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title from Smith and Kraus...”
—The Coast Book Review Scivice

nd Pts Methods

by Richard Brestoff

A Smith and Kraus Book

LAKE TAHOE COMMUNITY COLLEGE LIBRARY
ONE COLLEGE DRIVE
SOUTH
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(930) 541-4660 ext. 232 — http://library.Itcc.edu

DEMCO
The Great Acting Teachers
and Their Methods
 A Smith and Kraus Book
Published by Smith and Kraus, Inc.
Hanover, NH 03755
smithandkraus.com

Copyright © 1995 by Richard Brestoff :

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover and Text Design by Julia Hill Gignoux

illustrations by Deborah Stevenson

First Edition: December 1995

1

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that the material in this book is fully protected
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brestoff, Richard.
The great acting teachers and their methods / by Richard Brestoff.
Ist ed. p. cm. -- (Career development series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10 1-57525-012-8 ISBN-13: 978-1-57525-012-0
1. Acting--Study and teaching. I. Title. IL. Series.
PN2075.B674 1995
792’.028'07--dc20 95-26289
CIP
 THE GREAT
ACTING TEACHERS
and Iheir Methods

by Richard Brestoff
illustrations by Deborah Stevenson

A Career Development Book

SK
A Smith and Kraus Book
 RICHARD BRESTOFF

Actor and teacher Richard Brestoff has acted on Broadway and Off,
in Regional theater, and in film, television and radio. He is a Phi Beta
Kappa graduate of the University of California's Dramatic Art
Department at Berkeley, and holds an M.FA. in acting from New
York University’s School of the Arts. He is a student of Master
Teacher Peter Kass, to whom his first book The Camera Smart Actor
is dedicated. His many other teachers include, Olympia Dukakis,
Joseph Chaikin, Kristin Linklater, Omar Shapli, Nora Dunfee and
Gary Schwartz. He currently teaches in the Seattle area, and can be
reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].
 Dedication

I wish to dedicate this book to Deborah Stevenson for her talent, her help
and her understanding, to Jenny Stevenson-Brestoff for her forbearance,
and to the spirits of two who will be dearly missed: Ms. Nora Dunfee,
and Ms. Viola Spolin.

I would like to thank Eric Kraus and Marisa Smith for suggesting this
book to me, teacher and actress Robyn Hunt for her generosity and
insight, librarian Liz Fugate of the University of Washington for her
expert guidance, actress and teacher Johanna Melamed for her thought-
ful help, actress Susan Williams for her valuable comments, and of course
my teachers Peter Kass, Olympia Dukakis, Joe Chaikin, Kristin
Linklater, Nora Dunfee, Omar Shapli, and Gary Schwartz.

This book is one actor/teacher’s personal and imaginative response to

some of the greatest thinkers and theatrical practitioners that the
world of acting has yet known.
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2021 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/greatactingteachOO0Obres
 iabre- Of Contents

Dedication “

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 Acting May Be Hazardous To Your Health! 1

Chapter 2. The Russian Revolution 16
Chapter 3. Smashing The Fourth Wall >)
Chapter 4 The American Revolution 7a
Chapter 5 Lee Strasberg 93
Chapter 6 Stella Adler 117
Chapter 7 Sanford Meisner 128
Chapter 8 Viola Spolin and the Theater of Games 199
Chapter 9 Bertold Brecht and the Theater ofPolitics 147
Chapter 10 Jerzy Grotowski and the Holy Actor 154

Chapter 11 Tadashi Suzuki and the Theater of Grandeur 163

Chapter 12 Training School Profiles 169

Actor’s Studio/New School 171

American Conservatory Theater 1/72

American Repertory Theater 173

California Institute of the Arts 174

Columbia University 175

Herbert Berghof Studios 176

Juilliard School 177

New Actor’s Workshop 179

New York University 780

Northwestern University /8/

Stella Adler Conservatory-New York 183

University of Illinois-Urbana 184

University of Washington 185

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 186

Yale University 187

ae

Conclusions 188

Endnotes 191

Bibliography 197.
Video Bibliography 202
Index 203
 ObE@. GllehG talh@uda

2.500 years ago the first actor of the Western world stepped out
from the Greek Chorus and into history. When Thespis of Icaria sep-
arated himself from his troupe and enacted the role of the tragic
hero, he occasioned a revolution. No longer were events being
recounted from a distant perspective, from the third person point of
view, now, the actual character was represented in the first person,
acting and talking before the audience through the body of an actor.
This created a sensation in the provinces of Greece where Thespis
first appeared. But when he and his troupe came to the great city of
Athens, the reception was somewhat cooler.

Solon, a Greek wise man and legislator, had heard about

Thespis’s innovations and decided to see for himself what this new
phenomenon was all about. So, one day in Athens in 534 b.c., he
went to witness one of Thespis’s performances. What he saw dis-
turbed him so much, that he confronted Thespis afterwards. He
demanded to know why Thespis was not ashamed to tell so many lies
before so many people. Thespis replied that such lying was harmless
so long as it was done in play. Solon angrily struck his staff to the
ground and exclaimed, “yes, but if we allow ourselves to praise and
honor make-believe like this, the next thing will be to find it creeping
into our serious business.” !

Acting’s first critic objected to the act of acting itself. Indeed,

Solon’s words haunt us when we acknowledge how often politicians,
Chief Executive Officers, lawyers and others avail themselves of the
expertise of acting coaches in order to help them appear more palat-
able and convincing to their audiences. Lying in public seems to have
become a national past time. And yet is this really the fault of
Thespis?

The art of acting has not taught the world to lie. People have
done so since the beginning of time. And if acting in a play 7s lying,
then we simply do not see that lie as destructive. Rather, we regard
that lie as Picasso defined all of art, as “the lie that reveals a deeper
truth.”

Transformation has something of the magical about it. And the

great power of an actor to become someone else holds a mesmeric
fascination over those who do it and those who watch it. Actors and
directors have written about it, psychologists, philosophers, social sci-
entists, and even biologists have pondered it. What is acting, and
how is it done? How does someone become someone else? Can some-
one become someone else? How much of what an actor does is due
to that mysterious quality we call talent? Does an actor lose himself
into a character, or are the actor and the role separate? How does the
actor free his emotions? Should an actor use his emotions? How is
acting different from real life? How important is believability? Does
an actor act from the “outside in,” or from the “inside out”? How can
the actor stay spontaneous when he must repeat a performance night
after night? Is acting an art or a craft? What type of training does an
actor need? Cun acting be taught?

These questions have occupied the great teachers and theorists of

acting for over 2500 years, giving rise to passionate, at times, vicious
arguments between partisans of one view or another. Dominant the-
ories and strong countercurrents have contended with one another
throughout the history of acting.
 For centuries the great argument in acting has centered on
Presentational versus Representational styles. Or, in other words,
should the actor present the character or try to become the character?
This opposition is sometimes seen as the difference between the use
of physical techniques to portray a character or inner psychological
ones (this difference has been characterized as the British versus the
American approach). These distinctions are debated endlessly. Were
Shakespeare’s actors realistic or presentational? The truth is, no one
really knows. None of us was there.

Most of us judge actors from the past by performances we have

seen in early silent films. And when we watch some of the excessive
eye-bugging and mustache twirling, we paint the entire past history
of acting with that broad brush. We assume that acting before our
time was overly theatrical, bombastically false, and hugely funny. We
condemn earlier styles of performance as totally alien to our modern
ways. We feel that earlier ideas about acting and our own are simply
incompatible.
And yet a dispassionate survey of the great ideas about acting
shows a remarkable and surprising agreement. All the major western
theories about acting propose that actors integrate the use of their
bodies, minds, voices, imaginations and emotions to expressive ends.
There has always been a link between the actor’s inner life and its
outer expression.

It is a mistake of oversimplification to believe that the actors of

the 18th century cared nothing about being “real,” or that today’s
teachers of the Method care nothing about the voice. In the 18th
century, the great English actor David Garrick had a wig specially
constructed so that when his Hamlet saw the ghost of his father, his
hair would appear to stand on end. Why? In the hopes of creating a
more realistic appearance of fright and shock. Few actors would think
to go this far. Lee Strasberg, the main teacher of Method acting,
advocated forcefully that actors acquire a powerful and flexible vocal
technique capable of carrying the expressive content of passionate
emotion. The usual notions about acting styles are clearly too sim-
plistic. And yet differences among them do exist.

xl
 These differences arise as to How to train and use the body, how
to train and use the voice and mind, and /ow to open up and use the
actor’s emotional life.

But times and tastes and conditions change. What was good act-
ing to some, becomes bad acting to others. One generation's truth,
becomes another generation’s cliché. And so, new ideas and theories
are born. Sometimes change comes from an actor who has seen a bet-
ter way, sometimes it comes from a playwright whose work demands
a new style. Sometimes change comes from a designer whose sets
inspire a new approach to performance. Change may come from a
director whose unique vision requires a new style of acting. However
it comes, change is inevitable. Actors we consider perfect today, will
almost certainly be seen as flawed tomorrow. If this were not so, the
art of acting would petrify. But this dynamic vitality, this constant
evolution, which keeps the art of acting a living thing, exacts a price.

All the years of passionate struggle to understand the elusive

essence of acting, has resulted in a bewildering array of systems,
methods, theories and techniques. The actor is left with many ques-
tions: University training, or private study? Lee Strasberg, or Stella
Adler? How is one to choose? Who, are these people? What do they
teach, and how did their ideas evolve?

Most of the important teachers of acting have been actors them-

selves. They have grappled with the real world demands of their art
and tried to extend its boundaries. They have intensely examined the
process of acting and dedicated their lives to penetrating its myster-
ies. They have built upon the foundations laid down by their prede-
cCessors.

Most private acting teachers today are either students of these

great master teachers, or were students of their students. And most
teachers teach as they were taught. A student of Stella Adler’s will
teach her work, with minor variations. You teach what you know.
But it must be admitted that some of the magic of these great teach-
ers is, or was, in them alone. Is the Actor’s Studio as good a training
institution without Lee Strasberg, or was its power due to the pres-
ence of Strasberg himself? Strasberg very much wanted to believe that

xi
the brilliance and effectiveness of his methods would survive him.
But that remains to be seen.

In the college and university training programs, the emphasis is

different. In many universities there is an open hostility to so-called
Method acting, although they will often have teachers trained in the
various versions of the Stanislavsky system. Colleges and universities
incorporate methods taken from many sources. Masks will be used,
and voice, movement and speech will be taught. In some places, the
work of Tadashi Suzuki is being offered. Each training institution has
its own unique offerings and emphases.

With so many options, what should an actor do? Should he gath-

er a representative sampling of many approaches, collecting various
tools for his acting toolbox? Or should he study one method in depth
in the hopes of acquiring a single and coherent acting method? Most
acting teachers would say that acquiring a complete technique
requires both approaches. A single training system has the advantage
of giving the actor a way to approach his craft step-by-step. But since
no single system can possibly contain all that might be helpful to an
actor, the student must also gather what tools he can from other
sources.
But even after an actor has chosen his path of study, he still faces
more questions. Is this the best teacher for him? Are these exercises
truly effective? Is he growing as an actor? The actor must continually
evaluate his progress. And this evaluation is made more difficult by
the fact that most training is ahistorical. That is, the student is rarely
told how the exercises he is doing evolved, or from what traditions
they come. Individual acting classes are given without much refer-
ence to the context of actor training as a whole.

It is vital for actors to understand how their craft evolved and in

what tradition they stand. A global understanding of the past and
present orients one better towards the future. It is important to know
that realism in acting came as a reaction to the falseness that had
gone before. Knowing this, one can anticipate that realism too will be
overthrown in its turn. For example, in many private studios and at
universities today, body training and mask work is in the ascendancy.

xill
 Making one’s way through the maze of actor training is a daunt-
ing task. This book is designed to help you understand the most
important ideas about acting, where they came from, and how they
are used in training programs today. With this knowledge, you will
be prepared to make wise choices about your own path through this
rewarding, frustrating, astonishing art.

XIV
 “The theater is a sea of human forces.” NERO

Chapter 1

Acting May Be Hazardous To

Your Health!

An actor, rehearsing the role of a madman, loses his mind.

Another, playing a character with gout, contracts the disease. Yet
another, following a performance, continues to believe himself an
Emperor. True stories? Certainly not.

Yet stories like these have circulated for thousands of years, paint-
ing actors as vulnerable to a strange kind of possession. It is as
though, having put on the mask of transformation, the actor cannot
remove it. The attributes and maladies of the “character” migrate
across some imperceptible barrier, seep into the fiber of his being and
endanger both the actor’s health and sanity.

Believe it or not, this view, of a dangerous interaction between

character and actor, has had a powerful impact on the practice of act-
ing. Like the shaman, who takes on the illness of those he cures, the
actor has been considered slightly crazy for deliberately putting him-
self in harm’s way. But how, we wonder, does acting put anyone in
danger? What is the source of this harm?
 For over 1,800 years, it was believed that powerful feelings could
cause illness and that illness, in turn, could cause powerful passions.
Emotions themselves were not considered to be natural, organic, or
even healthy. This idea, of course, puts the actor in a difficult posi-
tion since his job is to enact strong feeling. What, we wonder, is the
source of this crippling belief that emotions can make us sick?

The human body was thought by the Greeks to be composed of

four basic fluids just as the Universe itself was composed of four basic
elements. Emotion, it was believed, was caused by a stirring up and
rebalancing of these fluids, just as motion itself was caused by the
mixing of the four basic elements. The word “emotion” means, in
Latin, to stir up; to agitate. It was believed that when these fluids
were jolted into an imbalance, an illness occurred accompanied by a
strong passion, known as a Humour.

Emotion, then, was often seen as a symptom of an internal prob-

lem. Now before we judge this explanation of human feeling as fool-
ish, it would be wise to remember that today we believe chemical
imbalances to be responsible for clinical depression and emotional
stress. And we believe that this inner stress can indeed make us sick.
The idea that the body influences the mind and that the mind influ-
ences the body, is one that the science of our own day confirms.

But now, let us take a closer look at this particular, ancient view
of the mind-body connection.

The four vital fluids in the human body were said to be these:
black bile, yellow bile, red blood and phlegm. They were related to
the four basic elements of the Universe: Earth, Fire, Air and Water.
In this way, the body mirrored the Universe.

If too much black bile was present in one’s body, gloom, sadness
and feelings of morbidity resulted. One man with too much black
bile was said to have swum across a canal in order to throw himself
under a train. Such a person was said to be in a Melancholic humour.
Today, we might refer to one of our friends as being in a “black”
mood.

If too much yellow bile was present, anger resulted. A person

given to great rages was said to be of a Choleric disposition.

2 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 An overabundance of red blood caused one to become amorous,
cheerful, courageous, hopeful and confident. Red cheeks were charac-
teristic of one in this condition which was known as a Sanguine
humour. Today, we might refer to such a person as feeling “in the
pink.”

Having too much phlegm (mucous) made a person sluggish and

apathetic, and such a person was said to be Phlegmatic. The following
chart shows these relationships:

Element Fluid Emotion Humour

Earth Black Bile Sadness Melancholy
Fire Yellow Bile Anger Choleric
Air Red Blood Cheerfulness Sanguine
Water Phlegm Apathy Phlegmatic

Imagine the dilemma this system poses for an actor. If he uses

his own deep feelings to express the emotions of a character, he runs
the risk of triggering an imbalance in his body, which could then
cause a life threatening illness.

What is an actor to do? Not feel real feelings? That couldn't be

right. In fact, one of the cardinal rules of effective performance laid
down in Roman times was this: “the prime essential for stirring the
emotions of others is...first to feel those emotions oneself.”! So an
actor is to feel real feelings, but not so much so as to endanger him-
self. How could this be done?

What was needed was a safe way for actors to portray intense
emotion without literally being “carried away.” Safeguards were
required. And they were provided.

It was believed that each emotion had a specific physical manifes-

tation. Gestures, facial expressions, vocal inflections, body poses and
body movements together or separately could communicate any
inner feeling. What was needed was a set of rules that told the actor
which physical expressions corresponded to which emotional ones. In
this way, the actor could represent the inner feeling by doing some-
thing physical.

A system of body and sign language was developed that could be

clearly “read” and understood by the audience. This protected the
ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 3
actor from the danger of having to directly experience strong pas-
sions, and yet still enable him to communicate what was going on
inside the character. The first comprehensive attempt to provide this
necessary language was made in the first century A.D. by a Roman
teacher of Rhetoric named Quintilian.

Now, in Roman times and throughout the Middle Ages,

Rhetoric meant more than just speech making. It encompassed the
entire education of an informed adult. Orators were even used to
argue cases before judges although they were not specifically trained
in the law. Lawyers handled the actual legal matters, but often called
upon orators to make final pleas before judges, hoping that their
impassioned eloquence would sway a verdict. Quintilian was heavily
involved in such work. So it must be kept in mind that his system for
portraying emotion is meant to persuade a judge; that is, it is entirely
audience directed. His rules were followed and quoted by actors well
into the Renaissance, and still have some currency today. So what
secrets of expression did Quintilian pass on to public performers?
What language did he create?

Natural expressions of feeling, writes Quintilian, are good

because they are sincere, but they are not really useful because they
are devoid of art. Feelings which are imitated or artificial are less sin-
cere, but more artful and are therefore to be preferred.

Now, says Quintilian, if one imagines a real feeling, then the

voice will naturally express the required emotion. If one imagines
anger, the voice will be “fierce, rough and thick.” If one imagines
pity, the voice will be “tender and mournful.” These notions dont
seem too foreign to us today. We know that when we speak from feel-
ing, it colors our voices. A strong, clear, articulate voice is as impor-
tant to us today as it was to Quintilian 2000 years ago.

What about the body? To study gesture (which for him is a kind
of emotional sign language), Quintilian suggests the use of a large
mirror. A mirror which will appear again and again in the study of
acting and come to haunt the actor of the 20th century.

Without a mirror, people cannot see their own faces. Our eyes
are placed in such a way that doing so is impossible. How lucky we
are! Imagine if we could monitor our every reaction, watch ourselves

4 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

eat, and see ourselves talk? Wouldn't we become excruciatingly self-
conscious? Before mirrors, the only way we could see ourselves was
by gazing into a clear pool, and isn’t that what got Narcissus into so
much trouble? Are we meant to be so hyper-aware of what our faces
are doing as we live our everyday lives? Probably not. But, let’s follow
Quintilian’s advice, and push on.

Now, in this mirror, one practices gestures and studies their accu-
racy. But the question is, which gestures should one practice? Let’s
start with the head.

Go stand in front of a mirror. Quintilian says that casting down

the head shows humility. Try it. Did you look humble? Now keep
your head “rigid and unmoved.” According to Quintilian you should
now be expressing rudeness. Do you look rude? Are you starting to
feel silly? Just a Rhetorical question. Another rule is that “the face
must always be turned in the same direction as the gesture, except in
speaking of things of which we disapprove.” Seem arbitrary? Anyway,
back to the mirror.

Raise your hand slightly, and with each of the fingers curved,
slowly open and close your hand. This, says Quintilian is useful for
expressing admiration. Also, you must not raise your hand above the
eyes or let it fall below the chest and you must never gesture with the
left hand alone.

Now, take a look at your whole body. Keep in mind what

Quintilian says, “take care that the breast and stomach be not too
much protruded; for such an attitude bends the back inwards; and,
besides, all bending backwards is offensive.” What do you think? Do
you look offensive? Back to the hand. Draw the middle finger in
toward the thumb and keep the other three fingers open. This is a
good position, according to Quintilian, for stating facts. Now, curve
your hands gently, move them a bit back and forth allowing the
shoulders to move with them. This motion shows us a person who is
reserved and timid. There is some truth in this one isn’t there? Try it.

Before we make all of this sound too ridiculous, it must be noted

that Quintilian also said this: “the movement of the hand should
begin and end with the sense...Gesture should be suited rather to
sense than to words.” But even while believing this, he gives us rules

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 5

that have more to do with custom than sense. And though most of
these rules are meant for orators, actors have taken them as gospel
truth for generations. There are rules for the neck, eyes, eyebrows,
nose, forehead, lips; “to lick and bite them is unbecoming,” arms,
throat, chin, feet, and shoulders; shrugging them is a gesture of
meanness. In order to avoid doing it, one orator practiced his speech-
es with a spear hanging down over one shoulder so that he would be
reminded not to raise his shoulders “by a puncture from the
weapon.” True dedication.
\

Quintilian succeeded in creating a physical way to express emo-

tions without asking the performer to delve too deeply into his own
dangerous personal feelings.

But this multitude of rules is confining. It puts the actor in a

straitjacket, and make his gestures and moves too self-conscious.
Quintilian was, no doubt, a superb orator and used the techniques he
wrote about. And yet, it seems as if there is only one kind of anger, or
sadness, or humility, or rudeness to be expressed in this system. What
about the anger spoken in low tones or with a clenched smile? What
about the rudeness of not looking someone in the eye?

What strikes us as particularly odd about Quintilian’s system, is

that feelings are expressed in standardized ways. The great variety of
human expression is absent. It is strange to think that feelings, the
most irrational and subjective parts of our makeup could be reduced
to single, definable, modes of expression. And yet, that is what
Quintilian’s “language” does. And in prescribing this system for oth-
ers, he helped to create an artificial style of acting that petrified the
art for ages.

It must be said, however, that there were talented actors through-

out history who were able to fill the prescribed gestures with a sense
of believability and inner truth. Such artists have existed in all ages,
transcending the limited techniques of their times.
How influential were Quintilian’s words? How far was his reach?
Let's leap ahead some 1700 years and take a look.

6 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 It is now 1753, the middle of the 18th century. We are standing
in a book shop in England holding a pamphlet by the actor, director
and critic, Aaron Hill. It is called The Art ofActing: An Essay. And |o
and behold one of the first things he asks the actor to do is to find a
mirror! Quintilian’s reach is long. 1700 years have passed and actors
are still staring into mirrors. We begin reading the essay.

Hill tells us that there are ten, and only ten, dramatic passions.
They are: joy, grief, anger, pity, scorn, hatred, jealousy, wonder, fear,
and love. That’s it. He then goes on to tell us how to enact each one.
We notice a mirror at the back of the shop and head over to it. Are
you there? Good. Let’s do “joy.”

First, Hill wants us to imagine the idea of joy and “impress” it

onto our facial muscles. Sound like Quintilian? Look into the mirror.
O.K., we are now impressing joy onto our face. If the brow appears
bent downwards, or the chest is not “thrown gracefully back,” then
we are doing it incorrectly. If, however, our forehead appears open,
and raised, and our eyes are smiling and sparkling, and our neck is
stretched and erect without stiffness, our arms, wrists fingers, hip,
knees and ankles “braced boldly,” we are doing it right. Joy is being
expressed. What do you think? Do you look joyful? If so, Hill advises
you to imitate yourself exactly whenever you are required to show
joy. That imitation will then appear to others as natural.

How about grief? Simple: “The muscles must fall loose and be
unbraced. Speak, and the voice will then follow, sounding naturally
full of misery and anguish.” Here we find Quintilian again. He too
said to imagine the feeling first, and then to speak.

Fear? Fear is a mixture. Assume the same slack muscles as used in

grief but (are you standing in front of the mirror?) add a startled look
to your face. Keep the “eyes widely stretched but unfixed, the mouth
still and open.” When you speak, a fearful tone will naturally color
your voice.

Anger is also a mixture. As in joy, tense the muscles, add a flash-

ing to the eye, set the teeth, expand the nostrils wide, bend the eye
brow, “and hold hard the breath.” Try it. This is an exhausting one
isn't it?

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 7

 We put the book down for a minute to catch our breath and
think. This author seems intent on providing a recipe book of emo-
tional expressions. We know that by this time in history, no one real-
ly believes in the four humours anymore. Strong feelings are no
longer regarded with the same fear and suspicion as they were previ-
ously. And yet actors are still being asked to imitate generic emotions
with standardized poses. Why? Part of the answer is a continued
belief in the words of Quintilian. But part of the answer lies else-
where. \

The 18th century was the age of the machine. And machines can
be made to imitate almost anything. Human beings were regarded
quite simply as “wondrous” machines, who could feign real emotions
and fool any observer. It became an obsession to reproduce real feel-
ings and effects (blushing, sweating, suddenly turning pale) through
imitation. So, the mirror becomes an even more important and nec-
essary weapon in the actor's arsenal than ever.

Imitation even meant the imitation of other actors. Most new

actors were trained by watching and then copying the actors whose
roles best suited them. If you were to be the young lover, you
watched and copied the actor currently playing the young lover. Does
this strike a chord? How many actors have you seen imitating James
Dean or Jack Nicholson, or Goldie Hawn, today? Maybe you've even
done it yourself. But, let that go.

Imitation went even further. Actors began copying the poses

found in paintings. They would even brag to each other about how
well they copied the position of a character in a certain painting and
then how effectively they used it on the stage.

We pick up the acting book again. How, we wonder, should we

imitate pity? By the way, did we happen to catch a glimpse of our-
selves while we “wondered”? Will it correspond to Aaron Hill’s
description of how wonder should be expressed? Just wondering.
Back to pity.

To imitate pity, you first strain the muscles into tension, add the
look which is proper to pity, which is the face of sorrow combined
with the “spring on the muscles adopted to joy,” and immediately the
gestures, voice and feelings will be those of pity. Were you able to
combine sorrow and joy on your face?
8 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS
 How about hatred? Perhaps you didn’t know this, but there is
“no difference but the turn of an eye in the expression of hatred and
pity.” You use the “same intense brace upon the joints and sinews,
but with pity you look at the person with a face impressed with
goodness, and with anger you turn away from them with a face
reflecting an image of...evil.” How about that. Practice alternating
between pity and anger. Does it work? Aren’t we back to Quintilian,
using pre-determined body positions and facial expressions to repre-
sent generic emotions? Of course we are. And part of the reason for
this is that the characters being played are gods or goddesses, or
kings, queens, princes and princesses. These elevated members of
society should not act or look like common folk. They must be bet-
ter. They must be enacted “beautifully.”

“Beauty is truth,” wrote John Keats and that was the actor’s new
credo. If acting was beautiful, then it was, by definition, truthful.
These gestures, expressions and ways of holding the body were meant
to portray “beautiful” anger, “beautiful” pity, “beautiful” grief, “beau-
tiful” jealousy, and so on.

What about wonder? Wonder is shown with muscles intense,

awful alarm in the eye, a step backwards, and an intake of breath.
We've seen silent movie actors do this very thing when startled.

Love? Love is done with muscles intense, and a respectful attach-

ment in the eye. In scorn, the muscles are slack and there is a smile in
the eye. And to show jealousy, the muscles are intense again, the look
pensive, or, the look is intense and the muscles slack.

That’s it. The ten passions and how to play them. So then, actors
of the time are doing their jobs by copying the pre-planned gestures,
movements and facial expressions of others, doing it beautifully and,
of course, practicing it all in front of a mirror.

Yet we must give Aaron Hill his due. He does have some new
and different ideas. For one, he believed in true emotion. For anoth-
er, he rebelled against Quintilian’s audience directed performing style.
Hill’s advice is that, “...whenever you can forget an audience, you
will charm them. In order to warm every body who sees you act, you
need only to forget that you are acting.”? But still, he relies on stan-
dardized expressions and gestures to convey emotional meaning.

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 9

 Did no one fight this system? Did no one want to break free of
these expressive restraints? Did no one see through the artificiality of
it all? Someone did. But not who you think.

We look at the mirror before us and see a shadowy figure in it.

We look closer. The figure is gesturing to us. What is this? The figure
invites us into the mirror and we step forward. What's going on?

fe
\

Instantly we find ourselves in an auditorium, and by the sound

of the man speaking on stage, we have, with a single step, crossed
from England to France. The shadowy figure is nowhere to be seen.

On the floor we spy a program and bend to pick it up. For some
unexplainable reason we are able to read the French words perfectly
and understand the French speech we hear. Later, we're going to have
to take a closer look at that mirror.

The program tells us that the man on stage is Francois Delsarte.

It tells us that he studied acting at the Royal Dramatic School in
Paris, and singing at the Conservatory. He ran into trouble in both
places. In drama school, he was being taught the typical standardized
gestures which didn’t correspond to what he saw in daily life. He
soon left.

At the Conservatory events were far worse. Delsarte wanted

nothing more in his life than to be a great singer. Even before he was
properly trained, the great composer Hector Berlioz admired his
voice and called his powers of expression “unsurpassable.” Delsarte
took his obvious talent to the Conservatory for training, and there
encountered the greatest tragedy of his life. Faulty instruction result-
ed in the loss of his voice at the age of twenty-three. His career as a
singer was finished. But Delsarte himself was only just beginning. He
set out to reform the teaching of his time and to find the correct
“laws of expression.” Laws which would be as exact as mathematical
science, and which would not harm those who followed them. In
order to do this, he “set out to discover exactly how real people move
and speak in every possible emotional circumstance.”3

10 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 The program tells us that Delsarte spent years observing people
in hospitals, art galleries, prisons, parks, even studied anatomy at a
medical school, all in an attempt to discover how people acted and
reacted, not in acting classes, but in real life. He wanted to see how
people expressed their feelings of grief, joy, anger, love and fear out-
side of the theater. And these observations, it says, led him to the
answers he was seeking.

We wonder if all this is just the puffery of the program writer, or

the story of a true revolutionary. We turn our attention to the man
on the podium. Delsarte is speaking: “You can never show truly more
than you are capable of experiencing. For the expression of noble
emotions, one must feel noble emotions. Imitation will carry you but
a short way.”4 “Nothing is more deplorable than a gesture without a
motive. External gesture is only the reverberation of internal ges-
ture.”> “My best results have been attained when I, a passive subject,
obeyed an inner inspiration coming from whence I know not and
urging me on to results I had not aimed at.”6

Wow. This man does seem concerned with something other than
copying pre-determined gestures and inflections. We look at the date
on the program. It is March 20th 1870. Little does anyone here sus-
pect that this man, with the beautiful but weak voice, will be dead in
sixteen months. Sitting on the stage behind Delsarte we notice
another man. The shadowy figure perhaps? But Delsarte is speaking
again: “In a science monthly oflast year, I read an interesting account
of the hypnotic experiments made by French doctors. A gendarme,
on guard in front of the Louvre, was selected for the experiment.
Thrown into a mesmeric sleep by means of a few passes, an artist
summoned from a neighboring studio, posed him in a model of fear.
The unconscious soldier obeyed the artist’s hand. But now comes the
strangest fact. He felt the emotion, and described himself as experi-
encing the throes of terror. This seems to bear out an idea...: A per-
fect reproduction of the outer manifestation of some passion, the giv-
ing of the outer sign, will cause a reflex within.”? “Motion creates
emotion.”

Wait a minute. He’s saying that exterior expressions correspond

to and can cause interior emotions. Doesn't this sound familiar? Isn’t
this what Quintilian and Aaron Hill were saying? Perhaps this man

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 11

isn’t the revolutionary we thought he was. Or, perhaps, there is some-
thing to what all these teachers are trying to tell us.

We suddenly remember an idea of the American psychologist

William James that “we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we
strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or trem-
ble, because we are sorry, angry or fearful as the case may be.”? The
physical reaction comes first and then the emotional one. We cannot
deny the experience of the soldier in Delsarte’s story. By being put in
a pose of fear, he began to feel the emotion of fear. *

According to this idea, if you see a ferocious bear coming at you,

first you run, and then the running causes the fear. We also remem-
ber that late in his life, Constantine Stanislavski was thinking along
these same lines. Well then, should we go back to our mirror and
practice our facial expressions? We are confused. But now Delsarte
seems to be backtracking: “...you must bear in mind that the sign is
first formed within; so, after all, the exterior expression does not
come first...I am treading on egg-shells here, I am conscious.”!°

So, which comes first the physical, or the emotional? The outer,
or the inner? Should we work from the outside in, or the inside out?
At this point, we're just not sure. -

Delsarte is speaking again. He tells us that the first step in study-

ing his ideas is to practice “decomposing” exercises. “These exercises
free the channels of expression, and the current of nervous energy can
thus rush through them as a stream of water rushes through a chan-
nel, unclogged by obstacles.”!! This is something new. This is the
first time we've heard anything about relaxation. But as we watch the
stage, we see the ghostly figure of Quintilian hovering above
Delsarte. Why, we wonder? The answer becomes clear when he
speaks again: “I wish you to buy a mirror large enough to reflect your
entire figure, and faithfully to practice many hours a day if you wish
rapid results.”!? There's that mirror again. Quintilian is smiling.

Delsarte then introduces the man sitting behind him as a Mr.

Steele Mackaye of America, and asks him to come forward. We slip
into a seat at the back, excited. We're about to get a demonstration.

12 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 As Mackaye steps forward, Delsarte explains that there is a uni-
versal formula that applies to all things and that that formula is the
trinity. For humans the trinity that applies is life, mind and soul.
Together, these three principles make up our being. Man communi-
cates these parts of himself in three ways: with the voice, with the
gesture, and with the word. He points to Mackaye and explains that
the human body itself has three zones: head, torso and limbs. The
head is the intellectual center, the torso is the moral center and the
limbs the physical center. Each of these centers is further divided into
three sub-zones.

Delsarte asks Mackaye to lift one leg. The leg he says has three
sections. First is the foot. He asks Mackaye to tap it on the floor. The
foot, Delasarte says, represents mental activity. See how a tapping
foot shows a person in thought. Next, is the lower leg. This part of
the leg is a moral center. He asks Mackaye to kneel. See how kneeling
shows reverence, love and obedience. Next, is the upper leg or thigh.
This is the physical center of the leg. He asks Mackaye to walk, run
and leap. See how physical power comes from this part of the leg.

Delsarte asks Mackaye to stand with both legs wide apart. This,
he says, is a position that represents vulgarity, intoxication or fatigue.

He then tells Mackaye to stand with both legs together, with the
knees straight and the toes pointed outward. This depicts a condition
of feebleness, or of respect. Children and soldiers stand this way.
Next, he asks Mackaye to stand with the strong leg back, its knee
straight; the free leg in front, the knee also straight. This position, he
tells us, shows, defiance and irritation. He is quick to tell us as a
reminder, that these positions are not arbitrary, but are derived from
his years of observation of real people. And he warns us that “the
artistic idea within must form the outward expression...you cannot
mentally plan it at the moment of its execution.”!3 He seems to be
concerned that people will follow the letter of his teachings and for-
get the spirit.

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 13

 Deisarte’s Attitudes of the Legs

He thanks Mackaye, who resumes his seat, and tells us that there
are also positions for the hand, the arms, the eyes, the lips and jaw,
the nose, the upper and lower eyelids, the brows and the mouth. We
leave our seat unnoticed, and go back to the lobby.

Delsarte’s Attitudes of the Hands

14 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Delsarte. A man ruined by the teaching of his day. A man dedi-
cated to bringing a sense of reality to performing. But we know
something he does’ not. We know that he will die without ever hav-
ing published anything about his system. And that Steele Mackaye
will take America by storm teaching, and in some ways changing, the
ideas of Delsarte.

We know that a Delsarte mania will sweep across America and

that some will distort his ideas beyond all recognition: “...In the
1890's one finds in magazines advertisements for ‘Delsarte corsets,’
‘Delsarte cosmetics,’ “Delsarte gowns;’ and one manufacturer even
advertised a ‘Delsarte wooden leg!’ ”!4 It is one of the great ironies of
history that Delsarte acting will come to stand for artificial dramatic
poses and declamatory speech. Due to the distortions of others,
Delsarte’s name will become indelibly associated with a system as
confining and false as the one he was trying to overthrow. Luckily,
other voices of protest fared better, and as we step through our mirror
back to our own time, we leave Francois Delsarte blissfully unaware
of what others will do to his ideas.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, most actors were still
copying their teachers, imitating the outward expressions of emotion,
and declaiming their words loudly and beautifully. But great debates
about acting raged on. Some felt with Denis Diderot, that an actor
should not feel the full emotion of the moment, but... “Learn before
a mirror every particle of his despair...”'5 and then distance himself
from those passions on stage. Others felt, with Luigi Riccoboni, and
Henry Lewes that “The actor...must feel what he acts.”!6

From Quintilian onward, everyone has given their greatest atten-

tion to emotions and how to portray them. Yet, great dissatisfaction
was fermenting. Perhaps all this focus on emotions was a dead end.
Maybe another approach to acting would bear more fruit. We glance
at Our mirror once again and see the shadowy figure beckoning to us.
We do not move. The figure gestures more excitedly. We stay still.
The figure stops and regards us. Still, we do not move. The figure
sits, and waits.

ACTING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! 15

 Chapel 2

The Russian Revolution

W. know where the figure wants us to go, and we are afraid.

We know that on the other side of that mirror stands the intimidat-
ing figure of Constantine Stanislavski; the most important person in
the history of acting. Our mind and pulse are racing. How are we to
deal with such a giant? How are we to get hold of him? He seems less
a human than a monument. Contact with him might uproot every
idea we cherish about acting. And we are fearful that if we do not
understand his ideas, we will never be real actors.

Will his significance simply wipe us out, obliterate us? Will his
brilliance blind us, or worse, will his brilliance make us see ourselves
as hopeless phonies? We're just not ready to go through that mirror.
We need to catch our breath and calm down. Constantine
Stanislavski. The name has become mythological, like Zeus or...wait.
The figure is up and smiling and signaling us to step forward
through the mirror. Something in his expression convinces us. We go
through.
 We are in the large bedroom of a young man who is standing
before a mirror. If this is Stanislavski, why is he making such ridicu-
lous faces into it? We watch, dumbfounded. The young man contin-
ues to observe himself as he makes faces and takes poses. He almost
looks like we did when we tried the faces and gestures of Quintilian
and Aaron Hill. And if he were not so seriously absorbed in what he
was doing, we would burst out laughing.

Suddenly this tall young man begins humming. No, singing. His
voice is good, if perhaps a bit hoarse. He continues, in a loud voice,
some operatic aria, all the while studying himselfin the mirror. After
a bit, he stops, looking disappointed and unhappy. He sighs and his
eyes droop. It is then that we remember, from his autobiography, My
Life In Art,' that his passionate dream was to become an opera singer,
but that his dream was crushed because his voice was simply not
good enough. We think of Francois Delsarte whose hopes to become
a classical singer were destroyed by improper vocal training. Despite
their differences, we wonder if these two might not share a profound
sympathy for each other. Both lost their first artistic loves.

What is it about singing that so moved these men? Some say that
singing, at its most basic level, is crying on pitch. And perhaps
because singing is such a physical expression of emotion; vibration
and breath filling the body, it attracted these passionate men to it.
Late in his life, Stanislavski worked with opera singers. If he couldn’t
be one, he could, at least, be nearby.

But what is this? Stanislavski has left the room and returned with
three towels. He wraps one around his waist, one around his chest,
and one, like a turban, around his head. He strikes various poses and
studies himself in the mirror. As he begins declaiming Shakespearean
lines, we realize what he’s doing. He’s practicing Othello. His gestures
are so stilted, his costume so silly, and his movements so bizarre, that
we laugh. We are in fact becoming hysterical. This great god is pranc-
ing around in towels, making faces in a mirror and speaking in the
most affected manner imaginable.

It soothes us a little to realize that this great man did not spring
from the womb fully formed, knowing all the right answers, but that

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 17

he, like us, struggled and stumbled. In fact, at first, he did almost
everything wrong.

The first time Stanislavski appeared on a stage he was a small

child, and managed to burn down the set. This event foreshadowed
the very different way in which he would set the theater on fire in his
later life.

As a young man, Stanislavski was smitten by anything that

smacked of the theatrical. As the son of a sympathetic and well to do
merchant in Moscow, he had the opportunity to attend many circus,
ballet, opera, theater and musical performances. And these fired his
imagination. He tried to imitate whatever he saw. At his house he put
on circus performances using friends and relatives. They used make-
up and props and copied routines they had seen. Eventually they
realized that without elaborate sets, costumes and props, they could
never achieve the level of production for which they longed. So,
Stanislavski hit upon a particularly creative idea. A puppet theater
required only miniature furniture pieces, and miniature costumes,
and these they could make. A Stanislavski marionette theater was
born. This enterprise was run like a real theater, with the performers
charging admission and issuing tickets. Perhaps somewhere inside,
Stanislavski knew he was practicing his future.

When a new wing was added to their house, Stanislavski’s father

did an extraordinary thing. He included in it, a theatrical playing
space and an area for backstage dressing rooms. Imagine this level of
support. The young Constantine Stanislavski was provided an area
which could be used as a small theater in his own house! The mari-
onettes were forgotten. This space was for real people, and
Stanislavski seized the opportunity. He appointed himself the direc-
tor of this home theater and chose the plays to be performed in it.
And, of course, he acted in it. But how did he act in those early
years? Was he brilliant, a genius? Hardly. He began, like so many of
us, by imitating his favorite actors.

Stanislavski especially loved a comedic actor he saw many times

at The Imperial Little Theater, who moved his face in funny ways. So
Stanislavski tried to do the same, but his performance fell flat. He

18 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

wasnt the great success he'd hoped to be. The best comment he
received was that his performance was, “rather nice.”2

The young actor was crestfallen. He'd imitated his favorite actor
pretty well he thought, so why hadn't it worked? What was wrong?
He didn’t have an answer, but something more important was begin-
ning. This questioning, this search for excellence, would occupy him
for the rest of his life, and lead him to his greatest achievements.

But since he didn’t know what else to do, the young actor con-
tinued to copy actors he admired. He felt dissatisfied, knowing some-
thing essential was missing, but went on nonetheless.

Why? He loved the attention and the power he felt on stage. And
whos to blame him? How many of us have done the same? We step
onto the stage, inadequately prepared, scared to death, wanting to
run, but go on anyway hoping a lightning strike of inspiration will
hit and make us brilliant. And when it’s time for the curtain call, we
will bask in the applause and the praise, and bow humbly. It’s a great
dream. Unfortunately, it rarely comes true. Mostly we are left with a
vague sense of uneasiness. The praise is never enough, and if it is, we
feel we really don’t deserve it. And so, we move on to the next pro-
duction hoping it will be the one. Hoping everything will work and
that the praise will be deserved. This is what Stanislavski did. And his
journey was a painful one. If he was going to continue copying oth-
ers, who were his models to be? What kind of acting did Stanislavski
see around him?

The great Russian serf actor Michael Shchepkin described the

usual acting style of the time this way, “...the playing of the actors
was considered excellent when none of them spoke in his natural
voice, when they declaimed their lines in a completely artificial man-
ner...and when each word was accompanied by a gesture. The words
‘love,’ ‘passion,’ ‘treason,’ were uttered as loud as possible, ...And
when, for example, the actor finished a long monologue at the
moment of leaving the stage, he had to go off into the wings with his
right arm raised.”3 This is largely what Stanislavski saw around him.

But he was also aware of something different, something deeper.

He knew of Shchepkin and that he'd written, “It is not important

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 19

that you play well or ill; it is important that you play truthfully.”4 But
though this precept was of great importance to Stanislavski, he never
had the chance to see Shchepkin put it into practice because in 1863,
the very year of Stanislavski’s birth, Shchepkin, after fifty-seven years
in the theater, died. Shchepkin had striven his entire life to present
living, breathing human beings upon the stage, but, unfortunately,
left no guide book, no map that could show others how to do the
Same.

The great question remained: How does one combine the need
to pretend, with the need to express something true? And the answer
continued to elude the young Stanislavski.

For years Stanislavski went on trying anything and everything to

achieve greatness as an actor. He studied his posture, facial expres-
sions and gestures in a mirror. He then would go on stage attempting
to copy what he thought had been successful there. But he still spoke
too fast, dropped the ends of his words, gestured wildly, forced emo-
tion, and always, always felt tense. In one case, he was so out of con-
trol that he cut a fellow actor with a prop dagger.

He tried, to the best of his ability, to correct all of these faults.

For years he thought the answers lay in externals. He sought solu-
tions to his acting problems in costumes, in makeup, in props. He
tried different facial expressions, different voices, different walks. He
performed everywhere he could and sometimes met with success and
sometimes with failure. The failures haunted him and the successes
gave only the briefest pleasure because they were accidental.

