PROPOSED CIRCUMSTANCES AND ASSESSMENT
Home Favorites Random article Educational New additions Feedback FAQLet us assume that the performer, acting correctly along the main line of the performance and performing a number of tasks during the action that determine his stage behavior, does not act out anywhere, is truthful everywhere, acts on his own, as in life, and does not imagine, and he succeeds with complete success. convey this clearly and convincingly to your partners and the director. But this is not enough: you need to make sure that the performer
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really take into account the proposed circumstances in which it operates.
These proposed circumstances may be of various types. On the one hand, this is the environment in which the actor finds himself. On the other hand, the relationships between persons who are present here, or perhaps not present at that moment, but influence the behavior of this
faces.
What are the proposed circumstances of the suitors appearing at Agafya Tikhonovna’s place in the second act of Gogol’s “Marriage”, who were invited to come on a certain day and hour by the matchmaker Fekla Ivanovna in order for Agafya Tikhonovna, the bride, to look at them and so that they could get to know her?
The proposed circumstances of the suitors in this case are, firstly, that none of them expected to meet their rival; secondly, the extent to which each of the grooms is guided by the impression he makes on the bride and Arina Panteleimonovna; finally, thirdly, what matchmaker Fekla Ivanovna told each of the grooms about the bride and her dowry.
The proposed circumstances for Agafya Tikhonovna are, firstly, the unexpected appearance of suitors. She had not yet prepared for their arrival, she was dressed at home, “almost in a shirt,” the dress in which she wanted to appear before the grooms was not ironed. Secondly, Aunt Arina Panteleimonovna considers it discourteous that grooms are forced to wait in the living room for the bride to come out. Finally, Agafya Tikhonovna is at such an age that she definitely needs to get married, and therefore this matchmaking should not fail. In all these proposed circumstances, the action of the suitors arriving and getting to know each other and Agafya Tikhonovna going out to them takes place.
A very important point in the director’s work with actors is the selection of what the performers themselves find in a given piece of action. You can always tell the performer what exactly to take from these proposed circumstances and what to omit as less significant.
The more acutely the selection of those circumstances that influence the actor’s behavior is made, the more interesting the action itself becomes. For example, in the first act of Ostrovsky’s comedy “The Last Victim,” Dulchin, Julia’s fiancé, comes to her after a long absence, when he lost at cards and is threatened with collection on a moneylender’s bill. He comes to Julia to get five thousand from her. Julia loves him passionately and is ready to make any sacrifice for him. He knows this from experience, because he actually robbed her, just as he robbed not the first woman who was interested in him.
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But he also knows that Julia is to some extent practical and that she makes these sacrifices because she wants to marry him as a very rich landowner and nobleman with great connections. Therefore, he must behave in such a way that she does not guess that he has no fortune.
Then, he must preserve for her the illusion of his love for her and serious intentions to marry her, that is, he must continue his game of “passion”. At the same time, he is tired of her as a woman, and, finally, he has plans to marry the granddaughter of Flor Fedulych, since he does not know that her father, Lavr Mironovich, has no money, and Flor Fedulych will not give a penny for Irina Lavrovna.
Handsome and a Moscow gigolo, but never losing the manners of a well-mannered “master,” he must solve the problem of persuading Yulia to make the final sacrifice and get five thousand rubles from her.
And from the entire arsenal of those circumstances that were mentioned above, the performer must select one and discard the others, taking what will most surely help him achieve his goal.
The director must monitor what the actor chooses and tell him what is best to use to carry out the intended line. The performer must be clear in his choice and not play two tasks at once. The pattern of the role and the correctness of the action depend on the successful choice of the proposed circumstances.
GRAIN OF THE PIECE AND GRAIN OF THE ROLE
The right direction of action in a performance is determined by the tasks that are set for the performer. Therefore, the director must select tasks and correctly indicate them to the performers, if they themselves have not found and defined them with sufficient accuracy and clarity.
