DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

Depression is a state which must not exist in the theatre.  A book might be written on what brings people into the theatre.  Of one thing we may be sure: they do not come to be depressed.  A matinee audience of woman may enjoy weeping painlessly for two hours over a young girl’s sad story, and come away happy, exclaiming over their wet handkerchiefs.  “The Diary of Anne Frank” could easily be this sort of drama.  Ours was not that sort of production -- which is to your credit.  The other danger -- that of depression -- we did not completely avoid.  It was fortunate that on Tuesday and Thursday the excellence of the ensemble work, the credibility of the characterizations, the general high quality of your acting, gave the audience a measure of satisfaction which mitigated the depressing effect of the drama to some extent.  On the other nights, particularly on Friday, you struck the right note, played in the right spirit.  Result: the audience was moved; they felt deeply; but they were not depressed for the nature of your playing implied: this must never happen again and when an audience thinks in such active terms: must not happen again -- they are lifted above depression.  On Tuesday night, you were too close (as human beings) to the tragic consequences, perhaps.  You played as if you felt a weight of responsibility for what had happened that is a state that must be left behind early in rehearsals.  As actors you must have the capacity to realize the serious, the tragic, the pitiful consequences.  Such realization gives your work depth and purpose and direction.  It is something to think about between rehearsals as you check on what you have or have not communicated.  This realization is a step in setting up the framework of your acting.  Have comprehended fully realized deeply trust your subconscious mind to guide you and enter fully into the lives of the characters you play.  The more tragic the drama is, the more necessary  it is to achieve the paradoxical: to know the tragedy, to play as if you did not know.  On Thursday night, a low energy level made for depressing effect.  Ironically, with a low energy level, the better the acting is, the more completely depressing the play becomes.  You still need to learn that no matter what your physical condition -- or mental -- may be, you must bring vitality on stage.  it must become a conditioned reflex that the instant you step on stage your voice becomes resonant, full, rich, your body tuned up to concert pitch.  A keyed up organism is essential to all acting -- not a faked keying up but a state of general tonicity which can be generated truly by exercises such as I have given you.  Along with it must go a mental, emotional response to acting itself as a joy; it is exhilarating, it is vital.  

Your ensemble work was of such excellence that it is difficult to analyze individual performances.  A general weakness in the acting and directing must be commented on first.  It must receive attention immediately in forthcoming productions.  In your realism, in your desire to play truthfully, to let the subtext play, you went too far and let it play out before vocalization or direct action.  As result dramatic conflict became nonexistent, bogged down.  Your Friday performance came alive because you responded immediately with words or action and subtext followed along behind, with, ahead.  Pauses come only as the shock of climactic action.  In future:  top in and then emotional stop you, choke you, change you in the middle of a line or word.  Realize as you speak.  

Jane, in particular, needs to keep this in mind, as she also needs to observe that it isn’t every sentence that is important, but rather the whole idea which may need a whole group of sentences to express.  Jane seems to think in separate sentences.  I think it may be merely a bad acting habit springing from a desire to make everything important.  The tendency mars work that is otherwise very fine.  Russel has something of the same difficulty.  His characterization was excellent; he made me forget Russel; he became Kraler.  He needs to tune up his dramatic sense which keeps the current of drama surging on.  Directors must be on the alert for this tendency, and stop it before habits are established.  (I was trying to do this in the Saturday A.M. rehearsal of “Ondine.”)  Even in early rehearsals it is imperative to keep building up.  Russel has authority on stage.  There is strength and economy in all that he does.  

Linda, I believe, is learning assurance.  There is much less “trying to be” and more being than usual.  Her difficulty always comes in emotional moments.  Some relics of bad acting habits still push her too hard and voice and body get out of control.  As emotion grips you, Linda, let it localize in the grip of the feet on the floor, in the diaphragm which expands rather than collapses, in the straightening of the spine, in the fullness of the tone, rather than high pitch.  As emotion must be vocalized, grip the floor more firmly -- and that’s all.  You don’t need to try to feel -- you do feel.  You don’t need to try to express -- just breathe deeply and trust the words to come out as they should.  

Paula’s best work was Saturday’s performance when the need to reach a full house over rode other Paula concerns.  In Paula’s mind Mrs. Van Daan had so many nuances, so many complexities.  Paula wanted to express them all.  She must trust in the fact that having established all of these characteristics, they will play themselves in the given circumstances.  As some people have to learn to forget lines, so Paula must forget all the mannerisms, habits, thoughts she has discovered.  Simply trust that they will play themselves as the situation calls for them.  

Dave Zegers has learned this.  I doubt that he knows how or when it happened.  he probably can’t explain it, but he knows that having established what Van Daan is, what his behavior is, he can simply be Van Daan.  he can trust his responses to play.  The result was dynamic acting every moment.  He was free -- free to respond to anything, to everything.  Opposites in his character were free to play against each other: the beastly against pain, etc.  His breakdown after the stealing was not as effective as it might have been, but I think now, that staging was somewhat at fault.  Preferably he should have been upstage somewhere, above the table, or at the window or door.  Such an outburst needs a physical object on which emotion can be spent.  At all other moments Van Daan’s behavior was inevitable, rooted in character, motivated by situation, relationships were realized.  And on our “slow” nights Dave’s vitality saved many a moment.  

