Parting with the Part: Actors’ Approach to de-roling in ABU Studio Theatre experiment

Abstract

Much of the available literatures on acting have offered ways upon which an actor can become the character in a stage or film production. This is evident in many workshopical presentations and volumes where many actor-trainers and scholars in acting have suggested diverse methods, exercises and games to help the actor to incarnate or live the character. Some of the leading classical theatre scholar-practitioners in this regard include Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jerzy Grotowski, Alexander Tairov, among others. This study takes a detour from the tradition of steering or guiding the actor to becoming the character. In doing this, it examines the processes of how the Nigerian stage actor can un-become the character from previous performance before entering another. The argument is premised on the ground that many Nigerian stage actors  carry the residuals of diverse intense character roles to real life situations and that this poses threats  both to the actors and the society. We make argument for the need to de-role the Nigerian stage and screen  actor on the acts of parting with the part after every production or performance outing. We draw our data from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Studio Theatre Acting Workshop of 2020 to contend that the processes of unbecoming the character requires some contra-lateral performatives and rituals-a process that can help debrief the actor from intense roles played during a performance while at the same time leading him or her to living within the realm of the conscious self. We conclude that methods aimed at unbecoming should also form part of the pedagogy to aid the actor to perform truthfully.