Apologies -- the video I'd chosen was removed and I couldn't obtain it again. In this one, Mr. Stoppard briefly discusses the space between the writer, actor and audience.
I emphasis to actors their need to hold the dialogue of every script sacred; every word in every sentence sacred -- to not paraphrase, add or substitute words regardless of how mediocre the actor thinks the dialogue is. The story is not about you. The execution of telling the story is about how what the writer has written resonates for you so that the character you create is the third party to your collaboration with the writer, and as I've mentioned earlier, the final collaborator is the audience, and not necessarily every member of the audience, as Mr. Stoppard commented in the previous video I'd chosen.
The actor limits himself and chokes his ability to create a unique human being when he tries to tailor the written sentences to himself.
This is what we were discussing over dinner last week, my comment about whether actors tend to deviate from dialogue in the performance process when using these techniques (or if such performance process in execution tends to move them away from the script consciously or inadvertently). I'm recalling this from the last time I watched MASH (the film) and recall Ring Lardner Jr's anger at the actor deviation and improvisation that apparently Altman encouraged in diverting from Lardner's dialogue (which is one thing if a script is only a sketched out set of ideas is what actors are executing, but that wasn't the case here, and Lardner never really fully accepted his Oscar for the screenplay as he felt so much of it was lost in execution, so I understand. Of course, that's contingent upon how you view those performances from a technique perspective). I'll watch the Stoppard when I'm home and not at the office!
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