3. Facial Expression
The face is accurately regarded as the
most specific, most complex, most telling expresser of inner life. The expression of thought and feeling through
facial expression is present also in some of the mammals, but to a much more limited
extent than it is in man. Perhaps that
is because emotion arises out of discovery and the head contains all of the
organs of discovery--the sensory organs of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and
touch. The rest of the body merely extends the organ of touch. The eyes naturally express the emotional
affect of a particular discovery that a stimulus to sight makes possible. One may smile at the unexpected appearance of
an old friend, for example. The nose may
wrinkle at the sudden onslaught of a bad smell.
The mouth may draw together in a moue of distaste at the unexpected
tartness of an apple. The ears may
"prick up" at a frightening and unaccountable sound in the night.
Animals are, however, as far as we can
tell, free expressers. They use clear and
truthful channels of expression and seem unable to mask or exaggerate or
pretend their feelings as people do.
While our bodies can achieve these sophisticated strategies to some
degree, our faces are veritable machines of such expression. The face, especially among primates, seems to
have enjoyed evolutionary development for expressive capacity as well as
sensory intake. Primate faces possess
many muscles, the movement of which accommodates chewing, uttering, listening,
seeing, and smelling. These and other
muscles are used as well to achieve a wide variety of expressions. Perhaps this
capacity developed as an evolutionary acknowledgement of the utility of
possessing a silent organ of complex communication.
All expressions, whether free, masked,
or pretended, are created through the cooperation or the tension between
muscles surrounding the eyes and those surrounding the mouth. In a smile, all the muscles lift. In sadness, all the muscles droop. In a frown the muscles of mouth and brow
often contract and draw toward the center.
In surprise and fear the eyes often widen and the eyebrows lift even
while the mouth drops slackly open.
These are but a few descriptions of the simplest expressions of which
the face is capable. Often two or more
emotions can be seen to war (or blend) in the face. The eyes may frown while the mouth is stern,
or vice versa. There are expressions of
angry surprise, comic dismay, angry embarrassment, and many more.
Paul Ekmann, the generally accepted
authority on facial expression (see his The Expression of Emotion for an
extraordinarily helpful in-depth discussion of the subject) has identified the
seven expressions of emotions that are universally recognized and used by all
humans, even those in the most isolated tribes.
The seven are: happiness,
sadness, anger, fear, disgust, contempt, and surprise. Clearly there are any more facial expressions
than these (10,000 according to Ekmann) but the rest of these are blends of
these seven. The thirty-seven feelings
that we generally recognize as distinct have already been discussed in the
section on Emotion. The pure seven are
those (along with confusion) that we are most likely to use as character masks
to conceal our true feelings for tactical purposes.
As with all of the others,
"working" this element of expression should never be a matter of
pre-planning specific choices of expression.
It is necessary for the actor to be certain that she is free of any
tension arising from her circumstance as an actor and that she is in all ways
available to the particular expressive demands of her character. She should decide whether her character is,
in general, a highly expressive or a less so.
She should also decide whether her general tendency in the circumstances
of the scene would be toward free expression, masking, exaggeration, or
pretense. She must be particularly
attentive to all discoveries, for those will be the moments which will have the
greatest tendency to change not just individual expressions but the expressive
strategy which they have heretofore adopted.
It is impossible to do this subject justice within the limits of this
text, but it is not as necessary to do so as it is with some of the other
elements of behavior because we are ordinarily far more aware of our expressions
and more consciously reading the expressions of others than we are with any
other element. We are already conscious
of having control of our expressions and using them to our advantage.
Exercise: Observe two people whom you do not know well
interacting in a public place for five minutes.
With what kind of facial expressions do they greet each other at the
outset of the interchange? What are the
gross changes in facial expression you can detect during the course of the
interaction? Can you identify each of
them as signifying a particular emotion?
How do you interpret their relationship based on those changes?
