From: The Art of Play: Helping Adults Reclaim Imagination and Spontaneity, by Adam Blatner, M.D. & Allee Blatner.
(Published by Routledge, 1997, now out of print and being revised into 3rd edition. ) Comments welcome: Email to adam@blatner.com
Posted August 24, 2008.Chapter 6 FUNDAMENTALS OF ENACTMENT
More important than the doing of the drama in the Art of Play is the learning of the attitudes and skills of cultivating imagination and spontaneity. These can become part of the way you live! In this and the following chapters we'll discuss some principles that you may find helpful. We begin with a consideration of how you can cultivate imagination so that warming up to spontaneous improvisation will flow more naturally.
The Art of Play (or creative drama or doing drama therapy or sociodrama) involves a way of thinking that is closer to the musings of the poet than the calculations of an engineer. Likewise, therapeutic, educational, or recreational improvisational drama is different from activities that involve more rational planning. These activities that involve creative role-taking require the participant to become receptive to the subtle imagery and cues of intuition bubbling up continuously from the subconscious. It's important to be clear about how the two approaches contrast, because imaginative skills are somewhat different from the dominant modes of thinking validated in our society. Indeed, there are a number of psychosocial resistances to imaginative, spontaneous role-playing (which are analyzed in Chapters 10 through 12).
Thinking Versus Imagining
In many fields of study, there has been a growing recognition that during the last few centuries the Western world-view became some what distorted, overvaluing certain aspects of existence and devaluing or even ignoring other aspects. Recent advances in neurophysiology have helped clarify this distortion and have led to speaking in terms of people using "both sides of their brains" (Samples, 1976). Although the scientific details don't fit all the generalizations, models of the mind (and of culture) have been proposed that offer a clearer picture of the various functions of the two dimensions. The left side of the brain tends to be described as the source of mathematics, language, and "convergent thinking," while the right side seems to be more capable in functions such as emotion, intuition, imagination, aesthetics, and "divergent" modes of thought (Hampden-Turner, 1981).
Most Western educational experiences have tended to emphasize the cultivation of left-brained abilities, while the realms of imagination have been neglected or distrusted. Learning to think in terms of roles and scenarios cultivates the right-brained qualities. Sometimes this requires unlearning habitual patterns of relying on objective evidence and thinking in overly abstract categories.
Here's an illustration of the two different modes of thought. Remember how in school you might be asked a question something like this: "What are three uses of a gasoline-powered engine?" (As an exercise, try answering this question before reading further.) Your mind probably went through a computer-like search for the definitions of the terms, the retrieval of categories and examples, and checking to see how the answers could be phrased to answer the question adequately. It feels a bit like going to a little library in your head, and focusing your attention on an internalized card catalog. That exercise is a left-brain experience.
In contrast, at storytelling time, the teacher might begin, "In the middle of a deep forest ..." and immediately a vision was projected and onto the mental "screen" in every child's mind. (Again, try this out: What kind of forest do you see in your mind's eye?) Of course, each child probably saw a slightly different forest, depending on their experience and a host of other factors. Perhaps some pictured forests with large trees, spaced apart, with a relatively clear, low-lying ground cover; others may have envisioned a thick underbrush and many closely spaced trees. The time of day, season, evidence of animal life varied from person to person, and the images themselves came with-out effort.
This flow of spontaneous imagery can be auditory and kinesthetic as well as visual. You can hear and feel things in your imagination, as well as see them. (With a little practice, you can learn to smell and taste in your imagination, so.) The stimuli are there all the time, and all you have to do is to allow your attention to move gently toward any theme. For example, if you listen intuitively, you may discover one or more melodies circulating somewhere around in the back of your mind. If you listen in a receptive state of mind, as if you were listening to a distant sound of a bird or insect, you'll probably detect it. It may be familiar or unfamiliar, associated with the words of a song, or purely melodic. Similarly, in a relaxed state, you can move your attention around without twitching a muscle. For example, right now, direct your attention to your left big toe. You can feel it more vividly. Now shift the attention to your right ear. Moving your awareness around your body or from one subtle sound to another becomes less elusive the more you practice.
