Читать книгу Acting; The First Six Lessons - Richard Boleslavsky - Страница 8

Morning. My room. A knock at the door.

I: Come in. (The door opens, slowly and timidly. Enter a Pretty Creature of eighteen. She looks at me with wide-open, frightened eyes and crushes her handbag violently.)

THE CREATURE: I … I … I hear that you teach dramatic art.

I: No! I am sorry. Art cannot be taught. To possess an art means to possess talent. That is something one has or has not. You can develop it by hard work, but to create a talent is impossible. What I do is to help those who have decided to work on the stage, to develop and to educate themselves for honest and conscientious work in the theatre.

THE CREATURE: Yes, of course. Please help me. I simply love the theatre.

I: Loving the theatre is not enough. Who does not love it? To consecrate oneself to the theatre, to devote one’s entire life to it, give it all one’s thought, all one’s emotions! For the sake of the theatre to give up everything, to suffer everything! And more important than all, to be ready to give the theatre everything—your entire being—expecting the theatre to give you nothing in return, not the least grain of what seemed to you so beautiful in it and so alluring.

THE CREATURE: I know. I played a great deal at school. I understand that the theatre brings suffering. I am not afraid of it. I am ready for anything if I can only play, play, play.

I: And suppose the theatre does not want you to play and play and play?

THE CREATURE: Why shouldn’t it?

I: Because it might not find you talented.

THE CREATURE: But when I played at school….

I: What did you play?

THE CREATURE: King Lear.

I: What part did you play in this trifle?

THE CREATURE: King Lear himself. And all my friends and our professor of literature and even Aunt Mary told me I played wonderfully and that I certainly had talent.

I: Pardon me, I don’t mean to criticize the nice people whom you name, but are you sure that they are connoisseurs of talent?

THE CREATURE: Our professor is very strict. He himself worked with me on King Lear. He is a great authority.

I: I see, I see. And Aunt Mary?

THE CREATURE: She met Mr. Belasco personally.

I: So far, so good. But can you tell me how your professor, when working on King Lear, wanted you to play these lines, for instance: “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!”

THE CREATURE: Do you want me to play it for you?

I: No. Just tell me how you learned to read those lines. What were you trying to attain?

THE CREATURE: I had to stand this way, my feet well together, incline my body forward a little, lift my head like this, stretch out my arms to heaven and shake my fists. Then I had to take a deep breath and burst into sarcastic laughter—ha! ha! ha! (She laughs, a charming, childish laugh. Only at happy eighteen can one laugh that way.) Then, as though cursing heaven, as loud as possible pronounce the words:

“Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!”

I: Thank you, that is quite enough for a clear understanding of the part of King Lear, as well as for a definition of your talent. May I ask you one more thing? Will you, if you please, say this sentence, first cursing the heavens and then without cursing them. Just keep the sense of the phrase—only its thought. (She doesn’t think long, she is accustomed to curse heaven.)

THE CREATURE: When you curse the heavens, you say it this way: “Blooooow wiiiiinds, and Craaaaack your cheeks, Raaaaage Blooooow.” (The Creature tries very hard to curse the heavens but through the window I see the azure heavens laughing at the curse. I do the same.) And without cursing them, I must do it some other way. Well … I don’t know how … Isn’t it funny? Well, this way: (The Creature becomes confused and, with a charming smile, swallowing the words, hurriedly pronounces them all on one note.) “Blowwindsandcrackyourcheeksrageblow.” (She becomes completely confused and tries to destroy her handbag. A pause.)

I: How strange! You are so young; you do not hesitate a second before cursing heaven. Yet you are unable to speak these words simply and plainly, to show their inner meaning. You want to play a Chopin Nocturne without knowing where the notes are. You grimace, you mutilate the words of the poet and eternal emotion, and at the same time you do not possess the most elemental quality of a literate man—an ability to transmit the thoughts, feelings, and words of another logically. What right have you to say that you have worked in the theatre? You have destroyed the very conception of the word Theatre. (A pause; the Creature looks at me with the eyes of one innocently condemned to death. The little handbag lies on the floor.)

THE CREATURE: So I must never play?

I: And if I say Never? (Pause. The eyes of the Creature change their expression, she looks straight into my soul with a sharp scrutinizing look, and seeing that I am not joking, clenches her teeth, and tries in vain to hide what is happening in her soul. But it is no use. One enormous real tear rolls out of her eye, and the Creature at that moment becomes dear to me. It spoils my intentions completely. She controls herself, clenches her teeth, and says in a low voice—)

THE CREATURE: But I am going to play. I have nothing else in my life. (At eighteen they always talk that way. But just the same I am deeply touched.)

