IN THE AUDITORIUM of the school theatre we found, when we came in today, a large placard with the words “Speech on the Stage”. As is his custom Tortsov congratulated us on reaching a new phase in our work:
“At our last lesson I explained to you that actors must acquire the feel of vowels and consonants of syllables, get inside them.
“Today we go on, in the same way, to consider whole words and phrases. Do not expect me to read you a lecture on the subject, that is the job of a specialist. All I shall tell you concerns several aspects of the art of speaking on the stage that I have learned about in my own practical experience. It will help you in your approach to your new studies in the ‘laws of speech!’
“Many fine books have been written about these laws and about words. Study them carefully. The most appropriate to the needs of Russian actors is the well worked out book of S. M. Volkonski on The Expressive Word. I shall be constantly having recourse to it, I shall quote it and draw examples from it in these introductory lessons on stage speech. An actor should know his own tongue in every particular. Of what use will all the subtleties of emotion be if they are expressed in poor speech? A first-class musician should never play on an instrument out of tune. In this field of speech we need science but we must be intelligent and forehanded about acquiring it. There is no point in filling our heads with a lot of new ideas and rushing on the stage to exploit them before we have learned the elementary rules. That kind of a student will lose his head, he will either forget his science or think about it to the exclusion of everything else. Science can help art only when they support and complement each other.”
Tortsov reflected for a moment and then went on:
“You have often heard me say that each person who goes on to the stage has to re-train himself from the beginning: to see, walk, move about, hold intercourse with people and, finally, to speak. The vast majority of people make use of poor, vulgar ways of speaking in ordinary life, but they are not aware of this because they are accustomed to these defects in themselves and in others. I do not say that you are an exception to this rule. Therefore, before you begin your regular speech work it is absolutely necessary to be made aware of the deficiencies in your speech so that you can break yourselves permanently of the habit, widespread among actors, of giving their own incorrect everyday speech as an excuse for the slovenly ways of speaking on the stage.
“Words and the way they are spoken show up much more on the stage than in ordinary life. In most theatres actors are required to repeat the text half-way decently. Even this is done in a slipshod, routine way.
“There are many reasons for this and the first of them is that in ordinary life one says what one is obliged to, or what one desires to, for a purpose, to accomplish an end, because of necessity or, actually, for the sake of some real, fruitful, pointed verbal action. It even happens rather frequently that even when one chatters along without paying much attention to the words, one is still using them for a reason: to pass the time quickly, to distract the attention and so on.
“On the stage it is different. There we speak the text of another, the author’s, and often it is at variance with our needs and desires.
“Moreover in ordinary life we talk about things we actually see or have in our minds, things that actually exist. On the stage we have to talk about things we do not see, feel, think about for ourselves but in the imaginary persons of our parts.
“In ordinary life we know how to listen, because we are interested in or need to hear something. On the stage, in most cases, all we do is make a pretence of attentive listening. We do not feel any practical necessity to penetrate the thoughts and words of our stage partner. We have to oblige ourselves to do it. And that forcing ends in over-acting, routine, clichés.
“There are other distressing circumstances too, which tend to kill lively human reactions. The lines, repeated so often in rehearsals and numerous performances, are parroted. The inner content of the text evaporates, all that is left is mechanical sound. In order to earn the right to be on the stage the actors have to be doing something. One of the things they do to fill up the blank spaces inside their parts is to engage in automatic repetition of their lines.
“The consequence of this is that actors acquire a habit of mechanical speech on the stage, the thoughtless parrot-like pronunciation of lines learned by heart without any regard for their inner essence. The more rein they give to this habit, the keener their mechanical memory, the more stubborn the habit of such prattle becomes. And gradually we see the development of a specifically stereotyped kind of stage speech.
“In ordinary life we also meet with mechanical expressions such as: ‘How do you do?’ ‘Pretty well, thank you.’ Or ‘Good-bye. Best of luck!’
“What is a person thinking of while he is saying those automatic words? He is subject neither to the thought nor the feeling essentially contained in them. They just pop out of us while we are absorbed by entirely different interests. We see the same thing in school. While a pupil is reciting something he has learned by rote he is often thinking about his own affairs and the mark the teacher will give him. Actors are prone to the same habits.
“To such actors the feelings and ideas of a part are step-children. In the beginning, when they first read the play the words, both their own lines and those of the others who play opposite them, seem interesting, new; they have some point. But after they have heard them kicked around at rehearsal, the words lose all essential meaning. They do not exist in the hearts or even in the consciousness of the actors, but only in the muscles of their tongues. By then it makes little difference to him what his or anyone else’s lines are. The only important thing is to keep going, never to stop in his tracks.
“How senseless it is when an actor on the stage, without even hearing out what is being said to or asked of him, without allowing a thought, even an important one, to be fully expressed to him, hurries to break in on his partner’s lines. It also happens that the key word in a cue is so skimped that it does not reach the public, so that the sense of the reply to it is entirely lost, the partner has nothing to reply to. There is no use in his asking to have the question repeated because the first actor has no real comprehension of what he was asking in the first place. All these falsifications add up to conventional, cliché acting which kills all belief in the lines spoken and in their living content.
“The situation is worsened of course when actors consciously give an incorrect turn to their lines. We all know that many of them use their lines as a vehicle to exhibit some vocal attributes, diction, manner of recitation, the technique of their voice production. Such actors have no more relation to art than the salesman of musical instruments who brashly demonstrates his wares by pyrotechnical execution, not for the purpose of conveying the intent of the composer, but merely to sell the instrument.
“Actors do the same when they indulge in calculated cadences and technical effects by emphasizing individual letters of syllables, crooning over or bellowing them without any purpose other than to show off their voices, and to make the eardrums of their hearers tingle with pleasant admiration.”
Tortsov began with a question today: What do we mean by subtext? What is it that lies behind and beneath the actual words of a part?
He expressed his answer this way:
“It is the manifest, the inwardly felt expression of a human being in a part, which flows uninterruptedly beneath the words of the text, giving them life and a basis for existing. The subtext is a web of innumerable, varied inner patterns inside a play and a part, woven from ‘magic ifs’, given circumstances, all sorts of figments of the imagination, inner movements, objects of attention, smaller and greater truths and a belief in them, adaptations, adjustments and other similar elements. It is the subtext that makes us say the words we do in a play.
“All these intentionally intertwined elements are like the individual threads in a cable, they run all through the play and lead to the ultimate super-objective.
“It is only when our feelings reach down into the subtextual stream that the ‘through line of action’ of a play or a part comes into being. It is made manifest not only by physical movements but also by speech: it is possible to act not only with the body but also with sound, with words.
“What we call the through line as related to action has its equivalent in the subtext, as related to speech.
“It is superfluous to state that a word taken separately and devoid of inner content is nothing but an external name. The text of a part if it is made up of no more than that will be a series of empty sounds.
