of the decade T&D as a two-pronged approach had at last become acceptable to a great extent. To understand the limitations of training we need only to recall the origin of the word train, which is …  drag. To train is to drag something or to bring it to the desired direction. (Hence the train of carriages behind the engine, the train behind the royal gown, the act of training a gun, and so on.) Development, on the other hand, suggests latent capacities waiting to be released, with a little bit of facilitation from the outside. The difference is important, first of all, in methodological terms. While training assumes the engineering logic of standard raw material, standard inputs and standard outputs, development follows a humanistic logic and accepts individual differences and, more important, historical and contextual differences to explain individual differences. The difference is also significant at a philosophi­cal plane, because development does not believe in the "one best" output or product, but one that is best for that person in that act. In the eighties and nineties, thankfully, the word training has come to incorporate the developmental perspective as well in most spheres.  Some residual hang-ups remain.

Next, we must recognize the main process that is common to all training, in all spheres, whatever the specialized tools and techniques employed:

EXTENDING RANGE

Swimming or shooting, on stage or on the shop floor, acting, sing­ing or dancing, training zeroes in on the ingredient abilities that determine performance and helps the trainee extend the range in those abilities – doing it faster, doing it longer, doing it to higher standards, to higher orders of complexity, and so on.
The development component in the total effort is supposed to build on this basic task of range extension in at least two special ways, both implying individualized attention:

• Identifying blocks to the release of potential in the trainee

• Identifying the uniqueness of the "ability-mix" and charting out a unique development path for the trainee.

A couple of examples should help. 

A very bright and creative student of mine could not make a start on his thesis work for weeks on end because of the block that resulted from a self concept – quite unwarranted – that he could never understand statistical analyses. When he was shown, gently and patiently, that statistics was nothing but an aid to logical inference, and that it could be fun, he not only turned in a fine piece of work but was often seen coaching other students in the hostel in statistical analyses.

Over thirty five years ago I had the privilege of receiving tips from an Olympics coach in precision shooting. My scores on the range till then were generally good, but not really tournament class. In my ability-mix the obvious drawback was my myopia for which I wore thick glasses.          

The coach showed me that my real drawback was the unquestioned belief that the myopia was a drawback. I was shown how to build on the other abilities needed for good shooting and minimize the effects of visual aiming fatigue. Within six months I could beat the then reigning State champion in my event.

What is the ability-mix that actor training works on? While every drama school (or trainer) claims some uniqueness in the training content, in the last thirty years or so we have seen a great deal of homogenization across the world in both content and method in drama training. Like corn flakes and hamburgers, the similari­ties across the brands are greater than the differences. All drama training attempts to impart

(a)  some knowledge – history, traditions, styles, forms, milestones, literature, and so on;

(b)  some abilities (or skills, we will not quibble on the words here) – the "how to" part of translating ideas and inter­pretations into convincing performances.

Let us zero in on the abilities now. Clive Barker's classic introduction to actor training explains the unique demands made on the actor, especially in abilities to do things we do not in everyday life.  All of what we try to accomplish in drama training (through all of the tools and techniques in training) can be seen as falling into three main dimensions of abilities:

(1) the body: to present varied physical states convincingly

(2) the voice: to present varied communication states convinc­ingly

(3) the mind: to present varied psychological states convincingly.

And, of course, the trainer's repertoire attempts to extend the range in the specific abilities in each of these three dimen­sions. Some of these can be said to form a basic reper­toire of abilities in the actor. Yet other abilities are add-ons for specific roles in specific productions. The training tools, too, can be viewed as falling under two broad categories, serving these two broad ends.

The main purpose of this essay is to explore a bit of theory about learning and training in drama, so that the tools and techniques available to us can be used sensibly. It is not the purpose of the essay to list the training devices themselves. Over the years I have put together nearly 150 training exercises, but the collection is useless if we have not understood the what and the why of each device. The bare minimum planning any trainer must do (in any field) is to visualize the total task in the form of a matrix –

• with the row headings representing the specific training tools

• the column headings representing the specific abilities that we want to develop.

