ACTOR'S RECALL

I suggested as a basis for characterization that Marvin draw on a personal experience.  I failed -- Marvin tried to act a memory.  You cannot act a memory.  You can only create a result with mind and emotion if you receive that experience.  

How do you start that re-living only by creating through recall every significant stimuli in that given situation.  I want to relive an experience which made me taste a defeat that made me need desperately to get drunk enough to stop suffering.  (My method of escape from suffering is not drink, but that does not matter -- the need for escape is the same.)  I recall: I sat down on a rough textured Victorian divan -- in the corner of the divan -- my fingers touched the rough texture of the seat as my left hand dropped at my side -- my bare right arm felt that rough texture as my arm fell on the arm of the settee.  I rubbed this texture not because I liked it but because the unpleasant friction made me feel -- in my fingers -- a sense of life, of living as against a chill within me, a silence within me that was a kind of death -- except for those fingers rubbing, I felt frozen.  I sat without moving, almost without breathing.  My eyes were wide-open, looking at a face opposite me -- the smiling, flabby face of a big man sitting at a big dark bare desk. His pudgy fingers were rubbing the bare wood.  I saw his greying, wavy hair.  I even thought “handsome head of hair.”  In response I saw small smiling jelly-like eyes looking straight into my staring ones.  I heard a smooth velvet low voice with cultivated modulations saying, almost caressing,  “But it is not our function to be psychiatrists,”  I felt strangled, I could not breathe, I felt that rough texture as I dug my fingers into the arm, I had to look away -- to escape with eyes at least out the window.  I saw feathery foliage on a tree -- I concentrated with all my will on foliage so that I would not scream.  I listened deliberately to sounds -- a girl’s laugh like Betty Cosman’s, clear and bright, and sudden footsteps outside -- a typewriter I made myself aware of and then I heard my own voice, level and even and quiet and toneless:  “But he tried to kill himself last night.”  I skip next to the moment I felt a doorknob in my hand, a safety lock I had to pull, the weight of the door.  I felt my feet walking.

I write this only to show you how an experience is relived only by recreating every stimulus -- as I look back now at the preceding page, I see a change in my writing.  Merely to remember that you were sad, happy, hurt, gay -- such memory is no use to the actor.  If that is the extent of your recall, it may be one more reason to question whether you are an actor -- an actor has the capacity to re-live, re-experience, re-spond to the stimuli that memory evolves.  If I can relive the experience I have told,  I will not only know what Jamie experiences, I will experience it.  I will have to escape in drink what he has to escape.  

If you have had nothing similar in your experience -- is not that another admission that you are dead and thus not capable of being an actor?  Because an actor sees more sharply, hears more clearly, touches, smells, kinesthetically responds.  His memories are more vivid, more living, more quickly and fully touched off when needed.  Are you alive?  Is so, why couldn’t you in “Henry IV” create a country torn by civil war?  Why in workshop must your director do all the creative work of thinking and feeling and imagining and responding?  Why can’t you create realities?  Why don’t your Saint Joan’s feel the mould of France as they walk, why don’t they see the sky over France, why don’t they see the soldiers of France sleeping, gambling, deserting?  Why?  Why?  Have James and Edwin heard, seen the sea?  Have they seen, heard their father?  Have they actually watched their mother’s hands, seen her eyes?  Has Kowalski seen the dives of N.Orleans?  Has he eaten steak half-raw?  What is reality?  How does the actor creatie it?

NATIONALITY

Ibsen’s themes are universal, his people are Norwegians: through them we see the universal, we make the application.  So with Chekhov: his people are Russian, we see their counterparts, their unproductivity in our South, in our selves.  The actors must create Norwegians, Russians, etc.  To turn them into contemporary Americans violates the structure of the play, its cadences, its rhythms, its organic whole and therefore study national traits and their origins in the land itself.  The Scotsman is economical in speech, in movement, in emotion, in business because he learned to be so from conflict with a soil, not too productive -- a matter of self-preservation.  The Norwegians comes of Viking stock -- Each land produced its own mythology -- leprechauns, trolls, women-in-green, Valkyries, etc.  Predominant religions developed.

