I was a member of a drama club when I was a high school student. Sometimes, drama clubs from different schools gathered for conferences, and we had comment workshops. I was a member of one such workshop. Some local theater people attended as advisors. We discussed the performances of each drama club, and one performance gave us a very difficult topic.
In one scene, an actor slapped
another, hitting the other actor’s face pretty hard. Most of the audience was
surprised but enjoyed the scene; teenagers love aggression. However, this
created a major issue for the comment workshop, which had two adult theater
artists. Their opinions were completely opposite.
One artist criticized the scene,
saying we should not allow violence in any situation. Actors need to learn to
pretend to slap. If someone got injured on the stage, they might be unable to
continue their performance.
The other artist appraised the
scene and said that reality is important. If actors practiced enough, serious
accidents would never happen.
The two artists argued for a very
long time. They almost forgot that this was a workshop for high school
students. We were surprised to hear a serious argument between adults.
This is a controversial topic in
acting worldwide. People have never reached a consensus about this. In my
opinion, if the actors and director have a relationship of mutual trust and
enough time to practice, it might be OK. But I feel slapping someone on stage
is kind of an old custom. Audiences might not want to watch that sort of scene
these days.
Kiyosi Atumi is one of the
greatest actors in Japanese history. In his main work, “It’s Tough Being a
Man,” he described a scene in which he slapped an actress’s face. The director
asked him to actually slap her. I think he was reluctant to do that. As a
result, he slapped her face very softly. It was almost touching. This could be
a possible solution.
Proofreading
by Michael W, ProofreadingServices.com
Picture
by VECTORIUM
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