But he pushed on. He even performed in a theater of dubious

reputation. The play was a risqué French farce and he was so embar-
rassed to be seen in it, that he changed his name so as not to be rec-
ognized. Yes, Stanislavski is his stage name, not his real one. He was
born Constantine Alexeiev, but for the play in question, took the
name of a retired Polish actor, Stanislavski, for his own. But when he
stepped onto the stage, he recognized, in the audience, his father, his
mother, and the governesses of his sisters. He was mortified. But still,
he went on. He continued to experiment. He tried memorizing
words mechanically so that he could say them at any speed. He took
ballet classes. He studied opera. But even when he met with success,

20 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

he felt false on stage, that he was “engaged in evil work.”5 So, at age
twenty-one, with more than twenty shows behind him, Constantine
Stanislavski entered the Imperial Dramatic School of Moscow. But
after a scant three weeks of classes, he was gone. A drama school
dropout.

Why? It was more than that the teachers wanted the students to
copy them. And it was more than that the teachers wanted results
without ever teaching the students how to achieve them. It was even
more than the fact that there was no practical step-by-step program
to follow. No, it was the soul shattering feeling that “I would be
deprived of my own individuality, bad as it was.”6

Yes, one’s uniqueness. From Quintilian to Aaron Hill through

Delsarte to the Imperial Dramatic School, conformity to the rules
was the highest good. Even when great individual actors emerged,
like David Garrick, acting theorists tried to make their individuality
into a new set of rules for all to follow. Differences in these systems
came down to execution. If your gesture was smoother, your voice
louder, your postures and movements more graceful, you were the
better actor.

But Stanislavski wanted to be true to himself and not be a copy

of his teacher, who was a copy of his teacher, who was a copy of his
teacher...and so on. It is a terrifying feeling to lose one’s self, one’s
“specialness” just so that one can be re-formed with a cookie cutter.
Stanislavski felt that actors were being stamped from a pre-made
stencil and sent out into the acting world, and he rebelled against it.
And so, like Delsarte, he set out to discover for himself the answers to
the questions that burned so deeply inside of him.

But the road ahead was hard. He met with some success and
much failure. His inability to find a reliable technique tortured him.
He became so desperate to find the core of one character, that he per-
suaded some friends to lock him in the cellar of a French castle so
that the proper feeling of his part might come to him. For two hours
he stayed inside this dark and damp cellar trying to repeat his lines
with the appropriate emotion. But all he succeeded in doing was
coming down with a cold.’ The answers he sought were clearly not to
be found in this way.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 21

 But little by little, Stanislavski began to understand some impor-
tant things. By working with a professional company, he learned the
value of discipline, of arriving on time and rehearsing with concen-
tration and focus. From a professional actress, he learned to look into
the eyes of, and really see, his fellow actor. He learned how to stand
still on the stage, and how to show restraint in the expression of emotion.

Through directing he learned that each actor has an important

function in the overall scheme of a play. He took to heart the saying
of Shchepkin that “there are no small parts, only small actors. He
began to see the value of painting characters in more than black and
white colors. He saw that: “When you play an evil man look to see
where he is good. When you play an old man, look to see where he is
young.8

He realized that while external acting could not bring him to the
style of acting he sought, “it helped prepare the soil for it.”? And per-
haps most importantly of all, he understood that there is “an
unbreakable bond between physical and psychical nature.”!° The
mind-body connection that Delsarte spoke of was clear and crucial to
Stanislavski. But he still did not know how to consistently activate
that connection, and so, felt that his successes were largely the result
of lucky accidents.

But what’s this? Stanislavski has left the bedroom. In fact, he has
been gone for some time, and the figure in the mirror is impatiently
waving us forward. We need little prompting and step through.

We find ourselves standing just outside a large restaurant called

The Slavic Bazaar, in Moscow. A nearby newspaper tells us that the
date is June 22, 1897. We step inside the restaurant and stand behind
two men who seem to be waiting for a table. The maitre d’ addresses
the tall broad man as Mr. Stanislavski and tells him that the private
room is ready. We realize that the forty year old man with him is the
playwright and teacher Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, and as the
maitre d’ leads them, we follow. No one seems to notice. The two

22 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

begin talking excitedly, and we soon realize that we are witnessing the
creation of the most important and influential theater of the twenti-
eth century, the Moscow Art Theater.

Stanislavski and Danchenko are discussing what they feel is

wrong with the Russian theater. They feel that rehearsal time is too
short, that actors have little discipline, that productions are unorigi-
nal with false acting and cardboard scenery, and that the plays being
performed are poor in quality.!! Next, they discuss who should be in
their company. They carefully go over every actor who might be a
possibility, and argue about whether this one or that one is worth
considering. They are both very passionate, and we get so caught up
in their enthusiasm that we almost start suggesting some actors we
know. Well, they wouldn’t hear us if we did, anyway. They discuss
everything. They decide that every actor should have a dressing room
of his or her own, that the greenrooms should have in them a library,
pianos and chess boards, and that no one should enter a greenroom
in a coat or hat,!? they even discuss the price of tickets.

After many hours of such detailed talk, the two men come to a
crucial topic. The division of power. When it is suggested that
Danchenko be in charge of what plays should be chosen for perfor-
mance, Stanislavski puts up little resistance. He seems to respect
Danchenko’s superiority in this area. But when the subject of the
artistic control of the productions themselves comes up, a tension
begins to build. We step closer to their table. There is a tense silence.
When Stanislavski begins to speak, it is with great passion. He feels
that the production of the plays, and that the work of the actors and
the director should be under his control. Danchenko is silent.
Stanislavski is relentless. He argues that he has fifteen years of practi-
cal experience in these matters and that it is only logical that he
should be in charge of them. Danchenko is disturbed by this. Too
much power will reside with Stanislavski. He expresses his uneasiness.
Stanislavski insists, with tremendous energy, that his control of all the
artistic aspects of production is crucial to the future success of their
theater. Again, he invokes his experience as a director and actor and
doesn’t seem to notice the discomfort of his partner. Or maybe he
does, and presses on because he wants what he wants. The two men
are at an impasse.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 23

 Stanislavski’s stubbornness is surprising. We know he has been
wracked with doubts about his abilities and yet, here he is demand-
ing the right to control all artistic decisions having to do with stag-
ing, acting and directing. Something unconscious is driving him, and
is threatening the very enterprise he is hoping to create. This is his
dream. He is on the verge of leaving the amateur world and entering
the professional one, yet he is standing in his own way.

Luckily, the birth of this theater is not to be denied. They agree

to a compromise. Stanislavski may propose plays for the theater to
produce, but Danchenko will have the ultimate say. For his part,
Danchenko may make suggestions with regard to the artistic presen-
tation of the repertoire, but Stanislavski will have the final word. This
mutual veto power settles the issue, and the two men continue work-
ing out both the ideals and the details of their dream. When they fin-
ish, eighteen hours later, the groundwork for the Moscow Art
Theater has been laid.

As we watch these men, we become inspired. Haven't we too

wanted to start a theater based on our pure love of drama? Haven't
we, in fact, had long and heated artistic discussions with our theatri-
cal soul-mates that lasted late into the night ending with passionate
agreement to start a theater? And weren't those nights some of the
best we ever had? And the next day, didn’t the idea of a theater of our
own seem daunting and far away? Of course. But these men had the
means and the dedication to take the astounding step of making talk, real.

We watch these men, and know the future. We know that the
doors of the MAT (Moscow Art Theater) will open October 14,
1898 with a production of the play Tsar Fyodor, and that the reaction
will be favorable. The production is original, the scenery more
detailed and realistic than Moscow audiences are used to, and the act-
ing more believable than the norm. Stanislavski and Danchenko will
succeed in just the way they hope. Their theater will set a higher
standard and everyone will know it.

But their joy will be short-lived. The next four productions fail
and the fledgling theater will be near collapse. The next production
they mount must succeed or the MAT will be extinct.

24 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 We look over at Danchenko and know that it is his literary taste
that will save the theater. It is he who will see the value of a play
called The Seagull by the famous short story writer, Anton Chekhov.
And it is the production of that play which will ensure the success of
the MAT. Amazingly, Stanislavski will be so puzzled by Chekhov's
work that he will ask Danchenko “Are you sure it can be performed
at all? I just can’t make head or tail of it.”13 Danchenko has not only
to convince Stanislavski to direct the play, but must also talk
Chekhov into granting the MAT the right to present it. It is
Danchenko who will see what is revolutionary about Chekhov's cre-
ation, not Stanislavski. Danchenko sees that the portrayal of everyday
life in the play hides the deep desires of the characters and that the
unspoken communication between these characters carries much of
the play’s power.

We know that Danchenko will rehearse the play more than

Stanislavski and that at its opening on December 17, 1898, they will
experience an unprecedented success. So important will this play
become to the MAT, that they will have the image of a seagull per-
manently painted onto the theater's front curtain.

In the next six years, the MAT will present twenty productions,
four of them by Chekhov. The theater will also produce plays from
writers as diverse as Ibsen, Shakespeare and the Symbolist poet,
Maurice Maeterlinck. The reputation of the theater and its achieve-
ments will travel through Europe and America making it the most
talked about company in the world. People will speak of the realism
of the sets, the use of offstage sounds such as birds and distant storms
to create atmosphere, the ensemble acting and the overall brilliance
of the direction. “Chekhov unintentionally gave the MAT the key to
a new performance style: psychological realism. Here the hidden
communication and conflicts between all classes and types of people—
so imbedded in our normal daily experiences that we hardly notice
them—were exposed.”!4

And yet there were problems. For one, Chekhov disliked

Stanislavski’s direction of his plays. More than that, he abhorred
Stanislavski’s portrayal of Trigorin in The Seagull. He complained
that his plays were comedies and not the serious tragedies of the

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 25

Russian people into which Stanislavski turned them. For another,
some accused the theater of “Naturalism.” That is, they felt the MAT
was only interested in presenting the behavioral details of ordinary
life. But while Stanislavski was interested in what he called inner
truth, he was never in favor of naturalism on the stage.

But these criticisms were as nothing compared to the deeper

problems that concerned Stanislavski. He noticed that his actors were
erratic. Some nights they were inspired and some nights they were
stale. And while they took classes in fencing, dancing, singing, and
gymnastics, they still lacked a technique for creating the inner life of
a character. But what shook Stanislavski to his core, was his own act-
ing. He felt dead on stage. He found himself acting mechanically and
with little or no inner feeling. He was empty and drained and could
no longer “feel” his roles. He was acting from muscle memory alone.
This frightened him as nothing else ever had. And after an exhaust-
ing but triumphant tour of Germany in 1906, Stanislavski left the
company to rethink everything.

Danchenko and Stanislavski are now leaving the Slavic Bazaar

and we follow them. Outside the restaurant, we notice the figure
from the mirror reflected in the café window. He is waving us toward
him. We watch the two creators of the Moscow Art Theater hurriedly
cross the street still talking out the details of their creation, and at
that second, a profound admiration for these two dreamers sweeps
over us. After a moment, we turn away, and step through the window.

fe

We are in a place of astonishing beauty. The climate is mild, and

below the cliff on which we stand, is the deep blue Baltic Sea. Sitting
on a bench nearby is the forty-three year old Constantine Stanislavski.
He gazes out at the sea but does not seem to see it. We realize that we
are in Finland in the year of 1906. It is here that Stanislavski has
come to rethink his whole approach to the art of acting. He has by
his side, a notebook. It is the journal he has been keeping since 1889
of his thoughts and discoveries about acting. But he is not looking at
it. He seems far away. He is in fact, reviewing in his mind the past
twenty-five years of his life in the theater. How is it possible for

26 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Tommaso Salvini to play Othello for so many years and still present
it freshly, he wonders? Why is the great Italian actress Eleanora Duse
able to do the same? Why can’t he? These questions torment him.

Below him, he notices waves crashing against hard and jagged

rocks. The water and the land are fighting each other. But further
down the beach, where there are no rocks, the tide smoothly blankets
the sand. Stanislavski takes note. How can he create a receptive state
of mind that will allow the waves of inspiration to wash over him?
How can an actor create a state of mind that will invite inspiration to
him, and not, like the rocks, block its path? He has sought the
answer in props, costumes, voices, walks and other means of external
expression. But these devices ultimately have failed him.

As he considers the great actors he has seen, he comes to a star-

tling insight. What they all have in common, he realizes, is a lack of
tension on stage. There is simply no bodily strain. Even in moments
of high emotion, these actors never show any extraneous tension.
Obviously, these actors place great value on relaxation. Stanislavski
himself, even after all these years, has never cured himself of nervous-
ness and strain on stage. What if he could? Would relaxation create a
lure for inspiration? He picks up his notebook and writes. He is on to
something important and he knows it.

Stanislavski will spend months writing down more of his insights

and the next three years trying them out in his own acting. He will
realize the power of concentration when it is centered on the stage and
not in the auditorium. He has, he realizes, often found his attention
leaving the stage and wandering out toward the audience. In truth, so
have we.

We are struck by the similarities with Delsarte and Hill. Delsarte

too thought relaxation of paramount importance, devising “decom-
posing” exercises to achieve it. Hill, we remember, said, “...whenever
you can forget an audience, you will charm them.” Stanislavski is not
the only one who has been on this path.

What separates him from the others, however, is his relentless

quest for truth in acting, and his drive to codify a method to achieve

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 27

that truth. For Stanislavski, it is the other line in Keats's Ode On A
Grecian Urn that stands as his motto: Truth is beauty. He has turned
the aesthetic rallying cry of the 18th century, that beauty 1s truth,
upside down. It is not that whatever achieves beauty is automatically
truthful, but rather, that whatever achieves truthfulness is automati-
cally beautiful.

We are again amazed at the tenacity of this man. We know that

in the three years during which he will experiment with his new-
found ideas, he will actually get worse as an actor. We know that the
members of his company will dismiss his ideas as misguided and
foolish. But we also know that Stanislavski will push on. In 1909 he
will post a notice at the MAT announcing that rehearsals for
Turgenev’s A Month In The Country will be conducted in a new way.
One can almost hear the moans of the company right now. But when
that production opens, Stanislavski will have many converts. He will
finally succeed in creating and transmitting a method that gives
actors a pathway to inspiration on stage, and one that can be taught
on a step-by-step basis. His years of struggle, disappointment, search-
ing and digging will finally yield some nuggets of the purest gold.

Stanislavski stands, stretches and strolls along the cliff side. We

follow. But in order not to run into him, we step too near the edge,
and find ourselves falling towards the rocks below.

fe

We land on a hardwood floor.

We shake our head and try to recover our senses. We seem to be

in a dance studio. There is a mirror along one wall and a barre run-
ning along its length. Strewn randomly around the floor of the studio
are banners and flags. We turn some over and read what they say:
RELAXATION, GONCEN TRATION, GIVEN-GCIRCUM-
STANCES, ACTION.

These are the words on some of the flags, and there are many
more. This, we realize, is THE SYSTEM! Spread out before us, is the
fruit of Stanislavski’s many years of struggle. We feel giddy and throw

28 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 a handful of flags into the air as if we'd found a pirate treasure of gold
doubloons. Then we see a startling thing. Stepping from the mirror
onto the hardwood ‘floor, is the FIGURE itself, our guide.

We freeze. The figure coming through the mirror is wearing a

long tunic, impossibly high sandals, and a mask featuring a jutting
chin and mouth hole. He stands over seven feet high. We want to
run, but cannot. Slowly, the figure raises its arms and removes its
mask. It is a man with long dark hair and a smile on his face.

“I am Thespis,” he announces. “Do not think your journey is

finished because | now appear before you. I only reveal myself to help
you understand this great man’s contribution to our art. From here,
there are still many places to go.”

Thespis. The first actor of the western world. He has been taking
us on this journey from place to place and from teacher to teacher.

He picks up the banner marked, RELAXATION, and speaks.

Tension, he tells us, is our greatest enemy. It pinches the voice, stiff-
ens the muscles, shortens the breath and blocks the mind. When you
are totally tense, you cannot move, speak, or think. And yet nothing,
he explains, is more impossible than to command someone to
RELAX. We understand this, having been commanded to do this
many times and feeling only self conscious in response.

One way to approach relaxation, Thespis tells us, is through its

opposite, tension. He asks us to stand. We do. He wants us to tense
our whole body, tighten every muscle. We do. After a brief moment,
he tells us to release all the tension. Again, we do. What relief! Our
muscles do feel as though they've let go a bit.

Now, Thespis asks us to tense just the right side of our body,
leaving the left side relaxed. We try this, but find tension uncon-
sciously creeping over to the left part of our body. See, he tells us, if
we are not made aware of our tenseness, it can quietly take control of
our bodies. We see his point. He now asks us to stand straight with
only the tension necessary to keep us upright. As we do this, we won-
der at our situation. A long dead Ancient Greek is explaining the
work of a Russian actor-teacher-director of the early twentieth centu-

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 29

ry. Where, in fact, is Stanislavski, we ask. Why isn’t he telling us all
this? Thespis answers: “At this moment, Constantine Stanislavski is
busy changing his System.”

Oh.

He again tells us to stand straight. We do. From this position,

Thespis asks us to drop our head slowly and bend forward. He tells
us to try and feel each of the vertebrae in our backs separately. He
wants us to feel each one loosening, letting go. When we are fully
over, he tells us to come slowly back up, vertebra by vertebra. When
we are up again, we feel less tension in our bodies.

Thespis tells us that yoga and breathing exercises also help to

reduce bodily tension. But some tension, he explains, is required
when one performs, otherwise one might not be able to stand up. We
cannot perform without enormous amounts of energy. So the total
elimination of tension is not the goal. What we aim for is the reduc-
tion of unnecessary strain. This, he explains, leaves the channels of
emotional expression open. Tension, of course, will squeeze them off.

But it is not enough to practice relaxation exercises in isolation.

It is best, Thespis tells us, to relax parts of the body during perfor-
mance, to be aware of body tension as you are acting, and reduce
unnecessary strain right on stage. This is possible because of the dual
nature of the actor. Thespis explains that Stanislavski speaks of two
presences on the stage at one time. There is the actor, and the character.

We are surprised by this, because we have always thought that

Stanislavski stood for the total merging of the player and the part.
Thespis says that we are mistaken. Stanislavski is a practical man of
the theater and knows that while the character must use the actor,
they must not truly become as one. Becoming conscious of tension
in our bodies takes practice, says Thespis, and that is why we do
relaxation exercises. Again, we think of Delsarte and his decomposing
exercises.

Thespis turns over three other flags. They read, MIND, WILL,
and EMOTION. These, he explains, are the three parts of the actor
that Stanislavski considered the pillars of his inner landscape. If the

30 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

actors mind, his will and his feelings are all engaged, he will come
alive. Stanislavski’s system is meant to occupy the mind, motivate the
will and release the’emotional life of the actor. The mind is the most
easily approached of these three, while the emotions are the most
fickle. We cannot help but think again of Delsarte and his three-part
division of the actor into life, mind and soul.

“Disaster,” Thespis says, “has struck many an actor who has tried
to force an emotion through his system. Emotion is not subject to
command. Just ask someone to cry, and watch what happens.”

“Emotion,” Thespis tells us, “must be coaxed out of hiding, not

directly accosted. If we reach for it, it will run away. But if we con-
centrate on something else, something that magnetizes our mind and
will, it may come along with us. All of the techniques that
Stanislavski discovered are directed at one or all of these three aspects
of the actor.”

Relaxation, I suggest, is most important for freeing the mind.

Thespis agrees.

Next, he picks up a flag that says, CONCENTRATION. “On

the stage,” Thespis says, “actors are always concentrating on some-
thing. Unfortunately, this concentration may be on their nervous-
ness, or on the audience, and this draws the actor away from his true
purpose. Therefore, actors must be trained to force their attention
onto the stage and its reality.” But how, we wonder?

“Your shoe is untied,” says Thespis and points to my feet. I look

down and see that my right shoe lace is loose and bend down to fix
it. When I look up, Thespis is again wearing his mask.

“Did you notice me putting it on?” No, I confess, I didn’t. I

apologize to him for not paying attention. “That’s a good phrase,
‘paying attention,” he says. “Indeed you will pay a high price if
attention is wrongly placed. And you will be greatly repaid if it is
rightly placed. You shouldn't apologize to me, your attention was cor-
rectly centered on what you were doing, on your shoe and its lace.
You see, the distraction of the audience disappears when your mind is

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 31

occupied with something else. Stanislavski realized this simple but
profound truth.”

Thespis takes off his mask and places it on the floor in front of
us. A little further away he places a large glowing golden ball. He asks
us to study the mask. We observe its shape and the materials from
which it appears to be made. We pick it up in order to assess its
weight and we hold it up to our face. We feel its texture and smell its
scent. We tap it to see what sound it makes. Thespis asks us if we
have been aware of the glowing ball. No, we say, we have forgotten
about it. Good, he says. Stanislavski speaks of a “circle of atten-
tion”!5, Thespis tells us, and we have been absorbed by the closest
object in that circle.

What is the object of your attention right now, he asks. You are,
we reply. “Correct. Your concentration shifted to me when I began to
explain. This constant shifting of attention is crucial to living on the
stage.”

“If you are ever without a proper object of attention, then you are
empty. And any emptiness on stage will be filled up with either dead
moments or clichéd ones.” We recognize the truth of this. There have
been moments on stage when we werent sure where to look or what
to do, and in those moments we felt a growing panic that we hoped
went unnoticed. If we'd known what the object of attention was in
those seconds, we would have felt safer and less self-conscious. As we
are thinking these thoughts, our eyes shift from Thespis, to the mask
in our hands, to Thespis’s hand as we give his mask back to him, to
Thespis’s eyes, to the mask again, and then to our shoes. A continu-
ous and logical stream of objects has seized our concentration.

In life, we realize, we do this object shifting all the time. When

we are waiting in a doctor's office, even before we sit, our eyes sweep
the table tops and magazine racks for something to occupy our
minds. When we sit, we take in the chair before we lower ourselves,
we glance around the room to look at the people, we look at the
cover of our magazine. We are constantly concentrating, and we are
constantly shifting our concentration. Even when we are daydream-
ing, we are concentrating on some inner thought or feeling.

32 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “When you lose your concentration on the stage,” Thespis sud-
denly says, “you can often regain it by focusing on the closest object.
And by ‘object,’ I include people. Further, you must realize that not
all objects of attention are of equal importance. In what you call ‘a
doctor's office,’ your attention will be more engaged by the doctor
when he or she comes to get you than by the other people in the
room. When you play a part, you must develop a sense of proportion
regarding which points of attention are important and which are less
so. This circle of attention helps you to really ‘see’ the stage and the
others on it. Now, let’s put relaxation and concentration together.”
Thespis asks us to step over to the golden ball.

As we do so, we realize that he can read our thoughts. How else

could he have known about the doctor’s office?

Thespis asks us to stand directly over the ball, and to stretch our
arms as high over our heads as we can. He tells us to imagine that we
are trying to reach a book on a high shelf, but that it is just out of
reach. He tells us to slowly drop our arms beginning first with the
wrists, then the forearms to the elbow, and then to drop the upper
arms at the shoulders Our arms are now completely down. He tells
us to drop our head.

Thespis explains that we are going to go down slowly through

our spine, as we did before, but that this time we will use the glowing
golden ball as an object for our attention.

When we do this, it feels different. We have a goal this time. The

ball captures our interest, and so we have a reason for bending down
to get a closer look at it. We are excited to be so close to this magical
glowing ball. It seems to be radiating a pleasant warmth that makes
us feel good.

“You see,” he says, “you are having feelings even though I did not
ask you for any.” It’s true. We were not focused on having any partic-
ular feelings. We were focused on examining the fascinating object
before us. “Did you think about me?” asks Thespis. No, we did not.
“It was as if you were alone with the ball, wasn’t it?” Yes, we reply.
This feeling, of being alone when others are around, Stanislavski calls

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 33

“Public Solitude,”!6 Thespis explains. He picks up one of the banners
from the floor and that is just what it says; PUBLIC SOLITUDE.

Sometimes, on stage, we have felt this. It is a strange and won-

derful feeling to act as if only the people and the furniture on the
stage are present, to forget about that huge space where the audience
is sitting. Yet, if one really acted like this, we wonder, wouldn't one
speak as though in one’s own living room? How could the audience
hear you if you are truly acting private in public? “Make no mistake,”
thunders Thespis, “Stanislavski believes that a clear and powerful
voice is a necessity for an actor. Simply put, you MUST BE HEARD
AND UNDERSTOOD! It takes practice to create public solitude
and still be heard by the audience. This is one of the main reasons
why the actor studies voice. You'll learn more about that later, however.”

So far, we've learned that concentrating on objects of attention

creates a state of public solitude, and that this state helps to keep us
from falling into the clichéd behavior we think the audience expects.
Thespis tells us that there are many ways to deepen our ability to
concentrate. One way, is to study an object for a certain period of
time, say three minutes, and then to describe everything we can
remember about it. We can give histories to an object; when we last
used it, when we first used it, our emotional associations with it.
Another exercise designed to increase our powers of concentration,
he tells us, is to multiply numbers in our head, while others ask us
questions.!7

Concentration, he tells us, does not mean just squinting our eyes
and staring at something. Concentration is not a frozen thing, but
requires an alive and active mind. When we concentrate on some-
thing, we are doing something. We are assessing, judging, weighing,
reacting to the object of our attention. This reminder helps us. We
have been guilty, when asked to CONCENTRATE, of simply staring
harder, furrowing our brows and tensing our jaw. We've put on the
look of concentration, but not actively concentrated.

Thespis turns over a card that says, SENSORY RECALL. This

he tells us, is a part of concentration. A useful concentration exercise
is to recall the events of a day using the five senses. Try to recall wak-
ing up this morning, he tells us. What did the air feel like on your

34 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

skin? What was the weight of the sheet or blanket like? What texture
did you feel against your body? What did the room smell like? What
was the temperature? Was it cold? Cool? Warm? Hot? What sounds
did you hear as you arose? What was the taste in your mouth? What
woke you? What did you first see when you awakened? When you
got out of bed was the floor cold, soft, warm? Was the surface wood-
en or carpeted? When did the demands and tasks of the day hit you?
Recall any part of your day in this way, and your powers of concen-
tration will increase, he says.

In addition, he adds, you can go deeper. “Recall another part of

your day, the objects and people you see. Remember to use all five
senses when you do this recall. But when you do it this time, include
your reactions to everything. If you heard a church bell, remember
how it made you feel. If you smelled food, remember if you wanted it
or were put off by it. Associate sense memories with feelings and judg-
ments and you will prepare the ground for emotional arousal.”

Thespis turns over another banner and affixes it to the wall. It

reads, IMAGINATION. Without this, Thespis announces, you can-
not act. How can you create something that does not exist if you do
not use your imagination, he asks. “Whatever character you play does
not truly exist until YOU create it. That is an act of the imagina-
ie
tion.

“Look at the golden ball,” he commands. We do. “Imagine that

it is an egg and that inside it, is growing a poisonous serpent.
Imagine further, that the serpent is about to hatch.” We do. “Good.
Now, pick it up.” We look at Thespis, and down at the ball. We don't
know anything about this Thespis. Only that he is possessed of pow-
ers that enable him to travel through time and space. We don’t know
his heart, his intentions. Suppose there is a snake in that ball, and
that to illustrate some point, he allows it to bite us? This whole thing
is getting a little crazy. We do not move toward the ball.

“You do not trust me?” asks Thespis. No, we quite firmly reply.
“Well then,” he goes on, “suppose that the ball is not an egg and that
there is no serpent. Imagine instead, that inside that glowing golden
ball is your talent. That precious and mysterious essence that makes
you special and unique. And imagine further, that if you pick it up

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 35

and place it inside you, it will always guide and bless you. And that if
you are true to it, it will be true to you. Now, will you pick it up?”

As Thespis has been speaking, we have been staring at the ball. It

has changed several times from a dangerous egg, to a precious gift.
Back and forth the thing has shifted. When we think of it as an egg
we are repelled by it, but when we think of it as the container of our
talent, we are attracted to it. Again, we do not move. We do not
know what to believe. 4

“The truth is,” says Thespis, “that the ball is whatever your imag-
ination makes it. Just as it is possible for you to become whatever
your imagination makes you. Imagination is limitless and is one of
our most powerful tools. It enlivens the mind, the will and the emo-
tions. Just now, many feelings went through you. But I never said to
feel anything. I only engaged your imagination by using images, and
these images allowed your emotions to flow.” The truth of this is
unmistakable. “And, when the ball held your talent, you wanted to
go to it. Your will pulled you forward, but your judgment held you
still.” Again, the truth of this is undeniable.

“But what did I do that helped you to believe in the images I

presented to you?” asks Thespis. We have no reply. “Just now, with
the ball, how did I do it?” We're still not sure. We’re more than a little
intimidated by this figure. We do wish he'd take off those huge shoes
that make him tower over us. Thespis smiles. He bends down and
begins to remove his shoes. “You need to develop a sense of how we
accomplish what we do. It is important to think in this way without
my presence. After a while, I will become a figure inside of you and
not outside.” He has both shoes off now, and stands smiling before
us. “Better?” he asks. Much, we reply.

He picks up another banner and holds it up. It says, MAGIC IF

This, he tells us is what allowed us to believe in the images of the ball
and the egg. “Instead of ‘if,’ I said ‘suppose’ but it means the same
thing. Stanislavski says that the word ‘if? is the key that opens the
door to the imagination. When I first told you that the ball was an
egg containing a poisonous serpent, you acted toward it as ifwhat I
told you was a fact. You see, that ‘if’ catapults you into the world of
the imagination. The word ‘if? is magical in that it gives us permis-

36 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

sion to be something other than we are. It enables us to place our-
selves in situations in which we have never been, and to live in those
situations.”

“Now imagine that you had known that the ball was not an ege.
The simple word ‘if? would still allow you to act toward the ball as if
it were an egg. ‘If’ allows you to modulate from the key of reality
into the new key of the imagination without violating your sense of
truth. ‘If can put us anywhere; past, present, future, Earth, Mars, or
in a bottle. It can make us anything; person, object, animal, alien,
warrior, philosopher or even Ancient Greek. We must use it, if we are
to deal successfully with what is on the next banner.”

Thespis picks up another flag. It reads, CIRCUMSTANCES.

“Your imagination, activated by the magic ‘if,’ is what enables you to
enter the imaginary circumstances of a play.”

“You are not Hamlet,” Thespis states matter-of-factly. We cer-

tainly agree. “But if you were Hamlet, what would it be like? In order
to answer that question, you would need to understand Hamlet's cir-
cumstances. If you were a thirty-year-old Prince of Denmark given to
studying the eternal issues of mankind, and you returned home only
to discover that your uncle had murdered your father and that your
mother had married that very same uncle, how would you feel? Don’t
answer yet, Just sit down and close your eyes.”

We sit cross-legged on the studio floor and close our eyes. After a
few moments Thespis speaks in a quiet voice.

“You are approaching the castle. It is dark out and your horse is
galloping over muddy ground. You are being splattered but do not
care. You are desperate to get home for your father’s funeral. Your
father. To you he always seemed the very definition of a man. You
always wondered if you could measure up. The castle looms ahead of
you. It appears to be like a huge coffin inside of which everything is
dead. You shake off this morbid image and press on. Why think such
thoughts? You will be king now, unless rumors of your mother’s mar-
riage to your uncle prove true. But how could she marry anyone
without a proper period of mourning? She wouldn't. She will respect

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 37

the memory of her husband, your father. You reach back to feel the
pack that holds your black clothes of mourning. Yes, it’s still there.

Do you even want to be king? There will, of course, be great

power, but your life will never be yours again. You are now close
enough to see the silhouetted guards on the battlements. At least, you
think, the sunlight that is Ophelia is inside. The drawbridge lowers
and the castle swallows you up.

Attendants rush towards you as you dismount; They greet you

and bow. You are glad to see some of them for you have known them
all your life. They all offer words of comfort concerning the death of
King Hamlet, but are tense when they explain that not only have you
missed your father’s funeral, but that the marriage of your mother
and uncle is only a few weeks away. You stand stunned. It begins to
rain. You do not moye, and then, in a daze, you reach into your pack
and take out your mourning clothes. Standing in the rain, before
your attendants, you strip off your riding clothes and don your suit
of solemn black. And as they watch, you walk slowly into the castle.”
Thespis takes a breath and asks, “are you there?”

We are. We keep our eyes closed, seeing the scene and feeling
saddened and enraged.

“Your inner feelings are aroused by the circumstances I have

painted, are they not?” We nod our head. “According to Stanislavski,
the key to acting is to apply your inner life to the circumstances of
the character. In this way, you do not just play yourself, you use your-
self in the service of the part. If you are absent, the part will be life-
less. But if only you are present, the character will disappear.”

“Notice also, that when your mind was engaged with the circum-
stances, which your imagination allowed you to enter, you were both
relaxed and concentrated. All the elements we've talked about so far
combined to create vivid sensory images which stimulated your emo-
tions. Now, after hearing and imagining the story I have just told
you, arent you just itching to DO something?”

Yes, we reply. Our body is all revved up with no place to go.

We're excited. Energy is flowing through us and we want to move.

38 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Not yet,” says Thespis. “Stay still. I want to make another
point.”

We try to stay put, but notice that our foot is shaking rapidly
back and forth.

Suppose you must act the following short two-person scene:”

A: Hi, how are you?

B: Fine.
A: What happened today?
B: Nothing much. You?
A: Nothing. Want some? (Offering a drink.)
B: No thanks.
A: Jenny?
BaYes?
A: Nothing.

“Without a circumstance, such a scene would be flat and unin-

teresting. But if we add even a simple circumstance to it, it will come
alive. Suppose we say that characters “A” and “B” are boyfriend and
girlfriend. And let us further suppose that this scene takes place in
the apartment they share. And finally, let us add to the circumstance
that “B” has just found out that her boyfriend “A” has been having
an affair with her best friend. With these simple circumstances, the
scene will change. It will have a very specific life and dynamic. It will
no longer be boring, and yet we never changed the words. All we did,
was to give it a circumstance.

Suppose that we change the circumstances again. This time let us

imagine that character “A” has decided to kill character “B.” And let
us further suppose that the instrument of murder will be a poison
drink. Let’s try it.”

From out of nothing, Thespis produces a table, two chairs, and a

cup. He sits in one of the chairs and waves me over. Yes, we are about
to play a scene with Thespis.

“You are character ‘A,” he announces, “And you may change the
name ‘Jenny,’ to “Thespis.’” He snatches a newspaper out of the air

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 39

and begins reading it. A strange sight indeed; an ancient Greek read-
ing a newspaper. We realize that we must enter, and that we must
enter from somewhere. This makes us wonder where we might have
been. Perhaps at school, and perhaps Thespis is our abusive father.
We realize we are creating “circumstances.” Now, since we don't want
“dad” to be suspicious, we enter cheerfully.

US: Hi, how are you. (We sit, wiping our brow like
its a hot day outside.) ;
THESPIS: Fine. (Thespis kind of snaps this word out,
like weve interrupting him.)
US: What happened today? (Like friendly small
talk.)
THESPIS: Nothing much. (He turns a page.) You?
US: Nothing. Want some? (We offer the poisoned
drink.)
THESPIS: (Thespis looks at it for a moment and then
turns back to his paper.) No thanks. (We are still
holding out the drink.)
US: Thespis? (We say this like he really needs some-
thing to drink on such a hot day. We are concerned
for his health and want to let him know he’ being
stubborn.)
THESPIS: Yes? (He does not turn toward us.)
US: Nothing. (We withdraw the cup, defeated.)

Thespis leaps up. “A completely different scene, yes?” We agree.

“And yet we didn’t change one word, correct?” That is absolutely
right, we say. What we did was to change the circumstances.
“Correct!” shouts Thespis triumphantly. Acting clearly delights him.

“The playwright only gives us some of the moments of the char-

acter’s life. It is up to us to create the moments that are implied. In a
sense, you see, Stanislavski asks the actor to be a novelist. To fill in all
those past, present and even future times that the playwright doesn’t
have time to show. They must still be part of the inner makeup of the
characters we portray, however.”

40 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “You did this when you played the scene with me. You filled in
some background. You decided that you were coming from school
and that I was an abusive father. Those circumstances helped you to
act the present moments with me truthfully. If, however, you create
circumstances that don’t help, but rather hinder your ability to play a
scene truthfully, then they are useless.”

“If a scene is not working, try deepening the circumstances, or

changing them. You see, we do not have names for all the emotions
we experience. What, for instance, is the name of the anger we feel
when our alarm clock goes off too early? We have none. We just say
we are angry about it, or frustrated. But these are global pronounce-
ments without any shading to them. But if we speak of feelings with-
in a well defined circumstance, then we understand the shade of
anger we are dealing with. We are not just ‘angry,’ but we are the
kind of ‘angry that happens when our alarm clock goes off too early.
And even that is too general.”

“More circumstances are needed. Let’s say we have been getting

good rest for many nights, and that the alarm is only fifteen minutes
early. Our anger is likely to be a specific kind of irritation, and not a
murderous rage. But if we haven't been sleeping well for days because
this alarm has been ringing every three hours, we might pounce on it
with tremendous violence. Altering the circumstances, painting them
ever more specifically, helps us to find the shadings of emotion for
which we have no words.”

We think about this. Heaven knows, director’s have asked us

many times to be MORE angry or MORE upset or LESS agitated.
But when we try, we usually fail, and the director becomes MORE
and MORE frustrated with us. This is because we do not have the
words for the thousand subtle emotions that pass through us each
day. We simply do not have a rich enough emotional vocabulary to
communicate nuance to each other. Why is this so? Maybe it says
something about our society's fear of emotional expression. In any
case, if directors painted better circumstances, used more colorful
metaphors and imagery, we might understand more specifically what
was required of us.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 41

 “Yes, you are right,” says Thespis. “But if they do not do this,
then you must create circumstances which allow you to be MORE
angry or MORE upset or LESS agitated and not simply try to
squeeze more anger, or more upset, or less agitation out of yourself.
Concentrate on what you have to do in the circumstances, not on
what youre supposed to feel.”

“Now, the playwright only furnishes us with some of the circum-

stances we need. These we call the givens. Shakespeare tells us that
Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. That’s a given. But he tells us
nothing about Hamlet’s approach to, or arrival at, the castle. That is
an imaginary circumstance that we create. We cannot change the
given circumstances but we can change and experiment with the
imaginary ones. In fact, the imaginary circumstances we create, help
us to enter the given ones with a sense of believability.”

We're getting a headache. “Relaxation.” “Mind, will and emo-

»

tion. “Concentration. “Public Solitude.” “Sensory recall.”

“Imagination.” “Magic If.” “Circumstances.” Our head is a jumble of
phrases and ideas.

“Tt is a lot, isn’t it?” We nod in agreement. “Let’s have lunch,”

Thespis suggests. On a table appears a lucious basket of fruit, a pitch-
er of water and a loaf of delicious smelling sourdough bread. Butter
and jam, of course. We realize that we're famished and sit. As we eat,
Thespis speaks gently.

“Relaxation, you see, helps emotion to flow unrestrained. Public

Solitude and sensory recall result from concentration, which is a
process of our minds. The magic ‘if’ allows us to enter the circum-
stances of the character and the play by way of our imaginations.
These elements are not separate, although we speak of them that way.
They are interrelated, connected to each other. Our imagination is a
function of our minds, and yet it also stimulates our feelings. In a
given moment, we might focus on one more than another, but they
all must work together.”

Between bites and gulps, we realize that the will has not been
spoken ofyet.

42 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “Maybe not spoken of,” says Thespis, again picking our thoughts
out of the air, “but engaged nonetheless. After I sketched the circum-
stances of Hamlet’s ride, you felt stirred up, didn’t you?” We
acknowledge that we did. “The circumstances and images stirred feel-
ings in you, yes?” Yes, we reply, they did. “Your body wanted to
move, you wanted to do something.” Thespis springs up from the
table and grabs one of the flags. He holds it up for us to read. It says,
ACTION.

But just as we are about to protest the presentation of yet anoth-

er banner, we smell something. It smells like fire. Our head swivels
about, trying to find the source. Our eyes flit to Thespis, who is
looking quickly around as well. Maybe it’s just one of those old room
radiators starting up. But no, there's smoke coming up from under
the studio door. Immediately we whip off our jacket and run to the
door, while at the same time we search the room with our eyes for a
way out. A window, a door, anything. At the door, we bend down
and stuff the jacket into the gap between the bottom of it and the
floor. We turn back to Thespis. His back is to us. He too is searching
for a way out. “No doors, no windows,” he says. For a moment no
one moves or speaks.

“Through the mirror!” we say, and jump up. “What about the
others?” asks Thespis. “We've got to help them.” We stop, halfway
through the mirror. We look over at the door. A dense smoke is seep-
ing into the room. Thespis’s eyes are wild, and we see that he is about
to panic. “We'll go through the mirror,” we say in a calm voice, “and
come out another mirror in this same building. That way we can
warn or help the others.” Thespis doesn’t move. We put out our
hand. “Come on. The sooner we're out of here, the sooner we'll be
able to help the others.”

He stands stock still. “Let’s go,” we plead. Still, Thespis stands

frozen. “THESPIS,” we scream, “WE VE GOT TO LEAVE THIS
ROOM!” We grab his arm, but he resists. We wonder if we're going
to have to hit him and drag him through the mirror, when he looks
right into our eyes. He looks unusually calm. “It’s all right,” he says
with a smile. We think that maybe he has crossed over into some

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 43

kind of psychotic adjustment to the danger, and for the first time, we
are scared.

“Look,” he says. Our eyes travel to the door and see that the
smoke has stopped. We do not understand. “I did it,” Thespis says.
Slowly it hits us. Magic. The fire was a trick. We swear at Thespis.

“Forgive me,” he says in a soft voice. “I thought you needed to

get out of the talking mode. A break, so to speak. From all the talk.
Sorry.” Can you kill a man who died twenty-five hundred years ago?
we wonder. “Please, continue your meal,” he says. We slowly sit
down, and sip some water. Thespis fetches our jacket and places it in
our lap. We are trying to recover from the flood of adrenaline that
has been activated. And while Thespis speaks, we curse him.

“ACTION you see. You sprang into action. The circumstances

were such that you were impelled to ACT. You see, in a very real
sense, you were acting. To be art, you would have to create the
smoke, the circumstances and the feelings through your imagination.
And the creation of these things would lead you to do something; to
act. If you are ever on stage and are doing nothing, then something is
terribly wrong. And if you are ever on stage doing something but
have no reason for doing it, then something also is terribly wrong.
For Stanislavski, acting is doing; doing with a purpose.”

“When you went to the door were you worried about how to
hold your hands? Or what emotions to feel? Or what expressions
your face was making? Of course not. Even as you sit there now, you
have an inner action. You are cursing me. You body may be still, but
you are full of activity. Quite malicious activity too,” he adds under
his breath. We feel a little embarrassed. But net too much.

“The point is, that by having an action, you lost any self-con-
scious awareness of your self. You knew what to do and you did it
without worrying about who was watching, or what you looked
like.” But, we protest that we weren't acting. We really thought the
building was on fire. We were only doing what we would do in life.

“True,” replies Thespis. “So let’s act.” Oh no, there goes our
adrenaline again.

44 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “Imagine this part of the room as the hallway to your apartment.
Imagine that you are coming home from work at the end of the day,
and that all you want to do is drop into your comfortable chair and
put your feet up. This is the thought in your mind as you approach
the imaginary door. But when you get halfway down the hallway, you
smell smoke. Go ahead, try it.”

We stand up and begin walking toward the door. The thought of

dropping into a nice overstuffed chair right now has great appeal. We
can even “see” its green color and almost feel its plush texture. But a
moment later our thoughts are interrupted by an awareness. We take
a few more steps, then stop. We look around and sniff the air, puz-
zled. Smells like smoke. Our eyes scan the hallway until we realize
that the white billows we see are coming from under the door of our
apartment. We run to it.

“Your wife and daughter are inside,” says Thespis.

Immediately, we put our hand on the door to open it. But it is

too hot to touch. We freeze for a moment. We have to do something
to get them out. We kick at the imaginary door.

“It does not give,” says Thespis in a quiet voice.

We kick it harder.

“Sull it does not give.”

We don’t know that to do. We are breathing hard. “Help!” we

scream, Fire!”

“There is no one else in the building,” says Thespis.

