1
When the Director came in he turned to Vassili and asked: ‘With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?’
Vassili was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not immediately recognize the purport of the question.
‘I?’ he replied, almost mechanically. ‘Why, not with anyone or anything.’
‘You must be a marvel’, was the Director’s joking remark, ‘if you are able to continue in that state for long.’
Vassili excused himself by assuring Tortsov that since no one was either looking at or addressing him he could not be in contact with anyone.
It was now Tortsov’s turn to be surprised. ‘Do you mean’, said he, ‘that someone must look at or talk with you to be in communication with you? Close your eyes and ears, be silent, and try to discover with whom you are in mental communication. Try to find one single second when you will not be in some contact with some object.’
I tried that myself and noted what went on inside of me.
I visualized the previous evening when I had heard a famous string quartet and I followed my movements step by step. I went into the foyer, greeted some friends, found my seat, and watched the musicians tune up. They began to play and I listened. But I could not put myself into a state of emotional relationship to them.
That, I concluded, must have been a blank space in the flow of communion between me and my surroundings. But the Director was firm in his disagreement with that conclusion.
‘How can you’, said he, ‘look upon a time when you were absorbing music, as a blank space?’
‘Because although I listened,’ I insisted, ‘I really did not hear the music, and although I tried to penetrate its meaning I did not succeed. So I felt that no contact was established.’
‘Your association with and acceptance of the music had not yet begun because the preceding process had not yet been achieved and it distracted your attention. When that was done you would either give yourself up to the music or become interested in something else. But there was no break in the continuity of your relationship to something.’
‘Perhaps that was so,’ I admitted, and pursued my recollections. Absent-mindedly I made a movement which, it seemed to me, attracted the attention of the concert-goers near me. After that I sat very quiet and pretended to be listening to the music but as a matter of fact I really did not hear it because I was watching what was going on around me.
My eye wandered over in the direction of Tortsov and I noticed that he had not been aware of my accidental movement. I looked around the hall for the elder Shustov, but neither he nor any of the other actors from our theatre was there. Then I tried to visualize all of the audience, but by this time my attention became so scattered that I was unable to control or direct it. The music was conducive to all sorts of imaginings. I thought about my neighbours, about my relatives, who live far away in other cities, and about my dead friend.
The Director told me afterwards that all those things came into my head because I felt the need either of sharing my thoughts and feelings with the objects of my meditation or of absorbing them from these objects.
Finally my attention was drawn to the lights on the chandelier overhead and I gave myself up to a lengthy contemplation of them. That, I was convinced, must have been a blank moment because, by no stretch of the imagination, could you call looking at those lights a form of intercourse.
When I told Tortsov about it he explained my state of mind in this way:
‘You were trying to find out how and of what that object was made. You absorbed its form, its general aspect, and all sorts of details about it. You accepted these impressions, entered them in your memory, and proceeded to think about them. That means that you drew something from your object, and we actors look upon that as necessary. You are worried about the inanimate quality of your object. Any picture, statue, photograph of a friend, or object in a museum, is inanimate, yet it contains some part of the life of the artist who created it. Even a chandelier can, to a certain degree, become an object of lively interest, if only because of our absorption in it.’
‘In that case,’ I argued, ‘we can be in association with any old thing that our eye happens to fall on?’
‘I doubt if you would have the time to absorb from or to give out even a particle of yourself to everything that flashes by you. Yet without absorbing from others or giving of yourself to others there can be no intercourse on the stage. To give to or to receive from an object something, even briefly, constitutes a moment of spiritual intercourse.
‘I have said more than once that it is both possible to look at and to see, and to look at and not to see. On the stage, you can look at, see and feel everything that is going on there. But it is also possible to look at what surrounds you on this side of the footlights, while your feelings and interest are centred in the auditorium, or in some place beyond the walls of the theatre.
‘There are mechanical tricks which actors use to cover up their inner lack but they only emphasize the blankness of their stare. I need not tell you that that is both useless and harmful. The eye is the mirror of the soul. The vacant eye is the mirror of the empty soul. It is important that an actor’s eyes, his look, reflect the deep inner content of his soul. So he must build up great inner resources to correspond to the life of a human soul in his part. All the time that he is on the stage he should be sharing these spiritual resources with the other actors in the play.
‘Yet an actor is only human. When he comes on the stage it is only natural that he should bring with him his everyday thoughts, personal feelings, reflections and realities. If he does this, the line of his own personal, humdrum life is not interrupted. He will not give himself up wholly to his part unless it carries him away. When it does so, he becomes completely identified with it and is transformed. But the moment he becomes distracted and falls under the sway of his own personal life, he will be transported across the footlights into the audience or beyond the walls of the theatre, wherever the object is that maintains a bond of relationship with him. Meanwhile he plays his part in a purely mechanical way. When those lapses are frequent, and subject to interpolations from the actor’s personal life, they ruin the continuity of the role because they have no relation to it.
‘Can you imagine a valuable necklace in which, after every three golden links, there is one of tin, and then two golden links tied together with string? What would anyone want with such a necklace? And who can want a constantly breaking line of communication on the stage, which either deforms or kills acting? Yet if communication between persons is important in real life, it is ten times more so on the stage.
