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Question 1

What is the Idea of the role?

• How do you see the main idea of the work?

• What does this idea express?

• How does it relate to the present, to the past, to the future, to you personally and to all humanity – young and old, black, white, or yellow?

We know these questions from our school days. I was taught to understand the principle of an idea thus – “in taking a play to pieces you have to find the most burning issues of today in everything.” That is arguable. “Today’s issue”, so to speak, may only be burning today and lack powerful energetic potential, so it cannot count on lasting long and consequently has no claim to be classed as a work of Art.

But before we start to argue about that, we must define what an idea is. Often actors and directors call their own concept the idea of the role or the play. Others try to find the “idea of the author” by honest means. But you have to look not for the idea of the author and his play or your own idea but for the Idea itself. What does this mean?

The fact is that Ideas or groups of IDEAS exist outside the drama and outside us. They belong to no one nation, time or event – they are eternal. The time, the situation and the development of philosophical and aesthetic thoughts, of all culture and civilisation, are appointed by time so that the Idea appears before the new Aischylos, Shakespeare or Chekhov. The paradox lies in the fact that we are looking for a new Idea all the time, whereas actually it is looking for us, seeking out that worthy someone.

Its energy – and an Idea has incredibly powerful energy – strikes the playwright and thanks to the Idea he starts to create his own work. He embodies the Idea in his play – a specific story, theme, conflict, personnages or text and so on. The first thing the director does having read the play is to fall in love with the Idea. It is the Idea he expresses in his production by analysing the play, the mise-en-scènes, the sequence of events, the style and music etc – in other words by all means available to him, though first and foremost through the actor. The actor feeds on the Idea and embodies it in his acting, in an emotion or a movement. Through the actor the Idea reaches the audience. So, in accordance with this pictorial chain which Plato beautifully portrayed in his dialogue Ion, the actor has to turn primarily to the Idea that formed the basic impulse for the creation of the chain. Imbibing energy from the initial source, so to speak.

Corruption of the initial impulse will occur in any chain reaction. The longer the chain the higher the coefficient of corruption. The “purer” and “clearer” the transmitter the more the final result resembles the original. That is why each of those in the chain must constantly check their thoughts and reference points against the main Idea from which everything began so as not to corrupt it. Can a role or a play be constructed from several principal ideas? Yes, of course. A role or a production constructed on myriad ideas is much more difficult to embody, but, from my point of view, such a model has much greater energy and is of greater beauty.

As an Idea, the sea can be expressed in a single drop of water, a forest in a single leaf, so the Idea of a role can be expressed in everything – both generally and in minor details, in a long dialogue and in the shortest retort, in a pause and in the text, in movement and in motionlessness. It is an entire world built on and subject to one thing – the Idea. The Idea is the main impulse and guideline for analysing a play or a role. The Idea is the main source of energy for the imagination, reflections and the rehearsals of the actor and the director both when working on the entire performance and in the process of its creation and embodiment. In order to keep a production or a role truly alive for a lengthy period it is necessary to think, first and foremost, about their vitality in terms of the main Idea.

You have to see the difference between ideas of the present and Ideas for all time. They are different energies, different distances, different lives of the role and the play. An idea for today may be bright and burning now but tomorrow lose currency and fade away. It is important to find an Idea that will never die, which will live, independent of time, social structures and people’s dispositions. Don’t rush and call the first thought that comes to you in the role an idea. That’s akin to calling your first experience of love true love itself. You will soon be convinced of how fast the first “concept” of the role evaporates, how empty everything that you have analysed and conceived seems. That is normal. When working on a play your understanding of the Idea will grow, it will somehow change, it will become more defined, it will grow like a living being. Only practical work will help you give the Idea an exact name. But simply naming and understanding an Idea are insufficient for an actor. You have to feel its fire, let it burn you, your partners, embody it on stage and convey it to the audience.

An Idea can strike an actor not just when he is creating the role. He might discover an Idea for himself that fills his life and his entire artistic being with meaning. The power of its energy does not fade with the end of the work, rather it grows and other plays and other roles will be needed to embody it. If an actor grasps the Idea of the role as well as its main source of energy then he will discover a beautiful and endless well of creativity.

We will return to the Idea several times, which is proof, if such were required, of its importance, both as the main line of analysis and as the main source of energy for investigation of the text.