We are getting desperate. We look around for some means of

help. In the hallway of our own apartment, in real life, is a fire extin-
guisher box with an axe inside. We decide that this hallway too, has
one. We run to the imaginary box, thrust our fist through it, and
take out the axe. As we rush back to the door, we see that our hand is
bleeding. No matter, we've got to get through that door to our wife
and daughter. We swing the imaginary axe at the door over and over
until it gives way. Immediately, we have to cover our eyes and turn

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 45

our heads away from the escaping smoke. The rush of heat pushes us
back. They must be dead we think as we run back for the fire extin-
suisher. We've got to hurry. Maybe they’re alive. In the doorway, we
unleash the extinguishing spray and slowly advance into the room.
Where are they? We try to see through the smoke but it is too thick.
We call out.

“Debby? Jenny? Where are you? Debby? Jenny? I’m here by the
door. Where are you? Answer me, if you can. Where are you?”

We have been moving all through the space. Suddenly we trip

over the body of our daughter.

“Oh my God.” We put the fire extinguisher down and pick up

her limp body. Without stopping to listen for a heartbeat or to check
for a breath, we rush her out of the room.

“Good,” says
y Thespis. “You may y stop.
stop The scene is over.”

We stand breathless, still holding our arms out. We look over at

Thespis.

“You can drop your arms now,” Thespis reminds us.

“Ts she dead or alive?” we ask.

“Don't know yet,” he replies. “Good time for an act break

though, don’t you think?”

We laugh. We are grateful for a little humor after this harrowing

experience. We drop our arms and head for the water.

“This time, you were acting, yes?”

“Yes,” we reply.

“You are a good actor,” Thespis says. “You have a strong sense of
truth. None of this actually happened, but you believed so strongly in
the circumstance that you acted as if your apartment was on fire.”

“Did you have feelings while you were engaged in this scene?” Of
course, we reply. “Were you aware of the different expressions on

46 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

your face, or what postures your body took? Did you think about
Aaron Hill? About which face to make that would communicate the
proper emotion to your audience? Did you think about Delsarte, and
which body position would best represent the feelings you were hav-
ing?” Not really, we respond. “Were you acting this time? Did you act
truthfully the imaginary circumstances you were given?” Yes, we say,
this time we really were acting. You had a strong action to play didn’t
you?” Yes, we reply. “What was it?” he asks. Uh oh, a test. It was to
get the door open, we answer. “That was certainly an important
action,” he agrees. “Were there other actions involved? Did you have
to do things in order to get the door open?” Of course, we say. We
had to try to turn the door handle, we had to try kicking the door,
we had to smash the glass containing the axe and the fire extinguish-
er, we had to get the axe and we had to swing the axe until the door
gave way.

“Good,” say Thespis. “Lots of little actions were necessary to

accomplish the larger action. And each little action helped you
toward your goal of getting the door open. The situation compelled
your body to react, and you did. The circumstance led to feeling
which led to action. Or did it?”

“So much ink has been spilled over whether actors should work
from the external to the internal, from the outside to the inside, or
from the internal to the external, that it has gotten a bit ridiculous.
In this exercise there was a clear connection between your inner self
and your body, was there not?” We agree that there was. Our inner
understanding of the situation caused our body to go into action.
“Or did running toward the door cause your inner feelings?” Thespis
asks. Truthfully, we cannot really separate this out.

“You see, arousing feeling is something like trying to understand

the nature of light. Is light a wave, or a particle? This question puz-
zled physicists of your century for many years. They felt that it had to
be one or the other. But finally they had to accept a strange fact.
They had to accept the paradox that sometimes light acts like a wave
and sometimes light acts like a particle. Light, it turns out, is not so
simple. Doesn't want to be pinned down. The same is true in arous-
ing emotion. It is a paradox. Sometimes emotion comes from inside

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 47

and results in some action. But sometimes, action itself causes us to
feel emotion. Remember Delsarte’s soldier? How, when he was posed
in a position of fear, he became fearful?”

“If you make a fist, for example, and begin pounding the table,
you will soon begin to feel anger. An anger stimulated only by the
action of banging and not by some circumstance that angered you.”
We think we're getting the point. Thespis seems to be proposing
some kind of quantum theory of emotion. This ancient Greek cer-
tainly keeps up. “The mind-body connection is one that Stanislavski
is acutely aware of. He knows that ‘All external production is formal,
cold, and pointless if it is not motivated from within.’18 But we're
not ready for that yet.”

Thespis comes over to the table and sits. He eats some grapes.

“You did very well in that scene. Of course, it was only one brief
exercise, and there was very little dialogue.” He pops a grape into his
mouth. “Imagine the work involved in determining the actions of an
entire play. All of the outer and inner actions. It would be a lot to
keep in one’s mind and still feel spontaneous, don’t you think?” We
do. “Yet it must be done. As preparation, you see.” Our heart sinks a
little. “But there is a way to do it all quite simply. At least according
to Stanislavski.”

“When you smelled the imaginary smoke in the scene you just
did, what did you wish?” We think for a moment. “It’s really pretty
simple,” says Thespis. “And if you use an active verb in your state-
ment, then what you wish will be related to an action, since a verb is
an action word.” Now we are confused. “Well,” coaxes Thespis, “did
you wish to save your family, perhaps?” Yes, we reply, yes we did.

“That wish is what Stanislavski calls an OBJECTIVE. It’s an

unfortunate term in that it is so...well...objective. It sounds so dis-
passionate and neutral. But that would be the Opposite of
Stanislavski’s intention. It is much better to think of the ‘object’ in
the word ‘objective’ as the object of your desire. So, in the case of
your scene, the object of your desire was to save your wife and child.
Correct?” Yes, we reply, that’s right.

48 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Could you phrase it in a more active way, with an image that
<4 . . . . .

would attract you?” We're not quite sure what he means. We need
help with this, we say.

“Well,” begins Thespis, “after you smell that smoke, could the
object of your desire be to snatch your loved ones from the fires of
hell? To win the race with the flames? To beat death? Don’t these
ways of phrasing your objective quicken your blood and make you
strain to fulfill them? Don’t they engage your imagination and body
more than the phrase ‘save my family’? The great danger of an objec-
tive is that it can easily become just an intellectual construct. Dry as
dust. That does not help us as actors.”

“Perhaps now you also see that your actions were in support of
your objective. Trying to open the door was one way to get inside
and snatch your family from the flames of death. But it didn’t work.
You began to fall behind in your race. That impelled you to another
action; kicking the door. But that also didn’t work. Desperation built,
as time became your greatest enemy. You ran down the hall and cut
your hand getting an axe. Another action in support of your objec-
tive. Each action was natural and logical, given your objective. You
didn’t do anything that contradicted that objective.

Now, of course, you didn’t think about it in this way. You simply
responded to the given circumstances with all your heart. But if the
circumstances did not engage you instincts, working on actions and
objectives could create fertile enough ground to attract your true
intuitive responses. Remember, if acting is to be alive, your mind,
your will and your emotions must be engaged. The objective activates
your will to action. Emotion will follow, as you pursue the ‘object of
your desire.’ Do you see?”

We admit that we are beginning to.

We confess to Thespis that the word “objective” has terrified us

from the time we first heard it. But that now, the way he’s talking
about it, it seems less abstract and more exciting.

“Good. This talk of objectives can be quite tricky. In any case,

when you are working on a part, you work out the objectives and the

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 49

actions that support them. Not in a dry way, but in an imaginative
and passionate one. Doing this, gives the actor a pathway through a
script; markers that help him know which way to go. By breaking a
play down into objectives and actions, the actor has no time for self-
consciousness and cannot focus on forcing emotions through his
body. As Stanislavski says, ‘...don’t worry about the flower, just water
the roots...’”!9

“And yet keeping in mind each separate action and objective

would simply be too much for an actor to do while performing. So
Stanislavkski suggests that the actor keep his eye on this.” Thespis
turns over a banner that reads SUPER-OBJECTIVE.

“In a play, the super-objective is like the theme. In Hamlet, the

super-objective might be stated as, the taking of revenge leads only to
tragedy.”

“All of the actions of the play, indeed of each character, should

point towards and shed light on this main idea. If the main idea were
stated in a different way, then the actions illuminating that idea
would be different. Before going onstage, the actor can remind her-
self of the super-objective, and since all the smaller actions and objec-
tives are contained in it, she will quickly be pointed in the right
direction. She doesn’t need to remind herself of each action and
objective through the whole play. This would simply serve to distract
her from living spontaneously on the stage.”

“Think of objectives as magnets that pull you through a perfor-

mance. The super-objective is the main magnet to which all the oth-
ers adhere. Stanislavski’s idea here reminds me of what Plato said
about inspiration, “This stone (the magnet) not only attracts iron
rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other
rings; and sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and
rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain;
and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original
stone.”29

“You see, all of the smaller objectives are like a chain of magnets
connected to the largest and strongest one which is the super-objec-
tive.” A chain of magnets. Pulling us through the play. We like that.

50 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “And like the smaller objectives which give rise to actions, the
super-objective gives rise to the THROUGH LINE OF ACTION.
This simply means that all of the actions of your character create a
clear line leading to the fulfillment of the super-objective.”

We confess to Thespis that our head is swimming.

“Let me try to be clear. Simply put, the objective is what you

want, and the action is what you do. Together they involve the total
actor, his inner life and its outward expression. Have a peach.”

We do. “You see, you want relief,” says Thespis, “that’s your
objective. So, you eat a peach, that’s your action. Simple. It’s the
words that get in the way.”

“T think we need a little perspective here,” says Thespis. “All of

this work does not make you a good actor, or even guarantee a good
performance. Pursuing an objective is not acting.” We groan. What
then is the point of doing all this, we wonder.

“This system, created by Stanislavski, is meant to prepare the

ground for that ever elusive gift, inspiration. Doing this work is like
erecting lightning rods to attract lightning. The more rods you build
and the better you build them, the more likely the bolt will strike.
Really, this system itself is a magnet for the subconscious. Because for
Stanislavski, the subconscious is the source of inspiration.”

“The promise of his system is this; if you use your imagination to

enter, with belief, the imaginary circumstances of the play, and if you
follow the correct objectives and actions through the play’s length,
then the proper emotions will follow you and inspiration will more
likely come.”

That sounds a little more manageable to us, we admit. Maybe

the peach is helping. But something is bothering us. What happens,
we ask, if the emotion doesn’t come? We are thinking of atime when
we were supposed to cry on stage and just couldn't do it.

“Good question, says Thespis. “Stanislavski has an answer for

this, but it is the most controversial aspect of his work.” Thespis
picks up a flag that reads, EMOTION MEMORY.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 51

 “In the year 1900, a book called The Psychology of the Emotions,
by the French psychologist Théodule Ribot, was translated into
Russian. Stanislavski read it and was greatly influenced by it. Ribot
stated that the memory of all of life’s experiences are recorded in the
nervous system.?! To Stanislavski this meant that the actor should be
able to call up emotions from his past and apply them to the emo-
tional life of the character. To activate these remembered emotions is
the tricky part. Stanislavski used the idea of sense memory as the trigger.”

“If the feelings of some past event in your life do not immediate-
ly come to you,” Thespis went on, “you then concentrate on what
you saw and heard, on what you did and where you were. Recalling
those sensory details will bring back the feelings associated with
them. The trick is to focus on the physical memories and let the
emotions come. If your character is called upon to cry at a certain
moment in the play, and you as the actor cannot produce the
required tears, you can use emotion memory to arouse the proper
feeling. Remember a time when you cried. But do not focus on the
feeling. focus instead on where you were standing, what you did,
what you saw and what you heard. If you were standing by a drink-
ing fountain when the news of your father’s death really hit you, see
yourself at that fountain, see its color, see your hand on the handle,
hear the flow of the water, feel the slowness of time, see where your
mother is, remember your brother saying ‘it’s up to us now,’ and let
the emotions come. You can then use your own personal feelings in
the role to bring it alive.”

“For Stanislavski, the remembered feeling does not have to be

one that the actor has experienced directly. It might be a feeling gen-
erated by seeing something happen to someone else, or through read-
ing. If feelings are stimulated by these things, the actor can still use
them. The real point is that these remembered emotions are control-
lable and repeatable. Emotion memories are not useful if they cannot
be controlled or repeated.”

“But using recalled emotion is only one of several ways to arouse

emotion. Sometimes a strong objective will stimulate feeling, some-
times a powerful circumstance will start emotions flowing, sometimes

52 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

a vivid image will arouse sleeping emotions, sometimes an action will
bring a feeling alive, sometimes an object of attention will animate
your emotional life, and often, your interaction with the other actors
will stimulate your feelings.”

“There are many paths to your feelings without forcing them.

Feelings are notoriously elusive and if you reach for them directly,
they will run from you. Even in emotion memory, we do not focus
on emotion itself. We focus on everything around it.”

We remind Thespis that he said emotion memory is the most

controversial aspect of Stanislavski’s work. What, we wonder, is the
controversy about?

“I wont tell you,” he announces. “Not now. Later, you will

understand. I will only tell you that Stanislavski himself stopped
using it toward the end of his life. But that doesn’t mean that you
should disregard it. He always felt that you must bring your emotion-
al life to the parts you play. But they must always be at the service of
the play and the character, and not mere personal indulgence.”

Thespis turns over another banner. This one says COMMU-

NION. “A moment ago, I spoke of the other actors, and their affect
on you. This is a crucial part of Stanislasvki’s system. The living
exchange between the characters in a scene, the communion between
them, is what rivets the audiences attention. The completeness of
that communion helps each individual in the auditorium forget him-
self, and enter into the drama on stage. This is another kind of com-
munion; the audience with the characters, with the story.”

Thespis has been standing for quite a long time, and he looks
tired. We think he might need a rest.

“J am talking to you now, and you are attentive to me. My words

have meaning to you. But if my breathing were to become irregular
while I spoke, and the color were to drain from my face, you would
become concerned...”

We are becoming concerned.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 53

 “..and you would be listening to me in a somewhat different
way. You would be responding less to what I was saying, and more to
the way I was saying it. The essence of the scene would shift from
understanding the information of my words, to a concern for my
health and safety. You would be responding to messages from my
body, you would be sensing my internal distress...”
He looks very pale.

“ .you would be listening to what is going on beneath the

words, to what Stanislavski called the subtext. Often, the actual
words of a scene are like the tips of icebergs. They are what we see,
but most of their meaning is below them. They are surface manifesta-
tions of deep inner workings...”

We are sitting on the edge of our seat.

“'.. like sunspots...which appear on the surface of the sun,

but...are the result of violent...storms...deeper down...”

Thespis falls to one knee, and we rush to him. His breathing is

labored and his body is hot. We help him to a chair and put a cup of
water to his lips. He drinks.

“Thank you,” he says. His voice is low and congested. He takes

another drink. “All of this...traveling, I think.” Yes, we agree. He
must be quite worn down by all this jumping around through time
and space.

“T cannot do this much longer, I’m afraid. Fetch my cothorni,

would you?” He indicates his thick-soled footwear. We get them.
“You see,” he slowly continues, “had I said those words about sub-
text in my normal healthy way...you would have reacted differently.
But beneath my words was a circumstance, a situation that changed
the way I...said them and the way you reacted to them. You became
sensitive to more than my words and reacted accordingly. You were
playing me and not just what I was...saying. This is so crucial. This
relationship between the characters is really what the audience came
to see. The living chemistry between us is what is compelling. When
actors have an affect on each other; when one action causes a reaction

54 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

in the other character which causes a reaction in the first character
then the most precious exchange in the theater is taking place..”

“IT don’t have much time left before I must go, so I must finish.
Stanislavski’s ideas are basic to your understanding of what lies ahead.
He worked so hard to help actors have a practical way to approach
acting. But you must always remember that his quest never ended.
He always looked for new and better ways to train actors. He regard-
ed them as artists and what they did as a high art. No matter what
path you follow, keep alive your respect for both the search and the
searcher. He did.”

“Now, in a scene, suppose that your action does not lead to the suc-
cessful fulfillment of your objective. Do you...give up? Not likely. You
try a new way to get it. Sometimes a scene requires that you try many
new actions to get what you want. This shifting of actions in response to
new circumstances is what Stanislavski called, ADAPTATION.”

“If Iwanted to borrow money from you, I might begin with

some small talk to disarm your defenses. I might use the adaptation
of charm to make you feel good about talking to me. Then I might
tell you, with obvious embarrassment, about my grave financial situa-
tion, hoping to gain your sympathy. Then, I might adopt a tone of
directness, look you straight in the eye, and ask you for a loan. If you
refuse, I must adapt to that reality, that circumstance. My adaptation
might be to plead with you or to use guilt as a means of getting what
I want. You see, the objective of getting the money never changed,
only the adaptations I had to make in order to get it, changed.”

“The use of many adaptations in a scene lends it color and vari-

ety. If you use only a single means of securing what you want in a
scene (and some scenes do require this), it usually becomes boring.
Review for yourself, the adaptations you made both to me and to the
circumstances when we played the scene with the poisoned drink. I
haven't time to do it with you now.”

“Turn over that one.” Thespis points to a flag on the floor and
we pick it up. It reads, TEMPO-RHYTHM. “Yes,” smiles Thespis,
“one of my favorites.”

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 55

 “Tempo is the speed, of course. Rhythm is the accent. A fast
waltz is usually accented, ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. A march
is usually accented ONE-two-three-four, ONE-two-three-four.”

We wonder what this has to do with realistic and truthful acting.

Sounds like some mechanical approach, not like Stanislavski at all.

“Not like Stanislavski? Where do you get such ideas? Do you

know he trained actors to move to a metronome? Do you know he
spent much time schooling actors in voice, diction and movement?
Are you aware of the fact that he was concerned that actors develop a
sense of proportion?”

Meaning what, we ask.

“Meaning that all objectives, all actions are not created equal.
Some are more important than others. If you put too much emphasis
on a minor objective or action, you hurt the overall structure of your
part. How many times have I seen an actor or a student give every
object of attention, every action and every objective the same weight.
Sometimes, you put down a cup of water while talking and it’s not a
matter oflife and death.” He puts down the cup. “As a Mr. Sigmund
Freud said in your century, ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

“Tt takes time to learn all this, of course, and so Stanislavski

allowed two years of training in order for the actor to get all the parts
of his system in place. The first year he called, ‘work on the self? and
the second year he called, ‘work on the role.’ But back to tempo-
rhythm.”

“Have you ever noticed the profound effect an inner tempo-

rhythm has on you? When, for example, you were watching me
weaken just a few moments ago, what was your inner tempo?” We
say that it was very fast. “Just so,” comments Thespis. “What was the
tempo-rhythm of my speech?” Slow and halting, we say. “Quite,” is
the reply.

“The power of tempo-rhythm can best be demonstrated from

the outside. Start walking at a slow measured pace. As the left foot
comes forward, bring the right one up to it. Pause for a slight

56 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

moment and then step forward on the right foot, bringing the left
even with it.” We try this. After a few steps we suddenly feel that we
are walking down the aisle at a wedding. We imagine, without any
effort at all, people standing on either side of us. We don’t feel like
the groom, but more like a child walking ahead of the wedding cou-
ple and we feel both embarrassed and excited.

“You see,” says Thespis, “the tempo-rhythm and manner of your

walk suggested not only a circumstance, but aroused feelings as well.
It is a truly powerful thing. If you like, it is working from the outside
to the inside. And yes, Stanislavski used this method extensively, both
as an actor and as a director. There is more to this man than you may,
at first, have thought.”

“Suppose, you must disarm a bomb. Inside, your tempo-rhythm

would probably be wild, your heart beating furiously. But outside,
sudden movements brought on by your inner anxiety might set the
bomb off. You would have to move slowly and precisely. This battle
between inner and outer tempo-rhythms can create tremendous ten-
sion on the stage. Look to it.”

“Let me summarize.” Thespis has put on his cothorni, and his

mask. Slowly, he stands. His voice is suddenly very powerful. “For
Stanislavski there is both an inner and an outer technique that the
actor must acquire. The inner technique consists of imagination, con-
centration, magic if,’ given circumstances, sense of truth, public solitude,
sensory recall, objectives, actions, emotion memory, inner tempo-rhythms.
The outer technique, which is intimately connected to the inner,
consists of relaxation, voice, diction, movement, acrobatics, outer tempo-
rhythm.” 22

“This system never remained static. It was evolving even at

Stanislavski’s death in 1938. You will learn later what he ultimately
came to believe about the use of emotion memory. But it 1s impor-
tant now to understand his method ofpsycho-physical actions. He came
to believe that working on a part was best done when the actors laid
out the physical actions early on in rehearsal. After a thorough
absorption of the circumstances of the play, the actors would enact
the physical actions, improvising the dialogue as they went along. In
this way, the words would not blind the actors from seeing the

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 57

actions and objectives underlying each scene. As they rehearsed, the
circumstances and actions would deepen until finally, the author's
words were put to use. This method is based on a profound belief
that ‘movement and thought are inseparable.’?3 Unfortunately,
Stanislavski died before he could fully explore or articulate this
method, and it remains for many, the most tantalizing part of his
work.”

“This whole system of Stanislavski’s is the most complete and

6 C Se i h e
practical yet devised for the training of an actor. It is designed to cre-
ate that receptive shore over which the waves of inspiration can flow.”

“It does not promise, however, to make you a great actor.

According to Stanislavski, acting cannot be taught. His method is
simply a means, not an end. It is meant to keep falseness and cliché
out of the theater. It is meant to transport the audience into the reali-
ty of the imagination; to take them out of the theater and into the
world of the characters. With the result that a mutual and beautiful
communal act of the imagination takes place between the author, the
actors and the spectators.”

“Many have added to Stanislavski’s system, and many have criti-

cized and rejected it. But it remains the baseline, the beginning
point, of all serious discussions about this elusive craft.”

“He created a true ensemble of artists wherein even the smallest

parts were crafted by loving actors, and brought to life with the same
care and attention lavished on the leading roles. He created an
ensemble not of supporting and star actors, but an ensemble of dedi-
cated professionals, each capable of the highest level of work.”

“This man, who struggled through so much failure, achieved an

astonishing success. His productions ended when the final curtains
rang down, but his quest, his passion and his discoveries remain an
everlasting legacy. He found nuggets of the purest gold, and shared
them with the world.”

“But you have much to explore. Much to learn. And I must jour-
ney homeward.” As he steps through the mirror, we hear the simple
word, “Good-bye.”

58 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 3

Smashing the Fourth Wall

B, the time the Moscow Art Theater toured the United States
in early 1923, it was world renowned. But at home, in Russia, it had
been under attack for some years. The first challenges came from the
MAT’s “special” playwright, Anton Chekhov himself.

Chekhov objected to the surface detail that Stanislavski brought

to the production of his plays. He made a joke in front of Stanislavski
about the director’s use of the sounds of every day life in his produc-
tions, “I’m going to write a new play, which will begin like this “How
nice it is! How quiet! Not a bird to be heard, not a clock, not a bell,
not a single cricket...””! But Chekhov's objections went much deep-
er. He felt that Stanislavski did not understand his plays and missed
the comic element in them. He did not like Stanislavski’s interpreta-
tion of his characters, and felt that his work was misrepresented. And
yet, he knew that the artistic finish of the MAT’s productions were
superior to all others, and continued to let Danchenko and
Stanislavsky produce his plays.

Other challenges came from three young members of the

Moscow Art Theater itself.

59
 In 1911, a young actor, twenty years Stanislavski’s junior, joined
the MAT. One year later this remarkable man, Evgeni Vakhtangov,
was a co-founder of the Moscow Art Theater's First Studio. There, he
began directing and teaching actors.

His first productions were marked by such extreme emotional

realism, that Stanislavski felt the acting had crossed over into hyste-
ria. By 1915, Vakhtangov’s experiments at the First Studio began to
yield fruit, bringing a new discipline to his acting and directing, and
by 1918 he was beginning to explore some new ideas that went
beyond his mentor.

Vakhtangov wanted to combine Stanislavski’s inner technique

with a vivid and exciting theatricalism. The theater, he felt, was not
like life, but a place that required its own special form of expression.
It should be pointed out again, that Stanislavski also did not believe
that the theater was the same thing as everyday life. He strongly
objected to this way of thinking. He also did not feel that the actor
should “live” the part so much as “experience” the part.?

But Vakhtangov was interested in exploring what he called the

“grotesque.” For him, “Grotesque is a method which enables the
actor and the director to justify inwardly the vivid, condensed con-
tent of a given play.”3 By approaching a play through the grotesque
aesthetic, the actors could exaggerate and distort the characters. But
in order to do this successfully, they had to base their characteriza-
tions on inner truth. In this way, Vakhtangov extended the
Stanislavski system to include a kind of “fantastic realism.” A realism
which encompassed theatricality.

Vakhtangov felt that “Stanislavsky demanded...that the audience

forget that it is in the theater, that it came to feel itself living in the
atmosphere and milieu in which the characters of the play
live...Stanislavsky wanted to destroy theatrical banality...but (he)
also removed a certain genuine, necessary theatricality, and genuine
theatricality consists in presenting theatrical works in a theatrical
manner.”4 Notice here, that while Stanislavski wanted the audience
to forget it was in a theater, that it was watching the play through an
imaginary fourth wall, he never wanted the actor to forget that there
was an audience present.

60 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Stanislavski was so impressed with the achievements of
Vakhtangov and his actors, that he appointed Vakhtangov director of
the MAT’s First Studio.

One of the new ideas that Vakhtangov brought to the system was
his notion of “adjustment” or “justification.” This radical idea sug-
gested that an actor could use motivations, play actions completely
unrelated to the content of the play. “A performer who is directed to
pace the stage and think of avenging his father’s death...may not be
stimulated by the director's suggestion and find no inner reality in
the action. But he could pretend to himself that the purpose of his
pacing is to find a weak floorboard in order to fall through the stage
and sue the theater’s management!”5 No one would know, not the
audience, not the director, not even his fellow players, that the actor
is playing this circumstance. It can be his secret. Instead of looking to
the character's past to justify the actions of the present, the actor can
use immediate and unrelated circumstances to justify his behavior. Be
bold. Try it.

Suppose you have a scene wherein youre meant to act and speak
out of a righteous anger you simply do not feel. You might find the
feeling you need by playing a secret unrelated to the events of the
play. Be angry at the director who has not helped you enough and
now strands you on stage with a ruined performance. How dare he
do that to you, to any actor? Now try the actions and words of the
scene. It will crackle. And the director need never know. There is
something delicious in this. Savor it.

But Vakhtangov went further than this. He felt that each actor
needed a reason to even come to the theater and to get on the stage.
For example, you might feel that every character ever written exists as
a ghost hovering in the spaces above the stage. You might believe that
each one desperately longs to have it’s story told, but is incapable of
doing so without help. You might feel that every character has this
right to have it’s story told, to have it’s day in court, and that you are
the one hope your particular character has to live again for a few brief
hours. Whether a good character or an evil one, you feel the responsi-
bility, the duty, the honor to give passionate form to this disembod-
ied ghost. And for this reason, you will step from the wings into the

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 61

playing space. Such an overall justification allows the actor to put
herself in the service of something larger. It creates a unique bond
between the actor and the character that transcends the merely per-
sonal. It gives the actor a reason for doing what she does beyond sim-
ple ego-gratification. It makes the actor’s work, holy.

An exercise Vakhtangov would use with his students involved

striking a pose and then finding a justification for it. For example, lift
your arms high over your head, and stretch up as high as you can.
Hold this position and then create a reason for it. Fill the pose with
the inner action that you are reaching for something on a top shelf,
or that you are on a cliff and are reaching for a rescuer’s rope, or that
you are poised on an Olympic diving board, or that you are being
arrested. In this way, the physical can come first and then be given an
inner life.

Stanislavski called Vakhtangov the greatest teacher of his system.

His work and ideas had a profound effect on the Americans who later
formed the Group Theater. Lee Strasberg, one of those founders, felt
that, “Vakhtangov’s value lay in dissociating the Stanislavski System
as a technique for the actor, from the Stanislavski method of produc-
tion...the ‘Method’ in the proper hands did not produce only realis-
tic acting, but that the process of ‘inner justification’ was a necessary
technique in a creative process regardless of the style desired.”°

It would be wise to remember, however, that pigeonholing

Stanislavski as hostile to theatricalism is a frustrating pastime.
Vakhtangov was shocked for example when, in 1917, Stanislavski
took over a production of Twelfth Night from another director, and
had action spilling out into the auditorium, actors running down the
aisles and appearing from behind the audience. “It was an overt dis-
play of ‘theatricality.””7 Stanislavski was no ideologue. He was a prac-
tical man of the theater, and if a play called for a measure of theatri-
cality, he used it.

Vakhtangov’s theater was a true celebration of the imagination.

He was not bound by any unnecessary fidelity to surface realism. He
reached into the center of awork and exploded it on to the stage.

62 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 What this astonishing man might have achieved, had he lived
longer, simply boggles the mind. But sick with cancer, he died in the
spring of 1922 at the age of thirty-nine. “The news of his death
reached the Moscow theaters at once, and all audiences rose in tribute. ”8

ee

Admitted to the Moscow Art Theater in 1912 was another man

destined to extend Stanislavski’s system. He was Michael Chekhov, a
nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov. His performances in the
early twenties, in plays like Gogol’s Inspector General and Strindberg’s
Erik XIV, stamped him as a genius. He displayed a unique ability to
remain believable on stage while behaving in the most eccentric manner.

Chekhov’s use of Vakhtangov’s “justification” was so imaginative

that those around him were startled by his inventiveness. When play-
ing a drunk, he avoided the usual clichés and “built the physical
character on a madman’s realization that each part of his body is
dying in a separate and horrible way.”? He felt that Stanislavski
slighted the imagination in his system, and he was determined to
return it to a place of primary importance.

He rejected the idea that an actor was restricted to emotional

memories from his own life and did not see why the actor could not
use imaginary events and images to stimulate feelings. He felt that
using one’s own experiences exclusively would soon exhaust the
actors emotional resources, and that after a while, actor’s would
begin imitating themselves. Stanislavski’s response to this was that the
actor must always be closely observing others so that an inexhaustible
source of emotional life was always available.

For Chekhov, this was not enough. Why not give the imagina-
tion the importance it deserves? Why can't an actor search for emo-
tional stimulation from things that have never happened to anyone,
or are impossible, but suggestive? Why not imagine walking on the
surface of the moon with it’s one-sixth less gravitational pull?
Wouldn't a feeling of giddiness and joy result? Why must the actor go
into his personal past in order to stimulate such a feeling?

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 63

 Chekhov began to talk of “atmospheres” and “qualities” in his
teaching and looked for the little moments, which he referred to as
“Jewelry,” that gave performances a shining indelibility. He felt that
“atmospheres” could lead actors to emotional responses more reliably
than emotion memory could.

So what are these “atmospheres” and “qualities”? According to

Chekhov, atmospheres are “the source of ineffable moods and waves
of feeling that emanate from one’s surroundings.”!9 We have all felt
the effect of walking into a room and being swept by a feeling of fear
or of well-being. Chekhov wanted his actors to be sensitive to atmos-
phere because of its influence on behavior and emotion. An exercise
in atmosphere might involve having an actor imagine that he is being
followed down a foggy street. The atmosphere of tension and fear
would naturally follow without the actor having to work hard to cre-
ate it. Chekhov's idea here is to combine a circumstance with a sense
memory. The fusion of these two elements elicits an immediate emo-
tional response that is playable by the actor.

If one extends this, one realizes that every play, every scene, is
permeated with atmospheres. They can be physical, such as a swelter-
ing hot day, or psychological, like a feeling of foreboding. Living
within an atmosphere gives an overall direction to the way an actor
pursues her objective or executes an action. If our action is to bend
down and tie our shoelace, we will do it differently in an atmosphere
of impending danger than we will in an atmosphere of safety and
calm.

What is the atmosphere in the space youre in right now? Look

up from this book and “feel” the room. What does it say to you?
What do you say back to it? Imagine a different atmosphere. It can
be from a play, from your life, or from your boundless imagination.
Get up and walk slowly through it. What feelings does it stir up?

Imagine the atmosphere at the beginning of Anton Chekhov's

The Cherry Orchard:\ “Dawn; The sun will soon rise. It is May, the
cherry trees are in bloom, but it is cold in the orchard; there is a
morning frost. The windows in the room are closed.” Go ahead and
wander through the orchard at this early morning hour. Not as any
particular character at first, just as yourself. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

64 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 oo

Nice isn’t it? Imagine if this cherry orchard was your very own.
Now go inside the house. It’s warmer because the windows are shut.

Imagine the freedom. You get to be in this house without any of

the characters knowing about it. You can look around, even spy on
them as they sleep. The better you know the play the more the room
will speak to you. Now go back outside to the orchard and wander
through again as the light of the day comes up. But wander it now
knowing that you must sell it. Knowing that soon, you will not see it
again. Now walk through it as though you will be the new owner.
Different feelings and thoughts are aroused aren’t they?

You begin to see how powerful it would be to walk through the

cherry orchard as every different character in the play. The atmos-
phere of it brings circumstances and feelings along with it. Chekhov's
world is a world of the imagination and gives great value to what is
today called creative visualization. It is little wonder that he writes
about the character Don Quixote with such deep affection. Like that
character, Michael Chekhov could use his brilliant and even feverish
imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical.

The inventive use of atmospheres can open up new possibilities

for the actor and greatly help him to enter into the reality of imagi-
nary circumstances. And yet there is a danger. If an actor only plays
the atmosphere of a scene, he runs the risk of playing a mood all the
way through it. And “mood” spelled backwards is “doom.” If an actor
plays a mood through a scene, he is likely to miss the many sponta-
neous moments, separate actions and emotional shifts that make up
the dynamics of that scene. So, be careful.

Visualization also plays an important role in Chekhov concep-

tion of characterization. He asks actors to “see” the character and
notice how he is dressed, how he moves, what he does. Further, he
encourages the actor to ask questions of the character: “Show me
how you run, how you cry, how you sit, how you laugh.” In this way
the actor arrives at character decisions in a living, vivid way and not
just through an exercise of the intellect.

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 65

 What about “qualities”? Chekhov uses this word as a substitute
for emotion. He realizes that asking for a feeling directly is often the
best way to make it run and hide. So instead of saying “be more
happy here,” says “add a quality of happiness to what you are doing.”

But his greatest extension of the system came from what he

termed the “psychological gesture.” Robert Lewis, an original mem-
ber of the Group Theater, co-founder of the Actor’s Studio, and a cel-
ebrated director and teacher, describes a vivid example of its use in
his book Method Or Madness. “Chekhov was playing an American
businessman. He had bickered and fought with his partner all
through the first act but now, in the second act, he was going to try
to make it up...As Chekhov was talking, his hands started to dig into
the man’s heart. Suddenly one got this terrific image of what love
is—the wanting to become one with somebody...He was feeling it
all inside to the full, but he had chosen a way to express it which was
brilliant.”

The psychological gesture is a physical action which reveals the

inner feelings and personality of the character. In the late 1970’s
Michael Moriarty played the title part in Shakespeare's play Richard
The Third, directed by Mel Shapiro at Lincoln Center in New York
City.

From the beginning of the play, Richard’s goal is to become the

King of England. Finally, his path is viciously cleared of all obstacles
and he is ready to ascend the throne.

When the moment of Richard’s coronation came, Michael

Moriarty was kneeling at the downstage lip of the stage facing the
audience. Directly upstage of him sat the vacant throne. Moriarty,
still on his knees, turned toward it. And then a startling thing hap-
pened.

Instead of rising as expected and walking ceremoniously to it,

Moriarty toddled the twenty feet to the throne on his knees. He
looked like a three year old. It was startling to see, and at first the
audience chuckled. But before he was halfway there, the audience
was still. Richard’s naked craving for the throne was suddenly clear. It
had the single-minded power of a child’s desire for the brightest

66 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

object in a toy store. It was primal. His murderous rampage to the
throne was simply an unbridled tantrum. In this grown-up nobleman
burned the untamed tyrannical will of a baby, and like a baby, when
he got what he wanted, he quickly tired ofit.

After the crown was placed on Moriarty’s head, he slouched in

the throne and didn’t seem to know what to do. He’d gotten his
bauble, but now didn’t know what to do with it. This audacious psy-
chological gesture illuminated more about Richard’s inner character
than anything else in the play. Moriarty made clear the bond between
the adult lust for power and the unreasoning willfulness of a child.
Such boldness makes a performance indelible, and illustrates what
Chekhov wants the actor to accomplish.

But this example is a bit of an exception. Chekhov does not usu-

ally intend for the psychological gesture to be externalized. Rather, he
intends for it to be discovered in rehearsal and then internalized dur-
ing performance. For example, he writes, “Take a certain gesture,
such as ‘to grasp.’ Do it physically... Now on the basis of this gesture,
which you will do inwardly, say the sentence, ‘Please darling, tell me
the truth.’ While speaking, produce the gesture inwardly...
Now do
them together—the gesture and the sentence. Then drop the physical
gesture and speak, having the gesture inside only.”!2 Doing this inner
gesture gives the sentence an intensity and feeling it otherwise would
not have, and the source of this power is repeatable because it is
based on a repeatable bodily action. If the feeling is lost at some
point during a performance, the actor simply recalls the gesture (and
could practice the grasping action offstage) in order to rediscover the
missing intensity of the line.

Michael Chekhov is one of the few actors from the Moscow Art
Theater whom we can easily see today. Rent Alfred Hitchcock's 1945
film, Spellbound, and you can see this remarkable man ply his craft.
(For other film performances of teachers, see the Video Bibliography
at the back of this book.) Chekhov died in Hollywood in 1955 at the
age of sixty-four.
Vakhtangov and Chekhov often worked together and influenced
each other. They unloosed the imaginative and fantastical element in
Stanislavski’s system in a way that Stanislavski himself did not. They

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 67

rescued his work from being applied solely to a realistic acting style.
But neither of them broke with the system, they extended and
enlarged it. Another figure would go further.

As a young man, Vsevolod Meyerhold was overwhelmed by

Stanislavski’s portrayal of Othello, and became an original member of
the Moscow Art Theater. He spent four years with the MAT and
originated the roles of Treplev in The Seagull, and Tusenbach in The
Three Sisters. IN

But in 1903, he left the company to start a theater of his own.

He left not because of any bad feeling toward Stanislavski, but
because of problems with Nemirovich-Danchenko. When he
returned to Moscow two years later, he was a changed man. His
experiments with his own company had taken him in a new direction
and they excited him so much that Stanislavski himself became
infected with Meyerhold’s enthusiasm and set him up in a studio of
his own.

But when the work of this new studio was presented, it was a dis-
aster. Stanislavski lost a good deal of money and he was forced to
stop the enterprise altogether. Meyerhold was caught between the
realism he had practiced at the Moscow Art Theater and his desire to
transcend it.

The failure of his first experimental studio compelled Meyerhold

to rethink his ideas. He realized that a new type of actor training was
needed, that the fatal flaw with Stanislavski’s actors was their lack of
physical expressivity. In 1907 Meyerhold denounced “...the Art
Theater as obsolete, bogged down in naturalism and literal real-
ism.”!3 Meyerhold wanted to do away with the idea ofa fourth wall,
and involve and confront the audience directly. Why should art imi-
tate life when art is so utterly different from life? Why should specta-
tors feel they are peeping through a keyhole like a voyeur when
watching an act of theater? The realistic theater of the MAT,
Meyerhold felt, only made the middle and upper classes feel comfort-
able. They were not challenged.

Revolution was in the air. By 1914, Pablo Picasso had changed

the view of art, Igor Stravinski had shaken music to its core, Albert

68 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Einstein had overturned Newton's universe, Charles Darwin had
altered our view of the natural world, Sigmund Freud and Ivan
Pavlov had transformed our understanding of human behavior; Karl
Marx's political and economic ideas were threatening the established
order, industrialism was growing at a feverish pitch and the movies
were here.

Into this dizzying vortex Meyerhold ran with open arms. Why,
he thought, shouldn't the theater be a part of this new age? Why
should it only reflect the trivia of everyday life? Wasn’t the Russian
documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertoy right when he said, “The ‘psy-
chological’ prevents man from being as precise as a stop-watch and
hampers his desire for kinship with the machine”?!4 Wasn’t Vertov
also right when he called psychological drama “cine-vodka,” stating
that, “The film drama shrouds the eyes and brain in a sickly fog”?!

Meyerhold was looking for a revolution in the theater, a revolu-

tion for the actor. For his innovative production of The Magnificent
Cuckold, he turned to artist and designer L. Popova. Popova provided
a set unlike any other. It consisted of wooden scaffolding with ramps,
slides and ladders attached. No conventional stage furniture could be
found anywhere. The construction before the audience could be used
as a boat, a house, a gymnasium, a kitchen, anything. It was the first
use of a scenic design style which came to be known as,
Constructivism.

In such a radical and revolutionary set, how were the actors to

behave? What style would match the jagged angles and uneven play-
ing levels? Of course, one look at such a set is all one needs to feel
like a child in a playground. One simply wants to run up and jump
on it. And that is just what the actors did.

Meyerhold realized that in order to break free of the restraints of

realism, he must approach acting in a purely physical way. The road
from the internal to the external was one Stanislavski had already
mapped. His path must be different. He would travel from the exter-
nal to the internal, from the surface to the core. He looked to the
techniques of the Commedia del’ arte, pantomime, the circus, and to
the Kabuki and Noh theaters of Japan for inspiration.

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 69

 From the Eastern theaters he learned about the importance of
centers of gravity and so devised exercises based on the knees. At
about the same time, it is interesting to note, Michael Chekhov was
placing great importance on the feet as a building block of characteri-
zation. This importance of the feet and the lower extremities will
come back later in the work of Tadashi Suzuki. From clowning he
learned the power of the expressive mask, how the crying face and
the laughing one can be combined and instantly alternated to create
a sense of the grotesque. He learned from clowns the crucial elements
of exaggeration and foolishness. From pantomime he learned how to
create actors both strong and flexible and from the Commedia he
learned how to create extended physical “lazzi” or “bits” that com-
bined the skills of clowning and pantomime. The idea was to cele-
brate the theatrical, excite the audience and banish the world of the
everyday.

Meyerhold felt that movement and gesture should be more

important than words. This gave him license to rearrange text in any
way he saw fit. He felt the actor should be an acrobat, a clown a
trickster, capable of rapid transitions from one to the other.
Meyerhold was in love with motion. And the symbol of motion in
the modern age was the engine. The engine was at the heart of the
machines that fascinated Meyerhold so. What was the actor’s engine?
His nervous system.

Meyerhold wanted to use the ideas of the American “efficiency

expert” Frederick Taylor in the training of his new revolutionary
actors. Taylor had analyzed the workers on an assembly line, discov-
ering that they used many inefficient movements and gestures in the
execution of their jobs. This efficiency of motion was of great interest
to Meyerhold because he wanted to achieve the maximum effect on
the audience in the most direct way possible.

Motion was the key to his new system. In one scene, Meyerhold
had a man slide down an “S” shaped slide and arrive at the foot of his
lover in order to express his joy and ecstasy at their meeting.
Meyerhold felt this to be far more effective in conveying the emotion
of the moment than any realistic staging might offer.

70 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 In his school, actors were “taught...to ignore in most instances
subjective feelings, taught that the nucleus of expression is the action
and reaction of the‘nerves and muscles, and transformed via exercises
in boxing, tumbling, ‘physical jerks,’ running, jumping, dancing and
climbing into alert, agile, functional men and women of the
Communist regime.”!6 It must be remembered that part of
Meyerhold’s dedication to revolution and Communism resulted from
his rescue from the White Army by the Red Army during the Russian
civil war.

Meyerhold felt that the realistic style created a theater of mood.

That it put the audience under a kind of spell from which they were
only freed after two or three hours. In the realistic theater, he
thought, the spectators are dreaming away their time. But he wanted
the audience to be awake, excited, and in the present. He wanted the
audience to think about current political and social conditions and
be aroused to action. He felt that properly presented physical actions
could arouse emotion in audience members through reflex, and
shock them into political and social insights that would remain with
them after they left the auditorium.

The ideas of the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov suggested that

through specific conditioning, behavior could be manipulated. If an
actor comes down a slide with great glee shouting “wheee!” through-
out the ride, the audience will share his exhilaration. The next time
the actor mounts the slide, the audience will begin feeling the same
exhilaration before the actor slides. They will have been conditioned
to expect the feeling, and it will, reflexively, be there. This type of
manipulation fascinated Meyerhold, and he needed actors physically
capable of carrying out the actions he required.

