Excerpt from The Actor’s Chekhov: Nikos Psacharopoulos and the Company of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, on the Plays of Anton Chekhov
Intreview with Nikos Psacharopoulos:
Imagine things. Imagine many more things. Imagine that the water you drink is awful, that the house is hot, imagine that the sheets are smelly, imagine that the house has an echo, imagine there’s a big nail, your mother put it underneath, so that you can be stepping on nails all the time. You know? Deal sufficiently with the underlying imaginary circumstances. It’s kind of interesting. In life, some people do it, they believe they’re always persecuted. I think you should get persecuted on stage, or you should be wooed when you’re on stage. ⦠I think you have to allow that paranoia and program for paranoia. Create problems for yourself. ⦠Make your own blocks. If you put a chair in front of the door, there will be something so interesting about opening that goddamn door. Have your props messed up so you can’t really reach them. Get something on your hands and have nothing to wipe them with.
I’ve read all of these beautiful quotes and I have to say this is my favorite.
Imagine you’re walking on nails.
Absolutely brilliant. What a great, great use of Architecture that isn’t even there. WOW!!!!
I know, Alex, right?? Because great acting so often comes from obstacles in the way of whatever objective you have … Acting should not EVER be “comfortable”!!
I was so wound up to type that I forgot my email address. This is the passage I remember most from the book, now that you are reminding me of it. Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. Problems are what the actor wants on stage. Not solutions. He’s so right. I’ve always felt that dealing with the circumstances of the play is creative, not interpretive and that’s how. You have to make the things that make the circumstances affect you.
Ted – you haven’t met Alex Billings, have you? Well, Alex meet Ted – Ted meet Alex. You are two of my favorite people in the world – as people, as artists – it would be great if you all could meet someday!!
And yes, Ted, totally agree: what he describes here is REALLY being alive onstage. (Like that great last scene of Opening Night when they improv with the given circumstances – the drunkenness, their actual relationship – not to mention the deeper level of the fact that they, in actuality, were married at the time … amazing!!)
There IS NO PLAN. Throw out the flight plan! You are ALIVE out there! Let ALL of it affect you!!
I remember when I did Killer Joe – in the first scene, I am woken up by banging on the door. It is my wasted stepson – with whom I have had an affair. (I’m a whore, basically). I stagger to the door, naked from the waist down (fun! Yeah. Nudity on stage. Mortifying) – but anyway, I stagger to the door to let him in – and we have this midnight confrontation – my stepson (played by Michael Gilio – my boyfriend at the time) is being aggressive, I’m being nonchalant and slutty – and I was supposed to chain-smoke thru the scene. And I remember asking the stage manager to hide my cigarettes in a different place every night, so that I’d have to scramble for them. I knew they were SOMEWHERE – but I’d have to work to find them. It was fucking AWESOME. Because I NEEDED a cigarette – and the trailer was a total mess – trash everywhere – so I’d really have to grapple to find them. It was terrific. Chaos. It helped me so much in that scene – because he was saying his lines … but my main objective was: I need a goddamn smoke. WHERE are my cigarettes??
Hi Alex. So, when are we having drinks?