Michael Chekhov: On Theatre and the Art of Acting

by Mala Powers; The Five-Hour Master Class, 4 CDs and Booklet (Applause Acting Series). Review by Glen Williamson

In a lecture hall in Hollywood, California, in 1955, a group of professional actors gathered weekly to hear the great Russian actor Michael Chekhov (1891–1955) speak about his approach to the art of acting. Among Chekhov’s students at that time who might have been present were such film stars as Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Ford Rainey, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Palance, and Mala Powers. Fortunately for us, as Chekhov addressed his “colleagues” and “good friends,” actors John Abbot and John Dehner had the foresight to turn on a tape recorder.

The late television and screen actress Mala Powers (1931-2007) worked with an audio restoration specialist to edit and restore these recordings. They are now available on compact disc. These CDs, together with the accompanying booklet, offer a delightful and profound insight into the life and work of an extraordinary actor, teacher, and devoted student of anthroposophy.

Students of Chekhov’s technique will also want to read his To the Actor or On the Technique of Acting, but hearing the master speak of his method in his own voice enlivens and inspires as the printed word cannot. And there are elements here of Chekhov’s acting technique that cannot be found anywhere in his books: his “five guiding principles,” for example, or (I believe) “shortcuts to the part.” Neither recordings nor books can replace learning and doing the exercises in person with an experienced teacher, but these recordings are an invaluable source of insight and inspiration. Even listeners not professionally interested or involved in the theater will find these lectures interesting and entertaining. I played part of the first disc for friends who are not actors, and they were fascinated by Chekhov’s way of speaking and his examples of character “centers” and “imaginary bodies.”

Listen to the joy and delight in his voice (and the occasional laughter from his audience) as Chekhov instructs us in his techniques for transforming oneself into a character through imagination and movement, through visible and invisible means. Note how his carefully chosen words are filled with professional and life experience as he guides his listeners through the many levels of the invisible “mask” an actor can “wear” to reveal his or her character and creative individuality to the audience. Observe the gentle, warm, and encouraging certainty with which he shares techniques for “avoiding monotony in the actor’s performance;” awakening artistic, rather than personal, feelings and emotions; and developing a feeling of ensemble and “love in our profession.”

Students of anthroposophy will appreciate the wisdom and wholeness in Chekhov’s understanding of human psychology, behavior, and soul life. He speaks from his heart and his own experience, and every word is steeped in his spiritual understanding of the world gained through intimate familiarity with and painstaking application of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific path. Witness Chekhov’s use and understanding of the terms “creative individuality” and “higher self” or “higher ego.” He speaks of imagination and inspiration in a way that any actor can understand, and of love in a practical and unsentimental way. He describes overcoming egotism, finding the thinking heart, and confronting the negative part of ourselves, “this other guy…this other me…who becomes my own enemy.” In one of the later lectures he clearly differentiates soul and spirit: The soul accumulates experiences, but only the spirit can unite these experiences, draw conclusions, and create principles and archetypes; our spirit is “a wise scientist working in our hidden unconscious laboratory,” he tells his audience. He is addressing Hollywood actors and, in his own unique imagery, he is giving them pure and practical anthroposophy.

The CDs

The four CDs comprise five hours of lectures. At the beginning of each of the nine sections, over a lovely mandolin theme we briefly hear Mala Powers’s expressive voice (recorded, it seems, in 1992) cheerfully, lovingly, and sometimes humorously guiding us into the next topic. In her voice as in her writing we hear her love for her teacher, as in his we hear his love for his fellow actors and his profession. The nonprofessional recording quality and the extraneous sounds (“unavoidable due to the limitations of the source tapes,” we are reminded) add to the charm. Only occasionally is it a strain to understand Chekhov’s thick Russian accent: He speaks with the emphasis, clarity, and range of the sensitive and skilled actor (and human being) he was. I remember twenty-five years ago a striving young actor had to go the Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center to listen to the crackly old tapes of these valuable lectures. The quality of these CDs is much improved.

A treasured photo belonging to Michael Chekhov (L), with Russian-born composer Sergei Rachmaninov (courtesy of Dorothy Emmerson)

The Booklet

Because Chekhov gave these lectures to professional actors who were already familiar with the fundamentals of his technique, Mala Powers created an accompanying 60-page booklet with a remarkably complete and concise orientation to Chekhov’s life and work. The booklet outlines many techniques as well as instructions for exercises corresponding to each of the nine lectures. Even non-actors will find valuable tools and suggestions for developing self-awareness and creativity. Readers familiar with anthroposophy will notice reflections of Steiner’s basic exercises (in open-mindedness and positivity, for example) and of the threefold human being.

In a compelling and illuminating essay, “The Importance of the Michael Chekhov Technique for the Modern Actor,” Powers describes how the world and the theater today are not only more in need of but also more open to Chekhov’s ideas and techniques than when he first taught them. In “A Life of Discovery,” a vivid and concise biography enhanced by the author’s intimate acquaintance with her teacher and friend, she humbly and lovingly tells of Chekhov’s often painful and difficult search for his own higher individuality and for circumstances in which he could work with colleagues. Tracing his circuitous journey from Russia to Hollywood through major events, theaters, and personalities of the twentieth century, Powers notes, “It was Chekhov’s destiny . . . to have his fondest hopes and dreams regularly shattered by political upheavals, revolutions, and wars.”

It’s a breathtaking story. The son of playwright Anton Chekhov’s alcoholic brother, “Mischa” began his career with spontaneous childhood performances for his mother and his nurse. There followed work at the Maly Theater in St. Petersburg, and then triumphant performances (and later his own studio) at the famous Moscow Art Theater. Having survived the Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow, battles with depression and alcohol, and a failed marriage to actress Olga Knipper, Chekhov explored yoga, hypnosis, and, at last, anthroposophy. Mala Powers writes, “In the fall of 1922 Chekhov traveled to the Netherlands to hear Steiner lecture. Mischa remained a devoted student of Steiner’s anthroposophy for the rest of his life.”

Chekhov, with his second wife, Xenia, barely escaped Bolshevik Russia in 1928, never to return. After rapidly learning German, he acted on the stages of Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Lithuania, and Latvia, where he suffered a heart attack while directing the opera Parsifal and then had to flee a fascist coup. He came to the United States in 1935 and acted with a Russian-speaking company on Broadway, then learned English and taught in England. When war with Germany was imminent, he relocated to Ridgefield, Connecticut, taught and directed in New York City, and formed a theater company and toured widely in the eastern and southern United States (1939-1942). During World War II, he and Xenia moved to California, where he acted in ten Hollywood films.

When he gave these lectures in 1955 at the age of 63, Chekhov had worked with some of the greatest directors of the twentieth century, Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov, Reinhardt, and Meyerhold, who all held him in the highest regard, and he had been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound. He was at the height of his powers as a teacher, having mastered not only the English language but also the ability to formulate and express his ideas and techniques for his fellow actors. “Perhaps it was his life-long, relentless struggle to ‘discover’ himself that made him so creative in helping others to discover themselves, as artists and human beings,” Mala Powers concludes. Within the year, he was gone from this world. But today his influence continues to grow through the many actors, teachers, and students who share and work with his teachings.

Glen Williamson, a founding member—with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan—of The Actors’ Ensemble (a theater group inspired by the acting technique of Michael Chekhov), is an actor and storyteller based in New York City whose performances have toured widely (see anthropostheater.com). With Mala Powers he co-authored the two-person play Aeschylus Unbound.