Beyond Just Acting

Abstract

This M.A. thesis is based on author Sai (Mai Ogawa)’s research from creating the performance “HSWD” (How to Suicide Without Dying). This paper aims to describe findings from personal, practical research into getting away from simple acting technique and performing dramatic characters toward employing personal emotional experience to devise one’s own performance.The author mostly focusses on her own findings on use of space, objects, dramaturgy and personal emotional experience in devising meaningful performance. The author also details several other experiences as co-creator and performer in other performances to enhance her findings in this thesis. The thesis also shows how exploration of these devising approaches can inform acting technique, towards an awareness the author calls “expanded acting”. Towards the end she makes some conclusions on the elements that need to be in place to create a meaningful devised performance work.