The Brain and the Body: Attention in Acting

A child opens an invisible door with a purposeful gesture as the group watches during a theater workshop.

The brain and the body do not always agree.

When we learn an action, we initially have to devote a great deal of attention to it. Through repetition, that action gradually becomes automatic: it is as though the brain “delegates” it to the body, freeing itself to deal with more important, difficult, or urgent matters.

Who can remember the first time they crossed a busy street alone?

We can imagine how closely we watched everything happening around us, the warnings we had been given, the shiver of fear, and perhaps our eyes fixed on the color of the traffic light.

Today, crossing the street may feel so automatic that we can talk to someone while also looking at store windows, billboards, or a sports car.

Some people even look at their phones—not because they have perfect control of the situation, but because they believe it no longer requires their attention.

We cannot give everything our full concentration all the time. We would probably go crazy.

The brain “delegates” to the body a great many activities that we have repeated thousands of times and can now perform using only a very small part of our attention.

There is nothing wrong with an action becoming automatic; in everyday life, this is necessary. The problem begins when we stop consciously following each step in our actions and start taking them for granted.

In everyday life, as long as we can bring our attention back when needed, this delegation is a resource.

In acting, however, it can become a limitation.

An actor cannot open a door, sit down, or look at someone as though these actions were unimportant. They must support every action with a truthful thought—that is, with a concrete reason for doing it.

That is why I use several games designed to disrupt this mechanism of delegation and “taking things for granted.”

When we act, our attention, concentration, and listening must be at their highest level.

Only then does a gesture cease to be an empty movement and become a theatrical action.