(light music)
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-: You are getting into a car, starting it up,
and beginning to drive.
(engine rumbling)
(tires screeching) Watch the road.
Watch the scenery go by
until soon the city is far behind you.
You find yourself on a lonely road.
You've never been there.
(rapid drumming music)
It's twilight and slowly a mist
comes rolling in from nowhere.
You get out of car and into the mist.
The mist thickens into a fog.
(upbeat percussive music)
You are lost in it.
Good morning. -: Good morning!
-: Moni's one of the main reasons I came to Juilliard.
He's taught so many people.
-: Very good. (class shouting)
-: You know if you say to any Juilliard student, Moni.
-: And stop, and run; stop.
Laura: Their eyes sort of get a little bigger
and there's a little twinkle.
-: Quarter turn, yup! (class grunting)
Laura: He's the one person who everybody had.
-: With our entire body.
(class shouting)
-: I remember hearing about Moni
prior to getting to the school,
because he was legendary, he had been there
from the very beginning of Juilliard.
But they do a very interesting thing at Juilliard
where they keep him from you for a year.
Class: Woo, woo, woo!
-: I think to build fear.
-: There's this feeling of fear. (laughs)
Class: Left and right--
-: Simultaneous! (cane smacking)
-: Because so many students would walk out exhausted,
dripping with sweat.
You could tell that they had been really tested.
-: You have a huge space!
You have a huge space here.
(woman screaming wildly)
(class shouting)
-: People didn't really know necessarily how to describe it.
It was just that, oh my gosh, get ready, get ready
'cause Moni's gonna kill you, Moni's gonna kill you.
It was instantly very intense
and something I had never really connected to, acting.
(woman vocalizing)
-: What if you had no words?
How do you express yourself physically?
Working with Moni gave us the ability
to strip our inhibitions away
and allow ourselves to go
as far as we wanted to go as an actor.
-: This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
-: Away, away, corrupters of my faith!
(dramatic cello music)
(wind blowing)
(breaths whooshing)
-: By the mere unpredictability of rhythm I am startled.
I move that way, oh!
(sighing)
Who is that?
(exuberant breathing)
I always found in the movements for actors,
it was dancers coming and teaching you to do a plie
or to do assemble,
and I found it totally irrelevant--
Class: High knees in--
-: Because actors have to deal not with an external form
but with a form that emanates from the inwards life
of the character.
That's how I see movement for actors.
(uplifting string music crescendos)
-: What's the best drama school in America?
I applied for Juilliard
and I wanted it so, so badly.
(footsteps pattering rapidly)
(class laughing)
I went in and I remember being intimidated by Moni.
I did Hamlet, "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh."
And Moni was like, "Okay, do the Hamlet again,
"but this time I want you to think maybe he's crazy."
So I started again,
he stopped me after like three lines.
-: Stop. (feet patter to abrupt halt)
And run; stop.
-: "Okay, this will be the last time I stop you,
"but I want you to be crazy."
-: Half turn, half turn.
-: So I took my shoe off
and like slapped myself in the face with it
and was like rolling around on the floor.
And after maybe 10 lines he stopped me and was like,
"Okay, thank you."
I left and I was in the basement of a house in Cincinnati,
painting the floor on my own.
I got a call that I'd got into Juilliard,
hung up the phone, sitting in this basement on my own,
I was like, "Sweet." (laughs)
No one to celebrate with.
-: Uh-huh, and to the right.
When I was 17 in Jerusalem,
I went to see a show, a mime show,
which I didn't know what it was at all.
(rapid upbeat bongo drumming)
And when lights came up, you saw this figure
who created everything from nothing.
The wind, the trees, animals, fire, water,
with no props, no words, no set.
It was so magical, so incredible,
I was utterly spellbound.
I wanted to do that.
Where does one learn that?
I heard about Mr. Etienne Decroux,
who actually created modern mime.
There were always mimes,
but there was never, never a technique
where you can go and learn.
And he developed this technique,
and I decided to study with him.
He was an imposing personality.
He knew it, and he used It.
You had to stand there on your feet
like for an hour and 45 minutes,
just working with your eyes going up there, up there,
there, there, there, there, there, there,
and then all kind of designs with the eyes.
He was a kind of a scientist.
He loved discovering the possibilities
of the physical expression.
His motto was give me one square yard,
one light, and I'll give you the world.
(wood creaking)
(saw rasping on wood)
(ratchet cranking and pounding)
(suspenseful drumming music)
It was not easy for me at the beginning
because physically, I was a actor, I was loose.
As a mime you never let go of physical tension.
All I wanted to do is to be a mime
and that really became my passion.
(rhythmic percussive clapping)
-: Kevin! -: Moni!
(both laughing joyfully)
Moni: I find actors really the most interesting people.
Kevin: It's an act of empathy.
-: Absolutely. -: If you can't empathize,
how can you play another character other than yourself
if you don't have (mummbles)-- -: It's empathy,
you have to have incredible understanding,
knowledge of the human character.
Today, an actor cannot be just, you know,
the way once they used to be all about the speech and--
-: Yeah, when I was at Juilliard,
I was just an unformed amoeba of insecurity.
Like what's the right way to do it?
There's a right way and a wrong way.
I was very in my head,
and Moni Yakim got me out of my head into my body.
A lot of it is getting to know yourself,
and a lot of it is getting to forget yourself.
