I’m posting something from my doctoral thesis, “Techniques for Training Creativity Specific to the Art of Acting”. There are a few things about The Method and Lee Strasberg that are still interesting today, I think.
LEE STRASBERG
3.1 The Emergence of the Method, Its Approach and General Principles
The first and best-known method derived from Stanislavski’s System is Lee Strasberg’s own “Method”.
I believe it is important to clarify how Stanislavski’s theories made their way to America, in order to try to understand how accurate the information received by those who developed personal versions and their own interpretations of the Stanislavski System actually was.
Richard Boleslavski, a former student of Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre, left Russia following the October Revolution and arrived in New York in 1920. In 1923, the year of Stanislavski’s American tour, he met his former colleagues again. Given the success of the Moscow Art Theatre ensemble, he began giving readings from Stanislavski’s writings in the United States, translating passages from Russian into English.
In 1924, Stanislavski’s company returned to America. By then, Boleslavski had already opened the American Laboratory Theatre. He invited Maria Ouspenskaya, another member of Stanislavski’s company, to teach at the Laboratory. She accepted and remained in America. Among the Laboratory’s first students were Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.
The year 1924 is important for understanding subsequent developments, particularly the future relationship between Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. It was the year when Stanislavski’s System began to be taught in America.
Creating a Role, Stanislavski’s last book, was first published in Russian in 1957 and only appeared in English in 1961. In 1934, Stella Adler studied intensively with Stanislavski in Paris for five weeks. During this time, she learned directly from him that he had abandoned the theory of affective memory, that the System had been revised, and that the emphasis was now on physical action and the power of imagination. Upon returning to America, Adler broke with Strasberg, accusing him of failing to teach Stanislavski properly.
Returning to Lee Strasberg, he developed, starting from Stanislavski’s System, what he would call the “Strasberg Method”, which over the course of recent history became known simply as “The Method”.
In this chapter, we will analyse the basic principles of Lee Strasberg’s Method and attempt to discover to what extent his training techniques can develop the actor’s creativity.
In examining Lee Strasberg as a figure, we will move beyond the narrative of his development within the Stanislavski System and his subsequent departure from it. The differences between the System and the Method will be analysed in a separate chapter.
Stanislavski’s theories will be approached from the perspective of his disciples and their interpretations, because we believe that the final period of Stanislavski’s life represents the synthesis of his work. Since our theoretical basis for this reconsideration of the art of acting rests only on his last book, Creating a Role, and Maria Knebel’s book (Analysis Through Action), our references to Stanislavski will rely strictly on reinterpretations of his work by those who had direct, personal access to it. These were theatre educators who met him and came into direct contact with his theories during this final period of revision and development of the System. Among the guides we will allow to lead us on this journey are important figures such as Maria Knebel, Sonia Moore and Stella Adler.
Although this chapter is dedicated to Strasberg and the Method, references to Stanislavski’s System are necessary, given that figures such as Sonia Moore and Stella Adler rejected Strasberg and what both maintained was his mistaken understanding of the Stanislavski System.
Stella Adler’s views on this subject are already legendary. Less well known are the statements made by Sonia Moore, who was with Stanislavski during his final years. Arriving in America in the 1940s, Sonia Moore founded the American Stanislavski Center and, in the 1960s, publicly expressed her view that Lee Strasberg, through his acting exercise entitled “Private Moment”, committed “an offence against Stanislavski’s name and human privacy”.²²
We consider it important to examine the theories behind Strasberg’s Method without comparing his Method in any way with Stanislavski’s System or with the other techniques that emerged following the introduction of Stanislavski’s teachings. What interests us is understanding the principles of Lee Strasberg’s Method and discovering how the creativity specific to the art of acting is developed through the use of the Method.
By focusing strictly on how Strasberg views the art of acting, in the following chapter we will set aside the narrative of his professional life and refocus our examination on the pedagogical product known as “The Method”.
“The human being has an extraordinary capacity and can be trained. While other arts use different materials for expression, such as words, notes or colours (…) the actor himself is the instrument of our expression and requires special care, like a rare Stradivarius.”²³
This is how the book edited by Lola Cohen opens, a book based on recordings of the classes Strasberg taught at the Actor’s Unit. One of the principles established by the Method concerns the actor’s continuous training and development, day after day, under the guidance of a teacher.
He returns to this subject obsessively in his classes, and his approach in this respect resembles that of a coach working with elite athletes. From his point of view, however experienced an actor may be, if he does not train daily, he will not only fail to progress but will also get out of shape:
“Our training encourages creativity, which is the most important material that art can use (…) When the actor stops training, he merely imitates what has already been done.”
From Strasberg’s pedagogical perspective, imitating what has already been done is an act that stands in direct opposition to creativity. The emphasis on the degree of novelty and on the discoveries the actor makes through his art forms the central foundation upon which Strasberg builds his approach to the Method.
Daily training and the encouragement of personal creativity are constants in his pedagogy. The sets of exercises proposed by the Method are intended to maintain and refine, day by day, the sensitivity of the actor’s instrument, and to discover, accept and gain control over its emotional component.
In the introduction to The Lee Strasberg Notes, Lola Cohen, who edited the material selected from hundreds of hours of video and audio recordings, explains the three guiding requirements behind her editorial work:
- To preserve the structure of the four-hour class as Strasberg normally taught it: two hours of relaxation and sense memory exercises, followed by another two hours of practical work on texts, scenes and characters.
- Another criterion in selecting the material was to choose the passages that most faithfully reflected the essence of the ideas and theories concerning the art of acting and the Method.
- Lola Cohen’s third aim was to capture Lee Strasberg’s personality as a teacher in as much detail as possible.
Before moving on to analyse Strasberg’s theories from the perspective of the actor’s creativity, we must pay attention to the definition of the word “Acting” that he wrote for Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1957, a definition that replaced Stanislavski’s text.
“Acting can only be understood once it is recognised as a creative medium that requires a creative act.”
In his article for Encyclopaedia Britannica, Strasberg continues:
“When acting is recognised as a creative art, this inevitably leads to a search for resources that can stimulate the actor’s imagination and sensitivity.”
In the same article, Strasberg also addresses the perennial question of whether the actor’s work is interpretative or creative. His final view is that, as long as the actor’s work does not imitate something that has already been done, the resulting work is creative.
References and Notes
²² Moore, Sonia, Training an Actor: The Stanislavsky System in Class, Viking, New York, 1968, pp. 40–41.
²³ Cohen, Lola, The Lee Strasberg Notes, Routledge, New York, 2010, p. 1.