Table of Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition; Editor’s Part 1 “In art you do not command, you persuade….”; Chapter 1 The Long-Hoped-for Child; Chapter 2 What Shall We Learn?; Chapter 3 The Hard Job of Being an Actor; Chapter 4 Types of Actors; Chapter 5 On Being Truthful in Acting; Chapter 6 Acting Looks Easy; Chapter 7 An Actor Is a Teacher of Beauty and Truth–Letter to a Young Student; Chapter 8 Lively Art; Chapter 9 How to Talk to Actors; Chapter 10 Talks with Singers to Be Trained as Actors; Chapter 11 Talks with Opera and Acting Students; Chapter 12 Opera Rules; Chapter 13 The Bond Between Music and Action; Chapter 14 Technique of the Creative Mood; Chapter 15 Physical Action as a Means to an End; Chapter 16 Talent, Inspiration and Professionalism; Chapter 17 Back to Work–The Beginning of the Season; Chapter 18 Back to Study–Talks with Established Actors; Chapter 19 The Life of a True Artist; Part 2 “The value of any art is determined by its spiritual content….”; Chapter 20 After Ten Years in the Art Theatre; Chapter 21 On the Death of Tolstoy; Chapter 22 Chekhov’s Influence on the Art Theatre; Chapter 23 Memories of Chekhov; Chapter 24 Messages about The Cherry Orchard; Part 3 “My system is the result of lifelong searchings….”; Chapter 25 On Reaching the Public; Chapter 26 Conversation in an Actor’s Dressing Room; Chapter 27 On Drama Criticism and Critics; Chapter 28 Why and When Play Melodrama; Chapter 29 Young Actors in Mob Scenes; Chapter 30 What Is the Grotesque?; Chapter 31 The Inner Pattern of the Role; Chapter 32 The Mysterious World of The Blue Bird; Chapter 33 On Playing Othello; Part 4 “There is only one method—that of organic, creative nature….”; Chapter 34 The Theatre in Which the Playwright Is Paramount; Chapter 35 The Theatre in Which the Scene Designer Is Paramount; Chapter 36 An Argument with a Scene Designer; Chapter 37 The Art of the Actor and the Art of the Director; Part 5 Memories of the Past… Dreams of the future”; Chapter 38 A Better Mousetrap; Chapter 39 A Theatre for All; Chapter 40 The View at Seventy;