An Actor Prepares

by Constantin Stanislavsky

  ‘Can you imagine a valuable necklace in which, after every three golden links, there is one of tin, and then two golden links tied together with string? What would anyone want with such a necklace? And who can want a constantly breaking line of communication on the stage, which either deforms or kills acting? Yet if communication between persons is important in real life, it is ten times more so on the stage.

  ‘This truth derives from the nature of the theatre, which is based on the inter-communication of the dramatis personae. You could not possibly conceive of a playwright who would present his heroes either in a state of unconsciousness or asleep, or at any time when their inner life was not functioning.

  ‘Nor could you imagine that he would bring two people on to the stage who not only did not know each other but who refused to become acquainted, to exchange thoughts and feelings, or who would even conceal these from each other by sitting in silence at opposite ends of the set.

  ‘Under those circumstances, there would be no reason for a spectator to come into the theatre at all, since he could not get what he came for; namely, to sense the emotions and discover the thoughts of the people participating in the play.

  ‘How different it is if, when those same actors come on to the stage, one of them wants to share his feelings with another, or to convince him of something he believes, while the other is making every effort to take in those feelings and those thoughts.

  ‘When the spectator is present during such an emotional and intellectual change, he is like a witness to a conversation. He has a silent part in their exchange of feelings, and is excited by their experiences. But the spectators in the theatre can understand and indirectly participate in what goes on on the stage only while this intercourse continues among the actors.

  ‘If actors really mean to hold the attention of a large audience they must make every effort to maintain an uninterrupted exchange of feelings, thoughts and actions among themselves. And the inner material for this exchange should be sufficiently interesting to hold spectators. The exceptional importance of this process makes me urge you to devote special attention to it and to study with care its various outstanding phases.’

  2

  ‘I shall start with self-communion,’ began Tortsov. ‘When do we talk to ourselves?

  ‘Whenever we are so stirred up that we cannot contain ourselves; or when wrestling with some idea difficult to assimilate; when we are making an effort to memorize something, and trying to impress it on our consciousness by saying it aloud; or when we relieve our feelings, either gay or sad, by voicing them.

  ‘These occasions are rare in ordinary life, yet frequent on the stage. When I have occasion to commune with my own feelings on the stage, in silence, I enjoy it. It is a state familiar to me off the stage, and I am quite at home in it. But when I am obliged to pronounce long, eloquent soliloquies I have no notion what to do.

  ‘How can I find a basis for doing on the stage what I do not do off it? How can I address my very self? A man is a large creature. Should one speak to his brain, his heart, his imagination, his hands or feet? From what to what should that inner stream of communication flow?

  ‘To determine that we must choose a subject and an object. Where are they? Unless I can find those two inwardly connected centres I am powerless to direct my roving attention, always ready to be drawn towards the public.

  ‘I have read what the Hindus say on this subject. They believe in the existence of a kind of vital energy called Prana, which gives life to our body. According to their calculation the radiating centre of this Prana is the solar plexus. Consequently, in addition to our brain which is generally accepted as the nerve and psychic centre of our being, we have a similar source near the heart, in the solar plexus.

  ‘I tried to establish communication between these two centres, with the result that I really felt not only that they existed, but that they actually did come into contact with one another. The cerebral centre appeared to be the seat of consciousness and the nerve centre of the solar plexus—the seat of emotion.

  ‘The sensation was that my brain held intercourse with my feelings. I was delighted because I had found the subject and the object for which I was searching. From the moment I made the discovery I was able to commune with myself on the stage, either audibly or in silence, and with perfect self-possession.

  ‘I have no desire to prove whether Prana really exists or not. My sensations may be purely individual to me, the whole thing may be the fruit of my imagination. That is all of no consequence provided I can make use of it for my purposes and it helps me. If my practical and unscientific method can be of use to you, so much the better. If not, I shall not insist on it.’

  After a slight pause Tortsov continued:

  ‘The process of mutual intercourse with your partner in a scene is much easier to achieve. But here again we run into a difficulty. Suppose one of you is on the stage with me and we are in direct communication. But I am extremely tall. Just look at me! I have a nose, mouth, arms, legs and a big body. Can you communicate with all of these parts of me at once? If not, choose some one part that you wish to address.’

  ‘The eyes’, someone suggested, and added, ‘because they are the mirror of the soul.’

  ‘You see, when you want to communicate with a person you first seek out his soul, his inner world. Now try to find my living soul: the real, live me.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  The Director was astonished. ‘Have you never put out your emotional antennae to feel out the soul of another person? Look at me attentively, try to understand and sense my inner mood. Yes, that is the way. Now tell me how you find me.’

  ‘Kind, considerate, gentle, lively, interested,’ I said.

  ‘And now?’ he asked.

