LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a world that can be mastered?

      How to reveal not only yourselves and others

      Floundering in the net

      But also make clear how the net of fate

      Is knotted and cast,

      Cast and knotted by men?

      Above all other arts

      You, the actor, must conquer

      The art of observation.

      Of no account at all

      How you look.

      But what you have seen

      And what you reveal does count.

      It is worth knowing what you know.

      They will watch you

      To see how well you have watched.

      But one who observes only himself

      Gains no knowledge of men.

      From himself he hides too much of himself.

      And no man is wiser than he has become.

      Therefore your training must begin among

      The lives of other people. Make your first school

      The place you work in, your home,

      The district to which you belong,

      The shop, the street, the train.

      Observe each one you set eyes upon.

      Observe strangers as if they were familiar

      And those whom you know as if they were strangers.

      Look. A man pays out his taxes. He differs from

      Other men paying their taxes.

      Even though it is true

      No man pays them gladly.

      In these circumstances

      He may even differ from his normal self.

      And is the man who collects the taxes different

      In every way from the man who must pay?

      The collector must also contribute his due

      And he has much else in common

      With the one he oppresses.

      Listen.

      This woman has not always spoken with her present harshness;

      She does not speak so harshly to all.

      Nor does that charmer charm every one.

      Is the bullying customer

      Tyrant all through?

      Is he not also full of fear?

      The mother without shoes for her children

      Looks defeated,

      But with the courage still left her

      Whole empires were conquered:

      She is bearing – you saw? – another child.

      And have you seen

      The eyes of a sick man told

      He can never be well again

      Yet could be well

      Were he not compelled to work?

      Observe how he spends such time as remains

      Turning the pages of a book telling

      How to make the earth a habitable planet.

      Remember too the press photos and the newsreels.

      Study your rulers

      Walking and talking and holding in their pale

      Cruel hands

      The threads of your fate.

      Make pictures

      Unfolding and growing like movements in history.

      For later that is how you must show them on the stage.

      All this watch closely. Then in your mind’s eye

      From all the struggles waged

      The struggle for work,

      Bitter and sweet dialogues between men and women,

      Talk about books,

      Resignation and rebellion,

      Trials and failures,

      All these you must later show as

      Historical processes.

      (Even of us here and now

      You might make such a picture:

      The playwright, having fled his country,

      Instructs you in the art of observation.)

      To observe

      You must learn to compare.

      To be able to compare

      You must have observed already.

      From observation comes knowledge.

      But knowledge is needed to observe.

      He who does not know

      What to make of his observation

      Will observe badly.

      The fruit grower will look at the apple tree

      With a keener eye than the strolling walker.

      But only he who knows that the fate of man is man

      Can see his fellow men keenly with accuracy.

      The art of observing men

      Is only part of the skill of leading them.

      And your job as actors

      Should make you prospectors and teachers

      Of this larger skill.

      By knowing and demonstrating the nature of men

      You will teach others to lead their own lives.

      You will teach them the great art of living together.

      Yet now I hear you asking:

      How can we –

      Kept down, kept moving, kept ignorant

      Kept in uncertainty

      Oppressed and dependent –

      How can we

      Step out like prospectors and pioneers

      To conquer a strange country for gain?

      Always we have been subject to those

      More fortunate than us.

      How should we

      Who have been till now

      Only the trees that bear the fruit

      Become overnight

      Fruit growers?

      Yet, as I see it,

      That is the art you must now acquire,

      You, my friends, who on the same day are

      Actors and workers.

      It cannot be impossible

      To learn that which is useful.

      You are the very ones,

      You in your daily occupations,

      In whom the art of observing is naturally born.

      For you it is of use

      To know what the foreman can and cannot do,

      To

Скачать книгу