"Based on 7 classes given by LOUIS JOUVET at the Conservatory during 1940" "February 14, 1940" "What did you think of that?" "I think it must be dull for you" "It's fine for me." "I feel comfortable with it" "You hear what she said?" ""I feel comfortable with it"" "It gives you pleasure" "I seems to me I'm in the state Elvira must be" "Let me give you an important tip:" "Whenever you feel something is easy obtained with no effort-- something's wrong" "Performing a role, whatever it is, always involves something difficult" "Painful" "There must always be effort;" "otherwise something is missing" "Performing always involves effort" "So you see, that should have warned you" "What you're doing isn't bad, but what could we say about it?" "She's too caught up in the music of the text" "Right." "What else?" "She's a bit lacking in presence when she speaks to Don Juan" "He wouldn't really be touched because she's too detached" "Presence, quite simply" "What she's doing lacks presence in relation to the audience" "It's not convincing, doesn't move people" "Doesn't come across" "It's because you're so comfortable in it that it doesn't come across" "When you say a text feeling you're saying it right, and you're thinking "It feels pleasant, I have the right feeling this text sounds good in my mouth, I'm breathing well..."" "You're not making any effort" " It doesn't come across." "See?" " What should we do then?" "I tried to get to that feeling;" "I wanted to achieve a kind of purity" "I did, but I could tell it wasn't coming across" "You could tell because you've been in plays already, you've already acted" "There's no effort in it" "It's not powerful enough" "Not powerful enough in that feeling?" "What's monotonous, uninteresting in the piece it's because, to get the feeling you brought it to yourself" "You lowered the level, the strength of sensibility required" "You lowered it to your level" "What we'll work on now is to make you give a performance that does touch us, that does get across" "You'll have to express the feeling more strongly" "There are contrasts, inflections you don't have, that you have to find" "It's competent, it's pleasant" "As a reading, it would be very good" "It's very clear" "It's in the right style and the reading would be perfect" "But for a performance, you're a mile away" "I said to myself as I was doing it:" "I always look at Don Juan" "I knew I should look at the audience" "It was no use;" "I couldn't turn" "It's what I explained the other day to Octave:" "It's the art of awakening the sensibility within you to find new departures" "It's the same when you have a text like this one" "It's like a flow of water" "Water doesn't always flow with solemn majesty" "It springs up, it rebounds on a rock," "It runs more slowly according to the slope of the ground or it falls suddenly in a cascade" "The flow of feelings isn't the perfectly even surface you tried to create" "Apart from the movements of Don Juan  there's also the turmoil of sensibility, which wasn't there" "You don't give movement because your feelings are always even" "Be careful to have different movements in the piece" "And to take moments of repose" "It's not just to give the audience a rest, it's for the actor too" "If you don't have successive movements you tire yourself" "And you tire the audience" "The audience always feels what the actor feels" "It's all an exchange of physical sensations" "I was trying not to dwell on the words" "When you say "Please Don Juan, grant me as one last favor..."" "...the words have no color, they have nothing" ""Let me ask it with my tears" You don't have to weep if you don't want" "But inside yourself, there must really be tears" "The initial work is first of all to really address the words to someone" "When you speak to someone to convince him, you don't have that even tone" "Sometimes you're imploring, sometimes threatening" "It's in the piece" "You have to put it in the performance" "She is a person who is touched by divine grace" "She comes to tell her lover:" ""I don't hold it against you" "I've just come to tell you that you mustn't count on me anymore" "I've been converted" "And there's something I want to ask of you too..." "This is the love I have for you now."" "It's a transfiguration of feeling;" "it's magnificent" "But it's not an absence of passion" " Understand?" "Is that clear?" " Oh yes, I didn't have it at all" "It's the feeling you've got to find" "February 21, 1940" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "I have not come in anger as when you saw me this morning" "No, I am quite changed" "I am no longer the Dona Elvira who wished you ill who spoke only threats and breathed only vengeance" "Heaven has banished from my soul all the ignoble passion I felt for you..." "Don't put in the stops; it's got to flow" "Someone who suddenly starts talking for two and a half pages!" "It's someone who opens her heart, who says abundantly what she has to say" "If you put in the stops, you cut off the emotion" "You cut off this woman's outpouring" "Breathe in the middle of sentences, not at the end" "If this slow, rather ghostly entrance bothers you find a way of coming in that's faster, that's unconscious" "Your entrance is a little too conscious" "You're a little too sure