Gedanken zur Schauspielkunst - Thoughts About Acting

And I really adore good acting!!



Ich denke, Herbert Fritsch geht hier den ersten Schritt in die richtige Richtung. Furchtbar, sich vorzustellen, zu welcher Selbst-Entblößung er sich getrieben fühlte. Vielleicht wäre der nächste Schritt einer mehr hin zur Inter-Aktion, zwischen den Schauspielern und zwischen Schauspieler(n) und Publikum. Gutes Theater hat für mich immer mit Interaktion zu tun, mit der Möglichkeit mit wenigen Mitteln, fast mit Nichts, untereinader ganze Welten zu erschaffen, wie beim guten alten Shakespeare mit These und Antithese.

My thoughts are that Herbert Fritsch takes the first step into the right direction. Awful to imagine to what degree of self-exposure he felt driven. Perhaps the next step would be to more interaction between the actors and between the actor(s) and the audience. Great theater according to my taste has always to do with interaction, the possibility to create inbetween with just a few props, almost nothing, whole worlds, just like Shakespeare antithetically.

Albert Bassermann and Max Ophüls or The art of performing

"The Sublime is Now"   Barnett Newman

Once upon the time in the early 1920s in the beautiful city of Aachen, when Max Ophüls was still an actor engaged at the city's Stadttheater, there came the great Albert Bassermann. He was touring the land with a production of Gerhart Hauptmann's "Kollege Crampton" with him in the lead and local actors taking the minor parts. All Bassermann actually did was to instruct  his fellow actors how to (re-)act beforehand. Thus he told Max Ophüls : "Young man, there will be this scene when my character gets sacked in front of all the others. I will take it the hard way and you will pat me on the shoulder." Comes the performance and the beforementioned scene, Bassermann is standing there with his back(!) turned to the audience facing Ophüls. At that moment Ophüls gets struck by awe  and surprise, for there are real tears streaming down Bassermann's face and for a moment he cannot even move, when he hears a very low voice besides him: "Now, young man pat me on the shoulder!" ;-)

Bassermann as Henry Percy in Max Reinhardt's production of Henry IV Part 1

Mo(o)i - French or (Dutch) - just translate

An absolute presence in the early 1990s and yesterday rediscovered ;-)

In a probably unguarded moment of truth a great actor and artist said the following about redoing a lost drawing: "Can't you see that she can't do it again?!" With great appreciation this is still noticed and remembered, it made me think a lot. There was a time I felt sorry for the stage artist-actor, for his or her art is the absolute presence, once it is done it is gone, no way to hold on or stop the course of time. Even more particular, this is the only way to uncover the meaning of present, here and now, maybe there is no other way one is able to perceive its meaning as thoroughly. But this sentence made me realise - because he was indeed absolutely right - that probably any kind of art is and encompasses one moment in time - a presence - only the painter, draughtsman or sculptor is luckier as compared to the stage artist, for he or she captures this moment in a relic that is this moment.