Week 10: "Group Intensity Techniques and Classroom Applications"
Helping a Group Intensify
This week we will discuss picturization — the projection of group action. Previously, you learned that gesture pertains only to the individual; picturization, however, concerns a group of actors in which each actor uses the gestures appropriate to his own character.
Definition
The picturization is storytelling by a group of actors in the space and in the time. It is brought about by the combined use of composition (the arrangement of the group), gesture (the individual moving within his own sphere), and improvisation with properties (objects added to composition and gesture) for the specific purpose of animating the dramatic action. Picturization, then, is a picture containing detailed illustrations, brought about by individualizing and personalizing composition through the use of gestures and properties to tell the story of what's happening in a group of characters at a particular moment.
Concept
Picturizations are what we actually see in the performance of a play, the same pictures we see in real life when two or more people can be observed relating to each other physically. Again, you must remember that a staged scene of a play is composed of a succession of still shots, with a new composition born every time the physical relationships of the basic elements are changed. We use the term picturization in order to say that we have added the storytelling details of gesture and properties to the composition. Remember, though, that composition is an abstraction — we never actually see it in its clear form except in exercises, nor do we see gesture stopped and held as in a tableau except in still photographs. Of course, if it is not a style of performance. But, usually, in actual practice, when we set up compositions, “we wipe gestures from our eyes” to see whether we have established a good composition, then “we put them back” to see if we are making a good picturization. Can you see the logic of this order?
Picturization means that each actor in a group is presenting the dramatic action of his or her character with the decorum of that character. The aim is to create the appropriate relationship between and among characters, that helps to intensify their Physical Action, because out of this relationship, the strong feelings to which an audience reacts emerge.
Remember, only when a group of actors plays the action intensively will feelings emerge. So the actors must find the proper character-mood-intensities for the picture in order for it to project the desired emotional truth. Remember also that picturizations are visual illustrations—only part of the full “illustration” of a moment that involves speech as well as movement.
Techniques
Good picturization involves the expert use of a well-conceived groundplan, because the obstacles in such a plan will suggest all sorts of picturization ideas to actors. Thus, the groundplan is again a fundamental means of communication. As understanding of the action grows, actors will become more and more intensively involved physically and manifest with greater detail. If the basic composition is right, fresh ideas about gesture (the individual in the sphere) will emerge, and along with them, the improvisational use of properties. Thus, picturization will grow. Following are some specific suggestions:
1. Encourage picturization over and around obstacles (see Figure 42). Remember: Obstacles prevent climactic compositions and thus intensify conflict. They also help emphasize actors by taking on animate qualities in compositions.
2. Encourage space separations between characters, and the use of different planes, levels, and body positions (see Figures 43 and 44, A, B, and C are characters).
3. Look for intimate climactic picturizations (see Figure 45) and encourage actors to touch one another if appropriate to the scene and the decorum.
4. Look for the appropriate character-mood-intensities of the different characters. This procedure will declare the tension levels in the pictures by encouraging the actors to find illustrations at the levels of their nervosity in the scene. All pictures will contain character-mood-intensities of some sort, but the major problem is finding the appropriate intensities so that the illustrations will tell the truth. Here, gestures play an important part in picturization values.
5. Exploit gesture in every possible way by encouraging actors to vary their illustrations within their spheres by taking them, on occasion, to the full limits and withdrawing them to the opposite extreme.
6. Encourage the continuous use of triangles in setting up compositions, but vary them in as many interesting ways as possible. There is nothing so dull in picture-making as the repetitious use of triangles of the same size and shape. Remember that a good composition must be at the base of every good picture, so make your composition first; then add details.
7. Encourage the use of hand properties, because they have high picture-making potential in bringing about varied body positions, levels, and so on.
