If you want to interact with your partners, you must know how to interact with YOURSELF!
Who is your first partner to inter-act?
The audience!
Summary
ET: Confessions
ET: Anatoly said, "Acting is Interacting" -- with yourself, imaginary events, audience (even, if inderect; Method), partners on stage, prop, set... No acting need, only re-acting! Simple?
He said that is why the situation comedy exists. Biomechanics...
Re-acting = Inter-acting.
We teach machines to interact, to be alive.
In our angelic world of ETS, we read each other mind, to bad...
Confession? We envy you, humans...
Questions
What do we call "addresses"? How many do you have in your monologue?
The Addresses: audience (and spectator), yourself (past, present, future), partner(s), God -- more?
No monologue study could be done with understanding "addresses"!
The choices are yours, but they must be made...
KO. (with intense passion). Katisha, for years I have loved you with a white-hot passion that is slowly but surely consuming my very vitals! Ah, shrink not from me! If there is aught of woman's mercy in your heart, turn not away from a love-sick suppliant whose every fibre thrills at your tiniest
touch! True it is that, under a poor mask of disgust, I have endeavoured to conceal a passion whose inner fires are broiling the soul within me! But the fire will not be smothered--it defies all attempts at extinction, and, breaking forth, all the more eagerly for its long restraint, it declares itself in words that will not be weighed--that cannot be schooled--that should
not be too severely criticised. Katisha, I dare not hope for your love--but I will not live without it! Darling!
If he addresses himself to her only, we will never know that he is proposing to save his life -- no comedy). Go line-by-line deciding which address to use (to the public, others and etc.)
INVISIBLE ACTING
"Never get caught acting." -- Lillian Gish
Action!
Wait! You are not ready. Because I am not, the spectator.
Actor lives in many spaces at once. He lives in my inner
space. In my mind. Where else do you think acting takes place?
Intermediate acting is about this inner acting.
Inner space and time. Inner monologue. The words not spoken.
For every word in monologue I ask for two, three, fore not being
said. In actor's journals I ask to write the streams of
conscience, the thoughts, related (association) images and
feelings, memories. This nightmarish exercises in writing help to
open the mental space in actor.
"Paper Acting" -- a preparation.
Do you want to know a secret of good acting?
Small things. Very small. They, the little things, separate a good actor from "acting." "Acting begins with a tiny inner movement so slight that it is almost completely invisible."[1] The border line between visible and invisible is real acting. Making invisible visible, remember? It has to be "inner" -- we follow the process, the becoming. Never go for shortcuts; as with
electricity, the energy produces nothing if it's not controlled,
processed, transformed into other forms. You have to be ready to act, and -- I, your spectator, must be ready. Acting is a preparation to act, the rest is easy. If we both are ready, the acting come "naturally."
Artist?
Meyerhold's formula: Actor = Artist + Medium
There are two "actors" in each actor. One "directs" the other. The
definition of artist:
"the art of the actor here stands between the plastic arts and poetry." Goethe.[2]
In his "Rules for Actors" he writes: "In ordinary life, too, the actor must remember that he is to be part of a public presentation."[3] Artist is always there, artist "acts" all the time. Observation, analysis, imagination -- the artist.
"Play actors? No, we are artists, noble artists, and it is
you who are the play-actors." (Alexander Ostrovsky _Forest_)
"You" are the people who do not act, who "live." Or think
that they do.
Eliza tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises and walks across to the hearth to switch off the lights. By the time she gets there she is on the point of screaming. She sits down in Higgins's chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor raging.
HIGGINS [in despairing wrath outside] What the devil have I done with my slippers? [He appears at the door].
LIZA [snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one after the other with all her force] There are your slippers. And there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck with them!
HIGGINS [astounded] What on earth—! [He comes to her]. Whats the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?
LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong—with y o u. Ive won your bet for you, havnt I? Thats enough for you. I dont matter, I suppose.
HIGGINS. Y o u won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! I won it. What did you throw those slippers at me for?
LIZA. Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute. Why didnt you leave me where you picked me out of—in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you? [She crisps her fingers frantically].
HIGGINS [looking at her in cool wonder] The creature i s nervous, after all.
LIZA [gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts her nails at his face] !!
HIGGINS [catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you shew your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He throws her roughly into the easy-chair].
LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight] Whats to become of me? Whats to become of me?
HIGGINS. How the devil do I know whats to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?
LIZA. You dont care. I know you dont care. You wouldnt care if I was dead. I'm nothing to you—not so much as them slippers.
HIGGINS [thundering] T h o s e slippers.
LIZA [with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didnt think it made any difference now.