  I looked at him closely and suddenly found not Tortsov but Famusov (the famous character in the classic play Woe From Too Much Wit), with all his familiar earmarks, those extraordinarily naïve eyes, fat mouth, puffy hands and the soft gestures of a self-indulgent old man.

  ‘And now with whom are you in communication?’ asked Tortsov with Famusov’s voice.

  ‘With Famusov, of course,’ I answered.

  ‘And what has become of Tortsov?’ he said, returning instantly to his own personality. ‘If you had not been addressing your attention to the Famusov nose or hands which I had transformed by a technical method, but to the spirit within, you would have found that it had not changed. I can’t expel my soul from my body and hire another to replace it. You must have failed to get into communication with that living spirit. In that case, what were you in contact with?’

  That was just what I was wondering, so I set myself to remembering what change my own feelings underwent as my object was transformed from Tortsov to Famusov, how they turned from the respect which the one inspires, to the irony and good-humoured laughter which the other causes. Of course, I must have been in contact with his inner spirit throughout and yet I could not be clear about it.

  ‘You were in contact with a new being,’ he explained, ‘which you may call Famusov-Tortsov, or Tortsov-Famusov. In time you will understand these miraculous metamorphoses of a creative artist. Let it suffice now that you understand that people always try to reach the living spirit of their object and that they do not deal with noses, or eyes, or buttons the way some actors do on the stage.

  ‘All that is necessary is for two people to come into close contact and a natural, mutual exchange takes place. I try to give out my thoughts to you, and you make an effort to absorb something of my knowledge and experience.’

  ‘But that does not mean that the exchange is mutual,’ argued Grisha. ‘You, the subject, transmit your sensations to us, but all we, the objects, do is to receive. What is reciprocal in that?’

  ‘Tell me what you are doing this minute,’ Tortsov replied. ‘Aren’t you answering me? Aren’t you voicing your doubts and trying to convince me? That is the confluence of feelings you are looking for.’

  ‘It is now,
but was it, while you were talking?’ Grisha clung to his point.

  ‘I don’t see any difference,’ answered Tortsov. ‘We were exchanging thoughts and feelings then and we are continuing to do so now. Obviously in communicating with one another the giving out and the taking in occur alternately. But even while I am speaking and you were merely listening I was aware of your doubts. Your impatience, astonishment and excitement all carried over to me.

  ‘Why was I absorbing those feelings from you? Because you could not contain them. Even when you were silent, there was a meeting of feelings between us. Of course, it did not become explicit until you began to speak. Yet it proves how constant the flow of these interchanging thoughts and feelings is. It is especially necessary on the stage to maintain that flow unbroken, because the lines are almost exclusively in dialogue.

  ‘Unfortunately, that unbroken flow is all too rare. Most actors, if indeed they are aware of it at all, use it only when they are saying their own lines. But let the other actor begin to say his and the first one neither listens nor makes an attempt to absorb what the second is saying. He ceases to act until he hears his next cue. That habit breaks up constant exchange because that is dependent on the give and take of feelings both during the speaking of the lines, and also during the reply to those already spoken, and even during silences, when the eyes carry on.

  ‘Such fragmentary connection is all wrong. When you speak to the person who is playing opposite you, learn to follow through until you are certain your thoughts have penetrated his consciousness. Only after you are convinced of this and have added with your eyes what could not be put into words, should you continue to say the rest of your lines. In turn, you must learn to take in, each time afresh, the words and thoughts of your partner. You must be aware today of his lines even though you have heard them repeated many times in rehearsals and performances. This connection must be made each time you act together, and this requires a great deal of concentrated attention, technique, and artistic discipline.’

  After a slight pause the Director said that we would now pass to the study of a new phase: communion with an imaginary, unreal, non-existent object, such as an apparition.

  ‘Some people try to delude themselves into thinking that they really do see it. They exhaust all of their energy and attention on such an effort. But an experienced actor knows that the point does not lie in the apparition itself, but in his inner relation to it. Therefore he tries to give an honest answer to his own question: what should I do if a ghost appeared before me?

  ‘There are some actors, especially beginners, who use an imaginary object when they are working at home because they lack a living one. Their attention is directed towards convincing themselves of the existence of a non-existent thing, rather than concentrating on what should be their inner objective. When they form this bad habit they unconsciously carry the same method over on to the stage and eventually become unaccustomed to a living object. They set an inanimate make-believe one up between themselves and their partners. This dangerous habit sometimes becomes so ingrained that it may last a lifetime.

  ‘What torture to play opposite an actor who looks at you and yet sees someone else, who constantly adjusts himself to that other person and not to you. Such actors are separated from the very persons with whom they should be in closest relationship. They cannot take in your words, your intonations, or anything else. Their eyes are veiled as they look at you. Do avoid this dangerous and deadening method. It eats into you and is so difficult to eradicate!’

  ‘What are we to do when we have no living object?’ I asked.

