The actors created études in which they had to take three sounds or words and link them in a scene. They spoke in gibberish and created whole scenes out of found images. Kazan also focused relentlessly on action. Lou Gilbert, a member in those early years, recalled Kazan giving an actor the line “How are you? Imagine finding you here.” As the actor repeated the line again and again, Kazan fed him new actions—to belittle, to frustrate, to sympathize—demonstrating, as Stella had, how changing the action could shift what a line meant.
