The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear Friends,

I would like today to centre our study around a scene from a play of Hamerling's that can serve to illustrate many things that I have been explaining. A course of lectures on a subject of this kind is necessarily all too short, and I can in any case do no more than make a few suggestions in the hope that these may stimulate you in your work. None the less, although our time is short, I propose to use the present hour to throw light by practical example upon the importance of what I have said about developing, in preparation for speaking on the stage, a feeling for word and a feeling for sound, in contradistinction to the feeling for sense and idea. today, therefore, we will take this practical demonstration as a basis for our study; and it is my intention to speak the parts in such a way as will enable you to glean at least an elementary understanding of how a reading rehearsal should go, if it is to prepare the ground for the actual performance of the play on the stage. Thus, having in the first part of our course given our attention to the forming of the speech, we shall now be considering all that has to do with production as such, with the right forming of the stage-picture.

It goes without saying that before any such rehearsal, the explanations I have been giving of what is required for an artistic way of speaking must have already taken root in the unconscious, and be present there as artistic instinct. Where mention is made of these matters at all in rehearsal, it will be presumed that in those who are to take part, the feeling for sound and the feeling for word have, by long practice, become a complete matter of habit. It will, in fact, be of quite other matters that one will have to speak there, alluding only as need arises to the fundamental principles of speech formation; for of these the actor should bring with him an intimate knowledge, no less surely than a pianist who is preparing himself—or, maybe, a pupil—for a concert brings with him the faculty he has acquired for piano-playing.

The scene I propose to take is the opening scene of a drama of Robert Hamerling, entitled Danton and Robespierre, a play that is concerned, as the title tells us, with the French Revolution. I have chosen it because I think the moods that come into consideration for this scene—and I need not remind you how important it is for the moods to find clear expression in the performance—are such as can easily be conveyed to the minds and hearts of people in general. For they are unmistakable and sharply distinguishable in their colouring. The scene is moreover also valuable for us, in that the moods give opportunity for transforming, by stage technique, even the most prosaic content into an artistic formation of sound and word.

We are here transported into an important moment in the history of the French Revolution, when the mood of the public was undergoing a change. That stage in the revolution is just being reached when the popularity of Danton is beginning gradually to give way before the popularity of Robespierre. A great number of people are on the point of transferring their loyalty and devotion from the one to the other.

Let us first of all see that we understand the true nature of the people's loyalty to Danton. Some were loyal to him out of a sincere and faithful devotion, in others their loyalty was prompted rather by their own political aspirations; but all might be said to regard him with what I may almost call a savage admiration. Consequently, we find permeating the scene something of the sound- and word-feeling—I am speaking here from the point of view of stage technique—that results from the working together of a (wonder and admiration for Danton) and o (a certain rude affection for the man). The scene is pervaded by an a-o (ah-oh) mood, in the sense in which I have explained this to you in the earlier lectures. Tune your feeling to the sounds a-o, and you will have the mood that prevails at the beginning of the scene.

Loyalty to Robespierre was of quite another kind. At first it only reached men's hearts in a fitful, spasmodic way. The lean and lanky man, looking so like a schoolmaster, whose words cut like knives, did not easily inspire admiration in his fellowmen; he had to seize on every opportunity to win it. In fact, the first stage of Robespierre's popularity was marked by a kind of wariness and caution. In the case of individuals as well as of the masses, it was out of a certain defensive attitude that admiration for Robespierre was born. Translated into feeling for sound, it is a sounding together of e (ay in ‘say’) and a. So that in the people's feeling for Robespierre we have the mood that you can hear in e-a.

In this scene, therefore, which evinces throughout a delicate instinctive feeling on Hamerling's part for sound and word, we have to find the transition in the whole speaking of the parts from a-o to e-a. And we shall be able to do so if we look into the scene carefully. That is indeed the reason I have chosen it, because of all we can learn from it.

Hamerling built up the scene with an instinctive discernment for what is required in dramatic art. I shall draw attention, as we go along, to features that would require to be noted in the reading rehearsals. My remarks will naturally be rather sketchy; in actual rehearsals, the various points would need to be further elucidated. For we have here a scene that can provide us with an excellent lesson in the very things we are concerned with in these lectures.

Note how we are introduced, first of all, to a countryman who had been in Paris fifteen years before and never once since. The man has been deaf during the last six years, and on this account it has easily come about that he has as good as slept through whatever echoes of the big events penetrated into the provinces; he has heard nothing of all that went on. He was treated for his deafness by the village barber who was also something of a surgeon, as was still usual in those days, but with no particular success; and he was advised to go to Paris. One can certainly have one's doubts as to whether even in Paris the cure would be such an easy matter! However, here he is again in Paris, cured of his deafness and bearing his part in the change-over of moods that I have described—but all the time as one who has only just become able after six years to hear what is being said around him. You will find at once the basic tone for this man's speaking if you give yourself up to an a feeling that is tinged with o. Let us see what this will mean. For throughout the first part of the scene, the countryman will be the chief figure. The whole attention of the audience will be centred upon him. It might even be said that the other characters are present only in order to give colour and variation to the main interest that attaches throughout to this man. Actually, the success of the play as a whole will depend to a great extent upon how the part of the countryman is played in this first scene.

We know of course that a signifies wonder and admiration. The mood is a little modified in this character of the countryman, but the actor will do the part well if he takes pains to speak, as much as he can, with his mouth open. (I shall be dealing with gesture and mime in the later lectures; today I will confine my remarks to the speaking.) This will allow the a mood, which is the prevailing mood of the scene, to pass almost imperceptibly into o, which is what the part requires.

From the very outset, we sense also that a change of mood is imminent; we are moving towards the transition from the a-o to the e-a mood. This is portrayed for us with wonderful artistic skill. You can feel here with what a delicate touch Hamerling works; and that is what I want you to notice before all else—the artistic achievement, quite apart from the prose content of the scene. The countryman is put there on purpose that we may be still hearing the echo of the mood connected with Danton, while at the same time having our expectation aroused for the gradual transition to the mood that is connected with Robespierre, the mood that we can clearly detect in the second part of the scene where the conversation of the various characters goes clanging back and forth like sounding brass.

So much for a rough sketch of the mood in which you will have to experience this scene if you want to take part in it and form your speaking in the right way.

The scene is laid in an open space in front of Notre-Dame.

DER LANDMANN. Wenn ich nur erfahren könnte, warum sie den steinernen Bildern überall rote Mützen aufsetzen... Ich finde mich nicht mehr zurecht in diesem verwünschten Paris, obgleich ich vor fünfzehn Jahren einmal dagewesen.

(Zwei Bürger treten auf.)

ERSTER BURGER. Auf dem Stadthause wimmelt's bereits wie in einem Ameisenhaufen.—

ZWEITER BURGER. Mein Nachbar, der Barbier Rabaud, hat soeben die Göttin der Vernunft frisiert.

---

COUNTRYMAN. If only I could find out why the statues everywhere have red caps on their heads.... I no longer know my way about in this accursed Paris although I was once here fifteen years ago.

(Enter two citizens.)

FIRST CITIZEN. The Town Hall's already swarming like an ant-heap?

SECOND CITIZEN. My neighbour, the barber Rabaud, has just been dressing the hair of the Goddess of Reason.

These citizens are fellows of quite another stamp than our countryman. They are Parisians, who exhibit to the full the mood that was then uppermost in Paris; and they give a new colouring to the countryman's words that have set the motif at the beginning of the scene. We are to think of the first citizen as having a kind of i (ee) mood, and the second a rather quieter and more serious ii (French ü in ‘du’) mood. You will remember how I explained these in the earlier lectures.

‘ZWEITER BÜRGER: Mein Nachbar, der Barbier Rabaud, hat soeben die Göttin der Vernunft frisiert.’

Yes, you are right! The audience will laugh at these words; but they must be spoken with all the seriousness of one who is taking a responsible part in a revolution. And that is a seriousness of an altogether different stamp from the seriousness with which we are accustomed to approach everyday affairs.

You have to picture the countryman saying those first words of his alone, to himself. Then the citizens come an the scene. They stand at a little distance from him, and now he goes up to them.

DER LANDMANN. (sich nähernd) Auf ein Wort, ihr Herren—

ERSTER BÜRGER. ‘Ihr Herren?’—Da seht die ländliche Unschuld!—Es gibt keine Herren mehr, Bauerntölpel!

DER LANDMANN. Um Vergebung, wie komm' ich von hier in die Königstrasse?

ERSTER BÜRGER. Es gibt keine Könige mehr. Die Strasse heisst jetzt Sansculottenstrasse.

LANDMANN. Finde mich nicht mehr zurecht hier in Paris, obgleich ich vor fünfzehn Jahren dagewesen. Alle Plätze, alle Strassen anders.—Heut' Morgen komm' ich an einer Kirche vorüber, denke: trittst ein, hörst eine Messe. Da seh' ich ein Gedräng' von Leuten, und auf der Kanzel steht ein Mann, der predigt. Komme gerade recht zum Worte Gottes, denk' ich und hör' andächtig zu. Da merk' ich aber, dass der Mann auf der Kanzel entsetzlich fluchte, obgleich ich ihn nicht recht verstand. War so ein schneidiges, gelbes, dünnes Männchen, meinte jeden Augenblick, es werde ihm der Schaum vor den Mund treten. Als er aufhörte zu reden, da fingen die Leute wüst zu schreien an und taten wie besessen und klatschten gar mit den Händen, dass mir die Ohren gellten.—Ich schlug ein Kreuz und ging.

ZWEITER BÜRGER. (lachend) Armer Tropf, du bist unter die Frommen der Jacobinerkirche geraten.—

LANDMANN. Darauf kam ich in eine andere Kirche.
Da sah ich einen Heiland auf dem Kreuz:
dem war ein grosser Schnurrbart
angestrichen, und eine rote Mütze aufgesetzt,
und drunter stand geschrieben: ‘Jesus Christ
von Nazareth, der erste Sansculotte’.
Weiss denn die Obrigkeit von solchem Unfug nichts?

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Mensch, hör' einmal, wie kommt's, dass du so wenig Wind hast vom neuesten Weltlauf? Sitzt ihr Bauern auf den Ohren?

LANDMANN. Ich bin sechs volle Jahre taub gewesen. Vorige Woche—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Dekade sagt man jetzt—DekadeLANDMANN. Ei, wie? Dekade muss ich sagen? Also vorige Dekade—doch nein, es war noch Ende April—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Floreal, du verwünschter Kerl, Floreal—

LANDMANN. Floreal? Potztausend! Ihr habt eine verwunderliche Art zu reden in Paris!—Nun also im Floreal sagte ich zu unserem Dorfbader: ‘Herr’, sagte ich, `ihr versteht den Teufel von der Sache; ich gehe nach Paris und lasse mich dort heilen!’ Gesagt, getan. Ich ging, als ich das Reisegeld beisammen hatte, und verwichenen Sonntag—

ERSTER BÜRGER. Es gibt keinen Sonntag mehr.

LANDMANN. Was? keinen Sonntag?

---

COUNTRYMAN. (approaching) A word, gentlemen—

FIRST CITIZEN. ‘Gentlemen?’ Hark to his innocence! There aren't any gentlemen nowadays, you country bumpkin!

COUNTRYMAN. Beg pardon, how do I get to King Street?

FIRST CITIZEN. There aren't any more kings. The street's called Sansculotte Street now.

COUNTRYMAN. Oh, I'm properly astray in your Paris although I was here fifteen years ago. All the squares, all the streets, different.—This morning I came to a church and thought to myself: let's go in and hear Mass. Inside I find a crowd of folk and a man in the pulpit preaching. Just in time to hear God's word, think I, and listen all devout. But then I notice that the man in the pulpit is using terrible language, though I didn't understand him well. He was such a sharp-spoken, yellow, lean little bit of a man; it seemed every moment as if he was going to foam at the mouth. As soon as he stopped talking the people began to cry out wildly, behaved as if possessed, and clapped their hands enough to break my ear-drums.—I crossed myself and came out.

SECOND CITIZEN. (laughing) Poor simpleton, you landed up among the pious worshippers at the Jacobins' Church.—

COUNTRYMAN. Thereupon came I to another Church
And there I saw a Saviour on the Cross:
A great moustache was daubed upon His face,
A red cap had been set upon His head,
While underneath was written ‘Jesus Christ
Of Nazareth, the first of sansculottes’.
Do those who rule know nothing of such shame?

SECOND CITIZEN. Listen, you man. How comes it that you know so little of what's going on now in the world? Do you peasants stop up your ears?

COUNTRYMAN. I've been deaf over six years. Last week—

SECOND CITIZEN. We say decade now—decade

COUNTRYMAN. Eh? Decade have I got to say? Well, last decade–but no, it was still April—the end of April—

SECOND CITIZEN. Floreal, confound you, Floreal

COUNTRYMAN. Floreal? Zounds! You have an odd way of talking in Paris !—So in Floreal I said to our village barber, Sir,' say I,’ you don't understand a damned thing about it. I'm going to Paris to be cured.' No sooner said than done. Directly I'd got together the journey money, I started; and last Sunday—

FIRST CITIZEN. There's no Sunday any more.

COUNTRYMAN. What? No Sunday?

The name of the month is not after all a matter that touches him very nearly; that he can accept. Now he is called upon to grasp the further fact that there are no longer any Sundays!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Quintidi, guter Freund, wenn Euch Euer Leben lieb ist—

LANDMANN. Nun meinetwegen! Am Crainte de Dieu also kam ich hier in Paris an, und heute, Gott sei Dank—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Gott sei Dank? Mensch, du nennst da ein bankrottes Haus! Die Firma Gott und Sohn mit der Prokuraführung des heiligen Geistes hat falliert—

LANDMANN. Was? auch keinen Gott? da soll ja doch—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Räsoniere nicht, Mensch, und schweig, und lass' deine Füsse, so geschwind sie können, dich wieder nach deinem Dorfe zurücktragen. Du könntest Unglück haben auf dem Pflaster von Paris. Du könntest hier deinen Kopf verlieren, unversehens, wie einen Knopf von deinen Hosen. Mach' dich auf die Beine, Mensch—du bist verdächtig—

LANDMANN. Wieso verdächtig? Was nennt ihr denn verdächtig?

ZWEITER BURGER.Verdächtig? Sieh', das ist zum Beispiel einer,
der Lilien in seinem Garten pflanzt—
auch einer, dessen Bruder oder Vetter
ins Ausland ging mit einem Emigranten
als Kammerdiener—oder einer, der
im Traum das Wörtlein König flüstert—oder
der bleich wird, wenn sie seinen Nebenmenschen
an die Laterne hängen—

Mach', dass du fortkommst, sonst lassen sie dich den Karpfensprung machen auf dem Grèveplatz—

LANDMANN. Ich verstehe euch nicht.

ZWEITER BURGER. Ich will sagen, sie werden dich durchs rote Fenster gucken lassen—

LANDMANN. Ich verstehe euch noch immer nicht.

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Dummkopf! sie werden dich (macht eine bezeichnende Geberde) mit dem grossen Nationalrasiermesser rasieren! Verstehst du's noch nicht ?—Du wirst das grosse Los in der Lotterie der heiligen Guillotine gewinnen! Verstehst du's jetzt?

LANDMANN. Hol' mich der Geier, wenn ich diese Heilige jemals im Kalender gelesen habe.

ERSTER BÜRGER.
Das ist eine wunderliche Heilige.—
So eine Art von Eisenjungfrau, scharf
verseh'n mit Schneidezähnen—Denke dir
zwei Galgenhölzer und ein blankes Beil
Querbalkengleich von oben—nun, du legst
den Kopf auf einen Block—das Beil fällt nieder,
ein wenig von der Seite—so—und sichelt
den Kopf im Hui so glatt und reinlich dir
herunter, dass es eine Lust zu sehn. Der Kopf
merkt gar nicht, dass er keinen Rumpf mehr hat,
und niest deshalb auch manchmal unbefangen,
als wäre nichts geschehn, noch in dem Sack,
in welchen ihn der Knecht des Büttels wirft—
als hätt' er etwa nur’ne starke Prise
geschnupft.—Guillotinieren heisst man das:
's ist’ne schöne, sanfte Todesart.

LANDMANN. Guillotiniert man viel?<

ERSTER BÜRGER. So ein Schock täglich; auch mehr, wenn schönes Wetter ist.

---

FIRST CITIZEN Quintidi, friend, if you value your life—

COUNTRYMAN. Oh, well, it's all the same to me! So in the fear of God I came here to Pans, and today, thank God—

SECOND CITIZEN ‘Thank God?’ Why, man, that firm's gone bankrupt! The house of God and Son, with its junior partner the Holy Ghost, has failed—

COUNTRYMAN. What? No God either? But then—

SECOND CITIZEN. No arguing, man. Shut up, and let your feet carry you back to your village as quick as they can. You might come to harm in the streets of Paris. You might lose your head unexpectedly like a button off your breeches. Make off, man, you're a suspicious character—

COUNTRYMAN. What d'you mean, suspicious? What d'you call suspicious?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Suspicious? Hark, this man, for instance, is:
The one who lilies in his garden plants—
And also one whose brother or whose cousin Follows some emigrant as serving-man
To foreign parts—or then again a man
Who whispers in his dreams the small word ‘King', Or turns a chalky white to see them hang
One of his fellows to the lamp-post?

Make haste and be off, otherwise you will come to a sorry end on the Place de Grève?

COUNTRYMAN. I don't understand you.

SECOND CITIZEN. I'm wanting to tell you that they'll make you look through the’ red window'—

COUNTRYMAN. I still don't understand.

SECOND CITIZEN. Blockhead! They'll do this (makes a descriptive gesture), they'll shave you with the great national razor! Don't you understand yet ?—You'll win the big prize in the lottery of Saint Guillotine. Now do you understand?

COUNTRYMAN. The devil take me if I've ever seen that saint in the Calendar.

FIRST CITIZEN.
This is a very funny kind of saint,
This maiden made of iron and well provided
With finely sharpened teeth that bite. Just think,
Two gallows posts and then a shining axe
In cross-beam fashion from above—you lay
Your head upon a block, the axe comes down
A little from one side, like this, and mows
Your head inside your hat so smoothly down,
So neatly off—a pleasure 'tis to see!
Your head marks not that it has lost its trunk
And therefore sometimes sneezes, quite unmoved,
Just as if nought was wrong, e'en in the sack
As if it had, p'raps, taken a good pinch
Of snuff—it's guillotining that the people call it.
It is a fine and easy way o' dying.

COUNTRYMAN. Do they do much guillotining?

FIRST CITIZEN. Quite a lot, every day, and more when the weather's fine.

And now a sansculotte makes his appearance. When you come to look carefully at this sansculotte, you will find you can best enter into his part by combining the a mood with the i mood. For he has undoubtedly wonder and astonishment, and these have fired him with enthusiasm; but he has at the same time, as it were in the background, the pleasure and enjoyment that his own self-consciousness affords him.

(Ein Schwarm von zerlumpten Männern und Weibern kommt gezogen, voran ein Sansculotte, der ein Beinkleid auf einer Pike trägt.)

Wüstes Geschrei: Ça ira! Ça ira!

DER SANSCULOTTE. (zu dem LANDMANN und den beiden BÜRGERN) Angeschlossen, Patrioten! angeschlossen und eingestimmt! Ça ira! Zu Ehren der Hose da, die wir eben einem Aristokraten abgezogen, weil er auf keine andere Weise ein Sansculotte werden wollte. Ça ira!

WEIBER. (den LANDMANN umringend) Komm auf ein Tänzchen, Bäuerlein! Komm, wir tanzen die Carmagnole!

SANSCULOTTE. (zum LANDMANN, ihm ins Ohr schreiend) Ça ira gesungen, du Schelm, Ça ira!

LANDMANN. (ängstlich) Verzeiht, ich bin gar nicht musikalisch!

SANSCULOTTE. Höre, Kerl! wenn du nicht dümmer bist als die Rinder in deinem Stall, so musst du Ça ira brüllen können, so gut als einer—

LANDMANN. Verzeiht, ihr Herren—

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Ihr Herren!’ Habt ihr's gehört? An die Laterne mit dem Schuft!

---

(A swarm of ragged men and women come straggling along, led by a sansculotte holding aloft a pair of breeches on his pike.)

Wild shouting of the song ‘Ça ira, Ça ira!’

SANSCULOTTE. (to the COUNTRYMAN and the two CITIZENS)
All united and all of one mind, patriots! All united and all of one mind! Ça ira! Do honour to the breeches here that we've taken off an aristocrat, because he wouldn't be a sansculotte anyhow else! Ça ira!

WOMEN. (surrounding the COUNTRYMAN) Come and dance, peasant! Come along with you, we're dancing the carmagnole!

The sansculotte has noticed that the countryman does not hear very well.

SANSCULOTTE. (to the COUNTRYMAN, shouting in his ear)
Ça ira's being sung, you knave. Ça ira!

COUNTRYMAN. (anxiously) Excuse me, I'm not a bit musical!

SANSCULOTTE. Listen, fellow! If you're not more stupid than your own oxen you must be able to roar out Ça ira as well as a—

COUNTRYMAN. Excuse me, gentlemen?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Gentlemen!’ Did you hear that? To the lamp-post with the blackguard!

In those days anyone who dared in Paris address a man as ‘gentleman’ was hung up on the nearest lamp-post.

ERSTER BURGER. Lasst ihn laufen; er ist volle sechs Jahre taub gewesen and erst heute wieder geheilt worden.

SANSCULOTTE. Dann hätte das erste, was er hörte, sein sollen, dass es keine Herren mehr gibt. Nicht einmal der Mainzer Nachtwächter singt mehr: ‘Lobet Gott den Herrn!’ sondern: ‘Lobet Gott den Bürger!’—Schlingel! kein Franzose benennt jetzt mehr den anderen Herr, sondern—

LANDMANN. Ich begreife, man sagt jetzt Kerl, Tropf, Schlingel, Schelm, und so dergleichen—

SANSCULOTTE. Was?

LANDMANN. Ihr tituliert mich so—

SANSCULOTTE. Dummkopf! das ist was anderes. Bürger sind jetzt alle Franzosen, hörst du! nicht mehr, noch weniger!

LANDMANN. So sind wir's draussen auch in der Provinz, so gut als ihr, und können ein Wort mit drein reden?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Dreinreden?’ Hört ihr, Leute ? Der Kerl ist ein Föderalist! Ein verlaufener Girondistenknecht! er faselt von Autonomie der Provinz!

---

FIRST CITIZEN. Let him be; he's been deaf for six years and only just cured today.

SANSCULOTTE. Then the first thing he ought to have heard is that there are no more gentlemen. Not even the night watch at Mainz calls out any more ‘Praise God, gentlemen!’ but ‘Praise God, citizens!’—You clown, no Frenchman calls another ‘gentleman’ any longer, but—

COUNTRYMAN. I know. Now you say fellow, booby, clown, scoundrel, and things like that—

SANSCULOTTE. What?

COUNTRYMAN. That's what you call me—

SANSCULOTTE. Blockhead! That's a different matter. All we French now are just citizens, d'you hear that? Neither more nor less!

COUNTRYMAN. And are we in our province just as good as you, and can we put in our say?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Put in our say?’ D'you hear that, folk? The fellow is a federalist, a runaway Girondist! He's drivelling about the autonomy of the provinces!

The day of the Girondists is past and over. The sansculotte imagines that the countryman is thinking of the autonomy that was enjoyed by the provinces when they were in power.

WEIBER. Hängt ihn, hängt ihn! er ist ein Föderalist! (Man will ihn ergreifen.)

LANDMANN. (ängstlich schreiend) Scharwache! Polizei! Zu Hilfe!—Mörder! Räuber! Diebe! Zu Hilfe! (Einige lachen.)

WEIBER. Er nennt Sansculotten Räuber und Mörder! An die Laterne!

ALLGEMEINES GESCHREI. An die Laterne! (Man ergreift ihn.)

DER SANSCULOTTE. (dazwischen tretend) Einen Augenblick, Bürger! Keine blinde Wut!—Wenn man Septembermann gewesen, wie ich, so weiss man, wie das rechte Verfahren in solchen Dingen ist.—Höre, Schlingel!

LANDMANN. Was hab' ich denn verbrochen?

SANSCULOTTE. (würdevoll) Mit dieser Frage verteidigt sich kein französischer Bürger und Patriot. Ob Föderalist oder nicht, ich will dir beweisen, dass du zehnmal gehängt zu werden verdienst, auch wenn du der republikanischen Freiheit nie ein Haar gekrümmt haben solltest. Ich frage dich bloss: Was hast du getan für die Freiheit? Wie hast du dich kompromittiert für die Freiheit? Was hast du getan, um gehängt zu werden, wenn eine Reaktion.einträte und die Gemässigten ans Ruder kämen?

LANDMANN. Ich? O—wartet nur, ich besinne mich ja seht, es fällt mir etwas ein.—Ich fand einmal im Wald einen halbverhungerten Mann unter einem Haufen dürrer Streu versteckt—der machte mir solch jämmerlich flehende Zeichen (denn hören konnt' ich nur wenig von wegen der Taubheit) dass ich ihn mit nach Hause nahm, ihn labte und in aller Stille beherbergte. Als er abzog, vergass er in der Dachstube etliche zerknitterte Papiere, aus welchen ich ersah, dass es ein gar wichtiger Mann gewesen sein musste, einer von denen, die jetzt hier in Paris regieren—so einer aus eurem—wie heisst's doch gleich? hab' heute davon gehört—aus eurem Nationalkonvent.—Sah auch aus den Papieren, wie er hiess. Er hiess Bri—ha, es fällt mir schon ein, Brissot.?

(Grosse Sensation im Volke, dann wildes Geschrei: Verräter! Verräter! Schurke!)

SANSCULOTTE. Still!—(Zum LANDMANN) Unglückseliger! du hast das Haupt der dem Henker verfallenen Girondisten und Föderalisten, der Gemässigten, der heimlichen Volksverräter bei dir beherbergt!—Mensch, deine Sache ist eine verlorene. Dir ist nicht mehr zu helfen! Hängt ihn!

VOLK. An die Laterne!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Ach, lasst ihn doch! Ihr seht ja, dass er ein Dummkopf ist, und sechs Jahre lang ist er taub gewesen.

EINIGE STIMMEN. Was? der Gewürzkrämer verteidigt ihn? Auch ein Verräter!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Bin ich nicht ein guter Patriot? Hab' ich nicht kürzlich bei der grossen Hungersnot meinen Zuckervorrat pfundweise ans Volk verteilt, ohne Entgeld?

EIN FISCHWEIB. Du betrogst uns mit dem Gewicht! Als ich mein Pfund zu Hause nachwog, da fehlte dran ein halbes Lot!

WEIBER. Hängt sie alle beide!

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. Hier vor dem Bücherladen des wackeren Patrioten Momoro!

(Man zerrt den Bauer gegen den Laternenpfahl, der vor Momoros Laden steht.)

MOMORO. (tritt aus der Tür, sein Käppchen, das er auf dem kahlen Kopfe trägt, lüftend) Guten Morgen, Sansculotten! Was belieben die freien Männer und edlen Bürger zu treiben hier vor meiner Tür?

---

WOMEN. Hang 'im, hang 'im! He's a federalist! (They make as if to setze him.)

COUNTRYMAN. (shouting in alarm) Watchman! Police! Help! Murder! Robbers! Thieves! Help! (Some laughter.)

WOMEN. He's calling sansculottes robbers and murderers! To the lamp-post!

GENERAL CRY. To the lamp-post! (He is seized.)

SANSCULOTTE. (stepping between them) One minute, citizens! No blind rage!—When one's been a September man, like me, one knows the right way to act in these matters.—Listen, Clown!

COUNTRYMAN. What have I done wrong?

SANSCULOTTE. (with dignity) No citizen and patriot of France stands up for his rights by asking that question. Whether you're federalist or not, prove to you that you deserve ten times over to be hanged, even if you've done nothing to hurt republican freedom. I simply ask what you've done for freedom? Have you euer compromised yourself for freedom? What have you done to risk hanging if reaction sets in and the moderates come to power?

COUNTRYMAN. I? Oh—Wait a bit, I'm calling to mind—yes, it's just coming back to me. Once in a wood I found a half-starved man under a heap of dry straw—he made such pitiful, beseeching signs to me, for I couldn't hear much on account of my deafness, that I took him home and gave him something to eat and kept him in hiding. When he went off he forgot some scraps of paper in the attic; from these I saw that he must have been a very important man, one of those who rule now here in Paris, one of those belonging to your—what d'you call it, I've heard the name today—to your National Convention—even saw from the papers what he called himself. His name was Bri—yes, it comes back to me, Brissot—

(Great Sensation among the people, then a wild shout: Traitor, traitor, villain!)

SANSCULOTTE. Silence!—(To the COUNTRYMAN) Wretched man! You sheltered the chief of the Girondists and federalists who have fallen to the hangman, chief of the moderates, of the secret betrayers of the people!—Man, it's all up with you. Nothing can help you now! Take him and hang him!

PEOPLE. To the lamp-post!

FIRST CITIZEN. Oh, leave him alone. See what a blockhead he is, and he's been deaf for six years—

VOICES IN THE CROWD. What? The grocer sticks up for him? He's a traitor too!

FIRST CITIZEN. I'm not a good patriot, then? Didn't I, a short time ago, during the great famine, divide up all my sugar and give it to the people by the pound, and that gratis ?

FISHWIFE. You didn't give us fair weight! When I got home it was live grammes short!

WOMEN. Hang both of them!

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. Here, in front of the bookshop of the honest patriot Momoro!

(The peasant is dragged towards the lamp-post in front of Momoro's shop.)

MOMORO. (comes out of the door, raising the Linie cap that covers his bald head) Good morrow, Sansculottes! What does it please our free men and noble citizens to do here in front of my door?

Momoro is a citizen too, and moreover, as we shall see, a man of some importance who stands with the whole force of his personality right in the immediate moment of the revolution. He is, however, at the same time, beginning to feel that the ground under his feet is getting a bit shaky.

Fresh people now come forward and prepare the way for a new mood, the mood that I characterised as reminiscent of sounding brass. We are, in fact, at the moment when loyalty to Danton is passing away, in favour of loyalty to Robespierre. We must accordingly watch for die transition from the a—o mood to the e—a mood. Loyalty to Robespierre is quietly stealing in, and that fact must find expression in the whole mood of the scene from now on.

EINER AUS DEM VOLK. Guten Morgen, Bürger Momoro. Wir hängen einen Föderalisten, einen Girondistenknecht—

MOMORO. Gerade hier vor eines Patrioten Tür? Lasst das bleiben, ehrenwerte Bürger der Republik! Wozu haben wir denn das Revolutionstribunal, das ja ohnedies im ganzen wenig zu wünschen und zu hängen übrig lässt? Und überhaupt, tut mir den Gefallen, hängt keinen, bevor er die neuesten Broschüren gelesen hat, die in meinem Buchladen soeben erschienen. Wenn ihr einen solchen Menschen tötet, so verfault der Kerl unnütz unter der Erde und labt höchstens die Würmer. Wenn ihr ihm aber Zeit lasst, die neuesten Broschüren zu lesen, so könnt ihr den widerhaarigsten Aristokraten in einen feuerspeienden Patrioten verwandeln, der hingeht und sich mit Freudentränen in den Augen jeden Augenblick für die Republik totschlagen lässt. Ich frage: was ist besser?—Da seht einmal (er weist einen Pack Flugblätter und Broschüren vor): ‘Neueste Trauerrede auf den Tod des göttlichen Marat’—‘Laternenpfahl und Guillotine; fliegende Blätter für Freiheit, Gleichheit und allgemeine Menschenliebe’—‘Neuer und unfehlbarer Plan, royalistische Städte binnen drei Tagen mit Nelkenöl in die Luft zu sprengen’—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Good morrow, Citizen Momoro. We're hanging a federalist, a Girondist?

---

MOMORO. What? Just here at the door of a patriot? Wait a bit, honourable citizens of the Republic. What is the Revolutionary Tribunal for, which on the whole leaves us very little to wish for and very few people to hang? At least do me the favour not to hang anyone till he has read the latest pamphlet that has just appeared in my shop. When you kill a man of this sort the fellow rots uselessly in the ground and at best feeds the worms. But when you give him time to read the latest pamphlet, you may change the most cross-grained aristocrat into a fire-spitting patriot who goes off ready to die at any moment for the Republic. I ask you, which is the better? Just look (he points to a pile of broadsheets and pamphlets): ‘Latest Funeral Oration on the Death of the Godlike Marat’—‘Lamp-post and Guillotine'; leaflets on liberty, equality and universal human love.’ New and infallible Plan to blow up Royalist Towns with Oil of Cloves’?

Momoro talks the most naturally of them all, and helps to lead over to the new phase of the revolution. He is, at the moment, in high esteem, and this must be apparent to the audience.

VOLK. Hoch Momoro, der Patriot!

MOMORO. Es lebe die Republik!—Alles für wenige Sous!(Viele drängen sich herbei, die Blätter zu kaufen.)

SANSCULOTTE. Du verkaufst deine Scharteken zu teuer, Bürger Momoro!

MOMORO. Keinen Sou verdien' ich dran. Ihr kennt mich!

IN ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. Der ‘Vater Duchêsne’! Der ‘Vater Duchêsne' von heute! Zwei Sous das Blatt!—Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchêsne!—Kauft das Journal des gefeierten Patrioten Hebert!—in 30 000 Exemplaren verbreitet! Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchêsne!—

MOMORO. (nachspottend) ‘Er ist verzweifelt wild heute der Vater Duchêsne!’ So ruft er alle Tage. 30 000 Exemplare? Allen Respekt vor dem Bürger Hebert, aber ich habe mir sagen lassen, dass ganze Stösse seines Journals gratis in die Gasthöfe wandern—für die ‘Bedürfnisse’ der Reisenden! hahaha! für die ‘Bedürfnisse’ der Reisenden!—Das Gediegenste, was aus den Federn der Patrioten fliesst, findet man doch immer noch bei Momoro. In meinem Hinterstübchen haben schon unter dem Königtum die radikalsten Männer Klub gehalten und halten da noch Klub heutigen Tages.—

ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. (spottend) Ja, Graukopf, sie halten Klub bei deinem jungen Weibchen.

MOMORO. Tropf! sie bringen ihr den neuen republikanischen Kalender bei, der den Weibern so schwer in den Kopf will. Und mehr! noch mehr! 0, die Patrioten wissen den alten Momoro zu schätzen, und um ihn zu ehren, haben sie, müsst ihr wissen, keine andere als eben sein Weibchen zur Göttin der Vernunft erkoren. Schon am frühen Morgen ist sie heut' abgeholt worden auf das Stadthaus, damit man für das Fest sie würdig herausputze. Nun ihr werdet sehen! Auf diesem selben Platze wird sie prangen.

ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. Und dir werden zur Feier des Tages die Hörner vergoldet?

VOLK. Es lebe Momoro und sein Weibchen!

MOMORO. (zu einem Manne, der ein Plakat an die Mauer klebt) Mensch, du klebst ja dein Plakat hier über ein anderes.

DER MANN. Ach, das alte ist ein gemässigtes; das da aber ist von der Kommune.—

VOLK. (das sich indes immer zahlreicher gesammelt) Von der Kommune? lasst doch sehen!

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. (lesend) ‘Hebert und Chaumette laden das souveräne Volk zum heutigen Feste der Vernunft, das denkwürdig bleiben wird für alle Zeiten!’—

VOLK. Hoch Hebert! Hoch Chaumette! Hoch die Republik! Ça ira! (Die Weiber tanzen)

EIN STELZFUSS. (im Gedränge) Heissa! springt und brüllt, wie ihr wollt, aber tretet einem verdienten Krieger der Republik sein hölzernes Bein nicht weg!

---

PEOPLE. Cheers for Momoro the patriot!

MOMORO. Long live the Republic! Any one of these for a few sous!

(Many of the crowd press round him to buy the leaflets.)

SANSCULOTTE. You sell your trash too dear, Citizen Momoro!

MOMORO. Why, I don't make a sou on them. You know me!

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. ‘Father Duchêsne’! ‘Father Duchêsne’ ! today's ‘Father Duchêsne’! He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne! Buy the paper of the good old patriot Hebert! 30,000 copies given out! He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne!—

MOMORO. (ridiculing him) ‘He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne.’ That's what he calls out all day. 30,000 copies? With all due respect to Citizen Hebert I venture to say that whole stacks of his paper find their way into the inns gratis—‘For the requirements of travellers’ ! Ha! Ha! Ha! ‘For the requirements of travellers’!—What is of value from the pens of the patriots is still always to be found at Momoro's. In my room behind the shop, even under the King, all the most radical men used to meet, still meet today?

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. (mockingly) Yes, old fellow, the club meets where your young wife is.

MOMORO. Booby! They explain to her the recent Republican Calendar which takes so long to get into the head of a woman! What's more, what's more—Oh, the patriots know how to appreciate old Momoro, and how to do him honour; you must know they have chosen no one else but his little wife to be the Goddess of Reason. today, quite early, she was taken to the Town Hall to be all properly decked out for the festival. You'll see. She'll be on show in this very square.

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. And will your horns be gilded for the occasion?

PEOPLE. Long live Momoro and his little wife!

MOMORO. (to a man sticking a placard on the wall) Hi, you, you're sticking that on top of another—

THE MAN. Oh, that old thing is one of those moderates, but this, here, comes from the Commune—

PEOPLE. (gathering round in their numbers) From the Commune, let's see!

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. (reading aloud) ‘Hebert and Chaumette invite the sovereign people today to the Festival of Reason which will remain in memory for all time!’

PEOPLE. Cheers for Hebert! Cheers for Chaumette! Cheers for the Republic! Ça ira! (The women dance.)

MAN WITH WOODEN LEG. (among the crowd) Hurray! Jump and shout as much as you like but don't stamp off the wooden leg of a deserving soldier of the Republic!

For at this point, in order to show how the mood is changing, moving all the time in the direction of the note that has been sounded by Robespierre, a new speaker steps forward from among the crowd, who is under a certain disability—a man with a wooden leg. The crowd, we shall find, is gradually working its way free of the completely different mood that has hitherto prevailed and beginning to enter into the mood that is connected with Robespierre. The i (ee) mood that belongs to him, begins to be heard.

SANSCULOTTE. (auf ihn zugehend) Was seh' ich? Battiste, du wieder in Paris? Verflucht—dein Bein

STELZFUSS. Hainbuchenes Kernholz—

SANSCULOTTE. Brav gefochten für die Republik? Nicht Tod noch Teufel gefürchtet ? Nie in Gefangenschaft geraten?

STELZFUSS. Bin ein einziges Mal von feindlichen Reitern allein überfallen worden, and da waren ihrer bloss vier—

SANSCULOTTE. Viele Strapazen ausgestanden?

STELZFUSS. Donnerwetter! Ihr habt es leicht, hier im warmen Paris als Ohnehosen herumzulaufen: aber im Feld kampieren und auf Vorposten stehen, ohne Schuh', in einer Kälte, bei welcher die Kinder im Mutterleibe erfrieren, so dass wir Schiesspulver in den Branntwein tun mussten, um uns den Magen zu erwärmen? Dann wieder tagelang fechten in der Sonnenglut—

SANSCULOTTE. Ach, was schadet das dem Krieger im Eifer des Gefechts?

STELZFUSS. Natürlich, wenn dir eine Kanonenkugel den Kopf wegreisst, so stirbst du nicht am Sonnenstich—

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. Bist du nicht der, den sie als jungen Burschen den kleinen Barbier nannten—Gehilfe beim Barbier Flatte in der Strasse Pompadour?

STELZFUSS.
Der bin ich und habe mein Handwerk nicht verlernt—
Zu Lille, wenn eine Bombe niederflog
und vor mir platzte, griff ich eine Scherbe
vom Boden auf, gebrauchte sie als Schüssel
mit Seif' und Wasser und rasierte dann
so zwanzig Kameraden auf dem Fleck.
Ei, das gefiel euch wohl hier in Paris,
wenn die Armee mit den geschwungenen Fahnen
wegwedelte von Frankreichs Leib des Auslands
Schmeissfliegenschwarm, der zahllos ihn umschwirrt—
Wenn ihr vernahmt, dass wir so Sieg auf Sieg
erfochten, dachtet ihr da hinterm Ofen
wohl auch daran, wie oft wir barfuss liefen
und nichts zu beissen hatten als Patronen,
und oft nicht einmal die?

SANSCULOTTE. Was? lassen nicht die Weiber von Paris ihre Männer zerrissen laufen, um Zelttücher und Uniformen für euch zu nähen? Behelfen wir uns nicht statt der klingenden Münze mit lumpigen wertlosen Assignaten? Was? Wir nicht an euch gedacht? Und sind wir etwa müssig gewesen, indess ihr im Felde standet? In den Septembertagen hättest du hier sein sollen?

STELZFUSS. Kann mir's denken—erinnere mich noch recht gut, wie du vor drei Jahren einmal bei einem Volksfeste dem Pferde des Generals Lafayette, ohne dass es der General merkte, den Schweif an einen Laternenpfahl bandest, weil die Stute damit immer dir und anderen, die hinter dir standen, ins Gesicht flunkerte?

SANSCULOTTE. Possen! Aber in den Septembertagen...

STELZFUSS. Ist es denn wahr, dass ihr in diesen Septembertagen zuletzt auch die sämtlichen seltenen Tiere in der Menagerie von Versailles habt über die Klinge springen lassen?

SANSCULOTTE. Was? Die sämtlichen seltenen Tiere? Nein, nur die Löwen und Adler, weil das die Könige der Tiere sind, und dann was die sogenannten Wappentiere sind, wie sie die Aristokraten in ihren Wappen hatten?

STELZFUSS. Teufelskerle! Wie kam euch denn das so auf einmal?

SANSCULOTTE. Weiss nicht. Auf einmal, sagst du? Gar nicht auf einmal Es kam so nach und nach, wie der Appetit mit dem Essen?

STELZFUSS. Was sagten denn die Gemässigten?

SANSCULOTTE. Kein Wort. Hinter den Sansculotten stand die Kommune, und diese selber deckte der breite Rücken Dantons, der sich damals eben zum erstenmal aufgerichtet hatte als ein brüllender Leu. Gegen den waren die anderen nur ein Rudel bissiger Hunde. Jetzt ist er träg geworden und überhaupt, wie alles grosse Getier, nicht so beständig munter und beisslustig wie die kleineren Kläffer—

EINER AUS DEM VOLK. Ah, diesem Simson haben's auch die Weiber angetan?

SANSCULOTTE.
Ja, ja, doch sag ich euch,
steht der noch einmal auf, so lang er ist,
stösst er die Decke durch und reisst die Säulen
im Tempel um, grad' wie der Simson auch—

EIN ANDERER. Ach was, der steht nicht wieder auf. Den hat der andre unter’sich gebracht. Und dieser andre ist schlau?

STELZFUSS. Wer?

SANSCULOTTE. Ei wer? Hast du von Robespierre im Lager nicht gehört?

STELZFUSS. Robespierre? Robespierre? Ist das das kleine steife Männchen, das man spottweise das’ Talglicht von Arras’ nennt, weil er von Arras kam und gern glänzen wollte, aber nicht heller flackerte als eine Talgkerze? Sie lachten ihn immer aus, wenn er in der Nationalversammlung sprechen wollte.

SANSCULOTTE. Das war damals. Der führt jetzt im Nationalkonvent, im Wohlfahrtsausschuss, im Jacobinerklub das grosse Wort.

STELZFUSS. Ich sah ihn einmal—nur von fern. Trägt er nicht Brillen?

SANSCULOTTE. Nein.

STELZFUSS. Es kam mir doch so vor.

SANSCULOTTE. Er hat ein gelbes Gesicht und bläulich- gräuliche Ränder um die Augen—die wirst du in deiner Einfalt aus der Entfernung für Brillen gehalten haben?

STELZFUSS. Bleich im Gesicht?

