LEE STRASBERG

THE METHOD
An Acting Methodology

LEE STRASBERG
(1901 - 1982)

Crawford), Johnny Johnson, Sidney Kingsley's Men in White (which won the
Pulitzer Prize), Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column, and Clifford Odets
Clash By Night.

Lee Strasberg is recognized throughout the world as having produced three

In 1949, Lee Strasberg joined the Actor's Studio in New York and within a

generations of actors, playwrights and directors and due to his phenomenal

year became the Artistic Director, spawning two more generations of actors,

legacy the influence of his teachings continues to flourish today.

directors, and playwrights. The list of actors who have studied under Lee
Strasberg's tutelage is staggering (to name a few like Geraldine Page, Paul

The internationally renowned director, producer, actor, teacher, lecturer,

Newman, Al Pacino, Kim Stanley, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, James Dean,

coach, and writer was born in Budanov, Austria-Hungary on November 17,

Dustin Hoffman, Eli Wallach, Eva Marie Saint, Robert DeNiro, Jill Clayburgh,

1901, the son of Ida and Baruch Meyer Strasberg. Lee Strasberg began his

Jack Nicholson, and Steve McQueen).

preparation for the stage with Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya at
the American Laboratory Theatre in New York City.

Among his prestigious contributions to European theatre, Lee Strasberg

conducted an International Seminar on Acting at the Spoleto Festival of Two

Lee Strasberg made his professional acting debut in 1924, as the First Soldier

Worlds (1962), represented the American Theatre at the Stanislavski

in Processional, a Theatre Guild production which opened at New York's

Centennial held in Moscow (1963) and lectured on the Stanislavski Method of

Garrick Theatre. Lee Strasberg also served as stage manager for the Guild's

acting in Paris (1967). He held seminars in Argentina and his renowned

production of The Guardsmen, starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne,

seminar held in Buchem, Germany, carefully chronicled, is still today one of

followed by more stage roles in such Theatre Guild presentations as The

the most sought-after references on acting in that country.

Garrick Gaieties, Goat Song, and Green Grow the Lilacs.

In the United States, Lee Strasberg lectured at Harvard, Brown (where there is
In 1931, Lee Strasberg co-founded the now-legendary Group Theatre. As co-

a small theatre which bears his name), Tulane, Yale, UCLA, Brandeis,

founder, he was able to aid in the development of such distinguished artists as

Minnesota and Northwestern Universities. And because his influence on

Elia Kazan, John Garfield, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Franchot Tone, and

modern acting and directing techniques, as espoused at the Actor's Studio, has

Robert Lewis. There, he supervised the Studio's productions of Marathon '33,

had a profound worldwide effect, Lee Strasberg was the recipient of an

Baby Want a Kiss, and Blues for Mr. Charlie. For the next twenty years he directed

honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Florida.

dozens of original plays and classics for the Group Theatre, including the
revivals of Strange Interlude and The Three Sisters, and other such outstanding

Early in 1966, a West Coast branch of the Actor's Studio was established in

Group Theatre productions as The House of Connelly (co-directed with Cheryl

Los Angeles and three years later, The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute was

created in New York and then in Los Angeles, in order to make Strasberg's

greatest ambitions was to play the life of Albert Einstein - "During his latter

work (previously confined to the Studio) available to a wider public. As part of

years, of course."

that endeavor, Lee Strasberg also organized study units for teenagers and nonactors to stimulate and train the development of the creative faculties in young

Lee Strasberg was a frequent contributor to publications, including books,

people. Hence, a Young People's Program was established for this purpose.

magazines, newspapers and reference works. Lee Strasberg was the only acting
teacher ever invited to write about acting, directing and production for the

With the demise of the major studios' system of contract players (and the

Encyclopedia Britannica. His own book, published by Little Brown, and titled

massive publicity efforts that constantly touted them), Strasberg emphasized

A Dream of Passion, has been printed in nine languages and is available in hard

that "the Hollywood actor can't just be a name anymore...he must be an

copy as well as paperback editions, as is his Strasberg at the Actor's Studio. Lee

ACTOR. And because today's production budgets allow for less rehearsal time

Strasberg's book on directing is now being edited. The vast video collection of

and re-takes, the need for training is more essential than ever."

Mr. Lee Strasberg's work as teacher, director and actor are currently being
cataloged for future study.

