The Art of Dialogue. Jurij Alschitz

human “halves” which were once upon a time separated and even to this day are searching for each other. Here I share with you a shortened version:

      …Once, our nature wasn’t as it is now; it was completely different. First, there were three sexes among people, not two as there are now – male and female, for there existed another, third sex, which unified the signs of both the other two; it disappeared, and only its name remained, becoming a curse – androgens, and it was clear that they combined in their appearance and nature both sexes, male and female. Besides that, all of their bodies were round, their backs were no different from their chests, they had four arms, as many legs as arms, and each one had two faces on their round necks, completely identical; their head was shared between these two faces, looking in opposite directions, two pairs of ears, two shameful areas, and you can imagine the rest for yourself from everything which has already been said. This type of person moved either forwards, the same as us now – but in either of the two directions forward, at its full height, or if in a hurry, it would travel as a wheel, pushing its legs out and rolling along its eight extremities, which allowed it to run forwards quickly. And there were three of these sexes, and they were so because from time immemorial the male comes from the Sun, female from the Earth and the joining of both of these from the Moon, in as much as the Moon combines both of these natures. As far as the ball-natured beings are concerned and their round movements, they were affected by the inherited traits of their forefathers. Fearsome with their strength and power, they harboured great dreams and they even encroached upon the authority of the gods – and what Homer says about Ephialtes and Otus applies to them, too: they tried to make an ascent into the heavens in order to attack the gods.

      And so Zeus and other gods came to confer about what to do with them and they couldn’t decide: kill them, by striking the human race with thunder, as they had done once with the giants, - then the gods would lose the honour and gift of people; but to make peace with such excess was also not possible. Finally, after a great effort, Zeus thought something up and said:

      “I think I have found a way of keeping people, and putting an end to their unruly conduct by diminishing their power. I will cut each of them in half and then they will, firstly, become weaker and, secondly, be more useful for us, because the number of them will increase. And they will walk on two legs. But if they don’t calm down after that, and begin to behave riotously again, I will cut them in half again, and they can jump around on one of my legs” he said.

      Saying that, he began to cut people in half, the way that rowan berries are cut in half before they are preserved or the way that eggs are finely sliced. And Apollo, on Zeus’ order, had to take each one who had been cut and turn their face and half of their neck towards the cut so that, looking in the direction of their mutilation, people would become more modest, and it was ordered that all the rest could heal. And Apollo, turning their faces around and, pulling off the skin, the way they tighten a bag to one place, now called the stomach, he tied up the resulting piece at the opening in the middle of the stomach – it now has the name ‘navel’. Flattening out the creases and giving distinctive features to the chest – for this, he used a tool similar to a cobbler’s last which he uses to flatten out the leather – Apollo left some crinkles on the stomach and around the navel, in memory of their former state. And so when their bodies were cut in half, in that way, each half – filled with desire – rushed to another of its halves, they embraced, linked together and, passionately wishing to grow together, died from hunger and generally from lack of activity because they didn’t want to do anything apart. And if one half died, then the one which was still alive sought out another half and linked up to that one, regardless of whether it came across half of a former woman, in other words what we now call a woman, or a former man. (…) So, from long ago, it is characteristic of people to feel a love attraction for each other which, by joining up former halves, tries to make one out of two and thereby heals human nature.

      And so, that’s why each of us half people, cut in two parts, resembling flat-fish, is always searching for its corresponding half. (…)

      When anyone, whether a lover of youths or anyone else, happens to meet their exact half, both are seized with such a surprising feeling of attachment, proximity and love that they truly do not want to part even for a short time. And people who spend their whole lives together cannot even say what precisely they want from each other. You know, it’s impossible to assert that it’s only for the satisfaction of lust that they strive so jealously to be together. It’s clear that each one’s soul wants something else; what exactly, it can’t say and only guesses at its own wishes, only vaguely hints at them. And, when they lie together, if Hephaestus were to appear before them with his tools and ask them: “What do you want, people, from each other?” – and then, seeing that they have trouble answering, ask them again: “Maybe you want to be together as long as possible and not be apart for a day or a night? If that is your will, I am ready to meld you and join you into one, and then from two people you will become one, and, while you are alive, you will live with one shared life, and when you die, there will be one corpse in Hades, for you will die a shared death. Think about this, is this what you thirst for, and will you be happy if you attain this?” – hearing this, we are certain that each one would not only refuse such a suggestion and would not express any such desire, but would consider that he had heard precisely what he had dreamed of for so long, possessed by the striving to join and merge into one being with his loved one. The reason being such was our original nature and we constituted something whole.

In this way, a hunger and a striving to be whole is called love. To repeat – before, we were something whole, and now, we have been re-made separately by the gods, like Lacedaemonian Arcadians. (…) Our race will reach bliss when we fully satisfy Eros and each finds their corresponding object of love in order to return to our original nature. But if the best must come from what there is now, then it’s best to admit what is the closest to being the best: to meet an object of love who is akin to you. And consequently, if we want to praise god, who gave us this gift, we ought to worship Eros: not only does Eros bring us great benefit now, directing us towards what is close and akin to us, he promises us, if we only honour the gods, a beautiful future, for he will make us happy and blessed, making us whole and returning us to our original nature. 5

      Don’t you agree – that’s another originating source of ­energy of Dialogue – the crazy hunger for wholeness. It’s ­beautiful! Who can say it better than Plato, who let ­Aristophanes tell this myth?! Dialogue – is this meeting between two separated halves… of one from the other: Romeo and Juliet, Masha and Vershinin, Estragon and Pozzo. They have been separated for hundreds of years and just now, at fate’s will, under our gaze, they are meeting and recognising each other as their half. The period of loneliness was compressed like a spring – that’s energy! and now it is beginning to work. That’s the spring of dialogue. This period of separation is over. Everything which happened to me is mine, but is also yours, ours. It is not disappearing anywhere but is poured into the shared foundations of the dialogue. In ­Thomas Mann’s novel Joseph and His Brothers, there is a description of the first meeting of Jacob and Rachel – they recognise each other immediately, at first sight, as well as their whole history, everything which was and everything which will be. They enter into a conversation, not understanding the language spoken by the person in front of them, as if they are continuing a dialogue begun by them long, long ago.

      This is the EXERCISE for actors, this is the task – to begin a dialogue on stage in this way. As if without beginning, without a first line, but as if continuing a conversation which began a hundred years ago, as if you are participants of one whole which was separated infinitely long ago.

      It’s that simple – one character and another character; they have so many differences, so many subjects for debate, in brief, there’s plenty of material for a living dialogue. But let’s look at them in a different way. Imagine that a hundred thousand years ago they came out of one place, breathed in one air, spoke in one language, moreover – they were one whole being and they were separated. Now, hundreds of years have passed, each one has had their own life, separate from the other, and now they meet. It seems as if there is nothing shared between them, no shared language unites them, no worldview, no faith, nothing. But they know by some scent, sound, feeling,