SANSCULOTTE.
Gelb—grau—nein, eigentlich—wie soll ich sagen?
Graugrün, wenn man's genau nimmt—tiefe Augen
und widerhaar'ge Braun—ein schlichtes Männchen;
nichts gegen Danton! Aber wenn vor dir
hier Danton steht, der mächtige Koloss,
und dort das schneid'ge Männchen Robespierre
sprichst du mit dem frei von der Leber weg
wie mit dem jovialsten Kameraden,
und vor dem andern stockt die Rede dir
im Schlund—nicht grad' als ob er dich so dreist
ansäh', im Gegenteil, sieht eher etwas schüchtern
und unbehilflich aus vor vielem Volk—
doch geh' nur einmal auf die Galerie
des Nationalkonvents, sobald er spricht:
da kennst du ihn nicht mehr. Wenn festen Schritts
er steigt zur Rednerbühne, wird's so still,
dass du die Mäuschen pfeifen hören kannst
in ihren Löchern. Steht er anfangs dann
aufrecht und ruhig droben wie ein Pfahl
und spricht gelassen, denkst du: nun, er spricht nur eben
wie ein Schulmeister, oder wie ein Pfaff
spricht auf der Kanzel—plötzlich aber wirft
er ein paar Worte hin mit einer Stimme,
so kalt und scharf wie Stahl—in einem Ton,
dass dir ein Schauer über'n Rücken läuft-
Und fängt dann gar der Winkel seines Mundes
zu zucken an, und ruft er bittersüss
in seiner scharfen, schneidigen Manier:
‘Du armes Volk!’ und’ Tugendhaftes Volk!’
da packt dich was im Herzen wie ein Krampf:
du legst die Hand ans Messer, wenn du eins
verbirgst an deiner Brust, und möchtest gern
dich vor ihm niederwerfen und ihn fragen,
wen du zuerst von den verfluchten Feinden
der Republik damit durchstossen sollst—
Zuweilen aber schweigt er wochenlang
und lässt die anderen reden. Es geschehe
viel Dinge noch, von welchen man nicht weiss,
ob sie ihm lieb sind oder leid. Zuweilen
laviert er bloss und wartet auf den Wind.

Eben in letzter Zeit ist er wieder sehr schweigsam geworden?

---

SANSCULOTTE. (going up to him) What? You, Battiste, back in Paris? Damn it all—your leg—

WOODEN LEG. The prime cut of a hornbeams

SANSCULOTTE. Well fought for the Republic? No fear of death or the devil and never taken prisoner?

WOODEN LEG. Only once, fallen upon by enemy cavalry and then they were four to?

SANSCULOTTE. Stood up to plenty of hardship?

WOODEN LEG. By Jupiter! You've an easy time here in warm Paris, running around as sansculottes; but to camp out in the fields and to be on outpost duty without shoes in a cold that's enough to freeze a baby in its mother's womb, so that we had to put gunpowder in our brandy to warm up our stomachs? Then the whole day long to fight in the blaze of the sun?

SANSCULOTTE. Oh! What does that matter to anyone in the heat of the battle?

WOODEN LEG. Naturally if a cannonball takes off your head you can't be said to die of sunstroke—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Are you the one they used to call the little barber when you were a bit of a thing—used to help Barber Hatte in Pompadour Street?

WOODEN LEG. That's me, and I've never forgotten my trade—
Once when a bomb came down at Lille and burst
In front of me I seized a fragment up
From off the ground and used it as a dish,
And then with soap and water, on the spot,
Gave a good shave to twenty of our lads.
Ha, this pleased you all right well in Paris here
When our brave army with its colours flying
Swept from our France the dirty foreign flies
Which in a countless swarm did buzz around.
When you did hear of all the victories
That we were gaining, from beside your stoves
Had you a thought how often with bare feet
We went about and nothing had to eat
But cartridges—not even those at times?

SANSCULOTTE. What? Don't the wives of Paris let their men go in rags while they stitch at tent-cloths and uniforms for you? Don't we have to put up with dirty, worthless paper in place of ringing coins? What? We don't think about you? And are we idle when you're fighting? You should have been here in the September days—

WOODEN LEG. I can imagine—I remember quite well how three years ago on a people's holiday, without the General noticing it, you bound the tail of Lafayette's mare to the lamp-post because it cavorted about in your very faces?

SANSCULOTTE. Buffoonery! But in those September days...

WOODEN LEG. Is it true then that in those September days you put to death the whole collection of rare animals in the menagerie at Versailles?

SANSCULOTTE. What? The whole menagerie? No, only the lions and eagles because they are the kings among the animals; besides they're what are in the so-called coats-of-arms that aristocrats used to bear.

WOODEN LEG. You devils! How did that suddenly come into your heads?

SANSCULOTTE. I don't know. Suddenly, did you say? It wasn't a bit sudden. It came gradually—like appetite comes with eating—

WOODEN LEG. What said the moderates?

SANSCULOTTE. Not a word. The Commune is behind the sansculottes, and that's protected by Danton's broad back, and just at that time he was beginning to roar like a lion. Compared with him the others were only a pack of biting dogs. He's become lazy nowadays and like all the great beasts not always so full of vigour and lust for using his teeth as the small curs are—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Ah! This Samson too has been bewitched by the women!

SANSCULOTTE. Yes, yes, but I would have you know
When upright he does stand he is so tall
He'd push the ceiling through, break down the pillars,
Just as did once your Samson in the temple—

ANOTHER. Oh well! He no longer stands at his full height. He's under the other now, and this other is crafty—

WOODEN LEG. Who?

SANSCULOTTE. Who Haven't you heard of Robespierre in your camp ?

WOODEN LEG. Robespierre? Robespierre? Is that the stiff little man they call in fun the ‘tallow candle of Arras' because he came from Arras and wanted to shine but gave no more light than a flickering tallow candle? They laughed him out of court when he wanted to speak in the National Assembly.

SANSCULOTTE. That was in those days. He leads now in the debates in the National Convention or in the Committee of Public Safety—in the Jacobin Club too.

WOODEN LEG. I saw him once—only from a distance. Doesn't he wear spectacles?

SANSCULOTTE. No.

WOODEN LEG. It looked as if he did.

SANSCULOTTE. He has a yellow face and a blue-grey rim round his eyes, which you in your ignorance may at a distance have taken for spectacles—

WOODEN LEG. Pasty-faced?

SANSCULOTTE. Yellow—grey—no indeed, what shall I say?
Grey-green, to be exact, with deep-set eyes
And stubborn brow—a simple, little
man, Nothing compared with Danton! But if here
That great Colossus Danton were to stand
And there the little sharp-edged Robespierre,
With Danton one could speak out at one's ease
As with the friendliest among one's mates,
But with the other all your talk would be
Stuck in your throat; not that he's arrogant,
Quite on the contrary for he seems shy
And at a loss before a lot of folk—
But hear him at the National Convention!
You will not know him; when with a firm step
He goes up to the rostrum, all's so still
That you can hear the piping of the mice
Inside their holes. He to begin with stands
Upright and cool above us like a pillar
And speaks so calm, you think: well, now he talks
Just like a schoolmaster, or like a priest
Talks in a pulpit—then, quite suddenly
He hurls out a few words, but with a voice
As cold and sharp as steel, and in a tone
That sends a shudder running down your back;
And then the corner of his mouth begins
To twitch and he cries' out, so bittersweet,
In that sharp way so full of energy,
‘O you poor folk’ and ‘O you virtuous folk!’
And something seizes on your heart like cramp,
And if you have a knife concealed about you
You grasp it firmly, with the strong desire
To throw yourself before him and to ask
Which, to begin with, of the cursed foes
Of the Republic you should plunge it in.
But sometimes he is silent weeks on end
Letting the others speak. Many things occur
Of which one does not know whether they please
Or do not please him. Then too there are times
When he just tacks and waits upon the wind.
He's been quite silent recently again—

Note the skilful way in which the personality of Robespierre is introduced. The sansculotte abandons his role as sansculotte, and suddenly shows himself as a marvellous portrayer of character. If this moment in the scene is rendered with the colouring that it has been my intention to give to it in my reading, then in this speech that the sansculotte addresses to the people around him, the audience will eel the swing-over of loyalty of which we have spoken. The critical moment of transition has come; and as we go on, I shall indicate here and there some of the points that it would be important for a producer to have in mind The second mood is now upon us, it overwhelms the scene as though with a confused and deafening noise; I compared it, you will remember, to the clash of sounding brass.

EIN SCHREIBER DER KOMMUNE. (erscheint mit Handlangern, die Bretter und Handwerksgeräte mit sich tragen) Platz da! Platz, Sansculotten! Das Gerüst für die Göttin der Vernunft und für die Redner wird aufgeschlagen! Der Festzug wird in kurzer Zeit da sein.

---

CLERK TO THE COMMUNE. (appears with workmen carrying planks and tools) Make way there; make way, sansculottes. The stand is to be put up for the Goddess of Reason and the orators. The procession will shortly be here.

Here we have the ö (French eu in ‘feu’) mood. It has to be spoken forward; we must let the speaking strike on to the front part of the palate.

VOLK. Ça ira! Es lebe die Göttin der Vernunft!

SCHREIBER. (zu den Handlangern) Hierher, ihr Leute! in der Mitte des Platzes! Notre-Dame gerade gegenüber! (Die Handlanger machen sich an die Arbeit.)

---

PEOPLE. Ça ira. Long live the Goddess of Reason!

CLERK. (to his men) Here, you people! In the middle of the square! Over there by Notre Dame! (The men set to work.)

From now on, the women speak more in the ei (as in ‘height’) mood. With the entry of Robespierre into the conversation, the revolutionary impulses begin to be imbued with a sort of coy and affectionate enthusiasm—e a.

EIN WEIB. Seht nur, dass es nicht wieder so geht, wie im vorigen Jahre bei dem grossen Feste, wo sich ein paar Kerle unter den Brettergrund des Gerüstes versteckten—vermutlich um die Männer und Frauen, die darauf standen, in die Luft zu sprengen, bis man sie entdeckte, hervorzog und totschlug—

DER SCHREIBER. (schäkernd) Ach, das waren bloss ein paar Verehrer eures Geschlechts, die durch die Ritzen herauf- blinzelten... Was läge daran, wenn man heute der Vernunft ein wenig nach den Waden guckte? Sein Augenmerk auf die Vernunft und all ihr Detail zu richten, ist ja fortan Bürgerpflicht!

WEIBER. (ihn umringend) Du Schelm!—Werden sie bald da sein?

SCHREIBER. Sogleich.

WEIBER. Heissa, gleich werden sie da sein! Es lebe Hebert und Chaumette! Es lebe die Kommune! Es lebe der Konvent! Es lebe Danton! Es lebe Robespierre!

A WOMAN. Look to it that what happened last year at the great fête doesn't happen again, when a few fellows hid underneath the platform—as it was thought, to blow up the men and women on it—till they were discovered and pulled out and killed—

---

CLERK. (waggishly) Aha! They were simply one or two worshippers of your fair sex squinting through the crevices. ... What of it if today, too, someone has a peep at the Goddess of Reason's legs? To make Reason in all her details his aim, is henceforth one of the obligations of a citizen!

WOMEN. (pressing round him) You rogue! Will they soon be here?

CLERK. They're just coming.

WOMEN. Hurray! They're just coming! Long live Hebert and Chaumette! Long live the Commune! Long live the Convention! Long live Danton! Long live Robespierre!

(Translated by V. E. W.)

I wanted to show you by practical example how a scene like this should be treated. I have laid on the colouring a little more strongly than would be necessary in a performance, because I wanted you to have a particularly clear picture of how the different moods come severally to expression in the treatment of sound. We saw, for example, that the countryman has to be spoken throughout with the mouth open, for he is to reveal the a mood; a slight intoning of a should even be audible in every sound he utters. Similarly, you will find the clerk has to speak so that something of an i enters into each one of his sounds. His voice is always in front of that i-boundary in the mouth, of which I was speaking the other day, and is continually striking the front part of the palate. It is by paying careful attention to details like this, that we can gradually learn to give form and style to our speaking on the stage.

My dear Friends,

We will begin today with a recitation given by Frau Dr. Steiner, which will, I think, bring home to you with added force all that we have been considering in the last lectures. For the scene that will be read provides excellent opportunity for showing how one who seriously wants to be an artist in his work on the stage can find the way to a right forming of his speech.

Whether or no we attain to this depends in great measure upon our ability to effect a certain inner adaptation of our speaking so that it may truly have the qualities both of sculpture and of painting. We shall very likely have some ,,trouble in getting rid of what might well be called the greyness of speech that is only too common on the stage today. I mean the speech that is content to remain at the prosaic level of the speaking we use in everyday life. We shall really have to bestir ourselves to effect a reform in this direction, for this latest phase in the development of acting is taking us farther and farther away from art. It seems indeed to be the aim and object of the modern actor to speak without any art at all, employing as he does for the stage merely the speaking of ordinary everyday intercourse.

Judged from the standpoint of naturalism, the acting profession of the present day has undoubtedly succeeded in achieving a very high standard; the achievement, however, has nothing artistic about it.

On many occasions during recent years I have been utterly amazed at the naturalistic performances I have witnessed on the stage. Again and again one has been confronted with the strange phenomenon of a play being acted without the least attempt to develop a style that could lift the performance to the level of art; one has had, on the contrary, the feeling of being transported into a stark realism of the most everyday description. Needless to say, we do not go to the theatre for that!

Anyone who looks for nothing else but sheer naturalism in an artistic performance is like a person who doesn't care for a portrait painted by an artist; that doesn't please him at all, he would much rather have a photograph, preferably perhaps a coloured one, since he can understand that more readily. But the whole secret of art lies in this: in art we reveal truth by quite other means than Nature uses. Nature reveals truth more immediately. Truth must be present in Nature; and truth must be present also in art. The truth in Nature shines forth to the spirit : from the truth in art the spirit shines forth. Once we have grasped this fact and made it our own, we shall feel within us an urgent need to discover how art and style can be restored to the stage, and we shall not rest until we find it. I will tell you of something that can prove helpful in this connection.

Practise bringing your speech organs into a kind of speaking the very nature and quality of which oblige you to diverge from the naturalistic speaking of everyday intercourse. You will have an example of this in the scene to which we shall presently be listening. The scene is taken from Lessing's play Minna von Barnhelm, in which one of the characters, Riccaut de la Marlinière, is a Frenchman speaking German. It is impossible to speak this part in an ordinary everyday manner; one has perforce to give a certain style to the speaking of Riccaut de la Marlinière. He is constantly interposing French words and phrases, and his German has always a French accent. Such a part could well be used as an exercise in the forming of speech; it will help the student to acquire a fluency that has style. This was indeed our reason for choosing the scene.

(Frau Dr. Steiner): The scene is laid in a room in an hotel. Riccaut de la Marlinière enters expecting to find there Major Tellheim.

(MINNA VON BARNHELM, FRANZISKA, RICCAUT de la MARLINÈLRE)

RICCAUT. Est-il permis, Monsieur le Major?

FRANZISKA. Was ist das? Will das zu uns? (Gegen die Türe gehend.)

RICCAUT. Parbleu! Ik bin unriktig-Mais non-Ik bin nit unriktig.-C'est sa chambre?

FRANZISKA. Ganz gewiss, gnädiges Fräulein, glaubt dieser Herr, den Major von Tellheim noch hier zu finden.

RICCAUT. Iss so !-Le Major de Tellheim; juste, ma belle enfant, c'est lui que je cherche. Où est-il?

FRANZISKA. Er wohnt nicht mehr hier.

RICCAUT. Comment? nok vor vierunswanzik Stund hier logier? Und logier nit mehr hier? Wo logier er denn?

DAS FRÄULEIN. (die auf ihn zukommt) Mein HerrRICCAUT. Ah, Madame-Mademoiselle-Ihro Gnad, verzeih-

DAS FRÄULEIN. Mein Herr, Ihre Irrung ist sehr zu vergeben, und Ihre Verwunderung sehr natürlich. Der Herr Major hat die Güte gehabt, mir, als einer Fremden, die nicht unterzukommen wusste, sein Zimmer zu überlassen.

RICCAUT. Ah voilà de ses politesses! C'est un très galant homme que ce Major!

DAS FRÄULEIN. Wo er indes hingezogen - wahrhaftig, ich muss mich schämen, es nicht zu wissen.

RICCAUT. Ihro Gnad nit wiss? C'est dommage; j'en suis fâché.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich hätte mich allerdings darnach erkundigen sollen. Freilich werden ihn seine Freunde noch hier suchen.

RICCAUT. Ik bin sehr von seine Freund, Ihro Gnad. DAS FRÄULEIN. Franziska, weisst du es nicht?

FRANZISKA. Nein, gnädiges Fräulein.

RICCAUT. Ik hätt ihn zu spreck, sehr notwendik. Ik komm ihm bringen eine nouvelle, davon er sehr fröhlik sein wird.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich bedaure um so viel mehr. Doch hoffe ich vielleicht bald ihn zu sprechen. Ist es doch gleichviel, aus wessen Munde er diese gute Nachricht erfährt, so erbiete ich mich, mein Herr.

RICCAUT. Ik versteh.-Mademoiselle parle francais? Mais sans doute; teile que je la vois!-La demande etait bien impolie; vous me pardonnerez, Mademoiselle.-

DAS FRÄULEIN. Mein Herr?

RICCAUT. Nit? Sie sprek nit französisch, Ihro Gnad?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Mein Herr, in Frankreich würde ich es zu sprechen suchen. Aber warum hier? Ich höre ja, dass Sie mich verstehen, mein Herr. Und ich, mein Herr, werde Sie gewiss auch verstehen; sprechen Sie, wie es Ihnen beliebt.

RICCAUT. Gutt, gutt! Ik kann auk mik auf Deutsch explicier.-Sachez done, Mademoiselle.-Ihro Gnad soll also wiss, dass ik komm von die Tafel bei der Minister-Minister von-Minister von-wie heiss der Minister da drauss? in der lange Strass?-auf die breite Platz?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich bin hier noch völlig unbekannt.

RICCAUT. Nun, die Minister von der Kriegsdepartement.—Da haben ik zu Mittag gespeisen—ik speisen à l'ordinaire bei ihm—und da iss man gekommen reden auf der Major Tellheim; et le Ministre m'a dit en confidence, car Son Excellence est de mes amis, et il n'y a point de mysteres entre nous-Seine Excellenz, will ik sag, haben mir vertrau, dass die Sak von unserm Major sei auf dem point zu enden, und gutt zu enden. Er habe gemakt ein rapport an den Könik, und der Könik habe darauf resolvir, tout-à-fait en faveur du Major.—Monsieur, m'a dit Son Excellence, Vous comprenez bien, que tout depend de la manière, dont on fait envisager les choses au Roi, et vous me connaissez. Cela fait un très joli garçon que ce Tellheim, et ne sais-je pas que vous l'aimez? Les amis de mes amis sont aussi les miens. Il coute un peu eher au Roi ce Tellheim, mais est-ce que Pon sert les Rois pour rien? Il faut s'entr'aider en ce monde; et quand il s'agit de pertes, que ce soit le Roi qui en fasse, et non pas un honnête-homme de nous autres. Voila le principe, dont je ne me dépars jamais.-Was sag Ihro Gnad hierzu? Nit wahr, das iss ein brav Mann? Ah! que Son Excellence a le coeur bien placé! Er hat mir au reste versiker, wenn der Major nit schon bekommen habe une Lettre de la main-eine Könikliken Handbrief, dass er heut infailliblement müsse bekommen einen.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Gewiss, mein Herr, diese Nachricht wird dem Major von Tellheim höchst angenehm sein. Ich wünschte nur, ihm den Freund zugleich mit Namen nennen zu können, der soviel Anteil an seinem Glücke nimmt.—

RICCAUT. Mein Namen wünscht Ihro Gnad?-Vous voyez en moi-Ihro Gnad seh in mik le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière, Seigneur de Prêt-au-val, de la Branche de Prensd'or.-Ihro Gnad steh verwundert, mik aus so ein gross, gross Familie zu hören, qui est veritablement du sang Royal.-I1 faut le dire, je suis sans doute le cadet le plus avantureux, que la maison a jamais eu-lk dien von meiner elfte Jahr. Ein affaire d'honneur makte mik fliehen. Darauf haben ik gedienet Sr. Päpstlichen Eilikheit, der Republik St. Marino, der Kron Polen, und den Staaten General, bis ik endlich bin worden gezogen hieher. Ah, Mademoiselle, que je voudrais n'avoir jamais vu ce pays-là! Hätte man mik gelass im Dienst von den Staaten-General, so müsst ik nun sein aufs wenikst Oberst. Aber so hier immer und

ewig Capitaine geblieben, und nun gar sein ein abgedankte Capitaine.?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Das ist viel Unglück.

RICCAUT. Oui, Mademoiselle, me voila réforme, et par-1à mis sur le pavé!

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich beklage sehr.

RICCAUT. Vous êtes bien bonne, Mademoiselle.-Nein, man kenn sik hier nit auf den Verdienst. Einen Mann wie mik, su reformir-Einen Mann, der sik nok dasu in diesem Dienst hat rouinir!-Ik haben dabei sugesetzt, mehr als swansik tausend livres. Was hab ik nun? Tranchons le mot; je n'ai pas le sou, et me voilä exactement vis-à-vis du rien.—

DAS FRÄULEIN. Es tut mir ungemein leid.

RICCAUT. Vous êtes bien bonne, Mademoiselle. Aber wie man pfleg zu sagen: ein jeder Unglück schlepp nak sik seine Bruder; qu'un malheur ne vient jamais seul: so mit mir arrivir. Was ein honnête-homme von mein extraction kann anders haben für ressource, als das Spiel? Nun hab ik immer gespielen mit Glück, so lang ik hatte nit von nöthen das Glück. Nun ik ihr hätte von nöthen, Mademoiselle, je joue avec un guignon, qui surpasse toute croyance. Seit funfzehn Tag ist vergangen keine, wo sie mik nit hab gesprenkt. Nok gestern hab sie mik gesprenkt dreimal. Je sais bien, qu'il y avait quelque chose de plus que le jeu. Car parmi mes pontes se trouvaient certaines dames-Ik will niks weiter sagen. Man muss sein galant gegen die Damen. Sie haben auk mik heut invitir, mir su geben revanche; mais-Vous m'entendez, Mademoiselle-Man muss erst wiss, wovon leben, ehe man haben kann, wovon su spielen.—

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich will nicht hoffen, mein Herr

RICCAUT. Vous êtes bien bonne, Mademoiselle-

DAS FRÄULEIN. (nimmt die Franziska bei Seite) Franziska, der Mann dauert mich im Ernste. Ob er mir es wohl übel nehmen würde, wen ich ihm etwas anböte?

FRANZISKA. Der sieht mir nicht darnach aus.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Gut!-Mein Herr, ich höre—dass Sie spielen; dass Sie Bank machen? ohne Zweifel an Orten, wo etwas zu gewinnen ist. Ich muss Ihnen bekennen, dass ich—gleichfalls das Spiel sehr liebe—

RICCAUT. Tant mieux, Mademoiselle, tant mieux! Tous les gens d'esprit aiment le jeu a la fureur.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Dass ich sehr gerne gewinne; sehr gern mein Geld mit einem Manne wage, der - zu spielen weiss. Wären Sie wohl geneigt, mein Herr, mich in Gesellschaft zu nehmen? mir einen Anteil an Ihrer Bank zu gönnen?

RICCAUT. Comment, Mademoiselle, vous voulez être de moitie avec moi? De tout mon coeur.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Fürs erste nur mit einer Kleinigkeit-(Geht und langt Geld aus ihrer Schatulle.)

RICCAUT. Ah, Mademoiselle, que vous etes charmante!—

DAS FRÄULEIN. Hier habe ich, was ich unlängst gewonnen, nur zehn Pistolen-ich muss mich zwar schämen, so wenig—

RICCAUT. Donnez toujours, Mademoiselle, donnez. (Nimmt es.)

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ohne Zweifel, dass Ihre Bank, mein Herr, sehr ansehnlich ist.—

RICCAUT. Jawohl, sehr ansehnlik. Sehn Pistol? Ihro Gnad soll sein dafür interessir bei meiner Bank ein Dreiteil, pour le tiers. Swar auf ein Dreiteil sollen sein—etwas mehr. Dok mit einer schönen Damen muss man es nehmen nit so genau. Ik gratulir mik, su kommen dadurk in liaison mit Ihro Gnad, et de ce moment je recommence à bien augurer de ma fortune.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Ich kann aber nicht dabei sein, wenn Sie spielen, mein Herr.

RICCAUT. Was brauk Ihro Gnad dabei su sein? Wir andern Spieler sind ehrlike Leut unter einander.

DAS FRÄULEIN. Wenn wir glücklich sind, mein Herr, so werden Sie mir meinen Anteil schon bringen. Sind wir aber unglücklich?

RICCAUT. So komm ik holen Rekruten. Nit wahr, Ihro Gnad?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Auf die Länge dürften die Rekruten fehlen. Verteidigen Sie unser Geld daher ja wohl, mein Herr.

RICCAUT. Wofür seh mik Ihro Gnad an? Für ein Einfalspinse? für eine dumme Teuf?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Verzeihen Sie mir?

RICCAUT. Je suis des bons, Mademoiselle. Savez-vous ce que cela veut dire? Ik bin von die Ausgelernt-

DAS FRÄULEIN. Aber doch wohl, mein Herr—

RICCAUT. Je sais monter un coup-

DAS FRÄULEIN. (verwundert) Sollten Sie?

RICCAUT. Je file la carte avec une adresse?

DAS FRÄULEIN. Nimmermehr!

RICCAUT. Je fais sauter la coupe avec une dextérité—

DAS FRÄULEIN. Sie werden doch nicht, mein Herr?

RICCAUT. Was nit? Ihro Gnad, was nit? Donnez-moi un pigeonneau à plumer, et-

DAS FRÄULEIN. Falsch spielen? betrügen?

RICCAUT. Comment, Mademoiselle? Vous appelez cela betrügen? Corriger la fortune, l'enchaîner sous ses doigts, être stir de son fait, das nenn die Deutsch betrügen? Betrügen! O, was ist die deutsch Sprak für ein arm Sprak! für ein plump Sprak!

DAS FRÄULEIN. Nein, mein Herr, wenn Sie so denken?

RICCAUT. Laissez-moi faire, Mademoiselle, und sein Sie ruhig! Was gehen Sie an, wie ik spiel ?—Gnug, morgen entweder sehn mik wieder Ihro Gnad mit hundert Pistol, oder seh mik wieder gar nit.—Votre tres-humble, Made¬moiselle, votre très-humble—(Eilends ab.)

DAS FRÄULEIN. (die ihm mit Erstaunen und Verdruss nachsieht) Ich wünsche das letzte, mein Herr, das letzte!

---

MINNA VON BARNHELM¹
by Lessing
Act IV Scene 2.
(MINNA VON BARNHELM, FRANZISKA, RICCAUT DE LA MARLINÉRE)

RICCAUT. (within) May I come in, Major?

FRANZISKA. What is it? Does somebody want us? (Going towards the door.)

RICCAUT. Good heavens, I've made a mistake! But no, I haven't—this is certainly his room.

FRANZISKA. This gentleman, Mademoiselle, is evidently expecting to find Major von Teilheim.

RICCAUT. Exactly so! Major von Tellheim; yes, my dear, he is the man I am looking for. Where is he?

FRANZISKA. He is not living here any longer.

RICCAUT. What? Twenty-four hours ago he was living here, and you say that now he is not? Where is he then?

MINNA. (coming forward) Sir—

RICCAUT. Ah, Madame—Mademoiselle—pardon me!—

MINNA. My dear sir, your mistake is entirely excusable and your surprise very natural. The Major has been so kind as to give up his room to me—a perfect stranger, who was at a loss where to find a lodging.

RICCAUT. Ah, that is just like him—always so polite! Such a gentleman, our Major!

MINNA. But where he has removed to—really, I'm ashamed to say, I do not know.

RICCAUT. Mademoiselle does not know? That's a pity; I am distressed to hear it.

MINNA. I ought of course to have inquired. His friends will certainly be expecting to find him here.

RICCAUT. I am one of his best friends, Mademoiselle.

MINNA. Franziska, don't you know his present address?

FRANZISKA. No, I do not, Mademoiselle.

RICCAUT. I have something very important to communicate to him. I am the bearer of news that he will be delighted to receive.

MINNA. I am the more sorry. I do, however, hope to have opportunity myself to speak with him-perhaps quite soon. If it does not matter from whose lips the Major learns the good news, may I offer myself, Sir?

RICCAUT. I understand. Mademoiselle speaks French? But of course; I can see that without asking. It was most rude of me to put the question. Pardon me, Mademoiselle!

MINNA. My dear sir?

RICCAUT. Really not? Mademoiselle does not speak French?

MINNA. In France, Sir, I would try my best to speak it. But why should I here? I can see that you understand me. And I shall most certainly also understand you-so speak French or German, whichever you please.

RICCAUT. Good! And I also am quite able to make myself understood in German. This then is my news, Mademoiselle. I have just been lunching with the Minister-the Minister of -what is he called, the Minister who lives over there in that long street? by the big square?

MINNA. I am still quite a stranger here.

RICCAUT. I know, the Minister of War. -I had luncheon with him-I generally do eat at his table. The conversation turned on Major Tellheim; and the Minister told me in confidence-for His Excellency is a friend of mine and we have no secrets from one another-His Excellency confided to me that the affair with our Major is on the point of being wound up, and to a happy conclusion. His Excellency has given in his report to the King, and the King has made his decision on it entirely in the Major's favour.- ‘Monsieur,’ he said to me, ‘you understand, I am sure, how everything depends upon the way in which matters are represented to the King-and you know me. He's a thoroughly nice fellow, this Tellheim, and I know very well that you have an affection for him. The friends of my friends are my friends too. He's rather a heavy expense to the King, you must know, but does one serve kings for nothing? We must help one another in this world; and if there must be losses, then the King has to be the person who bears them and not some one of us honest fellows. This is my principle, and I never depart from it.’—What does Mademoiselle say to that? A good man, isn't he? Oh, His Excellency has his heart in the right place. He has moreover assured me that if the Major has not already received a letter in the King's own handwriting, he will without fail do so today.

MINNA. This news, my dear sir, will assuredly be most welcome to Major von Tellheim. I would only like to be able at the same time to tell him the name of the friend who takes such a warm interest in his good fortune.

RICCAUT. Mademoiselle wishes to know my name 9 You see in me the Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière, Seigneur de Prêt-au-val, de la branche de Prensd'or.-Mademoiselle is astonished to hear that I come from so great and noble a family-a family that positively has royal blood in its veins. Added to that, I am, without a doubt, the most adventurous cadet that our house has ever had. I have been in the service ever since I was ten years old. An affaire d'honneur obliged me to desert. Then I took service under His Holiness the Pope, and successively under the Republic of San Marino, the Polish Crown, and the States-General, until finally I came here. Ah, Mademoiselle, how I wish I had never seen this country! Had it but been granted to me to remain in the service of the States-General, I would by now most certainly have been Colonel at the very least. But to stay here for ever as Captain, and retired Captain at that—

MINNA. Bad luck indeed!

RICCAUT. Yes, Mademoiselle, that is my plight-discharged, and by that means thrown right out of employment!

MINNA. I am so Sorry.

RICCAUT. You are very kind, Mademoiselle. No, there is no recognition of merit here. To put a man like me on half- pay! A man, too, who has ruined himself in the service. I have spent in it more than twenty thousand pounds. And what have I now? To be quite candid with you, I haven't a sou left, I stand before you literally reduced to utmost poverty.

MINNA. I am most concerned to hear it.

RICCAUT. You are very kind, Mademoiselle. And now- you know the old saying, that every stroke of bad luck draws another after it; and it has been so with me. For what resource is left to a man of honour, of my birth and parentage, except gambling? So long as I was not in need of good luck, good luck always attended my play. But now that I need it badly, you would never believe how luck goes against me. Fifteen days have gone by, and on every single one of them I have lost. Yesterday again I lost heavily three times over. I know very well there are other things that count besides play. For among those with whom I play are certain ladies- I will say no more. One must be gallant to ladies. They have also invited me to come again today and play them a return game; but-you will understand me, Mademoiselle, when I say that one must first be sure of something to live on, before one can have money to play with.

MINNA. I hardly dare to hope, my dear sir—

RICCAUT. You are very kind, Mademoiselle—

MINNA. (taking Franziska aside) Franziska, I am really downright sorry for this man. Do you think he would take it amiss if I were to offer him something?

FRANZISKA. He doesn't look to me as if he would.

MINNA. All right, then!-I understand, Sir, that you play for money, and doubtless in places where there is something to gain. I must confess to you that I also am very fond of play?

RICCAUT. That's right, Mademoiselle, I am delighted to hear it! All people of intelligence love play to distraction.

MINNA.—and that I do specially like to win, and am only too happy to venture my money with a man who-well, who really knows how to play. Would you perhaps be inclined, Sir, to take me into partnership? to allow me a share in your bank

RICCAUT. What is that, Mademoiselle? You would like to go halves with me? With all my heart.

MINNA. I would like to begin with quite a small amount—(She goes to fetch money from her purse.)

RICCAUT. Oh, Mademoiselle, this is most charming of you-

MINNA. Here is some money that I won not long ago- a mere ten pistoles! I really feel a little ashamed to offer so small a sum?

RICCAUT. Hand it over, Mademoiselle, hand it over! (He takes the money.)

MINNA. I presume that your bank, Sir, is one of good standing—

RICCAUT. Oh, most certainly, highly respectable. Ten pistoles? Mademoiselle shall have for that a share in my bank amounting to a third. For a whole third the sum should of course be—a little bigger. But with lovely ladies one must not be too precise. I congratulate myself on having made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle, and from this moment I begin to have sure hopes that my luck will turn.

MINNA. But I cannot be present when you play.

RICCAUT. What need for that? We other players are people of strict honour amongst ourselves.

MINNA. If we have good luck, Sir, you will bring me my share. But if we are unlucky—

RICCAUT. Why, then, Mademoiselle, I will come to you for reinforcements.

MINNA. Reinforcements might well fail in the long run; so please protect our money carefully, Sir.

RICCAUT. What does Mademoiselle take me for? A simpleton? A stupid idiot?

MINNA. Pardon me—

RICCAUT. Je suis des Bons, Mademoiselle. Do you know what that means? I am an old hand at play.

MINNA. But yet I suppose, Sir?

RICCAUT. I know how to set a trap—

MINNA. (in astonishment) But you surely can't possibly do that?—

RICCAUT. I cunningly slip the card—

MINNA. Never!

RICCAUT. I cut cleverly so as to turn up the card I want—

MINNA. But you won't, will you, Sir?

RICCAUT. And why ever not, Mademoiselle? Give me an innocent young pigeon to pluck, and—

MINNA. Play false? Cheat?

RICCAUT. What is that you say, Mademoiselle? You call that ‘cheating’? To compensate oneself for bad luck, and make sure of success-do Germans call that ‘cheating’? Cheating indeed! What a poverty-stricken language, what a vulgar language, German is!

MINNA. No, Sir; if you really take that view?

RICCAUT. Leave it all to me, Mademoiselle, and don't disturb yourself. What does it matter to you how I play? Enough! tomorrow Mademoiselle will either see me again with a hundred pistoles, or will not see me again at all- Your most humble servant—(He hurries away.)

MINNA. (looking after him with surprise and vexation) I sincerely hope, Sir, the latter!

(Dr. Steiner): And now let us ask ourselves: why do we need speech formation as a special art on its own, within the realm of drama?

Suppose you are taking part in a scene where you are engaged in conversation with another actor, and you stand there listening to him in just the same way as you would in real life. No one could call that art. In ordinary conversation we hear the other person's words, but pay hardly any attention at all to the sound of the words or the intonation; we do not stop to appreciate the forming of the speech. In fact, we hear as little of the forming of word or of speech as we see of a transparent pane of glass. We look through the glass to what is behind; and in ordinary life we look through -or rather, hear through-the word. The word has become for us trans-audible; we scarcely notice the word itself and the way it is formed. And this is what we must learn to do again. A serious effort must now be made to restore to the art of the stage the hearing of the word. We must not be content merely with looking through the word as one looks at trees through a pane of glass, looking through the word in order to see what the other person means, trying to catch his thought or his feeling, or some news he is telling us. We must learn to hear the word itself, and experience a real content in this hearing of the word. Thought is, in a way, the death of art; the moment something real that is seeking artistic revelation passes into the realm of thought, art has left it. What art would show forth to us, we must hear, we must see.

But now, the art of the stage is concerned with human beings—with human beings who think and feel. A dramatic performance has to portray human beings; that is its concern. When, however, we form our words so that this formed word manifests itself as having an artistic value of its own, something of the human being is lost in the process. This has to be made up for; and the only way to do it is by mime and gesture.

Here, you see, we have reached the moment of transition from the arts of recitation and declamation to the art of acting as such, and this is where we come up against the necessity for a specific and thorough training for the stage.

Once again we can do no more at the moment than put forward a kind of ideal for such a schooling, in so far as mime, gesture and so on are concerned; for, conditions being as they are today, it can be only in the rather distant future that students of dramatic art will be able to receive a training that approaches it. The very cherishing of an ideal, however, the very setting out together in this way to consider what has eventually to be achieved, will help you to go forth in quest of that ideal, and to travel as far on the road as the limitations of the present time allow.

Let us then put the question: What should a school of dramatic art be like? What form should it take? And here, right at the beginning, let me say a word that will, I hope, remove some misunderstandings. In a school of dramatic art, just because it has to do with living men and women who have their own individual forms of expression, it has necessarily to be a question of educating by means of examples, giving the students indications and directions, but always in such a way that these are understood to be examples,-single instances out of many. For in everything to do with the stage the freedom of the artist has to be most strictly respected. It will therefore not be a matter of providing students with instructions that have to be followed with a pedantic adherence to the letter; advice will be given of a good way in which this or that can be done, and then the students will be left free to form and develop their work in the spirit of the given indications. And this is how I mean you to take the description I shall now give of what should be a first step in preparation for speaking on the stage.

At the beginning of this course of lectures I drew your attention to the gymnastics of the Greeks, showing you how these were developed instinctively from the organism of man. For the five main activities of Running, Leaping, Wrestling, Discus-throwing, Spear-throwing, do actually present in a kind of ascending scale activities that the nature of man may be said to require.

In order to meet the needs of modern times there will obviously have to be some modification of the old forms. Nevertheless, we shall get a pretty good idea of how our gymnastic movements should be today if we study these five main activities, thinking of them as ensouled by the spirit. For so we may truly describe the gymnastics of ancient Greece; they were ensouled by the spirit—they had something of genius about them, and those who practised them came under an influence that was genuinely artistic, genuinely spiritual. We have not time now to consider the modifications that might have to be introduced; I think, however, you will grasp the essential point if, in making the following suggestions for training, I simply use the terms that belong to the gymnastics of ancient Greece.

This then is how a training for the stage should begin—with a course of training in gymnastics, given in the spirit of the gymnastics of ancient Greece. The five main exercises, somewhat recast for the present age, should be well and thoroughly practised: Running, Leaping, Wrestling, Throwing the Discus (or some similar object), Throwing the Spear (or some similar object). Why do I recommend this course

And so, while pursuing his conscious study of the art, the actor should at the same time be experiencing it instinctively; he has to be able to combine the two; while learning it, he must also live it,-otherwise his words and gestures will constantly give the impression of being artificial.

And now, let us say, you learn Running. Then you will be learning how to walk on the stage—that is to say, your walking will give the right articulation to the word.

Running: Walking, so as to give the right articulation to the word.

The spectator has, you see, to understand from gesture and mime what he is not able to receive through his hearing. What the actor speaks, we are to hear. What the actor does—his mime and gesture-that, out of a certain instinct, we are to understand. There, understanding is in place, since there art can enter in; for in ordinary life we do not use mime and gesture,--not, at all events, with conscious intent.

By the exercise of Leaping, we learn how to modify our walking on the stage; one part of the text will require slow walking, while with another we shall want to walk more rapidly. We learn, in fact, to adapt our walking instinctively to the various ways of speaking which I described in an earlier lecture, showing you how the word can be incisive, full-toned, or long drawn out, can be abrupt or hard or gentle. Each of these qualities in speaking has to be accompanied by a corresponding modification of walking. On the stage, neither speaker nor listener may walk in an arbitrary manner. The pace has to be learned from the word; according as the word is incisive or full, deliberate, hard or gentle, so must we learn to bring our walking into the right measure, moving now more quickly, now more slowly, reaching even at times that utmost slowness that consists in standing still. And this we acquire instinctively when we practise Leaping.

Leaping: The adaptation of walking to the character of the spoken word.

We touch here a secret of human nature,-in so far as human nature may be allowed to have a say in the art of the drama. That the adaptation of walking to the character of the word is instinctively acquired through the exercise of Leaping is not a thing one can prove by argument, but only by experience. Put it into practice, and you will find that it is so. There are, I can assure you, many things in life that can only be learned by trying them out, and all the theories people build up concerning them are worth nothing at all.

In the exercise of Wrestling one learns how to move one's hands and arms when speaking,-again instinctively. This is best learnt from Wrestling.

Wrestling: Hand and arm movements.

In the Throwing of the Discus, where man has to let his gaze follow the direction of the throw, follow the whole path taken by the discus after it is thrown, his look changing, adapting itself to correspond, adapting itself even to the movement of the hand—in Discus-throwing, paradoxical as it may sound, we learn play of countenance. A play of countenance that comes and goes without effort, implying full control of the facial muscles—this is what can be learned from Throwing the Discus. It can as well be the throwing of a ball, or other similar object; I use, however, the Greek term for the exercise.

Discus-throwing : Play of countenance.

Lastly we come to what may well seem strangest of all. And this again can naturally never be proved by argument, it has to be experienced.

By practising Throwing the Spear, one learns to speak. Sticks can quite well be used instead of spears, but it must be exercise in this kind of throwing. For, as we practise Spear-throwing, our speech acquires the immediate effectiveness that enables it to work as speech, and not as an expression of thought. So, you see, the actor actually requires for his training that he should exercise himself in throwing things like sticks and spears! The alertness and care that are needed for it will draw the speaking away from the intellect, and take it right into the speech organs, allowing it to mould and form them. Spear-throwing is nothing less than the foundation for speech.

Spear-throwing: Speech.

I mean that of course in the broadest sense. Then will follow the specific speech exercises which we went through earlier on. But if we are envisaging a properly ordered school for dramatic art, we should ensure that our students discover from their own experience that the throwing of long spear-like objects evokes in them an instinctive understanding for what has been given in these lectures in reference to the forming of speech. If all of you sitting here had for a long time been practising Spear-throwing, you would be in no doubt at all about the truth of my words. Things of this kind do not admit of theoretical proof; they prove themselves in the doing. The results of such a training will soon show in those who undertake it. Spear-throwing provides the exactly right occult training for one who would attain proficiency in stage speaking.

So now you can form for yourselves a picture of what the beginners' class in a school for dramatic art should be like. And when, working out of the spirit of the whole, we come to consider the individual student, the human personality who stands before us as the subject of the art, and begin to study with him all the further details, we shall not communicate these in a dogmatic way as if they were rules, but rather as suggestions. All instruction for the stage must in fact be, as we said before, by way of suggestion and advice. In regard to what he has learned, the would-be actor has to be left absolutely free; he may carry it out precisely as it has been given him, or on the other hand he may, working out of the same spirit, do it differently.

One of the very first things a student has to learn is that not for a single moment should there be on the stage an unoccupied actor. No one must ever stand on the stage, doing nothing. It is distinctly a fault if a moment occurs in a play when one actor is talking, and a few others, whose presence the scene requires, are simply standing about, doing nothing at all. The one who is doing the talking—he is talking; the others who are listening must every one of them be participating all the time in what he is saying. Suppose there are four actors on the stage and one is speaking; then the other three should also be acting, they have to play with the speaker, playing in mime and in gesture. This is where the art of production comes in. The producer is responsible for the picture that the stage presents throughout the play, and he must make sure that there is never on the stage an actor who is unoccupied.

If an actor were to stand on the stage and listen just as in real life, instead of acting the listening, that would be an artistic fault. Listening on the stage with full inner experience must not be a real listening, it must not be naturalistic, it must be an acted listening. Along with everything else, it has to be drawn into the stream of the acting. And so the listening actor has to try to find at every turn a gesture that can rightly accompany the formed speech of the speaker. Naturalism on the stage has the same effect as marionettes.

If we have the impression (as we very often have had in recent times) that the people up there on the stage are successfully evoking the illusion of naturalistic reality, then, judged from an artistic standpoint, they are no more than marionettes—the very antithesis of dramatic art. What is needed is that we should develop an inner perception for certain relationships of mime and gesture to the content of the spoken word.