We will now be able to see that (a) a given training tool may contribute best to one or more abilities, and (b) a required ability may be served best by one or more tools. 

From this matrix we may narrow down our actual training programme to the best possible mix.

THE MAKING OF A GREAT PERFORMANCE

If we accept the validity of the three dimensions, we must next recognize the fact that –

• the repertoire of training devices for the first two dimen­sions (body and voice) is generally vast, impressive, effec­tive, tackling the abilities at relatively deep levels,

• the repertoire in the third dimension (the mind) is generally limited, not fully understood, tackling the abilities at relatively surface levels.

Methods to influence the body and voice abilities generally produce surer results. (Quicker too.) Methods to touch abilities of the mind have unsure outcomes. This is partly because the methodology is largely inspirational (although well intentioned) and not developed as scientifically as the methods in the two other dimensions. It is also because the actual use of whatever meth­ods are available is erratic, and often done for its momentary novelty value, rather than for internalization. 

From these prefacing observations we can make the following definitive statements:

• A certain basic/minimum facility is required in all three dimensions for a performance to be good and credible and of an acceptable standard.

• With the minimum facility assured in the dimensions of body and voice, a great performance is possible with a substantially higher level of facility in the third dimension, the mind.  

• Without a substantially higher level of facility in the mind dimension a performance falls short of being truly great even with obviously higher facilities in the body and voice dimensions.

In other words, the significant factor in determining the great­ness of a performance is the actor's mind. This is approached by the "truth" methods that some drama schools take. Among the earliest attempts at translating insights from Russian psychological science into training techniques were those of Boleslavsky in his celebrated “six lessons”. It was a sincere attempt to work on the mind. The techniques developed by Stella Adler in her own unique way were similar. But as we shall see below it takes much more to provide the high facility in psychological abilities. How many times have we not seen a trained, professional actor who gave us a good evening's entertainment but nothing more? And can we not all recall the performance of a so called amateur that truly moved us? The difference is, so to speak, largely in the mind. Some actors fail to come to grips with the mind-related abilities in spite of formal training. Some hit upon these abilities in spite of the absence of training.

We will accept that the greatness or ordinariness of a dramatic performance cannot be measured readily, and certainly not in neat quantitative terms. 

The rating of a performance is derived from the aesthetic experience of the viewer and, therefore, influenced by the viewer's psychological state as well. 

However, we also see that there is, indeed, a range of arousal in our aesthetic experience, that we do indeed distinguish the ordinarily good from the great, and that the truly great performances tend to have some common features: They appear inspired, they inspire, they move, they are creative and original without being so for the sake of it.  If there is a

noticeable consistency in viewer response to a performance, the consensus merits attention, even if it is in broad categories of ratings. Likewise, consist­ency of response across several performances from the same per­former can say something of the actor's general position between ordinariness and greatness.

When we go beyond a single performance to the general track record of an actor the single most reliable indicator of great­ness derives from the criterion of range in all training:

RANGE IN CHARACTERIZATION

This is what makes performances from great actors anywhere in the world truly memorable. No two parts the same, we can't believe it was the same actor. On the other hand, for everyone such transcended artist, we have dozens of others, well known, much loved, whose performances are so predictable – the same car­riage, the same manner of speech, the same mannerisms. The same tricks. In some of these cases it can be said that there is, indeed, a limited potential. There is not much that we can do. (They are in drama for the wrong reasons?) In some other cases, it is not the inadequacy but the potential being unreleased from want of the right sort of training. In yet some other cases – a pretty large number, I am afraid – this stereotyping of portray­als is because of training.  Many of these actors actually dis­played good range in their pure amateur days in school and college performances but lost it in the process of standardization and quality control in formal drama training. A sort of lost innocence. In almost all such cases the diagnosis is clear: too much emphasis on the body and voice dimensions at the expense of the mind dimension. Restoring the innocence is the first task in training (and retraining) in the theatre.

