This article is my summary of the 19th chapter of An Actor’s Work by Konstantin Stanislavski. This book is a new edition and English translation by Jean Benedetti of the material previously published under the titles « An Actor Prepares » and « Building A Character« .

Previous chapter: §18. Physical Education (Konstantin Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work)
Next chapter: §20. Perspective of the Actor and the Role
Table of contents: An Actor’s Work (Konstantin Stanislavski)

Why is voice and speech training important for the actor ?

Most people have poor speaking habits in their daily lives. Voice and speech work is necessary to avoid bringing these bad speaking habits onto the stage.

“Most people speak badly, poorly in daily life but aren’t aware of it. We are used to our faults. (…) And so, before you start work on the next phase in our work, you must recognize your own faults, so you can break free of the common actors’ habit of referring back to yourself and taking your own, incorrect, daily speech as a model to justify even worse speech onstage.” (p. 400)

“Onstage you mustn’t speak badly as in life.” (p. 418)

On stage, speech is usually even worse than in real life, since the actors don’t speak their own words and therefore don’t have any compelling reason to say them. This gets even worse as lines are repeated over and over again in rehearsals and performances.

« Speech is in an even worse state onstage than in life. (…) [Onstage] we speak someone else’s, the author’s, lines. Often they’re not what we need or want to say. And, in life, we speak in response to what we see physically or mentally, to what we genuinely feel and think, and actually sense things which really exist. Onstage we have to talk about what our characters live, see, feel, not what we ourselves see, feel and think.” (p. 400)

Common speech faults onstage include:

• The actor saying the words for their own sake, not for the sake of Communication. Words are spoken mechanically, with no attention being paid to the thoughts and Feelings they convey. 

“Lines that have been repeated over and over again in rehearsal and frequent performance are rattled off. Then their inner content vanishes and only the mechanics remain. (…) Gradually a specific stock stage speech develops.” (p. 400)

“For those actors, the character’s ideas and feelings are step-children. The real children are the lines themselves. (…) Once [the actors] are used to them, (…) the lines lose their savour, their sense. They’re not even stored in their minds, in their hearts, only in the articulatory muscles.” (p. 401)

“What do people think about, what do they feel when they are mechanically mouthing these words? Nothing that has anything to do with their sense. (…) When an actor rattles off his lines, he is thinking about irrelevancies.” (p. 401)

“Your mistake was speaking the words first and only trying to understand what you were saying afterwards. You’re not drawing from life.” (p. 427)

• The actors saying the words for the sake of showing off their voice

“It’s no good listening to your own voices. That’s narcissism, exhibitionism. It’s not question of how you say it but of how other people hear and understand it. Listening to yourself is a false task. (…) [It] endangers creative work, confuses you and diverts you from the active path.” (p. 427)

In order to correct these faults, we need first to understand what is the prupose of speech in real life and then bring the same process onto the stage.

What is the purpose of speech in real life ?

In real life, we use words to express thoughts and sensory experiences.

“Words are the most concrete expression of human thought.” (p. 402)

“Words can also stimulate our five senses. All you need to do is recall the name of a piece of music or an artist, a dish, a favourite perfume and so on and you revive aural and visual images, the smells, tastes, tactile sensations of which the words speak.”  (p. 402)

In particular, we use words and voice to make the listener see our Mental Images.

“When we are in verbal communication with someone we first see the things we are talking about with our own inner eye and then say what we have seen. If we are listening, then, first of all, our ears take in what is being said and then we see what we have heard with our eye. In our vocabulary to hear means to see what is being talked about, and to speak means to draw visual images. For actors, words aren’t mere sounds, but stimuli to images. So, when in verbal communication, we speak not so much to the ear as to the eye.” (p. 405)

“The way you used sound and inflexions to portray your visual images so we could see them with your eyes! What an effort you made to choose your words and colour them differently. (…) The care you took to ensure that the picture you conveyed was close to the original, that is to the mental images.” (p. 403)

What should speech be about on stage ?

As in real life, words onstage should be seen not as an end in themselves but as a means to an end: they are Actions that the actor take in order to convey thoughts, Feelings, intentions sensory experiences, images, etc. Stanislavski calls Subtext all these things that the words aim to express. If Speech is Action, then the Subtext is its Throughaction. It’s only when the Subtext is brought to life that the meaning of the play can be revealed.

“There should be no soulless, emotionless words in the theatre. Neither should there be unthinking, actionless words. Words must excite all manner of feelings, wants, thoughts, intentions, creative ideas, aural and visual images, and other sensory experiences in the actors and their partners and, through them, the audience. This means that the words, the dialogue, aren’t valuable in and for themselves but for their content, their subtext.“ (p. 402)

“Only when the whole line of the Subtext runs through our feelings, like an underground spring, can we create the Throughaction of the character and the play. This is effected not only through physical movement but through speech. You can take action not only with your body but with sounds and words as well. What we call Throughline in action, we call Subtext in speech.” (p. 402)

“As soon as musicians and actors bring the subtext to life with their own experiences, the secret hiding places, the essence of the work they are performing, the reason it was created, become apparent both in the subtext itself and in themselves. The meaning of a work of art lies in its Subtext. (…). When we create a performance the words are the author’s and the subtext is ours. If it were otherwise, the audience wouldn’t make an effort to come to the theatre to see the actor. They’d stay at home and read the play instead. You can only come to know a dramatic work in all its fullness of meaning in the theatre.”  (p. 403)

How to work on speech on stage ?

The actor should work to recreate the process of Communication of the real life.

“If you went through this process onstage, every time, with the same affection and spoke your lines with such deep insight into their meaning, you would soon become great actors.” (p. 403)

To do so, the actor should follow these steps:

1. The actor first needs to create the Mental pictures that are behind the words and that relate to the If and the Given Circumstances. These Mental pictures should relate to the character, not to the actor.

“You have to create and see on the screen of your inner eye everything you’ve imagined, all the magic and other “ifs”, all the Given Circumstances, the outward situation in which the subtext (…) unfolds and which the words you have been given describe. (…) In life, as you know, all this is set up in advance by life itself, but onstage we have to take care of it for ourselves.” (p. 405)

“Don’t just know, but try to see clearly the picture your creative idea produces.” (p. 405)

“It is essential that all our mental images relate exclusively to the character and not to the actor, because his life won’t match the role unless it is actually very similar to it.” (p. 409)

2. The actors should create an Unbroken film of these Mental pictures and be watching this film with their Inner Eye all through the performance.

“The whole script is accompanied by mental images in our mind’s eye (…). Out of these, (…) we create a whole unbroken film that is projected onto the screen of our mind’s eye. It guides us while we are saying or doing something onstage. Watch it as closely as possible.” (p. 409)

“The mental images our imagination creates, (…) maintain and fix the actor’s attention on the inner life of the role. We must use them when concentration wanders, draw it to the “film” and make it follow that line.” (p. 409)

3. The actor should have the clear intention to make the listener see the actor’s Mental pictures precisely with their own Inner Eye– “not only the what, but also the how” (p. 431).