4. Listening
At a later time we will address the
different kinds of listening as internal states of being. Here we must consider listening as physical
expression or behavior. It is not enough
to merely listen from "inside the head". If it is to appear truthful, the particular
form and quality of the listening must be reflected in the visible
mechanism. There are six kinds of
listening and each of them takes a variety of physical forms depending on the
character: 1) antipathetic listening, 2)
ignoring, 3) pretended, 4) selective listening, 5) attentive listening, and 6)
empathetic listening.
Without any attempt to be exhaustive,
the following are some examples of the physical expression of listening. For example, when listening in the dark, one
may turn the head in the direction of the sound. This is usually accompanied by
"quadranting" the eyes in that direction. Often, when listening to ideas that are
difficult and very abstract, one may listen with head lowered and eyes
closed. Pretended listening (frequently
practiced in class or church) is characterized by eye contact, head on one
side, indicating interest, and a nod of agreement with what is being said. When one is engaged in selective listening,
the eyes may turn to meet the subject only when a subject of particular
interest is raised. Often, in attentive
listening and antipathetic listening, one listens as avidly with the eyes as
with the ears and with an almost unbroken gaze, seeking to find as many visual
cues as possible as an aid to understanding.
The antipathetic listener will watch as avidly but with a clear
expression of cynical distrust. The
empathetic listener will tend to mirror the expressions worn by the speaker and
follow their moment-to-moment changes throughout.
Except in those instances in which the
positioning of the ears in the direction of the speaker is a critical issue,
listening is not something that can be seen in a particular physical
manifestation. It will, rather, act as a
qualifier of all of the other elements of behavior. It must be remembered and attended to,
however, when working through all of the other elements.
Exercise: Observe two people, whom you do not know
well, interacting in a public place for five minutes. Can you tell by their
behavior how attentive each is to the other.
How does that vary during the course of the interaction? What behavioral choices signify the
particular attitude in their listening?
5. Gaze
When compared to the gross movements
of proxemic adjustment, positioning, and even facial expression, gaze is a much
more subtle pattern of physical action.
In terms of meaning, however, its significance often exceeds all the others. While we are often unconscious that we are
doing it, we are extremely adroit at reading the meaning of each other's
gaze. In an acting class, a student once
remarked that he had discovered that, at a party, if an unfamiliar young woman
met and held his gaze for five seconds, he could be confident that she was open
to exploring an intimate connection. The
other students confirmed the accuracy of his impression. This was, perhaps, his tacit understanding
that, since "staring at strangers" is considered rude in our society
and that because women are especially fearful of being thought
"forward", he might appropriately interpret her commission of such a
social breech as signaling a clear (if unspoken) expression of interest. Friends, of course, are expected to greet
each other with prolonged eye contact when they recognize each other. If a friend who recognized us on a street
then hurriedly averted her eyes we would feel entitled to feel insulted.
The bold gaze, the shy glance, the
gaze averted in shame, the gaze turned inward in reflection can all be read
quite specifically at a distance as signifying very particular inner
states. There are two sets of variables
always at work in the physical behavior of gaze. We can only look at or away from the others
in our company. As we have said before,
we may gaze at an object of affection or of hatred. We may look away from someone as an act of
rejection or of trust. The difference
may be seen in the physical gestus, the gestures, and the facial expressions
that accompany each action. The
difference may also be seen in the frequency with which we turn toward or away
from the other as well as the quality of movement by which our shift in gaze is
achieved.
At the same time as we direct our gaze
toward or away from another, our focus may be either outward or
inward. Often when we are considering something deeply we may turn toward
the ground, the sky, or seem to be gazing at the middle distance. In these instances the focus is
"soft" because the gaze is actually turned inward to find the ideas,
images, or words that best agree with the continued communication. One may focus inward either while listening
(in an attempt to connect what is being said to her inner objects) or when one
is speaking (in order to find the best words to embody her thought.) The meaning of that focus can also be read,
but only in the context of the other physical behavior that accompanies it.
Exercise: Observe two people whom you do not know well
interacting in a public place for five minutes.
Do they look at each other when initiating the meeting? How often does each look directly at the
other? Who holds the gaze longest? How steadfastly does each of them maintain
that gaze with the other? When not looking at each other is the focus of each
predominantly inner-directed or outer-directed?