8. When you have exhausted all the director-actor communication possibilities for making good pictures by ensuring that the actors understand every detail of the action, you can turn to the secondary functions of picturization, which include:
a. Balancing the stage. Remember that your picture on the proscenium stage is in a frame, and it is possible for you to make a visually beautiful picture if you follow some of the rules of good perspective painting. Picturizations thus have pictorial values that can give pleasure to an audience, whether it is consciously so for them or not. Study the groupings in Renaissance paintings to see how the masters made picturizations that are rich in expressivity and in the case of Caravaggio, stunningly theatrical and exciting (not to mention superbly lit).
b. Exploiting the stage cube. Remember that you are composing pictures in a cube and not merely on the flat floor of the stage. Thus, you can find many unusual storytelling pictures through the use of levels such as stairways, balconies, and so forth. Learn to exploit the contrasts in levels to the fullest.
c. Exploiting the extremes of the stage floor. This means using the full depth of your groundplan by encouraging actors to play the upstage and downstage extremes and by using the full horizontal width through insistence on far-right and far-left positions. If you play the extremes, you will have the other places to go to; if you do not, your pictures will seem cramped and underillustrated.
Possible Exercises to Apply in Class:
EXERCISES
1. Arrive at a picturization by (1) starting with composition, (2) adding gesture, (3) adding hand properties, and then (4) adding picturization. Improvise the following:
a. A group of three decides on a given circumstance and an action.
b. The group sets up a composition, being extremely careful to keep the neutrality of the composition.
c. The group now moves the composition to a previously set up groundplan and uses one of the furniture pieces as an obstacle.
d. Each person, in turn, adds gesture to his part of the composition by experimenting until he finds a fresh gesture, and then holding it in tableau.
e. At least one person (possibly two) works with a hand property.
f. When the individuals have added gestures and hand properties, they adjust to one another (in terms of the dramatic action) and form the picturization.
g. The class now identifies the picturization as accurately as possible. What story does it tell? What is its emotional level? The class also comments on the various stages of the exercise.
h. Repeat this abstract exercise (abstract because it isolates the stages in forming a picturization in a mechanical way) several times because it will clarify all the stages that lead to good picturization.
i. Then, try to find in this composition, what can be a counterpoint (music, rhythmical movement of one, something else).
2. Improvise picturizations that involve furniture pieces and hand properties with two or three individuals. Three teams will use the same furniture pieces and hand properties, and then change pictures at the instructor’s signal. Note how each group will do something different. Have the individuals work for as fresh an expression as possible.
3. Improvise picturizations with three or four classmates in a present groundplan. Shift pictures at the instructor’s signal, with the class closing its eyes so that it will see only picturizations and not the movement from one location on the stage to another. Repeat in other groundplans.
Tasks Assignment
Choose scenes of the main events from the play you've chosen. 2-3 scenes.
Analyze the Physical Actions of each character of the scene. From the text and context of the play, write down all the Physical Actions of characters in this scenes. For example, scene from Romeo and Juliet:
Mercutio:
...Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.
Tybalt: I am for you.
[Drawing]
Romeo:
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
Mercutio:
Come, sir, your passado.
[They fight]
For director it is important to find in the text "images", and to see the whole composition of performance in terms of rhythm, blocking, mise-en-scene and transition from one scene to another. Picturization is the simplies and the fastest way for director and actors to build composition of the scene.
According to your previously completed tasks (with ground plan and properties), think of, draw a sketch of the scene (on the paper or in the software) and describe the mise-en-scene of the each scene. What is happening there? Where actors are? And what they do? In you imagination you have to see it very clearly.
It is a good idea, to get into the habit of writing down everything; otherwise, your creation of the scenes in the imagination will always be accidental and weak. It’s best to write down the images and actions in pencil, as probably, you will need to keep changing and improving them during the course of rehearsals and performances.
2. For inspiration, on the internet, search for several pictures, or create your own collage as your vision of the scene in terms of movement, blocking, and mise-en-scene.
3. Think of the process of working with actors on these prepared scenes. What sequence of instructions you will use to grow the composition? Think of and find the blocks of exercises that can naturally bring actors to the filling of the composition in the time and in the space. Share your ideas in the essay.
Complete the above-mentioned steps. Share the results in the essay. After each step write a short (min.500 words) summary. After all steps write a conclusion essay, sharing your discoveries, challenges, thoughts, etc.
Deadline: Feb 28, 2026
