Physical Communication
The incomparable acting teacher, Alice Spivak, who worked with the National Theater of the Deaf, said that any deaf person should be able to watch any play and know exactly what is going on. That includes Shakespeare! No matter the complexity of the language—the acting, the behavior, the “showing” of the story should be clear. Physical communication is sometimes referred to as ‘body language,’ though that term constrains the complexity; physical communication involves the emotions, expression, sound, energy, use of the space, anything that we use to communicate. It tells the story that others receive in a true and visceral way. And if we are conflicted about our words, our physical communication can betray our true feelings.
Anyone here fallen asleep during a production of Hamlet? I may have…Certainly the text is pretty extraordinary. So why might someone be bored or not able to connect to this most human drama? Most likely be cause the story is only told verbally and not inhabited physically. There is no coherence between the words, the expression, the body, and the intention. And haven’t we all experienced the strange pit in our stomachs when someone’s words do not match their expression? Maybe they tell us that everything is “just fine,” while tears pour down their cheeks. Or that they are not angry, though their jaws are clenched tight. Or that they’re listening while scanning social media. When our physical communication is incongruent with our words, the other, the audience, the group, feels that tension. They hear one message and receive another.
Most of the time we communicate without words at all—just gestures, expressions, sighs. One of the most beautiful theater experiences I have ever had was at the 1989 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A Yugoslavian theater company, Theatre Tattoo, performed all of their plays with no words. They were not performing mime or “physical theater,” or clowning. No, the plays they wrote simply captured the interstitial moments between us when no words are spoken.
We start in a bar. A man dressed in black puts a gun to the barkeep’s ear. Without a word, the barkeep opens the cash register and hands over a wad of cash. The man stuffs it into a leather bag. The man leaves and we follow him out onto the street, into a side alley, through a door, and up a narrow staircase. He disappears as we enter the theater. On stage, a woman makes the bed, then exits. The man crawls into the bedroom window. He quietly closes the window and moves into the bathroom. The woman enters with a basket of laundry. He comes back out, towel wrapped around his waist and she tosses him the edge of a sheet. They fold the laundry while a large rabbit dances around them—a memory from his childhood? Gypsy music tempts him to leave the room where he joins another woman in a passionate embrace. The rabbit follows him and the woman cries into the clean sheets…
This week, we notice our own physical communication and the physical communication of others. If we feel that tension, trust it. Take a breath, and think about what we really want to say or how we really want to say it. And if we feel it coming from someone else, gently question their meaning to see if you can tease out a closer truth…
Just read this wonderful post from New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly and wanted to add it to this post.