“I must think only of the Task, which is to make you see what I see, whatever the cost.” (p. 439)

“Make certain that your object not only hears and understands the meaning of the sentence, but also sees with her inner eye what you see, or almost, when you speak the words you’ve been given.” (p. 407)

“Influencing other people, conveying mental images to them is an infinitely more important task [than showing off one’s voice]. So, don’t speak to the ear but to the eye. That’s the best way to avoid listening to yourself. ” (p. 427)

4. The actor then acts to fulfill this Task. 

“Dynamism, genuine, productive, purposeful action is the most important thing in creative work and in speech too! Speaking is action. Dynamism gives us the task of planting our mental images in someone else. (…) Your business is wanting to plant and the wanting generates action.”  (p. 409)

“It isn’t the result that matters. That doesn’t depend on you. What matters is your intention to complete the task, what matters is the action, or rather, the attempt to act on [the listener], on her inner eye.” (p. 407)

The actor acts through their lines, using them to describe their inner film of Mental pictures.

“Use your lines to describe what you see, as though you were seeing the illustrations for the first time at every performance.” (p. 409)

“Forget about feeling altogether and concentrate solely on mental images. Look at them closely and describe what you see and hear as fully, deeply and clearly as possible. (…) The lines aren’t spoken for their own sake or for the audience but for the other actors, to implant your mental images.“ (p. 409)

“Make sure the words fulfil the function nature has given them, that they convey thoughts, feelings, ideas, concepts, pictures, mental images and don’t just bang against the eardrums. Shape the word to the thought, to whomever you’re thinking and talking about, whatever you see in your mind’s eye.”  (p. 426 s.)

“There should be variations each time these mental images occur and each time you describe them. That’s all to the good because the impromptu and the unexpected are the best stimuli to creative work.” (p. 411)

5. The actor should regularly pause to let the listener process the words and the Mental pictures.

“The object needs (…) breaks so as to register the subtext you are conveying and your mental images. You can’t take them in all at once. The process requires three parts: transmission, pause, reception and, again, transmission, pause, reception, etc. Things which are obvious to you, the person experiencing, are new to the object and require to be decoded and registered.”(p. 407 s.)

This process has several benefits:

• It transforms the words from something alien to something personal and essential for the actor.

“You can’t convey [a] story just by mental images, emanation, movements or facial expression. You need words. That was the moment when the words I’d been given became imperative! (…) Now I needed them, not so I could deliver them mechanically, or show off my voice and diction but for a purpose, so that the listener could understand the importance of what I was saying.“ (p. 408)

“The Task of influencing someone else’s mind with his own mental images had imperceptibly transformed alien, irritating, boring words into something personal, essential for him.” (p. 408)

• It calms the actors: having a Task to accomplish through words, they feel justified in being onstage.

“As soon as the words became my own, I felt at home onstage. And from that sprang calm and control. How great it feels to be master of yourself, to win the right to go slow and make other people wait. I planted one word after another in the object, one mental image after another.” (p. 408)

• It helps Experiencing: focusing on the Mental pictures that illustrate the Subtext stimulates the Feelings stored in the Emotion Memory.  

“When we stick to that line and only talk about what we see, we stimulate the recurring feelings which are stored in our emotion memory, and which we need for experiencing, in the right way. Thus, when we observe our mental images we are thinking about the subtext of the role and are feeling it.” (p. 409)

“Inner mental images are a decoy for feelings and experiences in words and speech.” (p. 411)

“Affect the object! “Steal into his very heart.” And you’ll affect yourself even more. And if you affect yourself, you’ll affect others even more. (…) And why is that? It’s our grandmother nature, the actress! It’s our grand- father, the miracle worker – our subconscious!!!”  (p. 409)

• It simulates the Inner Psychological Drives and the Elements: the actor speaks in order to fulfil a Task.

“That means actions must be carried right through. They bring the will into play and with it the three psychological motivators, and all the elements of the actor’s creative soul.“ (p. 410)

• It gets richer with time and repetition.

“Lines can become mere chatter because we have repeated them too often. But visual images, on the other hand, gain in strength and breadth through frequent repetition. The imagination doesn’t sleep but fills out the mental images with new details, fills out the film in the mind’s eye bringing it even more alive.” (p. 411)

In order to be able to carry this process, the actors need to master the use of their voice and the speech aids.

Work on voice

What is a good voice ?

A good voice is one with which the actor can express all the details of their Experiencing.

“To be on voice!” – what a blessing for a singer and for a straight actor too! To feel that you can control it, that it obeys you, that it can convey the minutest details, modulations, nuances in your acting with resonance and strength!” (p. 381)

What are common faults in voice ?

But often actors’ voices don’t’ reach this ideal. Stanislavski lists a few reccurring faults, which often lead the actors to pushing their voice and getting hoarse:

• A lack in strength, which leads the actor to pushing

“Often actors have good natural voices, with a fine timbre and flexibility of expression but no strength. (…) And they have to push their beautiful voices and this pushing not only ruins their voice production and diction but their inner experiences as well.” (p. 382)

• A lack in range

“There are also voices which are quite audible in the top or bottom register but which have no middle. Some force their voices up so that they become strained and tight and squeak. Others drone and creak in the bass. Pushing ruins the timbre and you can’t be expressive with a range of five notes.“ (p. 382)

• An unpleasing timbre

“It is equally distressing to see an actor who is good in all respects – strong, flexible, expressive voice production, with a good range (…) but here’s the rub: the timbre of the voice is unpleasing and lacking all charm. What’s the use of strength, flexibility and expressiveness if the heart and ear reject them?” (p. 382)

• A lack in articulation.

How to solve these faults and ensure a good working voice?

The actors must train their voice in order to remove these faults and ensure a good working level.

“The conclusion of all I’ve said is that even a good natural voice must be trained not only for singing but for speaking as well.“ (p. 384)

The training consists in careful voice work on tensions, breathing, articulation, …

“[These vocal deficiencies] can be removed by centering the voice correctly and eliminating tightness and tension, pushing, faulty breathing and articulation of the lips.“ (p. 382)

“Work on voice mainly consists of developing breathing and producing sustained notes.” (p. 383)

It’s the same training as for singing, provided equal attention is paid to both sound (i.e., vowels) and articulation (i.e., consonants). The goal is to be able to speak exactly as you sing.

