Adler Technique - Chino Valley Unified School District

STELLA ADLER
THE ART OF ACTING
An Acting Methodology
STELLA ADLER
(1901 – 1992)
appealed to her greatly, Stella Adler nevertheless joined the ensemble in 1931,
having been promised leading roles and having been enamored of Clurman's
vision.
From 1905, at the age of four, until her death eighty-seven years later, Stella
While acting with the Group, Stella Adler did some of her best work, including
Adler dedicated her life to preserving and expanding the highest level of art in
the notable roles of Sarah Glassman in "Success Story," Adah Menken in
the theatre. The youngest daughter of the eminent Yiddish tragedians, Sara and
"Gold Eagle Guy," Bessie Berger in "Awake and Sing," and Clara in "Paradise
Jacob Adler, Stella Adler began her career on her father's stage at the age of
Lost."
four in a production of "Broken Hearts." When Stella Adler was eighteen, she
went to London, where she made her debut at the Pavilion as Naomi in "Elisa
Ben Avia," a role she performed for a year, before returning to New York.
Stella Adler the spent the next ten years performing throughout the United
States, Europe, and South America, appearing in more than 100 plays in
vaudeville and the Yiddish theatre. Stella Adler received a great deal of acclaim
among Yiddish-speaking audiences as the leading lady of Jacob Ben Ami and
Maurice Schwartz; yet she longed for wider recognition and the opportunity to
play more varied roles.
Following her Broadway debut in Carl Kapek's "The World We Live In," Stella
Adler joined the American Laboratory headed by Richard Boleslavsky and
Maria Ouspenskaya, who were former members of the Moscow Art Theatre.
In 1924, Stella Adler met her second husband, Harold Clurman, one of the cofounders of The Group Theatre, for the first time; and in 1928, she
participated in the Actor's Laboratory where she met Lee Strasberg as well.
When, in 1931 Clurman, Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford created an influential
theatre group that championed an imperative for realism and the teachings of
Konstantin Stanislavski, Clurman and Strasberg invited Stella Adler to become
a founding member of that collective, which was called The Group Theatre.
Although neither the politics nor the cooperative energy of the company
Taking a brief leave of absence in 1934 to travel to Russia, Stella Adler stopped
off in Paris, where she met and studied for five weeks with Konstantin
Stanislavski. (She was the only American actor ever to study with him
privately.) When Stella Adler returned to The Group Theatre with a new
understanding of his work, and a new idea of what American theatre could be,
she began to give acting classes for other members of the Group, including
Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis, all of whom went on to
become notable theatrical directors and acting teachers. Although the Group
provided her with some support, Stella Adler never felt comfortable there; and
in 1937, she left for Hollywood.
After six years as an associate producer at MGM, and a number of roles (under
the name "Stella Ardler") in movies such as "Love on Toast" (1937) and "The
Shadow of the Thin Man" (1941), she returned to Broadway and London to
direct and act in many plays, including the London premiere of "Manhattan
Nocturne," the Off-Broadway revival of the Paul Green-Kurt Weil anti-war
play, "Johnny Johnson," as well as "Sons and Soldiers," "Pretty Little Parlor,"
and "He Who Gets Slapped." Her last stage appearance was in the critically
controversial production of Arthur Kopit's "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's
Hung You in the Closet, and I'm Feeling So Sad" (1959).
Concurrent with her work as an actor and director, Stella Adler began to teach
important, but unspoken, messages. This responsibility, she knew, required a
in the early 1940's at the Erwin Piscator Workshop at the New School for
combination of emotional availability and imagination. For her students Stella
Social Research. Stella Adler left the faculty in 1949 to establish her own place
Adler was both the toughest critic and the most profound inspiration, saying,
for young actors to work, study, and perform, which would last five decades
"You act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors - because your
and enrich every part of the American theatre and motion picture arts.
souls are not used up by life." To this day, Stella Adler is still viewed as one of
the foremost influences on contemporary acting.
Combining what she had learned from the Yiddish theatre, The Group
Theatre, Broadway, Hollywood, and Stanislavski, the Stella Adler Theatre
Studio (later renamed the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, and finally the
Stella Adler Studio of Acting) offered courses in principles of acting, speech
and voice, Shakespeare, movement, and makeup, together with workshops in
play analysis, character, scene preparation, and acting styles. Onstage
experience was acquired by performances of scenes and plays before an invited
audience. Among her students were Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren
Beatty, Elaine Stritch, Mario Van Peebles, Harvey Keitel, and Candice Bergen.
Her belief in the supreme seriousness of her art kept many well-known
members of the theatre coming back for her intelligent and passionate advice.
By 1960, as the school expanded, courses for advanced students and
professionals were added to the curriculum. These courses included rehearsal
technique and script analysis (which she also taught at Yale for a year and half).
The school also provided lecture demonstrations by such notable figures as Sir
John Gielgud, Arthur Laurents, Boris Aronson, and visiting artists from the
Moscow Art Theatre.
It was Adler's sense that "the theatre exists 99% in the imagination" that
informed her instruction. Stella Adler proposed that one of the actor's primary
concerns must be with the emotional origins of the script. A student's main
responsibility was to search between the lines of the script for the playwright's
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home.
In the end I accompaniedHarold to Mr. Stanislavski's
French
It was a small French apartmentwith a small
elevator,
When Harold openedthe door, there were a few peopiein the
room. It was a small room, and in the far corner wag
Stanislavski.The moment of meeting him was sucha shockto
me that I didnt move.Harold went over and greetedhim. With
Stanislavskiwere his doctor, a friend and Olga Knipper,
Chekhov'swidow.
Madame Chekhovastood near the door with me and said,
"You must go over and shakeMr. Stanislavskithand." I looked
at her andsaid,"No." Shesaid,"Youmust."I said,"No, I mustnt," and I didn't. I stood, completelyunableto move, forward
or backward.I wasparalyzedby the whole moment.
Within a short time he suggestedwe all go to the ChampsElysees.When we got there, Mr. Stanislavskisat on a bencb
againsta tree, and we sat aroundhim. There wasgreat laughtcr
and gaiety,the intimary andwittinessthat actorshave.I remem.
ber distinctly Stanislavskichiding Madame Chekhovaand call.
ing her a ham, and of courseshelaughed.He pretendedto bully
her, and she pretendedto be stronger than he was.There wgl
humor, and an absolute moment of ensemble, and the joy
beinE there.
Mr. Stanislavskisooke to evervone and oerceived I was
cent. Naturally, he'd notice that, becausehe had the "eye.
Nothing got pasthim. He finally turned to me and said,"Youn;
lady,everybodyhasspokento me but you."
That was the moment I looked at him, eye to eye. I h
myself safng, "Mr. Stanislavski,I loved the theatre until
camealong, and now I hate it!" He looked at me a little longc!
and then said,"Well, then you must cometo seeme tomorrow.r
That was the moment I rememberbest.We said goodbyq
and I went to seeMr. Stanislavskithe next day.I told hinr I wrt
a practicedactress.I{e knew of my family: He knew becausemy
father,Jacob P. Adler, had producedThe Liuing Clrpscl>y l.a
Tolstoibcforche, Stanislavski,
h:rdplaycdit. Adler wrs thc fint
one in the world to play it, and this, of course,wasknown by
understoodI wasthe daughterofJacobP.
everyone.Stanislavski
Adler and SaraAdler, a theatricalfamily.
Stanislavskiand I soon echievedthe greatestclosenessof
director and actress,and very soonit wasjust actorand actress!
We worked together for many,many weeks.In thoseperiods,
there were certain things he askedme to do. Particularly,he
made clear that an actor must have an enormousimagination,
I understood he was very
uninhibited by self-consciousness.
much an actor fed by the imagination.He explainedthe enormous importanceof the imaginationon the stage.
He explainedin detailhow importantit wasto usecircumstances.He saidwbereyo.uare is what you are,andhow you are,
and what you can be. You're in a placethat will feedyou. give
you strength,giveyou the ability to do whateveryou want.
Mr. Stanislavskitold me, very much actor to actress,how he
He
had sufferedwhen he playedIbsen'sln Enemyof thePeople.
for
him,
didn't know where to touch it. He saidit was difficult
that Ibsenwasdifficult for him. He told me it tookhim ten years
to find the part. While he wasgatheringthe elementsfor a technique that would makeacting easier,he found the answerto the
problem he'd experiencedasan actor throughout his life, especially while working on An Enernyof tbePeople.
charactertalkedto the
In one sceneof the play Stanislavski's
peopleand askedthem to do something.That waswrong. He
said,"I had to speakto the soulof the people.If I could reach
rheir souls,Icould get somewhere."Ten yearsafter Stanisiavski
originally playedthe role, the play wasrevived;the part washis
and now he could olav it.
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Stanislavskircalizedplayswere being written that could no
kllger bc irctc(l in thc traditional way. He knew hc had to cre-
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ate a way in which theseplayscould be done.He had to achieve
a techniquethat could be usedfor everypossiblestyle.He had
to havethe meansat his disposalto createthe sizeand statureof
man, with control, discipline,good speech.
The plays he was dealingwith, of Ibsen and Chekhov and
Strindberg,are realism.They raisethe question,What is real?
On the simplestlevel, this cup is real. Reality is somethingyou
can seeand touch.
But realismis also a technique,a craft. It's an art form that
asksthe actor to reachand then revealthe truth. Realismteach'
esus the ideaof the play is the first consideration.You play tho
play and you play the characterto revealthe author'sidea.You
neverplayyourself.The actor'saim is to servethe theatre,never
himself.
The late 19th century playsStanislavskiwaswrestling
dealt with socialconditions,the life peoplethen were living'
socialrealismthe hero hasvanished.There areno longer
and villains. Everybody'sa hero. The author presented
ways and wrong ways to behave,and the audience has to
its own truths.
The main objective of Realismis to overthrow the lies
public and private life. Realismdealswith the middle class.
finds out why the middle classis infected with the disease
inherited values,that is, valuesreceivedthrough gossip,
the church, through education,through government.
Realism gets at and uncovers the tmth of the human
of the middle classand its way of life. When you approach
styleof Realism,which is written in prose,you must approach
as a poetic form. Realismis basedin language,but you
training to get the real meaningof what'sbeing said.
It's a huge transition to go from the aristocratic classor
military classto the middle class.The aristocraticmind and
military mind are about formality.The middle classmind
informal.The aristocratplaysout his life in palaces.'['he
'I'hc
nritltllcclrrsslifc takcsplacc
tary actson thc l)attlcfield.
the family. Napoleon posed for history. The middle class
man isn't concernedwith pomp or glory. He's not posing for
eternity.
In Realism'sfamily there'sa lack of stufEness,
of bluster.You
couldn't set Queen Elizabethor Louis XfV down in a middleclassfamily.They're too big for the home.
What the Realisticplaywrightis often sayingis that the family, despiteits lack of pretention,despitewhat they think of as
the simple honestyof their behavior,is far more complicated
than the monarchy.
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In A Doll\ Houselbsen savs the whole familv situation is
false.This big truth is the key io Realism.It's much more complex than you think. You must dig down and get the key to every
word.
The middle classlives with invalid inherited ideas.We've
been handed lies. We're corrupted by externalopinions. We
quote "ideas,"but aren'tsecurewe're speakingour own truth or
somebodyelset. Ti"uth comeswithin, not from other critics,
politicians,educators,journalists.
Nora's stmggling with the lies of middle-classfamily life:
"You don't love me," shetells her husband."You lied to me. You
sayyou love me, but you dont." Shebeginsto analyzehow shet
come to think asshedoes.Sheunderstandsher father and her
husbandhaveimposedtheir opinions on her. She realizesthat
when shethinks differendy from her father or her husband,she
suppresses
it. Sheisn't allowedto think or decidefor herself.
When you understandthis truth, Ibsen'swords meansomething. The truth is big - dont tear it down. We want to hear
Mr. Ibsen,not you.
To understand
Mr. Ibsenwe needto understand
everything
we can aborrthis t'haracters,
their professions,
attitudestoward
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family, money,politics, sex,religion, education- everything.
For the actor this meansmoving slowly.We don't get what we
needsimply by looking at the words.We haveto understandthe
whole social situation.We have to understandthe social conflicts the play'wrightis trying to illuminate.
Ibsen shows the middle class is involved with money'
They're not involvedwith museumsor cultural growth. We've
left behind the class concerned with deep thoughts. We're
with practicalityand ambition. Shawsaid
amonga classdiseased
that in his time the aristocraryhad been materialized,the middle classvulgarizedand the lower classbrutalized.
The middle-classis both materialisticand mlgar. They're
not concernedwith ideas,with glory. The middle classis conThe middle class
cernedwith selling,with profitableexchanges.
says,"I want somethingfor what I'm giving you."
The middle classarosefrom industrialization.The middle
classmind is about producing things to make money.To the
middle classmind time isnt somethingto be savoredbut to be
spent,exploited.It's easierand fasterto phone than to write. It's
fasterto turn on an elecuic light than light a candle.It's faster
to take the subwayor a car than to hitch up the horse and carriage. In the middle-classworld you mustn't dawdle.Time is
money.
In the middle class world "things" came into being.
Commodities.The aim had changed.The middle classwasconThings had to have resalevalue.That aim
cernedwith success.
reduced or ignored everything else, particularly individual
growth and art.
Peoplewere stimulatedto want more things - cars,refrigerators.But it sold out the inner man. The age of industrialization, of capitalismsweptthrough the minds, heartsand soulsof
people.To achievethe new aim, success'they gaveup the best
Cashedin their souls.
of themselves.
The capitalistpoint of view hasinfiltratedeverything'commodificd everything.Ambition, sttcccssand nlonetarypower
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are all. The curiosity to developthe mind, the soul waswiped
out by industrialization.
The desire for pragmaticalsuccessdoesn't produce a
Winston Churchill. It doesn'tproduceculture.It producesmen
with training, men equippedto lead the country.But we're left
without tradition. NONE!
This mentality produces a different rbythrn of seeing.lt's a
way of seeingwithout value,without depth.It createsan rmpoverishedsocietywith warehousesbursting with goods.
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Americaoncehad a very wealthyupper class.J.P.Morgan, rn
the Panic of 1907,loaned the Americangovernment$100 million to savethe economy.Eventuallyhe profitted handsomely
by it, but it wasstill a great gesture- to personallybail out a
whole country's economy.
