An Actor Prepares

by Constantin Stanislavsky

  Next he announced that he would do the soliloquy from the last act of Figaro. This time his acting was a miracle of marvellous movements, intonations, changes, infectious laughter, crystalline diction, rapid speech, brilliant inflections of a voice with an enchanting timbre. We could hardly keep from giving him an ovation. It was all so theatrically effective. Yet we had no conception of the inner content of the soliloquy as we had grasped nothing of what he said.

  ‘Now tell me in what relation I was to you this time,’ he asked again. And again we were unable to answer.

  ‘I showed you myself, in a part,’ Tortsov answered for us, ‘and I used the Figaro soliloquy for that purpose, its words, gestures and everything that went with it. I did not show you the role itself, but myself in the role and my own attributes: my form, face, gestures, poses, mannerisms, movements, walk, voice, diction, speech, intonations, temperament, technique—everything except feelings.

  ‘For those who have an externally expressive apparatus what I did just now would not be difficult. Let your voice resound, your tongue emit words and phrases distinctly, your poses be plastic, and the whole effect will be pleasing. I acted like a diva in a café chantant, constantly watching you to see whether I was making good. I felt that I was so much merchandise and that you were the buyers.

  ‘This is a second example of how not to act, despite the fact that this form of exhibitionism is widely used and immensely popular.’

  He went on to a third example.

  ‘You have just seen me presenting myself. Now I shall show you a part, as prepared by the author, but this does not mean that I shall live the part. The point of this performance will lie not in my feelings but in the pattern, the words, external facial expressions, gestures and business. I shall not create the role. I shall merely present it in an external manner.’

  He played a scene in which an important general accidentally found himself alone at home with nothing to do. Out of boredom he lined up all the chairs in the place so that they looked like soldiers on parade. Then he made neat piles of everything on all the tables. Next he thought of something rather spicy; after that he looked aghast over a pile of business correspondence. He signed several letters without reading them, yawned, stretched himself, and then began his silly activities all over again.

  All the while Tortsov was giving the text of the soliloquy with extraordinary clarity; about the nobility of highly placed persons and the dense ignorance of everyone else. He did it in a cold, impersonal way, indicating the outer form of the scene without any attempt to put life or depth into it. In some places he rendered the text with technical crispness, in others he underscored his pose, gesture, play, or emphasized some special detail of his characterization. Meantime he was watching his public out of the corner of his eye to see whether what he was doing carried across. When it was necessary to make pauses he drew them out. Just the bored way actors do when they play a well-made part for the 500th time. He might as well have been a gramophone or a movie operator showing the same film ad infinitum.

  ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘there remains the illustration of the right way and means to be used in establishing contact between the stage and the public.

  ‘You have already seen me demonstrate this many times. You know that I always try to be in direct relation to my partner, to transmit to him my own feelings, analogous to those of the character I am playing. The rest, the complete fusion of the actor with his part, happens automatically.

  ‘Now I shall test you. I shall make a note of incorrect communication between you and your partners by ringing a bell. By incorrect I mean that you are not in direct contact with your object, that you are showing off the part or yourself, or that you are recording your lines impersonally. All such mistakes will get the bell.

  ‘Remember that there are only three types which will get my silent approval:

  ‘(1) Direct communication with an object on the stage, and indirect communication with the public.

  ‘(2) Self-communion.

  ‘(3) Communication with an absent or imaginary object.’

  Then the test began.

  Paul and I played well as we thought and were surprised to have the bell rung on us frequently.

  All the others were tested in the same way. Grisha and Sonya were last, and we thought the Director would be ringing incessantly; yet actually he did it much less than we expected that he would.

  When we asked him why, he explained:

  ‘It just means that many who boast are mistaken and others, whom they criticize, prove capable of establishing the right contact with one another. In either case it is a matter of percentage. But the conclusion to be drawn is that there is no completely right or completely wrong relationship. The work of an actor is mixed; there are good and bad moments in it.

  ‘If you were to make an analysis you would divide your results by percentages, allowing the actor so much for contact with his partner, so much for contact with the public, so much for demonstrating the pattern of his part, so much for showing himself off. The relation of these percentages to one another in the final total determines the degree of accuracy with which the actor was able to achieve the process of communion. Some will rate higher in their relations with their partners, others in their ability to commune with an imaginary object, or themselves. These approach the ideal.

  ‘On the negative side some types of relation between subject and object are less bad than others. It is, for example, less bad to exhibit the psychological pattern of your role impersonally than to exhibit yourself or give a mechanical performance.

  ‘There are an infinite number of combinations. Consequently it is best for you to make a practice of: (1) finding your real object on the stage and getting into active communication with it, and (2) recognizing false objects, false relationships and combating them. Above all give special attention to the quality of the spiritual material on which you base your communication with others.’

  4

  ‘Today we shall check your external equipment for intercommunication,’ announced the Director. ‘I must know whether you really appreciate the means at your disposal. Please go up on the stage, sit down in pairs, and start some kind of an argument.’