A LITTLE BIT OF THEORY THAT SHOULDN'T HURT

What is training actually supposed to do? The answer is: to aid learning. Learning, in turn, refers to the modification of old behaviours and / or the acquisition of new behaviours. Viewed this way, a better understanding of the learning process should be useful to all learners and trainers.

There are several theoretical premises in psychological science that appear both relevant and practical for drama training. We will restrict ourselves to three of these – just a sampler – to understand how to make actor training more effective. We will do this in simple, non-technical terms.

1.  Cognitive organization

It seems to be the nature-given business of the brain to organize all the data it receives from all the senses all the time. When the sense data are converted into bits of meaningful information, they become beliefs, the units of our understanding of the world. The organization of this belief mass can be likened to a boondi laddu. (A spherical Indian sweetmeat.) The bits at the periphery are connected to few other bits (and are therefore inconsequential), and the bits at the center are connected to most other bits in the laddu (and therefore integral with personality).                

Now, what could be the most central of be­liefs, connected directly or indirectly to much of what we "know" about the world? The beliefs about oneself of course! More about this below.

2.  Cognitive consistency

One feature of the process of cognitive organization is the screening of incoming bits of information, to selectively accommodate those that are consistent with existing beliefs and to "blank out" those that are not. Going back to the boondi laddu analogy, it is possible for one or more con­flicting beliefs to co-exist as peripheral (therefore in­consequential) beliefs, because with either or both of them dropping out the larger laddu is not affected. In contrast, it is very difficult and unlikely for a central belief to co-exist with a conflicting belief because "replacing" the central belief implies a breaking up of the laddu structure. 

The solution? One of the two conflicting beliefs is "pushed" to the periphery, drastically reducing its connections with the central beliefs and, in effect, making it inconsequential.  For a common example in recent times we may consider two conflicting beliefs about economic policy: a local economy belief and the belief that globalization is good for the country.  How is Kentucky Fried Chicken handled in this situation? 

Possibility one. It integrates with the economic liberaliza­tion belief, linking up with dozens of other similar beliefs. Result – out goes nationalism, now seen as anachronistic in a newly acquired "global" vision. 

Possibility two. It aggravates the growing apprehension of a neo-colonialism. Out goes KFC. 

Possibility three. Both positions are equally central, equally attractive. A resolution appears through a third position – computer chips, yes, potato chips, no. Out goes KFC, but Microsoft stays!

3.  Cognitive reinforcement

There are three "dimensions" to all behaviour – thinking, feeling and doing. It is important for the human personality to have internal consistency across these three dimensions as well. (Consistency or inconsistency across thinking, feeling and doing is the hallmark of sanity. Learning (and behaviour change) is incomplete if we produce results in one of these three dimensions and leave the other two unchanged. The changed behaviour can be ex­pected to be temporary, unconvincing, slipping back to the old in a while. 

On the other hand any approach ("methodolo­gy", "strategy") that reinforces the two other dimensions while working on one is more likely to succeed.

In most instructional approaches to change it is assumed that changes brought about in thinking ® will lead to changes in feeling ® that will in turn bring about changes in behaviour. This assumption has remained unquestioned too long with contrary evidence staring down at us all the time. (Perhaps the assumption is too central – hence the rejection of evidence that conflicts!)  There must be other ways to aid more complete learning.

That should suffice for now.  Let us look at the practical impli­cations of these three theoretical guidelines.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

We will look at the practical implications of the ideas above under three heads: the abilities required; what we can do in training; what we can do in selecting actors before training.

Abilities of the Mind

In the body and voice dimensions there is a fairly clear idea of the abilities worked upon through training – increasing the range of muscle tonus, diaphragm breathing, rib reserve, pitch, timbre, and so on. What exactly do we work upon in the mind dimension? What is the scientific basis for what we choose to work upon?  How do we spot the substance beyond the mumbo jumbo of brands and packaging in the plethora of "workshops"?

