that BODY WORK

German actors are exciting. Muy exciting. They're brave as hell, and seem to have less socialized walls obstructing they're choices. For me the most exciting way this manifests is in their full physical life and fucking expansive movement they're able to bring to these pieces. Firstly the German directors allowing for abstract movement and expression in the pieces we have seen so far, especially in Othello, Hamlet, Lulu and status quo among others, has inspired me greatly as a storyteller and especially an Actor. In tandem with their director, the actors in these pieces bring great physical life as well as emotional. Something I find is a weakness for myself as an actor and with American actors across the board. We like to play it safe physically and move in a "natural" and "truthful" way relying on how interesting our emotional life is. This very well could be a consequence of the climate of American theater and our directors but is subject for another post at another time. Back to the Deutsche, I like how down and dirty the actors are in the work. They're not precious physically and don't have the, in my experience, westernized and usually subconscious "does this look good" wall that often I feel gets in the way of full commitment. To echo Rafat today, "we must go back to zero for every new piece, we must become babies, we crawl and then we walk." Babies aren't worried about being seen, and certainly not about the way they look. They just...are. Which for me describes the finer German acting we have witnessed on the trip. Say what you want about Lulu but Painter Man's dancing made that show worth it for me. These are actors being deliciously human, sometimes fearfully so(Lars, and scraachy man's praised turn) and sometimes physically abstract in their humanness(Othello), both for me has that extra oomph of expression that I think the American theater lacks.