Philip Carlson
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 1 No. 2, November 2009
Phil’s Page
Where Have You Gone, Joseph Schildkraut?
by Philip Carlson
As a former agent, it breaks my heart the number of gifted—nay, extremely gifted—actors who
cannot find work in the theatre today. And since I choose to live by my opinions, it comes
naturally to me to have a few theories about what is wrong. And make no mistake, something is
wrong. Not only are wonderfully talented actors being wasted but the general public doesn’t
revere the theatre the way it used to. I think there is a connection. I cannot help but feel that the
theatre as a place to discover who you are may be gone for good. Our expectations of what goes
on inside a theatre these days are so diminished. Watching a play when I was eleven years old
was when I first felt recognized as a human being. (Sorry, Mom and Dad. No disrespect.)
There’s not much opportunity for such self-recognition these days what with the chimney sweeps
and mermaids clamoring to please us.
Great acting is what brings people into the theatre. Great plays help. But great acting is the
source of the thrill inside those walls or that amphitheatre or wherever theatre is happening. I am
not talking about good acting. There is, thankfully, plenty of that around, though tried and true
seems to hold more sway these days than original and surprising. But what I mean to talk about
is great acting. What a teacher of mine described as: Being plugged into the moon. Great actors
used to anchor a play, great actors were the whole reason for producing a play, great actors gave
employment to other actors and to everyone who worked in the theatre because they were the
reason the whole damn profession existed. And the lack of them today is, I suspect, what is
killing the theatrical experience. My bet is that even back in 1592, the public was more interested
in seeing what Burbage and Kempe were up to than keeping tabs on the fellow who had penned
their latest outing.
Leading theatre actors today don’t have the size, the appeal, the majesty they used to. It feels
mean to list today’s pale imitations, so I’ll just mention a few of the names from yesterday: the
Lunts (majesty? I should say so), Julie Harris, Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, Jason Robards Jr.
Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, James Earl Jones, Gwen Verdon, Zero Mostel, Nancy Walker,
Shirley Booth, Pat Hingle, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Maureen Stapleton, Robert Morse, Eli
Wallach and Anne Jackson. It hurts to stop. Is there anyone around today who will give us the
goose bumps and memories for a lifetime routinely supplied by those pillars of the profession
every time they went to work? Didn’t Julie Harris litter the countryside with hearts she had
touched (and spark a whole new generation of theatre goers) while tirelessly touring in her most
recent Broadway vehicle?
And what about the gentleman who gives this piece its title? Joseph Schildkraut played Otto
Frank, Anne’s father—on Broadway (and in the movie—so you know he was phenomenal). Near
the very end of the play, there are off-stage sounds and it looks as if the Frank family has been
found by the Nazis. Schildkraut leaves the stage to investigate. Some minutes later he returns. He
says nothing. His body says everything. Who is out there? the family asks him. Is it them? Is it
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 1 No. 2, November 2009
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the Nazis? Joseph Schildkraut shrugged. That’s all he did. And in that shrug he said, he
communicated, that, yes, it was the Nazis, we have been found out, we have been discovered, we
are doomed. He said all that and many more terrible things just by moving his shoulders.
Actors playing leads in Broadway shows today are more likely to be television stars between
series or movie stars looking for a way to reinvent their careers. Celebrities in some way. So
many of them are not really of the theatre. They are passing through. I feel this suits most
producers. Theatrical stardom used to be encouraged by the producing community. No longer.
Producers worry about what will happen to the product when the opening star is replaced by a
lesser one, should they be lucky enough to have a hit. Better to play down the star’s contribution
altogether (unless the star’s presence is a stunt in the first place and they are budgeted to earn
back their money in fourteen weeks).
A few years ago I ran into a producer who had a play running which had just replaced most of its
original cast. I’d had two clients in opening cast and had seen the show several times. The
producer asked me if I happened to have seen the new lineup. After suppressing an urge to say,
“Why would I do that?” I said that I had not. “You ought to come take a look,” he said. “The
show is in really good shape. I mean, considering the reduced salaries we’re paying.” In the
words of the immortal Joseph Welch: At long last, sir, have you no shame?
