MAKE-BELIEVE OR REALITY?

For me the theatre is something magical. Even its atmosphere fascinates me. It’s an absolutely different world, a world of greater feelings, greater emotions. It’s much more than just make-believe. But of course, I can only judge from my point of view; as a person from the audience.

I’m neither an actress, nor a director, so I can’t say for sure whether actors should “be natural” or “seem natural”; but I guess that it’s impossible to be natural on the stage all the time. If an actor is natural on stage it means that he has something in common with his character, or he has had some similar experience in his real life. But an actor plays so many parts. Of course, if he plays, for example, only lovers, he may be almost the same in reality. But very talented actors can play almost any part. Personally I appreciate it when an actor whom I seem to know very well surprises me, playing something absolutely new, absolutely different from what he has played before. Such a thing happened to me recently. I liked the way Alexander Domogarov acted, but I thought, “Oh, that’s not a big deal. He can play only lovers.” Imagine my surprise when I saw him in Nijinski. It was something extraordinary, and it completely changed my attitude towards Domogarov. In such cases it’s hard to guess when an actor is natural, and when he seems natural. I believe, it doesn’t matter what an actor is like in life: if he’s good enough, he’ll be able to play anything. We have a lot of examples when an actor, who always plays heroes, turns out to be a shy person or even the opposite of his characters.

Nevertheless some actors (or those who know them well) say that sometimes they just forget that they are acting, that it’s only make-believe. They begin to live on the stage. I think it’s great.

But for me the most exciting thing during the performance is when I forget that I’m in the theatre, when I get so involved in the action that it seems real. At such moments all my emotions are greater, I get some experience I would never get in my life. I often recollect one evening. The play was called Art, and only three actors – Igor Kostolevski, Mikhail Philippov and Mikhail Yanushkevich – took part in it. But the atmosphere was amazing. I had a feeling that everyone was as excited as I was and we all, the audience and the actors, united. It’s a kind of trying to escape from my problems or difficulties. It’s a search for something better, for new feelings, for heroes, for something I need but don’t have in reality. I guess the thing is that we all wear some masks, we all have to pretend sometimes; but in the theatre we can take our masks off because during the performance there is only you and the stage, and you don’t have to care what other people will think of you. I mean you don’t have to hide your feelings. My favourite director Andrey Zhitinkin said that the theatre is the place where people get rid of their inhibitions. What can I add to this? It’s a pity that some people, I would even say, most people, don’t use this chance, the chance to be themselves.

In fact, what is reality? And is there only one reality? Sometimes it seems to me that Julia Lambert, the heroine of W. Somerset Maugham’s Theatre, was right when she said: “Roger says we don’t exist. Why, it’s only we who do exist. They are the shadows and we give them substance. We are the symbols of all this confused, aimless struggle that they call life, and it’s only the symbol which is real. They say acting is only make-believe. That make-believe is the only reality.”

By Tanya Ignatova, 2nd year student