Technique vs Interpretation

Technique vs Interpretation

Interpretation

·     a stylistic representation of a creative work or dramatic role.

Technique

·     a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure.

·     skill or ability in a particular field.

Above are two very different statements and something we talked about on our recent Skype call (Tuesday 25th Sept 2018) that fundamentally underlines our individual professional practice. What we teach and how we actually teach it.

Thus far in my teaching career, I have been privileged with choice. Running a business, I can choose my own syllabus, direct a show my way, and ultimately choose my own style. I have taken ideas and methods from previous teachers, other practitioners and from those who have influenced my life professionally and found my own professional style. 

In my new job role as the drama teacher of a Private Prep School, I was handed a scheme of work. Brilliant! Surely? Well... not quite. What am I finding? Some of it is un-engaging, some of it doesn’t work and some of it just isn't my style. It is only by trial and error, failure and success can I build upon this scheme of work, reflect and rework; this is where my artistic success lies. 

Last week during LAMDA Tuition. I had two boys performing the same monologue for their Grade 8 Acting Exam. They shared a lesson and reflected upon each other’s work. (Peer assessment) It filled me with such delight when they performed it in such different ways. Both equally enjoyable. Both equally as skilled. Both so very different. The words are the same, they all have to face the audience, say the words, breathe, perform with diction, etc; but the way in which they say the words, how they interpret the piece is the fundamental difference.

How lucky we are to be able to have this artistic choice when at times our predecessors were challenged, stopped and often criticised. 2018 is a more open world than the likes of Stanislavski and Brecht and I can only see the future being more experimental; despite the rules and regulations that we have to confer. (Safeguarding, Ethics, Policies and Procedures) 

Reading through some Shakespeare this week I came across this quote from Act 1, Scene 2 of the Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare 

Portia says:“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” 

A poetical reflection upon life and teaching. In short, Portia says, it is much easier to tell twenty people how to be good, than to be the one person out of twenty who can do good things. How very true indeed. Learning is by doing and we must strive to be that one out of twenty who pushes those artistic boundaries and finds their own professional practice.