of what you're doing" "Elvira enters" "She pays no attention to the valets, she goes straight in" "She sees Don Juan, she speaks to him" "We must be astonished by such a simple entrance" "By this tone of voice that's absolutely authoritative" "The movement, which is a gesture, must accompany the text" "You're launched into motion by what you have to say" "As you stop moving, the same rhythmic flow will carry on into your speech" "If you begin during the movement, that's fine" "It doesn't feel right to stop and launch into the text from the movement" "Try it." "It's quite doable" "I'll try" "It feels wrong because you're coming in slowly" "If we were doing the whole play, there'd be gaps between the scenes" "It's a little long" "If you come in a bit faster, you'll have a different feeling for your delivery" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan..." "Take it again." "You're getting there, but it's not right yet" "It's still not surprising" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "I have not come" " It feels wrong to leave out the stops" " Because you're going too fast" "Take a moment in the middle of sentences, and speak" "She's a person who speaks;" "it must be astonishing" "The audience must gasp when they see you" "You can start without much voice at the beginning" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "If your entrance is really authoritative, the audience will be quiet" "And they'll listen" "Once they're really listening you can give it a little more voice" "Too long, too long" "Notice how she prepares for an entrance; you never do" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "Feel what it is, experience the feeling of this woman" "She's not coming just as a messenger from on high but as a woman who wants to save her lover" "Of course!" "It's not just an annunciation" "She's coming to save this man" "Otherwise it's the annunciation you did last time: the angel saying "Hail Mary"" "She did love him" "Interpret it as you like, but suddenly she has the idea of punishment of hell, all those religious ideas that cause her to run to Don Juan" "She's not coming to ask for an apology" "She's coming to warn him of danger so he can escape" "It's awareness of the danger threatening him that drives her to Don Juan" "The important and wonderful thing about Elvira is that this man she's coming to save is the man who seduced her" "Abandoned her" "In spite of that, she comes" "She has magnanimity, celestial detachment, yes but at the same time, a burning love" "Think of a danger other than hell and salvation if you like if that one doesn't mean anything to you" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "I have not come in anger as when you saw me this morning" "No, I am quite changed" "I am no longer the Dona Elvira who wished you ill who spoke only threats and breathed only vengeance" "Heaven has banished from my soul all trace of the ignoble passion I felt for you..." "The tumult of a guilty desire the shameful excesses of base earthly love" "My heart has been purified and there remains only a flame which is free of all sensuality" "A tenderness which is holy and sublime" "A love which seeks nothing for itself but acts only out of concern for your welfare" "Are you weeping?" "Pay no attention to these idiots;" "they can't even deliver a line on cue" "It's this perfect, pure love that leads me here for your good" "To..." "You're finding it already more difficult than last time?" "I'll never get it" "You're almost there, but the feeling isn't there" "The feeling is right, like last time" "But it's still not strong enough" "Do you see?" "When she arrives, she's deeply distressed" "In a state of distraction" ""Don Juan" is, in spite of everything, a religious play" "It's a medieval miracle play" "Elvira enters;" "she's in a state of saintliness" "You try to indicate that by making a sudden apparition" "We notice right away what distinguishes her state:" "It's the authority and facility with which she speaks" "It's the only time in the play the text pours forth so resonantly" "Almost like Racine" "You don't find that in any other passage of Molière" "The feeling is much stronger" "When this woman says "I loved you" it's got to tear your guts out" "Hermione's scenes are no more tender" "There is always a scar in Hermione" "Here, there's beatitude, but also enormous love" "It could very well be an ecstasy of love" "It's a religious estasy, but in the same key" "When you say to someone, "Save yourself!" and say it so tenderly it's got to be searing" "Heartrending" "The same with the father's reprimand" "There's a kind of despairing nobility about the man" "Those characters are extremely pure" "Elvira's entreaty must really be deeply moving" "I've seen tragedians who sang their way through "Don Juan"" "Women playing Hermione or Andromache or Chimène who'd put on a contralto voice" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan..." "In my time, that's the way it was!" "That's why I came to see things this way" "I said to myself:" "that's certainly not the scene" "Because it's boring!" "And you wonder why if Molière's a genius" "He's certainly not a genius in this scene if it's played that way" "This scene must overwhelm you with tenderness, with beseeching, with