Addressing The Gaze within the Theatre Ensemble
Theatre, at its very root, is a collaborative art form. The collective spirit of directors, producers, playwrights, performers, designers and technicians working together to create a performance, a costume plot or lighting design, a play-script, a mask or sound design, requires freedom of expression and creative input and acceptance from all involved. Collaborative theatre is the way people relate to one another, in craft and in final product, because theatre, by its very nature, is a mirror of life. All facets of theatre require working with others towards a common cause, to, as a collective, attain artistic heights. Theatre is of the Whole, where-as Desire, self motivated intent, is sought by individuals. Ironically, desire, a keystone element of great characters in plays, is the root cause of conflict in the collaborative, creative process of the theatre arts. Individual desire for acceptance by others causes anxiety and frustration, a common side effect of a group of people vying for the attention and recognition of one another. The creative output by a group of people in the theatre arts demands unmuted expression by everyone.
I chose to be a theatre educator because I respect and admire the theatre family: the group of people that work closely together for many weeks and often months to make a play. Like all families, the theatre family requires collaboration. Throughout my teaching and directing career, I’ve tried my best to teach my students to collaborate when creating. Sometimes I do that well and other times I don’t. The times I don’t do it as well as I’d like to, is when I’ve stopped reminding myself that my students have expectations of me as a teacher and of each other at students; both conscious expectations and unconscious ones. These familial expectations are sometimes said and yet more often than not, left unsaid. Expectations of oneself or of others are a product of The Gaze, and The Gaze is always present, especially in a family.
French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan’s key principle of The Gaze is that ‘one can only see something by imagining that it is looking back at oneself.’ In other words, I think or see, because I imagine what others think or see of me. One’s perceptions of others, including both people and objects (i.e.- teachers, peers, craft, skill-sets, creative output) is motivated by desire through an imagined response: “The dependence of the visible on that which places us under the eye of the seer (Lacan 72)[1].” Perception is motivated by desire and desire is always imagined. The imagined response on the visual level is called ‘The Gaze’, the center of which is built into a structure of perception. This round trip of perception is loaded with doubt. When a teacher, (often in a place of a ‘master’ position, or the-one-who-knows or has ‘The Answer’) works with his/her students, (often placed in a ‘slave’ position, or the-one-who-seeks ‘The Answer’ because they are lacking of it), perceptions and expectations are built through desire. Students desire to exist as students because they are labeled as such, both by themselves and others.
“My teacher calls me a student and my peers refer to me as a fellow student, so I must play the role of one who seeks the answer through others.”
In order for students to succeed they must be seen. And of course BEING anything is being seen. Lacan points out that ‘The Gaze’ is not so much of the scopic field but more in terms of recognition, which is a reflection of the ego (the Self, the conscious speaking subject). To be seen, is to be known and therefore the subject is validated as a human, the Self reinforced. From the newborn who looks into its mother’s eyes, to the two-year-old who notices for the first time that he is different than the image reflected back to him in the mirror, to the teenager who looks to her peers for acceptance as a young sexual object of desire, or the adult who looks to God or family to affirm his/her identity as either a follower or a leader, ‘The Gaze’ is set from the moment we interact with Others. The Gaze is a validation of the Self, of which is the center if one’s identity. Without the Other looking upon us, interacting with us, affirming or denying, setting limits or opening the floodgates of unlimited possibilities, we simply could not BE anything. Students seek to Be students and in that look to a Teacher, the one who knows, for guidance. Likewise, as instructors, we seek to validate our chosen career and refined skill-sets via the success of our students.
“I have the knowledge, my students do not. I am labeled a teacher, my students look to me as one who can ‘teach’ therefore my role as a teacher is to teach my students.”
BEING, in this case, a Teacher, is being seen as one. And of course we want to be seen as the best we can be. But are we? Even if others say we are? Yes, the Gaze follows us from all directions at all times. Not necessarily in the scopic field, but rather in how we perceive others perceptions of us. Our need to be seen is instigated by desire for the Other (family, friends, co-workers, students, God). “See me. Love me. Validate me. And then I am whole.” It is the basis of all relationships and an affirmation of Being someone. Like it or not.
