Actor Training and Australian Drama: Lecoq, Meyerhold, Harrison, and Katz

Vocabulary flashcards covering actor training methodologies (Jacques Lecoq and Vsevolod Meyerhold) and contemporary Australian drama (Jane Harrison's 'The Visitors' and Lally Katz's 'Neighbourhood Watch').

Jacques Lecoq (1921–1999)

French theatre practitioner who developed an approach to actor training focused on discovering character and dramatic meaning through movement, play (Le Jeu), and physical experimentation.

Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940)

Russian theatre practitioner who rejected naturalism in favour of stylised performance and developed Biomechanics to emphasise precision, rhythm, and disciplined physical expression.

Stylisation

Meyerhold's theatrical philosophy encouraging actors to construct dramatic meaning through deliberate, exaggerated movement, expressive gestures, and symbolic spatial composition rather than realistic representation.

Plasticity of the statue

Meyerhold's concept that actors must study sculptural form and deliberate physical construction through gesture, posture, and spatial composition to engage the spectator's imagination.

Biomechanics

Meyerhold's system of disciplined physical training that uses precision, rhythm, coordination, and physical control to construct theatrical meaning through movement rather than psychologically driven performance.

Otkaz

The biomechanical principle of preparation, ensuring that an actor's stance and physical action are consciously grounded and focused before execution.

Posyl

The biomechanical principle of execution, referring to the intentional carrying out and energetic transition of a physical action.

Tochka

The biomechanical principle of completion, representing the precise stop, point of impact, or frozen conclusion of a physical movement.

The Slap

A biomechanical exercise demonstrating Otkaz, Posyl, and Tochka through controlled focus, shifts in weight, and rhythm to visually clarify an action and its reaction.

Neutral Mask

A foundational Lecoq training tool that strips away dialogue, habitual mannerisms, and facial expressions so that the performer's body becomes a face capable of expressing character, time, and setting.

Le Jeu

Lecoq's concept of theatrical play and responsiveness, which encourages actors to discover dramatic meaning and storytelling through physical exploration.

The Journey

A practical workshop exercise utilizing Lecoq's Neutral Mask, requiring actors to communicate transitions through continuous imagined environments (such as shore, forest, mountain, and river) solely through movement, weight, tempo, and levels.

Animal Study

Lecoq's training method where actors observe the organic movements, weight, rhythm, posture, and behaviour of animals to expand their physical vocabulary and develop expressive characters.

Predator versus Prey workshop

A physical exercise in Lecoq training where contrasting animal postures, levels, and proxemics are embodied to visually establish status, power dynamics, and dramatic tension.

Jane Harrison

Australian playwright of The Visitors (2020), who re-centres First Nations perspectives to expose the impacts of colonisation and challenge simplistic assumptions about Indigenous identity.

The Visitors (2020)

A realist play by Jane Harrison that depicts a council of First Nations Elders deliberating over their response to the arrival of the First Fleet.

Indigenous Homogeneity

The reductive social misconception that all First Nations people share identical views and values, which Harrison disproves through diverse Elder characterisations and ideological divides.

Deliberate Anachronism

A theatrical technique employed in The Visitors by dressing First Nations characters in modern Western formal blazers, disrupting audience expectations and challenging historical colonial representations.

Kinship Hierarchy

The traditional First Nations social and familial governance structure reflected on stage through physical levels and status, such as positioning younger members physically below and outside the central formation of Elders.

Lally Katz

Australian playwright of Neighbourhood Watch (2011), who explores how war, displacement, migration, and grief shape personal identity and community belonging in contemporary Australia.

Neighbourhood Watch (2011)

A play by Lally Katz that examines the relationship between Catherine, a young woman experiencing grief, and Ana, an elderly Hungarian WWII survivor, within a suburban Australian community.

Magical Realism

A dramatic technique utilized in Neighbourhood Watch to collapse the boundaries between past and present, transporting characters across time and geography into traumatic wartime memories.

Split Staging

A staging technique used in Neighbourhood Watch to physically separate characters across different spaces, visually illustrating emotional isolation and grief.