Morgan was a man with enoughmind to talk to a king or
queen.Like an aristocrat,he carefully selectedthe horsesthat
drew his carriage.They were pure white. They had style. His
coachmanwore a formal hat. Morgan was shrewd,intelligent,
powerful, and he had one thing in common with artists- he
knew that he'd live in history.
Itt not difficult to study the mentality of this American
upper class,who sharedwith aristocratsa love of fine things.
Look at the paintingsofJohn Singer Sargentro seehow rhey
dressed,the way they carried themselves.Or go to the Frick
Collection and imagine what it was like when Mr. and Mrs.
Frick lived there,when the paintingswere their householddecorations. This American upper class lived in palaces.They
weren't very different from Europe'saristocracy.The main differencewas their money was not inherited. They made it. (In
fact, as the Europeanaristocrarydeclined,American millionairesboughtout their inheritedtreasures.
Think CitizenKane.)
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242 sttLLtAILE\
Thesepeoplein their heydayhad tasteand style.We werent
alwaysas sloppy as we are now. Sitting up, behaving,having a
senseof tradition disappearedduring the Thirties with the
Depression,with the collapseof the economy.The pity is that
the actor'sgrandeurwent with it. The massmediumsof film and
TV took over.
had an entirelydifferentrangeof
This upper-middle-class
"things" than we do. They wore top hats. What are top hats
made oO Feit, with a silk border. Can you carry them anywhere?Do you wear them to the beach?No. You could only
M/here
carry them or wear them in certain circumstances.
doesthe top hat "sleep?"In its own box or on a specialshelf.
Do you buy them off a rack? No, you have them made for
you. There is evena specialway to clean them - you have to
follow the nap. We are used to things that are frayed. Would
you keep a ftayed top hat? Never. It defeatsthe whole purpose.
carrieda fan. Fanswere lik!
The upper-middle-class-woman
jewels. They generally came from abroad and were embroidered.The fan had its own language.It spoke.If you did thir
with the fan(sbemotions),
it wasa way of saying,Don't approach
me. If you did that, it meant,Come now. I once studiedwith I
Japaneselady to learn the languageof the fan, to learn how to
control it with the wrist.
IJpper-classmen carried canes.You useda canenot just trt
walk but to point, to call out, to twirl, to part the curtainsto scl
if it wasraininE.
They were
The upper-middle-class
had operaglasses.
times kept in a woman'sjewel box.They were madeof pearls,
gold and silver.The whole world of the operawasin the glasr
es.They had graciousness.
IJpper-classmen carriedpocketwatches.Ifyou asksomeonl
with a pocketwatch what time it is he has to take it out of hlt
timc to find
pocket.He can'tjust look at his wrist. It consumes
out the time.The implicationis that time doesn'treallyrnlttcf.
That's totally different from our understandingof time. It's
totally different from our rhythmof tnderstandingtoday.
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As an exerciseto teachus the middle-classrhythm ofseeing,
to help us distinguishit fiom an aristocrat'srhythm or an actor's,
I've placedsomeobjectson tlree tables.
I want you to get up, one by one, look around,seesomething, go to it, nameit, recognizeit, seewhat its useis, then go
on to the next thing, quickly.Tell me, this is a pencil:you write
with it; a phone:you makephone callswith it; a book you read
it. There shouldbe no emotionalconnection.Justa rapid recognition of things.
That's the middle-classway of seeing.Fast,without depth.
Each thing hasits use.Each of thesethings can be madeby the
millions.
The result is that "things" lose their quality.Nothing feeds
us. So we go to the money.How much did it cost?The telephone needsthat rhythm. The camerausestlat rhythm. Snapl
Why paint something?
If we seethat fast,with that rhythm, we haveno dimensions.
We cannot think in that rhythm. So we live in a societywhere
things dont feed us. The culrure of looking and seeingis more
highly developedin other countries. Seeingin this way isn't
American.We evaluatethings for their usefulness.
But there'sa way to look at evenutilitarian objectsin depth.
The manufacturedbotde has enough to give you two ways of
looking at it. In Americasodausedto come in botdes.Now it
comesin cans.In Francethey producebotdes of dark, smokey
green.The bottom hasa spacefor sedimentto setde.The label
is full of bright colors and a cerrain amount of readingmatter.
lt'.sfor wine,not Coca-Cola.
We shouLlall spendfifteenminutesr day,lesstirnethan we
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give ourselvesfor exerciseor jogging, working in this way,quietly, to give "things" value.
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You're industrialized,which deprivesyou of a senseof self'
You've even gotten to the point of saying, "It's stylish to be
of everything'
nothing." Becauseof the quick surfaceacceptance
you've lost something.You live your life with no value but thc
monetary.
Christmasis now all about buying and selling. We accept
this. Peopleare delightedwhen Christmascomes,but they have
no ideawhat Christrnasis. The symbol,the creche,hasbeenleft
out. W-elose the meaningof our lives.
Look at this table. It's black.It has no quality.The legson
the tablesat Versailleswere full of decorarion.Theselegsarea stab!They standlike prisonersaboutto be shot.You acceptit.
You don't know why it's madeyou so empty.This studio room
saysabsolutely nothing. It's made to serviceyou without feeding
you.
As an actor you have to find a way to analyzethe outsido
world to give it value.Tiust me, it's there.You must be fed from
the outside.If you feed only from yourself,you're pathological.
There's no life where there'snothing outside' You must taka
time with things - to be nourishedby them, not merely sef'
viced.
A very good exerciseto cultivate this sensibility is to sell
somethingover the phone. It can be anything - vitamin pillq
French lessons,a magazinesubscription.
You'll understand the middle-classrhythm simply from
pushing the telephonebuttons. It was necessaryto invent thc
push-buttonphone becausedialing wastedso much time. You!
rhythm is dictatedby the technologicalsociety- fast!Thc
machinesare importantto you. Vru needto be redcsigncdto
accommodatethem. Or you'll be discontinued.Look at your
desk - the computer,the electric pencil sharpener,the elecronic calculator.Is there an electronic vase?Yes!The screen
saver.Digital flowers.
What does"to sell" mean?It meanseverythingyou sell has
to &esaleable.It's a way of looking at objects.Can I sell itP The
more important the product is, the lessyou are.
In selling over the phone you dont know anybodyyou talk
to. It forcesyou to neutralize yovr voice, You mechanize
yorr
voice.You're a zeroin the structure.
A coupleofyears agoI senta telegramto Robert Brustein.I
thought my telegramwasfull of life. Then the operatorread it
back to me - with no feeling. She had de-personalizedthe
words, drained them of meaning. Your culhrre has digitized
words, strippedthem of meaning,of history of artistry.Words
are numbers,preferablywith dollar signsin front.
While you're selling on the phone, use as many props as
possible.You live in a society where more than one thing is
alwayshappening.When you go to a movie you havepopcorn
in one hand, a Coke in the other. You haveno concentration.
You're modern by not concentating. Or by concentratingon
something electric that's doing it for you. That's the problem
with mechanization- the machinesdo the living noq not us.
All we can do is watch.There'snothing left to lift the spirit. So
we go to psychologists.
A sign of our emptinessis our passivity,our indolence.We
spenda lot of time waiting for somethingto happen.We express
our impatienceby tappingour feet,by drumming our fingerson
a tabletop,by rubbing our handstogether,by twisting a ring on
our finger. All this is the body saying,"I'm doing nothing. I'm
bored."
This is a good way to physicalizethe American middleclass,of displayingthe running engineswe've all become.
We're peoplewho needto hurry to speedup. But sometimes
life stopsus * wc hit a traffic light. So we wait. And fidget.
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And spin our wheels.
son or talking eagerly to a waiter.
The practical man isn't a man of spiritual quiet. He's constantly doing something. He's incapableof being "laid back."
However, you pay a price for practicality - even if nothing is
happening, you keep going, going. Like that litde battery-powered bunny.
A studentof mine was ambitiousto play the violin. While he
practiced his scaleshe kept setting the metronome faster and
faster and faster as a way to make each finger independent, firm
and secure. He played each measure over and over. At the end
of four months he'd masteredthe piece he wanted to play at a
recital. In a play you'd show him running back to his room to
practice. You'd show him doing things with the violin.
The middle-class also keeps talking, talking. The talk isn't
rcally about anything. It's as ready-made as the things they talk
about - cars,TVs, VCRs, stocks.It just spills out, mass produced and cheap.
In fact this kind of character would be hard for you to play,
this absolute American way of life. The interesting thing is that
nobody here is practical. Your whole tendency is not to merge
with the American rhythm. You feel withdrawn, even isolated.
So it's interesting to bring you to the truth - that you shouldn't feel guiity if, as actors, you feel withdrawn.
We have to distinguish between the practical and the ambitious. They have many similarities but their aims are different.
The practical doesn't include art forms. The practical brings
everything "down to earth," to the level of "facts."
The ambitious doesn'tpull things down. It involves"size." It
involves something beyond Me. Ambitions may imply powerftrl,
historical values as well as contemporary ones. The accumul:rtion of power, in the aristocratic sense,meant the continuatlolr
of values,to go on and on, after you. It meant the establishmerrt
of museumsand libraries.
The practical man says,"I'll drink this cup of coffee.Thcrr
I'll throw it out." The ambitious man says,"I want to drink orrl
of Limoges cups." Morgan was an ambitious man. His ambition
had size.
It's not bad to be ambitious. I once was anrbitious t() lcill n
Italian. So what did I do? I got up early to stutly the tcxtlrook. I
took lessons.I went to Italian restlurxnts t() sl)e.,lk
with tlrc $';rit
crs. I kept doing, <loing,rloing cvcry tl:ry.II-vorrwcrc l() sll()\l
t t t ya r t t l l i l i o ri ltl r l I ) l r r yi t r v o r r l rt rl r k ct l t c l i r r n ro l r r r s h i r rlgo l r l r . s
Can you find ambition in yourselF Remember, you cannot
reduce any character to one element. It's not ambitious to take
care of the garden.
\4adimir Horowitz was an extraordinary pianist, but he was
also ambitious. What did he do to achieve that inhuman mastery? When he spoke to people who weren't in his musical
world he used a side of himself that was childish, not to waste
his musical intelligence. If he read the Times,he didn't go to the
stock page.In a play you'd show him at the piano, not sipping
coffee.
The difference between the nractical and the ambitious is
illustrated in Ciifford Odets' play Golden Boy. The ambitious
side of the character wants to play the violin, wants to become a
musician. The practical part of him wants fame and fortune. So
he becomes a prize fighter.
Ambition alwaysleads to something bigger than being practical. Practicality doesn't involve the soul. How practical is it to
play the E string over and over on your violin! Becoming a star
in Holly'wood is practical. Wanting to act in the plays of Eugene
O'Neill is ambitious.Theret a certain differencein attitude.
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Implicit in many playsaboutthe middle-class
is a senseof
loss,oF disillusionrnent.
Middle-class
life holdsout a certain
tht'nlctsyorrrlown.All thc nrnning,rrlltlrcactluirprornist'rtttrl
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There's a wonderful story about the great Italian actor
Salvini. They asked him at the age of 70 to play the role of
Romeo. To be Romeo you have to be very very limber. Well, he
said, he would like to do Romeo, but he reouired about seven
months to limber up. Limbering up is not viry interesring for
an actor. But it's essentialfor us to do our job.
Salvini had to jump as Romeo. He had to stretch and practice, so the performance would be easy for him. You are not as
old as Salvini, but you cannot be any less prepared. A body in
good condition must be second nature to you.
Yet the most important thing we have to do is condiuon, to
limber up the mind. Learn to stimulate the imagination. The
imagination is what animates the instrument, keeps it in tune.
It's the ignition key. Without it, nothing else works.
Y
We haveworked on exercisesto sharpenyour ability to see,
to distinguish betweendifferent shadesof red and white and
blue and to seehow we react to the differences,to look at the
world around us and seewhat makesit special,what makesit
historic, to look at nature and seehow rich it is, how stimulating it is to look at the samelittle bit of sLy at different times of
day and seehow remarkablyit changes.
But there is anotherkind of seeingthat is equallyimportanr.
There are a million things insideyou rhat you havero learn ro
see.
Being an American has sappedyour energy.It cuts off thc
feelings,the memories,the emotions,the instincts, the backgrounds.Why? Because
we're "independent!"We imagrnewe
can start over anltime we want. Isn't that absurd?You didn't
evcn start frcsh thc day you wcre born. Vlr wcrc lrorn into a
into othcrprollle'.s
livcs,
llrttcrno ifi'.Vlr rnusrbcgincrrtcring
to help you
beyond
-get,,real,, that boring, personal,egocentricquali_
ry you takefor
life.
a get,beyondyour own preciousinner
expenences
,,,,..]31
-|1: you to
llow.
I want
be ableto seeand iha.e *hat yorl see
with an
jifl"::::1"-:iu.1B;"t*1rpp"dupin yoursetf.
sJrru..so a."a.
l ne actor cannot afford to look only
to his own life for all his
r,arerial nor pull strictlv from his
own ._G.;;;
,; find his
;rctingchoicei and feetings.The ideas
irrc almosr alwayslarger th"r, th"
"t,i.;;;;;pj;ywrights
.*p".i.rl;r";;;;:;
the best
rt(tors.
A great disservice was done to American
actors when they
rvcre persuaded that they had
to experience thntseraeson $e
strrgeinstead of experiencing the
play. your e*p".i"n." i ,,o, ,fr"
\i lle as Hamlet,s _ unl
r)cnmark.
ir,.i-,r,.ili,i'i,,f.1,j:ff:'.X#1l'":lt1
:j
rlre circumsrances
of the royal position. rl"
jr"rr._f
r. rlecidewhether to live or diejha,
".,iln
",,
.o -"J
f,lrl"ir.irnr,.rr...,
lr()t yours. Your past indecision
on who ,o ,.k" to ah. p.o_
u',rn'tsuffice.
*1,.r.r
t{e ac.tr.vrty
on the stage,you must first createthe
,..
( trctlrnstances.
Stanislavski
.saidyo,. a"rr.rothauedin.re. on the
rtrr14c.
Whar he meantis that
ytu have to g.,
rhsrracandinto theparticular.
Fi.r,
i;;;; "*;u'i;.-.t"
i"rL
t.;
I hcnyouhavea tabiewith a lace,"6r*r.,r,
f".f..
*Jr',,ili"""a,ur,..