  ‘Wait until you find one,’ answered Tortsov. ‘You will have a class in drill so that you can exercise in groups of two or more. Let me repeat: I insist that you do not undertake any exercises in communication except with living objects and under expert supervision.

  ‘Even more difficult is mutual communion with a collective object; in other words, with the public.

  ‘Of course, it cannot be done directly. The difficulty lies in the fact that we are in relation with our partner and simultaneously with the spectator. With the former our contact is direct and conscious, with the latter it is indirect, and unconscious. The remarkable thing is that with both our relation is mutual.’

  Paul protested, and said:

  ‘I see how the relation between actors can be mutual, but not the bond between the actors and the public. They would have to contribute something to us. Actually, what do we get from them? Applause and flowers! And even these we do not receive until after the play is over.’

  ‘What about laughter, tears, applause during the performance, hisses, excitement! Don’t you count them?’ said Tortsov.

  ‘Let me tell you of an incident which illustrates what I mean. At a children’s matinee of The Blue Bird, during the trial of the children by the trees and the animals, I felt someone nudge me. It was a ten-year-old boy. “Tell them that the Cat is listening. He pretended to hide, but I can see him,” whispered an agitated little voice, full of worry and concern for Mytyl and Tyltyl. I could not reassure him, so the little fellow crept down to the footlights and whispered to the actors playing the parts of the two children, warning them of their danger.

  ‘Isn’t that real response?

  ‘If you want to learn to appreciate what you get from the public let me suggest that you give a performance to a completely empty hall. Would you care to do that? No! Because to act without a public is like singing in a place without resonance. To play to a large and sympathetic audience is like singing in a room with perfect acoustics. The audience constitute the spiritual acoustics for us. They give back what they receive from us as living, human emotions.

  ‘In conventional and artificial types of acting this problem of relation to a collective object is solved very simply. Take the old French farces. In them the actors talk constantly to the public. They come right out in front and address either short individual remarks or long harangues which explain the course of the play. This is done with impressive self-confidence, assurance and aplomb. Indeed, if you are going to put yourself in direct relation to the public, you had better dominate it.

  ‘There is still another angle: dealing with mob scenes. We are obliged to be in direct, immediate relationship with a mass object. Sometimes we turn to individuals in the crowd; at others, we must embrace the whole in a form of extended mutual exchange. The fact that the majority of those making up a mob scene are naturally totally different from one another and that they contribute the most varied emotions and thoughts to this mutual intercourse, very much intensifies the process. Also the group quality excites the temperament of each component member and of all of them together. This excites the principals and that makes a great impression on the spectators.’

  After that Tortsov discussed the undesirable attitude of mechanical actors towards the public.

  ‘They put themselves in direct touch with the public, passing right by the actors playing opposite them. That is the line of least resistance. Actually that is nothing more nor less than exhibitionism. I think you can be trusted to distinguish between that and a sincere effort to exchange living human feelings with other actors. There is a vast difference between this highly creative process and ordinary mechanical, theoretical gestures. They are both opposite and contradictory.

  ‘We can admit all but the theatrical type, and even that you should study if only to combat it.

  ‘One word, in conclusion, about the active principle underlying the process of communication. Some think that our external, visible movements are a manifestation of activity and that the inner, invisible acts of spiritual communion are not. This mistaken idea is the more regrettable because every manifestation of inner activity is important and valuable. Therefore learn to prize that inner communion because it is one of the most important sources of action.’

  3

  ‘If you want to exchange your thoughts and feelings with someone you must offer something you have experienced yourself,’ t
he Director began. ‘Under ordinary circumstances life provides these. This material grows in us spontaneously and derives from surrounding conditions.

  ‘In the theatre it is different, and this presents a new difficulty. We are supposed to use the feelings and thoughts created by the playwright. It is more difficult to absorb this spiritual material than to play at external forms of non-existing passions in the good old theatrical way.

  ‘It is much harder truly to commune with your partner than to represent yourself as being in that relation to him. Actors love to follow the line of least resistance, so they gladly replace real communion by ordinary imitations of it.

  ‘This is worth thinking about, because I want you to understand, see and feel what we are most likely to send out to the public in the guise of exchange of thoughts and feelings.’

  Here the Director went up on the stage and played a whole scene in a way remarkable for talent and mastery of theatre technique. He began by reciting some poetry, the words of which he pronounced hurriedly, effectively, but so incomprehensibly that we could not understand a word.

  ‘How am I communicating with you now?’ he asked.

  We did not dare criticize him, so he answered his own question. ‘In no way at all,’ he said. ‘I mumbled some words, scattered them around like so many peas, without even knowing what I was saying.

  ‘That is the first type of material often offered to the public as a basis of relationship—thin air. No thought is given either to the sense of the words themselves or to their implications. The only desire is to be effective.’