Letters from Alvina Krause: Fall 1974

Context
During fall 1974 and winter 1975 my journal was full of questions.

Journal
Me:
[On Creative Imagination, I end the entry with this question:]
What am I missing? Where is my blind spot?

Krause's Response:
Imagination works through the senses. They must be trained to respond.
See the lake -- actually see the color, the form, the movement: See a gull flying over the lake, muscles perceive the movement, the dip, the soaring, Hear the waves, the beat, the tempo, feel the spray.
Enlarge the responses, the lake becomes the North Sea, the water darkens, the roar is loud, the gulls cry out, the spray slaps your face, the clouds are dark, they rush -- Hamlet watches the 7th wave come in, break "To be or not to be"
[Along the left hand margin she wrote "Reality" to bracket this first part -- DD.]
Imagination becomes creative only if the realistic sensory response to a stimulus is vivid enough to enlarge of its own accord from lake to ocean to Hamlet on a parapet --
"To be" will only be words unless touched off by images rooted in reality

"My dear Judge, how mortally bored I have been" -- What must the actress see, hear, perceive -- what must the actress do -- turn a rehearsal table into a Victorian table with marble top, a miniature in a gold filigree frame, a lamp with a decorated globe shade --

Turn a rehearsal prop into Gaev's bookcase through sense response -- begin with your own reality.

Me:
[About a student in beginning acting]
And what do you do with a student who sits caved in, thinking like crazy, uncomfortable with his physical self, unable to let himself create because he is self-conscious even when I get the entire class involved in an exercise? He'll try and then he gives up, collapses. I'm at a real loss.

Krause:
What is his chief interest? What does he know well? To some degree, in what is he an authority? Whatever it is, get him to show the class how -- If he is a camera buff -- Let him illustrate -- Then go to -- If Hamlet had a camera -- what -- how -- Work from the known -- from confidence to --

****

Me:
[A description of work on the Antigone/Creon scene in Anouilh's Antigone and my attempts to get students to create the characters as forces more than as realistic human beings. When I met resistance from the students, I flailed.]
As ever, any light you can shed will be assimilated.

Krause:
Begin with real people, eliminate gradually all small actions, all small intonations. Try it in French, the language of precision. Listen to French drama.

About Antigone's Nurse
She is stripped of everything except the qualities that make her not see, not realize.

Get to the basic motivating force for each one and let that force dominate
Haemon -- a deep love for Antigone -- he would choose death for it. Youth, eliminate all romanticizing about youth and love. Play only the motivating force.
Ismene -- Youth loving life (normal) more than death.
Soldiers -- just that, no more  -- no individualities, they await orders, receive them, obey -- play poker while waiting --

Me:
I begin to question for myself. What is the difference between realism vs. Greek tragedy? Greek tragedy vs. Anouilh?

Krause:
[Next to my "realism"] Death of a Salesman. Keep Arthur Miller in mind for realism.
[Next to my "Greek tragedy"] tragic realization "Lo, he is fallen"
[Next to my "Anouilh"] Aimed at the head.
[Next to my "Greek tragedy"] Aimed at understanding through -- ?

Me:
[Observations about Greek tragedy, ending with this:]
But isn't that essentially what the French drama does too? There is a difference -- I can sense it, but I cannot articulate it and therefore I'm not certain how to teach it. Will you help clarify?

Krause:
It's in the aim -- the French insist on that intellectual grasp.

From my summer journal
Try being Anouilh -- with a keen mind, with a deep concern for his country, for humanity, looking from a high tower at his Paris, his France, knowing, realizing that with his talents he had the responsibility to strike a blow against Nazism. Play the Antigone he is creating as he looks at Paris.

****

Context
I send her copies of the notes I post on the bulletin board.

Letter
David,
The notes are to the point. Can you expand each point, illustrate, question? Always test your own imagination until you can trust yourself fully to develop any statement. Feel that you know Hedda and all her associates better than you know your own friends. And trust your own mind to explore, discover.
Talk about characters in drama as real people. As you talk about Eilert Lovborg become Eilert for a few moments.
[...A discussion of students and friends...DD]
I'm glad you have moved to Evanston. Should save time--

A.K.

Letters from Alvina Krause: The Greeks Fall 1974

Context
Notes to my junior class: the Greeks.

Krause's Comments
Excellent foundation on which to build. Be sure you bring it to concrete realizations. Insist that your students find definite modern personifications of Greek drama -- Who, today, is Creon? For me: McBurney -- Smooth, good looking politician who forced his way into a place of power to destroy the school his predecessor had created. [James H. McBurney, Dean of the School of Speech 1942-1972 -- DD]
I have always felt the Kennedy family is the epitome of Greek drama. Robert was Haemon -- Rose is Greek in facing destiny (I rebel at the Camelot application to the Kennedys)
Electra -- surely she is still among you. Lilla Heston [Charlton's sister and Chair of the Interpretation Department 1979-1984 -- DD] was once Electra -- through personal strength she survived--
I am sure that Mrs. Martin Luther King has elements of Medea in her. Not capable of killing her children, but great depth of indignation. Perhaps you will find Medea among the blacks. Remember her tragic rage was not only against Jason but against the society which created woman's role it it.
For Antigone remember my story of the Hungarian Youth watching the Russian tanks roll by --
Jacqueline Kennedy has qualities of Antigone -- she didn't choose physical death.

