‘First try to avoid all incorrect approaches to your work, and to that end study the basis of our school of acting; which is the basis of living your part. Second, do not repeat the senseless sort of work that you have just illustrated to us and which I have just criticized. Third, never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.
‘An artistic truth is hard to draw out, but it never palls. It becomes more pleasing, penetrates more deeply, all the time, until it embraces the whole being of an artist, and of his spectators as well. A role which is built of truth will grow, whereas one built on stereotype will shrivel.
‘The conventions that you found soon wore out. They were not able to continue to excite you, as they had the first time, when you mistook them for inspiration.
‘Then add to all this: the conditions of our theatre activities, the publicity attendant on the actors’ performances, our dependence for success on the public, and the desire, that arises from those conditions, to use any means to make an impression. These professional stimuli very often take hold of an actor even when he is playing a well established role. They do not improve the quality of his acting, but on the contrary their influence is toward exhibitionism and the strengthening of stereotyped methods.
‘In Grisha’s case, he had really worked on his rubber stamps, with the result that they were more or less good; but yours were bad because you had not worked them up. That is why I called his work rather decent mechanical acting, and the unsuccessful part of your playing I considered amateurish overacting.’
‘Consequently, my acting was a mixture of the best and the worst there is in our profession?’
‘No, not the very worst,’ said Tortsov. ‘What the others did was even worse. Your amateurishness is curable, but the mistakes of the others show a conscious principle which is far from easy to change or to root out of the artist.’
‘What is that?’
‘The exploitation of art.’
‘What does that consist of?’ asked one of the students.
‘In what Sonya Veliaminova did.’
‘I!’ The poor girl jumped out of her seat in surprise. ‘What did I do?’
‘You showed us your little hands, your little feet, your whole person, because it could be seen better on the stage,’ answered the Director.
‘How awful! And I never knew it!’
‘That is what always happens with habits that are ingrained.’
‘Why did you praise me?’
‘Because you had pretty hands and feet.’
‘Then what was bad about it?’
‘The bad part was that you flirted with the audience and did not play Katherine. You see Shakespeare did not write the Taming of the Shrew in order that a student by the name of Sonya Veliaminova could show the audience her little foot from the stage or could flirt with her admirers. Shakespeare had a different end in view, one which remained foreign to you, and therefore unknown to us. Unfortunately, our art is frequently exploited for personal ends. You do it to show your beauty. Others do it to gain popularity or external success or to make a career. In our profession these are common phenomena and I hasten to restrain you from them.
‘Now remember firmly what I am going to tell you: the theatre, on account of its publicity and spectacular side, attracts many people who merely want to capitalize their beauty or make careers. They take advantage of the ignorance of the public, its perverted taste, favouritism, intrigues, false success, and many other means which have no relation to creative art. These exploiters are the deadliest enemies of art. We have to use the sternest measures with them, and if they cannot be reformed they must be removed from the boards. Therefore,’ here he turned to Sonya again, ‘you must make up your mind, once and for all, did you come here to serve art, and to make sacrifices for its sake, or to exploit your own personal ends?
‘However,’ Tortsov continued, turning to the rest of us, ‘it is only in theory that we can divide art into categories. Practically, all schools of acting are mixed together. It is unfortunately true that we frequently see great artists, because of human weakness, lowering themselves to mechanical acting, and mechanical actors rising for moments to heights of true art.
‘Side by side we see moments of living a part, representing the part, mechanical acting and exploitation. That is why it is so necessary for actors to recognize the boundaries of art.’
It was quite clear to me, after listening to Tortsov’s explanation, that the exhibition performance had done us more harm than good.
‘No,’ he protested, when I told him my opinion. ‘The performance showed you what you must never do on the stage.’
At the end of the discussion the Director announced that tomorrow, in addition to our work with him, we are to begin regular activities that have the purpose of developing our voices and bodies,—lessons in singing, gymnastics, dancing and fencing. These classes will be held daily, because the development of the muscles of the human body requires systematic and thorough exercise, and a long time.
CHAPTER THREE
ACTION
1
What a day! It was our first lesson with the Director.
We gathered in the school, a small but perfectly equipped theatre. He came in, looked us all over carefully, and said: ‘Maria, please go up on to the stage.’
The poor girl was terrified. She reminded me of a frightened puppy, the way she ran off to hide herself. At last we caught her and led her to the Director, who was laughing like a child. She covered her face with her hands, and repeated all her favourite exclamations: ‘Oh dear, I cannot do it! Oh dear, I am afraid!’
‘Calm yourself,’ said he, looking her straight in the eye, ‘and let us do a little play. This is the plot.’ He was paying no attention to the young woman’s agitation. ‘The curtain goes up, and you are sitting on the stage. You are alone. You sit and sit and sit. . . . At last the curtain comes down again. That is the whole play. Nothing simpler could be imagined, could it?’
Maria did not answer, so he took her by the arm and without a word led her on to the stage, while all the rest of us laughed.