,..rrrtllcsticks.
Thenyouhavea plate-w]thf.o;;;;;;;
rp..".
\ll rhcscthingsarein thenature,f ,f,. ,.r_.y,
i,f,i.iii
f,r"i"g
rlrrrrrcr.
The circumstances
of theacrivitym,rrr'na...ri.a n.for.
By changingrhecircumstanc.r,
;;;.;;u
"l'.
."r.,
r-,ili],.']"fl
tr.urgc
the
moodof thescenc.
I l' the tableclothis nor lacebut some
rough fabric,if thereis
n,rr:rlrlccloth
at all but a ker
lamp,it will be awerydiffer, rrr kintr of dinner.11.,..;.".?t"ll
, r,Iy'uri,,,
;i ;;;i";';;; ;',"l'.iTi::il: ff ;;:'.Yr:::t",
lir bcgin to cxcrciseyour imagination,
you have to Dlacea
lf|(.,r|('rvNlucon yorrrst(rrcof klrowlcdge.Viu,re
,t strlrchrnseof
T l t l n r o tA r r n e 6 7
6 6 S r L tl l l l l
images,not just the things you've seen,butlhe things you've
imalined. Those imagesare very powerful' They will turn on
youl ignition. They will engageyour body and mind'
From now on you must only live imaginatively'You will see
To do this isn't hard if you
and act in imaginaiivecircumstances.
acceptthat evlrything you can imaginehasin it sometruth for
vou. The actor'siob is io de-ficdonalizethe fiction' If you need
, l.rnon tree brrtiarre neverseenone,you will createsomekind
of lemon tree for yourself,and the more detailsyou give it, the
more you'll acceptthat you'veseenit.
You'veimaginedit. Therefore it exists'Most of acting lies in
this minute knowledge of what you see and what you do'
Anything that goesthiough your imaginadonhasa right to live'
V
Let's start with an easy exercise.You're walking along a
country road. Know where you are. Look at the sky' Where is
the sun?How long is your shadow?What is the road like? Is it
bumpy?Does it distort your shadow?What kind of cloudsare
in the sky?What kind of birds do you see?
A fence lines the road, enclosinga meadow'How green is
the srass?How tall is it? Are there cows grazing on it? If so,
whaicolo, are they?Tell me three or four things that makethe
cowslogicaland real.
A lonE branch has fallen acrossthe road' How recently did
Is the foliage on it still green?Or is the branch
this happ-en?
long dead?How much effort doesit taketo pick it up and throw
it into the field?
You seea dirt road that runs off to the right' Follow it' What
kind of treesgrow alongsideit? Do they havefruit? Is it ripe?
The roadleadsto a woodenbridge'Doesit look safe?What
a pond'What kind of fish
kinrlof railingsrloesit have?It crosscs
()n tlrc other
( ' i l l r y ( ) u s c c ? - l st h c w i l t c r t ( x ) t l t t r t l t l yt o s c c l l s h ?
sideof the pond is a rope tied betweentwo trees.Someclothes
;rrehanging from the line - a child's pajamas,socks,a mant
rlcnim shirt, an old kitchen table cloth, overalls.
Look at the overalls.Norice their shape.How fadedis the
rnaterial?How often and at what spotshavethey beenrepaired?
What pattern is on the tablecloth?How tall is the grassunder
t lreclothesline?
What you've seenis now entirely yours.
In a play the play'wrightis never going to give you a tablet krth that belongsto you. That is your job. His script will simply say,"tablecloth." You will haveto determinehow old it is,
how wrinkled, how threadbare,how fresh, how starched.The
playrvrightwill only indicatewhat it is. You will haveto makeit
cornealive.
If the play'wrightindicatesthe day is fine, you will have to
rrnrrgine
a skythar is blue,with fleecywhite cloudsand birds flyrng in formation.The discoveryof what is fine aboutit will be
ul) to you. The playwright is nevergoing to give you a country
rorrdthat belongsto you. He will only say,"I waswalking along
.r (()untry road." You'll have to supply the details,saying to
yr,lrrself,"It's dusty,the color of rust. There are corn fields on
lt,,tlrsides."
As you work on the scene,the alivenessofit is what you act,
rr')l rhe facts.The factswill remaindeaduntil you realizethat
, .rtlr thing has life. As actors,you must give us the miracle of
hlc, not the facts.For the spectator,you must givebacklife and
rrottleath.
V
l.ifl in the theatre isn't necessarilywhen you get noney
lr,rrr perfirrrningl.It isn't when you sign a contract.It isnt even
* lrrrr you urc in a play. It'.swhen you understand it. If you
||||rl('r'stitn(|
it, you'll know why voll wAlltto ?rct,and if you don't
6t
T n lrn ro rl c r r t ' o6 s
$ r u l t tA l l t l
understand it, you won't want to act.
You're painters. The palette comes from yourself'
Underneath the words you paint with is you' If not, the words
are empty. And don't constricted emotionally by taking the
American Puritan ethic as your model. In England, the acting
comes from the Elizabethan era' not the \4ctorian'
V
Lett do another exercise.Let's imagine the robe of a
Chineseemperor.One of our problemsasAmericansis our attltude is so practical,so no-nonsensethat we reduceeverythingto
our level. The imagination allows us to live in a larger, more
beautiful,more excitingworld.
First imagine the fabric for the emperor'srobe' Is it fine
quality lineni Is it silk? How heary is-it? Is it-red? Is it gold?
Whai shade?How long is it? Does it haveto be supportedby
court attendants?How many?What is the pattern?How fine
are the stitches?Is it somethingfrom nature?Is it the leavesof
sometree?Is it the wings of a bird? A realisticbird? A fancasy
bird? Is the pattern s)'rnmetric?Abstract?
There are no "correct" answers.And your obiecdve in
answeringisn't to pleaseme' It's to fire your own imagination,
And to communicateto the audience'
yoo. o*n enthrrsiasm.
A student once said she was afraid of me - exceptwhen I
smiled.I told her in that caseI'd failedher' There arenot many
smilesin the theatre.If I gaveher the impressionthere would
be, I waspreparingher for a careerfull of confusionandunhappiness.Tire p"ttott yoo haveto pleaseis yourself' But you'll go
.ro*h"." ifyou makeit easyto pleaseyourself'You haveto be as
demandingasyou can.
All right, who would like to imagine for us the robe of a
Chinesecmperor.All right,Jennifer.
"Mine is an orangebrocaderobe."
.IENTNIFER:
srr,ll* I haveto interrupt you,Jennifer.You'respeaking
like a little girl. (imitatingher) "Mine is an orangebrocaderobe. . . Period."You'vegonetoo fast.You'rein too
much of a hurry to reachthe period. If I weredescribing
the robe, I might say,"It was an orange robe, a very
bright orangerobe." You would havea senseof my seeing it and not being able to describeit immediately,
searchingfor the proper words.
I sawan orangebrocaderobe. It extendedabout
I FINNIFER:
two feet in back of the Emperor. It was embroideredin
emeraldsand diamondsall around the perimeter of it,
and it had emeraldscrisscrossed
with rubiesin the back,
and it wasfilled with diamonds.
s'fELLA:It's much betteq but it's still not right. It is studied, You are repeatingsentences.
I don't feel you're seeing it for the first time, seeingit clearly and precisely.
You're giving me the emeraldsand diamondsbecause
you think that'swhat I want.
(nftera longpause)I seea long, beautiful,strange
IT|NNIFER:
lrrocaderobe. Itt a very bright shadeof orange.Around
the edgesare ermine, pink and white fur. Itt sparkling,
with studdeddiamondsarrangedalong the shoulders.In
the back are evenmore sparklesand a row of emeralds,
crisscrossed
with a row of rubies . . . "
\'f faLLA:This time you've really seenand she was really
alking. Even the wordsyou usedwere livelier and more
rrarural.Sheimprovedon the descriptionby extendingit.
l)id you noticethat this time asJenniferdescribed
the robe
olrr.lrcganto giggle?Thatt significant.The first time shewas
'rrrrplyreporting.Her lastattemptwasa pieceof acting.
'l'hcrc'.s
a big differencebetweena newspaper
andthe stage.
I lr(' rclx)rtcrrnustbc objcctivc,crxrl.The actormustbe full of
T ml n r o r l c n t e 7 t
z o S t m t tA l l I n
oassion.If he's too cool he's better off as the manager of a comp"aty,.rot someone who appearson the stage'
We have been so deadened by television that we're like the
surgeon who can slice open a body without feeling' He feels less
thai the anesthetized patients. In an operating room this is
required. On a stage it kills the patient.
Y
We have a dilemma. We dont want what we see to be flat
and without interest. But we don't want to overdo it so people
think we're "pushing." The answer is that we must be truthful'
The more details we imagine, the more honest and believable
and energetic our responseswill be' Nine tenths of your acting
lies in th! minute knowledge of what you see and what you do'
The actor is like a writeq fuIl of impressions that speak to
him. He does not say,"I'11have bacon and eggs'" That's the way
a clerk without a job sPeaks.
When the actor gets bacon and eggs he sees them on tle
plate, with some potatoes - the kind with bits of onion and
g.""n p"pp".. He seesthe waitress. He sees the table and the
I"rt",ro.ti, *ith all its rushed activity' He seesthat the floor has
dirt on it but the table is spodess.The coffee is weak, and the
cup doesn't hold much, so he constantly has to catch t}e waitress'sattention.
He loola around and seesthat at all the tables no one is really paying any attention to each other. Everyone is in a hurry'
gr"". wander. Sometimes they look at the door to see
ih"ii
who comes in'
The actor takes this all in. He isn't there iust to eat, pay his
check and leave. He liues there, watching, seeing, understandins. He askshimself, "What is this? What am I looking at?"
the way a writer or a Painter does.
ol'lili" ttot itrstfrtt'ts'
rtsthc rrrirrrclc
ns ilctors,yotl Illtlst14tvc
SergeantJoeFriday only wantedthe facts.He's a cop.He wants
to keeppeoplecalm.You want to stir them up.
One waywe canenliventhe imaginationis to pushit toward
the illogical.We're not scientists.We dont alwayshaveto make
the logical,reasonable
leap.
Looking at a p r of glasses,
I can let my imaginationtravel.
I supposea lot of peoplewear glasses,but they're really rather
rrgly,just two piecesof glass.They're not meant for anything
l)ut to seethrough. I usedto wear glasses,but I've given them
rrp.I guessI madethe sacrificebecauseglasshasno qualiriesin
it. Wouldn't you feel much better if there were wine in this
glass,.
or whiskey?But by itself, this piece of glasshas no per\{)nalrty.
The rims of the glassare opaque.Do you know stonesthat
,rreopaque?They are the colors of death, the pale greens.It's
nice when they're amber,like amber earrings.Amber earrings
. hangecolor. Peopledon't wear amber any more, exceptin
l)aris,where the shopsare filled with it. It is very hard for a
lllcnchmanto giveup anlthing.
lf I were a psychiatristI might call this free association,
though I'd want it to be a lot more personaland introspective.
lrr :rctingwe call it "traveling." You choosesomeobject and see
*'hcre it takesyou imaginatively.I seea red chair, and it takes
rrrcto Venice,and Veniceremindsme of the shadeof robe rn a
lx )r'traitof a cardinalby El Greco in the Metropolitan.
l,ooking at a silk flower takes me to Chinatown in San
l;r'rrncisco,to looking at antique cloci<s,to an acupuncturist's
,,llicc, to listening to an artist singing after dinner, to thc portrrritsof my parents.
In doing this exerciseyou becomeawareof what you didn't
Irrow you knew.It's like rummagingthrough a second-handfurrrrtrrrcshop.You neverknow what you'll comeacrossor what
t |'
('11t1
use.
'l'hcrc
arc tirncs whcn wc can let the imasinationroam.
( l t l r tr t i n r c sw c n c c r lt o r c i r rl h c i r r r r t u i n l r t i ionn.
Trulnr orl c r r r c 9 ,
V
V CLASS EIGHT
ACTIOl{S
tIARI{INO
Tn the modern theatre,which beganin the late 19th century
Ithe.et no more importantacdonthan "to discuss'"
at least
In the theatrethat beginswith Ibsena play must have
- two points of view' More
two ideas of equal imp6rtance
tmthg
imoortant than that, two truths' The play sets these
must
before the audiencewith equalweight, and the-audience
At the end of A Doll\ House'
decidefor itself which to
"-ttpt'
he
*t .n Nor^ hasannouncedhei intention of leavingTorvald'
t"11.h"r, "Your first duty is to your husbandand your children'"
Shetells him, "No, my first duty is to myself'"
For the audiencethat first saw the play Nora's declaration
works if wc
*"r1io"king. We takeit in stride' but the play only
both havc
f"ei th"t Tori.ld's ideaof dury andNora'sideaof duty
no
lr"irr". W" tend to sidewith Nora' If that is the case'there's
play becausethere'sno struggte'
The audiencemust be urged first toward one idea' then
still
ao*"rd th. oth"r, sothat whenihey leavethe theatrethey're
wrestling with the ideas.
that
In many modern plal'wrights it is extremely important
"to
action
the
the actorsbe able to Jisiuss ideas'To understand
actions' "to
discuss,"however, it's helpfill to start with othcr
talk," "to chat,"and "to convcrsc'"
"To talk" is tle most basicform of communication.We talk
rrllthe rime without taking it seriously.In daily life we talk about
scriousthings tiat meannothing to us - the nationaleconomy
or internationalpolitics.
We spendour whole livestalking about thesethingswithout
lcally experiencingthem. Also, when we talk we don't listen
crrrefully.Another characteristicof talk is tlat we constantly
irrterrupteachother.
Choosea parmer and talk about painting the dirty walls or
rcpairing the broken light fixtures or fixing the sofa.The tone
rhould be matter-of-fact,straightforward,but without emotion.
"To chat" is closeto our everydayconversation,but it's not
rrratterof fact. It hasa deliberatelightness,asyou can seein the
rrrun from which the verb chntis drawn, chitchat.Most of the
tirne we're not discussing
ideas,we're not eventalking about
practicalmatters.We're chatting."Oh, what a lovely hat. That
'hade of blue is perfectwith your dress."
Even when we ask each other, "How are you?" we really
,|.rn't care. It's a conversationstarter. That's why we never
.rrrswer,
"Itb interestingyou shouldask,I havethe oddestpain
rrrrny left ankle."Most of the time we just say,"I'm fine.How
,rrcyou?"