We start by recognizing two main categories of mind related abilities necessary for actor effectiveness:

• abilities to deal with oneself

• abilities to work effectively with others –  in a pair, in a group, and so on.  (The "chemistry".)

There are, of course, some abilities of the first type influenc­ing the second, just as some things gained in the second are helpful for the first. Yet, the distinction is useful because the best methods for the two types of abilities are derived from two distinct theoretical frames.

Although a great deal can be said about the second category of abilities – and needs to be said, I believe – we will restrict our attention to only the first category here. And within that category we will focus on some abilities that connect to the three theoretical premises we have looked at above. If training of the body helps defy the laws of gravity, training of the mind can help defy the laws of cognitive inertia.

1.  Dissociation.

It is not mere coincidence that the words histrionics and hysterics appear so similar. Derived from the same root, both of these terms have one thing in common: they refer to mental states in which there is an entire experience in great detail – thinking, feeling and behaving – that can be isolated and held independent of the rest of the cognitive organization. 

The conditions of complete learning and change are fulfilled, but the person does not become the prince or the pauper or whatever completely. This becoming and yet not becoming is called dissociation. 

There is a dividing line. When it is beyond the control of the "actor" it becomes an abnormality and results in the dual (or multiple) personality. When it is switched on or off with full control by the person it can indeed be regarded as an ability. Can training enhance this ability?  To an extent, yes. Can this be dangerous, perhaps? Perhaps, if handled incompetently. But, then, incompetent training in the body abilities can also lead to broken bones.

2.  Dissonance.

Related to dissociation, but different from it, is the abili­ty to simultaneously maintain two contrasting – even con­flicting – belief systems that are relatively central, without either of them being pushed out or blanked out. For instance, simultaneously upholding Khadi (homespun, hand woven fabric, the symbol of nationalism) and Kentucky Fried Chicken, simultaneously believing Michael Jackson to be talented and yet decadent, recognizing one's father as a great parent and yet dishonest. And so on. The difference between dissociation and disso­nance is that in the former one belief system "possesses" the mind while the others are put aside temporarily. In the latter one is fully conscious of both (or more) belief sys­tems without the otherwise natural tendency to blank anything out.

3.  Deconstruction.

When thinking, feeling and behaving gel over a long time it results in hundreds of small, apparently insignificant habits being reinforced as typicalities in one's appearance – carriage, gait, use of hands, gestures, inflexions in voice, tempo, sitting, rising, and so on. The configuration is very difficult to break up completely. It creeps into every portrayal of the actor and is instantly recognizable as typical of the actor. This is what Stella Adler's method concentrated on in the earliest stages of training – completely demolishing exist­ing patterns and rhythms, especially in speech, so that one may more easily reconstruct a wide range of characters, each in a one-of-a-kind mould. Some can do this more easily than others, but all can acquire some degree of the ability for deconstruction from training. Conventional "method" techniques of subscripts and dipping into emotional memories succeed only in satisfying the actor with a state of internal consistency. The outward appearance is not necessarily so convincing.

4.  Divergence.

As opposed to convergence, this ability may be better known by the term lateral thinking as popularized by Edward de Bono. It is generally regarded a right-brain process, kept dormant in most people, and therefore capable of being revived through training. The significance of divergence in actor training is because of its close association with creativity – the ability to look at things from a new perspective. It com­bines fun, fantasy and practicality in the way a child at play does. (John Arden reminds us of this in the origin of the word play.)  In the bandwagon of the seventies all the Transac­tional Analysis trainers were overly preoccupied with giving us an "adult" ego state as unquestionably good and desirable. I wished dearly they would restore the "natural child" ego state in us.