And I remember the students -- men and women -- who drifted into my house that afternoon of Kennedy's assassination. There was a true Greek chorus -- Speechless, numb, lost, they found their way to my house: Frank Galati -- an armful of books clasped close to his chest -- sat by the radio, tears, silent tears, helpless, hopeless tears streaming down his cheeks.
I sat by a window my eyes closed tightly wishing I could shut out the fearful words I had heard: "We break this program to announce -----"
There is the beginning of a Greek chorus -- begin with such realities to take you into Greek tragedy.

Letters from Alvina Krause: Fall 1974

Context
Year two begins.

Letter
David,
Continue to seek communication with Dr. Scott [See post for September 24 -- DD]. Invite him to luncheon with you. Ask him direct questions: How would he stage a Greek chorus today? anything to get him started talking. Let him know that in your philosophy acting cannot be taught as a separate entity: it is part of a whole, it must be so taught -- a whole, not only of living, but of the arts and humanities. And continue to make that point in staff meetings! To teach acting you must teach theatre -- only achieved by cooperation within the department. Ask Scott -- and the department -- who are the finest teachers of literature on campus because you want to recommend that your students study with them. Who is doing significant teaching in psychology? history? sociology? The good actor must have a comprehension of the entire system of human life. Scott can help you with this, but let others know positively what your goals are. The actor acts with all that he is. This is your basic principle, isn't it? Well -- establish, promote work for this principle. Tell your students to take Galati's courses. He is no competitor, he is a colleague working for the same goals. Insist upon registration in Dr. Bacon's Shakespeare -- he too is your colleague. Maybe you can make a small break by having Yvonne [the head of the costume shop -- DD] talk to your class on acting in costume: how the chest must lead, how muscles at the waist line govern movement of the skirts, how to leap over sofas in flowing robes, how to wear "costumes" as clothes.
Break down these ridiculous barriers which have been created by jealousy and incompetence. Recognize the fact that teaching acting is teaching theatre and theatre is the astonishment of living cast into theatre form -- See John Van Meter. Seek out the people who will sustain you in your faith.
God help you
AK --

Letters from Alvina Krause: Summer 1974

Context
Beginning with fall 1974 I would be teaching for the first time the final year of the acting course -- Style: The Actor as Communicator.
I went to Bloomsburg for the summer of 1974 and Krause worked with her students on French drama (Moliere, Anouilh, Giraudoux) -- drama, as she put it, that demands style for its communication.
As the summer went on, the class worked on other dramatists, but as much as was possible Krause kept the focus of their work on style.
I kept a journal.
This post comprises excerpts from that journal and Krause's comments.

Journal
I titled the first entry "Style".
Krause commented:
The last stage in the creative process.
Style is more real than reality. "Why?" It is reality heightened, intensified by selectivity.
Quote, I think, from my lecture on style:
"When a craftsman has something distinctly his own to say, he may say it so clearly, so emphatically, that his manner of expression is part of what he is saying. He gives his subject clarification, intensification -- projection: he gives it Style."
"Style is organic". A.K.

*****
Me:
Difference between Moliere, Coward, Wilde, Feydeau -- techniques are the same, but the style is different? the manner in which the techniques become part of the communication of the drama changes, but the techniques stay the same? Can you clarify?

Krause:
Go straight to the end of the line --
Punch the end of the line in some way --
Use bright tones --
Toss up and out and over the audience
End business with the line --
Business points the line, must not steal the line --
Etc -- These are techniques common to all.
Style comes from discovering exactly what best suits the specific character and drama --
Style makes choices, Style selects, Style throws focus exactly where it should be to make a point (Chaplin throws focus on his eyes for instance by eliminating focus on his mustache -- Throws focus on his hat by eliminating all else)

I could do a dozen things (acts) to characterize me. If I wanted to project an acting teacher cares passionately about humanity, what specifically would I do? That selection of detail is style.

