ABSTRACT
In the Buddhist monastery of Shaolin, at the foot of Mount Songshan in the Henan Province of China, the monks studied the movements of six creatures and transformed them into performance exercises. The animals were the snake, tiger, bird, bear, deer and monkey. The study of animal movement is used in many theatre cultures. Cambodian classical theatre has four principal characters – the male, the female, the giant and the monkey – which like those of the Italian commedia dell’arte, are associated with particular actors throughout their entire careers. Like the other stock characters of Cambodian performance, the monkey is an archetype immediately recognisable by the audience, with strong and unvarying characteristics. Many theatre cultures are built around archetypes or stock characters. The stories of the commedia dell’arte were improvised around a group of characters immediately recognisable from their physicality, mannerisms, movements, costumes and masks.