There is another quality of divergent thinking that is often overlooked but worth noting here: Intuition. Intuition is a peculiar combination of an emotional response, rather than the purely rational, with a feel for the whole situation, rather than a fine analysis of some isolated parts. Ramon Delgado comes closest to this when he urges us to act with both sides of the brain.

5.  Depersonalization.

This is where the self concept comes in. In everything we do, in dress, in conversation, in the company we keep, in the things we collect, in the books we read, the movies we see, in what we do at a wedding, in what we spend good money on, in the greeting cards we send or choose not to send, there is an image of ourselves at work in the background.  This is me. That is not me. I wonder how I will look. We are not always aware of this force at work. Indeed, we are often not aware what that self concept really is. The more unconscious the self concept, the greater the difficulty for the actor to extend range in characterization. Amazingly powerful, it forces the actor to move within a safe and limited zone, keeping itself intact. "It was fun playing the wretched tramp" is not the same thing as empathizing with the tramp, because the self concept of the high achiever darling of family and friends is simply not permitting the exploration beyond the superficial­ities. In every drama group without exception there must be "case studies" of actors who can talk intelligently about character and characterization, but cannot somehow get down to themselves playing some kinds of characters convincingly.

In the larger arena of life, as much as on the stage, the healthy personality is the one that has a realistic assess­ment of itself all the time, permitting flexibility, adapta­tion and innovation around a set of core values and competen­cies. Actors often begin (and end up) with unrealistic self concepts that take a great deal of mental energy to defend, denying themselves the scope of truly creative explorations of the world through the characters and scripts they are handling.

WHAT IT MEANS IN TRAINING

It must be evident by now that the "5 Ds" above are interconnect­ed. They are all facets of the same cognitive process in a person. Although any one of them may be tackled separately by some appropriate techniques it is important to visualize the whole and put together a complete package that not only tackles all of them but also establishes their interconnectedness to the trainee actors.

The methodology available today to help actors "know themselves" and "to their own selves be true" is far wider in range and far deeper than what was available half a century ago. Putting Stanislavsky in perspective, it can be said that one major factor of the success of his method in the West was the timing. It was the time when America, in particular, took to Freudian interpre­tations of anything and everything that promised liberation from a constricted (Victorian) past. Much of what the psychoanalytic perspective offered fell neatly into the therapeutic model of uncovering the unconscious, creating insights and, hopefully, releasing the personal­ity to find new options for itself. It seemed to help. It took a long time for both training and therapy to realize how limited the help really was. Only a small number benefitted most. (A personality type in itself?) For the rest it succeeded at best in showing a way, but not actually helping them get anywhere. (A few later renditions succeeded in demystifying Stanislavsky and providing workable tools to the actor to access one's “emotional memory”.)  It is a great pity that far more significant bodies of theory were sidelined in the process: the phenomenological approach to personality and behaviour, the behaviour modification models – stressing the importance of experience over thought, and the reality of wholes over the parts. It took another quarter century for these bodies of thought to first be recognized, move out of academia to the world of work, and finally to be translated into tools and techniques that can be used in a wide range of life situations.

Stages in Training for Cognitive Flexibility

In my own experience the most effective gateway to training in the mind related abilities is the 5th D: to come to grips with the self concept. 

One's repertoire is widened more effectively when it is depersonalized in the process. This is, however, best done through an extended (and graded) process of training interventions, linking up to the other Ds after a start here. Those familiar with the Johari Window will recognize the relevance of the framework to help trainees substantially in­crease the "known to self" area in the window. 

The opening up of the self concept involves recognizing other central belief systems (as explained earlier). This is the second stage in training, and a good time to bring in training exercises in dealing with dissonance and the facility to handle contrasting and conflicting belief systems. It is the period when the trainee realizes (a) the naturalness of internal con­sistency across thinking, feeling and action and (b) the areas in which one's thinking has lost divergence. We are now ready for the third stage. Two sets of training exercises can be intro­duced in parallel here – promoting divergent thinking and aiding deconstruction.