Suppose an actor has something intimate to communicate. The spectator must feel this; he must be able to know at once that information of an intimate nature is being given. He will not feel it if the actor walks backwards as he speaks; he will, however, if the actor places himself on the stage so that he can go forwards while he is speaking. Whenever you want to suggest intimacy, always move forwards, going from the back of the stage in the direction of the footlights.

Technical details of this nature are often neglected on quite absurd grounds. I once knew a talented actor whose work on the stage reached a high standard in many respects, but who would not learn his part. He simply did not want to take the trouble! The consequence was, he was a continual source of annoyance to the poor producer, for he would say to the other actors: ‘As for you, boys, you can move about the stage or stand just where you like; I am going to plant myself here’; and ‘here’ was close by the prompter's box. And there he remained all through the play. In other respects he was an excellent actor. It is, you see, a matter of actually living all the time in the artistic; we must never forget to be artists.

Suppose I have before me a little group of people to whom I am telling something, not now of an intimate nature, but merely by way of information. The spectator must be made to feel that the information is of interest to the others who are listening. How the latter should comport themselves, with that we will deal later; for the moment we are concerned with the speaker. If I want the spectator to have the impression that the group of persons to whom I am giving the information are taking it all in, I shall have to move slowly backwards within the group. The spectator, seeing this in perspective from his seat in the auditorium, will then feel that the listeners are following me with full understanding. Were I instead to walk straight through my group of listeners in the direction of the audience, the latter would receive the impression that my speaking goes past the listeners completely, that they simply do not understand it. Details of this kind belong to the inner technique of the stage. They are the elements from which we have to form the continually changing picture of the stage.

If one drops into one of our modern theatres to see a play, as often as not it doesn't seem to get anywhere. For this is the sort of thing that is constantly happening. First, one actor will light a cigarette and puff away, then another will do the same—and so it goes on. This lighting of cigarettes is cultivated as an art; actors acquire a special dexterity in it.

I have even observed that people rather like a scene that opens somewhat as follows. An actor comes on the stage and for quite a long time says nothing at all, lets the ` word ' retire altogether into the background. He sits down, and slowly pulls off one of his boots. He wants to show us in realistic manner that he has come home rather late. Then he puts on a slipper. All this time he has not spoken a single word. He pulls off the other boot and puts on the other slipper, still without speaking a single word. Then he proceeds to take off his coat, walks meanwhile a few steps across the room, as anyone might naturally do, and puts on his dressing gown. Next, he goes over to the corner of the room and lights the fire; he doesn't want to be cold. And never yet one word! And so he continues with his preparations for bed. Many different things may take place, of course, between taking off one's boots and turning in; but in order to carry out whatever little play of mime or gesture is involved in all this, what, after all, does the actor require? Certainly no serious study! He will have to be confident that he knows how people behave when they are at home; and then in addition he will need a little audacity to display himself doing such commonplace things. That is positively all he will need.

A method of this kind can obviously never lead to the development of art on the stage. Under certain conditions it can have disastrous consequences. If the actors happen never in their lives to have seen what they are supposed to portray, then the result on the stage can be frightful. I recently witnessed a performance where one of the scenes was played at court, and it was only too evident that none of the cast had ever seen a court.

We must look such things in the face; to do so will help to give us a true feeling for how things should be done if they are to be done artistically. And you will find that the dramatist and the actor, when both are truly artistic, will agree on this matter.

Look at Goethe's best plays. You will not find in them many stage directions; actually, as few as ever possible! Turn up Tasso or Iphigenie. The actor is left free. And that is right; he needs his freedom. There was a time in Goethe's life when he was in contact with some very good actors, and he learned a great deal from them—helped of course by his own powerful artistic urge. Once when Goethe was beginning, quite in the modern style, to give the actress Coronna Schröter some detailed instructions for her part, she is said to have replied: ‘What you say, sir, is all very well; but it won't do, you know! I shall play the part in the way that suits me!’

And now look, on the other hand, at the stage instructions that you find in modern playwrights, sometimes whole pages of them. It is a perfect misery to have to wade through them. In fact, no sensible person will trouble to do so. He wants it left to him to supply these details out of his own imagination, as he reads the play.

Yes, we have many such plays today, with their prolonged stage instructions and here and there a page of text in between. You have but to compare them with Tasso or with Iphigenie to see at once that the art of play-writing has suffered a decline, no less than the art of the stage.

Everything the actor has to do must be done instinctively. If he is doing it in obedience to a strict injunction, it will look artificial, it will look studied. You must, however, realise how very much can find its way into the actor's instinct, can become instinctive in him.

Think that you have before you the stage and the auditorium. The spectator is sitting there, and he has two eyes. If he had not these two eyes, then all the mime and gesturing of the actor would go for nothing. But now these two eyes are not just dead things about which we need not concern ourselves, they are alive. And a great deal of what happens on the stage, if it is to be rightly received, must take account of these two eyes.

For the remarkable thing is that our eyes are not alike in the way they receive what comes into their field of vision. ; We are not of course generally aware of this in ordinary life, nor is the science that belongs to our age; nevertheless, it is so, our two eyes are not alike The right eye is more competent for understanding what is seen, whereas the left is adapted rather to taking an interest in the object at which we are looking.

So this is the way we must think of the spectator as he sits facing the stage:

Interest ^o↑^o Understanding

Say you are taking part in a play and have come to a passage where it is particularly important-and your own artistic feeling should tell you so-to succeed in arousing the spectator's interest. You will then need to walk, as actor, from left to right. This will mean that the eye of the spectator, as it follows you going (for him) in this direction ↙, will receive the impression of something that is interesting to him. If the passage in question is rather long, the actor will find it a good plan to go also backwards; the interest can quite well weaken a little without hurt. (See drawing.)

This is simply a technique of the stage to meet the requirements of the eyes.

But now suppose I have a passage where there is not the same call to stimulate the interest and feelings of the spectator, but where I want to appeal directly to his understanding, where I want perhaps to discuss or argue—as may often happen in a play. In this case, I shall have to move in the opposite direction for him ↘—that is to say, as seen from the stage, I shall have to go from right to left.

These are things that need to be known. An actor should know how disturbing it is for the spectator, if when the words he speaks are intended to awaken interest, he moves in this direction: ↘ (as seen from the audience); it will mean that no interest will be awakened in the spectator. His interest will, however, be awakened when the actor goes, for his view, in this direction: ↙ These things simply are so. And they have to be felt, they have to be experienced, like everything else in art.

If we are once able to look with this kind of insight upon all the details of stage management, then we can work in perfect freedom—working out of the spirit—at the arrangement of our scenes.

Suppose that, at a certain moment in a scene, someone comes in with a message. If I let him approach quite slowly, his arms hanging at his side, and go right up to the person to whom he is to deliver the message before he begins to speak (I am not inventing, I have seen this kind of thing over and over again!) then, so far as the spectator is concerned, there has been no message at all. If, however, the messenger begins to speak from as far away as possible, speaking also rather loud, louder than his fellow actors—then he does bring a message! As he comes nearer, he can draw back his head a little. That will create the impression that he knows very well what he has to say. And if he brings good news, he may add the gesture of holding up the right hand, with fingers outstretched. As a matter of fact, all that I have been saying applies to a message of good news. If it were a case of bad news, the messenger would have to comport himself differently. He would have to come in slowly, as though unwillingly, and then suddenly stop short and with tightly clenched hands deliver his message. The actor will of course be free to modify all this as he feels right, but he must at all events not make this gesture (hands crossed on the breast).

These are some of the things into which one has gradually to work one's way. I give them as examples and intend them to be received as such, not as instructions. As we have seen, all training for the stage should be of this character. What the student has to receive is by no means a set of rules; rather is his training intended to have a stimulating effect upon his own activity. Particular instances are put before him which are then capable of manifold variation.

• 1. No attempt has been made in the translation of this scene to reproduce what constitutes its value for the student. The passages in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth where Katharine of France tries to talk English would afford him similar oppor-tunities. (See Act III, Scene 4, and Act V, Scene 2.)
• 2. Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) was for many years a popular producer in Berlin (where he founded in 1905 a school of dramatic art) and afterwards in Vienna. His influence was all for naturalism, and he gave rauch more attention to scenic effects than to the cultivation of good speaking.

My dear Friends,

today we will take first a reading from Goethe that will illustrate for you many of the things of which we have been speaking in the previous lectures. You will have seen from the readings you listened to a few days ago—taken first from the earlier, and then for comparison from the later Iphigenie—what sort of an ideal for drama was living in Goethe at the beginning of his work as a playwright. He brought this form of drama to a kind of perfection in Götz von Berlichingen, also in some of the scenes in Faust, Part I. Goethe was working here essentially out of a feeling for prose—not yet out of an artistic forming of speech.

The first Iphigenie, which may be described as the German Tasso, proclaims itself at once, in contradistinction to the Roman, as a striking example of well-formed prose, although a prose that has, under the influence of the poetic content, been allowed to run into rhythm.

It was on his visit to Italy that Goethe began to interest himself in the artistic forming of speech. Contemplation of Italian art awakened in him a perception of how man's formative powers work, how they shape and mould a material artistically. With the whole strength of his soul, Goethe set himself to work his way through to what he now saw to be art in its purity. And this led him to feel that wherever possible he must re-mould his earlier work, he must form it anew, letting its form arise now from the language, from the formative qualities of speech.

Goethe accomplished this in an eminent manner with the material he had at hand in his earlier Tasso and Tasso. And in Tasso he succeeded even in letting the speech shape the whole drama throughout. This was an achievement of remarkable originality. There is perhaps no other work of its kind where the conscious endeavour has been made to develop a drama entirely within the formative activity of speech itself.

Now, it will of course be evident from what I was saying yesterday that speech formation alone is not enough; drama must have in addition mime and gesture. The intellect of the spectator—for that too should undergo artistic development as he watches the play—needs to see the gesturing as well as to hear the words. This was not sufficiently clear to Goethe at the time when he was working at his Roman Tasso and Tasso; he had not yet realised the importance of mime and gesture as an integral part of drama. Hence it is that we have in Tasso so striking an example of a drama where it is all a matter of speech, where everything follows from the forming of the speech.

But now put yourself in the position of having to produce Goethe's Tasso. As you begin to develop your picture of the stage, scene by scene, you will find that many different possibilities are open to you for your stage settings. It will certainly not be easy to introduce modifications into the form of the speech, for speech has here been brought to a certain artistic perfection; but your picture of the stage you will find you can plan in the most varied ways. There is, however, a passage in Tasso where, as producer, you will come up against an insuperable difficulty. It is in the scene where Tasso makes himself intolerable to the Princess, acting in such a way as to give a most unfortunate turn to the whole drama. Here the producer is helpless. There is, in fact, no way out. Call on all the artistic means at your disposal, and see whether as producer you can make a success of this passage. You will not be able to do it. That such moments occur in plays must be known and recognised, if the art of the stage is to be cultivated in the right manner. You will of course finally manage to devise some way of meeting the situation, but you will not be able to give artistic form to your pis alle.

This instance from Tasso can serve to show that in his work as dramatist Goethe did not altogether find the way from the forming of speech to the development of full drama that lives and weaves on the stage. That, one must admit, is an important fact; and the importance of it can be clearly seen in the further development of Goethe's work. For what do we find?

In his Tasso and Tasso, Goethe may be said to live in the speech, to live in it as a supreme and perfect artist. In the sphere of speech, these two plays are unsurpassed. Goethe himself knew well of course that drama could not stop here, that it must develop further. While still in Italy, he composed also many scenes for his Faust. These, however, did not take on a Roman character. The ‘Witches' Kitchen’, for example, was composed in Italy, and is thoroughly northern, thoroughly Gothic in the old sense. Goethe knew that for these scenes he must wrest himself free of the Italian influence that surrounded him, must forget all about it and be a complete northerner. This comes out also in the letters he was writing at the time. What had been possible with Tasso and with Tasso was not possible with the material he was dealing with in Faust.

And now we can follow the development a step further. Goethe began to write Die natürliche Tochter. In this play he shows that he wants to come right out on to the stage. He is not going to continue working in speech alone, he means to concern himself with the whole picture presented to the audience. He planned here a trilogy, but it was never completed; we have no more than the first part. As a matter of fact, only fragments, mere torsos, remain to us of all the plays that Goethe began after this time. Even Pandora—a work that was grandly conceived, as can be seen from the rough sketch the author made of the whole—was never completed. Faust alone was finished, but finished in such a way that only in the speech was the poet happy and successful; for the rest, he drew on tradition. The last grand scene is derived from the traditional imaginative conceptions of Roman Catholicism. Goethe did not find in himself the sources for that scene.

Inherent of course in all this lies Goethe's profound honesty; Faust alone he finishes, and that, as can plainly be seen, out of a certain inability! The other plays he leaves unfinished, because he knew he could not complete them without entirely re-forming them. A dishonest artist would have finished them. Naturally, it is easy enough to polish off plenty of plays if one has no inclination or ability to delve down to the very deeps and make contact with the Archai of all creating. Oh yes, one can then complete many things to one's own satisfaction!

A number of different people have set out to complete Schiller's Demetrius, for example, but not one among them all has left us an artistic creation; no single ending proposed can be said to develop the play artistically. And it is art that we must really begin again to care about and expect to find. We must get to know art in its foundations, we must develop again a genuine artistic sensitiveness. For a long time this has been lacking. Traditions have survived, they have been handed down; but sensitiveness to true art—that is what our civilisation needs. The art of the stage has unique opportunity for helping this sensitiveness to develop: it can turn to good account the living relationship that subsists between stage and spectator. Unless we seize on this opportunity, we shall not get any farther.

In order to show you—or I should rather say, remind you, for I assume you are all of you familiar with the play—in order to remind you how far the forming of the speech dominated Goethe's dramatic work in the period of its highest attainment, we will ask you now to listen to the first scene from his Torquato Tasso. Frau Dr. Steiner will recite it for us.

(Frau Dr. Steiner): Let me first recall to you the setting of the scene. It takes place in a garden ornamented with columns carrying the busts of epic poets. In the foreground are Virgil on the right and Ariosto on the left.

(PRINZESSIN, LEONORE)

PRINZESSIN

Du siehst mich lächelnd an, Eleonore,
Und siehst dich selber an und lächelst wieder.
Was hast du? Lass es eine Freundin wissen!
Du scheinst bedenklich, doch du scheinst vergnügt.

LEONORE

Ja, meine Fürstin, mit Vergnügen seh' ich
Uns beide hier so ländlich ausgeschmückt.
Wir scheinen recht beglückte Schäferinnen,
Und sind auch wie die Glücklichen beschäftigt.
Wir winden Kränze. Dieser, bunt von Blumen,
Schwillt immer mehr und mehr in meiner Hand;
Du hast mit höherm Sinn und grösserm Herzen
Den zarten, schlanken Lorbeer dir gewählt.

PRINZESSIN

Die Zweige, die ich in Gedanken flocht,
Sie haben gleich ein würdig Haupt gefunden:
Ich setze sie Virgilen dankbar auf.
(Sie kränzt die Herme Virgils.)

LEONORE

So drück' ich meinen vollen frohen Kranz
Dem Meister Ludwig auf die hohe Stirne—
(Sie kränzt Ariostens Herme.)
Er, dessen Scherze nie verblühen, habe
Gleich von dem neuen Frühling seinen Teil.

PRINZESSIN

Mein Bruder ist gefällig, dass er uns
In diesen Tagen schon aufs Land gebracht:
Wir können unser sein und stundenlang
Uns in die goldne Zeit derDichter träumen.
Ich liebe Belriguardo, denn ich habe
Hier manchen Tag der Jugend froh durchlebt,
Und dieses neue Grün und diese Sonne
Bringt das Gefühl mir jener Zeit zurück.

LEONORE

Ja, es umgibt uns eine neue Welt!
Der Schatten dieser immer grünen Bäume
Wird schon erfreulich. Schon erquickt uns wieder
Das Rauschen dieser Brunnen. Schwankend wiegen
Im Morgenwinde sich die jungen Zweige.
Die Blumen von den Beeten schauen uns
Mit ihren Kinderaugen freundlich an.
Der Gärtner deckt getrost das Winterhaus
Schon der Zitronen und Orangen ab.
Der blaue Himmel ruhet über uns,
Und an dem Horizonte löst der Schnee
Der fernen Berge sich in leisen Duft.

PRINZESSIN

Es wäre mir der Frühling sehr willkommen,
Wenn er nicht meine Freundin mir entführte.

LEONORE

Erinnere mich in diesen holden Stunden,
O Fürstin, nicht, wie bald ich scheiden soll.

PRINZESSIN

Was du verlassen magst, das findest du
In jener grossen Stadt gedoppelt wieder.

LEONORE

Es ruft die Pflicht, es ruft die Liebe mich
Zu dem Gemahl, der mich so lang entbehrt.
Ich bring' ihm seinen Sohn, der dieses Jahr
So schnell gewachsen, schnell sich ausgebildet,
Und teile seine väterliche Freude.
Gross ist Florenz und herrlich, doch der Wert
Von allen seinen aufgehäuften Schätzen
Reicht an Ferraras Edelsteine nicht.
Das Volk hat jene Stadt zur Stadt gemacht,
Ferrara ward durch seine Fürsten gross.

PRINZESSIN

Mehr durch die guten Menschen, die sich hier
Durch Zufall trafen und zum Glück verbanden.

LEONORE

Sehr leicht zerstreut der Zufall, was er sammelt.
Ein edler Mensch zieht edle Menschen an
Und weiss sie festzuhalten, wie ihr tut.
Um deinen Bruder und um dich verbinden
Gemüter sich, die euer würdig sind,
Und ihr seid eurer grossen Väter wert.
Hier zündete sich froh das schöne Licht
Der Wissenschaft, des freien Denkens an,
Als noch die Barbarei mit schwerer Dämmrung
Die Welt umher verbarg. Mir klang als Kind
Der Name Herkules von Este schon,
Schon Hippolyt von Este voll ins Ohr.
Ferrara ward mit Rom und mit Florenz
Von meinem Vater viel gepriesen! Oft
Hab' ich mich hingesehnt; nun bin ich da.
Hier ward Petrarch bewirtet, hier gepflegt,
Und Ariost fand seine Muster hier.
Italien nennt keinen grossen Namen,
Den dieses Haus nicht seinen Gast genannt.
Und es ist vorteilhaft, den Genius
Bewirten: gibst du ihm ein Gastgeschenk,
So lässt er dir ein schöneres zurück.
Die Stätte, die ein guter Mensch betrat,
Ist eingeweiht; nach hundert Jahren klingt
Sein Wort und seine Tat dem Enkel wieder.

PRINZESSIN

Dem Enkel, wenn er lebhaft fühlt wie du.
Gar oft beneid' ich dich um dieses Glück.

LEONORE

Das du, wie wenig andre, still und rein
Geniessest. Drängt mich doch das volle Herz,
Sogleich zu sagen, was ich lebhaft fühle;
Du fühlst es besser, fühlst es tief und—schweigst.
Dich blendet nicht der Schein des Augenblicks.
Der Witz besticht dich nicht, die Schmeichelei
Schmiegt sich vergebens künstlich an dein Ohr:
Fest bleibt dein Sinn und richtig dein Geschmack,
Dein Urteil grad, stets ist dein Anteil gross
Am Grossen, das du wie dich selbst erkennst.

PRINZESSIN

Du solltest dieser höchsten Schmeichelei
Nicht das Gewand vertrauter Freundschaft leihen.

LEONORE

Die Freundschaft ist gerecht, sie kann allein
Den ganzen Umfang deines Werts erkennen.
Und lass mich der Gelegenheit, dem Glück
Auch ihren Teil an deiner Bildung geben;
Du hast sie doch, und bist's am Ende doch,
Und dich mit deiner Schwester ehrt die Welt
Vor allen grossen Frauen eurer Zeit.

PRINZESSIN

Mich kann das, Leonore, wenig rühren,
Wenn ich bedenke, wie man wenig ist,
Und was man ist, das blieb man andern schuldig.
Die Kenntnis alter Sprachen und des Besten,
Was uns die Vorwelt liess, dank' ich der Mutter;
Doch war an Wissenschaft, an rechtem Sinn
Ihr keine beider Töchter jemals gleich,
Und soll sich eine ja mit ihr vergleichen,
So hat Lucretia gewiss das Recht.
Auch, kann ich dir versichern, hab' ich nie
Als Rang und als Besitz betrachtet, was
Mir die Natur, was mir das Glück verlieh.
Ich freue mich, wenn kluge Männer sprechen,
Dass ich verstehen kann, wie sie es meinen.
Es sei ein Urteil über einen Mann
Der alten Zeit und seiner Taten Wert;
Es sei von einer Wissenschaft die Rede,
Die, durch Erfahrung weiter ausgebreitet,
Dem Menschen nutzt, indem sie ihn erhebt;
Wohin sich das Gespräch der Edlen lenkt,
Ich folge gern, denn mir wird leicht, zu folgen.
Ich höre gern dem Streit der Klugen zu,
Wenn um die Kräfte, die des Menschen Brust
So freundlich und so fürchterlich bewegen,
Mit Grazie die Rednerlippe spielt;
Gern, wenn die fürstliche Begier des Ruhms,
Des ausgebreiteten Besitzes, Stoff
Dem Denker wird, und wenn die feine Klugheit,
Von einem klugen Manne zart entwickelt,
Statt uns zu hintergehen, uns belehrt.

LEONORE

Und dann, nach dieser ernsten Unterhaltung,
Ruht unser Ohr und unser innrer Sinn
Gar freundlich auf des Dichters Reimen aus,
Der uns die letzten lieblichsten Gefühle
Mit holden Tönen in die Seele flösst.
Dein hoher Geist umfasst ein weites Reich,
Ich halte mich am liebsten auf der Insel
Der Poesie in Lorbeerhainen auf.

PRINZESSIN

In diesem schönen Lande hat man mir
Versichern wollen, wächst vor andern Bäumen
Die Myrte gern. Und wenn der Musen gleich
Gar viele sind, so sucht man unter ihnen
Sich seltner eine Freundin und Gespielin,
Als man dem Dichter gern begegnen mag,
Der uns zu meiden, ja, zu fliehen scheint,
Etwas zu suchen scheint, das wir nicht kennen
Und er vielleicht am Ende selbst nicht kennt.
Da wär' es denn ganz artig, wenn er uns
Zur guten Stunde träfe, schnell entzückt
Uns für den Schatz erkennte, den er lang'
Vergebens in der weiten Welt gesucht.

LEONORE

Ich muss mir deinen Scherz gefallen lassen,
Er trifft mich zwar, doch trifft er mich nicht tief.
Ich ehre jeden Mann und sein Verdienst,
Und ich bin gegen Tasso nur gerecht.
Sein Auge weilt auf dieser Erde kaum;
Sein Ohr vernimmt den Einklang der Natur;
Was die Geschichte reicht, das Leben gibt,
Sein Busen nimmt es gleich und willig auf:
Das weit Zerstreute sammelt sein Gemüt,
Und sein Gefühl belebt das Unbelebte.
Oft adelt er, was uns gemein erschien,
Und das Geschätzte wird vor ihm zu nichts.
In diesem eignen Zauberkreise wandelt
Der wunderbare Mann und zieht uns an,
Mit ihm zu wandeln, teil an ihm zu nehmen:
Er scheint sich uns zu nahn, und bleibt uns fern;
Er scheint uns anzusehn, und Geister mögen
An unsrer Stelle seltsam ihm erscheinen.

PRINZESSIN

Du hast den Dichter fein und zart geschildert,

Der in den Reichen süsser Träume schwebt.
Allein mir scheint auch ihn das Wirkliche
Gewaltsam anzuziehn und festzuhalten.
Die schönen Lieder, die an unsern Bäumen
Wir hin und wieder angeheftet finden,
Die, goldnen Aepfeln gleich, ein neu Hesperien
Uns duftend bilden, erkennst du sie nicht alle
Für holde Früchte einer wahren Liebe?

LEONORE

Ich freue mich der schönen Blätter auch.
Mit mannigfalt'gem Geist verherrlicht er
Ein einzig Bild in allen seinen Reimen.
Bald hebt er es in lichter Glorie
Zum Sternenhimmel auf, beugt sich verehrend
Wie Engel über Wolken vor dem Bilde;
Dann schleicht er ihm durch stille Fluren nach,
Und jede Blume windet er zum Kranz.
Entfernt sich die Verehrte, heiligt er
Den Pfad, den leis ihr schöner Fuss betrat.
Versteckt im Busche, gleich der Nachtigall,
Füllt er aus einem liebekranken Busen
Mit seiner Klagen Wohllaut Hain und Luft;
Sein reizend Leid, die sel'ge Schwermut lockt
Ein jedes Ohr, und jedes Herz muss nach—

PRINZESSIN

Und wenn er seinen Gegenstand benennt,
So gibt er ihm den Namen Leonore.

LEONORE

Es ist dein Name, wie es meiner ist.
Ich nähm' es übel, wenn's ein andrer wäre.
Mich freut es, dass er sein Gefühl für dich
In diesem Doppelsinn verbergen kann.
Ich bin zufrieden, dass er meiner auch
Bei dieses Namens holdem Klang gedenkt.
Hier ist die Frage nicht von einer Liebe,
Die sich des Gegenstands bemeistern will,
Ausschliessend ihn besitzen, eifersüchtig
Den Anblick jedem andern wehren möchte.
Wenn er in seliger Betrachtung sich
Mit deinem Wert beschäftigt, mag er-auch
An meinem leichtem Wesen sich erfreun.
Uns liebt er nicht—verzeih, dass ich es sage!—
Aus allen Sphären trägt er, was er liebt,
Auf einen Namen nieder, den wir führen,
Und sein Gefühl teilt er uns mit; wir scheinen
Den Mann zu lieben, und wir lieben nur
Mit ihm das Höchste, was wir lieben können.

PRINZESSIN

Du hast dich sehr in diese Wissenschaft
Vertieft, Eleonore, sagst mir Dinge,
Die mir beinahe nur das Ohr berühren
Und in die Seele kaum noch übergehn.

LEONORE

Du, Schülerin des Plato! nicht begreifen,
Was dir ein Neuling vorzuschwatzen wagt?
Es müsste sein, dass ich zu sehr mich irrte;
Doch irr' ich auch nicht ganz, ich weiss es wohl.
Die Liebe zeigt in dieser holden Schule
Sich nicht, wie sonst, als ein verwöhntes Kind:
Es ist der Jüngling, der mit Psychen sich
Vermählte, der im Rat der Götter Sitz
Und Stimme hat. Er tobt nicht frevelhaft
Von einer Brust zur andern hin und her;
Er heftet sich an Schönheit und Gestalt
Nicht gleich mit süssem Irrtum fest, und büsset
Nicht schnellen Rausch mit Ekel und Verdruss.

PRINZESSIN

Da kommt mein Bruder! Lass uns nicht verraten,
Wohin sich wieder das Gespräch gelenkt:
Wir würden seinen Scherz zu tragen haben,
Wie unsre Kleidung seinen Spott erfuhr.

---

TORQUATO TASSO
by Goethe
Act I. Scene 1.

(PRINCESS and LEONORA, habited as shepherdesses.)

PRINCESS

Smiling thou dost survey me, Leonora,
And with a smile thou dost survey thyself.
What is it? Let a friend partake thy thought!
Thou seemest pensive, yet thou seemest pleased.

LEONORA

Yes, I am pleased, my princess, to behold
Us twain in rural fashion thus attir'd.
Two happy shepherd-maidens we appear,
And like the happy we are both employed.
Garlands we wreathe, this one, so gay with flowers,
Beneath my hand in varied beauty grows;<
Thou hast with higher taste and larger heart
The slender pliant laurel made thy choice.

PRINCESS

The laurel wreath, which aimlessly I twin'd,
Hath found at once a not unworthy head;
I place it gratefully on Virgil's brow.
(She crowns the bust of Virgil.)

LEONORA

With my full joyous wreath the lofty brow
Of Master Ludovico, thus I crown—
(She crowns the bust of Ariosto.)
Let him whose sportive sallies never fade,
Receive his tribute from the early spring.

PRINCESS

My brother is most kind, to bring us here
In this sweet season to our rural haunts;
Here, by the hour, in freedom unrestrain'd,
We may dream back the poet's golden age.
I love this Belriguardo; in my youth
Full many a joyous day I linger'd here,
And this bright sunshine, and this verdant green,
Bring back the feelings of that bygone time.

LEONORA

Yes, a new world surrounds us! Grateful now
The cooling shelter of these evergreens.
The tuneful murmur of this gurgling spring
Once more revives us. In the morning wind
The tender branches waver to and fro.
The flowers look upwards from their lowly beds,
And smile upon us with their childlike eyes.
The gardener, fearless grown, removes the roof
That screened his citron and his orange-trees;
The azure dome of heaven above us rests;
And, in the far horizon, from the hills
The snow in balmy vapour melts away.

PRINCESS

Most welcome were to me the genial spring,
Did it not lead my friend away from me.

LEONORA

My princess, in these sweet and tranquil hours,
Remind me not how soon I must depart.

PRINCESS

Yon mighty city will restore to thee,
In double measure, what thou leavest here.

LEONORA

The voice of duty, and the voice of love,
Both call me to my lord, forsaken long,
I bring to him his son, who rapidly
Hath grown in stature, and matured in mind,
Since last they met—I share his father's joy.
Florence is great and noble, but the worth
Of all her treasur'd riches doth not reach
The prouder jewels that Ferrara boasts.
That city to her people owes her power;
Ferrara grew to greatness through her princes.

PRINCESS

More through the noble men whom chance led here,
And who in sweet communion here remain'd.

LEONORA

Chance doth again disperse what chance collects.
A noble nature can alone attract
The noble, and retain them as ye do.
Around thy brother, and around thyself,
Assemble spirits worthy of you both,
And ye are worthy of your noble sires.
Here the fair light of science and free thought
Was kindled first, while o'er the darkened world
Still hung barbarian gloom. E'en when a child,
The names resounded loudly in mine ear,
Of Hercules and Hippolyte of Este.
My father oft with Florence and with Rome
Extoll'd Ferrara! Oft in youthful dream
Hither I fondly turn'd, now am I here.
Here was Petrarca kindly entertain'd,
And Ariosto found his models here.
Italia boasts no great, no mighty name,
This princely mansion hath not call'd its guest.
In fostering genius we enrich ourselves;
Dost thou present her with a friendly gift,
One far more beautiful she leaves with thee.
The ground is hallow'd where the good man treads;
When centuries have roll'd his sons shall hear
The deathless echo of his words and deeds.

PRINCESS

Yes, if those sons have feelings quick as thine;
This happiness full oft I envy thee.

LEONORA

Which purely and serenely thou, my friend,
As few beside thee, dost thyself enjoy.
When my full heart impels me to express
Promptly and freely what I keenly feel,
Thou feel'st the while more deeply, and—art silent.
Delusive splendour doth not dazzle thee,
Nor wit beguile; and flattery strives in vain
With fawning artifice to win thine ear;
Firm is thy temper, and correct thy taste,
Thy judgment just, and, truly great thyself,
With greatness thou dost ever sympathise.

PRINCESS

Thou shouldst not to this highest flattery
The garment of confiding friendship lend.

LEONORA

Friendship is just; she only estimates
The full extent and measure of thy worth.
Let me ascribe to opportunity,
To fortune too, her portion in thy culture,
Still in the end thou hast it, it is thine,
And all extol thy sister and thyself
Before the noblest women of the age.

PRINCESS

That can but little move me, Leonora,
When I reflect how poor at best we are,
To others more indebted than ourselves.
My knowledge of the ancient languages,
And of the treasures by the past bequeath'd,
I owe my mother, who, in varied lore
And mental power, her daughters far excell'd.
Might either claim comparison with her,
'Tis undeniably Lucretia's right.
Besides, what nature and what chance bestow'd
As property or rank I ne'er esteem'd.
'Tis pleasure to me when the wise converse,
That I their scope and meaning comprehend;
Whether they judge a man of bygone times
And weigh his actions, or of science treat,
Which, when extended and applied to life,
At once exalts and benefits mankind.
Where'er the converse of such men may lead,
I follow gladly, for with ease I follow.
Well pleas'd the strife of argument I hear,
When, round the powers that sway the human breast,
Waking alternately delight and fear,
With grace the lip of eloquence doth play:
And listen gladly when the princely thirst
Of fame, of wide dominion, forms the theme,
When of an able man, the thought profound,
Develop'd skilfully with subtle tact,
Doth not perplex and dazzle, but instruct.

LEONORA

And then, this grave and serious converse o'er,
Our ear and inner mind with tranquil joy
Upon the poet's tuneful verse repose,
Who through the medium of harmonious sounds
Infuses sweet emotions in the soul.
Thy lofty spirit grasps a wide domain;
Content am I to linger in the isle
Of poesy, her laurel groves among.

PRINCESS

In this fair land, I'm told, the myrtle blooms
In richer beauty than all other trees;
Here, too, the Muses wander, yet we seek
A friend and playmate’mong their tuneful choir
Less often than we seek to meet the bard,
Who seems to shun us, nay, appears to flee,
In quest of something that we know not of,
And which perchance is to himself unknown.
How charming were it, if in happy hour
Encountering us, he should with ecstasy
In our fair selves the treasure recognise,
Which in the world he long had sought in vain!

LEONORA

To your light raillery I must submit,
So light its touch it passeth harmless by.
I honour all men after their desert,
And am in truth toward Tasso only just.
His eye scarce lingers on this earthly scene,
To Nature's harmony his ear is tuned.
What history offers, and what life presents,
His bosom promptly and with joy receives,
The widely scatter'd is by him combined,
And his quick feeling animates the dead.
Oft he ennobles what we count for naught;
What others treasure is by him despis'd.
Thus moving in his own enchanted sphere,
The wondrous man doth still allure us on
To wander with him and partake his joy;
Though seeming to approach us, he remains
Remote as ever, and perchance his eye,
Resting on us, sees spirits in our place.

PRINCESS

Thou hast with taste and truth portray'd the bard
Who hovers in the shadowy realm of dreams.
And yet reality, it seems to me,
Hath also power to lure him and enchain.
In the sweet sonnets, scattered here and there,
With which we sometimes find our trees adorn'd,
Creating like the golden fruit of old
A new Hesperia, perceiv'st thou
not The gentle tokens of a genuine love?

LEONORA

In these fair leaves I also take delight.
With all his rich diversity of thought
He glorifies one form in all his strains.
Now he exalts her to the starry heavens
In radiant glory, and before that form
Bows down, like angels in the realms above.
Then stealing after her through silent fields,
He garlands in his wreath each beauteous flower;
And should the form he worships disappear,
Hallows the path her gentle foot hath trod.
Thus like the nightingale, conceal'd in shade,
From his love-laden breast he fills the air
And neighbouring thickets with melodious plaints.
His blissful sadness and his tuneful grief
Charm every ear, enrapture every heart—

PRINCESS

And Leonora is the favour'd name
Selected for the object of his strains.

LEONORA

Thy name it is, my princess, as’tis mine.
It would displease me were it otherwise.
Now I rejoice that under this disguise
He can conceal his sentiment for thee,
And am no less contented with the thought
That this sweet name should also picture me.
Here is no question of an ardent love,
Seeking possession, and with jealous care
Screening its object from another's gaze.
While he enraptur'd contemplates thy worth
He in my lighter nature may rejoice.
He loves not us—forgive me what I say—
His lov'd ideal from the spheres he brings,
And doth invest it with the name we bear;
His feeling we participate; we seem
To love the man, yet only love in him
The highest object that can claim our love.

PRINCESS

In this deep science thou art deeply vers'd,
My Leonora, and thy words in truth
Play on my ear, yet scarcely reach my soul.

LEONORA

Thou Plato's pupil! and not comprehend
What a mere novice dares to prattle to thee?
It must be then that I have widely err'd;
Yet well I know I do not wholly err.
For love doth in this graceful school appear
No longer as the spoilt and wayward child;
He is the youth whom Psyche hath espous'd;
Who sits in council with the assembled gods.
He hath relinquish'd passion's fickle sway,
He clings no longer with delusion sweet
To outward form and beauty, to atone
For brief excitement by disgust and hate.

PRINCESS

Here comes my brother! let us not betray
Whither our converse hath conducted us;
Else we shall have his raillery to bear,
As in our dress he found a theme for jest.
(From the translation by Anna Swanwick.)

(Dr. Steiner): One fact has been entirely forgotten in the drama of recent years. When I tell you what it is, you will not very easily believe me; but I have been present at scarcely a single performance in recent years where the fact that we hear with our ears has not been forgotten. It seems such a simple obvious fact; and yet, from the point of view of art, it has been quite overlooked. The drama of our time has been working on the peculiar assumption that we hear- with our eyes ! It is accordingly considered necessary that whenever an actor is listening to another actor, he shall look straight towards him. In real life, it is certainly customary to turn to the person who is speaking, and it is perhaps justified there as a mark of politeness. Politeness is undoubtedly a praiseworthy virtue, it may even in certain circumstances be reckoned as one of the virtues that go to make up the moral code; and I am far from wanting to imply that there is no need for an actor to be polite; on the contrary! The actor on the stage, however, owes politeness first of all to the audience. (I do not mean some individual there; I shall have important things to say about the audience in the later lectures.) The only politeness that is due from the actor is in his relation to the audience, but in that he must not fail. It must never once be allowed to happen, for instance, that the audience see before them an actor speaking from the back of the stage, and four or five or more others standing in the foreground, turning their backs on the auditorium. That the stage should ever present such a picture is due to the intrusion there in recent years of the dilettantism that wants merely to imitate life. Blunders of this kind will disappear altogether as soon as we begin to take account again of style.

And where a true feeling for style is present, what difference will it make? We shall find we are perfectly able to arrange our positions on the stage so that only on the rarest occasion does an actor need to turn his back to the audience—only, that is, where a particular situation in the play absolutely requires it. As a matter of fact, nothing should ever happen on the stage for which there is not a compelling motive inherent in the play itself.

Take the case of smoking. In what I said yesterday I did not at all mean to convey the impression that I am against the smoking of cigarettes on the stage. But can there be any genuine motive behind it, when a number of persons, obviously merely to fill up dead moments with a bit of mime, are continually lighting cigarettes and smoking them in between their words, or even—as I have often seen—trying to cover their ignorance of rightly formed speech by standing there talking, holding cigarettes in their mouths as they speak? Yes, that does happen. All manner of detestable tricks of this sort have been finding their way on to the stage.

If, however, a boy of seventeen or eighteen years old comes on the stage and lights a cigarette, then there may well be a perfectly definite motive behind the action: we are to understand that the young fellow is anxious to pose as grown-up. He wants us to see that he is quite a man. In that case, the lighting of the cigarette has behind it a conscious motive that originates in the play itself, and I would thoroughly commend it—as I certainly do when in the plays of today I see boys and girls of seventeen or eighteen (the age of the part, of course, not of the actor) lighting their cigarettes. There, it is right and good; the action must, however, always be prompted directly by the situation in the play.

Do you see what is implied here—what demand we are making on behalf of art? We are asking that everything done on the stage shall be directly consequent on the inner texture of the play as an artistic creation. If our work is to have form and style, we must be able to see how every single detail in the acting springs straight from the fundamental intentions of the play. I have mentioned the matter of cigarettes merely as an example.

Suppose it happens in a play that one person is giving a command, and one, two or three others are receiving it. There you have a clear situation to be staged. As to the manner and bearing of the one who is giving the command, I need only refer you to what I said the other day, when we went through the several gestures for the variously spoken word—the incisive, hard, gentle, etc. What we have now to consider is the behaviour, in dumb show, of those who are receiving a command. Naturally, what they would find easiest would be to stand with their backs to the audience, for then there would be no need for them to act at all. But there is no occasion for them to take up such a position; in fact, it mustn't be done, it would be quite inartistic.

There are two things the audience must be able to see in one who is receiving a command. First, it must be evident that he is listening while the command is being given. And this, even when instead of facing the speaker he faces them, the audience will have no difficulty in seeing. If an actor who is receiving a command should ever turn his back to the audience, then we would have necessarily to conclude that he had some very particular reason for doing so. Imagine the speaker standing behind him, on his right; then the listener can still quite properly face the audience. He will be listening with his right ear and the audience will be able to see that he is doing so, by the way he turns just a little in that direction. No situation can possibly occur in a play where a listener is not perfectly well able to face the audience. And then, if the actor has his mime under proper control, the audience can see also in his countenance the impression that the command is making upon him. For that has to be seen too; it is the second of the two things that must be clearly visible to the spectator. The listener will therefore present to the audience a three-quarter profile more or less, his head inclined a little in the direction of the voice and slightly forwards. And if he has gone through beforehand the other exercises that I described yesterday, then as he assumes this position and enters into the feeling of it, his facial muscles will instinctively be set working in such a manner that the audience will see expressed in his countenance the nature of the command he is receiving. And if, in addition, he shows a tendency to move his arms and hands—not outwards, but more in the way of drawing them towards him—the gesture will be complete, will be exactly as it should be.

And now, my dear friends, you will probably be wanting to say: But if I were to arrange the stage with three or four actors all listening in the way you describe, it would look stereotyped, it would look as if it were according to some set plan.

Raphael would not have said so ! He would no doubt have introduced slight modifications into the gesture of the second listener, or of the third and so on, but the essential spirit and character of the gesture he would have maintained in them all. Raphael was not of course a producer; but he would, as onlooker, as critic, have demanded that gesture. He would, as I said, have modified it a little here and there, but the very similarity of gesture in the listeners would have impressed Raphael as aesthetically right. And should it ever be a case of some individual actor wanting his own way, then no question but that the stage picture as a whole must always receive the first consideration.

What I have been describing has reference to the receiving of a command. We can, however, also consider how it will be with mere listening. One actor is speaking and others are listening. The gesturing here will naturally be not unlike what we have found to belong to the receiving of a command. The speaker's gesture will of course again be from among those I indicated in connection with the different categories that I named for the word : incisive, gentle, etc.; the precise gesture of the listener will have to be carefully determined in the following way.

Let us suppose the content of what he has to say requires the speaker to speak quite slowly, so that his speaking falls into the category we named: slow, deliberate. We know then what his gesture will be. But what kind of a gesture will the listener have to make? The listener will have to adopt the gesture of a speaker who utters quick, decided words. Why is this?

When someone speaks in a quick, incisive tone of voice, he tends involuntarily to make sharply defined gestures; you will remember how we designated them as ‘pointing’ gestures. The narrator, who is speaking slowly, will not make these pointing gestures; he will make the movements with the fingers that I showed at the end of yesterday's lecture. The listener, however, will—silently, to himself– accentuate, as he listens, the important words. He will thus be in • the condition for incisive speaking—speaking, as it were, inaudibly, within; and he will accordingly be right in making the pointing gestures. Then you will have a perfect harmony of gesture: the one making those finger movements that belong to the telling, the other making the’ pointing’ finger movements that rightly accompany the listening. These are suggestions that you can study and work out in detail for yourselves.

Take another case. Again we have an actor relating something; but this time the content has the effect of making him speak his words out abruptly, as though they were cut short. This kind of speaking will always mean that the speaker particularly wants to drive home what he is telling; otherwise he would not tell it in that manner When the dramatist lets us see that a great deal depends on getting some information across to the listener, then the narrator will have to speak in this way, cutting his words short, and he will at the same time make the corresponding ‘flinging away’ gesture with his fingers—this gesture that you will remember I showed you before. The listener, on the other hand, will be true to his part and show the right response if he listens with all his ears—comes, that is, inwardly into the mood of a speaker who gives his words their full tone and value. Suppose someone wants to make sure of my taking in what he is telling me. Then I must stand before him in the manner of a full-toned speaker; for since I have to feel in full measure what he is saying, I must make the gesture that we saw to be right for the word that is spoken in full measure. These are ways to establish a right relationship between speaker and listener.

It must only not be forgotten that what I have now been recommending should never be noticeable on the stage; it should have been so thoroughly worked with that it has passed over entirely into an instinctive sensitiveness for what is true in art. If ever a movement gives the appearance of being studied or artificial, that movement is immediately false. For in art, everything is false unless it is the artistic itself that the spectator has before him—the artistic itself as style.

Consider in this connection what a difference there will be in their whole manner of speaking between some character in a drama who wants to convince, and one who wants to persuade. This difference must be brought out on the stage.

Situations occur where we want to persuade another person, we want to talk him round. One can have this desire in a good or in a bad sense—or somewhere between the two. You have a classic and grand instance of persuasion in the famous saying of Wallenstein: ‘Max, bleibe bei mir! ’ (Max, stay with me!).¹ There you have, not the will to convince, as will be evident from the context, but the will to persuade.