‘This truth derives from the nature of the theatre, which is based on the inter-communication of the dramatis personae. You could not possibly conceive of a playwright who would present his heroes either in a state of unconsciousness or asleep, or at any time when their inner life was not functioning.
‘Nor could you imagine that he would bring two people on to the stage who not only did not know each other but who refused to become acquainted, to exchange thoughts and feelings, or who would even conceal these from each other by sitting in silence at opposite ends of the set.
‘Under those circumstances, there would be no reason for a spectator to come into the theatre at all, since he could not get what he came for; namely, to sense the emotions and discover the thoughts of the people participating in the play.
‘How different it is if, when those same actors come on to the stage, one of them wants to share his feelings with another, or to convince him of something he believes, while the other is making every effort to take in those feelings and those thoughts.
‘When the spectator is present during such an emotional and intellectual change, he is like a witness to a conversation. He has a silent part in their exchange of feelings, and is excited by their experiences. But the spectators in the theatre can understand and indirectly participate in what goes on on the stage only while this intercourse continues among the actors.
‘If actors really mean to hold the attention of a large audience they must make every effort to maintain an uninterrupted exchange of feelings, thoughts and actions among themselves. And the inner material for this exchange should be sufficiently interesting to hold spectators. The exceptional importance of this process makes me urge you to devote special attention to it and to study with care its various outstanding phases.’
2
‘I shall start with self-communion,’ began Tortsov. ‘When do we talk to ourselves?
‘Whenever we are so stirred up that we cannot contain our-selves; or when wrestling with some idea difficult to assimilate; when we are making an effort to memorize something, and trying to impress it on our consciousness by saying it aloud; or when we relieve our feelings, either gay or sad, by voicing them.
‘These occasions are rare in ordinary life, yet frequent on the stage. When I have occasion to commune with my own feelings on the stage, in silence, I enjoy it. It is a state familiar to me off the stage, and I am quite at home in it. But when I am obliged to pronounce long, eloquent soliloquies I have no notion what to do.
‘How can I find a basis for doing on the stage what I do not do off it? How can I address my very self? A man is a large creature. Should one speak to his brain, his heart, his imagination, his hands or feet? From what to what should that inner stream of communication flow?
‘To determine that we must choose a subject and an object. Where are they? Unless I can find those two inwardly connected centres I am powerless to direct my roving attention, always ready to be drawn towards the public.
‘I have read what the Hindus say on this subject. They believe in the existence of a kind of vital energy called Prana, which gives life to our body. According to their calculation the radiating centre of this Prana is the solar plexus. Consequently, in addition to our brain which is generally accepted as the nerve and psychic centre of our being, we have a similar source near the heart, in the solar plexus.
‘I tried to establish communication between these two centres, with the result that I really felt not only that they existed, but that they actually did come into contact with one another. The cerebral centre appeared to be the seat of consciousness and the nerve centre of the solar plexus—the seat of emotion.
‘The sensation was that my brain held intercourse with my feelings. I was delighted because I had found the subject and the object for which I was searching. From the moment I made the discovery I was able to commune with myself on the stage, either audibly or in silence, and with perfect self-possession.
‘I have no desire to prove whether Prana really exists or not. My sensations may be purely individual to me, the whole thing may be the fruit of my imagination. That is all of no consequence provided I can make use of it for my purposes and it helps me. If my practical and unscientific method can be of use to you, so much the better. If not, I shall not insist on it.’
After a slight pause Tortsov continued:
‘The process of mutual intercourse with your partner in a scene is much easier to achieve. But here again we run into a difficulty. Suppose one of you is on the stage with me and we are in direct communication. But I am extremely tall. Just look at me! I have a nose, mouth, arms, legs and a big body. Can you communicate with all of these parts of me at once? If not, choose some one part that you wish to address.’
‘The eyes’, someone suggested, and added, ‘because they are the mirror of the soul.’
‘You see, when you want to communicate with a person you first seek out his soul, his inner world. Now try to find my living soul: the real, live me.’
‘How?’ I asked.
The Director was astonished. ‘Have you never put out your emotional antennae to feel out the soul of another person? Look at me attentively, try to understand and sense my inner mood. Yes, that is the way. Now tell me how you find me.’
‘Kind, considerate, gentle, lively, interested,’ I said.
‘And now?’ he asked.
I looked at him closely and suddenly found not Tortsov but Famusov (the famous character in the classic play Woe From Too Much Wit), with all his familiar, earmarks, those extraordinarily naive eyes, fat mouth, puffy hands and the soft gestures of a self-indulgent old man.
‘And now with whom are you in communication?’ asked Tortsov with Famusov’s voice.
‘With Famusov, of course,’ I answered.
‘And what has become of Tortsov?’ he said, returning instantly to his own personality. ‘If you had not been addressing your attention to the Famusov nose or hands which I had transformed by a technical method, but to the spirit within, you would have found that it had not changed. I can’t expel my soul from my body and hire another to replace it. You must have failed to get into communication with that living spirit. In that case, what were you in contact with?’