How do you interpret their relationship based on those choices? Record your impressions.
Spend
five minutes in conversation with another.
Vary your gaze deliberately from time to time. Does this produce any emotional change in you
or produce any other behavioral change?
Does it affect the behavior of your partner? To the extent you can determine the purpose
of your conversation, try to use the changes of gaze purposefully to achieve
your intention. Record your impressions.
6. Vocal
Gesture
Vocal gesture is the term we use to
identify the intention behind a specific vocal utterance. It is the tactic or action that lies behind
and directs each thing that is said. In
"real life" it is impossible to speak without a vocal gesture. All language is intentional. Therefore, we must have a natural reason for
speaking every time we speak. Onstage,
however, it is possible to speak without vocal gesture because the actor
is not "making up the words as she goes along" in order to fulfill
the vocal gesture but has merely memorized them. She is able, therefore, to speak without any
vocal gesture beyond the actor’s personal one of wanting the audience to think
she speaks well. The actor needs to
identify the character's vocal gesture that the playwright intended as
directing every utterance if she is to create the truthful (if fictional)
reality of the character. In
communication theory there is an additional part of the inflection that is
called the meta-message—the message that lies behind the message. The meta-message is also a request for
feedback.
As we learned earlier in the
discussion of the six qualitative parts of drama, the character’s thought is
the formal control of the music of inflection.
It is the reason for which we speak.
Vocal gesture is, therefore, not precisely, a separate element of
behavior but it is, rather, a behavioral control over the character’s vocal
expression. Sometimes the vocal gesture
may be fairly consistent with the vocal expression. For instance, a mother who
shouts to her misbehaving child, "Get back in here, young man, and I mean
now!" may be using a fairly explicit expression of the vocal gesture,
"Warn." The vocal expression
may instead be designed to mask a vocal gesture that is quite contrary. When one opponent at chess smiles and says to
the other, "Are you sure you want to do that?" the vocal gesture may
be either "bluff,"
"intimidate," or "give the neophyte a second chance." That is because, along with the facial
expression (indeed, as an extension of it), the vocal expression is capable of
freely expressing, masking, or pretending to a non-existent inner thought or
feeling.
The vocal gesture can be described as
an action verb that stands for what is truly thought and/or intended in every
utterance. The vocal expression is what
expresses it, masks it, exaggerates it, or pretends to an entirely different
intention than the true one.
Exercise: Listen to two people whom you do not know
well interacting in a public place for five minutes. (Don't eavesdrop! Choose a situation where it is permissible to
listen.) Select one of the agents and
follow his end of the conversation. Can
you identify clearly the nature of each of the speech gestures? How often do the tactics underlying the
speech change? How do you interpret
their relationship based on those choices?
7. Vocal
Expression
Vocal expression is the actual music
of the human speaking voice. It is used
not just to support the meaning of the words spoken, but also to contribute to
the communication. As with the other
elements of behavior it is the outward expression of the internal life of the
character. Like the others it is not
only capable of expressing the truth of that inner life, but of masking it,
exaggerating it, or pretending an alternative truth as a tactically
advantageous action. (In the latter
cases, the tension between the inner truth and the outer expression may express
itself in vocal tension generated by the difficulty the character finds in
dissimulation.) The success of those
strategies of concealment will be successful in varying degrees depending on
the character of the speaker.
In combination with the words of the
character, vocal expression is capable of conveying such a high degree of the
character's communicative intention that media have been successfully developed
and used which allow the vocal communication alone to stand for the whole
message. The success of the telephone
and radio are the best examples of such media.
In addition to being able to carry the
greater part of the burden of the intended communication with a high degree of
sophistication, vocal expression simultaneously carries the
"meta-message" that was described before as being part of the
direction of the vocal gesture. It is
very difficult to describe the sometimes very subtle addition made by the
meta-message with written words. The
grossest example with which you may be familiar and which you may be able to
hear, as it were, in your mind's ear is the upward inflection at the end of a
sentence that turns any statement into a question. Used too frequently this meta-message
suggests the speaker is unsure of himself and his assertions and is seeking the
constant reinforcement of the listener.
