Physical Actions
Towards the end of his life, Stanislavski placed emphasis on physical
expression in training. He said that through the physical - the doing -
an actor could give his role depth. He believed that actors must be in
role all the time they are on stage, and most of the rehearsal time too,
even if not required by the text to speak or carry out an action. This
meant the actor should assume the role of their characters even
during rehearsals. If the character stood in a cold place then the actor
should shiver and alter his posture while rehearsing. A good way to
experiment with characterization is to improvise various scenes that
do not appear in the text, but could happen between some characters.
This activity provokes the actor to think about their character as a real
person rather than simply role on a page.