The Alchemical Actor

The Alchemical Actor
Author: Jane Gilmer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2021-05-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004449426

The Alchemical Actor – Performing the Great Work: Imagining Alchemical Theatre offers an imagination for an alchemical theatre inspired by the directives of Antonin Artaud.

Actor's Alchemy

Actor's Alchemy
Author: Bruce J. Miller
Publisher: Limelight
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780879103835

ACTOR'S ALCHEMY: HOW TO TURN YOUR SCRIPT INTO GOLD

The Alchemist

The Alchemist
Author: Erin Julian
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-05-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1780938292

The eponymous alchemist of Ben Jonson's quick-fire comedy is a fraud: he cannot make gold, but he does make brilliant theatre. The Alchemist is a masterpiece of wit and form about the self-delusions of greed and the theatricality of deception. This guide will be useful to a diverse assembly of students and scholars, offering fresh new ways into this challenging and fascinating play.

Alchemy in Contemporary Art

Alchemy in Contemporary Art
Author: Urszula Szulakowska
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780754667360

Alchemy in Contemporary Art analyzes how twentieth-century artists, beginning with French Surrealists of the 1920s, have appropriated concepts and imagery from the western alchemical tradition. Examining artistic production from ca. 1920 to the present, with an emphasis on artistic on the 1970s to 2000, the author discusses the work of familiar as well as lesser known artists to provide a critical, theorized overview of the alchemical tradition in 20th-century art.

In Search of Stanislavsky’s Creative State on the Stage

In Search of Stanislavsky’s Creative State on the Stage
Author: Gabriela Curpan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1000377059

This book rediscovers a spiritual way of preparing the actor towards experiencing that ineffable artistic creativity defined by Konstantin Stanislavski as the creative state. Filtered through the lens of his unaddressed Christian Orthodox background, as well as his yogic or Hindu interest, the practical work followed the odyssey of the artist, from being oneself towards becoming the character, being structured in three major horizontal stages and developed on another three vertical, interconnected levels. Throughout the book, Gabriela Curpan aims to question both the cartesian approach to acting and the realist-psychological line, generally viewed as the only features of Stanislavski’s work. This book will be of great interest to theatre and performance academics as well as practitioners in the fields of acting and directing.

Between Earth and Heaven

Between Earth and Heaven
Author: Dawn Langman
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2021-11-10
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1912230828

In this third volume in The Actor of the Future series, Dawn Langman continues to explore the integration of Steiner’s research into speech, drama and eurythmy with Michael Chekhov’s acting methodology. Her advanced applications of all the basic processes allow the art of the actor and speaker to evolve beyond the ‘soul and body’ paradigm – still broadly accepted in contemporary culture – to include dimensions of the spirit. The book contains a seminal analysis of comedy and tragedy, showing how an understanding of their esoteric roots – sprung from the Eleusis mysteries of ancient Greece – deepen our appreciation and our ability to implement the practical suggestions made by Steiner and Chekhov to differentiate the fundamental styles. A comprehensive exploration of the vowels in relation to planetary beings lays the foundation for many layers of artistic deepening and application. ‘Dawn Langman gifts us with yet another magnificent contribution to her book series developing an integrated acting technique based on the indications of Rudolf Steiner and Michael Chekhov, in which actors become the work of art. Venturing even further into the deeper alchemical mysteries of the work, Langman leads us into an imagination of future theatre that includes a genuine experience of the I AM, the origin of comedy and tragedy, Dante’s Paradiso as example of how we can experience the planetary spheres in word and gesture, and much more, inspiring the unfoldment of actors of the future.’ – Dr Jane Gilmer, actress and teacher, author of The Alchemical Actor (2021) and former Assistant Professor of Drama, VPA, National Institute of Education, Singapore ‘In this present volume, Dawn Langman continues her in-depth exploration of the integration of Michael Chekhov’s system of psycho-physical awareness with Rudolf Steiner’s indications for creative speech and eurythmy. In so doing, she genuinely models both teachers’ emphasis on experimentation and exploration absent the dogmatism sometimes associated with such work. The careful, conscious communication of her own advanced exercises created to develop this new methodology will be most effective when worked in conjunction with her previous books, The Art of Acting, The Art of Speech and The Actor of the Future, Vols. 1 & 2. Taken as a whole, Langman reveals the degree of empathy and responsiveness possible not only between human beings, but with all the manifold community of beings “between earth and heaven.”’ – Dr Diane Carracciolo, Associate Professor of Educational Theatre, Adelphi University, USA

