Ch. 3.
The chapter begins by b y the director asking Maria to go first for an exercise to which she is terrified. He physically puts her on the stage and tells her to sit on it until the curtain c urtain goes down and that’s it. She began to shift and change positions, avoiding looking at the audience. Finally the director let the curtain down. ostya !sked if he could go next, so he say in the "iddle of the stage. He i""ediately i""ediately felt the need to to entertain, and beca"e super aware of his audience. He wasn’t authentic to hi"self. #t was "uch harder for hi" to $ust sit there on the stage then to act on it. Then the director tells the" they have to revisit this exercise to learn how to sit onstage and he goes up and shows the". He literally $ust sits there with no need to entertain and it was very intriguing to the students. %hen others tried again, no one had the desire to watch the". They reali&ed that everything onstage had to have a purpose, even $ust sitting there. The director then told her he was going to do the exercise with her. She ulti"ately ended up in a very still picture of $ust sitting there looking at hi" and waiting. Then the director director asked how she felt and she was confused because she said she was waiting on hi" to star and that she didn’t act, and he said that was exactly what he wanted. He asked if it was "ore interesting to watch Maria wait or Sonya show off her beauty. Then Then he said all action "ust have a purpose. He added that you can be co"pletely still while being fully filled with action, and then he h e said '(n the stage it is necessary to act, either outwardly or inwardly). The next day the director gives Maria the new circu"stances of a scene. She cannot afford dra"a school so her friend gives her brooches to sell and puts the" on the curtain. Maria follows her out of the theatre to refuse. There is a long scene and by b y the end she
finally accepts. %hen she co"es back in the theatre, the brooches are gone. *id so"eone take it+ Then the director took a pin and put it so"ewhere in this curtain, and Maria was instructed to find it. She went up and pretended to be in distraught and over acted and pretended to look for the brooch. The director asked how she felt about her perfor"ance and she was very pleased with herself. the he asked for the brooch. He told her to try again and said she would be out of school if she didn’t find it. She "ethodically and intensely looked for it this ti"e. She began to cry out and everyone was very interested. Then she said she didn’t know how she felt and she really tried to find it. He asked which perfor"ance she felt better about and she said the first one. The director told her the first was one was bad and she was $ust 'suffering for the sake of suffering), but the second ti"e it was actually intriguing because she really did look. He concluded his argu"ent with 'don’t act in general for the sake o f action, always act with purpose.) Then he told everyone to get onstage and thy did not know what to do. -veryone did overacting perfor"ances. He told ostya and two others that they were $ust e"oting to e"ote. He said never to go for gestures, because it is not living in the part. Then anya said they could perfor" better if they had so"e props. The next day the "ain door to the theatre was closed but an alternate was open that lead into an apart"ent using all of the set furniture. They behave $ust like they would have at ho"e. The director announced that they would be doing the sa"e thing as yesterday and /aul said he was confused by the fact that they were acting for no reason at all and the director told the" to find a reason. The gave the" an exa"ple with closing a door. The director told ostya to build a fire. He told the director he couldn’t find a "atch and the director told hi" what needs to burn is your i"agination. ustya tried and really tried to i"agine the fire, but he couldn’t so
then he went on to "echanical acts with no purpose behind the". Then he saw the others doing the sa"e and yelled at the" to have "ore of a childlike ga"e. Then he said if you won’t create, then you are not an artist. Then ustya explained that once he did his actions, like closing a door, then it was over. He wanted so"ething interesting where one thought lead to the next. The director answered this by explaining that you have to ask your "otive, then he gave an exa"ple of what if a violent cra&y person was at the door+ !ll the sudden anya took charge and sla""ed the door. !ll other "e"bers followed his lead and acted accordingly. ustya asked if he could try again with the fire scenario and the director gave hi" a scene. !fter ustya was done the director told hi" that he had learned to act with inner "otive and the i"aginative power