“Take as an example the word ‘love’. For a foreigner it is only a strange combination of letters. It is an empty sound because it is devoid of all the inner connotations which quicken the heart. But let feelings, thoughts, imagination give life to the empty sound and an entirely different attitude is produced, the word becomes significant. Then the sounds ‘I love’ acquire the power to fire a man with passion and change the course of his whole life.
“The word ‘onward’ when inwardly coloured by patriotic emotion is capable of leading regiments to sure death. The simplest words, that convey complex thoughts affect our whole outlook on the world. It is not for nothing that the word has become the most concrete expression of man’s thought.
“A word can arouse in him all five senses. One needs to do no more than recall the title of a piece of music, the name of a painter, of a dish, of favourite perfumes and so on and one immediately resurrects the auditory and visual images, tastes, smells or tactile sensations suggested by the word.
“It can bring back painful sensations. In My Life in Art a story about a toothache caused a toothache in the person who heard it.
“There should never be any soulless or feelingless words used on the stage. Words should no more be divorced from ideas there than from action. On the stage it is the part of the word to arouse all sorts of feelings, desires, thoughts, inner images, visual, auditory and other sensations in the actor, in those playing opposite him and through them together in the audience.
“This suggests that the spoken word, the text of a play is not valuable in and of itself, but is made so by the inner content of the subtext and what is contained in it. This is something we are prone to forget when we step on to the stage.
“We are also inclined to forget that the printed play is not a finished piece of work until it is played on the stage by actors and brought to life by genuine human emotions; the same can be said of a musical score, it is not really a symphony until it is executed by an orchestra of musicians in a concert. As soon as people, either actors or musicians, breathe the life of their own sentiment into the subtext of a piece of writing to be conveyed to an audience, the spiritual well springs, the inner essence is released—the real things which inspired the writing of the play, the poem, the score of music. The whole point of any such creation is in the underlying subtext. Without it the words have no excuse for being presented on the stage. When they are spoken the words come from the author, the subtext from the actor. If this were not so the public would not make the effort of coming to the theatre, they would sit at home and read the printed play.
“Yet it is only on the stage that a drama can be revealed in all its fullness and significance. Only in a performance can we feel the true spirit which animates a play and its subtext—this is recreated, and conveyed by the actors every time the play is given.
“It is up to the actor to compose the music of his feelings to the text of his part and learn how to sing those feelings in words. When we hear the melody of a living soul we then, and only then, can come to a full appreciation of the worth and beauty of the lines and of all that they hold concealed.
“From your earlier work in this school you are familiar with the inner line of a part with its progressive action leading to the super-objective. You know too how these lines are formed to create an inner state in which you live your part, and how you have recourse to the aids of psycho-technique when this does not occur spontaneously.
“This whole process is equally valid and necessary in the relation to the spoken word.”
“Cloud. . . . War. . . . Vulture. . . . Lilacs. . . .” There was a long interval between one word and the next as they fell in utterly dispassionate tones from Tortsov’s lips.
That was his way of starting us off on our lesson today.
“What happens in side of you when you absorb these sounds? Take the word ‘cloud’—what do you recall, what do you feel, envision as I pronounce it?
To my mind there came a large smoky blot on a clear summer sky.
“Now make this test. What response do you give to the words in your ears, ‘Let’s go to the station!’ ”
I saw myself leaving the house, taking a cab, driving through certain streets, crossing avenues and soon found myself inside the railway station. Leo thought of himself as pacing up and down a platform, whereas Sonya’s thoughts had already allowed her to flit off to southern climes and visit several resorts.
After each one of us had described his mental pictures to Tortsov his comment was:
“Evidently the two or three words were scarcely out of my mouth before you mentally carried out the suggestion contained in them! How painstakingly you have told to me all the things my little phrase evoked! With what scrupulous care you used sounds and intonations, chose and matched your colours to draw a visual impression for us, to make us see them with your eyes! How much you really wanted to round out your phrases with complete fullness!
“Also, how concerned you were to convey your picture as a true reproduction of the original of the inner image called forth by an imaginary trip to a railway station.
“If you would always go through that normal process on the stage and pronounce your words with such affection, such penetration into their essential meaning you would soon become great actors.”
After a pause Tortsov proceeded to repeat the word “cloud” in many different ways, asking us what sort of cloud he meant. We were more or less successful in our guessing.
How did he convey the image of the cloud? Was it by intimation, facial expression, personal attitude towards the object drawn, his eyes which searched the ceiling for non-existent forms?
“I did it with all those,” said Tortsov. “Ask nature, intuition, what else you will, how they convey their visions to others. I do not care, and I even fear, to be too explicit in a field in which I am not competent. We shall therefore not interfere with the work of our subconscious. Let us rather learn to draw our spiritual, organic natures into our creative work. Let us make the vocal factor in a part both sensitive and responsive so that it will help convey our inmost feelings, thoughts, the images in our mind’s eye and so on.
“With the aid of words it is not difficult to convey to others some more or less concrete pictures of a ‘vulture,’ ‘lilacs,’ ‘cloud.’ It is infinitely more difficult to transmit, by means of words, an abstract conception such as ‘justice’, ‘right’. It would be interesting to investigate just what inner process is set in motion when these words are spoken. . . .”
I began to think about the two words and tried to get inside the feelings they evoked in me. At first I was confused, I could not make up my mind where to fix my point of departure.
My mind tried to reason on the theme suggested by the words, to fix its attention on it and penetrate more deeply into their essential meaning. I had the impression of something large, important, light, noble. But all these epithets also lacked definition. Then I recalled various formula phrases indicated by the words “justice,” “right.”
But a dry formula neither satisfied nor moved me. Slight emotions flashed through me but immediately evaporated. I reached for but could not grasp them.
It was necessary to search out something more tangible, some form in which to frame the abstraction. At this critical point it was my imagination that responded first and began to paint visual images for me.
Yet how was it possible to represent justice or right? By means of a symbol, an allegory, an emblem? My memory ran over all the hackneyed methods of personifying the ideas of right and justice.
I saw the figure of a woman with scales in her hands, an open book of laws with a finger pointing to a paragraph in it.
Yet neither my mind nor my feelings were satisfied. Next my imagination hurriedly suggested a fresh visual interpretation: a life based on principles of justice and right. This thought was more easily clothed in physical terms than the abstraction had been. Thoughts about real life are more concrete, accessible, palpable. You can see them, and having seen you can feel them. They are more likely to move you, they naturally lead you to the sense of inner experience.
I remembered an incident in my own life, akin to what my imagination had brought to mind and my feeling of what justice means was somewhat satisfied.
When I related to Tortsov the process of my self-observation he drew from it these conclusions:
“Nature has so arranged matters that when we are in verbal communication with others we first see the word on the retina of the mind’s eye and then we speak of what we have thus seen. If we are listening to others we first take in through the ear what they are saying and then we make the mental picture of what we have heard.
“To hear is to see what is spoken of, to speak is to draw visual images.
“To an actor a word is not just a sound, it is the evocation of images. So when you are in verbal intercourse on the stage, speak not so much to the ear as to the eye.”
