Perhaps those are absolutely everyday stories as could be told at any time of any class at any drama school. However, two stories of our class stand out, one sad and one wonderful.
The sad story. Eberhard Schmidt had too little time to realize his dreams. He wanted to become a great director and he had already got quite a way as assistant to some eminent directors. He died of AIDS eight years ago. I only met him once again, at Frankfurt a year before his death.
We were linked because our names followed one another in the alphabet. He was Schmidt and I am Schneider. We were called forward in couples for the six tests we had to undergo before both were accepted in the drama school. To begin with of course we were enemies, competitors for one of at most twelve training places per class. The further we got, Schmidt and Schneider, the more we hoped that the other would not be left behind. When we both got through, we embraced. For the first time. And for the second time in Frankfurt when saying good-bye forever.
The wonderful story. Sven Bechtolf is for the moment the only one of us about whom it can already be said that he has achieved even more than we all dared dream at the time. In 1996, he was chosen best director of the year. That was really something.
However, my first meeting with Sven was not very agreeable. Together with eleven others I had just got through the enhance examination. I was sitting with Franziska on a bench in front of the rehearsal stage. Sven, a year ahead of us, stood on some steps, wearing mauve dungarees, and looking us over: motionless and a little arrogant but damned goo-looking with a well-structured face, brown eyes, and blonde hair.
Then he came down the steps, right towards me, and then at the last moment swerved aside so as to ask Franziska instead of me: "What' s your name?"
Nevertheless we became friends. Three years later on the riverbank at night, when we were practising the tap-steps for our final examination in dance, he promised to give me a part in the first film he made.
Today Sven is at once a director and a member of the executive board of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, one of Germany' s best companies. He has also acted many great parts and was elevated to the aristocracy of the craft.
Right at the end of our training we had to prepare a role that we would probably never perform on stage. I chose Goethe' s Gretchen. No director would have cast me as Gretchen since I lack the blondeness and delicacy for the part. That was the great attraction. At the end of the play,when Gretchen sits in prison close to madness and awaiting death, she says, "Woe, woe, they are coming. Bitter death." I gave up the acting profession because of that sentence.
The words simply didn' t flow. I could of course have recited them, but while I was saying this sentence I constantly asked myself: Who is going to believe in your desperation? I could just as well have said, "Who' s eaten my jelly baby?" or "What, a quarter past five already?" There would not have been any difference. In desperation I said this sentence again and again, hoping that a fear of death would arise. The opposite was the case.
What distinguishes a good actor from a bad one—and the reason for my failure which had of course been evident for some time—is credibility. True art consists of making the spectator forget that the actor is only playing a part.
Recognition that this profession was not for me was painful. For three years it was my life, a wonderful life. Botho Strauss has written a kind of universal sentence about the theatre:"Only theatre prevented me from becoming a great actor." Yes, that' s true of me, too.
17年前，我们三十个年轻人都梦想着在戏剧圈干出一番真正的大事业，那时我们都是20岁左右。我们有充分的理由拥有这样的梦想，毕竟我们是从几百名考生中选拔出来考进萨尔茨堡·莫扎特学院这三个戏剧班的。那可是一件了不起的事情，因此我们自视甚高，认为自己很有才能。
我们也许或多或少都是一些有才华的人，然而，我们也缺乏骗验——只是拥有对表演的热爱和对于自己能够走向世界最大剧院的自信。我们希望自己服务于伟大的艺术事业，与此同时，伟大的艺术事业也值得我们为之奋斗一生。当时，我们的想法就是这样的。
然而，现实生活与我们的想象相去甚远。第一节课的时候，我们就得知，戏剧专业的学生要不分时间和地点地接吻和拥抱。那些知名演员给我们作示范，我们要与形形色色的人相爱，无论给我们的是什么烟，我们都要抽。一年之后，当新学生入校后，我们就自豪地摆出一副戏剧专业高年级学生的姿态。
戏剧专业的学生并不是一开始就学习朗诵席勒和莎士比亚的作品，而是先要学习表演。学习的课程包括击剑、踢踏舞、唱歌、抛接想象中的球，以及闭着眼睛摸同学的手来辨认他是谁。所有这一切与伟大艺术有关系的事物，只是一点一点地呈现在我们的眼前。我们期望着登上舞台进行表演，当骗历了漫长的学习过程，我们终于获准登上舞台时，我们很快就懂得，世界上最孤单的地方就是那个黑暗的舞台。
外行人或许很难理解把台词记住然后再表演出来，是一件多么艰难的事情。当然还会出现怯场的情况，然而其他困难呢？仅仅走台步就是所有事情中最难的一件了，没有一个人能够走得恰到好处。走台步是在表演一个角色，绝非像人们散步那样简单。然而，是什么角色呢？这就是表演的难题了。