The Director turned and said quietly: ‘My friends, you are in a schoolroom. And Maria is going through a most important moment in her artistic life. Try to learn when to laugh, and at what.’
He took her out to the middle of the stage. We sat silent and waited for the curtain to rise. It went up slowly. She sat in the middle, near the front, her hands still covering her face. The solemn atmosphere and the long silence made themselves felt. She realized that something must be done.
First she removed one hand from her face, then the other, at the same time dropping her head so low that we could see nothing but the nape of her neck. Another pause. It was painful, but the Director waited in determined silence. Aware of the increasing tension, Maria looked out into the audience, but turned away instantly. Not knowing where to look, or what to do, she began to change, to sit first one way and then another, to take awkward positions, throw herself back and then straighten up, to bend over, pull hard at her very short skirt, look fixedly at something on the floor.
For a long time the Director was relentless, but at last he gave the sign for the curtain. I rushed up to him, because I wanted him to try me on the same exercise.
I was put in the middle of the stage. This was not a real performance; nevertheless I was full of self-contradictory impulses. Being on the stage, I was on exhibition, and yet an inner feeling demanded solitude. Part of me sought to entertain the onlookers, so that they would not become bored; another part told me to pay no attention to them. My legs, arms, head, and torso, although they did what I directed, added something superfluous of their own. You move your arm or leg quite simply, and suddenly you are all twisted, and look as though you were posing for a picture.
Strange! I had been on the stage only once, yet it was infinitely easier for me to sit on the stage affectedly than simply. I
could not think what I ought to do. Afterwards the others told me I looked in turn stupid, funny, embarrassed, guilty, apologetic. The Director merely waited. Then he tried the same exercise on the others.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘let us go further. Later we shall return to these exercises, and learn how to sit on the stage.’
‘Isn’t that what we have been doing?’ we asked.
‘Oh no,’ he replied. ‘You were not simply sitting.’
‘What ought we to have done?’
Instead of giving his answer in words he rose quickly, walked up to the stage in a businesslike way, and sat down heavily in an arm-chair to rest, as if he were at home. He neither did nor tried to do anything, yet his simple sitting posture was striking. We watched him, and wanted to know what was going on inside of him. He smiled. So did we. He looked thoughtful, and we were eager to know what was passing through his mind. He looked at something, and we felt we must see what it was that had attracted his attention.
In ordinary life one would not be specially interested in his manner of taking a seat, or remaining in it. But for some reason, when he is on the stage, one watches him closely, and perhaps has an actual pleasure in seeing him merely sit.
This did not happen when the others sat on the stage. We neither wanted to look at them nor to know what was going on inside them. Their helplessness and desire to please were ridiculous. Yet although the Director paid not the slightest attention to us, we were strongly drawn to him.
What is the secret? He told us himself.
Whatever happens on the stage must be for a purpose. Even keeping your seat must be for a purpose, a specific purpose, not merely the general purpose of being in sight of the audience. One must earn one’s right to be sitting there. And it is not easy.
‘Now let us repeat the experiment,’ he said, without leaving the stage. ‘Maria, come up here to me. I am going to act with you.’
‘You!’ cried Maria, and she ran up on to the stage.
Again she was placed in the arm-chair, in the middle of the stage, and again she began to wait nervously, to move consciously, to pull her skirts.
The Director stood near her, and seemed to be looking for something very carefully in his notebook.
Meantime, gradually, Maria became more quiet, more concentrated, and finally was motionless, with her eyes fixed on him. She was afraid she might disturb him, and she merely waited for further orders. Her pose was life-like, natural. She almost seemed to be beautiful. The stage brought out her good features. Some time passed in just that way. Then the curtain fell.
‘How do you feel?’ the Director asked, as they returned to their places in the auditorium.
‘I? Why? Did we act?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh! But I thought. . . . I was just sitting and waiting until you found your place in the book, and would tell me what to do. Why, I didn’t act anything.’
‘That was the best part of it,’ said he. ‘You sat and waited, and did not act anything.’
Then he turned to the rest of us. ‘Which struck you as more interesting?’ he asked. ‘To sit on the stage and show off your small feet as Sonya did, or your whole figure, like Grisha, or to sit for a specific purpose, even so simple a one as waiting for something to happen? It may not be of intrinsic interest in itself, but it is life, whereas showing yourself off takes you out of the realm of living art.
‘On the stage, you must always be enacting something; action, motion, is the basis of the art followed by the actor.’
‘But’, Grisha broke in, ‘you have just said that acting is necessary, and that showing off your feet or your figure, as I did, is not action. Why is it action to sit in a chair, as you did, without moving a finger? To me it looked like complete lack of action.’
I interrupted boldly: ‘I do not know whether it was action or inaction, but all of us are agreed that his so-called lack of action was of far more interest than your action.’
‘You see,’ the Director said calmly, addressing Grisha, ‘the external immobility of a person sitting on the stage does not imply passiveness. You may sit without a motion and at the same time be in full action. Nor is that all. Frequently physical immobility is the direct result of inner intensity, and it is these inner activities that are far more important artistically. The essence of art is not in its external forms but in its spiritual content. So I will change the formula I gave you a moment ago, and put it like this:
‘On the stage it is necessary to act, either outwardly or inwardly.’