In essence, Meyerhold rejected the idea of public solitude and

the fourth wall. He expected the actor to be fully aware of the audi-
ence and to deliberately acknowledge and play for them. The
Meyerhold actor was freed from the prison of natural behavior, but
he paid a high price. His body had to submit to rigorous training and
tremendous discipline. This training was accomplished through a
technique that Meyerhold called, Biomechanics.

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 71

 Just naming a few of the biomechanical exercises gives a taste of
their essence: The Leap From the Back, The Horse and Rider, The
Leap Onto the Chest, Dropping the Weight, Throwing the Stone,
Shooting the Bow, The Slap in the Face, The Stab With the Dagger,
Carrying the Sack and Strike With the Feet.

The first rule of this work is for the actor to find his center of
balance, and the second rule is for the actor to find for his body an
expressive position in space.'7 Let's examine one of these exercises.
N

Shooting the Bow: In this exercise a single actor moves through a

series of twenty-four positions. He begins by falling to the floor onto
one arm. (1) The other arm is extended behind him while both legs
are stretched behind but bent at the knee. The actor then pulls his
legs in, as the outstretched arm comes to rest against his side. (2) The
actor then rises with his weight on his right foot and leans to his left
shifting the weight to his left foot. (3-4) The right leg is now fairly
straight while the left leg is bent. The right arm is now straight as
though holding a bow. The left arm is bent as it begins to draw up
the bow. The actor then comes forward. (5-6) He then sees a target,
shifting his weight from one side to the other. (7-10) He then reaches
behind him and takes out an imaginary arrow from a crouching posi-
tion. (11) The actor then straightens his legs placing the left about
two to three feet in front of the right. He bends his torso so that it is
at a 90° angle to his left leg. Both arms are also straight with the left
arm reaching to the ankle of the left leg, and the right arm stretched
out 180° from the left one. (12)

Now the actor bends his knees as his torso comes up and he
places an arrow in the imaginary string of the bow. (13) He then
pulls the arrow back with his right hand coming just below his chin.
He then releases the arrow, the right arm coming forward to join the
left. (14-15) He thrusts his right arm straight down and raises his left
elbow up above his head, bends his knees forward bringing both
arms up together, curves his upper body over to the right and then
thrusts the right arm straight down in 180° opposition to his left
arm. (16-18)

72 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Meyerhold: Shooting the Bow

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 73

 This exercise is quite physically demanding. Try it. Remember
that the positions are not held for long. They are “flowed through.”
Yet the actor should be capable of holding each one if asked. This
exercise calls for strength and balance and helps make the actor
become aware of shifting centers of gravity.

But more importantly, it demonstrates the cycle of acting that

Meyerhold felt was fundamental to his work: /ntention (to shoot an
arrow at a target), Realization (actually releasing the arrow from the
bow) and Refusal of the Action (the body contractions after the arrow
has been fired).!8 The influence of Stanislavski is clear. Meyerhold’s
“intention” is like Stanislavski’s “objective,” and his “realization” is
like Stanislavski’s “action.” The “refusal of the action” is really the
reaction to the action as seen in the body; the release of the arrow
causing the body to recoil in opposition.

Training in biomechanics created a physically flexible and re-

sponsive actor, but the exercises themselves were not to be seen in
performance, they were for use only in the studio. On stage, the
physicality of the actor was put to use in innovative productions
designed to satirize middle-class life, and to propagandize for the new
Communist way. But when the new policy of “Socialist Realism” was
instituted in the 1930’s, Meyerhold’s bold spirit was stifled. The new
policy called for art forms that the common man could understand
and condemned as “anti-Soviet” almost all experimental and avant-
garde forms in the arts. When Meyerhold criticized the inhibiting
effects of this new policy, he was arrested and sent into exile, where
he died in 1942.

It must be said that his biomechanical ideas never constituted a

complete system in the Stanislavski sense. He was vague about it, and
wrote very little to explain it. His system produced few actors of
international stature, but became an inspiration for many actors and
directors after him who also felt constrained by the boundaries of
realism. And while Meyerhold’s productions were theatrical in the
highest sense, Vakhtangov ultimately found them devoid of true feeling.

74 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 While Meyerhold abandoned realistic theater, he never
renounced Stanislavski. Two years before his death, he proclaimed
himself still a student of that great man. And what did Stanislavski
feel for this man who had drifted so far from him in his work? Just
before he died, Stanislavski declared “Take care of Meyerhold; he is
my only heir in the theater—here or anywhere else.”!9

Was Meyerhold completely against the expression of emotion?

No. But he was not interested in the theater of personal feeling.
Emotion, he felt, came from actions, and when it did, it was appro-
priate. But he did not want his actors to be overcome by feeling, to
indulge its presence, or to reveal private emotion in public. The actor
was at all times to be in control of both his body and his feelings.
Emotions were not necessarily to be felt, but only shown.

Meyerhold’s approach to the arousal of feeling was completely

from the outside. He stands in a tradition stretching from Quintilian
through Aaron Hill to Delsarte. Yet he went beyond them. Even they
were concerned with the expression of authentic feeling in the actor.
Meyerhold was not. He was more concerned with the creation of
feeling in the audience itself. This crucial difference marks out
Meyerhold as a true innovator whose work stands as a beacon for
those primarily interested in the theater’s effect upon the spectator.
The great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (who was Meyerhold’s
assistant for two years), the German playwright and director Bertolt
Brecht, the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, and countless others have
been influenced by Meyerhold in this way.

ee

Evgeni Vakhtangov, Michael Chekhov and Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Three artistic children of Constantine Stanislavski. Individuals as dif-
ferent from each other as they were from their artistic father. But
even as they extended, challenged and rejected his ideas, their love for
the man and his accomplishments never wavered. And no matter the
disagreements, Stanislavski loved them back. After all, hadn’t he, as a
young man, rejected the training of the Imperial Dramatic School in
order to retain his own sense of uniqueness? Weren't these men dri-
ven by their unique artistic passions? Stanislavski'’s spirit was a huge

SMASHING THE FOURTH WALL 75

one, and his embrace was wide. And that embrace was lovingly
returned by the three men who were inspired to their greatest artistic
achievements by him. Together, these four tireless workers and
visionaries created the modern style of acting.

76 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 4

The American Revolution

O, December 27th, 1922, the RMS Majestic set sail from

France. On board were the members of the Moscow Art Theater,
headed for the first time to America. The MAT was scheduled to
tour the United States for nearly a year and a half, performing in
New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg,
Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit. After nine difficult days at sea, they
landed in New York City. When they left in the spring of 1924, they
had forever changed the American theatrical landscape.

The theater the MAT found in New York was one dominated by
commercial Broadway productions featuring “star” players such as
John Barrymore, Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes, and Alfred Lunt.
Minor parts were oflittle interest to the producers of these star vehi-
cles and were therefore often performed by actors of indifferent abili-
ty. But there was other theater to be discovered as well.

In reaction to the Broadway state of affairs, some alternative the-

ater groups had sprung up. The Neighborhood Playhouse was one of
these, as was The Washington Square Players. Another, The
Provincetown Playhouse, was the first to produce the work of Eugene

77
O’Neill. In 1919, The Washington Square Players became The
Theater Guild, whose aim was to produce great plays with great
actors for commercial profit. They had a school, a permanent compa-
ny and tremendous prestige and success. Another alternative to the
Broadway “star” theater was provided by Eva Le Gallienne at her
Civic Repertory Theater. There, she produced the great classic plays,
and provided training for young actors.

But when the MAT performed Zsar Fyodor at the Jolson Theater
on January 8, 1923, The Lower Depths, on the 15th and The Cherry
Orchard on the 26th, no one in America had ever seen anything like
it. Every actor, no matter how small the role, was brilliant. The depth
of feeling and the detail of the actor’s work startled and amazed the
critics and public alike. Nothing the Theater Guild had ever done,
nothing on Broadway, equaled the impact of Stanislavski’s company.
In city after city, actors, critics and the general public were astonished
at the artistry of the Moscow Art Theater. Curiosity about the
Stanislavski system was overwhelming. Richard Boleslavsky, a mem-
ber of the MAT who had come to America by himself in 1922, wrote
an article for a theater magazine on the system to satisfy this demand.

But he knew this would not be enough. People didn’t want just
articles, they wanted to know what the Russians knew; the Stanislavski
system. So with the aid of MAT actress Maria Ouspenskaya, he opened
a school for actors at 139 MacDougal Street in New York City and
called it The American Lab Theater. It was here, at the Lab, that the
Russian revolution gained its lasting foothold. Finally, Americans
could learn to do what they saw the Russians doing.

And what, in fact, were the Russians doing? What must a

Moscow Art Theater production have been like to see? Unlike film,
theater is transitory, so when it’s over, it’s over. And yet, we like to
think that we can get a glimpse of the extraordinary individual and
ensemble acting that characterized the MAT at its best by watching
Jan Kadar’s 1965 Czechoslovakian film, The Shop On Main Street.
One scene in particular epitomizes for me what it seems the MAT
was doing. Go ahead and rent the movie. Better yet, if you can afford
it, buy the movie, it bears close study. The scene I refer to is the one

78 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

wherein the lead character Tono and his wife host a dinner for his
wife's sister and her husband. The complex emotional and physically
expressive detail of the actors cannot help but remind us of what we
have read of the Moscow Art Theater at its height. The actors create
deep and rich individual characters and interact with each other with
all of the spontaneity, humor, and complexity of a true “ensemble of
stars.” Sometimes, watching this scene, we feel that we are catching a
glimpse, back through time, of that revolutionary theater that
changed forever the face of drama.

ee

The appearances of the Moscow Art Theater in the United States

inspired many young actors to dedicate themselves to a new kind of
theater. Among them was the man who was soon to transform “The
System,” into “The Method.”

Lee Strasberg came to America from Eastern Europe in 1901. As

a young man he joined a dramatics club at the Chrystie Street
Settlement House, where he won an award for his acting. While
there, he read many of the most important books and articles on the-
ater and found his imagination and passions on fire. He went to see
the greatest actors of his time, and hoped to understand how they
achieved what they did. When he heard about Boleslavsky’s Lab
Theater, he did not hesitate to sign up. It was there that he was taught
the essence of Stanislavski’s ideas and trained in their practical use.

And here, we must step back. It is crucial to remember that

Stanislavski’s notions about acting were constantly changing. So what
the students of the American Lab were taught were not the ideas that
Stanislavski evolved after 1920 or so. In addition, the work of
Vakhtangov had a strong influence on Boleslavsky and informed
much of his teaching. So what did the Lab teach, we wonder?

Boleslavsky taught mainly by lecturing on various aspects of the

system, while Ouspenskaya taught the exercises and did the scene
work. Later, Boleslavsky also began teaching directing to advanced
students. Classes were also available in movement and voice. In short,
the Lab attempted a total approach to the training of an actor.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 79

 Ouspenskaya put great emphasis on concentration and relax-
ation, as Strasberg was to do some years later himself. She gave the
students improvisations which involved the exploration of given cir-
cumstances, sense memory and emotion memory. This last, was
given tremendous importance. The creation of true emotion was at
the heart of the training. Strasberg had read Ribot’s Psychology of the
Emotions, as had Stanislavski, of course, and knew of the idea that
emotions could be recalled by an actor and used in a part. Ribot
called this emotion memory, “affective memory,” and both Boleslavsky
and Ouspenskaya put great emphasis on it. “Ouspenskaya,” says
Strasberg, “used to call the actor’s affective memories ‘golden keys’
which unlocked some of the greatest moments in acting.”!

Ouspenskaya also used animal exercises to help actors to charac-

terize. Actors were to closely observe animal behavior at home or at
the zoo and imitate it in class. Actors had to walk and move like the
animal, eat like the animal, be like the animal. The purpose was two-
fold; to enhance each actor’s powers of observation and concentra-
tion, and to give them new ways of moving and using their bodies.
They had to become aware of the different centers of gravity in each
animal, of the tempo-rhythms of each creature, of their responses to
surprise, to food, to others of their kind, and to people.

The other great key that Boleslavsky gave to the students on

MacDougal street was Vakhtangov’s reformulation of Stanislavski’s
“magic if.” Remember, Stanislavski used “if” like this: If Iwere this
character, how would I act? If I were in this circumstance, how would
I behave? Vakhtangov made a significant alteration to Stanislavski’s
questions. He posed them this way: “How do I motivate myself, or
what would have to motivate me, to behave as the character
behaves?”2

What is so important about this change? Isn't it really just a mat-

ter of semantics, of using different words to say the same thing? Not
really. Vakhtangov’s “adjustment” allows the actor to roam outside
the boundaries of the play for help. If the circumstances in the play
do not stimulate an actor to the proper behavior or feeling, she can
go beyond the play and use anything that gets her to the right place.

80 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 If she is supposed to show great love and tenderness for a picture
she holds of the character’s daughter, she may find herself able to
accomplish her task better by substituting her own daughter’s picture
in the frame. Or by simply imagining her own daughter in the frame.
Or perhaps by using a mental or literal picture of herself as a young
girl. This becomes the actor’s secret. No one need know.

In fact, if you combine Vakhtangov's adjustment with affective

memory, you have a powerful tool for eliciting emotion in yourself. If
you must express great grief in a scene, and it just isn’t there, recalling
a tragic moment in your own life may bring you to the proper place.
And no one would be the wiser. No one would know that you were
not playing the circumstance of the scene. The effect would be the
same. Or would it? A part of us rebels at this. Isn’t it really a way of
cheating? Doesn't doing this pull us out of the play? Isn’t it a kind of
deception? Do the means justify the ends in acting? We'll return to
these questions later, when we examine Lee Strasberg and the
Method in more detail.

The training at the Lab was to last two years. The first year,
mostly with Madame Ouspenskaya, covered given circumstances, char-
acterization and affective memory. In the second year, “Boleslavsky
analyzed a play according to its spine, mood, and beats. Actors were
taught to analyze their roles according to their characters’ desires and
intentions...” In other words, the first year was spent mostly on the
actor himself, and the second on his approach to the role. By “spine,”
Boleslavsky meant the super-objective and the through-line of action
the actor follows to achieve it.

Strasberg left the Lab after the first year. And one can only won-
der if his subsequent methods of teaching would have been different
had he stayed on for that second year of study. In years to come, he
will be severely criticized for putting too little emphasis on “actions”
and too much on emotional expression. But that is in the future.

And what of the future of the American theater? Many felt that it
would not find its true expression through the work of the Russian
expatriates at the Lab. They longed to create a Stanislavski-based the-
ater that had an American accent. And three did something about it.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 81

 In May of 1930, twenty-seven actors and three others set out to
rehearse in a barn in Connecticut and create the Moscow Art
Theater-American style.

For years, the young Harold Clurman had been giving talks in
New York to anyone who would listen about a new American theater.
He had been overwhelmed by the MAT’s performances in the U.S.,
and been influenced in Paris by the great Jacques Copeau and his
theater. He spoke about the lack of unity in the current American
theatrical scene. Each actor, he felt, was a hired fun, who worked
from production to production, with no overriding purpose other
than to play each part well. Clurman demanded more than this. He
wanted a theater that produced new American works presented by a
permanent company dedicated to “the essential moral and social pre-
occupation’s of our time.”4 Who came to listen? Many actors who
knew something of Stanislavski, and some who didn’t. Artists from
all disciplines came to hear this dynamic speaker paint a verbal pic-
ture of an American arts scene that many had dreamed of but few
pursued. He wanted all artists to focus on the problems of the society
to which they belonged, and to lend their creative spirits to creating a
community with the public. The theater specifically, he felt, needed a
single vision, and actors needed a common vocabulary and purpose.
This, he said, could only be supplied by the study and application of
the ideas of Stanislavski. His was a clarion call to those out-of-work
actors suffering under the Depression and the star theater of
Broadway.

In his effort to arouse artists to his side, he was helped by two

other people: Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg. Together, these
three would forge, from many different sources, the most important
and influential theater in America.

Before the start of The Group Theater's first season, they retreat-
ed to a barn and some houses outside Danbury, Connecticut. Here,
they would form a company and rehearse their first production; Paul
Green's, The House of Connelly.

The acting members and three founders came from diverse cul-
tures, ethnic groups, social strata, and possessed various degrees of
theatrical experience. Clurman was a cultural sophisticate who

82 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

attended Columbia for a time, lived in Paris for a while, and whose
father was a doctor. Crawford came from a wealthy family and
attended Smith College. Strasberg came to America at the age of
seven. He lived on the lower East Side with his family and was des-
tined to be in the wig business until acting captured his attention.
Three very different people who, for a time, complemented each oth-
ers strengths and weaknesses to perfection.

Among the actors, the situation was the same. Stella Adler,
whom Clurman and Strasberg met at the Actor’s Lab, was already an
established actress in the vital Yiddish theater. Her father, Jacob
Adler, was one of the finest actors of his generation and one whom
Strasberg regarded highly. Sometimes, to her, the members of the
Group seemed like rank amateurs. But she believed in the ideals of
the Group and stayed with it for many years. Harold Clurman was
soon to fall deeply in love with her. Another actor with an already
established reputation was Morris Carnovsky. He had acted with
both the Provincetown Players and the Theater Guild but felt that his
acting needed more emotional depth. Another original member was
Franchot Tone. A young leading actor who would always be torn
between the seriousness of the Group, and the glamour of
Hollywood. Eunice Stoddard was a literate New Yorker whose father
was a lawyer. Carnovsky brought in J. Edward Bromberg, Robert
Lewis talked his way in, Sanford Meisner was a friend of Strasbere’s
and Clurman’s, and Clifford Odets impressed Clurman with his pas-
sion and humor. Altogether this group of thirty consisted of lower,
middle, and upper-class people, immigrant, and native born
Americans, and acting novices and experts. Creating unity from so
much diversity was the daunting task facing Clurman, Crawford and
Strasberg in their first summer together. How could it be done?

Clurman talked. And when Clurman talked everyone could meet

at the place of his vision. Part of the unity that the Group achieved
was due in no small part to Clurman’s ability to keep their eyes on
their larger purpose. No matter what rancor might occur during
rehearsals, Clurman could patch it up with a speech. His eloquence
kept them on track. But more was needed than talk. Unity must be
achieved in another, more specific way. And this job fell to Lee
Strasberg. Clurman had been impressed by the way Strasberg used

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 83

what he had learned at the Lab in some of his directing at The
Chrystie Street Settlement, and felt that Strasberg should direct the
first Group production. Strasberg accepted the assignment but real-
ized that more than conventional directing would be required.
Teaching was needed as well.

The factor that would cement the group together was the
Stanislavski system. Each of the acting members needed to be
schooled in the techniques discovered by Stanislavski and
Vakhtangov if they were to achieve the sense of enstmble playing and
inner truth to which they were all dedicated. And this is what
Strasberg did. Each day, Clurman would lecture on some aspect of
theater history or practice, and Strasberg would teach the system and
rehearse the play.

Strasberg called what he taught a “method.” It was compounded

of Stanislavski, Vakhtangov and other ideas taken from his volumi-
nous reading. He did exercises designed to increase the actors’ con-
centration. For example, they were asked to observe an object for
three minutes, after which time, it would be removed from the field
of view. The actor was then asked to describe it. Many of them failed
to see details, to recall textures, shapes or weight. But the more they
did this exercise, the better and more keenly they learned to observe
and evaluate what was in front of them. They then moved on to
imaginary objects, “enacting the slicing and eating of an apple, the
drinking of a glass of tea, picking up pearls or nuts from the floor
and showing by the movements of their fingers, which was which.”5
This of course enlarged their use of the imagination and gave the
actors some experience with sense memory.

They used improvisation, as both Stanislavski and Vakhtangov

had, when working on scenes from the play. They would create situa-
tions implied by the text and do them. Suppose they were doing The
Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Since the characters have grown
up with this orchard behind their house, the actors might improvise a
picnic in it. They might imagine themselves as children putting up a
swing on one of the large branches. They might improvise a scene
wherein one of them was injured by a fall from the swing. How
would they react? What would they do? This is a technique that cre-

84 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

ates a history between the actors and usually manifests itself onstage
as a greater connection between the members of the cast.

They also did improvisations based on scenes explicitly in the

play. They would play the given circumstances of the scene, but not
use the writer’s words. In this way, they were able to “respond honest-
ly and spontaneously”® to the situation. After a while, the author's
text was used. But the main technique that Strasberg insisted upon
using was affective memory.

The idea was to use the remembered feelings of the actor and
express them through the character on the stage. Strasberg’s specific
technique of doing this will be discussed more fully in the section on
him. For now, it is enough to know that at appropriate moments in
the play, ones that called for strong emotion, the actors would do an
affective memory exercise and then speak their lines or do their
actions from the newly aroused emotional state.

It was these exercises in affective memory that so impressed the

members of the Group, that they came to regard Strasberg as their
most important leader. They felt that they were reaching new areas of
emotional truth and expression in their acting and they were over-
joyed. Strasberg pushed them beyond what was theatrically accept-
able, and personally comfortable. He would not settle for clichéd
responses, but insisted that they dig deeper into themselves and break
through the barriers that kept them from revealing their deepest feel-
ings. He knew it was fear inducing work, but the results seemed
worth the efforts.

When The House Of Connelly opened in New York in Septem-

ber of 1931, the company received sixteen curtain calls. One critic
wrote, “I cannot remember a more completely consecrated piece of
work since the Moscow Art masters went home.”? The Group had
succeeded. Over one remarkable summer, they had created a compa-
ny of superb individual actors who played with each other with the
ensemble feeling of a family.

But as with all families, conflicts abounded. One actress com-

plained about the affective memory exercises. In a scene with a fellow
player, she noticed him dropping out of his connection with her and

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 85

eoing inside of himself in order to “do an exercise.” When she com-
plained to Strasberg about this, he told her that she needed to do
more of what the offending actor was doing. Others also had their
problem with emotion memory. Robert Lewis, Sanford Meisner and
Stella Adler all were uncomfortable with it, altheugh they realized its
value. They felt that it limited their acting style to a form of extreme
realism and was perhaps not so useful for stylized plays with height-
ened prose styles, such as the works of Shakespeare. After some years
Carnovsky as well felt that he was simply repeating himself. Others
felt that they were running out of personal experiences to mine.
Strasberg however, felt that they were resisting exploring parts of
their psyche of which they were afraid.

Cheryl Crawford was dissatisfied with her role as the practical

one. When money needed to be raised, they turned to her. But when
a director was needed, they passed her over. Her resentment grew.
The players became suspicious of Clurman’s talk because he never
directed anything. Among the players themselves there was division.
Some actors got bigger parts more consistently than others, and the
rules did not seem to apply equally to all. Because Clurman and
Adler were living together, some felt that she received special treat-
ment. Irritations smoldered.

But over the next few years these hotbeds of discontent were held
in check and did not burst into flames. Each summer they went on
retreat to work on a play and continue studying. They took classes in
movement and in voice. New members were admitted and became a
source of great strength. Among them was the man who would later
co-found the Actor's Studio, Elia Kazan. Others included John (Jules)
Garfield and Francis Farmer.

Strasberg began using improvisation more. In one exercise, he

asked the actors to improvise on a single word. In one case the word
was “liberty.” “One actress interpreted ‘liberty’ as the Statue of
Liberty, whose arm began to waver as her torch turned into a cocktail
glass and she lowered it to her lips; the exercise ended with Miss
Liberty getting drunk.”8 Exercises like this freed the actors’ imagina-
tions and injected some much needed humor into the proceedings.

86 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Some of these improvisations were so successful that the actors would
do them at benefit shows to raise money.

Over the next three years, Group productions alternated between

successes and failures. One of the successes was a play called Men In
White. The center piece of this play is a hospital operation. Strasberg
and the actors worked painstakingly to create a powerfully theatrical
view of the heroic actions of doctors at work. The lighting was stark
and dramatic and the actors’ actions were choreographed with
incredible attention to detail. Here was the Group and Strasberg
reaching beyond the realism of The House of Connelly, and embracing
the theatricalism of Vakhtangov.

How did they do it? At first they were led astray by an over
reliance on the emotional life of the doctors and nurses. As they per-
formed the operation scene in rehearsals, the actors showed their
deep emotional responses to the emergency.

But they all knew something was wrong. The scene wasn't play-
ing correctly. It was the insight of Cheryl Crawford that gave them
the key. These health professionals would not be caught up in their
emotional lives during an operation. They would, in fact, be doing
what they had been trained to do. They would proceed with skill and
concentration not allowing their personal feelings to intrude. This
proved to be the crucial adjustment.

When Men In White opened, it overwhelmed both audiences and

critics. It gave the Group some financial success and garnered the first
real public recognition of Strasberg’s talents as a director. The Group
was stretching itself beyond realism with the same techniques it used
from its inception. Some began to realize that theatricalism and the
Stanislavski system were not mutually exclusive.

One year later all hell broke loose. On July 3, 1934, Stella Adler
met Constantine Stanislavski in Paris. He was there recuperating
from an illness and she had been traveling in the Soviet Union with
Clurman observing the various theaters there. When Adler and
Clurman learned that the man who created the system they were
using was in Paris, they decided to visit him.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 87

 At the time, Adler was having a very difficult time rehearsing a
role in the Group’s newest production, Gentlewoman. She was begin-
ning to resent Strasberg’s directorial methods and she was having
trouble with the technique of affective memory. After awhile she
finally spoke to Stanislavski.

She told him that he had destroyed acting for her. That once it
had been a source of great joy to her, but that now she hated it. And
she blamed his system for this change. Stanislavski told her that if her
love of acting had been shattered, then the system was not for her.
That she should not use it. Perhaps, he suggested, the problem was
that she was not using the system correctly. She began to tell him
what they were doing at the Group Theater. When she described the
exercises in affective memory, Stanislavski broke in. He told her that
he had abandoned such work years earlier because he found that it
led to hysteria in the actors. He said that actors should not dig for
emotions, but play actions and live in the circumstances of the play.
He asked her if she would like to work with him on her part from
Gentlewoman. She said yes. Wouldn't you? For six weeks they met
every day and worked for hours. For Adler, it was a revelation. She
couldn’t wait to get back to the Group and tell them where they had
gone wrong. ;

Strasberg had learned the system from Boleslavsky and

Ouspenskaya, and the system they learned was Stanislavski’s up to
the time they left Moscow for the United States. But his ideas had
changed, and they were unaware of this. Stanislavski had moved on
to his Method of Psycho-Physical Actions, which emphasized actions
and circumstances far more than emotion memory.

Adler was overjoyed. She had noticed difficulties with actor’s tak-
ing a minute onstage to prepare for an emotional moment, and ques-
tioned its true effectiveness. The way it worked was this. About a
minute before an emotional moment arrived in a scene, the actor
would begin doing an affective memory exercise to produce the
required feeling.

Now during that minute the actor still had to respond to the
other actors on the stage, be aware of his cues, execute his actions and
be present in the moment. This is a very difficult thing to do. Actors

88 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

would notice other actors checking in and checking out; being pre-
sent one moment, and absent the next. And yet for some, it pro-
duced exciting and honest results. For others, however, it created
problems.

Stanislavski said there was a better way. Emotions, he told Adler,

cannot be commanded to appear. And they should not be directly
assaulted. The best way to achieve the truest expression of the emo-
tion of the character, he said, was to follow the through-line of the
character’s actions and to let the emotions come from that. If the
actor enters the circumstances of the play with commitment and
belief, the actions will stimulate the proper feelings.

Stanislavski emphasized communion (p.53) in his work. Meaning

by this not only the actor’s contact with the audience, but the actor’s
communication with the other actors. Affective memory exercises,
when used during the performance of a play, interfered with this vital
connection.

Adler’s assistant took extensive notes and she brought back with
her a chart detailing Stanislavski’s system. In August of 1934 she
began giving a series of talks to the Group at their summer retreat.

Now it must be said that the ideas she brought back from Paris
are controversial. Some believe that Stanislavski was sick and perhaps
not in his clearest mind. Others maintain that confronted by what he
referred to as an hysterical actress, he played down the emotional
aspects of his work. And yet, when one hears what the later members
of the Art Theater say about Stanislavski’s changes to his system, they
concur with what Adler told the Group.

When Adler addressed The Group, Strasberg was noticeably

absent. Strasberg felt that Stanislavski had gone back on himself, and
he felt betrayed. He was no longer the only expert on the Stanislavski
system, and he didn’t like this. Strasberg was very attached to affec-
tive memory and its uses and was not about to give it up. Hadn't it
brought the Group some of their greatest successes? Hadn't the mem-
bers sworn by it in their first summer together? Strasberg told other
members that the productions he had seen at the Moscow Art
Theater in the thirties were tired and bland. He felt himself closer to

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 89

Vakhtangov than to Stanislavski. He didn’t know that Stanislavski too
was worried about the decline of the MAT, and felt that it no longer
represented the best working out of his ideas.

Members like Robert Lewis and Sanford Meisner found Adler's

talks inspiring. “You could feel the fog lifting as she went from one
technical point to another...We were all so oppressed by this over-
usage of emotion memory.”? “More important than our apparent
misuse of emotion memory was the fact that we were using circum-
stances from our own lives. What Stella told us was that Stanislavski
concentrated on the circumstances in the play...Until then the
Group had always worked from sense memory but never from given
circumstances.”!0 The members of the Group began to feel indepen-
dent of Strasberg. His iron grip had been loosened.

Adler began teaching some very popular and effective classes and
Odets, Meisner and Kazan went to work on a short play to which
they all contributed. Late in 1935, Odets put this new play in final
form and read it to the other members of the Group. It is interesting
to note that this first reading took place in a theater named the
Majestic. In a sense, the ship Majestic that had brought the Moscow
Art Theater to America, found its most important port in this Boston
building. The play that Odets read in the basement of the Majestic
Theater was Waiting For Lefty, the play that was to become most
identified with the Group Theater. The play was co-directed by
Odets and Meisner and created such a sensation, that theaters all over
the country were desperate to produce it.

Waiting For Lefty was everything that Clurman had promised. It

examined both personal and social issues in so explosive a way that
people felt their lives changed after having seen it. The play reveals,
in a series of short scenes, how different workers come to agree upon
a worker strike. The writing was brilliant and biting and the acting,
inspired. And it was all done without Strasberg. Strasberg was, in
fact, hostile to Odets’ writing and didn’t direct any of his plays for
years. It must be admitted, however, that Strasberg had trained all of
the actors and a part of their success was certainly due to his efforts.

Another Odets play brought the Group more success and

marked the directorial debut of Harold Clurman. Awake And Sing

90 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

was rehearsed in an atmosphere of joy and discovery. Clurman did
not insist on affective memory exercises, but encouraged the actor's
imaginations and trusted their judgments. On opening night, the
play and acting ensemble received fifteen curtain calls. Stella Adler’s
performance was singled out for praise as was the work of her brother
Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, and Sanford Meisner. Adler’s new
understanding of the Stanislavski system had a tremendous impact
on her. She worked with a renewed sense ofjoy, concentration, and
finesse. The whole company felt that they were working at their
highest level. Waiting For Lefty and Awake And Sing gave the Group a
sense of their own power and maturity. They no longer felt that
Strasberg had all the answers. Some members even began teaching
outside of the Group itself.

They even looked outside of the Group for acting teachers. In

1935, Michael Chekhov was in New York, and the Group wanted
very much to meet him. Again Strasberg was not happy about this.
But many members had been so impressed by his acting that they
wanted to learn from him. Unfortunately, they concluded that his
style was so personal to him that it could not really be taught or used
by others. In this, they were probably mistaken. It was an historic
opportunity that was left unrealized.

By 1936 The Group Theater was the most respected and

admired theater in the country. Smaller theaters in other cities looked
up to them as the heroes of the new drama. In Chicago, Cleveland,
Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, theater talk often turned to The
Group. Everyone wanted to be a part of it. And for awhile, even
Bertold Brecht’s musical collaborator Kurt Weill found himself there.
Yes, Kurt Weill taught musical theater to members of The Group at
their theater. For a short period of time two great lines of dramatic
performance, the Stanislavskian and the Brechtian merged. They
missed Michael Chekhov, but they got some Brecht.

The Group had one more astonishing success in Odets’ play

Golden Boy, but by 1939 both Crawford and Strasberg had resigned
their memberships in The Group, and the actors were no longer feel-
ing challenged. By 1941, The Group was finished. The members
scattered to different jobs and new careers. Kazan began directing

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 91

more regularly in both New York and Hollywood, Lewis and
Strasberg continued to direct in the theater, and Carnovsky, Adler
and Meisner went into teaching.

What had been a group, was now just a scattering of individuals.

Together they created the most celebrated American theater of the
twentieth century. The Moscow Art Theater had Anton Chekhov,
The Group had Clifford Odets. The Moscow Art Theater had
Stanislavski and Danchenko, and The Group had Strasberg and
Clurman. It is the highest tribute to the achievements of The Group
Theater that their work can be spoken of in the same breath as The
Moscow Art Theater. They did what they set out to do. Many the-
aters have started with high ideals, the Group Theater met them.

Much of actor training in the United States today came out of the
Group experience. We will examine this legacy by probing the ideas
and teaching of former Group members, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler,
and Sanford Meisner. Along with Kazan, Clurman, and Lewis, they
put the ideas of Stanislavski at the center of the American actor’s map.

92 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Cilraorer's
Lee Strasberg

Se here we are. AtTHE METHOD. Over the years, a man, a

place, and a technique have become synonymous; Lee Strasberg, The
Actor’s Studio and The Method. In fact, the formula in most people's
minds is this: Lee Strasberg + The Method + the Actor’s Studio=
Marlon Brando, acting genius. But that equation is hopelessly mis-
leading, and so, before we discuss Strasberg’s ideas in detail, we need
to dispel a few myths.

First, Marlon Brando. Here is what he has to say in his 1994

autobiography about the man presumed by most to be his teacher:
“Lee Strasberg tried to take credit for teaching me how to act. He
never taught me anything...To me he was a tasteless and untalented
person...I went to the Actor’s Studio...because of Elia Kazan...But
Strasberg never taught me acting. Stella (Adler) did—and Kazan.”!
The truth is that Brando had been a student of Stella Adler’s at the
New School For Social Research before he ever set foot in the Actor’s
Studio. So the man most associated in the public’s mind with The
Method, never studied with Lee Strasberg. The slouching posture
and mumbling speech for which Brando has from time to time been
criticized, does not result from any method that he learned from

93
Strasberg. It also does not result from his work with Adler or Kazan.
It is simply Brando.

The second myth has to do with the Actor’s Studio itself. Lee
Strasberg was not a founding member of that famous institution, and
it’s initial fame did not stem from his involvement with it.

The Actor’s Studio was co-founded by Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis

and Cheryl Crawford in 1947. Crawford acted as the business director,
while Kazan taught a beginning class, and Lewis an advanced one.

Under Kazan and Lewis, the work at the studio embraced a

greater sense of theatricality then it was to do under Strasberg’s guid-
ance. Kazan in fact could be said to stand in relation to Strasberg, as
Vakhtangov stood to Stanislavski.

People initially came to the Studio because of the directing suc-

cesses of Lewis and Kazan and because each of the founders had been
a member of the famous Group Theater. Strasberg did not exercise any
significant influence over the Studio until four years after its creation.

OR

It is safe to say that Lee Strasberg’s teachings have stirred up more

passionate controversy than any other acting teacher's in the United
States. Some maintain that he is responsible for training and helping
many of the finest actors and actresses in this country. Others con-
tend that his methods have ruined an entire generation of perform-
ers. Nothing else stirs up the feelings of actors, directors and teachers
like the name “Strasberg,” or the style known as the “Method.”

What is The Method, anyway? It is a version of the Stanislavski

system that puts the greatest emphasis on the creation of an inner
technique that enables an actor to express deep feeling whenever he
needs it. In popular understanding, the method is Strasberg’s cre-
ation. And although what Robert Lewis, Sanford Meisner, and Stella
Adler teach is also a version of the Stanislavski system, it is Strasberg’s
version that has become known as The Method.

94 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 When the young Lee Strasberg read Gordon Craig's 1911 book,
On The Art of the Theater, he was stunned. In this book, Craig main-
tains that acting isnot an art at all. In acting, he says, feelings are
more important than thought and because emotions are uncontrol-
lable, they are not exactly repeatable night after night. This inability
of the actor to repeat and control his performance perfectly makes his
profession inartistic. Great acting, Craig stated, is largely accidental.
Because of this, he would prefer to do away with the actor and
replace him with what he calls the Uber-marionette. This marionette
would be controllable by the director, and be able to execute perfectly
any demand, performance after performance. This, of course, is a
startling statement. And Strasberg began to wonder if Craig was
right. If an actor had no way of achieving the same level of expression
night after night, if he had no control over the level and degree of his
emotional expression, could what he does be properly called an art?

When he saw the Moscow Art Theater perform in New York, he

realized that it was possible for actors to be artists. He saw these
extraordinary Russian actors repeat high emotion from performance
to performance, and he was determined to find out how it was done.
Craig could be proved wrong, and Strasberg was determined to pro-
vide that proof.

When he learned from Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya the tech-

nique of affective memory, he felt he had found the key that would
open the door to controllable emotion. And over the course of the
years, when others questioned the true value of emotion memory, he
staunchly defended it and even widened its use. He felt that affective
memory was the very heart and soul of Stanislavski’s and
Vakhtangov’s systems and he was fiercely dedicated to it. If he was
wrong, it meant that Craig was right, and that human actors were
incapable of being true artists. And this was a position that Strasberg
could not tolerate. In some ways, the rest of his life can be seen as an
attempt to show that Craig was mistaken and to prove beyond doubt
that acting is as high an art as any other. We might, if we were feeling
bold, call this Lee Strasberg’s Super-objective. It is perhaps why he
fought so hard against its detractors.

LEE STRASBERG 95
 What Strasberg did not seem to question was the validity of
Craig’s views. Craig’s call for perfection makes the actor more of a
machine than a human. He asks not only for the impossible, but
denies the value of spontaneity. Certainly an actor must come
extremely close each night to the same performance levels, but to
demand perfect reproduction is to devalue the small variations which
often give vitality and life to a performance. An element of unpre-
dictability is part of the actor’s art. On the other hand, it is easy to
sympathize with Craig when one sees performances that differ wildly
in quality night after night. But Craig’s call for Uber-marionettes is
absurd. Although he may soon get his wish.

The technology of the late twentieth century makes it possible to

create synthetic actors via the use of computers. A perfectly realistic
digital body can be created and made to move realistically across a
computer screen speaking realistic dialogue created by means of syn-
thetic speech programs which can all be precisely controlled by a pro-
gram designer. Thus, Craig’s Uber-marionette is well within reach.

The idea is frightening isn’t it? It threatens the very existence of

human actors. This is how Strasberg must have felt when he read
Craig's book.

Strasberg set out to create an actor who was truly an artist and
who could not be replaced.

oS

The beginning of training in Strasberg’s Method is relaxation. He

realized, along with Delsarte and Stanislavski, that bodily tension can
lead to expressive restriction. Tension keeps the actor from doing
what he wants to do. His voice becomes thin rather than full, his
body becomes stiff rather than pliant, his mind becomes rigid instead
of flexible and his emotions become frozen rather than yielding.

96 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

RELAXATION

The actor new,to Strasberg’s work always begins with relaxation

exercises. The student is asked to sit in a chair, and to find a position
in which he might be able to fall asleep. Falling asleep, however, is
not the goal, so the chair should not be one that is too comfortable.

Next, the student is asked to concentrate on various muscle

groups and to consciously release any tension being held there. Often
the student is guided to begin with the feet. The foot is our first con-
nection with a surface beyond our body, and is asked to support the
bulk of our weight. The numerous subtle adjustments that our feet
and ankles go through just to keep us balanced and moving, puts
tremendous strain on them. Moving the ankles and toes slowly can
be helpful in getting them to release. Try it. Rotate your feet slowly at
the ankles, flex and curl your toes now as you read.

Slowly, we work our way through the body, concentrating in

turn on the calves, the upper legs, the mid-section, the buttocks, our
fingers, wrists, lower and upper arms, shoulders, chest, neck, lips, and
eyes.

We keep in mind that Strasberg paid special attention to three

areas. One, is the side of the temples: “In the effort we make to
think, these areas use much more energy than they need, and there-
fore create tension.”? Imagine how good it would feel to have strong
but gentle fingers massaging our temples right now. We close our
eyes and just let the tension pour out of our temples into the air.
Some of our thoughts are heavy and they sink to the ground. Others
drift upwards and disappear.

We suddenly realize that our teeth are clenched, and we slowly

release our jaw muscles. Tension, we see, creeps in on cat’s paws; sub-
tly and without warning. Again we focus on relaxing the temples.
This time we meet with more success.

Next, we focus on the bridge of the nose. Muscles from there

lead to the eyes, and because our eyes are in motion so much of the
time, tension builds up there. We realize that the “look” of concen-
tration that we put on our face when we're listening to someone, ts

LEE STRASBERG 97
really just habitual. We think we appear thoughtful when we pinch
our eyebrows inward and scrunch up the muscles between our eyes.
But this look of “concern” is simply a mask we have been putting on
for years. We have a surprising amount of difficulty letting these
small muscle groups go. But when we do, we feel something almost
miraculous. An amazing openness comes over us the more we relax
this area. Try it.

Suddenly your face feels smooth and placid and the tension just
pours off. We start to understand that we may have areas of tension
of which we are unaware. We begin to see that our habits, those
things we do unconsciously to make us feel comfortable, might be in
our way. We need to examine more closely how we hold our body in
everyday life. We need to discover the areas of unconscious tension
and remind ourselves to relax those places. In this work, habit is our
enemy.

The third area that Strasberg wants us to work on are the muscles
“,..leading along the side of the nose...that lead into the mouth and
chin.” You see it all the time. People, usually when unobserved,
work their mouths and lips in all kinds of unconscious motions. We
too have developed odd ticks around our mouth. We realize, as we
try to let these muscles relax, that when we are daydreaming or read-
ing, we suck in part of our cheeks and chew lightly on the insides of
them. What a disgusting revelation! We are carrying a tremendous
amount of tension around in these muscles and people have probably
noticed. We're going to work extra hard to relax this muscle group
and to lose this horrible habit.

Other areas that hold tension are the neck, and the shoulders.
We pay extra attention to these parts of our body, sending mental
messages to them to let go. Sometimes an image is helpful. We imag-
ine a warm heat flowing into the muscles of the neck and over our
shoulders. We move our necks slowly and rotate our arms.

Finally, we feel completely relaxed. But when the instructor raises

our arm and then lets go of it, it stays up, instead of dropping.
Amazing. We are still holding tension in it.

98 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 The instructor offers us a strange solution to our problem. He
asks us to drop our arm and then to tense it as hard as we can. We
obviously look confused because the teacher immediately explains to
us that relaxation can sometimes be achieved through its opposite.
This seems a novel idea. We go ahead and tense our left arm. After a
few moments of exertion, the instructor tells us to release our arm.
He tells us to shake it out. We do. He asks us to tense and release it
again. We do. He lifts the arm up, and when he lets it go, it flops
back down. It worked. We remember that thinking in terms of oppo-
sites can be a very useful thing.

After the actor is relaxed, she may be asked to make sounds.

These should surprise the actor and not be pre-planned. They often
express whatever feelings have been aroused by the process of letting
go. “... Things lying below the surface begin to come up and truly
emotional things begin to happen, released by nothing more than
relaxation.”4 If someone walked into a Method class at this point,
they might think the people were crazy. Slouched in chairs and
moaning, crying, laughing or screaming the actors might easily be
mistaken for mental patients. In fact, this very thing has plagued the
Actor's Studio for years. People did drop in and watch just single ses-
sions of Method work and then ridicule it in print. Much of the prej-
udice against Strasberg’s work originated from stories written by peo-
ple with little or no exposure to the entire sequence of training.

Another misunderstanding concerning relaxation must also be

cleared up at this point. Strasberg never advocated the removal of all
tension from the actor during performance. It was self-evident to him
that some degree of tension was necessary in the body to stand
upright and to move. Strasberg wanted to remove unnecessary tension
from the actor so that his energy could be free for the tasks demand-
ed of him. The idea is to have as much tension in the body as is
needed and no more. Strasberg wanted the actor to be dynamic on
the stage, not sluggish or idle. Relaxation is not the goal of acting,
only a starting point.

For Strasberg, all work begins at the relaxation level. But he

knew, just as Stanislavski did, that relaxation is not enough. It must
be complemented by its twin, concentration.

LEE STRASBERG 99
CONGENTDRATION

Actors concentrate best when they are relaxed and relax best
when they are concentrated. This was Stanislavski’s basic idea and
Strasberg subscribed to it absolutely. In Strasberg’s work, the keys to
concentration lie in the five senses.

