Geometry of Acting

stagematrix > mise-en-scene: 1a : the arrangement of actors and scenery on a stage for a
theatrical production * 1b : stage setting * 2a : the physical setting of an action : CONTEXT
[b] : ENVIRONMENT, MILIEU

"Context" is a very helpful idea to understand the nature of mise-en-scene! Nothing on stage
can be understood without relations to other elements. [Remember, Acting is Reacting?] For
a director everything on stage is "environmental"! Director's prime responsibility is to create
this "context" for actor's "texts" (role) and find the ways for actors to react to it.

What is "mise-en-scene" (Fr.)? In short, staging. And staging is different from blocking.
Better say -- "director's text"; specific arrangements of space and time on stage... to control
actors, playscript and public.

My students laugh, when I say that "blocking" means to block actors from getting to the text
too soon and from moving on stage without any purpose. Yes, they need to be stopped! The
movement must be choreographed in order to become a statement, message, sign! They
must to be blocked from sending the movement "noise" -- from confusing the public!

We have to learn a proper movement language!

A Few Lessons from Film Directing Classes

"Motion in front of the camera" we call primary motion (motion of the camera is secondary);
in film theory we call it paradigmatic (what we see, not how we see). Well, in theatre
position of a spectator is different and comparing each of us in the house with the camera is
not fully correct. Nevertheless, since we are dealing with the 3D space, position upstage
could be compare with the Long Shot (LS or WS -- wide shot), center stage -- MS (Medium
Shot) and downstage -- CU (Close Up). Actors know this by instinct to for the most dramatic
moments move downstage [DS] (see details about "9 Squares of Stage" in "Acting Areas"
and Floor Plan pages) and Lighting Designer knows it too (we focus or "frame" action).

We also know that we read left and right differently: Stage Left is more "dramatic" (or
important). Character's climatic moments most likely to be staged DS Center....

Sometimes I say to student-directors that I understand "blocking" (American common

understanding of mise-en-scene) is simply a way to block (stop) actors from unrestricted
movement on stage in order to form movement sentences. We "frame" (cinema term) the
reality in order to make a statement. In short, we choreograph the movement on stage in
order to direct the attention of public. If we indeed believe that play is pre-text, the
performance is the text (formatted not in words anymore, but in stage languages). Post-Text
is the "action" in the mind of the audience, when Actor's Chronotope becomes Spectator's
Chronotope (Subjective Time and Dramatic Space). Mise-en-scene could be seen as
"translation" of the pre-text drama (script); in acting classes we use the terms
"physicalisation," "vocalization," -- "visualization" (Show or Spectacle).
In general, actors do not care much about mise-en-scene, they have other means to express
themselves, but for directors this is the main medium (objective 4D world, 3D space and
time dimension). "Blocking" actors doesn't produce "Subjective Time and Dramatic Space" --
but only with actors (and their reactions to new space-time arrangements)! In other words,
it's a combination of two forces: stage and house. In The Book of Spectator I talk about the
phenomenon of Gaze (Public makes "The Empty Space" dramatic) -- and in interaction of the
two the dynamics of new time and space are born.

I always say that director is the first and the best spectator. I do nothing but prearranging
(formatting) the chronotope of spectator. I function as the Public Representative and only
because of it I have my powers on stage over all the elements. Director is a professional
spectator -- and I leave when the machine of the show is in place....

Mise-En-Scene (semiotics)
The performance text is 'all that is made visible or audible on stage' but is not perceived as a
system of meaning or a system of signifying stage systems. It is a text that has not yet been
'read', that has not yet been engaged with by the spectator in a process of meaning-making.
It is like the signifier without anyone to read it.

The mise en scene is a more complex term, and is created by both production and reception.
The term mise en scene is of course a French term, literally meaning 'the putting into the
scene', or 'on stage'. It comes from Latin words missus in scaenam meaning 'the placement
or sending onto the stage'. Patrice Pavis has described the mise en scene as "the utterance
of the dramatic text in performance" [Pavis, 1992, 25] and the creation of context for this
utterance. Of course he is talking here about theatre that has a 'dramatic text'.

The mise en scene is the performance text perceived as a system of signs working together
to produce meaning. In other words, it involves the same three elements that any sign
involves: signifier (the complex performance text), the signified (the open ended denotative
and connotative meanings that are generated by the performance text) and the perceiver of
the sign (the audience member).

While the performance exists as an object - even if a constantly shifting and tenuous one -
the mise en scene only exists as it is received and reconstructed by the individual spectator.
It is like electricity - it only exists when it is switched on. There can therefore be as many
mises en scene as there are spectators.

The mise en scene is a network of relationships between different stage materials and is
created by the artistic team - dramatist, director, designer, actor, musicians, technicians, and
the relationship between all of this and the spectator through the process of reception.