That was just what I was wondering, so I set myself to remembering what change my own feelings underwent as my object was transformed from Tortsov to Famusov, how they turned from the respect which the one inspires, to the irony and good-humoured laughter which the other causes. Of course, I must have been in contact with his inner spirit throughout and yet I could not be clear about it.
‘You were in contact with a new being,’ he explained, ‘which you may call Famusov-Tortsov, or Tortsov-Famusov. In time you will understand these miraculous metamorphoses of a creative artist. Let it suffice now that you understand that people always try to reach the living spirit of their object and that they do not deal with noses, or eyes, or buttons the way some actors do on the stage.
‘All that is necessary is for two people to come into close contact and a natural, mutual exchange takes place. I try to give out my thoughts to you, and you make an effort to absorb something of my knowledge and experience.’
‘But that does not mean that the exchange is mutual,’ argued Grisha. ‘You, the subject, transmit your sensations to us, but all we, the objects, do is to receive. What is reciprocal in that?’
‘Tell me what you are doing this minute,’ Tortsov replied. ‘Aren’t you answering me? Aren’t you voicing your doubts and trying to convince me? That is the confluence of feelings you are looking for.’
‘It is now, but was it, while you were talking?’ Grisha clung to his point.
‘I don’t see any difference,’ answered Tortsov. ‘We were exchanging thoughts and feelings then and we are continuing to do so now. Obviously in communicating with one another the giving out and the taking in occur alternately. But even while I am speaking and you were merely, listening I was aware of your doubts. Your impatience, astonishment and excitement all carried over to me.
‘Why was I absorbing those feelings from you ? Because you could not contain them. Even when you were silent, there was a meeting of feelings between us. Of course, it did not become explicit until you began to speak. Yet it proves how constant the flow of these interchanging thoughts and feelings is. It is especially necessary on the stage to maintain that flow unbroken, because the lines are almost exclusively in dialogue.
‘Unfortunately, that unbroken flow is all too rare. Most actors, if indeed they are aware of it at all, use it only when they are saying their own lines. But let the other actor begin to say his and the first one neither listens nor makes an attempt to absorb what the second is saying. He ceases to act until he hears his next cue. That habit breaks up constant exchange because that is dependent on the give and take of feelings both during the speaking of the lines, and also during the reply to those already spoken, and even during silences, when the eyes carry on.
‘Such fragmentary connection is all wrong. When you speak to the person who is playing opposite you, learn to follow through until you are certain your thoughts have penetrated his consciousness. Only after you are convinced of this and have added with your eyes what could not be put into words, should you continue to say the rest of your lines. In turn, you must learn to take in, each time afresh, the words and thoughts of your partner. You must be aware today of his lines even though you have heard them repeated many times in rehearsals and performances. This connection must be made each time you act together, and this requires a great deal of concentrated attention, technique, and artistic discipline.’
After a slight pause the Director said that we would now pass to the study of a new phase: communion with an imaginary, unreal, non-existent object, such as an apparition.
‘Some people try to delude themselves into thinking that they really do see it. They exhaust all of their energy and attention on such an effort. But an experienced actor knows that the point does not lie in the apparition itself, but in his inner relation to it. Therefore he tries to give an honest answer to his own question: what should I do if a ghost appeared before me?
‘There are some actors, especially beginners, who use an imaginary object when they are working at home because they lack a living one. Their attention is directed towards convincing themselves of the existence of a non-existent thing, rather than concentrating on what should be their inner objective. When they form this bad habit they unconsciously carry the same method over on to the stage and eventually become unaccustomed to a living object. They set an inanimate make-believe one up between themselves and their partners. This dangerous habit sometimes becomes so ingrained that it may last a lifetime.
‘What torture to play opposite an actor who looks at you and yet sees someone else, who constantly adjusts himself to that other person and not to you. Such actors are separated from the very persons with whom they should be in closest relationship. They cannot take in your words, your intonations, or anything else. Their eyes are veiled as they look at you. Do avoid this dangerous and deadening method. It eats into you and is so difficult to eradicate!’
‘What are we to do when we have no living object?’ I asked.
‘Wait until you find one,’ answered Tortsov. ‘You will have a class in drill so that you can exercise in groups of two or more. Let me repeat: I insist that you do not undertake any exercises in communication except with living objects and under expert supervision.
‘Even more difficult is mutual communion with a collective object; in other words, with the public.
‘Of course, it cannot be done directly. The difficulty lies in the fact that we are in relation with our partner and simultaneously with the spectator. With the former our contact is direct and conscious, with the latter it is indirect, and unconscious. The remarkable thing is that with both our relation is mutual.’
Paul protested, and said:
‘I see how the relation between actors can be mutual, but not the bond between the actors and the public. They would have to contribute something to us. Actually, what do we get from them? Applause and flowers! And even these we do not receive until after the play is over.’
‘What about laughter, tears, applause during the performance, hisses, excitement! Don’t you count them?’ said Tortsov.
