{"id":520,"date":"2024-11-12T19:02:45","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T19:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/?p=520"},"modified":"2026-05-21T18:38:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:38:39","slug":"shame-as-a-positive-tool-in-educating-good-actors-jouko-turkka-draws-examples-from-charlie-chaplin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/shame-as-a-positive-tool-in-educating-good-actors-jouko-turkka-draws-examples-from-charlie-chaplin\/","title":{"rendered":"Shame as a Positive Tool in Educating Good Actors\u2014Jouko Turkka Draws Examples from Charlie Chaplin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matti Linnavuori<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was Charlie Chaplin a good actor? Looking at Chaplin and detecting distinctive features of his acting, are we able to name the skills necessary for one to become a good actor? Yes, if we consult Jouko Turkka (1942\u20132016), professor at the Finnish Theatre Academy for most of the 1980s and a rare visionary in Finnish theatre. First, this paper presents Turkka\u2019s ideas about Chaplin\u2019s acting. A teaser of things to come: When Chaplin sings, he performs like a small boy pushed onto the stage by his parents. Second, Turkka\u2019s methods in educating good actors. He emphasized sexuality as the driving force. He shared with Vsevolod Meyerhold the aim to release the actors\u2019 tension through strenuous physical exercise. Turkka, like Franz Kafka, created an aesthetics of his own: they share a fascination for seemingly insignificant gestures, from which they develop spirals of meaning, abundant but fragmentary. Third and last, criticism of Turkka\u2019s method. It comes from Turkka\u2019s students\u2019 memoirs, from #metoo-influenced understanding of human power relations and from academic research.

Keywords: <\/strong>Actors\u2019 training, Charlie Chaplin, Jouko Turkka, Finnish Theatre Academy, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Janne Tapper, Ruusu Haarla, Julia Lappalainen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are to trust Max Brod\u2019s postscript to Franz Kafka\u2019s The Man Who Disappeared<\/em>, the novel contains \u201cChaplinesque features\u201d (Durrani 220). It is possible that Brod used the word \u201cChaplinesque\u201d as a generalization, which refers not so much to the artist Chaplin but to the overall style of early motion pictures. According to Ritchie Robertson, the novel\u2019s slapstick chase scenes bear a resemblance to Mack Sennett\u2019s Keystone Cops; Robertson does not mention Chaplin (Robertson xxvi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, this paper turns to Charlie Chaplin, or rather to Jouko Turkka\u2019s interpretation of Chaplin, and seeks possible points of correspondence in the works of Turkka and Kafka. The difference between them is that, to Kafka, shame was an ever-present and demeaning life experience, which he, at times, was able to turn to art, whereas Turkka sought means to employ shame as a positive tool; but were his actors able to make the discovery, too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art of acting is difficult to put into words. We critics often make do with an adjective: So-and-So is truthful or convincing as So-and-so. Very well, but just how does the actor do the convincing? What are the details in actors\u2019 art we should observe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Jouko Turkka very few people are able to tell the difference between a good actor and a likeable, clever actor.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jouko Turkka (1942\u20132016). Photo: Courtesy of his publisher Otava<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 1989, Turkka conducted an all-night radio conversation about Chaplin together with Peter von Bagh (which lasted 2 hours and 27 minutes)\u2014you might recognize the name of von Bagh from his later praise of film director Aki Kaurism\u00e4ki.[1]<\/sup><\/a> In 1989, Finnish radio really gave the hours between midnight and dawn to two intellectuals so that they could celebrate Chaplin\u2019s centenary (1889\u20131977). Such broadcasts no longer exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka says that Chaplin\u2019s Tramp aims not for individuality but for anonymity. The Tramp wants to adapt, which is a weak person\u2019s survival strategy. He is a forefather of modern anxiety, a pre-Zelig if you remember Woody Allen\u2019s 1983 film. The Tramp is a product of urban capitalistic society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acting\/Hands<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

