13. The Insignificant

In hardly any other art does the insignificant play such an important role as in acting. Whether an actor moves these or those facial muscles on a certain occasion, whether he moves his right hand or not: that comes into consideration. A whole scene can be disrupted by one bad hand movement by this or that actor.

Unfortunately, we are not so advanced in our acting that we notice a single bad hand movement or an incorrect contraction of a facial muscle. We usually need a whole actor who "spoils everything" to realize how necessary it is for the stage artist to meet the poet in order to bring the latter's intentions to full fruition on stage.

For the theater audience, the actor is the personality who brings the poet's intentions to their true realization.

Therefore it seems to me quite superfluous to talk about whether the art of acting is an art of the first or second rank. Differences in rank are very important in ethical terms; in the field of art they are irrelevant. For in art everything is necessary, even the seemingly trivial. The work of art must be perfect down to the last detail if it is to satisfy the strict demand for a style that is complete in itself. Nothing should disturb the harmony of the whole as an extraneous element. An actor who plays a role one degree more banal than it is meant to be can spoil a great drama.

I seem indifferent to the question of the rank that acting occupies in the ladder of the arts. What is important to me, however, is the problem: how can drama do justice to the tasks set for it by the poets.

Everything revolves around this: does acting have an independent significance alongside drama or not?

I believe that it definitely has such an independent significance. The work of a stage artist is only finished when it is brought to the real stage with the means of dramatic art.

The proof of this is very simple. way. In Shakespeare's time, Hamlet certainly had to be played differently than it is today, using the means of the dramatic art of the time.

We may not play Hamlet any better than it was played in Shakespeare's time, but we play it differently. But if we played it today the way Shakespeare had it played, we would be playing it badly.

But if one has different means of realizing a thing, and one time's realization can be good, the other time bad: the means have an independent meaning.

The art of acting is a means, but a means of independent significance.

How X plays Posa, and that he plays it differently from Y, is what matters.

What is expressed in the personality of Posa is certainly one and the same for all times. How it should be expressed through the art of acting changes from decade to decade.

Therefore we should not speak of the insignificant in the art of acting. Rather, we should think about what is important in this art. It is ridiculous to call the art of acting a reproductive art. Drama is for the true actor what reality, nature, is for the playwright. As productive as the dramatist is towards nature, so productive is the actor towards drama. He elevates the drama into a new, special artistic sphere. If the drama is a piece of nature, seen through the temperament of the playwright, then the performed stage work is a drama, seen through the temperament of the director and the actors.

If we do not want to willfully lower the status of dramatic art, we must accept it as an independent art and reflect on its peculiar technical means, then it will present itself to us as an independent art that is similar to the other arts.

When we have realized this, we will think less about its subordinate rank; . we will be fairer towards it.

The art of acting needs such justice. For today it is often regarded as the stepchild of the arts.

This prejudice is particularly widespread among producing playwrights. It must be overcome.

And it will be overcome the moment we are clear about the relationship between acting and dramatic poetry.

We lack a real technique of dramatic art. It must first be present. Then both poets and actors will recognize it. And then both categories of artists will understand each other.

At present, such an understanding is lacking.