Michael Chekhov and Focusing

I received an interesting email yesterday from an academic, one Christelle Nassar, at the University of Lebanon in Beirut. She's writing a book on Michael Chekhov, and wants to introduce his ideas to the Arab world.

"Chekhov’s name is known in Lebanon and the Arab world, but there are no Arabic versions of his books nor serious researches on his work, therefore, I chose to write my study in Arabic in order to familiarize the Arabic speaking acting students, actors, trainers, and directors with his work. I have also chosen to work on Chekhov because he addresses the actor directly and suggests to him means of elaborating his part on his own during a mise en scène…
A part of my study will be based on Chekhov’s books “To the actor” and “On the actor technique”. And a second part of it – equally as important as the first – would be a study of the application of the Chekhov’s by people other than Chekhov himself…
Therefore, I would be much obliged, if you as a professional trainer in Chekhov’s acting method, (and using his method as an actor) would answer some questions that allow me to use your personal experience (I would appreciate having your personal CV), and that of your studio as essential references in my study.

1. How were you introduced to Mikhail Chekhov’s method in acting?
2. Have you learned the method through Chekhov himself, a trainer, Chekhov’s books…?
3. How did you become a trainer through Mikhail Chekhov’s method in actor training?
4. Are you familiar with other acting methods?
5. In your personal opinion and experience, what are the particularities of Chekhov’s method in actor training (what made you choose this method)?
6. Do you follow the exercises given by Chekhov in his books “To The Actor” and “on the acting technique” the way they are? Or, you prefer to make changes (such as adding other exercise, deleting some, combining others…)? In case you do, would you please give some description of the changes, and of the reasons behind them (I would like to know particularly why you chose to combine Chekhov’s method with Eugene Gendlin's Focusing/ Bio-spirituality, how you did it, and what were the benefits of this combination)?
7. What are the most common difficulties you encountered with the trainees?
8. Were this difficulties the same for acting students, professional actors, and for non professionals interested in theater?
9. Do you think reading Chekhov books would suffice for an experimented actor or director to teach his method?
10. Comparing with other actor training methods, why – regarding your experience – should an actor choose to be trained in Chekhov’s method?
11. Particularly, and since Chekhov was Stanislavski’s student, what do you, as an actor trainer, think the strong points of Chekhov’s method are, and where do you see the differences between both methods?
12. Chekhov addresses the actor directly, and asks him to try the exercises while reading them in order to understand his method. Based on you experience in teaching his method, do you think the person or the group of persons who want to become actors can train themselves alone by reading the book and applying the exercises?

Thank you in advance,
Christelle Nassar "

How cool is that? :-) I've spent the last couple of hours composing a response, which I've just emailed her.

Dear Christelle,

I first discovered Michael Chekhov’s ideas about 7 or 8 years ago, when I happened to see a video of Joanna Merlin leading a workshop on Psychological Gestures, and I was immediately intrigued. I googled Chekhov on the Internet and what I read on various websites (Lisa Dalton 's particularly) constituted kind of an epiphany for me. I ordered the book immediately. I read it from cover to cover in a single afternoon, and then immediately reread it. It was as if all the blocks and frustrations and difficulties I had been having as an actor were dissolving. His vision for what he called the Ideal Theatre of the future filled me with hope, and the techniques he offered the actor offered the perfect way of avoiding the mind having too much control over the creative process. I could finally stop feeling guilty that I had always secretly found so many of Stanislavski’s techniques quite tiresome, long-winded and so mechanical! (More of which later!) I subsequently attended the Michael Chekhov Studio in London (http://www.michaelchekhov.org.uk/) under the tutelage of Graham Dixon. In addition I have attended the Michael Chekhov in the 21st Century Symposium at Dartington Hall, the venue for Chekhov’s own theatre studio, in 2005. I continue to amass a growing personal library of Chekhov related books, literature CDs and DVDs.

I am as you might have guessed somewhat evangelical about Michael Chekhov's ideas and techniques!

