The Invisible Actor

Yoshi Oida is a Japanese actor and director who has worked mainly in the West as a member of Peter Brook's theatre company in Paris. He blends the oriental tradition of supreme and studied control with the Western performer's need to characterise and expose depths of emotion. In this study of the actor's art written with Lorna Marshall, Yoshi Oida provides every performer with all the simple tools which help place the technique of acting behind a cloak of invisibility. Yoshi Oida believes that once the audience becomes openly aware of the actor's method and becomes too conscious of the actor's artistry, the wonder of performance dies. The audience must never see the actor but only his or her performance.