Occupational trends, art trends vary -- why are the emotional French devotees of the classic form? -- and the English produced Shakespeare.  What vocal, physical patterns develop from this natural environment?  What thought and emotional patterns?  to the French cooking is an art and so one gies a meal full attention, one savours food, recognizes seasoning -- one does not discuss business over food nor make love etc.  Mking love has its place, sex is part of life, given its proper place, etc.  Study traits, attitudes, of other countries.

THE AGE IN WHICH ONE LIVES AS A DETERMINING FACTOR IN CHARACTERIZATION

Man thinks, invents, loves, suffers, prays, admires with his brain and with his whole organism  Every love, hate, fear, when it becomes habitual is capable of starting organic changes, even diseases.  Man is indelibly marked by prolonged and intense mental effort.  These statements apply to poeple in all ages.  It is the behavior of Edwardian men, modern men: how do they differ and why -- Ask questions such as the following.  All will not necessrily apply to the character you are studyng.  Having answered the question, ask how thought, emotions and physical characteristics are determined and expressed.

The spirit of the period: was it optimistic?  Adventurous?  Defeated?  Realistic?  Innocent?  Sophisticated?  Same?  Lusty?  Puritanical? Etc. Etc.

The occupations of the time -- the sports and amusements -- illuninating scrolls?  Puppet shows?  Card games?  Hunting?

The dress of the period and accessories -- effect on movement -- jewels?  Headdresses?  Fans?  Swords?  Handkerchiefs?

Music and dance of the period -- Romeo and Juliet should dance the Pavanne -- the freedom and grace of the movement are an accompaniement to the thoughts, to the words.  The people of Chekhov must be able to waltz and to talk easily, “naturally”, as they dance.

Political views of the period: Revolutionary?  Liberal?  Conservative?  Intrigues?  How did they affect lives?  Behavior.

Art, Literature:  Important?  Subsidiary?  Conservative?  Avante garde?

Religion: a dominant influence?

In brief, what are the dominant influences of the er.  Did your character go with the current?  Adjust?  Fight?  Lead?  Follow?  Accept?  Reject?  To what extent?

What were the resulting attitudes toward self?  Society?  -- we become what we do.  If a social mask is worn long enough it hardens into a permanent cast of reality.  Our character consists of the way we act and react when with other people.  Discover how the times in which people lived determiined the masks they assumed, or did not assume.

Improv until the element of the worl in which these peple lived becomes real enough to evoke responses.

An Elizabethan bear-baiting.

A Victorian ball or tea, or counting house.

A house party of any era.

What subtexts evolved?  What hehavior patterns expressed them?

OCCUPATION AND ECONOMIC STATUS AS CHARACTER DETERMINANTS

Every occupation, every profession puts its stamp on personality and on the personality of family community involved -- mental and emotional traits are established, attitudes toward self and others are set up; all find their expression or cover up in behavior patterns.  Every discussion in papers should include a statement regarding:

1.  Mental and emotional patterns resulting from this determining factor.

2.  A description of physical and vocal patterns of behavior.

3.  Your improvisations and their results.  Without such statements you have not made an actor’s study.

A doctor’s manner and habits differ from a banker’s.  You can recognize actors by their behavior -- how?  Jackie Kennedy is like no other first lady -- will the White House change her?  Influence her?  Will she adjust?  Dominate?  Capitulate?  Occupation -- money -- how do you recognize their marks?  Hedda’s “genteel poverty”; what marks did it leave on her?  Her father’s military career: what marks?  Why?  All women of the 90’s born into Hedda’s circle did not commit suicide: why Hedda?

What does it mean to be an architect?  A master-architect?  What ethical codes evolve?  What pressures?  Compulsions?  Responsibilities?  Pleasures?  Satisfactions?  Social conflicts?  Variations of feeling, all the attitudes of mind, all the emotional shadings.  To the actor this is of the greatest importance.  The actor must be a reader of character in muscles to as great an extent as the sculptor, the painter who studies carefully the human anatomy.    The actor must not only be able to see those muscle responses but must have a body flexible enough to reproduce them.  His body must be trained to meet new forms and new movements quite different from his own.  His own must be forgotten except as a basis for a new character.  He must have eyes that see and a mind that remembers and selects and a body that is adaptable.

