tool and techniques for character interpretation

tool and techniques for character interpretation . SIGMUND FREUD, FATHER OF PSYCHOANALYSIS I 13 Prologue: The Study of Hysteria and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis, 13; The Foundations, I: How the Mind Works, 16; The Foundations, II: The Stages of Psychosexual Development, the Oedipus Complex, and the Nature of Sexuality, 23; About Neurosis and Disturbances in Mental Functioning, z9; Eros and Thanatos: The Life Instinct and the Death Instinct, 34; Questions and Considerations: The Practical Application of Freudian Ideas to Character Interpretation, 35; Free Association: An Exercise for Actors, Writers, and Directors, 68 1011972. MOTHERS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: ANNA FREUD, SIGMUNDS ANTIGONE; HELENE DEUTSCH, FREUDS DARLING; KAREN HORNEY AND THE NEUROTIC PERSONALITY I 71 Anna Freud, Sigmunds Antigone, 71; Helene Deutsch, Freuds Darling: The Psychology of the Feminine and Freudian Theory, 8o; Karen Horney on Feminine Psychology and on Neuroses, 84 3. MELANIE KLEIN AND OBJECTRELATIONS THEORY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES 189 111197Kleins Psychoanalytic Theories and the Beginnings of the ObjectRelations School, 89; The Development of ObjectRelations Theory, Attachment Theory, and Self Psychology 96 4. THE REBELLIOUS CROWN PRINCE: CARL GUSTAV JUNG AND ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY I III Prologue: The Conflict Between Jung and Freud, 111; The Major Concepts ofAnalytical Psychology, 114; Questions and Considerations: The Practical Applications of Jungs Ideas on Character and Character Typology, 117 5. Two OUTSTANDING PIONEERS: GEORG GRODDECK AND The Book of the 121197It; ALFRED ADLER AND INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY 123 Georg Groddecks Insights into Transference and Ambivalence: Deepening Characterization, 123; Alfred Adlers Ideas on Birth Order and the Inferiority Complex, 128 6. WILHELM REICH AND CHARACTER ANALYSIS I 135 The Emotional Plague, 137; Character Armoring, 138; Questions and Considerations: The Practical Application of Reichian Ideas to Character Interpretation, 141; Body Character Armoring: An Actors Exercise in Awareness, 149 1311977. EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE THEORIES OF WILLIAM JAMES, LUDWIG BINSWANGER, HARRY STACK SULLIVAN, JEANPAUL SARTRE, AND OTHER PIONEERS 1 151 William James on the Nature of Habits, 151; An American School of Psychiatry: Harry Stack Sullivans Interpersonal Relations, 153; Ludwig Binswanger and Existential Psychology; Viktor Frank and Logotherapy; Sartre and the Look in the Eye of the Other, 16o; Facing the Opposite: An Existentialist Exercise from Gestalt Therapy, 168; Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (BPP) and the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) Method, 169; An Exercise: Using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT), 171 1411978. PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS AND TOPICS I 175 PART TWO INTERPRETING CHARACTERS: THE PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 1 221 Introduction 1 223 PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS IN PLAYS AND FILMS 9. SHAKESPEARES TIMELESS PSYCHOLOGICAL THEMES I 229 A Psychopathic Personality: Shakespeares Richard the Third, 229; The Merchant of Venice: The Psychology of Prejudice, 233; 151197Some Characters in Othello: Paranoia and Wounded Love, 24o; A Classic Freudian Interpretation: Ernest Joness Hamlet and Oedipus, 244; Other Approaches to Hamlet, 248 10. SHERIDAN, STRINDBERG, AND IBSEN: THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEMINISM I 253 Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute in Sheridans The Rivals Two Narcissistic Egotists, 253; August Strindbergs Miss Julie, 2,55; Feminism and Ibsens A Dolls House and Hedda Gabler, 256 11. ANTON CHEKHOV I 265 161197Chekhovs Philosophy; The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, and Other Plays, 265; On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, 269; Three Sisters, 271; Uncle Vanya, 275 12. THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT: SIX MODERN PLAYS I 283 Introduction: The Psychology of the Artist, 283; Martin Morans The Tricky Part, 287; Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, and The Marquis of Queensberry in Moises Kaufmans Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, 289; 171197Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Rudolph Besiers The Barretts of Wimpole Street, 297; Emily Dickinson in William Luces The Belle ofAmherst, 300; A. E. Housman in Tom Stoppards The Invention ofLove, 302; Rimbaud and Verlaine in Christopher Hamptons Total Eclipse, 304 Selected Bibliography 309 Acting and Theater, 309; Plays and Playwrights, 310; Psychology and Psychoanalysis, 311; 181197Literary Works, Literary Biographies, and Criticism, 317 List of Films and Television Series 1319 List of Plays 1 323 About the Author 1 327 191197aving run through the gamut of plays from every century in teaching scene study these forty years and more, I have come up with some rules of thumb for character analysis. I often characterize plays written since Sophie Treadwells Machinal as postFreudian and all previous ones as preFreudian. Machinal is an all but forgotten psychological drama based on a sensational reallife murder case Treadwell had covered as a journalist. It was produced on Broadway in 1928, with Clark Gable making his debut. Written in a repetitive, impressionistic style, through the eyes of its heroine (the murderess), this play greatly influenced the 201197young Eugene ONeill, who went on to write Strange Interlude using a stream of consciousness technique. Early ONeill, Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Wilde, Shakespeare, and Moliere, I call preFreudian; Williams, Miller, Inge, Pinter, Mamet, et al., postFreudian. My reason for making this distinction is an important one for the actor to keep in mind while exploring the characters psyche: Freud brought about a universal awareness that is present in all postFreudian plays, in sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle ways. Some modern playwrights, such