Another way of describing"to chat" is to sayyou're "shootnrg the breeze."That's a way of sayingthat chattingis pleasant,
rt\ polite, it's airy itt light, but it's empty. It doesnt matter.
\othing dependson it. It's a way to passthe time.
In fact "to chat" is a fakeaction.As I leavemy apartmentto
gct into the car,the driveralreadyknowsI'm not in a mood for
( ontact.I say,"Nice to seeyou." And het alreadydriving off.
llt, knowsit tlocsn'tmattcr.[t'.snormal.It's fake.
'l'hatls
why it lxrthcrsnr('t() chill. I rkr it, lrut it'.sln rrction
T n rl r r o rA c r n c 9 7
9 6 $ T I L l rl D t I R
you can't control, so I try to avoid it in life, just as I avoid gossip. The point of gossipis to escalatewhat I want to say,make
what I say seem more important than it is by giving it a secretive qualiry as if what I'm telling you no one elsemust know
It's a good exerciseconsciously"to cl.rat."It's likc the exerciseswe did to developmuscularmemory. What we were doing
then was getting our physicalmusclesaccustomedto the different weights of things. Here we're getting our mental muscles
accustomedto the different weiEhts of kinds of conversation.
There's no heary lifting in chatting. Itt as light as can be.
Of course for some of you, who are unacquaintedwith any
kind of conversation,even chatting may not be so easy.Thke a
partner and "chat." Remembel it's a form of verbal badminton.
It doesn'trequire as much energyor skill or effort astennis. Itt
just bouncing the shuttlecockback and forth.
V
The next step in our progressiontoward "to discuss"is "to
converse."Like "to chat," "to converse"is on the light level. It's
airy itt polite. It doesn'thavenuch more gravity than "to chat,"
but it has particular socialcircumstances.It irnpliesthe middle
or the upper class.
When you're seatedat a formal dinner party with people
you may or may not know it's possible that you'll develop
enough rapport that your conversationwill be on the levelof "to
discuss,"but more than likely yclu have no particular desrreto
reach the other person. You'rc not trying to persuade this
stranger. Theret no reason to be intin.riite.You listen, you
answer.You don't interrupt.
It's not irsimpersonalas "tti chat," nor docs it hrrvclny grc:rt
'I'he
depth.
abiliryto convcrseis rrsocill skill,rrwrrvol'behaving
yorr ,lolr't rt rrllt krrorv,lnrt
in rr li'icntllvrrrirnncrwilh s()nle()lre
r t l s ot l c l i l r t ' r - r t t kc cl yc p i l r g1 , o r r,rl i s t r u tr.t
It used to be that when you were on an airplane next to a
strangeryou would "chat" or "converse"as a way ofpassing the
time. It was a way of being friendly, of being civil, but it didnt
lead to any great intimacy or intellectual depth. It was a way of
not going deep.
'fhey
Nowadays people on airplanesare barely civil.
have
their books or their magazinesand behaveasifthey were alone.
Y
Once we can distinguish the gradationsbetween "to talk,"
"to chat" and "to converse,"we're ready to tackle "to discuss."
Discussionof ideas is at the center of the modern theatre. In
every great play from Ibsen on, one finds what we call the discussiveelement.
From Shaw and O'Casey to Beckett and Pinter, from
O'Neill and Odets to Arthur Milleq TennesseeWilliams and
Edward Albee. the modern, naturalistic theatre is a theatre of
ideas,a theatrewhosepurposeis to n-rakean audiencethink and
learn about the larger questionsof life.
If two peoplesimply agreeon the stage,then we're finished.
'l'here's
no play and nothing more ro say.The nroderntheatreis
basedon our ability to considertwo points of view. In a play,in
'.rnyilramatic situatior-r,I rnay be a proponent of the iclca under
-Ibrvald
discussionand my parmer r.r.ray
be againstit.
is for Nora'.s
-lwo
duty to him and lrcr family.Nora is Forher duty to hersclf.
contratlictory itlcursare expressed,and it's up to the audiencc
cither to chooscbetweenthem or to decideon someother c()ursc
of lctir>r.r.
Whcn thc discussionis over.noboclvwins.
'l-hc
tlisctrssivc
clenrententerctlthc theatrewhen thc risc of
thc rnirkllc clirsslrrought rrn enrl to the casilvitlentifietlentl
u , i t l c l tr,t t t c l l t c t vl r r l r r eosl - r r r o r r r l i t l , n l i l r ) l l c l r' sr n r cl t h i t s t h r r r
'
\ \ ' c r cN l ) r r r o
l l r ru r o r cs l r r r r p l,rl c l i r r t ' tr l' l : t sssl I rr tt rtr t . . l l rc t r r i r l -
9t
$tt ,t A ln
dle classhas only pick-up values.Their lack of certitudemeans
that for everyquestionthere are two sides.Consequently,in the
modern theatrethere is no one truth.
In discussionone must recognizethe difference between
issuesof varying weight and importance,befweenan issuesuch
asthe inevitability of deathand the questionof which presidential candidateto vote for, and judge as betweenthe larger and
the smallerissue.
I can take the opinion that New York is overcrowded,and
that issuecan be raisedto a higher level, bringing in another
point of view: overcrowdingis in the nature of city life. Every
city in the rvorld is going to havean escalationof population.
One can acceptthis as a positiveor hope for overpopulation's
brutal correctives- disease,attrition and death.In theatrethe
interestcomesfrom havingan opinion. You may haveone opinion asa person,anotherin the theatre.
When you start a discussionsuch asurban overpopulation,
you must stick to the topic and not wanderinto other epicideas.
You haveno right to go far afield or to be general.
The first thing that distinguishesthe action "to discuss"
fiom all the other forms of conversation("to talk," "to chat" or
"to converse")is the relationshipto the partner.In theseother
stylesyou may or may not know your parffier.It doesn'tmatter
becausethe bond betweenyou neversolidifies.
To have a true discussionboth partners must be serious
about the issues.This is the first action in which content really
matters.It's not just a way of passingthe time or being polite or
sharingimpersonalinformation.
Each parmer hasa very definite point ofview, but he listens
to the other personcarefully.He may not changehis opinion,
not talking.
but he listens.This is not chatting,not conversing,
This is discussion.
Inusttakea genuincintcrcstin
In a discussion
both 1:artners
intcrsstshoultltakeplaccon a rntrtually
the ideas.f)iscr.rssitxt
ing srrbjcct.
As:ttrircloryottltuvcto hc itlllcto trrkccitltcrsitlc.
T n ll n t o r A c r t n cs s
Ifyou can'ttake both sides,it meansyou can only play yourself.
There's no more important exercisethan taking a side on
some big issue,like the necessityof legalizing abirtion, and
tJ-ren
taking the other sideand arguingit so effecrivelythat a listener can't tell which sideyou really favor.
In a genuinediscussionthere'sno needto win. In a discussion you don't needto cut offyour parmer.The ideasexpressed
yon. partner shouldexciteyou. The exchangeshouldstimu!y
lareyou.
In this action,asin almostno other in the field of communication, there'sgenuine understanding.The give-and-takeis
real and unforced. It's perhapsthe most important action .in
modern playwriting becausethe audienceunderstandsboth
sidesof the discussionand becomesthe third parmerin the play.
The membersof the audiencecanleavethe theatreand makeuo
their own minds.
All right, let's choose partners and discussthe question:
Should a man be a family man or an arrist?Shoulda woma.,be
an actressor a wife and motherl Let's take a few minutes and
o-rganizeour thoughts and then we'l1 begin. Who,d like to go
first? A.ll right, Hillary and Bob.
BoB:Being an actor is a fulI-time job. So is being a father.
A man has to choose.With women it's different. Only
women can havechildren.
HILLARYNo, Bob. That's wrongheaded and sexist. I
f e e l. . .
STELLA:Sweetheart,I haveto interrupt you. You are not
interestedin what he's saflng. You're anxiousto talk.
That's not discussion.Discussioncomesout of what your
partner says,not what you feel.
I don't want to know how youfcel.I want to know that you
t:anjusti$,sayingthat Art is lnorc inll)()rt:lnt
to ytxr than rny-
T r ul n r o rl m n c t o l
1 0 , s T [ [ t rl D [ [ n
thing. I want you to be able to say,"I have something in me that
will not permit me to be tied down."
The arcistswho succeed are the ones who understand that
these themes are universal, not personal. It has nothing to do
with whether yoa like ir or you don't if a woman is better off
bringing up a family. That idea is thousands of years old. It
starts with God.
The level of discussionhas got to be on a higher ievel. It has
to be on the level of what these two things bring to the world.
It's too informative. You give a lot of information but it's without heart.
What I call the agitation isn't there. Don't open your mouth
unlessyou haueto .. . from inside.
You think your beauty will help you. It won't help your art.
It'll help you get ahead, but your art comes from somewhere
else. Either what we do matters or it doesn't. If it matters we
cant let our personal pride get in the way.
Now you didn't give your partner much chance to speak.He
was just beginning to present his ideas. If only one side of the
discussion is presented the audience is going to know what
they're expectedto think. They must understand two sidesof an
idea. Discussion should change the audience'spoint of vrew or
at least make them think twice about what they felt beforehand.
They go home and come to a new understanding.
Discussion is not just about the ideas. If that were all that
mattered we could just read two essaysor have two essaysread
to us. We have to experience the give and take of the two participants.
Neither of you should start talking by announcing the topic.
That's what happens in a formal debate. Everything you say has
to have some emotional content. Before you speak,imagine that
you've been provoked by a specificstatement.Hear it and then
react. Even when you begin, you rnust react.
Whoevcr srreaksseconrlhrs to nrakc clcur wlrirt nudc hitn
start to talk. He's not there just to present the arguments he
rehearsed beforehand. We have to feel everytling you say is
prompted by something you've heard. Dont start from yourself.
Start with, What did your partner say that mad,eyou say I don't
agree with that?
Otherwise we have a false situation - a situation where the
action starts with your talking. It has to start before you talk.
All right, let's try it again.
JoHN' Artists must be aloof from sociew, aloof from a fam-
ilv.. .
STELLA,
I'm afraidI haveto stop you. That's an intellecrual ideayou're presenting,and you're not an intellectual,
God knows.You haveto find a way of presentingideas,
justifuing them so that we can believethey come from
you, not frorn somethingyou read.
The questionof whetheran actor or an actressshouldmarry
is not an intellectual one. On eachside you can make several
points. You can say acting is an insecure professionwhereas
marriageis stableand enduring.You can saythe actor especially needsthe support of another human being, and that actors
havea great capacityfor love.
Dont raiseany of thesepoints unlessyou understandthem
and they awakenyou. Thke ideast*rat will provoke the other
personto a response.On the other side,you can saythat since
actorsare neversecure,they makepoor partnersin a marriage,
and no woman would wanr to marry an actor.
An actoq furthermore, must devoteall his rime to his profession.The careerof an actor doesn'tpermit a family or the
responsibilities
that marriageand childrenentail.
This argumentgoesto the very heart of why acting is an
inrportant profession,one that cornrnandsthe wholc of the
bcins.
actor'.s
1 r 2 S T l r nl o r l n
V
Every actor I know walksout on a set and wantsto kill himself becausehe doesn'tknow how to make the play live. They
neverlosethat anxiery.But you want to makethingsyours right
away.You can't.The only thing you can produceimmediatelyis
fake acting.You'vegot to get usedto it slowly.And you've got
to makeyourselfbigger.
I wasmarried to Harold Clurman,who wasthe greatestman
in the Americantheatre,who practicallyfoundedthe American
theatre.I wasmarried to Mitchell Wilson, who wasthe assistant
to Enrico Fermi in the developmentof the atom bomb.
I didn't go for the small fi:y.I didn't becauseI didn't want to
live that way.I was brought up by my father,and in our home
there wasno small talk at all.
You can'tgo on the stageunlessyou're filled with things that
giveyou life all day long . . . andproblems
all day long, onesthat
developyou.
Discussionis a hard action for you to grasp becauseit's a
very civilizedaction.In this country we dont discuss.We argrre.
We're like taxi drivers.Our national temDeramentis intolerant
of listening.
The action "to argue" grows out of the action "to discuss,"
It's when you hear your parmer but you don't hear.You understand?You continue with what you think. Argument has passion. It's not about logic and mind.
The next stage after "to argte" is "to fight." "To fight"
meansthere is no control, and very little listening.You attackin
all directions."To fight" is to go after somethingwith no waiti.g'
From arguing to fighting is a natural progression,and with
fightingwe'vereachedthe end of the chainof communicating,
V
CLASS NINE
MAIII{O
ACTIOI{S
DOABTX
t this stagein the techniqueyou're developinga vocabulary
of actions.Everything is basedon actions.An actor develops a characterfrom the things he does.That's why the actor
must understandactions.
Every action you do has its nature,its truth. In order to be
truthful onstageyou must krrow the nature of what you're
doing, andit must be truthfully done.Everythinghasto haveits
logic. It must havetruth, growth (progression)and a beginning,
middle and end (sequence).A play is made intelligible to an
audiencethrough the actor'sactions,a seriesof separatebut logically connectedphysicalor psychologicalactivitiesthat breathe
life into the play and createthe moment-by-momenttruth.
In modern plays,the playwright providesonly an oudine or
skeleton.It's up to you to add fleshand blood, ro makethe playwright! ideaslucid. The contentof the playcanonly be brought
to life through your actions.
It's not words that make a performance.Even the best actor
cannot put into words everythinghe knows,for what the wellpreparedand thoughtful actor knows about his characteris a
hundred times more comolicated than the words in the
playscript.
It canonly be seenasaction.
When we snrdyacti<lns
thereare threewaysto go alxnt it.
Thc first is tri rrsk,Hlve I tlonethis action?'l'hesccontlis tt>ask,
t 0 4 S r u nlrl r r n
T r rl n r o rl c r n o i o t
Have I seenthis action done?If the answerto both those questions is no, the third approach, and in some ways the most
importarrt,is to go to thc inraginar
ion.
fully. You cannot indicate it. You cannot indicate those little
truths, just as you cannot indicate looking at the audienceor
talking to people.You can't indicate it. It must happen.
We've alreadyworked on reproducing certain movements,
like opening the tight lid of a bottle. We trained our musclesro
seejust how much effort was required, so that we didn't exaggerate it when we reproducedit without the object.
