An Actor Prepares

by Constantin Stanislavsky

  All these exercises called for intensified checking up by the ‘controller’. It is not as simple as it sounds. First of all, it requires a well-trained power of attention, capable of quick adjustment and able to distinguish among various physical sensations. It is not easy, in a complicated pose, to know which muscles must contract, and which should not.

  As soon as Leo left, I turned to the cat. It makes no difference what position I invent for him, whether he is put down head first, or made to lie on his side or back. He hangs by each of his paws in succession and all four at once. Each time it is easy to see that he bends like a spring for a second, and then, with extraordinary ease, arranges his muscles, loosening up those he does not need, and holding tense the ones he is using. What amazing adaptability!

  During my session with the cat, who should appear but Grisha. He was not at all the same person who always argues with the Director, and he was very interesting in his account of the classes. In talking about muscle relaxation, and of the necessary tenseness to hold a pose, Tortsov told a story out of his own life: in Rome, in a private house, he had the opportunity of watching an exhibition to test equilibrium, on the part of an American lady who was interested in the restoration of antique sculpture. In gathering up broken pieces and putting them together she tried to reconstitute the original pose of the statue. For this work she was obliged to make a thorough study of weight in the human body, and to find out, through experiments with her own body, where the centre of gravity lies in any given pose. She acquired a remarkable flair for the quick discovery in herself of those centres which establish equilibrium. On the occasion described, she was pushed, and flung about, caused to stumble, put in what seemed to be untenable positions, but in each case she proved herself able to maintain her balance. Moreover, this lady, with two fingers, was able to upset a rather portly gentleman. This also she had learned through study of centres of weight. She could find the places that threatened the equilibrium of her opponent and overthrow him, without any effort, by pushing him in those spots.

  Tortsov did not learn the secret of her art. But he understood, from watching her, the importance of centres of gravity. He saw to what degree of agility, litheness and adaptability the human body can be trained, and that in this work the muscles do what is required by a sense of equilibrium.

  5

  Today Leo came in to report on the progress of the drill at school. It seems that some substantial additions to the programme were made. The Director insisted that each pose, whether lying down or standing up, or any other, should be subject not only to the control of self-observation, but should also be based on some imaginative idea, and enhanced by ‘given circumstances’. When this is done it ceases to be a mere pose. It becomes action. Suppose I raise my hand above my head and say to myself:

  ‘If I were standing this way and over me on a high branch hung a peach, what should I do to pick it?’

  You have only to believe in this fiction and immediately a lifeless pose becomes a real, lively act with an actual objective: to pick the peach. If you just feel the truthfulness of this act, your intention and subconsciousness will come to your aid. Then superfluous tension will disappear. The necessary muscles will come into action, and all this will happen without the interference of any conscious technique.

  There should never be any posing on the stage that has no basis. There is no place for theatrical conventionality in true creative art, or in any serious art. If it is necessary to use a conventional pose you must give it a foundation, so that it can serve an inner purpose.

  Leo then went on to tell about certain exercises which were done today, and these he proceeded to demonstrate. It was funny to see his fat figure stretched out on my divan in the first pose he happened to fall into. Half of his body hung over the edge, his face was near the floor, and one arm was stretched out in front of him. You felt that he was ill at ease and that he did not know which muscles to flex and which to relax.

  Suddenly he exclaimed: ‘There goes a huge fly. Watch me swat him!’

  At the moment he stretched himself towards an imaginary point to crush the insect and immediately all the parts of his body, all of his muscles, took their rightful positions and worked as they should. His pose had a reason, it was credible.

  Nature operates a live organism better than our much advertised technique!

  The exercises which the Director used today had the purpose of making the students conscious of the fact that on the stage, in every pose or position of the body, there are three moments:

  First: superfluous tenseness which comes necessarily with each new pose taken and with the excitement of doing it in public.

  Second: the mechanical relaxation of that superfluous tension, under the direction of the ‘controller’.

  Third: justification of the pose if it in itself does not convince the actor.

  After Leo left it was the cat’s turn to help me try out these exercises and get at their meaning.

  To put him into a receptive mood I laid the cat on the bed beside me and stroked him. But instead of remaining there he jumped across me down on to the floor, and stole softly towards the corner where he apparently sensed a prey.

  I followed his every curve with closest attention. To do this I had to bend myself around and that was difficult because of my bandaged hand. I made use of my new ‘controller’ of muscles to test my own movements. At first things went well, only those muscles were flexed that needed to be. That was because I had a live objective. But the minute I transferred my attention from the cat to myself, everything changed. My concentration evaporated, I felt muscle pressure in all sorts of places, and the muscles which I had to use to hold my pose were tense almost to the point of spasm. Contiguous muscles also were unnecessarily involved.

  ‘Now I’ll repeat that same pose,’ said I to myself. And I did. But as my real objective was gone the pose was lifeless. In checking up on the work of my muscles I found that the more conscious I was in my attitude toward them the more extra tenseness was introduced and the more difficult it became to disentangle the superfluous from the necessary use of them.

