The author's need is to write the play. That actor's most important need is to interpret the play.
(The Great Stella Adler, from the chapter "The Actor's First Approach To The Author" in her The Technique of Acting. Also author of the seminal acting book: The Art Of Acting)
I don't want to split hairs over terminology, but the word interpret shades too close to subjectivity for my taste, and whether Ms. Adler meant that or not -- probably not -- the reader could easily take that away from her dictum.
So, if you're an actor, to more clearly understand your First Approach To The Author, let's hear what Charles L. Mee has to say about his job:
Now . . . I want to share.
The outpouring of grief and love for Tim Russert has been, I think, to many people, a surprise -- but it shouldn't have been.
If you have time in the coming days and weeks and months and years, browse the tributes to Tim Russert on youTube, and you'll be struck with two questions:
What kind of person am I?
How will I be remembered?
Tim Russert's impact and influence went well beyond his journalistic excellence. His greatest excellence was the lasting and positive and uplifting impact he had on his friends and his family. Tim was showered in love because he gave so much to those he loved.
An old old Irish blessing and prayer: Remembered Joy
Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free!
I follow the plan God laid for me.
I saw His face, I heard His call,
I took His hand and left it all...
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss...
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life's been full, I've savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don't shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.
Work in Deborah Carlson/Word of Mouth Studios on really, Really, REALLY cold reading has been paying off:
I did a monologue by "Sydney," a cynical divorce lawyer from John Patrick Shanley's Where's My Money for a new 13th Street production of resident playwright Tom O'Neil's The Cat and the Moon, based on the poem of the same name by William Butler Yeats.
I got called back for a cold reading of the script -- no preparation: the director just put the script in our hands and we traded off reading parts -- cold.
I had nothing else to go on but the rhythm & structure, "no spin," "no attitude" -- I just breathed deep, didn't skim, slowed down, kept it clean, stayed innocent, discovered my way though the text, and lo and behold, the character just came out by itself.
You don't create the character out of your opinions, your subjective feelings, or ideas, or concepts -- you find the character, in the text, in the sentences, in every word, in every syllable:
