I have looked at actors for seven years

I watch actors like some people listen to music. I hear in their bodies the thousand truths.

My eyes are changing.

When I began directing, I could only see the radiance of a human being. Every human who stood up before me was luminous. I could gaze at any of them for hours.

Eventually I began to be able to see -- like a second lens -- where they were in their authenticity. When did they become vast, when did they vanish, when did I believe them.

I saw a Chinese man do that this week. He looked upward to answer a deep question. His shoulders softened, elbows lax on his knees, all the tension falling away from his face, soft eyes, blinking. For those moments I could see him. Like a child, an actor, an otter.

With Grotowski- or Suzuki-trained actors I see bodies so articulate that words are not needed. The text actually functions as an independent track.

In Leonid Anisimov's actors, and in Eugenio Barba's, I could see the full master instruments. Not a violin but a Stradivarius. Not any Stradivarius, but this particular fragile dark-toned one, with these hundreds of thousands of hours of practice.

I could not see what other directors saw when they looked at actors. I knew a) it was different than what I saw, b) they could all see it, and c) they agreed. It was one of the ways I knew I was still learning. To me, the actors looked like animals, like angels.

Living in the Odin Teatret's rehearsal rooms for two months changed my eyes. I have been gone from there a year and a half, and only now have my eyes completed their transformation.

Now I can see what the other directors see. I see it all -- the infinite luminosity, the training, the mask, the suppleness of the instrument and the spirit, the body, the language, the longing.

I was working on Chekhov with the Odin's apprentice actors, when -- "I'd like to do Chekhov," said Tage mildly. I felt like someone had scalded me. My body felt it before my brain did. I could FEEL, like a river of fire pour through me, what that meant. The maturity of this actor. His mastery. His fragility. His babyness. I could feel his limits & weaknesses, his strengths, his wryness -- how much he knew that Chekhov knew, what he knew that Chekhov didn't, what Chekhov knew that he didn't. It was like discovering the sky.

In that moment, something cracked in me.

Look how big he is
Look how big Chekhov is with him in it
I'm the same size I always am with actors, with Chekhov
Look how big I am

That was the moment I shifted as a director. When I felt myself with Tage and Chekhov on that infinite plain of light.

Talent is a water-table, available to all, says Katagiri Roshi. We tap it with our human effort.

Why do we work? asks Leonid Anisimov. We work to make all people Talented.