Tortsov began by asking Paul to recite something, but as he knew nothing by heart, the Director said:
“In that case, go up on the stage and say some sentence or make up a little story such as: I have just been at Ivan Ivanovich’s. He is in an awful state; his wife has left him. I was obliged to go to Peter Petrovich’s to tell him what had happened and beg him to help me calm the poor fellow.”
Paul said the sentences but he did not make a satisfactory impression with them, so Tortsov explained:
“I did not believe a word you said and I did not feel what it was you wished to convey to me with these words which were not your own.
“But how could you say them sincerely without the background of imaginary circumstances? You had to know and make a mental picture of them first. But you neither know now nor see what those words I gave you about Ivan Ivanovich and Peter Petrovich suggest. You must imagine some basis for the words as a justification for saying them. You must moreover attempt to make for yourself a clear picture of what your imagination suggests.
“When you have filled in all that then the words of another person become your own, the very ones you need, and you will know just who Ivan Ivanovich, deserted by his wife, and Peter Petrovich are, where and how they live, what the relationship between them is. They will then be real people to you. Do not forget to make a careful mental survey of the apartment, the arrangement of the rooms, the furniture, the small objects around the place. You will also make the trip first to Ivan Ivanovich’s and then from his home to Peter Petrovich’s, from then on back to the place where you will be called upon to tell your story.
“Meantime you must see the streets, along which you travel, the entrances of the houses you go into. In brief you have to invent a whole film of inner pictures, a running subtext consisting of all kinds of settings and circumstances, against which the domestic tragedy of Ivan Ivanovich, of the words given you to speak, can be played out. These inner images will create a mood and that in turn will stir feelings in you. You know that life does all this for you off the stage, but on it you, the actor, have to prepare the circumstances.
“This is not done for the sake of realism, naturalism, per se, but because it is necessary for our own creative natures, our subconscious. For them we must have truth, if only the truth of imagination, in which they can believe, in which they can live. . . .”
After these necessary facsimiles had been invented Paul repeated the phrases he had been given, it seemed to me, to better effect.
But Tortsov was still not satisfied with him and explained that Paul did not have a focal point to which he wished to convey the images inside his mind, and that without this the sentences could not be pronounced so that the person listening would believe in their actuality and inevitability.
To help Paul, Tortsov sent Maria on the stage to act as a focal point, and he said to him:
“See to it that the object of your attention not only hears and understands the meaning of your words, but that she also sees what you see in her mind’s eye while you are speaking to her.”
Paul, however, did not feel that he was capable of accomplishing that.
“Don’t cudgel your brains about this, don’t interfere with your own nature, just do what you are asked to. The result is not the important part. The important thing is that you move toward and try to carry out an objective, how you act on or, to be more exact, how you try to act on Maria, on her inner vision, which is what you are after in this particular instance. The important factor is your own inner activity.”
Paul proceeded to describe what he felt when he was making the experiment.
“I shall name the characteristic moments in my feelings,” he explained. “First, before I could communicate anything to Maria I had to put some order into the material I wanted to convey to her. I had to probe into the essential meaning of what I would say, recall the facts, the given circumstances I was to reproduce. I had to envisage them all first in my own mind. When this was prepared and I came to the point of putting it into terms of physical expression everything seemed to get into a state of fermentation and movement; my mind, feelings, imagination, adjustments, facial expressions, eyes, hands, body—all set themselves to find the right approach to the set objective. It was like the tuning up of a large orchestra. I began to watch myself carefully.”
“Yourself? Not Maria?” interrupted Tortsov. “Evidently it was of no consequence to you whether Maria would understand you, feel what underlay the words you spoke, or see with your eyes all that was going on in the life of Ivan Ivanovich! Does this not mean that while you were communicating the words to her you still lacked the natural impulse to make her see the pictures in your mind?
“All this is evidence of lack of action. Besides, if you were really intent on getting your words over to her you would not have recited them like a soliloquy, without looking at her, without adapting yourself to her, as you have just done, and there would have been moments of waiting to see the effect of your words. These last are essential to the person playing opposite you, so that he can absorb the subtext of your mental pictures. It is impossible to take them in all in one gulp. The process is piecemeal: you convey, you pause, your partner absorbs what you conveyed, you continue, you pause again and so on. Of course, as you do this you must have in mind the whole of what you are to convey. To you as author of the subtext this is automatically clear, but to your partner it is all new, it must be decoded and absorbed. This takes a certain time. You did not allow for this, and consequently all these mistakes resulted not in a conversation with another living being, but a monologue, the kind we hear so often in the theatre.”
In the end Tortsov succeeded in getting Paul to do what he had asked, he persuaded him to make Maria hear and feel what he had in his mind. Maria, and indeed all the rest of us, understood and really felt to a certain degree what lay behind his words—his subtext. Paul himself was quite thrilled. He insisted that today for the first time he had intellectually and emotionally experienced the practical significance of conveying to others his imaginary subtext.
“Now you know what it is to create that illustrative stream that flows continually beneath the spoken lines of a play,” said Tortsov as he concluded the lesson.
All the way home Paul talked to me about what he went through in doing the “Ivan Ivanovich Sketch” today. Evidently what struck him most was the fact that in exciting someone else about what was in his own mind, he found that the trite words Tortsov had given him to say had, somehow imperceptibly become the very words he had to have for his own purposes.
“You see, unless you tell the fact of Ivan Ivanovich’s wife deserting him there is no story,” Paul explained. “If there is no story there is nothing on which to base an illustrative subtext. There is no need for you to make a mental picture of any happenings for yourself, or to convey it to anyone else. And the cardinal fact of the sad occurrence in Ivan Ivanovich’s life is something you cannot transmit by sending out rays, by gestures, by facial expression. You must have speech!
“That was when I really appreciated those words that had been foisted on me. I came to love them as if they had been my own. I eagerly took hold of them, rolled them around under my tongue, weighed each sound, doted on their every intonation. Now I no longer needed them to reel off a mechanical report, as a vehicle for my voice or technique, but for the active purpose of making my hearer realize the importance of what I was saying.
“And do you know what was most wonderful of all?” he continued in the same lyric strain. “As soon as the words had turned into mine I felt entirely at home on the stage! Where in the world did that sense of serenity and control suddenly come from?
“It was such a wonderful feeling to be able to govern myself, to have earned the right not to hurry, and calmly to make the others wait!
“I planted one word after the other in the consciousness of my ‘object’ and along with them I conveyed one illuminating connotation after the other.
“You more than anyone else should appreciate the implications and significance of the calm and control I felt today because you well know how afraid we both are when we have to pause on the stage. As a matter of fact they weren’t really pauses because even when I was silent I never ceased being active.”
Paul quite enthused me with his tale. I stopped at his home and then stayed on to dinner.
During dinner his uncle, who as an old actor takes great interest in his nephew’s progress, inquired about the work done in class today. Paul told him what he had just been explaining to me. His uncle listened, smiled, nodded his head approvingly and added each time:
“That’s right! That’s right.”
