make a certain gesture, what you will accomplish by that gesture, that you will employ it instinctively, whatever the distractions. You must be able to leave the character for a moment for something totally foreign and pick up the threads again as if you never had dropped them."
In the scene where David pleads with his master, Bob Acres, not to fight the duel, Acres sits with his back to the audience to center attention on David. In his earnestness David leans farther and farther across a table until his face almost touches that of his master. As I completed this speech at the first rehearsal, I drew back, thinking to heighten the effect.
"Oh, don't do that," Jefferson whispered. "You nullify the effect. When you get an effect, hold it, hold it! Focus all attention upon it. Your leaning forward helps the force of your lines. If you pull back at your climax you pull the audience back with you. Watch now when we play it. If you do what I say, you will get a round of applause."
I had made an amateurish blunder, but I was able at least to appreciate the wherefores of such a tip and to act upon it. I did so and the burst of applause came.
[122]