love but a pure love, as Elvira says" "It goes in a crescendo of pathos" "And then there's Don Juan" "A curious character" "Who looks on with astonishment" "Naturally, he mustn't move much" "The tragedian projects with a solid chest voice because she knows that Don Juan and Sganarelle, to amuse the audience are turning somersaults because they think this scene is boring" "That's also part of the tradition of "Don Juan" and it's become a habit" "Sganarelle is deeply moved by this extraordinary love" "At this point, he's not a comic character" ""Poor woman," he says" "This "Poor woman" really goes with the scene; it's very heartbreaking" "I'll never get that far" "You're almost there." "You must get there" "If you don't, you'll disappoint me very much because my only criticism" "It's what I told you in your second year, remember?" "I said you didn't play the game properly" "You cheated, you used theatrical tricks" "You wanted to dazzle at your exam" "You'd prepared your scene well; you're intelligent, with a real sense of theater" "But watching you I said to myself:" ""It's not truthful" "She's not giving what has to be in it"" "You have a tendency to fake" "Because technique without feeling is fake, and you have to stop that" "You do feel this scene with Elvira, you feel it very well" "What I ask is that you pour your guts out, as they say vulgarly" "Don't hold back, show us everthing" "Some actors don't pour their guts out from timidity from a kind of complex embarrassment, from modesty" "It's not modesty or timidity with you" "You understand things right away from a performance point of view" "Because you grasp things very clearly in your mind in your dramatic imagination (it's clear what you're imagining) you pay attention only to the performance" "But you're not sufficiently supported by the feeling" " And by the character" " I pay more attention to them now" "Not enough" "Shakespeare speaks of the milk of human kindness" " Tenderness or anger" " I'll give you some other scene" "It's not timidity with you, or modesty;" "make sure you understand me" "This is very serious, very true" "Your problem when it comes to feeling is your pride" "You're intelligent dramatically" "You tell yourself, I don't want to go through that, it will upset me" "If you had a good, unintelligent little nature you'd have felt what I was telling you" "And you'd have said "I'll try it" "Even if it publicly humiliates me, so that I'll get to know myself"" "But you say "I get what he's saying it'll be embarrassing;" "I'll do something else"" "That's what I mean by your pride" "May I say something?" "Weigh your words carefully, as I weigh mine" "It's not exactly that" "Not exactly?" "I can't say it's not that at all" "I want to get rid of what I'm doing now and do it the way you say" "I saw the role just as an annunciation" "To do it the way I tried just now to really get it, to immerse myself in it I can't do that right now" "For me it takes a very long time, it's a kind of germination" "Sometimes I'll have the feeling for a week, then suddenly I can't get it" "It just has to germinate" "That's why I said I'd leave it" "I don't want to do it for you for a while because I won't have made any progress" "In three weeks, perhaps I can do what you're asking" "I don't withdraw what I said" "What I want you to do is to work on the feeling" "I will" "That's not true;" "that way of working isn't truthful" "Because once again what you do will be personal and purely mental" "It's a method that leaves you alone with yourself" "You've got to put aside all your dramatic intelligence and for the rest of your time here try to concentrate on the feeling" "That's the most important thing in your case; work on the feeling" "Because in life that's how you'll work" "When a director tells you "The feeling's not bad but it's not getting across" he's not going to wait three weeks" "He'll say, "We'll try it again tomorrow"" "Put aside your ideas, your conceptions; work the piece" "That's the only thing to do" "I will;" "I'll do it for you on Saturday" "You have to find the feeling" "Dramatic intelligence isn't enough if there's no feeling" "That's what makes Raimu the greatest actor of our day" "He's very strong in feeling" "You've got to tap into the potential that's inside you" "The power, the faculty of feeling carried to an excess" "It's by excess of feeling, of tenderness, anger, indignation, pride" "It's by cultivating all these qualities, these faults, these cardinal virtues that you will manage to express your characters" "When Irene does Elivira without feeling...she's only in her first year" "She has to learn what a scene is;" "she has to think about it" "In your case thought must be accompanied by intense feeling" "Profound feeling" "You mustn't say, "I'll play it as an annunciation..." "I can do that comfortably"" "You've got to develop the feeling" "She's not convinced" "I'm not telling you this just for fun" "In 20 years maybe you'll think about what I've said" "When you're telling some younger colleagues about the olden days" ""It was a really boring class - for 3 years!" "I didn't like him, but one day he told me something that wasn't bad"" "If for just one moment I can make you touch your instrument with your finger" "You'll have