Building A Character

Constantin Stanislavski, Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135855338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

Building a Character is one of the three volumes that make up Stanislavski's The Acting Trilogy.

An Actor Prepares explores the inner preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. In this volume, Sir John Gielgud said, this great director "found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students."

Building a Character discusses the external techniques of acting: the use of the body, movement, diction, singing, expression, and control.

Creating a Role describes the preparation that precedes actual performance, with extensive discussions of Gogol's The Inspector General and Shakespeare's Othello. Sir Paul Scofield called Creating a Role "immeasurably important" for the actor.

These three volumes belong on any actor's short shelf of essential books.

1
Toward a Physical Characterization

AT THE BEGINNING of our lesson I told Tortsov, the Director of our school and theatre, that I could comprehend with my mind the process of planting and training within myself the elements necessary to create character, but that it was still unclear to me how to achieve the building of that character in physical terms. Because, if you do not use your body, your voice, a manner of speaking, walking, moving, if you do not find a form of characterization which corresponds to the image, you probably cannot convey to others its inner, living spirit.

“Yes,” agreed Tortsov, “without an external form neither your inner characterization nor the spirit of your image will reach the public. The external characterization explains and illustrates and thereby conveys to your spectators the inner pattern of your part.”

“That’s it!” Paul and I exclaimed.

“But how do we achieve that external, physical characterization?” I asked.

“Most frequently, especially among talented actors, the physical materialization of a character to be created emerges of its own accord once the right inner values have been established,” explained Tortsov.“In My Life in Art there are many examples of this. One is the case of the part of Dr. Stockman in An Enemy of the People by Ibsen. As soon as the right spiritual form was fixed, as the right inner characterization was woven out of all the elements germane to the image, there appeared, no one knows from where, Stockman’s nervous intensity, his jerky gait, his neck thrust forward and two jutting fingers, all earmarks of a man of action.”

“But if we are not lucky enough to have such a spontaneous accident? What do you do then?” I asked Tortsov.

“What do you do? Do you remember in Ostrovski’s play, The Forest, how Peter explains to Aksyusha the way to act so that the two will not be recognized on their flight? He says to her, ‘You drop one lid—and it makes a squint-eyed person!’”

“Externally it is not difficult to disguise yourself. I once had something of the sort happen to me; I had an acquaintance I knew very well. He talked with a deep bass voice, wore his hair long, had a heavy beard and bushy moustache. Suddenly he had his hair cut and shaved off his whiskers. From underneath there emerged rather small features, a receding chin and ears that stuck out. I met him in this new guise at a family dinner, at the house of some friends. We sat across the table from one another and carried on a conversation. Whom does he remind me of? I kept saying to myself, never suspecting that he was reminding me of himself. In order to disguise his bass voice my friend used only high tones in speaking. This went on for half the meal and I talked with him as though he were a stranger.

“And here is another case. A very beautiful woman I knew was stung in the mouth by a bee. Her lip was swollen and her whole mouth was distorted. This not only changed her appearance so as to make her unrecognizable, it also altered her pronunciation. I met her accidentally and talked to her for several minutes before I realized that she was one of my close friends.”

As Tortsov was describing these personal experiences he squinted one eye almost imperceptibly, as though he were bothered with an incipient sty. Meantime he opened his other eye wide and raised the brow above it. All this was done so that it could be scarcely noticed even by those standing close to him. Yet even this slight change produced a strange effect. He was of course still Tortsov but he was different and you no longer had confidence in him. You sensed knavery, slyness, grossness, all qualities little related to his real self. It was only when he stopped acting with his eyes that he became once more our nice old Tortsov. But let him squint one eye—and there again was that mean little slyness, changing his whole personality.

“Are you aware,” he explained to us, “that inwardly I remain the same and speak in my own person regardless of whether my eye is squinted or open, whether my eyebrow is raised or lowered? If I were to acquire a twitch and that were causing my eye to squint I should also have remained unchanged in personality and continued normal and natural. Why should I change inwardly because of a slight squint in my eye? I am the same whether my eye is open or shut, whether my eyebrow is raised or lowered.

“Or, let us suppose, I am stung by a bee as was my beautiful friend and my mouth is distorted.”

Here Tortsov, with extraordinary realism, pulled his mouth to the right side so that his speech was completely altered.

