a
HOW TO
1. ARE YOU THE TYPE? 2. STARDUST IS MADE OF MANY THINGS 3. A FOOT IN THE DOOR
4. FIRST BEACHHEAD
5. FAITH, AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING 6. YOUR BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS
7. MI R R O R U P T O N A T U R E
8. SMOOTH, SVELTE AND FASCINATING 9. AIR P O W ER I N C O N T R O L
10. THE CONSCIOUS, THE SUBCONSCIOUS—AND A MENTAL IMAGE
11. "WHAT" PLUS "WHY" EQUALS "HOW" 12. TIMING—DOIN' WHAT CO M ES NATUR'LY
13. TIMING—FIRST LAW.- STOP FOR THE RED LIGHT/ 14. TIMING—SECOND LAW.- MOVE WITH THE TRAFFIC 15. CO-ORDINATION
16. ALCHEMY 17. CLOSE-UP
is. THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE 19. A B O D Y W I T H A V O I C E
20. H O W T O T A L K E N G L I S H
21. WH O, W H A T, W H E N A N D W H E R E? 22. DOUBLE-TRACK YOUR DOUBLE TALK 23. ATOMIC DRIVE TO IMPACT
Have you always wanted to act? Do you daydream?
Do you have a vivid imagination?
When you were a child, did you like to make believe? When you are happy, are you very happy?
When you are angry, do you get very angry?
When a theatrical performance is funny, do you laugh easily? When it is sad, do you choke up?
Do you have strong desires?
At times, do you get very blue when you are alone? Do you sometimes get very happy when you are alone? Do you ever get lonely in a large crowd?
Do you ever feel unusually friendly in a large crowd? Do you have FAITH in yourself?
If your answer to most of these questions is YES, there's a fairly good chance that your emotional scale is flexible—and potentially broad; that you have some of the basic material to put into an acting career.
You want to know what to do about it and how to go about doing it. You want to know how to develop for yourself a de-pendable set of actor's tools—and how to use them. How to develop your natural advantages and how to put them to work for you. How to become a good craftsman, and how to develop that craftsmanship to a point of artistry—and make a living while doing it
Although directed to actors, anyone who is ever called upon to "stand up and say a few words" can profitably adapt this book to his uses.
Much of the material vitally concerns the needs of every singer, entertainer, lecturer, teacher, business or professional man—every-one, in fact, who ever has to face the public.
"All the world's a stage. . . ." Let's find out something about how to act on it—or any other stage.
This is a book about acting, not actors. The incidental use of names well known on the stage, in motion pictures or television is simply to underscore a point about acting.
Some surprises, a few shocks and many important self-discoveries are in store for you.
By the time you've mastered the material in this book you'll know your old self better, and you'll meet a new self that will develop as you go along.
You will be more effective. You will project new power.
You will have a stronger personality. You will gain poise.
You will acquire authority. You will broaden your horizons. You will be more interesting. You will speak better.
You will know how to concentrate. You will be able to think on your feet. You will add to your natural charm. You will be more attractive.
You will be more feminine if you're a woman, more masculine if you're a man. In other words, you will reach a new peak of sex appeal.
You will develop your character, dependability and persever-ance.
You will establish and justify new self-confidence. You will both feel and reveal added vitality.
You will find out that everything about you—your strength and your weakness—can be used to your advantage.
Stardust is made of many things.
Tony Curtis started out as a tousled kid from the Bronx who turned into a glamour boy. From the superficialities of this second phase, he grew into a forceful actor.
Rita Hayworth was a black-haired, chunky little girl who made a mediocre living as a dancer, until she gradually developed a new self that won her international homage as the embodiment of desirable femininity.
STARDUST IS MADE OF MANY THINGS
In 1947, there was no Rock Hudson. But there was a Roy Fitegerald, who worked in his father's electrical-appliance store and at other odd jobs after getting out of the Navy. In a period of transition he worked co-operatively with the perceptive agent who saw exciting possibilities in him, and he worked with the late great coach Sophie Rosenstein, of Universal-International Studios. In short, he worked, worked, WORKED twenty-four hours a day to become the Rock Hudson of today.
Stardom has no physical limitations.
Spencer Tracy is short on stature but long on stellar power. So are Alan Ladd and James Cagney.
John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck tower over the six-foot mark—and hit the six-figure mark in salary.
Stocky Edward G. Robinson's everyday appearance is reduced to a negligible fact when he becomes a lovable hero or a hateful villain, wondrously sensitive or appallingly brutal, intelligent or bestial, according to the requirements of the role he's portraying.
Rotund Charles Laughton can transform himself into contrasting characters covering a tremendous range.
Jimmy Durante's big nose never lost him a fan. Nor did Joe E. Brown's big mouth. Nor Martha Raye's, either.
The late Humphrey Bogart's lisp might have been a liability to a lesser man. He, however, used it as a subtle instrument of char-acterization.
Ernest Borgnine is no Mr. America, but that didn't keep him from winning an Academy award. Tab Hunter is what the girls call a dreamboat, but Frank Sinatra is by no conventional standards a handsome man. Their Stardust is made of entirely different things.
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Elizabeth Taylor could. Debbie Reynolds is a doll-faced cutie. Academy award winner Joanne Woodward is nothing of the kind.
Sometimes it's the off-beat qualities that sprinkle you with star-dust
Richard Widmark is way off-beat Yet his fan mail stacks up favorably with that of Sir Laurence Olivier, a star renowned as a classic hero.
Stardust sprinkles Leslie Caron with an enchanting, elfin charm. It gives an irresistible sparkle to June Allyson's eyes.
Remember this: In show business there is a place for every type.
After acquiring self-knowledge and training under expert guid-ance, real stars learn to stylize their liabilities into assets and to develop their natural assets into symbols of an ideal.
First impressions are lasting impressions.
In show business, the first impression can sometimes be the last impression. Producers, directors and casting directors are busy people. The deciding factor in giving an unknown (or even an experienced actor whose opportunities have been limited) a chance to read for a part is often based on first impressions. It's up to you to know how to handle yourself during an inter-view: how to be at ease, and how to be well poised. How to sell yourself; how not to oversell yourself.
Diane Brewster, who rose from television commercials to Glenn Ford's leading lady in Torpedo Run, a picture with an otherwise all-male cast, worked for weeks to make the right impression when she got her first important interview.
At the appointed time, she stepped buoyantly into the office— tripped and fell flat on her beautiful face.
Diane's world went black, but months of training came to the rescue. She showed such poise and quick judgment in making neither too much nor too little of the incident that the director had her read immediately for the part When she left his office, the role was hers. The accidental fall itself turned out to be un-important What counted was the director's first impression of her professional poise.
