Acting

The First Six Lessons

Richard Boleslavsky

• Éditeur: Echo Point Books & Media
• Année: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781648371288
• Sujet: Médias et arts de la scène
• Sous-sujet: Interprétation et audition

The classic text on the craft of Method acting by the founder of The American Laboratory Theatre.

After studying at the Moscow Art Theatre under Konstantin Stanislavski, Richard Boleslavsky became one of the most important acting teachers of his or any generation. Bringing Stanislavski's system to America in the 1920s and 30s, he influenced many of the titans of American drama, from his own students—including Lee Strasburg and Stella Adler—to Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and many others.

In Acting: The First Six Lessons, Boleslavsky presents his acting theory and technique in a series of accessible and engaging dialogues. Widely considered a must-have for any serious actor, Boleslavsky's work has long helped actors better understand their craft.

THE FOURTH LESSON

Characterization

I am waiting for the Creature at the stage entrance. She is with a company in an important play. She has asked me to come after rehearsal and take her home. She wants to talk to me about her part.

I do not have long to wait. The door opens. She comes out hurriedly. Tired, her eyes gleaming, her lovely hair dishevelled, a tender flush of excitement on her cheeks.

THE CREATURE: I’m sorry to disappoint you. I cannot go with you. I’m not going home. I have to stay here and rehearse.

I: I saw all the actors leaving—Are you going to rehearse alone?

THE CREATURE: (Nodding sadly) Uh-mmmm—

I: Any trouble?

THE CREATURE: Plenty.

I: May I come in and watch you rehearse?

THE CREATURE: Thank you. I was afraid to ask you.

I: Why?

THE CREATURE: (Lifts herself on her toes and whispers into my ear, her eyes round with horror—) I’m very, Oh, very, bad.

I: I would rather hear you say that than ‘Come and see me—I’m very, Oh, very good.’

THE CREATURE: Well, I’m saying that I’m bad because it’s all your fault. In this new part I have done everything you told me, and still I’m bad.

I: All right, let’s see.

(We pass a very old doorman in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe. He looks at me with deep-set, dark eyes from under bushy eyebrows. His clean-shaven face is set firmly. He is not letting anybody in. His very presence bars the entrance. He acts the part. He is not just a watchman—he is a splendid impersonation of Francisco, Bernardo, or Marcellus at his post. He raises his hand in a noble gesture.)

THE CREATURE: That’s all right, Pa, the gentleman is with me.

(The old man nods silently, and in his old eyes I can read permission to enter. I think to myself ‘It takes an actor to be so economically gracious. I wonder if he is one?’ I take my hat off as I enter the stage. It is dark. One electric bulb etches a halo in the centre of the darkness. The Creature takes me by the hand and leads me down the stairway and among the stalls into the pit.)

THE CREATURE: Sit here, please; don’t say anything; don’t interrupt me. Let me act a few scenes in succession for you, then tell me what is wrong.

(She goes back to the stage. I am left alone, in a space bordered by glittering dark holes of boxes, by silent rows of chairs covered with canvas, by faint outside noises. All the shadows are strange and solid. The quiet is trembling and alive. I respond to that quiet. My nerves begin to vibrate and to throw threads of sympathy and expectation toward the great promising black riddle, the empty stage. A peculiar peace descends on my mind, as if I partially cease to exist and somebody else’s soul is living in me instead of my own. I will be dead to myself, alive to the outward world, I will observe and participate in an imaginary world. I will wake up with my heart full of dreams. Sweet poison of an empty theatre, empty stage and a single actor rehearsing on it.

The Creature appears. She has a book in her hand. She tries to read, but her mind is distracted. Obviously she is waiting for somebody. It must be somebody of importance indeed. She seems to tremble. She looks around as if asking approval and advice from an invisible friend. She is encouraged; I can hear her faint sigh.

Then suddenly she sees somebody in the far distance. She stiffens, draws her breath quickly. She must be afraid. She makes as if to read from the book. But it is clear to me that she does not see a single letter. Not a word is spoken. I am watching tensely and whisper to myself ‘Well done, well done, Creature, I’m ready now for every word you utter.’

