An Actor Prepares

“To arouse a desire to create is difficult; to kill that desire is extremely easy.”

Kostya learns this lesson when he arrives late to class after accidentally sleeping in. Although he is mortified, he accepts that creative desire is a delicate thing, and that forcing the class to wait for him and failing to offer proper apologies is an action that is destructive to the creative process. Before they even begin learning the method, this sends the essential message that professionalism is the first and most important step in this process. There is no room for vanity or diva behavior, and although his lateness was not deliberate, Kostya learns to be even more conscientious in the future.

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

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

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

The smaller and less active the action, the more difficult it can be to justify. In life, humans never take action without some sort of reason or impetus, even if that reason is unconscious or unknown.