ABSTRACT

It is hard to write one’s autobiography at the age of thirty-six,* when life is far from over and when many of the forces which define one’s soul are just beginning to develop and come into consciousness as germinal seeds of the future. But if one has a more or less clear consciousness of these burgeoning soul-qualities and a certain understanding of where they are leading – if, moreover, one has the will to develop in this direction – it is possible to sketch a picture of one’s life which incorporates not only the past and the present, but also an ideal future. This ideal may never be fulfilled as precisely as one expects, indeed it probably won’t, but then again it will be a true picture of what a soul undergoing self-examination is experiencing in the present.†

* * *

Five or six years ago, I experienced a burning shame! I couldn’t bear myself as an actor, I couldn’t reconcile myself with the theatre as it was at the time (and still is now). I was clearly aware that whatever exists in both the theatre and its actors emerges as ugliness and untruth.1