“Unfortunately there are singing teachers who have little interest in words and consonants in particular. But there are teachers of speech who do not always have a clear understanding of sound and how it is placed. As a result in singing the voice is properly placed for vowel sounds but wrong for consonants, while in speech, conversely, it is wrong for vowels and right for consonants.  And so singing and speech classes can be simultaneously helpful and harmful.” (p. 383)

“Once the voice is properly placed, you must speak exactly the way you sing. From that moment on my work moved in a different direction and went faster. I alternated singing and speaking.” (p. 397)

This voice work needs to be constantly repeated before any rehearsal and performance, as part of the warm-up.

”I’m not convinced that I’ll be able to place the voice for my lifetime in such a way that I’ll always be able to speak properly, the way I sing. So, obviously, I have to correct my voice before every performance or rehearsal using warm-up exercises.” (p. 397)

Work on sound

What is a good voice placement ?

It’s advantageous to have the voice placed in the mask – that is when the front resonators are activated. In that placement, the actor can feel two streams of sound, emerging one from the mouth and one from the nose, and coming together.

“I understood the advantage of voices placed “in the mask”, where the hard palate, the nasal cavities, the antrum of Highmore and other resonators are situated. (…) A sound which is ‘placed on the teeth’ or directed ‘at the bone’, i.e. in the skull, acquires a ring and power. Sounds which fall against the soft palate or the glottis resonate as though they were in cotton wool.” (p. 384 s.)

“When breathing while singing you must be aware of two streams of air issuing simultaneously from the mouth and the nose. It appears that as they emerge they come together in one common wave of sound in front of the singer’s face.” (p. 385)

How to work on placing the voice in the mask ?

To begin, it’s best to start practicing humming (i. e. with the mouth closed), very quietly.

“For the moment all this was done by humming and not by singing properly with the mouth open.” (p. 387)

“I place the sound when singing just as sick or sleeping people do when they moan, with a closed mouth. I direct the sound to the head and the nasal cavities.” (p. 385)

“Initially, when placing the voice, it is best to whisper quietly so as to find the right support for the voice.” (p. 386)

It’s best to start in the middle register, over a narrow ranges of a few tones, before going lower and higher.

“When I began I sustained only one, two or three notes in the middle register, supporting them in all the resonators of the facial mask I could feel from the outside. (…) In this way a whole scale of high notes was worked out.“ (p. 386 s.)

The forward placement of the voice is helped by a forward and up direction of the head.

“When you try to bring the tone into the frontal resonators you lower the head forward and drop the chin. That position helps you bring the note as far forward as you can.” (p. 387)

After practicing humming, the next step is to open the mouth while keeping the placement in the front.

“I (…) decided for the first time to open my mouth once a note had been well established by humming it.” (p. 387)

With the mouth open, a vowel can then be added to the sound, being careful the voice stays in the placement that has been found with humming.  

“I open the mouth and continue the lowing sound as before. But this time the moan is broken into sounds which emerge freely and resonate ‘in the mask’ and the other true resonators in the head.” (p. 385)

“With the new placing of the voice which I had developed open vowel sounds were directed to the same place, to the hard palate at the root of the teeth and then rebounded somewhat higher into the nasal cavities at the front of the mask.“ (p. 387)

How to sing or speak higher notes ?

For higher notes, the sound supports needs to move even more forward, to the area of the nasal cavities, all while working to keep the throat open.

“The higher the voice goes, moving into artificially closed notes the higher the sound supports moved upward and forward into the mask, the area of the nasal cavities. Moreover, I noted that my naturally open notes found support in the hard palate and bounced off the nasal cavities, but that closed notes which were supported in the nasal cavities bounced off the hard palate.”  (p. 388)

“It would seem that to release tension on high notes the larynx and pharynx must be placed in the same position as when yawning. When that is done the throat is naturally open and so undesirable tensions are eliminated.” (p. 388)

What is power in the voice ?

Power in speech is not found:

• in loudness.

“Loudness isn’t power, it is just loudness, shouting.” (p. 424)

• in physical tension, where the actors push their voice in a horizontal line in what Stanislavski calls “high-voltage acting”.

“Different actors understand power differently. There are those, for example, who try to find it in physical tension. (…) Their voices, in consequence, are squeezed out in a horizontal line (…). In our jargon we call this use of pressure to produce power, high-voltage acting. But this method doesn’t produce power, only yelling and shouting, constriction and hoarseness within a limited vocal range.” (p. 423)

Power in speech is actually a combination of many factors (p. 422):

• Logic and sequence:

“Power lies in logic and sequence (…) Simple speaking often produces an indelible impression by the persuasiveness, the clarity of the thoughts expressed, the precision and subtlety of the words, their logic and sequence, their close grouping, the construction of the phrases, the restrained delivery. Logical pauses are a living part of all such speech. (…). To achieve the power you are looking for, learn first to speak logically and sequentially, with proper pauses.” (p. 422)

• Inflexions across a wide vocal range, moving the voice along a vertical line

“Powerful sound in speech (…) must be sought not in “high-voltage”, not in loudness or shouting, but in the rise and fall of the voice, i.e. in inflexions. And in the contrast between high and low pitch, or in the transition from piano to forte and their interrelationship.” (p. 425)

“When you need power in the future, use a wide variety of upward and downward inflexions, like a piece of chalk making shapes on a blackboard.” (p. 424)

“Speak the same sentence for me with the maximum vocal range and properly justified inflexions. To do that, imagine Given Circumstances which excite you.” (p. 423)

How should loudness be approached ?

Actors must first understand that loudness indications are relative, not absolute.

“Loud and not loud are forte and piano. We all know that forte isn’t forte in itself, forte is just not piano. Conversely, piano isn’t piano but not forte. (…) It means that forte isn’t a fixed quantity like a meter or a kilogram. Forte is to be understood relatively. “ (p. 424)

Actors can work with loudness in this relative way, gradually changing it, without sharp contrasts.

“If you increase power step by step you will ultimately reach the highest level of loudness, which can only be described as forte-fortissimo. It is this gradual transformation of sound from piano-pianissimo to forte-fortissimo that constitutes the increase in relative loudness.”

“Remember, we need relative dynamics, progression, every gradation of sound.”(p. 425)

But they must make a sparing use of this. The extremes of the loudness range should be avoided.

“However, we must be sparing in using the voice in this way. We must have a sense of discretion. Otherwise, it’s easy to go over the top.” (p. 424)

“In theatre, there is exaggerated shouting and whispering in tragic moments, regardless of inner meaning and common sense.” (p. 424)

In particular, (absolute) loudness, as such, should only be used in exceptional circumstance.

“Loudness, as such, is almost never required onstage.“ (p. 425)

“My business is to work up to the climax slowly and then when this is done, let the audience do their own shouting, if that is what they need.” (p. 425)

“There are, however, exceptional circumstances when you have to be loud. In crowd scenes, for example or when speaking to music or with background effects.” (p. 425)

“Only use loudness briefly, for a concluding sentence or word at the end of a speech, a scene or a play, only when you have exhausted every vocal technique in your armoury – progression, logic, sequence, gradation, every conceivable phonic shape and inflexion, and when the meaning of the sentence calls for it. “ (p. 425)

Work on diction

What is bad diction ?