as Arthur Miller, spell out their characters problems, and some of the more poetic ones, Tennessee Williams most especially, cloak their characters, keeping them in the dark. But in all twentiethcentury postFreudian plays, the actor will discover in the subtext a good deal of intrigue and complexity, conscious and unconscious, which will eventually define his or her performance. No one can doubt the 211197Freudian influence on the New Wave English writers, and Neil Simons hilarious comedies all have characters with clearly recognizable psychological neuroses. On the other hand, when exploring preFreudian plays, the actor must take care to hold on to a certain innocence about his or her characters motivations, for example with a playwright like Chekhov, who illuminated the human condition second only to Shakespeare. The trials and tribulations of Chekhovian characters derive from their total lack of ability to understand their own or others motivations. It is very helpful to the actor to analyze what motivates them, but that analysis must recede into the unconscious in order for the actor to become the character who does not understand motivations A profound psychological understanding of human nature certainly can be found in plays as far back as the Greeks; yet any actress 221197playing Antigone should not psychoanalyze her as someone with a martyr complex. Her reasons for choosing death have to be what she claims them to be or the play doesnt work. I once had a student playing Orlando in act 3, scene 2, of As You Like It, with the disguised Rosalind, and he was behaving very strangely. I asked him what his choices were, and he said that he naturally recognized that the boy he was with was really a girl, and so he felt his Orlando must know it too. Talk about the loss of innocence Knowing but then forgetting is the actors job in every event. However, in preFreudian plays of earlier times, it certainly helps actors to understand fully what psychological forces may be driving their characters, but in the end they must remain innocent of them in order to play the character. To do this, they learn to accept the text at face value, first and foremost, burying their sophisticated analyses during rehearsals. By all means analyze 231197Hamlets procrastination, but be sure at the same time to keep him in his Shakespearean state of selfwoe and determination for revenge With this book, Robert Blumenfeld has done all the research into the modern science of psychology for us, which, combined with his personal experience as an actor and a coach in the theater, fills a void and goes a very long way in correcting the controversy and confusion regarding the use of Freud in both the acting classroom and play rehearsals. This book, written in a lively and readable style, helps us analyze what lies behind our own behavior and how it can be used as a source for the character in the play. As an acting teacher and coach, I have acquired a particular aversion to the unfortunately all too common teaching approach that had its beginnings way back in the 1950S inside the Actors Studio. Grossly misinterpreting the original Stanislavsky tenets, 241197the instructor in these types of classes uses pseudopsychoanalytic methods as a means of opening up acting students and breaking down their inhibitions. The students are often forced to expose themselves in front of the class in the form of private moment exercises and, in some cases, even appear nude My own philosophy of teaching acting emphasizes instead a respect for my students personal lives, treating them as colleagues and not as patients. There is no doubt that searching into ones past in order to understand how childhood events have molded ones adult behavior is a very useful step in analyzing a character in a play. Such selfanalysis helps to provide substitutions, where necessary, to bring about the behavior and emotions required. However, these personal revelations should be kept private. They are not to be shared with the class as a whole. The danger in making public in class intimate details of the 251197students past life is twofold: firstly, it could bring about a crisis in an especially sensitive person that the acting teacher would be illequipped to handle; and secondly, the Stanislavski approach actually demands secrecy Without secrets, the actor is never free to experiment. What caused his or her tears, for instance, has to be protected for the long run of the play, or else they will dry upthat is to say if the actor can remember what he or she used to begin with. By opening night, the substitution the actor made during rehearsals ought to have become so woven into the fabric of his or her role that the substitution itself is forgotten. There are some directorsfewer and fewer these dayswho prefer an open approach during rehearsals and who discuss the characters, their relationships to one another, and even their motivations in front of the entire cast. But even in these cases, all personal, subjective decisions the actor makes to bring about his or her own 261197experience should remain secret. My teacher and mentor, Uta Hagen, believed that any details of the students private life that he or she would not reveal to a close personal friend should be censored in the class as well This book will enable students to research their pasts to find parallels for use in character interpretation in private. Common sense, instincts, impulses, memory, logic, recognizing ones own neuroses andor peculiarities, sensitivity, empathy, sometimes even pityall play a huge part in character analysis. In a pure interpretation of the Stanislavsky technique, the actor should begin the process of searching for the character in the play with an amorphous idea. By using as if I were, the actor works to become a character that is not preconceived physically nor even influenced by the playwrights description, or else the performance is in danger of being just a stereotypean intellectual idea rather than a 271197fully realized human being. By making accessible the psychology behind behavior, Robert Blumenfelds book inspires and aids the actor in the process of personalizing and building the character from the inside out.