At one point he suddenly jumped up and exclaimed:
“There! You hit the nail squarely on the head: Infect your partner! Infect the person you are concentrating on! Insinuate yourself into his very soul, and you will find yourself the more infected for doing so. And if you are infected everyone else will be even more infected. Then the words you speak will be more inciting than ever.
“Action—real, productive action with a purpose is the all-important factor in creativeness, and consequently in speech as well!
“To speak is to act. That action sets an objective for us: to instill into others what we see inside ourselves. It is not so important that the other person will see or not the thing you have in mind. Nature and the subconscious may take care of that. Your job is to desire to instill your inner visions in others, and that desire breeds action.
“It is one thing to appear before a good public, reel off a few trata-tas and walk off. It is quite another to go out on the stage and act!
“The one speech is theatrical, the other is human.”
“When we consider some phenomenon, picture to ourselves some object, some event, call to mind experiences in real or imaginary life, we not only react to them with our feelings, we also pass them in review before our inner eyes,” Tortsov said in opening today’s class.
“Yet in doing this our inner vision must bear a relationship only to the life of the character being played and not to the actor who does the portraying, because unless his own personal life is analogous to that of his part it will not coincide with it.
“That’s why, when we are on the stage, our chief concern should be to reflect at all times in our own inner vision the things akin to those which our character would have in his. This inner stream of images, fed by all sorts of fictional inventions, given circumstances, puts life into a role, it gives a basis for everything the character does, his ambitions, thoughts, feelings, and more than that, it is a great help to the actor in fixing his attention on the inner life of his part. It should be used to bolster wavering attention.
“Last time we worked on a brief monologue concerning Ivan Ivanovich and Peter Petrovich,” Tortsov went on. “But now let us suppose that all the lines of all the scenes of a whole play are prepared, as they should be, in the same way as we worked up our few words, illustrated by ifs and given circumstances. In this case the whole text of the play will be accompanied by a subtextual stream of images, like a moving picture constantly thrown on the screen of our inner vision, to guide us as we speak and act on the stage.
“Watch this carefully and describe with the lines of your part this imaginative illustration each time you act the role. Let what you say convey these images and not just words.
“What is the secret of this method I am proposing that you use? It is very simple and clear. In order to speak the essential meaning of a text one must penetrate deep inside it, and feel it deeply too. Yet this is difficult and not always possible to do because, first of all, one of the prime elements in the subtext is the memory of emotions felt, a most evanescent, capricious, elusive and unstable factor. Secondly, one needs a well disciplined power of attention to be able to concentrate on the meaning behind the words.
“Forget entirely about the feelings and put all your attention on the inner images. Study them as carefully and describe them as fully, as penetratingly and vividly as you can.
“Then when you come to act and the words are spoken not for you, not for the public, but for the person playing opposite you, this method will result in much greater stability and power. This objective of carrying over what is in your mind’s eye to that of your partner in a scene requires that your actions be executed to the fullest extent; it will rouse your will, and along with the whole trio of inner motive forces, all the elements of the actor’s creative spirit.
“Why should we fail to make use of this fortunate quality of visual memory? Once we have established inside ourselves this easily accessible sequence of images, our task of keeping on the right line of the subtext and through line of action is greatly lightened. Moreover, as we go on describing what we see it is the right way to arouse recurrent sensations which are stored away in the emotion memory, and which we need so much in the course of living our parts.
“Therefore, in keeping these inner images before our minds we think about the subtext of our part and we feel it.
“This method is not new to us. We used similar ones when we were working on movement and action. At that time we turned to the more palpable, steady physical actions for help in arousing our unstable emotion memories, and in order to create the unbroken line of a part.
“Now we have recourse to the same method, and for the same purpose we seek the unbroken line of inner images and convey it with words.
“Earlier it was physical actions that served as lures to our feelings when we were engaged in building action, and now it is the inner images which serve as lures to our feelings when we are dealing with words and speech.
“Let this inner film unroll frequently before your mind’s eye and, like a painter or a poet, describe what and how you see during each daily performance. During this review you will at all times be aware of what you have to say when you are on the stage. It may well be that each time you repeat the review and tell about it you will do so with certain variations. That is all to the good, the unexpected and the improvised are always the best impetus to creativeness.
“The establishment of this habit requires long, systematic work. On the days when your attention is insufficiently stable, when the line of the subtext in your part threatens to break down, quickly reach out for the concrete objects in your inner vision as you would to a life-belt.
“And here is another advantage it has to offer. As we all know, the lines of a part soon wear out from frequent repetition. But these visual images on the contrary, become stronger and more extensive the oftener they are repeated.
“Imagination does not rest. It is forever adding new touches, details to fill out and enliven this inner moving picture film. So that only good and not harm can result from the frequent reprojection of these images.
“Now you know not only how to create but how to use the illustrated accompaniment of a subtext. More than that, you hold the secret of this method of psycho-technique.”
“One function then of the spoken word of the stage is to communicate with your partner in a scene by means of an illustrated subtext to our lines or to pass it in review before ourselves,” was Tortsov’s opening remark at today’s lesson.
“Let us see whether this function of speech is properly used,” he said, turning to Vasya. “Go up on the stage and speak any lines you choose.”
“I swear my darling, that . . . I can not go on living if . . . you promise you will stay and . . . chase away the dark . . . a cloud on my life when . . . you have gone away . . .” Vasya’s words came out with their usual spurts and unintelligible stops, which turn prose into gibberish and poetry into “prose run mad”.
“I haven’t understood a single word yet,” said Tortsov, interrupting him, “and I shan’t be able to understand any more if you go on making mincemeat of your phrases. There is no basis for serious consideration of any subtext here. There is not even any text itself. Something slips off your tongue arbitrarily, without regard to your will, your consciousness or anything else except your supply of breath.
“Therefore, before we proceed further, we must put some order in the words of your monologue, arrange them in proper groups. Only then shall we be able to distinguish which word is related to what which parts belong together in a phrase or whole thought.
“To divide speech into measures we have to have stops or logical pauses.
“As you doubtless know, they have simultaneously a double and contrasting function: Logical pauses unite words into groups (or speech measures) and they divide the groups from one another.
“Do you realize that a man’s fate, and even his very life may depend on the position of that pause? Take the words: ‘Pardon impossible send to Siberia.’ How can we understand the meaning of this order until we know where the logical pause is placed? Put them in and the sense of the words will become clear. Either you say: ‘Pardon—impossible send to Siberia,’ or ‘Pardon impossible—send to Siberia!’
“In the first it is a case for mercy, in the second, exile.
“Now take your monologue and say it over with the pauses in, and only then shall we be able to understand it.”
With Tortsov’s help Vasya divided his phrases into groups of words and then began to say them over, but after the second measure the Director stopped him.
“Between two logical pauses one should pronounce the text in as unified a way as possible, fused almost into a single word. You must not break it up and spit out the fragments the way you do.
“There are, of course, exceptions which force a pause in the middle of a measure. But there are rules for that which we shall come to in time.”