The process of focusing attention occurs most readily in a state of relaxation rather than a state of effort. "Trying" is a psychophysiologic process that includes a rise in muscle tension in several major muscle groups. In stress-reduction clinics, the technique of biofeedback is used to help clients become aware of these slight forms of tension. In states of relaxation, clients may also be helped to use their imagery to alter their pulse, blood pressure, and the temperature of their fingertips. Guided imagery is used along with biofeedback, and the point of the exercise is to allow the body naturally to follow the imagination. This is called "passive volition." Instead of actively trying to warm their own hands, clients may be instructed to imagine lying in the warm sun on a pleasant beach, and that sense of internal permission seems to allow the blood vessels to relax and open (Mason, 1980). The mind is incredibly, constantly alive, a veritable fountain of fantasy, hopes, memories, associations, and all sorts of other ideas. This is the root of spontaneity, inspiration, and humor. It can be tapped as the source of imaginative activity, which is what people do in the professions based on creative expression.
In addition to its prolific generation of material, the subconscious mind is amazingly quick and ingenious at converting essentially meaningless stimuli into meaningful patterns. For example, have you ever noticed how, in the course of dreaming, if a phone bell should ring, your mental processes can convert it into something with a bell ringing as part of the dream? By weaving new stimuli into meaningful contexts, the mind can thus preserve the flow of dreaming. This rapid transformation and redefinition of novel material is what also happens when children play, and no effort is expended. You don't have to "try" to play-when you're warmed up enough, your spontaneity will flow. As you familiarize yourself with the processes of cultivating this dimension, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how effortless it becomes. The more you practice, the easier it gets.
The tendency of the mind to find meaningful patterns in things is very close to its natural ability to create stories. For instance, dream interpretation has a heritage that goes beyond recorded history. Similarly, the theory-building at the frontiers of modern science. reflect the ability of the mind to make sense of what might seem random at first view. The spontaneous flow of imagery and the inclination to-ward converting those stimuli into stories leads to an innate ability for creative dramatics, which is a kind of storytelling in action.
Making Inferences
The next step after opening to your imagination is to allow ideas to be extended or elaborated. Anything can suggest several probable or possible associations. Even "two plus two equals four" may evoke memories of a teacher and early school years, or an association to the image of a person oversimplifying an argument.
As with the challenge of learning to listen to the still, small voice, or to see with the nund's eye, the challenge of daring to speculate goes against the habits of thinking that are often inculcated during the school years. Emphasis on fixed systems of information evaluation, such as knowing the correct answer through true or false and multiple-choice questions forces a student to avoid as irrelevant the possibilities, elaborations, and ambiguities in situations. Dwelling on implications or allowing the mind to wander imaginatively creates poor study habits and poor grades. Most guessing activities are discouraged, and great value is invested in repeating specific information. For example, rarely, if ever, are students asked what they think might be the feelings of the people involved in a historical event.
Inferences are clearly speculative, and certainly they should not be confused with facts. Inferences that are confused with reality can be dangerous limitations of consciousness; however, inferences that are clearly recognized as tentative hypotheses are utilized as sources of creativity in the sciences and arts. Unfortunately, this differentiation is often ignored and the skill of speculating is rarely encouraged. The creative mind needs to be open to imaginative ideas and intuitive hunches, and then prepared and willing to pursue these ideas through logical channels. Many professional activities are based on an interesting synthesis of intuition and objective reality-testing: psychology, anthropology, history, agriculture, and science, to name only a few.
The legendary Sherlock Holmes, noted for his logical, deductive powers, actually pictured a variety of scenarios in his mind. His follow-up of these alternatives was the left brain elaboration of the right brain's intuition. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Holmes mysteries, based the character of Sherlock Holmes on a real person who was a physician and teacher. When Doyle was a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, he studied under Dr. Joseph Bell, who cultivated his abilities at detailed observation and conjecture and applied them to the process of physical diagnosis of patients. Doyle (1941) adapted these methods for use by the character of the great detective when he was trying to solve a crime.
Thus, whether in a detective story or beside your door when you arrive home, a pair of unfamiliar muddy shoes is a fact that invites you to make inferences: Who might be the owner? Where is the per-son who left these shoes? How did the shoes become muddy? Pursuing it further, what was the source of water that turned the earth to mud? What are social-status implications of these shoes? You can spin off several possible scenarios based on your willingness to allow your imagination to suggest images and ideas as part of the process of making inferences.