By Robert Blumenfeld

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH LOVEAND GRATITUDE TO MY MATERNALAND PATERNAL FAMILY: THE KORNSAND THE BLUMENFELDS, AND

ESPECIALLY TO MY FATHER, MAXDAVID BLUMENFELD (1911-1994), AND

MY MOTHER, RUTH KORN

BLUMENFELD

Foreword by Alice Spivak I xi

The Actor's Art and Psychology: Theoreticaland Practical Considerations

1 SIGMUND FREUD, FATHER OFPSYCHOANALYSIS I 13

Prologue: The Study of Hysteria and the ginnings of Psychoanalysis, 13;

Be-The Foundations, I: How the Mind Works,16;

The Foundations, II: The Stages of sexual Development, the Oedipus Complex,and the Nature of Sexuality, 23;

Psycho-About Neurosis and Disturbances in MentalFunctioning, z9;

Eros and Thanatos: The Life Instinct and theDeath Instinct, 34;

Questions and Considerations: The PracticalApplication of Freudian Ideas to CharacterInterpretation, 35;

Free Association: An Exercise for Actors,Writers, and Directors, 68

2 MOTHERS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS:ANNA FREUD, SIGMUND'S "ANTIGONE";HELENE DEUTSCH, "FREUD'S DARLING";KAREN HORNEY AND THE NEUROTICPERSONALITY I 71

Anna Freud, Sigmund's "Antigone", 71;

Helene Deutsch, "Freud's Darling": The chology of the Feminine and Freudian The-ory, 8o;

Psy-Karen Horney on Feminine Psychology and

on Neuroses, 84

3 MELANIE KLEIN AND RELATIONS THEORY IN GREAT BRITAINAND THE UNITED STATES 189

OBJECT-Klein's Psychoanalytic Theories and the ginnings of the Object-Relations School,89;

Be-The Development of Object-Relations Be-ory, Attachment Theory, and Self- Psycho-logy 96

The-4 THE REBELLIOUS CROWN PRINCE:CARL GUSTAV JUNG AND ANALYTICALPSYCHOLOGY I III

Prologue: The Conflict Between Jung andFreud, 111;

