Character Mandala Exercise, Part IV (postscript)

Why do the Character Mandala?

I like it because it's a clear representation of what Ehn was, I think, trying to get at in talking about story and character as landscape, as looking at playwriting as a way to explore the darkness, or the space between images, as a way to put images in relationship.

If you have images existing on the periphery of a circle, and you say that the character is what exists in the middle of the circle, you realize that a character can be both CENTRAL and be a kind of NEGATIVE SPACE, both the container and the contained, like a bowl.

This lines up, in a lot of ways, with my experience as an actor. Less about generating things than finding a way to contain and be available to the images, themes, plot. On the other hand, I think this idea of negative space also leaves room for an actor to bring a generative energy to a rehearsal/performance process. Oh, hell, I don't know if I'm articulating that well at all. All this to say that the Image Mandala exercise seems to open possibilities for the actor in rehearsal and performance that move beyond a reductive "what do I want, how do I get what I want" model. And that, at this point, room for that interests me.