Yet I still have no formal teaching qualification in Chekhov methodology or techniques. This is quite deliberate. Although I am fully aware that there are various certificated courses available I am not convinced Chekhov himself would have approved of a formal program that leads to an official license or piece of paper to prove I have the credibility to use his ideas. I am an artist, not an academic. Besides Mischa’s whole philosophy resists fixed and inflexible theory which might strangle growth. He believed the art of acting, although founded on spiritually eternal principles accessible to all, was also, at its best, an organic process/experience that does- and indeed should- move with the times! In contrast, the educational institution tends to rigidify and ossify ideas and ideals! Chekhov insisted that the individual actor-artist should be quite free to take whatever he/she finds useful in his book, and disregard the rest. This freedom to choose was very important to me as an actor, and the fact that Chekhov wasn't promoting yet another prescriptive, rigid theoretical framework for the art of acting- (Stanislavski!)- appealed to me too. Chekhov’s ideas made me feel so much more liberated and creatively free than all the other theoretical approaches offered by theatre practitioners I had studied- Stanislavski, Meisner, Hagen, Strasberg etc.

In the last few years I have shared many of Michael Chekhov’s ideas with a number of theatre companies in Scotland, incorporating them into the rehearsal process of my productions of Timon of Athens, Awake and Sing!, A Hard Heart, The Crucible for the Ramshorn Theatre in Glasgow- as well as Razed Curtain Theatre Co’s improv troupe and their production of Anna Karenina last year, Macbeth for the Shakespeare Schools Festival UK to name a few. I am an acting coach for individual actors too, and I am a regular workshop leader on Chekhov for The Actors’ Bothy at the Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts (http://www.theactorsbothy.com/)- a weekly class offered to professional actors. In addition I have offered introductory weekend sessions in Chekhov’s techniques through the University of Strathclyde. The techniques seem to come as a revelation to many Scottish actors and it astonishes me that he is not more widely used or regarded.

What attracted me to Chekhov in the first place? Well, lots of things! First of all, his methods are not cerebral, always psycho-physical. They get the actor ‘out of his/her head’, never a good place for an actor to be! Also it forged a unique amalgam between what we now recognise as ‘Process work’ and an in-corporated, embodied, practical mysticism- but from an Actor's perspective. I had been interested in all these areas for a number of years but Michael Chekhov was for me the final piece in jigsaw that completed the picture of my own hitherto blurred sense of purpose and direction as a theatre artist.

I had struggled to find a philosophy that fully honoured the spiritual component within my creative life as an actor until I came across Michael Chekhov’s book. The concepts of Higher Ego, Radiation, Psychological Gesture, Inner Gesture, Feelings of the Whole, of Ease and Beauty, the Imaginary Body and what he refers to as 'the Objective Reality of the Imagination' etc were all drawn together into an articulate and coherent approach that made absolute sense of my own experience of my journey as an artist. Each element provided an access point to (- for want of a better phrase-) ‘Divine Inspiration’. Chekhov is never reticent or embarrassed about commending the deep, unconscious spiritual forces which underpin, inspire- and even compel- the actor’s ‘desire for transformation’. Of course, in the modern British theatre culture any such reference to spirituality in connection with the actor’s art is usually derided, even ridiculed as inherently pretentious or “luvvie” by those inside (and outside!) the profession. The fact that Chekhov was willing to be courageously unfashionable and to actively embrace the spiritual forces and religious origins of the art of acting deeply impressed me. In my view, he offers a radical and visionary dismantling of all the prejudices that seemed to be holding theatre and the art of the actor back from evolving to the next stage of its evolution. Here was the real possibility of what Peter Brook terms the Holy Theatre. Chekhov continues to provide us with a highly practical and at the same time deeply spiritual approach to the work.