The Major Concepts ofAnalytical Psychology,114;

Questions and Considerations: The PracticalApplications of Jung's Ideas on Characterand Character Typology, 117

5 Two OUTSTANDING PIONEERS:GEORG GRODDECK AND The Book of the

It; ALFRED ADLER AND INDIVIDUALPSYCHOLOGY 123

Georg Groddeck's Insights into Transferenceand Ambivalence: Deepening Characteriza-tion, 123;

Alfred Adler's Ideas on Birth Order and theInferiority Complex,

Body/ Character Armoring: An Actor's cise in Awareness, 149

Exer-7 EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THETHEORIES OF WILLIAM JAMES, LUDWIGBINSWANGER, HARRY STACK SULLIVAN,JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, AND OTHERPIONEERS 1 151

William James on the Nature of Habits, 151;

An American School of Psychiatry: HarryStack Sullivan's Interpersonal Relations,153;

Ludwig Binswanger and Existential logy; Viktor Frank] and Logotherapy;

Psycho-Sartre and the Look in the Eye of the Other,16o;

Facing the Opposite: An Existentialist cise from Gestalt Therapy, 168;

Exer-Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (BPP)and the Core Conflictual Relationship

Theme (CCRT) Method, 169;

An Exercise: Using the Core Conflictual

Relationship Theme (CCRT), 171

8 PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS AND TOPICS

Some Characters in Othello: Paranoia andWounded Love, 24o;

A Classic Freudian Interpretation: ErnestJones's Hamlet and Oedipus, 244;

Other Approaches to Hamlet, 248

10 SHERIDAN, STRINDBERG, AND

FEMINISM I 253

Mrs Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute inSheridan's The Rivals Two Narcissistic Egot-ists, 253;

August Strindberg's Miss Julie, 2,55;

Feminism and Ibsen's A Doll's House andHedda Gabler, 256

11 ANTON CHEKHOV I 265

Chekhov's Philosophy; The Cherry Orchard,The Seagull, and Other Plays, 265;

On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, 269;

Martin Moran's The Tricky Part, 287;

Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, and TheMarquis of Queensberry in MoisesKaufman's Gross Indecency: The Three Tri-als of Oscar Wilde, 289;

Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning inRudolph Besier's The Barretts of WimpoleStreet, 297;

Emily Dickinson in William Luce's The BelleofAmherst, 300;

A E Housman in Tom Stoppard's The vention ofLove, 302;

In-Rimbaud and Verlaine in ChristopherHampton's Total Eclipse, 304

Selected Bibliography 309

Acting and Theater, 309;

Plays and Playwrights, 310;

Psychology and Psychoanalysis, 311;

Literary Works, Literary Biographies, andCriticism, 317

List of Films and Television Series 1319

List of Plays 1 323

About the Author 1 327

aving run through the gamut of playsfrom every century in teaching scene studythese forty years and more, I have come upwith some rules of thumb for character ana-lysis I often characterize plays written sinceSophie Treadwell's Machinal as "post-Freu-dian" and all previous ones as "pre-Freudi-an." Machinal is an all but forgotten psycho-logical drama based on a sensational real-lifemurder case Treadwell had covered as ajournalist It was produced on Broadway in

1928, with Clark Gable making his debut.Written in a repetitive, impressionistic style,

"through the eyes" of its heroine (themurderess), this play greatly influenced the

young Eugene O'Neill, who went on to writeStrange Interlude using a "stream of con-sciousness" technique Early O'Neill, Chek-hov, Ibsen, Shaw, Wilde, Shakespeare, andMoliere, I call preFreudian; Williams, Miller,Inge, Pinter, Mamet, et al., post-Freudian.

My reason for making this distinction is animportant one for the actor to keep in mindwhile exploring the character's psyche: Freudbrought about a universal awareness that ispresent in all post-Freudian plays, in some-times obvious and sometimes subtle ways.Some modern playwrights, such as ArthurMiller, "spell out" their characters' problems,and some of the more poetic ones, TennesseeWilliams most especially, cloak their charac-ters, keeping them in the dark But in alltwentiethcentury post-Freudian plays, theactor will discover in the subtext a good deal

of intrigue and complexity, conscious andunconscious, which will eventually define his

or her performance No one can doubt the

Freudian influence on the New Wave Englishwriters, and Neil Simon's hilarious comediesall have characters with clearly recognizablepsychological neuroses.

