3,
Today was our first rehearsal. I arrived long ahead of time.
The Assistant Director suggested that we plan our own scenes
and arrange the properties. Fortunately, Paul agreed to
everything I proposed, as only the inner aspects of Iago
interest him. For me the externals were of greatest importance.
They must remind me of my own room. Without this setting I
could not get back my inspiration. Yet no matter how I
struggled to make myself believe I was in my own room all my
efforts id not convince me. They merely interfered with my
acting.
Paul already knew the whole of his role by heart, but I had to
read my lines out of the books, or else to get by with
approximations. To my astonishment the words did not help me.
In fact they bothered me, so that I should have preferred to do
without them entirely, or to cut the number in half. Not only
the words, but also the thoughts, of the poet were foreign to
me. Even the action as outlined tended to take away from me
that freedom which I had felt in my own room.
Worse than that, I didn’t recognize my own voice. Besides,
neither the setting nor the plan which I had fixed during my
work at home would harmonize with the playing of Paul. For
example, how could I introduce, into a comparatively quiet
scene, between Othello and Iago, those flashes with my teeth,
rollings of my eyes, which were to get me into my part? Yet I
could not break away from my fxed ideas of how to act the
nature I conceived of as savage, nor even from the setting I
had prepared. Perhaps the reason was that I had nothing to put
in its place. I had read the text of the role by itself, I had
played the character by itself, without relating the one to the
other. The words interfered with the acting, and the acting
with the words.
*******************************************************
When I worked at home today I still went over the old ground
without finding anything new. Why do I keep on repeating the
same scenes and methods? Why is my acting of yesterday so exactly like today’s and tomorrow’s? Has any imagination
dried up, or have I no reserves of material? Why did my work in
the beginning move along so swiftly, and then stop at one spot?
As I was thinking things over, some people in the next room
gathered for tea. In order not to attract attention to myself,
I had to move my activities to a different part of my room, and
to speak my lines as softly as possible, so as not to be
overheard.
To my surprise, by these little changes, my mood was
transformed. I had discovered a secret—not to remain too long
at one point, forever repeating the too familiar.
Today was our first rehearsal. I arrived long ahead of time.
The Assistant Director suggested that we plan our own scenes
and arrange the properties. Fortunately, Paul agreed to
everything I proposed, as only the inner aspects of Iago
interest him. For me the externals were of greatest importance.
They must remind me of my own room. Without this setting I
could not get back my inspiration. Yet no matter how I
struggled to make myself believe I was in my own room all my
efforts id not convince me. They merely interfered with my
acting.
Paul already knew the whole of his role by heart, but I had to
read my lines out of the books, or else to get by with
approximations. To my astonishment the words did not help me.
In fact they bothered me, so that I should have preferred to do
without them entirely, or to cut the number in half. Not only
the words, but also the thoughts, of the poet were foreign to
me. Even the action as outlined tended to take away from me
that freedom which I had felt in my own room.
Worse than that, I didn’t recognize my own voice. Besides,
neither the setting nor the plan which I had fixed during my
work at home would harmonize with the playing of Paul. For
example, how could I introduce, into a comparatively quiet
scene, between Othello and Iago, those flashes with my teeth,
rollings of my eyes, which were to get me into my part? Yet I
could not break away from my fxed ideas of how to act the
nature I conceived of as savage, nor even from the setting I
had prepared. Perhaps the reason was that I had nothing to put
in its place. I had read the text of the role by itself, I had
played the character by itself, without relating the one to the
other. The words interfered with the acting, and the acting
with the words.
*******************************************************
When I worked at home today I still went over the old ground
without finding anything new. Why do I keep on repeating the
same scenes and methods? Why is my acting of yesterday so exactly like today’s and tomorrow’s? Has any imagination
dried up, or have I no reserves of material? Why did my work in
the beginning move along so swiftly, and then stop at one spot?
As I was thinking things over, some people in the next room
gathered for tea. In order not to attract attention to myself,
I had to move my activities to a different part of my room, and
to speak my lines as softly as possible, so as not to be
overheard.
To my surprise, by these little changes, my mood was
transformed. I had discovered a secret—not to remain too long
at one point, forever repeating the too familiar.