Saturday, August 22, 2020 - “The Actor’s Instrument” - Edward Dwight Easty - Part II

Last Saturday I recounted my first introduction to Edward Dwight Easty’s On Method Acting (1966) and presented the block quotation that opens the book and serves as the central thesis of Easty’s book: “The Actor’s Instrument.” 

For clarity, and as a point of departure for Part II of this series, the quote, once more, appears below:

“An actor’s instrument is his whole self. It is his body, his mind and being, complete with thoughts, emotions, sensitivity, imagination, honesty and awareness. Try to imagine the actor’s instrument in much the same way you picture the musician and his violin, the artist and his canvas, paints, and brushes. Think of them as one and inseparable. Just as the musician practices daily on his instrument, always perfecting its response to his will through training, and the artist mixes his paints, brushing them on with the precision and beauty accrued only by drill, so must the actor be concerned with the training and development of his instrument and its responses to his commands.”

In Part I, I raised this question: what, if anything at all, separates The Actor’s Instrument from The Writer’s Instrument? Said otherwise, if the Writer’s instrument is not his pen, paper, typewriter, or laptop, then it has to be the same as the Actor’s instrument: his whole self.

Yet, even this answer –––– that the Actor’s Instrument is the same as the Writer’s Instrument –––– fails to capture the thin line that separates acting from writing; where does one begin, and the other end?
 

Watching the Actor use his Instrument to bring a character and a story to life is intriguing ––– and captivating –––– in a way that watching the Writer use his Instrument to bring a character and a story to life is not.

The Actor, even when he is completely still and silent, is in motion. He is in motion, even in his stillness, because at any moment, we know that he can (or could –––– or just might) move again. Thus, our bodies (and our hearts) can and do respond to the cues and cadences of the Actor’s when he is using his Instrument with control and mastery.

The physicality of acting is easy to overlook and take for granted. Here’s why: when the Actor’s Instrument is in-tune and functioning at a high level, we forget that it’s even there –––– we’re immersed in the character, and with everything we have, we’ve fallen into the story –––– we’ve become, in effect, enraptured. 

This effect, this enrapturing, can happen as well when a reader has been pulled, completely, into the world of a story that the Writer has created; however, the physicality of this connection –––– the connection between the Reader and the Writer –––– is absent.

The Writer can be off somewhere else –––– anywhere else, as the Reader is engrossed in the story that she has created. In this regard, the question of what constitutes the Writer’s Instrument is easy to overlook. If she, the Writer, is not there in the room and on stage; or there, upon the screen, as the Viewer is connecting with the work which her Instrument has created, then the question of how ––––– and through what Instrument –––– the Writer has created her work is less pressing.

It becomes something that may be discussed and considered, some vague and unknown –––– other

time, but it does not rest at the forefront of our imagination and consideration. Said otherwise, the mystery of how the Writer's Instrument creates her story is less captivating than how the Actor's Instrument creates his character, and as a result, the question of the Writer and her Instrument, is simply asked –––– either less often, or if not less often, then certainly, with less fanfare and fascination.

Yes. Writers are interviewed; and questions are asked of them, questions like: "how did you come up with this character?" and "what motivates you to write?" but without the physicality of the in-person, or on-screen connection, the answers to these questions shimmer and shine less brightly.

Yet; this is what makes writing so important, and powerful, and beautiful: without the writer, there are no characters, and without characters, there are no actors.

However, this question can also be walked through in the other direction: without the Actor, the Writer's characters only exist on the page, and with characters who only exist on a page, the Writer's access to a broader audience is severely depleted.

Thus, one could ask: who needs the other the most: the Writer, or the Actor?