learned something the day when, during a conversation like this all of a sudden you're struck, touched by an idea" "A sensation I put before you" "When you have the inner revelation of what you are  in relation to what you do" "If your feeling rises into your throat for a few seconds and you experience the taste of it" "If during a scene when I'm explaining something, you see it yourself three years of work will have paid off" "That's what I tried to explain the other day to Léon" "I try to tell you things in a way that you'll understand, so it touches you" "Either as a reaction to something, or..." "Or from a kind of friendship that maybe I can't express very well" "The annoying thing when I talk to any of you is that you immediately become defensive" "It's obvious it doesn't touch you directly" "Right away there's a little hostile reaction" "The other day with Octave was one of the greatest moments of my teaching career" "I tried to explain to him the relationship between the phrase the feeling and the breath" "And after this long explanation he said..." ""Yes, I understand." "That's what I did last time"" "Which proves he hadn't listened to one word I'd said to him" "I'd rather he said "Oh, bug off!"" "But sir, I couldn't say I didn't understand because I did" "If you had, you wouldn't have said "That's what I did last time."" "I said that because I thought I did do it the last time" "And last week you gave us Orestes' madness exactly the same way" "The explanation I gave you on the relation between the length of a phrase feeling and diction is something you can't understand because to understand is to feel, to experience" "When you've experienced it, with a text of Bossuet, or Molière Marivaux or Giraudoux, you'll have the secret of the art" "You'll have the secret of everything" "I don't blame you for not understanding" "If you'd said so, I'd have tried to explain it differently" "But you said "That's what I did last time!"" "You could understand the Summa Theologica or all the theories of philosophy" "But that sort of intelligence has nothing to do with theater" "The intelligence of the theater is an intuition" "It's hard to define" "But it's not the regular intelligence of scholars" "It's a sense one has" "An intelligent sense" "My explanation couldn't be grasped with the mind, but by sensing it" "Later on, you might say my explanation wasn't a good one" "The one you find yourself is better;" "that doesn't matter" "I only gave the explanation to make you sense things" "To help you experience them" "You yourself" "In yourself" "February 24, 1940" " What do you think?" " I had the feeling right to the end" "I think, right to the end, I gave the feeling" "I don't know if that's what you wanted, but I had the feeling right to the end" "That terrifying thing: this man who'll be destroyed, whom I used to love..." "You executed the scene very well right to the end, with no letdown" "Did it feel like I was sincere then, because I was..." "Well?" "It wasn't really sincere until the second half" "At the start, she was trying to do what you told her: no stops" "I'm doing it on a knife edge" "If you can't get the feeling, all is lost" "It's one of the most difficult scenes I know in the repertoire" "What else did you notice?" " She doesn't speak to him enough" " She's no longer on earth" "I disagree; she speaks to him too much" "I think that at that point, in Elvira's situation, she's alone onstage" "She doesn't need to speak to Don Juan" "Elvira enters" "As if in a state of ecstasy" "We can't hear the text if you're looking at him" "I wouldn't look at him" "I think you speak to him too much" "Some actors have a bit of the exhibitionist in them" "They come onstage" "You can sense their pleasure at being seen" "There's no other word for it:" "exhibitionism" "There is some of that in Elvira:" "...an unconscious exhibitionism" "Come in looking at him when you say, "Do not be surprised, Don Juan to see me at this late hour..."" "Take it naturally to begin with" "She's a bit the sophisticated lady of the world to begin with" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at this late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "It's very posh and very conversational at the same time" "And she reassures him:" "I have not come in anger as you saw me this morning" "With a little familiarity" "Heaven has banished from my soul all trace of ignoble passion..." "That's where it begins" "The audience must see the change;" "they must be shaken by it" "She starts there;" "and it's facing the audience" "Try the entrance again" "You slowed down your entrance" "When you come in slowly, it's a waiting posture as if you're waiting for something." "Understand?" "Yes" "That's right, but hold your gesture a little longer before you speak" "There!" "You've found the annunciation!" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "I have not come in anger as when you saw me this morning" "No, I am quite changed" "I am no longer the Dona Elvira who wished you ill, who spoke only threats" "You're bogged down now because I told you not to put in stops" "There are 3 distinct things" "You launched into it on "I am quite changed" but that's only one more thing she tells him before she begins" "She comes to save him, but first:" "One:" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan..." "Two:" "I have not come in anger..." "Three:" "Heaven has banished from my soul all trace of the ignoble passion..." "These must be three distinct ideas" "The first two, "preliminary" ones if you like put off the one idea filling you, which is:" "Heaven has banished from my soul..." "You're hurrying to get to that point" "You see what I mean?" "You come in, impelled by what you want to say" "It's as if you said:" ""Heaven...excuse me" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at this hour and in this garb" "Heaven...excuse me I am quite changed" "It's sustained right through until you really begin with "Heaven"" "Do not be surprised, Don Juan, to see me at such a late hour and in this garb" "An urgent matter obliges me to come" "What I have to say to you will suffer no delay" "I have not come in anger as when you saw me this morning" "No, I am quite changed" "I am no longer the Dona Elvira who wished you ill who spoke only threats and breathed only vengeance" "Heaven..." "You didn't make it" "It's like a man on a diving board, ready to plunge" "He takes his run-up, but he touches his stomach, one" "Two: he adjusts his bathing cap" "Then he goes" "But right from the start he was making his run-up" "Think about that." "You'll get the inflection" "Take it from "Heaven" and from that point don't look at him anymore" "Heaven has banished from my soul all trace of the ignoble passion I felt for you" "The tumult of a guilty desire the shameful excesses of base earthly love" "My heart has been purified and there remains for you only a flame which is free of all sensuality" "A tenderness which is holy and sublime" "A love which seeks nothing for itself but acts only out of concern for your welfare" " Are you weeping?" " Excuse me" "It is this perfect, pure love that leads me here for your good to warn you of what Heaven holds in store for you and to snatch you away from the precipice you are running towards" "Yes, Don Juan, I know all the excesses of your life" "And after touching my heart and making me see that I had gone astray Heaven has inspired me to bring you word that your offenses can no longer be forgiven and that divine wrath is about to fall upon you" "You must repent without delay" "It may be that you have less than a day to escape the most horrible catastrophe" "As for me, I am no longer bound to you by any earthly attachment" "I am cured of my folly, Heaven be thanked" "I have resolved to retire from the world" "All I ask of life is enough time to expiate my fault and by strict penance to deserve forgiveness for the blindness my guilty passion inflicted on me" "In my sanctuary, it would be painful to me if a person I had cherished so deeply were to become a tragic example of the justice of Heaven" "But what marvellous joy I would feel if I could turn you away from the calamity that threatens you!" "Please, Don Juan, grant me that consolation as a last favor" "Do not refuse me your salvation that I ask for with my tears" "And if you are not touched by your own interest then be moved by my prayers" "Spare me the anguish of seeing you condemned to everlasting torment" "Poor woman!" "I loved you with utmost tenderness..." "In your diction one can sense that the feeling is still forced at certain moments" "This passage contains a shattering emotion that you haven't reached" "I haven't seen it yet, but the day an actress says this passage in a state of inner necessity it will be overwhelming" "Only through meditation can you find it" "It's a matter of personal culture" "Of personal effort" "I'd join a Cistercian convent for three months to learn that serenity" "To have a feeling of it" "When you come to "I loved you..."" "... she is a woman who can no longer speak" "That's what's moving" " Do you want to work on it?" " Yes, I do." "I want to get it right" "I'm pleased with what you've done." "First, because you're getting somewhere" "And then because you understand" "I can see what I want to do, but I can't make it all on my own" "With every word you say, you must feel what you're saying, what it means" "With every word, the feeling must rise up in you" "You must be flooded by what the word expresses" "If you reach inside and do this exercise:" "...as you think the word, summon the feeling expressed by the word-- ...after a while the feelings will rise up in you with such intensity that you can almost play the text inside yourself without saying it" "Then you'll be obliged to say it" "That's when you will play the role" "February 28, 1940" "I loved you with utmost tenderness..." "You were dearer to me than the whole world" "Take your time" "It has to touch you" "Not intellectually, but almost physically" "She is convinced that this man she has not stopped loving" "She loves him differently now" "She's convinced that he will burn in hell" "And that overwhelms her" ""I loved you..." I realize it now" "I loved you with utmost tenderness" "You were dearer to me than the whole world" "There's one thing missing:" "The memory." "You understand?" "I loved you with utmost tenderness" "You were dearer to me than the whole world" "I abandoned my duty for you" "I loved you" "That has to surge forth;" "you're making it a logical