Another example of the meta-message is
the tone of voice we commonly describe as "sarcasm", a tone meant to
suggest that the speaker does not actually believe the statement being made
but, indeed, means quite the opposite.
The express purpose of the meta-message is, first, to convey the vocal
gesture. It is also always used to
invite, cajole, force, or otherwise solicit feedback from the listener. Almost all speakers general accompany
extemporaneous speech with strong, frequent meta-messages. Such meta-messages are necessary linguistic
strategies because a person is usually most persuasive when he is able to take
the listener's response into account utterance by utterance.
So essential is listener response to a
speaker's certainty that he is being understood and that his words are found
persuasive that when the meta-messages fail to force feedback, the speaker's
demand for feedback may rise to the level of language. When statements are followed by such words
as, "Right?" "Get it?" "Understand?" and the
like, it may mean that a listener's refusal to give feedback (characterized by
a neutral mask) has been interpreted as a hostile.
When one reads from a text or when one
speaks memorized lines there is little natural tendency to use meta-messages.
The reason is a simple one. Someone else
has written the words and therefore already has taken responsibility for their
power to communicate and to persuade. It
is critically necessary that actors, who naturally fall into this category, are
careful to give every utterance its appropriate meta-message, if they hope to
create the illusion that the words they speak are being spoken spontaneously
or, as Stanislavski phrases it, "now and for the first time."
All inflection depends on four sets of
variables for its capacity to add meaning to the words that may be interpreted
by the audience as reflective of a particular inner life. These variables we characterize as
"timbre," "pitch," "speed," and
"volume." The particular
"voice" of the character is not a sterile medium of expression but
results from his inheritance, breeding, environment, health, temperament, and
age. In short, all those qualities that
reside in a character make themselves heard in the particular sound of his
voice by the particular moment-to-moment combination of the four variables.
A. TIMBRE
Timbre
is, perhaps, the most difficult of the variables to describe in words because
it does not have the same precise scale as may be attributed to the
others. Timbre refers to the ambiguous
concept of vocal quality. It may be
described by such adjectives as "harsh," "grating,"
"gravelly," "whispery," "dulcet,"
"cooing," "oily," hollow," “nasal,"
"sonorous," and the like.
While every voice has its own general quality, it may adopt any of the
others under the pressure of the circumstances of the situation.
B. PITCH
Pitch in vocal expression refers to
that quality of an audible tone determined by the frequency of vibration of the
sound waves produced by the vocal chords.
The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch is. Most healthy adults have nearly an octave of
speaking range that includes thirteen discrete tones (a full octave.) The extremes of that range are only
infrequently used when under the pressure of unusually strong emotion (screams
and grunts). Most conversational speech
exhibits a range of half a dozen tones, the changing amplitude of which
accumulates around the pitch to which the speaker constantly returns as a
medial position. Ideally, this medial
tone should be the speaker's own optimum pitch as the greatest percentage of
voiced sound will be produced at this pitch.
I. Optimum Pitch
Our
skulls have a number of cavities (sinus, nasal, and oral cavities) that
resonate with and amplify the vibration of sound created by the larynx. A glass, partially filled with water, can be
made to "sing" a pitch when its rim is rubbed. The size and shape of the cavity determine
its pitch. A human voice is capable of a
variety of pitches, created by the controlled vibration of the larynx, but the
cavities of the skull give the greatest resonance to that pitch for which it is
"tuned" by the size and shape of those cavities. That is, a speaker’s optimum or ideal pitch
is the one he should utilize as his "base" or medial tone. This is the tone from which his pitch will
vary up and down to make meaning and to which it will habitually return.
An actor should work daily to exercise
his vocal instrument in order to achieve the greatest range, resonance, and
flexibility of expression. Moreover,
before every rehearsal and performance he should carefully "warm" the
voice by exercises aimed at accessing, opening, and exercising all the cavities
of the "mask" of the face.
