Stay updated with breaking news from Jose ferrer. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
within the specialized conditions of theater. you hear a lot about what theater really is. in fact, the comparison most often heard has to do with a mirror. the comparison, of course, is borrowed from shakespeare, when hamlet says, to hold as twere a mirror up to nature. for many, theater is a reflection of life, an imitation. now, certainly, there can be a mirroring effect in the theater. as with any artist, if the dramatist or playwright holds up a mirror to nature, it is the mirror of that individual s own mind. what is reflected is a specialized point of view quite as unique as that same artist s fingerprint. the art of theater, however, encompasses much more than can be reflected in the mirror. think of it for a moment not as a mirror but rather as a prism. a prism reflects light, breaking it down into component parts, casting first this image, merging with another image, this shadow, that shadow, this color, that color. and curiously, each component is recogniz ....
that he was labeled an enemy of the people. upon reflection, he turned that accusation against himself into the title of still another play. in the wild duck, some of the most severe attacks are directed against the so-called idealists. though ibsen s subjects contemporary corruption in clergy and business, sexual inequality, prudishness and other victorian unmentionables were considered dangerous, his method of presentation was conventional. he used melodramatic devices, usually making quite explicit the division between good characters and bad. to make deceptively simple-looking plays, he wrote what was called the well-made play, that is, a play so carefully constructed that almost every line and object turned out to have some important use in a latter part of the play. it was said that if the heroine of a well-made play coughs in the first act, she will surely die of tuberculosis by the end. if a gun is handled, it will surely be used. there are no casual deliverie ....
it was strindberg s interest in the psychological and in the strange new method of expressing it dramatically that gives him a special place in theater history and has made his influence felt by every major playwright of the 20th century. in the late 19th century, concern for psychological truth in the arts paralleled freud s investigation of the subconscious. painters were finding ways to express strong emotions in pictures, which bore little resemblance to surface truth. composers were experimenting with strange new sounds. and some playwrights were creating scenes that revealed the subtle depths and ambiguities of the mind. were you invited for this evening? the ability to depict surface truth in the sense that a photograph looks real, had only recently come into the theatre which for most of its history had not had and did not seek the techniques for looking or sounding real. only recently had a stage begun to resemble a real room. looking real meant to close of eve ....
triumphant in the end. but heroes and villains are out of place in more scientific observation. this ability to observe in an impartial way is characteristic of an important russian playwright of the 19th century, anton chehkov, a physician who wrote short stories and plays, which depicted people as neither heroic nor foolish. indeed, chehkov s plays seemed plotless to viewers expecting a conventional, single action. instead, emphasis is on people and atmosphere in many small stories. in his plays as in real life, there s not necessarily one outstanding moment of supreme significance, nothing compared, for instance, to the moment when the traditional hero learns some overwhelming truth about the universe. some of chehkov s people achieve understanding, others remain trapped in self delusion. there are important events, but they take place offstage. there are extramarital affairs, a fatal duel, a devastating fire. the sensational is avoided in favor of personal reflectio ....
of to what extent theater is a collaborative art. it is then fascinating to be invited backstage to observe the way actors and director work to develop a scene. these rehearsals of strinberg s miss julie took place over a five-day period in a london rehearsal hall. the aim was to find ways the text, written in 1888, could be made to live for a contemporary audience. the preproduction work includes discussion of motivation, acting technique, line readings, stage business and personal experiences of the actors themselves. i, myself, as an actor, have often found that the rehearsal period is almost the most interesting part of acting, the most creative part. it is there that you use your instruments, both external and internal. the external instruments, of course, are your voice with which you speak the words, and your body, your appearance with which you enter, sit down, get up, walk to the window, turn around and exit. that s all an actor has, just his voice and his body ....