The Great Acting Blog: “Truth In Art And Politics”
This week I was invited to the wonderfully intimate Jermyn Street Theatre, to see David Pinner’s The Potsdam Quartet. I have written my response below.
In 1945, the “Big Four” of Stalin, Truman, Churchill and Atlee met at Potsdam where they decided how the world was to be governed from then on. David Pinner’s play centres on The Potsdam Quartet who were employed to play for the world leaders. The action takes place in an ante-room where the musicians hang-out during their breaks. It is also there that the tensions which seethe among the group, threaten to finally blow it apart. The script crisply alternates between witty banter and blazing arguments, and the acting serves the play very well indeed, at it’s best when highly strung. The cast work as a cohesive unit, playing off each other with clean actions.
The play also creates an interesting juxtaposition between the lives of politicians and artists. The politician may get to call the shots but that privilage comes at a very high price, namely one’s own sense of personal truth, which must be sacrificed in the name of compromise and pragmatism. Think of today’s politicians, controlled as they are by the party machine, given lines to take on any given issue, which they must trot out regardless of whether they believe them or not. For the artist however, there can be no such compromise, in fact, a sense of truth is the artist’s greatest gift. It is cultivated by aesthetics, by years spent trying to master an instrument. Who knows what kind of deals Truman et al had to make at Potsdam in order to get a result. The musicians however, despite their personal problems, are, in the final analysis, able to concentrate their whole being on playing, and when doing so, feel a truth in art, and nothing else matters.
The is true for actors also.
The play runs until the 23rd, so there’s still time to catch it.
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