There's always a mask.
The mask is the source.
If you're playing a character,
even if you're just playing or being yourself,
you can be more yourself because it's not you.
Oh, what an old and peasant slave am I.
Moni: I'm doing now an exercise
where you have to be your most hilarious.
-: Forms, 'cause you can see, and all for nothing!
-: Then you move to a dramatic spot
where you have to be your most dramatic,
even I think too melodramatic.
(Kevin grumbling wordlessly)
(Moni laughing)
And most of the time the dramatic spot
is funnier than the comic spot.
Because when you reach the utmost level of tragedy,
it becomes hilarious.
-: I'm havin' a breakdown!
I'm havin' a breakdown, I'll tell you somethin'.
-: Mina is the precursor to Moni at Juilliard.
You get Mina the first year,
you get a little taste of what she has to do.
Of course what she's doing is less of a movement language
and more about masks.
-: Masks enable the actors to get in touch
with their instinctive self,
and not to be just in your head
and think all the time and preplan.
It becomes kind of boring and restrictive.
-: Every actor wants the ability
to be able to create the world around them.
When you play with a kid,
a kid sees everything in the room he's talking about.
He can turn that spoon into a sword or whatever he wants.
And Mina, you know, gives you that.
-: Okay, wonderful. (class talking raucously)
-: I was a sparrow spirit who ran spirit dance studios
and I got mugged by, where is he, that guy.
Just mugged me, came up to me
and asked me if I like cocaine.
And I was like, yeah, but I've got a dealer, thank you.
And then he was like, great, you're gonna come
to the corner with me and give me $500
and buy cocaine from me or I'm gonna shoot you.
(Mina laughs) And so I did.
-: It's important what's reading the character,
because a moment ago he was a little bit like that.
You immediately have a character there.
Character who is like this, maybe, you know.
If your legs are like this, or like this.
(students laughing)
You have to watch people.
My father taught me that when he lived here
for a couple of years in America.
He used to take the subway and he said,
"I love to sit there and just watch people.
"You know, their feet, their legs, everything about them."
He was totally fascinated.
Look at people, look at life around you.
Trust yourselves, guys, you're really, you're good.
Trust yourselves; very, very important to just go there.
And let's start by flexion, pelvis,
chest, waist, leg and head.
All right, let's go.
Flexion, forward bend. -: Mina and Moni,
sometimes they would teach together.
It was amazing how well they worked together.
And since they were married,
they really had the ability to come in
and tell their story,
to help you explore where you wanted to go.
(light tinkling music)
-: I met Mina on the stairs going to my first class
because she studied with Marcel Marceau.
(accordion music)
Marceau was a different bag all together.
He was the real entertainer.
He was the one that wanted to amuse the audience
and that was a big clash between Marceau
and Mr. Decroux who was actually the teacher of Marceau.
And Decroux always felt that Marceau commercialized
the great art that he was creating.
And for that he never forgave him.
-: Before I met Moni, I had a relationship
with Marcel Marceau while I was in his school.
And then I started to see Moni much, much more,
and Marcel was very nice about it; he understood.
-: By that time Mina and I were in love with each other.
I wanted to be with Mina as much as I could,
so I just decided to try and influence her
to come with me to Mr. Decroux's school,
which was totally different.
(moody string music)
It had to do with precision and focus.
Since I was by that time pretty good with this technique,
I started to teach her.
And Mina became my first student.
I owe her my evolution as a teacher.
-: Every time I approach any piece of material
I think about Moni,
and I think about the things that he taught me,
and I think about how I can apply those things.
-: The second year it's about honing it in on you.
Figuring out how all those different basic acting steps
work best coming from you.
Oscar: Movement teacher is such a reductive word
for what it is that he does. -: Low, toes, outside.
-: What he's actually doing is putting together
all the pieces of what we're learning here.
So we're doing scene class,
we're doing vocal work, we're doing the breathing,
we're doing like (patters rapidly),
you know, all these different things.
And then when we think, you know, this is just a move,
just to express the body a little more.
But it's actually not that.
It's actually this is how you relate
to the rest of the world.
Movement is action and action is acting.
(slow moody music)
Alex: I was always really intensely obsessed with people
and like why people behave the way they do.
-: Everybody follows Claire, let's go, Claire.
(class hooting)
Together, one sound, one action, one entity.
(scatting rhythmically) Tap tap toe, we get up to the left.
Forward, back, forward--
Alex: When I was a kid I would create a character
an then I would just live as this character for days.
Like I just had to.
My mother thought I was insane.
(class vocalizing rhythmically in unison)
I just had this massive excess of energy.
It would never come out as directly as anger or sadness,
I just like knew I just had to do something.
-: Lie down, sit up. (class whooping)
Sit up, lie down. (class whooping)
Claire is going to tell us the tallest tale she can invent.
-: So I was walking on water the other day--
-: Uh-huh? -: Came up and it told me
that it liked eating brains.
And I ate some very nice (mumbling)--
-: And how did you feel when you ate it?
-: Delicious! -: Oh, uh-huh.
(class whooping)
And have a terrific day. (class applauding)
(police siren wailing) (man speaks foreign language)
When we look at someone who wants to come and study with us,
we are looking for raw material,
not necessarily the skills.
It's the potential that we are looking for.
