by Robin Galen Kilrain

An Acrobat of the Heart:
A Physical Approach to Acting Inspired by the Work of Jerzy Grotowski
Stephen Wangh

While some theatre practitioners swear by the idea of melding physical practices with the craft of acting, others don’t see the point much past blocking notes. Polish director Jerzy Grotowski was definitely in the former group, finding physical training to be a key to reaching new depths of performance, using acrobatics of the body to help release somersaults in the soul. In An Acrobat of the Heart: A Physical Approach to Acting Inspired by the Work of Jerzy Grotowski, Stephen Wangh explains how he, as well, pursues this path not always taken.

In 1967, Jerzy Grotowski came to New York City to lead his first workshop in the United States. Not sure what they were in for, some lucky New York University acting and directing students, among them Stephen Wangh, were the recipients of four intense weeks of training. Although an interpreter translated Grotowski’s French, comprehending the “language” of his exercises and the principles behind them required considerably more effort from the students. Nevertheless, Wangh, for one, found his emotional energy being freed through the physical challenges presented, even before he fully understood how or why.

Thirty-two years later, former N.Y.U. student Wangh had become N.Y.U. faculty member Wangh (in addition to having worn the hats of lyricist, artistic director, playwright, dramaturg and director), and the intervening decades had produced a wealth of understanding within him. Having for years taught classes based heavily on the “body-centered actor training” (xxiv) that Grotowski saw as a means to an end of breaking down personal blocks, Wangh penned a book sharing his own teaching methods, inspired by those original sessions so long ago.

Wangh presents this work in several easy to absorb ways. Primarily, he uses narrative to depict eight composite students taking a semester with him at the Experimental Theatre Wing at N.Y.U. Readers are able to follow the travails of Joan, Brian, Maria, et al. as their explorations, mindsets and questions serve to represent the countless students the author has guided (and who, he admits, have in turn guided his teachings). Description of these fictionalized students’ experiences is accompanied by boxed sections with numbered steps precisely breaking down exercises. For added emphasis, selected key points — “the task is finding strong emotional life with which to fill our powerful and expressive bodies” (117), for example — are highlighted in bold print. Also including a number of illustrations, the book is quite accessible.

Chapters are dedicated to warm-ups, along with voice, scene and character work. Grotowski’s exercises corporels — full-body movements that especially target release in the lower body — and exercises plastiques — actions practiced in isolation or in flow, each of which can be experienced as both “an emotive gesture” and “an external key to an internal door” (76) — are also featured. Though many of the lessons related in the book cannot be directly traced to Grotowski (the title does include the phrase inspired by, after all), an underlying belief system does seem to refer back to the theatre innovator: No matter how tried-and-true, refined or defined techniques may be, they themselves are less important than the journey they can lead actors on.

In a reader’s note at the front of the book, Wangh specifies that Acrobat of the Heart is “written for all actors who wish to connect their bodies more fully with their acting work.” But, who knows. Even skeptics may find Wangh’s paths persuasive, perhaps being surprised by, as were 20 students in 1967, just where a door opened by a plastique or two might lead.