
A Last Look at the Theatre
Artful making requires great motive energy to drive past its
inherent challenges. In the theatre they call this motive ener-
gy vocation. The need for it lies in the difficulties of rehearsal
and play that we’ve described, and the complications atten-
dant upon the fact that an actor is both maker and material for
the made thing: a character.
Because they are their own material, actors have no way to
see and judge the product of their work. The moment they stop
working and start watching, the character disappears. You can
experience this in the focus exercise we described in Chapter
6: The moment you congratulate yourself on ...