| What an actor does with
a prop can go a long way in revealing the character's intentions. Let's look at Elia
Kazan's On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint. About a
quarter of the way into the film, there is a park scene on a chilly autumn evening. Brando
as Terry Molloy has just helped Saint as Edie Doyle escape a violent invasion of a
political meeting in a Catholic Church. Now safely bestowed in the park, he is walking her
homeward. They are bare acquaintances, familiar with each other from parochial grade
school. Their conversation touches on her current Catholic college education (away from
home) and future as a teacher. She reaches into her coat pocket for a pair of gloves and
the left one falls to the ground. He is quick to pick it up; and though she reaches for
it, he doesn't hand it back to her. What he does is sit on a swing hung from a tree and
carefully pick the glove clean of bits of fallen leaves. He is asking her questions and
she is answering tentatively. They are getting a sense of each other. When the glove is
picked clean, he still doesn't give it back. Instead, he puts it on his own hand and
brings his hands together. She has on the right glove, he has on the left glove, and they
are talking about when she might be home from college again. What does this use of the
prop reveal? When Stanislavsky was directing Romeo and Juliet, the actor playing
Romeo asked, "How do I play 'To Be in Love' with Juliet?" Stanislavsky answered
that an actor cannot play a state of being (being in love) though an actor can have or
feel a state of being. An actor can only play an action, which "To Be in Love"
is not. Stanislavsky gave the actor the action "To Pay Attention" to Juliet,
through which he could reveal his love and experience the ingredients of being in love.
Brando as Terry Molloy is not interested in politely handing back Edie Doyle's glove.
Brando as Terry Molloy is interested in caring for Edie Doyle's glove and by extension he
is interested in touching Edie Doyle. Through the prop, he reveals his desire to connect
with her in a young and tender way, in the way of handholding. (The opportunity to connect
with her came of his having paid attention to her, having noticed her glove dropping.)
Caring for her glove, he is caring for her. Putting on her glove, he is taking her hand.
Bringing his hands together, he is joining hands with her. He is connecting with her.
Moreover, to extend the poetry, he is sliding inside of her as his hand slides inside her
glove. In a gesture suffused with innocence, without even touching, he is merging with her
and we see that the glove fits. We see that these two momentarily childlike beings may be
a good grown-up fit.
For her part, she has noticed his activities with the glove and hasn't prohibited him.
But when he kids her about how funny she looked in grade school, she removes the glove
from his hand, just as smoothly and with as little fuss as when he put the glove on his
hand. Neither has she resisted nor submitted to him. She has paid attention to him, even
when not looking at him. What we have been witnessing, then, is the visceral beginning of
Terry Molloy and Edie Doyle falling in love. |