On the other hand, when exploring Freudian plays, the actor must take care tohold on to a certain innocence about his orher character's motivations, for example with

pre-a plpre-aywright like Chekhov, who illuminpre-atedthe human condition second only to

Shakespeare The trials and tribulations ofChekhovian characters derive from theirtotal lack of ability to understand their own

or others' motivations It is very helpful tothe actor to analyze what motivates them,but that analysis must recede into the uncon-scious in order for the actor to "become" thecharacter who does not understand

playing Antigone should not psychoanalyzeher as someone with a martyr complex Herreasons for choosing death have to be whatshe claims them to be or the play doesn'twork I once had a student playing Orlando

in act 3, scene 2, of As You Like It, with thedisguised Rosalind, and he was behavingvery strangely I asked him what his choiceswere, and he said that he naturally recog-nized that the "boy" he was with was really agirl, and so he felt his Orlando must know ittoo Talk about the loss of innocence! Know-ing but then forgetting is the actor's job inevery event However, in pre-Freudian plays

of earlier times, it certainly helps actors tounderstand fully what psychological forcesmay be driving their characters, but in theend they must remain innocent of them inorder to play the character To do this, theylearn to accept the text at face value, first andforemost, burying their sophisticated ana-lyses during rehearsals By all means analyze

Hamlet's procrastination, but be sure at thesame time to keep him in his Shakespeareanstate of self-woe and determination for

revenge!

With this book, Robert Blumenfeld hasdone all the research into the modern sci-ence of psychology for us, which, combinedwith his personal experience as an actor and

a coach in the theater, fills a void and goes avery long way in correcting the controversyand confusion regarding the use of Freud inboth the acting classroom and play rehears-als This book, written in a lively and read-able style, helps us analyze what lies behindour own behavior and how it can be used as asource for the character in the play

As an acting teacher and coach, I have quired a particular aversion to the unfortu-nately all too common teaching approachthat had its beginnings way back in the

ac-1950S inside the Actors Studio Grossly interpreting the original Stanislavsky tenets,

mis-the instructor in mis-these types of classes usespseudopsychoanalytic methods as a means of

"opening up" acting students and "breakingdown" their inhibitions The students are of-ten forced to "expose" themselves in front ofthe class in the form of "private moment" ex-ercises and, in some cases, even appear

nude! My own philosophy of teaching actingemphasizes instead a respect for my stu-dents' personal lives, treating them as "col-leagues" and not as "patients."

There is no doubt that searching into one'spast in order to understand how childhoodevents have molded one's adult behavior is avery useful step in analyzing a character in aplay Such self-analysis helps to provide sub-stitutions, where necessary, to bring aboutthe behavior and emotions required

However, these personal revelations should

be kept private They are not to be sharedwith the class as a whole The danger in mak-ing public in class intimate details of the

student's past life is twofold: firstly, it couldbring about a crisis in an especially sensitiveperson that the acting teacher would be ill-equipped to handle; and secondly, the Stan-islavski approach actually demands secrecy!Without secrets, the actor is never free toexperiment What caused his or her tears, forinstance, has to be protected for the long run

of the play, or else they will dry up-that is tosay if the actor can remember what he or sheused to begin with By opening night, thesubstitution the actor made during rehears-als ought to have become so woven into thefabric of his or her role that the substitutionitself is forgotten There are some directors-fewer and fewer these days-who prefer an

"open" approach during rehearsals and whodiscuss the characters, their relationships toone another, and even their motivations infront of the entire cast But even in thesecases, all personal, subjective decisions theactor makes to bring about his or her own

experience should remain secret My teacherand mentor, Uta Hagen, believed that anydetails of the student's private life that he orshe would not reveal to a close personal

friend should be censored in the class aswell! This book will enable students to re-search their pasts to find parallels for use incharacter interpretation in private

