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Vitez on Molibre: 0 0 C0 0 0 U Freeing the Actor I had the feeling that the entire oeuvre of Moliere is made up of several elements (not many) that are composed over and over from one play to the next. Each play is the story of one day. It takes place the day that ... There is nothing before or after. For example, The Misanthrope takes place the day that Alceste will be seen for the last time in the world. We must show that. As if each play were about the death of someone. Moliere, perhaps. Afterwards, nothing will be as it was before. This idea guides us. Everything ends at night, or just before dawn. Candelabras. We tried to make the correspondences apparent between the characters and situations of the four plays. You can play Tartuffe as an avatar of Don Juan. And Don Juan can be played like Alceste: the same flame tortures them. The furniture consists of two chairs, a table, and there are also some candelabras and a walking stick. That is how Molibre's company did Tartuffe, I think. The actors won't be able to sit down much; they will remain standing. The opaqueness of classical plays. Don Juan as a miracle play or a Medieval 81 Mystery play.... Violence in Molibre. As in Balzac's novels. The violence of families. Create a contrasting effect between the violence of passions expressed and the language, and also the costumes. It was necessary to plunge head first into Molibre's misogyny to avoid being misogynic. The female characters are always seen from the point of view of the central male character. The female character, Agnes or Cdlirhene, is at the same time the devouring monster and the little girl in her petticoat. The Commander is a suffering soul; he re-dies endlessly until he is appeased. Tartuffe, Don Juan: the stranger who has not been invited. He provokes extraordinary disorder; he passes, like the Redemptor; what difference is there between the Redemptor and himself? Who says the impostor isn't Christ himself? Molidre, says Ariane [Mnouchkine], is someone who lived with his troupe, right in the middle of his troupe, who fights with it, loves it. In the beginning I practiced a sort of therapy of the actor, or rather the nonactor becoming actor, and my work was based entirely on the notion of exercises ; I was looking for an ideal series of exercises. Today, I have given up the exercise in and of itself; I ask that the work in class question the very existence .of theatre, and what the test really says and what the actor himself proposes, which is new on each occasion-from this, new forms of expression will be born. In other words, all this work, this deviation, is the story of a slow and not always conscious criticism of Stanislavsky (not a nostalgic one). It is impossible for me today to articulate a concept of teaching an actor. I don't think Stanislavsky could still exist, or rather: I am against the idea of a complete progressive system of teaching. Someone could describe my work, here and now, I couldn't articulate it, it is always in motion, it changes. I don't see any great separation between my work as an acting teacher and my work as a director. First of all, I already worked as teacher with most of the actors who collaborate with me. Secondly, and conversely, I consider those with whom I work at the Conservatory not as students but as actors. What I can do that is most useful for students is to establish a real actor-director rapport with them. Yes, that is what I work toward, instead of being their monitor or their therapist. I don't think of them as patients and that the fact that they don't have enough acting experiences constitutes a handicap for which they need a cure. I take them as they are and I do theatre with them, just as they are. If they are foreigners they act with their accent; if they are young, with their youth; if they are awkward, with their...

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