20. Postscript to the Previous Essay
Some readers may not want to accept the question addressed in the above essay as a dramaturgical one. Nevertheless, I believe that the matter is raised here in the right place. As things stand today, the art of performance can only be dealt with in connection with the art of acting. The orientation about this art, which is so neglected today, requires above all else the solution of the task: How does the art of performance relate to the art of acting? The latter has countless means at its disposal which the performer must do without. One must realize that a full artistic effect can only be achieved in mere performance if the mimic is replaced by something else.
Our time seems little inclined to count the art of performance among the arts at all. This is understandable when one considers that the current trend is not to restrict artistic means, but to expand them. Wagnerian art wants to create a total work of art using all artistic means. Is it not a sign of the artistic poverty of the time that one tries to gather everything together in order to say what one wants to say? It seems much more artistic to increase the expressive capacity of a small range of means in such a way that one can reveal with them what nature has required a great effort to do. What nature has at its disposal to place a human being before us! How little the sculptor has. He must put into the little what nature achieves with its many.
In the same way, the speaker must be able to put into his speech what in natural speech only comes to life in combination with other things. The soul, which in natural speech is held back inside the chest, must flow out into the word. We must hear sensations when we have a performer before us. This is related to what we have to say about the style of speaking during a lecture. A speaker who speaks "naturally" is not an artist. The enhancement of linguistic expressiveness must be studied. In this area there will be things that are no less varied than the lessons of the art of singing. Today it is not even possible to distinguish the dilettante from the artist. Under such circumstances, it is only natural that the public "does not want to have anything recited to them", but believes that "it is more convenient to read things oneself". One must first learn to understand that this is just as accurate as saying: why do I need to see a painted landscape? I prefer to look at real nature. What interests us in a picture is not the landscape depicted, but the way in which lines and colors can be used to represent what nature achieves with infinite forces. The feeling for the how of the presentation should be awakened.
We will only have a proper receptivity for this how when we are familiar with the content of what is being presented. The material interest in the content has nothing to do with the interest in the lecture. The means of the performer lie in the organs of speech. And for the sake of the pleasure that speaking gives us, we must listen to such an artist.
When we are ready, the recitalist will relate to the stage artist as the concert singer relates to the opera singer. You only have to look at our aesthetics to know how far we are from a desirable goal in this area. That is why I believe that the above essay raises a burning question.