Now, you could not imagine Wallenstein standing in front of Max Piccolomini, wringing his hands and saying: ‘Max, bleibe bei mir!’ But you can, and indeed you must, imagine him clapping Max on the shoulder, or showing at least an inclination to do so. That is the gesture that belongs properly to the words. Where, on the other hand, it is a question of trying to carry conviction by reasoning, the speaker must make some gesture upon his own person. He will have to clasp his hands, for example, or touch himself somewhere with his hands. He feels a need to discover within himself the power of conviction—as it were, to track it down. If, however, the speaker wants to persuade, he should make the gesture of touching the other person—or at least let it begin, making a movement, that is, which, if carried further, would be a complete gesture of touching.

Note carefully also the fine distinctions we have to make for different kinds of persuasion. We may, for example, be using persuasion with the intention of giving comfort. Much will then depend on our powers of persuasion in the good sense of the word, for the one who needs comfort has not time to be convinced; what he wants, as a rule, is to be persuaded, not to be convinced by reason. We shall find, however, it makes a great difference whether we are in this way using persuasion to bring comfort, or are, for instance, wanting something from the other person.

If we want to bring comfort, then we make this gesture of touching; it will work naturally and harmoniously, whether we only begin it, or carry it to completion. It need really only be begun. We can take the other's hand, or lay the palm of our hand on his forearm. The audience will then instinctively receive the right impression.

This gesture will, however, not be right if you are wanting something for yourself, as in the famous example I quoted just now, not even if your wish be inspired by the very best intentions. ‘Max, bleibe bei mir !’ The actor who says these words will not lay his hand on Max's arm; he will have to place his hand on Max's shoulder or on his head, or anyway make a gesture of beginning to do so. Things like this will have to be grasped in all their exact detail, if we are ever to have again a genuine art of production that concerns itself with the whole practical work of the stage.

And now let us go a little farther; for there are many more details of gesture and posture that require to be studied. We need, for example, to develop an artistic perception for the following. When a person is standing in front of you, you may be seeing him in profile, in part profile, or in full face; and there is a meaning for each of these three ways of being seen. Anyone who is an attentive observer of life will know how people sometimes place themselves instinctively so that others are seeing them in one or other of these ways. In real life a kind of affectation lies behind it, but in art it is done for artistic reasons. I once knew a professor (he was a German) who never lectured without presenting himself in profile to his audience—and not only before ladies, to whom he frequently gave lectures, but before his own men students too; and he knew very well what it meant.

Standing in profile always calls up instinctively in the onlooker a sense of being in the presence of intellectual superiority. You cannot look at a person in profile without being impressed with his intellectual superiority—or inferiority, as the case may be; for in real life inferiority also occurs. The front-face view can never, for unprejudiced observation, tell us whether the person is clever or stupid. Looking him full in the face, we can remark whether he is a good or a bad man, whether he is kindly disposed or selfish; but if we want to observe whether he is clever or dull, we must see him in profile. And since one who makes use of profile is sure to be a person who believes himself to be clever, we shall know he is wanting in this way to show us his cleverness.

The actor should also make here an additional gesture; he should at the same time hold his head back a little. Then the audience will be bound to feel that he is impressing his hearers with his intellectual superiority. If therefore you want the acting to be artistic, you must arrange that an actor who is to speak a passage wherein he has to appear superior to the one he is addressing shall turn his complete profile to the audience, holding his head back a little as he speaks. We must, you know, once and for all rid the stage of dilettantism. We must create again the possibility for students to learn the preliminaries for the art of the stage, just as painters have to learn how to use colour. For unless one has learned and studied these things, one is not an actor, one is not acting artistically, but at best merely performing à la Reinhardt or Bassermann!

But now, suppose you stand before the audience in part profile. That will express, not intellectual superiority but intellectual participation in what the other is saying, especially if at the same time the head be inclined forward a little, so. A listener can in this way show to the audience that he is following the speaker with his understanding. It may, however, be that you want rather more the listener's feelings to be apparent to the audience. In this case, whilst the other is speaking, the listener must as far as possible allow the audience to see him full face.

The situation on the stage can really come alive when the speaking is accompanied by these postures in the listener. Where the speaking is intended to make an impression on his intellect, you will choose for the listener the profile position; where it is rather his heart that is to be touched, you will let him stand full face to the audience. When details of this nature begin to be clearly envisaged and understood, then the art of the stage will be able to emerge from dilettantism and once again acquire content. We shall be able to see from the way an actor stands or walks, whether it is more with the intellect or with the feelings of the heart that he is participating in the situation.

Passing on now to consider the will, we find that for the expression of will there has always to be movement, and here you will have to pay particular regard to what I said about form in movement. The expression of will or resolve calls forth in another an answering impulse of will. We know how this happens in life. Someone gives expression to his will in a certain direction. We listen to him. We can fall in with his will, or we can ourselves ‘will’ to hinder it. There you have the two extreme situations, and there are naturally many intermediate possibilities.

A will that gives in to the will of the other must always be accompanied with a movement from left to right, either of the whole person or of the arms. Try it out for yourselves on the stage. Let one actor say something that has will in it, and another be standing there and making this gesture—that goes from left to right. You will feel at once that there is agreement on the part of the listener; the gesture expresses that he too wills the same thing Let him, however, make a right-to-left movement, and he is obviously on the defensive and may even be considering how he can put hindrances in the other's way. Still greater emphasis can be given to this’ will to oppose’ if the movement is made expressly with the head—naturally, the rest of the body also sharing in it.

These are among the things that will have to be taught in a school for production that sets out to be comprehensive and take the whole art of the stage for its province. You will remember I told you yesterday—it may have seemed as though I were making rather paradoxical statements—I told you that in practising running one learns instinctively the walking that is required for the stage, and that leaping helps to modify the walking in the right way, making it now quicker, now slower, and that wrestling develops hand and arm movements, and so on. How is all this to be put into practice?

The first thing the school will have to do is to arrange for the students to practise Running, Leaping, Wrestling, something in the nature of Discus-throwing, something like Spear-throwing; for that will help them to come easily and readily into all the bodily movements that are needed on the stage. Then we shall at any rate be saved from a feeling one has sometimes nowadays about an actor as soon as ever he comes on: that fellow, we feel, has no proper control of his body. How often we have the impression that all those people who are dancing and hopping about up there on the stage have not their bodies under control! They would have quite a different relation to their bodies if, right at the beginning of their training, they had practised these exercises.

The next thing will be to draw forth from each exercise the particular ability it can develop for the stage. Let the students practise running for a quarter to half an hour, and then for half to three-quarters of an hour stage-walking; and the same with leaping and wrestling. For they must be able to unite the two : the exercise, and the skill in movement that the exercise helps them to acquire. And in order that, when they come to the last exercise, they may really succeed in drawing forth from their body the forming of the word, the four preceding exercises should be practised in the following way.

For the practice of walking, and of modified walking, for the practice also of arm and hand movement and of play of countenance, you should have a reciter who does the speaking, while the student makes, in silence, the corresponding gesture or facial expression. And as far as these first four steps in the training are concerned, the same method should be continued even later on for one who is wanting presently to appear on the stage. He should practise his gestures, to begin with, without yet saying a word, while the speaker of the company does the speaking. This will give him the opportunity to make himself entirely familiar with the gestures in dumb play. When the students come to the fifth exercise, they can begin to speak; they can accompany the gesture with the speaking—which up to now they have been practising only separately, without gesture, in recitative. These two, gesture and the forming of the word, have then to be consciously combined, consciously fitted into one another. Only so will our acting have the necessary artistic style.

The men of ancient India had a theory of the origin of man which, while it resembled our modern one, bespoke more feeling for the spiritual. For they too looked upon a certain species of ape as akin to man; but they were more consistent than we in their adherence to the mistaken theory. These apes, they said, can speak; they only don't want to—partly out of obstinacy and partly because they are a little bashful about it. If they are in any way human, if they are on the way to becoming man, then it follows that they must be able to speak. That was the conclusion, the perfectly correct conclusion of the ancient Indians. And I am always reminded of it when I meet with lack of temperament in the very people who need it. For I know well that these people have temperament; they are only unwilling to show it. I mean that quite seriously; the people of today are far more temperamental than they seem. We think it improper to show temperament; but it is by no means always so, and especially not in the case of little children. And yet how annoyed we often are when children begin to show temperament! But there too, you know, we shall have to learn to be more understanding!

When we have a school of dramatic art, planned in the way I have indicated, we shall not need to have any misgivings about arranging for the students to practise leaping and wrestling and discus-throwing. If only the teacher has temperament, and does not go about with a long face, but is a person gifted with some humour, then that of itself will help to evoke in the students the necessary temperament. They will soon stop being shy of exhibiting it. We have the means at our disposal for evoking temperament, we only don't use them. And for art, in so far as its practice is concerned, temperament is an essential factor. My dear friends, we must know this; we must know how intrinsically temperament belongs to art.

To write books on mysticism may not require temperament. If the books please, well and good; the readers do not the the author. But in those arts where the human being presents himself in person, there has to be temperament; there has to be also enhanced temperament—that is to say, humour. And therewith the moment is reached where it can all begin to be esoteric. And that is what we are minded to achieve in these lectures—that our study shall take us right into the esoteric aspect of the whole matter.

• 1. Schiller's Wallenstein, Act III, Scene 18.
• 2. Heinrich Laube (1806–1884). In an article written in 1898, Rudolf Steiner referred to Laube as this master of all producers.' He worked mainly in Vienna.

My dear Friends,

It is my intention today to add something to our previous studies that will, I believe, help you to a deeper understanding of dramatic art. For, as I indicated at the end of yesterday's lecture, that is the direction in which our studies are leading us—to an esoteric deepening of our whole conception of drama and of our own part in it. For the community at large, the situation is of course different; we shall be dealing with that later. But speaking for those of us who want to take a share in the work of the stage, we are called upon to fulfil a mission (if I may use such a word in this connection)—a mission on behalf of art and on behalf also of mankind. And before we can begin to have a true perception of that mission, we must learn to see how deeply our art is grounded in man as he is today, and we must also look a little more closely into the whole process of human evolution, in one phase of which we are now living.

The actor must be able to experience for himself how the word, the artistically formed and spoken word, can reveal the whole being of man. This penetrating insight that can behold the word as a revelation of man cannot fail to give him a more spiritual conception of his calling; and once he has that, he will be able to arouse within him the necessary energy to make his work increasingly artistic, gradually bringing more and more artistic form into every detail of his acting. I will give you an example.

An essential factor in the speaking of consonants is the part played by palate, tongue, lips, etc., in the forming of the word. And by looking a little deeper into the matter, we can see how the word on its part, in order that it shall acquire a fulness of content, catches hold of the experience which is associated with the region of each of the specified organs. We can quite well detect this, if we do not disdain to give our attention first of all to what presents itself to immediate perception, in order to pass on afterwards to its more spiritual aspect.

Suppose we take our start from the ordinary physical sense of taste. There is positive ground, you know, for the fact that appreciation of art goes also by the name of taste; although when today we speak of taste in matters of art, and then again of the taste of a cucumber or of a veal cutlet, we have no longer that feeling of necessity which led men of an older time to label both with the same word.

Consider how it is when you take some food or drink that can be described as bitter, that ‘tastes bitter’ in the ordinary material sense. Your palate and the back part of your tongue do the sensing of the bitterness for you. While the bitter substance is passing from your mouth into your oesophagus, and you are having the purely physical experience of bitterness, it is the palate that is engaged, in conjunction with the back part of the tongue. It is also possible to feel that something you eat tastes sour. The consumption of such a substance will lead you into a different physical experience. The task of mediating for you this perception of sourness you assign to the edge of the tongue. It is the edge of the tongue that is actively engaged in the experience of sourness. Or again, some food may taste sweet; then the tip of the tongue is mainly concerned. As you see, our relationship to the external world is in strict accordance with laws underlying our organism. We could never cajole the tip of the tongue into communicating to us the sensation of sourness or of bitterness; such foods leave it passive and inert. The tip of the tongue enjoys the distinction of coming into operation only when we take something sweet into our mouth.

Now it is, as I have said, not without very good reason that we transfer the expressions sour, bitter, sweet, to the realm of the soul. We apply these terms to impressions that are of a moral nature—and we do so with careful discrimination. For we are not ordinarily inclined to picture, for instance, something sour before us as a result of the words another person speaks in our presence; his countenance however, may well cause us to speak of a sour face, and that out of a perfectly natural instinct. Whilst we do not readily feel a sentence to be sour, we have no compunction about calling a face sour. The fact is, the experience that makes you describe a face as sour calls into action exactly the same region in the mouth—namely the back part of the tongue where it goes toward the throat—as is engaged when you swallow vinegar. The experience is somewhat more spiritual, but it works in the same way. For there is an inner relationship between the two, and the relationship makes itself felt—instinctively, but unmistakably. The unconscious in us knows quite well the connection between vinegar and a sour face. There is just this slight difference in their working, that vinegar lays claim to the small and more passive organs of the tongue, whereas there are occasions when a sour face will call upon the more active parts of the same!

We are here verily becoming able to behold the mysterious transition from inner perception or feeling to speech. For there is undoubtedly this real and living connection between them. When something makes an impression upon us in the moral sense and moves us to speech, then what happens is exactly the same as when some physical substance excites our sensation of taste. If you know this, then the knowledge will, evoke in you the power also to dive down into the more hidden regions of external reality. It will, for example, become possible for you to know that supposing you have to speak a sentence that refers, not without artistic feeling, to So-and-so's sour countenance, you will do well to carry in your soul at the same time a distinct after-taste of vinegar. Careful observation of life teaches that this will help; for there is a road that leads straight across from one experience into the other.

Or, let us suppose, in the course of my part, I have to say, or am to overhear, that someone has a complaint against me. Then it will be good if I can instinctively arouse in the depths of my soul a sensation that resembles the after-taste of wormwood.

Or again, let us say, I have to present on the stage some high official into whose presence a man is admitted who wishes to obtain for himself some office or other. The latter adopts a cringing attitude, and pours out on me words of the most fulsome flattery. This is a situation that may well occur in a play. In addition to all else that it will require—and the ‘all else’ will be substantially helped thereby—I shall do well to carry in me, while speaking, the sweet taste that sugar leaves in the mouth. And that will help with my listening too. If I am there in front of him, feeling in my soul, as it were, the after-taste of sugar, I shall—as the listener—instinctively assume the appropriate gesture.

The question might well be raised: In expressing ourselves in this way, are we not adopting a rather realistic and materialistic point of view? Let me tell you, however, that the inducement to speak in this way follows as a direct result from that other study to which I have already alluded—the study, namely, of the historical evolution that has led up to our present drama.

If we trace drama right back to the place of its birth, we come ultimately to what are known as the Mysteries. It is, in fact, not possible to have a worthy conception of dramatic art unless we are able to see its origin in the art of the Mysteries. Now, the art of the Mysteries had this aim in view: that what took place on the stage should proceed from those impulses that make their way into man from the spiritual world. But the art of the Mysteries sought also to follow how these spiritual impulses work right down into the details of the material world; so that, for example, those who had to take part in the ancient Mystery Plays would actually be given vinegar or wormwood, or some other substance, in order to prepare them for finding the right words and mime and gesture. And we, on our part, only begin to take our art seriously when, in our quest for artistic form, we do not hesitate to take account also of bodily experience. Otherwise our performances, where the acting must needs, from the very nature of the art, be carried right down to the fingertips—I might even say, to the tip of the tongue, for I have seen actors put out their tongue before now !—can never be more than superficial.

Such revivals of primitive drama as can be met with in our time—the sort of drama to which I alluded the other day, for instance, when I told you of the Oriental performance I had witnessed in London—do certainly take us back to quite early stages of dramatic art, but not so far back as to give us any idea of the way things were done in the Mysteries. Plays of that kind we will therefore leave for the moment, we shall return to them later; just now we want to race back the art of drama to its source in the art of the Mysteries. If once the actor of the present day can come to understand the Mystery character of the great and noble art that he is following, he will begin to look on his work in a new way, he will begin to take it seriously.

Fundamentally speaking, what the Mystery Play had to do was to show, through the agency of human beings, how the Gods intervene in the life of man on earth.

Had we still today a number of plays of Aeschylus that have been lost, we would not, it is true, be able to learn from them the nature and character of the very most ancient Mystery art, but we would have in them echoes of this original art of the Mysteries. And then we would be able to ee that those who had to take part in the plays approached them with a certain awe and reverence. For these plays did not set out to represent events taking place among men on earth. Supersensible events were enacted, events that had indeed connection with human life on earth but took place among the Gods. The object was to show events that happen in supersensible realms among supersensible beings—to show these events in their influence upon the life of man on earth.

In the most ancient times men shrank with awe from any direct representation of the supersensible. Rather had they the feeling that their part was to create a kind of framework on the stage for the Gods; everything must be so designed and ordered as to enable the spectators to feel that the Gods themselves have with a part of their being come down upon the stage. How was it sought to bring this about? To begin with, by having not individual actors that should represent Gods or human beings, but Choruses. These Choruses performed a special kind of recitative that was between speaking and singing, and was accompanied by instruments. In this way a form was brought into being and hovered over the stage, a stylised form that was absolutely real and was created out of sound and syllable and sentence, moulded and fashioned with an artistic sensitiveness far surpassing anything known in ordinary life. This form was conjured forth before the spectators, or rather the listeners, conjured forth from the word—the word with all its qualities of music and sculpture and painting. And the listener who lived in these older conceptions perceived—that is to say, did not merely have an idea of what was happening, but saw for himself that these Choruses gave the Gods the possibility of being themselves present, of being present in the musically and plastically formed word.

Thus was the forming of the word in all its music and colour, in all its sculpted moulding, brought to such a degree of individualisation that it was able to betoken Divine Beings. This was in very truth attained in the Mysteries of ancient times. And while it was proceeding, the whole space was pervaded with what we today would call fear of the Divine, awe and reverence in the presence of Divine Being. This mood hovered there like an astral aura, mediating between what went on upon the stage and what the spectators were experiencing. The human being felt himself to be in the presence of a supersensible world. And that was what was intended.

And it was further intended that in union with this feeling, another should rise up in the human being; he should feel that he is living in his soul together with the Divine. An inner life lived in close relation with the Divine was thus tho second aim that was cherished in these ancient Mysteries. First, fear of the Gods, in the best sense of the word; and then that man should have this experience of living together with the Divine.

But now a new development. As time went on, men gradually lost the power to perceive spiritual reality in a form that was not outwardly tangible. The consequence was, it became necessary to put the human being on the stage. In earlier times, men had been able to perceive the contours of the Gods in the word—the word with its colour and its music, the plastically moulded word, the recitative. When they could do so no longer, the human being had to be there on the stage to present in his form and figure the contours of the Gods. But the people must not be allowed to forget that the human being on the stage is a God.

Think, for instance, of the Egyptian Gods. Unless there were some special reason for it, they were not given insipid human countenances (I explained in an earlier lecture how I mean this to be understood). The Gods of Egypt, more especially the higher Gods—that is, those who ascend farther into the spiritual—had animal faces, bearing always in their countenance what was intended to typify the eternal. The human countenance is eternal in its mobility; it is eternally changing! Mobility had to be expressed in the gestures of the rest of the person, apart from the head. But there must needs also be duration, constancy; and that must be shown in the physiognomy. A human being cannot let his countenance remain permanently immobile; it would take on the expression of death or look as though he were afflicted with tetanus. If you want to show in the world of the senses that which endures and belongs to the spiritual, if you want to present this in bodily form in contrast to that which is continually changing, then there is no other way, you must have recourse to the animal countenance And so we find in the cult of the Egyptians the supersensible Gods with animal faces.

When now the human being begins to appear on the stage, he too comes before us with a mask that is reminiscent of the animal. This development that we can observe on the stage is an outward expression of the inner development that was taking place in man's spiritual life.

At his first appearance on the stage, the human being did not present man, he presented the God, and most often the God who stands nearest to man, Dionysos. And we begin then to have, in addition to the Chorus, the actor standing in their midst; first one, then two who carry on a dialogue, and gradually more.

Only when we have learned to discern in the whole art of dramatic representation something of the magic of its birthplace in the Mysteries—only then is it possible for us to stand up before an audience as we should, carrying in us the knowledge of how drama has grown up out of the cult of the Mysteries, out of that cult whose whole purpose was to present what belongs to the supersensible world.¹

In the Middle Ages there was still an understanding for this. If we go back to the time before worldliness began to get the upper hand on the stage, we shall find that dramatic performances were always in connection with worship, with the cult. The Christmas ritual which was intended to lead the people up to a lofty height where they might verily behold the Divine—this Christmas ritual we find continued, either still inside or in front of the church, in the form of a play. The acting was nothing else than an extension of the ritual that was performed inside the church. The priest who celebrated would afterwards appear as actor and take part in the play.

We do not find in these plays the same holy feeling that pervaded the ancient Mysteries, where the drama was an integral part of the cult itself, directly belonging to the Mystery. In mediaeval times it was different; the ritual and the drama had each its own distinct character. One could nevertheless feel that they belonged together. And the sane kind of development went on in connection with the other festivals of the year.

Having thus come to see that drama has a sacramental origin, we may now go on to consider the other, more worldly, factor that was brought in later on, and that has not the same close relation to cult and ritual. It has nevertheless a similar origin.

When in very early times man looked out into the great world of Nature, he felt there the presence of the Divine, with whom he himself was connected; he felt the God in tho clouds, the God in the thunder and lightning. And still more did he feel the God entering into the word, into the artistically formed and musically modulated word, which the Chorus in the Mysteries placed out into the world as objective, created form. And now, as time went on, this very experience led man to perceive another secret. He began to learn that there is something in himself that is Divine, and that responds like an echo to the Divine that comes to meet him from the far reaches of the universe. And this led man to develop a new feeling about drama which we may describe in the following way.

The ground had been prepared in far-off times by the Chorus, who produced the word wherein the God was able, not of course to incarnate, but to be incorporated. That was how it was in the Mystery Play, the original Mystery Play. Then came the time when, man being no longer equal to this experience, the actor was brought forward, not yet, however, for any other purpose than to represent the God. But now, as evolution proceeded further, the perception began to dawn upon man that when the human being presents his own innermost soul, then too he is presenting something Divine; if he can present on the stage the Divine that is in the external world, he can also present the Divine that is in himself. And so, from being a manifestation of the Gods, dramatic art became a manifestation of the inner being of man; it presented on the stage the human soul. And this inevitably led to the need to bring innermost human experience into the forming of the speech, to bring this same intimate human experience into the gesturing also that was done on the stage.

And then there developed, in a time when its significance could still be instinctively felt, all that way of working with voice and gesture which I have been putting before you in these lectures, impressing upon you the need to renew it in our day, to put your whole will into getting it restored to the technique of the stage. We have seen how it takes us, on the one hand, to such things as Discus-throwing, and on the other hand to a sensitive perception of the after-taste, for example, of sour and bitter. Yes, we have to go on paths that may seem at first to lead us far afield, in order to find again the foundations upon which alone can be built the drama that portrays man.

It will be helpful if at this point we make a kind of picture of how the evolution of drama has taken its course. Contemplate the picture, meditate upon it, and it will inspire you to enter with deeper understanding into the things that I have been expounding in these days in considerable detail and that will, I hope, become much clearer to you as I help you now to see them in a larger perspective.

We can for the moment imagine that we have before us the stage of the present day (only, obviously no more than its barest outlines, if we are thinking of primeval times); and in the centre of the stage the word, produced by the Chorus in all its fulness of colour and tone and form. In the word men feel the presence of the God. The God appears in the word—in the music, in the painting, in the sculpture of the word. It is His will to appear to those who are present there, beholding. That is the first phase.

The next phase is that in amongst the Chorus the human being begins to take a place, the real and actual human being. Before, it was the God—the God who was only `incorporated’ in the formed word. Now, man stands there; yet we still have the God, for man is only there to represent the God. He will accordingly have to learn how to speak from the Chorus, who used even to employ instruments in order to give greater strength to the voice. Man will have to learn from the Chorus; for his voice must not reveal what is within him, must not utter forth any human experience, no, it has to imitate what the Chorus places out objectively into the world. His recitative is to be a continuation of what was in the Chorus. In comparison with the mighty development of voice that was striven for here and that was rendered yet more powerful by the use of all manner of instruments (and this was not simply because they were acting in the open air and needed on that account to reinforce the voice, but for the reason I have explained, namely, that upon that stage should be heard speak the voice of the Gods)—in comparison, I say, with this development of voice in the earliest Mystery Plays, the speaking on our modern stage would sound to some Greek of ancient times who had understanding for these things like the squeaking of a mouse. Yes, it would indeed! For through what took place upon that stage of olden time, the Divine World rushed storming like a mighty wind.

But now comes this further development, where man begins to grow aware that the Divine is also within himself. Representation of the God gives place to representation of man.

It follows as a necessary consequence that man will have to learn to stylise his prose; for he has to carry into the external world the revelation of his own inner experiences. But for this it is by no means enough that we should behave on the stage as we do in real life. After all, what occasion is there to show that on the stage? We have enough of it around us all the time. No one with artistic feeling will be interested in a mere imitation of life, since life itself is always far richer than the poor husk which is all that imitation can produce.

Consider for a moment how it is with some other art—say, the art of landscape painting. There would not be much sense in a painter's setting out to paint trees with the object of painting them so as to show whether they had needles or leaves, and then putting in some clouds up in the sky of various shapes, adding below a meadow and carefully reproducing there the colours of the different flowers. No one with artistic feeling could bear to look at such a picture. And why not? Because there are much more beautiful views to look at outside in Nature. Landscape painting of this kind does not justify its existence. No question but Nature can show us pictures of far greater beauty.

But now suppose you have a painter who begins by feeling all around him a mood of evening time. The tree that stands there in the landscape is nothing to him, but the light on the tree, how the tree catches the light of the setting sun—that has a mood of its own, a mood that comes and goes in a moment. It will probably make no great impression on the dry and prosaic passer-by, but the painter can seize upon the momentary experience and hold it fast, if he have sufficient presence of mind (I mean that in the best sense of the word²). Then landscape painting begins to have meaning. For if we have before us such a painting, we are looking at the momentary inspiration of a fellow human being, at the momentary spiritualising of his sight. Through and beyond the painted landscape, we are looking into the very heart of the painter's temperament. For according as is a man's temperament, so does the landscape show itself to him, down to the very colours he finds there. With a genuine and elemental painter, it will really be so, that if the fundamental mood of his soul is melancholy, he will show us the shadow side of things with their darker nuances of colour. If again in his deepest being he is of sanguine temperament, then shades of red and yellow will dance for him upon the leaves wheresoever the sunshine strikes them. And if you should happen to look at paintings where these bright colours are seen dancing in the sunshine, and on making the acquaintance afterwards of the man who painted them discover that he is a melancholic, then that man is no painter; he has merely learned to paint. And there is a vast difference between being a painter and learning to paint—although one who is a painter must also learn to paint! This last fact is too often forgotten nowadays, and people jump to the conclusion that one who has learned to paint is no painter, and that he alone is a painter who has never learned to paint. That is, however, not correct.

If you want to characterise the true painter, he is the one of whom you are bound to say when you see his pictures: He must indeed be a painter! And then you have to add, a little diffidently: And he must also have learned to paint! But if you meet with someone like I described just now, who paints. a picture that is entirely out of tune with his temperament, then you will have to say, taking care not to give offence (for one must always be polite): He has learned to paint!—adding, silently, to yourself: But he is, for all that, no painter !

I don't mean you to take this as a piece of advice! I am merely quoting what you will frequently hear people say in order to get out of the dilemma in which they find themselves when faced with the pretensions of would-be painters.

Well then, it will, I think, be clear to us all that there is no point in reproducing on the stage what we have immediately present before us in real life. What is wanted is that the one who is there on the stage shall for the time let his ordinary self be forgotten, and become the human being who lives in speech in the way I have described. The spectator will then instinctively perceive around the actor an aura; as he listens to the formed speech, he will see before him the auric contours—perhaps of the incisive word, or perhaps of the slowly spoken, or again of the word that is abrupt, or the word that is energetically flung out. Living in this way in the speech, the actor becomes something quite different from what he is in life.

In extreme instances you will recognise at once that this has to be so. Suppose you want to assign the part of a simpleton. It would never do to give it to an actor who is one already. A producer who allowed a rather silly, idiotic person to play the part would be the worst producer imaginable. To play the role of a simpleton requires the highest art; least of all is a simpleton equal to it. From a purely naturalistic point of view, it might, of course, seem best to look round for an actor who would play the part out of his own natural silliness. For the part to be played as it should be, however, something quite different is required. The actor has to know that the condition is due to an incapacity to let the forming of the speech make contact with the sour, bitter and sweet in the way I have explained. The simpleton does not succeed in building the bridge from these sensations to speech.

The dramatist ought to take this into consideration in his composition of the text; he ought to know that such a person remains at the sensation, cannot get across to the speech which should result from the soul experience that belongs to the sensation. What will a good dramatist do in such a situation? (And the actor, you know, should always have the insight to see what the dramatist is doing; it should be quite clear to him from the whole setting of the play.) A good dramatist will want the role to be played by an actor who is a true artist and possesses to a rare degree the gift of gesture in the way I have described it, so that his gestures come right out of inner experience, bringing this inner experience to expression in style, in true artistic style. The art of listening—that is what the actor of the part will have to develop particularly, the art of listening with gesture. It may be the dramatist will not help him here; for the dramatists of the present day are not exactly great artists. But, although it is true that one cannot ‘corriger la fortune’, one can ‘corriger’ life, which means in the present instance one can ensure that art appears on the stage in a genuine and worthy manner by having the ‘foolish’ part acted with full complement of gesture, and especially of those gestures I described yesterday for the listener or onlooker. The main point is that the simpleton, when he is conscious of some sensation within him, should show by his whole attitude and gesture that he expects his environment to tell him how he is to put it into words. Get your actor to make listening’ gestures and be all the time gazing open-mouthed at the people around him, in the position for a; and your audience will not fail to receive the impression of a simpleton. Let him even try to caricature this a position right from the back of the mouth, looking intently on the people around, as though it were they, and not he, who should really be doing the speaking. And if the dramatist has failed to do his part in the matter, the producer should none the less require the actor to employ the relevant gestures; even if something quite different is being said around him, the actor can still make as though he were hearing from the talk of the others what he himself has to say. You have only to let him be perpetually giving the impression of being the echo of those who are standing around and be making also at the same time appropriate gestures, and you will have placed on the stage a faithful presentation of a simpleton. In real life you won't find it exactly like that.

But now suppose you want to show on the stage the ‘wise’ man, generally a popular part with actors—but I myself would sooner play the simpleton. An actor who is playing the wise or ‘knowing’ man should show by his gestures that for his own understanding he is not very dependent on the others with whom he is conversing. His gestures will in fact be lacking in the very quality that I have said ought to characterise gesture; they will be lacking in life, being no more than lightly indicated, and containing always a subtle hint of the gesture of rejection that we saw must accompany the word of rejection or brushing aside. The wise man goes with the other speaker, follows what he is saying, but along with his gesture of understanding there will always be a touch of the gesture of rejection. And then, when his partner has finished speaking, he will wait awhile, and whereas before, when he was the listener, he inclined his head to hear what the other had to say, he will now perhaps throw it back; even the eyelids too can be held back a little. This will always >mean that the audience will instinctively have the impression that the ‘wise’ man is not going to enter fully into what the other has been saying, but intends rather to draw upon his own store of wisdom in order to show what is really essential in the matter. The audience will feel that he is talking more out of his memory than in response to what he has heard the other say. Your wise man should always give this impression. If he does not, the acting has been lacking in style.

A very different kind of gesturing will have to be employed if you want to represent on the stage a gossipy old lady. She has, let us say, just come from an afternoon tea-party, and brings with her the manners of the tea-table. This old lady will have to accompany what she hears said with a motion of stout resistance, indicating that nothing the other has to say is right. And then, before the other has finished speaking, she should break in, with complete corresponding accompaniment of gesture to accord with every shade of speech formation. She must break in so suddenly that you feel she has no need to stop to think; she knows right away, as soon as ever she is confronted with the situation, what she will say to it. She should be beginning with gesture and word while the other's last syllable is being spoken. One must, however, be careful to let this last syllable be heard, so that the audience do not lose the thread.

You must really ensure that such a scene is treated in the way I have described, for then it will have style. This gossipy old lady, coming in straight from the tea-table, is, you see, the exact opposite of the wise man. It could also quite well be a gossipy old gentleman, come straight from his evening glass with his pals; in that case the male quality of the talk would have to be brought out. And where the lady from the tea-party, before her partner has finished speaking, pokes out a finger, the old gentleman who also bursts in on the last syllable, will gesticulate with his whole hand, or his whole arm. That will be rendering the scene in style.

• 1. At this point Dr. Steiner made a coloured drawing on the blackboard.
• 2. The German word is Geistesgegenwart (presence of spirit)

My dear Friends,

We must now go on to consider the question of how our dramatic performances can contribute to the artistic life of the community. We have spoken of what the actor should know and practise; how is all this to reach the public? How are we to ensure that our endeavours to give artistic form both to the whole picture of the stage and to the acting, shall awake an understanding for dramatic art?

In order to answer this question, it will be necessary to say a little more about the training that a school of dramatic art should give. Such a school will have to develop in the students a thorough and penetrating understanding of mime, and of gesturing in all its forms. We have already spoken of these in more general terms; but only when the actor becomes alive to the necessity for a fuller and more detailed understanding of mime and gesture, can we hope—I will not say to educate the public (the description of people as ‘educated’ has by now come to have very little meaning), let me rather say, only then can we hope to evoke in the public a true appreciation of art.

Let us therefore today continue our study of mime and gesture, going further into the kind of practical details that the professional actor needs to master. And here again I shall want you to take what I say not as rules but as examples, in the sense that I have explained.

We will begin with an expression in mime that is quickly recognisable and that is bound to follow at once on the emotion producing it. I mean, the mime for the emotion of anger.

We must first make sure that we understand how the emotion of anger works. When a person becomes angry, his muscles immediately grow taut, and then, after a little, slacken again. In real life, it is only the first part of the process that need claim our attention; but when we are studying how to act anger on the stage, we must see that the process is revealed in its entirety—first, tension; then, relaxation. And now, suppose we have a student who is to learn the mime and gesture that are relevant for the expression of anger, how is he to set about it?

When he has worked sufficiently at the cultivation of his feeling for the individual sounds (for that will always be the first thing to be studied in a school of dramatic art), then we can take with him some passage in a play where a character manifests anger, and let the passage be spoken for him by the reciter. I have explained to you before that this is always the best way for a student to learn gesturing; only later on should he unite gesture and word. The reciter, then, will speak the passage as it should be spoken. The student, who will of course be following carefully the content of the words, will have to accompany them the whole time with an i e feeling. As he listens, he lets the i e feeling ‘sound’ in him, inwardly—i e, i e. This will of itself give rise to an inner experience, which he will then go on to express instinctively in some movement or other—with arms or hands, or with clenched fists; first tightening the muscles (i) and then again letting them go slack (e): i e, i e, i e.

Please note that a physiological expression must always, without exception, be associated with a feeling for sound. It should be a strict rule for the student never in his practising to make any bodily movement or action without its being accompanied by a particular sound-feeling.

Suppose we want to present a person who has been passing through some deep experience of sorrow or of terror. The emotional experience is in a sense past and over, but it has left its mark upon him; how is this to be shown? The actor will have to come on to the stage with relaxed muscles; that should be his physiological condition. And invariably, as he practises, he will have to accompany the slackness of the muscles with the e mood.

Or again, consider how one would have to act someone who is anxious and troubled. Perhaps he comes on to the stage in this condition; or it may be that in the course of the scene he is distressed at something that is said to him. In either case, one should try to bring a light sound of ö (French eu in ‘feu’) into his speaking. This will mean that wherever we have to do with this feeling of trouble and concern, whether the person in question brings it with him or feels it arise in him through words he hears another speak, the actor will try to develop the mime in the ö mood—letting his hands fall slowly to his side and his eyelids droop. When I advise details of this kind, you must always remember that they are not intended to curtail the freedom of the individual artist; he is left to find his own way of carrying them out.

If the person in question is very sorely troubled or is thrown into a condition of acute concern, then his lips will want to close up and his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth when he has to speak. And if later on he has to speak again in reply to what another has said, he will continue to utter his words, wherever possible, with lips pressed together. That will have a wonderful effect; you will find that his words have just the right colouring. If you bring on the stage two interlocutors, the first saying something that grieves and troubles the second, and the second answering in such a way that he produces even his a sounds with compressed lips, then the impression that the audience instinctively receive of the effect that the words of the one are having upon the other, cannot fail to be of the right colouring.

Take an extreme case. One of them says: ‘Your brother has died.’ The other exclaims: ‘My brother! It can't be true!’ If the lips are at the same time pressed as near together as possible, the words will have their right colouring.

If it is found necessary, as will certainly be the case with a prolonged condition of care and anxiety, to help out the mime with a made-up pallor, then the make-up should be accompanied throughout by this kind of speaking, where the lips are all the time held more closely together than usual. A made-up pallor should, in fact, never appear on the stage without this mime.

It is, you must know, most important for the actor to realise that there are certain expressions of emotion that have to be represented with particular care upon the stage—not always as in real life. Sighing and groaning, for instance, can certainly play a part in the mime and gesture of the stage. They should never be practised by themselves; the student should be listening to a recited passage that displays pain or anxiety, a passage, however, that contains the implication that the sufferer is wanting to get over it. For when a person is completely overwhelmed with pain and sorrow, he does not groan or sigh; whereas one who would fain be rid of his suffering, one who is open to being comforted—he will sigh and groan. In real life this distinction may not always hold good; in art, however, it has to be strictly adhered to. If we mean our acting to have style, then groans and sighs can be allowed only when the person presented is going to find relief from his pain, to the extent anyway of being able to speak; he must not be struck dumb with sorrow. When therefore we have to reply on the stage to words that convey some shattering tidings, we should begin with groans and sighs—which we have also learned to produce with style. That will as it were open the way for us to speak.

Whenever some emotion has to be expressed, the student should on every single occasion practise with it some bodily movement or action which again must invariably have its connection with formed speech. Suppose, for example, you are listening to a speech that is sad and sorrowful. As you listen, you will move your head, being careful, however, to do so without changing countenance. Head movements, with the countenance in repose—that will be right for listening to a sorrowful passage. For then something else follows of itself. The diaphragm, with all that is below it, comes also into movement, begins to make movements that are a kind of reaction to the movements of the head. It comes about quite naturally; the correct head movement will ensure that the diaphragm and abdomen are set in motion in the right way. And never allow yourself to forget that every such bodily movement has always to be practised to the accompaniment of formed speech. This then will be the posture for an actor who is listening to the recital of a sorrowful passage: he will listen with full consciousness, shaking his head, but keeping his features still.

But now, let us say, you listen to a passage that leaves you cold, that has no interest for you. You will not move your head at all, you will simply stare with complete unconcern. It is not too much to say, for it is an established fact, that listening in this way with the countenance in repose and the head also quite still, as though one were on the point of falling asleep, gives rise to a slight glandular secretion, such as happens normally with a phlegmatic who is true to his temperament. This mime can indeed be a great help to you when you have to play the part of a phlegmatic, whilst the mime I gave before will help you to act a melancholic.

We have thus here definite suggestions for the acting of these two temperaments. An actor preparing himself for the presentation of melancholic characters should listen to sorrowful passages, keeping his face quiet and making movements with his head, letting these then call forth their natural reaction in his body. And one who wants to prepare himself for acting a phlegmatic part should assume the physiognomy of beginning to fall asleep—keeping his face in repose, letting his eyelids and nostrils droop, and with the upper lip unmoved by any kind of voluntary effort. As he listens in this attitude, that fine glandular secretion which always goes with a phlegmatic temperament will begin to take place in him. Things like this will help you to see the spirit that should animate all your work.

Suppose now you want to prepare a student for the part of a naive and sanguine character. You will have some sensational announcement read out to the actress or actor (for there can also be sanguine men!) and get her or him to make, while listening, powerful facial movements, movements also with the arms. Such gestures will lead instinctively into the impetuous and voluble kind of speaking that your student will need to develop.

Should you want to prepare an actor to present a choleric, you will choose for him a passage where the speaker is pouring out abuse. You will find plenty of such passages in Shakespeare. The student, as he listens, will have to knit his brows and clench his fists. He should also plant himself firmly on the ground with all his muscles tense. From knees downwards, the muscles of his calves should be held taut; and he should all the time be conscious of standing on the floor with the whole sole of his foot. Then he will be ready for the part.

For the practice of other arts, everyone knows we have to acquire a technique; and it is no different with the art of the stage. We have to acquire a technique that can start us off on the right road. And here I would like to draw your attention to two things in life that the science of today leaves unexplained. There are of course a great many things that science is unable to explain (do we not hear on every hand of the ‘boundaries of knowledge’?), but these are two that concern us in our present study. I mean laughing and weeping. Before these, there is for present-day science a ‘boundary of knowledge’ ; how laughing and weeping come about in man is admittedly an unsolved problem.

There is, however, no need for the problem to remain unsolved. Take weeping. What does weeping signify? Weeping always goes back to this: somewhere or other the ether body is taking hold too strongly of the physical body. When man finds this condition painful, he tries to call back the force that is working from the ether body into the physical body, and raise it in the direction of the astral body.

Ego Astral Body
Ether Body
Physical Body

He thus pours a counter-force into the astral body. The ether body is of course connected with the fluid element in man. So now you can see what happens. The ether body exerts its force in the direction, not of the physical but of the astral body; and the result of this, the projection of it in the physical, is that tears are released, the man weeps. And it is on this account that the shedding of tears brings relief.

Try now to let ä ring out clearly, try to enter deeply into the experience of ä. You will then gradually acquire a play of countenance that will need but a few little drops of water placed here (on the eyes) for it to be weeping. Yes, it will then be weeping; no need at all for real tears to well up from within Having made yourself completely at home in this play of countenance and become increasingly conscious of what your nose and eyes are doing when you say ä, then if you take from a cup a few drops of water and place them on your eyes, you are weeping. You are acting weeping to perfection.

We are here touching an important point. It is by no means our aim that sentimental spectators shall be able to say what I have heard said again and again of Eleanora Duse (but it was not true), that she wept on the stage. She shed real tears, so people said; and the statement was supposed to evoke one's enthusiasm for such an achievement. Similarly one has also frequently heard it asserted that Eleanora Duse, who was by nature quite pale, could raise a blush on the stage. Apparently she did blush; people only did not notice that she turned at the same time! Her face had been made up light on one side and darker on the other. It argues a little want of respect and proper appreciation to take for real some stage technique that can so successfully create an illusion. For illusions of this kind have to be consciously planned; one has to undergo a training for them—in this instance, by surrendering oneself wholly to the ä sound.

Going on now to consider laughter, we find that where laughter occurs, something is lodged in the astral body that should have been grasped by the ego. It has strayed into the astral body, because man was not fully master of the impression. Say, a person looks at a caricature: perhaps he sees tiny little legs and an enormous head. What is he to make of it? He cannot quite master the impression; it is not what he generally sees in life. The impression slips down into the astral body—leaves the ego and enters the astral body. The person then tries to evoke a reaction from ether body and physical body. We have here, you see, a process that goes in the opposite direction. Something is present in the astral body, and the ether body wants to bring it down into the physical body. That is what laughter consists in. Something is being experienced in the astral body that the person cannot quite grasp; and laughter is the endeavour to show it up as foolish or ridiculous or the like by bringing it right down into the physical body.

To produce laughter on the stage we must first of all make sure of the right mood, and then try to hold it. Let us set down once more the vowels in their sequence, beginning this time with u, the vowel that is nearest the front of the mouth: u ü ö ä o i e a. Take the o, and go past the i to e: o e. Or take the ä, and go over to a: ä a. The latter gives the mood rather less clearly; it comes out very clearly in the o e: o e, o e, o e, o e. And now take the passage that is to make you laugh, and try to bring this mood into it. First listen, that is, to the speaker saying the words that are to provoke laughter, accompanying his words all the time with o e, o e; then break out into laughter, and your laughter will be the very best stage laughter that can be had. The mime is created out of the formed speech.