As long asyour objectivesare small and manageable,they're
in your control. When you're in control you can bring life tri
what you're doing.
These seem like little things, but they're important. In acring these tiny physical things have to be comfortable for the
body. One thing that makes a young act()rvery uncomfortable
is he skims over something,or he indicatesit. It's a part of your
technique that you must not skim over, not indicate physical
truths that the activity needs.Do you agreeto that?
Opening a bottle is a very simple task, but it's a very educational one. You have to open a. . . you have a bottle . . . ooh,
God, that'sstrong. But then it comesopen. If you open the bortle, strangelyenough,ifyou really open the bottle, that which is
difficult is easier,becauseyou've really opened the bottle. Do
you understand?
If you haven't really opened the bottle, then that nexr tiny
moment of - phuhl - qr6n'1come. Is that clear to you? Itt a
trick, that when the body is true, the soul reacts.When the body
lies, the soul gets frightened. The way ro be sure you're being
truthftil is to focus on these tiny truths.
All activity is complicated.If I sayto you, "Write somerhing
down in your book," you haveto reachfor the book and find the
page.That's the narureof life. Now all thesecomplicationshave
to be true on the stage.These physical,small thing;shave to be
true. Now write this in your head: no physicalactiviry with all
its little tmths can be done without rehearsal.They canrrotbe
done. When you get very expert, maybe vou can do thcn.r.But
at this nroment you utnnlt clo then.
Whe thcr you're lrrriklingrr firc or rrrrrking
cof'fcc()l'ir'(rrillg
rt slrirt or prrckingn lrrrg,rrll rcrlrire thrrl cvt.ry'littlcp:rlt ol the
ll(ti()n I)('tltrt.'lltt
i r t s i r l t ' o l t . r ' t . r tt l ( l i o n l l i t \ t o I r r . r l o r r t l, r - r r l l t -
I went to Wilmington over the weekend,and there was a little girl with me. She had the instinct to fight boredom, ancl in
that respect children are great actors. She would say, ,,C)ooh,
we're in the dark now" Then she'd say, "Now we,re coming
into the light." Shedidn't say,in a monotone, "We,re in the tlark
now and we're coming into the light," becauseshe didn't want
to take the life out of it.
Grownups take the life out of things. It's better to makc
thingsup. to userie imaginarion,than ro krll them.
When you start work on a physical action, don't start with
the performance.Say to yourself,I'm the director. Let me firol
around with this and seeif I have it, becauseI don't wanr to tlo
it for an audienceunlessit's easy.
V
Let's take the physical activiry washing clothes in a strerlnr.
The first thing is to build the circumsrancesof the strearnitsclf.
Is it on the edgeofa desertedlot? Is it in the middle of a frrrcst?
That's just the beginning.
It might be useful to practice the action of washing clrthcs
in the bathtub.That will givc you the experiencc,hr.,ritis n,,r
'lhink
enough.
about thc soap. It gets onto ttrc thing you'rc
washing,ind thcn it getsdippedin the watcr.'l'hlt'.sthc kinrl o1tiny task thrt can grow evcry titne vou rlo it. Vlr hirveto nrrrkc
everythingvour ()wn,corncrrlivc.Th:rt'.sthc <liffcrcncc
lrclu't.cn
what vorrrliti in the brrtlrrrrlr
rrntlwhrrtvorrtlo ol.rstrrgt,.
I ' r r rr v r t s l r i nr gt s l i p i n t l l ( , s l r ( . r l n;lr,r r rIl s t . t . t l r r tr ltr t ,\ \ . t t ( , ri \
i 0 6 S r u Llro, rl r n
muddy. I take the slip out to wait for the water to becomeclear.
The stream is alive, terribly alive to me. It's sparkling and it's
clear,and it's wonderful. Oh, but this part is all milky. I'm not
going to wash my slip until the water becomesclcar again.
I love my streambecrusethe streamis alive. Everything
happens out of the stream. You musm't let the stream stay
pedestrian. You mustn't let the stream not partake of the life of
what you're doing.
Srudy building a fire. It'.snot something you can do randomly. You can't just take a match to a log and expectthe fire to
catch or last. You have to start with something small, strips of
paper.On top ofthe paperyou can put twigs or kindling wood,
sm:rll lrr:rnches.The fire has to build. You have to have the
smaller things catch,and they'll light the larger ones.The log is
on top, and it won't begin to burn until everything underneath
rs cracxllng.
Every physicalactivity is like this. You haveto understandits
logic. Vlr have to make it doable.People don't act in real life.
They experienceone moment, then the next. They react to crrcurrstilnces.The actor'.sjob is to make the circumstaucesin
which he nroveson stageso lively,so immediate that they enliven his actions.
an action
There are strong and weak actions.To be stror.rg;,
needsan end, an objective.IfI say,"I'd like to clrink something,"
thatt a weak action. If I say,"I'd like to drink coffce," that's a
strong one. There must be an end, an objective, or else the
action is weak. "I'm leaving" is weak. "I'm leaving this room" is
strong. "I'd like to go sorncwhere"is weak. "l'd likc to take a
walk in the park" is strong.
tsuilding an imaginary fire teachesus that cverv iction has
its own loplic.Practiceactivitiessuch assettins thc t'.rbleor sorting the nrail.The basicsof sctting thc table rlrc erlsvcnough.
Vnr put tkrwtr thc lllrrtes.\irtr put
Vru put rkrwn thc glrrsscs.
Ilut u'hcn we
tlowlr tlrc lirrksrrnrlspoorrs.Vnr {irlrltlrc ttrtltkitts.
r i o l l r c s c t l t i t t t s o t t s t , t t t t t l t t i l ( l i ( ) n ( l u ) n r ) l l r t ' r t s t t t t t n , l l t t t c . t si t r
I n rA n o
r rA c l l n t 0 7
real life, where no one caresifyou're boring. On srageyou cannot afford to be boring even for one instant,and therein lies the
difference between real time ancl stase time - between how
long it takesto do what you acruallyJo in life and how long it
should take to representwhat you do in life on the stage.
In life an action is worth exactlythe amount of time it takes
to do it. On staE;e,
where thirty years of a person'slife are compressedinto rwo and a half hours, it is never worth that mucl.]
time. So the actor, in perforrning simple activitiessuch as wrrring a letter or reading a book or sewingon a button, consrantlv
needsto ask,how rnuch is it worth?
The technique for making real dme fit into stage time wc
call smarteningup the action,which rneansshorteningwhat you
do, trimming it, editing it, so that the audience,while undcrstanding fully what you're doing, won't feel you've gonc on firr
too long. The audience will always be the best judgJe,but rrn
actor has to anticipatetheir reactions.
Smarteningup an action requirespre-planning.If I neerl to
smoke a cigarette,the pack is alreadyopen and one or rw(, cigarettesare sticking out. I cannot be caught on stage liunbling
for a cigarette,ur-rless
it's a choice.
If I have to look up a telephone number in the H'.s,I strrrr
thumbing through the book hunting for the H's, and ir takcsrrxr
long. I need to arrangemyself so that I know exactlyu'h:rt Prrgc
I'm going to.'I'hen I read a few names,and when I corne to rhe
one I want I put a pencil mark next to it. I have convcl'crl rhc
truth ofthe action cluicklyand truthfirlly. In a book, if I hirvcro
get to page 460, I place a match bcwccn the pagesto gct rhcr.c
quickly.
If I'm sitting at a makeuptablc, I can put on rrrrscrrrrr,
lilr
stick,eyeshrrdow,
powder,ancl,whilc this is conrpletclv rcrrlistit,
it takesrnuclrt(x) long ftrr thc strrgc.Vrrr sinrplt'lir on 1'orrrlilr
stick,rvipcone eycbrow,anrlyorr'r'ctlonc. Llnlikc lifc, 1,ourLrrr'l
hrrvcrr lrfctirrrc{)lt strlgc.Vru rlrrsl snrrlt'ten
rrctiorrs
rrPlrt sclt,ct
i t t g o t t t ' o l l " v ol c l l i n gp r r l l s .
TnA
r nor rl c r n r i o s
ArIX
1 0 8 s T E r rl D
nisce everythingbecomessignificant becauseit's gone.
V
Last time we went througlr a seriesof actions that involve
talking, to chat, to discuss, to argue, to fight. An action one
encounters repeatedly in modern theatre is "to reminisce," a
deviceplay,vrightscommonly use to introduce poetry or poetic
prose. A retreat into a more favorably rememberedpast, reminiscing is itself a meansof escapefrom the sometimesunbearable realitiesof the present.
To reminisceis to soliloquize,to recall the past and bring it
back to life. Itt different from remembering,which is automatic and associatedwith daily life. You remember your telephone
number and your grocery store list. lbu remember to answer a
letter.
In reminiscence,a man brings back what he loves.You can
say,"One day I was walking along a river. It was flowing quietly. It wasa lovely day.I sat in the shade.It wasvery quiet. I could
seethe mountains.I looked up at the sly." When you reminisce,
you can sensehow little physicalmovement is required. \I4ren
you use a lot of words, you don't need a lot of gestures.
The anatomy of the action "to reminisce" is to relive the
experience,to seeagain what you once saw and to remember it
fondly. When you start to reminisce, you lose the world. This
table I'rn sitting at no longer exists for me, only the river I
walked along that spring day under a cloudlesssly through a
mountainousvalley.
When I reminisce,I becomedetachedand my words take on
a poetic quality. To reminisce is to reinvent the world.
Remembering is simply experiencingit all over again,which is
closer to description.
Descriptiorr c:rn be cxprcssetl irr gcstrtlc lty e clrr,;tlting
'l-hc
motion of thc hrrtrrl.
gesttrrcol-rctttitristcntcis rt getttlcr,
l l ' c c rl ' l o w r r r ur v, r t v t - l i k lct t o l i r r to l t l t c l r r r r r r\l\.' l t t t t t ' o t tl r .l t t i -
Reminiscencelosesthe presentworld and recreatesa dme in
the past.It is a giving over to a life that hasdisappearedbut still
livesin you. Time makesit more significant.Life becomesmore
terrible or more beautiful. When you have that life, in your
reminiscence,you don't need this present one. Reminiscence
dealswith something long ago that meant a changein your life.
This action cannot be in any sensecasual.It must be on a high
level.
To reminisceis different from tellinE a stol. "When I was
little, I had the opportunity to go to England . . ." That's telling,
not creating.This is one of the few actionsin which the partner
doesn't matter. Not caring whether the parmer hears hrm or
not, the actor tries to bring back something lost, which only he
can maKellve agaln.
Reminiscing has in it longing, pain and loss. Set on a dark
level, it is neither light nor cheerfirl.Among the lost moments
in Blanche DuBois' life in I StreetcarNamed.Deslreis this:
"He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl.
When I was sixteen,I made the discovery- love. All at once
and much, much too completely.It was like you suddenlyturned
a blinding light on something that had alwaysbeen half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky.
Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness,a softnessand tendernesswhich wasn't like a man'.s,
although he wasn't the least bit effeminate looking - still that thing was there . . . "
The principle of reminiscing is not to memorize the rext,
but to mark the sequencesof the thought. Don't act and don't
make believe.Thke time to go into the reminiscenceand rcexperienceit. As an inncr nronologue,it doesn'tneed e partncr.
L.r Robert',srnonologuc in the first act of Eugcne O'Nciilis
Bc.ymlthr IIorizon, thc thcrnc is the big rlrcam of lifc, of rcrrching thc sertlurrlc^-llc
rient'ilrg its rnystcriorrs
lirrcc.
l l t r t ' l t t ' r t t s i t t rl l t c ' , t t l i o n o l r t n t i r t i s t i t t g , l l r t ' n t ' t c s s r r r -s\ ,l t p s
1 1 0 S T l t L IrD L I R
are first to create the background for the reminiscenceand
n-rakeit your own. The rerniniscencehas a sequenceof ideas.
Paraphrasethe sequenceso that the ideasare in you, not in the
words. Fill in the sequencewith your own words without the
text in order to make the words of the author belong to you.
Before starting the reminiscence,walk around the stage.But
don't walk an)'wherewithout going somewhere.Don't begin
without a starting image,say of an object on the stage,ftom the
couch or the table. You start from a place, then you move
beyond it. You get the starting impulse fron'r the object, then
you dismissthe couch or the table so we can feel the isolation of
your rnind, your removal to another titne and place.To interrupt the nonotony of the reminisccnce,you break from it,
returning to the room and to the present, befcrregoing back
again to the reminiscence.
In Robert's reminiscence in Beyondthe Horizon' he acknowledges the presence of the acloring Ruth and addressesher
directly:
"So I used to stare out over the fields to the hills, out there
and somehow after a time I'd forget any pain I was in, and
start dreaming. I knew the seawas over beyond those hills the folks had told me - and I used to wonder what the seawas
like, and try to form a picture of it in rny mind. There was all
the mystery in the world to me then about that - far-off seaand there still is! It called to me then just as it does now. And
other times my eyeswould follow this road, winding off into the
distance,toward the hills, as if it, too, \.r'assearchingfor the sea.
And I'd promise myself that when I grew up and was strong, I'd
follow that road, and it and I would find the seatogether.You
see, my making this trip is only keeping that promise of long
ago."
-
In the stage direction O'Neill s'.rysli.uth (who says,"Yes, I
voicetclling thc clrcarns
ol:
see,")is "charrnedby his low mirsicrrl
h i sc h i l d h o o r l . "
Il olrcrl t'ontirtrrcs:
T r ul n r o rl c r n c l t l
"Those were the only happy moments of my life then,
dreaming tiere at the window. I like to be all alone - those
times. I got to know all the different kinds of sunsetsby heart.
And all those sunsetstook place over there - beyond the horizon. So gradually I came to believe that all the wonders of the
world happenedon the other side of those hills."
In this soliloquy,Robert is struggling to make himself clear
and groping to find the sourcesof his life. Like all human beings
at one time or another,he resiststhe attachmentto reality and
longs to return to the primal source of life, which is the seato live life more instincrually.
To reminisceis not by itself an action. An action, to be an
action, has to contain some of the content. You don't sirnply
reminisce.You reminisceabout something,somethingyou care
about. You can reminisce about your lost home. You can reminisce about the family that has scartered.