Roberts, too, established and played relationships.  There was development and change achieved unobtrustively.  When he arrived at “just crazy” it was logical, inevitable, it added up.  He still has things to learn about timing and pointing, but he is arriving at such knowledge in a logical way.  Techniques and realism are developing together.  He is achieving good acting without striving for it.  The scenes in his room with Anne was simply played without any striving for simplicity.  As he is learning techniques he is also learning to conceal them.  

Miep became more and more convincing as she took part in the scene changes as concentrating on ordinary tasks gave her practicality, scope.  Though absent from the main action she became part of the whole.  

Tom’s Dussel is a little difficult to evaluate.  It was a complete characterization; it was well played; it offered relief and contrast; except for certain moments of too long delayed response, the comedy was well played.  His performance was vital and consistent.  Yet, in some way, I felt that Tom was too outside his character, commenting on him as he played him.  In another framework, Shaw, for example, this would have been acceptable but in the realistic framework Tom needs to submerge self a little more in character.  There were many moments when he did it -- usually the moments when the acting was completely serious.  Tom’s comedy is excellent; his realism is not quite complete enough to conceal it.  For example, not as complete as Claris’ realistic comedy after the kiss which was beautiful comedy within the realistic framework.  It sprang from Claris’ complete assimilation of character traits to the extent that one could not tell what was Claris and what was Anne.  

We can remember when Claris and Anne seemed to have little more than youth in common and when Claris was trying to use behavior patterns not her own, how she had to concentrate on exterior techniques of communication.  In the end, all were assimilated into a whole: Anne.  Claris plays with a wonderful totality; she believes in everything she sees; she has a radiance on stage that is compelling, moving.  I spoke of her comedy which was delightful when it was character response to situation.  She has difficulty with comedy inherent in lines.  She needs to learn to get surprise as the ending of a line, to use contrasts of tone, of timing, to toss off part of a line after creating suspense as to the ending.  Her vocalization of a line does not give play to her own imaginative creation behind the line.  Tune your ear to vocal techniques of comedy.  

Creation of Mr. Frank was perhaps more difficult for Dave had to play an age different from his own and play it straight so it might seem truly that he was 50 plus.  Davie, like Claris, has remarkable ability in assimilation of traits.  He has learned to respond without thinking or planning how to respond.  He interprets, illuminates the play without seeming to so.  His pointing of meaning grows out of involvement in chracter situation.  Dave, the interpreter, does a good job of steering the character he plays to the dramatic ojbective.  Dave needs to acquire more confidence in his ability to intensify and extensify sufficiently to reach a large auditorium.  He tends to strain when faced with the need to reach a large auditorium.  it’s merely a matter of spatial relationships.  Put the fourth wall at the back of the auditorium rather than the proscenium.  Extensify your thinking to those proportions and feel confident that your thought can fill that space.  Intensification will naturally follow if your work has been sound.  Most members of a company need to think in terms of this spatial relationship.  What you do, say, think, feel must fill an auditorium without strain.  Sense how long it takes a thought to travel to the balcony or a word to hit the back wall.  The very act of sensing this will touch off the process of intensification needed. 

THE VISIT

To study the scene designs for a production should give actors the form in which they are to play the drama.  In this instance the two bare, non-realistic branches silhouetted against the cyclorama were the epitome of the form:  no leaves, no individuality of tree (elm, oak, cherry, pine), no decoration -- just bare, black branches framing the action centered about bare essentials of furniture: counter, table, chairs.

The characters involved in the action must be presented with the same starkness of outline, the same vivid silhouettes against the sky; schoolteacher, doctor, priest, painter, man-on-the-dole, station master, burgomaster, etc.  The trait essential to the projections of the idée -- that trait intensified by the elimination of all other traits -- is played against the opposing forces.  The only sub-text needed in a play of this sort is the subtext that relates to the main action.  To add more would throw focus on character development, on personal eccentricities, and take focus away from the main theme:  money can buy anyone.  This elimination of all but the essential constitutes the style: a clear projection of a dominant trait in action.

When Zegers finally cut out all the subtle subtexts, when he intensified the direct vocal preparation of character trait in action, he became a dynamic force in the action of the drama.  Now this procedure does not mean that nothing happens between lines; it means that what happens is sharp and intense as lighting flashes.  Dave tended to eliminate these flashes in his direct forward action.  The burgomaster sees Schill’s shaking hands and steels himself against normal response; he hears the break in Schill’s voice and rides over it.

The moments of hearing, seeing, sensing are not eliminated ever -- in any form.  They are vivid and stark but are not followed by moments of indecision, for in these brief scenes the decisions have been made -- in order that we may not become involved in the home life of each person in the play and thus become distracted from the central theme.  Dave still needs to concentrate on straight, direct, forceful speech; he still needs to eliminate a tendency toward a sarcastic slide in tone;  he needs to listen to and copy all varieties of speech pattern in order to achieve a more flexible vocal medium.

