Actor Director Research Articles

A DEMANDA DA INVESTIGAÇÃO ARTÍSTICA: sobre um espetáculo teatral criado em contexto académico

A institucionalização progressiva das artes nos curricula académicos obriga a pensar as práticas artísticas no contexto da investigação, nomeadamente, do que o artista-investigador terá de acrescentar ao ato de criação para que ele também possa ser considerado ato de investigação. O presente artigo ensaia uma possibilidade de verbalização autorreflexiva relativa a um espetáculo teatral criado em contexto académico, enquanto elemento central de um projeto de mestrado de um estudante que orientei e em que também fui cocriador, na qualidade de encenador e diretor de atores. Nele, reflito sobre questões de investigação artística que estiveram presentes durante o processo de criação, descrevo metodologias adotadas para os resolver e analiso resultados.

The boxer–trainer, actor–director relationship: an exploration of creative freedom

The similarities between the way performance knowledge is transmitted for martial and theatrical artists have been examined by Phillip Zarrilli. Zarrilli argues that strips of codified behaviour present artists with restricted fields of choice, a precise vocabulary of techniques and strictly prescribed parameters within which to operate. We extend this argument to include combat athletes, particularly boxers, proposing a closer examination of choice, agency and creative freedom within the boxer–trainer and actor–director relationship. Drawing upon autoethnographic data, and participant interviews, we explore how trainers, boxers, directors and actors talk about creative freedom as it relates to their relationships. This co-authored article uses two discrete voices to explore this creative freedom: P. Solomon Lennox writes from a boxer’s perspective and George Rodosthenous from a director’s point of view.

Rebel masculinities of star/director/text: James Dean, Nicholas Ray, and Rebel Without a Cause

Director Nicholas Ray is arguably most familiar to cinema culture as the American test case for la politique des auteurs, the influential mode of film criticism formulated at the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma after World War II. Ray was elevated to the status of film ‘author’ for a consistency of vision and style associated with rebellion. Yet, he was known in the film industry as an ‘actor's director,’ both for his background in theater and for bringing Lee Strasberg's ‘The Method’ to Hollywood after it had gained considerable cachet at the Actors Studio in New York since the 1930s. Although Ray was relatively unknown among the movie-going public, his films were (and still remain) recognizable for their male stars, including James Dean, Robert Mitchum, and Humphrey Bogart. In this essay, I look at his most famous film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), to argue that Ray's reputation as a rebel auteur was as much the product of highbrow auteurist film criticism as the mass cultural persona of ‘rebel male hero’ that the film's star James Dean cultivated. As an actor, Dean was promoted at the vanguard of an innovative and experimental new performance style. Further, his star-performance text reveals a construction of masculinity that the film asks us to view as socially rebellious, which is retroactively linked to Ray. Both the film and the popular press form Dean's image constituted by his self-fashioned sense of authenticity, his non-normative sexuality, his highly publicized death, and the identification with an alternative family structure his role invites.

‘Every Light Form Has a Shadow’: Acting in ‘Invisible Cities’

In the foregoing article Deborah Saivetz described the background to the creation of Pino DiBuduo's Invisible Cities on the Newark, New Jersey, campus of Rutgers University in October 1998, and the development, limitations and strengths of that production. Its ‘audience’ – for the most part members of the university community and attendees at the concurrently scheduted ‘Arts Transforming the Urban Environment’ conference – were impressed by DiBuduo's artistic vision and the conviction of the actors, though a few expressed disappointment that, despite the project's urban setting and conference tie-in, Invisible Cities seemed to have little to do with the historically and culturally rich city of Newark itself. Most, however, were fascinated by, and perhaps even grateful to, the visiting Italian director who, with his band of student artists, transformed an ordinary campus building into an at times baffling, frequently delighful, and always provocative sequence of worlds – as if, as one witness put it, ‘watching a dream in real life’. The actors and technicians who participated in Invisible Cities confronted challenges from all angles: the English–Italian language barrier, the University bureaucracy, the physical limitations of the performance space, inclement weather, and the shortage of finances, human resources – and, most of all, time. Yet, despite the constant ‘changes of direction’ that were part of the Invisible Cities process, the actors were inspired by DiBuduo's willingness to allow them complete artistic licence in the conception and execution of their cities, and they came to understand that even artistic tensions can strengthen the bonds within an ensemble, infusing its members with a fighting spirit that refuses to let the project die. In the following interview, the student artists reflect upon the unique process of creating Invisible Cities, the actor–director relationship, the role of the audience, and the effect of the project upon the Rutgers–Newark community.