A lost family prompts the mosr affecting of reminiscences
even today when family life, for all pracricalpurposes,hardly
exists.Today,at eighteen,children leavehome ro rerurn only for
an occasionalvisit. Most of the srudentsI teach have drifted
away.But family life can be imagined through textssuch asJohn
Van Druten's I Rem.ember
Ma,m.n.
Hele is Katrin recalling her family:
"It's funny, but when I look back, I always see Nels anrl
Christine and myself looking almosr as we do today. I guess
that's becausethe people you seeall the time stay the sarncrgc
in your head.Dagmar'.sdifferent. She was alwaysthe baby - so
I see her as a baby. Even Mama - it's funny, but I alwayssee
Mama as around forty. She couldn't alwayshave been f<rrry."
When they study this rext, studenrsrry to createthe pcriotl
out of thcir irnap;inationby describingthe kind of clothesMirnra
would haveworn - thc skirt, tlre blouse,the tlcc<irltions,thc
night Mirnrrrworrltlsit
icwelry,thc shoes,when "cvcry S.,rtrrrtlrry
r l o w n l r y l h c k i t c h c l rt r r l r l cr u t r lc o l r ' l t( ) l t lt h c r r r o r r cIyt r r p rl r , r r l
l l r o r r g h ht o n r t i n t l r t 'l i t t l c c n l c l o p c . "
T n tl n t o t A c t t t t c l t i
I Dlln
r 1 2 S T I L tA
In paraphrasinga monologue, you must have sp-ecificpic*r., i,r ttii.,d. Rathe. than words, always in prefcrence to
words, start with a place.Ifyou're at a beach,what at the beach
will help you rernemberMama? Start with seashells'Do something that will get you in the mood' The family's all glonenow'
In your rerninisccnceyou lnust bring them back together'
The objectsyou choosecan help or hinder you' A radio, for
something mechanical,is a mistake' Instead, rurn to
exan-rple,
nature. A radio leavesyotl stone cold inside.
For example,I remember one student finding a simple botTle
from William Saroyan''s
tle of beer unhelpful. Parapl-rrasing
Time of Your Life, abott childhood on an Ohio farrn, he seated
himseif ,t , t"tl. on the stage.Placing a bottle of beer and a
stein in front of him, he poured half of the bottle into tlre stein,
took a sip and beganhis nronologueabout the family losing the
farm in ihe Depressionand being fbrced to move to the city
At the appropriatetime he broke fiom the monologue and
atldressedhit p.ttt-,"t in an everydaytone of voice, "That's when
we moved to -hicago."'fhen he rerurned to the detachedstate
of reminiscenceagain. But the beer and the stein, for the delicatenersonalnatuie of his reminiscence,were too ordinary'The
beer fed his stotnachbut not his reminiscence'
Students seem reluctant to take on material that has srze'
They seemunwilling to go to a tragic level' to recognizein the
ordinary facts of a story as in the passageabove, the larger
truths, iuch as a man'sneed for a home, the saddestructionof a
of lift.
family.the rransience
Wordsworth said, "Poetry is emotion recollecteclin tranabout
quility." Bringing that poetic quality into it, you reminisce
'l'here
was
your high school p;raduation'"There it was thirt clay!
don't
you
- an a,r.1ito.i.,n
r!" You don't try to make it natr'rral'So
try to bring it back to a natural tonc ofvoice. "\Vas thcrc 'r gradthe applc trec.'l'herc'sthc h'rvu'aguation?Was there?'I'herc's
on."
('\i\l irl lrrtll\ i r t t t t t t t s tt t o l l r r i l t t l i t i t t t o t o t t t r c r r l i t r . l' t l t l l l \ t
quility. You must see if you can recreate this lost world. As tl
large poetic action, reminiscingis done only by peoplewho cannot bear this world.
Reminiscenceis related to dreaming. In both actions yor.l
lose the senseofyour body, but you can't try too hard to achicve
the effect or llo too fast. You must make it come alive for thc
first time. It'.sthe miracle of Our Tbwn.A running child, an applc
tree - they have died and you're bringing them back. Thc
hurnan being is given this one extra dimension,his n-remoryof
the past,and this one extra dimension is peculiarlyavailabletcr
the stage.
Reminiscencehas in it a miracle. "And they were alive . . "
The miracle of life - it's so long ago and yet I see it. Kccp
restorinEthe miracle.
V
For next classhere are solne exercises:Create an old-fashioned country room with an old upright piano and music sheets
from the 1900t, a sewing basket,a rocking chair, a nrother, irt.t
old family album. Renrinisceabout the life then, recalling how
you were dressed,what you did, who playedthe piano, how vou
helped your mother.
Create a garret and reminisce about going up the crcrlkv
stairs and seeingtle spider webs and the old trunk. Renrinist:c
about the objectsin the trunk: the broken old doll, the picture
ofyourselfin a party dressin 1900.
Practicereminiscingand brerrkingaway frotn tlre actitltl rttrtl
going back to it.
T r uA nor rl c n I . c u t
an abstraction. We talked about actions that are weak and that
are strong - the circumstances and the parmer can play an
important part in making the action strong.
V
CLASS TEN
Y
OT
AYOCABIIIARY
BUII,DIt{C
ACTIONS
bu have come here to learn how to act. and I keep telline
you I want to teach you how not to act - except in the very
precise senseof pertorming actlons.
What the actor is calledupon to do on the stageis asbroad
and as limitlessaslife itself, and the rangeof actionshe should
haveat his commandis a very wide one.
The studentof acting must begin to acquirea vocabularyof
actions.W'e'vealreadylooked at "to talk," "to chat," "to converse," "to discuss,""to argue," "to fight." We've examined
what it meansto reminisce.
There are manyactionsworth studying- to takecareof, to
learn, to teach, to study, to reveal, to confess,to arouse,to
denounce,to grieve,to wait, to be restless,to be distracted,to
be shocked,to pray,to buy and sell, to advise.These are among
the more important and frequentlyusedactions,but there are,
of course,many,many more.
and each- with
Each takesplacein specificcircumstances,
the exceptionof the actionsto reminisce,to revealoneselfand
to dream- requiresthe actorto work with a partner.The cirantlthe partnerkeepthe actionfr<xtrevcrlleconting
cumstances
Lett take the action "to take care of." If the obiect of the
action to take care of is, say,a little cactus,the action rs very
weak, since a cactusrequires almost no care at all. But if the
action is to take careof a sick friend, the action becomesmuch
strongerand muchmore interesting.
The nature of the action also changesaccordingto who is
performingit. Ifthe persondoing the actionis a doctor itt a different action from that of an elderly immigrant or a child.
Let's uy an exercise.Imagine a baby bird has fallen from a
nest high in a ffee. The bird is lying there helplessly,as if one
wing were about to come off. The baby bird is going to die.
How would you take careof it?
Who wantsto go on the stageand try? Very good.
Everyoneis bendingto the floor. Everyoneis picking up the
bird very gingerly,but canyou seewhat Brad is doing?He took
the trouble to spreada handkerchiefon the ground to help him
pick up the injured bird. Almost all of you seem completely
absorbedin the task. Seth, your gesturesseem perfunctory.
Have you nevercaredfor an injured animal?
Sarah,go up on the stageand createa small play of caring
for an animal.
When I waslittle I had a pet turtle. Her namewas
sARAH,
GretelandI usedto like to put her in thegarden.I would
put out water for Gretel to swim in and lettuceleavesfor
her to eat.One day the smallboy who lived next door
rnadcoff with her,arrdI wasafraidI woultlneverseeher
Tmlnr orl c r r tct 11 7
1 1 6 s T [ [ t rl D [ [ n
again.But Gretel found her way back to the garden and
I was overjoyed.
"I would take her all the telegrams and notes she has
receivedin her dressingroom," the student said.
STELLA:
Excellent,Sarah.You gaveus a play that explained
what it meansto take care of an animal.In taking care of
the rurtle you found she had a life of her own. You also
showed us there are no small stories. Onlv the actor
makesthem small.
"That's too much," I said. "It's too big. Measure is the most
important thing you do on the stage.You have to measure how
much time you can take to do something on stage before it
becomes boring. You musm't bring on stage a lot of things you
don't care about."
Several times I heard Pablo Casals play. The difference
between him and you is that he knows that nothing is small. No
note is less important than any other note.
So far we have looked at the action to take care of on a simple human level. If you were to perforrn the action at a professional level - as a doctor or a nurse - you would have to visit
a hospital to observe the care and you would have to practice
what you have seen until it becomes second nature to you.
At the same time you have to iook for the human conflict. In
modern medical practice,the hospital, the patient and the doctor are all mechanized.We have eliminated the heart, and we
care only mechanically.Your action of taking care of a padent
will stimulatea counter-actionin the patient: "Oh, forget it, you
can't fool me, I'm not going to get well."
To put the counter-action into actions instead of words, the
actor playing the patient would cry or hide or do something to
tell us the patient wassufferingfrom lonelinessand fear and isolation. Isn't it a better play if the doctor goesout cheerfully and
the patient breaksdown in tears?
What doesthat tell us? It saysthere'sa conflict betweenthe
mechanizationof the hospital and the human heart. As actors,
we must look for the human conflict, becauseifyou play the text
without interpretation nothing will happen. And the p,rtient
dies.
I oncc askeda sturlcntlrow strcworrltlplty tlrc rtctiotrof tlkw('r'crurrl('lrcss.
inp crrrcil-thc prrtit:rrt
You don't need to do that much on the stage. Mr.
Stanislavskisaid it very well. He said, "Throw out 99 percent
and you still have 100 per cent too much for the theatre."
Thatt why we haveto srudy theseactions,so we understand
how to convey their essence.To take care of someone you have
to be warmed inside,genuinelycaring of the patient.The ingredient ofcaring is your talent.Many studentsleavethat out colnoletelv.Thev are as clinical and mechanicalas doctors.
V
Lett look at the action "to teach." This action is relatetl to
the action "to explain." But it is far more consequential.Ti)
explain is simply to clarif' something to another person. lt is
factual and down-to-earth.
The anatomyof "to teach" is that I give you what I know and
what you needto know.In order to teachyou somethin€iI rnust
know something, although as an actor it may be as far from nry
experienceas how to use a machine gun or how to cut a diamond. If those activitiesare not known to you either fron.rpcrsonal experience or direct observation you mtrst put thcn)
tl-rroughyour imagination.
A very useful exercisein leaming thc action "to tcach" is to
instructthe classhow to rnakepenicillin.I assurncnonc ol-yorr
but yr>uurrtlerstancl
thc prirrciplcofhow pcrricillilr
arescientists,
wrtsrliscovcrcrl.
It wrtsit rttoltl,ittr orrlirtrtryrrrolrlthrrthrtscrrrrttivc propcrlit's.l)c,tsrrtrts
Iltvc krrorvrrrtlrorrtsrrr'lrrrrolrlslirr t t'lr
Tu Ano
r rl c r r n t 1 1 9
119 Srulllnlrn
turies, but scientistsonly came to understandthe properties of
penicillinin the yearsbetweenthe two world wars.
Who would like to try to teachus how to make penicillin?
AJIright, Gordon.
GoRDoN:I'm going to teach you how to make penicillin.
You tan startwith bread. . .
S'IELI-A:I have to interrupt you. I'm sorry, but you're rnaking it pedestrian.You're making it pizzi-caca.You're
reducing it to the level of, "How do you make ice
cream?"You're pulling it down.
You're not listening to what the reason is for students coming to you to learn how to make penicillin. What makes it as
important as Einstein'stheory? What is it that will not pull it
down to an averagelevel?
You have to listen with your soul! Don't listen with your
behind!
As a teacher you have to make direct contact with your part-
ner. Your attachmentto his soul through teachingis n-rissing.
If
your action is to teachhow to make penicillin you must make us
realize the point is to savehumanity. It must be as large as thatl
Is that clear?
You're not on a dramatic level. You're on a supermarket
level. You have to make this important to you. Maybe you're
teaching them how to make penicillin so that it could be sent to
Africa. Maybe it could be sent to one of those destitute,terrible
countries where not one child survives,where the childrcn are
eaten.
You must make this action important to you. If itt difficult,
you must askyourselfwhether you havc any inrportrrrrccin your
soul.Wlat rnittcrs t() you, bcyond rnlrrirrgc. . or wurling t,,
bc farnous?
W h t ' r r\ , , r us r i r l l ( ' (\ l' ( ) ul r c g l t rrrv i t l rt l r t p r r s s i rrcr c r i . r r . r t l l
us what you were going to do. To teach is not to tell the students
how we feel about the world. It's not about attitude.There's no
prelude, no introduction. The impulse to teach how to make
penicilJinsrartswith your experiments.
It helps if you create circumstances for yourself, if you see
the classroom full of students - there's no olace for them to sit
down becausethe room is ftrll of laboratory equipment. This
createsan air of expectationand tension that should feed the
urgency of your address.
You start with the action. Acting is an extremely disciplined
art. It doesn't start with, "I'm here to tell you about this play."
It starts with acting. When the curtain goes up, you don't tell
the audienceyou're going to do a sceneby ltnnessee Williams.
You start the scene.
In an action you must know what you do, where you do it,
when yoo do it, and why yott do it. But you don't know how you
do it. The how is spontaneousand unexpected.
An action can be broken up into steps or "beats." (The
expressionbeats,by the way,isn't a musicalreference.We began
calling steps "beats" becausemembers of the Moscow Art
Theatre, in discussingtheir techniqueswith American act()rs
some yearsago, couldn't pronounce "bits.")
V
We're going to work on an exerciseto help us understancl
the action "to escape."
A revolution has broken out in a Latin Anerican coluttny'.
One village with a children's hospital has been overraken.
Outside the hospital gunfire blares. Some Anrerican Pcircc
Corps workers on the hospitalstafTn'rustevacuatcrrnrlcrossfhc
borclcrto get badly needcdnrctlicalsupplicsfrorn Arncricrrnlletl
Orosspcrsonrrcl.
'lir
r l o t h i sl l r c vr r r r r sptr s st h r o r r g hc l r c r n yl l l c . l l r t .t t . r ' n r rrns
t 2 0 S r ut Lt At L ln
difficult and dangerous.A swamp, infestedwith deadly snakes,
must be crossed.Ahead are barbed-wirebarricades.The undergrowth is thick. The PeaceCorps workers will brave intense
cross-fire.