I hope he and everyone has now learned to play against tragic elements, to play against getting involved in the overall mood.  When you are told to play with a passion to change the world, that does not mean to think: This is an terrible world, this is an evil world, this is a miserable world, etc. etc.  It means to think with the dramatist:  “We must try to change this work to make people think, act.”  After the first night  you played with such an approach and the drama became electric, provocative and good theatre.  People were forced to think because implications were hitting full force -- not of individuals in a town.  The starkness of the impersonality of all but Schill and Clara raised it to universals.  It was hard hitting every moment, yet it was always theatre to be enjoyed as theatre.  Everyone played the same style, everyone was ensemble.  Everyone contributed to the whole: Mason’s walk off after preventing Schill’s escape -- the epitome of “we have done the right thing,” Griswold’s entrance in scene 2: so superbly ironic, so joyful. Sara jane’s “Most God-forsaken town” -- hundreds of such moments all tieing together and adding up.

DeMott and Dobrin both achieved brilliant lucidity particularly on Saturday night.  Both achieved clarity of communication coupled with intensity.  Linda’s self-submergence, resulting in: a wife who sold out for a fur coat, with the moment of listening to the bell that told the whole story was an illuminating irony.

I wonder if you all realized how pointed the dramatic ironies became when you played only one trait clearly against the action.  Think this through, for you will need to use it often.  Irony is easily blurred.  You have all played it now, and played it well.  Try now to grasp and understand the principle behind it:  Sharp outline like the bare branch against the cyc.

To say that you all found this style and played it well is to sum up your effective work.  Nancy’s work and Wayne’s can only be spoken in superlatives.  With more work Wayne might develop further Schill’s ineffectuality even in terror; sometimes his Schill seemed capable of thinking too deeply, of understanding too deeply.  The difficulty of the role lies in the realization -- how deep, what exactly does he realize, on what level?  Wayne answered the questions with credibility.  Black panther and failure incorporated in one being are qualities not easily reconciled, but Wayne made it credible.  As always, Wayne’s responsiveness to everyone and everything is a distinguishing feature of his acting.

Nancy’s creation of Clara was true art.  Nancy gets to the very essence of character, to the spine of the role.  Hands, spine, eyes, voice become Clara.  She never misses a beat of the play;  once the accuracy of a musician who interprets from the head and the heart with complete mastery of the instrument, Nancy found the cadences of the role and of the play; they came to beautiful crescendos in the wedding scene and crescendo and diminuendo in the final forest scene.  Sense and music are balanced in her work.  Nancy’s images are astonishingly clear and her communication of them beautifully lucid.  Her Clara emerged from a background: young girl, whore, huntress, destroyer -- she evolved them all.  Nancy has an active imagination, and she apparently knows how to ask the questions which make it a creative imagination.  Nancy saw with Clara’s eyes and with the mother’s eyes.  The result was a four dimensional characterization prsented with telling effect -- a real triumph.

TWELFTH NIGHT

From Aristophanes to “Auntie Mame,” the elements of comedy and the techniques of playing them are the same.  We created Shakespearean characters, we set up the situations in which they are involved, we are weak in the comedy techniques which deliver the comedy consistently.

Thursday night when Russel entered completely into the comic revelry and had a good time, he sparked the entire performance and the show was brilliant.  Every moment had in it the surprise which gives the spirit of improvisation so necessary to all comedy.  It was played full tilt, with full participation.  Everyone was completely in the game, everyone had fun, yet everything was kept in control within the framework of the drama.  Saturday the last scene played beautifully, with fun, with wit, with discipline.

This is the element Griswold needs to work on: catching a ball with surprise and returning it with surprise . . .bright tones . . . and a swell or arch in a key word.  His Aguecheek was a beautiful character creation, but his techniques were wobbly.  He is often slow on the pickup, or the tone lacks vitality, or he fails to arch the right word.  It would take only a little concentration on techniques of comic delivery to make his Aguecheek superb.

Marshall’s difficulties are technical, too.  He created character admirably.  But having created a Malvolio, he doesn’t quite permit him to respond freely to the situations, and so he is sometimes studied; or he lets go too completely and the situation and character go out of control.

Marshall’s line delivery is not sure: he drops words, or fails to land the line.  He, like the rest of you, has not yet learned how to snap a line at the end so that it released laughter.  Line endings that are smudged, that are indefinite, stifle laughter.  Stretch an elastic band as you speak, let go suddenly, and you have the snap that comedy requires.  And the suddenness of the snap necessitates an arrest for recovery that touches off laughter.  This is true of all comedy and of all comic characters.  No matter whether the lines go up or down, whether it is swift or drawled, the snap must come at the end -- or no laughter.  Work on it: you will need it for “Auntie Mame.”

Fabian was progressing steadily toward good clowning; he slipped only when he let lines get out of control: too high in pitch or jumbled in words.  He was learning to play with literalness that was sparked with a sense of comedy.

Maria had the right spirit, the spirit of infectious fun.  It was marred by a tendency to over inflect.  Shakespeare lines require a directness of delivery with a bright tone and a toss up of the important word.  Perhaps it was the conspiratorial aspects of her role that led Claris into circumlocutions which were sometimes unintelligible.

