ABSTRACT
In ‘such cases’ the pause degenerates from being truly psychological to being a mere actor’s ‘hold-up’, and that creates a confusion on the stage – a pause for the sake of pausing. This kind of stop in the action is a hole in the artistic fabric of the play. The ‘star pause’ is only possible when the actor has stored up enough material through working on all the given circumstances, when the through-line of action is totally clear to them, when they closely relate to the character’s state of mind and have mastered both its the inner and outer tempo-rhythm. The ‘star pause’ is impossible to create without the inner monologue that expands the author’s text and reveals the inner workings of the action. It is the inner monologue that provokes the actor to express their feelings in a pause.