The Creature listens. Her body is relaxed, the hand holding the book hangs limply. Her head is turned slightly to one side, an unconscious help to the ear through which imaginary words enter her soul. She nods her head.)

THE CREATURE:

“Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?”

(There is a warm, sincere affection and respect in her voice. She speaks as if to an elder brother. Then she looks, with fear and trembling, for an imaginary answer. The answer comes.)

. . . . . .

(She closes her eyes for a moment.)

“My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.”

(What is it? She sounds as if she were not telling quite the truth. Expectant fear in her voice. She stands as if petrified. She looks around again as if for the support of an invisible friend. Suddenly she shrinks back as if hit by the imaginary answer.)

. . . . . .

(It must have been a blow, right at the heart. Her book falls, her trembling fingers clutch one another. She defends herself.)

“My honour’d lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos’d
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.”

(Her voice breaks, then suddenly soars freely and strongly in defense of injured pride and love.)

“There, my lord.”

(She seems to grow taller. It is the result of coordination between her muscles and her emotion, the first sign of a trained actress: the stronger the emotion, the more freedom in the voice, the more relaxation in muscles.)

. . . . . .

“My lord?”

(There is an almost masculine strength in that fragile body.)

. . . . . .

“What means your lordship?”

(Her fear forgotten, she speaks now as an equal. She does not look around for help or confirmation of her actions. She throws the words into the black space without seeming to wait for an answer.)

. . . . . .

“Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?”

. . . . . .

(Then a change comes over her face. Pain, tenderness, sorrow, adoration, all are in her eyes and on her trembling lips. I understand; the enemy is the beloved one. A whispered line—like moaning wind—)

“Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.”

. . . . . .

(And still more quietly and sorrowfully)

“I was the more deceived.”

. . . . . .

(Then comes a long silence. She absorbs inaudible words of anger, shame, accusation, words which throw her to earth and remind her of somebody whom she has forgotten in her sincerity but who has power over her and who has told her exactly what to do. She is conscious of him now. She is not herself, she is an obedient daughter. She is a tool in her father’s hands. Suddenly she shudders. She hears the inevitable question, the compromising question. And again a lie is the answer, a torturing lie.)

“At home, my lord.”

. . . . . .

(Horror lashes her; despair makes her sob from the depths of her soul, as if all her being wailed, Oh, what have I done? Then a prayer to the Only One who can help now.)

“O, help him, you sweet heavens!”

. . . . . .

“O heavenly powers, restore him!”

. . . . . .

(But heaven and earth are silent. The only thunder is the voice of one whom she trusted and loved. The words behind that voice are like stinging scorpions. Not a sign of understanding in them, not a sign of tenderness—not a tone of mercy. Hate, accusation, denouncement. The end of the world. Because the world for all of us is the one whom we love. When he is gone the world is gone. When the world is gone we are gone. And therefore we can be calm and empty and oblivious to everything and everyone who a minute ago was so important and powerful. The Creature is alone in her whole being. I can see it in her contracted body and wide open eyes. If there were an army of fathers behind her now, she would be alone. And only to herself would she say those heartbreaking words, the last words of a sound mind, that tries desperately to verify all that happened a second ago. It is unbelievably painful. It is like the soul parting from the body. The separated words crowd each other, hurry one over the other in a fast-growing rhythm. The voice is hollow. The tears behind it are inadequate to accompany that last farewell; the speech is like a stone falling down, down, into a bottomless abyss.)

“O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword:
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observ’d of all observers,—quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”

(She sinks down on her knees, exhausted, staring into the blackness of the empty house right at me, without seeing, without registering anything. Madness next would be the inevitable and logical madness of the mind which has lost its world.)

* * * *

(She snaps out of it all, jumps up from the ground, rubs her head and shakes out her golden hair with her hands, swerves around and says in her youthful voice)

THE CREATURE: Well, that’s my best, and as Gordon Craig says ‘It’s just too bad that someone’s best is so bad.’

(She giggles. Another sign of a trained actor. It doesn’t matter how deep emotion is in acting, with the return to life it snaps of and is laid aside with no pertu...