Warming up
The skill of improvisation, of carrying on and turning seeming mistakes into new efforts, is basic to creative drama or the Art of Play. There needs to be an ability and willingness to plunge ahead as an act of faith. When a child dives into a swimming pool or pedals off on a two-wheeled bicycle, the nature of the courage displayed is the act of continued movement. This is the essence of improvisation, and it cannot be effectively taught in words. Nevertheless, there are several guidelines that are useful as you begin your own process of experimentation.
Moreno pointed out that spontaneity does not emerge full-blown in any situation; it requires a gradual process of physical, emotional, imaginative, and intellectual warm-up. Athletes are generally familiar with this process. Beethoven was known to pace up and down, gesticulating and humming, as a "starter" for his process of composition.
You begin with general and somewhat stereotyped behaviors, be-coming acquainted with the rough outlines and parameters of the role. For example, if you are playing a newspaper editor, starting with cliched actions of sitting at a desk, reading the newspaper, and adjusting your glasses can lead you toward more dramatic issues, such as an encounter with yourself (soliloquy) or another key relationship (co-character). The expressions that reveal the more individualized aspects of your character's personality develop later in the warm-up.
The early phases of warming up also deal with the realities of context. Role-playing, like any engrossing activity, exerts a mild hypnotic effect. Because of this, it's important to establish an emotionally safe environment. Spontaneity is liberated only when anxiety is relatively controlled. The norms of the group must be such that people feel free to experiment, make mistakes, and know the atmosphere will remain supportive. Group cohesion and comfort must be dealt with before attempting any role-playing activity. Exercises are designed to help the participants become comfortable and acquainted with one another. In these warm-ups the group can establish a clear agreement that performances are not going to be judged, because, from the start, everyone is revealing more of themselves than in common forms of social interaction. When all the players are risk-taking, the collective psychosocial energies accumulate; each act "gives permission" to everyone to go further.
Subjective Involvement
There is a natural tendency to distance ourselves from our actions; this is an innate defensive maneuver, but one that must be overcome to attain optimal levels of engagement or creative involvement. This tendency is also manifested in and reinforced by our culture. Teachers, professors, ministers, newscasters often models communicative behaviors that are indirect, tentative, and distanced from immediate responsibility. For example, instead of speaking in terms of "gut-level" messages that begin with "I," many tend to express intellectual opinions; relate events in terms of abstract generalizations; expound narratives in the past tense; and use other indirect forms of speech (e.g., "Don't you think...?” "It would have been better ..." "One doubts that could have happened."). To bring forth the drama inherent in an occasion, though, it is necessary to engage more personally, and to resist these tendencies.
The basic goal is to plunge into your imaginary character, almost as if the events were really happening in the here and now. There-fore, consider the following rules of thumb:
• Speak subjectively, as if you are the character: "I ..."
• Speak in the present moment: "I am here ..." Instead of describing how you would be if you were to play the part, or how you played the part in your mind, play it here and now. Imagine that the surroundings are before your eyes and the events are occur-ring now.
• Speak in emotional terms, describing your likes, dislikes, desires, and fears: "I feel ..." This brings the character alive far more than explanations.
• Respond to your imagined environment. Enjoy or suffer from the experience of the clothing your character is wearing, the qualities of your surroundings in the scene: "Huh, this uniform is getting to be too tight." "Ah, how lovely: the flowers are in bloom."
• Begin to dramatize, amplifying the feelings and actions of your character. Dare to soliloquize openly: "I'm pretty successful at this business, you know. It takes not only experience, but a bit of shrewdness just to survive, and I've managed to do better than that. Yes, sometimes I have to bend the law a bit, but business is business."
• Speak directly to your co-characters or to the audience: "I'll show you how I interview a prospective employee."
• Emphasize your emotiot e i if your character would ordinarily seem somewhat flat on the s,, rface: "I may seem like a nonentity to most of the world, but when I get together with the band, I play a lot of solos!"
• If you're playing a role that ordinarily is not associated with human emotions, play it as if it did experience a human range of feelings: "I am the gate in the dream, made of straw and pearls. I can collapse so easily, yet I am an entrance to a realm of treasure. I beckon you." Or, if you're a part of a body: "I am Stephen's neck, and I'm kinda cramped and tight, but I feel safer that way-sort of ready for action ..."
• Amplify your statements. Don't be satisfied with only one statement about a situation, but go on to add further comments. Let each point lead to another, allowing the inferences to be ex-pressed as an elaboration of your character: "I'm forty, though I don't feel it, even if I am getting some wrinkles. And a few gray hairs. I must admit, though, I've thought more about dying in the last few months than I ever have before."
