(Toward) A Phenomenology of Acting by Phillip Zarrilli

Abstract

Reviewed by: (Toward) A Phenomenology of Acting by Phillip Zarrilli Stanton B. Garner Jr. (TOWARD) A PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACTING. By Phillip Zarrilli. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019; pp. 304. As an actor, teacher, director, and performance ethnologist, Phillip Zarrilli left an indelible mark on intercultural performance studies. His final monograph, (toward) a phenomenology of acting, underscores his contributions as an acting theorist. Building on his earlier study Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavsky (2009), this impressive book extends Zarrilli's investigation of embodied performance by developing and refining its theoretical frameworks. Bringing together phenomenology, enaction theory, and the insights of Asian martial arts and meditative traditions, these frameworks are as intercultural as the theatrical projects that Zarrilli uses to illustrate his acting method. The book is equal parts theoretical treatise and practical guide for the actor or director who wants to mine the experiential possibilities of the theatrical present. Its goal, in Zarrilli's words, is to understand acting "as a dynamic, embodied/ enactive psychophysical phenomenon and process by means of which a (theatrical) world is made available at the moment of its appearance/experience for both actors and audience" (12). How, he asks, do awareness, intention, and action arise and shape themselves in the here-and-now of performance, and how can an understanding of this process deepen the actor's performance work? At the center of Zarrilli's performance phenomenology is the "bodymind," an embodied, non-dualistic awareness of experience as it unfolds in time and space. The book's early chapters discuss this awareness and the training regimen that Zarrilli developed to cultivate it in his actors. Using meditation and movement exercises drawn from the Kerala (Indian) martial art kalarippayattu, hatha yoga, and the Chinese martial art taiqiquan, actors training in his psychophysical method practice following the breath, which embodies qi (or ki), the vital principle in Chinese medicine that originates in the energy center (dantian) located in the lower-mid abdomen. Posture and movement training expand the actors' sensory perception beyond the visual while helping them develop three-dimensional awareness of their surroundings. Optimally, this sensory-kinesthetic work cultivates responsiveness, preparedness, and an openness to discovery in the performance moment. Much of Zarrilli's discussion in these chapters concerns the actor's relation to the performance score, "the repeatable structure or sequence of actions/reactions which guide an actor's performance" (34). Through extensive rehearsal, the actor internalizes this score so that she can adopt a state of unknowingness when carrying it out in performance. Instead of pre-rehearsal script analysis, where directors and actors discuss the background and psychological motivation of their characters, Zarrilli and his actors explore the moment-by-moment dynamics of awareness, sensation, and action within the score as a whole. As the book's later chapters argue, the embodied, pre-reflexive, and intersubjective field that is foregrounded by psychophysical training has implications for other elements of the actor's work. Imagination and image-work, for instance, are no longer limited to mental pictures, but expand to include kinesthetic and other sensory modes of engaging imaginary worlds. What does it mean to be alone yet constantly to imagine the presence of another, like the two figures in Zarrilli's co-created performance piece Told by the Wind (2010), who share the stage but are otherwise unaware of each other? Language and verbal performance are similarly reembodied when actors redirect attention from what words say to how they arise and vibrate within the voicing body. This verbal awareness extends to the interactional dynamics in performance when actors inhabit each other's words through mindful listening. In the rehearsals for his 2017 production of Beckett's Footfalls in Costa Rica, for example, the actors playing May and Voice silently voiced the other's lines as a way of inhabiting the intersubjective space between first, second, and third person in the text. Rehearsal accounts such as this play an important role in (toward) a phenomenology of acting. Because Zarrilli performed in many of the productions and training exercises he discusses, his phenomenological insights are generated and refined through first-person description. Some of his actors also provided valuable accounts of their experiences. This descriptive phenomenology...