Bad diction can take several forms:

• A speech where some letters, words or phrases are dropped (p. 390)
• An arrhythmic speech “in which the word or phrase begins slowly and suddenly speeds up in the middle only to slip away unexpectedly” p. 390)

Why is bad diction problematic ?

A bad speech creates misunderstanding for the audience.

“Bad speech creates one misunderstanding after another. They accumulate, blur or completely obscure the sense, the essence or even the style of the play. At first the audience strain their ears, attention, minds so as not to miss what’s going on onstage; if they don’t succeed they start to get restless, cross, to whisper to one another and finally to cough.” (p. 390)

What is a good diction like ?

A good diction is one in which the actors pronounce well each sentence, word, syllable and letter (p. 389) and feel the content of each sound, which their acoustic form fulfils.

“Letters, syllables, words were not invented by man; they were suggested by our instinct, impulses, nature itself, time and place, life itself.“ (p. 391)

“All sounds which combine to form words have their soul, their nature, their content which the person speaking must feel. If a word has no connection with life but is said in a formalistic, mechanical, limp, soulless, empty way then it is like a corpse in which no pulse beats. A living word is filled from within. It has its own individual character and must remain as nature created it. If a person doesn’t feel the soul of a letter he won’t feel the soul of a word, won’t sense the sound of a phrase or a thought.“ (p. 391)

How to work on diction ?

The work on diction consists in studying the aural form of the different sounds.

“Once I had understood that letters only have an acoustic form to fulfil their content I was naturally faced with the task of studying the aural form of letters so that I could better understand their content.” (p. 391)

The work on diction shouldn’t be done only in class or on stage, but become a habit in real life.

“Class-time alone isn’t enough to place the voice and correct diction. (…) We must see to it that we always speak correctly and beautifully onstage and in life. We must put it into practice, create a habit, make what is new part of our lives, make it once and for all second nature. Only in those conditions (…) can we stop paying attention to our diction when we are appearing onstage. If someone playing (…) Hamlet has to think about his vocal failings or speech defects while he is performing, this is hardly likely to help him in his main creative purpose.” (p. 396)

Vowels and consonants

The actors should start by studying the acoustic form of single letters – vowels and consonants.

“So I came to know (feel) the acoustic form of all letters representing vowels and then went on to a similar study of consonants.” (p. 391)

Vowels are like a river flowing, while consonants are its banks, directing and stopping the water. 

“If the vowels are the river and the consonants the banks we must fortify the latter so we don’t get flooding.” (p. 392)

“[A diction with slack consonants] is like a river with no banks, that overflows and turns into a swamp, a marsh in which words get caught and sink.” (p. 389)

Some consonants not have only a directive role, but are also voiced like vowels.

“But apart from directive functions consonants are also voiced. Consonants of this kind are : V, B, G (hard), D, L, M, N. (…) You can clearly distinguish a sustained note coming from the larynx which sounds the same as vowels do. The only difference is that the sound does not emerge immediately and unimpeded but is held is various places which give it its articular colouring.” (p. 392)

Pure and clear consonants depend on the lips being able to shut tightly, yet with lightness, speed and exactness (p. 394).

“My lips didn’t shut tight enough. They let air get through; they came unstuck, they were badly tooled. And so my consonants weren’t clean and clear enough. The articulation of my lips is so underdeveloped and so far from total mastery it won’t even allow me to speak rapidly. Syllables and words are blurred, trip over each other, slide away, like crumbling riverbanks, and in consequence vowels constantly overflow and the tongue gets tied up in them. » (p. 394)

“One must sing “avec le bout des lèvres” (the tip of the lips). And so work hard to develop the articulation of the lips.” (p. 394)

Syllables

From individual letters, the actors should then move on to syllables.

“‘When letters are joined to make syllables or whole words, phrases, their sound shape, naturally, becomes roomier and so we can put more into them.” (p. 392)

“‘The number of entirely different variations we can think up for syllables of (…) two letters ! And in each of them a small bit of the human soul is apparent” (p. 393)

When a syllable brings together a consonant and a vowel, the actors should be careful not to have each of the two sounds formed in two different parts of the head.

“The laryngeal hum of the consonants should gather and resonate in the same place the vowels are formed. And so they mix and mingle with the consonants and after the popping of the lips the sound flies out in two streams from the mouth and nose, resonating in the same resonator as the vowels.” (p. 395)

Words and sentences

Syllables can then be combined into words, words into sentences.

Work on speech

Working on speech means in particular working on the three speech aids the actors have at their disposal for verbal communication:

1. Pauses.
2. Inflexions
3. Stresses

These three speech aids follow the laws of speech. The actors need to learn them so they can guide them toward free expression.

“Meeting the demands of nature is always the highest form of freedom.” (p. 418)

“‘If intuition and a feeling for the nature of language get you through, listen to them but when they say nothing, be guided by the rules. But don’t do the opposite, don’t make inwardly unjustified pauses because the rules say so. They are barren and your acting and your reading will be formally correct but dead. Rules should only be a guide, a reminder of the truth, to show you the way.” (p. 451)

In particular, these three aids can be used to bring perspective to the speech.

“[When we use the term perspective], We talk about:

1)  the perspective of the thought to be conveyed (the logical perspective)

2)  the perspective of the feelings to be experienced and

3) the artistic perspective which skilfully deploys the colours which illuminate the story, narrative or speech in the various planes.” (p. 453)

“There are all manner of techniques for establishing these perspectives, based on inflexions (a rise or fall in sound), highlighting individual words, phrases and sentences (stress), pauses which group and divide the individual parts, and combinations of tempo and rhythm.” (p. 453)

Pauses

Should the speech be unbroken or should it include pauses ?

As part of the communication process, speech requires both continuity and rests:

• on one hand, speech must relate to an Unbroken Line of Mental Pictures;
• on the other hand, rests are needed by the listener.

“Normal people need breaks, rests, pauses not only in speech but in all their other processes, internal or external – thinking, imagining hearing, seeing, etc. We can represent our normal state as a series of alternating long and short lines with big or small pauses. The opposite of this is obsession (…) which we can represent by an unbroken line.” (p. 446 s.)

“Continuity must not be taken to mean a perpetuum mobile” (p. 447)

To meet these two requirements, a speech must include pauses, but these pauses should be placed in such a way that they do not to disturb its continuity.

“Speech pauses should divide the thought being expressed into its component parts, while preserving the continuity and unity of each of them.” (p. 447)

“Breaks and pauses mustn’t make mincemeat out of speech.” (p. 447)

Placing these pauses is something that we may do naturally in real life, but which the actors need to learn again for the stage.