That exercise should include particular attention to establishing
optimum pitch and to warm those resonators associated with it.
One would think that people would
habitually adopt the proper optimum pitch as a natural course. Voices, like bodies, are amenable to
influence by tension. Tension usually
manifests itself in voices by an inflection pattern raised appreciably above
optimum pitch. Extreme fatigue, ennui,
and inebriation usually cause the whole voice to drop below optimum pitch. Both limit the plasticity of the voice
because the tense voice will lack expressiveness above its too highly placed
medial tone and the slack voice will lack expressiveness below its overly low
medial tone. He will thereby also limit
the upward inflection. The amplitude of
vocal inflection acts like a sine wave.
It tends to only go as high as it is able to go below optimum
pitch. The opposite is also true.
All things being equal, an actor is
well advised to use his own optimum pitch for the character's to insure the
greatest possible resonance and expressiveness and to prevent fatigue and,
eventual damage to the vocal chords. On occasion,
however, the actor may wish to "tune" his optimum pitch a tone or two
higher or lower for the purpose of creating a sound more suggestive of a
particular character. This must be done
carefully so that no damage results.
II. Pitch Change
The
actor should always to seek to vary pitch according to no other standard than
that which serves the character's purposes.
The music of the inflection must create both message and meta-message
according to the character's point of view and she should use it to freely
express, mask, exaggerate, or pretend an alternative truth according to that
character's point of view. No choices
should ever be made to demonstrate the actor’s vocal range, brilliance, or
beauty. If the character would have an
ugly or inexpressive voice the actor must produce it in such a way as to
conform to the truth of the character without damaging his instrument.
C. SPEED
What is meant by speed in speech is
self-evident. How fast or slow a
particular utterance is should be determined by the character, his intention,
and the circumstance in which he finds himself.
Because the actor must meet the obligations of art rather than life, the
actor must also usually seek to stay within the bounds of comprehensibility.
D. VOLUME
The meaning of volume in speech seems
at first glance to be likewise self-evident.
In this one variable, however, two separate forces are at work. The one is character truth. The second is the need for “projection,” the
productions need for the lines to be heard at the back of the house. An actor needs the requisite craft to resolve
the tension between these forces. He
must be able to achieve the illusion that the character and his circumstance
are alone determining the apparent volume of the speech.
The word "illusion" is used
because onstage the two separate circumstances in which the actor finds himself
have differing kinds of truth. There are
two separate "circles of communication" the actor must acknowledge,
whose requirements must both be met. On
the one hand it is crucially necessary that the whole audience hear the
actors. On the other hand, the actor as
character must seem to be speaking
only to the character(s) to whom she is speaking on stage and with the degree
of intimacy governed by the circumstances.
Every utterance must be loud enough to be audible to the audience member
in the most distant seat, while being spoken in a timbre or vocal quality
that is appropriate for the intimacy of the utterance. The difficulty can be easily experienced—try
to act as if you are whispering privately to a person close to you while being
heard by someone 30 feet away. Do this
without sounding unnatural to yourself or the listener. In this one element the stage actor is forced
to act with great artifice to create the illusion without feeling artificial
and false. Many actors find this problem
of the "projection" of sound the most technically difficult to solve
and is only solved over time in the planned transition from rehearsal room to
the stage.
Exercise: Observe two people whom you don't know well
interacting in public. Choose one of the
two agents and follow her side of the conversational interchange. How would you characterize the timbre, range
of pitch change, volume, and speed of her speech at the outset? How often does the speech vary in at least
one of these variables to a marked degree during the five minutes? What do these changes suggest to you?
8. Gestus
Gestus is a term I have adopted from
Bertolt Brecht to refer to the physical attitude of the whole body in a given
moment. It is this "gesture"
of the whole body that naturally reflects the person's sense of himself in the
moment. "Posture" is the
common expression that comes closest but it fails to suggest the subtleties of
which gestus is capable. While the
gestus is less easily read for specific meaning than proxemics, gaze, facial,
and vocal expression, it is of particular importance because the body is less
capable of unwavering control than face, voice, or hand gestures. It is, therefore, more likely to "give
away" the truth of the character's inner life than those other
elements. When it is seen to be working
in opposition to those elements it becomes possible for the audience to read
(as they do in life) not just the truth as expressed by the body but the
character's effort to mask that truth.
