b'demonstrated that the imagination can allow the mind and body to work togethermemory or image, whether it exists or not (2006: 30-35). Therefore, this gesture can to bring life to the space. be learned and used as a believable approach in performance. Creating a score can engage the imagination and provoke purpose and meaning toTo conclude, it is not required to follow just one practitioner; every actor is different the role of the character. Actor-director Constantin Stanislavski, renowned for hisand the best approach is to build a personal acting toolkit that contains exercises system in actor training, says it automatically stirs the actor to physical and techniques that the actor has explored and knows work for them. Exercising action (1981:62). This is achieved by asking questions such as, where have I justand utilising the imagination is a vital tool for acting as it is foundational to many come from? What are my feelings towards the people around me? What am Iof the processes and approaches needed for the toolkit, including building a role, trying to do? His approach is to establish the natural, physical and psychologicalbringing the space to life, and creating purpose and meaning. With the imagination objectives that the imagination of the actor finds when given a set of triggered, the actor may begin to put it to work to achieve a believable and real per-circumstances (1981:56). As Anfisa in The Three Sisters piece, for example, formance both for the players and the audience, and it is important to explore all imagining that I had just climbed the stairs as an eighty-two-year-old woman gavedifferent cultures, ages and styles of acting techniques to seek out the best usable both pace and rhythm to my entrance. Sandford Meisner believed the actor musttools for the kit and to continually experiment, grow and create.justify the reason for going onstage, they must start with an objective and bemotivated to enter (Lutterbie, 2011: 200). The score allowed this.Director-teacher Bridget Panets Homework on a Role exercise from week six asks the actor to explore the imagined life of the character in depth, noting anysimilarities or differences they find with the character. Additionally, Panetsreceiving exercise and spoken responses helped us develop our charactersimaginary unspoken internal monologue that she says, may allow the silent changes to be felt and expressed in the body as happens all the time in life (2015, p.142). Imagining Arkadinas past in The Seagullher memories, relationships, successes and belief systemsdeepened my connection to her, and allowed me the freedom to express a more natural and real emotional response to what was being said. Later, in week eight, we did a workshop exercise involving lying on theChamberlain, F. (2000), Michael Chekhov on the technique of acting: was studio floor and choosing a line from the script that our character receives. WeDon Quixote true to life? in Alison Hodge (Ed), Twentieth Century Actor Train-lay there and considered the feelings this conjured up for our character and thening. London: Routledge, pp. 79-97 placed those feelings into the body where we felt they belonged.For Arkadina, IDonnellan, D. (2006) The Actor and the Target. London: Nick Hern Books.felt the response to the words deep below the navel and it began to give me asinking body shape feeling. This led me to begin to explore how shape and gesturesKrasner, D. (2000) Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New of the body work with the imagination.York: Palgrave Macmillan US.Anton Chekhovs The Seagull and The Three Sisters are considered realist plays,Lutterbie, J. (2011) Toward a General Theory of Acting: Cognitive Science and and at the time The Seagull was playing in 1898, Stanislavskis approach was toPerformance.New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. attempt to imitate real life on stage in every detail (Chamberlain, 2000:79). TherePanet, B. (2015) Essential Acting, second edition, London: Routledge. are different approaches connected to imagination for achieving realism onstage. David Krasneracting teacher, director, and theatre historianbelieves that Stanislavski, C. (1981) Creating a Role. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd. imagining an experience that evokes the truth will deliver believability. Forexampleif a character is facing the guillotinerather than think of the guillotine,Wangh, S. (2000) An Acrobat of the Heart: a physical approach to actingan actor can imagine a cold shower instead, if that brings on a personal, inspired by the work of Jerzy Grotowski, New York: Vintage books. frightening feeling (2000:18). Director-author, Declan Donnellan makes the pointZinder, D. (2002) Body Voice Imagination A Training for the Actor.that when you ask the actor, what did you do yesterday? or how might you like toLondon: Routledge.celebrate your birthday next year? their eyes will search outside the body for the 52 53'