Reflections on a tool: Rasa / Rasaboxes

From Rachel:

Rasa is a sanskrit word meaning taste/essence/flavor/spirit and it is connected with emotions. Like we have a wide spectrum of how we experience food flavors (salty, sweet, etc) so to is the spectrum of how we experience or express rasas.  Using the Sanskrit words keeps us from confining the rasa to a specific aspect of the emotion it is connected with (or at least the English words it is connected with).

Rasas are:

adbuta (surprise, wonder)

sringara (love, the erotic)  

bhayanaka (fear, shame)

bibhasta (disgust, revolt)

vira (courage, the heroic, virility)

hasya (laughter, comic, ridicule)

karuna (sadness, compassion, pity)

raudra (rage)

Playing the scene through with a predominant or driving rasa (and maybe a supporting or secondary rasa that occasionally jumps into the drivers seat) seems like it allows actors to make the internal process an external one. 

“...[I]t can be at once say that everything to do with the emotions has to be externalized; that is to say, it must be developed into a gesture. The actor has to find a sensibly perceptible outward expression for his character’s emotions, preferably some action that gives away what is going on inside him.”  - Brecht on Theatre, pg 139

 (There are two summary articles about Rasaboxes available, one to the point and one slightly more extended with exploratory exercises.  Lorraine sent them out to the company.  Email if you need them.)