the word 'if) holds. He then talked about how inani"ate ob$ects can be the center of a story and 'excite us when they are "ore i"portant to us). The director then explained that by using the word if, ustya naturally reacted to a supposition and did not have to "ake hi"self believe the circu"stances, he $ust naturally to precautions against the supposition. He said it also allows you to take action naturally. He said it is one of the funda"ental schools of acting. He then said they were going to practice 'if) with a role. He gave a scenario of an innocent far"er being tried and severely punished for screwing a nut off of a railroad track. He then asked the students to put the"selves in his place and the $udges with the word 'if). ustya and the director argued about whether the "an was innocen t or not for a while. The director then said that ustya was really putting hi"self in the $udge’s shoes and would 'feel the sa"e push) of the $udge. !nd that he had a kinship with the character. The director then said an actor has to fill out the details of the play by using the word 'if) to relate it back to the actor’s own life, so you will feel the sa"e 'push) or
action the character does. Then the director talks about how "ost of the decisions one will "ake fro" this process will be subconscious. He says if you ask so"eone who $ust gave a great perfor"ance how he felt on stage, it will be hard for hi" to re"e"ber "uch of anything. He then said that 'if) sti"ulates to creative subconscious which brings us to another funda"ental rule 'unconscious creativeness through conscious techni0ue). He then talked about a 0uote he really liked which was 'Sincerity of e"otions, feelings that see" true in given circu"stances1that’s all we really ask of an actor.) ostya repeated the phrase and the director yelled at hi", because he was repeating it without knowing what it truly "eant. Then he explained that the given circu"stances are the circu"stances in the world of the play that the actor has to oblige by. 'given circu"stances) build the basis for 'if) and they work together. Then he talked about how 'feelings that see" true) arise fro" real e"otions. He then added that 'if) also depends on the sharpness of how well the given circu"stances are outlined. 2irsha asked what was left for the actors to create, and the director went on a tangent of how the actor "ore or less has to bring the character to life in a true way. The next day they did an exercise where they set up proble"s in action with given circu"stances. The director told each of the" that now they are on the right path and shouldn’t ever slip back into what they did at the test perfor"ance, which was play the end at the beginning. # didn’t do the private "o"ent exercise, but # c an i"agine "y inner experience would have been one like ostya’s. # would have felt so awkward and weird $ust sitting there. Mine was going to be looking through old pictures of "y friends at ho"e, but # don’t think # would have been able to focus on that because # would have been too aware that # had an 'audience). # agree with what Stanislovski is saying abo ut action3 that
everything you do has to have so"e "otivation behind it. # think taking direction well is one of "y stronger 0ualities as an actor, and # like taking direction, and a" innately v ery obedient, so #’" always $ust happy to do what people tell "e and not ask why. # have to re"ind "yself constantly that if # get a piece of blocking or choreo that the 'why) isn’t clearly defined in the script # have to find the reason for "yself as to why #’" crossing the stage and not look like #’" $ust doing it because # was told to. %hen he talked about the pin exercise, it al"ost paralleled to what 4re did in class. !lthough she wasn’ ridiculous at first like Maria, she was still kind of perfor"ing. !s you added stakes to the situation though, she actually started looking, $ust like what happened with Maria. /robably "y favorite part of this chapter is when the director said 'unconscious creativeness through conscious techni0ue). # love that 0uote so "uch, because what # have been told is 'think before you act, act before you think). %hich is basically the second generation of Stanislovski’s saying. That is the goal # have been working towards5 to get "y techni0ue down really well and be able to use it so well so that when #’" on stage it $ust co"es naturally and you can really live in the "o"ent without thinking about techni0ue. #t’s only been successful a couple ti"es, but #’" working really hard towards it. # agree with what he says about how when you give a really goo perfor"ance you don’t re"e"ber it, because you are si"ply living on stage, which happens to "e when # give a perfor"ance # was told is good, # don’t re"e"ber "ost of it.
