Actors: Being the Emotional Physician

Hamlet said: "... we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to ..."

It has always been the function of the actor to be the emotional physician, who gives solace, encouragement and freedom of feeling to people who need it - when they need it.

This has been the challenge of the actor since the beginning of time. He is the torchbearer of a great tradition; a fearless trail blazer into an expanding frontier.

The actor must not be afraid to be the catalyst between progress and people. He must approach his calling with authority, humility and fearlessness.

As the human race progressed, instinct gave way to inspiration. Inspiration became a creative tool of civilization. To be aware of creation, born of inspiration - and to be able to direct that creation, is a result of intelligence.

Controlled inspiration is creation.

Develop the habit of depending upon your subconscious as a source of supply for your inspirations. Eventually, you will have the confidence that your supply is greater than any demands you can make upon it. Your own experience will give you this confidence.

Have faith in your ability to supply more than is demanded. You will experience the fulfillment of free choice in selecting the inspiration that: best suits your needs.

When you have learned to select that which is best, you will have acquired good taste. When you have developed good taste, you will experience a sense of exhilaration - when you are exhilarated, you will have no time for boredom.

Polarize the word boredom - and you'll find enthusiasm.

Develop the habit of enthusiasm by becoming spontaneously curious. Find out all you can about everything you can.

The uncreative man is one-sided. He develops his potentialities along one line. Be many-sided.

An actor should be a fine individual. He should be many-sided. He should be full of enthusiasm for every phase of living. Each phase that comes into his scope of awareness increases his stature as an individualist.

Audiences are composed, chiefly, of people who have not fully developed their subconscious desires. They depend on actors to vicariously fill this void.

In your desire to be a serious actor, you are applying for membership in the oldest brotherhood of emotional physicianship to mankind.

The duty of the serious actor is great. Thousands of years before the birth of Christianity, acting served the same purpose that it is serving today. Its fundamental purpose has not changed from the time cave men lined up in a circle and performed their ritualistic chants and pantomimic dances to stir the emotions of their audience. Through these rituals, which were basically acts, the primitive emotions were excited to a point of emotional stimulation that propelled our civilization onward.

In times of grief and trouble, it diverted their attention and gave them solace and relief from emotional tensions, while their subconscious minds revitalized them with new inspiration and prepared them to carry on - restimulated.

There has been no fundamental change in the relationship between the actor and his audience in giving them physical and spiritual service.

All through the ages the actor has given emotional ease, rest or stimulus to someone in the audience who needed it desperately, at that particular moment. When a performance is sincerely communicated by the actor, it will serve its purpose.

War renews and intensifies proof of this. Entertainers go to front lines and hospitals, where they perform and arrest time for a short while.

Don't be afraid to take a chance - do the best you can with every performance you are called upon to do. If you, sincerely, do the best you are capable of, then you will live up to the hereditary tradition of acting. Carry your banner high and with pride.

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