Left behind in the hospital lying wretchedly on their mats'
the children are without food and water. Some need blood
others oxyeientents.The PeaceCorps workers are
transfi-rsions,
carrying a vital medical prescriptionwhich must be brought out
safely to the Red (lross authorities.The lives of the children
depend on it.
To escapethe cross-fire,the workers find temporary shelter
in a mud l-rut.C)neof them takesthe medicalprescriptionout of
his pocket and attemptsto read it in the rnurlry dampnessof the
hut. The crumpled prescriptionis muddied and blurred and difficult to decipher.
Searchinga clearing in No Man's Land, one of the Peace
Corps workers spotsa Red Cross helicopter overheadand frantically signalsto attract its attention. In the midst of this actron
a shot is fired, and tl.reworker, wounded,falls to the ground and
di es.
This exercise,which involvesa pair of actorsin a scenewithout dial()gue,lastsperhapsfwo minutes. It illustratesthe action
"to escaoe."Within this action are a number of other actlons'
the sum coming under the umbrella of an overall action - to
savethe children.
The purpose of the exercise is to work in difficult and
to react to outsideforcesfrom moment
changingcircumstances,
to monent. While the overall action is to savethe children, the
immediate aim, ancitherefore the first of a seriesof actions,is to
pietacrossthe border to sumrnon help.
As an actor, you need to agitate the circumstanccsto feecl
vour action. In this casethe circutrstancesare tlrritc agitatedby
-['he
chi]clrenarc itt tlangcrfi'ottlctrctlrygrrnfircits
thenrselvcs.
u c l l r t sf i ' o r t irl l r r c s sl.' h c t r t o l t ' ls r t r v i t ' icl ' t h e r l l c r l i c i r rt cl o c s l r ' t
r t : r t h l l r t t t t . l ' , s t ; t l l t t l t r , t r r q l t I l t t ' s * ' l t t t t 1 ri s t t t ' t , l t ', l l l t t l l tt t , t t s l t v
T ml n r o rl r r r t ' c t 2 l
the snakesand the crossfire. Barbed wire and landmines lie
ahead.
The second action is to decipher the prescription. But thc
paper is so soggyand mud-stainedit's no longer legible.In your
mind you go back over the instructions.Your action is to try to
commit them to memory. The third action is to communiclrc
with the helicopter flying overhead by waving the Aunclicirn
flag. The fourth action is to fall to the ground and die frorn thc
shot fired asyou exposeyourself signaling.
As an action, "to escape"is to run away from a troubling
thought or imap;e,or to run away from danger,but whcrevcr
you run you seethe danger,take it in and run awayfrom it, like
confronting your own image in a chamber of mirrors again and
again and never finding an exit. Going from dangerto dangJer
is
the action "to escape."It! the action of Hamlet, Ophelia and
Macbeth. The dramatic anatomy of escapeis there'sno esc2rpe.
This exercisereinforcesour sensethat asactorsour prinrary
job is to /0, and the doing comesaheadofthe words, or elsc the
words will be false.
The action embracesa number of other actions- gerrinEl
across the borcler, deciphering the prescription, signaling for
help - but escapingis what you are doing most. What yorr do
most is your action.
An action must have a specificend: in this case,to sunllllolt
help. The end of the action determirresthe action and rnrikcsit
strong or weak.
An action is complicated,in this caseby thc tlifficult tcrr:rin,
the enemy gtnfire, the barricades.
An action rnust be truthfully donc so that we may bclicvc in
it continuously irsit moves through changine circurnstarlccs.
An action rurrsthavc the possibilityof a prrrtner,which crrrr
be rn objcctsrrclrrs the hclicoptcr()r a l)crs()nstrchus thc clriltlrcn who lcqrrirch cl1l.
. ' \ r rr r t t i o nn r r r s l r e j r r s t i l i c r l c. s t ' r r p et o l l n r l r r r c r l i t r rt tl s s i s
T t rl n r o tA c r n r i 2 3
t tD L I n
i22 SToLA
tance for the ill and dying children.
An action must l-ravea level or mood, a light or dark or medium level - in this case,obviously dark.
A,r-raction must have an epic meaning: A man will give his
life in order to savethe lives of children.
V
Work in pairs on this exercise' Backstage,before any action
begins, make a strong preparation. \4sualize all the settings'
Yo-urmain action is to help the children in the surrounded hospital. Uppermost in your minds should be the awarenessthat
the children won't survive unless help reaches them' The
sffonger your imaginative work on the children themselves,the
stronger will be all your succeedingactions.
After I give a seriesofraps on the table to signif' gunfire, the
door at the rear of the stageoPensand the fwo actors, flat on
their stomachs, work their way onto the stage, one after the
other. At another seriesof raps,keeping low under the gunfire,
they will drag themselvesalong the stage'
At each point the actor must justi$r the terrain he travels
through. Acioss the raised stage, moving onto the studio floor,
the swamp,passthe barbed-wirebarricade,crossNo
yo,,
"r,t.,
Man's Land and reachthe clearing,awareall the time of the hidden dangers- the snakes,the landmines,and the enemy gunfire that at any moment may rake the ground.
In the clearing;one of you removesthe crumpled prescription list from his pocket and attempts to make senseof it' IJe
sights the helicopter and begins signaling for help, exposrnpl
thc
himself to gunfire. In his mind is one overriding thought
children in the hospital lying helplesson thcir nr''tts,lockcclup
and gaspirrgfor lrre.rtlr.
is to risk votrl lili: litr
\1rtlrllttt'1xrsc
[)on't krscy()ttl'l)tlrl)()sc.
j
r
l
t
'
r
l
, r l t l l c l r l , rr1V I i 1 1 l r t ? ' l l rI rl )r rt l l l l r l s
t h c r ' l r i l r l r t r r\ \. / h r r ti s r l t c
a duty bigger than himself. Raise it so you understand it. As an
actor, you can understand this sort of comrnitment. You can
relate it to your own senseof responsibilityabout your work.
"Would you be late for a performance? You have in you
something of what the PeaceCorps worker has,a commitmenr
to duty."
In every casethe actor hasto take the play insidehimself. Itis
not somebodyelse'splay.It's your play. One techniquefor making it your play is to seehow the plot and the ideasrelarero you.
"I will not fail my duty," you say, for you know that every man,
at sornepoint in his life, will be called upon.
I give one loud rap on the tabletop. The actor, shot in the
stomach, doubles in pain, falls to the ground and dies. Each
actor must find the shock to show the pain.
To do so you must use the "as if" substitution.There are,
after all, certain actionswe haven't experiencedand aren't likcly to have seen. Dying is one of them. Severepain may bc
another.In the caseofa severeheadachewe usean "as if'we
respondas if someoneis punching our head or trying to bore
through our foreheadwith an electric screwdriver.The grislier
the image the better. One "as if' that's useful for dyinpl is n '
imagine your gxts are pouring out and we're trying to puslr
them back inside.Eventually you're too weakenedand iust collapse.
The actions in this scenecome swiftly, one on top of thc
other, but the actor must find time to criticize himself. Whcrc
was he right, and where wrong? Thke enough tirne to decipher
the prescription or part of the scenewill remainedunfulfillerl.
One of my studentsgot so caught up in his attenrprsr() cNl)rure the attention of the circling helicopter that he igtrorctl rrrv
staE;e
signals.No rnattcr how I tried to liet his attention hc kcpr
jumping 'rnclwaving,stoppingthe tlranraantl spoilingthc pro
ppcssion.
An rrctornlustc()rrccthirnsclfrrshc gocsrrlorrgrrrrtlrrol
l c t c n r o t i o nt l i s t o r to r i n t c r l c l cw i t h t h e : r c t i o r r .
\ \ ' l r t r t v o u ' r , tt' o r r r p l t t r l t l r i s r . r t . ri' st t . ,c l t . n i l t l r t . r ' r .sl st i l l
lDrIn
124 sTILlA
much to correct, you will be in control of a play with a plot and
can confidently say,"IfI were in this situation,I could play this."
V
You're beginning to understandhow much is up to you as
actors to make the play truthful. For the first time in class,you
experienceyour own talent at work. I feel the need to warn you,
"Once you feel your talent working, there is a good side and a
bad side.The good side is the pleasureof knowing your talent.
The bad side is that this knowledgewill be the big experienceof
your lives and you'll never be satisfiedwith anything else."
Go over in your imagination the endre escapescene,from
the makeshift hospital, the South American village and all the
terrain to be negotiated.
Create the hut imaginatively.Where does the light come
from? How high is the hut? How much spaceis in it? Can you
stand up in it?
Establish the rnornent-by-moment truth fronl the clearing
in the jungle to the dying sequence.
Practice escaping from a room filled with gas, fiom a house
on fire, from a gang of kids who are attackinp;you, from jail.
Keep in mind that the anatomy of the action "to escape"is
that you have no place to go. Beyond the swamp is the barbed
wire, beyond the barbed wire No Man's Land' \44tat you are
trying to escapefrom is not escapable.If you're bound to a
chair, and escapingfrom it is a matter of life and death, you
don't succeed. The cockroach you chase doesn't gJet away.
\4/herever you turn in search of a way out, a bi6;gcrobstaclc
awaits.
V
CLASS EI,EVEN
II{STANT
AI{D
Il{I'IIR
JUSTITICATIOI'IS
\ tr F"" we act, primarily we perform an action. Our second
Y Y objectiveis creatinga reasonfor the action.This is called
justification,and before we continue examiningactionswe must
look into it.
The justification isn't in the lines, but in you. Whar you
chooseas your justificationshould agitateyou, should help you
experiencethe action and the emotion. Ifyou experiencenothing, you've made a dead choice.It doesn'twarm you. It doesn't
agitateyou. You haveto choosesomething that will awakenyou.
Your talent consistsin how well you "shop" for your justification. Your justification is what gives size to your actions.You
must make every action you perform epic.
Working in that way makes you grow. You grow rhroufih
acting more than through living. The ideasyou g;etfrom plays
will make you bigger.
Justification gocs on continuously ir.rthe rnind of thc actor
for as long rs he'.son stage.Finding reasonsfirr cvcrythirrgyou
do on the stagekecpsyour actionstruthful.'l'hc crcrrtivcgurt ol'
your work, justification,is wh:tt vrlr.rlivc on in tlrc thcrrtrc.
'l'hclc
r r r c t r v o k i n r l s o l ' i u s t i l i c r r t i o ni n. s t i u ) tr r r r r li r : r r c r ' .
T r rl n r o l A c r n c 1 2 7
1 2 6 S m l L tl l L t R
Instant justification gives you the immediate reason for what
you're doing. It removes the abstractpart of acting. If I love
you, what do I do? I sing with you, I dancewith you. I put your
coat on for you. I give you a flower.
Physicalizingthe emotionsis essentialin the theatre,and the
more detailed the physicalizationor iustification, the better. If
you've introduced a basket into the stage action' we want to
kr-rowhow heary the basketis, what'sinside,who it belongs to,
why it was on the shelf.
Why are you opening the wirrdow? To get some fresh air is
an examoleof instant iustification.To seewhat made that sudden crashingnoise is another.Why are you closingthe window?
So the flies don't come in is one instant justification'To stop the
breezefrom rattling the shadesis another.
Instant justification suppliesthe immediate need. It answers
the why in our seriesofwho, what, where, when and why quesuons.
Why did you close the dressingroom door? I was changing
my clothes.The hinge was squeaking.I needed the props that
were holding it open. To surprisepeoplewith my new costume.
To keep out the rehearsal music. All of these are spontaneous
justificationsfbr the action ofclosing the door. They're not profound, but they're plausible.
With instant iustification you can't be too elaborate.You
can't say I closedthe door becausethere was an actor in the hall
I didn't want to see.This is an exampleof what we call adding
fiction to fiction. A person we can't possibly know anything
about has been brought needlesslyinto the picture. When you
do that instant justification goesout the window.
Who can give me three reasonswhy you want a glass of
water?
. J l , i N N I l r l ,I) lnt :c c r l t o t r l k c s O l r l cv i t r t l t t i t l s .
S I I l . l . , \(, i o o r l .
ANNE:I want to gargle.
STELLA,Good.
ROBERT:
I'm thirsty.
STELLA:I know that sounds obvious, but itt not good.
Why is "I'm thirsty" not a good justification?Becauseit's
too subjective.It's a stateofbeing. You needto find a 1ustification that you can do. "I need water as a chaserfor
my drink." "I need water to wipe a spot off my dress.""I
need water to take an aspirin."
Avoid subjectivereasonswhen you're making an instant justification. Why am I rapping on the table?I'm going to give you
severaljustifications.You tell me which one is not acceptable.
To try to get attention. To kill a cockroach. BecauseI'm angry
That wasn't hard, was it? To say you're angry is to makc
something up inside yourself. You can't go to the emotions for
instant justification. You must go to the immediate crrcumstances,to something readily doable,
Why are you opening the desk drawer? To get a pencil. Tir
take out my keys.To get stampsfor a letter. To seeif the handle
has been repaired.Each justification must have a logic that will
enable you to extend the logic. To get a pencil and so re stationery to write a letter. To take out rny keys so I can lock thc
desk and leave.
Justificationmust go on all the time in even the most mundane actions of daily life. It is your prime sourceof awakening
to doing and to feeling.
Let's imagine that in the spacein front of us is a garclenwith
trees and a pool. Lnagine three things you can do in tl.rissp:rce,
and createa rc:rsohfor each.Practicing instantiustific.ation,yorr
Itrustderl only with whlt'.sdirectlyin front of yorr.
"['rn going t0 c]irrrbrr trec."'l'his stiltcnlcnt,tlcscrilringrrn
a c l i 0 l rw i t h 0 r r rl rs l i l t c (ll) r r r l ) ( ) si cs ,n o t c n o U g l rl .t ( l ( ) c sn ( ) tl ) r o v i t l t 't l r c r r ' l r 1" .l ' r n g o i t t g1 , rc l i r r r lrrrt r t t t ( ) l ) i (k i t n r r p p l t ' .N
" ,rrv
T u ri n r o t A c r r n c1 2 9
128 St lt loLin
we have the justification.
Sometimesstudentsare tempted to expandon the reasonby
adding, "I'm going to climb the tree to pick some applesto give
to my friends." The friends havebeen brought in unnecessarily.
They don't belong there. They're adding fiction to fiction.
