當身體開光印度劇場

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告
期末報告
當身體開光：印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的表演理論、劇場實踐與
演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色
計畫類別：個別型計畫
計畫編號： MOST 105-2410-H-003-023-
執行期間： 105年08月01日至107年07月31日
執行單位：國立臺灣師範大學英語學系（所）
計畫主持人：蘇子中
計畫參與人員：此計畫無其他參與人員
報告附件：移地研究心得報告
出席國際學術會議心得報告
中　華　民　國　107　年　08　月　08　日
中文摘要：菲利普‧薩睿立以其身心合一表演法聞名於世。他作為劇場藝術家
的生涯跟印度有著親密的關聯。1976到77年間，他開始學習卡塔卡
利舞(kathakali)。在機緣帶領下，1977年開始接受卡拉里帕亞特
(kalarippayattu)印度武術的訓練。從此他固定回印度喀拉拉邦
(Kerala)接受進階訓練，在1977和1998年間，他總共花了七年時間
在印度精進自己的武藝。之後，他致力引介印度劇場與表演藝術
，身體力行自我操練並以身心合一表演法訓練演員。作為導演，薩
睿立通常使用印度瑜珈和如中國太極拳和印度kalarippayattu等武
術，來訓練表演者的正念與專注、能量流動和相關身心合一表演技
巧。
在其獲獎專書《身心合一：後史坦尼斯拉夫斯基的跨文化演技》
(2009)的第三部分〈劇場製作之個案分析〉裡，薩睿立談到身為導
演所特別留意的雙重關注事項：一、「藉由身心合一訓練過程，以
及專注於演員身心、內在能量、覺察、形式感知的意象，找到開發
演員個體性的途徑」；二、「找到使演員互為主體的方法，讓他們
能在當下彼此行動或回應」(2009: 113)。從薩睿立的兩個關注重點
，我們得知他的方法並非如史坦尼拉夫斯基的方法派表演(method
acting)般，係從心理與情緒出發。相對的，他把焦點放在表演前的
準備，特別是演員覺知和身體能量的運作。換言之，薩睿立的方法
所強調的正是尤金諾‧芭芭所指稱的「前-表演」狀態或階段。此方
法的目標是去引導演員實踐身心覺知並體現飽滿能量，其終極目的
是去觸發觀眾的知覺。根據薩睿立所言，他的訓練法所能臻至最理
想的狀態是讓表演者達到“Meyyu Kannakuka”的境界，亦即「讓身
體開光」。他解釋道，「身體開光」就宛如「千眼」梵天般，「像
動物一樣，能看、聽並回應周遭環境立即的刺激」(2009: 1)。
本計畫的主要目的在追溯並探討那些曾鍛煉與鍛造薩睿立身心表演
技藝、理論與方法的印度源頭/資源及無價的印度知識/梵文吠陀經
典，並進一步分析並評估這些源頭與知識如何形塑薩睿立的身心合
一表演法。這表演法兼容並蓄，融合西方劇場概念與技巧和他從印
度所習得的總總經典知識與技藝，如阿育吠陀醫學、吠陀經、表演
美學、印度宗教、卡塔卡利舞、瑜珈、冥想、按摩、
kalarippayatt武術和與表演相關領域的技藝。
在方法學方面，為了要能更確切地掌握印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的表
演理論、劇場實踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色，筆者相信以傅
柯「論述分析」的方法為主，結合來自瑜珈、阿育吠陀經、前—表
演性(pre-expressivity)、文化翻譯、稠密描述(thick
description)等多重、多任務觀點的方法是最具啟發性、最豐富
，且最有助益的方法。因為薩睿立的貢獻終究是一個論述與跨文化
翻譯事件，與書寫、再現、跨文化主義、族裔、劇場田野研究、學
院權力/知識關係、新興領域及論述形構等議題息息相關。
中文關鍵詞：印度劇場、菲利普‧薩睿立、表演理論、身心合一演員訓練方法
英文摘要： Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his

psychophysical approach to acting. His career as a theatre
artist is intimately linked to India and its liminal status
as a religious and artistic frontier and threshold. He took
lessons of kathakali training in 1976-77, which then led to
his kalarippayattu training in 1977. Since then, he has
returned to India regularly for advanced training. Between
1977 and 1998, Zarrilli had spent a total of seven years
living in Kerala learning the art. Ever since, he has
engaged himself in promoting Indian theatre and performing
arts as well as practicing and enacting the psychophysical
training method. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian
yoga and Asian martial arts to train performer’s
mindfulness, energy flow, and overall psychophysical acting
skills. This project attempts to trace and explore the
Indian sources/resources and knowledge/Vedas that have
forged Zarrilli’s techniques, theories, and approach of
psychophysical acting. Furthermore, I intend to analyze and
assess how these sources and knowledge shape his
psychophysical approach. Oftentimes, we can find that his
approach melds Western theatrical concepts and techniques
with what he self-consciously borrows from Indian ayurveda,
Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion,
kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage, kalarippayatt martial
arts, and techniques of performance-related disciplines.
Methodologically speaking, in this project, I believe a
Foucauldian-informed multi-faceted & -tasking methodology
of yogic—ayurvedic—pre-expressive—cultural
transnational—thick descriptive—discourse analysis is
heuristic, seminal, and instrumental in analyzing the
project because Zarrilli’s contribution is inevitably a
discursive and intercultural translating event caught up
and entwined with the questions of writing, representation,
interculturalism, ethnicity, theatre fieldwork, academic
power/knowledge relations, emergent disciplines, and
discourse formation.
英文關鍵詞： Indian theatre, Phillip Zarrilli, performance theory,

psychophysical actor training method
科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告
■期末報告
當身體開光：
印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的
表演理論、劇場實踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色
計畫類別：■個別型計畫
計畫編號：MOST 105-2410-H-003-023-
執行期間：105/08/01 ～ 107/07/31
執行機構及系所：國立台灣師範大學英語學系
計畫主持人：蘇子中教授
計畫參與人員：碩士班研究生-兼任助理人員粘正穎
本計畫除繳交成果報告外，另含下列出國報告，共 2 份：
■執行移地研究心得報告
■出席國際學術會議心得報告
中華民國 107 年 8 月 1 日
目錄
一、中、英文摘要及關鍵詞
(一) 中文摘要及關鍵詞
(二) 英文摘要及關鍵詞
二、報告內容
(一) 前言
(二) 研究目的
(三) 文獻探討
(四) 研究方法
(五) 研究成果
(六) 結論
三、參考文獻
四、計畫成果自評
(一) 研究內容與原計畫相符程度
(二) 達成預期目標情況
(三) 研究成果之學術價值與重要性
一、中、英文摘要及關鍵詞
(一) 中文摘要及關鍵詞
關鍵詞：印度劇場、菲利普‧薩睿立、表演理論、身心合一演員訓練方法
菲利普‧薩睿立以其身心合一表演法聞名於世。他作為劇場藝術家的生涯跟印度有
著親密的關聯。1976 到 77 年間，他開始學習卡塔卡利舞(kathakali)。在機緣帶領下，1977
年開始接受卡拉里帕亞特(kalarippayattu)印度武術的訓練。從此他固定回印度喀拉拉邦
(Kerala)接受進階訓練，在 1977 和 1998 年間，他總共花了七年時間在印度精進自己的武
藝。之後，他致力引介印度劇場與表演藝術，身體力行自我操練並以身心合一表演法訓
練演員。作為導演，薩睿立通常使用印度瑜珈和如中國太極拳和印度 kalarippayattu 等武
術，來訓練表演者的正念與專注、能量流動和相關身心合一表演技巧。
在其獲獎專書《身心合一：後史坦尼斯拉夫斯基的跨文化演技》(2009)的第三部分〈劇
場製作之個案分析〉裡，薩睿立談到身為導演所特別留意的雙重關注事項：一、「藉由身
心合一訓練過程，以及專注於演員身心、內在能量、覺察、形式感知的意象，找到開發
演員個體性的途徑」；二、「找到使演員互為主體的方法，讓他們能在當下彼此行動或回
應」(2009: 113)。從薩睿立的兩個關注重點，我們得知他的方法並非如史坦尼拉夫斯基的
方法派表演(method acting)般，係從心理與情緒出發。相對的，他把焦點放在表演前的準
備，特別是演員覺知和身體能量的運作。換言之，薩睿立的方法所強調的正是尤金諾‧
芭芭所指稱的「前-表演」狀態或階段。此方法的目標是去引導演員實踐身心覺知並體現
飽滿能量，其終極目的是去觸發觀眾的知覺。根據薩睿立所言，他的訓練法所能臻至最
理想的狀態是讓表演者達到“Meyyu Kannakuka”的境界，亦即「讓身體開光」
。他解釋道，
「身體開光」就宛如「千眼」梵天般，「像動物一樣，能看、聽並回應周遭環境立即的刺
激」(2009: 1)。
本計畫的主要目的在追溯並探討那些曾鍛煉與鍛造薩睿立身心表演技藝、理論與方
法的印度源頭/資源及無價的印度知識/梵文吠陀經典，並進一步分析並評估這些源頭與知
識如何形塑薩睿立的身心合一表演法。這表演法兼容並蓄，融合西方劇場概念與技巧和
他從印度所習得的總總經典知識與技藝，如阿育吠陀醫學、吠陀經、表演美學、印度宗
教、卡塔卡利舞、瑜珈、冥想、按摩、kalarippayatt 武術和與表演相關領域的技藝。
在方法學方面，為了要能更確切地掌握印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的表演理論、劇場實
踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色，筆者相信以傅柯「論述分析」的方法為主，結合來
自瑜珈、阿育吠陀經、前—表演性(pre-expressivity)、文化翻譯、稠密描述(thick description)
等多重、多任務觀點的方法是最具啟發性、最豐富，且最有助益的方法。因為薩睿立的
貢獻終究是一個論述與跨文化翻譯事件，與書寫、再現、跨文化主義、族裔、劇場田野
研究、學院權力/知識關係、新興領域及論述形構等議題息息相關。
(二) 英文摘要及關鍵詞
Keywords: Indian theatre, Phillip Zarrilli, performance theory, psychophysical actor training method
Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his psychophysical approach to acting. His career as a theatre
artist is intimately linked to India and its liminal status as a religious and artistic frontier and threshold. He took
lessons of kathakali training in 1976-77, which then led to his kalarippayattu training in 1977. Since then, he has
returned to India regularly for advanced training. Between 1977 and 1998, Zarrilli had spent a total of seven years
living in Kerala learning the art. Ever since, he has engaged himself in promoting Indian theatre and performing
arts as well as practicing and enacting the psychophysical training method. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian
yoga and Asian martial arts, such as Chinese tai chi chuan and Indian kalarippayattu, to train performer’s
mindfulness, energy flow, and overall psychophysical acting skills.
In Part III “Production Case Studies” of his award-winning book Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural
Approach after Stanislavski (2009), Zarrilli talks about the knowhow of his directorship by identifying twofold
directorial goals: Firstly, “to find a means of activating each actor as an individual through psychophysical
processes and images that constantly engage that actor’s bodymind, energy, awareness, and the sensation/feeling of
form” and secondly “to find a means of activating the actors intersubjectively as an ensemble so that they are being
active/reactive in the moment for each other” (2009: 113). From Zarrilli’s two main concerns, we learn that his
approach does not work from psychology or emotion as in Stanislavsky’s method acting. Instead, he focuses on the
pre-performative preparation, especially the working of one’s awareness and bodily energy. In other words,
Zarrilli’s approach emphasizes what Eugenio Barba terms “pre-expressive” state or stage. The goal of this
approach is to guide the actors to fulfill an acting style with full body-mind awareness and full energy embodiment.
In the end its purpose is to effect a specific experience for the audience. According to Zarrilli, the ideal state of his
approach is for performer to achieve the state of “Meyyu Kannakuka,” literally “the body becomes all eyes.” As
Zarrilli explains, when one’s “body is all eyes,” then like Lord Brahman “the thousand eyed,” “one is like an
animal—able to see, hear, and respond immediately to any stimulus in the immediate environment” (1).
This project attempts to trace and explore the Indian sources/resources and knowledge/Vedas that have
forged Zarrilli’s techniques, theories, and approach of psychophysical acting. Furthermore, I intend to analyze and
assess how these sources and knowledge shape his psychophysical approach. Oftentimes, we can find that his
approach melds Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what he self-consciously borrows from Indian
ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage,
kalarippayatt martial arts, and techniques of performance-related disciplines.
Methodologically speaking, in this project, I believe a Foucauldian-informed multi-faceted & -tasking
methodology of yogic—ayurvedic—pre-expressive—cultural transnational—thick descriptive—discourse analysis
is heuristic, seminal, and instrumental in analyzing the project because Zarrilli’s contribution is inevitably a
discursive and intercultural translating event caught up and entwined with the questions of writing, representation,
interculturalism, ethnicity, theatre fieldwork, academic power/knowledge relations, emergent disciplines, and
discourse formation.
二、報告內容
(一) 前言
What is remarkable about Phillip Zarrilli is that he is not only a prolific scholar, publishing
extensively on psychophysical acting, classical Indian Kathakali dance, and Indian martial arts
kalarippayattu but also a serious-minded and diligent practitioner/trainer of tai chi chuan (太極
拳), yoga, Kathakali dance, and kalarippayattu. As Zarrilli has informed us, in the 1970s, the
Stanislavskian acting training was the primary paradigm of actor training in the U.S. However,
he quickly found out that this Method Acting was problematic and very limiting for actors. He
always expected to do something other than realism and naturalism on stage. His aesthetic and
artistic vision compelled him to look for something which has much broader use and efficacy.
Thus, he deviated from Stanislavskian work and went for a broad repertoire of tools and a
different understanding of acting. At this critical moment of his career, according to Zarrilli, he
was inspired by Jerzy Grotowski and decided to go to the source of energy and experience it.
He joined the Kalamandalam at the Kerala, India, and took lessons of kathakali training in
1976-77 under the guidance of M.P. Sankaran Namboodiri Kalamandalam. It was his study
of kathakali preliminary training processes that led Zarrilli to kalarippayattu because he found
out that those kathakali exercises were derived from kalaripayattu. Although in his early years
he did receive some training of the Wu style of tai chi chuan, he later devoted the better part of
his life and energy to perfect his skills of kalarippayattu. He began his kalarippayattu training
with Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar of the C.V.N. Kalari Thiruvananthapuram in 1977. Since
then, he has returned to India regularly for advanced training. Between 1977 and 1998, Zarrilli
had spent a total of seven years living in Kerala learning the art through twice-daily intensive
training sessions lasting up to five hours daily. Zarrilli’s experiences of kathakali, yoga, and
kalarippayattu have made him one of the renowned Western practitioners and authorities on the
subject of Indian theatre and Indian martial arts—especially kalarippayattu.
Zarrilli’s Indian experiences have triggered a strong desire in me to trace his paths and to
assess what he has achieved. For me, his psychophysical approach to acting bears the most
unmistakable sign of India’s impact. Thus, this project is intended to explore the role of India in
Phillip Zarrilli’s performance theory, theatre practice, and actor training method. I truly believe
that his turn to India has gradually transformed the frontiers of performance theories and
practices. In many ways, we can say that this proposed project is a continuing, extended, and
in-depth investigation of my current project on “the role of India in contemporary performance
theory and practice.” Also this proposed project is my active engagement in interculturalism
and the intercultural theatre.
(二) 研究目的
According to Eugenio Barba, Phillip Zarrilli “belongs to that rare species of
scholar/practitioners” (2009: 1), able to negotiate the crosscurrents between theory and practice.
He knows all the western acting theories by heart, ranging from the theory of Stanislavski,
Meyerhold, Decroux, Copeau, Lecoq, Grotowski, to Barba, etc., and has authored numerous
books and essays on acting. He is a practitioner of the Wu style of Taijiquan, Kathakali
dance-drama, kalarippayattu, yoga, and massage, etc., and is an internationally known actor
trainer specializing in his own brand of intercultural psychophysical approach.
In his award-winning book, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After
Stanislavski (2009) (ATHE 2010 Outstanding Book of the Year Award), Zarrilli specifies that
his book explores “some of the properties of the actor’s instrument: the actor’s bodymind,
awareness, consciousness, and energy” (2009: 2) and reconsiders “the nature of acting and its
practice” (2009: 2). He problematizes the Method Acting of Stanislavski for it solely
concentrates on scene study work and character study work. For him, the actor’s work is not
based on “acting as representation” but on an “energetics” of performance (2009: 1) and most
of it is pre-performative. What he concerns most is the body-mind relationship. As Zarrilli
elaborates, “Engaging the whole body means working with a fully awakened energy coursing
through one’s entire bodymind” (2009: 4).
Through his actor training masterclasses conducted around the world, his own theatre
projects, and his writings on Indian theatre, Kathakali, kalarippayattu, yoga, and
psychophysical exercises, Zarrilli has exerted a great impact on contemporary performance
theory and theatre practices. The main purpose of this project is to explore the full swing of
Zarrilli’s psychophysical training theory and enterprise. For Zarrilli, if one practices the
traditional trainings, such as kalaripayattu, kathakali, yoga, tai chi, etc., deep and long enough,
one is able to find resonance and some similar underlying principles and elements deep inside
different forms of psychophysical practices created by different cultures. In his interview with
Payel Majumdar, Zarrilli explains his fundamental beliefs: “In kalaripayattu and kathakali, the
underlying paradigms of form are yoga and ayurveda. I wrote a book about it called When the
Body Becomes all Eyes, which talks about these dances’ principles from a deep ethnographic
perspective.”
As an actor trainer, Zarrilli often encourages his performers to seek a higher level of
awareness. But what are the Indian performance theories, religious beliefs, or philosophical
thinkings that inform and support Zarrilli’s vision and approach to acting? Which aspect of
kalaripayattu practice is adopted to develop his way of psychophysical training method and can
help performers achieve a heightened consciousness? Which aspect of Ayurvedic medical
knowledge is involved in providing a holistic understanding of the body? What Indian
knowledge can help us understand the working of the internal wind humor (prana vayu) and
thus to awaken one’s inner energy (kundalini sakti) which travels along the spinal cord in order
to animate the body and the voice?
To sum up, the purpose of the project is to trace the Indian sources, resources, knowledge,
and Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s technique, theory, and approach of psychophysical acting.
Furthermore, I explore and assess the way he shapes and fashions the new methodology of
production which meld Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what he
self-consciously borrows from Indian ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics,
Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage, and kalarippayatt martial arts.
(三) 文獻探討
Domestic or abroad, research and interest about Zarrilli has gathered momentum and
become an essential part in performance research. There are several books which are about
psychophysical experience or physical theatre either in India or other parts of the world. Most
of them do not directly address Zarrilli’s psychophysical acting practice. They, however, might
be helpful for me to catch a glimpse of the art of psychophysical practice. Also, to understand
the spirit of theatre anthropology, Barba’s recent publications are a must: Beyond the Floating
Islands (1986), The Dilated Body Followed by The Gospel According to Oxyrhincus (1985),
The Paper Canoe (1995), Theatre: Solitude, Craft, Revolt (1999), Land of Ashes and Diamonds.
My Apprenticeship in Poland (1999), and in collaboration with Nicola Savarese, The Secret Art
of the Performer and the revised an updated version: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology
(2006).
Zarrilli has written numerous articles investigating and theorizing martial arts,
psychophysical acting, the actor’s modes of embodiment, and the actor’s experience in
performance. These primary sources are crucial and indispensable for me to capture Zarrilli’s
core thinking.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. “‘Doing the Exercise’: The In-body Transmission of Performance