Common sense, instincts, impulses,

memory, logic, recognizing one's own oses and/or peculiarities, sensitivity, em-pathy, sometimes even pity-all play a hugepart in character analysis In a pure inter-pretation of the Stanislavsky technique, theactor should begin the process of searchingfor the character in the play with an amorph-ous idea By using "as if I were," the actorworks to "become" a character that is notpreconceived physically nor even influenced

neur-by the playwright's description, or else theperformance is in danger of being just a

stereotype-an intellectual idea rather than a

fully realized human being By making cessible the psychology behind behavior,Robert Blumenfeld's book inspires and aidsthe actor in the process of personalizing andbuilding the character from the inside out.

ac-hen I first talked with him about thisbook, Mel Zerman, founder and former pub-lisher of Limelight Editions, remarked,

"Theater and psychology are kissing ins." And Dr Gerald Perlman, a psychologistand psychotherapist whose avocation is act-ing and who suggested the subject of thebook to me in the first place, wrote to me, "Itoo have thought they are kissing cousins.When I was applying to grad school aftermajoring in acting earlier, I would often beasked about the transitions I had a stock an-swer, which was: I was going from the art ofbehavior to the science of behavior." Thisbook goes in the opposite direction: it takesfrom the science of behavior tools and

cous-techniques that will be useful to the actor inpracticing the art of behavior, to the writer increating characters with depth, and to thedirector in interpreting scripts.

For the actor, these psychological tools aremeant to be an addition to the actor's usualStanislavskian kit Many schools and ap-proaches are surveyed in this handbook,from Freudian psychoanalysis to contempor-ary developments The material presentedhere should prove valuable both to thosewho are unfamiliar with psychology and psy-choanalysis and to those who are alreadyknowledgeable

In approaching a character interpretation

as an actor or in writing characters or ing a play, you may want to take a particularschool of thought and follow it through con-sistently: a Freudian, a Kleinian object-rela-tions, or an existential approach using Lud-wig Binswanger's questions, or perhaps a

direct-Jungian approach might be particularly teresting to you, for instance Or you maywant to be eclectic and combine approaches.For example, you might explore the applica-tion to a character of Freudian Oedipal the-ory and Bowlby's attachment theory

in-together

In part i, you will find sections called

"Questions and Considerations." These aremeant to show you the practical application

of the psychological principles and ideas cidated earlier in the chapter There are illus-trative examples throughout of theatricaland cinematic characters, showing how psy-chological concepts and constructs apply inspecific cases Some plays-among them

elu-Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, Hamlet, HeddaGabler, and Romeo and Juliet-are referencedcontinually, so that you can view them andtheir characters from slightly different anglesand see how different psychological points ofview can be applied to them The analyses of

characters in part 2 will show you more

about the practical application to both classicand contemporary plays of ideas drawn fromvarious schools of psychology

You will notice as you read about charactertypes and various character classificationalsystems that character traits can be common

to several types It is the combination or stellation of traits that enables psychologistsand psychiatrists to categorize or classifysomeone as belonging to a particular type,such as the ones listed and elucidated in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of MentalDisorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision(DSM-N-TR) (zooo), a book that is very use-ful for actors, writers, and directors It is im-portant to note that within any classification,there are seemingly endless individual vari-ations And of course, in theatrical literaturebehavior is simplified, crystallized, and dis-tilled, and inevitably less complex than it is

con-in real life, enablcon-ing us to understand

phenomena by isolating them so we can look

at them

A general rule, implied but not always ectly presented in this book, is that the socialcontext and the era in which a play is set aredeterminants of its characters' behavior,along with each character's individual devel-opment from childhood on For instance, thekindly way in which Olga treats the old

dir-Nurse in Chekhov's Three Sisters as a ber of the family, as opposed to the harsh,authoritarian way Natasha treats her, has to

mem-do with both individual and social logy, and with class consciousness in the dec-ades shortly before the Russian Revolution.The particular sensitivity of Olga, with hercompassionate nature, is perhaps not at onewith the era she lives in, and it heralds thebirth of a new, egalitarian way of looking atthe Russian world as she feels it ought to be.She sees the Nurse as a dignified, loving per-son, who has done everything expected of

psycho-her and deserves respect in psycho-her old age.

