ersonality and a perceptive eye, art cannot be created. But even the most talented actors have problems that prevent them from expressing emotions that can be convincingly conveyed to an audience. Many great actors have found certain performances to be much better than others, without being able to explain why- and many times, without being able to repeat them. What does the actor do to reach this ultimate state of acting, when he believes in his make-believe situation and is free to express? How can we understand this process if even the actor who performed it does not? Is any attempt to explain this evasive art form destined for failure? "There is a greater lack of understanding and misinformation about the nature of this craft than in any of the other arts, including the notion that acting is merely intuitive, entailing no craft at all." (Hagen, 35.)The enemy of good acting is the idea that anyone can do it, without thorough training of the actors facilities. The result of this idea is a theater peopled with ineffective imitators, actors who survive on clich performances with no depth of feeling or thought. The actors tools or instruments are all within his own body and mind and heart, and they must be trained as do other artists. "And then I saw our profession is even more difficult than any other, because we have only one instrument to convey to the audience our feelings, our emotions, our ideas- our own body. It is terrifyingly true." (Chekhov, Lessons for the Professional Actor, 23.) According to Stanislavski and his followers, a strong training program and a definite technique is what actors need most. "Technique exists above all for those who possess talent and inspirationIt serves consciously to stimulate superconscious creativity. The more talent an actor has the more he cares about his technique." (Stanislavski, An Actors Handbook, 139.) The first step in any training is to develop the physical body of the ac...
