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How do actors remember their lines? I'm lost for words

Complicit, Old Vic, London
Richard Dreyfuss (Ben Kritzer) and David Suchet (Roger Cowan) in Complicit. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Theatregoers waiting for the world premiere of Complicit at the Old Vic will, it seems, have to wait a little longer. The opening night has been put back due to the need for "more development time". Rumours abound that the leading actor, Richard Dreyfuss, is still surmounting the knotty problem for any actor of getting the lines under his belt. Should that be the case, most actors would only shiver with empathy: even when you're a young thruster, learning a stage part is no fun, and once you're on the wrong side of 50, it can be a nerve-shredding business.

"How do you remember your words?" is one of the most commonly asked questions of actors, and it's one that we're generally reluctant to answer. The truth is, we don't really know. It's an act of faith, and if it's all the same to you, we'd rather not think about it.

We have to take it on trust that on any given night, the lines we've so carefully learned during rehearsals will tumble out of our mouths in the right order and in the right place. The possibility that they might not doesn't bear thinking about.

There are various ways of approaching the task of committing a big part to memory. One or two actors I've worked with seem to possess a photographic brain that makes the task as easy as photocopying, but I think they might be aliens. For the rest of us, the most reliable option is long hours spent with your hand over the lines murmuring under your breath for hours on end. Not only does it work as a method, but it's also a very good way for getting yourself extra space when travelling on public transport.

Yet however diligent one's preparation, every actor has experienced the awful sensation of "drying" – showbiz jargon for that terrible moment when suddenly, inexplicably, the words that were so readily accessible the previous night suddenly refuse to arrive when needed.

In the old days, most theatres employed "prompters" – people whose job it was to sit in the wings or in the front row of the stalls with a copy of the play in their hands and feed actors their missing line upon request. But such luxuries went out with Sir Henry Irving.

The stage management team is supposed to keep an eye on the script in case of dire need, but this system is by no means foolproof. A friend of mine who once pleaded three times for a prompt from the wings, received the curt response from the stage manager, "Hang on, I'm doing something." Maurice Denham once recalled seeing an actor in a weekly repertory season desperately whispering "What's the line?" into the wings, only to be met with the response, "What's the play?"

The biggest enemy to memory is, of course, simple stage fright. This can ravish your careful preparation like a computer virus, leaving you speechless and gaping. One of the most piquant examples of this phenomenon is related by actor-turned-producer Ray Cooney, who in a play called We Must Kill Toni was playing one of two brothers deciding how to wrest an inheritance off the beautiful but unsuspecting heroine. The other brother had to begin the play with the simple question "Murder or marriage?" – to which Cooney had to respond in a spirit of equal villainy, "Marriage or murder?" In fact, so transfixed by nerves was his compatriot on the first night that the only line he could come up with was "Murdidge or marra?" To which, with a look of infinite suffering, Cooney replied slowly, "Marra or murdidge?"

They don't write dialogue like that any more.

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