Knowledge in a Traditional Martial Art.” Asian Theatre Journal 1.2 (1984): 191–206.
---. “Asian Martial Arts and Performance.” Theatrical Movement: A Bibliographical
Anthology. Ed. Bob Fleshman. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1986. 453–65.
---. “Where the Hand [Is] . . . .” Asian Theatre Journal 4.2 (1987): 205–14.
---. “For Whom Is the ‘Invisible’ Not Visible?: Reﬂections on Representation in the
Work of Eugenio Barba.” The Drama Review 32.1 (1988): 95–106.
---. “Three Bodies of Practice in a Traditional South Indian Martial Art.” Social
Sciences and Medicine 28.12 (1989): 1289–1310.
---. “Thinking and Talking About Acting: Re-Reading Sonia Moore’s Training an
Actor.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 3.2 (1989): 1–15.
---. “What does it mean to ‘become the character?’.” By Means of Performance:
Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Eds. Richard Schechner and Willa Appel.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1990). 131–48.
---. “To Heal and/or to Harm: The Vital Spots (Marmmam/Varmam) in Two
South Indian Martial Traditions. Part l: Focus on Kerala’s Kalarippayattu.” Journal of
Asian Martial Arts 1.1 (1992): 36–67.
---. “To Heal and/or to Harm: The Vital Spots (Marmmam/Varmam) in Two
South Indian Martial Traditions. Part II: Focus on the Tamil Art, Varma Ati.” Journal of
Asian Martial Arts 1.2 (1992): 1–15.
---. “Between Theory[es] and Practice[s]: Dichotomies or Dialogue?” Theatre Topics
5.2 (1995): 111–22.
---. “Acting ‘at the nerve ends’: Beckett, Blau, and the Necessary.” Theatre Topics 7.2
(1997): 103–16.
---. “Embodying the Lion’s Fury: Ambivalent Animals, Activation, and
Representation.” Performance Research 5.2 (2000): 41–54.
---. “Negotiating Performance Epistemologies: Knowledges about, For, and In.”
Studies in Theatre and Performance 21.1 (2001): 31–46.
---. “Action, Structure, Task, and Emotion: Theories of Acting, Emotion, Performer
Training from a Performance Studies Perspective.” Teaching Performance Studies. Ed.
Cynthia Wimmer and Nathan Stucky. Carbondale: Southern Illinois U P., 2002. 145-160
---. “Towards a Phenomenological Model of the Actor’s Embodied Modes of
Experience.” Theatre Journal 56 (2004): 653-666.
---. “Senses and Silence in Actor Training and Performance.” The Senses in
Performance. Ed. Sally Banes and Andre Lepecki. London: Routledge, 47-70.
---. “An Enactive Approaches to Understanding Acting.” Theatre Journal 59.5 (2008):
635-647.
---. “Embodying, Imagining, and Performing Displacement and Trauma in Central
Europe Today.” New Theatre Quarterly 24.1 (2008): 24-40.
(四) 研究方法
You should wash the floor of the kalari with your sweat. Kalarippayattu is 80 percent
mental and only the remainder is physical. (Psychophysical Acting 63)
--Gurukkal C. V. Govindankutty Nayar
The impact of India on the field of theatre and performance studies as well as on
performing arts in general has been enormous. Moreover, its potential influence keeps
expanding and multiplying through the “disseminations” of theatre scholars and the “doings” of
theatre practitioners. Of these scholars/practitioners, Phillip Zarrilli is certainly one of the few
“pilgrims” who has embarked on the pilgrimage to India and kept on practicing and teaching
the Indian arts (yoga and Kalarippayattu) he has acquired even today.
The above words are by Zarrilli’s teacher Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar. He explains that
kalarippayattu is the yoga-based martial art and the mental dimension of the work occupies up
to 80%. Oftentimes, the psychophysical exercises begin with the body and move both inward
toward subtle realms of feeling and spiritual experience and outward to meet the environment.
In order to have a better understanding of the working of the psychophysical dynamic and
achieve a better evaluation of the full swing of this approach’s impact on the performer and the
audience alike, this project intends firstly to explore the Indian theory of energy behind the
practice of yoga and kalarippayattu. Thus yoga philosophy, with regard to the working of
energy, the transformation of consciousness, and the goal of spiritual liberation (moksha), is
essential to our study since it might inform us the theory and methodology to interpret the
mental accomplishment achieved by yoga and kalarippayattu. Also the main classical Ayurvedic
treatises are crucial for us to understand the working of the body-mind continuum.
From a different perspective, we can see that Zarrilli’s impact on contemporary
performance scene is mainly exercised through the emerging interculturalism and intercultural
theatre since the second half of the 20th century. The notion of interculturalism and the agency
of intercultural theatre provide Zarrilli with a means to engage Indian theatre, martial arts,
culture, philosophy, religion, and performing arts in general. And yet the term or the agency
itself is a complex, contingent, contested, treacherous, and hard to pin down discursive and
interpretive event, always begging the question of neocolonialism and cultural hegemony.
With all of the concerns above, this project, methodologically speaking, requires the
intervention from the perspective of cultural translation, cultural studies, and postcolonialism.
The related theories will be employed to address and problematize issues such as cultural
exchange and interculturalism and look into the problems of how performance knowledge and
practice about India are generated under specific socio-economic and power-knowledge
relations. Special attention will be paid to the use and abuse of Indian literary, cultural, religious,
philosophical, and performing arts’ legacies by theatre interculturalists like Zarrilli. The
problem of interculturalism and the intercultural theatre is in part caused by the problematic of
cultural translation. Many of the criticisms directed at intercultural theatre practitioners spring
from a reflexive and postcolonial distrust of their (inter-)cultural translation. Translation from
one culture to another raises many theoretical and practical issues which require careful and
patient analysis. One relatively straightforward issue is the potential loss of much that is
considered to be essential to the form and substance of the “original” Indian culture. In a word,
this project addresses the demands of cultural fidelity by Indian scholars such as Rustom
Bharucha from the perspective of cultural translation. Meanwhile, it discusses the topic of an
artwork’s afterlife and its relation to the issues of transmissibility and accessibility in the
process of cultural translation with reference to Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator.”
Also, I evaluate whether to use the word “interweaving” is a better choice than the
common term “intercultural” to discuss related issues. In her article “Interweaving Cultures in
Performance: Different States of Being In-Between,” Erika Fischer-Lichte adopts the concept
of “interweaving cultures in performance” to discuss cultural exchanges in performance in the
last few centuries. She deliberately avoids using the terms such as “intercultural performance,”
“intercultural theatre,” or “hybrid theatre” for two reasons: firstly, these terms “presuppose the
feasibility of clearly recognizing the cultural origins of each element and distinguishing
between what is ‘ours’ and what is ‘theirs’”; secondly, “non-Western elements imported into
Western theatre are given a different emphasis than the use of Western elements in non-Western
theatre. While in the first case they are celebrated as bold aesthetic experiments, in the second
they are generally seen within the purview of modernization, which is largely equated to
Westernization” (14-15). By using the word “interweaving,” Fischer-Lichte provides an
alternative paradigm to discuss the in-between performance states because the terms such as
“intercultural,” “multicultural,” or “hybrid” are invested with unequal power structures and
relations that have something to do with colonialism and neocolonialism.
Meanwhile, this project incorporates the thick-descriptive research method as defined by
anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his book The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) to deal with
the materials I gather from my own field trip. Geertz holds that anthropology’s task is that of
explaining cultures through thick description which specifies many details, conceptual
structures and meanings, and which is opposed to “thin description” which is a factual account
without any interpretation. According to Geertz, an ethnographer must present a thick
description which is composed not only of facts but also of commentary, interpretation and
interpretations of those comments and interpretations.
Finally, this project also adopts Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine all the textual
materials. Michel Foucault develops his theory of discourse analysis mainly in The
Archaeology of Knowledge, originally published in 1969, but he employs it in all of his writings.
Discourse analysis focuses on discursive formations and on how discourses function within
different disciplines, regimes, and institutions; though associated mainly with his method of
archaeology, it forms the basis of Foucault’s move to a genealogical analysis. Foucault often
addresses certain issues by analyzing specific discourses or historical events. He claims that his
project is a “pure description of discursive events” (AK 27) which will make possible an
entirely new way of setting up and grouping discourses, independent of all the old and
seemingly self-evident ways. The Foucauldian method of discourse analysis focuses on radical
discontinuities,1 concrete details, power and knowledge relations, and complex genealogies.
Foucault perceives the peculiar complicity between power and knowledge. As he argues, “Once
knowledge can be analyzed in terms of region, domain, implantation, displacement,
transposition, one is able to capture the process by which knowledge functions as a form of
power” (P/K 69). Here the complicity of power/knowledge is comprehended in terms of
networks and relations; that is, it is through networks and relations that the power/knowledge
double is able to operate.
1
Foucault uses different concepts to discuss the notion of discontinuity—threshold, rupture, break, mutation, and
transformation.
To sum up, in this project, I believe this Foucauldian-informed multi-faceted and -tasking
methodology of yogic—ayurvedic—pre-expressive—cultural translational—thick
descriptive—discourse analysis is heuristic, seminal, and instrumental in analyzing the three
sub-projects that I have identified in this project because Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach to
acting is inevitably a discursive event caught up and entwined with the questions of writing,
representation, culture, ethnicity, theatre fieldwork, academic power/knowledge relations,
emergent disciplines, and discourse formation.
(五) 研究成果
Zarrilli has developed a unique and intensive pre-performative process for training
actors. Many of his insights are gained from his long-term encounter with Indian performing
arts, martial arts, and bodymind practices, in particular kathakali, kalarippayattu, and
hatha-yoga. He teaches this pre-performative psychophysical training at his private studio in
Wales, and throughout the world. This project aims to make a contribution to better appreciate
and understand the role of India in Phillip Zarrilli’s performance theory, theatre practice, and
actor training method. While providing a survey of the underlying principles of yoga and
kalarippayattu training, this project makes its contribution not only by examining the state of
“Meyyu Kannakuka,” literally “the body becomes all eyes,” at issue but also by analyzing this
ideal state and its effects during the performance. As Zarrilli explains, when one’s “body is all
eyes,” then like Lord Brahman “the thousand eyed,” “one is like an animal—able to see, hear,
and respond immediately to any stimulus in the immediate environment” (2009: 1). Also, this
project makes its contribution by tracing and examining the sources/resources of Zarrilli’s
psychophysical actor training method. Meanwhile, this project intends to offer a critical
assessment of Zarrilli’s achievement and his impact on contemporary performance theory and
practice.
In a word, this project as a whole is an inter-cultural study, investigating projects
traversing across various time periods and cultures. It contributes to provide a glimmer of
insight into the Indian performing arts and aesthetics as well as Zarrilli’s performance theory,
theatre practice, and actor training method. Surveying the terrains charted by Zarrilli’s
enterprise, it is not only an intellectual move which privileges the power of energy, heightened
awareness, and bodymind potentiality but also a sensory and empirical ride which involves the
down to earth theatre practice and actor training.
As of today, my project has generated the following research results:
A、期刊論文
1. Su, Tsu-Chung. “The Subjectiles at Work: The Secret Art of The 9 Fridas.” Tamkang
Review 47.1 (Taipei: Tamkang U, December 2016): 63-95. (THCI) (Scopus)
2. Su, Tsu-Chung. “Mindfulness and Heightened Consciousness in Phillip Zarrilli’s
Psychophysical Approach to Acting.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
20.7.7 (December 2018). <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol20/iss7/7>.
(A&HCI) (Scopus)
B、研討會論文
1. Su, Tsu-Chung. “From Xin (心) and Energy unto Mindfulness and Altered
Consciousness: The Asian Bodymind in Theory and Practice.” International
Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT)—Asia 2018 Conference on “Bodies
in/and Asian Theatres.” The University of the Philippines Diliman, Manila, The
Philippines. February 20-23, 2018.
Psychophysical Approach to Acting.” The 12th Quadrennial International
Comparative Literature Conference: “Literature, Life, and the Biological.” Tamkang
University, Taipei, Taiwan. December 15-16, 2017.
3. Su, Tsu-Chung. “Phillip Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach to Actor Training—A Critical
Assessment.” International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) 2017
Conference on “Unstable Geographies: Multiple Theatricalities.” The University of
São Paulo, Brazil. July 10-14, 2017.
Assessment.” 2016 NTU 劇場國際學術研討會：全球化年代的在地展演。國立臺
灣大學戲劇系。October 29-30，2016。
(六) 結論
Zarrilli is a world-renowned theater scholar, director, and actor trainer. Prior to joining the
faculty of the Drama Department at the University of Exeter, he has taught at many institutions
such as South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.C.L.A., Northwestern,
N.Y.U, and the University of Surrey. At the University of Exeter, he was appointed Professor of
Drama in 2000 and later Professor of Performance Practice. In 2013 he became Emeritus
Professor of Performance Practice. In 2010 Zarrilli was invited to join The International Research
Institute, “Interweaving Performance Cultures” at Freie Universitat, Berlin, as a Fellow. Since
2010 he has been resident in Berlin annually or bi-annually between one and three months. Also,
he has been recipient of numerous grants/fellowships, including Guggenheim, Fulbright,
Humanities, SSRC, and AIIS awards while in the US. His more recent grants in the UK,
supporting his artistic practice and practice-led research as principal investigator, include projects
such as Told by the Wind produced by The Llanarth Group (2009-10) and The Beckett Project, a
collaboration between Phillip Zarrilli and American actress, Patricia Boyette.
Zarrilli was drawn to India, embarking on his quest for the body-mind continuum, the
whole body energy dynamic, the heightened awareness of the spiritual, the efficacy of
performance, and the psycho-physical acting. His passages to India testified to the impact of
Indian philosophy, religion, culture, theatre, and performing arts in general on contemporary
western performance theory and practice in the last few decades. To be sure, Zarrilli’s approach
has stretched consideration of theatre towards rich dynamics of performance, which takes into
account a wide range of affective transfer and a high degree of rapport between performers and
partakers.
What counts most in this project is to emphasize the point that a serious and solid
psychophysical practice is the means—perhaps the principal means—through which theatre
practitioners come to understand their consciouness, bodymind continuum, and heightened
awareness of their being. This project affirms that psychophysical practice, as a
transformational act and force, has the power to enlighten performers through its em-bodying
power. It defines itself against the immediate past and is always in dialogue with the immediate
future. Rethinking and refashioning our take on acting and mind-body relationship, this project
contributes to establish a better understanding of Indian theatre, religion, and philosophy, and
Zarrilli’s undertakings, techniques, and theories of psychophysical acting.
三、參考文獻
Phillip Zarrilli’s most recently published book, Psychophysical Acting : An Intercultural
Approach after Stanislavski, is the most significant reference here. Awarded the ATHE 2010
Outstanding Book of the Year Award at the ATHE convention in Los Angeles, this book is
mainly about the process of training actors through a psychophysical approach based on Asian,
especially Indian, martial arts and yoga. What is unique about the book is that it includes a
DVD-ROM by Peter Hulton so that the reader is able to witness the real psychophysical
practice while listening to the explanation.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. Psychophysical Acting : An Intercultural Approach after
Stanislavski. With DVD-ROM by Peter Hulton. London: Routledge, 2009.
In addition to this book, Zarrilli has authored several other books, including books which
are definitive study of Kathakali and Kalarippayattu: When the Body Becomes All Eyes:
Paradigms, Discourses, and Practices of Power in Kalarippayattu (1998) published by Oxford
University, The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance & Structure (1984), Kathakali
Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Comes to Play (2000), and (editor) Acting
(Re)Considered (2002) and (editor) Martial Arts in Actor Training (1993), etc. These books are
essential for me not only to trace the development of Zarrilli’s thinking but also to map out his
main concerns.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. The Kathakali Complex : Actor, Performance & Structure. 1st ed.
New Delhi: Abhinav, 1984.
---. Kathakali Dance-Drama : Where Gods and Demons Come to Play. London:
Routledge, 2000.
---. When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Discourses, and Practices of
Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art. Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1998.
---, ed. Acting (Re)Considered : A Theoretical and Practical Guide. 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 2002.
---, ed. Asian Martial Arts in Actor Training. Madison: U of Wisconsin-Madison P,
1993.
---, Daboo J, Loukes RM. Acting: Psychophysical Phenomenon and Process—
Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Along with Farley P. Richmond and Darius L. Swann, Zarrilli has co-authored Indian
theatre: traditions of performance (1990), which can give me a general picture of Indian theatre.
Another of Zarrilli’s co-authored book, Theatre Histories: An Introduction, can provide a broad
frame of reference for my project.
Zarrilli, Phillip B., McConachie BM, Sorgenfrei CM, Williams GJ. Theatre Histories:
An Introduction, 2nd Edition, London, Routledge, 2010.
---, McConachie BA, Williams GJ, Sorgenfrei CF. Theatre Histories: An
Introduction., Routledge, 2006.
---, Richmond F, Swann D. Indian Theatre: traditions of performance, Honolulu,
Hawaii, USA, University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
Another book we cannot do without is A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret

Art of the Performer (first published in 1991; 2nd edition 2005), written and edited by Eugenio
Barba and Nicola Savarese. This magnum opus gathers together many years’ research results of
the International School of Theatre Anthropology. This book has a clear focus. It collects
articles that focus on studying what Barba calls the pre-expressive scenic bios. As Barba writes
in the Preface, theatre anthropology “is not the study of the performative phenomena in those
cultures which are traditionally studied by anthropologists. Nor should theatre anthropology be
confused with the anthropology of performance….ISTA directs its attention to this ‘empirical
territory’ with the objective of going beyond the specializations of particular disciplines,
techniques or aesthetics. This is a question of understanding not technique, but the secret of
technique which one must possess before one can go beyond technique” (5).
四、計畫成果自評
(一) 研究內容與原計畫相符程度
The research content of the project corresponds to its original proposal highly. It traces and
explores the Indian sources/resources and knowledge/Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s
techniques, theories, and approach of psychophysical acting. Furthermore, it intends to analyze
and assess how these sources and knowledge shape his psychophysical approach. Oftentimes,
we can find that Zariilli’s approach melds Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what
he self-consciously borrows from Indian ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics,
Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage, kalarippayatt martial arts, and techniques
of performance-related disciplines.
(二) 達成預期目標情況
This project has accomplished its goal. It traces the Indian sources, resources, knowledge,
and Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s technique, theory, and approach of psychophysical acting
accordingly. In both of my published and conference papers, I explore and assess the way he
shapes and fashions the new methodology of production which meld Western theatrical
concepts and techniques with what he self-consciously borrows from Indian ayurveda, Vedic
philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage, and
kalarippayatt martial arts.
(三) 研究成果之學術價值與重要性
Zarrilli has a productive career. Over the years, his psychophysical actor training and
practice have exerted quite an impact on the contemporary performance scene. His enterprise is
rich and fertile, resisting any facile description or generalization. The significance of this
project lies in its effort to re-examine, re-imagine, re-map, and re-assess Zarrilli’s contribution.
The aims that this project attempts to achieve are manifold: first, it attempts to explore the
immense diversity of Zarrilli’s achievement as a theatre scholar, historian, director, and actor
trainer through a wide array of texts and projects; second, it deals with controversial issues such
as theatre fieldwork, interculturalism, and intercultural performance; third, it engages in
examining the active interchange between theory and practice, between director and performer,
and between India and its interpreters; fourth, it stresses the importance of practice as a form of
embodied knowledge; finally, it problematizes the relationship of intercultural exchanges and
investigates the process of knowledge/power formation.
What counts most in this project is to emphasize the point that a serious and solid
psychophysical practice is the means—perhaps the principal means—through which theatre
practitioners come to understand their consciouness, bodymind continuum, and heightened
awareness of their being. This project affirms that psychophysical practice, as a
transformational act and force, has the power to enlighten performers through its em-bodying
power. It defines itself against the immediate past and is always in dialogue with the immediate
future. Rethinking and refashioning our take on acting and mind-body relationship, this project
contributes to establish a better understanding of Indian theatre, religion, and philosophy, and
Zarrilli’s undertakings, techniques, and theories of psychophysical acting.
科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告自評表
請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況、研究成果之學術或應用價值
（簡要敘述成果所代表之意義、價值、影響或進一步發展之可能性）
、是否適合在學術期
刊發表或申請專利、主要發現（簡要敘述成果是否有嚴重損及公共利益之發現）或其他
有關價值等，作一綜合評估。
1. 請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況作一綜合評估
■ 達成目標
□ 未達成目標（請說明，以 100 字為限）
說明：
This project has duly accomplished its goal in tracing and exploring the Indian
sources/resources and knowledge/Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s techniques, theories, and
approach of psychophysical acting. Also, I has analyzed and assessed how these sources and
knowledge shape his psychophysical approach. It has proved that Zarrilli’s approach melds
Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what he self-consciously borrows from Indian
ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation,
massage, kalarippayatt martial arts, and techniques of performance-related disciplines.
2. 研究成果在學術期刊發表或申請專利等情形：
論文：■已發表於學術期刊 ■已發表於研討會 □未發表之文稿 □撰寫中 □無
其他：（以 100 字為限）
一、期刊論文
1. Su, Tsu-Chung. “The Subjectiles at Work: The Secret Art of The 9 Fridas.” Tamkang
Review 47.1 (Taipei: Tamkang U, December 2016): 63-95. (THCI) (Scopus)
Psychophysical Approach to Acting.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
20.7.7 (December 2018). <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol20/iss7/7>.
(A&HCI) (Scopus)
二、研討會論文
1. Su, Tsu-Chung. “From Xin (心) and Energy unto Mindfulness and Altered
Consciousness: The Asian Bodymind in Theory and Practice.” International
Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT)—Asia 2018 Conference on “Bodies
in/and Asian Theatres.” The University of the Philippines Diliman, Manila, The
Philippines. February 20-23, 2018.
Psychophysical Approach to Acting.” The 12th Quadrennial International
Comparative Literature Conference: “Literature, Life, and the Biological.” Tamkang
University, Taipei, Taiwan. December 15-16, 2017.
Assessment.” International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR/FIRT) 2017
Conference on “Unstable Geographies: Multiple Theatricalities.” The University of
São Paulo, Brazil. July 10-14, 2017.
Assessment.” 2016 NTU 劇場國際學術研討會：全球化年代的在地展演。國立臺
灣大學戲劇系。October 29-30，2016。
3. 請依學術成就、技術創新、社會影響等方面，評估研究成果之學術或應用價值（簡要
敘述成果所代表之意義、價值、影響或進一步發展之可能性），如已有嚴重損及公共
利益之發現，請簡述可能損及之相關程度（以 500 字為限）
The aims that this project attempts to achieve are manifold: first, it attempts to explore the
immense diversity of Zarrilli’s achievement as a theatre scholar, historian, director, and actor
trainer through a wide array of texts and projects; second, it deals with controversial issues such
as theatre fieldwork, interculturalism, and intercultural performance; third, it engages in
examining the active interchange between theory and practice, between director and performer,
and between India and its interpreters; fourth, it stresses the importance of practice as a form of
embodied knowledge; finally, it problematizes the relationship of intercultural exchanges and
investigates the process of knowledge/power formation.
科技部補助專題研究計畫執行移地研究心得報告
日期：2017 年 6 月 25 日
NSC 102-2410-H-003-053-MY3
計畫編號
當身體開光：
計畫名稱
印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的
表演理論、劇場實踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色
服務機構
出國人員姓名蘇子中
及職稱國立台灣師範大學英語系教授
2017 年 6 月 2 日
Harvard University, Boston,
出國時間至出國地點
2017 年 6 月 19 日 USA
□實驗 □田野調查 □採集樣本