Now, different teachers have different views of themselves. Some have an end goal of teaching students how to learn in order to attain a new body of knowledge or skill-sets. They do they’re best to set aside this label of ‘master’ and instead take on a role that is more akin of facilitator, organizer, and leader to help students in turn become leaders. These types of teachers lead by example, facilitating and encouraging students to explore a body of knowledge and in turn create something with it. Some teachers are more impartial and wish to hand their knowledge off much like a waiter pours water from a pitcher into a glass. And of course, there is a wide range of both types, for a myriad of reasons, including social expectations and subject matter. In any respect, perceptions build relationships, regardless of good or bad, right or wrong, black or white.
Expectations exist in relationships because relationships define existence through Being. A ‘Subject’s’ BEING is reified through The Gaze, as Being is being seen more completely than one can oneself see. Lacan stated: “I see only from one point, but in my existence I am looked at from all sides” (Lacan 72)[2]. This concept is an extension of Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage, where he stated that an individual’s personality is formed by the way others see him, that a child’s image of himself is a reflection of the views of others.
Our students look to a teacher or a project or each other for the answers and from that perspective exist or ‘Be’ by being seen more completely than they can see themselves. In this the student seeks satisfaction through desire.
“Praise me, my answer was good, yes? My performance skilled, my input valued.”
Or
“Criticize me, I could do better. I didn’t know how to do it well and need guidance or even consequences.”
However, in seeing from one perspective our students are also seen from all sides, different angles, different viewpoints. And they know it, too. Their peers see their weaknesses and strengths, their idiosyncratic behaviors, their preparedness or ill preparedness, their hesitancy, their lack of self-confidence in voice and body and so on. Failure is at every corner, even with our good students, who are confident, and seemingly brave. Yes, at the root of confidence is the fear of failure. For to succeed is to drive towards mastery or at the very least, perceived progress. One can see how barriers are easily erected, as The Gaze is always present.
The teacher <> student —master <> slave relationship is a common and often times accepted rapport in the traditional classroom setting where, by and large, a student’s learning process is individualized and isolated (i.e.- math class or piano lessons). However, in small or large group situations, particularly those that call for creative thinking and creative output, like the theatre, ‘The Gaze’, which carries with it the affects of perception, very quickly becomes an impediment to learning.
Collaboration and leadership are two qualities in human interaction. In theatre, collaboration occurs in two ways: via the hierarchy or the ensemble. The first is easy enough: in theatre, titles are important, as each individual or group of individuals have something specific that they must accomplish for the good of the whole. The properties coordinator collects or builds all the items used by stage performers. The stage-manager supervises and manages the logistical aspects of play rehearsals and performances, including scheduling, rosters, rehearsal notes, design meetings and the calling of a show during its run. The technical director coordinates all aspects of a play’s productions values, working closely with costume, lighting, scenic and sound designers. The director is responsible for choosing a play, conceptualizing it for the stage, casting and directing a group of performers to work together to bring the script to life for an audience. And so on. A team of people specializes in various areas for a final goal; the play itself, the shared experience between performers and audience. This theatrical hierarchy requires collaboration in that all involved must work together from a play’s inception to the final bows.
The ensemble, from the French word, travaillant ensemble, is literally translated as togetherness; however, in theatre is much more. The theatre ensemble connotes a powerful relationship or family in which all members of a group interact, not just professionally or solely within the hierarchy, but socially and emotionally. In this respect, the “ensemble is a long-term relationship; a day-in, day-out collaboration in shared living, thinking and creating” (Cohen, 17)[3]. Dedication to the ensemble environment can provide a life-long satisfaction to those who accept it and much more. The ensemble model in theatre has proven time and again, to lead towards the highest levels of theatrical art and creativity (Cohen 17)[4]. It is in the ensemble model that theatre educators, and in fact, any teacher who wishes to teach collaboration, can create a final product that is not only high in quality, but also contains the voices of everyone involved.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to create plays with my students in an ensemble environment. The Asia Pacific Activities Conference is a group of international schools in Asia from Kobe, through-out China and on down to Manila. Member schools interact in sports and the fine arts. Each year a member school hosts the APAC Theatre Festival. A component of this festival requires each school to create, stage and perform an original short play based on a festival theme. Each year I audition and select ten students who participate in this ensemble. The goal is to create a play, together, starting with nothing more than a three of four word theme, then writing, staging, and performing it for our theatre peers from around the world.
