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Handbook of Acting Techniques
Edited by Arthur Bartow
Nick Hern Books £12 99
282 pages
Dateline: 2nd November, 2008
For anybody that wishes to get an overview of American acting theory
in the last century, this book is a must.
While the intended market is almost certainly geared towards students,
their teachers and possibly actors, for the most part, these ten chapters
summarising the methods of the major players in the field are accessible
enough to be worth recommending to the general reader.
The connection between many of the writers is explained by the identity
of the editor, Arthur Bartow who was chair and artistic director of
the drama department at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Many of the experts upon whom he has called for explanations of different
techniques are former colleagues.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this book is the variety of means
by which tutors and directors believe that trainees can be turned into
actors and performers into better actors. Pretty much everything under
the sun, apart from praying to that golden disc itself, has not only
been tried but sold to others as an infallible technique.
Indeed, on the basis of Danish practitioner Per Brahe's chapter going
Beyond Michael Chekhov Technique, which delves deeply into the mystical
with the help of oriental masks, seemingly ignoring the kind of principles
propagated by almost everybody else, maybe a few minutes of worship
towards Ra could be beneficial to desperate wannabes.
For the most part, the book is split into two different categories.
Some writers choose to give an overview of their subjects putting the
technique into historical context, while giving an overview of the methodology
and anticipated results. Others, such as Victoria Hart writing about
Sandford Meisner's Technique, treat this as an opportunity to give a
detailed step by step masterclass, in her case running through a full
two-year programme.
The daddy of them all (in these terms Stanislavsky was the grandfather)
was Lee Strasberg whose technique is explained by his granddaughter,
Anna Strasberg. His Method, which failed to catch on in the 1930s but
returned with a vengeance twenty years later, was influential on at
least one generation of actors including such stars as Marlon Brando
and Marilyn Monroe. His major contribution came in the middle of the
20th century and then trickled down through other gurus so that elements
of the Method are still used to great benefit today.
Most of the subsequent chapters of this book show Strasberg's successors
either adapting the Method, actively rebelling against it or, in some
cases, doing both pretty much at the same time.
The chapter that bucks the easy reading rule is Mary Overlie's commentary
on The Six Viewpoints, which must presumably make more sense to a practitioner
who understands her convoluted language and the unorthodox concepts
that it appears to propagate than to this reader.
Those that make the greatest impression on this non-acting reviewer,
in addition to the great Strasberg, were perhaps led by those of Stella
Adler, who came from a great tradition of Yiddish theatre and believed
in a technique that got as close as possible to combining individual
actor's own experience with their portrayal of characters on stage,
promoting self-improvement as far more important than almost any other
factor.
The Handbook ends with three really cracking chapters. The first expertly
dissects Practical Aesthetics, the method developed by David Mamet and
taught at the school attached to his Atlantic Theatre. This is followed
by Fritz Ertzl's fascinating explanation of Interdisciplinary Training,
the idea that in order to create a rounded actor, it is necessary to
them to experience, at least briefly, what it is like to direct. Not
only can actors learn a great deal from this chapter, it is simple to
understand and insightful for the general reader too.
The last chapter goes back in time and looks at Neo-Classical Training
with particular reference to acting in the plays of Shakespeare and
his contemporaries. This final contrasting mix nicely sums up the nature
of the Handbook of Acting Techniques.
Arthur Bartow has commissioned a welcome book that will allow British
readers to understand better the ways in which American actors learn
their trade.
Philip Fisher
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