“People who speak well in daily life, instinctively or knowingly adhere to this rule and place the pauses more or less truthfully when they are talking. But as soon as they have to learn someone else’s lines and deliver them onstage in most cases they undergo a transformation: they chop up their speech and put the pauses in the wrong places.” (p. 447)

What are the two kinds of pauses ?

Stanislavski distinguishes between two kinds of pauses:

• Logical pauses
• Psychological pauses.

Logical pauses

What are logical pauses ?

Logical pauses (or grammatical pauses) are the stops used to divide up a text into speech bars.

“To break speech down into bars you need stops, or, in other words, logical pauses. (…) [Logical pauses] have two opposite but simultaneous functions: to bring words together in groups (or speech bars) and to divide the groups off from one another.” (p. 412)

Dividing up a text into speech bars should be the first step when working on a speech.

“Work on speech and words must always start with dividing up into speech bars, or, in other words, placing the logical pauses. Until you’ve done that it is pointless your undertaking (…) communicating the illustrated Subtext of a speech, not even the preliminary work, creating mental images to illustrate the subtext.” (p. 413)

Reading by speech bars and making pauses is helpful both for Experiencing and Embodiment, content and expression.

“[Strength lies in] the clarity of the spoken thought, the preciseness and definition of the expressions, the logic, the sequence, the structure of the sentence, the grouping and construction of the whole story. The sum total of all these affects the listener. Use this other ability words have. Learn to speak in logical sequence.” (p. 445)

“The habit of speaking in bars not only gives what you say harmony of form and clarity of expression but depth of content because it makes you think all the time about the meaning of what you are saying.” (p. 413

“Reading by speech bars has one, major practical advantage: it helps the actual process of experiencing.“ (p. 412)

“You’re in such a hurry you don’t give yourself time to get inside what you’re saying, you never manage to explore and feel the subtext under the words. And without that, you’re stuck. That’s why the first thing is to stop rushing.” (p. 414)

Where should logical pauses be put ?

Stanislavski suggests several tools to decide where to place the logical pauses:

• Using punctuation marks:

“‘The real purpose of punctuation marks is to group the words in a sentence and indicate the speech rests or pauses. They differ only in duration and character.” (p. 441)

“Our best help in the placing of the logical (grammatical) pauses is punctuation marks. (…) They divide some words off and, at the same time, group other related words together to form speech bars.“ (p. 449).

• Using meaning:

“How do we [place pauses in a text and group the words to make speech bars]? Like this: let’s take every two words and see if they bear any direct, immediate relation to each other. If they don’t, dig into their meaning and make up your mind whether they relate to the word before or the word after.“ (p. 450)

• Using stresses:

“There is another equally simple, equally naive practical way of placing the pauses (…) First, place the logical stresses. (…) Now, dig into each of the stressed words and try to understand which of the adjacent words they attract.” (p. 450 s.)

How long should logical pauses last ?

The duration of a logical pause isn’t fixed, but depends on many factors, in particular the goal of the pause.

“You cannot precisely calculate the length of the rests which punctuation marks indicate. It is relative.” (p. 449)

“The length of the pause depends on what calls for a rest and the reason why it happens. (…) there are [also] other factors. For example, the time your interlocutor needs to assimilate someone’s thoughts and for the speaker silently to communicate the unspoken subtext. Or the strength of inner experiencing, the degree of emotional turmoil, the tempo-rhythm of the sentence.” (p. 449)

In any case, the duration of a logical pause should be rather short. Otherwise, it must be turned into a psychological pause.

“A logical pause is more or less well defined, and of short duration. If it is extended then you must quickly transform an inactive, logical pause into a psychological one.” (p. 420)

How to say the text between two logical pauses ?

“The text between two logical pauses should be spoken with as few breaks as possible, all together, almost as a single word.”  (p. 412)

How to practice speaking a text in speech bars ?

“Pick up a book and a pencil whenever you can, read, and break up what you have read into speech bars. Train your ears, your eyes, your hands.” (p. 412)

Psychological pauses

What are psychological pauses ?

Psychological pauses are pauses that communicate something by other means than words. They are useful to communicate what comes from the Subconscious.

“Psychological pauses are (…) eloquent silence. They are an extremely important means of communication. Words are replaced by looks, facial expression, transmitting, signs, barely perceptible movements and many other conscious and subconscious means of communication. They say what words can’t, and often their silent action is more intense, more subtle, more irresistible than speech itself.” (p. 419 s.)

“Pauses very often communicate that part of the subtext which comes not only from the conscious mind but from the subconscious and can’t be expressed concretely in words.” (p. 420)

What’s the difference between logical pauses and psychological pauses ?

Logical pauses relate more to the clarity of the speech, whereas psychological pauses relate to the Communication of the Subtext.

 “While logical pauses automatically create bars and whole sentences and so help make the sense clear, psychological pauses bring these ideas, sentences and bars to life and try to communicate the subtext. If speech without logical pauses is illiterate, without psychological pauses it is inanimate. Logical pauses are passive, formal, inactive. Psychological pauses are always dynamic and rich in inner content. The logical pause serves the head, the psychological pauses the heart.”  (p. 419)

Where to place psychological pauses ?

As long as a psychological pause is justified, it can be placed everywhere.

“Psychological pauses are anarchic. While logical pauses are subject to fixed laws, psychological pauses refuse any kind of constraint. You can place them before or after any word, any part of speech (noun, adjective, conjunction, adverb, etc.) or part of a clause (subject, predicate, object, etc.). (…) One prime condition must be respected: the pause must be justified. In that, you must be guided by the author’s and director’s intentions and your own as the creator of the subtext.” (p. 451)

A psychological pause may coincide with a logical pause or not.

“Psychological and logical pauses may coincide or they may not. What you must bear in mind is this: when actors have a great deal to offer from within, logical pauses reveal the subtext just as much as psychological ones. They become psychological and bear a dual function.” (p. 451)

“You can bring in a psychological pause where it is apparently impossible to stop logically, or grammatically. (…) And a psychological pause has an even greater right to replace a logical one without destroying it.” (p. 420)

“The psychological pause [shouldn’t] supplant the logical pause but enhance it.” (p. 419)

In any case, psychological pauses shouldn’t harm the Logic of the speech. As logical pauses, psychological pauses should be used sparingly.

“Often the psychological pause overrides and obscures the logical pause and so the meaning suffers and confusion enters. This is unwelcome, too. Psychological pauses should be placed when they are inwardly motivated but they should not harm logic and sense.” (p. 453)

“Don’t abuse either logical or psychological pauses. If you do, speech becomes messy and overextended. Yet this is a common occurrence in the theatre. Actors like to “play about” with everything, including silence. That is why they are prepared to transform the least break into a psychological pause.“ (p. 451)

How long should a psychological pause last?

