Constructing the Holistic Actor: Fitzmaurice Voicework

Traditionally, the actor's voice-training arena in the United States has been based largely in a preponderance of European and American theories. Many of the most prevalent approaches to voice for the actor have been examined in this western insularity. But, increasingly, the influences of other cultural traditions are gaining tenancy in many western venues, including in university dramatic art departments. These cultural convergences offer opportunities for fertile dialogues that may generate new and expansive creative outcomes in the laboratory of the classroom and the playing field of the theater. These transactions, however, do not always occur without tensions as juxtaposing diverse cultural disciplines seek balance between fluid intercourses while maintaining traditional integrity. This study examines how one relatively undocumented approach, which is gaining popularity in actor training venues across America, Fitzmaurice Voicework, addresses the tension of intercultural dialogue in dramatic art. The study will observe how Fitzmaurice Voicework provides theoretical and working interchange between Reichian therapy and bioenergetics from the West, along with yoga and shiatsu from the East. Through historical and theoretical documentation, the research will show that Fitzmaurice Voicework's innovative terminology -destructuring and restructuring- interfaces with the fundamental program of synthesis that provides foundation for both yoga and shiatsu. The study looks at how the cultural tensions are resolved through incorporating an element of creative chaos in this psychophysical approach to voice that shifts structural and mental blockages via breath and energetic flow, which pulls from both eastern and western disciplines. The result of this research will demonstrate that Fitzmaurice Voicework is potentially poised in the vanguard of voice training to offer a solution to the East/West dichotomy. The theory that it purports has global and holistic possibility for the actor, giving a wide palette for play and vocal expressiveness.