To be as unshakably poised as this young actress is much more a matter of sound technique than of serene temperament
Don't be fooled by the casual manner of a casting director. You may be sure he's studying you: looking you over, like a piece of merchandise. He's no window-shopper, either. When he looks, it's because he wants to buy.
Always have professional pictures of yourself, and be ready to show them without apologies or explanations. Your graduation picture won't do, nor will glamour-gimmicked photos of the type displayed in night-club lobbies. The pictures should show you: some, headshots showing a fair range of moods; others, in various types of wardrobe.
A F O O T I N T H E D O O R
Have extra prints of each picture. Your interviewer may want to keep one. Make certain that your name, address, phone number and vital statistics are written legibly on the back of each photo-graph. Don't be misled into thinking that the pictures he rejects are "no good." Almost every interviewer is likely to make a different se-lection. Each has his own professional purpose and his own taste as valid reasons for his choice. For the sake of efficiency and economy, it's a good idea to have a few eight-by-ten composites made up with four poses on each one.
Have a neatly typed, short outline of your background, qualifi-cations and (if you've ever appeared anywhere, in anything) your credits.
Be honest. Don't invent non-existent credits. You'll only iden-tify yourself as an impostor, a charlatan, or to use show-business terminology, "a phony." "Any casting director can spot a phony every time" is a show-business axiom. If your only credit is a single appearance in the chorus line of a high-school operetta, say so. Everybody has to start somewhere.
Deborah Kerr began her career in the curtain raiser for a local show at Bristol, England. No one outside Bristol—and probably very few Bristolites—particularly noticed this modest debut of an actress who studied long and faithfully to prepare herself for inter-continental stardom. Nevertheless it was a beginning—a good one.
It will look a lot better, and be far more plausible, if you state in your outline that you've put in your time and effort studying with a recognized teacher, rather than if you make up phony credits that won't bear checking out.
Perhaps your teacher will give you a card stating your creden-tials. Some teachers and coaches periodically give the not-so-fully-
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established actor a card stating how long he has studied and what, in their opinion, he is capable of doing at that time. These cards help the actor in getting interviews and protect the teacher, or coach, from false claims by overeager job seekers, who claim to be a client of theirs after one lesson.
Some of the first questions you'll be asked are: "Tell me about yourself."
"What have you done?" "Is there any film on you?"
You are in a spot However, every beginning actor has been in that same spot. But just remember—every actor had to be a "beginning actor" at one time.
Tell the truth. If you have no film, say so. If you have no profes-sional stage credits, say so.
However, there is a way out Almost every casting director will help you. Ask for a chance to read for him, or to audition a scene you have already prepared. He's looking for talent, and he'll usu-ally give you a scene, if you don't have one. You can take it home, study it, then come back and do it for him. If he likes the way you do it, he'll indicate the next move for you.
After you've begun to establish yourself as a working actor, you may get jobs on a "cold reading"—that means reading a part at sight, with no preparation. When you do a cold reading, remember not to read too fast, and to listen to the other person reading with you.
Rehearsed or cold, your reading will give you something ex-tremely important: exposure—where it counts.
He may not need you today, but he will remember you tomor-row. He'll remember how you read, how you handled yourself,
A FOOT IN THE DOOR
and whether you were able to live up to your claims. He casts something every day and he knows better than anyone that there is a definite place for the well-trained beginner.
The need for talent is in an ascending spiral. Television, motion pictures, the legitimate stage, musical shows and night clubs are burning up talent as fast as it comes along. So almost everyone connected with casting is more than willing to give promising new people a hearing.
The emphasis today is on speed, especially in television. Many parts are cast from a cold reading. More than ever in the history of show business, it is important to be a "quick study."
How fast is a quick study? Well, a better-than-average quick study can memorize two pages of dialogue in thirty minutes.
If you should get a two- or three-line part, congratulate yourself, its shortness is no disgrace but a good indication that your inter-viewer thinks you can "deliver." He believes you will look good to the director, the producer and—if only for one fleeting moment —to the audience.
If you try to fake phony credits, the truth will come out the minute you are set for a job. At that time you will have to show proof of your professional union affiliation or affiliations.
At the present time, all professionals must belong to at least one of the organizations in the "four A's." The four A's are the Associated Actors and Artists of America. There are more than four now, but they are still called the four A's.
Among them are AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), SAG (Screen Actors Guild), Equity (Act-ors' Equity Association), AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists), AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists) and SEG
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(Screen Extras Guild), which is devoted primarily to the interests of people appearing as general atmosphere in motion pictures and in filmed television.
Under the Taft-Hartley law, a newcomer is allowed thirty days after his first professional performance before he is obliged to join one of the professional guilds or unions. The one he joins first becomes his parent union. There is a reciprocal arrangement among the four A's that acts in favor of the performer who works in the various mediums under their jurisdiction.
When an interview is over, leave. Don't drag it out, wasting the interviewer's time—and yours. If you've left pictures, or a list of credits, with the interviewer, tell his secretary on your way out of the office. Give her an extra word of thanks when you say goodbye.
Secretaries fill a highly specialized position in show business. Often they are the trusted aides and "antennae" of their bosses. Besides, as guardians of "the portals through which you seek to pass," they can sometimes open the door to courteous and appreci-ative actors.
Many people work a long time, perhaps an average of six years is typical, in order to secure the first beachhead on the island of success.
Some actors, and it happens all too often, mistake that first beachhead for the island. They think they've clinched the career itself when all they've really got is a foothold on it: a foothold on the first rung of a very tall ladder.
There are many beachheads to be taken, many rungs to the ladder. Each new role that can be made to serve as a springboard to the next, and better, role is a beachhead.
Each new level of your career is a beachhead. As you work your way up the ladder from being a "day player" to that first enviable niche, an actor with an "established" weekly salary, and from there to the point where you are paid a certain sum for play-ing a part, and on to a guarantee of X number of pictures a year at a fixed sum—all these are beachheads.
But you, as an actor, haven't got the island of success secured until you have taken the last beachhead; the one that assures you of continuity in your career and a genuinely solid place in the enter-tainment world.
In the early phases of his career an actor is as great as his last show. Only the seasoned star rises above his vehicle and has the staying power to survive a bad show, lift a fair one above medi-ocrity, and always enhance a good one by his very presence.
If you want to "live your own life," don't become an actor. As an actor you will have to live the life that will be best for your career. And you will have to accept one final source of authority to determine what that best is.
You will have to put your money into the right kind of clothing and accessories for the furtherance of your career, not into a helter-skelter assortment of clothes that you happen personally to prefer. You'll have to get the haircut that will get you a job, not the one that follows a fad.
The world of the actor is made up of highly competent spe-
FIRST BEACHHEAD
cialists who are vastly important to the entertainment industry— and to your career.