Now, Gendlin’s Focusing, and Bio-spirituality, have a great deal in common with Chekhov’s ideas. They are all concerned with discerning and embodying images from the ‘edge of awareness’; the act of defining, refining and redefining of felt shifts (or “grace unfolding”) that can be then be worked with. These felt shifts- the removal of the actor's creative and psychological blocks- are gifts from the Higher Self, from the Higher Source and they are the tools for inner metamorphosis and eventually outer transformation- whether that be in the therapeutic or the artistic context.

The Psychological Gesture is the physical equivalent of Gendlin’s “Getting a Handle”. Chekhov’s concepts of Active Waiting and the Creative Gaze are also very similar if not identical to clearing a space, where one patiently and gently asks, “What is there?” Both processes allow us to disengage from the thought stream and connect with the present moment. They both ask us “How does it feel in my body to connect with these thoughts and feelings?” They open us to the body’s wisdom. I am convinced that Chekhov would completely agree with Gendlin when he says:

“Your physically felt body is …part of a gigantic system of here and other places, now and other times, you and other people - in fact, the whole universe. This sense of being bodily alive in a vast system is the body as it is felt from inside”

In Dr Edwin McMahon and Dr Peter Campbell.’s “Bio-Spirituality – Focusing As A Way To Grow” they say:

“There are two critical issues in spiritual development…The first is to discover a holistic approach for letting go of the mind’s omnipotent control as a prelude to allowing some broader wisdom within the entire human organism to speak. The second is to allow the unique next step that is “me” to emerge as an integral, harmonious expression of some Larger Process”.

This is the same ‘me’ that Chekhov would call the Higher Ego.

Chekhov says: ”The usual ego is not what stirs our imagination. To turn our consciousness upon it, to see the concreteness of its specific powers and qualities, is a means of strengthening our connection with it.”

Whenever I start a theatre rehearsal I adapt an exercise taught by Graham Dixon at the Michael Chekhov studio where he has the actors standing at the edge of the acting workshop space and step over an imaginary line that runs a metre or so inside the circumference of the room beyond which is the space which the higher Selves are to do the work ahead. The letting go of the everyday self is in my adapted version done in the same way as listing all the preoccupations of the everyday self that is done in the second step of focusing. I keep asking “And what else” whilst the participants silently list in their heads their respective worries and concerns which might stand in the way of doing the work. I ask them to wait at least 2mins before let them all go and then they cross over the imaginary line. Having done this shedding of everyday concerns and then decided to dress in their higher selves the ensemble meet in the centre of the room where I may ask indic=vidi=uals to devlop psychological gestures, a sense of how different physical centres manifest the archetypal eb=nergies of their characters.

Chekhov allows us to believe that we do not become greater actors by striving to be more than we are, but by surrendering to our talent, as if it were a gift of grace which we already possessed but simply lay hidden deep within if only we can get out of the way of our own lower egos. This is why, for me, his most profound teaching is really to do with his techniques for uncovering and honouring our imaginations as a reality because he suggests we “leave our personal things behind us” and enter into the mystical realm of the soul, or the Higher Ego.

It may very well be due to my own limitations as a teacher but, in my own experience teenagers benefit least from this way of working. Their egos are still making a massive claim on their attention and it is difficult for them to stay in a place of not quite knowing. They can be extremely reluctant to risk making fools of themselves, and prefer to demonstrate they 'already know the answers'! After 15 years of teaching this age group it is my view that too much uncertainty and ambivalence are anathema for the vast majority of 13-18 year olds- professional and non-professional, experienced and inexperienced. Experienced adult actors benefit most from Chekhov’s ideas, those who have maybe studied and worked with Stanislavski’s principles and then feel the need to go deeper. Preferably, the actors have a spiritual connection to their work (although they don’t have to believe in God!), and have learned to appreciate the value of ‘active waiting’ and meditation as part of their artistic process. I find that Focusing can help them understand the worth of this dimension to their work, but only if they are prepared to be open-minded! For those that are, it can open them up to a deep and untapped inner reservoir of imagination and extraordinarily inspired choices.

