ABSTRACT
This chapter encounters an actor, during a production of Hard Times included in the following season at the Swan Theatre, Worcester; the actor in question, Alexander Delamere, played Harthouse opposite to Louisa Gradgrind. It illustrates the fact that the difficulty with acting of basic raw materials, and those raw materials are in a constant state of daily flux and development. Therefore, there can be no hard-and-fast implementation of exercises or ideas: what works on one occasion may not work on another. Underlying everything, however, there should be a constant state of inner improvisation: nothing need obstruct the actor, everything can be accommodated. If every actor could remember him or herself, the theatrical experience could once again become as vibrant, exciting and dangerous as it was for Shakespeare's audience or medieval man. The actor's exploratory work quite clearly in the thought-centre, as the printed word is more important at the start of the rehearsal than organic physical activity.