No single person ever "makes" an actor. Many people have a hand in creating him—possibly from some of the very substances inherent in you.
The head electrician, you will eventually discover, is just as much a specialist in his particular field as the writer or director is in his. The man in the cutting room is, in his way, just as impor-tant to a film as its producer.
The people in wardrobe, hairdressing and make-up departments know how the actor should appear in relation to a production as a whole. With their specialists' eyes, they "see" the actor as he can rarely see himself.
The sound engineers, who have learned to hear as the sound system hears, know how the actor should sound. The publicists know how to spotlight public interest in him. The agents know how he should be presented for available roles that are right for him, just as the teachers and coaches know what he is professionally capable of doing.
All these people, along with other specialists, know best what is right for the actor. They are not prejudiced by personal whim. They arrive at their decisions by workmanlike co-operation, func-tioning in a chain of command that goes, link by link, to the top.
At the top is a single source of authority that must be the lodestar of the actor's faith. If you are going to fulfill your pur-pose here, you must take this book as your single source of author-ity, until you have absorbed its entire contents. Then, and only then, can you evaluate it and intelligently accept or reject it, in whole or in part. You will have earned the right to your own decision.
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Thousands of careers have been wrecked by actors who "changed horses in the middle of the stream." Those actors go from teacher to teacher without ever finding out what any of them have to offer. They switch from agent to agent before a long-range plan for their career can be developed. They go from one publicist to another, destroying the valuable groundwork of every publicity campaign. Finally, they fight their way out of legitimate contracts —and into oblivion.
The entertainment field is the only business on earth in which a girl who might never make more than forty dollars a week run-ning an elevator can be molded by specialists into a commodity worth thousands of dollars weekly to one of the major industries of our time.
Actors today have unprecedented prestige and social standing. Most of them use their advantages to good purpose, as does Bob Hope, globe-circling, good-will ambassador extraordinary to the court of humanity. Royalty welcomes Danny Kaye, and so, in many lands, do the underprivileged children to whom he has brought the vitalizing nourishment of laughter.
While the successful actor acquires prestige and social standing in plying his well-paid profession, he attains other gratifying goals.
Almost without exception, every notable performer refers nos-talgically to some artistically worth-while venture about which he says happily, "I didn't make much money with it, but it was a great satisfaction to do."
Where does this satisfaction come from? It comes from giving an audience something he believes in: something that to him repre-sents, either inspirationally, dramatically or amusingly, the truth as he sees it.
FIRST BEACHHEAD
In a discussion of acting, John Mason Brown, distinguished critic and lecturer, paid a tribute to the men and women of the profession when he said, "An actor turns pretense into truth."
Actors work considerably harder than most people think they do. I have heard more than one parent say of his own hard-work-ing, well-established son in show business, "Yes, he's doing all right, but I wish he'd get a real job."
He has one. Acting is a very real job. As the standards of the profession grow continually higher, and the taste of the public keeps pace, the demands on the actor are more exacting. Those who fulfill these demands will win the ultimate beachhead and earn the right to live securely on the island of success.
Lucille Ball cried her eyes out the night she was fired from RKO as a stock player. But she never stopped working to improve herself. When she was at her lowest ebb, half frightened and altogether frustrated, she put more drive than ever into her career. She went on the road with a stage production of Elmer Rice's Dream Girl and steamed full speed ahead on the upgrade again. Today, with husband Desi Arnaz, she is co-owner of the studio lot where the name DESILU STUDIOS looms high on a sign re-placing the letters that used to be there—RKO.
This book can guide you toward the threshold of a successful career, but you will have to cross that threshold and take the final steps yourself. On your own.
The professional actor has here a refresher course. The recruit is being indoctrinated in his basic training: self-knowledge and his immediate goal—building the tools and laying the foundations of a career.
Underlying every art is a science. The science underlying an actor's art is the mechanical system of a soundly organized technique for transmitting emotions, words, actions and ideas to an audience.
Technique is simply another word for KNOW-HOW or CRAFTSMANSHIP. There is a know-how, or technique, for everything— from flying a jet airplane to taking out an appendix, from upholstering a chair to enacting a scene in a play.
Your knowledge and application of acting technique will make it possible for you to give consistently effective performances and to find freedom of expression at any time, under any circumstances. Without technique, there is no control.
In the making of a motion picture film today, the actor must know how to act—plus ...
The actor must have such control, such know-how, that he can quickly and accurately give the director what he needs, the camera-man what he needs, the cutter what he needs—and the audience what it wants.
Now let's give the subject of acting a question-and-answer breakdown.
What is acting?
Webster's dictionary says that to act is "to produce an effect." To produce an effect upon the emotions of his audience is the aim of every actor.
What is the actor's starting point?
You start with every great actor's three fundamental laws: THE LAW OF FAITH, THE LAW OF AWARENESS and THE LAW OF UNDERSTANDING.
Apply these laws right now. Have FAITH in me.
You will become AWARE of what you can do. Then you will UNDERSTAND how to build and use the tools of acting.
FAITH, AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING
How do you act?
You act by using the three primary elements upon which acting is based: the VOICE, the BODY and the MIND. They're the materials that go into your acting. They're the tools of your craft They're the eloquent instruments of your art.
THE VOICE AND THE BODY MUST BE MADE SO FLEXIBLE THAT THEY WILL INSTANTLY OBEY THE COMMANDS OF THE MIND WITHOUT CONSCIOUS EFFORT.
The more you know, the more those words will mean to you. And you will know more—much more—later.
Where do you begin an acting technique?
You begin with the physical apparatus—arms, legs, torso, tongue, eyes, facial muscles and so on—from skeleton to skin. Technique is mechanics. Technique is scientific.
Isn't a scientific technique very mechanical?
Indeed it is. But you must have at your command, ready to serve you immediately—at your director's will—a practical knowl-edge of the mechanics of modern acting.
The seven tones of the musical scale are mechanical too, but they can be used artistically to create a great piece of music. The three primary colors and their divisions are mechanical, but they, also, can be used to create a work of art.
To take another example, the frame of any house in skeleton form, with its cement, two-by-fours, steel girders, and so on, is a matter of good, sound mechanics. It has very little to inspire you emotionally.
But when a Frank Lloyd Wright applies his creative talent to 21
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it, the framework becomes the foundation for a piece of architec-ture that is artistic and inspiring in its finished form. If the founda-tion weren't mechanically sound, a Frank Lloyd Wright's inspirafounda-tion would go to waste. The structure would collapse.
Do I believe in mechanical acting?
