An Actor Prepares

“Only what can be accomplished through surprising theatrical beauty, or picturesque pathos, lies within the bounds of this art. But delicate and deep human feelings are not subject to such technique. They call for natural emotion at the very moment in which they appear before you in the flesh. They call for the direct co-operation of nature itself.”

Tortsov is preparing the class for what they will learn over the course of the next year, which is that their imitations of emotion and life will not constitute good acting. They must learn to reach within their natures and elicit genuine emotion that they are actually feeling in response to the circumstances of the play.

“Whatever happens on the stage must be for a purpose. Even keeping your seat must be for a purpose, a specific purpose, not merely the general purpose of being in sight of the audience. One must earn one’s right to be sitting there. And it is not easy.”

The smaller and less active the action, the more difficult it can be to justify. In life, humans never take action without some sort of reason or impetus, even if that reason is unconscious or unknown. On stage, the actor must also have a purpose for every action, but it must be motivated by the circumstances of the play, rather than the actor’s desire to show something to the audience. This ultimately requires reaching into the subconscious to understand what motivates actions that simply feel natural and eventually training the subconscious to respond onstage from the perspective of the character.

“The dramatist is often a miser in commentary.”

Unlike most fiction writers, the playwright typically gives very sparse description or direction. Plays, which are meant to be performed, are dialogue and action-based. Therefore, the playwright never gives enough in terms of given circumstances, and the actor must always complete the picture. 

“It will do no harm if we find ourselves unable to believe that this chair is a particular object, because even without the belief we may have the feeling it arouses.”

When using one’s imagination while acting, it is easy to make the false assumption that one must actually believe that they are the character. Logically, this is impossible. However, Stanislavski’s method teaches actors how to call forth real, true feeling even while remaining aware that they are acting.

“Talent without work is nothing more than raw unfinished material.”

Tortsov rarely mentions talent because the system is based on hard work and persistence. He acknowledges that some actors have talent, but without discipline and meticulous labor, they will never be effective actors.

“Search out beauty and its opposite, and define them, learn to know and to see them. Otherwise your conception of beauty will be incomplete, saccharine, prettified, sentimental.”

Tortsov is asking students to redefine their definition of beauty, broadening it to include more than what seems conventionally or obviously attractive. As actors, they need to observe everyone around them and strive to be more than pretty. Sometimes, what they need to create onstage is ugly; on other occasions, it cannot be labeled either beautiful or hideous. Either way, actors need to experience the world without imposing narrow conceptions of beauty.

“You cannot, at the very beginning of our work, have any conception of the evil that results from muscular spasms and physical contraction.”

The body, as Tortsov explains, is the actor’s instrument. If the body is malfunctioning, the actor cannot proceed. Although he begins with lessons on creating inner life, he pauses to address the need to condition the body so the actor can rely upon it to perform.

“Every objective must carry in itself the germ of an action.”

When defining and naming objectives, the goal is to find something playable. Therefore, an objective must include an actionable verb, because action is at the heart of acting. 

“It is important that an objective have the power to attract and to excite the actor.”

Tortsov discusses frequently that the elements that an actor uses to build a character should be exciting or inspiring to him. Alternately, the actor must convince himself to become excited. An actor must buy into the play and the role. Without this enthusiasm, an actor will find it nearly impossible to fully commit and to give a truthful performance. 

“Truth on the stage is whatever we can believe in with sincerity, whether in ourselves or in our colleagues.”

In real life, truth describes a set of existing circumstances. However, in theatre, truth is based on invented circumstances. Therefore, truth is not actually true, but it must be believable. The audience and actors are well aware that what is occurring onstage is not real, but when it is true, they should all be able to believe that it could be real. 

“What you should develop is a sane, calm, wise, and understanding critic, who is the artist’s best friend. He will not nag you over trifles, but will have his eye on the substance of your work.”

The actor is sensitive and easily suggestible. While any artist or performer will face a variety of critiques in a range of generosity, it is important for the actor to only listen to a critic who wants the actor to succeed. An encouraging critic will offer constructive feedback while taking care not to destroy or demean the actor. Therefore, Tortsov urges them to become generous critics who emphasize what does work and what does seem true, rather than carping on what does not.

“Let me remind you of our cardinal principle: Through conscious means we reach the subconscious.”