Russel was tremendous Thursday night when he let go and had fun.  His playing one character against the other was brilliant.  The duel sequence from its inception, its plotting, to its conclusion, was hilarious because he was playing all aspects of the sitiuation.  This was how the entire play should go -- as he played the cellar scene in the repeat of final dress rehearsal -- forgetting everything and letting the situation play.

Vance has everything that makes good Shakespeare: he speaks the lines exceptionally well; he plays with ease and vitality.  He needs to top in on his pauses more positively.  A pause requires a decisive break and its drama is dissipated.  As he knows, he needs voice work for range and flexibility.

McClory has discovered Shakepeare’s vocal music, too, and achieves the cadences and melody.  Add sustained vowels so that words have more body, more solidity, more power.  What he did was gone well.  Keep progressing in the same direction.

Orsino improved during performances, but never quite became Dave’s role.  Dave never quite incorporated into one person the Duke’s attributes of Elizabethan sophistication, Elizabethan vitality, and Elizabethan romance.  If you can get any recordings of Gielgud’s “Much Ado” you will hear the vocal characteristics that epitomize this sort of man -- sophisticated, virile and romantic combined.  Dave played with vitality and intelligibility, but often he seemed to be mocking the character.  

Nash can still work on making iambic pentameter seem normal speech, but his captain was well-done nevertheless, as were all of the lesser roles.

Penny and Gretchen both need voice work.  Both are excellent actresses, possessing beauty, brains, grace.  When they were speaking with full tonal values, they were enchanting.  They belonged in Illyria.  Neither has the vocal capacity to interpret Shakespeare fully.  As a consequence, they strained sometimes for effects.  Shakespeare is music -- not arty, artificial music -- but the music of character, the music of emotion.  You are both endowed literally with other acting talents.  Add vocal beauty and flexibility.  Why not spend 15 minutes a day with Nancy?  In a short time she can give you the simple necessary exercises for support, for open throat, for oral and head resonance.  And that’s all you need.

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO

F.D.R. crawled out backward, making a facetious remark, well landed, about his derriere -- the audience roared.  A second later they were completely quiet, seeing through the eyes of Eleanor and Louie, sensing the tragedy of a life.  Not all actors could have brought off that moment.  The audience might have been embarrassed that they had laughed at a stricken man; they might even have been angry at the playwright, at actors, or both, -- resentful that a trick had been pulled to make them laugh, making them guilty of bad taste.  Not once did this happen at this point or any other point.  Before F.D.R.’s feet had disappeared Nancy subtly, without any obvious device, threw focus on the heart of the matter: a man’s courage.  It was as if she said,  “We smiled, but we understood.”  She could not have achieved this moment, and others like it, if she had not, subtly telegraphed ahead, even from the opening of the play, her capacity for understanding.  And Louis, corroborated her feeling, playing in response.

Dan has not yet become capable of establishing the subtext of a role from the very beginning, but he is learning fast.  He used to play moments by themselves, “scenes” by themselves, but this time he began to link together the whole.

it was playing together, playing the whole, playing the unspoken life, the inarticulate elements -- it was such ensemble that made a weak play the moving human drama that it was.  Until we discovered this during rehearsals we were uncomfortable.  We were cheating ourselves into trying to believe this drama was real.  Roberts overheard someone say,  “This play makes me remember so much I had forgotten,” which means you took people back into their own lives, throwing light on what had happened, which they may not have understood.

Had your work been less honest, this would not have happened.  We might have witnessed dramatic, theatrical moments in the life of a prominent man without feeling ourselves part of that life and that time.

Nancy is particularly successful in creating realities.  She comes into a set and it becomes a home, for her eyes see home; all her senses respond to home.  In the same way, to her actors become people, to whom she has individual ties.  She has a gift for wearing clothes so that they become personality; she puts on a pair of clean white gloves and they are Eleanor’s gloves; she changes from suit coat to sweater and Eleanor’s life has been revealed to us.  Books, hats, knitting, are never ‘props” in Nancy’s hands -- they are part of a way of living.

Linda is just beginning to learn this.  As a result she can say:  “But this way, acting is so easy” . . . and that’s the way it should be.  As a consequence Linda did her best acting in this production, easy enough except for a couple of lines.

Nancy lets things happen and that’s as it should be.  Dan began to learn this art, too: needs to learn more of the same.  However, he came through, not only with a fine job of character work, but also a fine job of using theatrical devices.  He achieved a fine sense of how to build a sequence to its capper -- and that’s an art.

All of you need to cultivate your sense of dramatic construction, so that you can build sequence upon sequence as a mason builds stone upon stone -- each sequence has a beginning, middle and end, but fits into a whole.  This is the secret of clarity of production.  “Twelfth Night” has still to achieve it.  Dan is on his way to ensemble acting and to technical communication.

Fay’s work is difficult to criticize for it has technical awareness and technical expertness; characterization is sound and she has command over the stage situation -- yet something is lacking.  Is her acting, perhaps, too much of the head?  Didn’t Faye condemn Mrs. R. too completely to make us believe she was Mrs. R?