But is Chaplin a good actor? Not necessarily, says Turkka. Chaplin\u2019s parody of Hitler in The Great Dictator<\/em> (1940) is rather weak. In The King in New York<\/em> (1957), Chaplin delivers Hamlet\u2019s monologue faster and shriller than anyone in theatre history. When Chaplin sings, he performs like a small boy pushed onto the stage by his parents. Chaplin\u2019s hands are no good compared to those of John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart, who often roll up their sleeves to show where their art comes from: their \u201ccredible hands\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a> (Virtanen 98); or Clint Eastwood, for that matter. Turkka told his students to pay attention to Eastwood\u2019s thumbs, says a student: \u201cThumbs up! All the best actors act with their thumbs!\u201d (Kiuru 50). Needless to say, Turkka is not the first person to pay attention to detail; for example, in a diary entry, Franz Kafka describes Mella Mars\u2019s expressive thumbs as well as her nose (entry for 20 November 1911; Kafka, P\u00e4iv\u00e4kirjat<\/em> 46). Noses fascinate Kafka\u2019s talent for observation as if he were paying homage to the Ukrainian writer Mykola Hohol (Nikolai Gogol): for example, Mrs. Liebgold\u2019s nose, which looks \u201ctoo long, too sharp and cruel\u201d (entry for 17 December 1911; 174), or this one, with a less hidden interpretation: \u201cProfessor Gr\u00fcnwald\u2019s German-Bohemian nose brings death into one\u2019s mind (entry for 15 October 1913; 291).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thousand and One Nights<\/em> at Theatre Academy (1983), directed by Jouko Turkka. Photo: Leena Klemel\u00e4\/Uniarts Helsinki\u2019s Theatre Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Another student says that forty years on, his hands still look big on the stage: \u201cHands become smaller immediately, if one allows them to be tense. When hands hang relaxed, they are full of blood and big, with visible veins. Expressive. Hot\u201d (Venho 187). Thumbs may appear a frustratingly insignificant or even a dandyish gimmick, unless you hear Turkka\u2019s explanation: A character\u2019s intention and\/or memory are in their hands; hands sustain or carry the character\u2019s vision. The flash of understanding spreads from the chest to armpits and hands, where thumbs are especially important (Ollikainen 141). Turkka also praised the way Jean-Paul Belmondo acts with his lips: \u201cHis lips are never dry or taut, but always thick and full of blood\u201d (Venho 238).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Cover design by Leena Neuvonen for Anneli Ollikainen\u2019s book about Turkka\u2019s exercises for Thousand and One Nights<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To Turkka, Chaplin\u2019s greatness is in his legs. Chaplin chose shoes and a walking style which kept his legs in a constant state of tension, and this released any tension in his face. Not surprisingly, Turkka\u2019s students ran the stairs of the Academy, all six floors up and down before classes, to acquire Chaplinesque legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka\u2019s prose book Aiheita<\/em> (1982) is a collection of three-page stories: this would make a great theme for a film or a play, and so would this, and so on. The book opens with thoughts on Chaplin. Chaplin\u2019s Tramp tries hard to pass for a gentleman, whereas business executives today (today being year 1982 of Turkka\u2019s first book) make an effort to look like tramps with their pirate\u2019s beard and haircut running over the collar (5). It is a small step for Turkka\u2019s imagination to continue that character no longer leads a person to do things, but character has been replaced by obsession, desire and terror. We build ourselves into a type by collecting into us as many contradictory qualities as possible: eat a lot but remain slender. \u201cIf something is valuable, it is by necessity excessive\u201d (5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Turkka good actors seldom possess much imagination. John Wayne was not a pleasant person and he held appalling political views, says Turkka, but John Wayne convinces us that he actually sees the oncoming enemy when he looks out of the picture. Lesser actors give us the exact signs one is supposed to give at such moments. Good actors have the guts to act against their instinct, to act against conventional emotional markers. Logically, then, best actors come from the most formal cultural traditions, namely Japan and Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of formal cultures calls for a comment. Surely the past, and not only in Japan and Britain, is a formal culture, particularly if compared to ours in the 2020s. Both Kafka and Turkka employ seemingly insignificant parts of the body, such as thumbs and noses, as a springboard to a very original interpretation of the world. Kafka penetrates the fa\u00e7ade of a strict and hierarchical