argument" "I did everything for you, all I ask is one thing:" "Reform your conduct and avoid damnation." "Save yourself!" "I loved you with utmost tenderness" "You were dearer to me than the whole world" "I abandoned my duty for you, I did everything for you" "All I ask in return is that you reform you conduct and avoid the dread fate that awaits you" "Save yourself, I beg you" "For your own sake or for mine" "Once more, Don Juan, I implore you with my tears" "And if the tears of a person you once loved are not enough I entreat you by whatever is capable of touching you" "It ends there" "And she says very nicely, "I'm going now" "I won't bother you any longer"" "It has to carry right through to the end" ""I entreat you by whatever is capable of touching you"" "And with a lump in her throat:" ""I am going now"" ""Madam," says Don Juan, who's a bit of a cad" ""Please stay the night." "It would give me pleasure."" ""No, no, I tell you!"" "That's all I wanted to say to you." "I am going" "Madame, it is late, stay the night" "You'll be given the most comfortable lodging" "No, Don Juan, do not detain me longer" "It would give me pleasure if you stayed, I assure you" "No, let us not waste further time in useless talk" "Let me go now; do not see me out" "All I ask is that you profit from my advice" "Don't stop!" "Will I ever get it?" "It's the feeling that's not there yet" " What I'd like to see in it" " It's better, but not enough" "It's better." "But be careful" "You've got to be moved when you're thinking a text" "When you're searching for a character" "I'm afraid I'm not touched by the character herself by what she's feeling." "It's so far from me" "All feelings are the same" "Don't ever say something like that" "If the idea of hell doesn't touch you, so what?" "You can very well transpose these feelings" "Imagine another danger:" "A dangerous trip" "A deadly risk" "You come to see this man:" ""Look, I'm not here to..." "If tears can't touch you I beg you by whatever can touch you"" "To reach that, the feeling has to be clearer" "You haven't quite got it yet" "But the technique isn't bad" "It's the first time I've really heard this piece, or just about" "Usually it's made into a holiday recital piece" "Or a prize-giving ceremony" "I'm starting to feel it;" "I'm not there yet" "I won't get it all at once." "With me it comes gradually" "One week from now, you've got to have this scene for me" "It's the actor's job to get a feeling quickly" "It's much, much, much better" "She's more in command of the piece" "You're in control of what you're doing, but control is not enough" "I have too much control and not enough feeling" "I haven't got it yet..." "Well, I'm on the right track" "She doesn't weep when she says she's weeping." "She weeps after" "That's the amazing thing" "When an actor says she's weeping, she mustn't do it; that would be too simple" "But can you feel you're still putting in stops?" "It's only in 2 or 3 places the piece grabs hold of the audience" ""I loved you..."" "You can do it there" "We should hear the whole past that was between them" "It was the first call of love for Elvira" "She was filled by it" "And suddenly, all this love that flowed into her by a sort of celestial chemistry, was transformed into love of God" "She comes back to tell him:" ""I loved you..."" "The passage hangs on that, this memory that is still there:" ""My God, how I loved you," and it goes on" "At the end, we see in what way she mistrusts Don Juan" "She's not afraid, she's someone who's been touched by grace" "She is sure of herself" "She has a kind of politeness that shows she's not fooled by what Don Juan has just said" ""No, do not detain me longer..." "I will not give in"" "She's firm, sure of herself" ""I haven't come here to start all over again"" "That feeling is there from the beginning" "There's this feeling of firmness in her attitude, the way she puts things" ""I am no longer that Dona Elvira..." "You see I'm very different from this morning"" "Explain it to him;" "make the situation clear" "Understand the state she is in" "She's come a long way" "She travelled a long time by coach to see him" "She suddenly had this visitation  this moment of grace" "And there was only one thing that touched her:" "The idea of Don Juan's salvation, fear of his damnation" "So she left at once, at night, without preparation dressed unsuitably, and during the whole trip she thinks about what she'll say to him." "She knows just what she'll say" "She arrives at his house, pushes past the servants" ""Do not be surprised, Don Juan..."" ""I loved you..."" "It's a deliverance from that long wait from what she felt during the long journey before reaching him" "She ran, she rushed in, and when she sees him it all pours out naturally" "Her whole speech is ready, it gushes forth" "It's not one of those visits where you think, "How will I begin?" "Will I try a gentle approach, or should I..." "And isn't there a risk of...?"" "She's propelled by what she has to say" "That's why it's an annunciation" "She's someone who comes to deliver a message in spite of herself" "That's what we have to see the moment you come on" "May 18, 1940" "I've thought about it a lot since working on it" "I tried to do everything you asked" "I don't know if it came