Critical faculties must be put to rest while acting, to be resumed later as needed.  If Nancy passes judgment on “Auntie Mame” while playing Mame she will be lost.  This does not mean that Nancy does not know the elements of the play but simply for the duration of the role the elements do not exist.  Dave could not have been FDR if his critical judgment of the play had prevailed.  Because he could concentrate on the man, not the vehicle, he could become the man -- and he did.

Dave acts with mind that knows where he is going, with heart that understands and leads other to understand, and with all his senses alert and responsive.  He is ageless onstage -- like Wayne -- because he assumes the viewpoint of any age and responds from that viewpoint.  The illusion is complete.  With his own outgoing dramatic sense he can direct the audience in feeling, thinking, believing, understanding.  (Nancy needs to strengthen this fourth dimensional aspect.)  His work is amazingly complete, yet, like Nancy’s, unstudied.  He creates, he believes in what he creates and so do we all.

Jerry could not quite achieve the completion of the characterization process.  He could have fun being Al Smith offstage, but he did not really assimilate the characteristics; he didn’t completely believe in the product he created.  It was, nevertheless, a good job.  That episode is probably the most difficult in the whole play.  We needed to work with it more, much more, as we did the day it was half improvised.  We assumed it would replay in the same manner -- we were wrong.  It needed more improvisation, more action, more playing ball to set up reaction patterns which would eventually play themselves.  Jerry was well on the way in final performance.

King, Pogue, Willoughby: It seems all they need is an objective.  Turned loose on the stage, they achieve it in a masterly, effective fashion and what more can you ask?  Claris, Rod, Laird: an effective family unit.  Griswold:  a mature, efficient doctor.  Lunday, Zegers: political arena atmosphere.  Marie and Edward perfectly rounded out the family picture.

No jarring notes anywhere; all performances were secure and reasonably consistent.

A MESSAGE FROM JIM GOODE

Hi Mary,

Congratulations on the krausenotes blog, I hope others with AK and Eagles Mere memories will add to it. There may be some material in our archives which might be of interest. 

To introduce myself, I graduated from NU in 1976; some of my teachers there had studied with AK, and in the case of Frank Galati had been at EM Playhouse. Of course by this time, AK had left Evanston and moved to be with Lucy in Bloomsburg, but her legend certainly hovered over the theatre department. After her retirement (you probably know the story of that event), she taught workshops and directed around the US, and occasionally held classes in Lucy's house. All this ended when Lucy had a stroke and AK cared for her. Then Lucy improved, and in the months before my graduation, it became known that she was willing to take on another small group of students for classes in Bloomsburg. I was one of eight students who came here for a summer of studying Cherry Orchard. Classes were Tuesday and Friday mornings; $30 a week, and if you couldn't afford it you could do household chores and yard work!!!! Among the chores was helping Lucy & AK move out of the cottage at EM, which is about a 30 minute drive north of Bloomsburg. I recall peeking into the player's lodge at the Othello stove in the kitchen. 

When summer '76 was over, we asked if we could come back in the fall, and AK consented. The following months we added Shakespeare, Shaw, and Ibsen to our class work, and put together some scenes for clubs in town. For the summer of '77, other NU grads joined us. The Playhouse was still standing, though barely. One afternoon, a friend and I broke into it; there was a park bench on the stage and we re-enacted a scene from Zoo Story which we had done back at NU. So, I guess we were the last ones to act on the stage.  Many of us had talked in college about starting our own company, and under AK's daring inspiration, we formed the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in 1978. AK was artistic advisor, and was sometimes titled an artistic director though she didn't really take on any day to day company decisions. She directed 2 shows and supervised the directors of the other shows. There were still a number of audience members who recalled attending shows at the EM Playhouse. We toured Under Milk Wood to the firehall in EM, coincidentally at the time that Patricia Neal (who was in the first EM company) was visiting.

AK died before we had our own theatre in Bloomsburg, but when we acquired and renovated the Columbia movie theatre, we renamed it in honor of her, and at the dedication in 1983 a number of her former students attended and took a pilgrimage to EM, but by then the playhouse had collapsed.

After Lucy died, BTE became the default repository of her EM memorabilia. We have some programs, posters, critiques, and the box office seating chart. AK's papers are in the Library of Congress and at some point are to be made available digitally to the public. NU, despite inviting her back to speak at a star-studded celebration before her death, distanced itself from her legacy, until it came time to raise funds for the new theatre facility when they approached BTE for assistance gathering biographical info and photos. They now have a studio space named for her.

We have in our own archives some pre-BTE class notes from AK, plus some notes from her in our early years. These are in the BTE archives housed in Andruss Library at Bloomsburg University. I wrote the bio of AK which is on our website. Some interesting recordings have come to light recently: the films AK made for South Dakota public TV in 1968 where rediscovered after brilliant detective by William Bergfeldt and after digital conversion were briefly available for sale (there is a clip on vimeo), and audio recordings of AK on SD public radio. 

