Saturday 28 February 2015

...of uninvolving

...While I was working on The Wild Duck I saw what was wrong with these young people: they will not tolerate discipline. But the actor who plays Gregers is quite outstanding, Jeanie Billroth objected to this point. To which the Burgtheater actor replied, Everybody says Gregers is good, but I don't understand what they see in him: I find his performance just average, no more than average - a piece of positive miscasting. Jeanie Billroth was the only other guest who had actually seen the production at the Burgtheater, and the others, having started off without knowing what The Wild Duck was and only gradually learning that it was a play, were condemned to silence. Every now and then they nodded, either looking straight at the actor or gazing down at the tablecloth, or else staring in bewilderment at the person sitting opposite, they had no chance whatever of participating in the actor's performance, with which he was regaling them so uninhibitedly, knowing that none of them would inhibit him. Auersberger's wife, far from inhibiting him, repeatedly urged him to go on, and it was natural that the actor, having just come from performing in The Wild Duck at the Burgtheater, should continue to expatiate on the performance and related matters...

[Woodcutters, Bernhard, T.]

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