After we have achieved a high level of relaxation, our teacher asks

us to listen to the sounds in the room. When we do this, we notice
the hum of the electric lights, the breathing of the other students, the
movement of their clothes against their bodies, and the footfalls of
our instructor. Next, he asks us to cast our hearing outside of the
room and to listen only to those sounds. For the first time, we notice
the sounds of traffic and the barking of dogs. We listen to the differ-
ent sounds made by cars approaching and cars leaving, we think we
hear a child’s faint voice.

Now the instructor tells us that we are in a fixed orbit above the
Earth. In our ship, he says, we posses a unique kind of volume con-
trol. With it, we can isolate any sound on the planet we want, and
screen out all the others. He tells us to turn up the sound of all the
laughter happening on the Earth right now. We imagine turning up
this control. The teacher asks us if we are hearing a lot of laughter, or
a little. He asks us if it is a mix of high and low voices, or of a single
type

Next, he us tells us to turn down the sounds of the laughter and

to turn up the sounds of all the gunshots going off on the Earth at
this very moment. We do. Is it a lot, he asks, or a little? Too many, we
think to ourselves. Suddenly we hear the instructor telling us in a
quiet voice to relax the muscles at the bridge of our nose. In concen-
trating on these sounds, we have put tension in our face. We do as he
says. The teacher then asks us to turn down the gunshots, and to turn
up the sounds of all the kissing going on all over the world. We can-
not help but smile. This is a pretty good one.
After the exercise, the teacher makes the point that some of the
sounds we listened to were real and actually going on, and that some
were made real by the magic of our imaginations. He tells us that we
are going to extend this exercise to our other senses.

100 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 The instructor puts before us a patterned plate. He asks us to
observe it in detail for five minutes. We take the plate and examine it.
After five interminable minutes, he takes it away. He then asks us to
describe it. This, we think, will be easy, we've been staring at it for an
eternity!

When we finish our description, the teacher asks us how heavy it

is. Well, we say we really hadn't noticed. Were there any raised sur-
faces on the plate, he asks, or was the texture completely smooth all
the way around? We confess we're not sure, we didn’t feel all the parts
of the pattern. When he shows us the plate again, we realize how
inadequate our description of it was. We even got the order of the
colored stripes wrong. We are amazed at our failure. It should have
been so simple. The instructor reassures us. People must be trained to
really observe, he says. The more we do it, the better we will be at it.

But he is not done with us. He hands the plate back to us and
gives us one minute more with it. This time when he takes it away,
he makes a strange request. He asks us to recreate the object. We
stare. He tells us to close our eyes and create the plate with our imag-
ination. We put our hands out as if we are holding the plate. We feel
silly. We turn it over quickly, put our hand under it, fake eating off of
it, and so on. But pretty soon the teacher stops us. He tells us that he
is not looking for a pantomime, but a sensory recreation of the
object. He asks us to let our fingers feel the coolness of the plate, to
let our hands and arms feel the weight ofit. After some moments, we
can feel these things. He asks us to remember its color and shape, to
see the patterns and how it reflects light. This imaginary plate is
beginning to come to life for us. Not as a mimed object, but as a sen-
sory experience. We feel a deep connection with this imaginary
object and are newly respectful of the power of the imagination.

The teacher tells us that relaxation, concentration and imagina-

tion are all bound up together in this work. That when used jointly,
they can help us to create imaginary objects for the audience. When
we look out, say, at an imaginary cherry orchard, the audience will
feel as though they too can sense its reality. This, he explains, is the
essence of acting; creating things that aren't there. Creating imaginary
relationships, behaving in imaginary circumstances, acting as if we

LEE STRASBERG 101

were someone else, these are all acts of the imagination, which func-
tions best when it is relaxed and concentrated.

The instructor now tells us that we are ready to move on to the

next exercise. He asks us to go out and have a cup of coffee. We're
beginning to like this guy. He wants us to remember all the sensa-
tions involved in having this coffee and recreate them in class.

SENSE MEMORY

A Cup of Coffee

When we do our exercise for the class, the teacher finds our work
too general and superficial. He asks us questions. Do you feel the
weight of the cup? Do your nails make a sound against the surface of
the cup when you first grip it? What do your fingers feel like on the
handle? Which fingers are in contact with the cup? Are your fingers
hot? How hot? How full is the cup? Does the weight of the cup affect
your wrist? What color is the coffee? Is there milk in it? Has it com-
pletely blended in yet, or can you see lighter and darker areas? What
is the cup made of? Can you smell the aroma? What part of your lip
comes in contact with the cup first? Is that first contact pleasant, or is
the edge of the cup too hot? Does the smell change as the cup comes
closer to your mouth? What is the first taste like? Is it bitter and then
sweet, or the other way around?

Some of these questions we cannot answer. We simply don’t

remember. We want to go out right away and drink a cup of coffee.
Is it bitter first, or sweet? The instructor asks us to do the exercise
again tomorrow. When we come back the next day, we do better. We
are beginning to understand just how much concentration this exer-
cise requires.

Shaving or Makeup

The men in the class have been asked to shave, and the women
to put on makeup at home. When we come back to class, we each do
our best to recreate the sensory experience with imaginary objects.
Some are more successful than others. This time, we get caught up in

102 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

miming the actions of shaving, and don’t really experience the senso-
ry reality of the blade against our skin. The instructor has us do the
exercise again. It takes us four times before we do it right. Sometimes
it’s like that.

Sunlight

The instructor has asked us to lie out in the sun and to note the
feel of the sun’s brightness and heat on our bodies. This one seems
simple. But when we try it in class, we feel as if we are doing nothing.
We sit in a chair with our heads tilted up, and our eyes closed. That’s
it. There is no activity to do. The teacher comments that we are just
sitting there. It’s true, we are. Relax the muscles of your face, he sug-
gests. We didn’t think they were tense, but when we do as he asks, we
realize that they were. He guides us through the sensory reality of the
sunshine, and we begin to recapture the feel of it. Others have trou-
ble with this one too, so we don’t feel quite so bad. We keep at it
until we succeed in capturing that sunshine.

The Shower

Go home and take a shower, the teacher tells us next, but take it
in a special way. Focus on the experience of your senses, he says. Note
the temperature of the water, and the feel of its pressure. Note the
smell of the enclosure, and the rising steam. See the size of the drops,
the shower head, the handles, feel the reaction of your skin, note
where the drops first hit. Remember the feel of the soap, it’s weight,
see its color, size and texture. Note how you use it. Do you put it
under the water first to warm it up? Which part of your body do you
soap up first? How does it feel on your skin? Does the water suddenly
go cold when someone uses water elsewhere in the house? Notice
when your eyes are open and when they are closed. Note the sound
of the water as it hits your body, as it hits the floor, as it hits the
shower curtain or glass. Let your body respond to the feeling of the
water.

Pay attention to the sensory detail, because you are going to

come in and recreate your shower for us, he says. But, he reiterates,
DO NOT MIME IT! When you come in, the goal will be to awaken

LEE STRASBERG 103

your memory of the sensory experience, not to show us how well you
can recreate the soap.

When we bring in our “shower exercise’, the teacher seems

pleased. He tells us that we did successfully recreate the sensory expe-
rience of the shower. We feel pretty good. And cleaner.

We realize that in doing these sense memory exercises, our focus

has mercifully gone off of ourselves and onto an imaginary reality.
Our self-conscious energy has been redirected, and as a result, we
have stopped watching ourselves. Thank goodness.

Personal Object

The instructor has now asked us to find an object at home for

which we have a special feeling. This is the first time we have been
assigned an exercise that specifically calls for an emotional reaction.
He asks us to handle it and note all ofits sensory reality, not to focus
on the emotion it evokes. But not to avoid it either. If emotion
comes, let it come, he says, but do not force it. Observe the object's
color, size, smell, shape, sound, feel, texture, taste. We choose our
deceased father’s gold watch.

When we come into class the next day, we recreate the object. At
first we simply see the imaginary watch, and then we pick it up. We
feel the weight of it and notice that some of the golden color has
rubbed off. We suddenly associate this loss of gold with the loss of
our father, and we begin to sob. The sob becomes a torrent. When
the instructor asks us to stay with the sensory reality of the object, we
cannot do it. We are caught up in uncontrollable sorrow. This exer-
cise has unlocked a deep well of feeling. The instructor gently guides
us back to the object, asking us to describe it. Through gulps of air
and with a painfully constricted throat, we do. When we finish, the
teacher has a few words to say.

He tells us that when doing this work it is often best to use

something seven years or older. This is because fresher memories are
more difficult to control. He further explains that the Method is not
only about expressing honest and deep emotion, but about control-
ling that expression. He says that what happened to me, while valu-

104 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

able and true, was something that we want to avoid. That is, emotion
that we cannot control. He asks me when I received this object. We
tell him that our father died ten months ago, and that we got the
watch at that time. The lesson is clear. We need to use something
much older. Some emotional distance is required.

This has been an important session. We were under the impres-

sion that Method work was all about the display of feeling. Even to
the point of indulgence. What the instructor is now making clear
however, is that a higher value is placed on truthful emotional expres-
sion that is repeatable and controllable. We begin to understand that
this is what Strasberg means by an inner technique; something you
can do over and over again.

Over the course of many weeks, we do many more sense memo-

ry exercises. These are usually combinations of other exercises. For
instance, using a personal object in a particular room, or recreating a
particular sensation such as sunshine with a personal object. The
combinations are challenging. We feel our recall of sense memories
improving significantly.

The Private Moment

The instructor says we are now ready to move on. He introduces

us to the private moment exercise. He tells us that Lee Strasberg cre-
ated this exercise as an extension of Stanislavski’s idea of “public soli-
tude.” Remember, that Stanislavski felt it necessary for actors to feel
private in public. In order to achieve this, he created exercises in the
“circle of concentration,” and with “objects of attention” (see pages
32-34). Strasberg wanted to take this a step further. He felt that the
private moment would engage the actor’s sense of concentration so
fully that all thoughts of the audience would disappear. The private
moment could give the actor an unparalleled experience of public
solitude.

The private moment involves doing something that other people

do not see you do, or that if they did, you would change the moment
you noticed they were there.

LEE STRASBERG 105

 The teacher tells us to recreate in the class, the room at home in
which the private moment takes place. That means we can bring in
all kinds of objects from home and put them in the playing space.

We feel a bit suspicious of this exercise because we've heard sto-

ries about it. This is one of those famous Actor’s Studio activities that
some people consider indulgent. The very thought of doing some-
thing personally private in public, makes us extremely anxious. We
try to calm ourselves down. After all, maybe in overcoming our fear
of this exercise, we will have a “breakthrough,” oneof those moments
when we will arrive at a new and higher level of work.

But what private moment should we do? We know that some

have put on music and danced with great abandon just as they some-
times do in the privacy of their own room. We know that others have
done something so simple as to prepare for a night’s sleep. What, we
ask ourselves, do we do that we would immediately change if some-
one saw us? Suddenly we know.

In class the next day, we bring in the mirror from our bedroom
and place it on a desk. We also put our toothbrush, toothpaste and
electric shaver out. We begin by walking up to the mirror and look-
ing at our reflection. We put toothpaste on the brush, but do not use
it. We pick up the shaver, but put it back down again. Quit stalling,
we tell ourselves, and do the exercise.

We stare into the mirror again. Finally, we come to the moment

of truth, and slowly, we remove our shirt. As we stand before the all-
seeing mirror, we let our stomach relax and check how far it sticks
out. If someone were to walk in at this very moment, we would suck
it back in.

After a few moments of appraisal, we sling our shirt back over

our body. Before we turn back to the class, we take a deep breath.
This has been extremely difficult for us to do. We stared into the
mirror for many minutes before we could take off our shirt. We
always try to present a fairly “fit” image to the world, even though we
know we are not in the greatest shape. Even at the beach we do not
take our shirt off because we do not like the way we look. We turn to
the instructor.

106 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 He tells us that the exercise had all of the elements of a true pri-
vate moment and yet did not succeed. We are stunned. Not succeed?
We revealed something in public that we would never let anyone see,
we protest.

Perhaps, he says gently, that is the problem. You did the exercise
as though you knew that an audience was present. In the real
moment at your mirror at home, you do not have to summon up the
courage to look at your waistline like you did here, do you? Don’t
you just do it because you know no one is going to see you? You
acted as though you were doing a very brave thing in front of a
bunch of people. Which, no doubt you were, but the awareness of
the public was much too present in your exercise. Try again tomor-
row, he tells us.

We are truly disappointed. Not only did we do something per-

sonally difficult, but we have to do it again tomorrow. We must
admit, however, that the teacher has a point. We wouldn’t have
picked up the toothbrush and the shaver and just set them down
again. We did that because we were distracted by the audience. We
were not really concentrating on where we were, or on what we were
doing. Tomorrow will be different, we promise ourselves.

Today, we take much more time feeling comfortable in the space.

The objects we bring help us to sensorially recall our bedroom at
home, and we do not approach the mirror until we have established a
strong “where.” This time, when we take off our shirt, we really look
at ourselves. And although we are not overjoyed at what we see, nei-
ther is it as horrible as we thought yesterday. In fact, we might be los-
ing a little weight.

We look at the “spare tire” around our waist that we hate so

much, and unconsciously check how many inches of flesh it is with a
pinch of our fingers. We are amazed to find that it has shrunk since
the last time we checked. Suddenly, and for no reason at all, we suck
in our stomach, flex our muscles, and strike a ridiculous body builder
pose. With a stupid grin on our face, we put our shirt back on and
walk away from the mirror.

LEE STRASBERG 107

 The instructor is smiling. He tells us that this private moment
achieved what the other did not; a real sense of privacy and a true
loss of audience awareness. He liked the moments of uninhibited
behavior, he says, like the pinching and the posing. The posing, he
points out, could have been a trap, in that it might have been done as
a kind of “wink” to the audience, but that instead, it came across as
something playful that we did for ourselves. We did not fall into the
trap of “performing” our private moment, he says, but really achieved
privacy in public. We are quite pleased and pleasantly surprised. We
expected this exercise to be agony. And it was when we did it incor-
rectly the first time. But this time, it actually felt liberating. We do
wonder though whether this exercise would actually help us onstage
during a performance.

In fact, we are beginning to realize that all of the exercises we

have done so far we have done by ourselves, and without a written
text. We have done no scenes and have not yet worked with a scene
partner. The instructor explains that first we work on ourselves, and
then on a role. This, he tells us, is how both Stanislavski and
Strasberg proceed. We have, he explains further, been using improvi-
sational situations all along. Wasn't our private moment a “scene,” he
asks. We acknowledge that it was. Don’t worry, he assures us, we'll get
to scenes soon enough. First, he tells us, we must work on ourselves;
on our relaxation, concentration, imagination and sense memory.
Perhaps we are being a little impatient.

Animals

At the old American Lab, Maria Ouspenskaya used an exercise

based on the observation of animals to break actors of habitual move-
ment patterns and as the basis for physical characterizations. Our
teacher tells us that Lee Strasberg found these exercises of great use
and that we too would now do them.

He tells us to visit the zoo or to watch our animals at home. He

tells us to observe carefully how the animal moves, where the center
of gravity is, how the animal uses each part of its body, how the ani-
mal relates to its surroundings, what kinds of sounds the animal
makes and when it makes them. He asks us to observe how the ani-
mal sleeps, and how it eats.

108 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 See what catches the animal’s attention, he says, try to think like
the animal and understand why it does what it does. After a consid-
erable amount of observation, the instructor tells us to try and
become the animal. Then we are to evolve the animal to human form
while retaining some of the animal’s features. We are to practice this
at home and then do it in class. He tells us that Lee J. Cobb used the
image of an elephant as the basis for his characterization of Willy
Loman in Arthur Miller's Death ofa Salesman.> The actor and teacher
Allan Miller used the image of a cockroach to capture a character's
“manic physical alertness,”° our instructor explains further. Using
animals can propel us toward new ways of using our bodies and aid
us in finding tempo-rhythms that differ from our own.

We spend part of the next day observing our friend’s new puppy.
The sheer energy impresses and exhausts us. We work hard and are
happy with the results.

When we bring it in the next day for our exercise, we are able to
actually think the puppy’s thoughts. So that when we bring it up to
human form, and the teacher tells us that we are in a bar, we imme-
diately become an exuberant waiter eager to please each and every
customer.

The teacher then changes the activity to a household chore. He

asks us to vacuum the rug as this human with puppy characteristics
would. We do. He is pleased. He then asks us to combine our private
moment with this puppy/human. This gives us pause. The private
moment we did, we did as ourselves, not as some character. He tells
us to just do it. We try, but fail. We cannot achieve the same sense of
privacy or of inner feeling that we had originally. He tells us to try it
again tomorrow.

Today, we were able to transform the puppy's eager energy into a

nervous anxiety that we could integrate into our private moment.
The teacher expresses satisfaction with what we have achieved, and
issues a new challenge.

He asks us to mix, with our puppy/human and our private

moment, a sensation. Instantly, we choose a cold early morning and
add it in. All of our senses are working now, and we find that the

LEE STRASBERG 109

cold helps us with the nervous energy of the puppy. As we assess our-
selves in the mirror, we rub our stomach in order to generate some
warmth. The reality of the room has increased by sensorially creating
a temperature, and when the exercise is over, we begin to see how
valuable it can be to mix elements in our work. Sensations, private
moments, personal objects, and animals all add substance to our
presence on stage. The instructor is sufficiently pleased with our
progress that he assigns us an exercise in emotion memory.
\

Affective Memory

Much has been said and written about affective memory. The
first point to clear up about it, says our teacher, is that the actor does
not simply recall a feeling. Going back in one’s mind in order to find
a past emotion to drag up, is not using affective memory. Emotion is
usually quite resistant to a direct assault of this type. The instructor
tells us: “The basic idea of affective memory is not emotional recall
but that the actor's emotion on the stage should never be really real.
It always should be only remembered emotion. An emotion that hap-
pens right now spontaneously is out of control...Remembered emo-
tion is something that the actor can create and repeat; without that
the thing is hectic.”7

We are surprised by this. We always thought that real emotion

happening spontaneously was what the Method was all about. This
idea is different from Stanislavski’s, it seems. He believed that if you
enter the given circumstances of the play with belief and imagination
and follow the actions of the part in concert with the super-objective,
emotion would flow. And yet, in his first book, An Actor Prepares, he
wrote much about affective memory. And herein lies part of the
confusion.

The three books on acting technique that Constantine Stanislavski

wrote during the course of his lifetime had a very peculiar publishing
history. The first, Az Actor Prepares, focused on the actor’s inner tech-
nique, while the second, BuildingA Character, focused on the actor’s
external technique. Originally, these two volumes were meant to be
published together. But this did not happen. An Actor Prepares was
published in 1936, but Building A Character was not available in

110 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

English until 1949! And the third book, CreatingA Role was not
published in English until 1961. This last book contains
Stanislavski’s ideas from the 1930’s which he called the Method of
Psycho-Physical Actions. So, due to this unfortunate publishing histo-
ry, Lee Strasberg and others were somewhat misled into emphasizing
internal techniques over external ones.

When Strasberg discovered, from Stella Adler’s report on her

work with Stanislavski, that the Russian master no longer found
affective memory useful, he felt betrayed. His successes as a director
and teacher at the Group Theater were based on such exercises. So he
stayed with them. In fact, for Strasberg, affective memory is the core
of an actor's inner technique.

So, if affective memory is not the experiencing of spontaneous

emotion, what is it, and how is it done? Affective memory, our
instructor says, is based on conditioning. Remember Ivan Pavlov? our
teacher asks. He was the Russian biologist who conditioned dogs to
salivate at the sound of a bell even though no food was present. In
the same way, emotions can be aroused if certain factors are put into
play, he says. Stanislavski realized that by recreating the sense memo-
ries of an emotional event, the emotion itself would appear. The real
memory involved then is sensory, not emotional. The actor does not
focus on the feeling, but on the physical circumstances surrounding
the emotional event.

The instructor asks us to remember a significant emotional

moment in our lives that occurred at least seven years ago. More
recent memories are usually less controllable, he says.

He asks us to relax into our chairs and then to recreate all the
sensory details we can around the chosen event. He tells us to
remember the place, what we wore, the temperature, what we
smelled, what we heard, and what we said. He asks us questions that
sharpen the details of our recollections. If we are in a room, what col-
ors are the walls? How high do they reach? Of what material are they
made? If we ran our fingers across the walls, what would they feel
like? He asks us to remember how our clothes felt against our bodies,
what they looked and smelled like, and if they were tight or loose. He
asks us to remember in detail the smells of the place and of the people.

LEE STRASBERG 111

He asks us to remember the quality of the light in the room, and to
recall the sounds and voices we heard.

All of these physical details bring the moment we are using to

vivid life, and yet we cannot recapture the emotions associated with
it. The instructor tells us that that is fine. He explains that sometimes
one must try several memories before one works. The important
thing is not to force the emotions.

After a few weeks, we hit upon a memory sthat stimulates a

strong emotional reaction. We have been doing the exercise at home
and in class for some time now, and we are elated to have found some
success. It took us over an hour before the feelings began to flow, but
flow they did. The teacher is encouraged by our success and tells us
to do it again.

The next time we try, it takes forty-five minutes to arrive at the

emotion. The next few times we use this memory, it takes us only
half an hour to achieve success. We are indeed conditioning a
response. After some more time, we are able to arrive at the emotion
in only a few minutes. We no longer need to take so much time to
relax and we do not need to mentally note and experience every indi-
vidual sense memory. The teacher tells us that we now have one gold-
en key that will open the door to our emotions. He tells us that we
must continue to find more such memories so that we can have
many golden keys. Maria Ouspenskaya told her pupils that she had
twelve of them.

How though, we wonder, do we use an affective memory in our

work? As an exercise, it certainly opens up great wells of feeling, and
even has given us a measure of control over those feelings, but how
does it work in performance? This of course is the subject of great
controversy.

We remember how some actors in the Group Theater com-

plained that their scene partners would drop out of a moment in
order to do an affective memory exercise for an upcoming emotional
demand.

112 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 The instructor tries to quell our doubts by telling us how affec-
tive memories work in a scene. He says that the actor finds an affec-
tive memory that closely corresponds to the emotion demanded by
the scene. He then practices the exercise until he is able to make it
work in about a minute with the dialogue and action of the scene.
So, the actor actually practices the exercise using the words of the
scene. Not initially, of course. First, the actor needs to make sure the
memory is one that works and is repeatable. After that has been
achieved, the actor slowly adds in the words of the text.

There is no question that the use of emotion memory can be

effective. Even Quintilian suggested remembering an event in life
that could help the orator empathize with a current situation. He
knew that this would make an orator’s arguments more persuasive.

Stanislavski too realized the value of recalling events from the

past and using them in the present. But later in his life he found that
too great an emphasis on creating feeling led the actor astray. Years
later, Robert Lewis put the problem this way, “You're on the stage
and youve got this feeling. It somehow blinds you and deafens you
so that you don’ really see, you don’t really hear, you don’t really play
the action of the moment, but you hang on because it is a marvelous
feeling. The trick was to release yourself from the exercise as you
came in and play whatever the situation was, so that the feeling that
you had in you went up and down normally the way emotion does in
lite... ©

Another problem surfaced for the actors of the Group Theater.

Some of them found that the affective memories no longer worked
night after night. Strasberg felt that this failure had nothing to do
with the technique itself, but with the actor’s use of it. He felt that
they must be doing the exercise incorrectly. And indeed, when he
would guide them through the sensory details of the memory, he
would discover that they had been leaving out important items. With
proper guidance, the exercise would work again.

For Strasberg, the well-trained actor posseses conditioned emo-

tional responses that can be turned on and off at will. It is, in fact,
this ability that makes an actor an artist. And that is why so much

LEE STRASBERG 113

importance and emphasis is placed on sense and affective memory
exercises at the Actor’s Studio.

What about dropping out of a scene in order to do an exercise?

Well, it doesn’t really matter if the moment being acted is a close-up
in a film. Many actors have found that the greatest use of affective
memory is before the cameras. For take after take, this exercise can be
tremendously useful. When the camera is focused mostly, or exclu-
sively on one actor, that actor needn't worry about the connection
with his scene partner. In such a situation, it is the ’believability of the
emotion that is paramount. And so it is here, that affective memory
really comes into its own. It is perhaps for this reason that so many
Actor’s Studio trained actors are so successful on film.

But on the stage, the use of affective memory can clearly pose
problems. Stanislavski thought he found a simpler way to arouse
emotion, and stopped using it. But others swear by the power and
effectiveness of affective memory, and they cannot be ignored. Some
of America’s finest actors have been trained at the Actor’s Studio in
this technique and find it useful.

The Song and Dance Exercise

The instructor has another exercise for us. He asks us to pick a

simple song like “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” He tells us to stand in
front of the class and to stay completely still. Instead of singing the
song in its usual rhythm, we are to make each of its notes nearly
equal in length. We don’t have to be faithful to the melody either.

When we try this, we find it hard to stay still. We also find it dif-
ficult to sever the song from its rhythm. But after many attempts, we
succeed. The instructor then asks us to make a dramatic movement
with our body during the song. He then asks us to make lots of
movements during the course of the song, and not in the expected
rhythmic places.

When we try this, we feel embarrassed. Leaping about and mak-

ing sounds in this way makes us feel extremely silly. But the instruc-
tor explains that it is important for us to know that about ourselves.

114 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Sometimes a part requires us to be silly, and we must be free enough
to express it,

We try the exercise again and after a while, we do it with real

abandon and a genuine sense of fun. When it is over, we share our
feelings with the instructor and the class. We feel that most of our
emotional expression in the class has been of a closed-in kind. But
this exercise made us feel open and expansive. In the other exercises
we were afraid of being too big, or of doing too much. But in this
one, we say, our fear of large expression disappeared.

The instructor tells us that bigness is often required of the stage

actor, and that the kind of energy we displayed in the song and dance
exercise is what is needed. Too often, he says, actors think that
Strasberg’s work requires them to be small, or casual. This is non-
sense, he tells us. It is phoniness that Strasberg objects to, not big-
ness. If the emotional underpinnings are genuine, any size perfor-
mance can be justified.

oo

As we leave class, we realize that we have had a lot of preconcep-

tions smashed. Strasberg, contrary to our long-standing prejudice,
did not teach actors to be mumbling, emotionally erratic performers.
If some became so under his guidance, it was more their failure than
his. He tried, all of his teaching and directing life, to help actors
become artists capable of expressing and controlling honest and pow-
erful emotion. His “private moment” and “affective memory exercis-
es” were and remain controversial. Their usefulness still a matter of
debate. But actors and teachers trained by him continue to use them,
nonetheless. Some Actor's Studio members went into psychotherapy
during their training, and we cannot help but think of the fear that
existed for 1,800 years that acting could harm an actor both physical-
ly and mentally. Perhaps, at some extreme level, the actor’s explo-
ration of himself can threaten his stability. And yet we are usually capa-
ble of pushing ourselves further than we think, so it is difficult to say.

Strasberg can certainly be criticized for paying less attention to

actions, given circumstances, objectives and characterization than he

LEE STRASBERG 115

might have. And his personal aloofness and legendary outbursts of
fury must have intimidated and even inhibited many. But no one
dedicated himself more fiercely to the actor’s exploration of himself
than did this master teacher.

Sitting in a chair at the Actor’s Studio, with only his intellect and
uncanny insight to guide him, Lee Strasberg helped to prove that
actors can be artists. When he someday meets Gordon Craig, he can
greet him with a smile.

116 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 6
Stella Adler

het and Sara Adler were two of the finest actors of the
American Yiddish theater. They were a significant part of a vital eth-
nic theatrical scene that thrived in New York from the late nineteenth
century well into the 1950's. Adler’s daughter, Stella, was born in
New York City in 1902, and was destined to become the most
famous and influential member of the family. She began her acting
career at the age of four and concluded it fifty-five years later, in
1961. During that time, and for years after, Stella Adler taught. With
the full force of her formidable energy, she dedicated herself to trans-
mitting to others, the craft that served her so well. Her pupils are
some of the most illustrious performers in both theater and film;
Marlon Brando chief among them.

When Stella Adler attended Boleslavsky’s American Lab Theater

in the late twenties, she was already an established actress with a high
reputation. But she wanted more. The other members of the Adler
acting family made fun of what they called her “seriousness.” But she
persevered despite the teasing. Although tempted by the glamour of
Broadway, Adler was always more dedicated to artistic excellence, and
that desire informed all of her creative choices in both teaching and
acting.

LOZ
 Stella Adler was an original member of the Group Theater, but
was ambivalent about it from the beginning. Along with Morris
Carnovsky, she was the most experienced actor in the troupe, and she
was often frustrated with the amateur antics of some of the other
members. She was also uneasy with main Group director and acting
teacher, Lee Strasberg. But despite her suspicion of some of
Strasberg’s methods, she continued with the Group throughout its
turbulent but glorious history.

When she returned from her work with Stanislavski in Paris, she
began teaching classes for the members of the Group. They often
found themselves more stimulated by what she was teaching than by
what they found with Strasberg. Adler had come back with a chart,
and a personal working knowledge of Stanislavski’s system, and this
gave her words a special authority. She spent the rest of her life pay-
ing Stanislavski back for the help and insights he had given her.

In 1949, Adler opened her own acting studio. When she died in
1992, there were two Stella Adler Conservatories; one in New York,
and one in Los Angeles. Both schools continue despite her passing.

Stella Adler’s teachings are often contrasted with those of Lee

Strasberg. This happens most obviously when the topic of affective
memory is broached. It should be remembered that Adler had trou-
ble with emotion memory work before she ever met Stanislavski. As
an actress, she had very little problem with finding and communicat-
ing the proper emotion for a scene, and felt that delving into her per-
sonal life, as affective memory required, was unnecessarily invasive.
But because she felt that affective memory was an essential part of the
Stanislavski system, she reluctantly used it.

Working with Stanislavski however, relieved her of having to use

emotional recall, and her joy in performing returned.

Like Stanislavski, Adler placed greatest emphasis on imagination,

circumstances and actions. If an actor did enounter problems in sum-
moning up an emotion, she would allow that actor to search for a
parallel experience in his life, but only in order to retain the playable
actions from that memory. What does this mean?

118 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Suppose we are cast as a restaurant consultant. And suppose fur-
ther, that this consultant is a know-it-all with a superior attitude.
Now imagine that when we portray this character, we find ourselves
unable to believably locate the appropriate emotional tone. When an
actor finds himself in such a difficulty, he might go out and study a
real restaurant consultant. And while this can be useful, and in some
cases crucial, it may not help the actor find what he is looking for.

Instead, Adler might suggest remembering times in the actor's

own life when he has been consulted about something. She might
ask, what are you an expert in? Perhaps the actor will answer that he
is a real authority on stereo systems.

How, Adler might ask, do you talk to people who ask for your
advice about stereos? The actor might then become quite animated,
talking with passion about his love of good sound. Now, Adler says,
suppose that I have a very inferior system. And suppose that I ask
you your honest opinion of it. How would you talk, how would you
sound? The actor might then begin gesturing and speaking rapidly as
he dissects the faults of her system. These physical characteristics may
help him find the emotional tone that is appropriate to the character
of the restaurant consultant. All that is needed next, is for the actor
to exchange his own words and topic, for the words and topic of the
scene.

The actor doing this does not focus on the emotion itself, but on
the physical embodiment of it; the gestures, the voice, the animation,
these will all lead him to the feeling. In this way, the actor can use
memory, but avoid indulgence. What about repeatability? Well,
Remember Delsarte’s soldier (p.11)? The physical characteristics will
bring back the feelings. But Adler does not rely on experiences from
the actor's personal life in order to arouse emotion.

fe

In our class, the instructor tells us that like Delsarte, Stanislavski

and Strasberg, Adler believes that “tension is one of the absolute ene-
mies of acting.”! She believes that an actor must possess complete
muscular control. In order to achieve this, the actor must do relax-

STELLA ADLER 119

ation exercises. But then the actor should move on to muscular chal-
lenges. What, we wonder is a muscular challenge?

The teacher asks us to imagine that our left ankle is sprained. She
tells us that the injury occured two weeks previously and that the
ankle is now wrapped, but tender. We imagine this. Next, the
instructor asks us to do simple tasks with this muscular challenge. We
choose to cook breakfast. In our exercise, we enter an imaginary
kitchen area, open an imaginary ia assemble imaginary
ingredients on an imaginary table and..

The instructor stops us. She tells us that we have chosen too
complicated a task and that we are focusing far too much on miming
the actions. Keep it simple, she tells us. We think for a moment. We
decide to simply tie our shoe. We enter with a slight hobble, favoring
the left ankle. We then sit down and gingerly lift our left foot over
our right knee. With care, we lean forward and slowly tie the lace.
We stop in mid-tie to relieve the strain on our ankle caused by flex-
ing our foot. After a moment’ relaxation, we continue until the task
is completed.

The teacher tells us that we showed good muscle control. She

explains that when we focus on one part of our body, the rest of the
muscles usually relax. Another benefit of this exercise, she says, is that
it makes good use of our imaginations. We must use some type of
sense memory to create the sprained ankle, and then must act logical-
ly within the circumstances of the injury. Imagination, she tells us, is
the greatest quality an actor can have. With it, anything is possible,
without it, nothing is. “...every word, every action, must originate in
the actor's imagination.”?

According to Adler, our instructor explains, “the actor’s job is to

defictionalize the fiction.”3 What does this mean? It means that even
though the character, the events and the place are fictional creations
of the playwright, the actor must live within them as though they are
real. Accomplishing this is an act of pure imagination, and it is con-
sistent with Stanislavski’s Magic If. (p.36).

Emotion should ideally come from the actor’s commitment to

the circumstances. If the actor can make the situations in which char-

120 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

acters find themselves vivid and believable, then emotion should flow
naturally. So a clear and deep understanding of the given circum-
stances is critical for’the actor’s expressive truthfulness.

The first approach to a circumstance is the “where.” Everything

that happens, happens somewhere. A place has a profound effect on
our behavior. We act differently in a locker room than we do in a
throne room. It is no coincidence that the creator of improvisational
Theater Games, Viola Spolin, often told improvisers that when they
ran dry ofinspiriation the “where” would save them.

So often in improv, Spolin would point out, the players just

stand around trying to think of clever things to say. Soon, the impro-
visors run dry, and the scene dies. “Use the ‘WHERE,” she would
say. If a scene is set in an old attic, and the players are stuck, they
should return to the action of the scene, looking for an old hat for
instance, and new ideas will come. Dealing with the “where” is a first
priority in improvisational work, just as it is for Stella Adler.

But a circumstance is composed of more than a “where.” A cir-

cumstance has a “when,” a “what,” and a “who” as well. And each of
these must be thoroughly explored and understood before the actor
can truly live in the circumstances.

Circumstances are also constantly shifting. Suppose, our teacher

says, you come over to your fiancée’s apartment in order to celebrate
your six-month engagement. The circumstances the actor would need
to understand would stretch at least as far back as their first meeting.

More immediately, he would have to know where he was coming

from in the moments before his arrival, and to where he is going.
Suppose he was coming from a dirty construction site, and had to
quickly change into a tuxedo. The actor might then leave a smudge
on his face or hands. The circumstance would determine this.

Suppose the relationship with his intended bride has been a

smooth and untroubled one. Suppose further, that in his excitement
to see her, he has decided to surprise her and come early. When he
knocks on her door, he is feeling happy and playful. When there is
no answer, he knocks again. Still, no answer. His feelings begin to

SUE ROA AINE Re i121

alter, as the circumstance itself changes. She is not responding, and
this concerns him. Mildly. There are degrees of shift in both emotion
and circumstance.

He tries the door, and finds it yielding. He steps in and calls her
name. No answer. He frowns in response to the circumstance, which
is changing its nature. He begins methodically looking around the
apartment to see if she’s there. She is not. It takes a moment for the
reality of this circumstance to hit him. Did he get the date wrong?
‘
The time? Did he forget something?

Then he sees her open closet door in the bedroom. It looks pecu-
liar but he’s not sure why. He crosses to it with increasing speed real-
izing on the way that there are no clothes in her closet. He instinc-
tively turns, opens her drawers. They too are empty. This is an entire-
ly new and dangerous circumstance. She’s gone. Moved out? He
stands stunned. He looks on her nightstand for a note, or some tell-
tale phone message. There is nothing, no explanation. Why, he won-
ders? Where did she go? Is this a joke? Has she been kidnapped? This
new circumstance elicits new thoughts and feelings. And these, in
turn, elicit new actions. He picks up the phone and calls his fiancée’s
best friend. He is in a rising panic. What is going on?

If the actor playing this scene begins with clear circumstances

and is committed to them, and is open to the shifts in those circum-
stances, the whole action of the scene will be believable and the emo-
tions will be truthful. Of course, the more rich and detailed the
actor's response to the changing circumstances, the deeper the scene
will be.

You notice we spoke of actions just now. What are they? How
did Adler understand and use them?

Simply put, “an action is something you do.”4 In the scene

above, the man knocks on the door. That is an action. How he
knocks on the door is a function of the circumstance. If he knew she
was resting, he would knock on the door softly. If he needed to alert
her to a fire in the building, he would pound on the door. Actions
occur within circumstances. This is something Stanislavski stressed to
Adler in Paris, and a point she insisted on in her own teaching.

122 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Our teacher explains that Adler broke actions down into compo-
nent parts called “activities.” For example, if acharacter’s action is to
fly an airplane, she ‘must engage in many smaller actions. She must
check the fuel, get clearance from ground control, check the engines
and pressure gauges, assess the weather and so on. These activities are
in support of the larger action of flying the plane.

But why is the character flying the plane? The answer to this
question, Adler calls the justification. In the pilot’s case, the justifica-
tion might be to save the life of awounded man.

We must also understand, explains our teacher that Adler does

not use Stanislavski’s term “through-line-of-action,” but her own
phrase, overall action. For example, the overall action for the pilot
might be to help win the war. So, for Adler, the activities and the
actions must be justified and in support of the overall action. This is
the same mix of the ideas of Stanislavski and Vakhtangov that the
Group Theater used without the emphasis on affective memory,

So far we see that performing logical actions in imaginative cir-

cumstances is of great importance in Stella Adler’s work and teach-
ings. Her focus is squarely on the author’s text. Not just the words of
it, but on the whole complex webbing of character and circumstance.
It is no wonder that for years, she toured the country teaching classes
in script analysis. She did not believe in wandering far from the
world of the play itself. Her goal was to unite the actor and his part
within the boundaries of the text.

While Lee Strasberg spent a great deal of time opening up the

actors emotional life, Stella Adler focused on the actor’s creation of
character.

Our instructor tells us that we must do vocal and physical work

in order to have the necessary energy to perform a character on the
stage. This readiness is essential, she tells us, if we are to transform
our daily selves, into living characters.

The first step toward characterization, she explains, is a thorough

understanding of the circumstances of the play. Next, we must nar-
row down our focus to the circumstances of our character. What ts

STELLA ADLER 123

the educational level of our character? What financial background
does the character come from, and what financial condition is he
now in? What does the character do for a living, and what hobbies
does he have? What is his relationship with his father, mother, broth-
ers, sisters, wife, children, lover, boss, co-workers, pets? Today? In the
past? The answers to these questions should yield playable results. It
is not useful to create a character biography that cannot be used.

Suppose in our earlier scene, that the actor playing the man com-
ing to see his fiancée decided that the character had seen a piano fall
from a twelfth story window before arriving at her apartment. Now
while this preceding incident is imaginative, it adds nothing to the
scene to come. It is a detail that is irrelevant. A good character back-
ground is one that illuminates the subsequent behavior of the charac-
ter. It cannot simply be a flight of fancy.

Our instructor tells us that tempo-rhythms play a strong part in

Adlet’s approach to characterization as does the observation of animals.

If, for example, a character is easily distracted and has weak pow-
ers of concentration, the actor might choose to observe the behavior
of a puppy. By doing this deeply, the actor begins to realize that the
reason why the puppy turns its head toward everything new, is that
he is always expecting something wonderful to happen. This attitude
can then be transferred to human behavior.
Once believable behavior is mastered, the actor should put the
character in circumstances both within and without the scene.
Imagine this easily distracted character watching a movie, writing a
story, disciplining a child, driving, waiting in a doctor’s office, work-
ing out, cooking breakfast. Once behavior is found, the voice of the
character may fall into place, or the voice may come first. The trick
here is not to let characteristics become the character. If one only
characterizes vocally, and the rest of the body and mind are not fully
involved, the character will run the risk of being a caricature. And if
one only plays a conglomeration of characteristics, a fully developed
character will not emerge.

Most young actors, our teacher says, play characters like old
men, or country bumpkins as clichés; as nothing more than a funny

124 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

voice or a peculiar walk. They focus only on the external. An actor
needs to develop a sense of truth, she explains. Without it, he cannot
detect this falseness in himself.

Ask an actor to play a “nervous” character. Most likely they will

wring their hands and look around a lot. But Adler would ask us to
explore “nervousness” more deeply.

Let’s pick a playable action that our nervous character might do

in private, something to avoid embarrassment. Let’s decide on nail
biting. Now what we must next do is find some logical behavior that
nail biting could cause. First of all it is a disgusting habit. At least let’s
suppose that this character thinks so. What behavior would be logical
for this character to display in public regarding her hands? She would
be embarrassed by their appearance, would she not? What playable
action would result from this embarrassment? She would want to
you try this.
hide the tips of her fingers. See what happens if

The instructor sets up a living room space and creates a scenario

for a male and female student. The scenario is this: The girl is having
a date over for dinner. Before the meal, they sit in the living room
and engage in some small talk.

When the actress sits, she folds her hands over one another in
such a way that the tips of her badly bitten fingers cannot be seen. As
the scene progresses, she offers her date a tray of snacks, but does it in
a way that conceals her ragged nails. But most revealingly, when she
leans over the table to retrieve the tray, the hand that supports her
weight is curved inward, hiding her nails, but giving her the stance of
an ape. Seeing this, her date cannot help but look at her hand. Her
attempt to hide her nails has only focused attention on them. Her
behavior has caused what she has been trying to prevent. For a terri-
ble moment she catches his eye, mortified. Then she quickly moves
her hand and sits back down.

The instructor is happy. You see, she says, by carrying out the
logic of anervous action, a real piece of original behavior was created.
And when this logic results in playable actions, she continues, it is of
tremendous use to an actor.

STELLA ADLER 125

 Now be clear, she says. In this exercise the covering of the hands
did not create the nervousness, it helped to relieve it. As long as the
character felt that her weakness was hidden, she could freely interact.
But the minute her secret was even partly revealed, she lost her bal-
ance and self-confidence. It was in that moment that we saw more
deeply into the character’s inner life, and understood her vulnerability.

Following out the logic of a character element,> a circumstance,

an action, a justification, this is the actor’s job. It takes a clear mind,
and a fertile imagination, she tells us.

This has been an important lesson. We have rarely seen a physi-

cal character choice carried out so logically and playably. We must
learn to make this a solid part of our acting technique.

Now what about dialogue, the teacher asks. Aren’t you curious
about how to approach it? We haven't touched on it yet, you know.
Suddenly everyone's attention is riveted to the front. Knowing that
she has us, she slowly walks around the room saying nothing. Our
attention is only heightened by this. She arrives at the blackboard
and picks up a piece of chalk. Everyone scurries for a pencil and
paper. But then she puts down the chalk, turns, and faces us.
Eveyone stops. Her eyes wander off as if in thought. We are silent for
fear of disturbing her. Her eyes return to us and a huge smile crosses
her face. She bursts out laughing. We laugh too, knowing we've been
caught in some snare.

We just played a scene together did we not, she asks. Yes, we all
agree. What was the dialogue of this scene, she wants to know? There
wasnt any, we say. But doesn’t every scene begin and end with dia-
logue, she asks? We are silent. When you first look at your part ina
scene or a play, dont your eyes first fall on the words you say? No one
answers, but we all know it’s true.

A play, she explains quietly, is a circumstance. A circumstance

that contains within it places, things and characters. And these char-
acters speak; sometimes to themselves, sometimes to each other. But in
every case, the words they say only have meaning within a circumstance.