BTE is now beginning its 35th season, and three of us ensemble members are from the early years and knew AK. Though we are the last of her students, we don't make any special claim to being her torchbearers. She did not ask that of us, and left no definitive, codified "Krause method" to posterity. Every now and then, someone says "Someone ought to collect AK's papers for publication", but that's as far as it's gotten. Perhaps your blog will take this idea farther! Have you thought about contacting the NU Speech Alumni magazine for a mention of the blog?  

I'd be happy to look through our files for the EM memorabilia for anything that might be of interest for your blog. 

Jim Goode

MARY STUART

Listen to the lines of the play and you will hear the theme expressed by someone.  In this case it comes from Talbot, naturally, since he stands on the side of reason.  He expresses the theme several times, one of the most telling:  “No good can come from hate meeting hate.”

After you really began concentrating on the central idea, the drama took shape and direction and went straight to the inevitable last scene.  Until you saw and played with clarity and unity, the last scene seemed tacked on, the drama ended with Mary’s death.  As performed, however, epitomized the idea of the whole.  there can be no victory, only waste, when rulers, leaders, destroy in the name of hate.  Search always for the theme and then hew to the line.

Our production was distinctive first, because it had clarity of purpose, with resulting clarity which gripped the audience with what they might call “suspense.” but what we recognize as inevitable.

Secondly, it was distinctive because we found the music of the drama, not only the music and cadences of the verse which was, except for a few instances, exceedingly well-spoken, but also the over all music, rhythm, surge of the whole.  There was flow of sequence to sequence; there was a current of sound, movement, reverberation that flowed from scene to scene, holding, for the most part, even through the curtains.  I am sure, still, that it would be better performed without scene breaks.  It is amazing that it sustained so well with the breaks.

You all know, realize, that more could be done with undivided performances and with the whole.  Always ask:  in what mood, in what state, should an audience leave the theatre?  The performance of Saturday night came closest to sending people home in the right frame of mind: they were moved by the tragedy, shaken by the events, but they were talking with animation about the beauty of the performance although they were not using the term “beauty.”  They were lifted up by something which they could not quite name which is an indefinable state we know to be the experience of aesthetic enjoyment.  In other words, they had been moved by tragic events, but a sense of good theatre exalted them above the realities.  And that is the ideal theatre experience.

Now on Friday night, they were deeply moved, deeply shaken, but they went away as if from a funeral -- a real funeral. They had identified completely with Mary and Elizabeth and the events of history, but we had not elevated them to the psychic distance which adds:  “I have witnessed great theatre.”  This is the artistic detachment which gives the viewer an added enjoyment.

To this end, we could have worked more.  We were on the road to achieving it, as you began to realize and communicate the dramatic ironies in the drama through the pointing of ironic implications, of high-lighting ironies.

This sense is tremendously essential to the actor who wants to rise to the highest stature.  It made Jake Dengel’s Hamlet an experience never to be forgotten.  it is a mental experience first of all, an intellectual sense of what is bitingly ironic in a line or in a relationship or in a situation.  And second, it demands the vocal clarity and agility to point this irony without effort, by seeming not to point it at all.  As I mentioned to you, the German language, by its very nature, has an ironic edge, a hard bite, which by sound and intonation alone can convey a whole drama of ironies in conflict.  Listen to Lotte Lenya, to Marlene Dietrich at her best and you will hear it.  One hears it, too, in the Scandinavian films.  You don’t need to know the meaning of the words to get the ironic implications.  To communicate these ironies is to give the audience an opportunity to smile, to grin, and no matter how wry the smile, it serves to detach one a bit from the too-realistic involvement which is life not elevated to art.  Many of you are ready to pursue this study further in comedy or tragedy.  I recommend it for independent study projects.  Studies have been made from the literary viewpoint; I know of none from the acting or directing angle.

Distinctive performances are many in this production, even to Gretchen’s exquisite last line which reverberates in the memory, that poignant, clear, cadence.  “He has embarked for France.”  It epitomizes the theme, it left no more to be said.

Willoughby’s strong, consistent performances started and kept the drama forging ahead.  He has a gift for telegraphing far ahead.  He points intelligently what must be remembered in upcoming scenes.  In the midst of violent emotions, he plants securely ideas which are the source of inevitable results.  His great clarity of speech is an asset you all might study.

Robin’s Hanna was beautiful characterization, beautiful drama, and a performance consistent, strong, true.  Robin has achieved a beautiful blend of instinctive inner motivation with technical controls that communicate to the fullest degree.

Laird has grown tremendously.  His Mortimer was the ardent, romantic figure demanded by the drama.  Laird’s tensions have decreased; he is gaining control of his body and voice.  He needs to acquire a sense of language, a sense of the sound values of words.  He needs to study their implicit meanings, their alliterative values.  He needs to become aware of pronunciation and their values in drama.  Every actor needs this.  Language has many meanings besides the literal.  Train your ears to hear these values and your tongues to speak them with dexterity.

Roberts must work in this direction.  His mind began to work as Leicester’s, but his speech and movement were inadequate.  Real finesse cannot be achieved unless every muscle is responsive and every sound articulated with finesse.  As a consequence he did not achieve real style.  All the ingredients were there for an excellent Leicester, but style was needed to make it effective in communication.  His voice is excellent in quality, but it is not shaped to high effectiveness.  Start training all muscles and train yourself into awareness of style.

