Helene Weigel in Mother Courage (Mutter Courage): Screen photographs of her acting and gestures.

Rehearsal of Mutter Courage (Berlin, Deutsche Theater. 1949. photo by Willi Saeger)
From left to right: Erich Engel, Bertold Brecht, Paul Dessau and Helene Weigel.

 

Helene Weigel is one of the greatest actresses of the theatre of the twentieth century and she more than anyone was the living proof of Brechtian  theories on acting.

We could read dozens of books on Brecht's performances and how he taught his theories, even more, we could read dozens of biographies of actors who worked with him, but none of this would be compared with direct observation and watching performances given by actors and actresses who assimilated such theories. Helene Weigel is gone but, luckily for us, some documents were recorded and filmed with her work, documents that not only identify her artistic greatness but become a kind of acting teachers, transmitting her form (or style) of acting that otherwise would have dissolved over time in the memory of her spectators and the death itself of its representatives. 

 

I explain this again in this blog (I did previously with Meyerhold's The Inspector General): thanks to certain developments within everyone's reach we can see in a more effective way these film-documents: screen shots made with the computer.  Viewing a video of a performance itself is very interesting, but the possibility of holding postures and gestures of that performance is phenomenal; theatrical photography, which is is an interesting document in itself, of course, is not taken at the moment of the movement itself, but is often taken at moment where the motion stops, while the images that we capture directly from the computer screen where we're watching the film or video is a forced stopping of the image.  It is not the beauty of the position or of the image but the functionality of the image for the observer what I value in it.
I found, in a BBC documentary on Brechtian theater, some shots of the filming of a performance of the play Mutter Courage directed by Bertold Brecht himself and played by none other than Helene Weigel; although it is a very short video,  I decided to segment the video into stills of her movement and gesture, and I think it's definitely of great value for anyone interested in the history of acting and in the dissection of living documents dissection of stage creators.

Enjoy it.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Henrik Ibsen advices to a young writer.

Laura Petersen (Later Laura Kieler)

 
In 1870 he was not at the peak of his career but he was already famous and a controversial writer, a good poet and was on his way to becoming an European personality; around his 40s Henrik Ibsen could receive letters with texts of new born writers, especially women writers.
Laura Petersen, a Norwegian young writer, published a kind of sequel to Ibsen’s poetic play Brand entitled Brand’s Daughters. Michael Meyer, Ibsen’s biographer, depicts this text as “an imaginary sequel (...) an emotional contribution to the debate on women’s rights”. Today we recognize Ibsen as a 19th century champion for women rights (thanks to some of his plays of maturity), but in that time, around 1870, that wasn't a very easy subject for him.  In fact, he wasn't a very open minded man about that: when he was younger and living in Italy he asked for the expulsion of some members of the Scandinavian Club in Rome who let their wives enter to the club (reserved only for men) without being noticed; and years later he used to have some lively debates with Camilla Collet, a Norwegian novelist recognized by her fighting for women rights; Collet, following Meyer’s text “... was scandalized by what she regarded as an old fashioned man about ideas on women’s place in society”.

So, when Laura Petersen sent to him her Brand’s Daughters asking for advice, one could only expect the letter would be ignored or at least rejected in a polite way.  But no, something happened to Ibsen when young women writers approached to him asking for advice.  Suddenly, the gentleman surged from him,  and a patient and kind wise man always replied. Thanks to that attitude towards young women artists we can now read a document with some advices, coming from his own hand, directed to a young writer.
Letter to Laura Petersen (June 11, 1870):
"Are you thinking of continuing to write? (…) Much more is needed than mere talent. One must have something to create from, some genuine experience. If one lacks that, one doesn't write in the true sense, one just makes books (…) Intellectually, man is a long-sighted animal; we see most clearly from a distance; details distract; one must remove oneself from what one wishes to judge; one describes the summer best on a winter's day (…) The main thing is to be true and faithful to oneself. It is not question of willing to go in this direction or that, but of willing what one absolutely must, because one is oneself and cannot be otherwise. The rest is only lies." (*) 

Laura Petersen never went out from Ibsen's life, both were linked for ever; she married later and her name changed to Laura Kieler, and a terrible real anecdote with her husband was Ibsen's inspiration for A Doll's House; Nora Hellmer was modeled on this young lady who was thinking on women rights since her adolescence.

