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Once I told you about the plummer, who came to fix the toilet. He is a professional, I am not; if I could, I would do it myself. But, look, do you want to deal with the plummer, who needs his motivation and inspiration to fix the toilet? I don't think so.

Every time actors ask me this question about motivation, I ask back -- What is your take? You should have YOUR idea first. There are many simple little things you have to know.

If I see that you struggle without getting it, I will step in, but you have to be initiator, you are the first. I consider it professional relations between partners in theatre business. If I don't like it, I tell you. If I don't, you are on the right track.

The Relaxation! Do you want me to my director's exercises in front of twenty actors? Do you care how I do it? I direct. Teaching is a by-product of directing shows.

I complain, because sometimes I feel that I'm losing my mind. This plummer doesn't come to teach me how to fix toilets and meditate before it -- I am not interest, this is not my BUSINESS. I prefer to come home and see that my toilet is fixed, working -- that's professional.

Same with you, actors. You can't be busy with all those questions that are not your PROBLEMS!

Don't teach, even yourself! Learn. Be simple. Your body is different from the rest of us, the same with your mind, soul, spirit, will. Yes, you don't know yourself completely, but knows you better than you?

Not me.

So, Stanislavsky said, take yourself seriously, actor. Do your work!

A lot of what acting is paying attention. Robert Redford NEW:

Summary

Questions

* Uncle Vanya
* Cherry Orchard
* Seagull

* one-acts

Notes

Acting: The First Six Lessons. Richard Boleslavsky - Publisher: Theatre Arts Inc. New York 1933.

- The First Lesson: Concentration
- The Second Lesson: Memory of Emotion
- The Third Lesson: Dramatic Action
- The Fourth Lesson: Characterization
- The Fifth Lesson: Observation
- The Sixth Lesson: Rhythm

Diderot thought that something similar applied to the presentation and expression of emotion on the stage. In an essay entitled The Paradox of Acting, he argued that the actor needed to strip away unnecessary gestures, unnecessary props, and indeed any aspect of the performance that distracted from the communication of feeling to the audience, or did not positively contribute to the communication of feeling. The performance should be a studied exercise in ‘pure’ emotional expression, rather than a raw and spontaneous outpouring of the actor’s feelings.
If the actor really were choked with emotion, the audience wouldn’t be able to hear him. Some dramatic roles require the actor to run through several emotions in quick succession. Such a performance is rehearsed and repeated - surely, argues Diderot, if the actor really experienced the same powerful feelings each time, he would quickly be an emotional wreck. (Perhaps Antonin Artaud was the exception that proved the rule: he did, and he was.) Therefore it is neither appropriate nor even plausible that a great actor feels the same things - performance after performance - that he makes his audience feel.
Diderot’s views were controversial, and remain so. In the twentieth century, this approach became known as Method Acting.

Diderot’s paradox: to be more expressive and assertive, we need to be less spontaneous, less free. [According to this principle, we need to work all aggression out of our speech habits, whether this aggression is directed against ourselves or against others].

Order of Importance:

1. author -- Author is the star: play of words. Author gives story, character, dialogue. Actor gives it life.

2. audience -- Entertain the audience. Key to play. Most important character is the audience.

3. actor -- What does it have to do to the audience, what should it accomplish? Actor has all the judgment, not the director.

4. director -- Does scene do what the story requires? Director is an observer. A series of variations from actor. Director picks one.

[ abwag.com ]

Focus: Actor Homework: The Script & The Artist's Notebook

Script Analysis Actor:

Theatre Books Master Page *

LIMITATIONS
Some actors do not fully realize the limitations placed on them by nature. They undertake problems beyond their powers to solve. The comedian wants to play tragedy, the old man to be a jeune premier, the simple type longs for heroic parts and the soubrette for the dramatic. This can only result in forcing, impotence, and stereotyped, mechanical action. These are shackles and your only means of getting out of them is to study your art and yourself in relation to it. --An Aktor Prepares

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