I would like you to look at your total personality
as if it were a jewel.
Each facet refracts light differently to the beholder's eye.
Director: And ready, and play even more on it.
And do this one just a little bit quicker.
Push this, compress this stuff a little bit more
and play a little bit more, okay?
And ready, and action.
(slow emotional music)
Moni: Each facet is necessary to the structure
of the polished stone,
if the full potential of the gem is to be revealed.
It's difficult to talk about life, in a way,
about what happened in life,
because whatever happens in life is accidental.
As much as we think we are wise about it,
there is always something that happened that is unexpected
and our entire life changes.
(wind whooshing)
I dream all the time about going back to Israel.
I'm very connected to the country.
I was born in Jerusalem and I grew up in Jerusalem.
My parents came from Arabic countries
so I felt that I was second-class citizen.
My mother was born in Alexandria, Egypt, an Egyptian Jew.
And my father came from Aleppo.
I'm the youngest of four older brothers and one sister.
Where I grew up, I remember sitting on my balcony
observing the people that were working in the streets.
It was an unbelievable theater of characters.
People came from all over the world to live there.
At the time, Palestine was under British mandate.
-: [Radio Broadcaster] Army and the Palestine police,
they can see the burning wreckage of the--
Moni: Us, as kids, we used to hear British soldiers
scream at us, "Fuck off, little miserable Jew.
"Get off the street," and so on.
My brothers were involved in the underground.
-: [Radio Broadcaster] 200,000 Jews are being checked
by two divisions of British troops and Palestine police.
Moni: Fighting for liberation from the British mandate,
my brothers were my heroes.
Seeing people being killed,
seeing my brother seriously wounded,
mortal danger started to sink in.
It was a war of survival.
Ultimately the British left,
and the United Nations voted for Israel's independence.
This led to a war with our Arab neighbors.
The war is very long.
(suspenseful music)
There was a lot of street violence at that time.
As kids, we were stoning each other,
beating each other constantly.
We committed some crimes,
and people didn't want to mess with us
because otherwise we'd go break their windows,
beat their children.
It was fun being the king of the street.
(boots stomping in unison)
I understood that people had to go to become soldiers,
that was a given.
(troops shouting)
I volunteered to a serious fighting unit.
(suspenseful drumming)
And my sergeant really started to harass me during training.
He became an authority that I couldn't tolerate anymore.
I swear. -: I swear.
Moni: That I will not.
Class: That I will not.
-: Move these hands.
Class: Move these hands.
-: When we had roll call
my sergeant would come and check our guns.
(female student shouting) One day he pushed the butt
of my gun and hit me on my face.
I just lost my brain, totally.
I pulled the gun from his hand
and beat the hell out of him with it.
He fell to the ground, all bloodied.
And chin up. -: Up.
-: And flat, chin up. -: Up.
-: And flat, chin up.
Well, I had to spend one year in jail.
They were accusing me of inciting a mutiny.
Maybe 20 of the unit ran away.
-: Present. -: Present.
-: And up. (drones tonally)
-: This is the first sense I ever had of having a master.
To me that was the beginning of having a concept
of the phenomenon of discipline.
Class: Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax?
-: Physical tension, there's a lot
of tension involved for actors.
-: Reach your goal up there.
Make sure you have one.
-: Moni's class was the time for me to push myself physically
so that I could no longer be tense.
He would push you through physical barriers.
Class: My mistress with a monster is in love.
Moni: More adventurous, more adventurous.
-: My mistress with a monster-- -: Guys, you are not
adventurous enough! -: Is in love.
-: Being adventurous means you go to places
that you don't know exist.
There is a world out there that is unknown to you.
And that's what you are throwing yourself into.
Everybody, go. (class vocalizing wildly)
-: I think what he taught me
was how to physically be alive.
You're growing up, also.
You know, you're either in your early 20s
or you know you're still trying to figure out
who you are and what you like and what you don't like.
How do you handle challenge, rejection, you know,
you're still learning how to function in the world.
You're alive, you're really alive.
(rapid drumming)
Woman: The one thing you look--
(man vocally scatting) (woman vocalizing)
♪ Oh, so much for me ♪
♪ But please sing for me ♪
♪ And to me, yeah ♪
♪ Please do sing, ow ♪
(upbeat music)
Every day, 14 hours locked in these rooms.
-: Coming to America was by accident.
It was not really on my mind.
I loved going to work with my master, Mr. Decroux.
I worked hard.
I was in Paris, and my priority was always
my work with Decroux.
However I needed some money to eat,
so I also joined a theater called Theatre Franco-Allemande.
And in one of these performances,
a lady by the name of Stella Adler happened to be.
As a young woman she traveled to Russia
and brought the teaching of Konstantin Stanislavski
back to America, where she completely revolutionized
the approach to acting.
(quirky string music)
Mina: Many of the best-known actors in the world
came from Stella's school. -: Hey stella!
-: Just a moment, stop coughing.
No actor coughs, they don't sneeze,
and they don't catch colds.
They're not tired, they don't yawn, and they don't chew gum.
(audience laughing)
(audience applauding) -: After the show,
she asked my colleague,
"Who was this man who played the drum major?"
And that was me.
She said, "He's a very talented guy.
"Let me meet with him tomorrow,
"let him come to my hotel."
And the next day I knocked on her door,
and when she opened the door I was utterly, utterly stunned.
