How Writers and Actors Create a "Mental Motion Picture"

Recorded during a symposium on the Moscow Art Theatre, held at the United Nations Plaza, speakers focus on Konstantin Stanislavski's "Method of Physical and Verbal Action." According to an October 26th, 1964 article in the New York Times, the speakers visiting from the Soviet Union are:

Victor Manyukov, Theater Director and Teacher
Vladimir Prokofyev, Historian and Theoretician
Angelina Stepanova, Actress
Vasily Toporkov, Actor

They explain that an actor cannot simply speak the lines, but rather internalize all of the emotions and thoughts that lead up to delivering the lines. An actor must create a backstory, or a "mental motion picture," to understand the motivations of the character, even if this is not written on the page.

[Vladimir Prokofyev] gives examples of writers who have demonstrated a realistic sense of suffering like their protagonists during the writing process. To illustrate this point, he tells an anecdote about Maxim Gorky who stabbed himself while writing a scene in which a character is stabbed.

[Victor Manyukov] elaborates on the relationship between the words in a script and non-verbalized thoughts. He describes an exercise in which an actor looks at an image privately and then interprets the image to the acting group. Then they review the picture to see if it matches what they expected the image to look like, thereby measuring the actor's ability to convey meaning.

This is followed by a question and answer session featuring Stella Adler and Shelley Winters. They focus mainly on the use of emotion memory, i.e. using the five sense or recalling past experiences to create a sense memory for a character. According to the tape box, Rip Torn and Sonia Moore are also in attendance, but it is unclear if they speak.

Translations by Tanya Derugeen and Ross Levroff.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 151042
Municipal archives id: T7012