ABSTRACT
Today we assembled so that Tortsov could give us his notes on our perform ances. He said: ‘In art we need, above all, to find and under stand what is beau ti ful. And
so, let us first remem ber the posit ive moments in what you gave us. There were only two, the first when Marya ran down the stairs with the desper ate cry, “Save me!”, and the second was Kostya’s “Blood, Iago, blood!” In both instances you, the players, like us the audi ence, surrendered totally to what was happen ing. We were stunned and fired by the same common emotion. ‘These moments of success, which we can abstract from the whole, can
be termed the art of exper i en cing which we cultiv ate here in our theatre and study in our school.’ ‘What is the art of exper i en cing?’ I asked, curious. ‘You know what it is because it happened to you. Try and tell us what you
were aware of, phys ic ally, while you were being genu inely creat ive.’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t under stand a thing about it,’ I said, stupefied by
Tortsov’s praise. ‘All I know is that they were unfor get table moments, and that’s the only way I want to act, and I am ready to give myself body and soul to that kind of acting . . .’