The length of a psychological pause depends on the duration of the wordless Action that takes place.

“Psychological pauses are not subject to the constraints of time. You can extend a silent rest considerably, provided, of course, that you fill it with meaning and dynamic wordless action.” (p. 453)

“The length of a psychological pause isn’t defined. It isn’t concerned with the time it takes to do its work, it holds up speech for as long as it needs to perform a genuine, productive, specific action. It is aimed at the Supertask, it follows the line of the Subtext and the Throughaction and, therefore, cannot but be interesting.” (p. 420)

The psychological pause should be stopped as soon as the Action stops.

“Psychological pauses must be aware of the danger of dragging on too long, which is what happens when productive action stops. Rather than let that happen, they must give way to speech and words.“ (p. 420)

“It’s a pity when you miss the right moment because then the psychological pause degenerates into a mere stop and that creates a theatrical mishap that leaves a gaping hole in the play.”  (p. 420)

Inflexions

What are inflexions ?

An inflexion is a specific phonic shape.

Inflexions relate to punctuation marks: each punctuation mark is linked to a particular inflexion.

“The punctuation marks call for special inflexions. The full stop, the comma, the question and exclamation marks, etc. have their own characteristic vocal shapes and cannot function properly without them.” (p. 414)

Inflexions are also used to bring colors to a speech – to convey the manner in which the events being described occurred. (p. 431)

What’s the function of punctuation marks and inflexions ?

Each punctuation mark and its related inflexion requires an Action from the listener.

“A questioning phonic shape requires an answer, an exclamation mark a sympathetic response, agreement, or protest; a colon requires you to concentrate on what comes after (…) The comma’s upward rise is like a hand raised in warning. It forces the listener to wait patiently for the unfinished sentence to continue.” (p. 414 s.)

Thus, inflexions transfer to the listener the responsibility of acting, thus allowing the actors to feel confident making pauses.

“This temporary transfer of responsibility to someone else guarantees you stay calm as it is the listener who now needs the pauses, which made you nervous and hasty.” (p. 415 s.)

Inflexions also help the actors Experiencing by approaching the inside (the Inner drives) from the outside (the phonic shape).

“Onstage, when we are feeling self-conscious, often our vocal range shrinks and our speech loses its shape. How do we rectify this? (…) The laws of speech can be of help here. If your inflexions betray you, go from the outer, phonic shape to its justification and thence to the natural process of re-experiencing.” (p. 418)

“Words, by their very nature, influence emotion memory, feeling and re-experiencing from the outside, by the way they are inflected.” (p. 419)

What are the different inflexions ?

What is the inflexion of the full stop ?

The inflexion of the full stop is a dropping down of the voice.

“Imagine a heavy stone hurtling down into an abyss and hitting the bottom. The sound of the last highlighted syllable before the stop hurtles down in just the same way and hits the bottom of the speaker’s vocal range. (…) The greater the vocal range, the longer the drop, (…) the more conclusively and convincingly the thought you are communicating resounds. (…)When we talk in our own particular jargon of “putting the sentence to bed” we mean a well-placed final stop.” (p. 442)

What is the inflexion of th comma ?

The inflexion of the comma is a lifting up of the voice.

“The comma doesn’t end the sentence either but lifts it upwards, as to the next floor, or a higher shelf. (…) Like a raised index finger it alerts a thousand people to the fact that the sentence isn’t over and is about to go on. The listeners know they have to wait, that concentration mustn’t slacken but sharpen.” (p. 442)

“[Commas] can help you speak calmly, freely, without rushing, certain that the audience will listen to the thoughts you have to communicate to them. All you have to do is make a clean upward inflexion and hold back further sound for as long as is necessary or as long as you want. “ (p. 442 s.)

“These upward inflexions can be of different shapes and heights: in intervals of a third, a fifth, or an octave. The rise can be short and steep or broad, smooth and gradual and so on.” (p. 415)

What is the inflexion of the semi-colon ?

The inflexion of the semi-colonis half-way between the stop and the comma.

“The sentence comes to an end but doesn’t drop quite so far as with a stop. Indeed, there is a barely perceptible upward inflexion.” (p 443)

What is the inflexion of the colon ?

The colon requires a stress on the final syllable, with the voice staying on the same level (or dropping or rising a little) and indicating a forward movement.

“The colon requires a short, sharp stress on the final syllable before it. The degree of stress is almost the same as for the stop but whereas the point requires an evident and considerable drop in tone, with a colon the sound can drop or rise a little, or stay on the same level. The most important characteristic of this sign is that it causes a break not to end the sentence or the thought, but to extend it. In this break we should feel what is to come. It is preparatory, it announces what follows, it points the finger at it. The particular forward movement of the sound indicates this.” (p. 443)

What is the inflexion of suspension points?

The inflexion of suspension points is the voice floating in space, going neither up nor down.

“Suspension points, as opposed to the stop, don’t conclude the sentence but, as it were, launch it into the void where it vanishes like a bird released from a cage, or like smoke, borne on the air between heaven and earth. Float the voice in space, without its going up or down. It fades away, without concluding the sentence, or settling down. It hangs in the air.” (p. 442)

What is the inflexion of the question mark ?

The inflexion of the question mark is an upward inflexion in the shape of a curve or loop.

“Its trademark is a short quick, or slow, leisurely large or small, upward inflexion, rather like the croaking of a frog, which is either cut short or sustained. You do this by lifting the voice to the top of the register. Sometimes this interrogatory high note stays up in the air, at other times it drops a little. The height and speed of this upward interrogatory inflexion, the sharpness or broadness of the inflexion indicate the degree of urgency in the question. (…) The interrogatory curve can contain one or many bends. When the astonishment is keen, this inflexion can be repeated on every word of the interrogatory clause.” (p. 443)

What is the inflexion of the exclamation mark ?

The inflexion of the exclamation mark is the voice rising up and dropping a little right after.

“Almost everything I’ve said about the question mark applies here. The only difference is that the loop is missing and is replaced by a short, or somewhat longer, drop after the initial rise. (…) The higher the voice rises during the inflexion, the lower it falls afterwards and the stronger or weaker the exclamation sounds. ” (p. 444)

Are there other inflexions ?

Beside the inflexions related to punctation marks, there are also other inflexions related to whole sentences.

“There are mandatory inflexions and phonic shapes not only for individual words and punctuation marks but for whole phrases and sentences as well. They have a definite, natural form. They have specific names.”  (p. 417)

How should the actor work with inflexions ?

The actors needs to learn the natural phonetic shapes of the different inflexions, so that they can be available to them.

“Actors need to know all these phonetic shapes.” (p. 418)

When working on a role, the actors shouldn’t fix the inflexions and be consciously and primarily focused on them. Inflexions should happen spontaneously, as (vocal) Adaptations, when the actors have something to express and the means to express it with.