出國研究目的
□國際合作研究 ■使用國外研究設施
一、緣起
Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his psychophysical approach to acting.
His career as a theatre artist is intimately linked to India and its liminal status as a
religious and artistic frontier and threshold. He took lessons of kathakali training in
1976-77, which then led to his kalarippayattu training in 1977. Since then, he has returned
to India regularly for advanced training. Between 1977 and 1998, Zarrilli had spent a total
of seven years living in Kerala learning the art. Ever since, he has engaged himself in
promoting Indian theatre and performing arts as well as practicing and enacting the
psychophysical training method. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian yoga and Asian
martial arts, such as Chinese taijiquan and Indian kalarippayattu, to train performer’s
My project—entitled “When the Body Becomes All Eyes: The Role of India in
Phillip Zarrilli’s Performance Theory, Theatre Practice, & Actor Training Method”—
attempts to trace and explore the Indian sources/resources and knowledge/Vedas that have
forged Zarrilli’s techniques, theories, and approach of psychophysical acting. I intend to
analyze and assess how these sources and knowledge shape his psychophysical approach.
Oftentimes, we can find that his approach melds Western theatrical concepts and
techniques with what he self-consciously borrows from Indian ayurveda, Vedic
philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage,
1
What is remarkable about Phillip Zarrilli is that he is not only a prolific scholar,
publishing extensively on psychophysical acting, classical Indian Kathakali dance,
and Indian martial arts kalarippayattu but also a serious-minded and diligent
practitioner/trainer of taijiquan, yoga, Kathakali dance, and kalarippayattu. As Zarrilli
has informed us, in the 1970s, the Stanislavskian acting training was the primary
paradigm of actor training in the U.S. However, he quickly found out that this Method
Acting was problematic and very limiting for actors. He always expected to do
something other than realism and naturalism on stage. His aesthetic and artistic vision
compelled him to look for something which has much broader use and efficacy. Thus,
he deviated from Stanislavskian work and went for a broad repertoire of tools and a
different understanding of acting. At this critical moment of his career, according to
Zarrilli, he was inspired by Jerzy Grotowski and decided to go to the source of energy
and experience it. He joined the Kalamandalam at the Kerala, India, and took lessons
of kathakali training in 1976-77 under the guidance of M.P. Sankaran Namboodiri
Kalamandalam. It was his study of kathakali preliminary training processes that led
Zarrilli to kalarippayattu because he found out that those kathakali exercises were
derived from kalaripayattu. Although in his early years he did receive some training of
the Wu style of taijiquan, he later devoted the better part of his life and energy to
perfect his skills of kalarippayattu. He began his kalarippayattu training with
Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar of the C.V.N. Kalari Thiruvananthapuram in 1977.
Since then, he has returned to India regularly for advanced training. Between 1977
and 1998, Zarrilli had spent a total of seven years living in Kerala learning the art
through twice-daily intensive training sessions lasting up to five hours daily. Zarrilli’s
experiences of kathakali, yoga, and kalarippayattu have made him one of the
renowned Western practitioners and authorities on the subject of Indian theatre and
Indian martial arts—especially kalarippayattu.
Zarrilli’s Indian experiences have triggered a strong desire in me to trace his
paths and to assess what he has achieved. For me, his psychophysical approach to
acting bears the most unmistakable sign of India’s impact. Thus, this project is
intended to explore the role of India in Phillip Zarrilli’s performance theory, theatre
practice, and actor training method. I truly believe that his turn to India has gradually
transformed the frontiers of performance theories and practices. In many ways, we
can say that this proposed project is a continuing, extended, and in-depth investigation
of my current project on “the role of India in contemporary performance theory and
practice.” Also this proposed project is my active engagement in interculturalism and
the intercultural theatre.
As an actor trainer, Zarrilli often encourages his performers to seek a higher level
2
of awareness. But what are the Indian performance theories, religious beliefs, or
philosophical thinking that inform and support Zarrilli’s vision and approach to acting?
Which aspect of kalaripayattu practice is adopted to develop his way of
psychophysical training method and can help performers achieve a heightened
consciousness? Which aspect of Ayurvedic medical knowledge is involved in
providing a holistic understanding of the body? What Indian knowledge can help us
understand the working of the internal wind humor (prana vayu) and thus to awaken
one’s inner energy (kundalini sakti) which travels along the spinal cord in order to
animate the body and the voice?
In order to acquire materials regarding the topics of Indian ayurveda, Vedic
philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation,
massage, kalarippayatt martial arts, and techniques of performance-related disciplines.
bodymind, energy, awareness, consciousness, and Indian theatre, I decided to make a
research trip to Harvard University because at Harvard there is a South Asia Institute
(SAI) which engages faculty and students through interdisciplinary programs to
advance and deepen the teaching and research on global issues relevant to South Asia.
Founded in 2003 to further Harvard University’s engagement with South Asia, SAI is
a university-wide research institute at Harvard that engages faculty members, students,
and in region institutions through interdisciplinary programs to disseminate
knowledge, build capacity, inform policy, and engage with issues that are shaping
South Asia today.
二、執行移地研究過程
My research trip to The Widener Library at Harvard University is aimed to
collect and gather materials about the topics of Indian ayurveda, Vedic philosophy,
performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage,
bodymind, energy, awareness, consciousness, and Indian theatre in general. Following
my original plan, I arrived in Boston on June 3, 2017 and started my research at The
Widener Library at Harvard on the same date.
I could find rich materials with regard to my project at Widener Library because
this library houses South and Southeast Asian Collections. While most of the
materials are in English, this collections under the purview of the Librarian for South
and South-East Asia include materials in many languages, all formats and subjects in
the humanities and social sciences published in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives (for South Asia); Burma, Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
3
and East Timor (for Southeast Asia). In addition Widener has traditionally collected in
Sanskrit and Tibetan. It has a strong collection of South Asian video recordings, in
various Indic languages, documenting the cultural and social landscape of the
subcontinent.
I left Boston for Taipei in the late afternoon of June 17, 2017. I am really grateful
that the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) has funded this research trip
and helped me collect needed materials and in the end accomplish my research goals.
三、移地研究成果
The research outcome of my research trip to Harvard University is manifold:
firstly, it has successfully located materials of Zarrilli’s achievement as a theatre
scholar, historian, director, and actor trainer through a wide array of texts; secondly, it
has garnered materials related to theatre fieldwork, interculturalism, and intercultural
performance; thirdly, it has successfully acquired the materials related to the topics of
Indian ayurveda, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali,
yoga, meditation, massage, kalarippayatt martial arts, and techniques of
performance-related disciplines. bodymind, energy, awareness, consciousness, and
Indian theatre.
I believe these materials can help me better understand Zarrilli’s conceptions of
consciouness, bodymind continuum, and heightened awareness. They can help me
rethink Zarrilli’s take on acting and mind-body relationship, enable me to establish a
better understanding of Indian theatre, religion, and philosophy, and Zarrilli’s
undertakings, techniques, and theories of psychophysical acting, and eventually help
me re-examine, re-imagine, re-map, and re-assess Zarrilli’s contribution.
4
科技部補助專題研究計畫出席國際學術會議心得報告
日期： 106 年 8 月 20 日
計畫編號 MOST－105-2410-H-003-023-
計畫名稱當身體開光：印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的表演理論、劇場實
踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角色
出國人員服務機構國立台灣師範大學
蘇子中
姓名及職稱英語學系教授
106 年 7 月 10 日至 The University of São Paulo,
會議時間 106 年 7 月 14 日會議地點
Sao Paulo, Brazil
(中文) 不穩定的地理，多重的劇場性
會議名稱
(英文) Unstable Geographies, Multiple Theatricalities
(中文) 薩睿立的亞洲配方：身心合一表演法的批判研究
發表題目 (英文) Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula:
A Critical Study of His Psychophysical Approach to Acting
一、參加會議經過
The International Federation for Theatre Research is a world-renowned theatre
organization which aims to “facilitate communication and exchange between scholars
of theatre and performance research throughout the world through its conference
events and publishing activities.” Founded in 1957, the Federation currently boasts
members from 44 countries and from all continents. It holds annual international
conferences, regional conferences, and research working group symposia. It owns a
leading international journal (Theatre Research International) and publishes two
major book series in collaboration with Palgrave Macmillan and Rodopi.
As a theatre scholar, I think the annual conference of IFTR is a window to
understand the recent research trends in the world, a channel to get in touch certain
working groups for specific research projects, and eventually to publish my research
work in their peer-reviewed books series and a major international journal Theatre
Research International. The 2017 annual conference is hosted by the University of
São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, June 10-14, 2017, on the conference theme “Unstable
Geographies, Multiple Theatricalities.”
The 2017 conference theme “Unstable Geographies, Multiple Theatricalities”
aims at the political and economic issues underlying the territorial and symbolic
conflicts of a globalized world and, at the same time, targets the expansiveness of
theatrical and performative fields that recognize and surprise each other. Massive
migrations and the growing deterritorialization of human cultures have been
accompanied by increasingly unstable artistic standards, concepts and institutional
relations. The 2017 Conference site Sao Paulo offers a space to consider the intense
1
contemporary migratory flows and counterflows in which the peripheral regions of the
globe radiate vitality to the Northern hemisphere and reverberate their traditions from
a distinct point of view.
There were more than 600 theatre scholars from all over the world attending the
conference at the University of Sao Paulo. Together they contributed to a rich
program presenting rich and multiple geographical and theatrical positions in the field
of theatre and performance studies. I personally enjoyed the inspiring and
thought-provoking talks and discussions during the five days of the conference and
had a wonderful stay in Sao Paulo.
My paper, entitled “Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula: A Critical Study of His
Psychophysical Approach to Acting,” was accepted because its theme is closely
linked to the topic of the Conference. The purpose of this paper attempts to trace the
sources, techniques, theories, and knowledge that have forged Zarrilli’s approach of
psychophysical acting. Furthermore, I will examine and assess his approach critically.
The conference began in Sao Paulo (the University of Sao Paulo) on July 10,
featuring several program patterns every day, having panels such as “Working
Groups,” “General Panels,” “New Scholars Workshops,” “Keynote Speeches,” and
“Performances.”
The inaugural keynote was given by Prof. Leda Martins, Professor of Literary
Studies and Performing Arts, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte,
on July 10, on the topic of “Rite, Performance and Knowledge: memory times.” Her
speech explores possible interlocutions between rite, theatricality and the memory of
embodied knowledge in some manifestations of black culture in Brazil, reflecting on
these relations from the assumptions and assemblages of Performance Studies. Other
keynote speeches included Prof. Ileana Diéguez, research professor UAM-Cuajimalpa,
Mexico City, on the topic of “Research, Exhuming, Unearth: Research as Art of
Darkness” (July 11); Prof. Sérgio de Carvalho, Professor of Drama and Drama Critics
at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo, on the topic of
“The out of place theatricality: tensions between European scenic models and social
reality in colonial Brazil” (July 12); and Prof. Eleonora Fabião, a performance artist
and theorist, and Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), on
the topic of “Encounter in the Auditorium of the Centro de Difusão Internacional”
(July 14).
二、與會心得
For me, this Conference was one of the most dynamic, exciting, and
intellectually stimulating conferences in the broad spectrum of studies and research
enterprises in the humanities, arts, interculturalism, political theory, theatre studies,
2
and performance studies. It was a truly international gathering bringing together
participants from all corners of the world. The scope of the Conference is broad. The
papers presented at the Conference constantly engaged in questioning and
investigating historical past in theatres and performing arts, and the relation between
present and past.
Overall, I think this Conference has offered all the participants a rich and
multifaceted program. I have enjoyed attending the Conference a lot. The research
exchanges that took place did animate my writing and thinking, and open up a new
horizon for me.
三、發表論文之摘要與全文
Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula:

