Cultural Crosslinks.

• Ibsen's Ghosts
• Eisenstein's Potemkin
• Stanislavsky
• Reinhardt
• Conclusion

Ibsen's Ghosts

"Weshalb wir gleich drei Offiziere haben 'lebendig' werden lassen? Nun, mit demselben Rechte etwa wie Ibsen, der in der Schlussszene seiner 'Gespenster' die langwierige Abwicklung des Krankheitsprozesses zu einem dramatisch bewegten Auftritt verdichtet hat. Und genauso wie die alltäglichen Kritiker (und auch Ärzte) den armen Ibsen furchtbar angegriffen hatten, weil er das klinische Bild verfälscht habe(!!), genauso werden die entsprechenden Schachkritiker mich einer schweren übertreibung bezichtigen..."

Ghosts -the story of a woman who leaves her husband, is persuaded by the Pastor (whom she loves) to return home, does so, and bears a son who turns out to have inherited his father's syphilis at once aroused a consternation and hostility beyond anything Ibsen had envisaged.

Eisenstein's Potemkin

Film: Panzerkreuzer Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925

Stanislavsky

Stanislavsky's teachings inspired the "Method' school of acting which has so greatly influenced the American theatre.

Constantin Stanislavsky: 'My life in Art', 'An Actor's Work on Himself'.

"Stanislavsky's 'system', is an attempt to apply certain natural laws of acting for the purpose of bringing the actor's subconscious powers of expression into play. These laws, Stanislawsky claims, are sufficiently well-defined to be studied and put into practice with the help of psycho-technique, which consists of a large number of 'elements', ten of which - 'if', given circumstances, imagination, attention, relaxation of muscles, pieces and problems, truth and belief, emotional memory, communication and extraneous aids form the core of the famous 'system'.

A 'system' consisting of about ten 'elements', two books, compare 'My life in art', 'An actor's work on himself', with 'My system', 'The practice of my system'. The likeness is remarkable.

"If you wish to achieve results, select a born enemy and attempt to "chastise" him by toppling him from his pedastal....Tarrasch, to me, always meant mediocrity; it is true that he was a very strong player, but all his views, his sympathies and antipathies, and above all his inability to concieve any new idea -all this clearly attested to the full mediocrity of his cast of mind. I myself, who paid homage to genius, could in no way be reconciled to the fact that mediocrity should stand as the leader of the dominant school! This fact, for me, was a veritable outrage!"(R.Keene, Aron Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal 1974)