society by drawing attention to thumbs and noses, and thence develops an exaggeration simultaneously grotesque, comic and revealing. The society around Turkka, however, was far more liberal, at least on the surface, which made gestures of unconformity\u2014dare I say, rebellion\u2014more difficult. Turkka gave thumbs and noses a political and social reference in an era when acting was drifting toward psychological self-expression only to deteriorate into the emotional introspection of the 2020s. It is anyone\u2019s guess, how much of these undertones came across, or if Kafka continues to be perceived as anguish personified and Turkka as a mere obscene provocateur. Marthe Robert makes gentle fun of the ever-changing fashions of Kafka interpretations in France. Depending on the decade and on the interpreter\u2019s own frame of thought, they reveal Kafka as symbolist, surrealist, existentialist, mystic and what not\u2014always determined to read Kafka between the lines rather than read his lines (19). As hilarious as the situation may be in France, in a smaller culture a decade-long dominant acting style can cause serious damage: a classic or a counter-current contemporary text lose their significance, if fashion demands they be staged as emotional ego-trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagination leads the actor to live the part, which is the opposite of good acting. The actor should not feel the character\u2019s feelings but make us feel them. Ordinary theatregoers are, says Turkka, horrified when they meet actors in the street or in the pub, because good actors turn out so ordinary and so boring without their roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his diary, Kafka is quick to spot bad acting during his frequent visits to the theatre. According to Kafka actors do not fail because they would imitate weakly but because they\u2014due to their inadequate training, experience and talent\u2014imitate wrong models. Afraid to be doing \u201ctoo little,\u201d a bad actor employs all their means (entry for 30\u201331 December 1911: Kafka, P\u00e4iv\u00e4kirjat<\/em> 192\u201393).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method\/Violence<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Who is this Turkka? His 1970s productions, first in the province and then at the Helsinki City Theatre, were ground-breaking, so much so that the powers-that-be transferred him to the Theatre Academy, where it was thought he would become less influential. A big mistake! He revolutionized theatre education in the 1980s. He had students perform on a regular basis instead of just honing their skills before the eyes of instructors. All classes served to prepare for the next production, and the productions were varied in style. Rumours circulated about violent training methods, and this alarmed the authorities. Finland\u2019s Attorney General sent an official enquiry about the violent methods used. Turkka wrote a bitter book in response.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thousand and One Nights<\/em>: drumming oil barrels, darting to do some acrobatics and joy over joint skills. Photo: Leena Klemel\u00e4\/Uniarts Helsinki\u2019s Theatre Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Turkka begins his fictional (?) response to the Attorney General (Selvitys oikeuskanslerille<\/em>): \u201cI thank you for trying to protect me from myself, and for protecting my environment from me. I ask permission to repent\u201d (9). About the role of violence in his theatrical exercises, Turkka\u2019s first-person narrator says: \u201cMarried couples are less dependent on each other than ever before in the course of history. They share their evenings watching how spouses murder each other. Others do it for them. They are able to experience it without guilt or punishment. Violence is a diversion from a boring and meaningless life\u201d (10). Next, Turkka\u2019s narrator focuses on exercises at the Theatre Academy: \u201cWhen faced with violence, human beings are compelled to see the violent undercurrent of life. Human beings see, at least for one moment, an enemy, a danger, imminent death and, therefore, some value in life\u201d (10). Then, Turkka repeats his offer to repent and promises that if the Attorney General has any need for his services, he is willing\u2014for a nominal compensation\u2014to parody his own attitudes at election rallies or such (12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anneli Ollikainen was an assistant with the Theatre Academy at the time. In her book (1988), she recorded the goings-on of two of Turkka\u2019s rehearsal periods, a Finnish classic, The Heath Cobblers<\/em>, and Thousand and One Nights<\/em>. She says that Turkka never expressed a clear-cut method but that he combined things he had found useful. Vsevolod