Tsu-Chung Su
National Taiwan Normal University
ABSTRACT
Phillip Zarrilli is an internationally renowned theatre director and actor trainer
who has devised a unique “Asian” psychophysical approach to work with performing
artists from different parts of the world. According to Eugenio Barba, Zarrilli
“belongs to that rare species of scholar/practitioners” (1), able to negotiate the
crosscurrents between theory and practice. He knows all the western acting theories
by heart, ranging from the theory of Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov,
Decroux, Copeau, Lecoq, Artaud, Grotowski, to Barba, etc. Of eastern theorists,
Japanese philosopher Yuasa Yasuo and Japanese Noh theater aesthetician, actor, and
playwright Zeami Motokiyo are the ones he mentions and quotes from time to time.
Many of Zarrilli’s insights of actor training are gained from his long-term encounter
with Chinese and Indian paradigms and practices of acting, in particular Wu style of
taijiquan, kalarippayattu (the early twelfth century yoga-based indigenous martial art),
hatha-yoga, and kathakali. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian yoga and Asian
mindfulness, energy flow, and overall psychophysical acting skills. His Asian formula
aims to reconsider “the nature of acting and its practice” (2009: 2). For him, the
actor’s work is not based on “acting as representation” but on an “energetics” of
performance (2009: 1). The purpose of this paper is to trace the sources, techniques,
theories, and knowledge that have forged Zarrilli’s approach of psychophysical acting.
Furthermore, I will examine and assess his approach critically.
Keywords: Phillip Zarrilli, psychophysical approach to acting, yoga, taijiquan,

kalarippayattu
3
Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula:
Meyyu kannakuka: literally, “the body becomes all eyes.” A Malayalam folk
expression encapsulating that ideal state of embodiment and
accomplishment of both the actor and the kalarippayattu (Indian martial art)
practitioner. When one’s “body is all eyes” then like Lord Brahman “the
thousand eyed” one is like an animal—able to see, hear, and respond
immediately to any stimulus in the immediate environment. (1)
--Phillip Zarrilli, Psychophysical Acting
Phillip Zarrilli is an internationally renowned theatre director and actor trainer

who has devised a unique “Asian” psychophysical approach to work with performing
artists from different parts of the world. According to Eugenio Barba, Zarrilli
“belongs to that rare species of scholar/practitioners” (1), able to negotiate the
crosscurrents between theory and practice. He knows all the western acting theories
by heart, ranging from the theory of Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Michael Chekhov,
Decroux, Copeau, Lecoq, Artaud, Grotowski, to Barba, etc. Of eastern theorists,
Japanese philosopher Yuasa Yasuo and Japanese Noh theater aesthetician, actor, and
playwright Zeami Motokiyo are the ones he mentions and quotes from time to time.
Many of Zarrilli’s insights of actor training are gained from his long-term encounter
with Chinese and Indian paradigms and practices of acting, in particular Wu style of
taijiquan, kalarippayattu (the early twelfth century yoga-based indigenous martial art),
hatha-yoga, and kathakali. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian yoga and Asian
Zarrilli has authored numerous books and essays on acting. In his writings, he
draws upon a wide range of critical and philosophical theories. In his award-winning
book, Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski (ATHE
2010 Outstanding Book of the Year Award), Zarrilli specifies that his book explores
“some of the properties of the actor’s instrument: the actor’s bodymind, awareness,
consciousness, and energy” (2009: 2), and reconsiders “the nature of acting and its
practice” (2009: 2). For him, the actor’s work is not based on “acting as
representation” but on an “energetics” of performance (2009: 1). “Engaging the whole
body means working with a fully awakened energy coursing through one’s entire
bodymind” (2009: 4), Zarrilli elaborates. As an actor trainer, Zarrilli often encourages
his performers to seek a higher level of awareness.
As is well known, to heighten an actor’s awareness and consciousness often
begins with the working of the internal wind humor (prana vayu) whose purpose is to
4
awaken one’s inner energy (kundalini sakti) that travels along the spine line in order
to animate the body and the voice. What are the Indian performance theories, religious
beliefs, or philosophical thinking that inform Zarrilli’s vision and help formulate his
approach to acting? Which aspect of yoga physiology and philosophy that he acquires
and uses in his subtle body-mind practice? What kind of Ayurvedic medicine
knowledge is employed by him to provide a humoral or holistic understanding of the
body? What kind of kathakali or kalarippayattu practice is adopted to develop his
brand of psychophysical training method? The purpose of this paper is to trace mainly
the Indian sources, resources, knowledge, and Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s
technique, theory, and approach of psychophysical acting. Furthermore, I will
critically examine and assess the way he shapes and fashions the new methodology of
production which combines Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what he
self-consciously borrows from Chinese qi and taijiquan, Indian ayurveda, Vedic
philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation,
massage, kalarippayatt martial arts, and Western techniques of performance-related
disciplines.
I. From “Use Your Whole Body!” to “When Acting Becomes All Eyes”:
Phillip Zarrilli and His Encounter with the Indian Other
“Use your whole body, Zarrilli, your whole body!” (2009: 3), a shout-out from
Zarrilli’s kalaripayattu teacher Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar in 1980 initiated his
lifelong quest to pursue what exactly his teacher has meant, namely, the body-mind
continuum, the whole body energy dynamic, the heightened awareness of the spiritual,
the efficacy of performance, and the psychophysical acting in general. As indicated,
Zarrilli’s career as a theatre artist/scholar is intimately linked to India and its liminal
status as a religious and artistic frontier and threshold. He has not only visited India
many times but also undertaken extensive training in specific performance or
performance-related disciplines in India, gaining accomplishment in performing
techniques. He took lessons of kathakali training in 1976-77, “undergoing a rigorous
regime of eight hours of daily psychophysical training and full-body massage with M.
P. Sankaran Namboodiri at the Kerala Kalamandalam—the Kerala State School of the
Arts” (2009: 4), which then led to his kalarippayattu training in 1977. Since then, he
had returned to India regularly for advanced training. As Zarrilli has expressed on
several occasions, between 1977 and 1993, he had spent a total of seven years living
in Kerala, receiving his kalaripayattu training, with Guru Govindankutty Nayar at the
CVN kalari in Thiruvananthapuram, learning the art through twice-daily intensive
training sessions lasting up to five hours daily (2009: 4).
After several years’ hard training, Zarrilli was honored and presented a pitham,
the stool representing mastery in the art, by his teacher. According to Zarrilli, he was
5
the only individual outside of India or Kerala to be given this honor and felt a great
responsibility to promote this brand of Indian martial arts. Ever since, he has engaged
himself in promoting Indian theatre and performing arts as well as practicing and
enacting the psychophysical training method. As a director, Zarrilli often uses Indian
yoga and Asian martial arts, such as Chinese taijiquan and Indian kalarippayattu, to
train performer’s mindfulness, energy flow, and overall psychophysical acting skills.
1. Indian Sources, Resources, Knowledge, and the Vedas

In Section 1, I attempt to trace the Indian sources, resources, knowledge, and the
Vedas that have forged Zarrilli’s technique, theory, and approach of psychophysical
acting. Both kathakali dance skills and kalarippayattu martial arts that Zarrilli has
practiced for many years are founded on a set of fundamental cultural assumptions
about the bodymind relationship, health, and wellbeing that are similar to the
assumptions underlying yoga and ayurveda. As Zarrilli explains in his interview with
Payel Majumdar, “In kalaripayattu and kathakali, the underlying paradigms of form
are yoga and ayurveda. I wrote a book about it called When the Body Becomes all
Eyes, which talks about these dances’ principles from a deep ethnographic
perspective.”1 As comparative religions scholar Mircea Eliade has remarked, “One
always finds a form of yoga whenever there is a question of experiencing the sacred
or arriving at complete mastery of oneself. . .” (1975: 196). As for ayurveda, it is the
Indian science of health and wellbeing. “The system of treatment and massage, and
the assumptions about practice are closely associated with ayurveda the ‘science’ by
knowledge of which ‘life’ (ayuh) can be prolonged” (1998: 27), writes Zarrilli. Most
important of all, in Indian society, almost every aspect of life is shaped by religious
viewpoints and invested with divine or spiritual significance. For example, the kalari,
the training ground of kalaripayattu, “was a centre for training and healing in villages
or with royal households, and also served as a temple where the guardian deity was
either a form of the goddess or Siva/Sakti in combination” (Zarrilli, 1998: 26).
In order to gain access to the divine or spiritual power, one must begin with the
body and its training in actualizing particular powers, such as the strength of mental
power (mana sakti) and the primordial power (kundalini sakti). These powers are
awakened for the purpose of reaching spiritual enlightenment. The whole process
always begins with the outer form of the body or the physical or gross body
(sthula-sarira). In terms of kalaripayattu, the exercises include a vast array of poses,
steps, jumps, kicks, and leg movements performed in increasingly complex
combinations back and forth across the kalari floor. After perfecting the outer form
1
Payel Majumdar, “Phillip Zarrilli: When the body becomes all eyes,” The Sunday Guardian (24th Jan
2015): http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/phillip-zarrilli-when-the-body-becomes-all-eyes.
6
through rigorous exercises and massage, it then, by incorporating breath and its vital
energy (prana vayu), gradually moves inward to discover the interior subtle and
energy-flowing body (suksma-sarira) traditionally associated with yoga and
meditation. In addition to the above psychophysical exercises, worship and rituals
(puja), meditation, and devotion (bhakti) are essential to gain the divine power or the
spiritual liberation (moksha) (Zarrilli, 1998: 84-122).
Zarrilli’s monograph, entitled When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms,
Discourses, and Practices of Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art, is
an “ethnographic study” of kalarippayattu practiced in Kerala, in which Zarrilli
outlines the history, tradition, ritual life, myriad aspects of the psycho-physical
disciplining, and eventually the methods to transform the body into an entity with all
eyes. In this book’s “Preface,” Zarrilli’s uses figures such as Drona, Bhima and
Arjuna from the well-known Bhagavad Gita episode of India’s Mahabharata epic to
illustrate the different approaches under the tutelage of great gurus to master the
combat skills: while Bhima focuses on super human strength to crush his foes, Drona
and Arjuna put more emphasis on practicing austerities and meditation techniques
which give practitioners access to subtle powers to be used in combat (1998: 1). From
Zarrilli’s words, we learn that kalarippayattu in some traditions and lineages is a
discipline including martial arts, medicine, and meditation.
In another seminal book, entitled Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and
Demons Come to Play, Zarrilli focuses on exploring kathakali, the distinctive
dance-drama of Kerala in south-west India. Other than the twenty-four root
hand-gestures (mudras) and the nine basic facial expressions (navarasas), and basic
postures (asanas), the kathakali students are expected to learn very role in each play
taught from the official school syllabus during their six to ten years of training (2000:
65-97). We can see that even though kathakali has its embodied or psychophysical
roots in kalarippayattu, it has its unique training focus because its “manipulation of
breath and release of energy is manifest in the strength and facility of its footwork,
use of gesture language, and facial expression” (2000: 95). Like the training goal of a
kalarippayattu practitioner, for Zarrilli, what a kathakali actor needs to achieve is the
heightened sense of consciousness because this awakened awareness can help the
actor actualize the powers like “serpent power” (kundalini sakti) and enables him/her
to perform roles and enact emotions in kathakali dramas (2000: 171-74). This
heightened or mindful consciousness is at once “an idealized state of being/doing”
(2000: 171) and “a state of intense concentration of energy” (2000: 174) which is
essential to any optimal performance where the “body is all eyes.”
When we come to terms with the effect of psychophysical practice on the
bodymind of the practitioner, other than evaluating practitioner’s consciousness and
7
spiritual awareness, traditionally ayurveda and its medical humoral concepts are the
most common tools to interpret the practitioner’s well-being.2 As a medical theory,
ayurveda upholds the thinking that it is crucial for one to establish harmony with the
environment by maintaining equilibrium in a process of constant fluid exchange.
2. From Training to Performance

The Breath-in-Action
Zarrilli puts breathing exercise at the forefront of his psychophysical acting
approach. He devotes the entire Second Chapter, entitled “Beginning with the
Breath,” of his Psychophysical Acting to the importance of the breath, strongly
believing that breathing exercises with the inner eye can take one to the edge of a
breath and sensitize “the bodymind to the nuances of the space between in- and
out-breath. Action is given birth on the cusp of an in/out-breath, from the space
between” (2009: 90).
Zarrilli identifies with the thought that the breath, prana in Sanskrit, or qi in
Chinese, or ki in Japanese and Korean, is the life force which could animate the
potential power of the martial art practitioner or the actor alike. For both yogis and
kalarippayattua practitioners, to master special breath control techniques is a must
because it can help activate and circulate the practitioner’s “internal energy” (prana
vayu) and, therefore, contribute to the actualization of sakti to be used in fighting
and/or healing. This inner energy is often identified with kundalini/tantric yoga in the
Yoga Upanisad and Tantra (1998: 123-24).3 In The Classical Doctrine of Indian
Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels, Jean Filliozat points out that in the
Susruta Samhita (Nidanasthanan 1.7-12) there lists 5 kinds of winds: 1. Prana, “the
breath of the front’ located in the mouth and ensuring respiration; 2. Udana, “the
breath on high, superior wind, goes upward” and producing sound; 3. Samana, “the
concentrated breath” which circulates in the stomach and intestines for digestion; 4.
Vyana, “the diffused breath” which circulates throughout the limbs of the body
making possible perspiration, blood flow, etc.; and 5. Apana, “the breath below”
which has a downward action or tendency and makes possible excretion and birth
(1964: 210-11).
Once the actor’s breath is awakened and his/her perception and awareness are
heightened and honed, he/she is able to produce a qualitative vibration of energy that
2
According to Zarrilli, “Kalarippayattu is one such discipline, the daily practice of which is popularly
believed to establish congruence among the three humors (tridosa; tridhatu): wind (vata), phlegm
(kapha), and fire (pitta)” (1998: 86).
3
As Zarrilli notes, “The essential elements of the subtle body usually identified in these texts, as well
as in kalarippayattu versions of the subtle body, include structural elements, nadi and wheels or centres
(cakra), and vital energy or wind (prana, vayu, or prana-vayu) and the cosmic energy (kundalini or
Sakti) sleeping coiled within the lowest centre” (1998: 124).
8
is palpable and perceived by the audience. Zarrilli’s focus on the breath-in-action as a
performance score is of particular interest to me, for only through energizing and
fine-tuning the breath can the actor sense, experience, and embody the performance
score. Following the guidance of his first and most important teacher, Gurukkal
Govindankutty Nayar of Thirovananthapuram’s C.V.N. Kalari, Zarrilli adopts
Arjuna’s meditative path which emphasizes “kalarippayattu as an active, energetic
means of disciplining and ‘harnessing’ (yuj, the root of yoga) both one’s body and
one’s mind, that is, as a form of moving meditation” (2009: 2).
3. The “Energetics” of Acting