  At this point I interested myself in a dark spot on the floor. I reached down to feel it, to find out what it was. It turned out to be a defect in the wood. In making the movement all my muscles operated naturally and properly—which led me to the conclusion that a live objective and real action (it can be real or imaginary as long as it is properly founded on given circumstances in which the actor can truly believe) naturally and unconsciously put nature to work. And it is only nature itself that can fully control our muscles, tense them properly or relax them.

  6

  According to Paul, the Director went on today from fixed poses to gestures.

  The lesson took place in a large room. The students were lined up, as if for inspection. Tortsov ordered them to raise their right hands. This they did as one man.

  Their arms were slowly raised like the bars at a grade crossing. As they did it Rakhmanov felt their muscles and made comments: ‘Not right, relax your neck and back. Your whole arm is tense’—and so on.

  It would seem that the task given was a simple one. And yet not one of the students could execute it rightly. They were required to do a so-called ‘isolated act’, to use only the group of muscles involved in movements of the shoulder, and no others, none in the neck, back, especially not any in the region of the waist. These often throw the whole body off in the opposite direction from the raised arm, to compensate for the movement.

  These contiguous muscles that contract remind one of broken keys in a piano, which when you strike one push down several, blurring the sound of the note you want. It is not astonishing, therefore, that our actions are not clear-cut. They must be clear, like notes on an instrument. Otherwise the pattern of movements in a role is messy, and both its inner and outer rendering are bound to be indefinite and inartistic. The more delicate the feeling, the more it requires precision, clarity and plastic quality in its phys
ical expression.

  Paul went on to say: ‘The impression that remains with me from today’s lesson is that the Director took us all apart, like so much machinery, unscrewed, sorted out every little bone, oiled, reassembled and screwed us all together again. Since that process I feel myself decidedly more supple, agile, and expressive.’

  ‘What else happened?’ I asked.

  ‘He insisted that when we use an “isolated” group of muscles, be they shoulder, arm, leg, back muscles, all other parts of the body must remain free and without any tension. For example: in raising one’s arm by the aid of shoulder muscles and contracting such as are necessary to the movement, one must let the rest of the arm, the elbow, the wrist, the fingers, all these joints, hang completely limp.’

  ‘Could you succeed in doing this?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ admitted Paul. ‘But we did get an idea of how it will feel when we shall have worked up to that point.’

  ‘Is it really so difficult?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘At first, it looks easy. And yet not one of us was able to do the exercise properly. Apparently there is no escape from completely transforming ourselves if we are to be adapted to the demands of our art. Defects that pass in ordinary life become noticeable in the glare of the footlights and they make a definite impression on the public.’

  The reason is easy to find: life on the stage is shown in small compass, as in the lens of a camera. People look at it with opera glasses, the way they examine a miniature with a magnifying glass. Consequently no detail escapes the public, not the slightest. If these stiff arms are half-way passable in ordinary life, on the stage they are simply intolerable. They give a wooden quality to the human body, make it look like a mannikin. The resulting impression is that the actor’s soul is likely to be as wooden as his arms. If you add to this a stiff back, which bends only at the waist and at right angles, you have a complete picture of a stick. What emotions can such a stick reflect?

  Apparently, according to Paul, they didn’t succeed at all, in today’s lesson, in doing this one simple thing, raising an arm with only the necessary shoulder muscles. They were just as unsuccessful in doing similar exercises with the elbow, wrist, and the various joints of the hand. Each time the whole hand became involved. And worst of all they did the exercises of moving all the parts of the arm in turn, from shoulder to finger tips and back again. That was only natural. Since they did not succeed in part they could not succeed in the whole exercise, which was so much more difficult.

  As a matter of fact Tortsov did not demonstrate these exercises with the idea that we could do them at once. He was outlining work which his assistant will do with us in his drill and discipline course. He also showed exercises to do with the neck, at all angles, with the back, the waist, legs and so on.

  Later Leo came in. He was good enough to do the exercises that Paul had described, especially the bending and unbending of the back, joint by joint, beginning with the top one, at the base of the head, and working down. Even that is not so simple. I was only able to sense three places in which I bent my back, and yet we have twenty-four vertebrae.

  After Paul and Leo had gone the cat came in. I continued my observation of him in varied and unusual, indescribable poses. When he raises his paw, or unsheathes his claws I have the feeling that he is using groups of muscles that are especially adapted to that movement. I am not made that way. I cannot even move my fourth finger by itself. Both the third and fifth move with it.

  A development and degree of finish in the cultivation of muscle technique as it exists in some animals is unattainable for us. No technique can achieve any such perfection in muscle control. When this cat pounces on my finger, he instantaneously passes from complete repose to lightning motion, which is hard to follow. Yet what economy of energy! How carefully it is apportioned! When preparing to make a movement, to spring, he does not waste any force in superfluous contractions. He saves up all his strength, to throw it at a given moment to the point where he will need it. That is why his movements are so clear-cut, well-defined and powerful.

