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Okay, everyone knows who Charlie Chaplin was. Well, even if you have not seen his films... (now I start wondering if there is any teenager reading this..)
Marcel Marceau adored Chaplin and he studied Chaplin for many years. That is also a well known story in the world of mime art.
If you have a chance, try to look really closely at Chaplin's innocent eyes and
character. We call that type of character "the cookie" . This term
came from Gregg's funny story about a parrot's way to ask her owner for a
cookie. She always made the request irresistibly charming.
We study that
"cookie" in our class. Because those Chaplin's eyes can get inside
people's heart, like lovable baby eyes.
I already wrote about some
eye muscle exercises to make the perfect frames for strong thoughts. But I
would also like to write about something most essential for all artists who
deal with thoughts, which is the "inside" of your eyeballs.
A decade ago, Gregg told
me this shocking quote:
"Someday in the
future, you will have to face how you really see the world. You may avoid
facing this for now, but because you are a serious mime, it will eventually
come back to you and will beat you."
What a quote... This made
me think deeply for years about the link between my psychological state and
performance quality. Overtime, I slowly processed what he meant by "how
you see the world".
This applies to other art forms as well, but especially in mime, because we
convey the story mostly through thoughts coming out from our eyes, audience notices
if our eyes are not "innocent". Pure thoughts cannot come through
opaque eyes.
If we are holding fears, shyness, insecurity, self consciousness,
competitive consciousness, evilness..., or any mental state that shuts our
heart, our believable thoughts cannot reach the audience. What the audience
sees is a set of empty eyes with no real thoughts inside. And often, the
audience unwillingly witnesses the dark shadow in our subconsciousness.
Have you ever watched a well written mime play with very skilled performers, but for some unknown reason you felt sick of watching? That is probably the shadow you accidentally witnessed.
Have you ever watched a well written mime play with very skilled performers, but for some unknown reason you felt sick of watching? That is probably the shadow you accidentally witnessed.
Here is a quote by the jazz trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie saying exactly the same thing in "Dizzy" by Lee
Tanner.
"The first thing we must keep in mind about a musician is that the music
he plays is a reflection of his true self. His music might not be what you, the
listener, thinks he is, but truly, he can no more escape himself through his
playing than we can escape the contingent world in which we are placed, except
through death. You are what you are; that is reality, you can't escape it. And
the reality of the musician - especially the jazz musicians - is that the music
is a continuance of himself."
Audience is a symbol of your world. And in your subconsciousness, the world you
see is a reflection of how you see "yourself".
How do you see and feel your world? Can you truly love and trust your world,
which is a reflection of your true self? Can you share your thoughts as if there
is no border (proscenium) between you and your world? Can you freely allow your
audience to become "you" and live your emotional
moments? Universality in this art form is disturbed if
"yourself" is not living in universality.
Therefore, we need to study baby eyes, and their psychological state.There is
no border to separate a baby from his world. There is only oneness existing
within his eyes.
I was born and raised in
Japan, where the society expects everyone to overly humble themselves. I
knew it, but I had no idea how much that social system negatively affected my
relationship with audience.
Breaking my habit to protect myself within a barrier called
"shyness", has become the toughest challenge I found in my
career. After I recognized this barrier, I decided to go back to my
forgotten past and reprogram my relationship with self and world step by step.
Shyness is not welcome in art (or life). I used to think that shyness and
innocence were somewhat similar, but later learned that shyness is in fact the
opposite side of innocence and too painful to watch on stage.
Shyness is a shadow of disbelief in yourself, everyone holds somewhere deep
inside. Contrary, innocence is absence of disbelief in yourself or the world.
Thus, confidence and innocence are synonymous. I believe that true
confidence we the performers want to gain is the strength to focus on innocence
and self-belief until it wins and melts the shadow
we unconsciously brought from the past.
I am still working on my challenge every time I enter the stage. It is a
long journey for me to acquire real innocent confidence where the shadow
of self-disbelief does not exist. I dream of reaching the level where I meet my
world (audience) with a completely open and relaxed heart, which is sprinkled
with the "cookie" charm flavor.
Here is my favorite
"Cookie" character in Gregg's "Loves Me Not".
Enjoy!
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Written by Haruka Moriyama
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