DeMott became more effective as he achieved Elizabethan form of movement.  He needs to continue this work and with it may come more mental agility, more total freedom.  He knew well Burleigh’s traits and attitudes.  Now acquire the body control which expresses them easily.  He is beginning to veer away from “playing attitudes” toward playing totally -- good.

Rod Nash brought the right earnestness, conviction and power to Davison.  As he knows, he needs more ease in the speaking of verse.  It has not yet quite become “natural” speech, but he knows where he is going.  Having found the verse cadences, just let it speak itself.  It will.

If Zegers studies himself in the cast pictures he will discover why he received such stringent criticism.  He has not yet achieved balance, has not discovered his center of gravity.  For Stanley Kowalski it did not matter, but for all other drama it will matter, particularly for costume drama.  Vocally, too, he was ineffective.  His sounds have vitality and force, but he failed to achieve the verse.  Simply stressing with a hard, loud down-stroke is not “playing” the vowel sound anymore than banging the bass drum produces music.  Speak into a recorder and analyze your problem.

Pogue and Ziesmer were tremendously effective Frenchmen.  There was form and resulting meaning in their episodes.  They gave a glimpse of Mary Stuart’s other world right in the middle of England’s court and without words managed to convey a sense of involvement in an intrigue of magnitude.  Both have lively minds and the art of conveying, communicating thoughts.

Pressman’s Talbot was a masterly character creation played to the scale of Schiller’s drama.  He makes language speak on many levels, he has no fear of theatrical dimensions.  He makes realism and theatricality serve each other; he raises realism to theatre proportions.  He knows how to command the stage.  One feels if the house were ten times as large he could still command it.  Develop the voice to go with this power.  What you have, you use well, but why not make it a full instrument?

The Griswold-McClory sequences were well-executed.  What they had to do they did with direct forcefulness.  One night Griswold’s “We are lost” was too close to melodrama.  When you have a line like this, reduce the action which accompanies it, or underplay the line.  

After Linda achieved vocal control over her entry lines, her Margaret was exactly right in function: loyal servant to Mary; no more, no less.

Ron’s priest was effective in his direct simplicity and straight objective.  Performances were not consistent;  the last one not being up to the others.  I know of no way of answering the questions of how to maintain consistency; how to key each performance to the right pitch.  One answer may be to take time to re-think the drama deeply enough to become involved in the currents; others resort to the psychological gesture; and still others resort to the simple physiological technique of a few very deep breaths with holds after each one.  This is almost certain means of keying up physiologically and usually the mind follows.

The two queens were tremendous; tragic and human.  Both had completely assimilated their roles; both play with the tremendous conviction that involves us in their lives; both identified successfully with their roles; both have tremendous resources of imagination, exercised creatively to conceive another world another time as fully as it becomes the present; both speak verse as if it were their native language and wear costumes as if they were born to wear them as daily apparel.

Penny has a totality of response that is pure magic on stage.  What she feels, she feels in every fibre of her being; what she thinks radiates to the back of the auditorium.  Her one need is a voice adequate to all that she is.  Because it is still inadequate, certain tensions result and her speech runs away with her.  Develop the vocal mechanism and acting will be 50% easier less fatiguing.

Claris’ ability to create the tough fibres that make up Elizabeth was astounding.  In conjunction with that toughness of spirit, she endowed her with the capacity to realize deeply and fully, which in the end made her a tragic figure; an acting achievement of real magnitude.  In time, she will add the dimension which is just beginning to emerge -- the ironic level, the mental outlook, ironic and double-edged.  Claris is close to this achievement; she already has an awareness of what she is seeking.

Study more and more varied roles.  Watch people, note their motives and desires, and one day you will find yourself detached enough -- yet involved enough -- to let your mind play freely with all the contradictory elements.  Then, given a good dramatist to frame your speech, you achieve communication of the ironies you have perceived.

Meantime, we are more than well-content with your scope, your depth, your power.

BAREFOOT IN ATHENS

BAREFOOT IN ATHENS

As performed, this became a singularly well-constructed, unified and important drama.  The Playhouse and director found the straight line of action:  we waited in suspense for the trial and Socrates’ opportunity to present in public his way of life, and his way of life became more important than the drinking of the hemlock.  And, perhaps most important of all, the manner of playing made this audience feel part of a life in Athens.  They shared discoveries with Socrates and Pausanian and thus they had the joy of discovering for themselves how contemporary the issues were.  Everyone who commented on the drama did so in a tone which said,  “Isn’t it strange” how pertinent all this is.  There was a sense of wonder in the audience, of curiosity;  they wanted to talk, to discuss, to share what they had just discovered.  That’s a rare things these days in the theatre, and a true tribute to performers and director who could make it happen.  A skeletal idea was endowed with flesh and blood: -- the performance was far greater than the play.

