ACTORS & IMAGINATION GO HAND AND HAND

IMAGINATION

Imagination creates things that can be or can happen. . . . Every movement you make on the stage, every word you speak, is the result of the right life of your imagination.
The creative process starts with the imaginative invention of a poet, a writer, the director of the play, the actor, the scene designer, and others in the production, so the first in order should be imagination.

If imagination plays such an important part in an actor's work, what can he do if he lacks it? He must develop it or else leave the stage. . . . It all depends on what kind of an imagination you have. . . . The kind that has initiative . . . will work . . . untiringly, whether you are awake or asleep. Then there is the kind that lacks initiative, but is easily aroused. . . . Observation of the nature of gifted people does disclose to us a way to control the emotion needed in a part. This way lies through the action of the imagination which to a far greater degree is subject to the effect of conscious will. We cannot directly act on our emotions, but we can prod our creative fantasy and [it] stirs up our emotion or affective memory, calling up from its secret depths, beyond the reach of consciousness, elements of already experienced emotions, and re-groups them to correspond with the images which arise in us. . . . That is why a creative fantasy is a fundamental, absolutely necessary gift for an actor.

There are various aspects of the life of the imagination. . . . We can use our inner eye to see all sorts of visual images, living creatures, human faces, their features, landscapes, the material world of objects, settings and so forth. With our inner ear we can hear all sorts of melodies, voices, intonations and so forth. We can feel things in imagination at the prompting of our sensation and emotion memory.

There are actors of things seen and actors of things heard. The first are gifted with an especially fine inner vision and the second with sensitive inner hearing. For the first type, to which I myself belong, the easiest way to create an imaginary life is with the help of visual images. For the second type it is the image of sound that helps.

We can cherish all these visual, audible, or other images; we can enjoy them passively . . . be the audience of our own dreams. Or we can take an active part in those dreams.

Every invention of the actor's imagination must be thoroughly worked out. . . . It must be able to answer all the questions (when, where, why, how) that he asks himself when he is driving his inventive faculties on to make a more and more definite picture of a make-believe existence.

[The actor] must feel the challenge physically as well as intellectually because the imagination . . . can reflexively affect our physical nature and make it act. . . . Not a step should be taken on the stage without the cooperation of your imagination. --An Actor Prepares