Ibsen, with the honesty and wisdom his letter shows, was not only a good mentor to Laura Petersen but a prophet of his own future way to work.


 





 

(*) Henrik Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Page 320.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Extracts from the original film of "The Inspector General" performance, directed by V. Meyerhold.

"The Inspector General" A film by V. Meyerhold

Peter Brook: "(...) I saw a short video excerpt from his great show "The Inspector General" and I was amazed at the number of small gestures that one of his actors made. There, were not watching neither the system nor the method, but we did discover something far more important and far more useful: the work embodied. " (1)

I have the pleasure of sharing these excerpts that Brook saw a few years ago.

Meyerhold directing the film of "The Inspector General" performance.

Somewhere in Russia there must be the full version of this historic performance of Gogol's work "Revizor" (The Inspector General), but until now it's only accessible through some scenes; thanks to the development, in recent years, of some documentaries for Russian television, the original material has been remastered and excerpts that I show on this blog are, I think, of an admirable quality; in the few scenes shown here you can appreciate that "work embodied", as Peter Brook called it, where Meyerhold's search really becomes body and action in the scene itself. An admirable document.

This video complements the one I posted in this same blog months ago, Original film images from Meyerhold's Biomechanics, and which dedicated a few minutes to original scenes of the training exercises of Biomechanics.

Peter Brook: "I saw in Moscow some students who work very seriously on the biomechanics of Meyerhold, convinced that he taught it the same way. But even if one limits the biomechanics to this precise form, I do not think it can be useful for any montages today. " (2)

By publishing these documents it is not intended that we try to repeat what the teachers have done or to seek to imitate their work in an exact way, but to observe in a direct line their work and learn from them. As I always say, I believe that these original documents of the great creators of the theater scene place us, with much more clarity, in their "real" contributions, with every myth that has been created around them slowly fading away.

As Peter Brook did when he saw these excerpts, we can discover how Meyerhold applied his exploratory work, how far did his applied training go, his practical solutions on the scene. We can not (yet) hear the words of Meyerhold during a training or a montage, but we can indeed see the actual movements of his actors and compare them with descriptions from others and with texts by Meyerhold himself, and then analyze them and place them in our mind with greater precision. I strongly believe that, by doing that, we can learn much more from those experiences in order to consolidate our own creations.

Video: Extracts from "The Inspector General", a film by Meyerhold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSuhgGYVT_0

(1) That is a free translation from the original in French: "(...) j'ai vu la video d'un court extrait de son grand spectacle Le Revizor et j'ai été stupéfait par la série de petit gestes que faisait l'un de ses acteurs. A Travers ce minuscule extrait, on pouvait ressentir ce que Meyerhold cherchait, pourquoi il le cherchait. On n'y voyait ni le sistème, ni la méthode, mais on y découvrait quelque chose de plus important et de plus utile: le travail incarné." (Avec Grotowski. By Peter Brook. Préface de George Banu. Actes Sud-Papiers. France, 2009.)

(2) That is a free translation from the original in French: "J'ai vu à Moscou des élèves très sérieux qui travaillaient sur la biomécanique de Meyerhold convaincus qu'il l'enseignait de cette façon. Mais, même si on limite fidèlement la biomécanique à cette forme, je ne crois pas qu'elle puisse aujourd'hui être utile à une quelconque ouvre." (Avec Grotowski. By Peter Brook. Préface de George Banu. Actes Sud-Papiers. France, 2009.)

Gustavo Thomas Theatre Blog by Gustavo Thomas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Puppet Performance during the Chinese Cultural Revolution Age (1972)

"Chung Kuo Cina" (Puppet scene) Directed by M. Antonioni

In 1972 Micheangelo Antonioni was invited by the Chinese government (It is said it was Den Xiaoping among them) to make a film about the new China, that China immersed inside its Cultural Revolution. Antonioni filmed whatever his Chinese advisers wanted, whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted; everything was well prepared to make an ideological document of the Maoist era. When the final product was released the government was furious and banned the film (1) .

"Chung Kuo Cina" (Puppet scene) Directed by M. Antonioni

The documentary is simple but clear and even rebel, showing everything the Chinese government wanted to show but edited in the way the spectator was absolutely able to understand the difficult moment Chinese people were living in those years.

