Days 4 & 5 Archetypes and Elements

The Globe Theatre - filling for a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream

Pictures are permitted before performances as the audience gathers; no pictures or video once the show begin. Groundlings may sit until the play begins; then they must stand for the entire play.

Theater is about relationships.

1. We are learning about the circles within ourselves: earth, water, fire, air. We have learned a Sufi exercise [Explore the poet/philosopher Rumi.] that produces an awareness of the four elements within ourselves:
•Earth – flesh, weight, everything we can touch
•Water – blood, sweat, and tears; fluid
•Fire – nervous system, passion, spark
•Air – vascular system; every cell has air around it; the ethereal in us.*
[*The first breath we take (birth) is a breath of inspiration. Within 10 seconds of birth we take a breath "in," a hole in the heart closes, and we begin to live. The last breath we take (death) is a breath of expiration; we exhaust the last bit of air in our bodies: we expire - we die. The first breath of life and the last breath of live are the only breaths that we make a decision to take. All other breaths are a gift! There’s no need for me to be in charge; the breathing just happens naturally. Perhaps theater is the study of breath.]

This physical exercise is thousands of years old: gentle, demanding, whole.


2. We are learning about our relationship with other characters of the stage:
•The archetype activities – sovereign, warrior, lover (white knuckled holding in, explodes to open- armed love), and jester (wizard). Each Jungian archetype has its shadow – tyrant; murderer; needy, overbearing "smotherer," evil trickster (Iago). We have done many activities with the archetypes!
•Importance of balance: We played an improve game where we were on a saucer and had to move so that that saucer would stay balanced and not break.
[All of the activities translate to high school as well as to the little children who come for workshops.]


3. The Globe’s stage produces a third relationship - between the players and the audience: “We are a company of friends dependent upon the kindness of strangers.” The actors have a close physical and emotional relationship with the audience. With the Globe’s stage there is no dark theater, no people sitting in rows of seats waiting for a curtain to open and then watching the play in silence. At the Globe, people enter and leave the theater during the performance; some stand (groundlings); some sit (all close together). The audience calls out with passion at different moments. There is no darkness: plays are performed during the day or (as evening approaches) lights illuminate the entire audience and stage to simulate daylight.
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