Sometimes it’s about the company (ensemble) sometimes it’s about art, sometimes it’s about scales and sometimes it’s about our aim…meaning about a school, a method, a philosophy, a way of collective thinking.
“It has long been recognized that without a permanent company (ensemble) few actors can thrive indefinitely. However it must also be faced that even a permanent company is doomed to deadliness in the long run if it is without aim and thus without a method and thus without a school.
And by school naturally I don’t mean a gymnasium where the actor exercises his limbs in limbo.
Flexing muscles alone cannot develop an art; scales don’t make a pianist, nor does fingerwork help a painter’s brush.
And yet a great pianist practices finger exercises for many hours a day and a Japanese painter spends his life practicing how to draw a perfect circle.
The art of acting is in some ways the most exacting one of all and without constant schooling the actor will stop halfway.”
