Jean Vilar: Unadorned Theatre for the Greatest Number

Abstract

Once he has arrived on stage, he moves sparingly; his presence is enough to establish a vitality that other important actors strive for with nervous pacings and hand flurries and vocal hysterics and stares that hypnotize and exact tribute from the rest of the cast. It is not so much, I think, that Vilar scorns the habitual run of acting props as that he does not need them. He is of medium height, bony, black-haired and hollowcheeked, with hands that look large but are never obstructive. His voice is unusually deep and has a rasp; it is a long remove from the throatiness of Olivier and the calculated resonance of Lunt. When he speaks poetry it has the directness of prose. When he speaks prose it is punctuated with caesuras and emphases that give it the quality of verse. He is possibly the most ascetic and statuesque performer of our time.