The scene I want to show from the documentary is a puppet performance at Chang'An theatre, a simple stage production with real size puppets imitating the playing of a musical orchestra.

"Chung Kuo Cina" (Public in the Puppet scene) Directed by M. Antonioni

Antonioni opened the camera to the public, showing their faces, their waiting for the performance, and the presence of the people stayed there with the sound of their laugh during the theatrical act. Then, the performance came as an example of the Socialist Realism in Cultural Revolution age, nothing engaged with the traditional way to do Puppet theatre: costume as in the real life, children or teenagers with healthy faces and bodies, showing security and happiness while they were playing.

"Chung Kuo Cina" (Puppet scene) Directed by M. Antonioni

The acting technique seems very professional and well worked, even if the performance is so simple some of the puppets expresses "life" in their actions; the best example is the girl playing the er-hu (that kind of violin or small cello), she seems (like a real girl) enjoying her performance.

(1) The documentary had its first view for the public inside China in 2005.

Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse. Audiovisual documents on the Net and An extinct way of playing.

Audiovisual documents on the Net


We forget the past; the past is lost in forgetfulness. We remember greatness, we keep results; memories become a group of indefinite images which try to describe any success, a qualification of something or someone. Indefinite images of scandals and that which was explosive for past generations. Details are lost with the fluidity of life. Only documents remain; Foucault knew this very well, our French poet who worked as a philosopher, believed in them; that was the only way to grip what reality missed and lost in interpretations, qualifications and judgments.

The art of acting, which at one moment was only a part of staged theatre (an, as such, an ephemeral art), is full of intangibles documents, even non existent. Some people speak about what they saw, some wrote reviews, some others gave advice based on their judgment of what they saw, a few drew extraordinary poses, comic, iconic. Therefore it is only at the beginning of 20 century that Western acting documents could incorporate sound and movement.

Because of our theatrical tradition, only Ballet (and no other Performing Art) kept the possibility of transmitting a choreography, but the way of acting that choreography was never preserved. Our theatre was a tradition lost through its transmission. All that was left were words and drawings.

Traditional Oriental performing arts kept much of the essence of their art through direct transmission from master to disciple, and so we can then believe (though nothing can guarantee it) that Mei Lanfang, playing in the 1930s in Beijing, for example, had the same way of playing as his masters of the 17th century did. Yet, even though it is true that there is an active line between master and disciple in Peking Opera, this line is so rigid that it could be broken or twisted; Mei himself was also a creator of his own style of acting and was a revolutionary teacher, director and performer, he added, corrected and suppressed many technical points of his time in creating the new Peking Opera.

It is said that the Kunqu Opera of our days is almost the same as that of the 16th Century Ming Dinasty, but we can’t see the actors of that century, we can only see the actor of our time keeping his tradition alive. The experience is interesting, worthy, but it is not a tangible document.

We can assure than one Noh performance in today’s Tokyo has much from Noh performances of 17th Century Edo, but one more time, as I said about Kunqu and Peking Opera, these are modern actors, the others, the masters, have died, we can’t see them acting. Without a real document nothing is sure. Zeami, besides his poetry, is not on stage as a person at any theatre in Japan.

Acting, the art of acting, didn’t have a worthy document until two fantastic human inventions: the phonograph and the cinematograph. It is with their invention and use that theatre and acting could be directly documented, in action and movement and recording them as they happened. Now we can talk about how the greatest stage artists of 20th Century played because they were filmed and their voice recorded. In the future our artists will be studied thanks to video and to the development of computerized ways to archive performing arts material.

In Spanish we say: “nada será como el teatro vivo” (Nothing is like live theatre) and “un video nunca suplirá la escena” (A video will never substitute the stage), but my point is not the substitution of theatre and its reality, it is instead the showing of how that lively act can be preserved inside a document, how those series of movements and sounds emitted by the player can be watched again and again to be studied and analyzed, and then understand a lot better how they did it, how they used to do it.

We have to learn how to use those documents. It doesn’t seem easy, though, as we already have 100 hundred years with communication Media but very few schools or Research centers/institutes making use of it beyond just making them part of their immense “documentary” archives. Many art researchers are still doing their job using only words, showing only photographs, when they are talking about events, movement, action and sound.

