That sacred fire: Art Talks

One May evening in 1998, my acting teacher, Mark Williams, opened a battered blue hardback by Nemirovich-Danchenko, co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre. "The task of the actor," he read, "Is to ennoble the spirit of the audience." He continued till the end, then gazed at our round, high-ceilinged, ex-nurses-station room, looked at us, and said, "You are now holy. You have the power to make any space holy."

It never happened again. He never brought in a book, never read us a quote. And we were never quite as quiveringly alive, deeply awaiting. But on that high fine night, the winds were blowing.

At the start of most rehearsals, I give an Art Talk. Sometimes they have a quote. Sometimes they're just about our play, or this holy moment, or Nature, or acting. Once when we had a piano, I played the first few of Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Handel, and talked about how those related to Medea.

"Beauty is what we call a certain quality of truth," says Ed Okolovitch.

When it's time for the Art Talk, everyone stills. I look up, l i s t e n, and feel for how this aspect goes together. It's like mining blind, tracing a vein of ore with your fingers. When I'm done, I can't remember what I said. It takes so much of me to hold that whole world while following the threads, that nothing's left to monitor. When I come out of it, the actors are completely still and a thick hush surrounds us.

I love Art Talks whether I'm giving them or getting them. I just want to be in the room when that sacred fire is flowing. Art can come from anywhere. Giancarlo, a physicist, is actually fantastic at Art Talks once he ignites. He's talking about string theory and molecular relationships, but it's the same fire.

You are in love with me
I shall make you perplexed
Do not build much
for I intend to have you in ruins
If you build two hundred houses like the bees
I shall make you as homeless as a fly
If you are the Mount Qaf of stability
I shall make you whirl as a millstone

-- Rumi