When the body is operating in cooperation with facial and vocal
expression, we are more able to trust the communication.
There are three principle sets of
variables in play in the gestus of character.
The first of these is that of tension and relaxation which has been
discussed earlier. The second is that of
expansion and contraction. The third is
that of muscular harmony and muscular opposition. Variables from all three sets are present in
every moment of physical gestus.
Tension is most often present in the
body when a person feels at risk--the greater the danger, the greater the
tension. In contrast, a person who feels
himself supported, protected, in the company of friends, or in the more
powerful position will express that sense of himself through muscular
relaxation.
Muscular expansion and contraction of
the physical mechanism is usually a function of the character's sense of his
status in the given circumstances of the scene.
When a person is very comfortable in the presence of another, they will
often mirror to some degree the physical gestus of the other. When he wants to exercise a degree of power
over the other, he will adjust his physical mechanisms to seem as large and
tall as possible. When he wishes to
appear submissive for tactical advantage, he will contract muscularly as far as
possible within the social conventions of the situation in order to "make
himself small" and non-threatening.
In general, muscular harmony can in
seen in all of the muscular lines of the body flowing in the same
direction. Such a muscular flow suggests
a high degree of relaxation and harmony.
Muscular opposition may be expressed in such variables as a twisted
torso, hands pressed against hips or held stiffly at the sides, the whole body
leaning to one side or the other, bending forward or backward at the
waist. All these "gesti"
require muscular strain and therefore appear dynamic because they suggest high
kinetic potential for a later release of that energy. More simply, that means that these positions
are hard to maintain for a long time due to the muscular strain, and will
therefore require release into a new physical attitude.
Exercise: Watch someone from a distance whom you do not
know well for five minutes. Describe the
first gestus in which you observe them.
Describe it as fully as possible in terms of tension and relaxation,
expansion and contraction, muscular harmony and muscular opposition. What do you take to be their inner state based
on the information of those gesti? How
often do they vary them markedly during the five minutes? What does each of these changes suggest?
9. Gesture
We use the word gesture to signify any
movement of the body and its extremities (but most usually the hands and arms)
whose purpose is either to make meaning or to support or modify the meaning of
the character's speech. These movements
may be highly symbolic or more generally expressive of meaning and emotion.
The question of "what do I do
with my hands" is one that habitually plagues not just young actors but
all actors who have not found a way of satisfactorily solving the problem as
part of the necessary design of the character.
Why it may be more of a problem of
behavior than any other has never been completely determined. Perhaps it is because, in life, gesture is
less susceptible to our conscious control than are facial expression and the
music of vocal expression. Also, in life
much of our gesturing is as much a result of nervous tension as it is a means
of expression. Our gestures are often no
more than tics or general habits of movement and, as such, amount to little
more than visible "noise", doing more to obscure meaning than to
contribute to it.
Second, unlike our other means of
behavioral expression, our hands and arms are "out there" where we
can see them. This fact may contribute
to our being hyper-conscious of them. They may appear to us to indicate how
well or how badly we are doing in the creation of character from
moment-to-moment.
Third, most of our gestures are aimed
at supporting our spoken words. As we
have seen, in the element of volume the actor is forced to tacitly acknowledge
that there is an audience by producing sound capable of reaching the furthest
limits of the auditorium. Unconsciously
we may feel that our gestures are required to support this volume, leading to
the enlarged and inappropriate gestures usually referred to as "stagey." (This is a further reason that projection is technically
difficult. Our voices and bodies want to
be cooperating not conforming to opposing realities
Finally, since acting is an art and,
therefore a condensed form, each gestural choice must expressly contribute to
meaning. The actor's choice of gesture
for the character must be much more purposeful and contribute more to the
pattern of character than they do in life.