I: All right then. I must tell you that this very moment you did more for the theatre, or rather for yourself in the theatre, than you did in playing all your parts. You suffered just now; you felt deeply. Those are two things without which you cannot do in any art and especially in the art of the theatre. Only by paying this price can you attain the happiness of creation, the happiness of the birth of a new artistic value. To prove that, let us work together right now. Let us try to create a small, but real, artistic value according to your strength. It will be the first step in your development as an actress. (The enormous, beautiful tear is forgotten. It disappeared somewhere into space. A charming, happy smile appears instead. I never thought my creaking voice could produce such a change.)

Listen and answer sincerely. Have you ever seen a man, a specialist, busy on some creative problem in the course of his work? A pilot on an ocean liner, for instance, responsible for thousands of lives, or a biologist working at his microscope, or an architect working out the plan of a complicated bridge, or a great actor seen from the wings during his interpretation of a fine part?

THE CREATURE: I saw John Barrymore from the wings when he was playing Hamlet.

I: What impressed you chiefly as you watched him?

THE CREATURE: He was marvelous!!!

I: I know that, but what else?

THE CREATURE: He paid no attention to me.

I: That is more important; not only not to you but to nothing around him. He was acting in his work as the pilot would, the scientist, or the architect—he was concentrating. Remember this word Concentrate. It is important in every art and especially in the art of the theatre. Concentration is the quality which permits us to direct all our spiritual and intellectual forces towards one definite object and to continue as long as it pleases us to do so—sometimes for a time much longer than our physical strength can endure. I knew a fisherman once who, during a storm, did not leave his rudder for forty-eight hours, concentrating to the last minute on his work of steering his schooner. Only when he had brought the schooner back safely into the harbor did he allow his body to faint. This strength, this certainty of power over yourself, is the fundamental quality of every creative artist. You must find it within yourself, and develop it to the last degree.

THE CREATURE: But how?

I: I will tell you. Don’t hurry. The most important thing is that in the art of the theatre a special kind of concentration is needed. The pilot has a compass, the scientist has his microscope, the architect his drawings—all external, visible objects of concentration and creation. They have, so to speak, a material aim, to which all their force is directed. So has a sculptor, a painter, a musician, an author. But it is quite different with the actor. Tell me, what do you think is the object of his concentration?

THE CREATURE: His part.

I: Yes, until he learns it. But it is only after studying and rehearsing that the actor starts to create. Or rather let us say that at first he creates “searchingly” and on the opening night he begins to create “constructively” in his acting. And what is acting?

THE CREATURE: Acting? Acting is when he … acts, acts … I don’t know.

I: You want to consecrate all your life to a task without knowing what it is? Acting is the life of the human soul receiving its birth through art. In a creative theatre the object for an actor’s concentration is the human soul. In the first period of his work—the searching—the object for concentration is his own soul and those of the men and women who surround him. In the second period—the constructive one—only his own soul. Which means that, to act, you must know how to concentrate on something materially imperceptible,—on something which you can perceive only by penetrating deeply into your own entity, recognizing what would be evidenced in life only in a moment of the greatest emotion and most violent struggle. In other words, you need a spiritual concentration on emotions which do not exist, but are invented or imagined.

THE CREATURE: But how can one develop in oneself something which does not exist. How can one start?

I: From the very beginning. Not from a Chopin Nocturne but from the simplest scales. Such scales are your five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. They will be the key of your creation like a scale for a Chopin Nocturne. Learn how to govern this scale, how with your entire being to concentrate on your senses, to make them work artificially, to give them different problems and create the solutions.

THE CREATURE: I hope you don’t mean to say that I don’t even know how to listen or how to feel.

I: In life you may know. Nature has taught you a little. (She becomes very daring and speaks as though challenging the whole world.)

THE CREATURE: No, on the stage, too.

I: Is that so? Let us see. Please, just as you are sitting now, listen to the scratching of an imaginary mouse in that corner.

THE CREATURE: Where is the audience?

I: That doesn’t concern you in the least. Your audience is in no hurry as yet to buy tickets for your performance. Forget about it. Do the problem I give you. Listen to the scratching of a mouse in that corner.

THE CREATURE: All right. (There follows a helpless gesture with the right and then the left ear which has nothing in common with listening to the delicate scratching of a mouse’s paw in the silence.)

