Maureen Stapleton on Harold Clurman: Moveable Feast
"I took Harold Clurman with me to every part, every time."
“That phrase Hemingway had about Paris. It is a moveable feast, he wrote. Well, you can take places with you forever. I thought—I still think—of Harold Clurman as a moveable feast. I took Harold Clurman with me to every part, every time.”
“We were working on Orpheus Descending, that glorious mess, that beautiful black Valentine, and Harold took me aside and told me I was just acting up a storm. I was fully, wholly committed. Why, thank you, I thought. Then he did that wild dolphin sound and said, ‘But it’s all within you and for you! Share what you’ve learned!’
“I had a tendency—probably still have it—of doing all the work on a part, the investigation, the analysis, and I’m deep inside of myself. You know, Maureen as somebody else, and Harold tried to let me know that I needed to keep all that interior work, all that dedication to the script, and let the audience in, let my fellow players in. I was communicating mostly with myself.
“Scared the shit out of me. I got better. I opened up. My fear of audiences had pulled me inward. Now, I can be scared of people, but I don’t want to be accused of or guilty of withholding from actors and audiences.
“I slipped again with The Cold Wind and the Warm. I was thinking of my beautiful relationship between me and my character, and forgot everything else. So Harold came to me and told me the same thing. A light went off. I opened. I shared. And lovely Sandy Meisner—who was with me on the stage—looked at me and said, ‘Well, look who showed up!’ I had no idea I was being so selfish, so frightened, such a hoarder.
“Harold Clurman still directs me in everything I do. He’s with me.”
From an interview conducted in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1991.