Tzompantli

On Aztec acting styles:

The skulls of sacrificed god-actors were strung together on the temple “skull rack.” And their blood was offered to the lips of stone icons. Thus, Aztec sacrificial actors were not just mimetic victims. They became holy objects, before and after death, sacred puppets who absorbed a particular god’s power and personality through symbolic costumes and props.

...The divine power in these god-actors rejuvenated the sun and earth and all of Aztec culture. Without that theatre, the Aztecs believed their world would end. (SUNY Press)

Thanks to Sara Fay for this inspiration.

Let's make a tzompantli with the skulls of those who haven't learned their lines by Saturday!!! Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!! :)

And thanks to Sofia for this motivation, as we head into tech weekend!

The Stance

Thank heavens James, our Don Juan, remembered Delsarte. We have opened up a whole new door into the performance of the play within the play, adding a vocabulary inspired by Delsarte's approach to acting.

As Margarite Coutolen, our director, is such a fan of all things French, it comes as no surprise that her style is informed by the influential Francois Delsarte, who in the mid-19th century developed an acting style that attempted to connect the inner emotional experience of the actor with a systematized set of gestures and movements. According to wikipedia sources, this “Delsarte” method became so popular that it was taught throughout the world, but particularly in America, by many teachers who did not fully understand or communicate the emotional connections behind the gestures, and as a result the method devolved into melodramatic posing.

The fun irony is that the 'worst' actor in the play according to Margarite is Calixto, the Engineering student who's acting style is too natural for her taste. One might say his acting technique is ahead of its time, more in line with a Stanislavskian, early 20th century approach.

Luckily, Margarite is more than willing to break his bad habits and train him to be as good as Guillem the Great!