A Study on Gao Xingjian's Acting Method--focused on his theory of Neutral Actor

Abstract

Gao Xinjian``s acting method is established through his insight from the pursuit of Modern Eastern Theatre of His theory of three states of acting or neutral actor is based on his idea of theatre, such as supposition of stage, on-the-spotness communication of theatre. Firstly Gao Xingjian tried to break away the great influence of the Stanislavskii acting method which became a main stream in Communist China, Secondly he tried to overcome the crisis of modern western drama which could not solve the contradiction between pursuit of self and alienation in society through the eastern way of thinking. He referred surely all the western drama theories, but also the traditional Chinese theatre experiences. Because eastern theatre is the theatre of the actor in essence, the actors of Chinese theatre as the subject of the theatre, could established the unique institution of Jiaose, role(major) playing system. Gao observed carefully the process in which actor creates the character in the Chinese theatre through ``Jiaose`` and presented this theory. If an actor with his own self enter into a state of neutral actor, standing on the stage and performing a character, he can be very cool-headed and can observe himself and the character with cold mind. Then he can perform in and out the character freely. To keep the distance of alienation, he suggested to presume an existence of the Third eye, to use a mask or make up, or changing the person pronoun. For example, the second personal pronoun ``you`` can make distance and objectify the role, the third personal pronoun ``he(she)`` can alienate the character. The actor also can become neutral from himself or character and feel free to express any kind of feelings or ideas. He believes a neutral actor in his cold mind state will become creative enough to find the way to express his feeling or psychological activities into visible image and action. He already had found how the traditional method of acting meet the eastern way of thinking and spirit of Zen. Gao Xingjian started his creating job from the contemplation on his personal self and on the world, and is continuously pursuing absolute freedom. He wants to establish the value of individual and stand up to the oppression of the power, so he needed to cognize himself. From it, he tried to get the universal truth, so he thought he, also the actors who create the worlds on stage need to keep the cold mind. At this point his acting method and his method of writing encounters. Because playwright``s pursuit of a unique theatre form comes from his cognition of life, he said. This is why in his theatrical work, the theory of three states of acting(theatre) and the neutral actor as the practicing method become coherent with the situation, characters, words and music of his play.