No. But I believe an actor must build a solid mechanical mold before he can flood and color the performance of a role with his own talent and personality. Without a substantial technical frame-work and foundation his performance will be subject to both hid-den and obvious weaknesses. Among other shortcomings, it will lack continuity of line and, above all, authority.
A basic technical foundation can be the deciding factor in whether you work—or don't work—in the acting profession today.
Is it possible to teach the technique of acting, as it is to teach the techniques of music and salesmanship?
Yes, it is, to you—or anyone—if you have the desire and drive to learn what you're taught
Is it possible to give an inspired performance without technique? Yes—but not night after night on the stage, and not going over the same scene time and again in motion pictures, and not under the tensions of fast production in television.
There are some inspired amateur performances in America every year. Some of them are extraordinarily effective. But those who give them can rarely duplicate their performances—and then only by accident—because talented amateurs haven't developed either voice, body or mind as dependable technical tools.
The important thing is to give an inspiring performance.
It's hardly possible that Judith Anderson could have been in- 22
FAITH, AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING
spired during the entire run of Medea, in which she played a heavy emotional role. But with her magnificent technique and dramatic art she consistently created the effects of inspiration and was therefore inspiring to her audiences.
What is dramatic art?
Dramatic art is acting PLUS. It may be described, all too briefly, as acting which inspires an emotional response over and beyond the immediate and obvious word, action or situation in any given performance.
Is there any difference between good acting for the stage and screen, or for television and radio?
Basically, no. The fundamentals are the same. The differences lie in the way an actor or personality adjusts the same tools and materials to the various mediums.
What is the difference between actors and personalities?
An actor is a performer who can up to a point efface himself and, motivated by a playwright's words and a director's guidance, can, within the limits of human feasibility, create and interpret any character.
A personality is a performer whose individuality is so distinctive and strong that it dictates the color of every role he plays.
Do you have to have talent to be an actor?
No. Many actors have made a very good living by being such capable craftsmen in their use of the tools of acting that they have overcome the handicap of not having native talent. They've made up for what they lack as inherent artists by becoming highly skilled, superior artisans—experts in the mechanics of acting.
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If you have talent, and know you have it, why must you study? Even if you have talent, it may be blocked and jammed up by inhibitions and tensions, dissipated by lack of discipline, or clut-tered and confused by egotism. Intelligent training in the tech-nicalities that support talent and compensate for its lack frees you from these drawbacks.
However great your talent, you have to build a mechanical foundation in order to organize that talent and use it most effec-tively.
What is a "good, actor"?
In the final analysis, a good actor must excite an audience, must be interesting to look at, and pleasing to listen to. He must be able to transmit these qualities with impact. He must have polarity and balance.
What does polarity mean in this context?
For an actor, polarity is the quality of having opposite, or con-trasted, poles of feeling.
The world in general has countless examples of physical and emotional polarity. The North Pole at one end of the earth and the South Pole at the opposite end illustrate physical polarity. Hap-piness and sadness are an example of emotional polarity. Black and white, heads and tails, courage and cowardice, night and day— all these opposites are examples of polarity.
Ed Wynn offered a sensational demonstration of polarity by his swing from wild buffoonery to poignant drama. Comedian Red Buttons did, too, with his dramatic Academy-award-winning per-formance in Sayonara.
FAITH, AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING
Henry Fonda's polarity is exemplified by his equal effective-ness in portrayals of laughable comedy and emotional depth. Tallulah Bankhead's dramatic power and comedic punch proclaim her polarity.
There are two reasons an actor must have polarity, or opposites, in his emotional scale, even when playing a role that does not call for obvious contrasts of emotional expression.
1. Polarity is the basis of dramatic conflict.
2. The skillful use of contrasting extremes in the emotional scale enables an actor to project these extremes with authority while not actually experiencing them himself.
It is not an actor's function to "feel" per se, but to make his audiences feel that which he wants transmitted to them. He can show anger without being angry. He can depict love without being in love with his leading lady. He can portray pride without being in love with himself.
To clinch the argument, an actor need not die to play a death scene convincingly. By using his well-developed and thoroughly trained poles of feeling, he can play on the emotions of his audiences and make them feel they have seen someone die.
What does balance mean in this context?
By balance I mean the ability to equalize and to compensate. By offsetting one factor against another, an actor establishes equal-ity and achieves symmetry, or balanced form. Through symmetry he gains poise.
Balance is a key word to poise for an actor.
Perfect balance between the desire to express and the ability to express contributes to poise. This balance between the desire and the
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ability to express any given idea or emotion can be achieved by cor-rect knowledge and use of technical tools.
What else should you know to start with?
You should know that the late, internationally famed authority, Constantin Stanislavsky, in his book An Actor Prepares, points out the necessity for an unusually well-trained and responsive vocal and physical apparatus.
The vocal and physical requirements are either suggested or actually dictated, of course, by the mind.
So there you have a restatement of my declaration that acting must be based on three primary elements—the VOICE, the BODY, and the MIND. This is an unchangeable fact for you to remember always.
Thorough training of voice, body and mind requires work. Start this training by meeting your first problems with enthusiasm and vitality.
What are those first problems?
They're really quite simple—things like how to stand and sit and walk, how to exercise your face and eyes.
What has all this to do with acting? It has a great deal to do with acting.
If your physical apparatus is flexible, alert and well enough con-trolled to obey the commands of your mind, your body will be able to do its part in projecting thoughts and emotions—with or without dialogue.
Basic parts that add up to the sum total of the science under-lying the art of acting—the technique—craftsmanship—mechanics —know-how—are what this book is all about
This book is for actors in all phases of the entertainment industry.
Their problems are my business.
I must keep in step with scientific advancement in lighting, acoustics, sound systems, cameras and film.
I must keep an eagle eye on changes of "style" in acting—as demanded by the public.
I must continually try to keep myself aware of where jobs for actors are most plentiful. Then—I must help the actor to learn the know-how to get, and hold, these jobs.
The relationship between the actor and the audience has reached a very high level of intimacy. Each part of the entertainment in-dustry has certain rigid requirements of its own to establish this.
In the legitimate theater, audiences can hear and see better than ever before, creating a sense of closeness. On the forty million television screens in America, they can choose their own distance to create intimacy. And on motion-picture screens the close-up brings the relationship between actor and audience to its highest peak.
I have lived and worked for many years with people whose livelihoods depend upon the result of their appearance on film. Within recent years, film production has become such a major part of the industry that there are more jobs available as film actors than in any other branch of the entertainment world.
Therefore, many actors who are building—or starting—a career are vitally concerned with the part of their business in which they can work most frequently—and get the most experience.
At this writing, there is an estimated income of one and two-tenths billion dollars paid to see motion pictures, against one hun-dred and twenty-five million dollars paid in admissions to other segments of show business—including legitimate theater, opera, symphony, night-club, circus and carnival performances. This is about ten to one.
