Fay Simpson - The Lucid Body: A Guide for the Physical Actor

Copyright 2020 by Fay Simpson

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Published by Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Allworth Press is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

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Cover design by Mary Belibasakis

Illustrations by Eleanor Rose Boynton

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-62153-724-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62153-725-0

Printed in the United States of America

Misty Rice, www.mistyrice.com

DEDICATION

Wendy Gayle Brantley (1978-2006)

This book is dedicated to the memory of the most lucid body I have ever encountered, the intrepid Wendy. May she rest in the knowledge that her spirit enabled me to write this book.

Fearless in her fight against cancer, she used the lucid body process to cleanse her emotional system of her demons and thereby produced some of the most poignant, comical, and sympathetic characters imaginable on the stage. As an actress and a person, she inspired all those she met to strive to find their truest selves. She was an angel. Her journey and her support convinced me of the importance of this work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

O n a lovely spring day in 1984, I called an ex-student and friend, Peter Lobdell, and asked him to suggest a body person, a masseuse, someone who understood the body-muscle and spine connections. I asked Peter because he himself was an excellent physical actor. Only one, he said. Fay Simpson. And a wonderful dancer as well. I called her of course, made an appointment, and asked, Where? On my houseboat at the marina on 79th Street and the Hudson. There must have been a pause. You will like it. The movement of the water is relaxing, she said. She was right. It was. And she was extraordinarily knowledgeable and helpful. My wife, Betty, and I went for months.

Soon after, I saw Fay dance in one of her own pieces. I was impressed. She was angry, self-confident, spiritual. And funny. Over the next few years I watched her work with dancers from her own company and I also asked her to work individually with actors from my professional classes. The work was always clear, specific, and connected to the play.

In 1985, I decided to enlarge the arena of my work. I invited other teachers to create workshops for my students. They were teachers of outstanding ability and background: Patsy Rodenburg for Shakespeare; Chuck Jones for voice; Gloria Maddox and Joan Evans for improvisation and character development and other very experienced teachers. For the all-important work of helping actors develop an enlarged physical vocabulary, I asked Fay Simpson.

It was a brilliant choice. It allowed Fay to build on ideas already established and look for new ways, new answers for old questions. With actors as a new kind of raw material, Fay began to mix ideas of ancient cultures with new psychological insights: a work that began to connect the internal to the external, the psychological to the spiritual, reality to the imagination, all in the service of unlocking previously blocked bodies. Actors, even very good actors, tend to live in the close confines of their own habitual physical realities. Fays work encourages, even demands that they find pleasure and excitement in using their bodies in more expressive and challenging waysin service to the play.

Fay herself is ever changing and still the same. She is fearlessa provocateurand still funny. I look forward to many more provocations.

Michael Howard

September 4, 2008

ABOUT THE SECOND EDITION

I t has been twelve years since this book first landed on the shelves, and during that time, the work has been taken apart and examined in studios and conservatories around the world. I feel a bit like a baker whose bread dough has started to expand beyond my original intention, and that baker has to think fast about how to accommodate the expansion while still keeping the quality of bread as rich and savory as before. I have a concern that quantity means less quality, and like the game of Telephone, the message changes into something that does not even resemble the original message. So over the past twelve years, I have developed a program for prospective teachers, a rigorous two-year training that ensures my teachers know the heart and truth of the concepts inside their intuitive minds.

As the work expands, it is growing from the same soil. I will soon have fifteen Lucid Body teachers who teach this work around the world. Their experience has enriched the work and this new edition.

Another new development since the last book is our very own studio, Lucid Body House, on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, which has given the work a home, a laboratory, a kitchen where the baking continues. It has been an artists dream. My company, Impact Theatre NYC, has been reactivated, with The Veterans Project , Io Marta , Speechless , and the monthly Performance Salon , to name just a few of the works stemming from the Lucid Body processcreations dedicated to shaking and waking community to stimulate growth and change.

We live in a different world from that of twelve years ago. #MeToo. Black Lives Matter. Sexual fluidity. School shootings. Neuroscience and somatic theory. This edition reflects changes in how my perspective has changed in reference to masculine and feminine, the need to set boundaries, and the need to ensure that consent, or non-consent, is worked out through fair collaboration in rehearsal by actors and directors.

One thing remains the same. The more I teach this work at home and abroad, the more I see that the process of somatic sensitivity is infinite. The more one has the ability to sense and reflect on the nuances of moment-to-moment experiences, the more emotional courage it takes to accept and express those complex senses. This work is not for the meek, but for those who do not believe that expression is restricted to a limited array of colors. It is meant for those whose curiosity about the human experience equals their need to express on the stage and screen what they have discovered. In this revised edition, the pronouns he, she, and they are used interchangeably to reflect the inclusion of all gender and sexual identities in the Lucid Body practice.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that this work cannot be taught by anyone but a certified teacher. During these past twelve years, horror stories have been shared of people taking a Lucid Body class and then innocently offering it to their cast or their acting class, resulting in chaos, violence, and confusion. Because the work delves into the psycho-physical body of the actor, it can easily trigger responses that an untrained teacher will not know how to handle. Please do not take this class from anyone but the teachers listed on the website.