My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin

Author:Charlie Chaplin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2012-11-09T08:00:00+00:00

This may be eminently beautiful but I do not enjoy that kind of poetry in the theatre. Moreover, I dislike Shakespearean themes involving kings, queens, august people and their honour. Perhaps it is something psychological within me, possibly my peculiar solipsism. In my pursuit of bread and cheese, honour was seldom trafficked in. I cannot identify myself with a prince’s problems. Hamlet’s mother could have slept with everyone at court and I would still feel indifferent to the hurt it would have inflicted on Hamlet.

As for my preference in presenting a play, I like the conventional theatre, with its proscenium that separates the audience from the world of make-believe. I like the scene to be revealed by the lifting or parting of curtains. I dislike plays that come over the footlights and participate with an audience, in which a character leans against the proscenium and explains the plot. Besides being didactic, this device destroys the charm of the theatre, and is a prosaic way of getting over exposition.

In stage décor I prefer that which contributes reality to the scene and nothing more. If it is a modern play of everyday life, I do not want geometric design. These prodigious effects destroy my make-believe.

Some very fine artists have imposed their scenic effusions to the degree of subordinating both the actor and the play. On the other hand just curtains and steps running up into infinity are worse intrusions. They reek of erudition and shout: ‘We leave much to your noble sensibility and imagination!’ I once saw Laurence Olivier in evening dress recite an excerpt from Richard III at a benefit. Although he achieved a medieval mood by his histrionics, his white tie and tails were rather incongruous.

Someone said that the art of acting is relaxing. Of course this basic principle can be applied to all the arts, but an actor especially must have restraint and an inner containment. No matter how frenzied the scene, the technician within the actor should be calm and relaxed, editing and guiding the rise and fall of his emotions – the outer man excited and the inner controlled. Only through relaxation can an actor achieve this. How does one relax? That is difficult. My own method is rather personal: before going on the stage, I am always extremely nervous and excited, and in this state I get so exhausted that by the time I make my entrance I am relaxed.

I do not believe acting can be taught. I have seen intelligent people fail at it and dullards act quite well. But acting essentially requires feeling. Wainewright, an authority on aesthetics, a friend of Charles Lamb and the literary lights of his time, was a ruthless, cold-blooded murderer who poisoned his cousin for mercenary reasons. Here is an example of an intelligent man who could never have been a good actor because he had little feeling.

All intellect and no feeling can be characteristic of the arch-criminal, and all feeling and no intellect exemplify the harmless idiot. But when intellect and feeling are perfectly balanced, then we get the superlative actor.

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