You should wash the floor of the kalari with your sweat. Kalarippayattu is
80 percent mental and only the remainder is physical. (Psychophysical
Acting 63)
--Gurukkal C. V. Govindankutty Nayar
The impact of kalarippayattu on Zarrilli has been enormous. Through Zarrilli’s

masterclasses around the globe, we can see kalarippayattu’s potential influence
expand and multiply. The above quote is by Zarrilli’s teacher Gurukkal
Govindankutty Nayar who explains that in kalarippayattu the mental dimension of the
work occupies up to 80%. Zarrilli elaborates that this 80 percent mental dimension “is
the subtle domain of inner activation, i.e., the flame of an active, inner, vibratory
perceptivity and engagement” (2009: 62). In Indian yoga philosophy, the working of
energy is always linked with the transformation of body and consciousness, or even
with the goal of spiritual liberation (moksha). It is essential to the “energetics” of
acting and our study of Zarrilli’s approach since it can inform us the way to interpret
the continuum of the bodymind in performance.
In Part III “Production Case Studies” of his Psychophysical Acting, Zarrilli talks
about the knowhow of his directorship by identifying twofold directorial goals: Firstly,
“to find a means of activating each actor as an individual through psychophysical
processes and images that constantly engage that actor’s bodymind, energy,
awareness, and the sensation/feeling of form,” and secondly “to find a means of
activating the actors intersubjectively as an ensemble so that they are being
active/reactive in the moment for each other” (2009: 113). From Zarrilli’s two main
concerns, we learn that his approach provides access to the actor’s “inner world” and
is not actualized through psychology or emotion as in Stanislavsky’s method acting
but rather by the circulation and shaping of energy. Instead, he focuses on the
pre-performative preparation, especially the working of actor’s energetic awareness.
For Zarrilli, the psychophysical exercises begin with the body and move both
inward toward subtle realms of feeling and spiritual experience and outward to meet
9
the environment. His poetics of energy or the so-called “energetics” of performance
(2009: 1) focuses on the pre-performative preparation, especially the working of one’s
bodily energy. In other words, Zarrilli’s approach emphasizes what Eugenio Barba,
director, theorist, and founder of the Odin Teatret, terms “pre-expressive” state or
stage. For Barba, the body is a network of energy and the “whole body thinks/acts,
with another quality of energy” (1995: 52). Barba’s theatre anthropology is the study
of the performer’s pre-expressive scenic behavior which constitutes the basis of
different genres, roles, and personal or collective traditions. In an organized
performance situation, the performer’s physical and mental presence is modelled
according to principles which are different from those applied in daily life. This
extra-daily use of the body-mind is what is called technique. To act is to dilate the
body and engage the entire body’s energy. The secret of the performer’s body
technique is to dilate “the body’s dynamics” (1995: 62). Barba not only gives us an
insight into the performer’s secret art but also provides us with a poetics about the
working of body and energy in performance. For Barba, the dilated body signals not
definitive meanings but the energy-intensity-flow in an ever-expanded consistent
space. “The performer, through long practice and continuous training,” writes Barba,
“fixes this ‘inconsistency’ by a process of innervation, develops new neuro-muscular
reflexes which result in a renewed body culture, a ‘second nature,’ a new consistency,
artificial but marked with bios” (1995: 26). The scenic bios of a performance needs to
develop new consistent neuro-muscular reflexes and layerings that induce a new body
culture. Barba’s notion of the dilated body bears a concrete physical existence and is a
typical mind-body continuum which employs extra-daily techniques, organizes the
performer’s scenic bios, and generates new performer-spectator relationships and
unexpected possibilities for meaning in performance. As Barba writes, “The
consequence of the process of the absorption of an action is an intensification of the
tensions which enliven the performer and is perceived by the spectator irrespective of
the size of the action” (1995: 28).
Like the dilated body envisioned by Barba, the goal of Zarrilli’s approach is to
guide the actors to fulfill an embodied acting style with full body-mind awareness and
full energy embodiment. In the end its purpose is to effect a specific experience for/in
the audience. As Zarrilli notes, the ideal state of his approach is for performer to
achieve the state of “Meyyu Kannakuka,” literally “the body becomes all eyes.” When
one’s “body is all eyes,” Zarrilli explains, then like Lord Brahman “the thousand
eyed,” “one is like an animal—able to see, hear, and respond immediately to any
stimulus in the immediate environment” (2009: 1). By mastering and embodying the
various states of “being” whilst engaged in the “doing,” the performing artist becomes
one with his/her inner life in each movement/moment and interacts with the people
10
and space surrounding him.
4. The “Mindful” Technologies of the Actor’s Bodymind

However, both the breath-in-action and the “energetics” of acting are not just
practices through which an actor composes a performance score; rather, they are
“technologies,” in the Foucauldian sense, of the actor’s bodymind through which
actors not only “develop knowledge about themselves” (1988: 18) but also refashion
or reposition their force/power, agency/self/identity, and bodymind. As Zarrilli notes,
“Practices are those modes of embodied doing through which everyday as well as
extra-daily experiences, realities and meanings are shaped and negotiated” (1998: 5).
The embodying practices eventually help actors (re)fashion themselves and attain the
states of “being–doing” at the present moment.
In many ways, I find that Zarrilli’s “psychophysical” actor is congenial with
Grotowski’s “holy” actor, one that is concerned with the em-bodiment of body and
soul for a theatre of presence rather than one of presentation. For both of them,
Stanislavsky’s notion of the “psychophysical” is re-examined in the light of practice
concerning the actor’s mindful and probing work on himself/herself, namely a
“mindful” technology of the self. Their view of performance as presence-in-action
and performer/actor as doer has been a catalyst for spiritual journeying, which is also
shared by its spectators. As Grotowski writes, “Performer, with a capital letter, is a
man of action. He is not somebody who plays another. He is a doer, a priest, a warrior:
he is outside aesthetic genres” (1997: 376).
II. Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach:

A Critical Assessment of His Theory and Practice
In developing his approach, Zarrilli decided to use the term “psychophysical”
coined by Stanislavski who based his theories of “psychophysical acting” on the work
of psychologist Théodule Armand Ribot (1839–1916) and his knowledge of Indian
yoga. Stanislavski’s purpose was to bridge the gap between the “psycho” and the
“physical” elements of acting and make efforts to solve acting problems for new
forms of drama such as formalism and symbolism. 4 In My Life in Art, Stanislavski
suggests that the optimal state of acting is for the actor to make use of all his senses
and embraces “his mind, his will, his emotions, his body, his memory and his
imagination” (1948: 465). For Zarrilli, Stanislavski, rather than systematizing his
“method acting” as misunderstood particularly in the US, continued to experiment
with new acting methods in his life. He himself picked up Stanislavsky’s experimental
4
According to Sharon Carnicke, Stanislavski became interested in yoga as early as 1906; however, the
Soviet authorities censored any reference to Hindu philosophy from his 1938 acting manual,
“obscuring the importance of symbolism, formalism, and yoga in his work” (2000: 15).
11
momentum, attempting to overcome René Descartes’s mind-body dualism pervading
Western performance thought and move beyond psychology, emotion, and affective
memory all together.
1. Zarrilli’s Approach: An Asian Cocktail Treatment for the Devoted

Integrating body and mind, Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach is a fascinating
method of actor training which has potential benefits for actors and directors alike.
What is unique about his teachings is that he introduces his way by using his own
personal learning and directing experiences as an example. Throughout his writings
which draw on over 40 years of dedicated study and assiduous practice of yoga, the
Indian martial art kalarippayattu, and Chinese taijiquan, he shows himself as an
extremely diligent and talented practitioner on the one hand and an untiring scholar on
the other.
Pointing out the fact that “[t]he psychologically whole character was no longer
central to many types of theatre after the 1960s” (2009: 7) and arguing that the
“psychological” is no longer “a paradigm with sufficient explanatory and/or practical
power and flexibility to fully inform the complexities of the work of the
contemporary” (2009: 8), Zarrilli ambitiously uses his psychophysical approach of
actor training to initiate a paradigm shift in hoping to help the actor work through and
beyond Stanislavsky’s legacy. His goal is to assist the actor cultivate the capacity to
orchestrate breath and its vital force, to fine tune one’s inner energy, and eventually to
develop a heightened awareness to meet the immediate demands of acting and engage
more fully with other actors and the performance environment. He maintains that his
brand of acting approach is the one which can better coordinate actor’s physical and
psychic impulses and responses, and resists and undermines the mind/body binary,
which has for centuries prevailed in many Western acting theories and practices. He
stresses that once an actor has developed this prana/qi awareness, he/she then is very
much like a traditional Asian actor, being an agent of their own theatre and no longer
subservient to other theatrical elements such as text and psychology.
Since actors nowadays are expected to perform across a broad range of new or
alternative dramaturgies, or work with “postdramatic” texts or devised theatre, Zarrilli
considers that his approach offers a way to deal with these new types of performance.
While adopting Asian traditional trainings, Zarrilli expresses that his main goal is to
articulate them from his western sensibilities—“what may be called a translation.”
“This does not involve translating the techniques, which I try and keep [the same] as I
was taught. I emphasize the inner work that goes into this sort of training as the most
valuable part of it,”5 Zarrilli explains. As a taijiquan practitioner myself, I find
5
Payel Majumdar, “Phillip Zarrilli: When the body becomes all eyes.” The Sunday Guardian (24th Jan
12
Zarrilli’s method problematic. Oftentimes, a martial art practitioner needs to work on
the outer form first before he/she incorporates breathing and makes his/her energy
flow. To emphasize or translate the inner work merely couldn’t help cultivate the
interior subtle and energy-flowing body (suksma-sarira). My personal understanding
is that only by rigorous and long-term practice can one make the body all eyes. At its
best, we can say that Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach is a “cocktail” formula or
treatment to “cure” or address the limits of current actor training methods. But
whether his cocktail approach is a better solution to equip performers nowadays, it
remains to be seen. However, I am quite skeptical of this approach’s efficacy
especially when the actor only receives and starts practicing this training method for
only a short period of time, for instance less than a year.
Zarrilli’s enterprise is rich and fertile. It resists any facile description or
generalization. At once insightful and chanllenging, it engages in examining the active
exchange between theory and practice, between director and performer, and between
performers and spectators. By stressing the importance of practice as a form of
embodied knowledge, his approach, for me, is indeed an alternative pedagogical
strategy to equip today’s performers. There is no denying that his approach has the
potential to transform the field in significant ways because it offers a new vision of
what a performer’s body can do and what constitutes an energetics of performance in
the 21st century. In the end, the nature of his approach is inclined to generate striking
insights into how an intensely concentrated psychophysical acting can enlarge and
deepen the actor’s performance in a way that thoroughly engrosses the audience.
2. Practice as Research & Acting as Inquiry

In recent years, performance studies has developed a variety of research methods.
The application of practice-led or practice-based research methods has become a
widespread phenomenon. These practice-led research projects integrate personal
pursuit and history with performance research and practice. For example, Zarrilli’s
ethnographic practice/research of/on kalarippayattu, yoga, and kathakali dance
theatre was led by his strong interest in performing arts in general. Over the years,
Zarrilli’s devoted practice-as-research has yielded fruitful results which have been
documented in many of his articles and monographs. Two of his most typical
publications are discussed above, namely, Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and
Demons Come to Play (2000) and When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms,
Discourses, and Practices of Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art
(1998).
Exemplified in Zarrilli’s practice-as-research projects are ideas for a
2015): http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/phillip-zarrilli-when-the-body-becomes-all-eyes.
13
breakthrough in actor training method using Asian way of conceptualizing body and
energy, that is, his proposal of a “psychophysical” approach to acting based on his
own practice. His example highlights the extent to which Asian martial arts may help
the actor engage the full “bodymind” rather than working in an overly intellectual or
physical way. Through his sustained efforts, his approach has played an important
role in the advancement of directing and acting theories, practices, and techniques as a
field of research. As a result, Zarrilli’s practice-as-research testifies to the impact of
Indian philosophy, religion, culture, medicine, massage, theatre, martial arts, and
performing arts on the formulation of his training practice in the last few decades. To
apply his approach in its optimal way, we can conclude that it has the potentiality to
widen actor’s consideration of training practice, increase the efficacy of actor’s
energetics, enliven the dynamics of performing space, and intensify the interactive
rapport between performers and partakers.
3. Zarrilli’s Approach: Towards a Secularized Bodymind Practice?

