born 4 August 1953 in Manchester, Donnollan was educated first at St Benedicts in Ealing and then went onto to study law at Cambridge. He went into to have a brief career in the bar in middle temple in 1978. In 1981 however, he founded Cheek by Jowl with Nick Ormerod, a fellow Cambridge graduate, and has gone onto produce and direct many critically acclaimed works such as the Barbican productions of The Changeling, Cymbeline and Troilius and Cressida. Donollan is also the recipient of 4 Olivier awards, most notably for Best Director in 1987 for the productions of Le Cid, Macbeth an Twelth Night.
Donollan's main practice as a director is to help the actor understand that they should not focus on set objectives or emotional memories, but should instead focus their words and emotions on a target, to something outside of themselves. Targets can be real or imaginary, concrete or abstract but they must always be there and they are always in the process of changing. In this case, he likes to prepare his actors with an imaginary game of tennis in which the ball is the first target, going back and forth between two actors, however, gradually, the actors add their own speech and/or feelins into the game and both actors are required to keep the tennis match alive whilst also shifting their target now to the other actors' words. I feel that this is generally a well thought out warm up for his technique style, as it allows actors to grasp the basics of his system without having to go through intense reading beforehand.
Donnellan also explains the value of making sure that the stakes are high and of recognizing that there are dual or complimentary aspects to these stakes, a positive and a negative side to each one, thereby adding a layer of subtext to the actors target. For instance, in an improvised exercise that we did, my target was the door as I wanted to leave the shop I was in because my girlfriend was pregnant. I had to try and leave whilst also being able to help a customer who was currently in the shop along with me. With this exercise I began to really see the merits of Donollan's system, as by increasing the level of urgency my targets constantly shifted which made me much more aware of how to react to the space and my fellow actors onstage. I also feel that, when both actors' targets begin to shift, it means that neither actor knows what the other is thinking, making the performance feel much more reactionary and, therefore, much more alive.
Overall I feel that Targets and Donnollans system has its merits and is definitely viable as an acting technique style, due to its reactionary nature and its ability to keep an actor completely engaged only in the moment and never before that moment or after that moment. I feel that within 6 characters, this type of technique would work brilliantly as it would not only keep the actors energised onstage, it would also help the characters find ways of moving and exploring the space and the way they react to events and words that happen and are said by anyone on stage.
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