For the purpose of instant justification you must deal only
with whatt directly in front of you. You can say,"I want to climb
the tree to pieta nice juicy apple that is good to eat." Now the
apple begins to take on the life of the place.To sayyou want to
give some applesto your friends is sirlply fake plottinp;'
Try some other actionsin this garden by the pool. Why do
you put your hand in the water?Quite simply, to test it' By continuing with this logic, you discover what else you can do in
these circumstances.Why did you wipe your hand? The sirnplest answer is, Becauseit'.swet. A little more complicatedbut
acceptableis, Becausethe water'sslimy.
Why are you reaching down with your right hand? Not to
g;eta match, which you don't need and which again is outside
the logic of this setting. Instead,reach down for somethingyou
need when you lie in the sun, such as sunglassesor suntan
lotion. Continue with the logic of the circumstances.
There's no need to make the action more elaborate.For
example,you don't move under the tree to "escapethe glare of
the pool." That'.stoo fancy - another exampleof adding fakenessto the action, and it's not instant iustification.
You taLe your sweater off becauseyou're hot, not to make
yourself "feel comfortable."You can't say,"I feel terribly warm."
It's better to say,"My blouse is sticking to me. I must lfo and
chanE;eit and take a bath." Steer away from such words as cornfortable, convenient, glaring and beautiful, ltecausethcy trkc
you too far away from the inrpulseactiviry
If you talk too tluch, yolr'retrot tkringit, antl if yotrtlttl.t'ttlr>
firr yottr :tc1lotl.
it you lrc not fintlirrgthc itlstlltttitrstificrrtiorl
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ative ar.rduncomlnon. For instance,an uncommon justification
for helping someoneon the street is he'sblind and no one else
bothered to assisthim.
Full and untlualified belief in the answeryou give is always
implied in your choice of the justification. Each justificarion
must passthrough your imagination so that it becomesmore
personaland individual and thereby more interestingand vivid
to the audience
Why are you reading the book? Becauseit's on anthropology, which I'm studying. A better reason is, Becauseit explains
the technique of acting, which I'm studying. \4/hy are you fixing
the chair?Becauseitt an antique,and I can give it to the museum.
Why are you taking off your shoe?You can say,Becauseit'.s
tight, but a more interestinganswerwould be, BecauseI need to
get the circulationgoing in my art}ritic toes.
You must choosejustificationsto which you react immediately. You must believe what you are say.Through justifications
the actor has a real place in the theatre becausehe is giving life
to the lines.If the actor hasn'tusedhis imasinationhe'srnadeno
contribution.
Justification must have a level - light, dark ol medium.
Justification on a dark level occurs when you describea winter
sceneon the Bowery or an avalanchein the Alps. These imply
menace.You can agitatethem even firrther by adding detailsafter the avalancheyou haveto warm the bodieswith towels and
blankets;you have to make a path through the fallen trccs antl
brush to reach the hospital.
'I-he
addition of agitatingcletailsaffectsthe actorlsenruti()ns.
'fhe
'I'he
levels gcr with the circumstances.
cloing olt :rcri,,ns,
backeclup by instant justification, relieves thc irctor o1 thc
unrertsonllrlcpressureto resort t() ern()rl)h()us
lntl urrrclirrlrlc
'l'hc1,
feelings.Pcople<lorr'tNcr.l-hcv experienccsonrcfhing.
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talent can't possiblyfollow.
I'd like one of you to go and sit on the edge of the srage.
Thank you.
STELLA:
Andrew, why are you sitting on the edge of the
stage?
ANDREW:
I'm sitting becauseI want to get a better perspectiveof the stage.
STELLA:
Cut out that phony collegeword pertpectiaeand
say instead,quite simply, "I am sitting here becauseI
want to seethe stage."
When you say,"I want to get a better perspectiveof the
stage,"you havenot usedwords that enlivenyou. Avoid words
that dont warm you. When you seesomething,you must make
me seeit too. I won't if your choiceof words is cold and remote.
The physical,doableside of acting is what matrers.If you
read somethingin the newspaperthat you like, tear it out. The
action tells us something.
If an actor fails to protect himself onstageby physicalizing
.
his actions,we're likely to catch him "acting,',playing a mood.
Insteadof protecting himself by picking up a letter, o. prrturrg
the keysaway,or seeingthat the lights are on, we've.""ght hiattempting to act feelings.The mood of the play will be there,
but not the life of the play. On stage,when iife comesin, we
should forever celebrateit.
Y
Always, alwayskeep yourself out of it. Say to yourself: I
myselfdon't count.The world counts.If I am beautiful,it's not
my beautythat'simportanrin my actions.Itls not the bcautiful
andsuffcringsidcof rnyselfthatcounrs,lrut whatI tlo.
r3r
In life, ason the stage,it's not who I am but whrcI /o that's
_
the measureof my worth and the secretof my success.
All the
rest is showiness,arroganceand conceit,
I'm going to askyou a questionand I want someoneto srve
me an instanrjustification.Why do you complain,bout gJing
out in the moming?
JANE:Becausethe elevatortakesten minutesto eet to the
sevenrhfloor, and I hate to walk down seven flights
beforeI reachthe street.
STELLA:
Good, Jane.This justificadon is strons and cor_
rect,but it alsopresentsa danger.
moment you usethe first personsingularor words like
... li"
"love" or "hate," which havehigh emotiorr.i.ont.rrt, the justi_
fication demandsare.stronger.you havero paya price for using
the "I." You'veraisedthe stakesto, gr.rt.i inueitnent rn your
justification.
AII right, I haveanotherquestionand I,d like severalofyou
to give me instantjustifications.Why did Brad help the person
acrossthe street?
Brad likes helping people.
JENMFER:
STELLA:
Urrlessthe justificationis strong,it is bestto avoid
words like helping, feeling,loving, caring.It is better to
use the circumstances,the place and what you actually
see.You cannorsee,He liked helping people.Ratherwe
wanr ro know what he did.
Let'shaveanotheriustification.
ANt)RIiwi
There wasnobodyelsearound.
-l'hrris
S't'lil.t,A:
not rnuchhelneither.
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13i
euNe, He helped the person across the street becausehe
was thin(ing about his mother.
ent can't follow. How many of you play an instrument.(A nurnber of stud.ents
raisetbeir hand.s.)
RoBERltHe helped the lady across the street becauseshe
had invited him to a party.
Then you know that an insrrument hasa scale:C, D, E, F.
Why did you want to play an instrumentwithout a scale?If you
don't know half-tonesor the 12-tonerow, why do you insist on
trying to play them?
STELLA:All these answers were nothing but fake plots,
assumptions of a past history that could not be known.
They're all evasions of the need to be concrete and to
visualize the action. Why are you evading what you
could control and choosing what you couldn't? Your
answerswere journalistic and false.Instead,a more useful answer would have been, "He helped the man across
the street becausehe saw that he was old and limping and
laboring under heary packages."
Why are you setting the table? If I say, "Because my
boyfiiend is coming," I have weakened the action and the justification. It has none of the excitement of, "The doorbell's ringing and the table isn't set." Or, "The telephone'sringing, and I
know itt my mother and I' have to tell her I didn't set the table
yet." The phone ringing excitesme to action.
In each case the circumstances are lively and immediate,
contributing spontaneous justification for my action of setting
the table.
STELLA:Andrew, why are you turning off the lights?
ANDREW:BecauseI am tired.
STELLA:That's a fake answer.Try again.
ANDREW:It's my girlfriend's surprise party.
STELLA:That's better, but it can be more exciting: "Let's
have it dark. Not a light in the room. It's a surprise
party."
In other wortls,nrrrkcit tkrrrblc.[]rrtrlorr't14owlrcrey()rlrtill-
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Instant justification is what gersthe moror started.To keep
it running you haveto haveinner justification.Instanr lustification doesn'taffectme inside.Inner justificariondoes.Ii arouses
and movesme. Inner justification is what the actor contributes
to the playwrightt lines.
Relatingto what lies behind the text, inner iustificarionhas
lessto do with the object,more ro do with why the objectis used
in a certainway or why the action is done in a certainway.
The "why" is personalto the actor and belonssto him. The
author givesyou the outlinesbut you asthe actormustwrite the
play.When I sayto a person,"You ought to stoprushing,"what
I'm really salng is, "You're too anxious."
A scenetakesplacein a hospitalcorridor.The script hasthe
doctoraskingthe nurse,"Did you givehim the medjclne?',
She
answers,"No," but her answerhasmore force than the manerof-fact word becauseher inner justification is that the patrenr
hasstoppedbreathing.
fn a restaurant
a man asksa womanif she,dlike somesusar.
She says,"No, thank you." Her answerhas great strength
because
her inner.justification
is that shehasdiabetes.
In classI can turn to my assistantPearl,who is wearrnga
black dresslike mine. I say to her, ',Pleasedon't wear blac.k."
This is the only line. What I'm reallysaying,my inner rnonologrre,is, "I don't want thc :r^tudents
t() scc tclchcrs illwitvs
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itlstlcprcssing."
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I don't give Pearl this inner reason,but it lies behind the
words and it must be understood by the audienceto lie behind
the words. I can sayto one ofyou, "I don't want you to wear any
more pleatedskirts." What I'am really sayingis that she should
get used to diffetent styles of clothing if she wants to be an
acffess.
Or I car.rsay,"It would be better if you wore your hair in
braids." Inside, my inner justification is, "If you wore your hair
in braids, it will remincl you of the style of another period,
which, in turn, will give you the needed quiet for playing this
part."
If I were to say,'Jennifer, I don't want you to take any more
notes," my meaning is, "You're putting all your attention inro
your writing and neglectingthe classteaching.This is a schoolgirl habit, and I want you to stop."
The author doesn't give you the actor's contribution. The
monologueof the actor is the inner justification.The actor'sjustification is a continuing process.What goeson within you and
what you actually say are, of course, different. To a student I
might say,"How are you? Itb nice you don't rnissclass."Inside
I'rr saying,"He's so ambitious.He's alwaysraisinghis hand.I
find hirn boring."
One has to keepjusti$ringall the time. In justif ing one's
relationship to the partneq to the circumstancesof the scene
and to the props, the motor must never stop. If justification
stops, one goes dead inside, and dead pockets will result on
stage.
I may say to an actor, "I want to talk to you sometime."
That's all I say,but the inner monologue goes as fbllows: I see
you have the habit of being a loner. This isolatesyou, puts icicles around you. I want to brc:rkdown thosc iciclcs.
There'-sno lirnit to how tlccp inr.rerjtrstificltti()lrcim g{).
Anne, go up on stirgc.
T i l oA R T
oricTtilc 13,
STELLA:
Do you have any picruresof your family?
A]\NE:Yes.
STELLA:
Do you think of yourself as being very modern?
ANNE:No, I clon't at all.
STELLA,
Have I talked to you very much?
ANNE:Not personally.
sTELLA:All right, let me tell you what I was thinking. I
asked the first question becauseyou seemedto have a
feeling for traditional clothes.You've been influencedby
another generation.What I was thinking when I asked
the secondquestionwas that you looked like an old-fashioned painting. It wasn't entirely a conpliment becauseI
thought you were mixing yourself up by wearing
sweatersof another generation. As you can see, I was
gettin€ideeper.For the last question I thought, "You're
really not lending yourself to being an actor.You haven't
joined the mob yet. You behavelike a visitor. You don't
rnake contact irs an actor. That's why I haven't talked to
you."
The answersto thesequestionsmust also be given inner justification. Ifyou answerthem straightforwardly,factually,you'll
be a boring actress.
The answerto the question,"Do you live at home?" can be
given in different ways and with different toncs and shadesof
meaning. The successfulactressis the one who, in giving her
answer, experienceswhat made her not live at home. By hcr
answershe can intimzrtewhy she left.
What you awaken in yourself is yor.rrcontributi<tnt<t thc
words. You can't simply repeat fhcts, adding nothing.
Justificatiou turns fircts into expcricnce. liach person jr.rstilies
accordingto his trrlcnt,rntl the justificltionLrhis trrlent.
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left to you and it will be hollow unlessyou haveadequatetnstant
and inner .justification.
A woman entersa grocerystory. Imaginewhat shewill buy
and why.
You must not be caught acting in the modern theatre
becausethe audience expectsto see someone who looks and
behavesasthey do, or their aunt, or their cousin.Nobody in the
theatre before 1860 looked like you. Or spoke like you. They
spoke verse and were so aristocratic or upper middle class in
appearancethat they'd be easilydistinguishablefrom you.
Be preparedto answerthe followingquestions
abouta basket: What kind is it? How heaw is it? What'sinsideit? Whose
is it? Why is it on the shel0
You belong to the democraticworld that came after 1860.
You need an aesthetic and a style of such plainness that your
appearanceand your voice won't take on any artificiality. If you
stop acting and insteaddo something,the doing will absorbthe
fake. In your justification of what you're doing, you avoid indicating, and in the modern style of acting, above all, you must
not indicate.
V
Here are someexercisesto help you understandjustification:
Give me five reasons why you complimented somebody, why
you left your job, why you helped someoneon the street, why
the man crossedthe street so fast,why the mother left the package at the departmentstore.
Give five reasons why you opened the window, why you
closed the window.
Tiace what you do in circumstances when you feel these
emotions:I'm so happy,I'm so angry I'rn so pleased.
Justi$zon a dark level in ten different ways the line, "He'll
glad
about that."
be
Give ten inner justifications for rcacling a book, gcttirtg
dressed,going downtown.
Clivefive rcrsonsfirr cotttplltiningin tltc tltcrltrc,itt lt story,
on thc sLrltwrrv.
Strike a pose.Relax every muscle exceptthose neededfor
the pose.Justifuthe pose.Example:You raiseyour hand.Why!
To fix the washingon the line. Or, to preventthe basketfrom
falling.
Thke four poses,justif' eachand link them together in the
justification.Example:(1) Raiseyour right hand.(2) Put your
hand to your forehead.(3) Put your left handin your pocket.
The justifications
are(1) to hushthe audience,
(2) to recallthe
speech,and (3) to searchfor your notes.
Lastly,here are a few lines. Breakup into pairsand perform
them for us. They don't make much senseon the surface.It's
your job to give them an inner justification.Make them logical
and compeliing.
"I wouldn'tgo in thereif I wereyou."
"How long hasshebeenlike that?"
"Her dressstill hasthe stainson it."
"Has he left yet?"
"I hearda door slamhoursago."
"But I'm surethe blue car is his."