There stood this tall, beautiful, gorgeous woman
with penetrating eyes.
I was so overwhelmed by her presence
that I couldn't utter a word.
And the first words that I heard
through my incredible confusion were,
"You come to America, darling,
"and you're going to be a big star.
"But first, you have to study with me."
I didn't know what to do.
To get to America I need a visa,
and I need an affidavit, someone to sponsor me.
And she called a guy who took me with him
to the American embassy.
Dressed in a beautiful suit and a tie,
filled up all the papers,
and a week later I had my visa.
Basically, Stella Adler brought me and Mina to America.
(upbeat music crescendos)
-: We were young, we were in love,
and we were in New York.
We lived for a short time when we arrived here
in Brooklyn, actually.
We found work in a restaurant, an Israeli restaurant.
Moni was the chef and I was the waitress.
-: For months after we arrived here,
we didn't know anything about anything.
We hardly knew English at the time.
I told Stella Adler I don't know how I'm going to survive.
Stella said, "Don't worry about payment.
"You'll teach in my school."
And she asked me to teach physical acting.
She did not want me to teach mime.
Basically she hated mime.
-: But she really didn't like mime--
-: Because, and I loved mime,
and I was not about to give it up
because she told me, "You should stop it."
She felt it was the art of showing,
and not the art of being, and not the art of living.
She felt it didn't go deep enough.
I thought that we were acting like
better than anybody else.
But I understood, basically, what she was talking about.
In mime you have to show
because you are creating a world
that doesn't exist, from nothing.
(slow ethereal music)
This is a technical thing, and she was very afraid of that.
Instead of quitting mime,
we decided to integrate more of this into our mime pieces.
We called ourselves the Yakins, with an N at the end.
But somehow, I don't know why,
wherever we went in the posters they put the Yakims.
Maybe it's easier, so let's leave it like that.
Mina: We started to perform in colleges, Jewish centers,
in small theaters all over America.
-: Played the Borscht Belt in the Catskills.
We made people laugh.
We received fantastic reviews
and a few people came, young people that saw the show,
and said, "Why don't you teach us to do that?"
-: We want to learn that.
-: And we said, well, get some people
and get a space and we'll do it.
So that's what they did.
Mina: And that's how we opened our first school.
(rhythmic thumping)
(class hooting wildly)
-: We used to do a lot of mime with a kerchief on our face
in order to express ourselves physically
and not to show any expression through the face itself.
-: The neutral mask is just a blank mask
that you put on your face.
And the audience is able to see your expressions
through the way your shoulders are,
or through the tempo of your body.
You don't have to throw your performance
in an audience's lap.
You can have them lean forward
and be interested in what you're doing,
rather than project everything.
-: My master, Decroux, used to say that the face
and the hands are the whores of the body
because they sell cheap.
-: The more you are emotionally neutralized,
the more vulnerable you become.
It was a strength,
and it was something that you had tapped into.
It's something every actor needs.
(slow moody music)
-: When you are in love with someone,
they say love is blind.
You keep seeing this mask on this person,
you don't see the reality of it.
Then when you take off the mask,
you see what's underneath it.
And sometimes it shocks you.
And you want to stay with the mask,
you want to stay with that vision
that you fell in love with in the first place.
But when you see the reality,
the romance can be much stronger.
-: Come on, Peter! (laughs)
-: Come on, Peter, whoa! -: Go big!
-: We're always big-- -: Freeze!
Moni: Alex, take the class over.
(class shouting in unison)
And just listen to Alex, everything will be perfect.
(hands clapping rhythmically)
(class members vocalizing wordlessly)
-: And play with rhythm.
Make it a big part of your move.
(slow moody piano music)
-: When I was close to 15, years before the army,
my father did not relate to me much
because he was ill at the time.
My older brother was desperate
to take me away from the streets.
He sent me to evening schools
and I could never stick to it.
One day he came home
and asked me whether I want to be an actor.
Not knowing why, my answer was, "Absolutely."
A friend of his decided to create a theater in Jerusalem.
And he told me to go to this address.
And I entered, there were people there rehearsing.
Most of the people in the theater were Ashkenazi,
people that came from Eastern Europe.
They were the sophisticated, educated people,
so I was extremely inhibited.
For two months I didn't open my mouth, just observed,
and they made me the assistant state manager.
This is the backstage door
where we used to bring all the scenery through here.
During the performance I didn't let anyone backstage talk
while the action was going onstage.
I didn't allow them to touch props.
I became like a total control freak.
In the next play, I went home, I took pillows,
I put them under my shirt.
I put the jacket of my father and draw a mustache,
and I created a character.
And while they were rehearsing, I just inserted myself.
And little by little they realized that it was me,
and there was an absolute uproar.
So the director decided to write a part for me.
I understood at the time
that there is a different type of life
that would take me away from the street.
I felt this kind of total immersion
that made me forget about the other world.
The theater, it was my personal secret
as far as the kids in my neighborhood were concerned.
For me it was actually like a temple
that was called a theater.
Announcer: The New York Pantomime Theater is
the foremost exponent of the art of mime
in the United States.
It is the largest, most highly-trained
company in this country.
Although its repertory is based in classical technique,
the company has been hailed for its innovative,
creative mimodramas for adult audiences
and young audiences alike.
