Stanislavski and The Unbroken Line

Applied to a trial Stanislavski teaches when the lawyer begins to learn the story of his client he sees it in bits and pieces. It is rare that the lawyer grasps the story instantly and is emotionally touched at a high level. More often he must take the time to internalize the facts and emotions to reach a deep understanding of the story so “a line gradually emerges as a continuous whole.” Stanislaviski, An Actor Prepares, Translated by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood (The Unbroken Line). Not until the line emerges as a whole is the lawyer ready to try the case.

A trial is like a play in that there are separate actors and interruptions in a play and separate witnesses and interruptions in a trial. To be successful the lawyer must deal with the interruptions by seeing the unbroken line of the trial so the trial “is an integrated whole made up of individual acts and feelings, thoughts and sensations.” Id.

To illustrate the lawyer has an idea of how the trial will progress from jury selection through closing argument. He should be able to feel how the bits and pieces of the trial will fit together to create one unbroken line that flows from jury selection, to opening though direct and cross into closing. He must see the parts of the trial as fitting together to tell a coherent story. The story of the client from the heart with natural emotion.

Even though the lawyer’s attention is constantly passing from witness to witness and from  document to document  he must never lose track of the emotional theme or unbroken line. Thus he flows with the pieces of the trial to make them an emotional coherent story to which the jury will relate.

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