‘Let me tell you of an incident which illustrates what I mean. At a children’s matinee of The Blue Bird, during the trial of the children by the trees and the animals, I felt someone nudge me. It was a ten-year-old boy. “Tell them that the Cat is listening. He pretended to hide, but I can see him,” whispered an agitated little voice, full of worry and concern for Mytyl and Tyltyl. I could not reassure him, so the little fellow crept down to the footlights and whispered to the actors playing the parts of the two children, warning them of their danger.
‘Isn’t that real response?
‘If you want to learn to appreciate what you get from the public let me suggest that you give a performance to a completely empty hall. Would you care to do that? No! Because to act without a public is like singing in a place without resonance. To play to a large and sympathetic audience is like singing in a room with perfect acoustics. The audience constitute the spiritual acoustics for us. They give back what they receive from us as living, human emotions.
‘In conventional and artificial types of acting this problem of relation to a collective object is solved very simply. Take the old French farces. In them the actors talk constantly to the public. They come right out in front and address either short individual remarks or long harangues which explain the course of the play. This is done with impressive self-confidence, assurance and aplomb. Indeed, if you are going to put yourself in direct relation to the public, you had better dominate it.
‘There is still another angle: dealing with mob scenes. We are obliged to be in direct, immediate relationship with a mass object. Sometimes we turn to individuals in the crowd; at others, we must embrace the whole in a form of extended mutual exchange. The fact that the majority of those making up a mob scene are naturally totally different from one another and that they contribute the most varied emotions and thoughts to this mutual intercourse, very much intensifies the process. Also the group quality excites the temperament of each component member and of all of them together. This excites the principals and that makes a great impression on the spectators.’
After that Tortsov discussed the undesirable attitude of mechanical actors towards the public.
‘They put themselves in direct touch with the public, passing right by the actors playing opposite them. That is the line of least resistance. Actually that is nothing more nor less than exhibitionism. I think you can be trusted to distinguish between that and a sincere effort to exchange living human feelings with other actors. There is a vast difference between this highly creative process and ordinary mechanical, theoretical gestures. They are both opposite and contradictory.
‘We can admit all but the theatrical type, and even that you should study if only to combat it.
‘One word, in conclusion, about the active principle underlying the process of communication. Some think that our external, visible movements are a manifestation of activity and that the inner, invisible acts of spiritual communion are not. This mistaken idea is the more regrettable because every manifestation of inner activity is important and valuable. Therefore learn to prize that inner communion because it is one of the most important sources of action.’
3
‘If you want to exchange your thoughts and feelings with someone you must offer something you have experienced yourself,’ the Director began. ‘Under ordinary circumstances life provides these. This material grows in us spontaneously and derives from surrounding conditions.
‘In the theatre it is different, and this presents a new difficulty. We are supposed to use the feelings and thoughts created by the playwright. It is more difficult to absorb this spiritual material than to play at external forms of non-existing passions in the good old theatrical way.
‘It is much harder truly to commune with your partner than to represent yourself as being in that relation to him. Actors love to follow the line of least resistance, so they gladly replace real communion by ordinary imitations of it.
‘This is worth thinking about, because I want you to understand, see and feel what we are most likely to send out to the public in the guise of exchange of thoughts and feelings.’
Here the Director went up on the stage and played a whole scene in a way remarkable for talent and mastery of theatre technique. He began by reciting some poetry, the words of which he pronounced hurriedly, effectively, but so incomprehensibly that we could not understand a word.
‘How am I communicating with you now?’ he asked.
We did not dare criticize him, so he answered his own question. ‘In no way at all,’ he said. ‘I mumbled some words, scattered them around like so many peas, without even knowing what I was saying.
‘That is the first type of material often offered to the public as a basis of relationship—thin air. No thought is given either to the sense of the words themselves or to their implications. The only desire is to be effective.’
Next he announced that he would do the soliloquy from the last act of Figaro. This time his acting was a miracle of marvellous movements, intonations, changes, infectious laughter, crystalline diction, rapid speech, brilliant inflections of a voice with an enchanting timbre. We could hardly keep from giving him an ovation. It was all so theatrically effective. Yet we had no conception of the inner content of the soliloquy as we had grasped nothing of what he said.
‘Now tell me in what relation I was to you this time,’ he asked again. And again we were unable to answer.
‘I showed you myself, in a part,’ Tortsov answered for us, ‘and I used the Figaro soliloquy for that purpose, its words, gestures and everything that went with it. I did not show you the role itself, but myself in the role and my own attributes: my form, face, gestures, poses, mannerisms, movements, walk, voice, diction, speech, intonations, temperament, technique—everything except feelings.
‘For those who have an externally expressive apparatus what I did just now would not be difficult. Let your voice resound, your tongue emit words and phrases distinctly, your poses be plastic, and the whole effect will be pleasing. I acted like a diva in a café chantant, constantly watching you to see whether I was making good. I felt that I was so much merchandise and that you were the buyers.
‘This is a second example of how not to act, despite the fact that this form of exhibitionism is widely used and immensely popular.’
He went on to a third example.
‘You have just seen me presenting myself. Now I shall show you a part, as prepared by the author, but this does not mean that I shall live the part. The point of this performance will lie not in my feelings but in the pattern, the words, external facial expressions, gestures and business. I shall not create the role. I shall merely present it in an external manner.’