Moni Yakim and his wife, Mina,
who together founded the New York Pantomime Theater
have been recognized by Marcel Marceau
as an unequaled pantomime duo of dazzling talent.
-: I created, I believe,
a mime theater that was not seen before.
So that was truly my great and sole interest.
(moody thumping music)
(intense symphonic music)
-: Third year, it's about taking you
which has now been built up over the past two years,
and inviting you into the performance space.
Taking everything you've learned
and interpreting it through performance.
(class chattering)
-: He has asked me to come and sit in on rehearsal
for that fucking piece--
-: Same sentence, that includes for sabotage,
disturbing the peace, inciting a riot--
-: When I see her, all I see are stars and skies and--
-: Excellent, we'll do now the entire monologue in gibberish,
sustaining the relationships and the intentions.
And whatever you mean to convey
with everything that you are saying,
all in gibberish; and go.
(class chattering in gibberish)
Every exercise that we do, as free as it is,
it is always connected to some kind of a control.
(Woman speaking in gibberish)
(woman speaking in gibberish)
The control is in the rhythm.
The rhythm is the vision that is expressed
through the freedom of your physicality.
Beautiful, and now we express it all physically,
without a word, without a sound.
And then you free yourself from it.
(chair clattering)
Alex: In a movement class,
you're sort of obsessively analyzing all the time
how your body's working.
-: There's a physical metamorphosis that happens
that we all know uniquely from that experience
and from that man.
(soft ethereal piano music)
I remember the feeling, pulling up to the heavens
and being suspended in space and air,
and elongated in a way that you didn't think possible.
-: In the exploration of the inner life
through a physical movement,
he was pushing us to extremes.
And in being pushed to an extreme,
you can find every aspect of who you are.
Your fear, your drive, your ambition.
(upbeat music)
♪ If we only have love ♪
Moni: Commercial theater was not something
that I was very involved with.
But I directed a few things that would not distract me
from my mime theater.
I became a director in demand
after I did "Jacques Brel".
♪ If we only have love ♪
♪ With our arms open wide ♪ -: We started it off Broadway,
we ended on Broadway.
Jacques Brel did not want to come, actually, to see the show
because he was opposing the war in Vietnam.
After a year he was convinced to come and see it.
Didn't say a word, and flew back to Paris.
A week later he came back, and when we asked him,
"Why did you come back to see the show?"
He says, "I wanted to know why I liked it so much."
(joyful vaudeville music)
"Jacques Brel" ran in New York 5 1/2 years.
It was a worldwide success.
I directed it in Canada, Tel Aviv, Paris, London.
I was an international director.
(explosion booms)
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, please.
For the most totally--
-: After Brel saw the show,
he gave his consent for the show
to be adapted into a screenplay.
I was in it and I choreographed it.
Jacques Brel himself appeared in the film,
singing the most famous song he ever wrote,
called "Ne Me Quitte Pas."
(Jacques singing in foreign language)
Just being with Brel was a thrill.
Being a waiter serving him while he is singing this song
was even a greater thrill.
My focus was really mime.
I did not really latch on to that success
in order to further my career as a theatrical director.
However, most unfortunately, mime started to go downhill.
Only street mimes with the striped shirt,
and did the wall going up and down
and pulling ropes and pushing cars and imitating people.
People thought that that what mime was now,
like a circus act.
When I said mime, people started to snicker.
But our mime was totally different.
We were really theater.
-: Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
his cannon against us self-slaughter.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on it, ah, fie!
It is but an unweeded garden that grows to seed;
things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
That it should come to this.
-: Fortune and Antony part here.
Even here do we shake hands.
All come to this?
The hearts that spanieled me at heels,
to whom I gave their wishes, do discandy,
melt their sweets on blossoming Caesar,
and this pine is barked that overtopped them all.
Betrayed I am!
-: Think about it, Marcus, where else it come from?
We just naturally mad at gay folk?
Come on, imagine how they got down back then.
(class laughing)
-: Hey, where is everybody?
-: Unurged wouldst vow that never words
were music to thine ear,
that never object pleasing in thine eye.
-: George! -: Wouldst thou not spit at me
and spurn at me, and hurl the name of my husband in my face!
-: To be or no to be, that is the question.
-: Where is everybody!
Hump the Hostess! (class laughing)
(class members cheering) (class members clapping)
-: Dip him, dip him!
(class members singing)
-: Fourth year is just about performance.
You have all the tools,
so apply them to whatever role we give to you.
-: We had the pleasure of working with Moni
as a director in the fourth year.
We had this wonderful opportunity to
sort of really put into motion
and really realize the work that Moni does.
-: Yeah, I've directed like 60, 70 shows here at Juilliard.
-: To be reminded, like mama--
Moni: Each play has its own life, its own world,
its own style, its own meaning.
-: Suppose that death is here with me.
-: Each play presents a different challenge.
What happened today?
And a different approach.
There were a lot of gaps again today.
Too much thinking, too much thinking.
(soft somber music)
Each play is a world in itself.
Alex: Moni was like, you know, what piece as an actor
would you be interested in doing?
I thought "Clockwork Orange" would be a great play.
I went to him after class
and I was like I'll adapt the book.
When he read it, he said it was too dark,
and that's not really the kind of thing
he wanted to be working on at this point in his life.
-: I was not in a mood to get into
a depressing kind of a play.
