Solo Performance: Theatre Theorist Theory

This past week we talked about the Solo performance, which is the HL product for the IB, and saw the guidelines as well as several theorists examples.

I think that in our entire theatre carreer in Theatre, we have never worked in all of the areas at once, meaning being director, producer, actor, and designer. Although we did cover most of the areas for this year's school play, we weren't techinically directors, so the experience is yet to be known.
This is something that i found very intriguing and rich about the product; all of the other three are based on one or two of the aforementioned aspects, and they try to inmerse you into the role of either of these positions (a director for the DN, an actor for the collaborative, etc.). But this one proyect, let's you experience each of them together at once. It is one thing to experience being a director, actor, producer, or designer one at a time, but it is completely different to experience being all of them at the same time. Now i do think it will be a major challenge, since apart from all the other IB work you have, it is imperative to bend over and backwards to actually comply with each of the requirements by yourself alone.
To me, this idea of experiencing all of them lets you put in perspective what you skills are, and which area is better for you, because you can actually compare them. I mean, you could compare your work as a director in the DN and as an actor in the ensemble, but they are two very different works with very different conditions and limitations. However the Solo joins all aspects together and gives you the opportunity to actually compare and know which is the area you have more skills in.

Now, talking about the theatre theorists, we managed to look at a list of about thirty of them who explored different areas, like voice, body, design, aesthetic training, psycological training, etc. But personally i have come to conclude that i want to research about a theorist that explores physical training and psycological training for the character, because is the aspect i have most training in and probably the one i do best. Now, i have considered researching about a theorists who concentrates in the voice, because it is pretty much the one i have the least training in, and i sing like a dying bird, so it would be very beneficial to get some informal training. But that is exactly the reason why i am not choosing one of these theorists, because i have no training, and doing it by myself informally might not be very succesful. I could do all of the exercises and train myself, but maybe it doesn't quite have the results i was expecting, and my application of them is not very good in the performance. So i don't really want to risk messing up, because, well, training in any area takes years, and i can't turn my horrible voice into Adele's.
As i mentioned, i decided to work with the body and the psycological state of the actor, which i think are the most important areas for the training of a good well-rounded actor. Plus, as i explained, this is the area i have most training so the process will not be as long, and the application will be a lot more succesfull than in other cases.
One of the theorists, and probably the one i will choose, that interest me the most is Stanislavsky. I heard about him a lot of years ago, but it wasn't until last year when i actually got to know who he was, and researched about him. From the very beginning i agreed completly with his theory and thought that his actor training was simply amazing. I really liked how he explored the psycological training, such as experience, that the actor needed to undergo in order to fully portray a role. I think that this is something i really want to explore someday, and probably this is the opportunity for me to do it.
Another theorists i really liked was none other than Stanislavsky's disciple, Eugenio Barba. What i find really interesting about him is his take on Stanislavsky's system and theory, because i find facinating how one theory can be explained and explored by another theorists. Basically, Barba seeks to train the actor in a mental way to a then physical one, which i find intriguing.
Although i said i wanted to work with a theory about the physical and psyocological aspects of the acting, i definitely know i don't want to research on Arteaud or the theorists on miming. As for the latest, i really don't like mimes and i don't find the theory appealing at all. But, as for Arteaud, i did find his theory incredibly facinating and amusing, but i find his work a bit over the edge, in the sense that i find some of his work a bit extreme.
Other theorists i liked where Brecht (as usual) and Berkoff, because of their theory about how acting and theatre it self should be represented, and should represent. However, i think i am definitely working with Stanislavsky.

One thing i noticed about the product, is that it is not only as open (even more) as the other ones, but it has a lot more variety, as in there are very little limitations. The pp, as i mentioned before, has a very short list of possible traditions which are mainly puppetry or Asian and Eurpean tradition. However, the Solo product has no lists for you to choose from, and lets you be as original as possible. I think this helps in the approaches and the ideas we have, making us more suceptible to exploring theatre in a wider spectrum.

Now, my only concern about this product, is the fact that it is only a product. I mean, theorists have developed their theories over the course of decades, so how are we going get through it all in just a short period of time? I know we only have to concentrate on one aspect of the theory, but it still takes a whole lot of time? Will we even be able to go through the entire theory of the aspect? What if i don't finish the theory because it is too complicated? I think the gaps that this products leaves are very frustrating because they limit you to a very small portion of a huge theatre theory.