Marina Caldarone

After having acted for over 35 years, I'm trying to further hone my skills by taking on some formal training. This is one of the books that have been recommended to me.

The American school of acting that began with the Group Theatre took off from Stanislavsky's work and created its own distinct branch. That branch says that an actor doesn't (or shouldn't) try to reproduce an emotion or a "quality", but should always be playing an action. Something that can be encompassed in the form of a transitive verb. That's not to say that there is no emotion involved in acting, but that the emotion comes naturally while doing.

This book is as the title suggests: a thesaurus. An actor is supposed to use it by breaking down a script into moments. Each moment is a sentence, idea, or a silence the length of a breath. Each one is assigned an action. You can play around by exchanging one action for another.

I'm going to try to incorporate this into the next role I play and see how it works for me. I gave the book four stars based on how intriguing the concept is and how well it has apparently worked for others. If it works like a charm for me, I'll upgrade it to five.… (altro)