• Move around as much as possible. Gesture, relate to the furniture or other elements of your imagined surroundings. The body gives a great number of physical cues to the mind, which in turn intensifies the warm-up, as well as suggesting new dimensions of your character. Using your voice appropriately to your role also enhances your experience. The more you express yourself in the role, the more you begin to feel the role.
Using Spontaneity as a Stimulus
You'll find you can make use of the props in the room or impulses in your body as devices for developing the action. A piece of cloth, a chair, a stick-all may be woven into the drama, and their unique properties will suggest more ideas to further the action. For example, let's say that you're a character in a scene and find yourself confronted with an imaginary book, but you don't know what the book is about. (Sometimes this type of event happens when exploring a scene from a dream.) Open it, turn the pages, and behave as if you could read it—only that it's a bit blurry. As your actions proceed, you'll begin to get intuitive flashes about the words, or at least the hint of words: "Hmm, it seems to be about some scientific subject ... but I see that it's really a metaphysical theory ... there are some intriguing symbols ..." Similarly, if you sit down as if to dine, you'll be able to sense what foods are on the table or are being served to you. You sniff, breathe in deeply, and say, "Ahh, spaghetti!” (or some other delicious-smelling repast).
A major aspect of improvisation is a willingness to integrate new information as it arises. If you're playing a role in a certain way and it's not working out, give yourself permission to shift your role. You don't have to impress anyone, nor do you have to be clever enough to think of a smooth resolution. You could simply say, "Wait; I want to play it differently," or, "Stop; may I take that over?" It's important to trust your capacity to correct errors of judgment as you go. This happens many times every minute as you ride a bicycle. It's interesting to note the rockets to the moon were technically off course a major percentage of the time. Even though the error was slight, the plans anticipated that midnight corrections would be necessary.
You may enjoy incorporating a surprising turn of events, such as some spontaneous action by your co-character, an intriguing suggestion by the director, or even a new aspect of your own character that you have just discovered. Indeed, if you're warmed up sufficiently, you'll discover that you can trust your own spontaneity; more often than not, your instinctive responses to an unexpected turn in the action will be excitingly effective in catalyzing the play in a new direction.
Once again, this idea goes against the subtle cultural injunction that you must think before you act. While such a principle is useful for planning the building of a house, there are many activities that go better when spontaneity is allowed to operate more freely. In con-texts such as role-playing, forethought becomes counterproductive.
In conclusion, the skill of moving into action in spontaneous enactment involves the cultivation of imagination, warming up, and daring to improvise. The Art of Play invites participants to become receptive to the subtle yet richly dynamic processes of the imagination. Cultivating the rich reservoir of the imagination through activities that develop a sensitivity to creative impulses helps recapture a valuable dimension of being human. Fantasy games, awareness exercises, and the like may serve as useful warm-ups for dramatic practice (Stevens, 1973). These also support the skill and facility of speculating, making inferences, and turning simple facts into potential stories.
Permitting yourself to plunge into improvisation can be helped by reminding yourself that in play there is endless room to make "mistakes." When you're making up a character's identity, you can change anything you like and experiment with new configurations. That's what play is. Allow what might otherwise seem like a mistake to become transformed into an opportunity for further creativity: "Well, that approach isn't working. Let's change something." The director and group will support your experimenting with varying some dimension of your character, or even a major shift of role or scene. You can enjoy being a playwright and codirector as well as an actor. Like-wise, you use these same principles for warming up to your role as a co-character in someone else's enactment.
The next chapters will address the more complex skills involved in developing a role in depth and applying a variety of techniques for exploring the possibilities of a character. Because they illustrate the rich variety possible in the Art of Play, these issues are important even if you're not yet ready to utilize them.
References
Doyle, A. C. (1941). The Sherlock Holmes pocket book. New York: Pocket Books, pp. 353-355.
Hampden-Turner, C. (1981). Maps of the mind. New York: Macmillan.
Mason, L. J. (1980). Guide to stress reduction. Culver City, CA: Peace Press.
Samples, B. (1976). The metaphoric mind: A celebration of creative consciousness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Stevens, J.O. (1973). Awareness: exploring, experimenting, experiencing. New York: Bantam.