So this year I'm going direct "Metamorphosis"
adapted from the works of Ovid.
What kind of world am I dealing with?
I have to find a way to bring his poetry to life.
-: I had such specific ideas about
how that "Clockwork Orange" world was meant to exist.
And I started thinking about it like
if I did it as an independent project, I'll direct it.
I know what I want it to look like.
I'm gonna set the chairs up so that there will be action,
entrances, exits, and scenes, even playing behind people
so that they feel like they're engulfed by it.
And all the characters' physicality
would be very exaggerated.
The protagonist, Alex, is from the slums.
-: So what's it gonna be, then?
Alex: And is a murderer, a rapist and a bad guy.
And he's very affected by classical music.
("Ode to Joy") ♪ La la la la la la la la ♪
♪ La da da da da da da ♪
♪ La la la la la la la la ♪
-: You know, where did they get
this classical music background?
As a director I'm just asking.
What do you do with that?
How do you solve this mystery?
How do you justify it?
-: He's artistically inclined, you know,
he's got more going on
because he has a artistic soul.
It's interesting. -: It's a fantastic character.
-: Yeah, I think so. -: It's great that you
are doing it.
And again I apologize that I couldn't do it.
-: 'Cause I wanted to play the part.
(Alex laughing) -: I know, I know. (laughs)
-: Yeah, yeah, but I feel like as an artist
I have like a duty to dive into the things
that make me feel uncomfortable.
-: You are absolutely right, absolutely right.
(dramatic percussive music)
And out. (student exhales vocally)
Make sure you struggle against it.
I am blessed to work with people that know my vocabulary.
-: Is it an animal?
-: I can teach them while I direct them
Yeah, but there you're telling me what, my god,
it's gonna be fantastic.
The juices are starting to work.
Staging, it's never arbitrary.
Like falling rain.
Staging is really the meaning and the actor is its soul.
All of you, I've seen you at work now for almost four years
and I think you are brilliant.
I'm not joking.
However being a teacher/director,
I saw what it is that you hang onto.
I see your habits, and I'm trying to throw at you things
that I feel you need to add to your vocabulary.
-: You've heard of Orpheus and his bride Eurydice.
(audience applauding)
-: I am bored with the best that you can do
(audience laughing)
because you have been doing it forever.
Let your imagination fly into a place
that you are not used to.
Fuck the result that I'm looking for here,
you're just stretching a little bit in a different way.
Alex: Four words, guys, let's fuck shit up!
(cast members howling)
(feet stamping rhythmically)
This project started off small
but it's snowballed into this multi-department,
huge, student-initiated thing.
-: My name's Alexander, the shame is mine--
Alex: Which is incredibly fulfilling and exciting,
but also I really feel the weight of it, too.
-: Come out! (cast member shouting)
Alexander: Now you'll see a decapitation.
Headless though he is,
the dead man runs around for a short while.
(door latch rattling) (fists thumping violently)
-: Get out. (suspenseful string music)
-: Let me out, let me out, let me out!
(string music crescendos passionately)
-: You had us sit as an audience with the actors.
Why did you choose to do it like in a dim light?
-: Yeah. -: Why didn't you do it
like with fluorescent light, totally open?
I sat near the actor
but I didn't feel any connection.
-: The way that they were rigged,
they were quite low on the boom.
And so if they went bright,
the audience couldn't see anything.
And so I ended up--
Moni: I couldn't see anything.
-: I couldn't see a lot of it. -: Yeah, exactly.
-: You could've gone further, in my opinion,
with the brutality of it.
Involving us as audience more with it.
Because that's what the play is about.
The senseless violence is part of us.
You know, maybe you can get up now and kill someone.
-: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-: You talked about the character having also
an artistic side to him and so on.
And it seems to me that you went more
into the artistic expression.
That slightly disappointed me.
I felt it was brave, I felt it could have been braver.
-: The thing with Moni is whenever I got criticism from him,
which happened a lot, it was,
it never felt like there was his ego behind it
or any other motivation other than as an artist,
you just, you should know.
-: Sometimes I'm not so sure about, you know,
I'm teaching and I have other interests and I go home
and I said, "Am I not wasting my time teaching?" (laughs)
You know, Moni is the one who is absolutely totally devoted
and loves teaching.
-: Hold the kite, thread of a kite,
and it pulls up, and I pull it back down.
It pulls up, and I pull it back down.
The father of one of the students in our mime school
was a good friend of John Houseman.
And let go the thread, good, and pull.
-: Young man, what's your game?
(audience laughing)
-: John Houseman is of course the founder.
-: Founder of Juilliard.
-: He and Michel Saint-Denis--
-: Of the drama division. -: The founder of the
drama division at Juilliard.
He saw a review of our show.
He said, well, they say they created a new kind of movement
and I thought it was interesting,
because we are going to start the Juilliard drama division
and I'm looking for teachers.
He said would you be willing to come for a weekend
and do some classes,
and my ears pricked when I heard it.
I thought, hm, I will have resources
of talents for my company.
(students laughing)
So I said, "Yeah." (students laughing)
And that was the reason why I wanted to teach at Juilliard.
There was no other reason.
Because my company was the central thing in my brain.
I guess they liked what I did
and they asked me to join.
I always clashed with John Houseman, the director.
-: Trimming the fat.
Moni: He was a dictator.
