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One of the most consistent questions professional actors get asked is “ Whew! How do you remember all those lines???”

I usually answer by asking in return what they do for a living, and then according to what they tell me, I simply point out that however they learned how to do what they do professionally, we actors learn various techniques for memorizing huge amounts of language written by others and spoken through the filter of the character we are portraying. I point out that committing large swaths of language to memory is part of the tool chest of an actor, and that there are as many different ways to memorize as there are actors! Each of us has our own method.

Some prefer to have an entire script totally memorized even before rehearsals start ( I had to do that when I played “ “Amanda” in THE GLASS MENAGERIE because it’s such an enormous emotional role, my first Tennessee Williams leading lady, so complex, so demanding, that I wanted to have my hands free, my body totally available, when staging each heart breaking scene.) Other times, actors prefer to memorize as each rehearsal day unlocks the physical staging of the play, so the physical, emotional, speaking demands of the role come together in the shared rehearsal process…..each element unlocking the hidden heart of the character as his or her daily life comes to light….a journey of discovery where language is joined with body movement and dramatic intention…..every actor has a unique way of working.

But the bottom line is : committing a script to memory in order to be able to speak the lines truthfully from the natural heart of the character as if spoken for the first time in each performance is a basic skill actors train for years to master….but master that skill they must, and will do, or else stage careers will be short and frustrating. So, like a dentist must train how to fill a cavity, the actor trains to fill his mind and heart with countless words in a script.

That being said, to learn by heart is a very apt way to describe any actor’s method of memorization….because no matter the mechanical requirements of getting those words into the brain so they flow easily as the actor needs them to flow, true memorization must always serve this deep requirement as well: each word, each line must seem as if it comes from the most sincere heart of that particular character…each word, each line, each speech must be the truth in that moment, so true memorization is never just mechanical.

A characters language must be intimately interwoven with that characters deepest needs, intentions, desires, purpose…call it what you will…but the more you understand a character thoroughly and truly, the easier its language will settle properly in your mind…the actor and the character thus becoming one.
It’s highly alchemical….mysterious as far as I can tell…that melding of actor with role….which is which?…..who is an audience really experiencing? The actor or the character?

Finally, that is an unanswerable question, because the words put into memory belong to the character, but they emerge from the body, the mouth, the heart, the breath, of the actor you see before you on that stage. If the work is good and the script important, a delicate marriage has taken place.

And , honestly, there have been many times when I have consciously thought, (as I’ve come off stage from a scene that has obviously moved an audience):

Wow….that felt miraculous!

Our minds, our hearts, our intentions, our energies…all housed within the simple machinery of one actor’s body …..maybe a Muse somewhere waved her magic wand!

Magic…..yep.