across, but I was in it" "Everything I said, I felt" "But it's still a bit too well thought out" "But now I..." "The feeling must force you to say the text" "That's the actor's art" "For a passage like this one, if the diction engenders the feeling for the spectator and for the actor, it's good" "But I think it's the actress's feeling that must make her say the words" " But I did come in like that" " It wasn't bad" "But it was a bit rushed" "So I'd like you to take the beginning again" "I'm sure of what I'm saying with this piece" "What characterizes a text, particularly a long speech like this one is its movement" "The real movement: it's the feeling that will give it to you" "When you come in it's too rushed" "She's a woman who has arrived going flat out" "You are running to your lover, and as you enter the house you catch your breath" "There's something very calm, like a sleepwalker, in the way she moves" "This woman who was in such a hurry, such a rush, is all of a sudden in a state of great calm" "Extraordinary tranquillity" "You have to have that feeling at the beginning or you won't say it right" "You're reasoning, but there's no need for logic in this text" "It has to be delivered with an ease that comes from the heart" "I think it's the most extraordinary speech in classical theater" "In the whole piece, and especially at the end didn't you feel the love I had once for Don Juan?" "And the tenderness that remained?" " Before, you said it was too cold" " That was a manner of speaking" "I don't ask anything from the piece" "I ask that the actress deliver it at a great height" "With tendernesss, with radiance" "In the same sense that I say "Don Juan" is a medieval miracle play" "It's not religious or anti-religious" "But it's filled with a preoccupation with God" "That is Don Juan." "He's not a woman-chaser" "That's not where the problem lies" "The beginning of your scene is good" "But we don't get the forgiveness" "The pardoning of injuries" "It begins with pardon, forgiveness of injury" "The first Christian virtue" "Elvira is good" "She is tender" " It's better; do you feel it's better?" " I'm still doing it on tiptoe" "She's someone who has renounced everything" "There's a detachment at the beginning that's extraordinary" "She's someone who descends from heaven by supernatural means" "Who is walking on water" "When she suddenly appears in Don Juan's life it's a a warning from Heaven" "And one suddenly hears this flute solo with sobs" "The audience must have their breath taken away" "This woman who in the first act was haughty and aggressive..." "Just when the play grows dark, becomes uncertain" "When it is full of signs" "She comes and delivers this tender lament" "This mellow solo" "You see the contrast?" "I'd like to get to that" "It's an inner state" "In many religions, to get to a certain state, people fast they avoid the impurity of this or that" "The actor is in the same situation" "To obtain a certain psychic state he must conform to a certain existence" "Submit even his body to a kind of preparation" "I'll stop eating" "You can play Elvira on a full stomach" "If, at a certain point, however you do it you obtain that state of bereftness that allows you to say the text" "Whether by fasting or some other means" "Alcohol!" "You won't get this sort of thing through alcohol" "What you have to get is a state of sensibility where you can feel what others feel" "So you can make a photograph of other people's sensations through your own" "Go into a church where you see people who've been fasting" "They have a kind of physical radiance" "They're free of impurities" "They have a transparence that gives their eyes a different color" "It gives them a kind of fixity" "If you can physically experience the state they are in you've got the key to an emotion" "When Marie Dorval played Marie-Jeanne or the Woman of the People  she tried to put herself into the feeling of a character" "Look at the little girl making her first communion and really meaning it" "That doesn't stop you later from playing Elvira in other physical conditions with a headache or indigestion" "But you have the key to the physical state you must be in to play her" "Actresses are usually concerned with taking Elvira and pouring in a series of feelings that form their personal bag of tricks" "They're not playing the role anymore they're playing themselves in the role" "If it were possible" "Being an actor requires time" "Requires experience of life and of things" "That's why you're here: to learn that" "September 10, 1940" "I couldn't find what I did in it before." "I can't find it anymore" "When I did it at the exam in May, when I came in, I could go right to the end" "I could have gone on about it for hours" "When I try to do it again, I can't find it anymore" "I can't find anything in any of my scenes these days" "You've got to find it again or you're not an actor, you're a fake" "No one can give it to you but you yourself" "Elvira is in a state that is so strong inwardly she is so full of love inwardly she is almost unaware of what she's saying" "She is sleepwalking when she comes in." "You come in conscious of everything" "It's obvious you're coming in of your own free will" "Everything you say is completely conscious; you're the doing