Suppose you want to reveal in your countenance that you are giving your whole attention. You let a passage be read out to you that is of a kind to demand close attention. As you listen, you gaze steadily before you, holding within you all the time the mood of a a a. Then you gradually carry this mood up into your eyes, as though you wanted your eyes too to say a. You press up into that fixed gaze of yours the feeling that you have in the uttering of a. Your face will then show just the right expression for attentiveness.

And now imagine another situation. Suppose an author has introduced into a comedy he is writing, an incident that did actually take place once in Austria. A party of people were met together in Reichenau and, being in a rather giddy mood, made up their minds to settle the question once and for all as to whether or no it were true, as some averred, that the editor of the Wiener Fremdenblatt, who was by the way a relative of the poet Heine, was a silly fool. They decided to send him an absurd telegram, and then to look in the paper next day to see whether he had been so stupid as to insert it, or just clever enough to take no notice of it. A little incident that would lend itself well as material for comedy! The telegram ran: The municipality of Reichenau has come to the decision to remove the Raxalp in order to give the resident Archduke an unimpeded view of the Styrian countryside. On the following day the telegram appeared word for word in the Wiener Fremdenblatt.¹ Some of the party had wagered it would not appear; but others had been quite sure that Heine was stupid enough to accept it, and it was they of course who won the wager.

And now suppose this little story is read out to you. You will have good reason to be surprised when you hear how it ends. You will in that case open your eyes as wide as ever you can, and intone i i i; then stop and with that whole i-intonation concentrated in one powerful impression, let the feeling that it leaves in you steal up into your eyes: i. Sure enough, your countenance will have the right look; it will bear the expression of dumbfounded amazement.

Or again, let us say you are listening to a tale that is terrifying. Close your eyes, and intone u; stop, take the intoned u up into your eyes: u. Nothing could give your face the expression of terror so well as this. Carry the intonation of u into the closed eyes, and your whole countenance will bespeak terror. In this mime that results from u being pushed up into the closed eyes, you have a singularly good opportunity to observe how it is in the forming of the speech that you can call up the right play of countenance.

Many of our inner experiences are connected with something outside us. And so if we want, for instance, to express contempt for some person or object, it will be from a consonant that we shall learn the right mime. Have an appropriate passage read out to you and, as you listen, intone n n n n n n. When you have practised this sufficiently for the right play of feature to appear in your countenance, then you will be able to bring that mime into your speaking, so that when you speak the words of contempt you will speak them as they should be spoken. But you have always, let me say again, to start from speech; it all follows from a right forming of speech.

Suppose you want to express dejection. It is perfectly easy to learn, but it has to be learned. You have a passage read out that brings this mood to expression, and you intone the consonant w (v), combining with it as light a touch as possible of the e sound: w w w w . Then you fall silent, but remain in the gesture that is left in you by the experience; your gesture will be eloquent of despondency.

If you want to express rapture, then you must try to attain a pure out-breathing, as we have it in h. You could begin by saying the word Jehova. Then, gazing upwards and with arms also raised, let the ho become sheer out-breathing. There you have the gesture for rapture: arms reaching upwards, eyes also gazing upwards. (With many people you will find that even the lobes of the ears are lifted and the nostrils opened wide; one can, however, leave that to the unconscious.) And all the time you will be intoning h, doing your best to bring it at last to mere out-breathing, as pure as ever you can make it. So long as the h is in combination with the vowel, it is not yet pure. That is why I say, you have to make strenuous effort to attain it: Jehova, ho ho ... ho ... h ... You did not hear anything then, but I was doing it, the pure out-breathing And you will have noted the change that comes over the upward gaze as soon as ever one passes from the intoning with vowel accompaniment to the out-breathing pure and simple. That, then, is rapture.

Now for another mime and gesture that can also quite well be learned, and used always to be taught in the older schools of dramatic art. For we ought not to despise what was good in the earlier days; it has only to be evoked now in a new way; it has to be evoked out of speech—that is what is new about it. Imagine you intone a o, a o. While you intone, you contract your brow into vertical wrinkles and open your eyes as wide as ever you can: a o. And now drop the intoning, and you will have the right expression in mime and gesture for careful reflection and concern. This will only reveal itself fully when you have ceased intoning and carry in you the after-effect of the well-formed speech. But you must begin with the intoning, and then let the intoning pass over into your whole bearing and countenance.

I know well what the natural rejoinder will be to detailed advice of this kind: But if we have first to learn all this, whenever shall we come to the point of being ready for the stage? You will find, however, that all the methods I am advocating will, if properly carried out, prepare you for the stage in a shorter time than is taken by the training given in present-day schools of dramatic art. As a matter of fact, hardly any of those who appear on the stage have attended these schools; since, generally speaking, students who have been trained in them do not turn out to be the best actors, any more than the best painters or sculptors are to be found among those who have been professionally trained. For as a rule the methods used in art schools are rather uninspiring. Students who have real talent soon grow impatient and take themselves off to pursue art on their own account. But with regard to the exercises and so on that I have been recommending—once you begin to know them and study them, you will find they are not, after all, so alarmingly complicated.

And now I have something to say on more general lines in reference to a school of dramatic art. It is of great importance that an actor should have a good knowledge of eurhythmy. Not in order to perform it, for eurhythmy is an art that is performed on the stage on its own account. But to the full training of an actor, all the other arts have to make their contribution, and so too eurhythmy I do not mean that an actor should let his acting run on here and there into eurhythmy The result would be most inartistic. Eurhythmy can only be artistic when it is allowed to work in its own way—that is, to the accompaniment of recitation or of music. We must, you know, have a feeling for what it is in eurhythmy that makes it an art. Eurhythmy gives what cannot come to expression in music alone or in recitation alone; it takes these further, continues them. No one could feel it to be true eurhythmy if done to the accompaniment of singing. In singing, music has flowed over into speech. The eurhythmy would merely disturb the singing, and the singing the eurhythmy. Eurhythmy can be accompanied by recitation, which itself has nothing to do with bodily movement; for in recitation gesture has become inward. Eurhythmy can also be accompanied by instrumental music. But not by singing, if one wants to let eurhythmy work in a way that corresponds with its true ideal.

Not therefore directly, but indirectly eurhythmy can be of the very greatest significance for the actor. For what have we in eurhythmy 9 In eurhythmy we have the full, the macrocosmic gesture for vowel and consonant. I (arm stretched straight out); a still more intensely pointed i (fingers also stretched). And now try to continue inwards the feeling you have in making the eurhythmy for i. I do not mean merely the feeling of having one's arm and hand in that position; the i lies in the feeling that is experienced in the muscle. Try to hold this feeling fast, within you; let it be for you as though a sword were being thrust straight down into your body. And now, still continuing this feeling, try to intone i. Then the right nuance for your i will come to you from the eurhythmy; your i, as you speak it, will have the necessary purity. And it will be the same with the other vowels and consonants. Continue their eurhythmy inwards; fill yourself with the ghost of the eurhythmic form, with its mirrored reflection, and while still feeling the form there within you, intone. In this way you will come to speak your vowels and consonants in their purity. So much for an advice of a more general kind concerning your training.

If you will continue to keep all these things in mind, you will at length acquire a true understanding for what is essential in speech. For it is not enough for an actor to know his part. He must of course do that; but what matters above all is that he shall have the right thoughts and feelings concerning his calling. Otherwise he cannot really be an actor. No one can be an artist in any sphere who has not a true and worthy conception of the art he is following.

By entering with your whole heart into such a training as I have here been indicating, you will come to have a pure—let me say, a religious—understanding of what speaking really is; and not only of speaking, but also of the mime and gesture that are connected with it. And that is what is needed. For such a conception of speech will, more than anything else, give you a strong and clear feeling of the place of man in the universe. Gradually you will come to appreciate man's true dignity and worth, beholding how he stands at the very centre of the world-all.

Look at the animals. They too make sounds. Think of the lion's roar, of the lowing of the cow, or of the bleating of sheep and goat. The sounds uttered by these animals have the character of vowels. They are expressing what is within them—all the animals that lift up their voice in this manner. And then, as you go about Nature's world, you will also hear quite different forms of utterance, such as, for example, the sounds that are made by cicadas and other insects, where the sound is produced by the movements of certain limbs or organs. There you have sounds that show a decided consonantal character. And then at last you come to that wonderful development of sound that means so much to man—the song of the birds! In the singing of the birds you have music. So that while you hear vowels from the higher and consonants from the lower animals, the birds give you the possibility to hear music in the animal world.

But now what about that sound you hear when you go out into the country and listen to the cicadas or other insects? Go close up to one of them and watch it. Out of the question for you to have the impression that the cicada is wanting to say something to you with this consonantal sound that it produces ! You have before you the simple fact of an insect in action—that is all! And then what are we to say of the animals that low or bleat or roar? Such sounds do no more than express self-defence, or resistance, or again a sense of well-being; they are far from revealing any inner experience of soul. Finally, in the singing of the birds, you can distinctly feel that the music does not live inside them. The simple and natural feeling about the singing of the birds, you have when you compare the one or the other variety of it with the corresponding flight, with the beating of the wings. For it is true, there is a harmony between the external movements the bird makes in flight and the music it produces with its voice.

And now, turn right away from the animal world and listen to the inwardness, to the artistic forming of inner experience, that reaches you through the vowels as spoken by man! Listen again to the experience in and with the external world that reaches you through the consonants as spoken by man. Listen, I say, to human speech, listen to it also in its connection with mime and with gesture; and it will not fail to beget in you a right and true feeling for the significance of man in the universe. For verily it stands there revealed before you in what speech can become in man.

Then your heart and soul will receive the right orientation, and the way will lie open for you to enter further into the more esoteric aspect of our theme. And this is what we shall be doing in the remaining lectures.²

• 1. The Vienna Visitors' Gazette.
• 2. The last sentence was greeted with enthusiastic applause. The course had been previously announced as ‘from the 5th to the 15th September ’.

My dear Friends,

today we will begin with the recitation of a scene where we can trace the workings of a conscious endeavour on the part of the dramatist to bring style into drama. I will say only a few words in preparation, for you will find that the scene itself will show you how a real poet—in the best sense of the word—relates himself to this question of style, how he deals with it in practice.

Schiller's early plays were, as we know, not characterised by style. Die Räuber certainly not, but neither can Fiesko nor Kabale—no, nor even Don Carlos, be said to have attained to style. Then, for a while, Schiller's creative powers in that direction were exhausted, and he had to devote himself to other activities; and it was during this time that his relations with Goethe underwent a change. It is not too much to say that, having seen what Goethe's genius could create, Schiller took this work of Goethe's as the foundation for a further development of his own artistic ideal. Goethe's dramas became for him a kind of school at which he studied and prepared himself for new activity in the same field. We can follow the process step by step in the interchange of letters between the two poets, and in the records of their conversations. Nor need we be surprised that Schiller, who saw in Goethe the artist par excellence, should take him for his pattern, the Goethe who had created an Iphigenie and a Tasso, dramas where the language reaches a high level of style. Not that Schiller had any thought of letting drama develop exclusively in the 'direction of style in speech, he was naturally concerned for the totality of dramatic art; but from this time on, he devoted his best effort to the attainment of style. We can see it already in Wallenstein; and in the later dramas, in Maria Stuart, in Die Braut von Messina, in Die Jungfrau von Orleans, we find him concentrating more and more on the development of style in some aspect or another.

In Maria Stuart, from which our scene is taken, we have an attempt to develop a style that is different from that of Die Braut von Messin—a style, namely, in the treatment of mood. For what is so striking in this play is the successive moods that pervade the different scenes. The moods are of course evoked by the characters, especially by the prominent part taken in the play by two such antagonistic characters as Mary, Queen of Scots herself, and Queen Elizabeth; but altogether the drama runs its course, fundamentally speaking, in moods; we can even say that the characters live out their parts in moods. You need only study a few of these individually to see how they pass through mood after mood, as the situation changes. Take the momentous scene that Frau Dr. -Steiner will presently read to us, a scene that is outstandingly characteristic of the whole play. You have here an excellent example of stylised mood. There is, to begin with, the mood that can be observed in Mary herself, and that plays no small part also in the drama as a whole, the mood that arises from the fact that Mary is at first committed to the charge of a kindly inclined gaoler but comes later into the custody of one who is rigid in the discharge of his duties; and then we have all that happens as a result of the change. The mood is still at work in this remarkable scene that is so teeming with interest and incident, and we shall be able to watch how the characters of Mary and Elizabeth unfold under its influence—the characters also of others who are present.

I draw your attention to this because I want you to see how earnest Schiller is in his striving for style. After Wallenstein he sets out, in fact, to give each play style in a different way. Of the significance of this for the actor I will speak later, after you have listened to the scene. Let it suffice now to point out that in Maria Stuart it is moods that are stylised, whereas in Die Jungfrau von Orleans it is events: the successive events come before us there in truly grand manner. And then in Wilhelm Tell we have a stylising of character; Schiller attains in this play to what may verily be called a painting of the human soul. In Die Braut von Messina we find him endeavouring to follow Goethe as closely as possible by developing style in the inner form and picture of the stage. Lastly, he sets out with the intention of giving style to the whole interworking of men and events. That was in his Demetrius, which he did not live to finish.

So now we will ask you to listen to the scene in Schiller's Maria Stuart that portrays the development of the situation to which I have alluded.

(Frau Dr. Steiner):

Gegend in einem Park. Vorn mit Bäumen besetzt, hinten eine weite Aussicht.

Erster Auftritt.

(MARIA tritt in schnellem Lauf hinter Bäumen hervor. HANNA KENNEDY folgt langsam.)

KENNEDY

Ihr eilet ja, als wenn Ihr Hügel hättet,
So kann ich Euch nicht folgen, wartet doch!

MARIA

Lass mich der neuen Freiheit geniessen,
Lass mich ein Kind sein, sei es mit!
Und auf dem grünen Teppich der Wiesen
Prüfen den leichten, geflügelten Schritt.
Bin ich dem finstern Gefängnis entstiegen?
Hält sie mich nicht mehr, die traurige Gruft?
Lass mich in vollen, in durstigen Zügen
Trinken die freie, die himmlische Luft.

KENNEDY

O meine teure Lady! Euer Kerker
Ist nur um ein klein weniges erweitert.
Ihr seht nur nicht die Mauer, die uns einschliesst,
Weil sie der Bäume dicht Gesträuch versteckt.

MARIA

O Dank, Dank diesen freundlich grünen Bäumen,
Die meines Kerkers Mauern mir verstecken!
Ich will mich frei und glücklich träumen,
Warum aus meinem süssen Wahn mich wecken?
Umfängt mich nicht der weite Himmelsschoss?
Die Blicke, frei und fessellos,
Ergehen sich in ungemessnen Räumen.
Dort, wo die grauen Nebelberge ragen,
Fängt meines Reiches Grenze an,
Und diese Wolken, die nach Mittag jagen,
Sie suchen Frankreichs fernen Ozean.
Eilende Wolken! Segler der Lüfte!
Wer mit euch wanderte, mit euch schiffte!
Grüsset mir freundlich mein Jugendland!
Ich bin gefangen, ich bin in Banden,
Ach, ich hab keinen andern Gesandten!
Frei in Lüften ist eure Bahn,
Ihr seid nicht dieser Königin untertan.

KENNEDY

Ach, teure Lady! Ihr seid ausser Euch,
Die langentbehrte Freiheit macht Euch schwärmen.

MARIA

Dort legt ein Fischer den Nachen an!
Dieses elende Werkzeug könnte mich retten,
Brächte mich schnell zu befreundeten Städten.
Spärlich nährt es den dürftigen Mann.
Beladen wollt ich ihn reich mit Schätzen,
Einen Zug sollt er tun, wie er keinen getan,
Das Glück sollt er finden in seinen Netzen,
Nähm er mich ein in den rettenden Kahn.

KENNEDY

Verlorne Wünsche! Seht Ihr nicht, dass uns
Von ferne dort die Spähertritte folgen?
Ein finster grausames Verbot scheucht jedes
Mitleidige Geschöpf aus unserm Wege.

MARIA

Nein, gute Hanna. Glaub mir, nicht umsonst
Ist meines Kerkers Tor geöffnet worden.
Die kleine Gunst ist mir des grössem
Glücks Verkünderin. Ich irre nicht. Es ist
Der Liebe tätge Hand, der ich sie danke;
Lord Lesters mächtgen. Arm erkenn ich drin.
Allmählich will man mein Gefängnis weiten,
Durch Kleineres zum Grössern mich gewöhnen,
Bis ich das Antlitz dessen endlich schaue,
Der mir die Bande löst auf immerdar.

KENNEDY

Ach, ich kann diesen Widerspruch nicht reimen!
Noch gestern kündigt man den Tod Euch an,
Und heute wird Euch plötzlich solche Freiheit.
Auch denen, hört ich sagen, wird die Kette
Gelöst, auf die die ewge Freiheit wartet.

MARIA

Hörst du das Hifthorn? Hörst du's klingen,
Mächtigen Rufes, durch Feld und Hain?
Ach, auf das mutige Ross mich zu schwingen,
An den fröhlichen Zug mich zu reihe!
Noch mehr! 0 die bekannte Stimme,
Schmerzlich süsser Erinnerung voll.
Oft vernahm sie mein Ohr mit Freuden
Auf des Hochlands bergichten Heiden,
Wenn die tobende Jagd erscholl.

Zweiter Auftritt.
(PAULET. Die Vorigen.)

PAULET

Nun! Hab ich's endlich recht gemacht, Mylady?
Verdien ich einmal Euern Dank?

MARIA

Wie, Ritter? Seid Ihr's, der diese Gunst mir ausgewirkt?
Ihr seid's?

PAULET

Warum soll ich's nicht sein? Ich war
Am Hof, ich überbrachte Euer Schreiben—

MARIA

Ihr übergabt es? Wirklich, tatet Ihr's?
Und diese Freiheit, die ich jetzt geniesse,
Ist eine Frucht des Briefs—

PAULET (mit Bedeutung)

Und nicht die einzge!
Macht Euch auf eine grössre noch gefasst!

MARIA

Auf eine grössre, Sir? Was meint Ihr damit?

PAULET

Ihr hörtet doch die Hörner—

MARIA (zurückfahrend, mit Ahnung)
Ihr erschreckt mich!

PAULET

Die Königin jagt in dieser Gegend.

MARIA

Was?

PAULET

In wenig Augenblicken steht sie vor Euch.

KENNEDY

(auf MARIA zueilend, welche zittert und hinzusinken droht)
Wie wird Euch, teure Lady! Ihr verblasst.

PAULET

Nun! ist's nun nicht recht? War's nicht Eure Bitte?
Sie wird Euch früher gewährt, als Ihr gedacht.
Ihr wart sonst immer so geschwinder Zunge,
Jetzt bringet Eure Worte an, jetzt ist
Der Augenblick zu reden!

MARIA

Oh, warum hat man mich nicht vorbereitet!
Jetzt bin ich nicht darauf gefasst, jetzt nicht.
Was ich mir als die höchste Gunst erbeten,
Dünkt mir jetzt schrecklich, fürchterlich.—Komm, Hanna,
Führ mich ins Haus, dass ich mich fasse, mich
Erhole—

PAULET

Bleibt! Ihr müsst sie hier erwarten.
Wohl, wohl mag's Euch beängstigen, ich glaub's,
Vor Euerm Richter zu erscheinen.

Dritter Auftritt.
(GRAF SHREWSBURY zu den Vorigen.)

MARIA

Es ist nicht darum! Gott, mir ist ganz anders
Zumut.—Ach, edler Shrewsbury! Ihr kommt,
Vom Himmel mir. ein Engel zugesendet!
—Ich kann sie nicht sehn! Rettet, rettet mich
Von dem verhassten Anblick—

SHREWSBURY

Kommt zu Euch, Königin! Fasst Euern Mut
Zusammen! Das ist die entscheidungsvolle Stunde.

MARIA

Ich habe drauf geharret—Jahrelang
Mich drauf bereitet, alles hab ich mir
Gesagt und ins Gedächtnis eingeschrieben,
Wie ich sie rühren wollte und bewegen!
Vergessen plötzlich, ausgelöscht ist alles,
Nichts lebt in mir in diesem Augenblick,
Als meiner Leiden brennendes Gefühl.
In Blutgen Hass gewendet wider sie
Ist mir das Herz, es fliehen alle guten
Gedanken, und die Schlangenhaare schüttelnd
Umstehen mich die finstern Höllengeister.

SHREWSBURY

Gebietet Euerm wild empörten Blut,
Bezwingt des Herzens Bitterkeit! Es bringt
Nicht gute Frucht, wenn Hass dem Hass begegnet.
Wie sehr auch Euer Innres widerstrebe,
Gehorcht der Zeit und dem Gesetz der Stunde!
Sie ist die Mächtige.—Demütigt Euch!

MARIA

Vor ihr! Ich kann es nimmermehr.

SHREWSBURY

Tut's dennoch!
Sprecht ehrerbietig, mit Gelassenheit!
Ruft ihre Grossmut an, trotzt nicht, jetzt nicht
Auf Euer Recht, jetzo ist nicht die Stunde!

MARIA

Ach, mein Verderben ha`, ich mir erfleht,
Und mir zum Fluche wird mein Flehn erhört!
Nie hätten wir uns sehen sollen, niemals!
Daraus kann nimmer, nimmer Gutes kommen!
Eh mögen Feur und Wasser sich in Liebe
Begegnen, und das Lamm den Tiger küssen.—
Ich bin zu schwer verletzt—sie hat zu schwer
Beleidigt.—Nie ist zwischen uns Versöhnung!

SHREWSBURY

Seht sie nur erst von Angesicht!
Ich sah es ja, wie sie von Euerm Brief
Erschüttert war, ihr Auge schwamm in Tränen.
Nein, sie ist nicht gefühllos, hegt Ihr selbst
Nur besseres Vertrauen!—Darum eben
Bin ich vorausgeeilt, damit ich Euch
In Fassung setzen und ermahnen möchte.

MARIA (seine Hand ergreifend)

Ach, Talbot! Ihr wart stets mein Freund.—Dass ich
In Eurer milden Haft geblieben wäre!
Es ward mir hart begegnet, Shrewsbury!

SHREWSBURY

Vergesst jetzt alles! Darauf denkt allein,
Wie Ihr sie unterwürfig wollt empfangen.

MARIA

Ist Burleigh auch mit ihr, mein böser Engel?

SHREWSBURY

Niemand begleitet sie, als Graf von Lester.

MARIA

Lord Lester!

SHREWSBURY

Fürchtet nichts von ihm! Nicht er
Will Euern Untergang.—Sein Werk ist es,
Dass Euch die Königin die Zusammenkunft
Bewilligt.

MARIA

Ach! Ich wusst es wohl!

SHREWSBURY

Was sagt Ihr?

PAULET

Die Königin kommt!

(Alles weicht auf die Seite; nur MARIA bleibt, auf die KENNEDY gelehnt.)

Vierter Auftritt.
(Die Vorigen. ELISABETH. GRAF LEICESTER. Gefolge.)

ELISABETH (zu LEICESTER)

Wie heisst der Landsitz?

LEICESTER

Fotheringhayschloss.

ELISABETH (zu SHREWSBURY)

Schickt unser Jagdgefolg voraus nach London!
Das Volk drängt allzu heftig in den Strassen,
Wir suchen Schutz in diesem stillen Park.
(Talbot entfernt das Gefolge. Sie fixiert mit den Augen die MARIA, indem sie zu FAULET weiter spricht.)
Mein gutes Volk liebt mich zu sehr. Unmässig,
Abgöttisch sind die Zeichen seiner Freude,
So ehrt man einen Gott, nicht einen Menschen.

MARIA

(welche diese Zeit über halb ohnmächtig auf die Amme gelehnt war, erhebt sich jetzt, und ihr Auge begegnet dem gespannten Blick der ELISABETH. Sie schaudert zusammen und wirft sich wieder an der Amme Brust)
O Gott, aus diesen Zügen spricht kein Herz!

ELISABETH

Wer ist die Lady?
(Ein allgemeines Schweigen.)

LEICESTER

Du bist zu Fotheringhay, Königin.

ELISABETH

(stellt sich überrascht und erstaunt, einen finstern Blick auf LEICESTER richtend)
Wer hat mir das getan? Lord Lester!

LEICESTER

Es ist geschehen, Königin—und nun
Der Himmel deinen Schritt hieher gelenkt,
So lass die Grossmut und das Mitleid siegen!

SHREWSBURY

Lass dich erbitten, königliche Frau,
Dein Aug auf die Unglückliche zu richten,
Die hier vergeht vor deinem Anblick.

(MARIA rafft sich zusammen und will auf die ELISABETH zugehen, steht aber auf halbem Wege schaudernd still, ihre Gebärden drücken den heftigsten Kampf aus.)

ELISABETH

Wie, My lords?
Wer war es denn, der eine Tiefgebeugte
Mir angekündigt? Eine Stolze find ich,
Vom Unglück keineswegs geschmeidigt.

MARIA

Sei's!
Ich will mich auch noch diesem unterwerfen.
Fahr hin, ohnmächtger Stolz der edeln Seele!
Ich will vergessen, wer ich bin und was
Ich litt; ich will vor ihr mich niederwerfen,
Die mich in diese Schmach herunterstiess.
(Sie wendet sich gegen die Königin.)
Der Himmel hat für Euch entschieden, Schwester!
Gekrönt vom Sieg ist Euer glücklich Haupt;
Die Gottheit bet ich an, die Euch erhöhte!
(Sie fällt vor ihr nieder.)
Doch seid auch Ihr nun edelmütig, Schwester!
Lasst mich nicht schmachvoll liegen! Eure Hand
Streckt aus, reicht mir die königliche Rechte,
Mich zu erheben von dem tiefen Fall!

ELISABETH (zurücktretend)

Ihr seid an Euerm Platz, Lady Maria!
Und dankend preis ich meines Gottes Gnade,
Der nicht gewollt, dass ich zu Euern Füssen
So liegen sollte, wie Ihr jetzt zu meinen.

MARIA (mit steigendem Affekt)

Denkt an den Wechsel alles Menschlichen!
Es leben Götter, die den Hochmut rächen!
Verehret, fürchtet sie, die schrecklichen,
Die mich zu Euern Füssen niederstürzen!—
Um dieser fremden Zeugen willen, ehrt
In mir Euch selbst! entweihet, schändet nicht
Das Blut der Tudor, das in meinen Adern
Wie in den Euern fliesst!-O Gott im Himmel!
Steht nicht da, schroff und unzugänglich wie
Die Felsenklippe, die der Strandende
Vergeblich ringend zu erfassen strebt.
Mein alles hängt, mein Leben, mein Geschick,
An meiner Worte, meiner Tränen Kraft;
Löst mir das Herz, dass ich das Eure rühre!
Wenn Ihr mich anschaut mit dem Eisesblick,
Schliesst sich das Herz mir schaudernd zu, der Strom
Der Tränen stockt, und kaltes Grausen fesselt
Die Flehensworte mir im Busen an.

ELISABETH (kalt und streng)

Was habt Ihr mir zu sagen, Lady Stuart?
Ihr habt mich sprechen wollen. Ich vergesse
Die Königin, die schwer beleidigte,
Die fromme Pflicht der Schwester zu erfüllen,
Und meines Anblicks Trost gewähr ich Euch.
Dem Trieb der Grossmut folg ich, setze mich
Gerechtem Tadel aus, dass ich so weit
Heruntersteige—denn Ihr wisst,
Dass Ihr mich habt ermorden lassen wollen.

MARIA

Womit soll ich den Anfang machen, wie
Die Worte klüglich stellen, dass sie Euch
Das Herz ergreifen, aber nicht verletzen!
O Gott, gib meiner Rede Kraft und nimm
Ihr jeden Stachel, der verwunden könnte!
Kann ich doch für mich selbst nicht sprechen, ohne Euch
Schwer zu verklagen, und das will ich nicht.
—Ihr habt an mir gehandelt, wie nicht recht ist,
Denn ich bin eine Königin wie Ihr,
Und Ihr habt als Gefangne mich gehalten.
Ich kam zu Euch als eine Bittende,
Und Ihr, des Gastrechts heilige Gesetze,
Der Völker heilig Recht in mir verhöhnend,
Schlosst mich in Kerkermauern ein; die Freunde,
Die Diener werden grausam mir entrissen,
Unwürdgem Mangd werd ich preisgegeben,
Man stellt mich vor einschimpfliches Gericht—
Nichts mehr davon! Ein ewiges Vergessen
Bedecke, was ich Grausames erlitt.
—Seht! Ich will alles eine Schickung nennen;
Ihr seid nicht schuldig, ich bin auch nicht schuldig;
Ein böser Geist stieg aus dem Abgrund auf,
Den Hass in unsern Herzen zu entzünden,
Der unsre zarte Jugend schon entzweit.
Er wuchs mit uns, und böse Menschen fachten
Der unglückselgen Flamme Atem zu.
Wahnsinnge Eiferer bewaffneten
Mit Schwert und Dolch die unberufne Hand—
Das ist das Fluchgeschick der Könige,
Dass sie, entzweit, die Welt in Hass zerreissen
Und jeder Zwietracht Furien entfesseln.
—Jetzt ist kein fremder Mund mehr zwischen uns—
(nähert sich ihr zutraulich und mit schmeichelndem Ton)
Wir stehe einander selbst nun gegenüber.
Jetzt, Schwester, redet! Nennt mir meine Schuld;
Ich will Euch völliges Genügen leisten.
Ach, dass Ihr damals mir Gehör geschenkt,
Als ich so dringend Euer Auge suchte!
Es wäre nie so weit gekommen, nicht
An diesem traurgen Ort geschähe jetzt
Die unglückselig traurige Begegnung.

ELISABETH

Mein guter Stern bewahrte mich davor,
Die Natter an den Busen mir zu legen.
—Nicht die Geschicke, Euer schwarzes Herz
Klagt an, die wilde Ehrsucht Eures Hauses.
Nichts Feindliches war zwischen uns geschehn
Da kündigte mir Euer Ohm, der stolze,
Herrschwütge Priester, der die freche Hand
Nach allen Kronen streckt, die Fehde an,
Betörte Euch, mein Wappen anzunehmen,
Euch meine Königstitel zuzueignen,
Auf Tod und Leben in den Kampf mit mir
Zu gehn.—Wen rief er gegen mich nicht auf?
Der Priester Zungen und der Völker Schwert,
Des frommen Wahnsinns fürchterliche Waffen;
Hier selbst, im Friedenssitze meines Reichs,
Blies er mir der Empörung Flammen an
Doch Gott ist mit mir—und der stolze Priester
Behält das Feld nicht.—Meinem Haupte war
Der Streich gedrohet, und das Eure fällt!

MARIA

Ich steh in Gottes Hand. Ihr werdet Euch
So blutig Eurer Macht nicht überheben—

ELISABETH

Wer soll mich hindern? Euer Oheim gab
Das Beispiel allen Königen der Welt,
Wie man mit seinen Feinden Frieden macht.
Die Sankt Barthelemi sei meine Schule!
Was ist mir Blutsverwandtschaft, Völkerrecht?
Die Kirche trennet aller Pflichten Band,
Den Treubruch heiligt sie, den Königsmord;
Ich übe nur, was Eure Priester lehren.
Sagt! Welches Pfand gewährte mir für Euch,
Wenn ich grossmütig Eure Bande löste?
Mit welchem Schloss verwahr ich Eure Treue,
Das nicht Sankt Peters Schlüssel öffnen kann?
Gewalt nur ist die einzge Sicherheit;
Kein Bündnis ist mit dem Gezücht der Schlangen.

MARIA

Oh, das ist Euer traurig finstrer Argwohn!
Ihr habt mich stets als eine Feindin nur
Und Fremdlingin betrachtet. Hättet Ihr
Zu Eurer Erbin mich erklärt, wie mir
Gebührt, so hätten Dankbarkeit und Liebe
Euch eine treue Freundin und Verwandte
In mir erhalten.

ELISABETH

Draussen, Lady Stuart,
Ist Eure Freundschaft, Euer Haus das Papsttum,
Der Mönch ist Euer Bruder—Euch zur Erbin
Erklären! Der verräterische Fallstrick!
Dass Ihr bei meinem Leben noch mein Volk
Verführet, eine listige, Armida,
Die edle Jugend meines Königreichs
In Eurem Buhlemetze schlau verstricktet—
Dass alles sich der neu aufgehnden Sonne
Zuwendete, und ich—

MARIA

Regiert in Frieden!
Jedwedem Anspruch auf dies Reich entsag ich.
Ach, meines Geistes Schwingen sind gelähmt;
Nicht Grösse lockt mich mehr—Ihr habt's erreicht,
Ich bin nur noch der Schatten der Maria.
Gebrochen ist in langer Kerkerschmach
Der edle Mut—Ihr habt das Äusserste an mir
Getan, habt mich zerstört in meiner Blüte!
—Jetzt macht ein Ende, Schwester! Sprecht es aus,
Das Wort, um dessentwillen Ihr gekommen,
Denn nimmer will ich glauben, dass Ihr kamt,
Um. Euer Opfer Grausam zu verhöhnen.
Sprecht dieses Wort aus! sagt mir: ' Ihr seid frei,
Maria! Meine Macht habt Ihr gefühlt,
Jetzt lernet meinen Edelmut verehren! '
Sagt's, und ich will mein Leben, meine Freiheit
Als ein Geschenk aus Eurer Hand empfangen.
—Ein Wort macht alles ungeschehn. Ich warte
Darauf. Oh, lasst mich's nicht zu lang erharren!
Weh Euch, wenn Ihr mit diesem Wort nicht endet!
Denn wenn Ihr jetzt nicht segenbringend, herrlich,
Wie eine Gottheit von mir scheidet—Schwester!
Nicht um dies ganze reiche Eiland, nicht
Um alle Länder, die das Meer umfasst,
Möcht ich vor Euch so stehn wie Ihr vor mir!

ELISABETH

Bekennt Ihr endlich Euch für überwunden?
Ist's aus mit Euren Ränken? Ist kein Mörder
Mehr unterweges? Will kein Abenteurer
Für Euch die traurge Ritterschaft mehr wagen?
—Ja, es ist aus, Lady Maria. Ihr verführt
Mir keinen mehr. Die Welt hat andre Sorgen.
Es lüstet keinen, Euer—vierter Mann
Zu werden, denn Ihr tötet Eure Freier
Wie Eure Männer!

MARIA (auffahrend)

Schwester! Schwester!
O Gott! Gott! Gib mir Mässigung!

ELISABETH

(sieht sie lange mit einem Blick stolzer Verachtung an)
Das also sind die Reizungen, Lord Lester,
Die ungestraft kein Mann erblickt, daneben
Kein andres Weib sich wagen darf zu stellen!
Fürwahr! Der Ruhm war wohlfeil zu erlangen,
Es kostet nichts, die allgemeine Schönheit
Zu sein, als die gemeine sein für alle!

MARIA

Das ist zuviel!

ELISABETH (höhnisch lachend)

Jetzt zeigt Ihr Euer wahres
Gesicht, bis jetzt war's nur die Larve.

MARIA

(von Zorn glühend, doch mit einer edeln Würde)
Ich habe menschlich, jugendlich gefehlt
Die Macht verführte mich, ich hab es nicht
Verheimlicht und verborgen, falschen Schein
Hab ich verschmäht mit königlichem Freimut.
Das Ärgste weiss die Welt von mir, und ich
Kann sagen, ich bin besser als mein Ruf.
Weh Euch, wenn sie von Euern Taten einst
Den Ehrenmantel zieht, womit Ihr gleissend
Die wilde Glut yerstohlner Lüste deckt.
Nicht Ehrbarkeit habt Ihr von Eurer Mutter
Geerbt; man weiss, um welcher Tugend willen
Anna von Boleyn das Schafott bestiegen.

SHREWSBURY

(tritt zwischen beide Koniginnen)
O Gott des Himmels! Muss es dahin kommen!
Ist das die Mässigung, die Unterwerfung,
Lady Maria?

MARIA

Mässigung! Ich habe
Ertragen, was ein Mensch ertragen kann.
Fahr hin, lammherzige Gelassenheit!
Zum Himmel fliehe, leidende Geduld!
Spreng endlich deine Bande, tritt hervor
Aus deiner Höhle, langverhaltner Groll!—
Und du, der dem gereizten Basilisk
Den Mordblick gab, leg auf die Zunge mir
Den giftgen Pfeil—

SHREWSBURY

Oh, sie ist ausser sich!
Verzeih der Rasenden, der schwer Gereizten!
(ELISABETH, vor Zorn sprachlos, schiesst wütende Blicke auf MARIEN.)

LEICESTER

(in der heftigsten Unruhe, sucht die Elisabeth hinwegzuführen)
Höre
Die Wütende nicht an! Hinweg, hinweg
Von diesem unglückselgen Ort!

MARIA

Der Thron von England ist durch einen Bastard
Entweiht, der Briten edelherzig Volk
Durch eine listge Gauklerin betrogen.
—Regierte Recht, so läget Ihr vor mir
Im Staube jetzt, denn ich bin Euer König.
(ELISABETH geht schnell ab, die Lords folgen ihr in der höchsten Bestürzung.)

---

MARY STUART
by Schiller
Act III, Scene 1

In a Park. In the foreground Trees; in the background a distant Prospect.

(MARY advances, running from behind the trees: HANNAH KENNEDY follows slowly.)

KENNEDY

You hasten an as if endow'd with wings—
I cannot follow you so swiftly—wait.

MARY

Freedom returns! O let me enjoy it—
Let me be childish—be childish with me!
Freedom invites me! O let me employ it,
Skimming with winged step light o'er the lea;
Have I escaped from this mansion of mourning?
Holds me no more the sad dungeon of care?
Let me, with joy and with eagerness burning,
Drink in the free, the celestial air!

KENNEDY

O, my dear Lady! but a very little
Is your sad gaol extended; you behold not
The wall that shuts us in; these plaited tufts
Of trees hide from your sight the hated object.

MARY

Thanks to these friendly trees, that hide from me
My prison walls, and flatter my illusion!
Happy I now may dream myself, and free;
Why wake me from my dream's so sweet confusion?
The extended vault of heaven around me lies,
Free and unfetter'd range my wandering eyes
O'er space's vast immeasurable sea!
From where yon misty mountains rise on high,
I can my empire's boundaries explore;
And those light clouds which, steering southwards, fly,
Seek the mild clime of France's genial shore.
Fast fleeting clouds! ye meteors that fly;
Could I but with you sail through the sky!
Tenderly greet the dear fand of my youth!
Here I am captive! oppress'd by my foes,
No other than you may carry my woes,
Free thro' the ether your pathway is seen,
Ye own not the power of this tyrant Queen.

KENNEDY

Alas! dear Lady! You're beside yourself,
This long-lost, long-sought freedom makes you rave.

MARY

Yonder's a fisher returning to home;—
Poor though it be, would he lend me his wherry,
Quick to congenial shores would I ferry.
Spare is his trade, and labour's his doom—
Rich would I freight his vessel with treasure,
Such a draught should be his as he never had seen,
Wealth should he find in his nets without measure,
Would he but rescue a poor captive Queen.

KENNEDY

Fond, fruitless wishes! See you not from far,
How we are follow'd by observing spies?—
A dismal, barb'rous prohibition scares
Each sympathetic being from our path.

MARY

No, gentle Hannah! Trust me, not in vain
My prison gates are open'd. This small grace
Is harbinger of greater happiness.
No! I mistake not—'tis the active hand
Of love to which I owe this kind indulgence.
I recognise in this the mighty arm
Of Leicester. They will by degrees expand
My prison; will accustom me, through small,
To greater liberty, until at last
I shall behold the face of hüll whose hand
Will dash my fetters off, and that for ever.

KENNEDY

O, my dear Queen! I cannot reconcile
These contradictions. 'Twas but yesterday
That they announc'd your death, and all at once,
today, you have such liberty. Their chains
Are also loos'd, as I have oft been told,
Whom everlasting liberty awaits.
(Hunting horns at a distance.)

MARY

Hear'st thou the bugle, so blithely resounding?
Hear'st thou its echoes through wood and through plain?
Oh, might I now, on my nimble steed bounding,
Join with the jocund, the frolicsome train!
(Hunting horns heard again.)
Again! O this sad and this pleasing remembrance!
These are the sounds, which, so sprightly and clear,
Oft, when with music the hounds and the Korn,
So cheerfully welcom'd the break of the morn,
On the heaths of the Highlands delighted my ear.

Scene II.
(Enter PAULET.)

PAULET

Well! have I acted right at last, my Lady?
Do I for once, at least, deserve your thanks?

MARY

How! Do I owe this favour, Sir, to you?

PAULET

Why not to me? I visited the Court,
And gave the Queen your Letter.

MARY

Did you give it?
In very truth did you deliver it?
And is this freedom which I now enjoy,
The happy consequence?

PAULET

(significantly)

Nor that alone;
Prepare yourself to see a,greater still.

MARY

A greater still! What do you mean by that?

PAULET

You heard the bugle-horns?

MARY

(starting back with foreboding apprehension)
You frighten me—

PAULET

The Queen is hunting in the neighbourhood—

MARY

What!

PAULET

In a few moments she'll appear before you.

KENNEDY

(hastening towards MARY, about to fall)
How fare you, dearest Lady?—you grow pale.

PAULET

How? Is't not well? Was it not then your pray'r?
'Tis granted now, before it was expected;
You who had ever such a ready Speech,
Now summon all your powers of eloquente,
The important time to use them now is come.

MARY

O, why was I not told of this before?
Now I am not prepar'd for it—not now—
What, as the greatest favour, I besought,
Seems to me now most fearful:—Hannah, come,
Lead me into the house, till I collect
My spirits.

PAULET

Stay;—you must await her fiere.
Yes!—I believe you may be well alarm'd
To stand before your judge.

Scene III.
(Enter the EARL OF SHREWSBURY.)

MARY

'Tis not for that,
O God! Far other thoughts possess me now.
O, worthy Shrewsbury! You come, as though
ou were an angel sent to me from heav'n.
I cannot, will not see her. Save me, save me
From the detested sight!

SHREWSBURY

Your Majesty,
Comraand yourself, and summon all your courage;
'Tis the decisive moment of your fate.

MARY

For years I've waited, and prepared myself.
For this I've studied, weigh'd, and written down
Each ward within the tablet of my mem'ry,
That was to touch, and move her to compassion.
Forgotten suddenly, effac'd is all.
And nothing lives within me at this moment,
But the fierte, burning feeling of my wrongs.
My heart is turn'd to direst hate against her;
All gentle thoughts, all sweet forgiving words
Are gone, and round me stand with grisly mien,
The fiends of hell, and shake their snaky locks!

SHREWSBURY

Command your wild, rebellious blood;—constrain
The bittemess which fills your heart. No good
Ensures, when hatred is oppos'd to hate.
How muck soe'er the inward struggle tost,
You must submit to stern necessity,
The pow'r is in her hand, be therefore humble.

MARY

To her? I never can.

SHREWSBURY

But pray, submit.
Speak with respect, with calmness!
Strive to move Her magnanimity; insist not, now,
Upon your rights, not not the season.

MARY

Ah! woe is me! I've pray'd for my destruction,
And, as a curse to me, my prayer is heard.
We never should have seen each other—never!
O, this can never, never come to good.
Rather in love could fixe and water meet,
The timid lamb embrace the roaring tiger!—
I have been hurt too grievously; she hath
Too grievously oppress'd me;—no atonement
Can make us friends!

SHREWSBURY

First see her, face to face:
Did I not see how she was mov'd at reading
Your letter? How her eyes were drown'd in tears?
No—she is not unfeeling; only place
More confidence in her. It was for this
That I came on before her, to entreat you,
To be collected—to admonish you—

MARY

(seizing his hand)

Oh, Talbot! you have ever been my friend,
Had I but stay'd beneath your kindly care!
They have, indeed, misused me, Shrewsbury.

SHREWSBURY

Let all be now forgot, and only think
How to receive her with submissiveness.

MARY

Is Burleigh with her too, my evil genius?

SHREWSBURY

No one attends her but the Earl of Leicester.

MARY

Lord Leicester?

SHREWSBURY

Fear not him; it is not he
Who wishes your destruction,—'twas his work,
That here the Queen hath granted you this meeting.

MARY

Ah! well I knew it.

SHREWSBURY

What?

PAULET

The Queen approaches. (They all draw aride;

MARY

alone remains, leaning on KENNEDY.)

Scene IV. (Enter ELIZABETH, EARL OF LEICESTER, and Retinue.)

ELIZABETH (to LEICESTER)

What seat is that, my Lord?

LEICESTER

'Tis Fotheringay.

