Bodily Awareness: The Theatre Writings of Michael Chekhov and Tadashi Suzuki

by Rust, Colin Michael

This thesis is an examination of the theatre writings of Michael Chekhov’s To the Actor and Tadashi Suzuki’s “Grammar of the Feet,” to determine the fundamental aspects within each of these methods that leads the actor towards the development of bodily awareness. Moshé Feldenkrais’s understanding of developing bodily awareness as demonstrated by his book Awareness Through Movement will be utilized as a tool to examine the work of Chekhov and Suzuki. Through this examination I hope to develop a greater understanding of the fundamental principles within these two actor training programs that facilitate the awareness of the actor’s body, as well, I hope point up the importance of such physically-based actor training methods to the contemporary actor.