Michael Chekhov Technique in the Twenty-First Century: New Pathways

by Tom Cornford

Chekhov famously explained that his techniques and principles should always be explored through practice (2002) in order to achieve a certain type of ‘wise body’, or embodied awareness (LTT:

Chekhov described his approach to acting as fundamentally psychophysical,6 in that it is based on a model of an integrated body and mind. His

More specifically, his techniques were based in the development of the actor’s ‘embodied imagination’

These methods therefore provide a radical contrast to acting techniques that he believed were overly dependent on ‘dry’ analytic thought

Keep this.

Chekhov’s approach is renowned for being actor-centred, challenging the opinion that the actor exists merely to service the director’s interpretation of the playwright’s vision.

t]he director, the stage designer, etc., are all accessories, but the actor is the theatre’

‘We aim to be actors and more than actors – artists’ (TAITT,

collabor ative

the spirit in his practice and writing, a term often seemingly replaceable by ‘idea’, but which Chamberlain considered particularly helpful as it combines imagination, embodied experience and intellect in the service of a higher purpose for art.

Chamb erlain,

‘to lead means to serve those who are being led and not to demand service on their part’

The meaning of my method lies in not one exercise or the other, but in the whole.

You must be spontaneous and original instead of slavish in the way you do your exercises.

t he

‘a director will want to withhold the words of the play until he has produced some gestures’, and he goes on to argue that in the Studio ‘[t]here must be absolute freedom. The play must be invented when the rehearsals are going on. It must not be written before. [. . .] Only this way will we get some new results’

The thing that is killing the theatre today is that we speak about beautiful words and a beautiful play, but nobody speaks about beautiful movements. But movement is the language of the theatre, just as much as words are. [. . .] Therefore, we must love such rehearsals with movements because we want to create a new language which will be a theatre language.

‘The director, the stage designer, etc., are all accessories, but the actor is the theatre’

‘We must start our new kind of exercises with an approach which will give us the possibility to work upon a small sketch, or many, many sketches in which each will have a part’

he actively encouraged artists to use whichever aspects of his method that work for them as creative individuals rather than following his methods in a rigid or formulaic manner.

‘This play is very good propaganda against naturalism. In the majority of cases we could very clearly see that these were not the feelings of the actors’

‘This is a great achievement – a real demonstration for the feeling of truth. Here we have a fairy tale without any naturalistic approach – without any reason – and yet it is absolutely believable. The whole play is one big archetypal performance’

‘The fairy tale and its ancient motif comes through the rise and fall of people, and through the rise and fall of different world-outlooks’

Chekhov expressed doubts about whether the term archetype best expressed his ideas (Colvin

W]e must not be afraid of the cliché, because cliché has form and without form we cannot express ourselves [. . .] but [cliché] must be filled with life’

we often preferred less gender-specific terms for certain archetypes – for example, ‘the care-giver’ in place of ‘the mother’ – but found they were no less effective because of these changes in nomenclature and varied cultural understandings.

actors need to be empowered to ‘move beyond’ the text and the director’s vision to find their character

they also actively prevented the actors and directors from being passive interpreters, who are servants to the text, and instead demanded a level of creation and invention.

This interest in clowning clearly correlates to a much freer and expressive type of physical play and the development of a sense of humour (and the capacity to laugh at oneself) that Chekhov felt all actors and directors should have but is also of fundamental importance in relation to the ways in which they learn explicitly about playing and making contact with an audience.

The director and the cast must be open to each other so that the time will come when they fall in love with something mutual. In other words, they must infect each other. The director must infect his cast, but he must take all their ideas too. There is no mechanical way. A director can be a despot like Meyerhold, but this is another way. (TAITT: 25 January 1936)

The director is encouraged to use his technique of radiating – the identification of their own

psychophysical energy, life force and the capacity to both radiate it out strongly into space to others and the world around them, and receive others’ energy into themselves – in just the same way as the actors.

At the same time, Chekhov believed that directors – and teachers – need to be honest with themselves about whether or not they have made significant contact with those they are working with. This requires a level of self-assessment and the capacity to identify their own st...

to be able to laugh means to get a more objective point of view of oneself. If I laugh at others, it is not very beneficial to me, but if I laugh at myself, it means I am growing. [. . .] The more we can look objectively upon ourselves, the more our artistic abilities are flourishing, because the thing which keeps us contracted at

times is our selfishness and our concern with ourselves.

how significant Chekhov’s centralizing of both play and pleasure in training and theatre-making is and the way in which these principles help to develop a sense of ease in a devising process and to support a more equal, pleasurable, relational and collaborative dialogue.

the juggler’s psychology (Hurst du Prey 1978: 13), which both required and concurrently developed advanced improvisational skills based on ingenuity and originality, facilitated by a very particular use of his technique. This creative juggler’s psychology was to be applied to everything: ‘If we grow accustomed to considering our simple exercises as wonders, we will get from them much more than if we consider them something dull and ordinary. We rob ourselves of a certain power. We reject something which is very necessary for our creative work. We must do our simplest exercises with love and care’

In order to be open, actively improvise, give, radiate, receive and exchange in this context to make contact, Chekhov argued that teachers need to relate to their students with their ‘whole being’ and distinguished this from merely engaging with them on an intellectual level (LTT: 11 April 1936) – and he later tells the directors just the same.

you] must direct the student and tell him what to look for. You must ask him to be attentive to the form , colour, quality, shape, texture, relation, etc.’

‘one of our methods of approach when rehearsing even the smallest scene, is to be led by something definite, and this we call a “ground”’

‘If you try to find “the spine” in everything you teach, without losing details, you will get a very interesting feeling which can help you to teach and be taught’

‘THE SPINE’ (RHYTHM) – ‘The ‘spine’, or essence, or fundamental quality, or essential character of a thing. You must feel and sense this essence – there is no law about it. [. . .] You must find ‘the spine’ in every feeling, every act, every idea. In some cases it is good to have ‘the spine’ as intellectual idea, and in some cases it must be a sensation or feeling.

Chekhov believed that ‘imagination is the language which the director and actors speak to each other. Instead of intellectual understanding – imagination. This is absolutely necessary, not only for speaking but for creating’

‘the director will only give small pieces of what he has in mind. The actors must take these with imagination’

e should never start our performances, and even rehearsals, without having chosen a special point of our method which will become a starting point, a springboard, for our rehearsing and for our performances. It can be anything: Radiation; Atmosphere; Objective; Feeling of the Whole [. . .] having in mind this particular point of our methods, our attention will be concentrated on it, our interest will be awakened, and the feeling of being ‘dry’ or uninspired will disappear immediately.

‘Chekhov announced that we were to be divided into groups which were given a scene which would be performed at the end of the term. The purpose was to involve the “points” of the method as “grounds” for our rehearsal’

‘It is very simple for the director to ask himself, has the actor a ground? What ground shall I give him? To find the ground for today’s rehearsal is enough – it does not need to be a revelation about the play’

‘receive the directions and instructions with inner action’ and that ‘the director is able to describe things that will never be turned into dry intellectual content’

b]y doing many experiments which may be wrong, the director will find the right way. A poor director will cling to some of his ideas, but the good director will try everything. Don’t be afraid of experiments which can be wrong’

‘Deirdre spoke too much to the students while they were working. She explained things too much. You must think of yourself as leading each individual through certain experiences [. . .] which may be of use to them as actors’