If the end result of Zarrilli’s psychophysical training is to cultivate actors’ ability
not only to shape and move energy with control, grace, and ease but also to develop a
bodymind awareness inside and out, a long and rigorous pre-performance training is
something actors cannot do without. For Zarrilli, the best strategy for the actor to
(re)discover his/her body and mind is through repetitive practice day in and day out.
However, one must have a clear sense of the training goal: “The self on which one
works is not the psychological/behavioral self, but rather the psychophysical self—the
experiential/perceiving self constituted in the moment by sensory awareness,
perception, and attentiveness to one’s bodymind in the act of doing and as responsive
to the environment” (2009: 29). To avoid becoming empty and habitual, “the actor
must commit him/herself fully to training as an ongoing process of self-definition”
(2009: 30).
If one practices the traditional trainings, such as kalaripayattu, kathakali, yoga,
taiji, etc., deep and long enough, and in a correct and devoted manner, one is likely to
find resonance and some similar underlying principles and elements embedded inside
different forms of psychophysical practices created by different cultures. Ideally
speaking, only after long and rigorous trainings can actors really locate and know how
to make use of the energy hidden in their creative centre, dantian, and begin to
transform their material bodies with circulated energy. This is the reason why Zarrilli
emphatically insists on the importance of embodied repetition because repetitive
practices are the only way which can lead a practitioner to the discovery of unknown
possibilities, links, and terrains within their bodies. 6
6
As Zarrilli writes, “As one continues to repeat a particular form or structure over time, a larger field
14
Even so, one has to be wary that a dedicated and well-trained psychophysical
practitioner does not guarantee that he/she can offer compelling acting during the
performance because he/she still needs to master the skills to interpret and present a
particular scene and story in a theatrical space. According to Zarrilli, oftentimes,
novice actors have a hard time to relate the psychophysical training they receive to
their acting on the stage. As one participant confesses, “For the longest time I had
difficulty imaging how the discipline work could be directly applied to my acting!”
(qtd. in Zarrilli, 2009: 30). Except Patricia Boyette’s reflection on Not I and
Jeungsook Yoo’s accounts on her performance of the Girl in Scene 1 of The Water
Station by Ota Shogo, in his Psychophysical Acting, Zarrilli does not cover much
about accomplished psychophysical actors’ application of the method in real
performances or include the reports of their own step-by-step implementation of the
acquired psychophysical skills and techniques on the stage. In addition, Zarrilli does
not “demonstrate” or “explain” in a detailed manner how an actor, through systematic
and effective psychophysical doing, training, and cultivation at different stages, can
gradually become a competent psychophysical actor like himself. At his best, except
offering his own personal embodied experiences and performances in the productions
of Samuel Beckett’s plays, such as Act Without Words I and Ohio Impromptu, Zarrilli
showcases Patricia Boyette’s laborious rehearsal practices and impressive
performances in Not I and Rockaby, and demonstrates his own directorial strategies to
induce, engage, and enact actors’ psychophysical impulses and awareness in The
Water Station.
To the question “What, precisely, is acquired or brought to accomplishment
through long-term bodymind training?” Zarrilli answers: “To become accomplished is
to achieve an optimal level and quality of relationship between the doer and the done
where ‘the body(mind) becomes all eyes’” (2009: 213).7 This most desirable state is
exactly the moment when the dancer and the dance become one. Picking up Barba’s
thread that “[t]raining is a process of self-definition, a process of self-discipline which
manifests itself indissolubly through physical reactions” (1972: 47),8 Zarrilli affirms
that “[t]his process of self-definition and personal justification can never end—the
of experience accumulates as an expanding field of possibilities. Ideally one is able to improvise within
this larger field” (2009: 49).
7
Earlier in his book, Zarrilli writes: “From my perspective, when the ‘body is all eyes’ one is ‘standing
still yet not standing still.’ This is the optimal state of readiness that the actor ideally inhabits” (2009:
24).
8
Barba puts it quite clear that “[t]raining does not teach how to act, how to be clever, does not prepare
one for creation…It is not the exercise in itself that counts—for example, bending or somersaults—but
the individual’s justification for his [sic] own work, a justification which, although perhaps banal or
difficult to explain through words, is physiologically perceptible, evident to the observer. This approach,
this personal justification decides the meaning of the training, the surpassing of the particular exercises
which, in reality, are stereotyped gymnastic movements” (1972: 47).
15
practitioner must constantly (re)discover the self in and through the training with each
repetition” (2009: 30). He then points out that the would-be-actors in the United
States and the United Kingdom “may not have had sustained in-depth training in a
particular discipline” (2009: 31). The same applies to the actor training situation in
Taiwan. I think to myself: What is the point of promoting Zarrilli’s brand of
psychophyical training, if young actors nowadays cannot afford or are not prepared to
receive sustained and rigorous training of this kind? Another question that bothers me
is that if we accept Barba’s thesis that “[t]raining does not teach how to act, how to be
clever, does not prepare one for creation” (1972: 47), we can infer that even if one is
already an awakened and accomplished psychophysical practitioner who has a keen
prana or qi awareness, he/she is not necessarily a creative director/actor like Zarrilli
himself who knows how to apply this awareness to formulate effective dramaturgical
interpretation and eventually compose an optimal performance score.
From a different perspective, we can see that Zarrilli’s impact on contemporary
performance scene is mainly exercised through the emerging interculturalism and
intercultural theatre since the second half of the 20 th century. The notion of
interculturalism and the agency of intercultural theatre provide Zarrilli with a means
to engage Asian martial arts, Indian theatre, culture, philosophy, religion, and
performing arts in general. His “cocktail” approach engages with the issues and
methods underlying intercultural acting and training in our global age. Throughout his
writings, we can see Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach is built on the a-historical,
a-ethnic, and a-gender concepts of body, breath, energy, and pre-expressivity.
Generalizations prevail in his approach. Its premise is universal, comprehensive, and
authoritarian. He seems to believe what he has proposed is applicable to all if one is
disciplined and works hard enough. He fails to address the cultural differences
embedded in the concepts such as energy and body and evades the different social and
spiritual frames of reference, especially the Indian way and the Chinese way. Also his
cocktail and hybrid pedagogical model, mixing Western, Chinese, and Indian
traditions, lacks distinction, consistency, and to a certain degree is only skin-deep.
Even though time and again Zarrilli keeps stressing that if one practices the traditional
trainings, such as kalaripayattu, yoga, taijiquan, etc., deep and long enough, one is
able to find resonance and similar underlying principles and elements inside different
forms of psychophysical practices created by different cultures, his western
sensibilities or “translation” of the Asian training methods might severely
compromise the efficacy of each individual practice.
Another problem with Zarrilli’s approach is that he clearly states that his main
objective is to apply his approach to what Hans-Thies Lehmann calls as postdramatic
theatre, which refers to performances where there is no longer a conventional plot or
16
characters at the core of the event. Probably we can surmise that Zarrilli’s
psychophysical actors can best flourish in postdramatic theatre pieces or avant-gardist
experimental shows using minimal words, movements, or simply in silence, as
showcased in Zarrilli’s productions of Samuel Beckett, Ota Shogo, Kaite O’Reilly,
Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp. Traditional textual dramas in which characters are of a
prime consideration are therefore not the proper sites to accomodate the work of the
psychophysical actor.
Zarrilli takes an uncritical stance for his own intercultural conception. For myself,
the question of Zarrilli’s approach has nothing to do with appropriation, exoticism,
and East–West power inequities. It has more to do with its applicability and
practicality. In critiquing Zarrilli’s approach, I do not intend to undermine the value of
his contributions to acting theory. On the contrary, personally I identify with Zarrilli’s
psychophysical approach to acting and consider it one of the definitive ways to train a
good actor. His model brings forth a singular alternative and paradigm, providing the
greatest degree of stimulus and much food for thought. It can achieve a non-ordinary
or extra-daily bodymind “that is totally open in the moment” (2009: 89).
Once and again, in his writings, Zarrilli stresses the importance for actors to stay
“in the here and now” (2009: 31). For me, this is a practice which has a close kinship
to religious practice and to something sacred and spiritual, even though the terms and
phenomena discussed here, such as “religious,” “sacred,” and “spiritual,” are far from
transparent or self-evident. When being asked whether the practice of the
psychophysical disciplines he teaches is spiritual or has changed him in some way in
the “Afterword” of his Psychophysical Acting (2009: 213), he simply quotes Dalai
Lama’s definition to bypass the problematic use of the word “spiritual” in the West:
when I say “spiritual” I do not necessarily mean and kind of religious faith.
When I use the word “spiritual” I mean basic human good qualities. These
are: human affection, a sense of involvement, honesty, disciplines and
human intelligence properly guided by good motivation. (2002: 15).
Given that, I argue that Zarrilli’s approach is a rite of passage towards a secularized
bodymind practice and awareness.
III. The 9 Fridas as A Case Study

