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[[italics]] [[bold]] Most riveting moment is when Halder dons a Nazi uniform [[/bold]] [[/italics]]

in motion as well. He twists it to a near fetal shape as his involvement with the Nazis grows. When he leaves his wife, he contorts his body, leaning against the piano. He scratches his trousers when talking to his mother. He bends forward from the waist as his wife talks about a recipe. And at one point, he bends down almost touching the floor. Whether he is singing and dancing to a drinking song, yodeling, or sputtering at the confrontation of his wife and mistress-to-be, he crosses his arms and waves his hands.
     "People will do things against their own conscience," he says, "because they either like the guilt or are obsessed by it. That's partly what I'm trying to indicate with the body. And there is a sort of dance element; the music makes you want to do things with your body. Your head may be asking, 'What are you doing that silly dance for,' but it's like taking your head off and putting it on the mantlepiece and watching what your body does. We have these terrific arguments that go on in our systems, a war within.
     "I think the theatre should be everything ―― intellectually stimulating, emotionally disturbing, sensually provocative. Therefore, every part of your anatomy, whether it's working with another part of your anatomy or not, has to encompass as much feeling and action as possible. Because you've only got that time to do it in. We're not going through ten years of Halder's life in this play, we're going through it in two hours."
     There is one particularly powerful moment in the play. It is when Halder nervously climbs into a Nazi uniform. We see him toying with his eyeglasses as he unties his shoelaces and glances at his pants cuffs. While his mistress ties his black tie, he stammers and looks forlorn, manipulated. Once he puts on the jacket he places the black Nazi hat in the crook of his left arm. In the background we hear Wagner. And we are mesmerized as he stares at the hat, slowly putting it on. Then he stands on the piano in full SS uniform.
     "It was scary putting on that uniform," recalls Howard. "What's even worse is that it is brilliantly designed. The moment of the hat is the most frightening. You know, I wear gloves for these sequences because my hands get so sweaty."
     Howard says actors depend a lot on the audience and he looks forward to seeing the response of audiences in New York. "There is more of a cross section there," he explains. "A New York audience commits itself in a special way. Whereas a British audience would react to the uniform sequence by saying, 'Oh God, why did this happen? It certainly hurts and what's more, it's embarrassing,' a New York audience will probably come right back at it. Cecil――who grew up in the slums of Glasgow as a Jew and has written anything-but-a-mainstream play――has created a work that is very, very New York.
     "Acting is a strange occupation. To be happy in the theatre depends on giving a good performance and knowing the fact that that performance has gone, has passed through and is reaching somebody. That's one's only hope. We don't matter. Our performances do. They have become something for other people, no matter how brief or ephemeral. In essence I'm talking about a sense of living and dying, and of the truth. That's what actors are supposed to be about."
     The interview has come to a close. Howard is quiet. "I don't like Halder," he says as we leave, "but that doesn't mean I don't have to argue for him. I think he is doing what so many people do, deceiving himself by turning reality into fantasy. There's not a single person in the audience who, at one time or another, has not been guilty of that." □
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[[italics]] Ms. Rubinstein, a journalist and broadcaster, writes frequently for [[/italics]] The Washington Post, The New York Times, Opera News, [[italics]] and other publications about the arts. [[/italics]]
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