I simply remember the next one

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keannu

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1. Does "I simply remember the next one" mean he only sticks to the present?
2. Does "you cannot truly know what will happen next" mean "you should act as if you didn't know what will happen next"? "You should immerse in the present moment..?" Actually, the actor must know what will happen next, but it'd better be "you should forget what will happen next, and act as if it occured to you for the first time".

st51)While on stage, you must constantly remain in the state of "I am," playing each moment as if it were occurring for the first time - what the nineteenth-century actor William Gillette referred to as "the illusion of the first time." As in life, your characters cannot be foresighted. They cannot know the future. Someone once asked the legendary twentieth-century actor Sir Laurence Olivier how he remembered all his lines in Hamlet. He responded with "I don't. I simply remember the next one." Collegues of great actors ...While on stage, even though you know the next line and have performed your character's actions countless times, you cannot truly know what will happen next. Attempting to anticipate another person's actions will only result in your delivering indicated movements with artificial effects. Therefore, you too must play each scene moment by moment, remaining in the present.
 

emsr2d2

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"I only remember the next one" simply means that when you are in a play, it's only important to know what you're going to say next. Even though it doesn't work like this, it would be absolutely fine if, as soon as a line has finished coming out of your mouth, you just forget it. As long as you know what to say next, then you're OK. Of course, actors do actually learn all their lines, that's the only way they can perform a play right from the beginning! Darling Larry was being just a tad sarcastic, yet what he said is technically true!
 
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