****

Working on Dorine and Orgon from Tartuffe, I asked about getting students to discover the responsiveness and flexibility of character spine.
Krause wrote this:
Spines --
I used animal studies to make students aware of spines -- Be a cat -- note that the tail is moved by the spine -- Note that each footstep starts in the spine, flows through -- Be a cat -- be a human cat -- control the tale [sic] through the spine.
Trees have spines too, I think. Isn't Antigone a birch tree that is being bent to the ground by storm, heavy ice, snow. But it must rise, it must grow toward the sky. It doesn't know why, it must slowly come erect. Our birch tree was bent to the ground during a winter storm. We thought it would break, it took days to come erect, but it did.
Have students observe and recreate the spines of the old, middle-aged, the ill, the soldier -- big business, etc.
Create National spines -- the very erect Norwegian spine, the curved Polish, the flexible Italian, etc.
Study a dancer's spine -- a trucker's --
Where will you find the Creon spine
Have you observed Nixon's -- slightly curved, but no flexibility

****

This is my record of Krause's comments focusing on elements of style during a work session on the beginning of Three Sisters.
Krause:
That was good realistic acting but it wasn't Three Sisters. Why? What story must you tell? What story did you tell?
Masha--you want to tell her whole story in her response to that [Olga's saying that they would soon go to Moscow-- DD]. What will you do to tell: I don't believe a word of that, I have given up hope, I am purposeless. What single movement of the head will tell this?

The audience must get a chance to identify with each sister, to respond with each, to understand the basics of each -- they must care for each one -- at the same time Chekhov's drama must be sent home.

Olga -- what will you do on "I have a headache" that will show you are not a teacher, but that will keep the audience liking you?

In my journal she wrote this:
Note on the opening of Three Sisters, although verbally it seems to be Olga's "scene", the focus changes from one to another. 
The director will say Focus on Irina! Focus on Masha! and there is an arrest and a hold.

In one entry I described the work of actors dealing with the Orgon and Dorine scene in Tartuffe. Krause was going to keep me focused on style the whole summer.
She wrote this:
You have described the preparatory improvisation. After that eliminate, choose the most telling movement, or tone -- the arrest of what movement
So you arrive at
Style and meaning -- (always remember style and meaning are one)

****

Postscript 
We did work like this on Tartuffe, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Anouilh's Antigone, The Importance of Being Earnest, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and others.
I left Bloomsburg in late August ready to add the third year acting course to my teaching schedule.

****

Context
I got this letter shortly after returning to Evanston for fall quarter 1974.

Letter
The flowers are beautiful. Stupendous! I wish you could share them with us. Thank you!
In the Saturday Review --World for this week -- August 10 -- is a description of Lunt-Fontanne acting which I think you could use. It's in the Henry Hewes column. You might be able to use it in "Styles". I would send you my copy but I think our group should read it.
It was good to have you here this summer!

Good luck
A.K.

****

Context
An excerpt from a letter a year later -- fall 1975 -- in which Krause responds to a comment I had made about something one of my colleagues had said.

Excerpt
The third quarter of "Styles" has not "traditionally" been contemporary realism and certainly not "American". The focus is on Style always. My last quarter culminated in drama that was highly dependent on Style for success: Ionesco, Albee for instance. [The name of another colleague -- DD] has turned Styles into something he thinks he can teach because he doesn't know what Style in drama is! Don't let anyone pull this "traditional" stuff.

Letters from Alvina Krause: May 1974

Context
Krause invited me to come to Bloomsburg for summer 1974 to work on Style before my first senior class started in the fall.
And as she believed that theatre happened only when there was an audience, she was urging her Bloomsburg students toward public performance.
Where Krause names names, I use letters of the alphabet.

Letter
David,
The positive note dominant in your letter is great. Hang on! Move on!
A girl called me a few days ago asking to come here this summer. I referred her to you for a reference. I cannot judge by a telephone conversation, but my responses to her were negative. She is a Junior, she says. Is she mature enough to work with our group this summer? With you? I she emotionally stable? She seemed "carried away" with an idea that had just hit her. J and S are doing very good work; K is mature. If R comes back he will be highly competent. Wouldn't this Junior be lost in such a group? Don't be hesitant about a frank evaluation of this girl. It would be kindness to her.
The possibility here of a play in the park this summer is again in the air. I am not encouraging it. What they want is a "show" -- However we must be ready to do something if it is called for. What? I think it must be non-royalty for there is no money available evidently. It occurs to me that we could do an old melodrama with style. My favorite is "Lady Audley's Secret". I have no copy of it now. I think there is one in Deering Library. As faculty you could draw it out for an unlimited time. Could you get a copy, read it, send it to us. When it is done with real style it is terrific. Would you be interested in directing it and playing in it?
Be firm on this "coaching" business. Coaching is a practice of the commercial theatre. They cast "stars" in leads. They cast by appearance, size, etc. And so they need a coach to tell people how to walk, to speak, to sit, to "emote". The academic theatre should be above that for it is their business to teach students to act. If they are taught truly to act, they need no "coach". I fought the term when I came to NU. Mitchell [Lee Mitchell, chair of the department, teacher of directing, Krause bête noire -- DD] asked me to "coach" his actors. I told him I was a teacher, I would teach acting -- I would not "coach". Understand? I was successful in banning the term during my presence at NU. Be forceful in your stand. Don't fight, but stand on your principles and make clear where you stand. And see that your students understand. When they learn to act, they will not need a coach. They may want to go to an authority if they are cast in a complex role in Shakespeare, Chekhov, etc. They may need help in analysis, they will need study but not "coaching".

****
Postscript
There was no public performance that summer.