An Actor Prepares

by Constantin Stanislavski

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

If it meets the needs of the play and produces the right mood it helps the actor to formulate the inner aspect of his role, it influences his whole psychic state and capacity to feel.

About how lighting and sound effects can effect your emotion.

“You cannot repeat an accidental sensation you may have on the stage, any more than you can revive a dead flower.

“Don’t think about the feeling itself, but set your mind to work on what makes it grow, what the conditions were that brought about the experience.

we use not only our own past emotions as creative material but we use feelings that we have had in sympathizing with the emotions of others.

Close your eyes and ears, be silent, and try to discover with whom you are in mental communication. Try to find one single second when you will not be in some contact with some object.’

‘All that is necessary is for two people to come into close contact and a natural, mutual exchange takes place. I try to give out my thoughts to you, and you make an effort to absorb something of my knowledge and experience.’

‘Unfortunately, that unbroken flow is all too rare. Most actors, if indeed they are aware of it at all, use it only when they are saying their own lines. But let the other actor begin to say his and the first one neither listens nor makes an attempt to absorb what the second is saying. He ceases to act until he hears his next cue. That habit breaks up constant exchange because that is dependent on the give and take of feelings both during the speaking of the lines, and also during the reply to those already spoken, and even during silences, when the eyes carry on.

Important paragraph on listening, absorbing while othe actor is talking.