Execution evolves from task to task. The end-to-end action of the piece depends on the logical sequence of these tasks, so it is necessary to understand what is called the grain of the piece, that is, what is main in the content of the developing action. The clarity in the development of action depends on the clarity of the change of pieces. The director's task is to very carefully and thoughtfully conduct the completed actions from piece to piece.
Perhaps it will be clearer if we call the “grain of the piece” the main thought, but the thought does not cover the entire content of the piece. What also plays a big role here is how this thought is manifested in action, how it is experienced and evaluated. This complex complex, consisting of internal and external actions, from the presentation of thought that underlies the text and underlies
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The text, based on the characteristics of the actors’ temperament, is subject to special development by the director.
The director should not bother the actors with several sentences to reveal the grain of a given piece. If necessary, he can resort to the technique of showing how he personally imagines the state, or experience, or external action of a given performer, but not so that the performer will copy it, but so that he understands how the director imagines the course of this action or the internal process of the person portrayed. But the main thing that the director must do in order for the performers to understand him is to name the grain as clearly as possible for them, and in such a way that it can be expressed in action.
For example, in a secular living room, away from a large society sitting at a samovar, away from the piano, which one of those present is playing, at a small table with albums, two people are sitting, a man and a woman. They pretend to listen to music and drink tea. But in the course of the action given by the author, they moved away to the side in order to be able to explain themselves to each other unnoticed by the rest of those present.
Sometimes they exchange words almost imperceptibly, sipping tea from cups. But between them there is a very decisive conversation that is of great importance for the entire subsequent drama. She asks him to stop the harassment, says that she has never blushed in front of anyone, and his appearance makes her blush. He says that nothing can change in their relationship anyway; he is sure that they are bound by mutual love for life.
This explanation should be conducted in such a way that, firstly, it does not attract the attention of everyone else present in the living room, and on the other hand, so that the viewer understands that this explanation has a very serious stage effect.
emphasis in the play.
This scene is taken from the second scene of the dramatization of “Anna Karenina” by L.N. Tolstoy, in the living room of Princess Betsy. Anna Karenina and Vronsky are talking.
What is the grain of this piece?
If we follow Anna’s line, then the text preceding this scene, in its literal meaning, suggests that she came here with a definite decision - to announce to Vronsky the need to break off their relationship. However, the subtext and perspective of her role suggests that she is caught up in passion for Vronsky and is on the verge of breaking up with her husband. Anna knows that Vronsky will lead her to death, and yet she cannot overcome her passion and in the recesses of her soul strives for him. But, I repeat, she came here in order to finally break up with Vronsky.
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Her action is to decisively break with him and clearly express, albeit in a secular form, the demand to end their relationship.
Vronsky’s action is to prove to her as firmly and calmly as possible, without betraying his passion for Anna in any way, that she thinks the opposite of what she says; he convinces her that they cannot separate.
So, taking into account the text and subtext of each role, the through-action of the role, we will define the grain of this piece as follows: a decisive, most decisive explanation of thoughtful thoughts in the form of the greatest restraint.
How to ensure that this grain of the piece reaches the audience?
First of all, it is necessary that the meaning underlying the grain of the piece be clear. To do this, it is necessary to ensure that each of the partners, acting, silent and thinking or speaking and listening, all the time, as it were, immersing their words and their psychological states in this peculiar atmosphere, speaking the words in a decisive tone and at the same time being as restrained as possible in their expression. your feelings.
But this can only succeed if each performer truthfully, correctly and simply expresses in action the characteristics of his acting temperament, because such an action develops differently for each individual actor, for each type of acting temperament.
No less difficult is the work of the director with the performer, with the goal of helping him find the grain of the role. Of course, it happens that an actor immediately manages to catch the core of the role, to “hook” the role so that it fits into the work that he has done throughout the play, going from task to task, from one physical action to another physical action, when his acting self felt good for the given actions in the certain proposed circumstances.
