CAPITULO CUARTO: TRABAJO DE CAMPO

to correct the bad habit You start by constructing a good habit pattern in the conscious mind. By your conscious perseverance the new "good habit" pattern will be absorbed into the subconscious, replacing the old bad habit.

You can also use the law of substitution in dealing with un- desirable personality traits. While fears, bad habits, undesirable personality traits, etc., are within your aware-beam, you may know they're there—and yet refuse to recognize them. Figuratively, you hold your hand up in front of your eyes, like a blinder, to hide from yourself whatever you don't want to see.

THE CONSCIOUS, THE SUBCONSCIOUS—AND A MENTAL IMAGE It's up to you to overcome and consciously dispense with your hand-inhibitions and look squarely at what is within the focus of your aware-beam. By using the law of substitution, you can trans- form your liabilities into assets.

Now, since all these traits and habits—regarding the conscious and subconscious—are true of our personalities in real life, it stands to reason that they should exist in every character an actor creates.

To ring true, a character's "personality" should be made up of habits, fears, gratifications, inhibitions, complexes, personality man- nerisms and traits, etc. These should consciously be built into the character's subconscious: by the actor.

This is creativity.

With all the imagination and training at his command, the actor should set aside his own personality and—as far as possible — represent the character's personality.

TO DO THIS—HE USES THE LAW OF SUBSTITUTION.

By substituting the character's personality for his own, the actor establishes a common denominator, a connector, between an in- vented image and its interpreted reality.

This is CONSCIOUS-Subconscious technique.

As you progress with these mechanical exercises, focus your aware-beam steadily on each new element we take up—in the science underlying the actor's art

The brightness, scope and penetrating power of each person's aware-beam is in accordance with his intelligence. The greater the intelligence that powers your desire and drive, the brighter your aware-beam will shine; the deeper it will penetrate the subconscious; the wider will be the area it can illuminate.

HOW TO ACT

Keep yourself alert to the many uses of the law of substitution. It is within this law that a teacher can change and develop an unfulfilled personality into an exciting personality.

The law of substitution is an important part of the formula used to develop a plain, average boy or girl from any walk of life into a big star.

But—without an indestructible inner urge, without great de- sire and drive, without great singleness of purpose—no teacher on earth can make a star of anyone.

To help you learn—you can always make use of these two important facts:

1. Your subconscious, your system itself, learns during periods of relaxation.

2. Your conscious self learns during periods of concentration. These are important tools for the actor.

These are the words to remember from this chapter: Habit-wave Aware-beam

Hand-inhibition Habit pattern Personality mannerism Law of substitution Conscious mind (boat) Subconscious mind (ocean)

Once you've absorbed this chapter, you'll be surprised by the added values you will find.

Have FAITH in what you learn and you will become AWARE of the truth that is fully revealed in UNDERSTANDING.

Actors like to work on what they call "something solid": something they can "get their teeth into."

Student actors, in particular, are primarily concerned with things they can immediately experience physically. Most of their early questions begin with the word "what" rather than "why." They're looking for action.

Now that you know something of the function of the conscious and subconscious in learning how to act, the exercises have more significance, more meaning. You understand their psychological as well as their physical purpose. By synchronizing the "why" with the "what"—getting them together—you achieve the all-important "how."

Through study and practice you have acquired good posture, which is a poised, well-balanced, graceful manner and method of standing. It puts into operation the principles of relaxed constric- tion.

Bad posture is a bad habit. Good posture is a good habit. By using the law of substitution, you exchanged a bad habit for a good one. Your bad posture habit was in the dark subconscious-ocean— you were not aware of it

First you focused your aware-beam on the bad posture. Then you consciously constructed a good posture habit pattern in your conscious mind. Next, by conscious—and conscientious—practice of the new pattern, the law of substitution automatically operated. The new habit "pattern" became a habit in the subconscious.

Through this process, you made good posture your own. But remember, as long as something you have learned remains re- stricted to your conscious mind, it's still on "temporary loan." When your subconscious absorbs it, it's really yours.

The CONSClOUS-subconscious process is neither too difficult nor too complicated for a sincerely ambitious actor. Understanding and putting it into practice simply takes will power and common sense.

If you haven't completely absorbed the previous lesson, read it over—again and again if necessary—until you have thoroughly

"WHAT" PLUS "WHY" EQUALS "HOW"

grasped the theory of habit transference through the law of sub- stitution.

Take all the time you need to go back over the exercises. Syn- chronize them in practice with the CONSCIOUS-subconscious theory.

If you have thoroughly absorbed these lessons, you're going to find that the processes of learning have become much easier. Your entire outlook has broadened. You have learned that the subcon- scious is a vast natural reservoir of creativeness, inspiration and emotional power.

This reservoir is an inexhaustible treasure chest of your imagina- tion. When you see your ideal self—your perfect self—in a day- dream, you are tapping the reservoir of your subconscious.

A great actor, either through knowledge or intuition, taps his subconscious to construct consciously the whole personality and image of a character. Then, using the law of substitution, he sub- stitutes that character's personality for his own.

Among the great men and women of the theater none are more universally honored than Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, stars both individually and as a husband-and-wife team.

During one of his rare guest appearances on television, Alfred Lunt, referring to himself as a portrayer of characters conceived in a playwright's mind and born in an actor's performance, said, "You don't react as yourself, but as the character you are play- ing."

There are two times people move: when they're talking—and when they're not talking.

Notice the two general patterns.

When people move during a pause (while they're not talking), the movement does not overlap either the end of their last spoken

phrase or the beginning of their next spoken phrase. Usually they pause to take a breath. Sometimes to emphasize their words.

When people move during a spoken phrase, they generally start moving on the first syllable of the phrase and stop moving on the last syllable.

By watching others in natural conversation, we find them using these over-all movement-speech patterns. Instinctively, they are obeying two laws: the laws of timing, which are these patterns organized and codified.

People completely fill a pause with movement or they exactly synchronize speech with movement because—they're doing what comes naturally. Their dialogue is spontaneous conversation, cre- ated under real-life conditions. Consciously or subconsciously, they direct their own scenes, in settings and situations they voluntarily accept or reject.

The actor speaks dialogue created by someone else. He does it under conditions deliberately created by someone else. He is di- rected by someone else, in settings and situations arbitrarily de- vised by someone else.

In other words, he plays a part. The source of what he has to say and do, when, where and how he has to say and do it is outside himself.

The actor's problem is to make what he says and does, where, when and how he says and does it seem real. As IF he were the source.

The actor's solution to that problem is the use of common denominators, or connectors. One of the tremendously important common denominators to help the actor in his substitution of a character's personality for his own is the dual pattern of movement and speech.