Natasha, on the other hand, is very much intune with the general social attitudes of hertime and place She treats the old woman as

if she is simply worthless and has outlivedher usefulness The Nurse, who has both dig-nity and a masochistic attitude of subservi-ence, is aware of the low place she occupies

in the social hierarchy, and she is hurt byNatasha's contemptuous, sadistic cruelty Inother words, the social relationships obtain-ing in the world that is the background to theplay are reflected directly in the relationships

of its characters, who are therefore ible for the perpetuation of those attitudes.Through Olga society may begin to change,but it certainly will not through Natasha orthrough the Nurse, who has, in any case,already lived most of her life conforming towhat was expected of her in accordance withher upbringing, just as William James pointsout most of us do

respons-Many actors like to keep notebooks aboutthe characters they are playing They writedown their character's biography, includingthe history of childhood influences and thegeneral historical and sociocultural back-ground Anna Freud's developmental linesand Winnicott's contributions to the analysis

of child development, as well as the AAI

(Adult Attachment Interview), should proveuseful tools

The substitution of anything from your ownpast that is relevant or analogous to yourcharacter's life is the most important tech-nique when it comes to finding the

character's behavior, as Lee Strasberg, UtaHagen, Alice Spivak, and others have poin-ted out You can make good use of HarryStack Sullivan's psychiatric interview ques-tions and the Core Conflictual RelationshipTheme (CCRT), among other tools, for thepurposes of exploring relationships and find-ing substitutions

Every time you are called on to act a part,you have to learn acting all over again Youuse the same methods, tools, and techniques,but you have to learn new circumstances and

a whole new set of responses and reactions.You have to learn new behavior I supposepsychotherapists have to learn therapy allover again every time they work with a newpatient, even though the therapist will usethe same methods of working with the pa-tient and the same principles of interpreta-tion But every therapy is individual, just asevery actor and every character is individual.New territory has to be explored each andevery time I hope you enjoy the exploration.And I hope you find this book both enter-taining and useful

interviewed a great many people for thisbook, both actors and people in the field ofpsychology and psychoanalysis I thank themall for their help and support I want to ac-knowledge first and foremost Gerald Perl-man, Ph.D., psychologist and psychotherap-ist, a good friend, and-not least-a gifted act-

or, for suggesting that I write this book Hiscontribution has been invaluable, especiallyhis vetting of parts of the manuscript and hismany helpful suggestions And I give veryspecial thanks to Alice Spivak, with whom Istudied acting many years ago She not onlywrote the foreword to this book but also hadsome very helpful and interesting things to

say on the relationship between psychologyand acting.

My greatest thanks go to my family, cially to my mother, Ruth Blumenfeld: quite

espe-an expert on films espe-and film stars, she wasable to make some very helpful suggestionsfor me regarding the material on films to beincluded in this book; to my wonderful, be-loved father, Max Blumenfeld (1911-94), anadmirable man who devoted much time tovolunteer public service, despite his demand-ing job as a chemist and bacteriologist; and

to my brothers Richard and Donald I giveheartfelt thanks and great appreciation to mydear cousin Marjorie Loewer, Ph.D., a pro-fessional psychologist who provided me withinvaluable suggestions, and to my beloveduncle Seymour Korn for giving me manybooks from his late wife Dr Shirley Korn's(i9i92004) library on psychology She was anamazing psychologist, with whom I had anumber of conversations about psychology

long before I thought of writing this book,and I am deeply sorry to have lost her Hadshe lived, she would have been of immensehelp to me on this project.

And I owe many thanks to Mel Zerman,founder and former publisher of LimelightEditions, for his always helpful advice I givegreat thanks as well to my friends Ben Ar-thur, a writer and musician, for reading parts

of the manuscript and giving me helpful ticism; Michael Mendiola, an excellent actor,for very fruitful conversations; the superbactor John Guerrasio for many helpful sug-gestions; and John Bloomfield, Jacob Knoll,James Hatch, Dan Truman, Peter Kingsley,and Albert S Bennett, for their invaluablesupport and much useful information

cri-Thanks also to Derek Tague for suggestedreading; playwright Ian Strasvogel for excel-lent suggestions; Joel Markowitz, M.D., psy-chiatrist, for many fascinating conversationsabout psychology, Freud, and related issues;