YOUR BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS
for television and television commercials, paid for by commer-cial sponsors. Nor does it include the hundreds of pilot films made yearly, which are never shown, but which mean jobs, experience and money to many actors.
Two of the recent developments most important to the film actor are enlarged screens and electronic advancement in sound systems.
On a CinemaScope screen, a half-inch lift of an eyebrow can mean an elevation of ten feet. Imagine a close-up of an actor, with a pair of "wild" eyebrows whipping across the end of a theater; or a chronic blinker; or an actor who has no control over the muscles of his face.
In all phases of the entertainment industry, the demands of the audience are great.
It has had a lot of practice in putting actors under a "micro-scope," through the mediums of the spotlight and the close-up. It can look intimately into the actor's eyes, watch each subtle move-ment of his face, and believe or disbelieve him.
The audience is well trained in listening.
It instinctively knows that there is something more to voice than just what it "hears." Each member of the audience knows that there is another quality in a voice that causes him to "feel" —lets him feel satisfied or makes him feel irritated; causes him to "like" or "dislike" an actor.
These are only two of the areas in which an actor can develop an added "plus" that gives impact and excitement to his person-ality.
The actor who recognizes and accepts the concrete, scientific principles and laws that govern his art can use them to observe
HOW TO ACT
reality and translate—through his VOICE, BODY, and MIND—his observations. He can apply these translations to words written by someone else, under direction conceived by someone else, and under conditions supplied by someone else.
There is a Mexican proverb that says: "Though we are all made of clay, a jug is not a vase." True; but the actor has to try.
At this point you feel ready for something concrete to work on. You're all set to stand up in your room and start practicing something. Anything.
So I'll tell you how to practice standing.
You've been standing since you were thirteen months old? I
wonder. But even so, stand in front of a long mirror and look at yourself in profile.
Is your head thrust forward? Are your shoulders pulled back in "military fashion"? Is your posterior jutting out astern? Are your feet pressed tight together? If that's the way you're standing— stop. Let's correct that stance right now.
Imagine you are suspended from a big hook fastened under your breastbone, or sternum. As your body starts to respond to the power of suggestion, your chest will go high. You'll grow long through the middle. The buttocks will flow smoothly in a plumb line with the rest of the body. The abdomen will flatten out. Pretty soon you'll get tired of standing like this; your shoulders will relax and come slightly forward and down.
For the time being, let it go at that. You look fine. Here is a further explanation of how to stand.
Raise your chest high by lifting your upper ribs naturally and easily. To do this, you're using the intercostal muscles. Now keep the shoulders relaxed. No stiffening of the back and shoulder muscles.
For the sake of experiment, look in the mirror and pull your shoulders back in so-called military style. Then bring them for-ward to a relaxed position, letting the arms hang comfortably. You will notice that when you bring the shoulders forward —still keeping the chest high—you increase the shoulder width almost an inch on each side. Within the limitations of your own physique, this position gives you the V-shape that Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster and some of the other famous film figures are noted for.
Remember, all you have to do is to keep the chest high, the
MIRROR UP TO NATURE
shoulders relaxed and slightly forward, the buttocks pinched and the lower abdomen flat This is good posture.
After lifting the chest high with the upper rib muscles, you will find upon close examination that all the upper ribs are fastened solidly to the sternum or breastbone. Below the upper ribs are four more ribs that float around the lower part of the thorax. The thorax is that part of the body enclosed by the rib cage. The semi-detached ribs are called floating ribs. Don't worry about them —for the time being.
Suspended from an imaginary hook, with the chest high, shoul-ders relaxed and slightly forward, you achieve the upper part of the V-shaped torso. Complete the bottom part by pinching the buttocks together—keeping them more under than behind you. At the same time flatten the abdomen.
Having absorbed and applied these posture instructions, look at yourself in the mirror again for a checkup. What an improvement!
To appear at your best when standing—always with the imag-inary concept of suspension in mind—keep
Chin level Chest high
Shoulders relaxed and slightly forward Spine straight
Waist long Abdomen flat
Buttocks pinched in and tucked under
Weight resting lightly on the balls of the feet That's good posture.
HOW TO ACT
All posture instructions, unless otherwise noted, are the same for both men and women. Feminine students will soon have proof that the effect of the V-shaped posture on their figures gives them something of that Elizabeth Taylor look, that Esther Williams style.
The Venus de Milo has it too. EXERCISE
Assume the V-shape posture. Retain it as you tighten every muscle in your body. Then, still in position, relax as much as you possibly can without any collapse of the muscular struc-ture. In other words, keep the same mold, or position, but use an absolute minimum of tension to hold the mold.
Repeat this contrasting tension-and-relaxation eight or ten times throughout the day, whenever you have a chance.
Every time you do this, you'll be working on a lesson in RELAXED
CONSTRICTION.
Relaxed constriction is disciplined freedom, or controlled ease. To give yourself a simple example of relaxed constriction, stand u p a n d p u t y o u r a r m o u t ( p a l m u p ) a t a r i g h t a n g l e w i t h your body. Make a fist and bend the arm at the elbow until your fist is on an approximate level with the top of your head. Your forearm is now at a right angle to your shoulder, like a carpenter's square.
Tighten that arm. Tighten every muscle in it until the arm trembles with tension. That tension is constriction.
MIRROR UP TO NATURE
Now relax all the tension except that which is needed to con-tinue holding the arm in its right-angle position.
When you can feel all the excess tension drain out, walk around, sing a song, recite a poem. But keep right on holding that arm in position. Without a great deal of weariness, your arm will be able to stay there, at its right angle, as long as you tell it to. You can almost forget its existence.
That's an example of RELAXED CONSTRICTION. Of POLARITY (the opposites: tension-relaxation). Of BALANCE (the harmonious equalizing of these opposites).
This is the first time I have used the words "polarity" and "balance" since explaining them to you. Be sure that you under-stand them thoroughly, because they will recur many times through-out this book.
George Fenneman, Groucho Marx's "Able Aide" who has also gained popularity elsewhere, is an expert in the effective use of relaxed constriction, balance and polarity. His use of these prin-ciples enables him to put exactly the right degree of energy in the right place at the right time. It helps him to make his points with relaxed animation.
To experience something is quite different from merely read-ing or talkread-ing about it By goread-ing through the motions and actually experiencing relaxed constriction, you have begun to integrate its principles and practice into your very being.
Further experience in other phases of the mechanics that go into acting will help make the technique of the art genuinely a part of you.
In your experiments with relaxed constriction you have dis- 35
HOW TO ACT
covered how to free yourself from unnecessary physical tension; to retain and project vitality.
