can reflexively affect our physical nature and make it actNot a step should be taken on the stage without the cooperation of your imagination." (Stanislavski, An Actor's Handbook, 76) Everything depends on this facility. An actor, when beginning a role, must be able to ask himself how one would act in the situation given by the playwright. This is Stanislavski's "Magic If," or the 'Given Circumstances.'The given circumstances encompass everything the actor knows about his character and his character's relationships to others on the stage. Imagination is activated by the actor's discovery of these circumstances. The actor must begin to answer not only how anyone would act in the given circumstances, but how and why does his character act in a particular way? As soon as the actor employs the word "if," he is able to enter a new realm of reality, through his imagination."The playwright only gives us some of the moments of the character's life. It's up to us to create the moments that areimpliedStanislavski asks the actor to be a novelist. To fill inall those past, present and even future times that the playwrightdoesn't have time to show. They must still be part of the inner makeup of the characters we portray, however."(Brestoff, 40)All these concepts are what truly gifted actors instinctively know. When combined, they serve to bring the actor to the correct emotional level for any scene he may be portraying. The reason Stanislavski emphasizes the cultivation and development of these abilities is that they are the vehicle to reach emotional expression. If an actor concentrates on having an emotion, the emotion will surely disappear. Our emotional lives do not work on command, they are a result of life circumstances. "Because emotions do not come to order. By no effort of conscious will can one awake them in oneself at a moment, nor can they ever be of use for creative genius striving to bring this about by searching the de...