The overall goal of the method is to reach the subconscious. Since the unconscious is elusive and, by nature, impossible to reach directly, Stanislavski’s system offers tactics for eliciting responses from the subconscious through deliberate means. But as an actor learns the minutiae of the method, he or she must remember that the ultimate goal is to utilize the subconscious.

“Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in our own person, as an artist. You can never get away from yourself. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting.”

An actor who is trying not to be himself is pretending, and pretending is the opposite of truth as Stanislavski has formulated it. This means that an actor must think of a character as not an entirely different person, but as him or herself in different circumstances. An actor who is playing Othello should ask himself, what if I were a general who suspects that his wife is unfaithful?

“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.”

Tortsov’s explanation of wordless communication may seem ethereal and impossible. But he describes exchanges that occur in our lives every day. We communicate through unconscious body language and subtle facial expressions. Humans are constantly giving and receiving information.  

“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.”

Although Tortsov spends the first part of the class redirecting his students away from their focus on the audience, when discussing communion, he reminds them that their art is actually designed for a live audience and does not become theatre until a live audience is present. In addition, the ability to commune with the audience without playing to the audience is necessary for an actor to learn.

“Each actor has his own special attributes. They are original with him, they spring from varied sources and they vary in value. Men, women, old people, children, pompous, modest, choleric, kind, irritable and calm, people all have their own types.”

As Tortsov has expressed before, an actor must always play a version of him or herself. Therefore, an actor should work to discover what qualities make him or her unique. These are the attributes that an actor brings to a role. He is also emphasizing that actors are all kinds of people, and that certain people have specific strengths and weaknesses, but there are an infinite number of types of actors.

“Your first duty […] is to adapt yourself to your partner. As for the poor people in the last rows, we have a special way of reaching them.”

Tortsov reminds Grisha that when acting, one must first focus on truth. If one’s scene partner is right next to them, it is untruthful and illogical to yell, even in an effort to be heard in the back of the theatre. Tortsov refers to certain tricks of diction and staging, in which an actor can, for instance, simultaneously whisper and project his voice. 

“Feel your part and instantly all your inner chords will harmonize, your whole bodily apparatus of expression will begin to function.”

Although Tortsov makes it sound simple to “feel your part,” what he is describing is nothing less than the sum of all of their training. Feeling the part requires the hard work and the process. However, once the actor has been through the process and done his or her labor, the rest of the character should fall into place.

“The life of a person or of a part […] consists of an unending change of objects, circles of attention, either on the plane of reality or of the imagination, in the realm of memories of the past or dreams about the future.”

In order to create a living human onstage, an actor creates an unbroken chain of focus, since the human experience involves constantly focusing on something real or imaginary. This also requires the actor to consistently project their inner character psychology outside themselves, making the character active, rather than passive.  

“The moment you introduce a false note truth becomes a theatrical convention. Belief becomes faith in mechanical acting. Objectives change from human to artificial; imagination evaporates and is replaced by theatrical claptrap.” (Chapter 14, Page 264)

Truthful acting is like a house of cards. It is delicate and easily destroyed if the actor introduces false emotion or action. Therefore, actors must be thorough in creating truth for their characters. They must be specific and diligent, leaving nothing unimagined or vaguely conceived.  

“Above all preserve your super-objective and through line of action. Be wary of all extraneous tendencies and purposes foreign to the main theme.”

Earlier in the text, Tortsov describes the objective as a path that can become overgrown or easily strayed from. When building objectives and super-objectives, the actor must focus on logical continuity, avoiding anything that will steer them away from the path or make the character fit into the play poorly.

“My ‘system’ will never manufacture inspiration. It can only prepare a favorable ground for it.”

Repeatedly, Tortsov explains that inspiration is desirable but unreliable. By nature, inspiration is spontaneous. Therefore, “manufactured inspiration” is an oxymoron. However, by following the method, creating an inner life, and reaching the subconscious, an actor can create a breeding ground for inspiration to occur. But inspiration is fleeting and impossible to grasp. 

“Carry all of the elements of the inner creative state, your inner motive forces, and your through line of action to the limit of human (not theatrical) activity, and you will inevitably feel the reality of your inner life. Moreover you will not be able to resist believing in it.”

The reward for all of the work that the system proscribes is the ability to believe the truth of one’s character. However, this is not a skill that one can learn and call upon at will. For each new character, the actor must prepare and build, imagining circumstances and creating objectives. The end result is believable acting.