Actress Vanessa Redgrave discussed Chekhov and the art of acting with Five College theatre arts students during her April 29 master class. Though battling jet lag from her transatlantic flight, Redgrave gave the student actors-- including five MHC women--individual attention as they presented excerpts from Chekhov's work.
Vanessa Redgrave looked little like any of her glamorous screen personas--Guinevere, Isadora Duncan, Julia, or even her latest, Mrs. Dalloway. Yet Redgrave was the very model of a world-class actress in her April 29 visit to MHC. Arriving early in blue jeans and jeans jacket, her close-cropped silver hair askew, the Oscar-winning actress graciously shook hands with ordinary fans as well as local theater dignitaries before getting down to work. Her mother, Lady Rachel Redgrave, had been expected to take part in the master class, but was unable to attend.
For two hours, Redgrave watched with rapt attention as students performed excerpts from Anton Chekhov's plays, and made thoughtful comments on their work and on the acting profession. "This is a working session," she announced, and proceeded largely as if the packed audience in Rooke Theatre were not present. MHC actors Dorien Davies, Mary Haddad, S. Ann Hall, Laconia Koerner, and Danielle O'Connell were joined by Five College colleagues Maryna Harrison, Mollie Hensley, Jesus MacLean, and Shaka Taylor-Harris.
Treating the actors with the utmost professional respect, several times she exclaimed "Lovely!" at their work. Suggestions were couched in terms like "The thought occurs that maybe you could ..." Redgrave asked students about their character's motivations, gave her own interpretations, and helped students find deeper meaning behind their character's lines. Redgrave, who has appeared in some seventy films, is also an accomplished stage actress who's well acquainted with the Chekhov plays being presented.
Redgrave urged actors to aim "for a feeling of complete spontaneity," but the evening revealed the painstaking textual analysis necessary for actors to achieve this spontaneous effect. "If [a play is by] Ibsen or Chekhov, you have to spend ages on the text before you ever get to working on your character," Redgrave said. "To do even a simple line like 'I have no faith' you must ask yourself if there's ever been a moment in your own life when you've felt like this."
She compared analyzing a script to excavating the many levels in a coal mine, and urged the actors to ask themselves questions about the emotions underlying their characters' lines. "When it comes to acting, you can't take even the simplest statement at face value. As an actress, you must know where a line like 'I'm a seagull' comes from. You must pursue the answer to that question. And ask others what they think it means; it needn't always be you who works it out," Redgrave said. She suggested that actors "take two sentences and really think about them. Ask yourself 'What's the key question?' When you go into one thing really deeply, you'll find that very often everything changes."
Redgrave also told the aspiring actors to study the time and place in which a play was created, and encouraged them to take as much time as necessary to be sure they understand the character they're playing. "Directors get unhappy when it takes time," she admitted, "but passions, emotions, events have their own rhythm." Redgrave followed her own advice, pausing to reflect before responding to each actor's interpretation of his or her role.
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