Upon casting the ensemble, my first goal is to break down barriers in the group, barriers that are a default product of ‘The Gaze’, of being Seen from all sides. I attempt to fell these barriers by leading my students through a set of exercises where they get to know each other intimately. From the start, one might say I am master and my students are slaves: director<>actor, leader<> follower. This unspoken but often-accepted relationship between teacher and student follows us everywhere in the field of education. The teacher is there to teach and the students are there to learn. However, in the collaborative project of creating a play, even with young artists like high school theatre students, the goal is to break that unconscious state of Being down altogether within the first minutes of the first rehearsal. The myriad of exercises I use are designed by theatre practitioners to minimize or even remove anxiety and hesitancy within a group of people and in turn increase awareness of participants’ strengths and weaknesses. I start with partner warm-ups and trust building exercises, relaxation techniques in voice, body and mind and eventually move to designed relationships and concepts with group tableaux exercises. We use voice control, diction, pitch and tone to express emotion and feeling and work through partner improvisations where participants are encouraged to create moments of tension and conflict. We establish different types of character relationships by physicalizing social status, which eventually leads the group to characterize conflict through master <> slave relationships. Think protagonist / antagonist, good / bad, right / wrong, the free / the oppressed, the introvert / the extrovert. I’ve found that conceiving conflict through a power struggle is a very effective means of urging students to talk about how people feel when forced into oppressive situations. And of course, conflict is the root of all good drama as characters seek their objectives.
Our explorations in power struggle exercises inevitably leads to discussions of sympathy and empathy, as I encourage participants to verbalize their weaknesses and strengths of character, both on and off the stage. As students explore real life conflict within their group, they begin to understand the importance of conflict on stage as a means of expressing objectives and tactics, key ingredients for interesting and engaging drama. Participants begin to learn to trust one another and reveal secrets previously un-shared. The ensemble experience quickly becomes sacred; a safe place to share and do unsafe things. The Gaze is acknowledged and the seer no longer looks from one side, but from multiple perspectives. Newer, more meaningful relationships are formed and the performers are more willing to ‘put it out there’.
The field of The Gaze is a constant presence; however, as students acknowledge each other as a group with strengths and weaknesses in performance and everyday existence, the affects of the Gaze (hesitancy, self awareness, fear, caution) begin to dissipate. Hindrances of creativity are lessened, and new heights of creative output begin to take form.
As I move forward with the ensemble to create our play, I guide my students to explore the effects of power and oppression in various social situations. One of the world’s most renowned theatre practitioners who explored power differential on the stage, was Brazilian theatre practitioner, Augusto Boal, who designed multiple forms of play activities to aid those in oppressive situations to formulate and voice their oppressive state for the purpose of socio/political change. Boal created a very effective theatre exercise that explores oppression known as Image Theatre, which I use with my students to embolden a collaborative spirit, as well as to conceive an ensemble play.
First, the group agrees on a scenario of oppression that they want to explore. I.E.- hazing, addiction, abuse, academic pressures, gender inequality, to name a few. Once a topic is chosen, participants rapidly sculpt each others’ bodies to express attitudes and emotions that convey the scenario. Participants find a powerful moment in the sculpture, freeze it, take a snapshot and then move on to the next moment. As the images of the scenario build, they begin to tell a story. Eventually, a number of these images are stitched together and ‘dynamised’, or brought to life. For example, the group may start with a parent badgering a child over poor grades. An image is created and sculpted by the group that conveys this oppressive state. Conflict is created through body and voice. Once a powerful moment is reached, someone in the group yells out “FREEZE!” The participants come to a stop in the form that scenario had put them in, creating a tableau. The image is analyzed by other group members, altered (sculpted) to the agreement of the viewers, then set and recorded, both on paper as adjectives and on camera. The ensemble moves on, creating a series of images (five to eight is a good goal) until eventually the conflict is at its highest state and a resolution is drawn. Those sculpted, view the images with their fellow sculptors, and then the entire ensemble resets and replays the scenario from start to finish: a motion stop-and-go stage movie. This replay is recorded. Again, the ensemble reviews their scenario and then returns to the stage to improvise the ‘in-between’ state of each image. Dialogue and action between each heightened image is added as improvisation. This too is recorded. The seeds of a play begin to take root. Sometimes the soil must be tilled and we start afresh. As the ensemble gains confidence in the exercise they explore various scenarios and eventually find a common interest, which they begin to unpack further.