Much of the credit must go to Wayne for his ability to embody the Socrates ideal in human form;  to present it in so rational a way that it became a living thing and now a preachment.  Wayne and Socrates became one and the same person.  There was complete identification with character, yet disciplined and directed by Wayne’s infallible sense of exactly where a sequence was going, of its purpose, of its momentary and super objective.  His playing had a constant forward movement; it was adding up; he never pounded the message home.  The characterization was so sound and secure and logical that Wayne didn’t need to “act”:  his pointing, his timing was all part of character, and the actor did not have to manipulate that character.  Note how easily Wayne gives the illusion of old age: no crouching, voice tricks, no “cricks in the neck,” etc.  He simply finds the attitudes which areage, the viewpoint which is age, the balance which comes with the wisdom of age, and he incorporates these into his thinking and lets them play in any situation that may come up.  What he does is always fresh (not quite so, on Friday) because he lets himself think spontaneously each night.  He knows, as actor, what must happen, but he lets it happen and lets himself respond without calculated effect.

All of you can learn much about comedy from Wayne and Russel.  Both of them are adept at the lightly inflected, tossed-up word that telegraphs a surprise coming up.  As Russel says, he is not always consistent.  Usually when he misses it is because he does not get to the end swiftly enough.  Like Wayne, Russel knows where a scene is going, and skillfully he keeps it going in the right direction.  His Pausenias was so believable, I wouldn’t care to see him played any other way.  Anderson should have given him a better exit line, or we should have found a slight bit of business which would have epitomized the man.  Not that there was a dead moment there at the end.  it only seems the characterization Russ created needed a more fitting exit moment.  Both Russ and Wayne have the cpacity to fill the stage and the auditorium effortlessly.  They play from an easy, effortless, keyed-up state.  One feels confidence when they come onstage that they are equal to cope with anything that may happen.  All actors should have this power.

Xantippe gained power during the run.  Janet’s work bears the mark of authority and good theatre sense.  She needs to learn to begin her study of a role differently; to ask first:  what’s the author’s purpose and theme; what qualities must this woman have in order to communicate this theme to an audience.  Her Xantippe was right in essentials of character.  Janet now needs to add a fourth dimension.  She played three dimensions well: she looked and sounded like Xantippe.  Now add the ability to comment as author through the character.  That is to make every act and word say:  I am all of you who put material things above truth, life above truth.  I represent all woman who destroy a Socrates.  This is an added dimension in acting and moves toward greatness.

Also, Janet must learn to toss up lightly the word which carries import of the line and then go to the swift, sure conclusion -- the gift Russel and Wayne have.  This is not merely a comedy device.  Everyone in “Mary Stuart” needs to learn it, so that lines have significance without being over-emphasized.  This means that the mind must be governing the tongue.  When emotion only dominates speech, meaning is apt to become muddled.

Robin has a fine sense of communication of meaning.  She lands ideas with great clarity.  Theodote is far from a realized character, or even half-realized.  She is merely an idea: the woman who, having known a Socrates, passively follows a despot -- a contrast to Xantippe.  Robin communicated this and it is questionable whether she could have added more without throwing the play off balance.

Laird did his best acting job to date.  He made his points with the energy required and no excess.  Marshall did the same, with excellent pointing of ideas.  He needs to watch that pieces of business are not studied.  It is sometimes a little too evident that he has sought a particular affect.  He is right in what he achieves, but it can happen more easily and “naturally.”

Dan, like Janet Lee, needs to learn to play the fourth dimension.  He knows in his mind what point must be made, but he still has not achieved the idea balance between actor’s objective sense and character emotional experience.  I suspect something wrong in his initial memorization process.  As he memorizes I fear he plans how this should be spoken in order to achieve a specific effect, when he should be saying:  “What is happening?  to whom?  why?  if I were Lykon what would I see, hear, think?  Dan probably finds the “how” before he has experienced the reason for the “how.”  If you don’t find motivation first, you will “make speeches” instead of responding logically.

The two young men, as played by Jerry and Rod, did a good job of funding, adding up.  With not much to go on from the dramatist, they established themselves securely in erly scenes; so that they could bring the trial to a strong, inevitable conclusion from their point of view.

Pogue does an expert job of topping in, of continuing dialogue without any obvious device of topping in.  He seems always to be following so completely the thoughts of the speaker opposite him that he comes in always at the same intensity, on the same wave length, on the same breath even, and carries on.  His dialogue scenes, as a consequence, are full of action -- thought, action, speech action.  They are dynamic -- dynamic in rhythm, in pace, in thought conflict.  Critias, as a consequence, even though killed off in the first act, seemed present at the trial.  Through him other traitors became entities rather than mere names.

Dobrin added a right note of intensity, pointing up the occupation and other crises.  His conflict with Zegers at the wall was a brief, explicity comment.

Zegers played totally as usual.  Watch out:  don’t play moments too long.  Touch off the imagination of the audience and let them finish the moment.  The wind drinking becomes too packed with detail on the final nights -- or rather, the details became too explicit.

Willoughby always makes his points with clarity and authority and a nice sense of theatrical impact.  The lesser roles were all played with a sense of importance in the ensemble -- not “extras” but people, thus contributing to the total unity.