126 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 As an actor, always tell yourself, in your own words, the circum-
stances of the scenes you are in. The more you work on a role, the
more circumstances’ you will come to understand. Find actions that
are logical to the play’s and the character’s circumstances, and then
paraphrase the dialogue your character says.° This will put the
author's text in your own words. In this way you will be able to check
yourself. You see, whatever you put in your own words will be what
you understand, what has made an impression. When you look again
at what the author wrote, you may discover that you have left out
much of value. And whatever has been left out, has not been under-
stood. Paraphrase again when you do understand all the important
points that the author is making. Then the ideas and thoughts will
belong to you.’

Play the truth and logic of the circumstances, live and do things
imaginatively within them, and the dialogue will flow.

Stella Adler focused on imagination, circumstances, actions, jus-

tification and character just as Stanislavski did, our teacher says. And
like him late in his life, she rejected affective memory as ultimately
more destructive than helpful.

She brought the knowledge of a great working actress to her

teaching which lent a great practicality to her approach. But remem-
ber this, our instructor cautions. All of her ideas, her Stanislavski-
based approach, is only meant to be a help. It does not give you tal-
ent, nor does it guarantee success. If it does not work for you, try
something else. But, our teacher concludes, I would be very much
surprised if the techniques we have learned here do not come to your
aid for the rest of your performing life.

STELLA ADLER 127

 iver
re

Sanford Meisner

Sao Meisner was born in 1905 in Brooklyn, New York. He

began his stage career as an extra with the Theater Guild after an
education in music at the Damrosch Institute of Music. While at the
Theater Guild, he studied acting, but found the instruction disap-
pointing. Like Delsarte and Stanislavski before him, the standard
route to training failed him.

It was when he met Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg that his
eyes were opened to what great acting and great theater could
achieve. In 1931 he became an original member of their Group
Theater. And as an actor there he achieved great success particularly
in Odets’ plays Paradise Lost, and Awake and Sing: “Sandy Meisner
seized some of Odets’ funniest, most characteristic dialogue (‘I’m so
nervous—look, two times I weighed myself on the subway statior)
and created an entire life behind it...”!

But like Stella Adler and Robert Lewis, Meisner had trouble with
director and teacher Lee Strasberg’s use of affective memory. He was
also looking for ways to go beyond casual realism, and to find a way

128
to use Stanislayski ‘s and Vakhtangov’s work to create more stylized
characters.

In the mid-1930's he began teaching, having been inspired by

Strasberg, Adler, Michael Chekhov and by “...the lucid and objective
approach of Sudakov and Rappaport.”? These last two being Russian
theorists and teachers. His tenure at the Neighborhood Playhouse in
New York is legendary, as much for the quality of his teaching as for
the many successful students who benefitted from it.

At the Group Theater, Meisner was disturbed by the extensive

use of paraphrasing. He felt that paraphrasing the plot, the circum-
stances and the dialogue of a play put the actor too much in his head.
For Meisner, acting comes from the heart, not from the intellect. In
this respect he differs greatly from Stella Adler, for whom paraphras-
ing is a valuable tool.

Another problem that bothered Meisner at The Group was the

actor's loss of connection with his or her scene partner in order to do
an affective memory exercise. Whether this was a failure of the
method itself, or of the actor using it, is moot. It happened. And it
greatly disturbed many of the actors. Meisner felt that the connection
between actors was vital to the life of a scene, and that when that
bond was broken, the acting lost its special quality and power. So in
his teaching he focused on one of the most ignored elements of
Stanislavski’s system: Communion (p.53).

For Stanislavski, communion meant not only the communica-

tion between scene partners, but between the actor and himself, and
between the actor and the audience. But Meisner was most interested
in it as it related to scene partners.

Meisner realized that two actors could be in a scene, have created

great characters, be playing proper actions, be emotionally truthful,
and still fail the scene. What gave crackling energy and tension to a
scene, he knew, was the interaction between the characters. The audi-
ence may enjoy a bravura solo performance, but they respond much

SANFORD MEISNER 129

more to the give and take of two, three or four characters fully
engaged with one another.

This was the stuff of which great theater was made, and this was
what most fully illuminated the fathomless complexity of the human
soul; the dynamics between people, the body language, the tone of
voice, the quality of the exchange between one human and another.
“All of my exercises were designed to strengthen the guiding princi-
ple...that art expresses human experience,” he has said.
N

Meisner has been bold enough to set out a definition of acting. It

is this: “...living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”4 The
question then becomes, how does an actor accomplish this task? In
the end, he felt that Strasberg’s Actor Studio method was not the way.
As much as he learned from Strasberg, Meisner one day told him,
“You introvert the already introverted. All actors, I said, like all artists
are introverted because they live on what’s going on in their instincts,
and to attempt to make that conscious is to confuse the actor.”> No,
he felt, another way must be found.

ee

In our first class, the teacher asks us to look at each other. We

laugh in an embarrassed way as we look at the other students in the
room. Really look, the instructor demands. So we really look. But the
teacher stops and asks us if we are looking and seeing, or just trying
to look like we are looking. We confess that we are sort of fake look-
ing. Well, says the teacher, don’t. Don’t look because I told you to,
look to see what's there.

Look to really see her shoes. Ask yourself what quality of the
shoes stands out. Is it the color, the material, the shape? Look at his
hair. What do you notice? Don’t be afraid of the obvious. It’s a
Mohawk, isn’t it? He has a Mohawk. Now look at me. Does anything
catch your attention? If it does, say to yourself what it is, then move
on to someone else. Go ahead, I'll wait, he tells us. Minutes go by as
we all silently do this.

130 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Good, the instructor says, you are really doing what you are
doing. This is the essential element of the Meisner approach, he says.
Meisner himself calls it the reality of doing.

Now look around the room again, and realize that every person
in this room is your lifeline. Your work will depend on theirs. Just as
mountain climbers are roped together because their safety depends
on it, so your scenes will live or die depending on the invisible rope
connecting you together. That rope may stretch thinner, it may grow
stronger, it may even become frayed, but it must never break.

THE WORD REPETITION GAME

The instructor now asks us to make an observation about some-

one in the room. We spy the girl’s shoes and say out loud “her shoes
are red.” But say it to her, the teacher says. We turn to her and say
“your shoes are red.” Next the teacher asks the girl with the red shoes
to repeat back what we just said to her. She gives the instructor a
stare, but says, “your shoes are red.” Keep going, the teacher instructs
us. Finally after seven or so repetitions he stops us. Excellent, says the
teacher, and rubs his hands together. He seems happy, but the reason
for this eludes us. What did we do that was good, we ask? Because as
far as we're concerned we didn’t do anything. The actress admits that
she too is confused. All we did was say “your shoes are red” over and
over again.

This exercise, which the teacher tells us is called the word repeti-
tion game, is a very important one. For one thing, the teacher
explains, it makes us listen to each other. And for another, it places
our focus outside of ourselves and onto the other person. In this way,
self-consciousness has little time to develop.

Everyone in the class does this exercise, and one very similar to it
wherein the participants respond in the first person. So instead of
repeating “your shoes are red,” the actress now says “my shoes are
red.” And with this change, comes a remarkable development.
Emotion has made an appearance. Sometimes, during the exercise,
laughter bubbles up. Sometimes tears. Often anger and sarcasm. This
simple exercise is unleashing all kinds of unexpected energy.

SANFORD MEISNER 131

 After we do one that resulted in hysterical laughter, The instruc-
tor asks us “By the way, do you have an idea as to where your
response came from? If you said the other person you are correct!”6

Sometimes we find ourselves trying to impress the class with a

particularly outrageous way of doing this exercise, but the teacher
corrects us. He asks us not to be interesting but to just stay with
whatever is happening. He also tells us not to “try” so hard. He says,
“trying to do the exercise right is not doing the exercise right. It is the
TRYING that creates a tension that will shut down your availability.”’

Next, the instructor extends the repetition exercise. He tells us to

ask a question of our partner. One that is personal. And then to do
the repetition with that question. He tells us that at some point, our
instincts will tell us that we can change the words. This change, he
explains, should come from a change in the behavior of our partner.

If we repeat “do you get nervous at auditions” five or six times,

we may see a change take place in our partner. When we sense this
change, we can change the words of the exercise to acknowledge this.
We can now say, “this question upsets you.” The partner will then
repeat, “this question upsets me.” After a time a change will again be
sensed and the words can change to reflect it. The partner may then
say “youre feeling guilty,” and the one who first asked the question
can say “I’m feeling guilty.” It becomes clear to us that this exercise
could go on for quite some time. It is rich.

After we do this extension of the word repetition game, the

instructor asks us how we feel. We tell him that many honest and
intense emotions passed between us. He tells us that we indeed did
well, and that we truthfully played the reality in front of us. We did
not force any emotions, but instead gave full value to the feelings that
were aroused and did so without pushing.

Our initial skepticism about this whole repetition business is dis-

appearing. We are beginning to see that working off a partner’s
response, determines our own; that the two of us are in an action-
reaction dance that creates a palpable flow of energy between us.
When we watch others engaged truthfully in this dance, it is com-

132 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

pelling. We sometimes find ourselves on the edge of our seats waiting
to see what will happen next.

fHE KNOCK ON THE DOOR

The instructor tells us that we are now ready to move forward.

So far, the teacher explains, we have been dealing with the “living
truthfully” part of Sanford Meisner’s definition of acting. Now we
must add the “in imaginary circumstances” part.8

This exercise will again involve two of you, explains the teacher.
One of you will be in a room doing something that is very difficult.
This is crucial. It must be a real challenge to you. Do your taxes, for
instance. It takes considerable concentration and the consequences
for not getting them done are substantial. It must be something that
engages your full attention. Your partner will then knock on the door
and begin the repetition with you. The one in the room initially,
must continue doing what they are doing and continue the repetition
as well. And remember this critical phrase, “...don’t do anything
until something happens to make you do it.”? Let’s give it a try.

We decide on a task and a reason for doing it. The task is to glue
seamlessly together the pieces of an antique vase that we broke. We
need to do it so well that our parents will never suspect that it has
been damaged. We bring in the actual pieces, since this is a true,
ongoing event, and some glue. The teacher tells us to begin. We are
not very good with our hands and find gluing the pieces together
extemely difficult. We have to start over and over because the glue
keeps leaking out the sides, and because we have trouble precisely lin-
ing up the pieces.

After our partner sees that we are absorbed in our problem, she
knocks on the door, and comes into the room. We look up for a
moment but instantly return to our task. She asks, “What's up?” We
repeat, in a sarcastic tone, “What's up?” We are annoyed at the intru-
sion and the fact that she does not notice the obvious, that we are
deeply involved in something else. She says again “What's up?” We
sense a change and go with it. “I’m tied up right now, We Say.
“You're tied up right now,” she replies, “I’m tied up right now, we

SANFORD MEISNER 133

repeat, getting exasperated. “Youre tied up right now,” she says again.
“PM TIED UP RIGHT NOW,” we scream.

We have dropped and broken another piece of the vase. A few

moments go by as she walks over to the scene of the disaster. “You're
clumsy,” she says. “I’m clumsy,” we repeat as we pick up the broken
pieces. She says more slowly, “You're clumsy.” We sit back down
dejectedly and repeat, “I’m clumsy.” A few moments pass, and the
teacher ends the exercise.
iy

It isn’t about the words is it, he asks? It’s about “responding

truthfully to the other person,”!° right? We both agree. In this exer-
cise, you must respond to the other person within the circumstance.
The two of you created a scene that had strong emotions running
through it, but little dialogue. No great speeches or monologues, just
a situation, and each other. And for a few moments you created
something compelling.

Now let me ask you a question. Were you, asks the instructor,
aware of us out here? No, we reply, neither of us were. So your con-
centration on the task and on each other was enough to remove the
distraction of an audience? Yes, we reply, it was. We realize, with
some delight, that we had attained Stanislavski’s state of “public soli-
tude” (p 34). Cool.

This technique is definitely helping us to establish a living rela-

tionship with our fellow players. It dawns on us that we have never
worked by ourselves in this class, but only with a partner. So many of
Strasberg’s and even Adlet’s exercises were done alone, by ourselves.
Meisner’s committment to Stanislavski’s idea of communion is cer-
tainly strong.

Another benefit, we realize, is that we are present in each

moment. Because we are not certain how our partner is going to
respond, we musy really listen, and in order to do that, we must be
alive in every moment. We have heard of “moment-to-moment” act-
ing, but now we have experienced it. It is critical to this work.

But what about applying all of this to scenes, we wonder. It’s all
right going moment-to-moment, but what if the moment doesn’t fit

134 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

the scene? How do we structure a part if we are simply playing the
reality of each moment? And where does Meisner stand on the ques-
tion of emotion? We know he rejects affective memory, but what
does he accept?

The instructor seems to read our minds. He tells us that when it

comes to scenes, Meisner wants actors to learn their lines by rote,
with no “line readings” or interpretation. Meisner wants the lines
learned mechanically. This is done to keep the actor from learning
preconceived ways of saying the lines. Lines are usually learned away
from one’s partner, and actors are therefore deprived of the stimulus
that will truthfully animate the dialogue. To avoid this, the actors
learn their lines without meaningful inflections. But, the instructor
tells us, we'll learn more about scene work another time. For the
moment he wants to address the problem of emotion.

Meisner was very much impressed and influenced by the great

actor, Michael Chekhov, our teacher reminds us. And you will of
course remember that Chekhov felt strongly that emotions could be
aroused by the imagination (p.63). In Meisner’s work, the imagina-
tion too plays a strong role in the generation of feeling. But for
Meisner, this excitation of feeling should only occur offstage before
an entrance. Once on stage, the circumstances and other players
should be fuel enough for the continuance and natural change of the
actor's feelings.

In the offstage moments, our teacher suggests that we use either

the given circumstances of the the play to arouse feeling, or use
Vakhtangov’s adjustment (p.61). You of course remember that
Vakhtangov used circumstances outside the context of the play to
find the appropriate emotion. If an actor must enter in a state of fear,
and the circumstances of the play are not working for him, he can
imagine that a stalker is waiting for him in the darkness of the wings,
or he might recall a particular piece of music that terrifies him, or he
might fantasize that he is going to have a heart attack in the next
three minutes. It doesn’t matter, so long as what he uses causes goose
bumps to run up the back of his neck.

Once on stage, however, the actor must respond to those around

him, and to any change in the circumstances, and not simply ride the

SANFORD MEISNER 135

feeling of fear through the whole scene. Meisner calls the creation of
this off stage emotion, “preparation”!!

For Meisner, a preparation is completely individual. What works

for one person, may not work for another. The point is to come on
stage with something going on; with a full inner life. From there, the
emotion will change depending on the circumstances of the scene.

The teacher cautions us that preparation does not have to be life

or death every time. Sometimes, one is coming into a scene just to
make coffee. An actor may not need an elaborate preparation every
time. Do not, the teacher warns us sternly, force a feeling, or puff it
up beyond its true size. If you do, the result will simply be bad acting.

What about on stage emotion, you may be wondering. We all

admit that yes, we are wondering about that. Best of all, says our
instructor, is when emotion flows spontaneously from your instinc-
tive grasp of the character’s circumstance. But when you run across a
moment or a demand in the script that does not engage your
instincts, you must use Stanislavski’s Magic [f( p.36).

Meisner’s word for this concept of Stanislavski’s is, particulariza-

tion.'2 If someone in a scene calls you a “peasant,” our teacher
explains, and your character is supposed to feel outrage, you yourself
may not feel it. In such a case, you particularize that moment by
finding a label, such as “fascist” that would outrage you and act as if
that person had called you a fascist. This use of “if” is one that actors
often do unconsciously, our teacher says. But if you make it con-
scious, then you have a reliable tool.

Now what about handling the dialogue of a scene? Meisner

likens the emotional life of the character to a river, and the text, he
says, rides on top of it like a canoe.!3 If we carry this analogy further,
we might say that the banks of the river, the boundaries that deter-
mine the river's direction, are the circumstances. This image makes
clear that dialogue must come from feeling and circumstance. When
emotion is truly flowing between actors on the stage, everyone
involved, including the audience, can feel the “undercurrent.”

136 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 One piece of advice that helps make such a flow happen on stage
is to pick up the impulses, not the cues.!4 This means that you do
not wait to react until the other person has finished their line. You
must react with your face, your body, or with an action when the
impulse occurs. The other person may be in the middle of what they
are saying, and if your impulse is to nod in agreement at that point,
do it. Don’t wait to react until they finish speaking. You are obligat-
ed, however, not to say your line until they are done. This differentia-
tion between impulse and line is crucial to the creation of a lively
scenic interchange between the characters.

What then about character, we ask? Character, our teacher says,

is simple and complex all at once. For Meisner, character is behavior.
It is the “how” of acting. If a character does something slowly and
carefully, we might describe him as cautious. If a character hits any-
one who talks back to him, we would describe that character as a
bully. Now that character might have good reasons for doing what
they do, and that gives color and complexity to them, but their
nature remains the same. Playing a character does not mean that you
leave yourself behind. But it also does not mean that you are only
yourself. As Stanislavski pointed out, an actor uses himself when he
plays a character, and in order to make the character’s behavior
believable, the Meisner actor uses preparation and particularization.

As we leave class, we review some of what we have learned.

Sanford Meisner’s work is primarily aimed at creating a truthful
exchange bewteen actors. He designs exercises that force actors to
respond genuinely to one another, and to live spontaneously,
moment-to-moment, within imaginary circumstances. His work
deals with emotion without recourse to affective memory. But unlike
Stella Adler, he does not dwell on actions, objectives, beats, obstacles
and strategies. For him, this type of work can become overly intellec-
tual and dry. Instead, he asks the performer to bring his unique tal-
ents and instincts to his class in the fervent hope that the student can
become, through hard work, a more creative human being.

Today, classes teaching the Meisner technique are available in

New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and other locales throughout the
United States.

fe
SANFORD MEISNER 137
 Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner all came to
teaching from their work with the Group Theater. They were dedi-
cated to using and extending the Stanislavski/Vakhtangov system and
teaching it to American actors. Each flavored these ideas with his or
her own particular ingredients, and each speaks of this work in his or
her own dialect.

As a group, they have trained some of the most influential actors

and teachers of the late twentieth century. And because of this, they
have sometimes been regarded as gurus. Warfare has sometimes bro-
ken out between adherents of one teacher or another, and the teach-
ers themselves have not been above personal attacks.

Defenders of a certain teacher may cite the great actors that have
been trained by that teacher. The opponent may then cite the famous
actors and directors that his teacher has trained. The truth of all this,
is that famous actors have gone to many teachers in search of
approaches that might help them. Robert Duvall studied with both
Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg. Marlon Brando studied with
both Stella Adler and Elia Kazan, and Robert De Niro Studied with
both Adler and Strasberg.

ee

By the 1960's, the bickering had disillusioned many actors. In

addition, a flaw surfaced in the work of these famous teachers. Actors
trained by these men and women seemed unable to perform non-
realistic material. Productions of Shakespeare’s plays seemed to lack
any sense of grandeur. Critics complained that actors domesticated
Shakespeare’s poetry and couldn't cope with his heightened prose
style. Actors were accused of bringing Shakespeare's work down to a
kitchen sink level. Some actors felt that the style of acting they had
been taught was best suited to the intimacy of the camera. How were
they to act in Absurdist plays, or anti-realistic material? Actors turned
to improvisational techniques for a greater sense of spontaneity, and
to Germany and to Poland for help in rediscovering the recently lost
values of theatricality.

138 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 8

Viola Spolin and the

Theater of Games

A: Hull House in Chicago, a woman named Neva Boyd began

using games with the children of that city’s poorer population. She
discovered that play brought out these children’s expressive potential
and brightened their spirits. She soon saw that fun and creativity gave
to them what their daily world often denied them: A sense ofjoy.

Viola Spolin worked with Boyd and developed her ideas further.
Spolin created, at first for children and then for adults, what she
called Theater Games. She saw that the Stanislavski system as it was
being taught in the United States often bound actors up in over
thinking and seriousness. The sense of playfulness, of play itself, was
being lost. She realized that playing games was something grown ups
had simply stopped doing. So, with a group of Chicago actors she
began to explore the possibility of play with adult actors.

Some of the actors, including her son, Paul Sills, went on to

found a company called Compass Theater out of which was formed
the famous improvisational troupe, Second City. It is no overstate-

139
ment to say that Viola Spolin is the mother of improvisation as we
know it today.

fe

Our instructor gets us all up from our seats and tells us that we
are going to take a ride on our bodies. He begins walking through
the space and we follow. “You don't have to follow me,” she says, “you
can explore the space by walking in a different direttion if you want.”
We disperse around the room. The teacher begins to talk to us.

“Wherever you feel tension in your body, shake it out. Put space
where the tension is. Now imagine that the space itself is holding you
up, that you don’t have to do any work at all.” We try this and it feels
good. There is a lightness to us.

“Now imagine that only the bones of your skeleton and the mus-
cles attached to those bones are holding you up, and that the space
itself can no longer support you.” Suddenly we feel heavy and we
strain to hold ourselves upright.

“Notice,” says our instructor, “that when you imagine that the
space is holding you up, the strain disappears from your body and
tension melts away. Relaxation of the body is what we're after. When
you are relaxed, anything is possible. Keep walking.”

“Imagine now, that the space is getting thicker. It is harder to

walk through. Now, the space is thicker still.” We find ourselves mov-
ing more slowly and with greater effort. “Now the space is so thick
you can hardly move.” We are barely moving. “This, by the way, is
one key to moving in slow motion. All you have to do is move the
way you normally would, but imagine that the space has thickened
around you. Now the space is beginning to thin out.” We begin to
walk a bit faster, and our breathing is easier too.

“The space is almost back to normal. Now it is back to normal.”

We feel tremendous relief. But the teacher doesn’t stop here.

“The space is becoming thinner, so rarefied that nothing stops

your body. There is simply no resistance. Your body can move with-

140 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

out restriction. You might fly off the earth if not for the gravity keep-
ing you here.” Everyone is darting around the room. But not chaoti-
cally, with control. ‘After a minute of this, the teacher thickens the
space back to normal. We are breathing hard.

“Now as you walk, with the space supporting you, look into the
eyes of each player as you pass them, and say your name. In Theater
Games, we use the term “player,” instead of “actor” to emphasize the
nature of what we are doing; playing.” We say our name to each fel-
low player.

“Keep walking,” says our teacher, “but this time look at every-
thing around you, EXCEPT your fellow player.” We walk and delib-
erately shut out everyone else. We look around them, never at them.
It is remarkable how isolated and cut off we feel doing this. Amongst
all these people, we feel alone.

“Tt feels better to be connected, doesn’t it?” asks the teacher. We

all agree that it does. Next, she numbers us in ones and twos. She
asks each “one” to pair up with a “two.” She tells us to stand opposite
each other. We do.

“This,” she explains, “is a mirror exercise. The ‘ones’ will initiate
some movement and the ‘twos’ will mirror it back. ‘Ones’ don’t move
too quickly or the ‘twos’ won't have a chance to mirror you. After a
while, I will say ‘change.’ When I say this, the ‘twos’ will become the
initiators and the ‘ones’ will become the mirrors. After awhile, I will
call ‘change’ again. I will do this faster and faster until I say ‘follow
the follower.’ This will mean that no one is leading and no one is fol-
lowing, you will be on your own. ‘Ones,’ begin a movement, and
‘twos, mirror them.”

Around the room people begin moving slowly, using their whole
bodies. Their partners try to move with them as if they were mirrors.
Some begin laughing and the teacher instructs them to stay with the
exercise. Everyone looks very involved and focused on what they are
doing. The teacher calls a change. Some of the couples are caught off-
guard and lose their connection with each other. They soon readjust.
The teacher calls another change, and the new initiator takes over.
The teacher calls change again. Soon, the changes are coming so fast

VIOLA SPOLIN 141

that we lose track of who is initiating and who is following. At that
point, the instructor calls “follow the follower.” The whole room is
full of people moving in synch with one another. There are wild
expressions on their faces as if they are about to fall off a tight rope.
No one knows who is leading or who is following, but they keep
moving. After a bit, the teacher asks us to stop.

“Very good. Fun isn’t it? And hard. Did any of you feel that
exhilarating feeling of following the follower?” Some say they did.
“Good,” says our teacher. :

“Part of the point of these games, is to get you out of your heads.
You have very little time to get bound up in too much thinking when
you do an exercise like this, and that is good. It also connects you to
your fellow player in a unique way. And connection also, is good.”
We think of Stanislavski’s idea of “communion,” and we think of
Sanford Meisner as well.

“Following the follower, as you've just experienced it even if

briefly, is key to improvisation. It is the flow between you and your
fellow player that makes the games work. It is not your responsibility
in a theater game to be in charge all the time. Sometimes you lead,
sometimes you follow, and always you look to follow the follower.
Don’t fight each other, yield to one another. Good improvisation
results from each player knowing how to give and how to take. If two
players take all the time, they will talk over one another, never really
listen and confuse the focus of the audience. If two players only give,
their scene will lie flat and go nowhere.”

The teacher asks us to sit down. We do. She then asks for two
volunteers who are willing to try a two-person game. We raise our
hand, and are chosen. Our fellow player will be a woman.

“Now, we need a ‘who,’ a ‘what,’ and a ‘where’ for these players,”

explains our instructor. The students call out all sorts of possibilities
from their seats. We will be, it turns out, a psychiatrist and a patient,
in a therapy session at the doctor's office. The teacher has thrown out
some of the more exotic ideas, saying that simple relationships,
actions and settings are usually the best. Then, she explains the game.

142 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 “This game,” she tells us, “is called ‘Jump Emotion.’ And like all
games, it has rules. This particular game is side-coached. Side coach-
ing is when someone calls out an instruction from offstage. I will be
that someone. If your voice is not being heard, a typical side-coach
might be ‘share your voice.’ If you are speeding too quickly through a
scene, someone might call out the side-coach, ‘slow motion.’ In this
case, I will be calling out emotions. Your task is to jump fully to these
emotions without thinking and express them fully within the context
of the scene you are playing. So, let’s recap.” She turns to face the
audience. “We have a psychiatrist and a patient in a session at the
doctor's office.” She turns to us. “Set up your ‘where.’ and quickly
decide between you who is the doctor and who is the patient.” She
sits down. A few moments later, she calls out, “Curtain!”

The patient, who is the woman, is lying prone on the floor. We

are seated in a chair near her. We both begin speaking as soon as we
hear the word “curtain.”

“Hold it,” exclaims our instructor. “You've run into one of the
biggest problems in all of this work right at the beginning, which is
always a good place to start. Improvisation is not about talking, and
it isn't stand-up comedy. It also isn’t about playwriting. You do not
have to jump to words right away. Remember to use your ‘where.’
What’s in this office? Using the ‘where’ will save you from having to
think up something clever. Which by the way, is not one of the rules
of this game. The rules are to play the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ and the ‘where’
of this scene, and to jump fully to any emotion I call out. Being
clever is not required. In fact, it would be a totally incorrect focus.
Begin again. Get out of your head, and into the space. Curtain.”

The woman stays in her position on the floor, but we go over to

our space-desk this time (a real desk being unavailable) and pick up a
space-pad and space-pencil (real paper and pencils are available, but
the teacher has asked us to use space-objects only. Space-objects are,
of course, imaginary things. And we are not to mime them into exis-
tence, but simply use them. (Sense memory helps us to do this).

We come back to our chair and sit, waiting patiently for our
patient to speak. She says nothing. We wait. Still nothing. This could
go on for days. Bored, we look around our space-office and see some

VIOLA SPOLIN 143

space-books. We decide to get one. When we come back to our seat,
we open it up. Our patient looks up at us, with a concerned expres-
sion on her face.

“Paranoia,” calls out our teacher.

Slowly, the woman stands. “That’s my diary, isn’t it?” she asks.
“What are you doing with my diary? You're not a real doctor are you?
Why are you looking at me like that, my God, who are you, and
why. 6's ‘ \

The teacher interrupts her, calling out, “Give and take! You're
just taking!” Our fellow player listens to this side-coach and stops rat-
tling. We now have a chance to respond to her.

“Quiet, someone is watching us,” we say. “Can't you feel it?” We

both look around the room. She sneaks up on our space-desk and
suddenly jumps at it screaming, “Come out of there!” But it turns
out that no one was under there.

“Anger,” calls out the instructor.

“Dont scare me like that,” we say to the woman angrily. “This is

my office, and you should be on the floor! Now lie down!” The
woman comes up from under the space-desk and walks over to us.

“Don't order me around...” she yells. But before she can get
another angry word out, the teacher calls, “Flirtatious.” And without
missing a beat she finishes the sentence in a sweet voice, “...you big
therapeutic brute.” Her hand is caressing our cheek.

“Why don’t you sit right here on my lap,” we suggest, “instead of

on that cold, hard floor. It would be much nicer.” As she starts to sit,
the instructor calls out, “Silly!”

Instantly the woman plops down onto our lap.

“Let's play.” she says.

“OK,” we reply. We bounce her up and down on our lap and say
in a sing-song voice, “This is the way to Boston, this is the way to

144 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Lynn, hang on tight so you don’ fall in!” At this we open our
legs,
and the woman falls through. We both laugh.

The teacher calls out,“Serious!”

We take up our space-pencil and immediately ask, “And this

is
the type of abuse to which you were continually subjected?”

Yes it was,” the woman replies. She gets up and straightens her-
self out.

Interesting,”
« : .
we say as we write down some notes. The woman
resumes her position on the floor.
i<4

Sarcastic,”
. »”

calls out the instructor.

.

“Yeah,” says the woman, “what’s so interesting about it?

“Oh, don’t you know,” we say, “that it’s just the most interesting
thing that’s ever happened. I mean ever.”

The instructor calls out, “Happiness.”

The woman clasps her hands together excitedly. “Oh really?” she
says. The most interesting thing? For really real? I’ve never been inter-
esting before!”

“Yes, very interesting,” we reply. “You see I’ve been searching for
years for a genuine nursery-rhyme neurosis, and you've got one!”

We rush toward each other.

“Thank you, doctor,” the woman says, “you've made me the hap-
piest neurotic on the face of the earth!” We embrace.

“Curtain,” says our teacher. “Very nice. By sticking to the rules

of the game, you found real expressive freedom. This paradox, that
structure is freeing, is something you see all the time in acting. You
both used the ‘where’ pretty well too, and you jumped to the differ-
ent emotions with real commitment. At first, give and take was a
problem, but after awhile you really seemed to be playing with each
other. The scene you created had a real sense of spontaneity because

VIOLA SPOLIN 145

you didn’t think between each emotional shift, and because you didnt
know what was coming next. You had to be in the present.
Improvisation forces you to be in each moment with your fellow
player fully, because the future is unknown. Poor improvisation
results from trying to pre-plan your lines and responses. At that
point, you are playwriting and no longer improvising.”

“You may have noticed that many of the principles of

Stanislavski were at work here. You had a circumstance to play which
consisted of a ‘who,’ a ‘what’ and a ‘where,’ you’ had an objective,
which was to follow the rules of the game, and you engaged in
actions which supported that objective. But instead of approaching
these ideas from the intellect, the game allowed you to get them into
your body first.”

“In acting classes we so often refer to what we do as our “work.”

And sometimes this refers to something heavy and ponderous.
Theater Games help us to remember that a play is called just that; a
play. And play is sometimes left out of our work as actors. Theater
Games help us to remember the value of spontaneity and the beauty
of the unknown. They allow us to explore a situation unhampered by
the demands of a script, and they can reconnect us to our fellow
players.”

“And while Theater Games are the basis for most of the improvi-
sational theater we see in this country, they are not limited only to
that use. They are employed by some health workers as therapeutic
tools in their work with deprived or disturbed children and adults.”

“Spolin’s contribution is a large one. Her approach has helped

actors to rediscover the power of play in their work, and the surpris-
ing fertility of their creative imaginations. She died in 1995, and will
be sorely missed.”

146 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 9

Bertold Brecht and the

Theater of Politics

li, 1956, the same year that playwright and director Bertold
Brecht died, his theater company, The Berliner Ensemble, toured
Britain. This company, from what was then Communist East
Germany, so astonished the English-speaking community with its
vitality, theatricality and unique style, that many felt an alternative
had been found to both the stifling realism associated with
Stanislavski, and the fake pomposity of the traditional English the-
ater. The Berliner Ensemble conveyed strong political ideas using
techniques derived from the circus, from cabaret theater, from the
staging ideas of Vsevolod Meyerhold, and from the Chinese theater.
Somehow, under the singular guidance of Brecht, all of these ele-
ments came together to form a unified sense of theater that tran-
scended the sum of its parts. Suddenly, “Brechtian” style and
“Brechtian” acting became the hot topic of theater people. How had
Brecht achieved what he had? What were his thoughts and his meth-
ods? Well, as we shall see, his thoughts and his methods were some-
times entirely different things.

147
 Born in 1898 in Augsburg, Germany, Bertold Brecht began writ-
ing plays at the age of sixteen (a play called, 7e Bible). It was thirty-
three years later that he founded the company that so dazzled English
audiences in 1956, The Berliner Ensemble. In the years between, he
wrote and directed many plays and evolved a vision of the theater
which he called, epic. So what, we ask, is this Epic Theater of
Brecht’s? (He later changed this name to “Dialectical Theater.”)

When Brecht was a young man, the dominant style of acting in

Germany was Stanislavski-based. The plays, too, were mostly realis-
tic; well made and logical. But the young Brecht preferred the more
radical works of Georg Biichner and Frank Wedekind. He was
already writing poetry of an iconoclastic nature, full of irony, hurnor
and sarcastic venom. Realism, which purported to be a copy of real
life, held little interest for him.

Brecht felt that in the realistic style of acting the actors put both
themselves and the audience into a kind of hypnotic trance. A trance
that transported both audience and actor into a world far from their
own, a world where they could comfortably believe in the illusion
being offered, and leave the theater entertained and sated, yet numb
to the social problems around them.

The whole process of the actor’s identification with his part, and
the audiences identification with the actor, appalled Brecht. Was the
theater, he wondered, only a narcotic? An escape from the pain and
struggles of the real world? Was the theater a place only to switch off
one’s brain and bask in a wash of communal emotionalism? We are
reminded again of what Russian film documentarian Dziga Vertov
said about realism in the cinema; that it clouds and befogs the mind
(p.69).

Rather than the realism that he saw in the theaters, Brecht pre-
ferred the physicalizations of Charlie Chaplin and the Chinese actor
Mei Lan-fang. These performers used physical gesture to illuminate
the characters they played, and maintained a distance between the
part and themselves.

If the audience was to be kept from falling into a collective

dream with the actors, a separation between the actor and his role

148 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

was not only necessary, but needed reinforcement. Brecht called on
all the resources of the theater to keep the audience aware of its pres-
ence in a theater. By no means were they to be transported out of it.
This idea, of course, flies in the face of the received wisdom that the
theater should put audiences into what the poet Coleridge called, a
“willing suspension of disbelief.” Instead, Brecht is asking audiences
to use their disbelief, exercise their skepticism, and resist the process
of identification.

In order to achieve this distancing effect, Brecht adopted many

of the techniques used by Meyerhold such as the half-curtain, plac-
ards announcing scenes, slide and film projections, music, narration,
all in an attempt to disrupt the audience’s tendency to fall into a
dream. Just as they might begin to identify with a character, or
become swallowed up in an emotion, an interruption is planned. A
sudden song, or a slide projection on an upstage wall, or the appear-
ance of a character in a mask, all serve to jolt the audience out of its
stupor.

Now Brechtian language and terminology can be difficult. The

usual name given to this distancing effect is “alienation.” The actual
German word is, Verfremdung, and sometimes this is shortened to V-
effect. Most translators seem to agree that the best way to understand
this word is, “making the familiar, strange.” This really means that a
common event or moment is performed in such a way that it can be
seen with fresh eyes. Again, we are reminded of Meyerhold (p.68).

After Brecht became a believer in the political philosophy of Karl

Marx, his goals became clearer. Rather than induce in an audience
the relief of an emotional cleansing, he would create a theater that
caused them to think and then incite them to action. Action outside
the walls of the theater space. Action that would change the world
itself.

Certainly as a playwright he could write plays that were aimed at

accomplishing this goal, but Brecht, a practical man of the theater,
knew that it was in the playing that a play has its true effect. How
would the actor play in his plays? The crucial question became, what
could an actor do that would distance the audience and yet still hold
their attention?

BERTOLD BRECHT 149

 First, Brecht knew what he did not want. He did not want the
actor to empathize with, or transform into, the character. At least not
in performance. He did not want the actor to look for the
Stanislavskian logic of the characters’ actions. Instead, he wanted
actors to explore and heighten the contradictions in a character’s
behavior. “You look resolutely for contradictions, deviations from the
typical, ugliness side by side with beauty and beauty side by side with
ugliness.”! This search for traits of opposites makes us think of
Stanislavski (p.21). But whereas Stanislavski urges the actor to inte-
grate character contradictions into a unified portrayal, Brecht wants
the actor to highlight the contradictions without psychological expla-
nation. Stanislavski wants to build a character, Brecht wants to
explode it. But why?

One of Brecht’s strongest objections to the Stanislavski system is

its fixed view of acharacter. Because of his or her past, and because of
present circumstances, the Stanislavski character arrives on stage fully
formed and caught in a web of events. Choices are determined by the
past, and the future is preordained. Brecht wanted audiences to see
characters who were capable of different choices at crucial points in
the action, points which he called “nodes.” At these nodal points, the
actor suggests to the audience that the character might make a choice
which would produce a better future, and thus show each audience
member that he too can change his actions for the betterment of his
society.

But how does the actor accomplish this?

“To achieve the V-effect the actor must give up his complete con-
version into a stage character. He shows the character, quotes his
lines. He repeats a real-life incident.”2

One of the most effective tools the actor has in playing this dis-
tance, is the adoption of an ironic tone. But this is sometimes over-
done, especially outside of Germany. Many a performer has given
what he thinks is a “Brechtian” performance by playing an entire part
with a sense of wry irony. In the musical Miss Saigon, the actor
Jonathan Pryce has been so accused. This tool should be used spar-
ingly and balanced with many other elements.

150 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Another tool the actor has is the use of what Brecht calls, Gestus.
Like many of Brecht’s concepts this term is difficult to write about. It
is somewhat akin to’ Michael Chekhov’s phrase, psychological gesture
(p.66-67). The idea is to sift through many physical gestures until the
actor finds the one or two that simply distill the essence of amoment
or a series of moments. This gesture differs from Chekhov's however,
in that it is meant not only to illuminate the character’s inner life,
but to comment on the social situation in which the character finds
himself. One of the most famous examples of this is from the
Berliner Ensemble production of Brecht’s play, Mother Courage.

The character of Mother Courage is both an individual human

being, and an embodiment of the greed of the capitalist class. The
actress must present both of these aspects to the audience. The actress
Helene Weigel found a particularly stunning Gest with which to do
this. Mother Courage cannot be seen to visibly react to the shooting
of her son by soldiers because this would keep her from continuing
to do business. And yet she cannot be seen as so callous as to not
react at all. She is a human being.

In one astonishing moment, when the soldiers are looking away,

Weigel looks out at the audience, grabs her skirt, throws her mouth
as far open as she can, and screams. Only she screams without sound.
Her face is contorted with all the energy of shock and grief, but no
sound comes from her throat. After a moment she composes her face,
and collapses into herself. She hasn't given herself away; she can go
on. In one moment the audience sees Mother Courage’s inner tor-
ment and her ability to disguise it from those who might threaten her
pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. The moment is made even deeper
because the audience begins to see that Mother Courage “does not
possess the ability to learn.”3 Thus, a personal and a social revelation
are distilled into a silent scream.

And this brings up an important point. Does the actress playing

Mother Courage actually feel the grief, or is she distanced from it?
What is Brecht’s attitude toward emotion?

In rehearsal, according to Brecht, a phase of the actor's work, is

“the search for the character’s truth in the subjective sense... You
allow your character to react to other characters, to its environment,

BERTOLD BRECHT 151

and to the plot.”4 This phase, where emotional identification 1s
encouraged, follows the search for contradictions in the character.
And it allows for the actor to empathize with his role.

The third phase of rehearsal, however, is one wherein “you try to

see the character from the outside, from the standpoint of society.”
When the part is finally performed, the actor's empathy for the char-
acter disappears. At least in theory. But as we noted earlier, Brecht’s
practices and his theories sometimes diverge.

Actors from the Berliner Ensemble report that Brecht seldom

discussed theory with them. In rehearsal he was the practical theater
director. He would watch a scene, make comments, send the actors
off to work by themselves, and watch another scene. When the first
actors came back, they would show Brecht what they had worked
out, and he would accept or change what they had done. If they used
real emotion sometimes, that was their business.

From time to time Brecht would help the actors to find the nec-
essary distance from their roles by having them rehearse in the third
person; adding “he said,” or “she said” to the dialogue. But his main
concern was the precise detail of the actions and the gests necessary
to the production.

Brecht’s goal as a playwright and as a director was to make audi-

ences realize that history and society could be changed for the better.
He therefore required of his actors a style of performance that could
suggest different and better futures for their characters. In order to do
this, the actor creates a distance between himself and his part so that
he can comment on it. Yes, the Brechtian actor comments on his
character even as he performs it. This, of course, is one of the great
sins of most Stanislavski based training. But for Brecht, this is a cru-
cial function of the actor. Without it, the audience would enter into
an identification with the character and be transported out of the
theater space and into some into illusory dream world.

But this does not mean that Brechtian acting should be devoid of
realism. In this respect, his theories and his practice were at odds. He
wrote to an actor in 1951, “To hell with my way of writing. Of
course the stage of a realistic theater must be peopled by live, three-

152 GREAT TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

dimensional, self-contradictory people with all their passions, uncon-
sidered utterances and actions. The actor has to be able to create such
people.”6 '

In the theater outside of Germany, it has been difficult to imple-

ment many of Brecht’s approaches. Much bad acting and directing
has been justified by wrapping the word “Brechtian” around it. Even
in Germany today, with the collapse of Communism, Brecht is seen
as old-fashioned. Productions ofhis plays are down worldwide. Many
of the techniques of Verfremdung are seen everyday on television.
Quick cuts, the jumbling of images, commercial interruptions of
programs are commonplace. Today, instead of making the familiar
strange, we make the strange, familiar.

In addition, it can be argued that the Group Theater’s realistic

production of Waiting For Lefty created as much or more social and
political agitation as any play of Brecht’s.

What can never be doubted, however, is the power of Brecht’s

challenge to Stanislavski. His work helps keep the actor from a rigid
view of both his work and his value. His insistence on using the the-
ater as a means of political change has influenced drama the world
over. The epic comedies of Dario Fo and the Forum Theater of
Augusto Boal are two current examples of the usefulness of Brecht’s
approach.

It is an easy trap to fall into, to believe that Stanislavski’s and

Brecht’s methods are mutually exclusive. Many Stanislavski-trained
actors claim great benefits from using Brechtian elements in their
work, and many Brechtian actors have found great value in some of
Stanislavski’s techniques. These two methods need not be antagonis-
tic, although Brecht might prefer it if they were. In the contradiction
between them, he might say, an actor could find many treasures. And
that would certainly be better than to have them melded into some
unified approach which would likely dilute the unique power of each.

BERTOLD BRECHT 153

 Chreolel sc

Jerzy Grotowski and

the Holy Actor

ie 1959, a Stanislavski-trained Polish actor and director took a

group of dedicated performers to a space in Opole, Poland and began
doing research with them into the nature of acting itself. Jerzy
Grotowski was dissatisfied with both the usual realistic approach to
acting, and with the eclectic techniques of political theater.

Grotowski had done his homework. He had studied Stanislavski,

Meyerhold, Chinese, Indian and Japanese theater. And his early pro-
ductions reflected how well he had absorbed these many influences.
But he felt the lack of an overall vision, a goal. Each production
stood on its own and served no larger purpose.

In Opole, at a space called the Theater of Thirteen Rows,

Grotowski began directing plays in all styles, from Eugene Ionesco’s
absurdist play The Chairs, to the classic Indian Kathakali play,
Siakuntala.' He met great success with most of these productions and
became a highly regarded director in his native country. And it was
here that he began the experiments that would make him world
famous.

154
 Grotowski began to ask himself what theater really was. What,
he wondered, was essential to its production? His answer was simple;
space, actors and spectators. That was all. Theater could be per-
formed without scenery, without props, without orchestras, without
makeup, without lighting, even without a stage. But, “it cannot exist
without the actor-spectator relationship...”2 This stripped down the-
ater, he called the Poor Theater.