A celebrity who is also a great actor is almost a novelty. Celebrities are in many ways
interchangeable. Actors are not. Great athletes become celebrities but even when they do, it is
still required that they be able to do something special with a ball. Celebrity architects still have
to design buildings which astound us. I don’t think people expect that of actors anymore. Today
we are content for an actor to be very, very good looking. And most of them are. (Not too many
beauties in that list of old theatre stars.)
Actors don’t go as deep inside themselves as they used to. I don’t think it’s their fault. No one is
asking them to. Including directors. Most directors these days don’t know the first thing about
how to get a performance out of an actor. Who knew what Kim Stanley would do with that one
word: “You” in A Clearing in the Woods? Certainly not Joseph Anthony, the director. Probably
not even Kim Stanley when rehearsals began. But Joseph Anthony created an arena for Kim
Stanley to discover what she might do with that reading, that intention, that action that still sets
aflutter hearts old enough—and still beating—to remember it. Performances today are largely
replications of what the director has envisioned in his living room before the first day of
rehearsal. I don’t know how many casting directors have told me that what is needed in the
audition is the opening night performance. Well, there’s the whole problem right there. If you
know what the opening night performance is going to be, why even hold rehearsals? Why not go
straight to tech?
I think casting directors are part of the problem, too. Casting directors? Really? Well, no, they
aren’t the whole problem, of course, but they are a piece of it. Not how they came into being but
what their work has become contributes to the categorization of actors rather than a constant
discovery of why each actor is unique. All casting directors are working from the same pool of
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talent. Meryl Streep is just as available to Mike Nichols as she is potentially to some young
director fresh out of NYU Film School (who probably knows one of her kids and so has access).
She is available as an idea. So casting directors have become obligated to come up with ideas
which will somehow distinguish them from the rest of the pack. If casting directors’ values are
defined by their business interests, something has gone amuck. I once suggested a perfectly
wonderful actress (not famous, just good—superb, in fact) to a casting director for a small part in
a Broadway play and the casting director replied, “I suppose she could do it. But why should
she?” What she meant was, “How would casting her increase my standing as a casting director?”
I offered, “Because she’d be great in the part?” “Maybe, but it’s not a good enough idea.” Forget
the idea. What about the actress? What about what she might do with the part? Not even in the
equation. Suppose, like me, you have heard all your life how brilliant Laurette Taylor was in The
Glass Menagerie. Are you content with the idea that she was brilliant? What would you give to
have actually seen her?
Playwrights should also take their fair share of blame here. Much of what happens in the theatre
today consists of actors turning to the audience and telling us how they feel—instead of actually
feeling something. With no feelings to embody, you can’t blame the actor for failing to move the
audience. The reason for this is that most young writers have no idea what a great actor is
capable of doing. They haven’t seen it. They can’t even conceive of it. Why is that? Well, a large
part of a young playwright’s experience today of what an actor can do comes from attending
readings while his or her play is being “developed.” Now all actors know there is not a lot you
can do in a reading without, well, faking it. So they fake it. Or they skip it. In either event, the
playwright doesn’t get to see the big feelings, authentic big feelings and concludes that somehow
big feelings don’t work in today’s marketplace. So they write for smaller ones.
As a consequence, rather than archetypes, we have types. We have categories. There are pretty
people who can be funny, famous people willing to be nude, handsome men willing to play gay,
beautiful women who are not afraid to be ugly. This is not good for the profession. This is, in
fact, counter to what the art form is all about, though perhaps not to what the profession has
become.
Actors and what they do, how they are capable of making us feel, have become beside the point.
It’s all codified, it’s technical. The risk is gone but so is the humanity. Indelible performances are
so last century. I recently asked a producer what he thought of a performance being given by a
famous actor who had just opened on Broadway. “I don’t need to see that performance,” he said.
“I’ve already seen it in his last three movies.”
I can promise you no one ever said that about Joseph Schildkraut.