I: All right. Now please listen to a symphony orchestra playing the march from Aida. You know the march?

THE CREATURE: Of course.

I: Please. (The same business follows—nothing to do with listening to a triumphal march. I smile. The Creature begins to understand that something is wrong, and becomes confused. She awaits my verdict.) I see you recognize how helpless you are, how little you see the difference between the lower do and the higher do.

THE CREATURE: You give me a very difficult problem.

I: Is it easier to curse the heavens in King Lear? No, my dear, I must tell you frankly: You do not know how to create the smallest, simplest bit of the life of the human soul. You do not know how to concentrate spiritually. Not only do you not know how to create complicated feelings and emotions but you do not even possess your own senses. All of that you must learn by hard daily exercises of which I can give you thousands. If you think, you will be able to invent another thousand.

THE CREATURE: All right. I will learn. I will do everything you tell me. Will I be an actress then?

I: I am glad you ask. Of course you will not be an actress, yet. To listen and to look and to feel truly is not all. You must do all that in a hundred ways. Suppose that you are playing. The curtain goes up and your first problem is to listen to the sound of a departing car. You must do it in such a way that the thousand people in the theatre who at that moment are each concentrating on some particular object—one on the stock exchange, one on home worries, one on politics, one on a dinner or the pretty girl in the next chair—in such a way that they know and feel immediately that their concentration is less important than yours, though you are concentrating only on the sound of a departing imaginary car. They must feel they have not the right to think of the stock exchange in the presence of your imaginary car! That you are more powerful than they, that, for the moment, you are the most important person in the world, and nobody dares disturb you. Nobody dares to disturb a painter at his work, and it is the actor’s own fault if he allows the public to interfere with his creation. If all actors would possess the concentration and the knowledge of which I speak, this would never happen.

THE CREATURE: But what does he need for that?

I: Talent and technique. The education of an actor consists of three parts. The first is the education of his body, the whole physical apparatus, of every muscle and sinew. As a director I can manage very well with an actor with a completely developed body.

THE CREATURE: What time must a young actor spend on this?

I: An hour and a half daily on the following exercises: gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, classical and interpretive dancing, fencing, all kinds of breathing exercises, voice-placing exercises, diction, singing, pantomime, make-up. An hour and a half a day for two years with steady practice afterwards in what you have acquired will make an actor pleasing to look at.

The second part of the education is intellectual, cultural. One can discuss Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, and Calderon only with a cultured actor who knows what these men stand for and what has been done in the theatres of the world to produce their plays. I need an actor who knows the world’s literature and who can see the difference between German and French Romanticism. I need an actor who knows the history of painting, of sculpture and of music, who can always carry in his mind, at least approximately, the style of every period, and the individuality of every great painter. I need an actor who has a fairly clear idea of the psychology of motion, of psychoanalysis, of the expression of emotion, and the logic of feeling. I need an actor who knows something of the anatomy of the human body, as well as of the great works of sculpture. All this knowledge is necessary because the actor comes in contact with these things, and has to work with them on the stage. This intellectual training would make an actor who could play a great variety of parts.

The third kind of education, the beginning of which I showed you today, is the education and training of the soul—the most important factor of dramatic action. An actor cannot exist without a soul developed enough to be able to accomplish, at the first command of the will, every action and change stipulated. In other words, the actor must have a soul capable of living through any situation demanded by the author. There is no great actor without such a soul. Unfortunately it is acquired by long, hard work, at great expense of time and experience, and through a series of experimental parts. The work for this consists in the development of the following faculties: complete possession of all the five senses in various imaginable situations; development of a memory of feeling, memory of inspiration or penetration, memory of imagination, and, last, a visual memory.

THE CREATURE: But I have never heard of all those.

I: Yet they are almost as simple as “cursing the heavens”. The development of faith in imagination; the development of the imagination itself; the development of naiveté, the development of observation; the development of will power; the development of the capacity to give variety in the expression of emotion; the development of the sense of humor and the tragic sense. Nor is this all.

THE CREATURE: Is it possible?

I: One thing alone remains which cannot be developed but must be present. It is TALENT. (The Creature sighs and falls into deep meditation. I also sit in silence.)

THE CREATURE: You make the theatre seem like something very big, very important, very…..

I: Yes, for me the theatre is a great mystery, a mystery in which are wonderfully wedded the two eternal phenomena, the dream of Perfection and the dream of the Eternal. Only to such a theatre is it worth while to give one’s life. (I get up, the Creature looks at me with sorrowful eyes. I understand what these eyes express.)