ELIZABETH (to SHREWSBURY)

My Lord, send back our retinue to London;
The people crowd too eager in the roads,
We'll seek a refuge in this quiet park.
(TALBOT sends the train away. She looks steadfastly at MARY, as she speaks further with PAULET.)
My honest people love me overmuch.
These signs of joy are quite idolatrous.
Thus should a God be honour'd, not a mortal.

MARY

(who the whole time had leaned, almost fainting, on KENNEDY, rises now, and her eyes meet the steady piercing look of ELIZABETH; she shudders and throws herself again upon KENNEDYS bosom)
O God! from out these features speaks no heart.

ELIZABETH

What lady's that?—
(A general, embarrassed silence.)

LEICESTER

You are at Fotheringay,
My Liege!

ELIZABETH

(as if surprised, casting an angry look at LEICESTER)
Who hath done this, my Lord of Leicester?

LEICESTER

'Tis past, my Queen;—and now that heav'n hath led
Your footsteps hither, be magnanimous;
And let sweet pity be triumphant now.

SHRBWSBURY

O royal mistress! yield to our entreaties;
O cast your eyes on this unhappy one,
Who stands dissolved in anguish.
(MARY collects herself, and begins to advance towards ELIZABETH, stops shuddering at half-way:—her action expresses the most violent internal struggle.)

ELIZABETH

How, my Lords!
Which of you then announc'd to me a prisoner
Bow'd down by woe? I see a haughty one,
By no means humbled by calamity.

MARY

Well be it so :—to this will I submit.
Farewell high thought, and pride of noble mied!
I will forget my dignity, and all
My sufferings; 1 will fall before her feet,
Who hath reduced me to this wretchedness.
(She turn towards the QUEEN.)
The voice of Heav'n decides for you, my sister,
Your happy brows are now with triumph crown'd,
I bless the Power Divine, which thus hath rais'd you.
(She kneels.)
But in your turn be merciful, my sister:
Let me not lie before you thus disgraced;
Stretch forth your hand, your royal hand, to raise
Your sister from the depths of her distress.

ELIZABETH (stepping back)

You are rohere it becomes you, Lady Stuart;
And thankfully I prize my God's protection,
Who hath not suffer'd me to kneel a suppliant
Thus at your feet, as you now kneel at mine.

MARY

(with increasing energy of feeling)
Think on all earthly things, vicissitudes.
Oh! there are gods who punish haughty pride:
Respect them, honour them, the dreadful ones
Who thus before thy feet have humbled me!
Before these strangers' eyes, dishonour not
Yourself in me: profane not, nor disgrace
The royal blood of Tudor. In my veins
It flows as pure a stream, as in your own.
O! for God's pity, stand not so estranged
And inaccessible, like some tall cliff,
Which the poor shipwreck'd mariner in vain
Struggles to seize, and labours to embrace.
My all, my life, my fortune now depends
Upon the influence of my words and tears;
That I may touch your heart, O! set inne free.
If you regard me with those icy looks,
My shudd'ring heart contracts itself, the stream
Of tears is dried, and frigid horror chains
The words of supplication in my bosom!

ELIZABETH (cold and severe)

What would you say to me, my Lady Stuart?
You wish'd to speak with me; and I, forgetting
The Queen, and all the wrongs I have sustain'd,
Fulfil the pious duty of the sister,
And graut the boon you wished for of my presence.
Yet 1, in yielding to the gen'rous feelings
Of magnanimity, expose myself
To rightful censure, that 1 stoop so low.
For well you know, you would have had me murder'd.

MARY

O! how shall I begin? O, how shall I
So artfully arrange my cautious words,
That they may touch, yet not offend your heart?—
Strengthen my words, O Heav'n! and take from them
Whate'er might wound. Alas! I cannot speak
In my own cause, without impeaching you,
And that most heavily. I wish not so;
You have not, as you ought, behav'd to me;
I am a Queen, like you, yet you have held me
Confin'd in prison. As a suppliant
I came to you, yet you in me insulted
The pious use of hospitality;
Slighting in me the holy law of nations,
Immur'd me in a dungeon—tore from me
My friends and servants; to unseemly want
I was exposed, and hurried to the bar
Of a disgraceful, insolent tribunal.
No more of this ;—in everlasting silence
Be buried all the cruelties I suffer'd!
See—I will throw the blame for all an fate,
'Twas not your fault, no more than it was raine.
An evil spirit rose from the abyss,
To kindle in our hearts the flames of hate,
By which our tender youth had been divided.
It grew with us, and bad designing men
Fann.'d with their ready breath the fatal fixe:
Frantics, enthusiasts, with sword and dagger
Arm'd the uncall'd-for hand! , This is the curse
Of kings, that they, divided, tear the world
In pieces with their hatred, and let loose
The raging furies of all hellish strife!
No foreign tongue is now between us, sister,
(approaching her confidently, and with aflattering tone)
Now stand we face to face; now, sister, speak;
Name but my crime, fully satisfy you,—
Alas! had you vouchsaf'd to hear me then,
When I so earnest sought to meet your eye,
It never would have come to this, nor would,
Here in this mournful place, have happen'd now
This so distressful, this so mournful meeting.

ELIZABETH

My better stars preserv'd me. I was warn'd,
And laid not to my breast the pois'nous adder!
Accuse not fate! your own deceitful heart
It was, the wild ambition of your house:
As yet no enmities had pass'd between us,
When your imperious linde, the proud priest,
Whose shameless hand grasps at all crowns, attack'd me
With unprovok'd hostility, and taught
You, but too docile, to assume my arms,
To vest yourself with my imperial title,
And meet me in the lists in mortal strife:
What arms employed he not to storm my throne?
The curses of the priests, the people's sword,
The dreadful weapons of religious frenzy,—
Ev'n here in my own kingdom's peaceful haunts,
He fann'd the flames of civil insurrection;—
But God is with me, and the haughty priest
Has not maintain'd the field. The blow was aim'd
Full at my head, but yours it is which falls!

MARY

I'm in the hand of Heav'n. You never will
Exert so cruelly the pow'r it gives you.

ELIZABETH

Who shall prevent me? Say, did not your uncle
Set all the kings of Europe the example,
How to conclude a peace with those they hate?
Be mine the school of Saint Bartholomew;
What's kindred then to me, or nations' laws?
The church can Break the Bands of ev'ry duty;
It consecrates the regicide, the traitor;
I only practise what your priests have taught!
Say then, what surety can be offer'd me,
Should I magnanimously loose your Bonds?
Say, with what lock can I secure your faith,
Which by St. Peter's keys cannot be open'd?
Force is my only surety; no alliance
Can be concluded with a rate of vipers.

MARY

O! this is but your wretched, dark suspicion!
For you have constantly regarded me
But as a stranger, and an enemy.
Had you declar'd me heir to your dorainions,
As is my right, then gratitude and love
In me had fix'd, for you, a faithful friend
And kinswoman.

ELIZABETH

Your friendship is abroad,
Your house is Papacy, the monk your brother.
Name you my successor! The treach'rous snare!
That in my life you might seduce my people;
And, like a sly Armida, in your net
Entangle all our noble English youth;
That all might turn to the new rising sun,
And I—

MARY

O sister, rule your realm in peace:
I give up ev'ry claim to these domains—
Alas! the pinions of my soul are lam'd;
Greatness entices me no more: your point
Is gain'd; I am but Mary's shadow now—
My noble spirit is at last broke down
By long captivity:—you've done your worst
On me; you have destroy'd me in my bloom!
Now, end your work, my sister:—speak at length
The word, which to pronounce has brought you hither;
For I will ne'er believe that you are come
To mock unfeelingly your hapless victim.
Pronounce this word;—say, Mary, you are free:
You have already felt my pow'r,—learn now
To honour too my generosity.'
Say this, and I will take my life, will take
My freedom, as a present from your hands.
One word makes all undone;—I wait for it ;—
O let it not be needlessly delay'd.
Wde to you, if you end not with this word!
For should you not, like some divinity,
Dispensing noble blessing, quit me now,
Then, sister, not for all this island's wealth,
For all the realms encircled by the deep,
Would I exchange my present Lot for yours.

ELIZABETH

And you confess at last, that you are conquer'd:
Are all your schemes run out? No more assassins
Now an the road? Will no adventurer
Attempt again, for you, the sad achievement?
Yes, madam, it is over:—You'll seduce
No mortal more. The world has other cares;—
None is ambitious of the dang'rous honour
Of being your fourth husband :—
You destroy Your wooers like your husbands.

MARY

(starting angrily)

Sister, sister!—
Grant me forbearance, all ye powr's of heav'n!

ELIZABETH

(regards her long, with a Look of proud contempt)
Those then, my Lord of Leicester, are the charms
Which no man with impunity can view,
Near which no woman Bare attempt to stand?
In sooth, this honour has been cheaply gain'd;
She who to all is common, may with ease
Become the common object of applause.

MARY

This is too much!

ELIZABETH (laughing insultingly)

You show us now, indeed,
Your real face; till now 'twas but the mask.

MARY

(burning with rage, yet dignified and noble)
My sins were human, and the faults of youth;
Superior force misled me. I have neuer
Denied or sought to hide it: I despis'd
All false appearance as became a Queen.
The worst of me is known, and I can say,
That I am better than the fame I bear.
Woe to you! when, in time to come, the world
Shall draw the rohe of honour from your deeds,
With which your arch-hypocrisy has veil'd
The raging flames of lawless secret Lust.
Virtue was not your portion from your mother;
Well know we what it was which brought the head
Of Anna Boleyn to the fatal block.

SHREWSBURY

(stepping between both Queens)
O! Heav'n! Alas, and must it come to this!
Is this the moderation, the submission,
My Lady?—

MARY

Moderation! I've supported
What human nature can support: farewell,
Lamb-hearted resignation, passive patience,
Fly to thy native heaven; hurst at length
Thy Bonds, come forward from thy dreary cave,
In all thy fury, long-suppressed rancour!
And thou, who to the anger'd basilisk
Impart'st the murd'rous glance, O, arm my tongue
With poison'd darts!

SHREWSBURY

She is beside herself!
Exasperated, mad! My Liege, forgive her.
(ELIZABETH, speechless with anger, casts enraged Looks at MARY.)

LEICESTER

(in the most violent agitation; he seeks to lead ELIZABETH away)
Attend not to her rage! Away, away,
From this disastrous place!

MARY

(raising her voice)

A Bastard soils,
Profanes the English throne! The gen'rous Britons
Are cheated by a juggler (whose whole figure
Is false and painted, heart as well as face!).
If right prevail'd, you now would in the dust
Before me lie, for I'm your rightful monarch!

(ELIZABETH hastily quits the stage; the Lords follow her in the greatest consternation)

(From the translation by Joseph Mellish.)

In some dramas we can see quite clearly, when we look into the question of their origin, that it is the theme, the plot with its characters, that has inspired the dramatist to write bis drama. This was true more or less of Schiller when, as a young man, he set himself to compose Die Räuber. All through the play we can see that what interests him is the subject-matter in the widest sense of the word. He is attracted by the event and the characters that take part in it; he wants to make poetry of them. The same can be said even of Goethe in one period of his life. At the time when he was beginning to compose Faust and was writing also Götz von Berlichingen, his main interest was in the plot and the characters. Faust is a character that interests him intensely. And then, what a Faust can experience—that too has a great attraction for him. And in Götz von Berlichingen it is in the first place the Nero himself, and then the time in which he lived; these two themes were of lively interest to Goethe.

But now look at Schiller embarking upon his Maria Stuart. We have here quite another situation. Maria Stuart is the result of a conscious endeavour on Schiller's part to be an artist in the realm of drama. His whole desire is to compose plays that shall be artistic; and he looks round for material to serve bis purpose. He looks for a material that will lend itself to the style he wants to develop. His starting-point was by no means the story of Mary, Queen of Scots; he sets out in search of a theme upon which he can successfully create a drama where it shall be the moods that give style to the piece.

Now the initial purpose of the dramatist is of no little significance for the actor; and if we are making plan for a school of dramatic art, we ought certainly to arrange that both kinds of drama are studied. The students should practise with dramas where the poet's interest lies mainly in the plot,—such a drama, for instance, as Götz von Berlichingen, or Die Räuber; and they should work also with dramas like Maria Stuart, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Die Braut von Messina, or Wilhelm Tell. And while the students are studying in this way the different dramatic styles, that will also be the moment for them to pass from a study that concerns itself purely with acting to a study that, instead of merely asking all the time: How are we to do this?—How are we to do that?, takes rather for its theme the entire play itself as a work of art. I will give you an example.

Wilhelm Tell is a play that provides excellent opportunity for an actor to develop style in his work by studying the style of the piece. But it should be made clear to the student that in this play Schiller's style comes to grief in many places. The fact will be forcibly brought home to you if you should ever happen to hear some orthodox professor of literature interpreting one of the scenes in a way that may possibly accord with the illusions of a professor who has more credulity than discernment, but does not at all accord with real life. What a wonderful scene that is,' you might hear him say to his pupils, where Tell declines to attend the meetings the others are holding, declaring that he is a man of deeds and not of words, and that he will leave it to them to do the talking, and hold himself ready to be called on when the moment for action has come.' I did once hear a credulous professor speak in this way to a still more credulous audience of both young and old! And then all too easily such a view becomes the accepted interpretation and is handed down and repeated as if it were an indisputable truth. And we can see it spreading like a disease through the schools, and indeed wherever it has a chance to push its way in. No one stops to ask : But is it possible that Teil should speak like that? For it certainly is not possible! True, Tell had the character that Schiller means to give him. He was not a man of many words ; you would not find him taking a front seat in the meetings and making grandiloquent Speeches. But he would be there. He would be sitting at the back and listening. Tell was not the kind of man to boast that he let the others do the talking and wanted only to be called on when it was time for action,—which would give the impression that he had himself no idea as to what ought to be done! It is simply not true, the way Schiller makes Tell speak in that passage, and the student has here a good opportunity of learning to judge for himself without bias,—and that is supremely important where art is concerned. What Schiller has done in this passage is to push the stylisation too far. Then it can become routine,—which it must never do, it must always have life.

And now let us suppose, die actor—or the student—takes a drama of the one or the other kind as subject for his study. How will he proceed with a drama like Die Räuber or Don Carlos? or, on the other hand, with a drama like Maria Stuart or Die Braut von Messina? For a drama of the first kind, the right course will be to work only for a shorter time at the development of mime and gesture whilst another does the reciting, and to lead over quite soon to simultaneous speaking and acting. There must of course always be first the practice in gesture to the accompaniment of a reciter, but in this case not for long; the student should as soon as possible unite the gesturing with the spoken word.

With a drama of the second kind, the actor or student will require to practise the silent gesture and mime with a reciter speaking the words for him, for a much longer period. He should indeed defer till as late as possible the union in his own person of gesture and word. By following this method he will attain a result which there is no need to attain in the former type of drama and which could even perhaps be detrimental there to the performance of his part. I mean the following. The gesture, having through long practice come to rest, as it were, in die actor, continues to be present there in him and co-operates in the forming of the word,—the actor of course meanwhile quite unconscious of the process ; it happens instinctively as far as he is concerned. And if we want to stage a drama that is first and foremost, in its whole intention, a work of art, dien we have to make .sure that all through our study of it we succeed in uniting the art of the acting with the art, the poetry, that is in the play itself. Only then will the art of the acting make its right contact with the audience; and upon that, after all, everything depends.

The audience will not easily be brought into a mood that grips them in their very soul, if we put before them a realistic scene which is, in addition, realistically acted. It is quite possible to fascinate people with a realistic scene, so that for the moment they give their whole attention; but if we sincerely want to reach our audience, there can be no better way than by lifting them right out of naturalistic experience, and taking them up to the level of art.

Let us take now the scene that has been read to us and imagine we have to consult together how we shall proceed to stage it. Giving our attention first to the question of scenic effect, how shall we create the right environment for die words that are spoken in this scene?

To build up a décor from a naturalistic point of view, to paint, let us say, a forest as naturalistically as possible, would most certainly not achieve our object. For could anyone imagine that such a scene as this (the scene ends, you will remember, in a manner that is directly contrary to the will of everyone present, takes them one and all by surprise),—could anyone imagine that the motif of the scene could be rendered with style if we set out to surround it with the mood of a forest? The one and only thing to do is let the surroundings of the scene present, by your artistic treatment of them, the mood that belongs to this juncture in the play.

I must here allude to a request that has been handed me in writing, asking if I would add a little more to what I said the other day about the painting of stage scenery. But, my dear friends, so far as my memory goes, I have not spoken at all on this subject. What I said then was in reference to landscape painting.¹ We were considering the character of art in general, and took landscape painting for our example. I do not like to be misunderstood in this way. I have up to now said nothing whatever about painting for the stage. As a matter of fact, the very first thing you must realise in this connection is that for stage d&or, painting as an art does not come into question. We have to rely on our equipment for stage lighting, etc., to do the painting for us.

To return to the scene from Maria Stuart, our main concern should be that the speakers have around them the mood of the scene with all the successive changes it undergoes.

Now on the matter of moods there is bound to be always some difference of opinion, but 1 think no one will find it seriously discordant if we propose to arrange for the whole stage to be suffused during this scene with a reddish lighting. The colour will naturally have to change a lade as the scene goes on, but can always keep a fundamental reddish tone. At the end of the scene, where Mary speaks so sharply, the reddish tone can, as it were, pierce inwards into itself and become dazzling yellow. There will also be not a few other modifications here and there. For example, right at the beginning of the scene, where Mary is in a thoroughly sentimental wein, you can introduce into the general reddish mood a bluish-violet mood. That then will be your first question settled.

And now, how are you going to see that your wings and back-drop make their right contribution to the mood of the scene? Impossible to have there a realistically painted picture of a bit of forest. Trees, however, you must have; and what about their colour? The scene demands that the colouring of the trees shall harmonise with the mood of the lighting. You cannot paint into a red mood trees that are absolutely green; you will have to introduce a touch of red into their colour. And in order to provide something on which the eye can rest when Mary grows sarcastic, you can take yellow also on to your palette,—I should rather say, on to your brush; for one should never paint from a palette, but always with water colours. Then the actors will have around them a true picture of the mood of the scene.

And it will be the same with all your arrangements for the staging of the play. When you come to the question of costume, you must realise that it is of no use to set about inventing all manner of fancy dresses which only make the wearers look queer and awkward. That is not the way to attain style. Costumes should be cut to suit the wearers; it is in the colour that you will have to let style come in,—in the choice of colour, in the harmony of the colours worn by different parts. And here one will not be so childish as to snatch at the first idea that offers, which would naturally mean in this rase that Mary should wear black. Black should appear on the stage only in the rare cases where it is justified from an artistic point of view. As a matter of fact, on the stage black obliterates itself, makes a void. Devils, or beings of such ilk, we can allow to appear in black, but we ought never to think of using black for any other purpose. Mary will have to be dressed in dark violet. Her colour should be chosen first. (For the achievement of style, it is always important to know where to begin.) Then, with Mary in violet, you cannot do otherwise than choose for Elizabeth a dress of reddish-yellowish colour; and the colours of the other characters will be gradually shaded as taste requires.

Working in this way, you will get your picture. And you will see, your audience will understand it. Provided it has been faithfully built up on these lines the picture will make its appeal.

For how is it that the actor of today finds it so difficult to carry bis audience with him? Simply because we are not sufficiently in earnest about this question of style. We want to attain style, but we do not set about it seriously enough. We ought not really to complain so muck of the audience; it is never die audience who are to blame. It is the art itself that is wanting! But, my dear friends, how can we expect to achieve art if, behind the founding of our theatres, lie impulses and motives such as are disclosed in the following well-authenticated incident?

A big theatre was once started in a town by a journalist who was also a playwright, and who took on himself the direction of the theatre. It was named after a distinguished classical author. Externally, you see, the founder was trying to do die thing in style. ‚Arrangements were also made for a speech to be given at the opening ceremony, in which very fine things were said about this author, and about the splendid future that the theatre would have if it followed in his footsteps; for he had himself been eminent in the art of the stage and had laid down many golden rules for its practice.

If now a true devotion to art in the highest sense had begun to manifest in the work of that theatre—naturally, fare of a lighter kind being offered also now and again in deference to public taste—it might have been in quite good style to open the theatre with a Speech of this kind. But style has to be something inward; it has to be livingly experienced. And I would ask you now to judge for your-selves whether there really was style in the enterprise, when I tell you what took place immediately after the official opening,—despite the high-sounding words that had been spoken by the director. There had of course been other Speeches too, including one by the chairman of the theatre committee, who spoke in becoming terms of the director, and so on, and so on. Yes, there was style in the opening ceremony; but of what kind? There was no life in it!—as all too quickly became apparent! For what happened when the function was over and the audience had dispersed? Among the people around such a director there will generally be some who are sincere idealists. Not many; but there will be a few. One such—or perhaps only a semi-idealist—went up to the director and said: ‘I wish you all success! Running your theatre in the way you have described, you will be helping to revive and restore art.’ To which the director replied: But it's the profits I'm after!'

Yes, you see how it is! The style of which the opening ceremony gave promise has all crumbled to dust. It was not in the man's heart, not in his inner being. Style has, in fact, become in our day something which people no longer feel in life, they are insensitive to it; and that is why I find it so important to impress upon you that he alone can hope to achieve style in art who sets out in all seriousness to live in it.

• 1. See Lecture 10.

My dear Friends,

For the dramatist the play is finished when he has composed it, when he has put it into words. If he intends it for the stage, then while composing it he must all the time hear and see it taking place. A play that may truthfully be called a work of art has been seen by the author; he has had it before his mind's eye just as it should unfold when performed on the stage. If this is not so, if the dramatist has not the power continually to ‘behold’ the stage, to feel beating within him, as he writes, the life-blood of the stage—then the actor can do very little with that play. And now when the dramatist has finished his work, the written play is for the actor what the score is for the musician. The poem, the work of art, has in a sense disappeared; the written text is like a musical score. From the text the actor has to re-create the poem in his performance on the stage, even as the musician re-creates the music from the score. For the score is a kind of zero-point between composer and performer; there they meet. It should be the same with the text of the drama. But in order to attain his goal, the actor will have to prepare himself in two directions.

The first thing needed is that the characters in the play are thoroughly understood. That the individual actor must have a thorough grasp of his own part goes without saying; but no part can be rehearsed except in conjunction with the other parts, and the producer has to see that all the parts play into one another in the right way. Thus, besides being studied individually, the characters will have to be brought into right relation with one another, so that the play, as it takes its course on the stage, shall in this respect present a rightly coloured, a well-integrated whole. And this it will do if we have first of all practised the art of delineation of character. It is an art that can be studied from what we have already seen to be the essential elements of drama. Let me show you how this can be done. Again I will proceed by taking an example.

In an earlier lecture we had a play under consideration that can once more be helpful to us here; for it is excellent material for the study of delineation of character, and also for the other necessary study which I will explain later. Particularly striking, however, is the skill in the delineation of character that is evinced in this play. I refer to Hamerling's Danton and Robespierre.

If it is our aim to achieve a complete and true delineation of character, in other words so to place each separate character on the stage that in the working out of their mutual relationships a whole is attained, an inwardly integrated whole, then we must before all else set out to study the play just from this point of view. In the play we are considering we shall find four characters whom we can well single out for particular study. There are of course many others we could choose, but for our present purpose we cannot do better than concentrate on these four: Robespierre, Hébert, Chaumette, Danton.

A full study of the drama as a whole would naturally have to include also the rest of the cast. As far as our immediate study is concerned, we shall require to come to the point where we can take a survey of the complete drama with its various characters; and then, having done this, we shall be in a position to give to some particular character its right performance, allowing it to be neither isolated from the others nor eclipsed by them.

Assuming therefore that you have worked through Hamerling's Danton and Robespierre in this way and have also made yourselves thoroughly familiar with all that we have been considering in these last days, you will be able to go forward with clarity and confidence, and place these four characters on the stage, showing up the varying shades of their several qualities and dispositions, in their relation to one another.

Take first Danton. We shall find, if we have understood the play aright, that Danton will express his own inner soul best if we connect with him the sound-feelings: ä (ay in ‘say’), i (ee); ä, i.

Danton: ä i

To act the part with this sound-feeling will bring the jovial side of his nature to expression; there will then be something large and generous about his manner as he comes on to the stage. And when Danton has to move about on the stage, then, if you have come to a really deep understanding of him, you will instinctively be tempted to let him walk like this: knees held rather stiff, and feet firmly planted on the ground. You will even feel that his arms too should be a little stiff at the elbow; he will move them as though he could not bend them right up, but only at a rather obtuse angle. Yes, you could very well have the impression that Danton is a man who would never be able to sing either a major or a minor third!¹

If this is the feeling you have about his character, then you may be sure the true Danton will be there on the stage, taking his right place among the other characters. And you will be impelled to let him be constantly making gestures with the mouth that help to produce the right tone of voice—pressing the lips forcefully into the corners of the mouth. Danton should, in fact, be spoken with lips nearly closed and stretched to their utmost, but as if there at the corners of the mouth they met with some powerful resistance.

All this is a direct and perfectly natural outcome of a serious study of the part. And that is how it should be. Then, when Danton has to speak, we shall have a Danton there ready. I will now illustrate this for you, taking for the purpose the second scene of the play, where he steps out in front of the people and speaks to them in true Danton manner

(DANTON und ROBESPIERRE treten auf. Robespierre in einfacher, aber pedantisch sorgfältiger Frisur und Tracht, Danton in mehr prunkhafter, doch burschikoser Gewandung, eine gewaltige Halsschleife hängt über seine Brust herab.)

VOLK. Es lebe Danton! Es lebe Robespierre!

DANTON. (den Hut lüftend und dem Volke zunickend, jovial)
Guten Morgen, Sansculotten!
Was soll denn das Gedräng'? Was gibt's? Ein Fest?
Mit weissgeputzten Jungfern, schönen Reden
Und Blechmusik? Verdammt! Gibt's wirklich keine
Bastille mehr zu stürmen? Keinen Ausflug
Mehr nach Versailles zu machen? Alle Wetter,
Das waren andre Zeiten! Denkt ihr's noch
Wie's war, als rings um uns zum ersten
Mal Losbrach die Kriegsfurie, und die Ohren
Ihr an den Boden legtet, um zu horchen,
Ob man nicht schon Kanonendonner höre,
Vorboten jener Haufen, die sich wälzten
Her auf Paris—und wie dann wirklich mancher
Zu hören meint‘ein fernes dumpfes Rollen,
Und auffuhr, bis ein Nachbar zu ihm sagte:
Lass gut sein—Danton ist's, der eben donnert
Im Club der Cordeliers!

VOLK. (in Enthusiasmus geratend) Es lebe Danton! ca ira! ca ira!

(Enter DANTON and ROBESPIERRE—Robespierre plainly dressed but
both his hair and clothes showing meticulous care; Danton in more showy,
unconventional garments, and with a flowing cravat.)

PEOPLE. Long live Danton! Long live Robespierre!

DANTON. (raising his hat and nodding in a jovial way to the people)
Good Morrow, Sansculottes!
What means this crowd? What is there, then, a fete?
With maidens all in white, with splendid speeches,
And with brass bands? Deuce take it! is there not
A Bastille still to storm? No further trip
To Versailles still to take? By Jupiter
Those times were different! Do you ever think
Of how it was when first around us all
War fury did break loose, and down you laid
Your ears upon the ground to try and hear
Whether already cannon-thunder roared—
Forbidden now those swarms who danced around
Our Paris streets—and how then many thought
To hear a deadened rolling from afar
And started up, until a neighbour said:
Don't be disturbed—it's Danton thundering
At the Cordelier's Club!

PEOPLE. (beside themselves with enthusiasm)
Long live Danton! ça ira, ça ira!

Do you see? There you have Danton's large—and yet at the same time revolutionary—manner. I want you to understand that I am accentuating what is characteristic of Danton, but that this accentuation has its particular value; I do it on purpose to show you how you can find your own way to a true delineation of character. And you will furthermore discover, if you are prepared to carry your expression of the character so far, that Danton will have to speak every j² and every l, (and whatever sounds resemble them) in a manner that is all his own. So we have for

Danton: ä i j l

And now let us look at Hebert. When the character of Hebert begins to come alive for us, we shall find he is not a man of action like Danton. Nor has Hebert been endowed with Danton's jovial disposition. Danton with his big, broad mouth gives us the impression that he will be large and liberal in his actions too, and we shall even feel inclined to choose a broad-shouldered person to play him, should it happen that one is available. We could of course also adapt the clothes to give more breadth. Danton's outward appearance would then be in accord with his speaking.

Hebert on the other hand will have to be of medium size; he must not look big and stout. With Hebert we get the impression that he is continually on the point of stepping forward, but suddenly hangs back and goes no farther. Whenever he has to move on the stage, the actor will have to show this hesitation. He will begin to step out, but then always stand still again. For Hebert is a man who only denounces and scolds, he is not a man to get things done. And this trait the actor will have to reveal by continually starting to walk and then stopping short.

You will find that Hebert is particularly at home in g and k; the utterance of these sounds gives him a feeling of satisfaction. The actor will take care to note where these sounds occur and will attune his whole speaking accordingly. He will see that Hebert gröhlt and jühlt (bawls and howls) when he is cross—ö ü (French eu in `feu', French u in ‘du’)—and that with g (hard) and k he is as pleased and happy as Danton is with j and l.

Hebert: ö ü g k

As the audience leaves the theatre, you ought to catch them saying to one another: ‘By Jove, how that fellow who plays Danton says ‘Ja’! No one else in the world could say Ja as he does. And did you hear the way Hebert hacks at the words with his k and g? It's simply marvellous! ’

Hamerling prepares us well beforehand for the situation in the scene. A citizen steps forward to announce the approach of the Goddess of Reason, whose festival is now about to be celebrated.

(Der Festzug erscheint unter den Klängen der Musih. Voraus HENRIOT zu Pferde. Dann eine Schar weissgekleideter, rosenbekränzter Mädchen, dann folgen die wie Feldzeichen erhöht getragenen Büsten Voltaires und Marats. Unmittelbar vor der Göttin wird eine grosse angezündete Fackel hergetragen. Die GÖTTIN selbst ruht auf einem blumengeschmückten Triumphwagen, angetan mit weisser Tunika, darüber eine wallende Chlamys von himmelblauer Farbe. Auf dem Haupte eine rote phrygische Mütze. Hinter ihr HEBERT, CHAUMET rB und andere Mitglieder des Rates der Kommune. Nachdem c/er Zug in der Mitte des Platzes angelangt, macht der Triumphwagen Halt, die Göttin verlässt denselben und wird von Hebert und Chaumette auf das thronartige Gerüst hinaufgeleitet, wo sie Platz nimmt. Die bisher ihr vorgetragene Fackel wird in ihre Hand gegeben. Die Jungfrauen gruppieren sich um den Fuss des Gerüstes. Die Musik verstummt.)

EIN BÜRGER. (im Vordergrund zu seinem Nachbar) Präch?

tige Gestalt, diese Göttin der Vernunft!

DER NACHBAR. Ja, sie ist ein schönes Weib, die Momoro; nur ihre Zähne sollen schon einigermassen defekt sein.

EIN WEIB. (zu ihrer Nachbarin) Seht einmal, was sie für grosse funkelnde Ohrringe trägt!

DIE NACHBARIN. Die hat sie von dem reichen deutschen Baron.

HÉBERT. (besteigt die Bühne, doch nicht ganz zu der Höhe, auf welcher die Göttin sitzt) Mitbürger! Die freche Rebellion der exekutiven und der administrativen Gewalten gegen das souveräne Volk, welche in Frankreich wie allenthalben ihr Wesen trieb, ist niedergeworfen. Der von den ersten Beamten des Staates, den Königen, bisher geübte Amtsmissbrauch ist für immer abgestellt. Seit dem Augenblick, da das Haupt Ludwig Capets fiel und der Staub seiner Ahnen in den Prunkgräbern von St. Denys im Staub der Strassen von Paris seinen Bruder begrüsste, ist der Königsbann und Zauber, der auf den Völkern lastete, gebrochen. Wir zogen nach St. Denys, wir öffneten die kostbaren Schreine der verblichenen Despoten von Frankreich: da lagen sie, die einst allmächtigen Abgötter, vor welchen wir das Knie beugten; da lagen sie in ihren Silbersärgen, Staubphantome, nur noch mit den letzten Resten goldgestickter Gewande zusammengehalten. Wenn man mit den Fingern an die Majestäten tippte, rieselte die Totenasche aus den Gold- und Purpurfetzen hervor, wie der Staub aus einem Staubschwamm, den man in der Hand zerdruckt. In ganzen Wolken stäubte sie empor, die Königsasche, und wer da herumging, dem klopfte sein Diener am nächsten Morgen verweste Potentaten mit dem anderen Staube aus den Kleidern. Es gibt keine geborenen Götzen der Menschheit mehr. Die Menschheit wird künftig nur diejenigen ehren, die ihr gedient, nicht diejenigen, die sie beherrscht haben. (Auf die Büsten deutend.) Da seht das Bild Voltaires, des grossen Vorkämpfers der Gedankenfreiheit; da seht das Bild Marats, des echten glühenden Patrioten, der für die Freiheit darbte, siechte, verhöhnt, und zuletzt gemeuchelt wurde—der die Lauen und die Ehrgeizigen zugleich beschämt, die auch jetzt noch das freie Volk zu eigensüchtigen Zwecken zu umgarnen trachten.—Das seien unsere Genien, das seien unsere Götter für die Zukunft! Vor diesen, Volk, entblösse dein Haupt!

---

(The procession appears amid strains of music, HENRIOT on horseback at the head, then a troop of girls in white and garlanded with roses, after whom, carried on high like regimental colours, the busts of Voltaire and Marat. Immediately before the GODDESS a flaming torch is carried. The goddess herself rests on a flower-bedecked triumphal car. She is clad in a white tunic with, over it, a sky-blue mantle, a red Phrygian cap on her head. Behind her come HEBERT and CHAUMETTE, and other members of the Council of the Commune. The cortege having arrived at the centre of the square the triumphal car is halted, the goddess descends and is led by Hebert and Chaumette to the throne-like scaffolding where she takes her seat. The torch hitherto carried in front of her, is now given into her hand. The maidens group themselves at the foot of the scaffolding. The music ceases.)

A CITIZEN. (in the foreground, to his neighbour) Fine figure of a woman this Goddess of Reason!

NEIGHBOUR. Yes, she's a beauty, Mistress Momoro; only her teeth are none too good.

A WOMAN. (to her neighbour) Just look what great sparkling earrings she's wearing!

HER NEIGHBOUR. She got those from the rich German Baron.

HÉBERT. (mounts the stage but does not go to the level at which the goddess is sitting) Co-citizens! The shameless rebellion of the executive and administrative powers against the sovereign people, which has gone on in France and everywhere else, has been crushed. The abuse of office practised up to now by the leading officers of state, the kings, has been once and for all abolished. From the moment the head of Louis Capet fell, and the dust of his ancestors out of their ostentatious tombs in St. Denys met its brother dust in the streets of Paris, the kingly spell, the kingly magic, has been broken. We proceeded to St. Denys, we opened the costly shrines of the perished despots of France. There they lay, the once all-powerful idols before whom we bent the knee; there they lay in their coffins of silver, phantoms of dust still held together by the last remnants of their gold- embroidered garments. When with gentle fingers one softly touched these majesties, the ashes of the dead showered forth from the gold and purple tatters like the dust out of a crushed puff-ball. They rose up in dusty clouds, these kingly ashes, and those who stood around had, the next morning, decayed potentates brushed with other dirt from their clothes. For mankind there are no more hereditary idols. Mankind in future will honour only those who serve them, not those who are their masters. (Pointing to the busts.) There you see the bust of Voltaire, the great protagonist of freedom of thought; there that of Marat, the genuine, ardent patriot who, for freedom, suffered privation, pined away, was mocked at and finally murdered—who put to shame both the half-hearted and the ambitious who even yet try to incite the free people to selfish ends.—Let such men as Voltaire, as Marat, be our geniuses, our gods, for the future! Before them, 0 people, uncover your heads!

That, then, is Hebert. Let us turn now to Chaumette. If we study the part carefully, we shall feel we can detect in Chaumette a sort of soughing or sighing in ü, indicating a timidity which he conceals under a show of bravado. He tries all the time to stand up to his feeling of fear with ö. And so we have the mood ü ö. Chaumette's will not be a speaking that goes to extremes in any direction; there will be in it a savour of supplication, but of a rather poor and mean kind. The sounds h and sch (sh) will frequently occur, and all the time there will be a sort of insincere heaving and sighing.

Chaumette: ü ö h sch

If we can speak the part with this feeling, then it will be Chaumette.

VOLK. Es lebe die Göttin der Vernunft! (Schwenken der Mützen.) Es lebe die Republik!

DANTON. (zu Robespierre abseits) ‘Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchesne!'

(Beide verlieren sich unter dem Volk.)

CHAUMETFE. (besteigt die Tribüne, nachdem sie HEBERT

verlassen) Republikaner! Wir haben die Tyrannei nicht bloss vom Throne, wir haben sie auch von der Kanzel geworfen. Seitdem zu des grossen Voltaire Zeiten die Mäuse des Unglaubens zum erstenmal den Speck der Kirche benagt, und seit die Naturforschung aufgestanden vom Faulbett des Begriffs der göttlichen Allmacht, auf dem sie geschlafen, ist Frankreich vorwärts gegangen mit Giganten- schritt. Nur fort auf diesem Wege, Brüder! Streuen wir mit der Asche der Könige auch die Asche der Kalenderheiligen aus den Kirchen in alle vier Winde! Und insofern sie von Metall, diese Heiligen, sollen sie gute Patrioten werden und für die Republik ins Feuer gehen: wir schmelzen sie ein! Reissen wir den Kirchtürmen ihre geschwätzigen Glockenzungen aus, und lassen wir sie im Felde als Kanonen brummen; schneiden wir Patronen aus den Messbüchern! Auf die Friedhöfe lasst uns die Inschrift pflanzen: ‘Ewiger Schlaf!’ Opfern wir nicht mehr das beste unserer Habe dem Himmel! Seien wir klug wie die alten Heiden: die brachten den Göttern von den Opfertieren auch nur die Häute und Knochen dar, das Fleisch assen sie selbst. Unsere Göttin sei die Vernunft, die gesunde Vernunft ohne Grübeleien, ohne Wissenskram, ohne aristokratische Gelehrsamkeit. Und als Franzose und Republikaner füg‘ich hinzu: Die Wissenschaft muss nützlich sein, und die Künste müssen einzig dem Patriotismus dienen; sie sollen keine Werkzeuge aristokratischer Verweichlichung sein. Den alt-ehrwürdigen Prachtbau von Notre Dame, der vor uns ragt, weihen wir von heut an zum Tempel der Vernunft! Vorerst aber, zum Zeichen, dass das Licht allen gemein ist (sich zu den Jungfrauen wendend), entzündet die Fackeln und verteilt sic unter das ganze Volk!

(Die Jungfrauen ergreifen Fackeln, von welchen ein grosser Haufe am Fusse des Gerüstes aufgeschichtet ist, und entzünden sie an der Fackel der Göttin.)

CLOOTS. (sich mit seiner Schar nähernd) Lasst alle Völker die Fackeln an diesem Licht entfachen, das in Frankreich aufgegangen!

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PEOPLE. Long live the Goddess of Reason! (waving their caps) Long live the Republic!

DANTON. (aside, to Robespierre) ‘He's desperately savage today is Father Duchesne !’

(Both men mingle in the crowd.)

CHAUMETTE. (mounts the tribune on HEBERT leaving it)

Republicans! We have thrown down tyranny not only from the throne but also from the pulpit. Ever since the time of Voltaire, when disbelief for the first time gnawed at the vitals of the Church, and since natural philosophy has arisen from the idle bed where slept the concept of divine omnipotence, since all this, France has progressed with giant strides. But let us go forward on this road, brothers! Let us cast to the four winds not only the ashes of the kings but also those of the calendar saints of the Church! And in as far as they are of metal, these saints, shall they become good patriots and go into the fire for the Republic; we will melt them down! Let us pull down from the Church towers the clamorous tongues of the bells and make them roar as cannon on the field of battle; let us make cartridge cases of their missals! Let us write up ‘eternal sleep‘at the entrance to their graveyards and no longer offer the best of our possessions to the heavens! Let us be as shrewd as the old heathen who brought to their gods only the skins and bones of the sacrificial animals, eating the flesh themselves. Our goddess shall be reason, sound reason, without speculation and unencumbered by knowledge or by the learning of aristocrats. And as Frenchman and republican I add: Science must be made of use, and the arts must serve patriotism alone; they shall be no tools of aristocratic effeminacy. This worthy, noble old pile of Notre Dame we shall dedicate today as the Temple of Reason. But first, as token that light is common property to every one of us, (turning to the maidens) kindle the torches and distribute them among all the people!

(The maidens seize upon the torches, a great heap of which is stacked at the foot of the scaffolding, and light them from the torch held by the goddess.)

CLOOTS. (approaching with his crowd) Let everyone light his torch from this light which has arisen in France!

Chaumette, you see, makes it plain that he wants not only to haul the tyrants down from their thrones but to push them out of their pulpits. This is the character Hamerling gives him. And if you study the part, letting yourself hear Chaumette speak with the voice of a priest who has grown rather insincere, then you will have hit upon the tone that should be maintained for Chaumette throughout.

Robespierre may be said to be the character that interests Hamerling most of all. He should appear rather tall on the stage. Whatever he may have been in real life, here in Hamerling's play Robespierre is a tall man, rather thin and worn, and all the sounds that he utters tend somewhat in the direction of i. There is always a decided contraction at the middle of his palate. He is moreover always ready to talk of great matters—to ‘embrace the world’—in rather grandiloquent phrases. i o, i o; these are the sounds you hear in Robespierre.

Then Robespierre is also very much the schoolmaster whose speaking abounds in d and t. He has a distinct liking for d and t, the pointing sounds.

Robespierre: i o d t

And now there is a passage in the play that can be particularly helpful to us if we want to have a complete picture of the character of Robespierre. Look up the scene that takes place in the house of the carpenter Duplay, where Robespierre has his lodging. The scene is laid in a kind of ante-room which divides Robespierre's apartments from the rooms and workshop of his landlord. Here then we have Robespierre at home.

Hamerling begins the scene by letting Robespierre indulge in a little self-admiration, in the true i o mood. We need to take note of this trait in Robespierre, if we are going to present him on the stage; for it provides us with a key to his character. Robespierre sets great value on what others think about him; but he would not like to admit it—either to himself or to them. And he undoubtedly has at the same time a good deal, as we said, of the schoolmaster in him and even gives the whole Revolution something of that tone. 1 am not of course speaking of the Robespierre of history; all that I am saying refers to the Robespierre of Hamerling's play.

Danton, Billaud-Varenne and the rest are ready to hang people who say anything in favour of the old aristocracy or royalty—or who even dream about them. But Robespierre,—he would like to hang persons who are guilty, for example, of writing an r in the wrong place. He detects in a spelling mistake like this an unforgivable conservatism which hinders the guilty person from taking his place in the new order of things. Schoolmasters, accordingly, whose pupils do not spell correctly—these in particular he is ready to hang.

The two traits are remarkably well brought out by Hamer- ling; and we shall find we can understand the character of Robespierre if we study the part with these traits in mind and with the sound-feelings that belong to them.

ROBESPIERRE. (tritt von einem Fenster zurück) Vorbei die letzten Karren—Hebert flucht—Chaumette macht ein Gesicht wie eine kranke Lerche—der Pöbel, der ihnen vor zwei Wochen zugejauchzt, verhöhnt sie. (Er nimmt Platz an einem Tischchen, durchblättert Zeitungen und öffnet Briefe. Miene, Haltung und Bewegung drücken eine fast pedantische Gemessenheit, Ruhe und anscheinende Gleichgültigkeit gegen den Inhalt der Zuschriften aus.)

‘Robespierre, du Gewaltiger! Seele der Republik—harr‘aus! Geh‘ mutig weiter auf deiner Bahn, entgegen dem Ziele, das dir winkt!’

‘Bürgerrepräsentant Robespierre, ich merke, du strebst nach der Diktatur! Gib sie auf, die volksverräterischen Pläne, oder wisse, dass die Dolche von zweiundzwanzig Brutussen, die sich gegen dein Leben, du Meuchelmörder der Freiheit, verschworen, Tag für Tag über dir gezückt sind—’

‘Robespierre, wahrhafter Freund des Volkes, Unbestechlicher, erhalte dich das Schicksal noch lange, lange für das Wohl Frankreichs und der Welt!’

