The Life of Training by John Matthews (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Life of Training by John Matthews Garret Camilleri THE LIFE OF TRAINING. John Matthews. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 216. John Matthews’ book, The Life of Training, is the third of his printed works positioned between the Philosophy and Drama subjects in the library. From the text’s introduction, readers will join the continuation of Matthews’ studies on performance training linked to the human experience seen in his previous works: Training for Performance (2011) and Anatomy of Performance (2014). Matthews› text is grounded heavily in Hannah Arendt›s research on the convergence between thinking, willing, and judging from her book, The Life of the Mind (1978). The Life of the Mind shares many overlapping concepts with Matthews as they examine human thought concerning external stimuli, thought versus thinking, and the human experience of time. The Life of Training explores the connection between thinking and training within the context of time, framed by Theatre. It does not aspire to transfer practical applications of pedagogy or techniques. Instead, it considers «how training as a process indivisible from thinking constitutes the temporal aspect of the human experience of living, which will necessarily be constituted differently in this life or that life» (24). Matthews claims that all forms of training are inseparable from time and therefore produce it. He argues that training arises from an actor›s past (knowledge). Actors, as trainees, engage their history with their future, which is [End Page 116] the destination of their efforts. Consequently, all training is then honed within the present (Now); time informs training, and training informs the human experience of time. While each chapter ahistorically engages in independent conversations around performance training, a throughline of this book is general temporality. One of the book’s strengths is its supportive research. In preparation, Matthews conducted a series of interviews with co-workers at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in the United Kingdom. While instructing and directing the theatre’s acting program, Matthews discovered a shared sentiment from his conversations: “training is being done better in other fields; that institutions of sport in particular... are training practitioners of these crafts better than actor-training institutions” (7). His interviews continued to other performance-based disciplines, like an Olympic dive team, which supports his thesis in chapter four. Although it is not a unique comparison, I appreciated the link between occupations and often highlighted passages deviating from the theatre. The Life of Training’s methodological framework is thoughtfully scaffolded and logical. The bibliography will appeal to a broad cross-section of readership as Matthews borrows from established canon frameworks (Stanislavsky, Grotowski, and Suzuki) while inviting international voices to join his discourse. The documentation reinforcing his arguments ranges from Heinrich von Kleist›s essay, Über das Marionettentheater, to Etienne Souriau›s book, La Correspondance des Arts. The Life of Training is a rich but dense contribution to conditioning and performance theory, and the book may leave more questions than explanations for many theatre practitioners. Unless you are already aware of the numerous philosophical concepts mentioned in this book, you should not expect an encyclopedic dive into their inner workings. The Life of Training divides into seven chapters that correspond with a biological characteristic of human life: Homeostasis, Growth, Stimulation, Organization, Adaptation, Reproduction, and Heritability. The scope of topics in this book is discursively vast. Readers will find themselves revisiting historical figures like David Garrick, then on the next page, they will read about nuclear war, robot uprising, and how training could be the reason for our extinction “amid an increasingly threatening environment that humans themselves have helped to create” (103). Each chapter begins with an anthropomorphized marionette illustration by the artist Andy Park. Park’s sketches are a welcome addition to the book because they embody the chapter’s theme and visually reinforce them. Each chapter then functions as a stand-alone analysis of a particular human condition that relates to temporality in performance training. For example, in chapter three, “Stimulation,” Matthews discusses the nebulous concept of Now (in-the-moment performance) and its relationship to training through actions that contribute to the development of humankind. An argument in «Stimulation» is that Now, is not what “we generally...