Meyerhold was a major source (163). Their common aim is to release the actor\u2019s tension through strenuous physical exercise. A student remembers how Turkka chuckled at future researches who will try to dissect his method: \u201cHe seemed to know what he wanted from us, but he found no way to verbalize it in an understandable manner\u201d (Kiuru 58). I believe Turkka may have wanted to encourage his students to find things for themselves instead of burdening them with quotations from big names of the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent the year 1985 in London. At Royal Court\u2019s Theatre Upstairs, an actor did a couple of push-ups in the middle of a show, and for that he got a lot of laughs. Not from me though: I had just learned from Turkka\u2019s productions that physical authority is what makes an actor, and push-ups are a tell-tale sign of that authority. Ville Virtanen describes in an interview how students began their day by jogging to school, then did a hundred push-ups, because to Turkka \u201cthe actor\u2019s hands are important; they should be credible male hands\u201d (Paavolainen 160). Virtanen later wrote a novel about his time in the Theatre Academy. Its title translated: Fall into a Mental Disorder<\/em> (2001).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sex\/Hitler<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Turkka\u2019s thinking emphasized and celebrated our basic obsessions and fears, namely sexuality and mortality. The following quote contains adult language: \u201cI should be writing a response to the Attorney General instead of contemplating my beloved\u2019s cunt. But there is nothing else to report. Everything depends on the cunt. It is an aging man\u2019s obsession\u201d (17). Turkka was in his mid-40s writing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone noticed how Turkka makes fun of himself. His irony is very risky though: \u201cI do not harass my students even though I talk dirty. Their mothers yes, if I happen to meet them. My calculation is that mothers always boast to their daughters, who then come to me to outperform their mothers, once they have completed the Academy, of course\u201d (19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, in real life, Turkka did harass his actors. In 1994, he directed his own play To Hire a Celebrity<\/em> for the Swedish-language group Viirus. During the interval of the second night, Turkka yelled in rage at his actors that they are destroying his artwork and the only way to save it is \u201cthat the actresses offer themselves to the entire audience, as he so nicely put it\u201d (N\u00e5ls 88\u201389).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Satu Silvo (right) in Thousand and One Nights<\/em>. Photo: Krister Katva\/Uniarts Helsinki\u2019s Theatre Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In a fourteen-page interview, actress Satu Silvo describes Turkka\u2019s extreme exercises in detail, her own concussion included, and her breakdown because of them. About Thousand and One Nights<\/em> (presented in 1983), she says: \u201cWe employed comedy this time. The positive sparkling of Turkka\u2019s intellect came forth strongly. We could invent anything from anything; any object could change into any concept. The joy of inventing was amazing. But Turkka had a flipside to his comedy. We always had to do it through madness or hatred or jealousy\u201d (qtd. in Paavolainen 128).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaplin and Adolf Hitler (1889\u20131945) were of the same age. They share the same attitude toward women, says Turkka. It is not a relationship of equals. In photos, Hitler is depicted always flattering and fawning over women. Likewise, Chaplin\u2019s Tramp never confronts his women but, instead, takes on feminine gestures. With age, men suffer a metamorphosis into old hags, and their art changes into \u201csugar-coated crap.\u201d Chaplin was different. His late work Limelight<\/em> (1952) is a courageous work of art because of its bitterness, says Turkka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In several Chaplin films, a policeman chases the Tramp, but the policeman\u2019s wife feels sympathy for her husband\u2019s victim. Turkka sees the same pattern in early Christians, who were imprisoned in Roman cellars, where the wives of high-ranking Romans took pity on them and brought them food. This is how Christianity started spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criticism\/Shame<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Julia Lappalainen (b. 1990) and Ruusu Haarla (b. 1989) wrote and performed Turkka kuolee<\/em> (Turkka Dies<\/em>), a #metoo re-evaluation of Turkka. It premiered two years after Turkka\u2019s actual death.