Gestures may be symbolic and make meaning without the assistance of
spoken words. The peace symbol, the thumbs-up gesture, the V for victory sign,
the A-OK of circled thumb and forefinger, the forefinger curled toward the self
two or three times in invitation, one forefinger rubbed against the other in
the shaming gesture or tapped against the side of the head to signify stupidity
or madness are among the many easily read by anyone belonging to our
culture. Gestures can be used to create
descriptive gestures corresponding to the meaning of stories or to give
directions. These are gestures that we
frequently use to give interest or to improve comprehension. We can all easily imagine the kinds of
gestures that might support such statements as:
"She had a great figure."
"The fish was about yea big."
"Turn right and go about 1/2 a mile until you reach the top of a
big hill, turn left and you're right there."
More abstract gestures can be used for
expository emphasis. Examples of these
include a wagged finger, a fist pounding the lectern or into the palm of the
other hand and the like. The gestures
are intended to give force and importance to our ideas. The behavioral element of gesture should be
no more pre-determined than any of the others we have described. At the same time the actor must give
considerable thought to:
l)
how much the character probably would gesture given her upbringing, education,
profession, and personality;
2)
the kind of gestures that would predominate in her general communication;
3)
the effect the circumstances in which she finds herself would necessarily have
upon her general style.
With these ideas in
mind it is well for the actor to work to free her body of actor tension. She must also find a comfortable “at-rest”
position for her extremities, and try not to gesture at all until a true
feeling arises out of the other work that a gesture is absolutely necessary to
support the character's listening or vocal gesture of the moment. Gesture is one area of behavior in which less
genuinely is more.
Exercise: Observe a person you do not do know well for
five minutes in conversation with someone else.
How often does she gesture during that time? What kind of gesture does she use most
often: symbolic, descriptive, or
abstract? Describe any gestures you
found particularly interesting and explain why you found them so.
10.
Touch
Touch is the most potent and telling
form of gesture. To touch someone
requires passing the protective barrier of space that people maintain around
themselves. Touch is gesture in its most
intimate form; momentarily connecting one person physically to another and in
its quality is highly expressive of the particular relationship that exists
between the two people.
That we are extraordinarily sensitive
to the meaning of touch is typified in the many nouns and verbs that we use to
describe them specifically such as: fondle, nuzzle, pet, stroke, embrace, hug,
squeeze, clasp, cling to, grasp, hold, massage, scratch, hit, knock, smack,
strike, swat, beat, clobber, punch, club, sock, whack, slap, collide with, lean
against, guide, direct, escort, maneuver, steer, shove, push, butt, elbow, jostle,
shoulder, crowd, crush, pull, and drag.
Figures of speech referring to touch include: "The heavy hand of
the law," "a mother's touch," "a lover's caress,"
"arm in arm," "held at finger's ends," "at arm's
length," and "wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole." Occasionally touch is accidental, as when
people fall against or are pushed into another.
Most usually, touch is intentional and meant to convey a very particular
message to the one who is touched.
Whether the message received is the one intended depends on the point of
view of the receiver.
While touch is capable of issuing from
a nearly limitless variety of intentions, the nature of the touch and its
meaning will arise from five variables:
1) the
relative status of the two characters involved,
2) the degree of mutuality of the touch,
3) the part of the body used to touch,
4) the part of the body being touched, and
5) the pressure of the touch.
Status is a significant variable of
touch because the issue of power, which is the inevitable by-product of one's
sense of status, is clearly at work in the unspoken "rules" of
touch. In general, the person with the
greater power has the greater latitude in initiating touch. A business owner has a greater right to put
his arm around the shoulder of his employees than the reverse, at least as long
as the touch is free of sexual intent.
Status differences are often very
situational. During a physical
examination a nurse has authority to touch the patient; the patient does not
touch the nurse. If, that night, Harry
and Louise, no longer patient and nurse but members of the same country club,
meet at the Christmas dance, either may ask the other to dance with fair
expectation of the other finding the mutual formal embrace required quite
acceptable. As a matter of fact, their
spouses might very well look on with approval.