His ego was a very prominent one.
-: Saturated fat, now you know the difference.
-: He used to call me the erratic Israeli.
When he said something and I didn't like it,
I had to respond, I didn't have much tact at the time.
In the company, I was the authority.
It was my place, and I would do within it whatever I want.
I never thought that I'd stay at Juilliard for that long.
So basically I'm one of the founders of the drama division
and the only one that's still teaching at Juilliard.
(suspenseful music)
-: Good evening, ladies and gents, and welcome aboard.
Before we take off today--
Alex: You know, showcase is not like a play.
I found it very frustrating.
-: Okay, enough! -: That we do all the training
that we do and it comes up to the point
of doing these tiny, tiny snippets
that you feel like you can explode in between two scenes.
-: Time for everything even if it's already,
when it comes just trying to-- -: Cathy, I really don't wanna
have this conversation.
-: It's intimidating, the scenes begin,
you see all these people in suits with their lists.
-: Mary, I love you!
(woman gasps) Oh christ, now I've said it.
And then it just sort of dissolved
only by like throwing myself into the scene.
Now, oh my heart is breaking.
You must think I'm so stupid
but I, I can feel it breaking.
-: No-- -: God I just wish I could
stop talking; I can't!
I, I can't! -: I've never heard you talking
this much, I mean you're usually so quiet.
-: I have loved you for a long, long time.
-: How long? -: Months.
-: Oh. (audience laughs)
-: Remember that big snowball fight
in the park? -: In the park!
-: Yes, that was when I first fell in love with you.
You were wearing a red coat.
-: Oh, that coat.
If you knew how I felt about that coat.
I mean, that coat is like all the good things
from when I was a kid.
It's like being an adult but having your childhood, too.
Do you know what it's like?
It's like one of those movies where you're safe
even though it's an adventure.
Like the hero is doing all this really dangerous stuff
but you know he's gonna be okay
because of the kind of movie it is.
Being in that red coat is like,
is like being safe inside of an adventure.
-: I do understand, I do.
-: I don't know, I don't know about tomorrow,
but right this moment, right this minute,
I love you. -: Oh, Mary!
(lips smacking)
-: I didn't know two people could understand some things,
share some things.
-: It must be terrible not to.
-: You're really handsome, did you know that?
Does your mother tell you that?
-: Yeah, she does.
(audience applauding)
I don't have representation,
and fourth year is a lot of people are getting approached.
And I was looking around while all my classmates
were getting agent and manager attention
and I wasn't getting anything.
But a Juilliard alumni, a friend of mine,
got me into the audition room
for this beautifully written Broadway play,
and much to my surprise, I got the job.
I guess the regular experience
has been flipped on its head for me,
because I happened to get the job first,
and now the agencies are interested in me.
East 62nd, don't know what the area's called but,
I mean, I don't know who the fuck shops at these places.
(laughs) This does not in any way represent
my experience in life.
Typically the smaller agencies care more about you
as an artist.
But I feel like with Juilliard, man,
I've had enough attention.
If you're ambitious you go to one of the bigger ones,
and it can pay off in a really big way.
(quirky suspenseful music)
-: Life is full of surprises.
Most people are scared to get away from the familiar,
and to look at things differently.
All this experience that we gather,
and all this so-called wisdom,
suddenly we need to learn new things,
to deal with a new situation.
And theater is full of surprises.
If theater is not surprising, it's not interesting.
The fact that I don't know what's going to happen,
that keeps me interested.
(subway rumbling)
-: Tell me a little bit about the project on Broadway.
-: It's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".
It's the story through the eyes of a boy who's autistic.
-: Mm-hm, so you just went and auditioned for it?
Was that it? -: Yeah, yeah, I auditioned for
the director, there was a big movement call.
It was very intense, it was like two hours long, I think,
and it started off simple,
like you'd have to run down a room, around a chair,
not touch the chair, not slip over, and run back.
And then it got into very specific things,
walking for 10 paces, turning sharp right after 10 paces,
and then walking back.
And then imagining that there was a tiny spacecraft
taking off from one point on their body
and going to another point.
Very, very physical.
-: You should have worked harder. (laughs)
-: (laughs) Thank god I had your class.
I was transferring our classwork straight into it.
-: Okay, so let's separate a little bit.
(class chattering)
And go ahead, Sammy, you start.
(hands clapping rhythmically)
(class members vocalizing)
What I try to do with them is to give them
their first experiences of expressing themselves
physically as actors.
Okay, we are going to have a little game now.
Whatever Colin does in the center,
everyone of you should do the same.
They are sometimes very agile and very capable,
but the way an actor moves is totally different.
(class cheering)
As an actor, everything you do has to be justified.
Whether you move an eye, you move a hand,
you move your torso, must have a reason.
When every part of the body functions
as it ought to function for the character,
there is a complete physical harmony.
And I reach for the goal up there,
to stretch to the maximum while they are on their toes.
It's very simple.
They engage immediately their imagination,
what is this goal that I want to reach,
that is vital for them, that they cannot do without?
(uplifting piano music)
(class members cheering)
And have a great life, everybody.
(class cheering) -: We love you!
Moni: Look up every day.
(class applauding)
What I hope that the student will get
from any class that I give is a fired imagination,
with some kind of passion to connect with the material
they are going to work on after my class.
(class members whooping)
Announcer: Magdalene A. Sagani.