He played a scene in which an important general accidentally found himself alone at home with nothing to do. Out of boredom he lined up all the chairs in the place so that they looked like soldiers on parade. Then he made neat piles of everything on all the tables. Next he thought of something rather spicy; after that he looked aghast over a pile of business correspondence. He signed several letters without reading them, yawned, stretched himself, and then began his silly activities all over again.
All the while Tortsov was giving the text of the soliloquy with extraordinary clarity; about the nobility of highly placed persons and the dense ignorance of everyone else. He did it in a cold, impersonal way, indicating the outer form of the scene without any attempt to put life or depth into it. In some places he rendered the text with technical crispness, in others he underscored his pose, gesture, play, or emphasized some special detail of his characterization. Meantime he was watching his public out of the corner of his eye to see whether what he was doing carried across. When it was necessary to make pauses he drew them out. Just the bored way actors do when they play a well-made part for the 500th time. He might as well have been a gramophone or a movie operator showing the same film ad infinitum.
‘Now,’ he continued, ‘there remains the illustration of the right way and means to be used in establishing contact between the stage and the public.
‘You have already seen me demonstrate this many times. You know that I always try to be in direct relation to my partner, to transmit to him my own feelings, analogous to those of the character I am playing. The rest, the complete fusion of the actor with his part, happens automatically.
‘Now I shall test you. I shall make a note of incorrect communication between you and your partners by ringing a bell. By incorrect I mean that you are not in direct contact with your object, that you are showing off the part or yourself, or that you are recording your lines impersonally. All such mistakes will get the bell.
‘Remember that there are only three types which will get my silent approval:
‘(1) Direct communication with an object on the stage, and indirect communication with the public.
‘(2) Self-communion.
‘(3) Communication with an absent or imaginary object.’
Then the test began.
Paul and I played well as we thought and were surprised to have the bell rung on us frequently.
All the others were tested in the same way. Grisha and Sonya were last, and we thought the Director would be ringing incessantly; yet actually he did it much less than we expected that he would.
When we asked him why, he explained:
‘It just means that many who boast are mistaken and others, whom they criticize, prove capable of establishing the right contact with one another. In either case it is a matter of percentage. But the conclusion to be drawn is that there is no completely right or completely wrong relationship. The work of an actor is mixed; there are good and bad moments in it.
‘If you were to make an analysis you would divide your results by percentages, allowing the actor so much for contact with his partner, so much for contact with the public, so much for demonstrating the pattern of his part, so much for showing himself off. The relation of these percentages to one another in the final total determines the degree of accuracy with which the actor was able to achieve the process of communion. Some will rate higher in their relations with their partners, others in their ability to commune with an imaginary object, or themselves. These approach the ideal.
‘On the negative side some types of relation between subject and object are less bad than others. It is, for example, less bad to exhibit the psychological pattern of your role impersonally than to exhibit yourself or give a mechanical performance.
‘There are an infinite number of combinations. Consequently it is best for you to make a practice of: (1) finding your real object on the stage and getting into active communication with it, and (2) recognizing false objects, false relationships and combating them. Above all give special attention to the quality of the spiritual material on which you base your communication with others.’
4
‘Today we shall check your external equipment for intercommunication,’ announced the Director. ‘I must know whether you really appreciate the means at your disposal. Please go up on the stage, sit down in pairs, and start some kind of an argument.’
I reasoned that Grisha would be the easiest person with whom to pick a quarrel, so I sat down by him, and it was not long before my purpose was accomplished.
Tortsov noticed that in making my points to Grisha I used my wrists and fingers freely, so he ordered them to be bandaged.
‘Why do that?’ I asked.
‘So that you will understand how often we fail to appreciate our tools. I want you to be convinced that whereas the eyes are the mirror of the soul, the tips of the fingers are the eyes of the body,’ he explained.
Having no use of my hands I increased my intonation. But Tortsov requested me to speak without raising my voice or adding extra inflections. I had to use my eyes, facial expression, eyebrows, neck, head and torso. I tried to replace the means I had been deprived of. Then I was bound down to my chair and only my mouth, ears, face and eyes were still free.
Soon even these were bound up and all that I could do was roar. Which did not help.
At this point the external world ceased to exist for me. Nothing was left to me except my inner vision, my inner ear, my imagination.
I was kept in this state for some time. Then I heard a voice that seemed to come from far off.
It was Tortsov, saying:
‘Do you want some one organ of communication back? If so, which one?’
I tried to indicate that I would think about it.
How could I choose the most necessary organ? Sight expresses feelings. Speech expresses thought. Feelings must influence the vocal organs because the intonation of the voice expresses inner emotion, and hearing, too, is a great stimulus to them. Yet hearing is a necessary adjunct of speech. Besides, they both direct the use of the face and the hands.
Finally I exclaimed angrily, ‘An actor cannot be crippled! He has to have all his organs!’
The Director praised me and said:
‘At last you are talking like an artist who appreciates the real value of each one of those organs of communication. May we see disappear for ever the actor’s blank eye, his immobile face and brow, his dull voice, speech without inflection, his contorted body with its stiff backbone and neck, his wooden arms, hands, fingers, legs in which there is no motion, his slouching gait and painful mannerisms!
