An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski: Chapter 3

IN chapter 3, Stanislavski uses the director of his story, Tortsov to exemplify different acting exercises in order to show the reader different acting methods and the technicalities that can go along with acting. He starts by having the students simply sit on stage and "act," which inevitably leads to the students either overacting in a desire to impress, or simply sitting there petrified. Then Tortsov himself goes up and sits on stage and, while simply sitting, he impresses his students with his simplicity and his intensity. He then goes on to have his students do many other similar exercises, and expounds on the word "if." I really enjoyed this chapter because I was able to relate to it with some of the struggles and triumphs that I have had as an actor were similar to the students and definitely had to do with the themes of the exercises that Tortsov had his students perform.