ABSTRACT
What does this skill consist of ? We have already spoken of the importance of balance and the idea of the actor’s centre. Because we apprehend with our senses, mainly our eyes, we tend to think of ourself as located in our heads. This is a particular problem for the actor because we do read the script and think about it with our heads. But we act with our bodies, and respond from our centre where physical balance, breath and nervous impulses come together. From this centre we allow the impulses to flow outward and inform all other parts of our body in such a way that a powerful communicative sign will be made. This impulse, through the actor’s exercise of skills, is channelled, controlled and focused. The impulse cannot have a simply arbitrary outward expression or the actor will be one who will ‘unpack [your] heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab.’1 The sign ‘in the very tempest, torrent…[and] whirlwind of passion must acquire and beget a temperance’.2