Alexander Sharp. (class members cheering)
-: Because I've seen it so many times,
I've learned not to be surprised
when brilliantly talented actors
that look as if they really can play
many different characters and leading characters,
basically spend their life in real estate
or serving in a restaurant.
That surprised me at the beginning
but then I learned that it has to do a lot, also, with luck.
With funding for my company, we were never very successful
because I did not understand at all the business culture.
Announcer: The New York Pantomime Theater
has been commissioned to make theatrical presentations
for major business corporations.
Timex, General Host--
-: I found myself do little bits on television.
Announcer: You can press GEON vinyl into music on records
(bright horn music)
or foam it into life preservers,
or shape it into a squeeze toy.
(toy squeaking)
Announcer: The Avon life plan is another of those ways
to say you care.
Moni: We rented our own space,
but when the rent quadrupled in one year,
it became very difficult.
(slow somber piano music)
For a year or two it was all about raising moneys
and I had to come up to some kind of decision,
whether this was the kind of life that I wanted to lead.
And I decided I couldn't take it anymore,
that raising moneys was not something
that I was interested in, and that was it.
We decided to close shop.
It took a span of 24 hours, that 26 years were just gone.
I used to wake up at four, 4:30 in the morning,
imagine a mime scene.
At night I would rehearse it with my people,
and then we performed it.
Suddenly I wake up at four in the morning
and I'm thinking about a mime scene,
but I don't have anymore where to perform it.
This loss, of being constantly, constantly creative,
started really to hit me hard.
I never thought I'd stop performing.
But life is life no matter what you do.
Alex: At that time, around the station.
Announcer: The hit of the season on Broadway is
an explosion of sights and sounds.
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time",
about a 15-year-old boy with autism, starring Alex Sharp.
-: He gets overstimulated by things every day,
like walking down the street
and there are tons of people around me,
I just want to like crouch down and start groaning.
So I feel like that all the time in my real life.
You also have to be someone who'd like being on their own
in a tiny spacecraft.
Feels like an exaggeration of qualities
that I think a lot of people already have.
(audience applauding) (audience whistling)
-: Hi, you are insane.
(Alex laughing)
My gosh. -: I could see you out there.
-: Are you going to do it again tomorrow?
-: Yeah. -: And the day after?
-: Uh-huh. -: Fantastic.
-: Thank you so much.
-: No, no, don't thank me, I thank you.
I mean it was wonderful to see you do what you did.
I really mean it.
-: Thank you, that means a lot.
Thank you for coming, it meant so much to have you here.
-: Thank you. -: Thanks so much.
-: You wanted to do "The Clockwork Orange"
'cause it was crazy,
here you are doing something crazier.
-: Yeah, I know, right?
This is a lot crazier.
-: So agile, focused, why didn't you do it in school?
'Cause you were rebellious? (laughs)
-: Oh no, 'cause I couldn't do this without Juilliard.
-: It's amazing, amazing work.
-: Thank you. -: Bravo.
-: Oh I'm so glad you came, thank you, thank you.
Moni is just like the father of Juilliard,
do you know what I mean?
He's like the dad that stayed.
He's amazing, man.
-: Fourth year I did this play called,
"Someone to Watch Over Me".
After the show, Moni came up to me and he hugged me.
I was like, oh, wow, hey thanks, Moni.
And he said, "You've really grown, I've watched you come in
"as a kid who spoke awful and had no movement skills,
"and you've blossomed into a really great young actor."
Announcer: Good morning, everyone,
and welcome to the 2015 Tony Award nominations.
The nominees for best performance
by an actor in a leading role in a play are--
-: "You've done all that work yourself.
"You've been able to build and grow on your own,
"and I want you to know that when you get out of school
"you have the mechanics now to do whatever you want to do.
"So don't be afraid to do anything."
Announcer: Nighy, "Skylight", Alex Sharp,
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".
(Alex laughing)
(soft uplifting music)
-: I am standing here with Alex Sharp
from "Curious Incident".
Alex, this is your Broadway debut
and your first Tony nomination.
How does it feel?
-: So crazy, I'm having the time of my life.
-: I can imagine, and you're a recent Juilliard grad.
-: I am. -: And what was that like?
-: That, being at Juilliard?
-: Juilliard, yeah. -: It was great, it was great.
You know I couldn't do this part
without the training that I had there,
so I'm very grateful for that.
-: And the American Theater Wing's Tony goes to Alex Sharp.
(audience applauding)
-: This time last year I picked up my diploma
graduating from Juilliard.
So to be holding this is insane.
Thank you so, so much for this incredible honor.
-: Like any great teacher's legacy,
you're not in the spotlight.
You've prepared others for the spotlight.
-: He's a true teacher that way.
And there's the love that this man has of his work,
and the evolution of his work.
And how he has given it to us. (sighs)
-: Good morning. -: Good morning.
-: 45 years now, you cannot measure this.
You cannot measure this man's sense of dedication,
of love, it's just love.
-: Oh my god, another year, yet.
-: He's just completely connected to the earth,
and from that springs all these roots
and all these branches.
-: I'll tell you what we'll do first.
I don't remember, really, your names,
so we'll do that the first thing, okay?
And you know my name, yeah?
That's good, oh I'm so glad, because I don't.
(class laughing)
(upbeat percussive music)