“Does this external distortion not only of my face but of my speech,” he went on in his radically changed method of pronunciation, “impinge on my personality and natural reactions? Must I cease to be myself? Neither the sting of the bee nor the artificial distortion of my mouth should influence my inner life as a human being. And what about lameness (Here Tortsov limped) or paralysis of the arms (Instantly he lost all control over them) or a humped shoulder (His spine reacted correspondingly) or an exaggerated way of turning your feet in or out (Tortsov walked first one way and then the other)? Or an incorrect position of the hands and arms holding them too far forward or too far back (He illustrated this)? Can all these external trifles have any bearing on my feelings, my relations to others or the physical aspect of my part?”

It was amazing with what ease, simplicity and naturalness Tortsov instantly demonstrated all the physical shortcomings he was describing —a limp, paralysis, a hump, various postures of legs and arms.

“And what remarkable external tricks, which completely transform the person playing a part, can be accomplished with the voice, with speech and pronunciation, especially of consonants! To be sure your voice has to be well placed and trained if you are to change it, for otherwise you cannot, for any length of time, speak either with your highest or your lowest tones. As for altering your pronunciation, especially that of consonants, this is done very simply: pull your tongue back, shorten it (Tortsov did it as he was speaking) and a special manner of speech, rather reminiscent of the English way of handling consonants, will result. Or lengthen your tongue, pushing it a little in advance of your teeth (Again he did what he was describing) and you will have an inane lisp, which with proper elaboration would be suitable for a role like that of the Idiot.

“Or else, try putting your mouth into unusual positions and you will get still other ways of talking. For example, take an Englishman who has a short upper lip and very long, rodent-like front teeth. Give yourself a short upper lip and show your teeth more.”

“But how can you do that?” I said, trying it out on myself without success.

“How do I do it? Very simply,” answered Tortsov, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbing his upper teeth and the inside of his upper lip until they were quite dry. Then under cover of his handkerchief he tucked in his upper lip which remained stuck to his dry gums, so that when he took his hand from his face we were amazed at the shortness of his upper lip and sharpness of his teeth.

This external artifice hid from us his ordinary, familiar personality; in front of us there stood the Englishman he had just mentioned. We were under the impression that everything about Tortsov was changed; his pronunciation, his voice were different, as well as his carriage, his talk, his hands and legs. Nor was that all. His whole psychology seemed transformed. And yet Tortsov had made no inner adjustment. In another second he had abandoned the trick with his upper lip and continued to speak in his own person, until he again put the handkerchief in his mouth, dried his lip and gums and, when he dropped his hand with the handkerchief, was at once changed again into his Englishman.

This happened intuitively. It was only when we worked it out and confirmed it that Tortsov admitted the phenomenon. It was not he who explained it to us but we who told him, how all the characteristics which intuitively came to the surface were appropriate to and filled out the portrait of the gentleman with a short upper lip and long teeth—and all the result of a simple external artifice.

After digging down into his own thoughts and taking account of what went on inside himself Tortsov remarked that even in his own psychology in spite of himself there had been an imperceptible impulse which he found difficult immediately to analyse.

It was, however, an undoubted fact that his inner faculties responded to the external image he had created, and adjusted to it, since the words he pronounced were not his words, although the thoughts he expressed were his very own.

In this lesson then Tortsov vividly demonstrated that external characterization can be achieved intuitively and also by means of purely technical, mechanical, simple external tricks.

But how to find the right trick? Here was a fresh problem to intrigue and disturb me. Is this something to be learned, to be imagined, to be taken from life, or found accidentally, in books, by studying anatomy?

“The answer is—in all those ways,” explained Tortsov. “Each person evolves an external characterization out of himself, from others, takes it from real or imaginary life, according to his intuition, his observation of himself and others. He draws it from his own experience of life or that of his friends, from pictures, engravings, drawings, books, stories, novels, or from some simple incident—it makes no difference. The only proviso is that while he is making this external research he must not lose his inner self. Now I’ll tell you what we shall do. For our next lesson we’ll have a masquerade.”

This proposal produced general astonishment.

“Each student will prepare an external characterization and mask himself in it.”

“A masquerade? An external characterization of what kind?”

“No matter what kind. Choose anything you like—a merchant, a Persian, a soldier, a Spaniard, an aristocrat, a mosquito, a frog—whatever and whoever appeals to you. The costumes and the make-up facilities of the theatre will be at your disposal. Go and choose clothes, wigs, make-up.”

His announcement at first caused consternation, then discussion and curiosity, and finally general interest and excitement. Each one of us began to think of something, to imagine something, make notes, secret drawings, preparing his choice of a portrait, costume and make-up.

Only Grisha remained, as usual, indifferent and cool to the whole idea.

2
Dressing a Character

TODAY OUR WHOLE class went to the great costume storerooms of the theatre, one of which is up above the foyer and the other in the basement under the auditorium.