2
‘Let us give a new play,’ said the Director to Maria, as he came into the classroom today.
‘Here is the gist of it: your mother has lost her job and her income; she has nothing to sell to pay for your tuition in dramatic school. In consequence you will be obliged to leave tomorrow. But a friend has come to your rescue. She has no cash to lend you, so she has brought you a brooch set in valuable stones. Her generous act has moved and excited you. Can you accept such a sacrifice? You cannot make up your mind. You try to refuse. Your friend sticks the pin into a curtain and walks out. You follow her into the corridor, where there is a long scene of persuasion, refusal, tears, gratitude. In the end you accept, your friend leaves, and you come back into the room to get the brooch. But—where is it? Can anyone have entered and taken it? In a rooming house that would be altogether possible. A careful, nerve-racking search ensues.
‘Go up on the stage. I shall stick the pin in a fold of this curtain and you are to find it.’
In a moment he announced that he was ready.
Maria dashed on to the stage as if she had been chased. She ran to the edge of the footlights and then back again, holding her head with both hands, and writhing with terror. Then she came forward again, and then again went away, this time in the opposite direction. Rushing out toward the front she seized the folds of the curtain and shook them desperately, finally burying her head in them. This act she intended to represent looking for the brooch. Not finding it, she turned quickly and dashed off the stage, alternately holding her head or beating her breast, apparently to represent the general tragedy of the situation.
Those of us who were sitting in the orchestra could scarcely keep from laughing.
It was not long before Maria came running down to us in a most triumphant manner. Her eyes shone, her cheeks flamed.
‘How do you feel?’ asked the Director.
‘Oh, just wonderful! I can’t tell you how wonderful. I’m so happy,’ she cried, hopping around on her seat. ‘I feel just as if I had made my début . . . really at home on the stage.’
‘That’s fine,’ said he encouragingly, ‘but where is the brooch? Give it to me.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said she, ‘I forgot that.’
‘That is rather strange. You were looking hard for it, and you forgot it!’
We could scarcely look around before she was on the stage again, and was going through the folds of the curtain.
‘Do not forget this one thing,’ said the Director warningly, ‘if the brooch is found you are saved. You may continue to come to these classes. But if the pin is not found you will have to leave the school.’
Immediately her face became intense. She glued her eyes on the curtain, and went over every fold of the material from top to bottom, painstakingly, systematically. This time her search was at a much slower pace, but we were all sure that she was not wasting a second of her time and that she was sincerely excited, although she made no effort to seem so.
‘Oh, where is it? Oh, I’ve lost it.’
This time the words were muttered in a low voice.
‘It isn’t there,’ she cried, with despair and consternation, when she had gone through every fold.
Her face was all worry and sadness. She stood motionless, as if her thoughts were far away. It was easy to feel how the loss of the pin had moved her.
We watched, and held our breath.
Finally the Director spoke.
‘How do you
feel now, after your second search?’ he asked.
‘How do I feel? I don’t know.’ Her whole manner was languid, she shrugged her shoulders as she tried for some answer, and unconsciously her eyes were still on the floor of the stage. ‘I looked hard,’ she went on, after a moment.
‘That’s true. This time you really did look,’ said he. ‘But what did you do the first time?’
‘Oh, the first time I was excited, I suffered.’
‘Which feeling was more agreeable, the first, when you rushed about and tore up the curtain, or the second, when you searched through it quietly?’
‘Why, of course, the first time, when I was looking for the pin.’
‘No, do not try to make us believe that the first time you were looking for the pin,’ said he. ‘You did not even think of it. You merely sought to suffer, for the sake of suffering.
‘But the second time you really did look. We all saw it; we understood, we believed, because your consternation and distraction actually existed.
‘Your first search was bad. The second was good.’
This verdict stunned her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I nearly killed myself the first time.’
‘That doesn’t count,’ said he. ‘It only interfered with a real search. On the stage do not run for the sake of running, or suffer for the sake of suffering. Don’t act “in general”, for the sake of action; always act with a purpose.’
‘And truthfully,’ said I.
‘Yes,’ he agreed; ‘and now, get up on the stage and do it.’
We went, but for a long time we did not know what to do. We felt we must make an impression, but I couldn’t think of anything worth the attention of an audience. I started to be Othello, but soon stopped. Leo tried in turn an aristocrat, a general and peasant. Maria ran around holding her head and her heart to represent tragedy. Paul sat on a chair in a Hamlet-like pose and seemed to be representing either sorrow or disillusion. Sonya flirted around, and by her side Grisha declared his love in the most worn traditions of the stage. When I happened to look at Nicholas Umnovykh and Dasha Dymkova, who had as usual hidden themselves in a corner, I almost groaned to see their fixed stares and wooden attitudes, as they did a scene from Ibsen’s Brand.
An Actor Prepares Page 4