the opposite" "Constant awareness refined politeness with a stress on certain words" "It comes out as the speech of a spiritual director to his penitent pupil" "Whereas the piece is exactly the opposite" "The piece is amazing, overwhelming because all of sudden this woman starts talking with an eloquence, a power that wells up out of her unconsciously" "You give the impression of explaining what you're saying" "Setting it out in detail" "The way she walks in: she enters in a state of total distraction" "It's the distraction of Lady Macbeth" "You know what you're going to say the whole time" "You haven't reached that state of inner congestion" "Congestion of feelings-- of sensations" "You're not at that state of distraction that will you make oblivious unaware of what you're saying" "That'll lead you to that heavenly state and give you that staggering prophetic tone" "It's not there" "Even your gestures are the gestures you make when you decide to make them" "When you make a gesture, your body follows, your whole person participates" "Elvira's gestures are unconscious" "The gestures of a person in a state of ecstasy" "She's in ecstasy, with an inner fixedness" "It gives her a distraught, ecstatic aspect" "You have a tilt of the head that's deliberate" "It can be heard in the diction" "There's no stress in anything you say" "It's well-rounded, hollow too, it's a monotonous delivery" "You said "I have resolved...to retire..." "from the world" in 3 stages" ""The most horrible catastrophe" "What marvellous joy"" "Which proves you're not in the physical state of the character" "So you try to replace it with gestures, with text" "And above all you talk to Don Juan" "She is a woman at that point who talks straight ahead straight to the audience" "She enters, she says to him:" ""Do not be surprised, Don Juan, I have something to say to you..."" "Her eyes are lowered, almost" "When someone has run to say something very important she lowers the shutters of her eyes to be alone with her thoughts" "With what she has to say" "She says "Don't be surprised at this..." "Don't be astonished at that" and it comes out straight to the audience" ""You were dearer to me than the whole world"" "You say that with an awareness that is contrary to the piece" "The woman who says that is distraught, unaware of what she's saying" "She can't hear-- The actor must not hear herself say that" "If you rely on the text, if you try to explain it to us you use the text as a means for your own emotions and the text is lost" "It would be better if you were speaking a foreign language" ""No, let us not waste further time in useless talk"" "That was refined, gracious, the way you said it" "The miracle of this scene is in her unawareness" "The audience must realize that this woman is in a trance, a state of ecstasy" "I hope I can find it again" "When I came back, I knew it wasn't up to par" "It's the character's entrance, it's always the same thing" "If it's right, it goes; if not..." "You can't get back on track in this scene, it's not possible" "It's because I wasn't on the right wavelength" "That's what you have to find:" "the entrance" "It's the opposite of euphoria, a scene like this one" "It's more a matter of wizardry" "The scene is amazing, overwhelming because of the somnambulism the distraction of the woman" "Even if you're not religious, you can't help but be struck by it" "It's a text of extraordinary purity that has an astonishing sweetness" "After a while there's a smell of incense" "In this piece, you need the feeling of a person ...who speaks with an overpowering need to get to the end of the message" "When Elvira has finished speaking, one must feel that she has finished" "That she has nothing more to say" "She came like a divine messenger" "It's an apparition ...an annunciation that arrives suddenly with the brilliance of the supernatural" "It's a heavenly apparition as in a dream" "The cloud bursts" "The apparition is suddenly revealed" "And then she speaks and when it's finished, it's finished" "It's something sudden that vanishes" "In Elvira's scene the difficulty is that there are no artificial means" "It's the actress herself who must make this character astonishing sudden and marvellous" "September 21, 1940" "Save yourself, I beg you, for your own sake or for mine" "Once more, Don Juan I implore you with my tears" "And if the tears of a person you once loved are not enough I entreat you by whatever is capable of touching you" "Heart of stone!" "That is all I wanted to say to you;" "I am going" "Madam, it is late, stay the night" "You will be given the most comfortable lodging" "No, Don Juan, do not detain me longer" "It would give me pleasure if you stayed, I assure you!" "No, let us not waste further time in useless talk" "Let me go now; do not see me out" "All I ask is that you profit from my advice" "When you say "I implore you with my tears" without emotion it's infinitely more moving" "Now I feel like crying" "You see how difficult it is" "Claudia won first prizes in comedy and tragedy at her final exams" "She was denounced as a Jew and barred from the stage" "Louis Jouvet spent the rest of the war in voluntary exile" "Originally performed at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg January 8-25, 1986"