Help in dissociation is best kept at the last stage of training. This is recommended for several reasons. Among others – 

• the earlier stages being useful in preparing the ground; 

• the need for a deeper level of rapport between trainer and trainee to start on this area of training; 

   -    the value of feedback from others in the training group to aid the process, which can be   authentic and mean­ingful only after working together as a group for some time.

About this time the group is also likely to be ready for moving to another set of mind related abilities – the interpersonal and team competencies referred to earlier.  That, however, is another area of training altogether. How often have we not seen an actor who steadily moves towards solo performances, even writing a play for oneself, because of increasing difficulty in being part of an ensemble?

Training methodology is extremely important in the mind related abilities, and not just their jargonization. If the right meth­odology can help teach a person to swim in one hour (which I learned as a student), it should also be the aim in drama training to arrive at a theory-methods mix that is valid and efficient. 

The major lacuna in most drama training is the training of trainers. Collecting a bag full of tricks is never the same as training for the role of a trainer. The most important feature of this methodology is its non-evalua­tive, facilitative orientation. The benchmarks are internal rather than external, the motivation for learning intrinsic, rather than extrinsic. 

Finally, a reminder. In drama, as in all professional training, the most proficient artists are not neces­sarily the best teachers. Vice versa, the best teachers do not necessarily have to be proficient as actors themselves. Their job is to produce great actors.

WHAT IT MEANS IN SELECTION OF ACTORS

"How do you expect to be a pilot this way?" asks a tough ser­geant-major of the young applicant Douglas Bader in the film Reach for the Sky. "I expect to be taught, sir" is Bader's reply. Since that time the armed forces have recognized the important difference between aptitude and competence for entry point assessments. Drama schools, like many other professional institutions, continue to confuse the two, laying too great a weightage on ready competence at entry point tests and auditions, rather than the potential to do well in the profession. Any director who has practiced open casting for productions will vouch for the creative possibilities that potential in actors offers, even if it means some additional effort in training through the rehearsals. 

The trick is in spotting potential. In going beyond a single production to drama as vocation, this potential needs to be spotted as aptitude for the job. If an aptitude can be defined as a configuration of abilities and traits that have a higher probability of contributing to vocational achievement, high standards and success in a field, then we should ask ourselves if we have taken the trouble to (a) find out what those attributes are in the field of drama, and (b) look for reliable devices to measure them. As the armed forces have done. As innumerable other professions have done.

Compared to the state fifty years ago a lot more is known today to attempt both of the tasks posed above. The methodology avail­able may not be a perfected one, but given the experience in so many other fields it can be perfected if taken up. In addition to some bare essential predictors in the body and voice dimen­sions, it is essential – and I believe possible – to test existing states in the 5 Ds that will predict a more open cogni­tive organization, one that will benefit more readily from train­ing inputs. It should also help us arrive at broad cut-off points, identifying cognitive states that are not likely to benefit from training. 

These, I believe, are far more reliable assessments than elocution, recitation and testimonials from past productions.

LEST WE FORGET

A good actor must know the basics of the craft. A great actor never stops learning. This is true of all crafts, in all pur­suits. The teacher-trainer can at best ensure a minimum proficiency, setting the trainee on track. After that it is largely up to the trainee to keep at it and take the craft to new heights, new directions. With this understanding we can redefine the production rehearsal as a learning space – for some restoration of past learning that might have slipped between productions, and for some relearning, exploring new skills, new experiences and, as shown in this essay, new cognitive structures.

Extending this line of reasoning we may redefine the role of the director as well: one who facilitates learning in the team. (The whole team, not just the actors.) What this means is that a director can (and should) be a trainer as well. The rehearsal sched­ule must include specific sessions for specific training-like exercises that go beyond the moves and lines of the script. And, yes, there would be homework too. Indeed, a whole class of training devices has emerged in the last fifteen years or so meant specially to enhance exploration and learning in the production process. 

-Vijay Padaki