Pavis makes the crucial statement that:

"The utterance is always intended for an audience, with the result that mise en scene can no
longer ignore the spectators and must even include them as the receptive pole in the circuit
comprising the mise en scene produced by the artists and the mise en scene produced by
the spectators". (Pavis p. 38-9)
Pavis's use of the phrase "the mise en scene produced by the artists" is potentially
confusing, in that it calls attention to a more common use of the term mise en scene,
meaning 'the staging and scenography' of the production, or even 'the performance text'.
But his emphasis on dual agency (artists and audience) elucidates the essential role of the
audience in the 'meaning creation' loop that is the mise en scene, which Pavis defines as
"the bringing together or confrontation, in a given space and time, of different signifying
systems, for an audience".

The 'fitting' of the act of reception and the production of the performance text creates the
mise en scene.

It is for this reason that one cannot speak of the mise en scene as something solely produced
by the artists. Similarly, in "The Death of the Author", Barthes emphatically asserts the role
of the 'reader' in the 'unity' of 'text':

"a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual
relations dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is
focused and that place is the reader and not 'the author' a text's unity lies not in its origin
but in its destination".

The transitory and elusive nature of the theatrical 'text' ('performance text') could be called
its 'hazardous nature', for which "there is no other time than that of the enunciation".
Researching performance is, as Pearson and Shanks argue, an archaeological project,
because theatrical performance is 'the always already gone by'. The mise en scene is held
together momentarily by acts of production and reception. At the end of that moment, the
relationship falls back into nothing. The lights go out, the electricity is turned off, so to
speak, and we go home.

In reality it is most difficult to distinguish between text and reader, or between the
performance text and the mise en scene, precisely because in order to ascertain what
constitutes the performance text one has engage in a reading of it in some way. Perhaps this
is why Pavis' use of the terms 'performance', 'performance text' and mise en scene seem
somewhat confused at times.

Mise-en-Scene for Directing Students

Mise-en-scene is a core of directing. We can translate the French word "mise-en-scene" as
"staging" -- how much of it is done by actors themselves (self-directing)?

Well, the great set maps the great mise-en-scenes, but even in the empty space a single
actor is capable creating a great mise-en-scene. How?

You populate the space with imaginary subjects and objects, you position them by reacting
and your audience will follow your game.

Biomechanics-set, Meyerhold's set (constructivism): in addition to the 3 level of depth

(upstage, center, downstage) and 3 levels (stage-right to stage-left), we must consider the 3
vertical level (stage floor - body height -- above).
Even in a classroom I ask for those three vertical levels (floor, seating, standing) -- the
vertical must be explored. The higher we get, the stronger the statement. Now -- we have
use the entire combination of "9 Squares" (2D of the floor) X 3 vertical level! In short, 3D
space gives us 27 basic positions! Of course, this matter is more of concern for directors and
designers.

Directing: "Between the Actor and the Text"

If you remember Meyerhold's formula -- Actor = Artist + Medium -- you understand that the
first is the director in you! Put him to work!

Where is the focus of drama? Do you see the directions of tension?

Important for actor to remember that ALL acting areas (27) will be fixed with the light and
color (lighting design is based on the emotional logic of "actor-in-space-time"). In fact, the
potential combination of linguistic combinations is endless.

Focus on physicality, as usual, but now you have to think in term of space.

Did you use all 9 squares? Right, left, upstage, downstage? Draw the floor plan and your
numbered positions, corresponding to the text = Actor's Text.

Performance (acting) is "directing" from inside out, director (directing) does the same for
you, my friends, -- from outside in. Both have to become one (organic). "Blocking" shouldn't
apply to one only, but to both (actor + director). When I say "director," I speak for all
designers behind him.

Homework
Use the basic geometric figures for your movement design: triangle, square, circle. Decide
the vectors (directions) of movement. Mark your monologue (text). Explain your choices.
Examine all the figures!!

Macro-blocking -- director, micro-blocking -- actor!

Additional Info
The concept of the dominant was particularly fruitful. The dominant may be defined as the
focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the remaining
components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure. (Each mise-
en-scene must have it as a part of the show's concept.)

Maybe this is the right place to say that my take on Biomechanics is of a director. But even in
this capacity I am limited. I do not train actors for BM body; only on occasion, when I have
actors already with some gimnastic or acrobatics skills, we can't take a step forther the
spectacular presentation of Biomechanics (you probably read about "jump on the chest" and
so on). We have no time training, unless an actor does it on his or her own time.

Meyerhold loved Kabuki and Chinese Opera with their life-long training in movement for
actors. I am not sure that even in a repertory setting it is possible to train "Biomechanical
Actors" -- and I am not sure that this is neccessary. The same I might say for the Method.
Even in class I have no time for any real training; I try to use whatever "material" an actor
got already. In the "Twelfth Night" production during the auditions I looked for any sport
skill and when the time of callbacks came I ask to show what they have. Karate? Show what
you ALREADY can do. And I try to use it, the existing physical condition of an actor.

Mise-en-Scene for directors is from "outside in" (arranging space-time AROUND ACTOR).

The acting area is the area within the theater where the action takes place.

The main link to StageMatrix (directing class) is everywhere for a reason. Actor must know
the mind of playwright, the mind of spectator -- and the mind of DIRECTOR, who is between
text and public, who is the STAGE for actor.