Lee Strasberg did a bit of acting himself -- most notably, perhaps, with his
Academy Award nominated performance in The Godfather: Part II. Lee
Strasberg can also be seen in the film Skokie with Danny Kaye, a true story in
which he played a Republican contributor who withdraws from the American
Civil Liberties Union for defending the Nazi's right to march. He also played a
major role in the all-star film, Cassandra Crossing and his television acting debut
was in an ABC Movie-of-the-Week, The Last Tenant. The latter has Lee
Strasberg starring as an elderly Italian who, on the verge of senility, returns to
the old house he shared with his now deceased wife. Boardwalk also co-starred
Lee Strasberg, this time with Ruth Gordon, as a husband and wife in a study of
changing neighborhoods and the problems of being senior citizens in a jungle
society.
"Acting is relaxation for me. I enjoy it more than directing or teaching because
I don't have to argue with myself," quipped Lee Strasberg, adding humorously:
"I understand what the director wants more than he does himself." One of his

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isfaction at his inability to achieve the desired results of

expression, especially in classicalplays. His outstanding
student Eugene Vakhtangov, while making use of his
master's procedures, had already revised some of Stanis'
lavsky's formulations. These changeshelped Vakhtangov
achieve the startling and highly theatrical results upon
which his fame rests.
My understanding of Stanislavsky'swork had come
through the representation of his ideas which I first
received at the Laboratory Theatre. Through my teachers
there, Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky, I
learned the principles of the Stanislavskysystem.
I have often been askedwhat the relation is between the
"stanislavsky system" and what is commonly called "the
Method." I have alwaysstated simply that the Method was
basedon the principles and procedures of the Stanislavsky
system.I began to use these principles in the early thirties,
training and working with young actors in the Group
Theatre, and then later in my own classesand at the
Actors Studio. However, I have always referred to our own
work asa "method of work," becauseI never liked the implication of the term srsten. Additionally, in view of the many
discussionsand misunderstandings as to what "the system" is and what it is not, plus the confusion about the
earlier and later periods of Stanislavsky'swork, I was
unwilling to make Stanislavskyresponsiblefor any of our
faults.
The work which I represent can now legitimately be
called the Method. It is based not only on the procedures of Stanislavsky'swork, but also on the further
clarification and stimulus provided by Vakhtangov. I have
also added my own interpretation and procedures.
Through our understanding, analysis, applications, and
additions, we have made a sizable contribution to the
completion of Stanislavsky'swork. My own discoveriesat

the Group Theatre, at the Actors Studio, and in my

private.classesarrive at answers for the problems of
exPresslon.
The Method is, therefore, the summation of the work
that has been done on the actor's problem for the last
eighty years.I bear a certain degree of responsibility for it
and can now speakof it with some degree of authority. My
own part was in developing, training, and directing the
ensemble of the Group Theatre. Here we applied the
procedures of the Method to a complete theatre unit.
Since r 948, as the artistic director of the Actors Studio and
in my private classes,we have tried to apply the work ro
the individual actor. In the following chapters, I intend to
describe the additional discoveriesand procedures which
my experienceshave contributed over the years.
One of my chief discoveriesas the director of the Group
Theatre wasa reformulation of Stanislavsky's"creative if."
As I mentioned earlier, Stanislavsky'sformulation of the
"creative if" consistsof the proposition, Given the particular circumstancesof the play, how would you behave,
what would you do, how would you feel, how would you
react?Whereasthis is suitablein plays closeto the contemporary and psychologicalexperience of the actor, it fails to
help the actor attain the necessary intense and heroic
behavior that is characteristic of the great classicalplays.
Vakhtangov, who was committed to the searchfor a more
definite theatrical intention and form, reformulated Stanislavsky'sproposition in the following manner: The circumstancesof the sceneindicate that the character must
behave in a particular way; what would mgtivate you, the
actor, to behave in that particular way?
In the early productions of the Group Theatre, I, too,
found that Stanislavsky'sformulation of the "creative if"
proved unsatisfactoryin dealing with a variety of problems
involving our plays and our actors. I therefore utilized