That which is ugly in life becomes beautiful in art -- Hedda is ugly in nature; on stage, as art, the play is beautiful.  The beauty is in the truth of their presentation, in the truth of human character, in the revelation, the illumination of the meaning.  In art only lies are ugly.  The passion for truth is the basis of good acting.

Social position and cultural influences on behavioral traits, on mental and emotional sets.

Belle Reve and Blanche.

New Orleans and the wrong side of the tracks: Stanley

Both:  Stella

Aristocracy and Marchbanks

The gutter:  Eliza

Southern aristocracy, books, music:  Birdie

The wrong side of town:  Regina, Ben Oscar.

IMPROVISE:

Social gatherings

Meetings, partings

Family dinners

Homecomings

House parties

Church, school events.

The causal meetings, the casual moments reveal human behavior most effectively.  Patterns are set up in ordinary moments of life -- in crises these patterns are set in conflict -- concentrate on behavior -- not words -- find life models -- observe others, draw on personal experience; move on to extensification and intensification through imagination.  Go back to study of smoking habits, doodling, etc.  Find the doodling habits of your character.  Indicating movement is the illusion of the life that the actor is creating: movement is the transition from one attitude to another (drama).  It can present the whole character.  No two people move alike.  Nothing in nature has more character than the human body.  To the trained observer -- to the audience -- that which is within is revealed through the body and its movement.  The human body is the symbol of the “soul” within, the ego, the -- whatever word you can use for the inner reality of the individual -- the good actor strips off his own personal habits and adapts, assumes, assimilates the revealing traits of another human being -- he seeks the truth out of its coverings and puts it into form for the world to see -- in that the actor plunges below the surface to the meanings and later reproduces the form endowed with the spirit, he is a creator.

SALESMANSHIP . . .SHOWMANSHIP

SALESMANSHIP . . . SHOWMANSHIP

Every actor -- tragic, comic, musical, etc. -- must be a salesman, must be a showman.  We assign you a song to sell in order that you may have the experience of the direct sale.  That experience, that learning experience, you will then transfer to all of your acting.  Salesmanship, showmanship for the sake of showmanship, of salesmanship, is empty, fruitless, sometimes ridiculous, will net you no real profits, at best only momentary profits.  Such salesmanship is merely personal exploitation for the sake of personal gain with no consideration of the value of the product to the buyer.  Buyers who are exploited seldom buy twice.  . . the rules for theatrical salesmanship are exactly the same as the rules in business: first know your product believe in your product; have confidence in your product; believe that there is a market for it.  (That people want it, need it); know that you will, must can clinch the sale; know that you can come back to sell again and again and again and believe this truly.

The product in theatre acting is you; your song is important but you notice the song does not sell itself.  You all selected songs that others have sold to their publics; you notice that does not guarantee their sale; the performer must bring something to the sale; he must have qualities as an artist, as a person, as a performer; he must discover those qualities, know exactly what they are, develop them, train them, have confidence in them, throw focus on them, share them (communicate them, sell them and reap the reward of audience enjoyment: applause, encore and the encore is imperative; unless you get it, you have failed.

Your object from the second you walk on is that encore.  This is not merely playng for a laugh, playing for applause at any cost.  It must be deserved, earned, it is the glad payment for a product that is welcome.  An audience pays for enjoyment, they want to applaud; if you do not give them that satisfaction, you have cheated them.  Be humble about the great thing that theatre is, about all that you still have to learn, about the artists of the world that have achieved true greatness but when you step before an audience in any capacity, know: this much I have at this point, this I have to give, this much of me I have confidence in, if I share it truly with you it will merit your applause to express your enjoyment which is my concern.

No two of you have the same qualities to sell; each person must know himself, evaluate himself, find his best traits.  I asked you during the first week of the course in October, what have you to bring to the theatre?  You evaded the answer.  Your work this morning reveals the result of that evasion.: you had no idea what you were selling.  Killmer & Behrens came closest to real showmanship.  Each had discovered something about self, each threw focus on that quality.  Neither quite made the sale, because they did not have that as an objective; did not telegraph ahed -- this is the moment which will complete the sale.  This is the moment for you to applaud.  There is nothing cheap about such telegraphing if you have believed in your product and your audience need and know the applause is the culmination, the release, the necessary joyful release.  Don’t you know thye wonderful joy of applauding and applauding, of wanting to stamp and shoult when a performance has given you joy?

CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS

Character is revealed through relationships with others.  Hamlet with Polonius, Hamlet with Ophelia, with Claudius, with Horatio, with his mother -- a new aspect of character is revealed with each encounter.  All spring from the basic core of character, all reveal that drive or desire in operation.

These relationships are revealed by eyes, mouths, spines, head carriage, by vocal tones.  Rejection, acceptance, likes, dislikes, are all total body responses.  No matter how strong is the attempt to conceal our attitudes.  Cigarette habits are revelations of what sisters, brothers, friends, enemies do to us -- but watch your feet reacting!

Make life studies of relationships.  Study your own responses to people. 

What does Hedda do that shows her attitude toward Aunt Julia before she makes the devastating comment about the hat?  What does she do when Thea comes into the room?  What do her reactions reveal about her attitudes to women?  To this particular woman?  Play these scenes without words until you have discovered how words have merely corroborated what the body reveals.  Edmund is reading when his mother comes into the room: for five minutes no words are spoken.  In that time their lives can be completely illuminated.  Joan sees English soldiers wounded, French soldiers playing craps, her brothers talking with her father.

Present in class a series of episodes wihitout words which reveal character relationships.  Use significant personal properties which show attitudes toward self and toward others.  Hereafter do not appear on stage without such properties.  They are not crutches; they are character.  They are our clothes: the kind we choose, the way we wear them, betray us -- we are our accessories, they reveal us.  Whether we have chosen them or whether others have chosen them for us -- they are part of us --  Did Hedda or Tesman pick Hedda’s wedding and engagement rings?  What are they like?  How does she wear them?  Candida’s is different.  Why?  How?

BASIC DRIVES

BASIC DRIVE COMPULSIONS?  ETC.

Unless each chapter is illustrated with pictures, it is not acceptable as an actor’s study of character.  Search for eyes that may be the person you are studying. spines, feet, hands, (in actors) shoulders, head carriage, etc.  It is useless to write “mountain climate has mde this person rugged” unless you describe and illustrate the muscles movement that can be called “rugged” -- So far in journals the kinesthetic aspects of character study has been lacking.  as a result your stage appearances have been inadequate from-the-neck-up characteristics.  You have only about six more class days before stage exams.

BASIC DRIVES

The basic drives at the lowest level of life are self-preservation and racial preservation.  At the lowest level, food, protection from the elements, and from enemies are of first importance.  The sex drive is strong for racial survival depends upon it.  Once these basic desires can be satisfied with ease, they can become sublimated or perverted.  The concern for self can be directed to concern for others, or it an be intensified in various degrees to accumulation of possession for the sake of possession.  Tom Wolfe’s mother had to save everything, literally everything -- string, newspapers, old cans, etc.   So the drives turn into compulsion or obessins or into social concerns for humanity, for one’s country, for God, etc.  The savior or the criminal?  Since the sex drive had to be so strong that the survival of the race is certain, to keep man in the despair from social suicide, it is not strong that it should result in perversions or in great sublimations, in excesses or in repressions.  (This leads us to the drives of character, the needs, the desires, their depths, their intensities.  These stem from the environmental actors you have supposedly studied -- in the adjustments or failure to adjust -- in the life of your character what desire dominates?  With what does it conflict?  How strong?  Does it lift one to tip top?  Or tie to the earth?  Does it drive straight forward on a direct line of action (Lady Macbeth)? or waver?  Vacillate?  Die?  For personal reference: your desire to be an actor: ration?  Dream?  Realistic?  Compensation for other failures?  Self-motivated or parental motivated?  How great is it?  What stops it?  does it recognize obstacles?  What’s your price?  If it means giving up someone you love?  If someone offered you a very substantial income in another field?  If some actor-friend committed suicide because of failure?

Observe expression of drives in other people -- Watch their eyes: when A talks about his success in WaaMu, what are B’s eyes saying?  What does his ciagarette say?  Watch his feet.  Find a Lady Macbeth walk.  A Hedda walk -- an O’Neill walk.  What story of ambition, defeat, frustration, does a spine show?

What is the most important thing in life to your character?  God?  Country?  Parents?  The Neighbors?  Ego?  Ethical, moral, social standards?  Artistic?