ON ACTING: The Source of True Actor Energy

Legitimate performance energy arises in actor's scene conflict involvement alone; it is there that actor energy becomes lifelike: real, specific and engaging. On the other hand, performance energy which is derived only from an actor’s ‘desire to affect and please’ the audience is false; and therefore off-putting.

Mothers and fathers may be happy their kids are trying hard, but that kind of auto-induced and generalized acting performance energy, no matter how virtuoso its practitioner-- arising as it does not out of the truth of inner story and conflict; not because of the truth of character emotional urgency; but rather out of actor’s desire to show and tell--is lesser acting.

It is less than lesser acting, it is false acting. In truth, it is less than false-acting: it is non-acting.