Make up the situation using the vocabulary from the text.

Answer the following questions:

1. The author says that “lots of other things” besides the theatre offer amusement and pleasure. How many “other things” do you know that offer us pleasure and amusement?

2. What argument does the author use to justify his statement that there is something special that the theatre can offer us?

3. What important advantages do radio, cinema and television possess that the theatre does not?

4. Does the author approve of the people who say that with television and cinema they no longer need the theatre? (Refer to the text to support your answer.)

5. What part, according to the author, has the theatre played in the creation of radio, movies and television drama?

6. What’s the difference between watching a movie at the cinema and a play at the theatre?

7. What do you appreciate more in the theatre: acting, music, costumes and props, or the atmosphere?

8. Comment on the following statement: “But men must know, that in this theatre of men’s life it is reserved only for God and Angels to be lookers on” (Francis Bacon)

30. In the extract that follows several actors are discussing their trade. Read the text carefully making notes of the main problems raised in the conversation:

When they had finished with parts and personalities, they started off on the theory of acting. They were talking, this time, about that ancient problem of whether one should, while acting, be more aware of the audience or the person or persons with whom one is playing the scene. David, of course, was taking the line that one should concentrate wholly on one’s co-actor, on what is going on between two people on the stage: he was being opposed principally by Michael Fenwick, who was an avowed believer in techniquer.

“It’s all a question of truth,” David was saying, “you can’t tell the truth if you have one eye on how it’s being taken all the time, can you? You have to narrow your circle of concentration down to the situation you’re playing, you can’t keep listening for reactions.”

“But the whole art of acting,” said Michael Fenwick (and who else but actors ever claim that acting is an art?) “ consists in communication. You have to convey your ideas to the public, you have to adjust your performance to what they can take.”

“That’s just dishonesty,” said David, “that’s all that is. You mean that if you’re playing Tennessee Williams in Cheltenham you gloss over all the punch lines, for fear of offending the old ladies. What good does that do anyone? They don’t get a performance, they don’t even get the play. You might as well give them what you believe to be true, not what you believe they believe to be true, mightn’t you?”

“You seem to forget,” said Michael, forgetting in an instant his last statement about art, “that acting is basically entertainment, the actor isn’t there to instruct, he’s there to amuse, and you can’t amuse people unless you pay attention to their reactions.”

“That’s just nonsense,” said David, “you must be talking about pantomime or something. What I was talking about was acting. I must say I’ve no particular desire to amuse anyone, I just want to get on with it, that’s all.”

“It’s easy to tell,” said Michael, “that you’re not used to playing for live audiences. You’ve spent all your life in front of cameras, that’s what’s the trouble with you. That’s what’s the trouble with the theatre these days, people like Wyndham Farrar keep importing all these great stars of screen and telly, and expect them to be able to turn out a good stage performance, just like that. Stage acting is an art, a lsot art, it’s been ruined by all you lot who think it’s just an easy way of earning a lot of money.”

“What in Christ’s name do you think you are talking about?” said David belligerently. I’ve played in just about everybody rep. in this bloody country, I’d been at it three years before I ever saw the inside of a television studio.”

“Three years,” said Michael, who had been on the stage for twenty-three years; “Do you think you can learn anything in three years?”

“Of course you can,” said David, “if you’ve got your wits about you. And what I learned was that you must always, always be yourself. Whether you’re playing to fifty in Oldham or five million or fifty million, there is nothing else you have to offer but yourself, so that’s what you have to give. And to tell with inflections and upstaging and all that bloody moronic nonsense, that’s all a bloody waste of time if you ask me.”

Michael was too annoyed to reply immediately, and Julian took up this bristly challenge in a reedy, girlish voice.

“I don’t see why,” he said, “you should think that yourself is so wonderful? After all, the publc pays to see a play, doesn’t it, not to see David Evans or – er – Laurence Olivier.”

“They may not pay to see David Evans,” said David, ignoring as well he might the other example offered, “but that’s what they see when they get there just the same, isn’t it? And if I can’t believe in myself as myself, I don’t see what else there is to believe in. I don’t want to spend my life covering myself up in wigs and muck. I don’t believe acting has anything to do with imitation.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re an actor for then,” said Michael. “If you don’t have any interest in the parts you’re playing, or the people who are watching you, then what are you doing it for?”

“Oh, for myself,” said David. “For myself. To discover about me. With each new part I play, I find out more about me. And if people will pay to see it, that’s their outlook, not mine.”

(From: The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble. Abridged.)

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