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Vakhtangov's reformulation in actual practice. It seemed

to me correct, both in terms of dealing with the problems
of our productions, and in solving some of the limitations
Stanislavskyhimself had acknowledged.
The reformulation not only requires the actor to create
the desired artistic result, but demands that he make it real
and personal to himself in order to achieve it. This
involvesthe principles of motivation and substitution. The
actor is not limited to the way in which he would behave
within the particular circumstancesset for the character;
rather, he seeksa substitute reality different from that set
forth by the play that will help him to behave truthfully
according to the demands of the role. It is not necessarily
the way he himself would behave under the same circumstances,and thus does not limit him to his own natural
behavior.
The work in the Group Theatre that created difficulties
and confusion with some of the actors stemmed from my
unwillingness as a director to accept the actor's own
natural behavior in that set of circumstances dictated by
the play. Rather, I was intent upon searching for adjustments and conditions not necessarilyrelated to the play,
but still coming from the actor's own experience. Only
that, I felt, would create the desired result on stage.
It has often been assumed that the actor should be
thinking exactly what the character is thinking. Many
actors who disagree with this approach have, sometimes
when they were complimented on a particular moment,
gleefully responded, "Aha, so you thought it was good,
huh? Do you know what I was thinking about at that
moment?" They then go on to describe something completely extraneous to what the character should have been
concerned withr where to have dinner. when to do the
laundry, etc. But the important thing is that they were
thinking about something real and concrete rather than

the make-believe thinking which that same actor would

usually perform.
I am always surprised by how little is known of our
actual training and rehearsal procedures in the Group
Theatre. Perhapsa few examplesofhow theseadjustments
or substitutions were brought into productions would
explain how my reformulation of Stanislavsky's"creative
if" worked.
InJohn Howard Lawson'sSurcess
Slory,which I directed
in rg3z, Luther Adler was cast as a hot-tempered classconsciousstock boy who pushes his way to the top. The
character was motivated by an all-encompassinganger at
his classsituation. Luther could not find the true emotion
of his character. I told him we needed a reaction that
showed his anger, but Luther had never felt a personal
wrong in his life that had produced such a reaction. After
some work in rehearsal, I finally asked him, "What makes
you angry?" Luther replied, "When someonedoes something awful to someoneelse, I get furious." Luther therefore created a substitute situation in his own mind: a
wrong done to someoneclose to him. This allowed him to
produce the character'sdestructive energy. Of course, the
audience was unaware of Luther's private rnotivation. All
they saw was the true anger of the stock boy.
A more complicated adjustment was used in the same
production of SurccssSlor1. Stella Adler, Luther's sister,
had an unusual emotional intensity, expressiveness,and
physical vitality that the playwright felt was wrong for the
character of the meek Jewish secretary who was secretly
in love with the stock boy. Lawson wanted Stella to play
the role of the sensuous and glamorous wife of the
corporation head, We perceived in Stella, however, the
presence of the emotional colors needed to create a
controlled but dynamic character. I wanted a deep
emotion - which Stella had - but contained in a pure,

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lovely, ethereal quality. It was very difficult ro ger this

from her becauseof her natural tendencv to "burn uo the
stage." In one sequence,Stella's characier was supp'osed
to show concealed longing for the stock boy, but for
Stella, the notion of a repressed, hidden, calm romance
was alien to her own behavior. All of her attempts were
overdone, or without any personal truth.
She was finally able to achievethe character by meansof
an unusual adjustment, which I called the 'ishipboarc
adjustment." I gave Stella the following instructions:
"You are on a boat, alone, it's nighttime, moonlight.
There's a man there, and you talk. But you know it's not
going to last. And therefore you tell each other things thar
you would never tell anyone you know. You don't spilr
your guts to somebody you don't know, but you share itYou romance the other person, and on the fifth day, you
say it's been very nice, let's meet again sometime, and you
leave. It's very real. But it's pure, it doesn't seek anything
else."
This adjustment worked for her. She was to think rhat
everything on the stage was actually happening on the
ship; she had to create and retain the sensationofbeing on
board the ship: the moonlight, the water, rhe romantic
mood. Thus, she brought nothing of the way she would
behave in an office onto the stage. Not only did the
adjustment work, but people came back stage and didn't
recognize her. Friends told her that she was so different.
so changed, so calm. It was probably her most distinguished performance.
One year after Szccess
Story,the Group Theatre had its
first artistic and financial triumph on Broadway with
Sidney Kingsley's Men in White. This was really the first
hospital drama. Joe Bromberg had been cast as the chief
doctor. Bromberg, who had mainly been identiGed with