In less than fifteen minutes Grisha had chosen what he wanted and left. Some of the others, too, did not take long. Only Sonya and I could not arrive at a definite choice.

Being a flirtatious young woman, she found her eyes distracted and her head in a whirl from seeing so many lovely gowns. As for me, I still was uncertain about what I wanted to portray and was trusting to a lucky inspiration.

In examining carefully everything that was shown me I hoped to happen on a costume which would suggest an appealing image to me.

My attention was drawn to a simple old morning coat. It was made of some remarkable material I had never seen before—a kind of sand-coloured, greenish, greyish stuff, which seemed faded and covered with spots and dust mixed with ashes. I had the feeling that a man dressed in that coat would look like a ghost. An almost imperceptible squeamishness but at the same time a slightly terrifying sense of fatefulness stirred in me as I gazed at that old morning coat.

If one matched it with a hat, gloves, dusty foot-gear, and prepared a make-up and wig in the same colour and tones as the material—all greyish, yellowish, greenish, faded and shadowy, one would get a sinister, yet somehow familiar effect. Exactly what that effect was I could not yet determine.

The wardrobe attendants laid aside the coat I had chosen and promised to look for accessories to match—shoes, gloves, a high hat, as well as a wig and beard. But I was not satisfied and went on hunting up to the very last minute when the amiable mistress of the wardrobe finally told me that she had to get ready for the evening performance.

There was nothing for me to do but leave without having arrived at a definite decision and with only the spotted morning coat held in reserve for me.

Excited, disturbed, I left the costume rooms carrying away with me the riddle: what was the personality I should put on when I dressed myself in that decayed old morning coat?

From that moment on and right up to the time of the masquerade, which was set for three days later, something was going on inside of me: I was not I, in the sense of my usual consciousness of myself. Or, to be more precise, I was not alone but with someone whom I sought in myself and could not find.

I existed, I went on with my usual life, yet something inhibited me from giving myself up to it fully; something was disturbing my usual existence. I seemed divided in two. Although I looked at what-ever caught my attention I did not see it to its fullest extent, but only in vague terms, without plumbing its depths. I did some thinking but without thinking things through, I listened but with only half an ear, I smelled things but only partially. Half of my energy and human capability had somehow vanished and that loss sapped my strength and power and attention. I did not finish anything I undertook. I felt that it was necessary for me to accomplish something of the utmost importance. But then a cloud settled on my consciousness, I no longer understood the next step, I was distracted and divided. It was a fatiguing and tormenting state in which to be! It never left me for three whole days and in the course of that time the question of whom I was to play at the masquerade remained unanswered.

Finally in the night I suddenly woke up and everything was clear. That second life which I had been leading parallel to my usual one was a secret, subconscious life. In it there was going on the work of searching for that mildewed man whose clothes I had accidentally found.

However, the clarification did not last long. It melted away again and I tossed around in my bed sleepless and irresolute. It was as though I had forgotten something, could neither recall nor find it. It was a painful state and yet if a magician had offered to blot it out I am not at all sure that I should have let him.

And here is another strange thing that I noted in myself: I seemed convinced that I should not find the image of the person I sought. Nevertheless the search went on. It was not in vain that during those days I never passed by a photographer’s shop without examining the portraits in the window and attempting to understand who the originals were. You may ask: Why did I not walk in to the shop and examine the stacks of photographs lying around there? At a second hand dealer’s one might find even greater piles of grimy, dusty old photos. Why did I not make use of that material? Why did I not go through it all? But I indolently looked over only the smallest packet of them and nonchalantly ignored the rest for fear of soiling my hands.

What was the matter? How can one explain this inertia or this sense of a split personality? I think that it came from an unconscious but firm conviction inside me that the dusty gentleman with the mildewed clothes would sooner or later come to life and rescue me. “It’s no use looking, it’s better not to find the mildewed man”—was probably the unconscious prompting of an inner voic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Note by the Translator
• 1. Toward a Physical Characterization
• 2. Dressing a Character
• 3. Characters and Types
• 4. Making the Body Expressive
• 5. Plasticity of Motion
• 6. Restraint and Control
• 7. Diction and Singing
• 8. Intonations and Pauses
• 9. Accentuation: The Expressive Word
• 10. Perspective in Character Building
• 11. Tempo-Rhythm in Movement
• 12. Speech Tempo-Rhythm
• 13. Stage Charm
• 14. Toward an Ethics for the Theatre
• 15. Patterns of Accomplishment
• 16. Some Conclusions on Acting