Karsavina describes lessons in pantomime

Twice a week Guerdt gave us lessons in pantomime.  He taught us by his own example.  He first acted a scene himself, and then let us repeat it, correcting us as we did it.  We acted scenes from actual ballets in the repertoire and from the old ones that lived in the memory of our master through either the glory of their interpreters or because these scenes offered an opportunity of a highly dramatic or of a comic situation.  Few, if any, accessories were used.  The main features of the scenery were easily supplied by benches and chairs.  Two chairs with a space between would represent a door; a bench would be placed to be a couch, if absolutely required by the situation.  As for properties, they were imaginary.  We poured wine, plucked flowers, stabbed, span, knocked at the door -- all without accessories.  The movements necessary for these simple actions were to my mind the most difficult to find, the dramatic ones easy enough.  We were constantly corrected by the master.  "You don't write a letter by simply wobbling your hand.  Press, form the characters."  Or, "That is not the way to hold a rose."  Out of his pocket would come a handkerchief.  Folding it in imitation of a flower, he gazed lovingly at the piece of cambric, and rapturously inhaled the imaginary fragrance.  No theoretical explanation, no attempt to define a law determining the means of expression were given to us.  A purely intuitive actor, Guerdt was hardly conscious himself of the two quite different elements of the present ballet acting.  Mimed narrative had by now established itself firmly.  A scene acted in a past tense, in which the actor had to explain what took place off the stage, necessarily called for description or entirely conventional gestures.  In other ballets such as Giselle, La fille mal gardée, the action came spontaneously from the core of the plot.  It unfolded itself from the situation by means of emotional gestures or acts direct to the purpose.

Pantomime lessons as given by Guerdt were an admirable example, but not a teaching based on any clearly understood principle.  I think that consideration must have been in Wolkonsky's mind when he, frequently present at our lessons, set us some problems to work out.  The little plots he gave us were simple and circumstantial.  From a skeleton of a plot we had to imagine the situation and devise the action.  Without an example before us we often failed.  Here Wolkonsky would prompt us by suggestions:  "You see the villain going off the stage; his malignant smile convinces you of his villainy.  Turning to your mother you say -- 'it is him that has stolen my letter' -- how will you do that?  Look at the person you are addressing and point to one of whom you speak.  In a gesture of accusation, the palm of your hand must be turned down.  The contrary will imply invitation, demand, address."  By these remarks he made us depend on the understanding of a principle of acting and not merely on copying a demonstrated exercise.

Theatre Street: The Reminiscences of Tamara Karsavina. 1930. Page 113-4.