Introduction
Emotion and truth

Rather than claim that 'x' is a more talented actor than y, it is more accurate to say that 'x' is less blocked than 'y'. The talent is already pumping away, like the circulation of the blood. We just have to dissolve the clot. Removing things isn't always negative; what could be more positive than the surgeon teasing out the tumour? The surgeon can't make life; but he can try to stop life being stopped. Getting rid of things may be inspired: it is said that Michelangelo, when asked how he imagined the statue, replied that he just looked into the marble and chiselled away what shouldn't be there.

Whenever actors feel blocked the symptoms are remarkably similar, whatever the country, whatever the context. They feel sluggish and lost; occasionally, the actor starts to feel exposed, with a sense of being judged emanating from outside and within. Two aspects of this state seem particularly deadly: the first is that the more the actor tries to force, squeeze, and push out of this cul-de-sac, the worse 'it' seems to get, like a face squashed against glass. Second is the accompanying sense of isolation. The problem can be projected out, and 'it' becomes the 'fault' of script, or partner, or shoes. But two basic symptoms remain the same, namely paralysis and isolation — an inner locking and an outer locking. At worst this causes an immobility from eye to brain to heart to lung to lips to limbs, and an overwhelming sense of being alone, a creeping sense of being both responsible and powerless, unworthy and angry, too small, too big, too cautious, too, too, too . . . me.

When acting flows, it is alive, and this cannot be analysed; but problems in acting are connected to structure and control, and these can be usefully analysed.