After all, the proposed circumstances constantly change along the course of the action in the play, and the actor’s “I” acts depending on these proposed circumstances. If physical and psychological actions during a rehearsal will influence the actor in such a way that the role will work out for him, there is no need to require him to accurately determine the grain of the role. The actor may not name this grain, although his whole role grows from the grain. Only if the role is not successful for the performer, should you help him understand what the grain of his role is.
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Another case is also possible. Sometimes the performer himself seeks to talk with the director about his role in advance. He can tell the director a lot about how he understands the person he will embody, or he will ask questions to the director and ask him to talk about the character he is performing. Perhaps some literary parallels or observations taken from life will help the actor here; Perhaps the director needs to tell the performer more fully the biography of the character in order for him to have a clear idea of the grain of the role.
Why should the director himself think about this when he is still working independently on the play before meeting the performers? Because, depending on the grain of the role, the director will select one or another performer from the theater troupe who is most suitable according to the characteristics of his acting temperament. Knowing each actor in the troupe, he must be guided precisely by the grain of the role, which will be better developed in a given actor's temperament, in a given actor's individuality.
When I was working on “Yegor Bulychev and Others” at the Art Theater, Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, who produced this play, was extremely persistent in ensuring that each of the performers knew well the grain of the role that he played.
So, for example, he spent a long time urging the performer of the role of Shura, A.I. Stepanova, to ensure that she understood the characteristics of this girl. He said that Shura, the illegitimate daughter of Yegor Bulychev, belongs to the type of people who, like a torch, burn and scatter sparks in the dark; that the property of a torch is to burn brightly, illuminate, burn, flare up, and the actress will be able to master the role if she understands that the grain of Shura’s role is a torch. In conversations with her father, older sister, Tyatin, Donat, the forester, Zvontsov, she flares up and burns brightly, like a torch.
If the actor feels this and it gives him satisfaction in developing the role in literally all parts, if, starting from this state, he acts more clearly and more accurately, then the grain of the role has been found, and knowledge of this grain helps the action.
In the same performance Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko called the grain of the role of Peacock - “hog”. There was something greedy in the image that the performer of the role V. O. Toporkov was looking for. He wanted to use everything, absorb everything, “grab” under the guise of virtue and the tasks of a shepherd, and collect donations “for the decoration of the temple and the city.” And this peculiarity of his “grabbing” and “eating”, devouring everything he could, and wherever he squeezed in, naturally flowed from the seed of the role - “hog”.
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Addiction recovery strategy
What do all addictions have in common? That, despite the discomfort they bring, they give a person something important. For example, a feeling of security, closeness, support, safety, getting rid of loneliness, etc. Usually the person on whom we depend gives us something that we don’t have in ourselves, but we really want to have it. We may well develop in ourselves these missing qualities that we receive from the subject of addiction. This is precisely what the technique I propose is based on.
To get rid of (or weaken) addiction, do this exercise:
- Imagine the object of your addiction next to you. See or feel this connection. It could be a rope, elastic band, chains, etc. Mentally feel how strong it is. It can go from heart to heart, from the stomach, head, etc. Feel what positive things this connection gives you (security, intimacy, etc.) But also realize its destructive power.
- Try temporary independence. Using an imaginary knife, temporarily cut this connection and pay attention to your feelings. Mild discomfort is normal. But if you feel really bad, it means that at the moment you can only weaken the connection, but not remove it completely.
- Create your new evolving “I” next to you. That is, it is you, but significantly advanced in development, much wiser, more spiritual, possessing all the qualities that you want to possess.
- Now quickly break your connection and attach the end that was tied to the object of dependence to your new “I”. Experience the bliss of your new state.
- Show respect to the former subject of your addiction, because he also lost something. Mentally give him warmth, direction to a new future and let him go.
This exercise can be repeated several times.