‘Du lebst noch, Tiger, befleckt mit dem Blute der edelsten Geschlechter von Frankreich? Henker der Menschheit, du lebst noch? Gib acht! ein Sprössling aus edlem Stamme ist noch übrig und sein geschliffenes Schwert lauert—’

‘Robespierre, du teurer, edler, tugendhafter Mann! vergib einer begeisterten Tochter der Republik, die in Bewunderung für dich erglüht, wenn sie dich anfleht um die Gnade, dich sehen, dich sprechen, ihr republikanisches Herz an deinem Anblick laben zu dürfen!’

‘Du Aas, du Madensack, du Würmerfrass, elender Robespierre, hast du keine Scheu vor Gott dem Herrn, dem Beherrscher Himmels und der Erden? Denn wisse, elender Tyrrann’—Tyrann schreibt der Bursche mit einem doppelten r! Dass doch das Volk nie orthographisch schreiben lernt!‘ Elender Tyrrann, dass du samt deinen Spiessgesellen unser Parris’—wieder ein doppeltes r—ich werde den Schulmeister köpfen lassen, zu welchem der Wicht in die Schule ging—

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Act I, Scene II

ROBESPIERRE. (withdrawing from a window) The last carts

have gone by—Hebert is cursing and swearing, Chaumette is making a face like a sick skylark; the people who two weeks ago loudly acclaimed them now sneer at them.

He seats himself at a little table, turns over newspapers and opens letters. His expression, attitude and movements convey an almost pedantic precision, repose and apparent indifference to what the writings contain.

He takes up a newspaper in which he is referred to.

‘Robespierre, you mighty one! Soul of the Republic—persevere! Continue with courage on the road to the goal which beckons you!’

He smiles, well pleased and satisfied.—Another paper.

‘Robespierre, representative of the citizens, I can see you are aiming at dictatorship! Give up these plans to betray the people, or know that the daggers of twenty-two Brutuses, who are plotting against your life, you murderer of freedom, are pointed at you, day in, day out—’

Puts the paper irritably on one side.—A third paper.

‘Robespierre, true friend of the people, you, the incorruptible, continue long to uphold your destiny for the wellbeing of France and of the world! ’

Lays aside the paper, well pleased.—Another paper.

‘You are still alive, you tiger, stained as you are with the blood of the noblest houses of France ? Butcher of mankind, you still live? Beware! The descendant of an ancient race has survived and his ready sword lies in wait—’

‘Robespierre, you dear, noble, virtuous man ! Forgive an enthusiastic daughter of the Republic, burning with admiration of you, if she pleads for the indulgence of a sight of you, of speech with you, of being allowed to refresh her republican heart by gazing upon you!’

‘You carrion, you miserable carcass, food for the worms, you wretched Robespierre, have you no shame in the sight of God, the Lord and Ruler of heaven and earth? Know then, miserable tyrrant’—why, the fellow spells it with a double r—so the people never learn to spell correctly when they write!—‘Miserable tyrrant, that you and your accomplices in our Parris’—a double r again. I shall have the master beheaded who taught at the school where this creature went.

There you have the tones of mood and voice that need to be carefully studied. As I said just now, I am accentuating the special features of the characters; here I have purposely

exaggerated a little in order to help you to come to a deep and thorough understanding of the whole figure of Robespierre, as portrayed by Hamerling. For nothing less will suffice if you want to act the part; you will need to find your way right into the very heart and being of the character.

And now when you have learned to understand Robespierre in these two aspects of his character, you will continue your study of the part further. I would like you to take what I am saying here rather as giving a description of how these matters can be gradually brought before students in a school of dramatic art. Having then brought your students so far, you may take with them that moment in the play when Robespierre is called upon to account for the fact that he is not willing to be made ‘dictator’, when all the time he definitely wants to be it! His friend St. Just asks him why it is he spurns the title. And now Robespierre is compelled to divulge something of his true character. Yes, it comes out! And at the same time a third trait of his makes its appearance: we are shown Robespierre the dogmatist, the rationalist, perpetually wanting to pose as schoolmaster for the whole world (ready also to be an opportunist for that end), promulgating a theory of which we are to be repeatedly reminded as the play proceeds; for from now on Robespierre makes every endeavour to justify himself by it with subtlety and precision at the bar of reason. St. Just says to him:

ST. JUST. Du verschmähst den Namen—warum nicht auch die Sache?

ST. JUST. You spurn the name—why not the thing itself?

Robespierre is naturally deeply annoyed at such a question; it probes his weaknesses to the quick—those weaknesses of his that are at the same time the things that make him great. He grows restless, walks up and down. St. Just remains standing still. Robespierre does not answer at once. He has, you see, to find a way to justify himself before the tribunal of reason; he walks to and fro to gain time. Then he claps St. Just on the shoulder.

ROBESPIERRE. Hör Inch', St. Just! Das Wort ist mir sonst Werkzeug, Waffe. Dir gegenüber soll es ein vertraulicher Bote meiner Gedanken sein—so weit du sie begreifen magst. Ich bin vielleicht, wie du gesagt, ein heimlicher Schwärmer. Ich liebe die Menschheit, wie Rousseau sie geliebt! Aber was sind mir die einzelnen Menschen? Ich verachte sie. Nimm den Durchschnittsmenschen aus der Masse heraus—sein Wesen ist die bare Unvernunft. Lass ihn in der Masse, an seinem Ort, und er ist Teil eines zwar blinden, aber infalliblen Ganzen. Die Menschheit geht immer den Weg zum Ziel, aber unbewusst, in blindem Drang, wie ein Nachtwandler. Das Schellengeläut der Phrasen, mit welchen sie sich ihren blinden Drang, ihren Weg und ihr Ziel deutlich machen will, hat wenig zu sagen. Die meisten Worte mischen sich in ihren Fortgang ohne Sinn, bloss zur Ermunterung, wie Hundegebell ins Räderrollen. Wahrhaft bewusst gehen den Weg nur wenige Auserwählte. Diese Wenigen sind Regulatoren, Lenker, Förderer, Bahnbrecher—sie haben den grossen Zweck vor Augen—und einzig diesen.—Weisst du, Freund, was eine grosse Idee ist?

ST. JUST. Ich meine es zu wissen.

ROBESPIERRE. Weisst du, was das Wort Konsequenz sagen will ?

ST. JUST. Ich denke.

ROBESPIERRE. Das ist mir lieb.—Der einzelne, sein Wohl und Wehe, sein Leben, ist mir nichts. Ich lasse ihn unbedenklich für den grossen Zweck über die Klinge springen. Bin ich grausam? Mutter Natur macht's ebenso. Ich wünsche, ich will, dass das Vernünftige sich auf Erden verwirkliche. Das ist mein Prinzip—mein Ideal—davon bin ich begeistert oder besessen, wenn du lieber willst, dämonisch besessen.—Das Unvermeidliche stört mich, quält mich, wie ein Missklang im Ohr. Ich kann es nicht ausstehen. Ich will keine Könige, ich will keine Aristokraten, ich will keine Privilegien, ich will keine Priesterherrschaft, ich will keine Säbelherrschaft, ich will auch keine Pöbelherrschaft—nichts von einer Uebermacht, die Zufall, Geburt, eigensüchtige Schlauheit oder rohe Gewalt gewährt—denn das ist alles Unvernunft und ein Greuel auf Erden. Ich will keine andere Uebermacht, als die der Vernunft über den Blödsinn. Wer zu den wahrhaft Bevorzugten gehört, erhält seine Präpotenz über die Menge nur dadurch, dass er dieser Menge gegenüber eine noch grössere Menge vertritt: die Menschheit. Ich halte mich für einen von diesen. Ich fühle die Flamme der Menschheit in mir leuchten und brennen—Fiebergluten entzündet sie in mir—sie leuchtet, aber sie verzehrt auch—das Licht fordert Unterwerfung, Gehorsam—auch von mir—es ist grimmiges verzehrt mein Menschliches—und dann wundern sich die Kleinen, dass ich ein’ Unmensch’ bin. Wer die Fackel dieses Lichtes trägt, ist dieses Lichtes Sklave: aber den Kindern der Finsternis und der Dämmerung gegenüber ist er Herr und König. Könige wird es ewig geben; aber Zepter und Kronen und höfischer Mummenschanz und Trabantenscharen, das ist schnöde Unvernunft! Der bessere Kopf braucht nur hervorzutreten, um zu herrschen. Darum nichts von Diktatur, Freund, nichts von Diktatur! Nichts von Namen und Titeln und Würden, nichts von Mummenschanz und Trabanten und Liktorenbeilen—dergleichen kompromittiert, diskreditiert nur ... Bleiben wir auf republikanisch- gesetzlichem Wege. Wenn Frankreich tut, was ich rate—was brauch‘ich zu befehlen?—Nichts von Diktatur, Freund, verschone mich damit !

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ROBESPIERRE. Listen to me, St. Just! Words on other occasions are my tools, my weapons. To you they shall be the trusty conveyors of my thoughts—as far as you may grasp my thoughts. Perhaps I am, as you say, in secret a sentimentalist. I love mankind as Rousseau loved them! But what are individual men to me? I despise them. Take the average man out of the mass—in his nature he is utterly devoid of reason. Leave him in the mass, in his place, and he is part of a blind whole, blind, it is true, but a whole that is infallible. Men move always towards the goal, but unconsciously, from a blind urge, like a sleepwalker. All those high-sounding phrases with which they seek to make clear to themselves this blind urge, this path and this goal—say very little. Most of the words they employ in their progress are without sense, spoken merely to cheer them on, like the barking of dogs round the wheels of a passing cart. It is but a few of the elect who go on their way in full consciousness. These few are those who govern, leaders of men, instigators, pioneers—these alone have the great aim before them.—Do you know, friend, what a great idea is ?

ST. JUST. I think I do.

ROBESPIERRE. Do you know what the word ‘consistency’ implies?

ST. JUST. So I believe.

ROBESPIERRE. That is what I hold dear.—To me the individual, his weal and woe, his very life, are nothing. To further the great aim, without hesitation I send him to his death. Am I inhuman? Mother Nature does the same. It is my wish, it is my determined will, that the reasonable should be realised on earth. That is my principle, my ideal, that by which I am inspired—or possessed if you prefer it, demoniacally possessed.—The inevitable disturbs me, torments me, like a discordant note in the ear. I can't suffer it. I will not have kings, I will not have aristocrats, nor will I have privileges, priestly rule, nor the rule of the sabre; I will not even have the people as rulers, I want nothing of any domination conceded to chance, birth, selfish cunning or brute force,—for all that is lacking in reason and is an abomination on the face of the earth. I want no other domination but that of reason over foolishness. Whoever belongs to the specially favoured receives his power over the multitude only because he represents a still greater multitude—mankind. I consider myself to be one of the specially favoured. I feel the flame of mankind shining, burning, within me—it kindles within me the glow of fever—it shines but it also consumes—the light demands subjection, obedience, even from me—it is relentless—it eats up what is human in me—and then the small fry are surprised to find me inhuman. Whoever bears the torch of this light is the slave of this light, but over the children of darkness and dusk he rules as lord and king. Kings there will always be—but sceptre and crown and the masquerade and military splendour of courts are a contemptible lack of reason! The better head has only to come forward in order to rule. Therefore, friend, not a word about dictators, not a word! Have done with names, titles, honours, have done with all mummery, with life-guards and the axes of lictors—things of that kind only compromise and bring discredit... . Let me keep to the path of our republican law. When France carries out what I counsel—what need for me to command?—No word of dictatorship, friend, spare me that!

(Translation by V. E. W.)

There you have Robespierre.

That is then the first way in which we should learn to study our text, namely, from the aspect of delineation of character. When we have made progress in this, we can pass on to the second, which consists in learning to give the relevant colouring to the play in all its scenes from beginning to end, but always so that the fundamental tone of the play as a whole is maintained throughout. today we will begin to consider certain things we shall need to understand for this; then tomorrow we shall be in a position to carry the study further.

You will remember, my dear friends, that I showed you how the vowels can be thought of as forming in their sequence a kind of scale. I want now to write them in a circle, making seven halts or stopping-places in the circle where I will write in the vowels in order, so that the last comes round again to the first. Thus, this time they will not be side by side in a line, but inscribed on a circle so that the series returns upon itself: a e i o ä ö ü make seven, and u is the eighth.

When now we study plays in connection with this circle of vowels, we discover something of extraordinary interest.

Imagine we are studying a play, and find we want to arrange for the play as a whole to have a mood that arises out of the feeling of u; we want to let the audience feel from the beginning that up there on the stage the prevailing general tone corresponds to the feeling one has with u. We shall then get each actor to speak his part in such a way that something of the u mood is present. This may be done by accentuation here and there,. or again by the colouring the actor gives to his voice. Then, as the play goes on, we find we have to pass on from u to a, to e—and now to i (see the arrow in the drawing). The play has thus moved on in respect of mood as far as i. We feel, however, that we cannot now go on from i to o. We have instead to come back, we have to let the mood come back again to e, with a slight tendency of warding something off; and yet after all we allow it to come near us again, we return to a; but before u we call a halt, at most letting u only begin to sound.

When we go through the play in this manner, giving it throughout the right colouring in accordance with the feelings that belong to the several vowels, what have we? We set out from u—that is to say, fear. We go on farther and come to i. With i is associated the experience of compassion. We have now reached the middle of the play. In the remaining acts, we are obliged to retrace our steps; we have to come again, even if warding it off a little (for we must not lose hold of what is happening), we have to come back to a. And that is the mood in which the play ends.

We have thus found in the play this sequence: fear, compassion, wonder. But these are the very moods of soul of which Aristotle speaks, although of course he does not connect them with sounds as we have done, fear as we set out in u, and returning at last to wonder in a; and in a coming to a standstill before reaching u, for of fear only a faint murmur still lingers on at the end of the play.

And now suppose we take the other path, setting out this time from i; but from a special kind of i that does not express veritable deep compassion, but does still suggest entering into another's experience, though perhaps less intensely—the i, namely, that conveys the impression of inquisitiveness, curiosity. Let us say we have a play where we find we have to take our start in this mood. We are curious to know what will happen; we are all expectation. We pass on, as the play proceeds, to ä and ö and come then to ii; that is to say, we begin to find ourselves apprehensive, lest things may perhaps not turn out well. That is then the path that the play takes. But now it is essential that we do not go on from apprehension into fear, we must on no account pass from ii to u; for then our play would have an unhappy ending; and that is not the intention. We must, in fact, now go back. And as we return, we are brought into a mood of relief and satisfaction—ä.

Thus, the circle of the vowels gives us, first the sequence: fear—compassion—wonder ; and then, another time, the sequence: curiosity—apprehension—relief, happy ending!

Fear—Compassion—Wonder Curiosity—Apprehension—Relief.

With the first sequence, we have tragedy, and with the second, comedy.

The terms are of course categorical; you will not find that the course of a play ever exactly fits into them. They can, however, provide an excellent basis upon which you can study how to stage your play.

Thus, in dealing with the text of a play, we have first to study it from the point of view of delineation of character, and then go on to probe to the very heart and essence of its form.

• 1. See Eurhythmy as Visible Song.
• 2. As y in’ yacht', but pronounced so as to emphasise its consonantal character.

At the close of yesterday's lecture I began to show you how you can obtain guidance for the configuration of a drama by studying the sound-feelings that belong to it. For the form of the drama is contained within the cycle of the sound-feelings; and when we inscribe these on to a circle, we discover within their sequence the configuration, on the one hand, of tragedy, and on the other hand, of comedy.

Now it is a fact that this sensitiveness to sound was present in man in the very early days when drama was first coming into being as an offspring of the plays in the Mysteries ; and that can help to assure us that we have here come upon a law, a law in the realm of art. Even Aristotle when he speaks of drama gives evidence of a knowledge that came from the ancient Mystery wisdom. You will not, it is true, find in his writings explicit reference to the connection with sound; the heart of the matter is nevertheless there.

Not all Aristotle's writings have, as we know, come down to us. We can, however, gather from what is known as his Poetics how he regarded tragedy.

In the description he gives of tragedy, Aristotle plainly refers us to the ancient Mysteries, for he speaks there of ‘catharsis’. Catharsis, the purification of the human soul, where the transition is made from the kind of feeling that is experienced in the physical to a feeling that belongs in the realm of soul and spirit, was a goal that was set before the Mystery pupils in the olden days. And now look how Aristotle, in characterising tragedy, sees in its gradual unfoldment a reflection of this process that took place in the Mysteries for the ensouling of man. Note that I say, a reflection; we must not of course confuse the two. Aristotle asks : What should tragedy do; what is its function? Tragedy, he declares, should awaken fear and compassion. In the ancient Mysteries they would have put it differently. They would have said: Tragedy has to pass from the u mood into the i mood—in order then to find its solution in the a or o mood. That is how you would have heard it expressed in very ancient times Aristotle then goes on to say that this fear and compassion are to be aroused in the spectator in order that he may thereby undergo purification. Catharsis, he tells us, will follow from the experience of these emotions.

In Greek times, when schooling and education were not yet oppressed with that stuffy atmosphere of pedantry which deters one nowadays from making any reference to education, it was possible to speak in this way of the meaning and intention of drama without being guilty of tedious moralising. It was possible to explain how the spectator, by repeatedly witnessing the drama, was meant to experience something like a faint reflection of the catharsis of the Mysteries. As he beheld the tragedy acted out before him, fear and compassion were to be artificially awakened in him, with the result that he would gradually be healed from giving himself up uncontrollably to these emotions in real life, healed from all that would undermine his self-possession—in a word, he would experience what was known as catharsis.

If we have to stage a drama and want to form it in right relation to the soul elements that go to the building of it, then we must find again the possibility to receive truths of this kind into the very life-stream of our blood. We must be able to sense the imponderable influences that play between stage and audience.

I reminded you just now that the writings of Aristotle have come down to us only imperfectly. If we had them entire, we should find in them also the other definition which would run somewhat as follows : Comedy is the representation on the stage of a complete and finished plot that is calculated to awaken in the spectator inquisitive interest and apprehensiveness, with the result that his interest in life grows and widens.

Not much is left today of what people were once able to receive through witnessing the performance of comedy. The interest of many people—I am not of course speaking now of people who have cultivated the finer aesthetic sensibilities—but the main interest of people at large is apt to be limited to the ‘him’ and the ‘her’. They are apprehensive as to whether ‘he’ and ‘she’ are going to get one another, and relieved and content when they do pair off after all. Even so, however, the comedy of today does still bear the semblance of what constitutes the essence of genuine comedy.

Now it is a matter of no little importance that we should be able to take what we have thus seen to be the essential elements of tragedy and comedy, and unite them with our experience of sound in the way that I explained yesterday, that we may then bring them into our speech and gesture. For the art of acting is a real experience, born out of the human soul that has been embodied in speech and gesture.

I have spoken of this in an article which will appear in the Mitteilungsblatt tomorrow, in continuation of what I wrote there the previous week about the present course of lectures.¹ The two articles taken together could indeed be regarded as a kind of ideal programme for those who are attending the course, particularly for those of you who, whether actors or no, take a real interest in dramatic art. As I have said there, the art of acting is an experience that arises from the soul's having embodied itself in speech and gesture. And it must again become that. But before it can do so, our eyes will have to be opened to perceive certain basic elements without the recognition of which we cannot hope to stage our plays aright. For on the stage there must be harmony throughout; nothing there but must be in tune.

Suppose a producer is considering how to build up a scene, giving it the décor that will make the right impression upon the eyes of the audience. If he is conscious at all of the need for style, that is to say, for art, and does not want mere naturalism—which is the reverse of art—he will have to do his utmost to bring style into his décor. But do we really understand what style in décor means?

Let us think first what it is we have to work with when we set out to make our décor, even if we are wanting to do it in a manner that inclines strongly in the direction of naturalism. We have to work almost entirely with the products of human civilisation—that is to say, with the sub-mineral world. (The crystal forms of the mineral world are more cosmic; they have far more affinity with the cosmos than have any of our aesthetically built houses!) We have to concern ourselves also with the mineral kingdom, and to some extent too with the plant kingdom. Pictures of lions and bears will very seldom be asked for, nor would they easily fit in with the action on the stage. If you were to paint in somewhere a dog sitting under a tree, that too would hardly appeal to one as a choice specimen of décor!

But now, is it possible to represent with style, with art, something that is of mineral nature? Can houses—can plants even—be shown with style? People try to do it; but their attempts only go to prove that it cannot be done. Imagine a stylised tree! The inner conditions that determine art make such a thing impossible. For we cannot, you know, do everything! We can do the things that are laid down in the inner laws of the universe—and only these.

It is different with the animal kingdom. There you can begin to sculpt and mould. A lion or a tiger you can mould artistically—a dog, a cow, or an ox. And going on then to man, you can develop your plastic art to the point of portraiture. But imagine you set out to sculpt a lily. The very idea is inartistic. You simply cannot mould plastically the forms of plants. Neither can the forms of the mineral kingdom be moulded and sculpted. Not until you reach the animal kingdom can you begin to represent in plastic art. Why is this so? How is it we cannot make a plastic representation of a flower, for example? The plastic arts are essentially the arts that idealise, that give style—using the word in its noblest sense. So much so that in the domains where style is possible, our works of art receive style in the degree to which we are able to mould them plastically.

We must not therefore imagine that if, for example, we have to paint a forest for the stage, we shall have to give it style. We must not think we have to paint there a haphazard collection of trees in some deliberate ‘style’. Our picture would only look odd. Stage décor is not landscape, it is not a ‘painting’ in the sense of a work of art. When we stand before a genuine painting, we are looking at something that is finished and complete. It must therefore show style; it must appeal to us as a finished work of art. But stage décor is not finished. It is only finished when it is illuminated by the stage-lighting. And not even then; it receives its final touch when we are looking at it together with what happens on the stage. Not until the play is being enacted is the stage décor complete. This means that it will have to depend for its style, not on form and line, but on colour and lighting. If you want to plan your scene so that the whole décor adds just what the actor needs, giving him the exactly right surrounding for his art, then you will have to centre your attention on the play of light and colour.

For what is it lives in colour? In colour, my dear friends, lives the whole human soul. When we have the power to behold with the eye of the spirit, we discover that the soul of man within lives in colours. Imagine you meet someone whose soul is at that moment bathed in joy, overflowing with mirth and happiness. It is not enough for him to laugh outwardly, he would like to laugh inside; he would like to laugh into the tips of his fingers, and is only sorry he has no tail and cannot show his delight by wagging it, as dogs do. (Oh yes, there are people who feel just like that!) What would you find if you could look right into that person's soul? You would see that that soul was living in red, in a red that positively shouts at you.

When we look at the colour red, we experience it from without. But if we were able to glide right into the jubilant red that we see in that painting there on the wall, and feel how the painter himself must have felt whilst he was painting it, then we would see, shining there in the red, the radiantly happy soul that I described just now. A soul that is imbued more with a feeling of contentment with what has taken place, will live in a more tranquil red. A soul that is deep sunk in thought lives in green, experiences green within. A soul that is rapt in prayer lives in violet, and a soul that is brimming over with love experiences a pure and quiet red. A soul that is eaten up with egotism experiences streaks and splashes of yellow-green. And so on, and so on. Every possible experience without has its corresponding experience within.

But now I want you to understand that when I say something like I said just now and that made you laugh so much, about the dog wagging its tail, I do not mean it as a joke. It only sounded like one. Look at a dog that is running up to its master and wagging its tail furiously! That dog is shooting out behind it all the time the most wonderful sheaves of colour—bright red sheaves, blazing red. That is how a dog laughs! A dog's laugh cannot come to expression in its physiognomy; if it ever does so, the effect is not exactly beautiful. But you can see the laughter in the aura that envelops the dog's tail like a cloud. I was, you see, giving you a perfectly accurate description of a fact; I was not speaking in fun.

When we know how the human soul lives in colour, we shall in time begin to be able, by catching them at a particular moment in the play, to perceive the individual persons on the stage in colour. Thus I could, for instance, say: When I look at Danton in the drama of which we were speaking yesterday, then Danton appears to me in a colour where orange plays into a reddish tint. And I would also dress him accordingly.

Or again, if I look at Hebert, I would have to present him in a greenish colour splashed with red, some kind of blending of green and red. Turning now to Chaumette, I would dress him in a colour that, but for a tinge of grey in it, would resemble the deep scarlet worn by Cardinals. As for Robespierre, when I look at him in the play, I see that I must let him appear in a kind of light green, supplementing it, however, with as much red as possible—giving him a red cravat and so forth. That then is how we shall deal with costume—an item in stage décor that should not be obtrusive.

An important point to have in mind in this connection is that in order to have this lively perception of the colours that radiate from the souls of the different characters, the characters must be right there in front of you on the stage. If a cloud comes between you and the sun, the sun cannot shine directly upon you. No more can the persons on the stage shine upon you so long as the curtain is down. When the curtain rises, then the moment has come for them to send forth their rays and communicate to you their colours and tones. You should then be seeing there before you on the stage the inner soul experiences of the various characters. Then too will the décor receive at last its style. For that must be our aim in all stage décor: a style that owes its being, not to form and line, but to colour. We shall do well to refrain from any attempt to give it style by way of form and line, and devote our whole attention to finding for it the fundamental colour-tone—one, namely, that will harmonise with the different light effects required in the course of the scene. If we succeed in this, we shall find that our play will awaken the desired response; it will get across to the audience.

We can approach the matter also from another side. Say we have there before us the stage, and we set out to plan the décor, suggesting as best we may, without any attempt at style, the surroundings the scene demands, by the use of certain fundamental colour-tones. In these last we shall not take into consideration the characters at all; our endeavours will be concentrated on finding the fundamental colour-tones that will harmonise with the general situation of the play as a whole. If a scene takes place in the evening, naturally we cannot have a décor that suggests early dawn; nor could we expect to call up the impression of midday on a background that was attuned to moonlight.

After having taken pains to discover in this way the décor that is right for your piece as regards its external situation, you will now have to turn your attention to all that has to come from the inner soul life of the characters, to what these have to contribute in the way of mood. And this is where the lighting comes in. For it is the stage-lighting, in its different shades of colour, that has to render the moods of your characters. Outer and inner will thus be working together on the stage. Your lighting will be planned to accord with the moods of the characters, and you will arrange all your outer décor to accord with the general situation.

All that we have been saying has reference of course to the modern stage in its usual form, and would not apply to anything in the way of an open-air theatre, for instance. As a matter of fact, there can be no inner truthfulness in attempts to return to more primitive times when theatres were out of doors. For, before we could stage our play, the older civilisations themselves would have to be resurrected to provide the necessary milieu, and we can't very well do that!

You must really consider what it involves if you set out to act without the appurtenances of the modern stage, and especially without the effects produced by stage-lighting. On an open-air stage you will certainly not want human countenances; you will be constrained to go back to the mask. The mask, and the mask alone, will unite happily with Nature's background. For the mask does not show man as he is, but makes him look rather like an elemental being; and elemental beings are at home in Nature. In order therefore to act in the open, we would have to return to times when man had as yet no desire to take his place on the stage as man.

While we are on the subject of stage décor, it is a real delight to carry one's mind back to Shakespeare's time. No refinements of stage-setting were possible then ! They would place a chair on the stage and write on it: Here is an alehouse !—and leave the rest to the imagination of the audience. But this imagination is simply not there in our modern audiences.

Something else too has been lost. In a time when people's imagination was equal to a staging of this simple kind, the speaking was entirely different from what it is today. It had a style that cannot be given to our speaking today; the languages no longer allow of it. Particularly striking in the English language is the rapidity with which it changed after Shakespeare's time, so that today it is quite impossible to act and speak in true Shakespearian style. Impossible, I mean, for a present-day actor. Could Shakespeare himself be recalled to life, then we would soon see how little his speaking conformed to our modern décor!

I assume, then, that we are dealing with the modern stage, and that we want to take it as it is and endow it with form. We might one day explore the question of how some kind of open-air theatre could be planned for, under the conditions and with the material that our times can provide; but no speculating in that direction can have for us at present any practical value.

When making plans for the stage, we must be quite clear in our minds about this working together of inner and outer. The inner mood of the characters manifests in the lighting; outer décor has to be formed in accordance with what is given by Nature, by the environment. And then we have to bring the two into harmony. And that we can achieve by choosing the right colour-tone for the décor.

Suppose I have an evening scene to prepare. I shall not without further deliberation simply plan to use a colour that belongs specifically to the dusk of evening In all other respects—the representation of trees, and so forth—naturalism may be allowed to hold the field. For the naturalistic painting on the sets is for the stage designer very much what apples and carrots are for the painter of still life—merely the materials from which he composes his picture; and we know very well that apples and carrots do not lend themselves to idealisation. And it is the same for the stage designer; he has no call to stylise the properties that he collects for his scene; indeed he must not try to do so, for he could only make the picture of the scene look artificial if he tried to give it style in form and line. The general fundamental colouring—that is what is important.

To return then to our evening scene. It may be within doors, in a room, or it may be öutside, perhaps in a garden. Whichever it is, the fundamental colouring will have to be chosen to blend with the various lighting effects that are needed to express the moods of the characters. We must find the shade that will blend with these to produce a harmonious whole.

It may be, I shall have many changing moods emanating from the souls of the characters; then each of these moods will need its particular lighting effect. But supposing I were to let a red light shine from the left-hand front corner of the stage (as seen from the auditorium) and this red were to fall on a light violet ground, I know very well that the result would be distinctly inharmonious. I shall have to take pains to avoid any such disharmony. For that is the key to the whole matter; in order to achieve style, we must endeavour to find for our décor the shade of colour which will harmonise with all the various colours that are called for by the moods of the persons on the stage.

Considerations of this kind are not at all easy to put before people of the present day. For there is no doubt about it, we are living in a time when art has completely vanished from the stage. This has been forcibly brought home to us in some actual instances that have come our way.

When we first set about staging our Mystery Plays, we were of course obliged to be guests in some theatre; thus we had occasion to inspect a whole variety of stages. As regards the more ordinary kind of stage the main point would naturally be whether it were large enough and not too large, for our purpose. The décor we would presumably have to undertake ourselves. But now, in the course of our enquiries, we came upon some most strange—and at that time entirely novel—stages, which could really read one a lesson on the hopeless poverty of dramatic art. We were shown, for example, a stage that made me think: In heaven's name, where are the actors going to be? The stage opened wide to right and left, but had no depth, scarcely any depth at all, front to back. Afterwards, I witnessed a performance on this stage. I had to ask myself: Has it really come to this, that people are confusing painting with drama? For it all looked exactly as if it were a painted picture where, however, the figures were somehow made to move about. It was called a ‘relief’ stage.

When a blending of the two arts turns more in the direction of painting, I like it very well. When I was young we had books where what you saw at first was a collection of figures painted on the page; but little dramas were mysteriously stowed away there, waiting for the tabs below to be pulled, when the figures above would begin to move. I had one of these books of my own, in which there was a picture of a very pretty spot in the environs of Vienna. The picture was of course a little stiff and formal. But if one has a child's imagination and is moreover constantly pulling the tabs and setting the picture in motion, why, then the result is really delightful. But when we see something similar on the stage (for we would certainly have taken that relief stage for a painted scene, only that we were puzzled to understand why the figures were moving), then all I can say is that such a spectacle rings the death-knell of dramatic art.

One item we saw on this stage was particularly wanting in good taste. Special attention had obviously been given on this occasion to the matter of perspective and the way the audience can be deceived with it and then taken by surprise. I found myself looking straight at a certain point in the backdrop. There was at that point something that completely baffles description. Impossible to imagine what it could be, there in the middle of the wall, with some sort of continuation downwards! It looked more like a coconut than anything else, but as though a coconut with its fibrous bark were somehow running wild. That was really the impression one had. Then the play began. After a while, this object at the back of the stage gave one a frightful shock. All at once, it began to turn—slowly; and behold, on the other side of it was a human face. Suddenly, from out of the coconut, an actress made her appearance. Yes, that is how it is today! All feeling for ‘form’ on the stage has disappeared, and we have instead these grotesque barbarisms.

Our only hope is to go right back to the foundations of the art of drama. And one of the things you will need to understand, if you want to be a really able actor, is the close relation of colour to human feeling. We have veritably to see in colour human feeling caught, and made visible. In the later lectures, I shall be suggesting certain themes for you to work with in inward meditation, but I would like now at this point to give you one that is more in the way of a picture—and a picture that you can easily find for yourselves.

I can really tell you of nothing that will help you so well to develop a sensitive feeling for stage décor as will the rainbow. Give yourselves up in reverent devotion to the rainbow, and it will develop in you a remarkably true eye for stage-setting, and moreover the inner ability to compose it.

The rainbow! ... I feel within me a mood of prayer: that is how the rainbow begins, in the intensest violet, that goes shimmering out and out into immeasurable distances. The violet goes over into blue—the restful, quiet mood of the soul. That again goes over into green. When we look up to the green arc of the rainbow, it is as though our soul were poured out over all the sprouting and blossoming of Nature's world. It is as though, in passing from violet and blue into green, we had come away from the Gods to whom we were praying, and now in the green were finding ourselves in a world that opens the door to wonder, opens the door to a sensitive sympathy and antipathy with all that is around us. If you have really drunk in the green of the rainbow, you are already on the way to understanding all the beings and things of the world. Then you pass on to yellow, and in yellow you feel firmly established in yourself, you feel you have the power to be man in the midst of Nature—that is, to be something more than the rest of Nature around you. And when you go over to orange, then you feel your own warmth, the warmth that you carry within you; and at the same time you are made sensible of many a shortcoming in your character, and of good points too. Going on then to red, where the other edge of the rainbow passes once again into the vast distances of Nature, your soul will overflow with joy and exultation, with ardent devotion, and with love to all mankind.

How true it is that men see but the body of the rainbow! The way they look at it is as though you might have an artificial figure of a man in front of you, made of papier-mâché, and were quite content with this completely soulless human form. Even so do men look up at the rainbow, with no eyes or feeling for anything more than that.

When pupils of a dramatic school go for excursions, they should take every opportunity that offers for entering into this living experience of the rainbow. (Naturally, one cannot arrange for such things, but the opportunity comes more often than people imagine.) For it is like this. One who is training for the stage has to come to grips with the earth. In running, leaping, wrestling, in discus-throwing and in spear-throwing—in the practice of these he enters right into the life of the earth. He must, however, also find his way, through the heavenly miracle of the rainbow, into a deep inner soul experience of colour. Then he will have found the world on two sides, making contact with these two revelations of it. And a revelation of the world—that is what drama has to be!

When the student is running, leaping, wrestling, he isn't just executing a movement that he can see; he is within the running and the leaping with his will. And now, when with the eye of the soul he beholds the colours of the rainbow, he is not looking at Nature merely in her outer aspect, he is face to face with the soul-and-spirit that is in Nature—which is what we must also succeed in bringing on to the stage, for without it our décor will never be truly artistic. Beholding thus the soul-and-spirit that works and weaves in Nature, the student will verily be on the way to becoming a contemplator of the universe, he will be learning frankly and naïvely to contemplate, in soul and spirit, the great wide universe. And that will mean, he will find his way back again to the little children's verse that one used to hear so often in earlier days:

‘Kind, es kommt der liebe Gott gezogen
Auf einem schönem Regenbogen.’²

This mood of sublime devotion—we need it in dramatic art! The very best result that can follow from a renewal of the art will reveal itself in the fundamental attitude of soul of all those who take part in the work of the stage.

With the decline of the art of acting has come also a decline in the art of writing for the stage. When one sees the whole mood and manner in which authors like Schönthal, Kadelburg and the rest, to say nothing of Oskar, set- about writing their plays, often two or three composing a play between them, showing thus only too clearly that for them the art of the stage has no connection at all with men's souls, how is it ever to be expected that dramatic art should flourish ! No wonder it degenerated into something very like routine. And then, after stage-routine had through the seventies pursued its ill-starred way, idealists began to come forward. They were, however, idealists who stood on their heads—instead of walking on their feet ! They said: What we show on the stage must be true! And so, into stage-routine and stage-mechanism they brought naturalism. Art they had not, style they had not, so they introduced naturalism; that was the best they could do.

It is important, however, that we should have a clear picture in our minds of how these developments came about; for then we can understand that the idealists, despite the fact that they stood on their heads, did really accomplish something with their naturalism. It was at the time a genuine reform. Better a Brahm than a Blumenthal (his name was really Oskar) or a Lindau. In comparison with what the stage had become in the seventies and in the beginning of the eighties, naturalism was, when all is said, a change for the better. But it was not to last; for it is not art.

Art is what the stage must now rediscover. The art of the stage has become no art—though continuing to be so sought after; for, in spite of all, does not everyone love still to see a play? What we must learn to do is to bring art into our thinking, so that when we give our attention to any aspect whatever of the work of the stage we do so from the standpoint of art.

• 1. See Anthroposophical Movement for 14th and 21st (also 28th) September,1924.
• 2. ‘The dear God comes to us, my child, Upon a lovely rainbow.’

My dear Friends,

Every artistic activity has also its esoteric side. For the work that we carry on as artists has to receive its impulses from the spiritual world, and must therefore be rooted in the esoteric. If we forget this, if we forget that all genuine art springs from the spiritual world, then we must either resign ourselves to be guided by rules, or submit to an inartistic naturalism. To routine and mannerisms, or to a naturalism that is lacking in art—to one or the other we are condemned if we forget that what we create artistically has always, without exception, to receive its form from the formative activity of the spirit.

In the art of the stage it is important to remember that we are ourselves the instrument with which we have to work. We have accordingly to succeed in objectifying ourselves to the point where we can be such an instrument, so that we can play upon the organisation of our body as we would, for example, on some musical instrument. That, first of all. And then, standing as it were by the side of our own acting, we have also continually to be taking the most ardent and intense interest in every single word and action that we engage in on the stage.

It is of this twofold aim that I want to speak to you today. In striving to attain it, the actor will be developing a right feeling for his vocation; he will be drawing near to the esoteric—even to the esoteric that belongs to him as an actor.

For you must know, a grave danger lies in wait for the actor, threatens, in fact, more or less everyone who takes any part at all in the work of the stage. The danger is greatest, or has been so in the more decadent days of the art, for those actors who are favourites with the public; they are exposed to it most of all. I mean the danger of becoming so absorbed in the world of the stage as to lose connection with the real world outside. Again and again one makes the acquaintance of actors who have very little feeling or perception for what is happening in real life, who simply do not know the world. They have a thorough knowledge of this or that character in Shakespeare or in Goethe or Schiller. They know Wilhelm Tell, they know Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard II. They know an extravagantly frivolous character out of some comedy or other. In effect they know the world in its reflection in drama, but they do not know real men and women. This state of things can often spread farther and begin to show itself in a section of the public. Do we not frequently have the experience that when we begin to speak of some catastrophe that has taken place, then if someone is present who has any sort of connection with the stage, sure as fate, he will begin at once to recall to us a similar calamity in some play? And a habit of this kind is not without its consequences; it has a distorting and degrading influence on public taste. How often, when we look for evidence of taste, do we find nothing to deserve the name, but instead a complete perversion of taste!

We had a most painful instance of this in the days when Gerhard Hauptmann's Weber was being played. Just think what all those sensitive and impressionable ladies, sitting there in their rustling silks and décolletage—just think what they had to witness as they watched the play through! Things they would certainly never have allowed to come anywhere near them in real life. A dead dog being devoured bit by bit! Had such a sight met their eyes in real life, they would have run from it as they would from a raging lion. But looking at it up there on the stage they enjoyed it, they were thrilled. Yes, it has come to that! Do not misunderstand me. I have no objection to the representation on the stage of a dead dog being devoured—provided the motif is artistically treated. What I deplore is the perversion of taste.

The danger that I want to bring home to you, the danger of becoming at last quite remote from real life and living only in the stage reflection of it, is there above all, as we said, for the actor. The actor is, however, also in a specially favourable position to cope with it. For the very art he is pursuing, once he comes to understand it in the way we have been putting it forward in these lectures, will rescue him from the danger. As soon as he begins to go beyond the exoteric in his work and activity on the stage and to enter into its esoteric aspect, he will be saved from the danger of drifting right away from real life and becoming absorbed in its stage reflection. And the actor will be entering into the esoteric side of his work when he has come to the point where the monologue or dialogue or whatever it may be that he has been practising flows of its own accord in a stream of speech-forming activity. Exercises to this end should be given to the students in a school of dramatic art. Please follow carefully what I am saying. By the time of the dress rehearsal, the actor should be absolutely ready with his part just like a wound-up clock—,the whole stream of well-formed speech running its course without his help; for by then his part should have become an independent being within him Better still, of course, if this is attained a good while before the dress rehearsal.

And now, having succeeded in coming so far, the actor has a possibility that will certainly not be his if in the moment of performance he is obliged still to be giving his attention to the content of his part, in the way one does when reading or listening, where it is the immediate prose content of the words that is vividly present to consciousness. Assuming, however, that the actor has by this time mastered the content, and moreover progressed so far with the forming of the speech that this flows on of itself, a new possibility opens before him. Having set himself free from the forming of the speech, he will be able—and here comes the important point—to devote himself to listening, undisturbed by any conscious forming of it, to the speaking he has created and which is now in full flow, he will be able to surrender himself to its influence, allowing it here and there to fill him with glowing enthusiasm or, at another time, to cause him pain. This is not of course possible until the speaking has, by long practice, been brought into flow in the way I explained; for only then can the actor regain his freedom and, without being disturbed in his soul by the process of creation, participate in the experience of what he has himself created—in the same way as he would in some experience that came to meet him from a fellow human being.

I want you to appreciate the importance of this achievement. The actor should be able to keep himself in reserve, to hold back and not allow himself to be caught in his own creation; and then, having once fully objectified his own creation, be able to experience it from without with all the elemental force of his emotions, letting it arouse in him joy and admiration, or again sorrow and distress.

At this point a certain feeling will begin to dawn in the actor, a feeling that is in reality a part of his own esoteric life and that will prove to be actually stronger with him than with persons who are not actors. The play, he will feel, together with my own part in it, begins now to interest me as something quite outside myself, so soon, that is, as I step on to the stage. For I must first be on the stage. I need the footlights. (That is putting it a little crudely; there might of course be no footlights! You will understand what I mean.) I need the footlights, he will feel, if I am to live in the play; the play then becomes for me something outside myself. And it is this fact of its becoming separate from himself that is such a wonderful experience for the actor. For now he, as it were, retrieves it, participating in it even while he is projecting it; and this new experience has the effect of sending him forth to explore with zest and eagerness the real life in the world outside. For such an actor, there will be no uncertainty about the boundary between real life and the stage.

In our day, unfortunately, the recognition of this boundary is little more than an ideal. I have known plenty of actors who ‘acted’ in real life, and on the stage could only just pass muster. My experience has indeed gone even farther than this. I once witnessed an incident in Berlin that throws a very interesting light on the whole question. We made the acquaintance of a medium who had a most remarkable effect upon people. They were dumbfounded by what he was able to do. He would sit on the sofa and proceed to say, not at all what he himself but what other people had to say. It was quite astonishing. Perhaps it would be Julius Caesar who put in an appearance; the medium would sit there and talk exactly as Julius Caesar might. He could, in fact, be possessed by Julius Caesar or by some other character. I do not now recall any of the others, but this was the kind of susceptibility that showed itself in the medium. People were charmed and bewildered at the same time. Now this medium was by profession an actor, and with him on the stage was a fellow actor who had long been a friend of mine. One day, when I had been present at one of these exhibitions of mediumship, I asked the medium: ‘Does my friend also know you well?’ ‘Oh yes,’ replied the medium, ‘and when he sees me like this, he always exclaims: “What a splendid actor!” I can, however, only reply: “But I am your colleague, and you know quite well that I'm no good at all on the stage.”’ For the medium would never have been able to personify Julius Caesar on the stage. But when he was in mediumistic condition, the people around him believed, and to a certain extent rightly believed, that the real Julius Caesar was speaking in him; and he did it so well that my friend (who afterwards became a Managing Director of some theatre), when he saw him in this condition, took him for an actor of outstanding ability. And little wonder; for it was all there complete, even to the facial expression. But on the stage he was just like a block of wood, standing there without moving a muscle of his countenance.