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Turkka Dies<\/em> (2018). Ruusu Haarla as Turkka at his honorary doctor\u2019s ceremony. At the back Julia Lappalainen. Photo: Carolin B\u00fcttner\/Tampere Theatre Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The two-woman performance lasts over three hours. There are on-screen guest appearances from actresses who testify about their plight in Turkka\u2019s school: about demeaning remarks\u2014in front of the class\u2014shaming their skill and appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka aimed at breaking his pupils\u2019 old thinking habits, which, for some, was an all-out attack against their personality, a shattering experience. At the time, both critics and peers chose not to interfere, partly perhaps to oppose the Attorney General\u2019s enquiry\u2014that is, not to ally oneself with a conservative political opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka Dies<\/em> points out that condoning Turkka\u2019s conduct has continued. In 2009, the Finnish Theatre Academy promoted its first honorary doctors, among them Turkka, as well as the first female president of Finland, Ms Tarja Halonen.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Turkka Dies<\/em> (2018). Ruusu Haarla as Turkka (right) receiving congratulations for his honorary doctorate from Julia Lappalainen. Photo: Carolin B\u00fcttner\/Tampere Theatre Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One need not talk long with a Finnish actor before they begin to impersonate Turkka. It is no hindrance if this particular actor never even met Turkka. Especially when the actor gives themselves mock orders or instructions, the Turkka accent comes into surface. In the performance, Ruusu Haarla imitates Turkka, both in the honorary doctor\u2019s outfit and in his more customary training suit and with a bald \u201cwig.\u201d It is ironic\u2014or a sign of the old Turkka\u2019s ill health\u2014that Turkka took such pleasure in his doctorate, even though he had made his name by opposing the powers-that-be. Haarla\u2019s Turkka verbally attacks the guardians of his own legacy and those present in the auditorium and whom not. The monologue has the capricious logic of Turkka and his sharp observations. The show reinforces our understanding that Turkka\u2019s method contained unacceptable features, but his art is to this day unsurpassed. Strange as it may be, the character of Turkka provides the most memorable moments in a performance which set out to bury him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now to academic approaches to Turkka\u2019s era. In 2008\u201309, twenty-three former students of Turkka were interviewed at length for a research project led by Esa Kirkkopelto. Of the 23 only three summarized Turkka\u2019s influence on their art as negative. According to Janne Tapper (more about his thesis below) there is no correlation between how successful the actors had been in their later careers and their dis\/approval of Turkka\u2019s methods (152). The research by Turkka\u2019s former students rescued the teachings of Turkka but dismantled its authoritarianism. The project developed a training method for actors. The most visible result is the book that resulted from that research, published by Pauliina Hulkko et al. (2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an arts journal, Laura Hautsalo begins her essay (2018) on Turkka\u2019s stale rebellion and the threat of the vagina, by saying that she never saw a Turkka production on stage because of her young age. Therefore, her interpretation is based on her reading of Turkka\u2019s four prose books; she does not mention his printed plays. She, then, reminds us that Turkka is not to be identified with his first-person narrator. After this, Hautsalo contradicts herself by constantly interchanging the words \u201cTurkka\u201d and \u201cTurkka\u2019s first-person narrator.\u201d Hautsalo characterizes Turkka\u2019s book to the Attorney General as \u201ca manic confession,\u201d even though the book announces at its every violent and sexual passage that this is either dream or phantasy or nightmare or hallucination. Hautsalo asks, if the nostalgia toward Turkka\u2019s era is more than anything else a nostalgia toward times when misogyny and discrimination could be aired more freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am inclined to support Hautsalo\u2019s idea that Turkka cannot be romanticized into an outsider who attacked the cultural establishment, because he was recruited as a member of the elite very early in his career. In a way, he was appointed to the role of enfant terrible, says Hautsalo. Yes, but Janne Tapper shows that in ousting Turkka from Helsinki City Theatre (which led him to the Academy), his colleague and the theatre board combined their efforts, preferring the undisturbed peace of the institution over a