No book on acting is complete without calling on Shakespeare. We're going to use an excerpt from Portia's trial scene in The Merchant of Venice—as an exercise.

Memorize the following quotation. Get it letter-perfect so you can rattle it off automatically. Don't try to act it.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: It is twice blest—
// blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Go through the speech again. This time notice that you automatically take pauses.

Breathe naturally—diaphragmatically—in your pause. During each pause, take only the breath you need to speak the vocal phrase comfortably which follows the breath.

Keep going over the speech until it feels natural for you to breathe this way during your pauses.

Repeat the speech and signal with your finger or hand during each pause. Fill the complete pause with synchronized breathing and action.

You have just experienced our FIRST LAW OF TIMING:

First Law of Timing—Movement During a Pause:

Move during the whole pause and nothing but the pause.

Obeying the first law of timing, do the "quality of mercy" speech, substituting one of our arbitrary units of motion in place of the hand signal.

Again, you have just experienced our first law of timing—plus the law of substitution (arbitrary unit of motion substituting hand signal). You have completely filled each pause with an action. But you have never overlapped action and speech.

This is the time to memorize a speech from a modern play, about the same length as the "quality of mercy" excerpt.

Take pauses in the new speech wherever they suit your interpretation. Only a director has the authority to change your pauses for the sake of over-all interpretation, which is his responsibility.

Once your pauses are set, however, make sure they're permanently and definitely set. You have no right to change them. It is on your pauses that other actors, working with you, pin some of their reactions. If you continually change your pauses, you become a difficult performer to work with. You are being thoroughly unfair to your fellow actors.

After your pauses are "set" in your contemporary play speech, fill each pause with one of our units of motion. Practice this until it becomes automatic.

Back to the "quality of mercy" speech, this time substituting a normal movement toward a normal body objective, such as taking off your coat, using one single unit of motion in each pause.

Substitute your modern play speech for the "quality of mercy" and go through it with a normal body objective, such as taking off your coat, using one single unit of motion in each pause.

Let's see exactly what you've done in the last two speeches. Let's break down this business of objectives.

In almost every scene you play, there are usually two objectives.

First is the speech objective. You reach it by using dialogue.

Second is the movement objective, or the body objective (the terms are interchangeable).

The movement objective can be either direct or indirect, conscious or subconscious.

Whether the movement objective is direct or indirect, conscious or subconscious, all body movement, or body phrasing, is used to fill the important function of enriching characterization. These exercises will prepare you for that.

When a cowboy points with his hand and says, "They went that-a-way!" he is using a direct, or conscious, movement objective.

The "business" Bing Crosby does with his pipe when he sits at the piano doing "White Christmas" is all unrelated—indirect— subconscious—movement objective.

His pipe and what he does with it have nothing at all to do with the song—everything to do with naturalness. The kind of naturalness performers can't cut corners to reach. That is, performers like James Stewart, Thelma Ritter, Perry Como—and Bing Crosby.

As an exercise in not cutting corners, try the following "piece of business" with a book.

Exercise

While seated, hold a book in your lap, but don't do anything with the book until after you start speaking the lines of any speech with enough pauses to carry you—in single units of motion—to an indirect body objective. This body objective is to locate and point to the last word on page 69 of the book.

During the reading of your speech fill each pause with a single unit of motion. Make only one clean movement in one direction during each pause.

Let there be no possibility of misunderstanding. By movement I mean any small action of any part of your body. If you move your finger to the top of a page and then take hold of the page, you have used two units of motion. Lifting the page is a unit of motion. Releasing the page from your fingers is another unit of motion. Make each unit head toward your body objective, always obeying the first law of timing.

After you have gone through this experience in not cutting corners, try other "action objectives" while doing the "quality of mercy" speech. For example, lighting a cigarette, dusting a lamp, taking a pair of socks out of a drawer—anything—as your indirect body objective.

Substitute your modern play speech, using any of these body objectives.

Make each unit head toward your objective.

Any movement you make, with any part of your body, is a unit of motion. Each unit must be a single, clean, concise movement. Each unit must be directed toward an ultimate objective.

By taking its precise place in a chain of action, each unit becomes related to the ultimate objective.

This is what Stanislavsky meant by units and objectives.

That versatile actor Bill Williams can do the "quality of mercy" exercise with such precise and detailed control that he can saddle his horse from start to finish, while going through the exercise exactly twice.

Alternately practice the "quality of mercy" and modern play speech. Make a consecutive series of natural, single, units of motion in each pause. Make these lead toward a natural—indirect—subconscious—body objective. This will start you toward the habit of synchronizing natural actions, with any speech, using the first law of timing.

Our first law of timing is a great common denominator and connector with real life.

The things you do while getting dressed, putting on make-up, setting a table, making a bed, working in the garden, and so on, all make good natural subconscious body objectives.

Remember, whatever the action, an actor arrives at his movement objective by a series of units of motion.

Make yourself aware that you are following the principle of units and objectives when you take a cigarette out of your pocket and light it, while talking about a subject completely unrelated to cigarettes. Your subconscious objective is to smoke a cigarette.

As you learn to support your scenes with consciously-arrived-at subconscious actions, built of units and objectives, you will grow into what is known as a natural actor. You will be on your way toward acquiring the technique of timing.

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