‘Let us hope our actors will devote as much care to their creative equipment as a violinist does to his beloved Stradi-varius or Amati.’
5
‘Up to this point we have been dealing with the external, visible, physical process of communion,’ the Director began. ‘But there is another, important aspect which is inner, invisible and spiritual.
‘My difficulty here is that I have to talk to you about something I feel but do not know. It is something I have experienced and yet I cannot theorize about it. I have no ready-made phrases for something I can explain only by a hint, and by trying to make you feel, for yourselves, the sensations that are described in a text.
‘ “He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And with his other hand thus o’er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
That it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And with his head over his shoulder turn’d,
He seem’d to find his way without his eyes;
For out o’ doors he went without their help,
And to the last bended their light on me.”
‘Can you sense, in those lines, the wordless communion between Hamlet and Ophelia? Haven’t you experienced it in similar circumstances, when something streamed out of you, some current from your eyes, from the ends of your fingers or out through your pores?
‘What name can we give to these invisible currents, which we use to communicate with one another? Some day this phenomenon will be the subject of scientific research. Meantime let us call them rays. Now let us see what we can find out about them through study and making notes of our own sensations.
‘When we are quiescent this process of irradiation is barely perceptible. But when we are in a highly emotional state these rays, both given and received, become much more definite and tangible. Perhaps some of you were aware of these inner currents during the high spots of your initial test performance, as for example when Maria called for help, or when Kostya cried out “Blood, Iago, blood!”, or during any one of the various exercises you have been doing.
‘It was only yesterday that I was witness to a scene between a young girl and her fiancé. They had quarrelled, were not speaking and they were seated as far apart as possible. She pretended she did not even see him. But she did it in a way to attract his attention. He sat motionless, and watched her with a pleading gaze. He tried to catch her eye so that he might guess her feelings. He tried to feel out her soul with invisible antennae. But the angry girl withstood all attempts at communication. Finally he caught one glance as she turned for an instant in his direction.
‘This, far from consoling him, depressed him more than ever. After a while he moved to another place, so that he could look straight at her. He longed to take her hand, to touch her and transmit the current of his feelings to her.
‘There were no words, no exclamations, no facial expressions, gestures or actions. That is direct, immediate communion in its purest form.
‘Scientists may have some explanation of the nature of this unseen process. All I can do is to describe what I myself feel and how I use these sensations in my art.’
Unfortunately our lesson was interrupted at this point.
6
We were divided into pairs and I sat with Grisha. Instantly we started to send rays to each other in a mechanical way.
The Director stopped us.
‘You are already using violent means when that is what you should avoid in such a delicate, susceptible process. Your muscular contraction would preclude any possibility of accomplishing your purpose.
‘Sit back,’ said he in a tone of command. ‘More! Still more! Much, much more! Sit in a comfortable, easy position! That is not relaxed enough! Nor that! Arrange yourselves restfully. Now look at each other. Do you call that looking? Your eyes are popping out of your heads. Ease up! More! No tenseness.
‘What are you doing?’ Tortsov asked Grisha.
‘I am trying to carry on our dispute about art.’
‘Do you expect to express such thoughts through your eyes? Use words and let your eyes supplement your voice. Perhaps then you will feel the rays that you are directing towards each other.’
‘We continued our argument. At one point Tortsov said to me:
‘During that pause, I was conscious of your sending out rays. And you, Grisha, were preparing to receive them. Remember, it occurred during that long drawn out silence.’
I explained that I had been unable to convince my partner of my point of view and I was just preparing a new argument.
‘Tell me, Vanya,’ said Tortsov, ‘could you feel that look of Maria’s? Those were real rays.’
‘They were shot at me!’ was his wry response.
The Director turned back to me.
‘Besides listening I want you now to try to absorb something vital from your partner. In addition to the conscious, explicit discussion and intellectual exchange of thoughts, can you feel a parallel interchange of currents, something you draw in through your eyes and put out again through them?
‘It is like an underground river, which flows continuously under the surface of both words and silences and forms an invisible bond between subject and object.
‘Now I wish you to make a further experiment. You will put yourself in communication with me,’ said he, taking Grisha’s place.
‘Fix yourself comfortably, don’t be nervous, don’t hurry and don’t force yourself. Before you try to transmit anything to another person you must prepare your material.
‘A little while ago this type of work seemed complicated to you. Now you do it easily. The same will be true of this present problem. Let me have your feelings without any words, just through your eyes,’ he ordered.
‘But I cannot put all the shadings of my feelings into the expression of my eyes,’ I explained.
‘We can’t do anything about that,’ he said, ‘so never mind all the shadings.’
‘What will remain?’ I asked with dismay.
‘Feelings of sympathy, respect. You can transmit them without words. But you cannot make the other person realize that you like him because he is an intelligent, active, hardworking and high-minded young man.’
‘What am I trying to communicate to you?’ I asked Tortsov, as I gazed at him.