critical challenge, which they saw as politically irresponsible (96). The prevailing theatrical understanding of the 1970s saw theatre as a vehicle for delivering political enlightenment and for promoting the idea of Soviet-style progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his 2012 PhD thesis about the social contextuality of Turkka\u2019s Academy, Janne Tapper characterizes Turkka\u2019s pre-Academy productions at Helsinki City Theatre by saying that their \u201caesthetic precision and fine-tuning are Chaplinesque\u201d (98). In the radio conversation Turkka admires the effortless look of Chaplin\u2019s crowd scenes, which he attributes to long and unsparing rehearsal processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To oversimplify Janne Tapper\u2019s thesis, Turkka introduced the logic of new liberalism and competitive capitalism in the theatre profession (13). Students competed against each other like top athletes. Turkka did this at least a decade before capitalism and sociology had developed a vocabulary for the process. But, unlike capitalism, Turkka always safeguarded his students. According to Tapper, eventually capitalism was a playful simulation, a performance within the Academy, not the real ruthless fight for survival (51). This was the first step toward becoming a good actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka told his students that, in their post-Academy working life, they will be constantly evaluated, and less so on their stage output than on their image as individuals and personalities (118). To Turkka, this justified his remarks about the students\u2019 outward appearance; better get used to it now than later. This was the second step. It also meant encouraging students to acquire media visibility (see Paavolainen 159). Turkka set an example by allowing television cameras to record a three-part documentary of the rehearsing process of his Hamlet<\/em>; its premiere at the Theatre Academy (in 1986) was a live prime-time broadcast on state television (Pyykk\u00f6).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thousand and One Nights<\/em> in a gym. Topmost Sari M\u00e4llinen. Photo: Krister Katva\/Uniarts Helsinki\u2019s Theatre Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The third step was to maintain high self-discipline and high artistic standard no matter how circumstances kept changing (140). Turkka encouraged his students to \u201cdisgrace themselves\u201d on the stage, but to him, disgrace or shame were good things, says Tapper. Feeling shame meant that the actor had been able to transgress the subconscious boundary of social conformism and thus to release his creative potential. What shame definitely did not mean, Tapper emphasizes, was a director\u2019s attempt to bring shame on his actors or on the spectators (242).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, after this brief introduction, to our main topic, Franz Kafka. Is Kafka a good critic? Not necessarily: in a cinema foyer, Kafka happened to see publicity stills for Der Andere<\/em> (1913), the screen debut of the distinguished actor Albert Bassermann. Bassermann sits alone in an armchair and Kafka is fascinated, but soon his fascination turns into disappointment, when Kafka takes a closer look at Bassermann\u2019s grimacing mug shots, in the split-personality role as both public prosecutor and common criminal. Kafka feels that Bassermann has degraded himself by using his enormous powers for something so trivial. Kafka seems to regret the fact that after the shooting, the actor cannot make alterations to the finished film but is left alone in the armchair to grow old, to grow weak and will be pushed aside into a \u201cgrey time,\u201d Kafka writes in a letter to Felice Bauer in March 4 to 5, 1913 (Kafka, Kirjeit\u00e4 Felicelle<\/em> 230). Very few of us are able to tell the future of an actor, or even the future of their role simply by looking at a few publicity photos. Kafka was no longer around to see just how erroneous his prediction was.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again, perhaps Kafka saw one hundred and ten years into the future. Perhaps he anticipated Method Dressing, which is a bombastic name for stars wearing their role costumes at publicity events. Good actors do not\u2014always\u2014remain locked in their roles after the shooting, but they must wear their role costume for as long as the publicity tour lasts. Can you imagine Margot Robbie growing old, growing weak, forever in her Barbie outfit, being pushed aside to an armchair to sit in grey oblivion next to Albert Basserman?