There's another key word—VITALITY. It, too, will be used here frequently. Its possessor radiates energy, controlled but not "switched off" in repose, animated but not uncontrolled in action. No finer example of this quality of infinite vitality exists than that which emanates from Yul Brynner.
There are a few simple observations for posture in relation to characterization.
In a straight modern role there's quite a lot of latitude regarding a man's stance, but a certain standard does exist Ordinarily, the base, or space between his feet, should approximate the width of his shoulders.
In the classics the feet are usually close together. For a character role, the less the intelligence of the character, the wider the base. Drunks, too, sprawl with legs apart. But as sobriety and intel-ligence return, the base gets smaller. Loretta Young, playing a dual role in a television show, once gave a dramatic illustration of character contrast between a narrow and broad base. As a well-bred young matron, she used her own graceful narrow base, while opposite herself on the same screen she sprawled as a drunkard.
The more dignified, feminine and ladylike a female character is, the smaller the base on which the actress stands. Except to suggest tomboyishness, a rugged outdoor type, or vulgarity, an actress always stands (and sits) with feet close together.
Now let's go back to where I left you, standing up in front of the mirror with your V-shape. Tense your body in this good posi-tion till every muscle trembles. Then relax all the tension you
MIRROR UP TO NATURE
possibly can, still retaining the exact form and posture you've been working for.
Remember to fit movements using the principles of relaxed constriction into various spare moments of your day. The exercise will serve you well in coping with bulging bay-window tendencies and broad hip problems.
Before you know it, you'll have a pleasing new posture. Always keep in mind: an actor must look symmetrical—must look
EXCITING.
You should be able by this time to read over the following list of words and have each one bring you immediately a clear mental image of what you've learned so far.
High chest Relaxed shoulders Long waist Flat abdomen Pinched buttocks Balance Polarity Vitality Relaxed constriction Experiencing Energy Base 37
Were your midriff muscles sore during the first few days of sus-pension on the posture hook? Did the muscles in the back of your legs get a bit stiff? Good! That's because you've been giving them a real workout It proves you've practiced. Your new posture started as a mind picture, came into being
HOW TO ACT
through your physical apparatus, and by now it should begin to fit you like a glove. But don't expect to be absolutely comfortable with it at first, especially if you've been careless about posture in the past.
After all, a stoop-shouldered person may well be more com-fortable when he lets his shoulders sag than when he starts to straighten them. Or if he has a bay window, he is much more comfortable with his paunch protruding than when he occasionally pulls it in.
Consequently, his shoulders slump worse and worse, or his bay window grows more flabbily entrenched. His muscles get lazily comfortable as time goes by. Finally comes a day when he can do very little to help his appearance.
I hope you understand that my use of the word "he" through-out most of this book is a matter of convenience, and that "she" is also implied.
Young Academy award nominee Diane Varsi is among the feminine players who always call themselves "actors."
"I get paid for being an actor," she says, "and I like being one." She uses the word deliberately, somewhat in the spirit that a phy-sician who happens to be a woman would refer to herself as a "doctor," not a "doctoress."
So never let it be thought that I mean to slight the ladies. Their dowager's hump and spreading beam must also be very comfort-able, or we wouldn't see them so frequently on what should be the lovelier sex. But can you imagine Marlene Dietrich with a dowager's hump? Or Burt Lancaster with a bay window? Never!
Keep yourself consciously suspended on your hook until you've mastered good posture with relaxed constriction. You're going to
SMOOTH, SVELTE AND FASCINATING
put your hook on an overhead "traveler" and start walking. Your physical mold for walking is the same as for standing. The chin is level, the chest is high, the shoulders relaxed and slightly forward, the waist long, the spine straight, the buttocks pinched in and the abdomen flat The base is narrow. In walking, as in standing, let your weight rest lightly on the balls of your feet It will give you a feeling of leaning slightly forward. That's all right It's balance in operation.
Disturb the air around you as little as possible when you walk. Move through the surrounding air the way a good swimmer moves through the water—directly, smoothly, without splashing.
You can do it if you keep in mind that you're on a hook, your hook is on a traveler, and you move yourself along barely touch-ing the ground. Try to give your walk that lithe, highly charged quality of Yul Brynner's walk.
A normal, intelligent, virile man walks with his arms swing-ing naturally and easily—fairly close to his body—his shoulders and hips almost immobile. Lower levels of intelligence seem to walk with the arms swinging out from the body in an apelike movement
A woman is most pleasingly feminine when she walks with her arms almost immobile, her shoulders and hips entirely so.
Next time you're out among people, look around and see how much a sloppy walk detracts from good appearance.
Does the shuffling of that man's feet remind you of Clark Gable's virile stride? Does that woman, trotting on her high-heeled shoes and signaling port-to-starboard with her hips, bring to mind Loretta Young's gracefully feminine yet vital walk? No, certainly not
HOW TO ACT
Walking is very important to an actor. An actor's walk is often an "action bridge," spanning a gap between shots cutting from one scene to another; a gap that might otherwise have to be filled with extra dialogue or narration to hold the audience.
Walking should never be merely a slipshod way of propel-ling the body from one place to another.
Remember how Gary Cooper walked down that deserted street in the Western classic High Noon. His walk alone suggested strong drama, danger being met with courage. All through a way of walking.
Once you know how to walk right, you'll be able to work out any tricks of stylization that defy the usual rules. You'll walk at will like a cowpoke or sailor, a "B" girl in a cheap dive or a high-fashion model on Fifth Avenue.
Make it your general rule to keep in mind the theory of walk-ing in partial suspension and disturbwalk-ing the air around you as little as possible.
I tell my students in Hollywood that when they're walking around a studio lot they should feel they are holding themselves so that their bodies don't quite touch their shorts. With the girls it's girdles, of course. But the principle is the same. The very thought of holding the body away from its clothing helps to keep the body in line and build up muscle tone, or habitual muscular alertness.
When you look at television or go to the theater you can, merely by observation, learn a great deal about walking.
Hitch your "walkin' wagon" to the stars. Most of them are models of relaxed constriction as they move around a set.
SMOOTH, SVELTE AND FASCINATING
become body-conscious in the best possible sense. You will dis-cover that you can move your arms without awkward distortion of the rest of your body. You will learn that you can walk very fast or very slowly without throwing yourself off balance. You will even begin to sense the centralized control—the co-ordination— that fine dancers and great bullfighters have.
If you've heard that you ought to practice walking with a book on your head, go ahead and do it It's basically a good exercise.
David Belasco used to tell us to walk as though we were hang-ing by a forelock of our hair.
