III. In the extract that follows several actors are discussing their trade

1. 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 начали с 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 направление 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 признанный believer in technique.

"It's all a question of truth," David was saying, "you can't tell the truth if you have one eye on приглядеть 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 заявляли that acting is an art?) "consists заключаются in communica­tion. You have to convey your ideas to the public, you have to adjust подгонять your performance to what they can take."

"That's just dishonesty мошенничество," said David, "that sail плавание that is. You mean that if you're playing Tennessee Williams in Cheltenham you gloss over затушёвываешь all the punch lines кульминационные моменты, 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 развлечение, 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 поладить, 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 производить a good stage performance , just like that. Stage acting is an

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art, a lost art, it's been ruined разрушен 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 воинственно. I've played in just about every bloody rep. репертуарном театре 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 узнал 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 hell with к чёрту inflections интонации and upstaging переигрывание and all that bloody moronic идиотская nonsense, that's all a bloody waste of time if you ask me."

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

"I don't see why," he said, "you should think that yourself is so wonderful? After all, the public 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 прячась up in wigs париках and muck грязи. 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 точка зрения, not mine."

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

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