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gustav Janouch may not be the most reliable witness, but he reports Kafka as saying that Chaplin\u2014\u201clike every genuine comedian\u201d\u2014possesses \u201cthe bite of a beast of prey, and he uses it to attack the world\u201d (Janouch 1971; 158). It may raise a few eyebrows though that the passage about Chaplin appears not in the first German-language edition (1951) of Janouch\u2019s book, but in the second, enlarged edition (1968).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sum up: a good actor is no pleasant acquaintance. But I believe it is safe to say that a good actor consists of legs, credible male hands, lips and\u2014bite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Endnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> von Bagh published a book on Chaplin<\/em>; its appendix is a transcription of this radio dialogue (pp. 458\u201387).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> All translations from the Finnish language are the author\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a>Julia Lappalainen  and Ruusu Haarla, Turkka kuolee<\/em>. Toured at various theatres in Finland, 2018\u201319. Seen 24 May, 2019, at Finnish National Theatre. The script is available for registered customers at Nordic Drama Corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> In 1934, Albert Bassermann (1867\u20131952) left Germany with his Jewish wife. He acted in American films, most notably Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Foreign Correspondent<\/em> (1940) before his post-war return to German stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bagh, Peter von, and Jouko Turkka. Chaplin-y\u00f6<\/a><\/em>. YLE, 17 April 1989. Accessed 3 Aug. 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bagh, Peter von. Chaplin<\/em>. Edited by Sampsa Laurinen, Like, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hautasalo, Laura. \u201cV\u00e4lj\u00e4ht\u00e4nyt kapina: Turkasta, tunnustuskirjallisuudesta ja vaginan uhasta.\u201d nuorivoima.fi<\/em>, 3 Apr. 2018. Accessed 2 Jan. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hulkko, Pauliina et al. Nykyn\u00e4yttelij\u00e4n taide<\/em>. Maahenki, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janouch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka<\/em>. Translated by Goronwy Rees, Andr\u00e9 Deutsch, 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kafka, Franz. Kirjeit\u00e4 Felicelle<\/em>. Edited and translated by Aarno Peromies, Otava, 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014.\u00a0P\u00e4iv\u00e4kirjat 1909-1923<\/em>. Translated by Panu Turunen, Sammakko, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiuru, Katja. Palasina ja kokonaisena<\/em>. Kirjapaja, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N\u00e5ls, Jan. Viirusboken<\/em>. S\u00f6derstr\u00f6ms, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ollikainen, Anneli. Lihat yl\u00f6s!<\/em>. Valtion painatuskeskus, 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paavolainen, Pentti. Aikansa h\u00e4ik\u00e4isev\u00e4 peili.<\/em> Like, 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pyykk\u00f6, Mirja. Hamlet-dokumentti<\/em>. YLE 1986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert, Marthe. \u00ab Franz Kafka en France. \u00bb  Le si\u00e8cle de Kafka<\/em>, \u00e9dit\u00e9 par Yasha David et Jean-Pierre Morel, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1984.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robertson, Ritchie. \u201dIntroduction.\u201d The Man Who Disappeared<\/em>, edited and translated by Ritchie Robertson, Oxford UP, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tapper, Janne. Jouko Turkan teatterikorkeakoulukauden yhteiskunnallinen kontekstuaalisuus vuosina 1982\u20131985<\/em>. U of Helsinki P, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkka, Jouko. Aiheita<\/em>. Otava, 1982.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. Selvitys oikeuskanslerille<\/em>. Otava, 1984.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venho, Johanna. Martti Suosalon t\u00e4h\u00e4nastinen el\u00e4m\u00e4. <\/em>WSOY, 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtanen, Ville. Menk\u00e4\u00e4 mielenh\u00e4iri\u00f6\u00f6n<\/em>. Tammi 2001. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Matti Linnavuori<\/strong> wrote theatre criticism between 1978 and 2013 for various newspapers and weeklies in his native Finland. In 1985, he worked for the BBC World Service in London. Since 1998, he has presented papers at numerous IATC events. In the 2000s, he wrote for Teatra Vestnesis in Latvia. Since 1992, he has written and directed several radio plays for YLE the Finnish Broadcasting Company. In March 2016, his play Ta mig till er ledare (Take me to your Leader<\/em>) ran at Lilla Teatern in Helsinki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2024 Matti Linnavuori
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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