To me "action" is at the core of what we do as actors. It is everything that the actor does to fulfill their character's purpose within the story. It's the driving internal force that keeps our characters moving forward to their goal. We cannot ACT without action.
Stanislavsky opens his chapter on Action with an exercise. Tortsov asks the actors to stand on the stage. They were given no direction and left to their own invention. As a result, and as you can imagine--perhaps even experienced if you have participated in something similar, the students were all over come with the "need" to perform. Or they all acted out of self consciousness. The students, as we all do for the first time, felt insecure and created and performed distractions instead of actions. I remember the very first time that I experience a similar exercise. I was asked to stand alone on the stage--which felt huge by the way--and all I could think about were every set of eyes watching me and waiting for me to do something. I'm sure I made a joke or even "acted" out some silly gestures, but the only memories I have are of the sensation of fear. THEN I was asked to count the seats in the auditorium. This exercise is so basic and yet it has such a profound lesson. By counting the seats I was given a task that had purpose. The exercise continued and I was informed that I only had sixty seconds to finish counting AND if I guessed the correct number of seats then I would receive a prize. I didn't by the way, but that additional task created STAKES--something I'll talk about later--and taught me that having something to accomplish gives my actions purpose and makes my "performance" active. Watching and uncomfortable actor squirm may be amusing--even entertaining, but watching an actor who has purpose is engaging and far more interesting. Therefore, one of the key fundamentals every actor should remember is that everything they do on stage or in front of a camera MUST have purpose and MUST be active.
In an An Actor Prepares, Stanislavsky has Tortsov demonstrate action by sitting in a chair on stage. When a student challenges this as not active he replies with this:
"The external immobility of a person sitting on the stage does not imply passiveness. You may sit without a motion and at the same time be in full action. Nor is that all. Frequently physical immobility is the direct result of inner intensity, and it is these inner activities that are far more important artistically. The essence of art is not in it's external forms but in its spiritual content...On the stage it is necessary to act, either outwardly or inwardly."This "inner intensity" or "spiritual content" brings me to another way to look at action. When I was in Drama school, Earle Gister taught us his version of Action. To him, and soon to me, Action is the inner energy that actors send and receive. This Action is described with the phrase: "How do I want to make my scene partner feel?" At first this was a very foreign idea to me. It didn't make sense. How does this have anything to do with everything I've always been told about acting? But then I started to see it in real life. While driving I might see someone cut off another driver and the one who was cut off shouts and screams obscenities in return. The one screaming isn't just angry about being cut off; he also wants the one who cut him off to FEEL like an idiot. The one who cut him off may realize what he did and be ashamed, but with his pleading gestures from his car he wants the other driver to accept his apology and FEEL sympathetic. Or when you see a young couple walking hand in hand with that smitten look all over their face and each lover is glowing. That "glowing" is each one making the other to FEEL loved so they will continue to reap the benefits of that love. Or maybe you've seen a parent disciplining their child because they were playing too rough with the other children. The parent's behavior is stern but their Action is intended to make the child to FEEL ashamed. The key to this idea of Action--and what MAKES it active--is that this inner intensity is driving us toward our wants and needs. When acting we use this kind of Action to fulfill our character's objectives or tasks. Asking "how do I want to make you feel?" drives the character's internal purpose and is active outwardly to our scene partners and audience. It gives your acting that "spiritual content" that is so engaging. It also gives you focus away from and off of yourself--which is truly one of the key philosophies of EVERY training system or method.
Try to look for this in your everyday life. Notice it in your own behavior--especially when you are aware that you are going after something you want. Are your actions intended to make the recipient FEEL a certain way in an effort to get you what you want?
If you are working on a monologue then try choosing an Action to play on the image of your scene partner. Then try inserting the phrase "I want you to feel ______" after every sentence. For example in Chekhov's The Seagull, Konstantin is speaking with his uncle Sorin about his mother Arkadina. For this exercise I have chosen the Action to play on Sorin "I want you to feel sympathetic."
Konstantin: I love my mother, I love her very much; but her life is futile, she smokes and drinks and spends all her time fretting over that writer she lives with. (I want you to feel sympathetic) Her name is never out of the papers--and I'm fed up with it.(I want you to feel sympathetic) Sometimes I feel, you know, just an ordinary selfish impulse, and sometimes I'm sorry my mother is a famous actress and think if she were an ordinary woman, I could be happier. (I want you to feel sympathetic) Uncle, could anything be more hopeless and stupid than my situation? (I want you to feel sympathetic) I'll be round at her place sometimes in a room jam full of celebrities, actors and writers, and I'll be the only one of the lot of them who's a nobody and the only reason they put up with me is that I'm her son. (I want you to feel sympathetic) Who am I? (I want you to feel sympathetic) What am I? (I want you to feel sympathetic) I left university in my final year, due to causes for which, as they say, the editor accepts no responsibility; I have no qualifications, no money, not one kopeck and according to my passport, I'm a petit-bourgeois from Kiev. (I want you to feel sympathetic) Well my father was a petit-bourgeois from Kiev, although he was also a well known actor. (I want you to feel sympathetic) And when those actors and writers in her drawing room would turn their kind attention to me, it always seemed to me from their expressions that they were just gauging my insignificance.I chose sympathetic for this example but Actions are discovered out of your characters objectives and tasks which you discover during rehearsal. Action can seem complicated and clumsy at first and I hesitated to bring it up in my early posts. However, I believe that Action is an essential building block and a crucial element to my aesthetics of acting. It is something that takes time to develop but will become easier to fulfill with practice. Eventually, it will become second nature and you will no longer even need to THINK about what Actions to send. This is why I introduce it from the start. It will continue to intertwine with my investigation of the acting process--mostly because I have found that it always leads to truth. It is always connected to your tasks and is the engine behind fulfilling your objectives--which we will talk about in the future.
One of the things that always excited me about Earle was when he witnessed Action being sent. He would perk up and always say, "Did you see that? Like a laser!" And he was right. Action lights up acting with purpose.
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