“We already know them,” argued Grisha. “We know how to read according to signs of punctuation. If you will pardon my saying so, that is taught in primary school.”
“If you learned it why don’t you speak correctly?” retorted Tortsov. “Moreover, why don’t you carry out the exigencies of correct speech to their utmost limit when you are on the stage?
“I should like to see you take a book and pencil more often, divide up what you read into measures of speech. Pound them into your ears, your eyes, your hands.
“Reading in speech measures contains another element of great practical advantage to you. It is an aid to the process of feeling yourself in your part.
“This division into measures and the reading of a text according to it, oblige us to analyze phrases and get at their essence. If we do not do this we cannot know how to say them. This habit of speaking in measures will make your speech more graceful in form, intelligible and profound in content, because it forces you to keep your mind constantly on the essential meaning of what you are saying when you are on the stage. Until you achieve this there is no use either in your attempting to carry out one of the principal functions of the words, which is to convey the illustrated subtext of your monologue, or even in doing the preparatory work of creating this subtext.
“The first work to be done with speech or with words is always to divide into measures, to place the logical pauses where they belong.”
I was the first one called on to recite today. Given the choice of text I decided to recite a few lines from Othello:
Like to the Pontic sea
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont;
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
There is no period in the whole piece, and the phrase is so long that I had to hurry to get to the end of it. It seemed to me that I ought to say it in one gulp, without ever stopping even for breath. But, of course, I could not accomplish that.
It was not surprising that I skimped on some of the measures, was quite out of breath and flushed from tension when I finished.
“To avoid in the future what has just happened to you I suggest that the first thing you do is to enlist the help of the logical pause. Divide up the speech into measures because, as you have found, you cannot deliver it all of a piece,” was Tortsov’s comment when I had finished.
So this is how I distributed the pause (marked with asterisks):
Like to the Pontic sea*
Whose icy current and compulsive course*
Ne’er feels retiring ebb* but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont*
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace*
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,*
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
“That will do for an exercise,” agreed Tortsov, and then he made me say this unusually long sentence over and over again in accordance with the pauses I had fixed.
After I had done this he admitted that the speech was not easier to listen to and understand.
“The only pity is that we still do not feel it,” he added. “The main obstacle to that is you. You are in such a hurry you do not give yourself time to get inside of what you are saying, you cannot get around to examining and feeling what lies behind the words. Until you have done this there is nothing more you can accomplish. That is why you must in the first instance get rid of your haste.”
“I’d be glad to, but how shall I do it?” I asked, somewhat puzzled.
“I shall show you one way.” He thought for a moment and then said:
“You have learned to recite Othello’s speech with its logical pauses and word measures. That’s good. Now recite it for me according to the punctuation signs.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Yes, but it’s only half of it. Punctuation signs require special vocal intonations. The period, the comma, exclamation and question marks, and the rest have their own essential connotations which are characteristic of each one. Without these intonations they do not fulfill their functions. Take away from the period its final rounding out drop of the voice and the listener will not realize that the sentence is ended and that nothing more will follow. Take from the question mark its typical phonetic twist, and the listener will not know that a question has been put to him, and to which he is expected to answer.
“In each of these intonations there is a certain effect produced on the listeners, obligating them to do something: the phonetic symbol of a question calls for an answer; the exclamation sign, for sympathy, approval or protest; a colon demands attentive consideration for what follows, and so on. There is great expressiveness in all these intonations. It is these inherent qualities of punctuation signs which can keep you from being in such a hurry. That is why I have stressed them here.
“Now repeat the Othello speech with all the punctuation signs and their inherent patterns.”
When I began to recite the monologue I felt as though I were speaking a foreign language. Before I could pronounce a word I felt an impulse to weigh, guess at, to veil whatever it was that caused me to doubt and—I stopped, unable to go on.
“This only goes to prove that you do not know the nature of your own language and, in particular, the nature of punctuation signs. If this were not the case you could easily have carried out your assignment.
“Remember this incident: It should be one more reason for you to realize the necessity of a painstaking study of the laws of speech.
“It appears that for the present the punctuation signs disturb you when you speak. Let us try to make them help rather than hinder you.
“I cannot undertake to demonstrate all the signs of punctuation,” Tortsov said, “so I shall experiment with only one of them. If the demonstration succeeds in convincing you of my point you will want to make your own experiments with the other punctuation marks.
“Let me repeat. My object is not to teach you myself but to convince you that you should study the laws of speech.
“For our experiment I shall take the comma, because that is almost the only punctuation sign that comes into the speech you chose from Othello.
“Can you recall what you instinctively wanted to do each time you came to a comma?
“First of all you wanted to pause. But also you had a desire to give an upward twist to the sound of the last syllable of the last word before the comma (not putting an accent on it unless that was logically necessary). After that leave the high note hanging in the air for a bit.
“With that twist the sound is carried from below upwards like some object moved from a lower to a higher shelf. This rising melodic line can take on all kinds of twists and go to all kinds of heights: in intervals of thirds, fifths, octaves, with a short steep rise, or a broad, smooth, small swing and so on.
“The remarkable thing about the nature of a comma is that it possesses a miraculous quality. Its curve, almost like the warning lift of a hand, causes listeners to wait patiently for the end of the unfinished sentence. Do you realize how important this is, especially to such a nervous person as you are, or such a spasmodic creature as Vasya? If you would only believe that after the sound curve of the comma your listeners are bound to wait patiently for you to continue and finish the sentence you have begun, then there would be no reason for all your hurry. This will quiet you and make you really love the comma and all it stands for.
“If you only knew the satisfaction, when you are telling a long story or using a long sentence, like the one you just recited, of lifting your phonetic line before a comma and waiting confidently, because you know surely that no one will interrupt or hurry you.
“This temporary transfer of duties and action to someone else ensures your peace of mind while you wait, because the pauses become a matter of necessity to the person to whom you are talking, the same one who earlier seemed to hurry you. Do you agree with me?”
Tortsov wound up his remarks with the very clear cut vocal twist of a question mark and proceeded to wait for our answer. We tried to think what to say and were all excited because we could not find a reply. But he was perfectly calm because the delay was caused by us, not by him.
During the pause Tortsov began to laugh and then explained the reason for this.
“Not long ago I was explaining to a new housemaid where to hang the key to the front door, and I said to her, ‘Last night, when I came in, and seeing the key in the lock, . . .’ Then, after letting my voice rise, I forgot what I wanted to say, stopped speaking, and went to my study. A good five minutes passed. I heard a knock at the door. The maid stuck her head into the room, her eyes were full of curiosity and her face had the question written all over it. ‘ “And seeing the key in the lock . . .” then what?’ she asked.
“So you see the rising inflection in front of a comma had maintained its effect for five whole minutes, and demanded the ultimate descent of the sound to the final period of the completed sentence. This demand brooked no obstacles.”