  I reasoned that Grisha would be the easiest person with whom to pick a quarrel, so I sat down by him, and it was not long before my purpose was accomplished.

  Tortsov noticed that in making my points to Grisha I used my wrists and fingers freely, so he ordered them to be bandaged.

  ‘Why do that?’ I asked.

  ‘So that you will understand how often we fail to appreciate our tools. I want you to be convinced that whereas the eyes are the mirror of the soul, the tips of the fingers are the eyes of the body,’ he explained.

  Having no use of my hands I increased my intonation. Be Tortsov requested me to speak without raising my voice or adding extra inflections. I had to use my eyes, facial expression, eyebrows, neck, head and torso. I tried to replace the means I had been deprived of. Then I was bound down to my chair and only my mouth, ears, face and eyes were still free.

  Soon even these were bound up and all that I could do was roar. Which did not help.

  At this point the external world ceased to exist for me. Nothing was left to me except my inner vision, my inner ear, my imagination.

  I was kept in this state for some time. Then I heard a voice that seemed to come from far off.

  It was Tortsov, saying:

  ‘Do you want some one organ of communication back? If so, which one?’

  I tried to indicate that I would think about it.

  How could I choose the most necessary organ? Sight expresses feelings. Speech expresses thought. Feelings must influence the vocal organs because the intonation of the voice expresses inner emotion, and hearing, too, is a great stimulus to them. Yet hearing is a necessary adjunct of speech. Besides, they both direct the use of the face and the hands.

  Finally I exclaimed angrily, ‘An actor cannot be crippled! He has
to have all his organs!’

  The Director praised me and said:

  ‘At last you are talking like an artist who appreciates the real value of each one of those organs of communication. May we see disappear for ever the actor’s blank eye, his immobile face and brow, his dull voice, speech without inflection, his contorted body with its stiff backbone and neck, his wooden arms, hands, fingers, legs in which there is no motion, his slouching gait and painful mannerisms!

  ‘Let us hope our actors will devote as much care to their creative equipment as a violinist does to his beloved Stradivarius or Amati.’

  5

  ‘Up to this point we have been dealing with the external, visible, physical process of communion,’ the Director began. ‘But there is another, important aspect which is inner, invisible and spiritual.

  ‘My difficulty here is that I have to talk to you about something I feel but do not know. It is something I have experienced and yet I cannot theorize about it. I have no ready-made phrases for something I can explain only by a hint, and by trying to make you feel, for yourselves, the sensations that are described in a text.

  ‘ “He took me by the wrist and held me hard;

  Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

  And with his other hand thus o’er his brow,

  He falls to such perusal of my face

  As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so;

  At last, a little shaking of mine arm

  And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

  He raised a sigh so piteous and profound

  That it did seem to shatter all his bulk

  And end his being: that done, he lets me go:

  And with his head over his shoulder turn’d,

  He seem’d to find his way without his eyes;

  For out o’ doors he went without their help,

  And to the last bended their light on me.”

  ‘Can you sense, in those lines, the wordless communion between Hamlet and Ophelia? Haven’t you experienced it in similar circumstances, when something streamed out of you, some current from your eyes, from the ends of your fingers or out through your pores?

  ‘What name can we give to these invisible currents, which we use to communicate with one another? Some day this phenomenon will be the subject of scientific research. Meantime let us call them rays. Now let us see what we can find out about them through study and making notes of our own sensations.

  ‘When we are quiescent this process of irradiation is barely perceptible. But when we are in a highly emotional state these rays, both given and received, become much more definite and tangible. Perhaps some of you were aware of these inner currents during the high spots of your initial test performance, as for example when Maria called for help, or when Kostya cried out “Blood, Iago, blood!”, or during any one of the various exercises you have been doing.

  ‘It was only yesterday that I was witness to a scene between a young girl and her fiancé. They had quarrelled, were not speaking and they were seated as far apart as possible. She pretended she did not even see him. But she did it in a way to attract his attention. He sat motionless, and watched her with a pleading gaze. He tried to catch her eye so that he might guess her feelings. He tried to feel out her soul with invisible antennae. But the angry girl withstood all attempts at communication. Finally he caught one glance as she turned for an instant in his direction.

  ‘This, far from consoling him, depressed him more than ever. After a while he moved to another place, so that he could look straight at her. He longed to take her hand, to touch her and transmit the current of his feelings to her.

  ‘There were no words, no exclamations, no facial expressions, gestures or actions. That is direct, immediate communion in its purest form.

  ‘Scientists may have some explanation of the nature of this unseen process. All I can do is to describe what I myself feel and how I use these sensations in my art.’

  Unfortunately our lesson was interrupted at this point.

  6

  We were divided into pairs and I sat with Grisha. Instantly we started to send rays to each other in a mechanical way.

  The Director stopped us.