‘I neither know nor care to know,’ was his reply.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are staring at me. If you want me to sense the general meaning of your feelings, you must be experiencing what you are trying to transmit to me.’
‘Now can you understand? I cannot present my feelings more clearly,’ said.
‘You look down on me for some reason. I cannot know the exact cause for this without words. But that is beside the point. Did you feel any current issuing from you freely?’
‘Perhaps I did in my eyes I replied, and I tried to repeat the same sensation.
‘No. This time you were just thinking about how you could push that current out. You tensed your muscles. Your chin and neck were taut and your eyes began to start from their sockets. What I want from you you can accomplish much more simply, easily and naturally. If you want to envelop another person in your desires you don’t need to use your muscles. Your physical sensation from this current should be barely perceptible, but the force you are putting behind it would burst a blood vessel.’
My patience crumbled and I exclaimed:
‘Then I do not understand you at all!’
‘You take a rest now and I shall try to describe the type of sensation I want you to feel. One of my pupils likened it to the fragrance of a flower. Another suggested the fire in a diamond. I have felt it when standing at the crater of a volcano. I felt the hot air from the tremendous internal fires of the earth. Does either of these suggestions appeal to you?’
‘No,’ I said stubbornly, ‘not at all.’
‘Then I shall try to get at you by an inverse method,’ said Tortsov patiently. ‘Listen to me.
‘When I am at a concert and the music does not affect me I think up various forms of entertainment for myself. I pick out a person in the audience and try to hypnotize him. If my victim happens to be a beautiful woman I try to transmit my enthusiasm. If the face is ugly I send over feelings of aversion. In such instances I am aware of a definite, physical sensation. That may be familiar to you. In any case that is the thing we are looking for at present.’
‘And you feel it yourself when you are hypnotizing someone else?’ asked Paul.
‘Yes, of course, and if you have ever tried to use hypnosis you must knew exactly what I mean,’ said Tortsov.
‘That is both simple and familiar to me,’ said I with relief.
‘Did I ever say it was anything extraordinary?’ was Tortsov’s surprised rejoinder.
‘I was looking for something very—special.’
‘That is what always happens,’ remarked the Director. ‘Just use a word like creativeness and immediately you all climb up on your stilts.
‘Now let us repeat our experiment.’
‘What am I radiating?’ I asked.
‘Disdain again.’
‘And now?’
‘You want to caress me,’
‘And now?’
‘That again is a friendly feeling, but it has a touch of irony in it.’
I was delighted at his having guessed my intentions.
‘Did you understand that feeling of an out-going current?’
‘I think I did,’ I replied, with slight indecision.
‘In our slang, we call that irradiation.
‘The absorbing of those rays is the inverse process. Suppose we try it.’
We exchanged roles: he began to communicate his feelings to me and I to guess them.
‘Try to define in words your sensation,’ he suggested after we had finished the experiment.
‘I should express it by a simile. It is like a piece of iron being drawn by a magnet.’
The Director approved. Then he asked me if I had been conscious of the inner bond between us during our silent communion.
‘It seemed to me that I was,’ I replied.
‘If you can establish a long, coherent chain of such feelings it will eventually become so powerful that you will have achieved what we call grasp. Then your giving out and absorption will be much stronger, keener and more palpable.’
When he was asked to describe more fully what he meant by grasp Tortsov continued:
‘It is what a bull-dog has in his jaw. We actors must have that same power to seize with our eyes, ears and all our senses, If an actor is to listen, let him do it intently. If he is called upon to smell, let him smell hard. If he is to look at something, let him really use his eyes. But of course this must all be done without unnecessary muscular tension.’
‘When I played that scene from Othello, did I show any grasp?’ I asked.
‘There were one or two moments,’ admitted Tortsov. ‘But that is too little. The whole role of Othello calls for complete grasp. For a simple play you need an ordinary grasp, but for a Shakespeare play you have to have an absolute grasp.
‘In everyday life we don’t need complete grasp, but on the stage, above all in playing tragedy, it is a necessity. Just make the comparison. The greater part of life is devoted to unimportant activities. You get up, you go to bed, you follow a routine which is largely mechanical. That is not stuff for the theatre. But there are purple patches of terror, supreme joy, high tides of passion and outstanding experiences. We are challenged to fight for freedom, for an idea, for our existence and our rights. That is material we can use on the stage if, for its expression, we have a powerful inner and outer grasp. Grasp does not in any way signify unusual physical exertion, it means greater inner activity.
‘An actor must learn to become absorbed in some interesting, creative problem on the stage. If he can devote all of his attention and creative faculties to that he will achieve true grasp.
‘Let me tell you a story about an animal trainer. He was in the habit of going to Africa to pick out monkeys to train. A large number would be gathered together at some point and from these he would choose those he considered the most promising for his purpose. How did he make his choice? He took each monkey separately and tried to interest it in some object, a bright handkerchief, which he would wave before him, or some toy that might amuse him with its colour or sound. After the animal’s attention was centred on this object the trainer would begin to distract him by presenting some other thing, a cigarette, perhaps, or a nut. If he succeeded in getting the monkey to switch from one thing to another he would reject him. If, on the other hand, he found that the animal could not be distracted from the first object of his interest and would make an effort to go after it when removed, the trainer would buy him. His choice was established by the monkey’s evident capacity to grasp and hold something.