Mutuality of touch depends on the
degree to which both of the participants find the touch acceptable or even
welcome. Sometimes both can be
relatively certain that the touch will be given an agreeable reception, as when
a young man reaches for his lover's hand in a darkened movie theatre. In other situations the "toucher"
may be uncertain of his reception and approach its initiation slowly and hesitatingly,
searching to elicit encouraging feedback before proceeding. At least he will do
this if he does not want to risk giving offense. However, when a character does not object to
giving offense, he will touch unhesitatingly.
A policeman apprehending a suspect doesn't ask permission before
slapping on the handcuffs.
Different messages are sent by the use
of different parts of the body to do the touching. Hands are the usual instruments of touch but
one might use an elbow to nudge someone in the ribs, bump a hip against a companion
instead of "slapping five", or use a stocking foot to massage a
neighborly ankle under the table. The
same foot might kick the ankle of a dinner companion who has said something
stupid with quite a different message intended.
Usually, when the body part touching
and that being touched are the same, there is a suggestion of mutuality. People shake hands with strangers as a matter
of courtesy, but a stranger who touches a recent acquaintance’s face or knee or
even a more private area is likely to give offense in advancing degrees. The recipient is usually quick to challenge
the right either verbally, with a gesture, a counter touch (such as moving an
offending hand from a knee), or merely by moving away.
Touch is capable of an enormous degree
of variability in terms of the pressure of the touch. Its messages can vary from the inexpressibly
delicate touch of a mother's fingers on a sick child's feverish brow, the
killing blow a soldier administers in hand to hand combat, and a thousand
degrees in between. No words are capable
of either the intimacy or the violence that one person can express to another
in touch.
In all of the elements of behavior,
the actor must strive to find an expression that is particular to the character
as he is affected by his history and his present circumstance. Point of view is always visibly expressed in
behavior in the way the character apparently understands the rules of his
culture and the degree in which he understands himself to be in conformity to
or in rebellion against them.
While the actor should try to avoid
pre-planning behavioral choices, after each rehearsal he should habitually
review the behavioral discoveries he has made in the process of working the
scene and critique them. He should do
this purely for the information they provide as to how his growing
understanding of the character is being released into action. He can then "save" for future use
those choices that seem particular telling of character and abandon those that
seem accidental, confusing, or of no help in developing the design of the
character.
So far we have spoken only of
interactive touch. Self-touch is also a
highly expressive form of behavior. All
of the messages we can convey to others through touch we can also
"communicate" to ourselves through touch and more besides. We can comfort and correct ourselves. We can scratch our heads in bewilderment, rub
our brows thoughtfully, wrap our arms protectively around ourselves. We can also use self-touch to communicate
with others. Seductively stroking one's
own upper arm may be intended to suggest that our skin is nice to touch. When outer-directed gestures are not required
we usually adopt a characteristic "at
rest" position (arms at sides, behind back, in pockets, arms
crossed, arms akimbo, and the like.)
Touch in all its forms is a highly
meaningful kind of gesture. Finding the
character's "at rest" position (which are all a form of self-touch)
and the way in which he touches himself and others will go a long way toward
finding the body of the character.
Exercise: Observe two people interacting in a public
place for five minutes. Note how often
they touch each other, if at all. Note
the partner who initiates the greater number of touches. Note the degree of mutuality of the touch
(how well the other accepts it) and describe how you were able to evaluate
that. Note which parts of the body were
used for touching and which were touched.
Note the pressure of the touch and the degree to which it varied. Interpret the relationship based on the
absence of touch or on the character and quality of the touching. These are the resources of behavior the actor
has at his disposal in order to create the pattern of a character that the
audience will recognize as capable of the choices and decisions the playwright
requires of him. In order to determine
the kind of specific behavior that will be needed for a particular role, the
actor must first analyze the character's "given circumstances"--all
of the factual information the playwright provides through stage directions,
what other characters say about his character, and finally what the character
says about his past.
