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Utopia for Research on the Art
of Acting
Inga Lewenhaupt
(Stockholm)
Documentation et Art de
l'Acteur
Records and Images of the Art of the Performer
18ème Congrès
International, Stockholm 3-7 septembre 1990 /
18th International Congress, Stockholm 3-7 September 1990
Editor: Barbro Stribolt (Drottningholms Teatermuseum).
Stockholm : 1992, p. 115-117
Background and starting
points of my own.
To be a researcher in
the field of acting and directing is much more
complicated than in art, literature or music, especially
regarding the accessibility of sources. A microscopic
part of what I need - mostly dealing within the period c.
1840 - 1940 - is published in books or discs. Many
pictures are printed in magazines, theatre programmes
etc. and what is unpublished or unprinted is spread over
almost the entire world. This is especially the situation
concerning opera singers, as opera is a more
international art form than spoken theatre, which is tied
to different languages. After having spent more than
three thousand hours in theatre archives in all the
Nordic countries, Germany, France, Italy and the United
States, just to find the basic material as a necessary
background for what I actually would like to write about
- I begin to realise that a lifetime is very short and
that I cannot go on like this. I want your help.
Iconographic material
Problem 1: In order to
study gesture, mimicry etc. and costumes concerning a
certain period, a certain theatre, a certain repertoire,
a group of actors, a particular actor etc., I have to
make comparative studies, that is I must have an
opportunity to see pictures - and sometimes even films - at
the same time. I have a very good memory, but to be
able to make close comparisons with fifty pictures
examined in Paris with twenty pictures examined in
Mannheim two months later and then a film in Stockholm
after another long period of time is impossible. Due to
different regulations, it is sometimes not allowed to
make copies at all, and if allowed I lose much time
having to wait for them and if I need an extensive amount
of material it would cost every penny I have and still
not suffice.
Problem 2: The time I have to spend travelling between
different archives sometimes totally in vain - is much
too long and the costs too high. To start with the
catalogues are made in different ways, although a lot has
been done recently to find more compatible systems. I
could here mention the computer system TANDEM. As the
iconographical materials concerning actors and directors
often are to be found under their names, I have to start
spending a lot of time searching for relevant names of
performers in order to find what I am looking for in the
catalogues and if I am looking for an international
costume-/or acting practice this will take an unmotivated
long time and even be irrelevant for the questions I ask.
The famous names are not always most interesting. In
order to find what I am looking for I can often start
with a title of a play or an opera, but I seldom find
catalogues covering for instance the pictures of the
performers catalogued under play titles. And the pictures
of the performers are organized in different catalogues
for graphics, designs, sketches, photographs. films etc.
Then there are preserved costumes etc. If I am interested
in certain trends not connected with a particular actor,
singer or a play, and perhaps covering many countries, I
would have to spend years.
During my dissertation work on the opera singer Signe
Hebbe in Paris, e.g. I had to deal with several questions
concerning her costumes, but that was only a piece of a
big puzzle for me, and it was almost impossible within a
limited time to make the necessary survey of prototypes,
conventions etc. Around the middle of the nineteenth
century the costume was the responsibility and property
of the singer alone. I discovered that some big stars set
standards and that some printed books were often used as
models, but I am still very puzzled, for instance, by the
totally different costumes for Susanna in Figaro's
Wedding (Le Nozze di Figaro) worn by Christina
Nilsson in Paris and by Signe Hebbe in Copenhagen and
Stockholm, made about the same time, the 1860's in Paris.
(Reference: My article in "Nordic Theatre
Studies", no. 1, 1988.)
Problem 3: To get a result of my excavations in different
theatre archives I often have to dig in extremely heavy
"masses of earth". The material from the
twentieth century is more extensive than earlier
material, and the catalogues grow rapidly. A problem is
that so many researchers work within certain limited
periods of say ten or fifty years and they would be
immensely helped if they didn't have to go through
catalogues and collections covering 400 years.
Sound material
Problem 1: What has been
recorded and were can I find the recordings? So many
things have been done since 1967, when I made my
catalogue of recordings on cylinders, discs etc. made by
Swedish actors until 1950. The National Archive of Sound
and Moving Images in Stockholm now continuously publishes
discographies of the big record companies. But: it does
not give any information of what is available and where,
if not in its own collection, as I did, to some extent,
in my catalogue. I have found the same situation in sound
archives abroad, and one of the problems is that many
recordings belong to radio companies, who are not
especially interested in serving researchers. Compare
with the excellent service you get when looking for a
rare book!
Problem 2: In the field of documentation of acting on
records, cassettes and videos etc. a lot has been done
especially during the last last twenty years. Theatres
make their own documentation for instance, but I will not
here discuss all the problems in this connection. Already
in the sixties I found a black hole in theatre history:
there were practically no existing sound documentation of
the Strindberg theatre, Intima teatern, and their
ensemble. The Swedish Broadcasting Corporation only had a
few interviews preserved and two short recordings had
been published in 1929.
Having searched with aid from relatives of deceased
actors, I found some private recordings and with those
who were still alive, in their eighties and nineties, I
made new recordings of the Strindberg repertoire. With
the support of Nationalfonoteket, predecessor of the
National Archive of Sound and Moving Images, and the
gramophone companies Metronome and Electra, I managed to
produce two long playing records from that material. Are
there more black holes that should be filled if possible?
How can I as a researcher be aware of what is missing -
before it is too late?
Problem 3: There is a kind of material that our theatre
archives do not care much about: documentary interviews
on tape or video with old actors, directors,
scenographers etc. Mostly such recordings do not have any
commercial interest at all. For a person doing research
work they can be extremely interesting and relevant
provided that the right questions are asked. You get
nuances which you never find in written books. Sometimes
a broadcasting or a television company make interviews
but they are geared for the general public, often with
the big stars and lacking in depth.
There has been some efforts to collect interviews for
instance at the Theatre Department at the Stockholm
University, but institutes for teaching and research are
seldom good care akers of such material and do not have
any means to give assistance to researchers outside their
departments. Text, programmes and pictures are very well
taken care of in the theatre archives, but which theatre
archive has a big collection of interviews? And who is
responsible for having interviews made in the first
place.
I have a dream...
that I could go to one archive somewhere in the
world to obtain a comprehensive survey over international
acting and costume practice concerning a certain century,
for example, where I could find a picture bank, and
relevant literature (including books concerning models,
photographic standards and technique etc.) as well as a
more detailed information of which archives I need to go
to for a closer look;
I have a dream...
that I could go to one specific international archive
specialized in theatre and music theatre recordings from
different periods with information on what is existing
and with relevant literature and references to other
archives;
I have a dream...
that I would not have to go through immense collections
covering many centuries. Is it not time now to reorganize
our large theatre archives after principles taken up by
other large archives, and concentrate on different
centuries, for instance up to 1700, the eighteenth
century, the nineteenth century and the twentieth
century?
I have a dream...
that there will be international efforts made to publish
special international theatre catalogues and
discographies first, then to publish much more
iconographical and sound source material concerning older
spoken theatre, opera and film;
and finally I have a dream...
that I as a researcher could send a picture to e.g.
Milano by computer or fax and that they in turn would be
able to send other pictures back.
Would that be utopia during my lifetime?
18th Congress
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