“You must not [note down or fix the inflexions in a role permanently]. It is harmful and dangerous. Never learn patterns of sound by heart for your roles. They must occur spontaneously, intuitively, subconsciously, only then can your inflexions convey the life of the human spirit of a role exactly.” (p. 444)

“Working on inflexions doesn’t mean contriving or forcing them. They appear spontaneously if what they are supposed to express – feeling, thoughts, the gist – and the means by which they can be communicated – words, speech, a rousing, sensitive, broad, expressive vocal tone, good diction – are there. They should be your primary concern, then inflexions will come spontaneously, intuitively, as a reflex. In other words, learn to master the decoys. (…) the most important lure, one which intuitively produces an inflexion is Adaptation. Why? Because the inflexion itself is a vocal adaptation, designed to stir invisible feelings and experiences.” (p. 445)

At some moments, when needed, the actors can also use the inflexions consciously, as a tool to set them on the right way.

“Forget [the sound patterns], put them out of your head or remind yourself of them at critical moments, when the inflexion your intuition suggests is clearly wrong or it doesn’t come spontaneously. Then recalling the [sound patterns] can set intuition on the right path.” (p. 444)

Stresses

What are stresses ?

A stress is a highlight of an element of the speech.

“Stress is an index finger, marking the most important word in the bar. The selected word contains the heart, the essentials of the subtext!” (p. 426)

Why are stresses important ?

Well-placed stresses help:

• to convey the meaning of a sentence

“When a sentence is devoid of stress or weight it loses all meaning.” (p. 430)

• To express Feeling and Communicate the life of the human spirit of a role.

“[A speech] can’t be felt [in] the absence of symbolic or artistic stress. Only they can help you transform an arid lump of a word into something living, and literate but formal speech into genuine art which communicates the life of the human spirit of a role.” (p. 446)

“If [the stresses] are directed towards the play’s Supertask, if they follow the through-action they become critically important because they help us achieve what is fundamental to our art, creating the life of the human spirit of a role or play.” (p. 437)

How many stresses should be put ?

The actors should avoid making too many stresses. They should make only a few of them, on the essential elements.

“A sentence with [only] one stressed word is much easier to understand.” (p. 434)

“Try, as far as possible, to make only a few highly essential stresses.” (p. 446)

“The fewer they are, the clearer the sentence, provided, of course, you only highlight the few most important words.” (p. 429)

“Speech that is all stress or no stress is meaningless.” (p. 425)

Where to place stresses in a speech ?

In order to identify the elements to stress, it’s helpful to first:

• put the logical pauses and divide the text into speech bars:

“Once words have been grouped, it’s easier to find your way around the individual stresses.”  (p. 433)

• establish the Subtext:

“[When you need stresses too much or too little], that [is] because you [don’t have] a clear Subtext. Establish that first so that there is something to communicate and some way of doing it.” (p. 430)

“To ensure that your speech is artistic, with the minimum of stresses, take great care over the subtext. Once that has been established, everything will go smoothly.” (p. 446)

When it’s done, the actors should follow the following steps.

Step 1: Removing all the stresses

Stanislavski suggests to start by removing all the stresses. This ensures that all the incorrect ones are removed, making ground for the correct ones. By doing so, the actors also learns to tone down a whole part of the speech, which will be useful in a later step of the process, when working on stressing whole clauses.   

“First, be calm, remove all the stresses and then restore them.” (p. 427)

“You must learn to remove stress before you can place it.” (p. 429)

“In the first place it frees your speech from the false stresses life has ingrained in you. Once the ground is cleared it is easier to plant correct stress. Second, knowing how to remove stress will help you in your future work. For instance, when we are conveying complex ideas or detailed facts, for the sake of the clarity you have to remember individual episodes, related to what you are talking about. But we must do it in such a way that we don’t distract from the basic storyline. These parenthetical remarks must be lucid but not obtrusive. We must be economical with inflexion and stress. In other cases, in a long heavy sentence we must only highlight certain words and let the others pass clearly but unnoticed. This technique makes it easier to make a difficult text lighter, something we have to do quite often.” (p. 429)

Step 2: Placing the stresses according to the rules of speech

“Many words and stresses fall into place when we use the laws of speech.” (p. 433)

“Make your symbolic stresses coincide, as far as you can, with logical stresses.” (p. 446)

The actor should then follow the laws of speech which command to stress, in a group of word, the one conveying the essential meaning. Here are some of these laws:

• An adjective qualifying a noun is not stressed; the noun is. (p. 428 and 433)
• The law of juxtaposition commands that anthithetical words are stressed (p. 433) According to this rule, even qualifying adjectives can be stressed if several of them are juxtaposed and they don’t have a common but a separate meaning. 

“But there is another, stronger law, which, (…) overrides all other laws and rules. That is the law of juxtaposition on the basis of which we must at all costs clearly highlight antithetical words which express thoughts, feelings, images, perceptions, actions and so on. “ (p. 428)

“Each of these adjectives without a common meaning must have a stress, and so you automatically place them in such a way they don’t kill the principal stress on the noun. “ (p. 433)

• “Names are stressed on the surname, dates on the year, addresses on the housenumber.” (p. 433)
• “You have two nouns. You know that the stress must fall on the possessive, because the possessive is stronger than the word it qualifies.” (p. 433)
• “You have two repeated words with an increase in energy. Boldly stress the second of them because it’s a matter of a rise in energy (…). [If] there’s a drop in energy, then stressing the first word will convey a decline.” (p. 433)

Stanislavski observes that actors often don’t’ respect these rules, wrongly preferring to stress “actable” words:

“There are actors who (…)  put [the stress] in the wrong place (…)  They don’t care much for subjects and predicates, nouns and verbs. They prefer adjectives, adverbs, all the “actable” words (…) to the words around them which convey the essential meaning.” (p. 445 s.)

Step 3: Placing the remaining stresses

“Many words and stresses fall into place when we use the laws of speech. (…) There aren’t many stressed words left to sort out and it isn’t hard to find your way through them, particularly since the subtext with its innumerable strands, all woven together, the Throughaction and the Supertask guide and help you all the time.” (p. 433)

Step 4: Organizing the stresses and creating perspective

When all the stresses have been put, the actors need to organize and coordinate them by giving them a relative strength.

“After that, all you have to do is organize all the marked stresses, some to be given more strongly, others toned down.” (p. 433)

“First, you must choose the key word in the sentence and highlight it by a stress. Then, you must do the same with other highlighted, but less important, words.” (p. 436)

“‘How do we highlight the key word in a long speech and also a series of less important words which are nonetheless essential to the meaning? ‘For that we need a complex scale of stresses: strong, medium and weak. In painting there are strong, weak, half-, quarter-tones in colour, or light and shade. Similarly, in speech there is a wide scale in the degree of stress.”  (p. 435)

This way, perspective is created, allowing the different stresses to come together and work in harmony.

