A Spork in the Road

You have to get your hands dirty. Yes – risk being bad, not just to free yourself, but as a way of hearing the human truth of a moment and the flesh and blood intention behind it….

I think that most actors agree that spontaneity, freshness, the illusion that everything is being said and done for the first time keeps a performance alive. This can only happen if there’s a strong alertness that, at any moment, the performance could change – something could be radically different. It doesn’t mean it will be radically different. But if I allow myself to listen, let myself (not make myself) listen, if I am alert to what is being said, how the current, the energy of a scene is going in that moment – then there will be changes of pace, inflection, vocal colour. The direction of a speech, or its quality, may alter considerably on a particular night just because a singularly acute state of awareness has allowed the speech to be discovered and spoken as if for the first time.

from Ralph Fiennes’ “Acting Shakespeare” in Arete Magazine