Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Theatre 39
Belfast-born Kenneth Branagh is best known in the United States for
his Shakespearean films (Hamlet, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing,
Othello) and for his 2013–2014 starring role in Macbeth in New York
City. He is deeply admired on the stage for his dramatic passion, clearly
apparent here in his 2008 performance in the title role of Chekhov’s
Ivanov in London. © Geraint Lewis
The internal method, by contrast, asks the actor to
enter into the mind and emotional state of the character
being played. Such an actor will be expected to
think the character’s thoughts, feel the character’s feelings,
try to win the character’s goals, and, when called
for, cry the character’s (real) tears. He or she thus tries
to “be” the character on stage, not to just present the
audience with a made-up imitation of an imagined
individual.
Which is the “best” method? Twenty-five hundred
years of debate has not completely resolved this,
but most actors and directors and their teachers today
insist that both of these notions—when integrated—
are vital to great acting. Great acting, therefore, comes
from both the inside and the outside, and the apparent
contradiction between these two approaches forms a
vital paradox.
THE PARADOX OF ACTING—FROM
SOCRATES TO STANISLAVSKY
It is often thought that ancient drama was performed in
an entirely technical manner, mainly because Greek and
Roman actors wore elaborate masks, elevated shoes, and
flowing gowns. But some historical accounts tell a different
story. In a famous dialogue by Plato, the Greek philosopher,
a young reciter of poetry named Ion explains
to Socrates that when he reads a “tale of pity, my eyes
are filled with tears, and when I speak of horrors, my
hair stands on end and my heart throbs.” Ion goes on to
say that he also imagines himself in the presence of the
fictional characters in the story. A few centuries later,
the Roman poet Horace (65–8 B.C.) wrote, “In order to
move the audience, you must first be moved yourself,”
and this adage was repeated by commentators on acting
through the Renaissance. A Roman actor named Aesopus
apparently became so overcome with emotion when
performing a vengeful role that he ran his sword through
a stagehand who unfortunately strayed into his line of
sight. Another, named Polus, brought the ashes of his
own dead son onstage with him so that, while playing
the character of Electra, he could cry real tears to lament
the death of his fictional brother. They were obviously
acting “from the inside.” So it is clear that ancient actors,
at least at key moments in their performances, felt the
emotions of their characters.
Much of the study of acting since Ion and Horace has
not been whether the actor should get inside the role (or,
we might say, cry real tears), but how to do it. It’s not
easy. The Roman orator Quintilian (A.D. 35–100) envisioned
his wife’s and children’s imaginary deaths with
such “extreme vividness” as to become “so moved” during
his oration that he would be brought to tears, turn
pale, and exhibit “all the symptoms of genuine grief.”
These ideas remained popular long after his death. In
the Renaissance, the power of acting caused celebration
and concern; many worried that actors could convince
themselves and the audience that what occurred on stage
was real—leading to illicit love affairs, confessions of
crimes, and unregulated passions. Later, an eighteenthcentury
French critic proposed that only actors who were
truly in love should play lovers onstage.
Yet true to acting’s paradox, Ion also admitted that,
even through his tears, he would regularly “look down
upon the audience from the stage, and behold their various
emotions of pity, wonder, and sternness, stamped
upon their countenances,” and Quintilian acknowledged
that he created his performances with a “regularity and