‘That is how we often judge our students’ power of attention and ability to remain in contact with one another—by the strength and continuity of their grasp.’
7
The Director began our lesson by saying:
‘Since these currents are so important in the interrelationship of actors, can they be controlled by technical means? Can we produce them at will?
‘Here again we are in the situation of having to work from the outside, when our desires do not come spontaneously from the inside. Fortunately an organic bond exists between the body and the soul. Its power is so great that it can all but recall the dead to life. Think of a man apparently drowned. His pulse has stopped and he is unconscious. By the use of mechanical movements his lungs are forced to take in and give out air! That starts the circulation of his blood, and then his organs resume their customary functions, so life is revived in this man practically dead.
‘In using artificial means we work on the same principle. External aids stimulate an inner process.
‘Now let me show you how to apply these aids.’
Tortsov sat down opposite me and asked me to choose an object, with its appropriate, imaginative basis, and to transmit it to him. He allowed the use of words, gestures, and facial expressions.
This took a long time until finally I understood what he wanted and was successful in communicating with him. But he kept me for some time watching and becoming accustomed to the accompanying physical sensations. When I had mastered the exercise he restricted, one after another, my means of expression, words, gestures and so on, until I was obliged to carry on my communication with him solely by giving out and absorbing rays.
After that he had me repeat the process in a purely mechanical, physical way without allowing any feelings to participate. It took time for me to separate the one from the other and when I succeeded he asked how I felt.
‘Like a pump bringing up nothing but air,’ I said. ‘I felt the out-going currents, principally through my eyes, and perhaps partly from the side of my body towards you.’
‘Then continue to pour out that current, in a purely physical and mechanical way, as long as you possibly can,’ he ordered.
It was not long before I gave up what I called a perfectly ‘senseless’ proceeding.
‘Then why didn’t you put some sense into it?’ he asked. ‘Weren’t your feelings clamouring to come to your aid and your emotion memory suggesting some experience you could use as material for the current you were sending out?’
‘Of course, if I were obliged to continue this mechanical exercise, it would be difficult not to use something to motivate my action. I should need some basis for it.’
‘Why don’t you transmit what you feel at this very moment, dismay, helplessness, or find some other sensation?’ suggested Tortsov.
I tried to transmit my vexation and exasperation to him.
My eyes seemed to say: ‘Let me alone, will you? Why persist? Why torture me!’
‘How do you feel now?’ asked Tortsov.
‘This time I feel as though the pump had something besides air to bring up.’
‘So your “senseless” physical giving out of rays acquired a meaning and purpose after all!’
Then he went on to other exercises based on receiving rays. It was the inverse procedure and I shall describe only one new point: before I could absorb anything from him I had to feel out, through my eyes, what he wanted me to draw from him. This required attentive search, feeling my way into his mood and making some kind of connection with it.
‘It is not simple to do by technical means what is natural and intuitive in ordinary life,’ said Tortsov. ‘However, I can give you this consolation, that when you are on the stage and playing your part this process will be accomplished far more easily than in a classroom exercise.
‘The reason is: for our present purpose you had to scrape together some accidental material to use, while on the stage all your given circumstances have been prepared in advance, your objectives have been fixed, your emotions ripened and ready for the signal to come to the surface. All you need is a slight stimulus and the feelings prepared for your role will gush out in continuous, spontaneous flow.’
‘When you make a siphon to empty water out of a container, you suck the air out once and the water flows out by itself. The same thing happens to you: give the signal, open the way and your rays and currents will pour out.’
When he was asked about developing this ability through exercises he said:
‘There are the two types of exercises that we have just been doing:
‘The first teaches you to stimulate a feeling which you transmit to another person. As you do this you note the accompanying physical sensations. Similarly you learn to recognize the sensation of absorbing feelings from others.’
‘The second consists of an effort to feel the mere physical sensations of giving out and absorbing feelings, without the accompanying emotional experience. For this, great concentration of attention is imperative. Otherwise you might easily confuse these sensations with ordinary muscular contractions. If these occur choose some inner feeling which you wish to radiate. But above all avoid violence and physical contortion. Radiation and absorption of emotion must take place easily, freely, naturally and without any loss of energy.’
‘But do not do these exercises alone, or with an imaginary person. Always use a living object, actually with you, and wishing to exchange feelings with you. Communion must be mutual. Also do not attempt these exercises except under the supervision of my assistant. You need his experienced eye to keep you from going wrong and from the danger of confusing muscular tenseness with the right process.’
‘How difficult it seems,’ I exclaimed.
‘Difficult to do something that is normal and natural?’ said Tortsov. ‘You are mistaken. Anything normal can be done easily. It is much more difficult to do something which is contrary to nature. Study its laws and do not try for anything that is not natural.
‘All the first stages of our work seemed difficult to you, the relaxation of muscles, the concentration of attention, and the rest, yet now they have become second nature.
‘You should be happy because you have enriched your technical equipment by this important stimulus to communion.’