The actor must pass through four stages of preparation before he considers himself ready for opening night. In the first, he begins to identify himself with the character to be portrayed. This he accomplishes by individual or collective reading. The actor has to handle castration fear, death wishes, and ego annihilation in the process of creating a character who is not himself. That is why at this point actors show in real life a transitory withdrawal of object libido and a regression to the narcissistic libidinal stage. The author discusses the dream of a patient, an actor, and shows how the imitation in this initial phase is accomplished through mimicry.

The second stage consists of group participation before a director and is usually accomplished in three steps: 1, studying and analyzing the character; 2, elaborating the performance; and 3, memorizing. Here the primary elements