“Stress must be computed, combined, co-ordinated but in such a way that minor stresses don’t detract from, or compete with, the key word but highlight it more strongly. Everything must work together to construct and communicate a difficult sentence. There must be perspective in the individual propositions and in the speech as a whole.” (p. 435)

“The key word is highlighted most clearly of all and comes right into the foreground of the sound-plane. The less important words create a series of deeper planes.” (p. 435)

“[Stresses are] one of the best means for laying out the planes and colours and making the play three-dimensional.“ (p. 454)

The relative strength of a stress can be indicated not only by its intensity but also by its quality.

“In speech we create perspective, mostly, through carefully organized stresses of varying intensity. And it is not only the intensity of the stress which is important but its quality.”  (p. 435)

Step 5: Stressing clauses

The actors shouldn’t work only at the word or sentence level, but also consider the speech as a whole: not only words within sentences can be stressed, but also whole clauses within a complex sentence or a speech, or even whole episodes within a scene or act.  

“Just as words form clauses, so propositions form complete thoughts, narratives and long speeches. Then, we not only highlight words in clauses, but whole clauses in narratives and dialogue.“ (p. 436)

“We highlight this or that syllable in a word, this or that word in a sentence, this or that sentence in a complete thought, the key sections in lengthy narratives, soliloquies, dialogue, the key episodes in a long scene, act, etc.” (p. 454)

“The art of the speaker or reader lies in successfully distributing all the degrees of stress throughout the sentence, speech, scene, act, play or role, and putting them in perspective.” (p. 454)

How to express the stresses with the voice ?

When voicing the stresses, it’s important that the speech maintains its integrity. Thus Stanislavski offers the image of a wire that is bent at some points.

“Take a length of wire, bend it upwards a little and you’ll get quite a beautiful, expressive line, with a high point, which, like a lightning conductor or a dome, will take the stress while the rest of it forms a pattern. Then the line has form, definition, integrity, unity. That’s better than bits of wire scattered all over the place.” (p. 426)

How to mark the stressed elements ?

Stanislavski warns against making the stress too strong, marking it with the voice and the body. Instead, it should be a simple highlight.

“That’s not a stress, it’s a bang on the head, (…) What makes you think a stress is a wallop? You not only hit the word with your voice, your sound, you round it off with a jerk of your chin and your head. That’s a bad habit, and very common among actors. The head and nose are thrust forward as though they could bring out the importance and meaning of the words. Nothing could be simpler.” (p. 426)

Making a stress means delivering the word in a special way.

“Don’t hit it, please, love it, savour it, carefully highlight the stressed syllable in the selected word.”  (p. 427)

“Stress (…) serves [a syllable or word] up on a platter.” (p. 426)

This special delivery can take many different qualities. These different qualities can be used to indicate perspective and coordinate different levels of stresses.

“Stress can be a friendly or hostile, respectful or contemptuous, ambiguous or sarcastic delivery of a syllable or word.” (p. 426)

“It’s important whether the stress comes from above or below, does it land heavily or does it fly up lightly and strike cleanly? Is it hard or soft, obvious or barely perceptible, does it fall suddenly and immediately disappear or does it linger for quite a while? » (p. 435).

“‘There are also what we might call masculine and feminine stresses. The first (masculine) are definite, brutal, like a hammer on an anvil. They are brief, short-lived. The second (feminine) are equally definite but don’t come to a sudden end, they linger. As an illustration, let us assume that after delivering a sharp blow on the anvil you have to slide the hammer back towards you so it will be easier for you to lift it again. We will call this kind of definite, prolonged stress “feminine”. (p. 435)

“Stresses have varying qualities: strong, not so strong, weak, barely perceptible, short, sharp, light, long, heavy, up-down, down-up, etc.“ (p. 454)

Beside stresses in the strict sense, there are other ways that can be used to highlight words:

• Inflexions

“Besides vocal stress (…) there is another element of speech we can use to highlight words: inflexions. Their shape lends greater expressiveness to the highlighted word, and strengthens it. Once again, you can combine inflexion and stress. Then the stress is coloured by many different shades of feeling.” (p. 435 s.)

• Psychological pauses

“To strengthen a highlighted stressed word, for example you can turn this or that pause into a psychological pause.” (p. 435 s.)

• Unstressing the unhighlighted parts

“You can also high- light the important word by removing the stress from all the unimportant words. Then the stressed word, which is intact, gains strength by comparison.”  (p. 436)

• Power, pitch, tempo, colors

“Make one of the juxtaposed parts loud, the other soft, one in the upper, the other in the lower, register, the first in one, the second in another colour, tempo, etc. Just let the difference between the two juxtaposed parts be as clear, indeed as clear as possible.”  (p. 428)

The same tools can be used to highlight a whole clause within a complex sentence:

“Everything we said about highlighting and organizing words in clauses applies to individual clauses in narrative or dialogue. We use the same technique as when stressing individual words.” (p. 437)

• Stresses in the strict sense (on key words within the clause): “You can highlight the key clause by stressing a word and articulating the important sentences with greater emphasis than the secondary clauses. Then the stress on the key word in a highlighted clause should be stronger than in an unhighlighted one.”
• Pauses: “You can highlight a stressed clause by placing it between two pauses”
• Inflexions: “You can achieve the same result by using inflexion, by raising or lowering the pitch of a highlighted clause or by making the inflexion phonetically clearer. That lends new colour to the stressed clause.”
• Tempo: “You can change the tempo and rhythm of a highlighted clause in comparison with the rest of the dialogue or story.”
• Unstressing the unhighlighted parts: “Finally, you can leave the colour and strength of the highlighted clause alone and tone down the stresses in the rest. “ (p. 437)

How to express the unstressed elements?

The unhighlighted parts must be said without emphasis so as to fade into the background. But that doesn’t mean they should be said with speed or poor diction, since that would have the opposite effect. Instead, unhighlighted parts must be spoken with calm and control, but lightly and with a flat inflexion.

“As to the unimportant, unhighlighted words, they are only needed for the general meaning and must fade into the background.” (p. 436)

“Highlight the important word clearly, then fill in the rest lightly, cleanly, deliberately for the general sense, without emphasis. That’s the way to remove stress.” (p. 430)

“Rushing, nervousness, gabbling, spitting out whole phrases doesn’t tone them down, it totally destroys them. (…) Nervousness in a speaker only irritates the listeners, poor diction angers them because they desperately have to try and guess at what they haven’t understood. This focuses attention on the very things you want to tone down. Fidgeting makes speech heavy. Calm and control lighten it. To tone down a phrase you need a very leisurely, flat inflexion, almost no stress at all and exceptional calm and confidence.“ (p. 430)

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Table of contents: An Actor’s Work (Konstantin Stanislavski)