Broadway Teacher's Workshop Last Day!

Broadway Teacher’s Workshop

Playing with the Classics

Susan Frank

Stephan Wolfert is an army veteran, who was a medic and an infantry officer from 1986 to 1993.  He left the military after seeing a production of “Richard III”.  He has had extensive experience directing, acting, staging, and working to re-integrate veterans after they return home to their normal lives through DE-Cruit, using classical acting techniques. He gives a free class every Monday night for any veterans walking off the street, to help them with living their post-military lives.  His colleague, John M. Meyer is also a US army veteran who acts and writes as well as works with veterans through a fellowship at Bedlam Theater.  What does anyone know about Shakespeare, other than there are incredible plot lines and confusing and antiquated speech?  Wolfert de-mystifies the Bard in innovative and creative ways.

There was little introduction in this class.  You were immersed in a warm-up activity within a few minutes of arrival.  Begin walking, walk faster, walk in random patterns.  Now walk and acknowledge everyone you see.  Then, choose someone to follow and observe, but do not let them know you are doing it.  Study the way they walk, the way they hold their arms,  their facial expressions.  Keep observing them without acknowledging them.  Now begin to move and act like the person you have been observing.  Keep copying their movements and keep adding to your interpretation.  Add a voice to this character.  Now stop, and everyone say together, “The deed is done!”  

After each exercise there was time for discussion.  How did this make you feel?  What thoughts came up while you were doing it?  What were the differences between how you felt at the beginning and how you felt after the first part of the exercise, and after “The deed is done.”  Wolfert has a magic to his style, he gets introverted people to share, not just the extroverts.  He asks such leading and provocative questions that everyone wants to contribute to the learning process.  He bathes you in comfort with any form of expression.  He allows for anything to happen, yet it is all in a positive, hopeful, learning vein.  

He speaks about “the toddler pose”.  He asks the group first why they think it is called “the toddler pose”.  Then he explains, that toddlers move through the world open, they have not learned to defend themselves, they are able to be vulnerable, they can trust.  Adults create ways to protect themselves with their stance, folding their arms in front of them, clenching their hands together.  

In the next exercise, you begin to move, but you are moving backwards.  You have to move slowly, and you are not allowed to look behind you.  Then you whisper to the people you run into “The deed is done” and keep on going.  What is that about?  The group processed this right away.  You are not as secure if you are walking backwards, you are vulnerable, it is scary.  It is only after this that he reminds us that in Macbeth, where the line originates, the castle is dark, and the characters are vulnerable and they have to move slowly and whisper.  You have just experienced your first Wolfert exercise.  Veterans, of course, have post-traumatic stress, and these exercises not only root them in a sense of safety but help them to diminish the strength of their intense memories.  It is a powerful experience.

That was not all, though.  It continued with a printed section from a George Bernard Shaw play, and groups of four, and then groups of two.  We practiced, all together, these sections, everyone talking at once, over and over, and then certain pairs of two got up to read their versions.  At the end of the session, he reminded us that we had created at least three characters during the class time.  He sweeps you into this process and somehow gets you to let go of your inhibitions, and you can’t help but learn not only about how to create a character, how to neutralize your tension, but also how your learning can translate right away to a classroom of your students.  The most important piece of wisdom he imparts at the end is the power of performance, acting, creating characters, as “medicine”.  We have been changed by his exercises, inspired by his wisdom, opened up by the idea that we can observe ourselves at all times without any judgments.  When you study the process using only observations, no judgments, all of a sudden you are in a neutral, open creative space.  Bedlam Theater Website