I am new to the idea of AM, but I think I may have been using it without being aware of it for a number of years in my synthesis of Michael Chekhov's Psychological Gesture exercises and Eugene Gendlin's Focusing in my rehearsal process. I tend make use of Focusing, albeit in a more truncated and less formal way than Eugene Gendlin prescribes in his book both in my theatre and sometimes my teaching work as well as in my spiritual devotions (I am a recently 'convinced' Quaker). I have in the last few months discovered a shorthand version that more closely resembles the Quaker bio-spirituality adaptation of George Fox's centring process as described by Rex Ambler in his beautiful Light to Live By, which I often use as part of my own meditative practice, but also in my creative life as an actor. I will make use of the focusing model far less often when it comes to directing or teaching High School drama classes. I find them a difficult age group to introduce the concept of focusing to, and as adolescents they're rarely comfortable about going too far inward! I have however made good use of focusing when doing individual audition coaching with very able older students (16+), and with adult actors. I have however done Chekhov workshops with adults that I've adapted through adding in focusing techniques by way of relaxing the students into becoming more trusting and patient with what their bodies may be telling them. This has opened up a whole new way of approaching acting and characterisation for Scottish actors who have at best a cursory knowledge of Chekhov, and no knowledge at all of Gendlin!
When I use focusing in my own acting process and when doing personal audition coaching I will employ an amalgam of focusing and Psychological Gesture, Sense of the Whole, Objectives, Centres and Archetype exercises, many of which are similar to those outlined in Franc Chamberlain's excellent book Michael Chekhov (Routledge Performance Practitioners). Chamberlain, whom I was lucky enough to meet, albeit briefly, 2 or 3 years ago at a Chekhov conference at Dartington Hall, combines his practical teaching of Chekhov's work in Dublin with focusing too and I detected much evidence of this in many of the excellent exercises he describes at the back of his book. I have tried to establish email contact with him but he's never replied, a real disappointment...!
Of course both focusing and Chekhov's exercises are psycho-physical processes and have much in common with AM as i understand it. All three connect the inner life to a communication with the body, which is really the essence of acting it seems to me. All three techniques seek to determine pathways by which the heart and soul can be fully em-bodied and in-corporated, the inner made outer, the invisible made visible. And focusing, of course, works just as well in the creative/artistic process as it does in the therapeutic/counselling context. Equally, Michael Chekhov's On the Technique of Acting was my first introduction to the Rudolf Steiner spiritual concept of Inner Self, or the Higher Ego. The two methods have a real synergy and complementarity, and work almost symbiotically in my own experience. I have a feeling AM might do this too.
My own version of AM emerges somewhere in that misty hinterland between the last stages of Focusing and the beginnings of the PG. For me this authentic movement bit represents a sort of border crossing, a place where the sense images and words of the Focusing part of the journey are transmuted and translated into the physical semiotics of physical gestures, before they then finally mature into a series of workable PGs. This hinterland is also a crossing point between the inner and the outer, a dynamic space where my own feelings as an actor, as an the artist and my inklings about the nascent character- begin to blend and then merge. in a kind of dance. It's the really fun part, in fact!
The ways and degrees to which focusing and Chekhov are combined in my own acting process tend to vary from role to role, from day to day to be honest. I'll use whatever works. Sometimes I will begin work by focusing on a phrase in the text, or perhaps an emotion that comes from it which feels 'fuzzy' to me somehow, or difficult to grasp, and as I deepen focus on this I'll begin to allow a psychological gesture to emerge from it that helps me to discover and refine my inner understanding, my deeper knowing, of the words. A connection, and then a compassion emerges from the physical sensation/image accompanying it which is frequently a very fertile stimulus for merging with the character's psyche. At other times i may work from an archetype which the character ostensibly resembles. For example, during my initial preparation to play Prospero in The Tempest earlier this year, I focused over a number of sessions using the stimulus of the Magician Tarot card, in combination with lines/phrases that moved me in the text), and those armchair focusing sessions then became expressed in my living room through what i now realise was a form of AM, and then developed into a series of psychological gestures (PGs) that became a basic scaffolding for Prospero's inner journey from revenge to forgiveness in performance.
I am aware that during the formative stages of the PG it is not helpful for me concentrate on forming a movement that is necessarily beautiful, or artistically satisfying even,- however it does have to be meaningful, authentic for me. Once I do sense it is properly authentic, and heartfelt, I will then seek ways to pare it down, economise on any extraneous and unnecessary business that takes away from the purity and beauty of expression, "a mini-work of art" to borrow Chekhov's phrase. Not that the public ever sees it. In fact I will very, very rarely use PGs in performance unless it is a highly expressionist piece or it is the starting point for long-form improvisation piece. Otherwise I have never been tempted to use anything that might resemble AM or PG in actual performance. Instead I will use a memory of the PG (what Michael Chekhov termed the "Inner Gesture" ) which will help me to sustain connection with the role when ever i am danger of slipping away from full immersion in my character. But the PG is private usually.
Sometimes my imagination will draw me to nature or even architecture or furniture design as the inspiration for characterisation ideas and movement. For instance, I was lucky enough to play the title role in King Lear in a production for the Ramshorn Theatre in Glasgow eighteen months ago. For the very first scene I hit upon the idea, during focusing in fact, of Lear as an oak tree. I knew immediately this was right as i could feel it all over, and not just in a localised area of the body. My real work began from there in terms of physicalising the character, and eventually finding a voice for him. This all came from the PG for an oak tree in all sorts of weathers and seasons. Just like the old drama school cliché of "Being a tree", in fact! And all this was arrived at through a intricate blend of using focusing and PG, combined i suppose with what i now understand to be something resembling Authentic Movement, and in this particular case it work tremendously well for me. I personally find it tends to work best with 'poetic' or verse texts. When I directed Howard Barker A Hard Heart a couple of years ago, for instance, the introduction of PG to the rehearsal process unearthed a beautiful range of choices for the actors inhabiting very complex roles, using highly difficult language. And although I did not however use any focusing during this production two of the actors who became friends have subsequently become very interested in using focusing as a tool for growth.
In addition, I am happy to say that my own Focusing has done much to help ameliorate my short temperedness and impatience in the rehearsal room too. :-)
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