Like A Dog – Exploring Kafka’s Trial with Chekhov Technique

I remember meeting a playwright who came to the university and he told us how a theatre company had asked him to write them a play. He agreed and, on the day he was to start, they brought in a large rock and asked him to use this piece of rock as an inspiration for his play. A tangible, poetic image to start his work, no story, not even an issue. A rock.

Anyone who believes the Michael Chekhov technique is only for plays is missing some massive opportunities to use the work and expand and develop devising and adaptation.

I love to use Chekhov technique for adaptation – in this weekend workshop we were using Kafka’s Trial – because it enables you to worry less about narrative and focus in on the essence of what is going on through images and atmosphere ( like the playwright who uses the rock to inspire him). If you do it this way round, if you look for what is going on underneath first, then you will find something which imbues the narrative with a depth you could never have found otherwise. This frightening and rather formless-sounding idea was nonetheless structured in our weekend workshop as I had the group look specifically at two episodes: the beginning and the end.

It is always a good plan to consider the beginning and the end of whatever you are making. It is true you can just ‘wait and see’ but that way the creator can easily get lost. However, if there is a beginning and end, you have a grasp of the piece. It does not mean that you cannot make radical changes, indeed it is right that the end might change, but you have addressed the piece as a whole from early on.

Working with the essentials of radiating/receiving/ease and form/ general atmosphere and working with images, we then began to work on the two episodes, looking for images and atmosphere, which we firstly made into non-narrative pieces. I wanted to encourage the group to resist any temptation to ‘tell the story’ in the initial pieces. This made, in the first piece particularly, a violent animalistic rat-infested world.  I then suggested that they looked at the atmosphere of the mundane world of Joseph K and for both groups to explore narrative tableaux. They then started to mesh the two elements, the mundane and the imaginative, of the story and the image, together.

We then added some text, both narrative and conversational, from the passages I had chosen, building our pieces with several ‘showings’ as we built up the pieces. This was a very supportive and creative group. I am going to run another of these workshops which take first principle elements of Chekhov and a novel.

Next up is Archetypes and Archetypal Atmospheres and as it is Midsummer, we will be working with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so we will be doing some voice work too. It takes place on June 21-23.  There are still places. Email chekhovtrainperformireland@gmail.com to book your place. The Venue is NUI Galway.

 

 

 

Writing and Teaching

As I approach the end of the first draft of my next teaching book I am filled with a number of emotions. The first is overwhelming gratitude that I have been given the opportunity to share my teaching experience once more. Whenever I think ruefully of yearned-for opportunities I may have not been offered over my life, I think of the many many people who are never offered these kind of opportunities. I remember once when, as a very young actor I was working in a pretty woeful tv series and really hating it and surrounded by extras who wanted to be in my shoes.

One thing sharing your teaching experiences allows is for you to pass your work on with your own particular emphasis. Ultimately for me, theatre is less about product and more about how you get there. I have said many times that people do their best, truly magical work in workshop. This for me is a tremendously liberating experience. Whenever someone speaks or writes to me that Teaching Voice has been really helpful in their work, I feel very content, because that is what life is; it is movement and sharing.

In discussion lately with someone writing a martial arts book, we came to the problem of trying to describe in text, something that is experiential and concerned movement and the fear of cheapening or mechanizing learning which should flow. Chekhov Technique, which makes up a large part of the new book, cannot be learned from books alone. The book can be an important inspiration, a window, a spur to finding out by experience and hands-on learning. What I mean is that I can describe an element or an exercise, but it is only by trying it out that I really find out.

Another aspect of the book I have enjoyed in this drafting is looking back at some productions I have done, particularly those with young people. I have been thinking especially about a production of Macbeth I did in the late 90s for the Galway Arts Festival and Galway Youth Theatre and remembered when Macbeth fled up a ladder high above the banquet when he saw the ghost of Banquo whilst the guests looked on aghast from below; or another moment when Lady Macbeth was stamped on by the witches as she made her vow of evil.

Another challenge is for me to keep the exercises and process clear for people with less experience and not over-simplify. I hope I have achieved that.

As Regina Crowley generously said in her review of Teaching Voice:

“The nature of the actor’s creative and expressive process is complex because the raw materials the human being who performs. Hafler is well aware of this and combines very effectively the teachings of Michael Chekhov with work on voice to awaken aspects of the performer.”

I am running a Voice/Chekhov/Shakespeare weekend here in Galway , June 21-23rd where we’ll be appropriately looking at A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is filling up but if you are interested email chekhovtrainperformireland@gmail.com  or check out the website www.chekhovtrainingandperformanceireland.com