Here, you see, we are faced with an extreme instance of what the art of acting must never be. For it must never happen that an actor is passive and possessed by his part. And this man was of course simply possessed. I have explained the relationship that an actor should have to his part. It must be objective for him. He must feel it as something that he has himself created and formed; and yet all the time he himself must be there in his own form, standing beside the form he has created. And then this creation of his can thrill him with joy or plunge him into sadness, just as truly as can events and doings in the world outside.

You will learn to find your way to this experience if you study your part in the way I have described. And it is necessary that you should do so. It will bring you to the esoteric in your own being.

Yesterday we were speaking of two things that come into consideration for the stage under present conditions—décor and lighting. I have no desire to dismiss outright the idea of an open-air theatre; but, as I said then, if we want to speak about dramatic art in a practical manner, we can only do so with a view to the stage that is in general use. And so what I had to say about stage décor and lighting had reference entirely to the modern stage. I would like, however, at this point to consider for a moment the theatre more in general. Starting from the experience of the present day, let us now see what it would mean if we had a stage like the stage of Shakespeare's time.

When we see one of Shakespeare's plays performed today, it can give us very little idea of how the play looked on a stage of his own time. There was, to begin with, a fair-sized enclosure not unlike an alehouse yard, and here sat the London populace of those times. Then there was what served for stage, and on the left and right sides of it were placed chairs where sat the more aristocratic folk and also various persons connected with the theatre. These people the actor would thus have in close proximity He would moreover also feel himself only half on the stage and half among the common people down below—and how delighted he would be when he could direct an ‘aside’ to these! The Prologue too, an indispensable figure in the play, addressed his part primarily to the public below. It was indeed quite taken for granted that every effort would be made to attract and please the public. They joined in and made their own contribution to the performance—tittering or howling, yelling or cheering, even on occasion pelting with rotten apples. Such things were accepted as a regular part of the show. And this good-humoured understanding between stage and audience, that had something of a spark of genius about it, infected even the more pedantic and heavy-going among the spectators—for there were such in those days too; they felt themselves caught up into the atmosphere. Shakespeare; himself an actor, understood very well how to take his audience with him. You have only to listen to the cadence of his sentences to be convinced of this. Shakespeare spoke, in fact, straight out of the heart of his audience. It is untrue today to say that people ‘listen’ to a play of Shakespeare's; for we no longer listen in the way people listened when Shakespeare was there on the stage with his company.

I have spoken already of how all work in connection with the theatre can be regarded in an esoteric light, and I want now to carry the matter a little further by describing to you something else the actor needs to develop.

Yesterday I was telling you of an experience that you would perhaps not easily believe could have any connection with the development of an actor—the experience, namely, of the rainbow. But, my dear friends, experiences like that of the rainbow are by their very nature closely connected with the deeper processes of life's happenings. Has it ever occurred to you how little we know of all that goes on in a human being when, simply from eating of a particular dish, he gets bright red cheeks? All kinds of things have been happening inside him that lie entirely beyond the range of direct observation. Similarly you must realise that you cannot expect to reason out logically the effect that the experience of the rainbow has on the actor. But you will soon see how differently that actor will use his body on the stage. Not that his movements will show particular skill, but they will show art. To move artistically has to be learned on an inward path. And the description I gave you yesterday was of one such path. There are many more; and particularly important for the actor is one that I will now describe.

An actor should develop a delicate feeling for the experience of the world of dreams. We could even set it down as an axiom that the better an actor trains himself to live in his dreams, so that he can recall their pictures and consciously conjure up before him again and again all his dream experiences—the better he is able to do this, the better will be his carriage and bearing on the stage. He will not merely be one who carries himself well externally; throughout his part his whole bearing will have art, will have style.

This is where the deeper realm of the esoteric begins for the actor—when he is able to enter with full understanding into the world of dreams. He has then to come to the point where he discerns a difference of which everyone knows and has experience, but which is not generally experienced with sufficient intensity. I mean the following.

Think of how it is with us when we are developing our thoughts and feelings in the full tide and bustle of everyday life. Let us imagine, for instance, we are at a tea-party. A master of ceremonies is darting about, continually making those little jokes of his of which he is so vain, a dancer is exerting all her charm, a stiff-looking professor who has with difficulty been induced to come feels himself in duty bound to express well-feigned admiration of everything, in not quite audible murmurs. One could continue on and on describing some scene of this kind out of everyday life. But now consider the vast difference there is between an experience of this nature—which may be said to approach the extreme in one direction—and the experience you have when, in complete solitude, you let your dreams unfold before you. It is important to discern this difference, to see it for what it is, and then to develop a feeling for what it means to pass from the one experience to the other, to pass, that is, from a condition where you are chafed and exhausted in soul by the racket of the life around you, and go right through to the very opposite experience where you are entirely alone and given up to your dreams. These, one might imagine, could be only feebly experienced; nevertheless, you know as you watch them go past that you are deeply and intimately connected with them. To grow familiar with this path of the soul that takes you from the first experience to the second, to undertake esoteric training that will help you to follow it again and again with growing power of concentration—that, my dear friends, will prepare you to take hold of your work as actors with understanding and with life.

For, in order to make your part live, you have first of all to approach it as you approach real life when it meets you with all its chaotic and disquieting details, and then go on to study the part intently, making it more and more your own, until you come at last Jo feel with it the same sort of intimate bond that you hale with some dream of yours in the moment of recalling it. I am, I know, holding up before you an ideal; but ideals can start you out on the right road.

This kind of preparation has to go forward at the same time as you are bringing the speaking of the part to its full development, that is, to where the speaking flows on of itself in the way I have described. The two paths have to be followed side by side. You have, on the one hand, to come to the point where you are able to dream your part, where the single passages in it begin to merge and lose their distinctness, and you come to feel your part as a unity, as one great whole—not, however, suffering it to lose in the process any of its variety of colouring. The single passages you then no longer perceive as single passages, their individual content disappears; and in that moment you are able to place before your mind's eye a dreamlike impression of the whole of your part right through the play. That is the one path. The other is that you should be able to tear yourself right out of this experience and produce with ease and freedom your formed speaking of the part, producing it and reproducing it again and again. If these two paths of preparation run parallel with one another, then your part will come to life, then it will acquire being.

And I think the actor and the musician or singer can here find themselves in agreement about- the way each understands his art. The pianist, for example, has also to come to the point when, to put it rather radically, he can play his piece in his sleep—when, that is, his hands move right through the piece involuntarily, moving as it were of themselves. And he too must on the other hand be able to be thrilled with delight or plunged into sadness by what his own art has brought into being.

Here again a danger confronts the artist, whether actor or musician. The emotional experience that he owes to his own creation must not develop in the direction of ‘swelled head’. It must not be because of his own ability that the artist is thrilled with delight. (The opposite mood does not so often show itself!) He must on the contrary have his consciousness centred all the time upon the thing he has created and objectified.

If you have prepared your part in this way, working out of a fine sensitiveness for the world of dreams, and if along with this you have succeeded in mastering the art of objectifying your speaking, then you will bring to the stage the very best that the individual actor can bring. And a further thing follows from this too.

When you have come so far as to be able to behold the play there before you in its entirety—the separate scenes and details, each with its own colouring, existing for you only as parts of the whole which lies spread out before you like a tableau—then the exactly right moment has come when you can set about ‘forming’ the stage. For now you will be ready to give it the décor that properly belongs to it, working on the lines I explained yesterday. If you were to build up your picture of the stage like a mosaic, piecing it together out of the feelings you have of the several scenes, it would have no art or order. But if you have pressed forward first of all to achieve this living experience of the play as a whole, so that when you come to ask: What is it like in the beginning? What impression does it make upon me in the middle?, you never, in considering any section of it, lose sight of the whole—then your configuration of the stage will be harmonious throughout, will be a unity.

And only then, my dear friends, only then will you be capable of judging how far you can go with the indoor stage of today, complete with its inevitable footlights and the rest, where nevertheless you will, of course, have somehow to produce when necessary the illusion of daylight; or how far you can go in adapting your external décor in a simple, primitive way to what is spoken by the characters; or again, let us say, how far you can go in staging a play in the open air.

Whatever kind of play you have in hand, it will demand its own particular style, which can be neither intellectually discovered nor intellectually described, but has to be inwardly felt. As we press forward, working in the way I have explained, to a deeper understanding of dramatic art, we shall find for each play the relevant style, we shall perceive it. If we are dealing with the stage conditions that are customary at the present day, we shall want to take our guidance as far as ever possible from the perception we have arrived at of the tableau of the play as a whole. The modern stage with its lighting and its elaborate décor demands that we shall follow the path of preparation that takes us to that dreamlike survey of which I have spoken, where the whole play lies spread out before us like a tableau. For it is a fact that for representations in artificial light, the more the total picture of the play conveys to the actor the impression of half-dreamed fantasy, the better. If you who are acting have let the picture of the stage be born out of dreams, out of dreams that have been cast in the mould of fantasy, then the audience, having this picture before them, will receive the impression of something that is alive and real.

The case will of course be different if your audience is looking, let us say—to go to the opposite extreme—at a background of Nature. For an open-air performance, all you can do in the way of ‘forming’ your stage is to select the spot that seems the most favourable for the piece. You will of course be limited by your possibilities. You have to put your theatre somewhere; you have really no free choice, but must be content with what there is. Let us suppose, however, that you have decided upon a spot and are preparing for an open-air performance.

You have succeeded, we will assume, in having the play before your mind's eye as a complete, continuous tableau. Then, holding fast this perception of the play as a whole, you let Nature appear in the background. (You will need to be quite active inwardly, so as to be able to see both at the same moment.) There behind, you have the real landscape. You cannot alter it, you have to take it as it is. And here in front, of course, are the seats for the audience, which always look so frightful in Nature's world.¹ And now, with all this before you, you must be able to superimpose your own picture of the play, the picture that has emerged out of dream, on to the picture that Nature is displaying in the background, letting it veil Nature's picture as though with a cloud.

The work of forming anything artistically has to be done by the soul. Need we wonder then that, in order to prepare ourselves for it, we have to go back to soul experience? In front, therefore, of the landscape that Nature provides, you will have the experience that has come to you from the play. And then—yes, then you will find, as you hold all this before you and think it through with all the energy you can command, that those rocks, those distant snow-capped mountains, fir-clad slopes, and green meadows—all that whole background of Nature begins to make itself felt, begins to give you inspiration for your masking of the individual figures on the stage—whether you produce the effect by means of make-up, or give them real masks, as did the Greeks, who felt these to be a natural necessity on the stage. And you will find that out in the open, Nature will require you to give far more decided colouring to your speech than is necessary in the intimacy of an indoor theatre. The several actors will also have to be much more sharply distinguished one from another than in an artificially lighted theatre, both in the colouring you give them to accord with their character, and in the colouring that is determined by the situation.

I would strongly recommend students of dramatic art to practise going through such experiences again and again. Their importance is not limited to the help they can give for particular performances, they are important for every actor's development. You cannot be a good actor until you have learned such things from your own experience, until you have felt how the voices of the parts have to be pitched in the one case, and how differently they must be pitched in the other case, where the play is being acted in Nature's own theatre.

In the times in which we are living, the actor has to undergo training if he is to acquire such experiences ; he has to learn them consciously. To Shakespeare they were instinctive. All that I have been describing to you, Shakespeare and his fellow-actors knew instinctively. They had imagination, you see, they had a picture-making fantasy; you can see it from the very way Shakespeare forms his speeches. Yes, they had a picture-making fantasy. And Shakespeare could do two things He had on the one hand a marvellous perception for what the audience is experiencing while an actor is speaking on the stage; you can detect this just in those passages in his plays that are most characteristic of his genius. He could sense. with wonderful accuracy the effect some speech was having upon the spectators sitting on the left of the stage, the effect it was having upon those sitting on the right, and again upon the main audience down in front. A fine, imponderable sensitiveness enabled him to share in the experience of each. And then, on the other hand, Shakespeare had the same delicate, sensitive feeling for all that might go on upon a stage which was, after all, no more than a slightly transformed alehouse! For Shakespeare knew very well, from experience, the kind of things that go on in an alehouse, he had a perfect understanding of that side of life. Shakespeare was by no means altogether the ‘utterly lonely’ figure that some learned old fogeys like to picture him. He knew how to bring on his actors—or take part himself—in a way that sorted well with the primitive realities of the stage of his time.

If you were to act today on the modern stage, with all its refinements of décor, lighting and so forth—if you were to act there today as men acted in Shakespeare's time, then a young schoolgirl who had been brought to the theatre for the first time (the rest of the audience would naturally have grown accustomed to it) would exclaim as soon as the play began: But why ever do they shout so? Yes, if we were to listen without bias to a play acted in true Shakespearian manner, we would have the impression that the actors were shouting, that the whole performance was nothing but a confused, discordant shouting. In those days, however, it was quite in place. Under primitive stage conditions it is not shouting, it is fully developed dramatic art.

In proportion, however, as we go in for more and more décor and lighting effects, it becomes a necessity to subdue, to soften down, not only the speaking voice, but even also the inner intensity of the acting. In such a changed environment it is not possible to act with the same intensity. You should be able to appreciate that this must be so. The ability of an actor, the range of his capacity as an artist, will depend on how far he can feel for himself inner connections of this kind. That way too lies the path that will verily take him into the esoteric side of his calling; for to find this path, he needs to be able to live in such truths, to be able continually to awaken them in his heart, again and again.

If the actor achieves this, if he learns to live in these truths, then gradually it will come about that they form themselves for him into meditations. He can of course have other meditations as well, but the content of his meditation as actor he must find on this path. And then he will begin also to take an increasingly wide interest in all that goes on in real life, outside the stage. For that is a mark of a really good actor. He will retain, throughout his career as actor, the most far-reaching interest in all the little things of life. An actor who is unable to be delighted, for example, with the drollery of a hedgehog, an actor who does not enjoy and admire it in a more delicate way than others do, will never be a first-rate actor. If he is the sort of man who could never exclaim: ‘But how that young lawyer did laugh when he heard that joke! Never in all my life shall I forget it!’—if he is a man who is incapable of throwing out such an exclamation with genuine and hearty enjoyment, then he is incapable also of being a really good actor. And an actor who, having taken off his make-up and left the theatre, is not assailed by all manner of strange dreams, amounting often to nightmare—he too cannot be a first-rate actor. While the actor is on his way home from the theatre, or, as is perhaps more likely, on his way to some restaurant to get a meal, it should really be so that out of all the dream-cloud of the performance, some detail suddenly thrusts itself before his mind's eye. ‘Oh, that woman in the side box,’ he says to himself, ‘how she did annoy me again, holding up her lorgnette to gaze at me just when I had to speak that passage! ... And how it put me out too when at the most critical moment of the play some silly girl right up at the top of the gallery began to giggle—I suppose her neighbour was pinching her!’

While the play is on, the actor knows nothing at all of these little incidents, he is quite unconscious of them. But you know what happens sometimes in ordinary life. You come home and sit down quietly with a book. All of a sudden, a big headline appears right across the page you are reading: ‘Dealer in Spirits. Remigius Neuteufel.’ The words place themselves clearly before you. (I dare say most of you can recall some such experience, though perhaps not quite so pronounced.) All the time you were out, you never saw those words. Suddenly they superimpose themselves on the page that lies open before you, and you read : ‘Dealer in Spirits. Remigius Neuteufel.’ Afterwards it dawns upon you that the words were on a shop sign that you passed on the way home. Without entering your consciousness, they went straight down into your sub-conscious. And had you been a medium and had Schrenk-Nötzing made experiments on you, then you would have produced the effluvia from the appropriate glands (for such things do happen!) and in the effluvia would stand the words: ‘Dealer in Spirits. Remigius Neuteufel.’ That is what would have happened to a medium. In the case of a normal person, the words simply make their appearance in front of the book he is reading, like a somewhat dim hallucination. They are there, you see, in the sub-conscious.

In ordinary life there is no occasion to pay particular attention to an incident of this kind—unless of course one is in the medical profession, when it may be one's duty to investigate such matters with all care and exactness. Art, however, obeys quite other laws in the matter of the human soul. From the point of view of art, an actor can never be an actor of real ability, if the sort of thing I have mentioned does not happen to him now and then on his way home from the theatre, if he does not, for instance, suddenly feel: ‘Heavens, how that old woman up there turned her miserable lorgnette on me!’ He did not notice her during the play, but now as he makes his way home, there she is in front of him, with her grey eyes and frowning eyebrows and untidy hair, her stiff fingers grasping the handle of her lorgnette—it weighs on him like an incubus!

That, however, will only be a proof that the actor lives in all that takes place around him, lives in it objectively. Although he is acting, he stands at the same time fully in life, he participates even in what he does not observe, in what he must not observe at the time—not merely need not, but must not. While, however, he is absorbed in the creation of his part, while his whole consciousness is directed to what he has to say and do, his sub-conscious has on that very account all the better opportunity for making keen and detailed observation of everything that is going on around him. And if he has achieved what I described as an esoteric secret for the stage-actor, namely, that when he leaves the stage he is in very deed and truth away from it, away from everything to do with it, and enters right into real life—if the actor has achieved this secret, then on his leaving the theatre this subconscious in him will begin to make itself felt, and all the various grotesque and distorted pictures that can remain with him from the performance will suddenly display themselves, so that now at last, after the event, he experiences them consciously. Naturally, it may often also be very lovely impressions that come back to him in this way.

I had opportunity once to witness an amazing instance of this kind of memory-experience. The actor Kainz² had just come from a performance, laden as it were with these nightmares, and found himself in a company of friends, including a Russian authoress with whom he particularly liked to share such impressions. It was wonderful to hear these coming out. Kainz was not in the least embarrassed about the matter, or one would naturally not want to talk of it. There they were, all the things he had experienced sub-consciously during the performance—there they were, living on in him in this way, the experience perhaps enhanced in his case by the contempt he felt for the audience. For Kainz was one of those actors who have the utmost contempt for their audiences.

It is things of this nature that can help you to a true understanding of dramatic art. They make no particular appeal to the intellect; but it is by the path of imagination and of picture that we have to travel, following forms that are of fantasy's creation, if we would come at last to the essential being of dramatic art. For this reason dramatic art cannot tolerate in its school the presence of teachers who have not a sensitive artistic feeling. (As a matter of fact, this is true of every art.) And I have always regarded it as a most undesirable addition to the faculty of a school of dramatic art when, for example, a professor of literature is brought in to give lessons to the students. All that goes on in such a school, everything that is done there, must be genuinely artistic through and through. And no one can speak artistically about any art unless he can live in that art with his whole being!

To-morrow, then, we will continue, and I shall have to tell you of another esoteric secret connected with the art of the stage.

• 1. Dr. Steiner made here a coloured drawing on the blackboard.
• 2. Josef Kainz (1858–1910) was well known all over Germany and Austria, and toured also in the U.S.A. Romeo and Hamlet were among his leading parts.

My dear Friends,

We shall find that a study of the history of dramatic art can throw considerable light for us on the problems that face us in that field today. For only gradually has dramatic art made its way into the evolution of mankind. What for us comprises the essentially dramatic has really only found its way, bit by bit, into the evolution of mankind; and, as we know too well, inartistic features that are hostile to the development of the art have also been continually intruding themselves. And now a time has come when to all that the centuries have so far produced, many quite new things have to be added; for mankind has advanced in evolution. Anyone who has to take part in the staging of plays will moreover receive encouragement and stimulus for his work by making a deep, esoteric study of plays that have at different epochs provided a standard or basis for the development of acting and of stage work altogether.

There are three important factors to be borne in mind when we are considering the production of a play. I do not mean that we must adhere to them pedantically, but rather that we should have an artistic perception of where and to what extent each enters into the play we have in hand. They are important for us because they have been so first for the author; they have influenced him in his composition of the play—of that written text which, as we saw, is for the actor neither more nor less than what the score is for the musician.

Taking these three in order, we find that the first hovered like an overpowering presence above the drama of ancient times, the drama that originated in the Mysteries. I mean destiny.

Look at the plays of ancient Greece. Everywhere we are shown how powerfully destiny works into human life. Man himself is of very little account; it is destiny, heaven-sent destiny, that works into his life all the time. Realising this, we can appreciate the genuine artistic impulse that lay behind the tendency to obliterate more or less whatever was individual in the human being—giving him a mask, and even going so far as to make use of instruments in order to conceal the individual quality of his voice. We can well understand how this conception of God-given destiny led to an effacement of the human individuality. Looking back then to the drama of ancient times, we find that it displayed on the stage the grand and all-powerful working of destiny; therein lay its achievement. We need only call to mind the tragedies concerned with the myth of Oedipus to see at once how true this is.

There are, however, two things that occupy a prominent place in modern drama, of which you will find little or no sign in these early dramas where the attention is centred upon the working of destiny. As a matter of fact, they could only find their way into drama as the Age of Consciousness drew near for man, the Age of the Spiritual Soul.¹

The interchange of love between human beings could not be dramatised on the stage in the way it is today until the souls of men had begun to receive each its more individual form. In the drama of ancient times you will, it is true, find love, but a love that bears the stamp of destiny and is dependent also on social relationships. An outstanding example is the figure of Antigone in the well-known play of Sophocles. But that love between the sexes which enters later with such compelling power into drama, even itself forms and shapes the drama—becomes possible only with the dawn of the Age of Consciousness.

The other thing that you will miss in the early days of dramatic art is humour. Look, for example, at the plays of Aristophanes, who has been dubbed the scoffer, and compare them with the plays of the time when the impulse of the Age of Consciousness was beginning to make itself felt. You may take any number of plays of the Aristophanes type, and you will constantly find satyrs taking part in them; but you will look in vain for the humour that sets something free in man, that gives wings to human life. That does not show itself in drama until man is entering upon the Age of Consciousness.

Note too, that this is also the time when men's gaze, as they look upon the stage, begins to be turned aside from destiny, begins rather to take a kind of delight in the way that man makes himself master and shaper of destiny. Attention and interest are now, in fact, being increasingly directed, instead of to destiny, to character. So here we have come to the second factor that we have to consider in staging a play—character. The dramatist puts on the stage men and women as we meet with them in life; and as his presentation of them develops, they become more and more interesting.

We shall not yet find a power of vision that can command the whole compass of man's individuality. People are still portrayed rather more as types; and we have, instead of the old masks, the character masks. Among the Latin peoples, who took such delight in drama and were so gifted in its performance, we find these character masks—striking evidence of a dawning interest in man as an individual with a character of his own. The feeling for character still labours under the limitations of this connection with type. It is nevertheless the human being, the individual human being, who is so to speak given the mask of the character-type to which he is adjudged to belong.

There was also a very good understanding in those days of the close relation of human beings to their environment. The character mask, it was felt, can be truly appreciated only when it is seen on the background of the part of the world to which it belongs. Hence the folk masks of those times. We find them particularly in Italy; but other countries soon began to follow suit. These folk masks bear witness to an interest, not merely in men and women, nor even merely in character-types ; they mark the beginning of an interest in what character owes to milieu. And this interest spread far and wide, reaching even to Shakespeare, in whom we can still clearly recognise an appreciation of the bearing of milieu upon character.

The Italian would observe, for example, that persons of social distinction, who have a certain standing in life, and who have also money in their purses and are accordingly able to maintain a good position in society—such persons, he would observe, are to be met with especially in Venice. And so in the folk-plays of those times the Pantalone—for that was the name given to this character—would always appear on the stage in Venetian dress. He would tend also to speak with something of a Venetian accent. There, then, we have one of these character masks. We are, you see, coming away from the working of destiny, for here it is man who stands before us and claims our attention.

Let us now look at another character mask that meets us in these plays. (There were, you must know, hundreds of such plays, literally hundreds, genuine products all of the Italian genius, and you will find the wealthy ‘Merchant of Venice’ in every one of them.) The second character mask is the man of learning; and he appears in the form of a shrewd and clever lawyer. This clever lawyer always hails from Bologna, and wears the traditional robes of a lawyer who has graduated in the University of Bologna. That then is the second. The third is the scoundrel, the dodger, known as Brighella. He comes from the common people, and is always in company with the Harlequin, the simpleton, who also hails from the common people. These two fellows, the scoundrel and the simpleton, are from Bergamo and will always be dressed in Bergamese style.

And then there were the serving-women, ladies of some experience in life, who—incidentally—were capable for the most part of getting the control of the household into their own hands. It appears that in those days such ladies generally came from Rome; their costumes were accordingly in Roman style. The writers and producers of these plays were, you see, observant; no detail escaped them.

There, then, we have the transition from destiny to character. You can see what a thorough-going change it wrought in drama. And I think even the brief sketch I have given you of its history will help you to understand how important it is for the student of dramatic art to study this development of character in drama—learning to observe how characters group themselves in types, and how character grows out of milieu. When he has worked through such a study, the student will be more fitted to undertake the ‘individual’ parts of the modern stage, he will be able to tackle them with elemental force and energy.

As he studies these plays, the student will also realise what a liberating and lively humour the people of those days possessed. For it was not merely the authors who were responsible for the plays. As a matter of fact authors did not play a role of any particular importance in those days. The text of a play, as it came from their hands, could not even truthfully be called a ‘score' for the actor; before it could go down with the audience, he would have to add to it considerably from his own resources. It was quite taken for granted that the actor would supply witty sallies here and there on his own account.

Dramas of this kind show unmistakably that destiny is disappearing from the stage, and the spectators are being presented with plays where it is the characters that determine the action. This is also the moment when the stage begins to realise that it has to reckon with the audience, that it cannot ignore them.

And now, from destiny and character, from out of these two, emerges our third factor in drama: action, or plot.

At the opening of a play, before the plot began to unfold and reveal how character and destiny are at work there, an ‘Exclamator’, as he was called (for they used the Latin word), would come forward—rather in the way the Prologue does in our Christmas Plays—and give a kind of summary of the moral of the play. For the stage did a great deal in those days to influence social life and behaviour.

You are not to conclude from this that the manners and morals of those times were anything to boast of; on the contrary, it implies that they were rather loose and that there was ample reason for the stage to do something for their improvement. It is always important, you know, to look at facts from the right angle!

I would like now to describe to you one such drama. Do not take it as an exact description of a particular one (as I said before, there are hundreds of them); it will, however, be characteristic, and will provide you with a good illustration of what I want to say later.

Let us suppose then that at the beginning of one of these dramas we are faced with a situation that is created entirely by the typical characters that are there in the play. In a spot that may perhaps be not very far away from where we are now meeting, some gipsies have made their encampment. The gipsies are referred to as the ‘heathen’.

The play proceeds somewhat as follows. (The story corresponds quite well with one or another of these plays, but my intention is to make my description general and typical.) We have then, to begin with, the man Ruedi and his wife Greta, and they are talking together. Ruedi tells Greta she must take care to lock up all their valuables, because the heathen are in the neighbourhood; things are sure to be stolen, for the heathen live by stealing. Greta replies that she has of course already done this; she does not need any reminder from him. ‘But I tell you what, you drunken lout,' she goes on to say, ‘you put far more money than the heathen steal into the pockets of the alehouse keeper. And there's got to be an end of that; it can't go on any longer.’

Ruedi is rather taken aback, for Greta is a woman of force and energy. After standing silent for a minute or two, he heaves a deep sigh and stammers out: ‘Well, well, I suppose I'd better go to the gipsies and get them to tell me what a bad lot I am; after all, they're fortune-tellers as well as thieves.’

‘You great fool,' says Greta, ‘to believe the gipsies. It's all nonsense what they say. You'd much better save your money instead of running after them.’

But Ruedi is not going to be put off. Before he sets out, however, he goes to the stables and warns the stableman too about the heathen, ordering him to lock up the stables and carry the manure out to the fields. And now the stableman gets talking, and discloses to Ruedi that Greta has hidden away in the stable eight good Rhenish gulden, in those times quite a small fortune. He, the stableman, knows the spot where they are buried. Then the ‘stupid’ Ruedi begins to be sly. But first of all he goes off to the gipsies to have his fortune told.

So here destiny enters the story; but note how! People no longer believe in it, it is all left to the gipsies.

The gipsy woman says to Ruedi: ‘Well, my man, you are a thoroughly good sort; but you have a bad-tempered wife, and she makes life miserable for you. And you yourself, you know, you drink too much!’

Heavens alive, thinks Ruedi, she knows a lot! There's something in fortune-telling after all.

‘But now, look here!’ continues the gipsy,’ you go and get yourself some better clothes and walk about the village with an air, and you'll be made headman of the village—only, you'll have to drink less! ’

Ruedi is delighted with the idea. And now what the stableman told him will come in very useful. First, however, the gipsy wants her fee. Why, of course!—but Ruedi hasn't any money. Greta never gives him any. Then he has a bright idea. ‘You told me just now that if I put on fine clothes I shall be made headman of the village. When I am, I'll help you gipsies in your thieving. That shall be your payment.’ This suits the gipsy-woman splendidly; a headman's connivance will be of more worth to the gipsies than any fee.

And now Ruedi goes back home, his head full of the idea that he must get some fine new clothes and be made headman of the village. So he goes to the stable, digs up the eight gulden and hands them to the stableman to take to the neighbouring town.

Arrived there, the stableman goes to the wool merchant and says to him: ‘My master who lives outside the town wants to see some materials of different colours, I am to take them to him to choose from; he is having some new clothes made, for he is going to be headman of the village.’

‘But I don't know your master,' replies the merchant, ‘and how am I to know what might happen to my cloth?’

‘Oh, don't you worry,' says the stableman, ‘he's a perfectly honourable man. You let me take the cloth; it'll be quite all right.’ The eight gulden the stableman pockets, and the rolls of stuff he turns into money in some way of his own. And so he comes back empty-handed, having cheated his master of the eight gulden and the merchant of the rolls of cloth.

His master inquires what has happened. ‘I've left the eight gulden with the merchant,' replies the stableman, ‘and he says you must go yourself and choose the material in his shop; meantime he has the money safe.’ The money is, of course, not with the merchant at all; the stableman has taken it for himself.

At this point a scene is inserted where we are shown Greta pouring out her woes to a friend of hers. She has discovered that the gulden she buried in the stable have disappeared. What if the cow has eaten them and dies in consequence!

And now Ruedi makes his way to the wool merchant's—and behold, the merchant has not the cloth. Ruedi hasn't it either. The merchant has also not the money; nor has Ruedi. The stableman is standing by, and the merchant declares he will sue him. He will, he says, put the matter in the hands of a lawyer; and he'll find a first-rate one, he will! (Here they come, you see, the character types.)

Well, Ruedi and his stableman go home again. But a little while later a messenger comes running in great haste, beginning—in the good stage instinct of those times—to call out to them while he is still a long way off, summoning them both to come at once to the wool merchant's.

As soon as they arrive there the merchant starts inveighing loudly against the stableman—and one can well understand it. He becomes quite abusive, and rails against him, calling him all sorts of hard names The man feels terribly insulted and declares that he will on his part bring an action against the merchant, and they will soon see what comes of that!

The merchant raises no objection; he knows he has right on his side and feels confident of the issue. The stableman, however, is a kind of Brighella, and it is he who procures the cleverer lawyer.

And now the trial begins, the stableman's lawyer having in the meantime instructed him how to behave in court. The judge puts his learned questions, all in best Bologna manner The peasant grows more and more bewildered, confuses the cloth with the money, and the money with the cloth. When he should be answering about the eight gulden, he keeps talking of the cloth, and vice versa, and all because the lawyer puts him out by talking incessantly.

And now it is the stableman's turn to be questioned. But all he says in reply is: veiw!¹ A fresh question is put to him. Once more he answers: veiw! Still another question. Again the same reply: veiw! The lawyer has advised him, you see, to be completely stupid and say nothing but veiw! Eventually the judge finds this too silly. ‘He's just crazy; one can do nothing at all with a fellow like that!’—and he sends the parties home. And so the whole affair comes to a humorous end.

And now it turns out that in the course of the conversation between them, the stableman had promised his lawyer the eight gulden. These the lawyer now receives, in payment for his advice to say nothing but veiw! The stableman has the cloth. As for the peasant and the merchant, they have had all their trouble for nothing The spectator, however, goes home well pleased; he has enjoyed watching the characters unfold as the play proceeds. Pieces of this kind were played by the hundred—full of true humour, a natural, elemental humour of the common folk. And they were well played, for the players put their whole heart into their acting.

Thus, at the dawn of the Age of Consciousness, does the drama of character push its way into the drama of destiny, and take root there and grow. That is how the drama of character first began. And you will not easily find for your students a better subject for study than these very plays; for they are built up with quite remarkable skill. They can well form a basis for the study of delineation of character.

A school of dramatic art should arrange for courses of instruction in the history of the whole treatment of drama, and especially of character, beginning with the end of the fifteenth century. This kind of character drama was popular throughout the Latin countries at the end of the fifteenth century, and also in Switzerland. Afterwards, it spread to Germany and by the sixteenth century was everywhere in vogue. That is to say, at secular times of the year. For the Christmas Plays are survivals of the drama of destiny; in them we see destiny working in from the worlds beyond. So that we have in those times, on the one hand, within the rather austere forms of Christian tradition, a continued adherence to destiny, and then also this original and elemental up-springing of character in drama. Both are there, side by side; and that is what makes this second stage in the evolution of drama an extraordinarily fruitful field for study.

The mask of ancient times, that actually hid the human being, has now given place to the character mask, and we shall soon be approaching the time when we have before us on the stage human individualities. But please remember that there are good and well-founded reasons for making a special study in our day of this first beginning of character in drama. A student can learn a great deal from such a study.

Let me remind you at this point of the development we traced in Schiller's dramas a few days ago. We were studying this development from a rather different point of view; we can, however, clearly see that Schiller was all the time experimenting between the two kinds of play, inclining now more to the drama of destiny, now again more to the drama of character. Highly gifted dramatist as he was, Schiller did not know how to bring together the elements of character and destiny.

Take Wallenstein. We cannot truthfully say that destiny is here an organic part of the drama. Destiny and character are joined up externally rather in the way one cements bricks! Then again later on, in Die Braut von Messina, we find Schiller once more trying, as it were, to drag in destiny. Only in Demetrius does he at length, after many attempts, succeed in weaving together destiny and character, weaving them together to form genuine dramatic action.

Character drama is important also for opening the way to comedy. True, preparatory steps in that direction had been taken in Roman times; for there was, you know, in Rome a kind of anticipation of the Age of Consciousness. But it is tragedy that stands in the foreground throughout the centuries of classical antiquity. Satire will not infrequently come to expression in some comic afterpiece, but we do not find what can properly be called comedy until, with the coming of the Age of Consciousness, love and humour make their appearance on the stage.

If you can succeed in carrying in your mind's eye a clear picture of how drama has evolved, that will help you in your work as producer. You will then be able to approach with the right mood and feeling, on the one hand, plays where the more tragic and solemn elements prevail and, on the other hand, plays that are in a lighter vein and belong more in the realm of comedy. Your study will have given you fresh guidance for the staging of the two kinds of play.

Consider first how it is with tragedy. Simply from the insight that you have acquired in this kind of study, you will go to work in the following way. Please do not imagine it is a matter of theories and definitions. What you have to do is to prove by experience how you yourself develop an insight that can give birth to artistic creation. That is the only right way; and it is what I have been trying to show you in today's lecture.

The first part of a tragedy (sometimes called the ‘exposition’), where the spectators are to be made acquainted with the situation, where their interest has to be aroused, will have to be played slowly; and the slowness should be achieved, not so much by slow speaking or acting as by pauses, pauses between the speeches, pauses even between the scenes. This will ensure that you make contact with your audience; they will then the more easily unite themselves, inwardly and sympathetically, with the situation.

But now, as the play proceeds, new persons or events intervene, and it becomes uncertain how things will turn out. This is the middle of the play, where the plot reaches its climax. Here you will again need a rather slow tempo, but the slowness has this time to be in the speaking and in the gesturing; the play will thus still move slowly, but without pauses. Not of course entirely so; the speaker must have time to take breath, and the spectator too! But you should definitely shorten the pauses, and to that degree slightly quicken the tempo.

Then comes the third part, which has to bring the solution. If this last part were played in the same tempo, it would leave the audience a little sour and dissatisfied. It is important to increase the pace here and let the play end in a quicker tempo.

Here then, in this third part of the play, there has to be an inner quickening of tempo, showing itself both in speech and in gesture.

Tragedy

(I) in slow tempo: pauses
(II) in slow tempo: without pauses
(III) in quickened tempo.

If these stages are observed, your acting will not fail of those imponderable qualities that make for contact with the audience. And you will find that the right tempo for speech and gesture comes of itself out of the feeling that your study and training beget in you. Thus, the main point for the production of tragedy is that everything be in right measure and proportion.

Something quite else comes into consideration for comedy. (Our modern plays stand rather between the two; so that for their production one can learn from both.) When we come to comedy, it is character that begins to take the prominent place. Such a piece as I described just now can be very helpful to you, if you want to learn how to set about producing a comedy; for plays of this kind, abounding in the simple, primitive humour of the people, can always be begun in the way I will now describe.

The first thing is to see that your actor, who will reveal his character in his speaking, expresses himself with an instinctive enjoyment of his part, so that the audience feel at once: Yes, there he is—the Pantalone. today, of course, we put individual men and women on the stage, not types; nevertheless, we can set to work on the artistic shaping of our comedy on the same lines—that is, begin by letting the characters display themselves in their speech and gesture, and in no uncertain terms. We need not go so far as some miserable producers who, for example, if they put a barber on the stage, think it necessary he should be ostentatiously scraping the lather off a customer's chin. No occasion for grotesque demonstrations of that sort. But we should take pains in this first part of the play to let the several characters stand out in strong relief. As you see, we are here not concerned, as in tragedy, with the measure or tempo of the acting, but rather with its content.

As we go on towards the middle of the play, the interest will centre on the various conflicting factors that emerge and that leave us in some doubt as to how it is all going to end. And here it would actually be a little risky to continue entering with intensity into the individual characters; rather must the emphasis be laid on the plot. The whole character of the speaking must centre the hearer's attention on the plot. At this point the earlier comedies favoured the inventive actor. For the book of words left him extraordinarily free; he could extemporise here and there, expressing his astonishment, for instance, when something happens that gives the whole plot an unexpected turn—and so forth. Actors were in this way able on their own initiative to emphasise certain incidents or features in the plot.

And then, at the end of a comedy, particular emphasis should be laid on destiny. This is important. The acting must show how destiny breaks in upon the course of events and brings it all to a happy conclusion.

Comedy

(I) The emphasis is on the Characters.
(II) The emphasis is on the Plot.
(III) The emphasis is on Destiny.

If one is to produce a comedy successfully, with emphasis first on the characters, then on the plot, and finally on the working of destiny, one must of course do one's best to acquire a lively and sympathetic understanding of what destiny and character and plot are in their essential nature.

There is something more that the actor can do. Latent within him are deep feelings and perceptions, and these he should now evoke. What I am going to recommend may seem to you, my dear friends, to be rather external, but you should not on that account belittle it. If you will receive it and follow it out earnestly and with understanding, it will have a wonderful effect. It will awaken in your heart and soul a fine perception for how you are to set about acting—first tragedy, and then comedy. And as you continue to live with it, to live with it in meditation, you will also be helped to carry into real meditative experience the exercises of a more general nature in connection with your calling, that I have already given for your meditation and concentration. Take, for example, what I showed you the other day when we drew the circle of the vowels and found, on one side of the circle the development of tragedy, and on the other side the development of comedy Imitate in your soul the path followed by a drama of tragedy, and your soul will be so attuned that it will develop the skill required for the speaking and producing of your tragedy.

Where a meditation is intended to prepare us for a right treatment of tragedy, very much will depend on how far we are able, during the meditation, to attain inwardly what I described yesterday as liberation from our spoken part. This, my dear friends, must first be attained. We have to carry our preparation of the part up to the point where we have such command of it that we could go through it in our sleep. And then we must be able also to look at it, as it were, from without, taking an active and sympathetic interest in it and in the whole speaking of it (that speaking which we ourselves have created and formed), entering into it with heart and feeling, and also with will and with thought.

The actors of an older time were given meditations to prepare them for their task; and I would like now to give you a brief formula on the same lines. Approaching the words in the mood that belongs to tragedy, try to concentrate your soul with all inner warmth into just that mood that you need for the understanding of tragedy—for that kind of understanding which has actual formative power. And you will see, as you meditate the words you will attain this understanding. But you will need to repeat the meditative preparation over and over again. Go through it now and

then, when you have a few moments' leisure—you might be taking a walk one day, and come upon a secluded spot where you can sit and think quietly for a little. Here then are the words: Ach ( this is merely a preparatory interjection)—

Ach, Fatum,
Du hast
stark mich<
umfasst,
nimm weg
den Fall
in den Abgrund.²

I use the Latin word Fatum because, to begin with, the soul must be held steadily in the a and u that evoke the tragic mood: u giving the suggestion of fear, and a bespeaking awed amazement. Then, when we come to stark mich, note that i enters in, to take its part in the tragedy. Note too that farther on the vowels follow one another exactly as they do on the circle:

nimm weg
den Fall
in den Abgrund.

If you will meditate these words, letting speak in them, above all, the feeling that is called up within you by that inner perception of sound which you have acquired in your training, then the words can become for you a kind of foundation upon which you can build the production of your drama of tragedy.

Ach, Fatum,
Du hast
stark mich
umfasst,
nimm weg
den Fall
in den Abgrund.

These words give the mood for tragedy. If for a long time you have repeatedly held before you such a meditation, then you will assuredly find the right inner mood for tragedy when you need it.

For comedy, on the other hand, we have to go back to exercises of a more whimsical and subtle kind, that were not practised with the deep fervour that belongs to exercises for tragedy. (Tragedy, you must remember, is a child of the Mysteries.) None the less, even these exercises for humorous plays had a powerful esoteric influence. They were able actually to beget humour in the actor, and then they did not as it were take it back again but let it pour full stream into the speaking

For if you are going to produce comedy (and please when I use the word ‘produce’, do not take it in a merely external sense), you must be able to laugh in the words. I do not mean you should be perpetually tittering. There are persons who like to draw attention to their remarks by constantly tittering and laughing a little as they speak, a habit that is apt to leave one with the impression that there is not much point or meaning in what is being said. For the actor to bring laughter into his feeling for sound is quite a different matter. It works as true art—in spite of its popularity! There were always in an older time comedians who did this, just as surely as in the early Middle Ages you find priests taking part in the solemn and sublime dramas that were directly connected with the Church. And these early comedians, from among whom in course of time the first professional actors were recruited, laboured always to attain to a deep inner understanding of their work on the stage.

Here then I will again put before you a brief formula from olden times. It was not given merely to make tongue and palate elastic and plastic,—a result that we saw could be attained by cultivating sound-perception; these words, as one meditates them, turn into laughter. They must of course be meditated aloud. And then you will find you have to laugh.

Try practising aloud, as often as you can, this little string of words that I will now write on the blackboard. And, as you say them, enter into the speaking of them with your whole heart and feeling.

Izt'—this is really the word jetzt (now), but it has to be spoken here as izt—

Izt' fühl ich
wie in mir
linklock-hü
und lockläck-hi
völlig mir
witzig
bläst³

your soul; you will laugh inwardly, in your soul. Naturally, you cannot expect to attain that by deepening your feelings as for tragedy! And this has now to be your ideal—to carry into your speaking a laughing soul. Then will your work as producer be full of humour, the humour that has power of itself to produce and form a comedy.

And try to practise it, making with linklock-hü this movement (see first Drawing) and with lockläck-hi this movement (see second Drawing), so that you repeat the whole formula thus:

Izt' fiihl ich
wie in mir
linklock-hü
und lockläck-hi
völlig mir
witzig
bläst.

Try to live your way into this little formula, giving it its full development and speaking it always three times in succession—with the linklock-hü, pulling the upper lip upwards and the lower downwards, so that the lips are puckered; and with lockläck-hi flattening the creases out again.

As you continue repeating it, it will make you laugh in your soul; you will laugh inwardly, in your soul. Naturally, you cannot expect to attain that by deepening your feelings as for tragedy! And this has now to be your ideal—to carry into your speaking a laughing soul. Then will your work As producer be full of humour, the humour that has power of itself to produce and form a comedy.

• 1. The Age of the Spiritual (or Consciousness) Soul is the epoch of man's development in which we are now living and which began in the fifteenth century.
• 1. Pronounced very like our word’ five’. The sounds do not make a word at all in German.
• 2. fate,
  Thou hast laid
  firm hand
  upon me;
  suffer me not
  to fall
  into the abyss!
• 3. Inside me I feel
  how linklock-hä
  and lockläck-hi
  go wittily
  whispering
  on!