He saw that on a technological level, no theater can successfully

contend with the special effects available to the film and television
media. So rather than compete in a realm in which it is sure to lose,
he believed that the theater must offer only what is unique to it: Live
interaction. The theater must rediscover its essence and present that
to its audience. Grotowski wanted to focus on an aspect of
Stanislavski’s idea of communion (p.53) that also interested Brecht.
Namely, the actor’s effect on the audience.

But Grotowski wanted to go further than Stanislavski, and in a

different direction from Brecht. He wanted to confront the spectator
with the actor’s ability to drop his social mask in the hope that the
spectator too might find this possible. If the actor can contact an
uncomfortable truth, the audience member might think that he can too.

To accomplish this goal, Grotowski focused on four areas. First,

on the space itself; second, on the actor; third, on the spectator; and
fourth, on the communal exchange among the three.

He knew one thing. He did not want to proceed by borrowing

techniques from other systems or styles of theater. He considered this
to be the “artistic kleptomania’} of what he termed the Rich Theater.
Rather than clutter up the stage with gimmicks, Grotowski would
strip it bare. The only music or sounds allowed would be ones that
the actors themselves created.

The crucial step toward Grotowski’s realizing his “poor theater,”

was his acquaintance with the ideas of the poet, playwright, actor and
visionary, Antonin Artaud.

Born in 1896, two years before the founding of the Moscow Art
Theater, Artaud forged a vision of theater that was unique. He reject-

JERZY GROTOWSKI 155

ed drama that was based on logical written text. He rejected drama
that was based on the psychological examination of character. He also
rejected plays that were political in nature. Artaud dreamed of some-
thing else. A theater that would show the mythological, the magical
and the dangerous.

Artaud proposed a Theater of Cruelty which would purge the

spectator of his murderous and anti-social impulses by seeing them
played out on the stage. He wrote, “I defy the spectator...who will
have seen...a bloodstream of images...to give himself up, once out-
side the theater, to ideas of war, riot, and blatant murder.”4

How is this to be done, though, one wonders? What are to be

the components of this theater?

It must be said that the two attempts Artaud made to actualize

such a theater, failed. He provided little in the way of a practical pro-
gram, and wrote in such a metaphoric and obtuse way that much of
his thought is impenetrable. And yet some provocative ideas can still
be extracted from his tortured mind.

After he saw a group of Balinese dancers perform in a forest just

outside of Paris in 1931, he came to believe that the true job of the
actor lay in his ability to make gestural signs. Now this sounds famil-
iar. We immediately think of Michael Chekhov's psychological gesture
(p.66), and Bertold Brecht’s Gestus (p.151). We even remember back
to Quintilian’s body and hand positions (p.4).

But Artaud’s idea is different. Quintilian’s positions are meant to

reinforce a rhetorical point, Chekhov's gestures are meant to illumi-
nate the inner truth of a character, and Brecht’s are meant to clarify
social and political insights. The gestures Artaud saw the Balinese use
were seemingly unrelated to any text, and bypassed the rational
mind. They addressed the deeper realms of the unconscious, and for
a surrealist poet, this was a familiar landscape.

Part of the Surrealist aesthetic was to reach beyond logic to the

place where dreams live. No matter that Artaud misunderstood the
gestures of the Balinese, they provided him with the conviction that

156 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

the theater was the perfect place to present the magical, the irrationa
l
and the shocking.

Another, unlikely, source for Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty came

from the comedic films of the Marx Brothers. Artaud saw in them a
delirious celebration of anarchy that illustrated his “...insistence on
the necessary danger of the chance, disruptive event in his theater.”5

So what might have a production of Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty

looked like? In Artaud’s theater space, the audience and the actors
would intermingle. The actors would wear elaborate costumes, and
make sounds and gestures that would both frighten and awe the
onlookers. Moments of pain might be interrupted by moments of
laughter which, in turn, might be interrupted by musical shrieks. At
least that is what one imagines. But Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty never
came about. He died in 1948 after having spent years in an insane
asylum.

It is eerie to see him today in films like Abel Gance’s Napoleon,

where he plays the part of Marat, or Carl Dreyer’s The Passion ofJoan
of Arc, knowing that he holds within his brilliant but unstable mind
the image of a theater that he could not concretize. Watching him,
we can imagine that he is still trying to wake us up, infect us with the
fire of his vision, “signaling” to us, as he put it, “through the
flames.Ӣ

Of what use could Grotowski make of Artaud’s scattered

thoughts? First, his liberation of the playing space. Artaud showed
that an area separating the actors from the audience was unnecessary.
Actors could sit among the spectators, and even involve them in the
action. This was a type of communion that Stanislavski never envi-
sioned. Second, he saw “...myth as the dynamic centre of the theater
performance.”7 But most important for Grotowski, Artaud saw that
discipline and spontaneity “...far from weakening each other, mutu-
ally reinforce themselves.”8

JERZY GROTOWSKI 157

 Like Artaud, Grotowski seeks a way to eliminate the separation
between an impulse and its physical expression. For Grotowski, an
actor must not impose thought between the impulse to action, and
the action itself. In this sense, the actor must be transparent, without
a filter. In a sense, he offers his performance as a self-sacrifice.? If the
actor can accomplish this, the spectator may come to believe that he
can too. Grotowski hopes, that in the intense interaction between the
actor and the audience, a transformation can take place in both. This
is what is sacred about his theater, and this ts what makes an actor
holy. But how is an actor to accomplish this task?

Grotowski approaches actor training from the direction of the

negative; what he calls the via negativa.!° Rather than asking the
actor to do something, he asks the actor to resign from not doing it.!!
The idea is to give up resistance. For it is resistance, either of the
body or of the will, that stands in the way of the direct translation of
impulse into action.

The Grotowskian actor strips away, rather than builds up. This
means that the actor must strip away the social mask he usually
wears. This can make an actor uncomfortable. But he must give up
his resistance, nonetheless, and go on. Grotowski understands that
the actor’s truth may make the spectator uncomfortable as well, but
for that very reason it has value. The stripping away of the artificial
always makes us uncomfortable at first. But later on we recognize
that we have been enlightened.

In order to create an actor that can respond to the demands of

his poor theater, Grotowski designed physical exercises that he called
plastiques. They are meant to make an actor more plastic and strong.
Grotowski'’s exercises address every part of the body, from the feet to
the head. And he places tremendous importance on breathing and
sound. For him, the whole of an actor’s body should be a resonating
chamber.

The actor must be a kind of athlete because the impulses that

pass through him will often be large ones that require a strong,
responsive, expressive body to contain them. But exercises, he cau-
tions, are different from performances. They only prepare the actor
for what is to come. And what is that?

158 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Many have said that to know Grotowski’s theater, one must
experience it directly. Trying to describe it, they say, will only meet
with failure. And yet, perhaps it is possible to give a glimpse of it if
we use an example given by Grotowski himself.

Suppose, Grotowski asks, you are playing a character who must

kill his mother. Now since you probably have not killed your mother,
how are you to approach this action? Well, he wonders, maybe you
have killed an animal. Perhaps you can use this experience to remem-
ber the sensory details, and translate these into the action of killing
your mother. This is a common approach. But Grotowski says that
using such a memory is not enough. It does not rise to the level of
the event. It is too prosaic, too easy.

“Find something more intimate. For example, Do you think that

the fact of killing...in this scene should give you a thrill, a sort of cli-
max? ...If you want to say yes, seek in your own memories moments
of intense physical climax which are too precious to be shared with
others. It is on this memory that you must draw at the time of
killing...” Imagine what a shocking moment this would be. It rises
above melodrama and lodges in the psyche with tremendous power.
The fact that there might be ecstasy in matricide is blasphemous. The
discomfort it arouses is indelible. But Grotowski says that such a
moment can free us all from the grip of our own murderous fantasies.
By enacting it, and seeing it enacted, we are purged of it.!? This
example, of how to play a specific moment, helps us to understand
how the Grotowski actor thinks. He looks for the heightened reality,
for the taboo action that will jolt us into awareness. We share these
shameful impulses, and we are united by our shame. And in this
recognition of our common condition, we are cleansed. This is the
theater of Grotowski.

ee

Our instructor stands before us barefoot. She asks us to remove

our shoes and socks as well. We do so. She tells us that it is important
to feel the surface of the floor. She then asks us to watch her. She
stands for a moment and then launches into a series of connected
movements. She loosens her body with twists and turns from where

JERZY GROTOWSKI 159

she is standing, she dives to the floor, rolls up into a shoulder stand,
rolls back down, turns from side to side, then runs across the floor
leaping in various ways. Now, she says, it is our turn.

We begin to twist our bodies as she did, we dive to the floor and
then try to maneuver ourselves into a shoulder stand. We fail. The
instructor comes over and helps us to achieve the right position. She
then tells us to try it without her help. We cannot do it. She asks us
to give up our resistance to the exercise, and we tell her we do not
know how to do that. Go through, she says. Go through the resis-
tance. Give up not doing it.

As we roll back into the shoulder stand, we feel our body tighten
up, making it impossible to complete the move. At this moment our
teacher tells us to relax the muscles. Go through the resistance, she
says again, and this time we feel the muscles give way a little. Our
shoulder stand is unsteady, but it’s there. Good, says the teacher, go
on. We execute the rest of the moves with the best of our ability.
None of us, our instructor informs us, has done particularly well. We
need, she says, to learn how to get out of our own way.

We work all day on various aspects of this exercise, even doing it

in slow motion. In addition, we work on our voices. For Grotowski,
our instructor explains, “bodily activity comes first and then vocal
expression.”!3 She does an animal exercise with us involving a bear
and a trainer. The instructor plays the part of the trainer, while we
are the bears. We let our bodies move before we vocalize. Sometimes
the trainer is harsh with us and we let out ferocious roars, sometimes
she tantalizes us with food, and we whimper and beg. Our move-
ments are difficult, because we are unused to using our bodies in this
way. Some of us give up and simply sit down. When the teacher sees
this, she asks them to give up not doing the exercise. They get up and
continue on.

The instructor makes clear that there is no perfect way to execute

a plastique, no ideal form that must be filled. Rather, the actor uses
the exercises to find his personal places of resistance. His task then is
to confront them, and to resign from not overcoming them. That
struggle is at the core of each moment.

160 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 At the end of the day, we have been pushed to our physical lim-
its. Many of us feel that we cannot go on. This, Says our teacher, is a
crucial place to be.’ Have you noticed, she asks, that at moments of
total exhaustion our inhibitions slip? That emotional expression is
sometimes easier when the body is incapable of repressing it? We nod
our heads in recognition of this.

It is at this point, she says, that our social masks begin to loosen,
and that the deeper expressions of our being can come forward. The
barrier between our impulses and their expression is thinner.

But of course, she explains, it is not nearly enough to simply be

exhausted. Your bodies must be trained to actualize the impulses that
flow through you, and you are all too tired for that. It is crucial for
the Grotowskian actor to have an external technique powerful
enough to articulate and embody the extraordinary demands made
upon him. And there are many exercises and improvisations that help
him to accomplish this. But they should only be attempted with a
teacher trained in these techniques, warns our instructor.

In the 1960's Grotowski and his actors accomplished incredible

things, our teacher tells us. Productions like Akropolis, Dr. Faustus,
The Constant Prince, and Apocalypsis cum figuris changed world
drama. By stripping away what was superfluous in theater, he helped
to define its essence; the actor and the spectator, confronting each
other in a small theater in Poland, hoping to find communion. For
many members of Grotowski’s audience, this happened. They report
never having been so deeply affected by any other theatrical experi-
ence.

Grotowski’s unique synthesis of Stanislavski’s search for personal

truth, and Artaud’s vision of a transforming collective experience,
created a theater of unique power. A theater that influenced Julian
Beck’s Living Theater, Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater, and the fasci-
nating explorations of the great English director, Peter Brook.

In the 1970’s Grotowski became more interested in one-on-one

interactions with people, and staged no more productions at the
Laboratory in Poland. But in 1983 he resurfaced at the University of
California at Irvine with the Objective Drama Project. This was a

JERZY GROTOWSKI 161

project designed to study “...elements of performative movements,
dances, songs, incantations, structures of language, rhythms, and uses
of space...of various world cultures.”!4 He called this, the Theater of
Sources.

In 1986, Grotowski moved to Italy and founded the Workcenter

of Jerzy Grotowski. There he worked on extending Stanislavski’s
Method of Physical Actions. He stressed “that the work on physical
actions is the key to the actor's craft.”'5 ‘

Since 1992, he has been working on what Peter Brook has called,
Art as Vehicle. In this work, the doer is the focus and not the specta-
tor. In fact, there is no spectator at all. Instead, Grotowski is con-
cerned with the “verticality” of energy. He wants the actor or doer to
be aware not only of his body in space, but of “...something that is
‘under our feet’ and something that is ‘over the head.””!6

Clearly, Grotowski continues to grow. He cannot be pinned

down to any system, or any approach. He is a true seeker, and it gives
his supporters a great deal of hope to see that this man is still dedicat-
ed to exploring the deepest ritualistic functions of art.

162 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapter 11

Tadashi Suzuki and

the Theater of Grandeur

Western directors and teachers have looked to the East since the
time of Stanislavski and Meyerhold for new acting and directing
techniques. Brecht was astounded by Chinese theater, Artaud was
inspired by Balinese dancers, and Grotowski learned from the Peking
Opera. But in one of the great ironies of history, it was when an
Easterner saw performances from his own land done in a Western
country that the theater found its next new direction.

In the early 1970's, the young Japanese theater director Tadashi

Suzuki witnessed performances of the classical Japanese Noh theater
being given in Jean-Louis Barrault’s theater in France. Suzuki had
seen many Noh productions in his own country, but it wasn’t until
he saw them performed in a foreign nation that their full power
became clear to him: “I was made to recognize its superb theatricality.
The rigorous training that had tempered and shaped the body of the
actor produced a brilliant liveliness on the stage, right down to the
tiniest details of movement.”!

163
 Suzuki’s time in France changed him. His notion of what was
possible in the theater expanded, and his creative imagination caught
fire. When he returned to Japan he wanted to create a theater of
unprecedented power and excitement. But the actors in his company
did not show the stamina and concentration that he required. He
realized that he would have to create a new kind of actor. There is
nothing new in this. Stanislavsk1, Brecht, and Grotowski all expressed
the need to train actors capable of fulfilling their different directorial
visions.
\

Suzuki turned to the techniques of the classical Japanese theater,

Indian Kathakali dancing, and even to Western ballet. His goal was
to create an actor who, like Grotowski’s actors could “make the whole
body speak, even when one is silent.”? Suzuki wanted “...to make it
possible for actors to develop their ability of physical expression and
also to nourish a tenacity of concentration.”3 And to this end, he cre-
ated a series of forms that require balance, stamina, strength, and
concentration, all in the service of a heightened theatricality and an
expanded sense of actor presence.

Suzuki begins his training with the actor’s feet. “The feet are the
last remaining part of the human body which has kept, literally, in
touch with the earth, the very supporting base of all human activi-
ties.”4 We remember that Michael Chekhov too gave great impor-
tance to the feet (p.75). Suzuki was, of course, also concerned with of
the rest of the body, including the breath and the voice. But the feet
and lower body seemed to him the root of the actor’s expressivity.

Unlike Grotowski’s exercises, Suzuki’s do have an ideal form

toward which the actor aspires. And it is this which makes the actor
work ever harder, striving toward a perfection he can never achieve.
In this way the actor must push himself forward, because his reward
can only be in the attempt.

Suzuki turned his attentions to Shakespeare, Chekhov, and to the

Greek classic plays and with his rigorously trained actors, particularly
the brilliant actress Shiraishi Kayoko, stunned the world. His actors
were capable of sustaining characterizations of tremendous intensity.
The depth of feeling and range, the combination of expression and
control, amazed and moved audiences.

164 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 In his productions the actors discover the greatest desires of the
characters they play, and magnify them. So that in his production of
Anton Chekhov's play The Three Sisters, the character of Irina has an
epileptic seizure when speaking of her desire to go to Moscow. The
powerful forces at work inside of her, joltingly externalized. In his
production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the character of Edgar makes
his first entrance already crazy. A Stanislavski-based actor might not
move so quickly or boldly to this aspect of the character. He would
let it unfold in a logical manner as dictated by the circumstances of
the scene. But his offering might lack the impact and force of the
Suzuki-directed performance.

In the early 1980's, Suzuki's work came to the attention of two

men in Milwaukee; Jewell Walker and John Dillon. After seeing his
work, these two invited him to America, and his influence has spread
in this country ever since.

WALKING

Our instructor asks us to line up against one wall of our training

room and to cross diagonally to the other side. The walk we are to
use involves an energetic striking of the foot on the ground which is
best described as a stomp. The concentration, our teacher says,
should be on the lower part of our bodies. With the upper half, we
are to remain relaxed in an energized non-changing position. We are
trying, she says, not to sway our upper bodies. This sets up an inter-
esting dynamic between the two parts of our bodies. Our lower half
is in constant energetic motion, while our upper halfis still. Stillness
and motion, two basic components of Suzuki training. Not oppos-
ing, but complementing each other.

The teacher leads us across the floor to loud percussive music.

She is in a sort of squatting position, and we adopt this as well. On
our feet we wear special cotton socks called, in Japanese, tabi. The
challenge is to keep up the energy of our stomping without “loosen-
ing the upper part of the body.”>

TADASHI SUZUKI 165

 As we do this exercise, we realize that we must regulate our
breathing, or we will never make it to the end. The instructor has
also told us that the pelvis is the area which mediates the energy
between the upper and lower parts of our bodies, and we remember
to relax it slightly. The instructor has left us and now beats a stick
sharply on the floor. At this sound, we change the nature of our walk.

This time we cross the floor up and back with our knees bent
and our feet pigeon-toed. After this, we do the same exercise but this
time we walk on the inside of our feet. Next, we'shuffle across the
floor, and finally we walk very low to the ground in a squatting position.

As we do these different walks, the teacher tells us not to stare,

but to maintin a far focus, making contact with something outside of
ourselves. As we do this work, she says, it is important to incorporate
an inner task with the movement. This, she explains, helps connect
the body to the emotional life.

At the end of another stomping exercise, we fall to the ground.

The music changes to a beautiful and serene melody and we rise
slowly. As we come slowly forward, each in his own way, we recite a
series of lines from The Trojan Women. As we do this we keep our far
focus and our concentration.

As we do these exercises we feel that we are gaining a measure of

control over our bodies and find a special thrill in the fact that we
have never moved in these ways before. We experience not only our
bodies differently, but ourselves. The unfocused motions that we usu-
ally display in our acting are disappearing. We feel more confident in
our use of bold movements, but also realize the power of stillness. It
is as the instructor has told us before, that we must look for the still-
ness in movement, and the movement in stillness.

The teacher reminds us not to settle back on our heels, but to

rest more onto the balls of our feet. She asks us if we are more aware
of the energy in our bodies. We answer that we are. She asks if we are
more aware of how to direct our energies. We answer, yes. She asks us
if we are more aware of our bodies in space, and of the other actors
around us. Again we reply that this is so. In fact, this training makes
us feel more alive and present in every moment.

166 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 We have learned to execute what our instructor calls sitting and
standing statues as well. These are exercises where we go up on our
toes and hold a position. But even in that holding, she reminds us,
there is movement. From this position we may recite lines from
Trojan Women, or from some Shakespeare. Holding these positions
and yet keeping our energy alive, challenges us almost beyond our
limits. Parts of our body begin to shake from the physical strain. And
we have been taught that strain is a central evil in acting. To be
avoided at all costs. Certainly all the great acting teachers, from
Delsarte onward have placed great value on relaxation, teaching that
tension is the actor’s greatest enemy. And yet, Suzuki breaks with this
tradition.

For Suzuki, our teacher explains, it is the mastery over strain

from which heightened emotion comes. How is one to play the high
moments of tragedy if one is simply relaxed? No, says our instructor,
physical readiness can be a great friend to the actor if it is used prop-
erly. The actor must be like a cat, ready to jump. But total bodily
strain is not good, our teacher says. The upper body needs to be
relaxed in order to speak, and the face too needs to be relaxed. In
time, she says, the right proportions of strong support and relaxation
will become clear to us.

The discipline involved in this training is rigorous. Once, she

tells us, an actor held a position so long that a spider spun a web
between him and the stick he was holding. At times we have had to
overcome both pain and exhaustion in doing this work. But from it
we have learned control. And with this control, has come a great con-
fidence. Expressing large emotion with our whole body no longer
intimidates us.

In fact, the style of realistic acting we usually see, now seems too
small to contain the immense range of human expression that is laid
bare in the great masterpieces of dramatic literature. Here perhaps is
part of the answer to the failure of most Stanislavski-based actors to
achieve success with Shakespeare. More seems to be required than
circumstances, objectives, communion, obstacles and actions, although
these are all needed. But a sense of grandeur, of power and control,

TADASHI SUZUKI 167

an ability to find a heightened means of expression, these largely have
been absent. Suzuki’s exercises, we think, may help to fill this void.

The instructor seems to read our mind. She says that while most
training in America has been psychologically based, that Suzuki
attempts to train the total organism of the actor. A simple way to put
it, she says, is that he connects the body to the head. He is bringing
the intelligence and articulateness of the body up to the intelligence
and articulateness of the mind. But, she warns us, that to see the
exercises in production is all wrong. Now some Suzuki instructors,
she says, disagree. But for her, seeing the training and not the charac-
ter is simply wrong.

The more you use and apply these techniques, says our teacher,
the more their beauty and power will reveal themselves to you. And
remember, she tells us, Suzuki’s work is always changing. So you too
must be flexible. Don’t worship the teacher, she warns, honor the
work.

168 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Chapierl2
Training School Profiles

Oe eiiene mirror has been smashed. Today, few teachers

place any importance on studying and copying gestures and facial
expressions. And yet a strong danger still persists.

The mirror itself may be absent, but actors are now able watch
themselves and others on screen. This can create a kind of self-con-
sciousness about which Marlon Brando says, “Actors who watch
themselves tend to become mannered. The less you think about how
effective you are, the more effective you are. You don't learn to be
effective from film, but from life.”! So technology has brought the
mirror back to us in a new way. How do we free ourselves from its
seductive charm?

We must focus on the basic questions: How does one effectively

persuade others of a fictional truth? How does an actor transform
herself so that she can give passionate form to character?

There are many answers to these questions. For Stanislavski, the

actor must enter the character’s skin. For Brecht, the actor must hold
the character away from himself like holding out a coat so that the
audience can effectively judge him. For Grotowski the actor must

169
strip away all artifice in an attempt to form a deep communion with
the spectator. For Suzuki, the actor must contact a level of concentra-
tion and control that transcends the merely real.

But what is the real value of these different approaches? After all,
acting isn’t an intellectual exercise. Yet some of these methods seem to
make it so. If a teacher is not careful, Stanislavski’s work can become
dry and overly cerebral. If a teacher only communicates the informa-
tion of the Stanislavski system, the real purpose ofitwill be defeated.
It should excite the actor, bring him joy and exhilaration. Brechtian
style can be frustrating because no one really agrees on what it is.
Grotowski’s work requires tremendous dedication and teachers of his
techniques are hard to come by. Suzuki’s work sometimes seems only
appropriate to his own productions.

All of this seems so complicated, such hard work. But acting

should be simple, shouldn't it? Truth to tell, acting is simple. It is
finding that simplicity that is so hard. For the highly talented of
course, this search is easier. But not one of these teachers promises to
make anyone more talented. The value they offer to us, lies in their
ability to stimulate and direct our native gifts.

Actors need training no matter what their level of talent. In fact

it can be argued that the more talent an actor possesses, the more
technique he needs. So where does an actor turn for guidance?

In the United States today, actor training is divided between the

private studios and the universities. The advantage that the private
studios offer is that the student can take only the courses he or she
chooses, and can study indefinitely. The universities offer the oppor-
tunity to put into practice what one is learning in the classroom
through full-scale productions. There also exists, a kind of hybrid
school, wherein a private studio links up with a university and they
jointly offer a degree.

Let’s take a look at some of these training institutions.

170 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 ACTOR'S STUDIO/NEW SCHOOL
NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
ACTOR'S STUDIO M.EA. PROGRAM
68 FIFTH AVENUE
SWELL ES,
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10011
212-229-5859

Tuition is $16,040 per year.

The famed Actor's Studio has linked up with the New School for Social
Research, to offer a program of training that results in the granting of a
Master of Fine Arts Degree in Dramatic Arts.
The program is a three-year one divided as follows. The first year is
called, like Stanislavski’s book, An Actor Prepares, and focuses on the actor's
work on himself. The second year, again following Stanislavski, focuses on
Building A Character. The curriculum of this year for the actor’s program is
on beats and objectives. The work of the third year focuses on Creating A
Role, which is also the title of Stanislavski’s third book on acting. In this cul-
minating year, works from the Playwriting track are acted and directed by
members of the Acting and Directing tracks.
All students in the first year take the same program of courses. In the
second year, the acting, directing and playwriting students separate,
although some classes are held in common. In the third year, the students all
participate in the creation and performance of plays.
This program features basic Strasberg exercises in relaxation, concentra-
tion and sense memory. In more advanced work, the private moment and
affective memory are taught. In addition, the curriculum seems to indicate
that some of the work of Sanford Meisner is included as well as some of the
ideas of Stella Adler. In other words, the approach here is not as rigid as it
might be at The Actor’s Studio itself.
Along with the basic acting classes, the school offers classes in period
style, theater history, movement and voice.
A feature of this program is the opportunity for all students to attend
sessions at the Actor’s Studio and to attend seminars led by some of the
Studio’s most successful members.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 171

 AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER
30 GRANT AVENUE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94108-5800
415-834-3350

Tuition is $8320.00 per year for the M.FA. Program.

The American Conservatory Theater is one of only a few professional

theaters in the United States to offer a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting.
The M.EA. program takes two years to complete and a written thesis is
required. In the next few years, ACT is looking to expand its training pro-
gram to three years.
The training in the first year focuses on the actor's use of himself, his
creative imagination and his voice, movement and speech. In the second
year the student works on the use of heightened language and characteriza-
tion. Also in the second year, more time is spent on performance.
In years past, company members of the American Conservatory
Theater did the teaching. But recently, a core faculty has been developed
here resulting in greater continuity. But a hallmark of this conservatory, still,
is the opportunity to watch and to learn from working professionals.
The head of the Conservatory training program is Melissa Smith, for-
mer head of Drama and Dance at Princeton University and an M.EA. grad-
uate of the Yale School of Drama. She is also the core acting teacher for the
second year students.
Jeffrey Bihr, a member of the International Company of Tadashi
Suzuki, teaches Suzuki’s work here; Frank Ottiwell is a Master Teacher of
Alexander Technique in this program; Deborah Sussel teaches speech, scan-
sion and dialects here; and Jeffrey Crockett teaches voice using methods
derived from both Cicely Berry and Kristen Linklater. The fine actor Ken
Ruta is in charge of student projects.
Some second-year students may be invited to be theater interns which
may lead to an Equity card.
The program exposes the student to both classical texts and original
works believing that both are necessary to the training of a complete actor.
There is a strong emphasis here on language, and on the actor's ability to
stay open to the many forms of theatrical presentation required by the many
styles of world theater. A unique program offered at ACT is the Young
Conservatory. This training is designed for younger people from ages eight
to eighteen. Few institutions offer such a comprehensive young actor pro-
gram which is headed by Craig Slaight.

172 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED THEATER TRAINING
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
LOEB DRAMA CENTER
64 BATTLE STREET
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138
617-495-2668

Tuition is $9,600 per year.

This two-year acting program leads to a certificate from Harvard

University. A unique feature is that at the end of study, the student is put
under an Actor’s Equity contract. This is because of the close association of
the training program with the American Repertory Theater.
The teachers are almost all members of the American Repertory
Theater and include many graduates of the Yale School of Drama. Teacher
Alvin Epstein in fact was Associate Director of the Yale Repertory. He is an
actor of great stature, having appeared in Orson Welles’ production of King
Lear, and the American premiere of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. He
has also directed many notable productions all across the country. Teacher
Charles Levin is also a noted actor, with wide experience in theater, film and
television. Film and television work, however, is not emphasized here.
The focus in this program is on the classic texts. The feeling is, if you
can do Shakespeare, Aeschelus and Chekhoy, you can do anything.
During the day, training involves instruction in the techniques of
Stanislavski, movement based on Alexander Technique, voice based on the
work of Kristin Linklater and Arthur Lessac, T’ai chi movement, yoga, com-
bat, dance, singing and mask work.
Afternoons are given over to rehearsals where the acting students work
with both directing students and visiting professionals. So an actor com-
monly goes from class to rehearsal to performance in a single day.
The reason that so many Yale alumni and teachers are now at Harvard,
is that former director of the Yale Repertory and head of the School of
Drama there, Robert Brustein, is now the Artistic Director of the American
Repertory Theater.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 173

 CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS
SCHOOL OFTHEATER
24700 MCBEAN PARKWAY
VALENCIA, CALIFORNIA 91355
805-255-1050

Tuition is $14,600 per year.

The actor training program at Cal Arts offers bath a B.EA. and an
M.FA. in acting. Classes in voice (using the work of Kristin Linklater),
movement (T’ai Chi, modern dance), fencing, combat, and textual analysis
are central to the program.
Most of the acting teachers in this program are also directors. Their
backgrounds are quite varied. Some have worked extensively in film and
television, which is no surprise given the school’s proximity to Los Angeles.
Author, actor and director Robert Benedetti teaches here. He is the former
chairman of the Acting program at the Yale School of Drama. Other acting
instructors are graduates of the Cal Arts program itself, while teacher Lewis
Palter was formerly the head of the acting program at Carnegie Mellon
University.
The strength of this program lies in its diversity of approaches, its wide-
ly experienced faculty and its dedication to new plays.
While the basic concepts of Stanislavski are taught here, the faculty is
expert at exploring other methods and techniques of the modern theater. In
addition, students interested in working in film and television can partici-
pate in projects created by the School of Film and Video.

174 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
305 DODGE HALL
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10027
212-854-3408
Tuition is $9,968 per year.
Columbia’s M.FA. in Acting is a three-year program and is influenced,
like Juilliard’s, by the French theater artist Jacques Copeau (1879-1949),
Remember, one of the theaters that Harold Clurman greatly admired while
travelling in France was Copeau’s (p.82).
Copeau was less interested in Stanislavski-style realism than he was in
“the richness of the many languages of theater.” He wanted actors who
could perform in whatever style was demanded by the text. To accomplish
this, actors must be physically strong and flexible enough to meet the
demands of the many styles of theater that exist now, have existed in the
past, and will exist in the future.
Classes in movement, voice, speech, gymnastics and scene study are
among those offered at Columbia. Improvisation in the tradition of commedia
dell’arte, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, and Artaud is also emphasized.
Columbia holds great interest for the acting, directing and writing stu-
dent because of its faculty. Famed director Andrei Serban teaches here as
does the celebrated Anne Bogart. Between them they represent some of the
most innovative work being done in the theater today. Both are well
grounded in the techniques of Stanislavski, but have explored new tech-
niques and forms with excellent results. Bogart has worked with Suzuki
extensively and was a guest speaker at his yearly Toga Festival in Japan in
1988.
The emphasis at this school is not on production. The philosophy of
training at Columbia places greater emphasis on laboratory work than it
does on large-scaled productions. And yet a great many shows are produced
each year, and the student has ample opportunity to perform.
The excitement of the program at Columbia lies in the student’s oppor-
tunity to learn from some of the most interesting theater artist’s working
today. Part of the philosophy of the school is that the acting students inter-
act with the students in the other tracks including theater management, dra-
maturgy, directing, playwriting and design. So instead of highly segregated
classes, students concentrating in specific areas have a chance to take some
classes together and to interact on a daily basis.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 175

 HERBERT BERGHOF STUDIOS (HB STUDIOS)
120 BANK STREET
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10014
212-675-2370

Full-time tuition is, $1,666 per year.

HB studios is one of the most enduring private acting studios in the

country. It was created by actor and director Herbert Berghof in 1945, but
its greatest fame comes from the presence of actress and ‘teacher, Uta Hagen.
Hagen was originally trained by Eva Le Gallienne (whose acting can be
seen in the film Resurrection, starring Ellen Burstyn), and made her stage
debut at the age of eighteen. She has appeared in many Broadway plays
including Othello, The Country Girl (for which she won a Tony award), and
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
In the fall of 1995, this remarkable woman returned to the New York
stage playing the title role in Nicholas Wrights play, Mrs. Klein.
Uta Hagen is also the author of two excellent books on acting, Respect
for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor.
As of this writing (late 1995) she is still teaching an advanced acting
class at the studio. Her approach is Stanislavski-based, focusing on work
with objects and with emotion memory. She draws on a vast well of experi-
ence and is a dynamic and insightful teacher.
The Studio itself, however, is more than Uta Hagen. There are many
acting teachers there including actors William Hickey, Ann Jackson,
Elizabeth Wilson, Amy Wright, Austin Pendleton, Laura Esterman and
Arthur French. These teachers come from many different backgrounds.
Some of them studied with Berghof and Hagen, some with Meisner, Milton
Katsales, Mike Nichols, Kim Stanley, and Lee Strasberg.
The acting teachers focus on actions, objectives, circumstances, truthful
behavior, concentration, imagination, sense and emotional memory and
improvisation (Viola Spolin’s Theater Games).
The classes are generally divided between beginning and advanced and
these are further divided into technique classes and scene classes. A full-time
student would be expected to take at least six classes per week, including
beginning technique and scene study courses, speech, movement, and two
electives.
The curriculum includes directing courses, classes in Shakespeare,
Linklater vocal technique, Alexander movement technique, and yoga.
Getting into Hagen’s classes and some other of the teachers courses as
well, requires an audition.

176 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL
60 LINCOLN CENTER PLAZA
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10023
212-799-5000 ext. 251

Tuition is $13,000 per year.

This school is one of the premiere training institutions in the country.

Co-founded in 1968 by Michel Saint-Denis and John Houseman, the
school is a combination of both of their approaches to acting. Saint-Denis
was greatly influenced by the ideas and work of the French theater artist
Jacques Copeau (1879-1949). Copeau felt that the actor’s job was to serve
the literary form created by the writer. He was less interested in realistic the-
ater than in finding the proper style for each literary creation. Saint-Denis
did not like the idea of “presenting a photograph of real life on the stage.”
The idea of an actor comfortable with the many styles of world theater was
what he strove for, and this idea is still at the heart of the Juilliard program.
John Houseman brought to the school an American approach. He wed-
ded to Saint-Denis’ emphasis on style an emotional, inner approach to actor
training. So the training at Juilliard is built on a foundation of eclecticism
incorporating the views of two different traditions.
Today, Juilliard continues to train actors capable of bringing their inner
life to the characters they play. They are encouraged to use themselves in
order to transform themselves. This is key to the Juilliard approach. Actor’s
can only master different styles if they are able to meet the demands of that
style while retaining an inner sense of truth.
The program is a four-year one leading either to a B.FA., or a Certificate.
Voice training is given nearly every day for the entire four years and
Alexander movement technique is taught three days a week also for the full
four years. Other movement classes are also taught, as is clown work. Moni
Yakim, author of CreatingA Character, and a teacher at this school, is a vital
link in helping actors to accomplish the transformation that is so central to
the Juilliard course of study.
In acting and speech classes, both the meaning and the means of lan-
guage are explored. Because Shakespeare requires an understanding of the
devices of poetry and rhetoric, scansion is taught. It is felt at Juilliard, that if
an actor can master the classics, she can do anything.
Two of the acting teachers at the school are Michael Kahn, its current
director, and John Stix. Both of these men are experienced theater profes-
sionals who have tested the many theories of acting on the stage.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 177

 John Stix teaches the first-year students and grounds them in some of
the techniques of realistic training. He came out of the Yale School of
Drama when its actor training program was dominated by proper posture
and the clean delivery of lines. When he saw Strasberg’s production of
Odets play The Big Knife in 1949, he wanted to know how the actors and
director achieved their stunning results. Nothing he had learned at the Yale
of that time helped him to understand how these people had achieved what
they had. He very much wanted to understand their process. He became a
member of the Actor’s Studio and worked both with Strasberg and Kazan.
Over the years, Stix has winnowed out what he has found most useful
in his approach to actor training, and what he has found less so. He demon-
strates affective memory, but does not teach it. He does find sense memory,
however, of tremendous value. His is not a doctrinaire approach. There is no
fixed system, he believes, that can lay claim to the whole truth about acting.
The teacher's goal is to bring out the unique talent of each student, and he
uses many techniques to accomplish this.
School director and teacher Michael Kahn has made significant changes
to the program over the last few years. He has created a playwriting track
headed by writers Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman. This is of great
value to the acting students because they have the opportunity to work on
some of the new material created in this track. Kahn is looking not only to
prepare actors for the theater of the future, but to help create it. At Juilliard
he hopes to train theater visionaries who will create new forms of theater,
and new ways to look at the classics. To this endhe has brought in theater
artists like JoAnne Akalaitis, and Ellen Lauren who teaches a six-week
Suzuki workshop to the third-year students.
While Juilliard is committed to the great classic texts and to training
actors who can perform them, the school is also open to the theater of the
present and the theater of the future. The school has a core philosophy but
is not doctrinaire in its application. At Juilliard the approach is eclectic with-
out being haphazard.

178 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 THE NEW ACTOR’S WORKSHOP
259 WES ¥ 30TH STREET
ZND FLOOR.”
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10001
212-947-1310

Tuition is $5,100 per year.

This new training institution was founded by three former students of
the University of Chicago. They are, Mike Nichols, George Morrison and
Paul Sills.
Mike Nichols, one of the original members of Second City theater, is
one of America’s premier improvisers and has eight Tony awards and one
Oscar for the excellence of his directing. He teaches a weekly class, depend-
ing on his availability, for the second-year students. In addition to his train-
ing in improvisation, Nichols studied acting with Lee Strasberg.
George Morrison was also a student of Strasberg’s. He has taught at the
Juilliard school and has trained and directed some of America’s finest actors.
He teaches acting classes in both the first and the second year.
Paul Sills is the son of Theater Game creator Viola Spolin. He was a co-
founder of the Compass Theater and director of Second City. He created
Story Theater which has played twice on the Broadway stage. Sills teaches an
intensive five-week course that culminates in a performance of a Story
Theater piece by the second-year students.
This two-year training program is unique in that it gives equal value to
Stanislavski/Strasberg-based training, and to the improvisational work of
Viola Spolin. Balancing these two approaches is the focus of this school.
The school offers training in both Alexander and Feldenkrais body
technique, speech, and Linklater vocal technique.
The student here must be aware that they may not get extensive work
with the famous founders of this school, and that they will be taught by
other faculty members. But these have been carefully chosen and have wide
experience both as performers and teachers.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 179

 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARIS
100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10003
212-998-1960
Tuition is $19,000 per year.

The well-known program at NYU is a three-year one and offers an M.F.A.

in acting. The first year of training focuses on freeing the kody, voice, the emo-
tions and the imagination. The classes are linked so that they reinforce each
other. In the second year, acting work is focused on textual analysis and charac-
ter development. Second-year students appear in productions throughout this
year. In the third year, performance is the focus. Auditions are worked on as are
other aspects necessary to the securing ofprofessional employment.
Movement training features a great emphasis on Alexander Technique.
There is no Suzuki training because it is felt to conflict with the Alexander body
work.
Voice training is based on the work of Kristin Linklater led by Master
Teacher of voice Beverly Wideman.
Speech training is taught by Deborah Hecht, Charlotte Fleck and Shane
Ann Younts. These three have vast experience in dialects and in the
International Phonetic Alphabet. Hecht and Fleck have studied with Edith
Skinner.
Dan Cordle teaches Theater Games and Jim Calder teaches both mask and
movement.
The acting classes are led by Mary Lou Rosato and the excellent Ron Van
Lieu. Van Lieu is a student of former NYU teachers Peter Kass and Olympia
Dukakis. In 1993 he won NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Medal.
The Artistic Director of the Graduate Acting Program is Master Teacher of
Acting Zelda Fichandler. She was the founder and longtime director of the
Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
The great strength of this program lies in its dedication to the vision of
Peter Kass, one of the founders of the program, and his insistence upon training
actors who posess a strong sense of personal presence. Zelda Fichandler has
extended Kass’s vision to include more work on the actor’s transformation into
character, but without losing touch with his personal uniqueness. This program
aims to free both the emotional and physical selves of the actor.
Special offerings of this program are the circus class led by Master Teacher
of Circus Techniques, Hovey Burgess, and the cabaret performances.
Recent NYU graduates have met with tremendous success in the profes-
sional acting world.

180 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF THEATER
1979 SHERIDAN ROAD
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60208-2430
708-491-3170
Tuition is $17,000 per year.

The fine reputation of this school is based on its undergraduate pro-

gram. Northwestern does not offer an M.EA. degree in acting.
Undergraduates leave with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Speech, and the
curriculum is more academic than most. Within the School of Speech is the
Department of Theater, and within the department, students can concen-
trate on the area of their choice in their last two years.
Many of the acting teachers here were students of the renowned Alvina
Krause, whose very physical approach to Stanislavski influenced so many
actors.
Acting courses are offered in a three-year sequence and focus on basic
techniques, the study of plays, and the performance demands of different
styles of acting. Courses in ballet, modern dance, jazz dance, gymnastics,
and fencing are among those offered for physical training. Voice classes are
required, and mime work is also taught.
Acting professor Erwin (Bud) Beyer is featured in Eva Meckler’s book
The New Generation of Acting Teachers. He combines elements from mime
with the work of Stanislavski and Michael Chekhov.
The school emphasizes a complete liberal arts education, believing that
the theater practitioner must be a student of human society and human
behavior. But in addition to classes in the humanities, the Northwestern act-
ing student has ample opportunity to exercise his performing skills in pro-
duction. The M.EA. directing students use actors for their projects, as does
the faculty for the six mainstage productions done each year. In total, some
forty productions a year are mounted in the various performing spaces each
year.
Some special aspects of the undergraduate program at this school are
the Children’s Theater Tour and Participation Theater. The Children’s
Theater Tour offers actors the opportunity to experience the demands of a
long run, and to explore the unique demands and rewards of performing for
children. Students also have the opportunity to tour a show based on partic-
ipation techniques. This is a style of performance wherein the actors and the
audience interact. Northwestern is also part of the renaissance taking place
in the art of storytelling.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 181

 Another interesting offering at Northwestern is the Certificate in
Music Theater. This is a degree offered jointly by the School of Music and
the School of Speech. The training combines courses in acting and charac-
terization with classes in music skills, voice classes and music theater tech-
niques. Actors interested in becoming musical theater performers are
required to audition.

182 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 STELLA ADLER CONSERVATORY OF ACTING
419 LAFAYETTE STREET
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK 10003
212-260-0525

Tuition for the two-year program is $5,300 per year.

The first year of training at the Conservatory focuses on voice, speech

movement, mask, improvisation, theater history text analysis and scene
study. The second year continues training in voice and movement and phys-
ical acting. Styles like Shakespeare and film and television acting are also
covered in this year.
Classes in acting technique follow Adler’s concern with actions, circum-
stances, justifications, subtext, and character elements.
The program is affiliated with New York University’s Tisch School of
the Arts, and offers a B.EA. in acting.
Most of the acting-technique teachers here were trained by Stella Adler
herself, and this gives a vision of continuity to the various classes. Perhaps
the best-known professional teaching at the Conservatory is Broadway
actress Elaine Stritch.
One of the interesting features of the program is the use of mask work.
Students begin with what is known as the neutral mask and then move on
to character masks. This training teaches the actor many things. For one, it
forces him to be expressive with his body, and for another it helps him to
affect the transformation into character.
Stella Adler died in 1992.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 183

 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
DEPARTMENT OF THEATER
KRANNERT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
URBANA, ILLINOIS 61801
PINTS
Bh PoeI

Tuition for residents is $3,750 per year.

\

Tuition for non-residents is $9,620 per year.

The M.FA. program here takes three years to complete. The first
semester covers improvisation and Stanislavski’s methods as they apply to
the plays of Anton Chekhoy.
In the second semester Stanislavski’s techniques are applied to other
playwrights. Mask work and clowning are also offered.
Second- and third-year students work on specialties such as musical
theater, comedy, Shakespeare, or acting for the camera.
The Acting training is headed by teacher and director David Knight.
He was a Fulbright student in England at the Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art and stayed in England, working as an actor in every venue, for twenty
years. A strong offering at this University is the film and television work that
Knight does. Few teachers have as much experience in this area as he does.
Voice, speech, and combat are also mainstays of this program.
The program is affiliated with the Illinois Repertory Theater of which
David Knight is the Artistic Director.

