The Psychological Key

    Meeting the Writer Half-Way
   
    All well-conceived roles have psychological truth, but it
does not follow that they are all unlocked with the psychological
key . I hope Maria Lebiadkin had a psychological truth even
though I approached her physically.Characters from Congreve
to Coward have a believable inner life for all their
comedy of manners, and Brecht's. characters are not made
two dimensional because the actor keeps a certain detachment
from them.The best route to Juliet may be through her
language, you might get Richard lll via his hump, and God
alone knom how Shakespear-e arriwd at them, but hundreds
of years later they totally pass the test of mndem psycho-
logical scrutiny.
     To be able to trust the playwright is half the battle. In
the best instances the playwright has already done most of the
psychological groundwork, and the actor has only to go halfway
to meet him/her, rather than build the entire road alone.
     ProvidJed actors work honestly, they can be the best litmus
test of the psychological truthfulness of a piece af writing. If
a writer has made an unbelievable link between one moment
and another for the sake of a neat plot or joke, or in order to
be controversial or sensational, the actor will be quick to spot
it. It is a question of survival. Trying to stretch the audience's
belief every night in an all contrived scene feels a bit like
walking a frayed tightrope over a plunging gorge. We need
that bridge to hold.
    The actor can eventually get to a place where he/she
knows the character better than anyone, including the writer,
but it is vital to hold on to an objectivity about where the character
fits into the whole;
    When I worked with John Berger and Nella Bielski on their play .
A Questilm of Geography and had to play a sane where I was arrested by
Stalin s heavies and torn from my son, Nenas. one contribution was
to give me a white scarf to wear. It must be that scarf worn in that
 way and no other. I never quite understood it,but I recognised it
 I had come full circle. back to Liubimovand his physical clues.