Modern Alchemy

Modern Alchemy
Author: Mark Morrisson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2007-04-19
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0195306961

Alchemists are generally held to be the quirky forefathers of science, blending occultism with metaphysical pursuits. Although many were intelligent and well-intentioned thinkers, the oft-cited goals of alchemy paint these antiquated experiments as wizardry, not scientific investigation. Whether seeking to produce a miraculous panacea or struggling to transmute lead into gold, the alchemists radical goals held little relevance to consequent scientific pursuits. Thus, the temptation is to view the transition from alchemy to modern science as one that discarded fantastic ideas about philosophers stones and magic potions in exchange for modest yet steady results. It has been less noted, however, that the birth of atomic science actually coincided with an efflorescence of occultism and esoteric religion that attached deep significance to questions about the nature of matter and energy.Mark Morrisson challenges the widespread dismissal of alchemy as a largely insignificant historical footnote to science by prying into the revival of alchemy and its influence on the emerging subatomic sciences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Morrisson demonstrates its surprising influence on the emerging subatomic sciences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, Morrisson examines the resurfacing of occult circles during this time period and how their interest in alchemical tropes had a substantial and traceable impact upon the science of the day. Modern Alchemy chronicles several encounters between occult conceptions of alchemy and the new science, describing how academic chemists, inspired by the alchemy revival, attempted to transmute the elements; to make gold.Examining scientists publications, correspondence, talks, and laboratory notebooks as well as the writings of occultists, alchemical tomes, and science-fiction stories, he argues that during the birth of modern nuclear physics, the trajectories of science and occultism---so often considered antithetical---briefly merged.

Psychotherapy, the Alchemical Imagination and Metaphors of Substance

Psychotherapy, the Alchemical Imagination and Metaphors of Substance
Author: Alan Bleakley
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2023-07-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111159906

Alchemy is popularly viewed as a secret way of turning worthless base metal into gold, and then a precursor to modern chemistry. This is often taken as a metaphor for psychological development. This book describes an innovative "third way" for both the education and exercise of an alchemical imagination that embraces both material matters and psychological insight: alchemy as lyrical poetics, or the intensive production of embodied metaphor. Alchemy here is viewed as an immanent set of metaphor-driven "best practices" for indwelling complex and contradictory earthly matters in a sensual, artistic and humane manner. Or, again, it describes best psychotherapeutic practice. Alchemy is read not as a medium for "personal growth", but optimal co-existence with the natural world. It is an eco-logical rather than ego-logical project with deep aesthetic concerns (education of the senses in close noticing) and political intentions (a democracy of worldly things). The book echoes post-Freudian developments in psychoanalysis that avoid the mysticism of symbol systems to work rather with everyday signs and linguistic registers such as embodied metaphors, keeping the focus on known and sensed phenomena rather than abstractions.

The Alchemist

The Alchemist
Author: Ben Jonson
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2023-05-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

First performed in 1610, The Alchemist is one of Ben Jonson’s greatest comedies. Written for the King’s Men—the acting company to which Shakespeare belonged—it was first performed in Oxford because the playhouses in London were closed due to the plague. It was an immediate success and has remained a popular staple ever since. The play centers around a con man, his female accomplice, and a roguish butler who uses his master’s house to gull a series of victims out of their money and goods. Jonson uses the play to satirize as many people as he can—pompous lords, greedy commoners, and self-righteous Anabaptists alike—as his three con artists proceed to bilk everyone who comes to their door. They don multiple roles and weave elaborate tales to exploit their victims’ greed and amass a small fortune. But it all comes to a sudden, raucous end when the master unexpectedly returns to London and all the victims gather to try and reclaim their property.

Freeing Shakespeare's Voice

Freeing Shakespeare's Voice
Author: Kristin Linklater
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Total Pages: 225
Release: 1993-01-01
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1559366389

A passionate exploration of the process of comprehending and speaking the words of William Shakespeare. Detailing exercises and analyzing characters' speech and rhythms, Linklater provides the tools to increase understanding and make Shakespeare's words one's own.