The Topology And Mythology Of The Self: Playing The Role Of Oneself Or The Drama Of The Self

Abstract

An actor must work all his life, cultivate his mind, train his talents systematically,develop his character; he may never despair and never relinquish this main purpose -to love his art with all his strength and love it unselfishly."Constantin Stanislavski "You follow the same law of improvisation, which is that you do whatever your impulse -as the character-tells you to do, but in this case you're the character, so you have no imaginary situation to hide behind, and you have no other person to hide behind. What you're doing, in fact, is asking those questions Stanislavski said that the actor should constantly ask himself as a character -Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I come from? -but instead of applying them to a role, you apply them to yourself" Excerpt from the Script' My Dinner with André' (Wallace Shawn and André Gregory)