In going over what we had done during today’s lesson Tortsov ventured to prophesy that I would soon cease to fear pauses, because I had learned the secret of how to make others wait for me. When I reach the point beyond this, of learning to use the breaks to increase the clarity and expression of my speech, to enhance and strengthen my communication with others, then I shall not only cease to fear the pauses but I shall begin, on the contrary, to be so fond of them I shall be inclined to over-use them.
Tortsov appeared to be in high spirits when he came into class today. Then suddenly, without any reason at all, he announced in a quiet, but extremely firm, voice:
“If you do not devote serious attention to your lessons, I shall refuse to work with you!”
We were entirely taken aback. We looked at each other and were preparing to assure him that we all took the greatest interest in his classes. But before we could say a word Tortsov burst out laughing.
“Do you sense what an excellent humour I am in?” he asked. “I am in the best possible humour because I have just been reading in the newspaper an account of the smashing success one of my favourite pupils has achieved. Yet it was sufficient for me to have my voice follow a pattern of intonation calculated to convey something definite, firm, irrevocable, and I was instantly converted, in your minds, into a severe, choleric, snappish old pedagogue!
“There are certain fixed intonations not only for individual words and punctuation marks, but also for whole phrases and sentences.
“They have definite forms based on nature. They have names. For instance the intonation pattern I just used is called the ‘swan neck or double bend period.’ There is first the rising inflection to the high point where the comma coincides with the logical pause, then after the turn comes a temporary stop before the voice drops abruptly to the bottom of the pattern. Here is a design of what happens.”
Tortsov then drew the following lines for us on a piece of paper.
“This inflection is compulsory.
“There are many other phonetic patterns for a whole phrase, but I shall not demonstrate them to you as I am not teaching you this subject, but merely telling you a little about it.
“Actors must be familiar with all these phonetic patterns, and here is one purpose, among many others, for which they need them.
“When an actor is on the stage it often happens, whether out of embarrassment or for other reasons, that his vocal range involuntarily shrinks and his phonetic patterns lose their line.
“Actors of Russian nationality, for instance, are inclined to speak in a minor key in contrast to the Latins, who prefer the major. Such a characteristic is magnified when they are on the stage. Where a French actor will give a ringing sharp to the key word in a joyous exclamation, a Russian will distribute his intervals in quite another way and, if possible, drop to a flat.
“Where a Frenchman will lend vividness to an intonation by stretching a phrase to the uttermost limit of his vocal gamut, a Russian will be two or three notes below that.
“Where a French actor will drop his voice way down before a period, a Russian will clip off several notes from the bottom and thereby weaken the ultimate definiteness of the period.
“When this petty larceny of sounds is perpetrated in folk-songs it is not noticeable. But when the Russian actor tries it on Molière or Goldoni he is dragging his minor key into the realm of a fully vibrant major. Unless the subconscious is brought into play here an actor will find that his intonation, quite against his will, can become insufficiently varied.
“How then is this defect to be remedied? People who are not aware of the compulsory patterns, called for in a given phrase, or created by the nature of a given word, find themselves faced with an insoluble problem, whereas those who are familiar with them will find the correct intonation, starting from the external phonetic or graphic line and reaching to the inner bases for the patterns and vocal intervals.
“In such cases you should extend the range of your speech from the outside while basing the increased sound intervals of your intonations on an inner justification. They will help you to arrive closer to the truth which you are seeking. If you are sensitive you will be quick to recognize it. To provide a basis for a wider vocal scale and increased intervals of intonation takes a marked degree of temperament.
“So much the better! It will be forthcoming if your feelings respond in lively fashion to the intonations suggested to them from the outside.
“Consequently, if the intonation lets you down, start with an external sound pattern, find a basis for it and then proceed further to a naturally appropriate feeling.”
While Tortsov was still speaking his noisy secretary came in and took him out of our class. He said he would return in a few minutes. So we had a little intermission which Grisha spent in airing some of his regular objections. He was disturbed by forceful methods. He claimed they destroyed creative freedom since they obliged an actor to use certain inflections.
Rakhmanov proved quite rightly that what Grisha was calling force is part of the natural quality of language. And he, Rakhmanov, had the habit of considering the fulfilment of natural obligations as a form of highest freedom. What he considers force are the unnatural inflections of the conventional declamatory style which Grisha so stubbornly defends. To back up this opinion he mentioned a small town actress whose whole charm lay in her erratic speech.
“That’s her type, you know,” Grisha insisted. “If she were taught the laws of speech she simply wouldn’t exist.”
“And thank goodness for that,” was Rakhmanov’s retort. “If your actress has to speak incorrectly for a character part, that’s all right, let her do it, and I shall applaud her. But unless it is for that sole purpose it is a detriment, not an asset to an actress. To flirt in poor speech is wicked and in bad taste. You tell her for me that she will be twice as adorable if she goes on doing the same things as before, but with good speech. Then her charms will really carry over to the public. They will be more readily conveyed for the reason that they will not be hampered by uneducated speech.”
“First we are told we must not talk the way we do in ordinary life, then we are told we must speak in accordance with some law or other. If you will excuse my saying so, we ought to be told definitely what we need for the stage. Does it mean that we must speak differently from the way we do in ordinary life? We have to speak in some special way, is that it?” asked Grisha.
“Yes, yes, that’s just it,” Rakhmanov said in picking him up. “Not as in ordinary life, but in a special way. On the stage we may not speak in the uneducated way we do in ordinary life.”
Tortsov’s fussy secretary interrupted the argument. He came in to say that the Director would not come back today.
So instead of the regular class Rakhmanov gave us a session of drill.
At today’s lesson Tortsov had me repeat over and over the speech from Othello and give satisfactory twists to my voice at every comma.
At first these rising inflections were purely formal, inert. Then one of them suddenly called to my mind a real, a living inflection and I immediately was flooded with a sense of warmth and familiarity.
Encouraged by this I, little by little, scraped up the courage to give all sorts of successful and unsuccessful phonetic turns to the Othello lines: short or broad swings, with small or very large rises. And each time I fell into the right pattern new and various emotion memories were stirred within me.
That is where the true, the spontaneous source of natural speech technique lies. The external word, by means of intonation, affects one’s emotion, memory, feelings. This was now fixed in my mind.
So I decided to try holding the pauses after the turn of the angle at the comma. This would give me time not only to probe to the depths of the meaning of what took place inside me but also to experience the sensation to the full.
But then a mishap occurred. I was so absorbed in all my feelings, thoughts, tests, that I forgot the text of the speech right in the middle, I lost my bearings and was obliged to stop. Nevertheless Tortsov was beaming.
“That’s the thing!” he exclaimed with delight. “All I had to do was make a prediction and you started right off to explore the possibilities of pauses. In fact you converted many of your logical pauses into psychological pauses. Now that is a very good thing to do provided only that the psychological pause does not usurp the functions of the logical pause, but rather enhances it. Moreover, it must always serve to carry out the purpose assigned to it. Otherwise a mishap such as you have been involved in, Kostya, is inevitable.
