The Great Acting Blog: “Truly Great Acting”

The Great Acting Blog: “Truly Great Acting”

In yesterday’s post I was not defending the use of phones during a performance as some of the messages I received seemed to think. My point was that it’s impact is exaggerated and the irascible way that theatres deal with the issue is a symptom of their lack of care for the audience, undermining the very purpose of theatre in the process.* I also received similar messages about actors stopping the play and telling the audience to shut-up. I have heard about this many times before although I have never experienced it in the theatre myself. However, it’s not a practice I can agree with, in fact, I think it’s utterly feeble, and again, it seems to me to be a dereliction of duty.

Harold Pinter wrote about Anew Mcmaster doing Othello in Limerick. He said that the 2000-strong audience were drunk and so rowdy that the actors on stage could not hear themselves speak. Further, the cast kept hold of their swords because they thought the audience was going to come on stage. Then Mcmaster took control. Pinter writes…

“Don’t worry Mac said, don’t worry. After the interval he began to move. When he walked on to the stage for the ‘Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm’ scene (his great body hunched, his voice low with grit), they silenced. He tore into the fit. He made the play his and the place his. By the time he had reached ‘it is the very error of the moon; She comes more near the earth than she was won’t, And makes men mad.’  (The word ‘mad’ suddenly cauterised, ugly, shocking)  the audience was quite still. And sober.”

Actors like Mcmaster, truly great actors, enrapture the audience through the force of their personalities and through the power of their art.

* I also received a message from a theatre in Cape Town, who say they announce their etiquette in a “nice/funny way”. Merci.

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