Here Huston described his New York performances in the title role of Othello during the first weeks of 1937, and their reception. He regarded his opening night performance as the finest achievement of his whole career. "I never felt better on any stage that I did that night," he said. The next day the critics unanimously panned him because "I was not ferocious enough, and I did not rave and rant." Realizing this was his first critical and commercial flop in 13 years, he decided toward the end of the play's brief run to act the role as the critics wanted. He "tore through the performance like a madman, and hammed the part within an inch of burlesque," as any adolescent could have easily done. The result was that the audience loved it. "But the performance was no good," Huston said. "My subdued conception...is far superior to giving the role the works," and he concluded that if he had to do it all over again he would have to reach the same interpretation.
The reading of Huston's remarks pointed up Strasberg's concern over "the lack of a trained audience." And it was particularly timely in view of Earle Hyman's current recreation of the same role at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut (which I discussed at some length in these pages two weeks ago).
Hyman did the role of Othello off-Broadway three or four years ago. Though I was not able to see it, I understand it was a wild and explosive interpretation. Since then Hyman has thought a great deal more about the part, and now performs it in a controlled crescendo. He has felt driven toward Huston's kind of "subdued conception." The difference is that Hyman accomplished in three years what took Huston three decades.
Yet a couple of the New York critics this summer took exception to Hyman's new approach; they wanted him to writhe and blaze furiously. One of them, now the most influential critic, made the same criticism he had voiced about Huston's conception 20 years ago.
I do not mean to question the critics' verdict on Huston's performance. It was probably no more than good, especially since Huston had to play opposite a poor Iago; whereas Hyman's is a great performance. What I am questioning is their evaluation of Huston's conception (and there is a big difference between conception and performance). Huston's conception was right then; all the critics and most of the audience were wrong. Hyman's conception is right now; a few of the critics and audience are wrong.
All this perhaps indicates that the public today is better able to judge the theatre than it was two decades ago. But Strasberg is correct in emphasizing that much progress remains to be made in this regard, that for the first time we have today the possibility of a well-trained audience.
No Grudge
Still, Strasberg holds no grudge towards critics as a group, as he pointed out in the concluding question period. "The audience gets the critics it deserves. And on the whole they are responsible men. The trouble comes from their impact on the commercial aspects of theatre. But they are important go-betweens in the theatre experience." He wished, however, that critics could "get behind a performance," could attend rehearsals and so forth, so that they would really know exactly who was responsible for what in the finished production.
A member of the audience stated that a Danish drama critic with decades of experience and love for the theatre had finally concluded that the three chief traits in the acting profession were egotism, eroticism and exhibitionism. This elicited a vehement rebuttal from Strasberg, who then took his leave, like Marechal Villars from Louis XIV, by exclaiming, "God save me from my friends; I can protect myself from my enemies!"
Strasberg was introduced by William B. Van Lennep, Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection. The renowned director Tyrone Guthrie will give the second lecture in this series on August 1. The final talk will be presented by playwright Denis Johnston, professor of English at Mount Holyoke College, on August 8.