This method is very useful in teaching students how to explore internal or external oppression, as well as unconscious thoughts and feelings. The process of working together as a team, always moving, sculpting, and performing as a group, dynamizes the students and subsequently breaks down The Gaze. In fact, many times The Gaze disappears, albeit temporarily, as the ensemble engages in creating something very powerful. The key ingredient is that all participants must choose a scenario that they are passionate about and ready to explore as a team. It is important that the teacher gets involved as well, as both an observer and a player which models that in this creative process there is not a specific leader or teacher, but rather a group of artists creating. Together.
As I work with the ensemble, the participants eventually find a scenario that they want to write about. Once we work through some key elements, the group devises a plot structure and creates ten characters, which will interact with one another throughout the piece. The group eventually sits down to write the play with the goal of bringing it to the stage for rehearsal and finally for a performance. However, as one can imagine, the Gaze invariable rears its head as participants work through the details of writing a play script. As conflict ensues and differences of opinion are voiced, creative output is muted.
As Lacan noted, The Gaze is always present, and its affects are heightened under many circumstances. One of the simplest and deadliest means in which affects of the Gaze returns is simply because it is ‘a new day’. Drama is experiential, an ‘in the moment’, creative art-form. It takes time for a group of individuals to put aside the barriers created by stress, responsibility, waxing and waning relationships, and so on. Once a group breaks out of rehearsal, and finishes a session, they have to come back together again ‘tomorrow’. The simple act of saying goodbye can heighten the affects of the Gaze.
- “Do you love me?”
- “I don’t want to leave.”
- “You know more about me now. Can I trust you to treat that knowledge with respect?”
- “Did I do well?”
- “I am not sure how I feel about what he/she said today.”
The end of one session quickly turns into another as a new day returns. It is vital that students warm up as a group in every new session, to shake out the stresses of the day and bring their energy and concentration back to the ensemble; the family. Students can share their emotions and feelings through body and voice during warm-ups and thereby release tension, anger, tiredness or any other feelings or emotions that might otherwise impede their ability to lower the inhibitions and center themselves.
Structuring a play in plot, theme, dialogue and characterization is a complex task for an individual playwright, and even more-so within an ensemble. It would be easier and more time efficient for a director to notate the ensemble’s ideas and write the play him or herself. But doing so would of course limit and negate the ensemble. We need a final product created by all.
As the ensemble comes to the table, to brainstorm, review and write, we must remember that theatre artists bring their own insights as to what works and what doesn’t, what’s valuable and what’s not, what’s attainable and what isn’t. Differences of opinion must be acknowledged so that students can understand where their peers’ ideas come from and why they are deemed important at any given moment in time. But time is rarely on our side. A deadline looms and progress is important for moral. Sometimes it is prudent to break the ensemble into smaller groups to work on the various components of a play script. Two members might address plot while other members theme, pacing and rhythm. But I strongly believe that each member of the ensemble creates their own character, and then shares their creation in voice and body with the rest of the group, knowing from the start that the sky is the limit and that all members are encouraged to suggest, change or provide input into another’s creation. The ensemble must operate together as they create the whole of the play but take ownership of the creation of their character’s personae. But even the creation of characters has boundaries; the book-ends of the plot structure and message created by the ensemble.
Creating a play from start to finish with a group of students is an incredibly rewarding experience but takes diligence and fortitude in acknowledging the power of The Gaze throughout the process. At the fore is teaching students how to collaborate creativity. That process is in and of itself challenging. Teaching students how to recognize each other’s weaknesses and strengths and use both to create as a group is one of many ways to minimize affects caused by desire. We need to remember that everyone has a desire to be seen but that most people unconsciously see from one perspective moment to moment, yet consciously feel we are seen from all sides. The Gaze is ever present. This affect of identity-seeking through others is a hindrance to group collaboration. Yet, in my experience in creating plays with an ensemble, showing students how to explore their weaknesses and strengths through conflict is key in teaching them how to collaborate. Boal’s Image Theatre is a wonderful method that most anyone can use to collaborate and create theatre while simultaneously addressing the presence of the The Gaze.
Collaboration in conflict can indeed create powerful theatre, but just as importantly, a meaningful family that will most certainly be remembered and valued by all involved.
[1] Jacques Lacan. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978) 72.
[2] Jacques Lacan. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978) 72.
[3] Robert Cohen. Working Together in Theatre, (England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) 16 & 17.
[4] Robert Cohen. Working Together in Theatre, (England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) 17.
