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Acting is the Art of Physical Action
By Mark Westbrook

Actors perform the actions of fictional characters, the audience watching suspend their disbelief and create character out of playwright's word and actor's action. This action must always be motivated, it must always have a cause. This is cause is found when analyzing the scene for the driving needs of the character in the scene.

"All action in the theatre must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent and real."
Stanislavski

Action is both physical and psychological, it is what we call psychophysical action, usually confusingly shortened to Physical Action. Action must have its own cause (that's the Psychological aspect), it's motivation, it's driving force. The action is the end-result of the cause. No matter how fantastical the story, the audience will believe in the imaginary circumstances if they are both logical and coherent. If it is not logical, if it does not contain logic, following a certain ordered pattern of behaviour, the audience will not suspend their disbelief. The coherence is provided by being logically connected. In Finding Nemo, we discover that fish can talk. It is logical and coherent that all fish talk in this fictional world, although some fish speak in different languages. An action must be logical, coherent and also physical, for it is through the physical world that we accomplish and achieve our desires.

Many actors, when asked what acting is mention the word 'emotion'. The obsession with emotion is damaging to our craft of acting. There is nothing wrong with emotion itself. Emotion is the byproduct of action in life and on the stage. The pursuit of emotion makes the actor frustrated and strongly self conscious and this leads to poor acting. Many student actors when asked will list 'the portrayal of emotion' one of their definitions for acting. There is no such thing as the portrayal of emotion because it cannot be controlled or willed. If it could, no one would need therapy or counseling. Stanislavski warns in An Actor Prepares: "Leave feeling and spiritual content alone"

If you work towards an emotional result, you will end up muddying the scene, waiting, preparing the emotion when you should be acting truthfully off your partner. When that emotion does not arrive, or even if it does, you will be thrown out of the scene and either be overwhelmed by it or criticize yourself for not becoming emotional. Stanislavski again insists in An Actor Prepares:

"On the stage there cannot be, under any circumstances, action which is directed immediately at the arousing of a feeling for its own sake."

Emotions are intangible, they cannot be summoned at will and employed in the service of the play. They can be faked, but usually very badly. Acting is as David Mamet describes it in True and False:

"A physical art. It is close to the study of music or of dancing"
Acting is a physical thing, to some like a sport or game. The actor is the aesthetic athlete. In what way is acting like a sport?

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