“You will understand this precautionary advice better after I have explained to you the nature of these two types of pauses: whereas the logical pause mechanically shapes the measures, whole phrases of a text and thereby contributes to their intelligibility, the psychological pause adds life to the thoughts, phrases, measures. It helps convey the subtextual content of the words. If speech without the logical pause is unintelligible, without the psychological pause it is lifeless.
“The logical pause is passive, formal, inert, the psychological one is of necessity brimming with activity and rich inner content.
“The logical pause serves our brain, the psychological, our feelings.
“A great actor once said: Let your speech be restrained and your silence eloquent. The psychological pause is just that: an eloquent silence. It is an extremely important means of communication between people. You have found out for yourself today, Kostya, that you could not refrain from using for your creative purposes that pause which speaks for itself. Words are replaced by eyes, facial expression, the sending out of rays, scarcely perceptible movements that carry a hint—all these and many others conscious and unconscious means of communion.
“They all fill out the words. They often act with greater intensity, finesse, are more irresistible in silence than when used in conjunction with words. Their wordless conversation can be no less interesting, substantial and convincing than one carried on verbally.
“The pause often conveys that portion of the subtext which derives not only from our conscious selves, but also from our subconscious and that does not lend itself readily to concrete expression. All these experiences and their manifestations are, as you know, of precious importance to us in our art.
“Do you realize the exalted position of the psychological pause? It is not subject to any laws, and all laws of speech, without exception, are subject to it.
“The psychological pause will boldly step in at places where a logical or grammatical pause seems impossible. Let us suppose, for example, that our company is going on a foreign tour. We are going to take along all our student actors except two. ‘Who are they?’ Kostya excitedly asks Paul. ‘Iand. . .’ (Here he makes a psychological pause to soften the impending blow or, on the contrary, to heighten a sense of indignation ‘. . . and . . . you!’ Paul replies.
“Everyone knows that the conjunction ‘and’ does not allow for any pause after it. But the psychological pause makes no bones about breaking such a rule and introducing an illegal break. Moreover the psychological pause has the right to replace the logical one without destroying it.
“For this latter only a very brief, more or less, definite period of time is set aside. If that time is extended, the most logical pause must quickly be transformed into an active psychological pause, of which the extent is undetermined. This pause has no concern for time. It lasts for as long as is needed to fulfill the purposes of some action or other. It is aimed at the super-objective and through line of action in a play, so it is bound to hold the interest of the public.
“Sometimes whole scenes are fashioned out of psychological pauses. We sometimes call these star part pauses.
“Nevertheless the psychological pause must be carefully protected from the danger of dragging—a process that sets in the instant it no longer serves action with a purpose. Before this happens it must give way to the spoken word again.
“It is unfortunate when the psychological pause dies away into a simple wait, because then a mishap is bound to occur—the pause for the sake of the pause. That produces a blank hole in the fabric of an artistic creation.
“That is exactly what happened to you today, Kostya, and why I hastened to explain your mistake so that you will be forewarned against repeating it in the future. Replace logical with psychological pauses to your hearts’ content, but do not drag them out for no good reason.
“There is still one other kind of pause in speech. In singing we use the German expression for it: Luftpause, pause for air or breath. It is the briefest of rests, just sufficient for a quick intake of breath. It takes no more time than a snap of the fingers. Often a luftpause is not even a real break, but only the slightest lag of a second in the tempo of singing or speech and it leaves the line of sound intact.
“In ordinary speech, and especially in rapid speech or patter, this breathing pause is used to set off certain particular words.
“Now you know all the pauses connected with speech on the stage. You are also aware of the general conditions on which they are to be used. The pause is an important element, a real trump, in our technique of speech.”
“In our last class we made certain important discoveries about pauses. Earlier we went into another important aspect of our speech—intonations,” Tortsov began.
“We spoke of this latter too in connection with the nature of punctuation signs. But we have not yet exhausted the subject. It can be of still greater aid to you in your fundamental problem in speech—exposition in words of the subtext of your role.
“Actually then you hold not one trump but two in your verbal communion with others in a play: the intonation and the pause. That is a very great deal! With them you can do a tremendous lot, without even having recourse to the spoken word, just by limiting yourself to sounds.”
Here Tortsov settled himself comfortably in an armchair, slipped his hands under him, assumed an immobile pose and began to recite with great warmth, first a prose speech, then verses. He spoke in some strange but vibrant tongue. He pronounced unintelligible words with a tremendous swing and fire, his voice rising to heights in some sort of tirade, then he dropped it as low as possible, until he was silent and let his eyes fill out what he had left unsaid in words. All this was done with great inner force, without any shouting. Some of his outbursts were particularly vibrant, well rounded and fully designed, other phrases were scarcely audible, but deeply impregnated with inwardly experienced feelings. At this point he was almost in tears, he had to make a most expressive pause in order to get control of his emotions. Again a turn took place inside him, his voice was stronger once more and he astonished us with his youthful buoyancy. This outburst was suddenly quelled and he changed back to his mood of silent absorption which quite banished his recent gaiety.
He ended his scene with this magnificently emotional interlude of silence. The verses and the prose, as well as the language in which he conveyed them, were all Tortsov’s own invention.
“So you see,” he concluded, “I talked in a language incomprehensible to you and yet you listened to me with great attentiveness. I sat perfectly motionless, used no motions of any kind, but you never took your eyes off me. I was silent and you made an effort to penetrate the meaning of my silence. No one supplied me with any subtext but I provided my own conceptions, images, thoughts, and sentiments to put under the sounds—everything that it occurred to me would be germane to them. Of course this bond was only very general and unsubstantial. Obviously the impression produced was of the same nature. All this I achieved on the one hand by the use of sounds, and on the other by intonations and pauses. Isn’t this really the equivalent of what happens when we enjoy the readings and recitations of foreign actors? Do not they produce great effects, moods, excite the emotions? And we understand nothing of the words spoken by them on the stage.
“Here is another example: Not long ago a friend of mine was going into raptures over the reading by an actor in a recital.
“‘What did he read?’ I asked.
“‘I don’t know,’ answered my friend, ‘I could not make out the words.’
“Evidently that actor was able to make an impression with something other than words.
“In what did his secret consist?
“In the fact that a listener is affected not only by the thoughts, impressions, images, connected with the words, but also by the colour tones of the words, the intonations, the silences, which round out what the words left unexpressed.
“Intonations and pauses in themselves possess the power to produce a powerful emotional effect on the listener. As proof I submit my recitation to you in an incomprehensible language.”
After I had repeated the Othello speech today Tortsov’s comment was:
“Now what you say is not only audible and intelligible but also affecting, although not yet to a powerful enough degree.”
In an attempt to expand the emotional effect I stepped on the loud pedal, as it were, and in the old theatrical tradition, played passion for its own sake. This, of course, resulted in tension, haste, the blurring of all rhythmic proportions.
“What on earth have you done?” Tortsov clapped his hands to bring me up sharply. “With one sweep you have destroyed your entire work! You have killed the sense, the logic of your words!”
“I was trying to make it livelier, stronger,” I said in embarrassed self-defence.