Everyone has his own special descriptive imagery to bring about the universally desired goal of good posture and well co-ord-inated movement
So get on your feet again and start walking. If you have a partner, drill each other till that sergeant you used to have (or that hard-driving gym teacher) seems like a sissy in retrospect Then reverse roles. Check up on whether you disturb as little air as possible when you walk, and every time you turn make your pivots smooth and well balanced.
When you can't walk any more—try sitting. That's an ex-ercise too. Keep your tail-piece in line with the rest of your body. Don't thrust it out, but tuck it under as you seat yourself, and again as you rise.
While you're sitting, stay on your hook to keep your chest high and your physical apparatus free for speech and movement You'll find that you can even slouch and fall into all kinds of "natural" positions while you're on your hook.
Sit down and stand up a few times, still imagining that the
43
HOW TO ACT
hook is under your breastbone, both to take the weight off your feet and to pull you straight up. As you rise you should feel a sense of pushing down lightly with the feet. When you rehearse sitting and rising over and over again, disturb the air as little as possible.
Sit down. Stand up. Walk around the room. Walk around the furniture. Break the monotony by lifting articles from a table or desk and then putting them down again. Go through some of the actions you ordinarily make during the course of a day.
When you light a cigarette or take a bite of food, let your arms and hands bring the cigarette or food up to your mouth. Don't meet them halfway—or even a fraction of an inch of the way —by ducking your head, stretching your neck forward, or con-torting your shoulders.
Always be sure to:
DISTURB AS LITTLE AIR AS POSSIBLE.
MAKE YOURSELF LONG THROUGH THE MIDDLE. KEEP YOUR SHOULDERS RELAXED.
SUSPEND YOURSELF FROM THE HOOK ALWAYS.
LET YOUR ARMS, NOT YOUR SHOULDERS, DO THE WORK. ALERT YOUR MUSCLES FOR MUSCLE TONE.
And once again:
DISTURB AS LITTLE AIR AS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU MOVE.
I'll continue hammering away at you in your training, and, while I do, keep this in mind: There isn't a star in New York or
SMOOTH, SVELTE AND FASCINATING
Hollywood who hasn't been through what you're going through. Actors are diligent, hard-working men and women. Even after years of rigorous schooling, they spend additional months of train-ing to prepare themeslves for every new role.
Weeks became months as Marlon Brando worked on Guys and Dolls, perfecting his tough stance and other mannerisms until they appeared natural and spontaneous. Robert Alda worked equally hard on the same role for the New York stage production. Each of these actors interpreted the character differently, but with individual artistry and success.
Rita Hayworth spent a full six months making ready for the hit performance she gave in Cover Girl. Her beauty and her stellar name were only two elements, however important, which she brought to Cover Girl. To them she added interpretation of character, arrived at by understanding. She researched her role as painstakingly as a scientist researching a formula. She took full advantage of every bit of expert guidance the resources of Col-umbia Studios made available to her. The result of this concen-tration of collective talent and technical know-how was a glamour picture that remains to this day a classic of its kind.
These people, and others whose names you see in lights, weren't born stars. They became stars.
In a manner of speaking you have, naturally, been breathing all your life. But the chances are you haven't been breathing naturally for a long time.
With your good posture, stand in front of a mirror. Put one hand on your chest, and the other hand on the upper part of your abdomen.
Take a big, deep breath.
Did your chest swell up with that breath? Did you get small around the waist? If so, you need some reminders about correct, natural breathing.
We have in the lower part of the thorax, or chest cavity, a floor of muscle that is also the roof of the abdominal cavity, separating one from the other. This is the diaphragm.
Try an experiment by lying down on the floor. Just relax. Don't even think about your breathing. Place your hands flat against your floating ribs at the sides and notice how the entire region, all the way around to the back, contracts and expands as you breathe, while your chest remains immobile. Notice, too, how the floating ribs now seem to have a very direct contact with the diaphragm.
Get a piece of string and make a lasso. Slip the lasso around the diaphragm region and, keeping the end of the string taut, notice how it lengthens and shortens as you breathe, while your chest remains immobile.
Stand up again and attach your chest, fixed and high, to your imaginary hook. Breathe just as you did while you were lying on the floor, again checking the expansion and contraction of your diaphragm with your lasso.
It may seem strange for you to breathe this way if you've been told most of your life to "take deep breaths with your chest." But don't be disturbed about it You are now following nature's way of breathing, and she'll help you acquire the habit of breathing in her own sensible manner. Nature is on your side.
All animals breathe in this fashion. You breathed in the same correct, natural way when you were an infant
AIR POWER IN CONTROL
Here is a co-ordinating exercise in breathing and performing a specific action at the same time.
EXERCISE
Start from a sitting position with hands on knees. As you inhale, move one hand up to your top shirt button. Start the movement and a breath at the same instant. End the movement (at the top shirt button) at the exact peak of your intake of breath.
As you exhale, return the hand to its original position (on the knee). Arrive at this original position at the same instant the final expiration of your breath takes place.
By coordinating a movement exactly with your breathing, you have experienced the use of a potential power tool of acting. So keep practicing until you have mastered it
Focus your mind on diaphragmatic breathing and let your mind tell your body what to do. You'll soon get back to breathing as well as you did when you were born!
Nature intended that you should breathe with the diaphragm. It's healthful for your general well-being in daily living. And it's necessary to you as an actor. With diaphragmatic breathing, you control the breath and get compressed air, necessary for keeping balanced energy under all the vibrations of the speech instrument.
As you may know, compressed air is one of the strongest sources of power known to science. It's used to stop trains, to drive pneumatic drills, and in many other mechanical processes re-quiring enormous power.
HOW TO ACT
To acquire vocal vitality and control, make use of the same kind of power that science has found so useful . . . Nature has already given you the necessary equipment.
Later, we'll go more extensively into the use of this source of power in speech. Meanwhile, breathe easily, rhythmically and diaphragmatically.
The following poem can be used as a muscular exercise to strengthen the muscles that control the diaphragm. Whisper the poem in a bass-baritone whisper—using no sound—with a high fixed chest (this means no movement of the chest).
This whispering exercise will help develop the habit of breath-ing from the diaphragm. It also develops control of the air as it leaves the lungs. Control of the breathing-out process is more im-portant than control of the breathing-in process.
You may become dizzy when you first try the exercise, and you will feel that your diaphragm is pulling up inside the lung cage. That's good, just make sure that you don't stop the rich outflow of air by tightening your throat.
EXERCISE
No Movement of Upper Chest
THE CONGO *
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
* From Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay, copyright 1933 by The Mac-millan Company and used with their permission.
A I R P O W ER IN C O N T R O L
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
Then I had religion, TH EN I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Starting now, and in your daily practice of the exercise poem, whisper each line twice. Hold one hand on your chest, the other against your floating ribs. Keep your chest absolutely immobile no matter how difficult it may be at first.
