INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL
There’s compensation, of course, in the idea that our actors can move as well as anybody. Cooper had that walk, after all; young Brando had his slouchy violence; and Malkovich started out with Steppenwolf, which gave us the so-called Chicago style of rock ‘n’ roll acting.
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But the fact is, American actors as a group don’t move any more powerfully or energetically, any more clearly or precisely or articulately than they’re supposed to talk. If you want a real gauge of our commitment to physical acting, look at rock ‘n’ roll Steppenwolf now: of the two productions they’re offering this summer, one sticks the cast members in chairs and leaves them there; the other’s most electric moment–Laurie Metcalf rubbing a book on her face to absorb the thoughts inside–is electric precisely because it speaks a physical language that doesn’t turn up anywhere else in the show.
The classic is The Government Inspector, Nikolai Gogol’s 150-year-old comedy about a bunch of small-town bureaucrats who are thrown into a panic when they hear that a commissar will be coming from Saint Petersburg to check out their hopelessly corrupt operation. Since the commissar’s said to be traveling incognito, the local boss and his henchmen eye every stranger as a potential spy. They finally light on a foolish young clerk who’s been running up bills around town.
