ON ACTING: Forming the Layers of Character

The layers of our personality are the sediment of our living. 'Who and what we are' are our geological character strata laid down by the streams of our life. The older we are, the more and faster rivers and streams we have traversed, on which we have floated down and have left their imprint on us, the deeper and more rich is that strata-of-self which has been formed and which is our overall personality depth at any given point in time.

In the present, life's continuing experiences--or, for actors, the next moment in a scene's confrontation--chip away at, drill deeply into, level by level, this past-formed personality's/character's strata, revealing ever-increasing layers (emotional residues) of personality formed during that past...until by a scene's (or whole work's) end, our most fundamental self, the rock/sediment foundations of our essential self--the core layer below all other geological layers--is laid bare, available now to us as actors and characters to view, and through us for the audience to experience and to face...and to learn from.