Whispering strengthens the muscles in the region of the dia-phragm and places the power of these muscles squarely under the column of breath. It also allows the small, delicate muscles of the throat to relax and builds up general muscle tone throughout the entire body system.
Florence Reed, noted for her magnetic voice and whose Shanghai Gesture became a landmark in theater history, once told me that before starting rehearsals in a new play she used to go up to her cabin in Maine and rehearse her entire role for one week
IN A LOUD WHISPER.
There was a time when actors were taught to pose in a parti-cular way to depict grief, arch an eyebrow to portray doubt, and shift the weight from here to there to express haughtiness. That sort of thing has no place in the technique of today's enlightened actor.
The emotional scale is not played by moving from one specific pose to another.
An actress like Judith Anderson doesn't portray grief the same way Audrey Hepburn does. Katharine Cornell—or, for that matter, any actress worthy of the name—does not delineate grief exactly the same way in two different charactemations.
Watch your family and friends. Take a look around you at a wedding, a story conference, a political meeting, an accident, a theater—anywhere you like. You'll see at once that emotion is highly personal. It is intensely individualistic in the way it shows itself.
Since different people have different ways of expressing emo-tion, the actor must develop understanding as well as technical tools—for flexibility and control—which will enable him to por-tray emotion in many molds.
The tools are the same for everyone. The end result of their use is individual.
Through training, your voice, body and mind can become so flexible and so well controlled that they will automatically obey your commands without conscious effort.
Any acting theory that cannot be proved and improved by actual use is excess baggage in the actor's tool kit. Throw it out.
Bit by bit, the science underlying the actor's art will become concrete in concept, defined in detail, and clear in purpose to you. When it does, you will be able to use the science with personal selectivity and professional judgment, as do the greatest actors of our time.
THE CONSCIOUS, THE SUBCONSCIOUS—AND A MENTAL IMAGE
up of habits, fears, gratifications, inhibitions, complexes, person-ality mannerisms and traits, etc.—most of which are subconscious.
We all know there are two parts to the mind—the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious is your voluntary mind. Your aware mind. The mind that functions when you're awake. The subconscious is your involuntary mind. It functions without your knowledge and control when you're asleep, as well as when you're awake.
You can use your conscious and subconscious mind as tools of acting to develop, heighten and enhance your own personality by making this mental image.
Picture yourself in a sailboat at night, floating on a dark, uncharted ocean. On the prow of the boat, put a searchlight
The person in the boat is you. The boat is your conscious mind.
The dark ocean is your subconscious mind. The beam from the searchlight is your aware-beam.
The size of your sailboat can be compared to the size of your measurable, conscious mind—and the unmeasured ocean to your subconscious mind.
The subconscious-ocean conceals many things of which you are not aware. But they are there. Anything you can think of is there—and everything you have ever known is there.
A fraction of all this passes through your aware-beam. Beauti-ful fish and dangerous fish. Big waves and little habit-waves. Good habit-waves and bad habit-habit-waves. Fear and daring. Destructive floating mines and beautiful colored-glass fishing floats.
As some of these things pass through your aware-beam you become conscious of them. At will, you can focus your aware-
HOW TO ACT
beam all around your boat to see something of what's going on down in your subconscious-ocean.
You can focus your aware-beam on potentially dangerous things like deep-hidden fears or on habits and personality mannerisms.
Let's say you've focused your aware-beam on a live, floating mine (which is just our figure of speech to represent a potentially dangerous fear). As soon as the mine is in your aware-beam, you can cope with it. You can pull it into your conscious mind, exam-ine it, find its detonator and remove it. The mexam-ine-fear then ceases to be an instrument of potential destruction. You can safely throw the pieces back, and they will sink to the bottom of your subcon-scious-ocean.
Or let's say that with your aware-beam you spot a bad habit-wave, such as poor posture, sloppy walking or incorrect breathing. After focusing your aware-beam on the bad habit, you can use what is called:
THE LAW OF SUBSTITUTION
to correct the bad habit You start by constructing a good habit pattern in the conscious mind. By your conscious perseverance the new "good habit" pattern will be absorbed into the subconscious, replacing the old bad habit.
You can also use the law of substitution in dealing with un-desirable personality traits. While fears, bad habits, unun-desirable personality traits, etc., are within your aware-beam, you may know they're there—and yet refuse to recognize them. Figuratively, you hold your hand up in front of your eyes, like a blinder, to hide from yourself whatever you don't want to see.
THE CONSCIOUS, THE SUBCONSCIOUS—AND A MENTAL IMAGE It's up to you to overcome and consciously dispense with your hand-inhibitions and look squarely at what is within the focus of your aware-beam. By using the law of substitution, you can trans-form your liabilities into assets.
Now, since all these traits and habits—regarding the conscious and subconscious—are true of our personalities in real life, it stands to reason that they should exist in every character an actor creates.
To ring true, a character's "personality" should be made up of habits, fears, gratifications, inhibitions, complexes, personality man-nerisms and traits, etc. These should consciously be built into the character's subconscious: by the actor.
This is creativity.
With all the imagination and training at his command, the actor should set aside his own personality and—as far as possible — represent the character's personality.
TO DO THIS—HE USES THE LAW OF SUBSTITUTION.
By substituting the character's personality for his own, the actor establishes a common denominator, a connector, between an in-vented image and its interpreted reality.
This is CONSCIOUS-Subconscious technique.
As you progress with these mechanical exercises, focus your aware-beam steadily on each new element we take up—in the science underlying the actor's art
The brightness, scope and penetrating power of each person's aware-beam is in accordance with his intelligence. The greater the intelligence that powers your desire and drive, the brighter your aware-beam will shine; the deeper it will penetrate the subconscious; the wider will be the area it can illuminate.
HOW TO ACT
Keep yourself alert to the many uses of the law of substitution. It is within this law that a teacher can change and develop an unfulfilled personality into an exciting personality.
The law of substitution is an important part of the formula used to develop a plain, average boy or girl from any walk of life into a big star.
But—without an indestructible inner urge, without great de-sire and drive, without great singleness of purpose—no teacher on earth can make a star of anyone.
To help you learn—you can always make use of these two important facts:
1. Your subconscious, your system itself, learns during periods of relaxation.
2. Your conscious self learns during periods of concentration. These are important tools for the actor.
These are the words to remember from this chapter: Habit-wave Aware-beam
Hand-inhibition Habit pattern Personality mannerism Law of substitution Conscious mind (boat) Subconscious mind (ocean)
Once you've absorbed this chapter, you'll be surprised by the added values you will find.
Have FAITH in what you learn and you will become AWARE of the truth that is fully revealed in UNDERSTANDING.