In Part III, I propose to revisit and assess Zarrilli’s production of The 9 Fridas,
one of the feature productions of the 2014 Taipei Arts Festival which was produced
by Mobius Strip Theatre Company in association with Hong Kong Repertory Theatre
at The Wellspring Theater in Taipei on September 5-7. Going against the customary
practice of characterization and rising above the theatre of representation, the three
Taipei performances of The 9 Fridas amazed viewers with their stunning aesthetic
design and yet confused quite a few spectators who were seeking to discover Kahlo’s
17
true image and nature. Also, the production disappointed some theatregoers because it
did not meet their expectations in the aspect of acting and overall directorship.
Transgressing cultural boundaries, the production is an example of intercultural
theatre. Oftentimes, in the international theatre or arts festival, foreign collaborators
are invited because they are expected to add something distinct or special to the local
theatre tradition. This desire to internationalize one’s theatre, however, often does not
take into account cultural differences and language barriers that rise to the fore when
creating a production under the pressure of limited time and budget, and with people
whom one does not know well. In the case of the 2014 Taipei Arts Festival, the
artistic director Yi-Wei Keng did take the above concerns into consideration. For one
thing, Zarrilli is no stranger to Taiwan theatre circle. He has been to Taiwan several
times. For another, several of the cast members in this production are Zarrilli’s former
students; they know his approach and working methods well, and language barrier is
not a serious issue. Thus the opportunities for misunderstandings or
miscommunications are to be reduced to a minimum degree.
During the process of creating The 9 Fridas, the actors, playwright Kaite
O’Reilly, and director Zarrilli worked together in good terms. 9 But how come the
result of the production was not so satisfactory according to some reviews.10 Some
spectators liked the poetic lines delivered by the actors and found the elaborate sets
and costumes fascinating. Others were troubled and confused by disjunctive images
and words and found the performance disappointing. The majority of the critics,
nevertheless, agreed that the production challenged the audience’s perceptions in
frustrating rather than productive ways. At its best, we can say the production had a
mixed success. To examine the production process as a whole from script, translation,
interpretation, to presentation, the three parties’ collaboration was a mutually
benefiting and illuminating intercultural interaction. Unlike Robert Wilson’s two
major intercultural collaborations with Taiwan actors and local production staffs
(Orlando in 2009 Taiwan International Festival of Arts and 1433—The Grand Voyage
in 2010 Taiwan International Festival of Arts), Zarrilli did not have a huge foreign
production team with him. Rather, what he had was a small local working group for
The 9 Fridas project. Other than having a long-standing partnership with O’Reilly in
several projects, Zarrilli this time mostly relied on devoted actors/students as well as
Taiwanese professional theatre artists (costume designer, set designer, etc.).
9
This statement is based on my personal observation and interviews with the actors. I went to observe
the rehearsal of The 9 Fridas at Mobius Strip Theatre in August 2014 a couple of times and discovered
that both Zarrilli and O’Reilly were very personable theatre workers. The atmosphere of the rehearsal
room was agreeable most of the time.
10
According to these reviewers, the production as a whole can only arouse their lukewarm interest.
While recognizing the performance’s aesthetic elements as well as poetic and exquisite language and
narrative skills, they criticized the play’s slow tempo, not very interesting acting style, voice
articulation, etc. Please consult the reviews written by Ken-Chuan Yeh, Shanlu Yu, and Siraya Pai.
18
Is this intercultural collaboration counter-productive? If the purpose of this
project is to promote intercultural exchange or bartering, have they achieved their
goals in the production of The 9 Fridas? According to Zarrilli, the goals of this project
are twofold. First, the main purpose to invite him over to direct The 9 Fridas is to
familiarize Taiwanese performers and audience with the psychophysical training
approach. Second, the decision to stage O’Reilly’s The 9 Fridas is aimed at offering a
chance for Taiwanese actors and spectators alike to experience a poetic postdramtic
script and the alternative dramaturgy that comes along with it (Zarrilli 2014).
From the workshop to the final production, we can witness that there was a close
collaboration at work and detect a good chemistry in the interactions of the three
parties—Mobius Strip Theater, Zarrilli, and O’Reilly—involved.11 The purpose of
Zarrilli’s psychophysical training approach is to enable the performer to develop an
intuitive awareness. For him, the ideal state of his approach is for performer to
achieve the state of “Meyyu Kannakuka,” literally “the body becomes all eyes” (2009:
1). To attain this ideal state, a step-by-step long-term practice is required. However,
due to the limited time and budget, Zarrilli’s actor training was only skip-deep
because some actors were unable to develop well-integrated psychophysical skills in
such a short period of time. As Zarrilli explains in a special interview when being
asked the question of Taiwanese performers’ response to his psychophysical approach,
he said that for those performers “who never or seldom ‘used the body’ to feel and
learn, they need to spend longer time to adapt themselves to the approach” (2014).
Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach seeks to reconsider, refashion, and move
beyond “the psychophysical” as defined by Stanislavski, to animate the vital energy
within through the breath and integrated bodywork (2009: 18-20), and allow new
energy-filled embodied performance to emerge. The limited workshop and rehearsal
time undercut what Zarrilli had desired for, and the actors had difficulties to awaken
their energy and then to establish a distinguishable acting style. Also, language
barriers had been underestimated. Even though language communication was only a
minor issue during the rehearsal, this situation did not guarantee that all other
language-related problems were likely to resolve naturally. Since both Zarrilli and
O’Reilly didn’t know mandarin at all, they had no clear clue how the speech
articulations sounded like to local audience’s ears. Ken-Chuan Yeh, a local critic,
comments that there is a serious defect in several actors’ voice presentation for they
used an old-fashioned and stereotypical stagy voice which was not only full of
11
O’Reilly’s contribution to the project is worth noting here. As a playwright, she was present
throughout, including the 3-day workshop, 6-week rehearsal, and 3-day performance. She kept revising
the script until the last moment. In addition, she was invited by the British Council to give a workshop
in writing and then a public lecture: “Representations of Impairment in the Western Theatrical
Canon” on August 5, 2014.
19
mannerism but also very detached from colloquial expressions. Shanlu Yu, another
local critic, also points out that what alienates the audience from the performance is
mainly due to the nondramatic and monotonous narrative style of the production.
Perhaps the three parties’ concomitant assumption about the ease of mutual
understanding and friendship created unrealistic expectations of immediate reception
across the stage using mandarin as the medium of communication. Judging from its
characteristics, this production was not a physical theater. Rather, it was a script-based
theater. Problems arised from the rendering of foreign culture, here the Mexican
culture, and the presentation of this culture in mandarin because local audience had to
overcome several barriers in a row which included knowledge about the life and work
of Frida Kahlo, Mexican culture, O’Reilly’s alternative dramaturgy, the lack of
characterization, foreign languages, and the uncharacteristic voice articulation.
Speaking of foreign languages, another unique feature of the production was that it
was purposefully meant to be polyglossia, constantly shifting between mandarin,
English, Spanish, and even Mayan language. Since the Taipei production was a
mandarin production, the use of Spanish from time to time not only disrupted the
unity of Chinese but also created an exotic feeling. Spanish was used mostly to name
or introduce special aspect of Mexican culture, such as death “la pelona,” Frida’s
nickname “Friducha,” the place of fear “Xibalba, the K’iche Shades,” etc. One special
occasion in the play was to broadcast Kahlo’s manifesto on art and politics in both
Spanish and Chinese at the end of Scene 16. At other times, Spanish songs, such as
Cielito lindo, or songs sung by Chavela Vargas were introduced.
To sum up, the production of The 9 Fridas, binding disparate styles and engaging
two or more languages, cultures, and world views, blended and jumbled too many
inconsistent elements together. As a result, the mandarin premiere in Taipei could not
create positive resonance and ties with the local audience, even though the two invited
artists, Zarrilli and O’Reilly, were theatre workers who were willing to take into
account the cultural and language differences of the people that they were working
with or those who were interested in viewing their work.
Conclusion
As mentioned above, through his actor training masterclasses conducted around
the world, his own theatre projects, and his writings on Indian theatre, kathakali,
kalarippayattu, yoga, and psychophysical exercises, Zarrilli has exerted a great impact
on contemporary performance theory and theatre practices, and initiated a radical
paradigm shift in acting and directing praxis. Intellectually stimulating and
psychophysically informed, his cocktail approach has offered an alternative to many
already existing psychophysical training methods—for example, that of Japanese noh,
20
butoh, Suzuki, Anne Bogart, Copeau, Lecoq, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Peking/Beijing
opera, etc.—that have gained currency either in Taiwan or around the world since
1960s.
The main purpose of this paper is to explore the full swing of Zarrilli’s
psychophysical theory and enterprise. Of multifarious dimensions and issues about his
approach, I am particularly concerned about the efficacy and effectiveness of his actor
training method. This paper sets out to examine the way Zarrilli formulates his
approach and his projects, and attempts to give a fair assessment of his thoughts and
projects. My argument is that his approach is best for a production conformed to the
guidelines of post-dramatic theater because it has been very keen in dealing with the
invisible and the unknown. Regarding practice as research, his approach shows the
importance of sustained embodied research. Zarrilli’s aim is to grope for a way to act,
to fine tune the bodymind, and to do theatre using the energy in a rightful manner in
the broad spectrum and continuum of “the psychophysical.” However, judging from
the long-term and rigorous training the approach requires, I am still doubtful that this
approach can be successfully applied and implemented on stage in an accomplished
manner other than Zarrilli himself.
What counts and impresses us most in Zarrilli’s undertaking is his showing by
his own example that a serious and solid psychophysical practice is the
means—perhaps the principal means—through which theatre practitioners come to
understand their consciousness, bodymind continuum, and heightened awareness of
their being. As a transformational act and force, his approach has the power to
enlighten practitioners to pursue the higher realm of accomplishment. While defining
itself against the immediate past and is always in dialogue with the immediate future,
Zarrilli’s approach aims high and its purpose is to bring the actor to an optimal level
where the “body(mind) becomes all eyes” (2009: 213) and where “one enters into a
state of being/doing in which one is constantly at play in the moment” (2009: 213).
Works Cited
Barba, Eugenio. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. Trans. Richard
Fowler. New York: Routledge, 1995.
---. “Words of Presence.” The Drama Review 16.1 (1972): 47-54.
Carnicke, Sharon M. “The Life of the Human Spirit: Stanislavski’s Eastern Self.”
Teatr: Russian Theatre Past and Present 1 (2000): 3-14.
Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom. London: Harper Collins, 2002.
Eliade, Mircea. Patanjali and Yoga. New York: Schocken Books, 1975.
Filliozat, Jean. The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek
Parallels. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1964.
21
Foucault, Michel. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Fourcault. Ed.
Luther H. Martin. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1988.
Grotowski, Jerzy. “Performer.” The Grotowski Sourcebook. Eds. Lisa Wolford &
Richard Schechner. New York: Routledge, 1997. 376-380.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Trans. Karen Jürs-Munby. London:
Routledge, 2006.
Stanislavski, Konstantin. My Life in Art. Trans. J. J. Robbins. New York: Theatre Art
Books, 1948.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. Psychophysical Acting : An Intercultural Approach after
Stanislavski. With DVD-ROM by Peter Hulton. London: Routledge, 2009.
---. Kathakali Dance-Drama : Where Gods and Demons Come to Play. London:
Routledge, 2000.
---. When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Discourses, and Practices of
Power in Kalarippayattu, a South Indian Martial Art. Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1998.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. The 9 Fridas Programme. Interviewed by Pei Wei Huang and
written by Yi-ni Ma. Taipei: Mobius Strip Theater, 2014.
Yeh, Ken-Chuan. “The Cultural Barrier of the Narrative Theater and the Traumatic
Representation of The 9 Fridas.” Performing Arts Review Platform (September 9,
2014). http://pareviews.ncafroc.org.tw/?p=12577
---. “Drama Intercultural Productions are unable to overcome the language barriers?”
Performing Arts Review (December 9, 2014): 84-85.
Yu, Shanlu. “Mobius Strip Theatre Company in association with Hong Kong
Repertory Theatre.” Lulusharp PChome Mypaper (September 6, 2014).
http://mypaper.pchome.com.tw/yushanlu/post/1330045361
Siraya. The 9 Fridas. Siraya Pixnet Blog (September 7, 2014).
http://siraya.pixnet.net/blog/post/41364895
22
105年度專題研究計畫成果彙整表
計畫主持人：蘇子中計畫編號：105-2410-H-003-023-
計畫名稱：當身體開光：印度在菲利普‧薩睿立的表演理論、劇場實踐與演員訓練方法裡所扮演的角
色
質化
（說明：各成果項目請附佐證資料或細
成果項目量化單位
項說明，如期刊名稱、年份、卷期、起
訖頁數、證號...等）　　　　　　　
期刊論文 0
Su, Tsu-Chung. “Phillip
Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach
篇 to Actor Training—A Critical
研討會論文 1 Assessment.” 2016 NTU劇場國際學術
研討會：全球化年代的在地展演。國立
學術性論文臺灣大學戲劇系。October 29-
30，2016。
專書 0 本
專書論文 0 章
技術報告 0 篇
其他 0 篇
國
內申請中 0
發明專利
專利權已獲得 0
新型/設計專利 0
商標權 0
智慧財產權
營業秘密 0 件
及成果
積體電路電路布局權 0
著作權 0
品種權 0
其他 0
件數 0 件
技術移轉
收入 0 千元
期刊論文 0
Su, Tsu-Chung. “Phillip
Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach
to Actor Training—A Critical
Assessment.” International
篇 Federation for Theatre Research
國
學術性論文研討會論文 1
(IFTR/FIRT) 2017 Conference on
外
“Unstable Geographies: Multiple
Theatricalities.” The University
of São Paulo, Brazil. July 10-14,
2017.
專書 0 本
專書論文 0 章
技術報告 0 篇
其他 0 篇
申請中 0
發明專利
專利權已獲得 0
新型/設計專利 0
商標權 0
智慧財產權
營業秘密 0 件
及成果
積體電路電路布局權 0
著作權 0
品種權 0
其他 0
件數 0 件
技術移轉
收入 0 千元
大專生 0
碩士生 0
本國籍博士生 0
參博士後研究員 0
與
計專任助理 0
人次
畫大專生 0
人
碩士生 0
力
非本國籍博士生 0
博士後研究員 0
專任助理 0
其他成果
（無法以量化表達之成果如辦理學術活動
、獲得獎項、重要國際合作、研究成果國
際影響力及其他協助產業技術發展之具體
效益事項等，請以文字敘述填列。）　　
科技部補助專題研究計畫成果自評表
請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況、研究成果之學術或應用價
值（簡要敘述成果所代表之意義、價值、影響或進一步發展之可能性）、是否適
合在學術期刊發表或申請專利、主要發現（簡要敘述成果是否具有政策應用參考
價值及具影響公共利益之重大發現）或其他有關價值等，作一綜合評估。
1. 請就研究內容與原計畫相符程度、達成預期目標情況作一綜合評估
■達成目標
□未達成目標（請說明，以100字為限）
　　□實驗失敗
　　□因故實驗中斷
　　□其他原因
說明：
2. 研究成果在學術期刊發表或申請專利等情形（請於其他欄註明專利及技轉之證
號、合約、申請及洽談等詳細資訊）
論文：■已發表　□未發表之文稿　□撰寫中　□無
專利：□已獲得　□申請中　■無
技轉：□已技轉　□洽談中　■無
其他：（以200字為限）
3. 請依學術成就、技術創新、社會影響等方面，評估研究成果之學術或應用價值
（簡要敘述成果所代表之意義、價值、影響或進一步發展之可能性，以500字
為限）
Zarrilli has a productive career. Over the years, his psychophysical
actor training and practice have exerted quite an impact on the
contemporary performance scene. His enterprise is rich and fertile,
resisting any facile description or generalization. The significance
of this project lies in its effort to re-examine, re-imagine, re-
map, and re-assess Zarrilli’s contribution.
4. 主要發現
本研究具有政策應用參考價值：□否　■是，建議提供機關文化部,
（勾選「是」者，請列舉建議可提供施政參考之業務主管機關）
本研究具影響公共利益之重大發現：■否　□是　
說明：（以150字為限）

當身體開光印度劇場

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當身體開光印度劇場

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科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

英文摘要： Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his

英文關鍵詞： Indian theatre, Phillip Zarrilli, performance theory,

Zarrilli, Phillip B. “‘Doing the Exercise’: The In-body Transmission of Performance

Another book we cannot do without is A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret

□實驗 □田野調查 □採集樣本

Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula:

Keywords: Phillip Zarrilli, psychophysical approach to acting, yoga, taijiquan,

Phillip Zarrilli is an internationally renowned theatre director and actor trainer

1. Indian Sources, Resources, Knowledge, and the Vedas

2. From Training to Performance

3. The “Energetics” of Acting

The impact of kalarippayattu on Zarrilli has been enormous. Through Zarrilli’s

4. The “Mindful” Technologies of the Actor’s Bodymind

II. Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach:

1. Zarrilli’s Approach: An Asian Cocktail Treatment for the Devoted

2. Practice as Research & Acting as Inquiry

3. Zarrilli’s Approach: Towards a Secularized Bodymind Practice?

III. The 9 Fridas as A Case Study

You might also like

當身體開光 印度劇場

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

當身體開光 印度劇場

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

科技部補助專題研究計畫成果報告

英 文 摘 要 ： Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his

英 文 關 鍵 詞 ： Indian theatre, Phillip Zarrilli, performance theory,

Zarrilli, Phillip B. “‘Doing the Exercise’: The In-body Transmission of Performance

Another book we cannot do without is A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret

□實驗 □田野調查 □採集樣本

Phillip Zarrilli’s Asian Formula:

Keywords: Phillip Zarrilli, psychophysical approach to acting, yoga, taijiquan,

Phillip Zarrilli is an internationally renowned theatre director and actor trainer

1. Indian Sources, Resources, Knowledge, and the Vedas

2. From Training to Performance

3. The “Energetics” of Acting

The impact of kalarippayattu on Zarrilli has been enormous. Through Zarrilli’s

4. The “Mindful” Technologies of the Actor’s Bodymind

II. Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach:

1. Zarrilli’s Approach: An Asian Cocktail Treatment for the Devoted

2. Practice as Research & Acting as Inquiry

3. Zarrilli’s Approach: Towards a Secularized Bodymind Practice?

III. The 9 Fridas as A Case Study

You might also like

當身體開光印度劇場

當身體開光印度劇場

英文摘要： Phillip Zarrilli is internationally known for his

英文關鍵詞： Indian theatre, Phillip Zarrilli, performance theory,