John Freeman, U.K.
John Freeman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and author of numerous published books on theatre and performance, including 'Blood, Sweat & Theory', 'New Performance/New Writing' and 'Remaking Memory'; he is currently under contract with Palgrave for 'Actor Training: International Perspectives'.
Freeman's background is in contemporary performance practice with a primary focus on postmodern and post-dramatic techniques; he has acted in plays ranging from the world premiere of Edward Bond's 'Jackets' to the Chester Mystery Plays where he played Satan and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Macbeth' and 'Measure for Measure' for the BBC. He has directed productions in numerous countries and contexts, often working in immersive and non-traditional venues.
Freeman has held senior university roles in the UK and Australia before taking up his current post as Professor of Theatre and Dean of Culture & Language Sciences at the University of St Mark & St John UK.
ACTING AS ACTION: OBJECTIVES, INTENTIONS, VICTORIES
Objectives create an essential part of actors' inner lives in imaginary situations; they drive us through the circumstances of scenes by stimulating our imagination; they give us an inner structure, linking the things our characters want through actions; they enable us to react spontaneously to other actors and events and helping to access and release emotions.
Actors who don’t play objectives will often end up with generalised performances, the type of representational acting that means unconsciously adopting a manner or style, of doing something sadly or eccentrically so that spectators see a ‘sad’ or ‘eccentric’ scene as opposed to the telling of a story through the enactment of action. With Shakespeare's plays, steeped in a history of self-consciously mannered acting, it is all too easy for us to fall into this trap.
This series of workshops will help actors to engage with objectives and to realise these through a series of actions. Actors will read their scenes and decide what their characters are trying to achieve, putting this in actable, intention-charged words, opening up the scenes they are working on, connecting the dialogue with the intention and playing scenes to win.