  To test myself, I began to go through the tiger-like motions I had used in playing Othello. By the time I had taken one step all my muscles tightened up and I was forcibly reminded of just how I felt at the test performance, and realized what my main mistake had been at that time. A numb creature, whose whole body is in the throes of muscular spasms, cannot possibly feel any freedom on the stage, nor can he have any proper life. If it is difficult to do simple multiplication while holding up one end of a piano, how much less possible must it be to express the delicate emotions of a complicated role. What a good lesson the Director gave us in that test performance, when we did all the wrong things with complete assurance.

  It was a wise and convincing way of proving his point.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  UNITS AND OBJECTIVES

  1

  When we came into the theatre auditorium today, we were faced with a large placard, on which were these words: UNITS AND OBJECTIVES.

  The Director congratulated us on arriving at a new and important stage in our work, explaining what he meant by units, telling us how a play and a part are divided into their elements. Everything he said was, as always, clear and interesting. However, before I write about that, I want to put down what happened after the lesson was over, because it helped me to appreciate more fully what he had said.

  I was invited, for the first time, to dine at the house of Paul’s uncle, the famous actor, Shustov. He asked what we were doing at school. Paul told him we had just reached the study of ‘units and objectives’. Of course he and his children are familiar with our technical expressions.

  ‘Children!’ said he laughingly, as the maid set a large turkey in front of him, ‘Imagine that this is not a turkey but a five-act play, The Inspector General. Can you do away with it in a mouthful? No; you cannot make a single mouthful either of a whole turkey or a five-act play. Therefore you must carve it, first, into large pieces, like this . . .’ (cutting off the legs, wings, and soft parts of the roast and laying them on an empty plate).

  ‘There you have the first big divisions. But you cannot swallow even such chunks. Therefore you must cut them into smaller pieces, like this . . .’ and he disjointed the bird still further.

  ‘Now pass your plate,’ said Mr. Shustov to the eldest child. ‘There’s a big piece for you. That’s the first scene.’

  To which the boy, as he passed his plate, quoted the opening lines of The Inspector General, in a somewhat unsteady bass voice: ‘Gentlemen, I have called you together, to give you a highly unpleasant piece of news.’

  ‘Eugene,’ said Mr. Shustov to his second son, ‘here is the scene with the Postmaster. And now, Igor and Theodore, here is the scene between Bobchinski and Dobchinski. You two girls can do the piece between the Mayor’s wife and daughter.

  ‘Swallow it,’ he ordered, and they threw themselves on their food, shoving enormous chunks into their mouths, and nearly choking themselves to death. Whereupon Mr. Shustov warned them to cut their pieces finer and finer still, if necessary.

  ‘What tough, dry meat,’ he exclaimed suddenly to his wife.

  ‘Give it taste,’ said one of the children, ‘by adding “an invention of the imagination”.’

  ‘Or’, said another, passing him the gravy, ‘with a sauce made of magic ifs. Allow the author to present his “given circumstances”.’

  ‘And here’, added one of the daughters, giving him some horse radish, ‘is something from the regisseur.’

  ‘More spice, from the actor himself,’ put in one of the boys, sprinkling pepper on the meat.

  ‘Some mustard, from a left wing artist?’ said the youngest girl.

  Uncle Shustov cut up his meat in the sauce made of the children’s offerings.

  ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘Even this shoe leather almost seems to be meat. That’s what you must do with the bits of your part, soak them more and more in the sauce of “given circumstances”. T
he drier the part the more sauce you need.’

  I left the Shustovs’ with my head full of ideas about units. As soon as my attention was drawn in this direction I began to look for ways of carrying out this new idea.

  As I bade them good-night, I said to myself: one bit. Going downstairs I was puzzled: should I count each step a unit? The Shustovs live on the third floor,—sixty steps—sixty units. On that basis, every step along the sidewalk would have to count. I decided that the whole act of going downstairs was one bit, and walking home another.

  How about opening the street-door; should that be one unit or several? I decided in favour of several. Therefore, I went downstairs—two units; I took hold of the door knob—three; I turned it—four; I opened the door—five; I crossed the threshold—six; I shut the door—seven; I relaxed the knob—eight; I went home—nine.

  I jostled someone—no, that was an accident, not a unit. I stopped in front of a bookshop. What about that? Should the reading of each individual title count, or should the general survey be lumped under one heading? I made up my mind to call it one. Which made my total ten.

  By the time I was home, undressed and reaching for the soap to wash my hands I was counting two hundred and seven. I washed my hands—two hundred and eight; I laid down the soap—two hundred and nine; I rinsed the bowl—two hundred and ten. Finally I got into bed and pulled up the covers—two hundred and sixteen.

  But now what? My head was full of thoughts. Was each a unit? If you had to go through a five-act tragedy, like Othello, on this basis, you would roll up a score of several thousand units. You would get all tangled up, so there must be some way of limiting them. But how?