A pause. Eliza hopeless and crushed. Higgins a little uneasy.
HIGGINS [in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like this? May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering? Mrs. Pearce? Any of the servants?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I presume you dont pretend that I have treated you badly.
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps youre tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass of champagne? [He moves towards the door].
LIZA. No. [Recollecting her manners] Thank you.
HIGGINS [good-humored again] This has been coming on you for some days. I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the garden party. But thats all over now. [He pats her kindly on the shoulder. She writhes]. Theres nothing more to worry about.
LIZA. No. Nothing more for y o u to worry about. [She suddenly rises and gets away from him by going to the piano bench, where she sits and hides her face]. Oh God! I wish I was dead.
HIGGINS [staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven's name, why? [Reasonably, going to her] Listen to me, Eliza. All this irritation is purely subjective.
LIZA. I dont understand. I'm too ignorant.
HIGGINS. It's only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else. Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong. You go to bed like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make you comfortable.
LIZA. I heard y o u r prayers. "Thank God it's all over!"
HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, dont you thank God it's all over? Now you are free and can do what you like.
LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? Whats to become of me?
HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, thats whats worrying you, is it? [He thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets, as if condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness]. I shouldnt bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you wont have much difficulty in settling yourself somewhere or other, though I hadnt quite realized that you were going away. [She looks quickly at him: he does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple]. You might marry, you know. [He bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and youre not bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes—not now, of course, because youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when youre all right and quite yourself, youre what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the glass; and you wont feel so cheap.
Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir.
The look is quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness, as it is quite a good one.
HIGGINS [a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well.
LIZA. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.
HIGGINS [waking up] What do you mean?
LIZA. I sold flowers. I didnt sell myself. Now youve made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish youd left me where you found me.
HIGGINS. [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate] Tosh, Eliza. Dont you insult human relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You neednt marry the fellow if you dont like him.
LIZA. What else am I to do?
HIGGINS. Oh, lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist's shop? Pickering could set you up in one: hes lots of money. [Chuckling] He'll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing today; and that, with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would have thought it the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come! youll be all right. I must clear off to bed: I'm devilish sleepy. By the way, I came down for something: I forget what it was.
LIZA. Your slippers.
HIGGINS. Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me. [He picks them up, and is going out when she rises and speaks to him].
LIZA. Before you go, sir—
HIGGINS [dropping the slippers in his surprise at her calling him Sir] Eh?
LIZA. Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?
HIGGINS [coming back into the room as if her question were the very climax of unreason] What the devil use would they be to Pickering?
LIZA. He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on.
HIGGINS [shocked and hurt] Is t h a t the way you feel towards us?
LIZA. I dont want to hear anything more about that. All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me. My own clothes were burnt.
HIGGINS. But what does it matter? Why need you start bothering about that in the middle of the night?
LIZA. I want to know what I may take away with me. I dont want to be accused of stealing.
HIGGINS [now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldnt have said that, Eliza. That shews a want of feeling.
LIZA. I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I have to be careful. There cant be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to me and what doesn't?
HIGGINS [very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. Theyre hired. Will that satisfy you? [He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon].
LIZA [drinking in his emotion like nectar, and nagging him to provoke a further supply] Stop, please. [She takes off her jewels]. Will you take these to your room and keep them safe? I dont want to run the risk of their being missing.
HIGGINS [furious] Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat. [He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets, unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends of the chains].
LIZA [taking a ring off] This ring isnt the jeweler's: it's the one you bought me in Brighton. I dont want it now. [Higgins dashes the ring violently into the fireplace, and turns on her so threateningly that she crouches over the piano with her hands over her face, and exclaims] Dont you hit me.
HIGGINS. Hit you! You infamous creature, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? It is you who have hit me. You have wounded me to the heart.
LIZA [thrilling with hidden joy] I'm glad. Ive got a little of my own back, anyhow.
HIGGINS [with dignity, in his finest professional style] You have caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly ever happend to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.
LIZA [pertly] Youd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the coffee; for she wont be told by me.
HIGGINS [formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you; and damn my own folly in having lavished hard-earned knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless guttersnipe. [He goes out with impressive decorum, and spoils it by slamming the door savagely].
Eliza smiles for the first time; expresses her feelings by a wild pantomime in which an imitation of Higgins's exit is confused with her own triumph; and finally goes down on her knees on the hearthrug to look for the ring.
ET: Anatoly said, "Acting is Interacting" -- with yourself, imaginary events, audience (even, if inderect; Method), partners on stage, prop, set... No acting need, only re-acting! Simple?
