ABSTRACT
For an actor to have an effect on the audience, this actor must be alive; a dead actor has absolutely no effect. What makes an actor alive? The first part of being alive is to really be alive: to have life within. If one were to compare a living body to a dead body, one would instantly become aware of one thing; the living body is animated. Implicit in movement is a kind of life. Within the living body there appears to be a vital force, which is clearly absent from the dead body. We cannot really see this force but we can see its effect. We could call this vital force an energy, a life energy which maintains the life in the living body. It allows all movements, voluntary and involuntary, to occur. The quality of the energy is a guide to its health. It is possible to look at a living body and see the quality of the energy within, and then to say that this organism is strong or weak. Without the energy’s influence the physical body has no support, it falls in fact, and immediately begins to decay. This energy exists, but until I can recognize the energy within, it has no form, only force.