I remember how a myth was born when I heard about Grotowski, his actors and his performances; myths about their acting, movements, voice, about their training; interpretation over interpretation. Then, one day, I had the opportunity of watching one filmed performance, Akropolis. Those myths created by interpretations from others started to be analyzed, they were cast away in favour of my own ideas based on my own experience. I wasn’t a real spectator there, but there wasn’t anything closer to that.

Our world is living, thanks to the Internet, a “democratization” of all audiovisual documentation. Many who own special documents (which in another time were kept away because they were unique and precious), in whatever field you can imagine, have uploaded them to the Net and left them there to the use of anyone in the world. (1)

This is my current passion: showing those documents about Performing Arts and talking about them, about what I think of them; sharing my own documents, and forgetting myths.

I can’t see a better way to understand an artist’s work besides experiencing it yourself. Every performance should be documented in the most modern technological possible way and then uploaded to the internet, waiting for any kind of spectator, for any kind of commentator, for any kind of analysis. Currently video is the most modern way to do it.

I don’t only have paintings by Picasso on film (thanks to one French director), but I have a Picasso himself being filmed while he was painting! Thanks to video on the internet I don’t have to go to a special place to see that film and I can watch it online.



An extinct way of playing...


I’m writing because of the past, because of the possibility of documenting the Art of Acting.

19th Century theater started with a success impossible to imagine for any stage actor of our days; without radio, cinema, TV or internet, only actors, opera singers and writers lived moments of glory that today we would grant only to Pop singers or Hollywood stars.

Stanislavski spent many chapters of his books talking about how brilliant and genial many Russian actors he saw when he was young were, but in no moment can we be sure of how their acting was; the revolution itself that The Moscow Art Theatre provoked at the beginning of 20th century could only be documented with descriptions and studio photographs.

When the big stars decided to be filmed and their voice recorded, we started to see a real image of those moments; the document is there, to be watched by our eyes, to be listened to by our ears.

What can we do with acting scenes by Sarah Bernhardt, filmed in 1912? What can we do with acting scenes by Eleonora Duse, filmed in 1916? It’s not just any depiction of how they played, we can watch them, listen to them.

What can we do with Sarah Bernhardt’s voice, recorded in 1910, reciting Racine’s Phaedra?


It’s a treasury of information,... these documents allow entry to a comparisons game where our current vision about acting can be compared with those who were considered outstanding in their time.

Can we imagine a world of spectators, critics and researchers who adored actresses whose acting would be considered today as a symbol of bad acting, or who we could even consider as people without any talent? For a moment we could stop laughing while we watch those performances and think about the reasons they were considered amazing, great, brilliant. We had been able to do that when talking about painting, about sculpture, but not about acting, until now. Now, we can start doing it.

Is our current acting technique an evolution? or simply an impossibility to decode such ancient ways of playing?

Stop asking, documents talk by themselves. No more words.

Do with them anything you wish.

Videos from films by Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse



Sarah Bernhardt. "Elisabeth Reine d'Angleterre" (1912):




Eleonora Duse. "Cenere" (1916) (first part)




Eleonora Duse. "Cenere" (1916) (second part)




Sarah Bernhardt, voice recorded:

INSTRUCTIONS: Click the first sentence and you will be address to the original site where you can listen to the piece. Click the second sentence and you will hear it with your mp3 player (it will open in another page).


Sarah Bernhardt. "Phèdre" (1910)

( mp3) Sarah Bernhard: Phédre.



Sarah Bernhardt. "Les bouffons" [1910]

(mp3) Sarah Bernhard: Les Bouffons.



Sarah Bernhardt. "L'Aiglon" (1910)

(mp3) Sarah Bernhard: L'Aiglon.



Sarah Bernhardt. "La Samaritaine" (1910)

mp30 Sarah Bernhardt: La Samaritaine

(1) A big part of that film (Akropolis) can be seen on internet. In Mexico, for example, the original copies belong to two or three researchers who never give permission to watch them unless an institution asked for them or for a really special occasion.

Akropolis (direction Jerzy Grotowski)

El Principe Constante (direction Jerzy Grotowski)

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