  ‘You are already using violent means when that is what you should avoid in such a delicate, susceptible process. Your muscular contraction would preclude any possibility of accomplishing your purpose.

  ‘Sit back,’ said he in a tone of command. ‘More! Still more! Much, much more! Sit in a comfortable, easy position! That is not relaxed enough! Nor that! Arrange yourselves restfully. Now look at each other. Do you call that looking? Your eyes are popping out of your heads. Ease up! More! No tenseness.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tortsov asked Grisha.

  ‘I am trying to carry on our dispute about art.’

  ‘Do you expect to express such thoughts through your eyes? Use words and let your eyes supplement your voice. Perhaps then you will feel the rays that you are directing towards each other.’

  ‘We continued our argument. At one point Tortsov said to me:

  ‘During that pause, I was conscious of your sending out rays. And you, Grisha, were preparing to receive them. Remember, it occurred during that long drawn out silence.’

  I explained that I had been unable to convince my partner of my point of view and I was just preparing a new argument.

  ‘Tell me, Vanya,’ said Tortsov, ‘could you feel that look of Maria’s? Those were real rays.’

  ‘They were shot at me!’ was his wry response.

  The Director turned back to me.

  ‘Besides listening I want you now to try to absorb something vital from your partner. In addition to the conscious, explicit discussion and intellectual exchange of thoughts, can you feel a parallel interchange of currents, something you draw in through your eyes and put out again through them?

  ‘It is like an underground river, which flows continuously under the surface of both words and silences and forms an invisible bond between subject and object.

  ‘Now I wish you to make a further experiment. You will put yourself in communication with me,’ said he, taking Grisha’s place.

  ‘Fix yourself comfortably, don’t be nervous, don’t hurry and don’t force yourself. Before you try to transmit anything to another person you must prepare your material.

  ‘A little while ago this type of work seemed complicated to you. Now you do it easily. The same will be true of this present problem. Let me have your feelings without any words, just through your eyes,’ he ordered.

  ‘But I cannot put all the shadings of my feelings into the expression of my eyes,’ I explained.

  ‘We can’t do anything about that,’ he said, ‘so never mind all the shadings.’

  ‘What will remain?’ I asked with dismay.

  ‘Feelings of sympathy, respect. You can transmit them without words. But you cannot make the other person realize that you like him because he is an intelligent, active, hardworking and high-minded young man.’

  ‘What am I trying to communicate to you?’ I asked Tortsov, as I gazed at him.

  ‘I neither know nor care to know,’ was his reply.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you are staring at me. If you want me to sense the general meaning of your feelings, you must be experiencing what you are trying to transmit to me.’

  ‘Now can you understand? I cannot present my feelings more clearly,’ I said.

  ‘You look down on me for some reason. I cannot know the exact cause for this without words. But that is beside the point. Did you feel any current issuing from you freely?’

  ‘Perhaps I did in my eyes,’ I replied, and I tried to repeat the same sensation.

  ‘No. This time you were just thinking about how you could push that current out. You tensed your muscles. Your chin and neck were taut and your eyes began to start from their sockets. What I want from you you can accomplish much more simply, easily and naturally. If you want to envelop another person in your desires you
don’t need to use your muscles. Your physical sensation from this current should be barely perceptible, but the force you are putting behind it would burst a blood vessel.’

  My patience crumbled and I exclaimed:

  ‘Then I do not understand you at all!’

  ‘You take a rest now and I shall try to describe the type of sensation I want you to feel. One of my pupils likened it to the fragrance of a flower. Another suggested the fire in a diamond. I have felt it when standing at the crater of a volcano. I felt the hot air from the tremendous internal fires of the earth. Does either of these suggestions appeal to you?’

  ‘No,’ I said stubbornly, ‘not at all.’

  ‘Then I shall try to get at you by an inverse method,’ said Tortsov patiently. ‘Listen to me.

  ‘When I am at a concert and the music does not affect me I think up various forms of entertainment for myself. I pick out a person in the audience and try to hypnotize him. If my victim happens to be a beautiful woman I try to transmit my enthusiasm. If the face is ugly I send over feelings of aversion. In such instances I am aware of a definite, physical sensation. That may be familiar to you. In any case that is the thing we are looking for at present.’

  ‘And you feel it yourself when you are hypnotizing someone else?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Yes, of course, and if you have ever tried to use hypnosis you must know exactly what I mean,’ said Tortsov.

  ‘That is both simple and familiar to me,’ said I with relief.

  ‘Did I ever say it was anything extraordinary?’ was Tortsov’s surprised rejoinder.

  ‘I was looking for something very—special.’

  ‘That is what always happens,’ remarked the Director. ‘Just use a word like creativeness and immediately you all climb up on your stilts.

  ‘Now let us repeat our experiment.’

  ‘What am I radiating?’I asked.

  ‘Disdain again.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘You want to caress me.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘That again is a friendly feeling, but it has a touch of irony in it.’