“Don’t you know that the power lies in the logic, the coherence of what you are saying? And you destroy it!
“Have you never heard, either on the stage or off it, quite simple speech, shorn of all special vocal emphasis, without rising or falling, without unduly expanded tonal intervals, or intricate phonetic patterns?
“Despite the lack of all these means to emphasis, stripped speech often makes an irresistible impression, thanks to the convincingly clear exposition of thought, to distinctly grouped words and phrases and controlled delivery.
“So for the very sake of the powerful effect you seek you must learn in the first instance to speak logically, coherently, with proper spacing.”
I then went back to reciting the lines in their previous form. They were as clean cut but they were also as dry as before. I seemed to feel I was in a vicious circle and did not know how to extricate myself.
“Perhaps you realize now that it is rather too early for you to be thinking about the strength of your effect. That will evolve of itself out of the conjunction of many conditions and circumstances. These we shall have to search out.”
“Where? How?”
“Different actors have different conceptions of effect through speech. Some of them try to find it in physical tension. They clench their fists, they heave, are rooted to the spot, make themselves shake from head to foot, all for the sake of impressing the public. Under that method the voice is pressed out the way I am doing it now, in a horizontal line.
“In our theatre jargon this pressure on the sound for the sake of volume is what we call ‘high-tension acting’. Actually it does not produce volume; it leads only to shouting, to hoarseness with a narrowed vocal range.
“Test it out. Use only several notes, in seconds or thirds and say, with all the force you can muster, this short phrase: ‘I cannot tolerate it any longer!’ ”
I did as Tortsov suggested.
“That’s too little, make it louder!” he commanded.
I repeated the phrase, forcing my voice as far as I could.
“Louder, louder!” urged Tortsov. “Don’t expand your range!”
I did as he ordered. The physical tenseness produced a spasm. My throat contracted, my range shrank to thirds, and I still made no effect of volume.
Using all the strength I could scrape together I found myself obliged, when Tortsov drove me on, simply to shout.
“There’s the end result of your ‘high-tension’ tactics, that is, of the physical production, under forced pressure, of sound in a horizontal line,” said Tortsov.
“Now try another, an opposite type of experiment. Relax all the muscles of your vocal apparatus, remove all tension pressure, forget about playing on passions, do not be too concerned about volume. Now say the same phrase over to me, quietly but with your broadest vocal range, and well based inflections. Think up some imaginary circumstances likely to stir your feelings.”
The thing that popped into my mind was: if I were a teacher and had a student, like Grisha, who was a half hour late for class for the third time in a row, what would I do to put a stop to such slipshod ways in the future?
On that basis the phrase was easy to say and my voice range naturally expanded.
“Do you see how much more effective your phrase was this time than when you shouted it? Yet you did not need all the labour pains,” explained Tortsov.
“Now say the same words to me with an even wider gamut, not on a fifth, as last time, but a whole well-founded octave.”
For this purpose I had to invent a new imaginary basis for the phrase. I supposed that despite my categoric demands, my rebukes, warnings, inveighings, Grisha was again late for class, this time not a half hour but a whole hour late. All my measures were exhausted. I now was obliged to take a last, a supreme step.
“I cannot tolerate it any longer!!!” the phrase ripped out of me. It was not loud because I held myself in, thinking that my emotions were not at their peak.
“There!” exclaimed Tortsov gleefully. “It came out strong, not loud but without any strain. That is what the movement of sound up and down in a vertical direction can do, and without any high tension voltage, or pushing along a horizontal line the way you did in your first attempt.
“When you need power pattern your voice and your inflection in a varied phonetic line from top to bottom, just the way you use chalk to draw all possible kinds of designs on a blackboard.
“Do not take as your models the actors who think they are showing power when it is only loudness. Loudness is not power, it is only loudness and shouting.
“Loud or not loud is forte or piano. But as you know forte is not forte in itself, forte is only not piano.
“And conversely piano is not piano it is not forte.
“What do I mean by those expressions: forte is not forte in itself, or piano is not piano in itself? It means that there is no such thing as an absolute measure for either of them. They cannot be weighed or their extent marked by rulers.
“Forte is a relative concept.
“Let us suppose that you began the Othello speech in a low voice. If in the next line you continue in a slightly louder voice you will no longer be speaking in the piano of the opening line.
“The next line you read is still louder, it will be even less piano and so on until you reach the forte. By increasing your volume in gradual degrees you will eventually reach the ultimate stage of loudness which cannot be described as anything other than forte fortissimo. It is in that scale of sounds from piano pianissimo to forte fortissimo that we have the whole extent of relative degrees of loudness. But when you use your voice in this way you must make nice calculations and be very sure of your measure, otherwise it would be very easy for you to fall into exaggeration.
“Some undiscriminating singers think it is smart to make abrupt contrasts between loud and soft tones. They will sing the first words of a Tchaikowsky serenade forte fortissimo and the next in an almost inaudible piano pianissimo. Then they will start shouting again forte fortissimo when they come to the words about the ‘enticing tone of the guitars’ and continue with an abrupt piano pianissimo: ‘Come down to me my darling. . . .’ Can you imagine any greater triviality and lack of taste than these cataclysmic contrasts?
“The same happens in the theatre. There is shouting and ranting followed by hushed whispers in tragic scenes quite regardless of the essential meaning of the words spoken or of any common sense.
“Yet there is another type of singers and actors, who may have only small voices and meagre temperamental gifts who can use the forte and the piano in a way to increase tenfold the illusion of their natural endowments.
“Many of them even have the reputation of possessing great vocal resources. Yet they know themselves that it is technique and art which have made their names for them.
“As for loudness as such there is scarcely any use for it at all on the stage. In the great majority of cases it serves no purpose except to deafen those who have no understanding of art.
“Therefore when you need real power in your speech, forget about volume and remember your rising and falling inflections, and your pauses.
“It is only at the end of a soliloquy, a scene, a play, after you have used all the methods and means of intonations: step by step development, logical, consecutive gradation, all sorts of phonetic lines and patterns—then you may for a brief moment use a loud voice for the closing lines or words, if the sense of the play calls for it.
“When Tommaso Salvini was asked how he had the strength, at his advanced age, to shout with such vigour in a certain role, he replied: ‘I do not shout, you do the shouting for me. All I do is open my mouth. My job is gradually to bring my role up to its high point, and when that is done let the audience do the shouting if they feel they need it.’
“There are, of course, exceptional instances in the theatre when it is necessary to speak with a loud voice. This is notably true of mob scenes, or else when one is speaking to the accompaniment of music, singing, other sounds and sound effects.
“Even here one must never forget that it is still necessarily a question of relative, varied gradation of sound, and that allowing the voice to hang on one of several extreme notes in the vocal gamut is disturbing to the public.
“What then shall we conclude from these various aspects of the volume of sound in speech? It is true that this volume is not to be sought in high tension use of the voice, not in loudness or shouting, but in the raising and lowering of the voice, in intonations. Furthermore, volume is to be sought in the gradual expansion from piano to forte and in their mutual relationship.”