184 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SCHOOL OF DRAMA DX-20
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 98195
206-543-5140

Tuition for non-resident Undergraduates is $6,345.

Tuition for non-resident Graduates is $8,850.

Tuition for resident Undergraduates is $2,253.

Tuition for resident Graduates is $3,537.

The Professional Actor Training Program is a three-year one that culmi-
nates in the awarding ofanM.EA. Degree.
This program has attracted a lot of attention in recent years because of
its attempt to combine the teachings of Stanislavski with the work of
Tadashi Suzuki. The presence of Suzuki’s work is due to the fact that former
University of California at San Diego teacher Steven Pearson, has been
appointed head of actor training here.
Graduate students are trained in the techniques of Suzuki and bring
that work into their scene study in studio. There the work is integrated with
character intentions, dramatic circumstances and character demands.
This is one of the few places in the United States where Suzuki's work is
systematically taught, and the graduate training program is considered by
many to be one of the finest in the country.
Voice work is taught by Judith Shahn who is trained in the work of
Kristin Linklater.
The Undergraduate Department integrates the work of Stanislavski
with the work of Suzuki under the excellent guidance of teacher Robyn
Hunt.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 185

 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AT MILWAUKEE
PROFESSIONAL THEATER TRAINING PROGRAM
P.O. BOX 413
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 53201
414-229-4947

Tuition for residents in Graduate Study is $3,870 per year.

Tuition for residents in Undergraduate studies is$2,772 per year.

Tuition for non-residents in Graduate study is $11,536 per year.

Tuition for non-resident in Undergraduate study is $8,786 per year.

The program at this University offers both a B.RA. and an M.FA. in
acting. Both Feldenkrais and Alexander movement techniques are available
here, and voice and speech is taught by author and director Malcolm
Morrison. He was Dean of the School of Drama at the North Carolina
School of the Arts.
The M.EA. program is a three-year one and is particularly strong on
the physical side of acting technique. Combat teacher Richard Raether is
one of only nine who are certified by the Society of American Fight
Directors. ;
This program is one of the few that focuses on the speaking of verse.
Other programs give this skill some attention, but here, it is given more
importance.
In all three years, the students are involved in production and so have
an opportunity to try out their newly won skills.
The Professional Training Program is affiliated with the Northern Stage
Company so students have the chance to work alongside experienced profes-
sionals.
A unique feature of this program is that members of the training pro-
gram have the opportunity to perform in different countries around the
world through the World Theater Training Institute of which Malcolm
Morrison is the president.

186 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 YALE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DRAMA
P.O. BOX 208325
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 06520-8325
203-432-1507

Tuition is $12,950 per year.

This program offers an M.FA. Degree after three years of study.

The first year of study focuses on realistic acting. This means that the
basic techniques of Stanislavski are explored including actions, circum-
stances and objectives. Voice, speech, movement, are constants throughout
the training program. Fencing is part of the work of the first year and mask
work is done in the first and second years.
In the second year, the demands of verse are explored. Scenes from
Shakespeare are used for study and mime, stage combat and singing are
included in the curriculum.
Third year students focus on contemporary acting styles and some may
be invited to perform with the Yale Repertory Theater. In this year the stu-
dent combines the skills he has learned and applies them to production.
The Yale University School of Drama is one of the most illustrious
training institutions in the United States. Actors who have completed train-
ing here can confidently expect that hiring professionals will be interested in
them.
Robert Lewis taught here from the years 1967 to 1976 when he helped
to train such luminaries as Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Henry Winkler
and Jill Eikenberry. His emphasis on a seamless melding of inner and outer
technique is still a hallmark of this school.

TRAINING SCHOOL PROFILES 187

 CSC CESe@ fis

Sa is acting done from the outside in, or the inside out?

We realize now, that this question is nonsense. Without an outer

technique, the actor has no way to express his inner life. And without
an inner technique, the actor has nothing to say. If we agree on this,
what then accounts for the heated disputes about acting and how it
should be taught?

What was once a discovery based on living truth, can all too
often become petrified dogma. If Delsarte raises his hand in a partic-
ularly effective way while expressing fear, why then must everyone do
the same, believing that the magic is in the gesture alone. This is only
human nature. If a favorite basketball player wears a certain brand of
shoe, we want to wear it also, believing that our skills will be like his
if we wear what he does. In the same way, actors imitating only the
external results of a great actor will almost certainly fail to find for
themselves that actor's greatness.

188
 The performing style that Stanislavski rebelled against was just
this sort of imitated external acting; a style that possessed great
power
in the hands of David Garrick, but not in his imitators.

Stanislavski fought to create a new style of acting that could be

newly felt and communicated each and every night. A style that
would avoid cliché and reach deep into the soul of the audience.
Unfortunately, the genuine realism that Stanislavski began could also
be imitated. Realism came to stand for a casual and banal acting style
that was light years away from the energy and creativity that
Stanislavski initially unleashed. In many hands, realism itself became
a cliché

Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, and Brecht each tried to breathe theatri-

cality back into the actor’s life. They did this mostly by addressing
gesture, movement and voice; by rediscovering the body. Today, Jerzy
Grotowski and Tadashi Suzuki are at the forefront of this renewed
focus on physicality.

But this focus is different from that prescribed by Quintilian or

Aaron Hill or Delsarte. Today’s body-oriented teachers presuppose
that an inner technique is in place. The mind-body connection is
critical to them and they expect it to be there. Without passionate,
detailed involvement of the actor's inner life, they realize that physi-
cal expression is hollow; a shadow of a pose, and believable transfor-
mation cannot take place.

Many schools, both private studios and University programs, try

to address this problem by balancing movement, voice and mask
work with the principles and methods of realism. The question the
student must ask, then, is how well integrated are the classes in exter-
nal technique with the ones in internal technique? Often these classes
have little to do with one another and the actor leaves with many
separate skills that do not mesh.

Actor training is highly teacher-dependent. Most teachers have

the information about acting but not many are greatly gifted at com-
municating it. And ultimately, acting isn't about the information,
anyway. The teacher must communicate the madness of the art, the
passion for the craft, the excitement ofinspiration.

CONCLUSIONS 189
 There must be joy and hard work in it all. Stanislavski once said,
“A teacher who introduces an atmosphere of fear and trembling into
the studio...should not be allowed to teach in it.”! This is not to say
that the student should only be told positive things. Criticism and
sometimes shock are of great value in an acting class. But the student
must assess if he is being cowed and intimidated on a constant basis,
or if he is being inspired and brought forward. Unfortunately the
only way a student can gauge this is by being in the classroom with
the instructor. .

While an attempt is being made today to bring the body back

into acting, one wonders if this is happening just to attract students
and to stay competitive, or because there exists a real vision of what
an actor should be.

It is the personal opinion of this writer that there has never been,
and is not now, any consistent or agreed upon view in this country of
what an actor should be. When a teacher or director with a unique
vision does appear, his or her work runs through the acting commu-
nity like a fever, and then usually disappears. One thinks in this
regard of the Grotowski movement of the late 1960’s and early
1970's, of which there is today, little trace. One wonders if this same
fate will meet the work of Tadashi Suzuki.

Perhaps it is good that no single acting training curriculum

exists. If it did, the great variety of approaches might be narrowed
and the teaching of acting become petrified. And yet, one does feel
the need for some overarching passionate vision to which every actor
could dedicate himself. Where is such an articulate, inspiring and
clear view of the nature and purpose of acting? In the 1930's, Harold
Clurman provided it for the Group Theater.

Where is such a voice today?

Is it yours?

190 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 ENDNOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Plutarch, The Rise and Fall ofAthens: Nine Greek Lives, trans.
lan Scott-
Kilvert, Viking Penguin Inc., New York, 1960, p. 63.

CHAPTER 1
1. Quintilian, quoted by Joseph R. Loach, The Players Passion, University of
Michigan Press, 1993, p.24.
2. Aaron Hill quoted by Edwin Duerr in The Length and Depth of Acting,
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1962, p22.
3. Shawn, Ted. Every Little Movement, M. Witmark & Sons, N.Y., 1963,
p.16.
4. Stebbins, Genevieve. Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression, Edgar S.
Werner, N.Y., 1886, p.40.
38 Ibid 9. 118;
Oglbid.., p.229.
7. Ibid., pp.62-63.
8. Quoted by Ted Shawn in Every Little Movement, M. Witmark & Sons,
IN, 1963, p57-
9. James, William and Lange, Carl. The Emotions, Hafner Publishing Co.,
N.Y., 1967, p.13.
10. Stebbins, Genevieve. Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression, Edgar S.
Werner, N.Y., 1886, p.63.
Li Ubids, «pal1
12. Ibid., p.11.
13: Ibid., p.63:
14. Shawn, Ted. Every Little Movement, M. Witmark & Sons, N.Y., 1963,
p.18.
15. Denis Diderot quoted by Edwin Duerr in The Length and Depth of
Acting, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1962, p.265.
16. Luigi Riccoboni quoted by Edwin Duerr in The Length and Depth of
Acting, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1962, p.214.

@HAr TER?
1. Stanislavsky, Constantine. My Life In Art, translated by J.J. Robbins,
Little, Brown and Company, 1924.
ZNDid ep. 0.

1
 . Quoted by Christine Edwards in The Stanislavsky Heritage. New York
University Press, N.Y., 1965, pp.15-16.
4, Stanislavsky, Constantine. My Life In Art, translated by J.J. robbins,
Little, Brown and Company, 1924, p.88.
Sa bidiapa/6.
6. Ibid., p.90.
7. Ibid., p.158.
8. Ibid., p.184.
9. Ibid., p.182.
10. Ibid., p.182.
11. Magarshack, David. Stanislavsky A Life, Faber and Faber Ltd., London,
1986, p.152-3.
12. Ibid., p.155
13. Ibid., p.168
14. Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia. Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., p.22.
15. Stanislavsky, Constantine. An Actor Prepares. Translated by Elizabeth R.
Hapgood, Routledge / Theater Arts Books, NY, 1988, p.81.
16. Ibid., p.82.
17. Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia. Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., p.62.
18. Stanislavsky, Constantine. An Actor Prepares. Translated by Elizabeth R.
Hapgood, Routledge / Theater Arts Books, NY, 1988, p.164.
19. Ibid., p.185.
20. Plato, quoted in Actors On Acting. Edited by Toby Cole and Helen Krich
Chinoy, Crown Publishers, Inc., NY, 1970, p.7.
21. Based on information from Stanislavsky A Biography, by Jean Benedetti.
Routledge, NY, 1988, p.180.
22. Based on information from Method Or Madness, by Robert Lewis.
Samuel French, Inc., N.Y., 1986.
23. Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia. Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., p.239.

CHAPTER 3
1. Quoted in Daily Life In Russia under the Last Tsar, by Henri Troyat.
Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 1959, p.44.
ae In his book The Theater Event, author Timothy J. Wiles points out that
while Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood translates the phrase as, “living the
role,” the author and translator Burnet M. Hobgood more accurately
translates it as, “experiencing the role.” University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1980, pp.191-2.

192 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

3. Vakhtangov quoted by Nikolai Gorchakov in The Vakhtangov School of
Stage Art. Trans. by Ivanov-Mumijiev, edited by Phyl Griffith, Foreign
Languages Publishing House, Moscow, p.40.
4. Vakhtangov, Evgeni quoted in Directors On Directing, edited by Toby
Cole and Helen Chinoy, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1953, p.185.
5. Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavski Technique: Russia, Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., 1987, p.83.
6. Strasberg, Lee. Russian Notebook (1934), The Drama Review, Volume 17
Number 1(T-57), March, 1973, New York University, N.Y., p.110.
7. Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski, A Biography, Routledge, N.Y., 1988, p.249.
co .
Moore, Sonia. The Stanislavski System, Penguin Books, N.Y., 1965, p.102.
9. Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavski Technique: Russia, Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., 1987, p.121.
10. Chekhov, Michael, On The Technique of Acting, HarperCollins
Publishers, N.Y., p.26.
11. Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard. Translated by Ann Dunigan,
Signet-New American Library, 1964, p.315.
12. Chekhov, Michael. Lessons for the Professional Actor. Performing Arts
Journal Publications, N.Y., 1992, p.133
13. Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski ABiography, Routledge, N.Y., 1988, p.171.
14. Quoted in, The Film Factory-Rusian and Soviet Cinema in Documents
1896-1939. Edited and translated by Richard Taylor, coedited by Ian
Christie, Harvard University Press, Mass., 1988 p.69.
L5elbids,p.1 lo:
16. Duerr, Edwin. The Length and Depth of Acting. Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, N.Y., 1962, p.471.
17. From the March 1973 edition of The Drama Review, Volume 17
Number 1, Lee Strasberg’s Russian Notebook (1934), p.111.
18. Gordon, Mel. Meyerhold’s Biomechanics, in Acting (Re)Considered,
Edited by Phillip B. Zarrilli, Routledge, N.Y., 1995, p.95.
19. Braun, Edward, Meyerhold On Theater. Hill and Wang, N.Y., 1969, p.251.

CHAPTER 4
1. Garfield, David. A Players Place. MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, N.Y.,
L980; ps):
2. Hull, S. Loraine. Strasberg’s Method, Ox Bow Publishing, Inc., Conn.,
LOSS. Ll:
Review,
3. Willis, Ronald A. The American Lab Theater, in Tulane Drama
Volume 9, Number 1, Fall, 1964, p.113.
p.8.
4. Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama. Grove Weidendeld, N.Y., 1990,

ENDNOTES 193
5. Ibid., p.37.
6. Ibid., p.37.
7. Ibid., p.61.
8. Ibid., p.91.
9.Ibid., p.181. A quote from Robert Lewis.
10.Gray, Paul quoting Sanford Meisner in Tulane Drama Review volume 9
number 2, Winter, 1964, in an article entitled Stanislavski and America:
A Critical Chronology, p.35.
\

CHAPTER 5
1. Brando, Marlon. Brando, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Random House,
N.Y., 1994, p.85.
2. Strasberg quoted in an interview conducted by Richard Schechner in
Working With Live Material, from the Tulane Drama Review, volume 9,
number 1, Fall, 1964, p.121.
. Ibid., p.121.
. Ibid., p.121.
Oo
Hy

5. Hull, S. Loraine. Strasberg’ Method, Ox Bow Publishing, Inc., Conn.,

1985, pp.77-78.
6. Miller, Allan. A Passion For Acting, Back Stage Books, N.Y., 1992, p.122.
7. Strasberg quoted in an interview conducted by Richard Schechner in
Working With Live Material, from the Tulane Drama Review, volume 9,
number 1, Fall, 1964, p.132.
8. Robert Lewis quoted in Strasbergs Method by S. Loraine Hull, Ox Bow
Publishing, Inc.,Conn., 1985, p.96.

CHAPTER 6
. Adler, Stella, The Technique of Acting. Bantam Books, N.Y., 1988, pril.
. Ibid., p.16.
. Ibid., p.26.
VIbidiy piso;
elbidey p73
- Ibid., p.102.
. Ibid., p.103
wb
O&O
Wwe
SILA

CHAPTER 7
1. Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama, Grove Weidenfeld, N.Y., 1990, p.206,
concerning Meisner’s performance in Awake and Sing.
2. Gray, Paul. The Reality of Doing, Tulane Drama Review Volume 9, num-
ber 1, Fall, 1964, p.139.

194 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

3. Meisner, Sanford and Dennis Longwell, Sanford Meisner On Acting.
Random House, Inc. N.Y., 1987, pli.
. Ibid., p.15.
. Ibid, p59.
A.
WN
ON Silverberg, Larry. The Sanford Meisner Approach, Smith and Kraus, Lyme,
N.H., 1994, p.14.
Talbide; pel.
8. Ibid., p.51.
o . Ibid., p.52.
il0. Meisner, Sanford and Dennis Longwell. Sanford Meisner On Acting,
Random House, Inc., N.Y., 1987, p.40.
Te Mbid., p.78:.
12. Ibidsyp:138.
Ipalbidesp.115.
14. Ibid., p.73.

CHAPTER 9
1. Brecht, Bertold. Notes on Stanislavski, Quoted in Tulane Drama Review,
Volume 9, number 2, Winter, 1964, p. 159.
2. Brecht, Bertold quoted by Peter Brooker in Key Words in Brechts Theory
and Practice, from The Cambridge Companion To Brecht, edited by
Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks, Cambridge University Press, NY,
1994, p.197.
3. Weigel, Helene. quoted in Notes On Stanislavski, by Bertold Brecht in
Tulane Drama Review, Volume 9 number 2, Winter, 1964, p. 163.
4. Brecht, Bertold, Notes on Stanislavski. Quoted in Tulane Drama Review,
Volume 9, number 2, Winter, 1964, p. 159.
Sulbid),-pob59.
6. Brecht, Bertold, trans. and ed. by John Willet, Brecht On Theater, Hill
and Wang, N.Y. 1992, p: 235.

CHAPTER 10
1. Wiles, Timothy J. The Theater Event, University of Chicago Press, 1980,
p-139:
2. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards APoor Theater. Simon and Schuster, Inc., N.Y.,
1968, p.19.
dalbad.s pal 9:
4. Artaud, Antonin, quoted in The Theater Event by Timothy J. Wiles.
University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 136.

ENDNOTES 195
5. Wiles, Timothy J. The Theater Event. University of Chicago Press, 1980,
p. 46.
6. Artaud, Antonin. The Theater And Its Double, trans. Mary Caroline
Richards, Grove Press, N.Y., 1958, p.13.
7. Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards A Poor Theater, Simon and Schuster, Inc., N.Y.,
1968, p.121.
8. Ibidspal21,
9. Ibid., p.43.
10: Ibid:, p.d7-
11. Ibid., p.17
12. Ibid., p.233-34
13. Ibid., p.183.
14. I. Wayan Lendra quoting Dr. Robert Cohen in Bali and Grotowski, in
the book Acting (Re)Considered, edited by Phillip Zarrilli, Routledge,
ING Yed 9959 pl 37%
15. Richards, Thomas. At Work With Grotowski on Physical Actions,
Routledge, N.Y., 1995, p. 31.
16. Grotowski, Jerzy, At Work With Grotowski on Physical Actions, by
Thomas Richards, Routledge, NY, 1995, p.125.

CHAPTER 11
1. Suzuki, Tadashi. The Way of Acting, trans. J. Thomas Rimer, Theater
Communications Group, N.Y., 1986, p.71.
2. Suzuki, Tadashi. Culture is the Body, in Acting (Re)Considered, edited by
Phillip Zarrilli, Routledge, N.Y., 1995, p.155.
Sulbidt, pAl55}
4. Ibid., p.160.
5. Suzuki, Tadashi. The Way of Acting, trans. J. Thomas Rimer, Theater
Communications Group, N.Y., 1986, p.9.

CHAPTER 12
1. Marlon Brando, quoted by Brian Bates in The Way of the Actor,
Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, Mass., 1987, prllds

CONCLUSIONS
1. Constantine Stanislavski quoted by Davis Magarshack in Stanislavski on
the Art of the Stage, trans. David Magarshack, Faber and Faber, Limited,
Boston, Mass., 1950, p. 126.

196 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL ACTING
Bates, Brian. The Way of the Actor. Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston,
1987.
Callow, Simon. Being
An Actor. Grove Press, N.Y., 1984.
Cole, Toby and Helen Krich Chinoy, ed. Actors On Acting. Crown
Publishers, Inc., N.Y., 1970.
Duerr, Edwin. The Length and Breadth ofActing. Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, N.Y., 1962.
Lewis, Robert. Slings and Arrows—Theater In My Life. Stein and Day, N.Y.,
1984.
Meckler, Eva. The New Generation of Acting Teachers. Penguin Books, N.Y.,
1987.
Nagler, A.M. A Sourcebook In Theatrical History. Dover Publications, Inc.,
INGYeIS S25
Oida, Yoshi. An Actor Adrift. Methuen, London, 1994.
Roach, Joseph,R. The Players Passion. University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Wiles, Timothy, J. The Theater Event—Modern Theories ofPerformance.
University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Zarrilli, Phillip, ed. Acting (Re)Considered. Routledge, N.Y., 1995.

QUINTILIAN
Kennedy, George. Quintilian. Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1969.
Watson, Rev. Quintilian’ Institutes of Oratory: Or Education of an Orator.
Trans. John Selby, George Bell and Sons, N.Y., 1892.

AARON HILL
Hill, Aaron. The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, Esq. in Four Volumes, London,
Wisk»

PRANCOTS DELSARTLE
Shawn, Ted. Every Little Movement. Dance Horizons, Ince Neveu 954:
Stebbins, Genevieve. Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression. Edgar S.
Werner, N.Y., 1886.

CONSTANTINE STANISLAVSKI
Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski A Biography. Routledge, N.Y., 1988.
Boleslavsky, Richard, Acting— The First Six Lessons. Theater Arts Books,
NCY., 1991:

1D,
Edwards, Christine. The Stanislavsky Heritage. New York University Press,
N.Y., 1965.
Gordon, Mel. The Stanislavski Technique:Russia. Applause Theater Book
Publishers, N.Y., 1987.
Gorchakov, Nikolai M. Stanislavski Directs. Limelight Editions, N.Y., 1991.
Magarshack, David. Stanislavski, A Life. Faber and Faber, London, 1986.
Moore, Sonia. The Stanislavski System. Penguin Books, N.Y., 1979.
Stanislavski, Constantine. An Actor Prepares. Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood,
Routledge/Theater Arts Books, N.Y., 1936.
Stanislavski, Constantine. Building ACharacter. Trans. Elizabeth, R.
Hapgood, Theater Arts Books, N.Y., 1949.
Stanislavski, Constantine. CreatingA Role. Trans. Elizabeth R. Hapgood,
Theater Arts Books, N.Y., 1961.
Stanislavski, Constantine. My Life In Art. Trans. J.J. Robbins,
Routledge/Theater Arts Books, N.Y., 1994.
Stanislavski, Constantine. Stanislavski on the Art of the Stage. Trans. David
Magarshack, Faber and Faber Limited, London, 1980.
Troyat, Henri. Daily Life In Russia Under The Last Tsar. Stanford University
Press, Calif., 1979.

Periodicals
Tulane Drama Review, Stanislavski and America:1. Volume 9, Number 1,
Fall, 1964.
Tulane Drama Review, Stanislavski and America:2. Volume 9, Number 2,
Winter 1964.

EVGENI VAKHTANGOV
Gorchakoy, Nikolai. The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art. Trans. G. Ivanov-
Mumijiev, ed. Phyl Griffith, Foreign Languages Publishing House,
Moscow.
Simonovy, Ruben. Stanislavski’s Protégé: Eugene Vakhtangov. Trans. and adapted
by Miriam Goldina, DBS Publications, Inc., N.Y., 1969.

Periodicals
The Drama Review, Russian Issue. Volume 17 Number 2, School of the Arts,
New York University, March, 1973.

VSEVOLOD MEYERHOLD
Braun, Edward. Meyerhold On Theater. Hill and Wang, N.Y., 1969.

Periodicals
The Drama Review, Russian Issue. Volume 17 Number 2, School of the Arts,
New York University, March, 1973.

198 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

MICHAEL CHEKHOV
Chekhoy, Michael. On The Technique Of Acting. HarperCollins Publishers,
N.Y., 1991.
Chekhov, Michael, Lessons for the Professional Actor. Ed. Deidre Hurst Du
Prey, Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1992.

Pee GROUP THEATER

Clurman, Harold. All People Are Famous. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, N.Y. >

1974,
Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, N.Y.,
POs
Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama. Grove Weidenfeld,N.Y., 1990.

THE METHOD
Easty, Edward Dwight. On Method Acting. Ivy Books, N.Y., 1981
Garfield, David. A Players PLace. Macmillan Publishing, N.Y., 1980.
Hagen, Uta. A Challenge For The Actor. MacMillan Publishing Co., N.Y.,
Wile
Hagen, Uta. Respect For Acting, Macmillan Publishing Co., N.Y., 1973.
Hirsch, Foster. A Method To Their Madness. W.W. Norton and Compan,y.,
Inc., New York, 1984.
Lewis, Robert. Method—Or Madness’. Samuel French, Inc., N.Y., 1958.
Lewis, Robert. Advice to the Players. Theater Communications Group, N.Y.,
1980.
Manderino, Ned. All About Method Acting. Manderino Books, Calif., 1985
Miller, Alan. A Passion For Acting, Backstage Books, New York, 1992.
Vineberg, Steve. Method Actors. Schirmer Books, N.Y., 1991.

LEE STRASBERG
Hethmon, Robert. Strasberg at the Actor’ Studio. Viking Press, N.Y., 1965.
Hull, S. Loraine. Strasberg’s Method. Ox Bow Publishing, Inc., Conn., 1985.
Strasberg, Lee. A Dream ofPassion. Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1987.

Periodicals
Tulane Drama Review, Stanislavski and America. Volume 9 Number 1, Fall,
1964.

SHE PARA DI BR:

Adler, Stella. The Technique of Acting. Bantam Books, N.Y., 1988.

Periodicals
Tulane Drama Review, Stanislavski and America. Volume 9 Number 1, Fall,
1964.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 199
SANFORD MEISNER
Meisner, Sanford and Longwell, Dennis. Sanford Meisner On Acting.
Random House, Inc., 1987.
Silverberg, Larry. The Sanford Meisner Approach. Smith and Kraus Inc., New
Hampshire, 1994.

Videotape
Sanford Meisner: The Theater’ Best Kept Secret, produced by Kent Paul and
directed by Sydney Pollack. ,

IMPROVISATION
Boal, Augusto. The Theater of the Oppressed. Theatre Communications
Group, N.Y., 1985.
Boal, Augusto. The Rainbow of Desire. Routledge, N.Y., 1995.
Coleman, Janet. The Compass. Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y., 1990.
Johnstone, Keith. /mpro. Routledge Press, N.Y., 1981-1987.
Rudlin, John. Commedia dell’Arte. Routledge, N.Y., 1994.
Spolin, Viola. Improvisation For The Theater. Northwestern University Press,
E33.
Spolin, Viola. Theater Games For Rehearsal: A Director’s Handbook.
Northwestern University Press, 1985.
Spolin, Viola. Theater Games For The Classroom: A Teacher’ Handbook.
Northwestern University Press, 1986.
Spolin, Viola. Theater Game File. Northwestern University Press, 1989.
Sweet, Jeffrey. Something Wonderful Right Away. Limelight Editions, 1987.
Yakim, Moni. Creating A Character. Applause Books, N.Y., 1993.

BERTOUD BREGH?
Hayman, Ronald. Brecht: A Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London,
195833}.
Thomson, Peter and Sacks, Glendyr, ed., The Cambridge Companion To
Brecht, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Willett, John, trans. and editor, Brecht On Theater, Hill and Wang, N.Y.,
1992:
See also under General Acting: The Theater Event

Periodicals
Tulane Drama Review, Stanislavski and America: 2, Volume 9 number 2,
Winter, 1964.
The Drama Review, Bertold Brecht, Volume 12 Number 1, Fall 1967.

200 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

JERZY GROTOWSKI
Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards APoor Theater. Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 1968.
Kumiega, Jennifer. The Theatre of Grotowski. Methuen, London, 1987.
Richards, Thomas. At Work With Grotowski on Physical Actions. Routledge,
INDAG 01995
See also under General Acting: The Theater Event, Acting (Re)Considered

TADASHT SUZUKI
Suzuki, Tadashi. The Way of Acting. Trans. J. Thomas Rimer, Theater
Communications Group, N.Y., 1986.
See also under General Acting: Acting (Re) Considered

BIBLIOGRAPHY 201
 VIDEO BIBLIOGRAPHY

AD Rees) ean eA
Shadow of the Thin Man, 1941, directed by W.S. Van Dyke Il.
My Girl Tisa, 1948, directed by Elliott Nugent.

ARTAUD, ANTONIN
Napoléon, 1927, directed by Abel Gance.
The Passion ofJoan of Arc, 1928, directed by Carl Dreyer.’

CHERHOY, MICHAEL
Spellbound, 1945, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

LEWIS, ROBERT
Dragon Seed, 1944, directed by Jack Conway.
Monsieur Verdoux, 1947, directed by Charlie Chaplin.

MEISNER, SANFORD
The Story On Page One, 1959, directed by Clifford Odets.
Sandy Meisner: The Theater’ Best Kept Secret, directed by SydneyPollack.

OUSPENSKAYAy MARTA
Dodsworth, 1936, directed by, William Wyler.
Beyond Tomorrow, 1940, directed by A. Edward Sutherland.

STRASBERG, LEE
The Godfather Part II, 1974, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
The Cassandra Crossing, 1976, directed by George P. Cosmatos.
...And Justice For All, 1979, directed by Norman Jewison.
Going In Style, 1979, directed by Martin Brest.

202 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 INDEX

actions, 28, 43-44, 47-51, 55-58, Balinese dancers, 156, 163

GIT 65, (ie 75. Ol 8>,,67-09, beats, 81, 137
OS}. IMOSTL SIS, WOO) Ras %. Beck, Julian, 161
NYS, WAT WO). SHS WAR, TAG, Beckett, Samuel, 173
SOM SZ sel lGyey Los Berliner Ensemble, 147-148, 151-
Ieteyok, Itsy! 152
activities, 123 Berlioz, Hector, 10
Actor Prepares, An, 110, 198 Berry, Cicely, 172, 180
Actor’s Equity, 172-173 Biomechanics, 71-72, 74
Actor’s Studio, xii, 66, 86, 93-94, black bile, 2-3
NS); WOVE, WWVARIIWGs ISO), 7Zil5 PAS Bible, The, 148
adaptation, 55 Big Knife, The \78
adjustment, 61, 80-81, 135 Boal, Augusto, 15, 200
Adler, Jacob, 83, 117 Bogart, Anne, 175
Adler, Luther, 91 Boleslavsky, Richard, 78-79, 80-81,
Adler, Sara, 117 88795, 117, 197
Adler, Stella, xii, 83, 86-94, 111, Brando, Marlon, 93-94, 117, 138,
0172105, 127-129, 134, 137-138, 169
171, 183, 199 Brecht, Bertold, 75, 91, 147-153,
Aeschelus, 173 155-156, 163-164, 169-170, 189;
affective memory, 80-81, 85, 88-89, 200-201
Mihi, Vig IOI Ss Walks 4s} Bromberg,J.Edward, 83
Abe PS, Brook, Peter, 162
Akalaitis, JoAnn, 178 Brustein, Robert, 173
Akropolis, 161 Biichner, Georg, 148
Alexander Technique, 172-173, BuildingA Character, 110, 198
176-177, 179-180, 186 Burgess, Hovey, 180
alienation, 149 Burstyn, Ellen, 176
American Lab Theater, 78-79, 81,
83-84, 108, 117
American Repertory Theater, 173 Calder, Jim, 180
anget,2-3;7,.9; 11 Carnovsky, Morris, 83, 86, 91-92,
animal, 80, 108-110, 124, 160 118
Apocalypsis cum figuris, 161 Chaikin, Joseph, 161
Art of Acting: An Essay, The, 7 Chairs, The, 154
Artaud, Antonin, 155-158, 161, Chaplin, Charlie, 148
165,175 Challengefor the Actor, A, 176
Awake And Sing, 90-91, 128 characterization, 60, 65, 70, 81,108-
109.115, 123-124 164, 172, 182

203
Chekhov, Anton, 25, 59, 63-64, 84, Dean, James, 8
92, 164-165, 173, 184 decomposing exercises, 12, 27, 30
Chekhov, Michael, 63-67, 70, 75, Delsarte, Francois, 10-13, 15, 17,
91,129, 135, 151, 156, 164; 22.27.3023 147-48, J5,90,
issih. WON) 119, 128, 167,188-189, 197
Cherry Orchard, The, 64, 78, 84 De Niro, Robert, 138
Choleric, 2-3 Dialectical Theater, 148
Chrystie Street Settlement House, Diderot, Denis, 15
79, 84 Don Quixote, 65
circle of attention, 32-33 Dr. Faustus, 161 »
circumstances, 28, 37-44, 46-49, 51- Dreyer, Carl, 157,202
52, 54-55, 57-58, 61, 64-65, 80- Dukakis, Olympia, 180
81, 85, 89-90, 101, 110-111, Durang, Christopher, 178
1US)5 USS WAO SYA WONG IA, Duse Elenora, 27
129-130, 133-137, 146, 150, Duvall, Robert, 138
167, 1/6183. 1am, 137
Civic Repertory Theater, 78
Clurman, Harold, 82-84, 86-87, earth, 2-3
90,92; 128,.175; 190 Eikenberry, Jill, 187
Cobb, Lee J., 109 Einstein, Albert, 69
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 149 Eisenstein, Sergei 75
Commedia del’ arte, 69-70, 175 emotion memory, 51-52, 57, 63-64,
communion, 53, 89, 129, 134, 142, - 80, 86, 88, 90, 95, 113, 118, 176
155.15 sl Gl, Ve eal70 Epic Theater, 148
Compass Theater, 139, 179 Epstein, Alvin, 173
concentration, 22, 27-28, 31-35, 42, Erik XIV, 63
57, 80; 84, 87, 91, 97, 99-102, Esterman, Laura, 176
NOD NOS I24 S32 154. 164
166, 170-171, 176
Constant Prince, The 161 Farmer, Francis, 86
Constructivism, 69 fear, 7
Copeau, Jacques, 82, 175, 177 Feldenkrais, 179, 186
Cordle, Dan, 180 fire, 2-3
Cornell, Katherine, 77 Fichandler, Zelda, 180
Country Girl, The, 176 Fleck, Charlotte, 180
Craig, Gordon, 95-96, 116 Fo, Dario, 153
Crawford, Cheryl, 82, 86-87, 91, 94 Forum Theater, 153
CreatingA Role, 110-111 four basic elements, 2
four humours, 2-3, 8
French, Arthur, 176
Damrosch Institute of Music, 128 Freud, Sigmund, 56, 69
Darwin, Charles, 69

204 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 Garfield, John (Jules), 86 industrialism, 69
Garrick, David, xi, 21, 189 inner action, 44
Gance, Abel, 157, 202 inner tempo-rhythm, 57
Gentlewoman, 88 Inspector General, 63
gests, 152 inspiration, 51
gestus 151, 156 intention, 74, 81, 185
Gogol, Nikolai, 63 lonesco, Eugene, 154
Golden Boy, 91
Green, Paul, 82
grief, 7, 9 Jackson, Ann, 176
Grotowski, Jerzy, 75, 154-55, 157- jealousy, 7, 9
159, 161-164, 169, 189-190, 201 joy, 7-8
Group Theater, 62, 66, 82-85, 87- Justification, 61-63, 123, 126-127,
D294 ANIA IS tie ells, 198" 183
WD), Wks 533, WSO), 1S)

Kabuki, 69
Kadar, Jan, 78
Hagen, Uta, 176, 199
Kahn, Michael, 177-178
Hamlet, 37-38, 42-43, 50
Kass, Peter, 180
hatred, 7, 9
Kathakali, 154, 164
Hawn, Goldie, 8
Kazan, Elia, 86, 91-94, 138, 178
Hayes, Helen, 77
Keats, John, 9, 28
HB Studios, 176
King Lear, 165
Hecht, Deborah, 180
Knight, David, 184
Hickey, William, 176
knock on the door, 131
ul weAaron/-9, 11.17, 21,27, 47,
Toy 189, 197
Hitchcock, Alfred, 67 Lan-fang, Mei, 148
House of Connelly, The, 82, 85, 87 lazzi, 70
Houseman, John, 177 Le Gallienne, Eva, 78, 176
Humour, 2-3 Lessac, Arthur, 173
Hunt, Robyn, v, 185 Levin, Charles, 173
Lewes, George Henry, 15
Lewis, Robert, 70, 83, 86, 90, 92,
Ibsen, Henrik, 25 947113;.128) 187, 197, 199
Illinois Repertory Theater, 184 Lincoln Center, 66
imagination, 18, 35-38, 42, 44, 49, Linklater, Kristin, 172-174, 176,
51, 57-58, 62-65, 84, 86, 91, 180, 185
100-101,108, 110, 118, 120, Living Theater, 161
1260127, 135,046, 1725076; Lower Depths, The, 78
180 loves 7519
Imperial Dramatic School, 21, 75 Lunt, Alfred, 77

INDEX 205
Mackaye, Steele, 12-15 Nichols, Mike, 179
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 25 Nicholson, Jack, 8
magic if, 36-37, 42, 57, 80, 120, nodes, 149
136 Noh Theater, 69, 163
Majestic Theater, 90 Norman, Marsha, 178
Marat, 157
Marx Brothers, 157
Marx, Karl, 69, 149 object of attention, 32-34, 56, 105
Meisner, Sanford, 83, 86, 90-92, objective, 48-52, 55-58, 64, 74, 115,
12821305133; 135-138, 142, 37, WAG, NGPA, WHO, Wy
IW NW/G 2008202 Objective Drama Project 161
Melancholic, 2-3 obstacles, 137, 167
Men In White, 87 Ode On A Grecian Urn, 28
Method of Psycho-Physical Actions, Odets, Clifford, 83, 90-92
Si, Ce, ILL,
We? O’Neill, Eugene, 77-78
Method Or Madness, 66, 199 Open Theater, 161
Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 68-71, 73-75, Othello 17, 27, 68, 176
147, 149) 154.1635 175089, Ouspenskaya, Maria 78-81, 88, 95,
198 OSA 02
Miller, Allan, 109 outer tempo-rhythm, 57
Miller, Arthur, 109 overall action, 123
mind, 32
Miss Saigon, 150
Month In The Country, A , 28 paraphrasing, 129
Moriarty, Michael, 66-67 particularization, 136-137,
Morrison, George, 179 Passion ofJoan of Arc, 157, 202
Morrison, Malcolm, 186 Pavlov, Ivan, 69, 71, 111
Moscow Art Theater (MAT), 23-26, Pearson, Steven, 185
28, 59-61, 63, 67-68, 77-79, 82, Peking Opera, 163
90592, 95 9os Pendleton, Austin, 176
Mother Courage, 151 phlegm, 2-3
Mrs. Klein, 176 Phlegmatic, 3
My Life In Art, 17 Picasso, Pablo, 68
pity, 7-9
plastiques, 158
Napoleon, 157 Plato, 50
Naturalism, 26 Popova, L., 69
Neighborhood Playhouse, 77, 129 preceding incident, 124
Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir, preparation, 136-137
22729; 59; O8F 92 private moment, 105-107, 115
New School For Social Research, 93 Provincetown Players, 83
Newton, Sir Isaac, 69 Provincetown Playhouse, 77

206 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

Pryce, Jonathan, 150 Shapiro, Mel, 66
psychological gesture, 66-67, 151, 156 Shchepkin, Mikhail, 19-20, 22
Psychology of the Emotions, 52, 80 Shooting the Bow, 72-73
public solitude, 34, 42,57, 105, 134 Shop On Main Street, The, 78
Siakuntala, 154
Sills, Paul, 139, 179
Ouintilian, 4-9 2027-15; 17, 2175s
Skinner, Edith, 180
113; 156; 169, 189
Slavic Bazaar, 22
Solon, ix-x
Rappaport, 129 Spellbound, 67
Raether, Richard, 181 Spolin, Viola, 121, 139-140, 146,
reality of doing, 131 176, 179,200
realization, 74 Stanislavski, Constantine, xiii, 12,
red blood, 2-3 16-28, 30-32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 44,
Refusal of the Action, (Meyerhold), 48, 50-63, 67-69, 74-75, 78-82,
74 84, 87-92, 94-96, 99-100, 105,
relaxation, 12, 27-31, 33, 42, 57, LOS ICA eS =A SIO
80996-97599 [10 Osea Oz OF 122-123 127 OO woae 6 39.
140, 167, 171 [4D TAG 148eal> Olin? aloo:
Respect for Acting, 176, 199 157, 161-165, 1673 1695171;
Resurrection, 176 1732176, 1795-181, 184-185,
Rhetoric, 4 187, 189-190, 197-198
Ribot, Théodule, 52, 80 Strasberg, Lee, xi, 62, 79-100, 105,
Riccoboni, Luigi, 15 OB, WiLL, WS, IAS ANG, Wake
Richard The Third, 66 TP), 123%, WR, IBID, WS Sik.
RMS Majestic, 77 Ale WOW 1/879 OS,
Rosato, Mary Lou, 180 Stoddard, Eunice, 83
Story Theater, 179
strategies, 137
Salvini, Tomasso, 27
Stravinski, Igor, 68
Sanguine, 3
Streep, Meryl, 187
SCOLM ao)
Strindberg, August, 63
Seagull, The, 25, 68,
Stritch, Elaine, 183
Second City, 139
subconscious, 51
sense memory, 34-35, 52, 57, 64, 80,
subtext, 54, 183
84, 90, 100-105, 108, 111-112,
Sudakov, 129
114.120, 143,17 ly 764178
super-objective, 50-51, 81, 95, 110
sense of truth, 7, 37, 46, 57, 125, 177
Sussel, Deborah, 172
Serban, Andrei, 175 Suzuki, Tadashi, xiii, 70, 163-165,
Shakespeare, William, 17, 25, 4,
NGP-NGS, N70), 2, WHS WSS
66, 86, 138, 164-165, 167, 173, 180, 185, 189-190, 201
176-177, 183-184, 187

INDEX 207
Wan cau, 73) Weigel, Helene, 151
Taylor, Frederick, 70 Weill, Kurt, 91
tempo rhythm, 55-57, 80, 109, 124 Welles, Orson, 173
Theater of Cruelty, 156, 157 Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf°,176
Theater Games, 121, 139, 141, Wideman, Beverly, 180
146, 176, 180 Wilson, Elizabeth, 176
Theater Guild, 78, 83, 128 Winkler, Henry, 187
The Poor Theater 155 wonder, 7, 9
Theater of Sources, 162 word repetition game, 131
Theater of Thirteen Rows, 154 Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski, 162
Thespis, ix, 29-37, 38-40, 42-49, Wright, Amy, 176
syleaie Wright, Nicholas, 176
‘Tone, Franchot, 83
Three Sisters, The, 68
Through-line-of-action, 51, 123 Yale Repertoy Theater, 187
Trigorin, 25, Yale School of Drama, 172-173,
Trojan Women, The, 166-167 187
Tsar Fyodor, 24, 78 yellow bile, 2-3
Turgeney, Ivan, 28 Yount, Shane Ann, 180
Twelfth Night, 62

Zeus, 16
Uber-marionette, 95-96

V-effect, 149-150
Vakhtangov, Evgeni, 60-63, 67, 74-
75, 79-81, 84, 87, 90, 94-95,
WAS), WAS, WBS, SIS, 7S, 1S)
198
Verfremdung, 149, 153
Vertov, Dziga, 69, 148
visualization, 65

Waiting For Godot, 173

Waiting For Lefty, 90-91, 153
Walker, Jewell, 165
Washington Square Players, 77-78
water, 2-3
Weaver, Sigourney, 187
Wedekind, Frank, 148

208 GREAT ACTING TEACHERS AND THEIR METHODS

 ier
\.
 MUNITY COLLEGE

GhEAT / Tl Ii
}
Drama/Film/
Literature '

“and Their Methods

Ask any great actor how it happened and

you will hear about a great acting teacher.

The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods

explores the acting theories and teaching
atch dacelelMe)maat-Mela-t-1mic-r-(aal-le-Me) m-lat]
olepee
among them Stanislavski, Adler, Meyerhold,
Richard Brestoff Strasberg, Meisner, Brecht, Grotowski and
Suzuki. 3 :

‘Each chapter includes a sample class, which

gives the reader a feel for how thedifferent
teachers accomplished their objectives, and
thereby Yo TUT) omdat-me-t-(e (1amve) choose among
them.

And iTa FYeleliite) ae this book takes a look .

at some of the premiere actor Lde-Tial
are|
“institutions in the United States and
assesses what is being taught there today.

ISBN-10: 1-57525-012-8
A Smith and ISBN-13: 978-1-57525-012-0
Kraus Book

IM il
| 51695
$16.95
. Printed in USA
|
x 9 WN 250120
_ Cover and text.
é oe by Julia Hill-