If on the stage the hand movements of the actor catch our interest, we
no longer look at the whole large scene, we see only the fingers of the
hero clutching the revolver with which he is to commit his crime. Our
attention is entirely given up to the passionate play of his hand. It
becomes the central point for all our emotional responses. We do not see
the hands of any other actor in the scene. Everything else sinks into a
general vague background, while that one hand shows more and more
details. The more we fixate it, the more its clearness and distinctness
increase. From this one point wells our emotion, and our emotion again
concentrates our senses on this one point. It is as if this one hand
were during this pulse beat of events the whole scene, and everything
else had faded away. On the stage this is impossible; there nothing can
really fade away. That dramatic hand must remain, after all, only the
ten thousandth part of the space of the whole stage; it must remain a
little detail. The whole body of the hero and the other men and the
whole room and every indifferent chair and table in it must go on
obtruding themselves on our senses. What we do not attend cannot be
suddenly removed from the stage. Every change which is needed must be
secured by our own mind. In our consciousness the attended hand must
grow and the surrounding room must blur.
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