In rehearsing impersonations a mirror is as good and true a friend as in reciting. Observe how faithfully it reflects every change in the human countenance.
Supposing the character studied to be that of King Lear. First read your Shakespeare and memorize the lines which reach the very crisis of the agony and woe of love of that unfortunate monarch, as when, turning to his ungrateful, malignant daughters, Regan and Goneril, he cries—
“I will do such things,—
What they are yet I know not,... but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause for weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad!”
Understand the breaking, raging, heart-throbbing beneath them. Repeat them aloud before the glass, with wild, burning eyes and quivering lips, with shaking hands upthrown and tensely up-drawn figure, and by-and-by, if not at once, you will see King Lear peering at you distraught.
When you have thoroughly gripped that image you may crown it with snowy hair, pent brows, and ragged beard—but not till then.
And now, supposing, for a change—for there is nothing like variety—you undertake so utterly different a character as that of his faithful fool. Here no jingling bells and jester’s folly are needed to aid you, for these may be, and frequently are, but the danger signals to discerning eyes of incompetent treatment; you want his shrewd, loyal heart in your breast, his pulse beating in your brain, your finger-tips. His cunning grin must be a wavering crack in a wizened face as you memorize such caustic saws as—
“Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle; here comes one o’ the parings.”
This method of memorizing and voicing some sentiment characteristic of the figure presented, is only for private use during rehearsals.
Costume performances are dumb, and, this being the case, it is easy to realize how eloquent and exact the physical contour must be for faithful similitude.
Regard the idea as an object being photographed. When you have gripped it, and, as it were, posed it before the camera of your brain, focus, produce, and develop it on your features, which may well be likened to a film.