There is an entire industry of workshops and courses that aim to give actors a practical experience of Chekhov’s techniques. However if the actor does the exercise in the books on his/her own as Chekhov himself recommends I can see no reason why they cannot assimilate and learn just as much, if not more- and certainly more cheaply! Having said this, it may be helpful to have a trusted witness (just as in so called ‘Authentic Movement’ work)- a director, friend or colleague perhaps- who is sensitive enough to be able to monitor and guide the Psychological Gesture work.

Chekhov’s writing is so clear that most intelligent and sensitive actors can learn the techniques and their uses in their own living room, independent of any practical group workshop or formal tuition. Having said that there is much to be gained from working with an ensemble who all drawing on a common vocabulary for the work they are doing. An ensemble who are united in their sense of purpose can support and guide each other through the process, whatever particular theory that might underpin the work itself- whether that be or Chekhov. Grotowski, Stanislavski, Brecht- whoever...

Stanislavski does mention the spiritual component to the art of acting if you are prepared to look closely enough. He writes of prana and radiation-and was very influenced by ideas of yoga- but his approach is at the end of the day very cerebral- as if he were saying that the actor can summon inspiration by concentrated acts of will. But the books are muddled by the fictional framework he uses to advance his ideas, and very difficult to read. Chekhov takes the very best that Stanislavski has to offer, and comes up with a book that is masterfully lucid but more far-reaching. Chekhov takes us further into the realms of the imagination and its mysterious connection with the actor’s body, Chekhov knew that the imagination and the Higher Ego were far more powerful tools for the artist than the mechanistic and ‘utilitarian’ approach of Stanislavski’s. Stanislavski’s theories have been taken up in the American tradition of acting by Lee Strasberg, and there are many in the west who still believe this to be the pinnacle of what it means to be a committed theatre artist. Of course most Method actors would dispute my assumptions about their process as being purely mental- or 'willed'; and admittedly I’m overstating things. But there has always seemed to me to be an implicit requirement of self-immolation bound up with the Method actor’s process. A “you can’t really be a serious artist unless you are prepared to hurt yourself” kind of creed. Both Stanislavski’s and Strasberg’s students were encouraged at times to generate unnecessary unhappiness and harmful psychological turmoil within themselves. In its extreme forms there is very little creative joy in this way of working; a deeply unhealthy level of self-bullying, in fact. Many of Strasberg's star pupils were seriously fucked up by what he asked of them- hence the early deaths, suicides, clinical depression, drug addiction, etc. But I share Chekhov’s view that the audience don’t really want to see the performer really suffer: the feelings should have what he called “an artistic fragrance”. Chekhov insisted the process should be joyful. In addition, he understood that the audience could tolerate the ambiguity of knowing that what is happening on stage is a fiction and yet could still be utterly engaged in the performance and the feelings. There is a gentler and more open method of acting that allows the heart and the imagination to soar rather than encouraging the actor to fix himself within intense, self-involved and rigid narcissism. There is also, I believe, an erroneous assumption in Strasberg’s Method (admittedly a perversion and a misunderstanding of what Stanislavski was actually saying) that if the actor feels emotionally authentic then that authenticity will inevitably communicate itself to an audience, and so move them. This is more often than not demonstrably untrue. Neither Strasberg or Stanislavski ever solved the problem of how to capture the genie in the bottle so that the truth of the character could be recreated each and every time through the use of the actor’s personal “emotional memories”. Chekhov likened emotional memory exercises to trying to dig up a corpse and make it alive again. Chekhov’s techniques helps come much closer to achieving a reliable connection with the ineffable because he does not start from the thinking, or even the emotions, but from the body. I know his techniques work for me anyway, and I do not fuck myself up in the process either! Method actors might accuse me of “acting”, of cheating or lack of authenticity, but you only have to see Strasberg and Chekhov acting on film to instantly know who is the better actor!

Hope this is of some help, Christelle. Let me know if there is anything else. I've attached a CV of my acting work as requested.

The very best of luck with your research- it sounds an absolutely fascinating challenge. It would be great if you could send me a copy when you're finally done! :-)

Yours truly,

Mark Coleman