comic parts, had a kind ofjoviality that did not seemat all
suitableto the character. Bromberg had to develop a much
more contained, much more mysterious,and much more
assertivequality. I suggestedwhar was called the "FBI
adjustment." In it, I had him imagine that he was an FBI
agent who had been sent to investigatethe Group Theatre.
He could not give away the fact rhat he wasan FBI agent,
nor could he tell any of the aclors. As in rhe shiob6ard
adjustment, this creaied a strange, new quality appropriate
to the character.
We faced the problem of creating a group adjustmenr in
GoldEagle Guy, a play by Melvin Levy which I directed in
rg3g. An arthquake was to take place at the end of the
second act, and the actors had to respond. In a real
earthquake, the rumbling and chaosis followed by people
running out of their homes to see what has happened.
Scenically,however, I needed a sharp, vivid reaction to the
evenl. I created an adjustment foi the actors by telling
them:
"You are escapingfrom one country into another." (At
that time, refugees were fleeing Germany, so this situation
was firmly imprinted in their minds.) "You have been
smuggled into hiding places on the edge of the border.
Tonight, you are locked up, and tomorrow you will be
taken acrossthe frontier. Suddenly, there is a fire."
I then created sensorycuesfor them that were triggered
by lights: someone smells smoke, someone then realizes
that their hideaway is on fire. Finally, people understand
that they are trapped. The effect of the group's reaction
was tremendous.
The purpose in each of these substitutions was never
one of creating emotion per se, nor was it to create the
emotion which the actor himself would naturally express
in those circumstances.Rather, the purpose was to find a

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way of creating the emotional reaction demanded of the

character by tlie text. Most of the Group actors achieved
an excellenceverified notjust by myself, but by the critics
and the audiences. But frequently they felt stifled, put
upon, and confined in rehearsal. While I was able to
sympathize, I could not agree with them. I could not
accept the actor's mere expression of himself as being of
service to the play.
The creation of emotion is in itself not alwaysa problem
(especiallywith actors as emotionally facile as Miss Adler)'
Thi creation of the right kirul of emotion remains a con'
tinuing problem for the actor. The work done in this area
under-my direction at the Group Theatre opened possibilities and dimensions that were later to prove an important addition to the fundamentals put forth by Stanislavsky
and Vakhtangov - not only in the actor's caPacity to
experience, but also in his capability to express that
expe.ience vividly and intensely. It helped to find.a
solution that leads the actor from creation to expressionin
ways that eschewpurely external approaches.
In his story of the Group Theatre, The Fentent Years,
Harold Clurman emphasized(unfortunately, without sufficient explanation) that improvisation and what I refer to
as affective or emotional memory were the two areasthat
I was concerned with. There were, of course, others, as I
have just discussed.But there is a certain justification in
empliasizing these two. Certainly in the rehearsal Process,
I did place i great deal of emphasison improvisation as it
related to thJcreation of the ensemble.Regardingaffecdve memory, I placed a great deal of emphasis on the
actor's experience, which is essentially his memory of
emotional moments - which even great actors are not
alwaysable to create at will.
Stanislavsky himself had never fully expounded the

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procedures of improvisation, work with imaginary objects,
and emotional memory. It is in these areas that the
Method has made a significant contribution. In my work
with the Group Theatre, most of the procedures were
applied within the context of rehearsing for a particular
production.
The aim of these experiments with improvisation was to
permit the actor, both in the process of training and in
rehearsal, to develop the necessaryflow of thought and
sensationwhich leads to the development of spontaneity
on stage. This spontaneity must encompass both the
prepared actions and memorized lines, and also leave
room for "the life of the moment." This createsin both the
actor and the audience the sensationof something taking
place here and now.
Improvisation leads to a process of thought and response and also helps the actor to discover the logical
behavior of the character,rather than "merely illustrating"
the obvious meaning of the line.
Another problem arose in terms of expression that
required a heightened theatricality. While the Group
actors were already known for their detailed realistic
characterizations,we foresaw a specialproblem in dealing
with heightened theatrical forms such as Shakespeare,
commedia dell'arte, Molidre, and musical comedy. The
task was to create a procedure that would school the
Group actors to perform in a stylized manner without the
lossof inner justification and truthful motivation. Among
the exerciseswe developed were those involving improv!
sations with objects (both real and imaginary), words,
paintings, and improbable adjustments.These improvisations often led to an understanding of a heightenec
theatrical style. Someimprovisations basedon paintings by
George Grosz were very successful,as was the work done

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on the famous operating room scenein Men in White.Most

critics. in fact. characterized this sceneas a "ballet." I will
deal further with improvisation later on.
My own work, which provided the foundation of the
training for the Group Theatre ensemble,veered from the
intense psychologicalrealism of TheHorse of Connell2to a
growing theatricality demonstrated in the productions of
r9j r, Success
Story,and Men in White,which were close in
style to, but not as theatrically obvious as, the work of the
Vakhtangov Theatre. Later, the musical play 3loAnny
Johnsoz, which I directed, achieved an outright theatricality
fitting the nature of the material. One critic characterized
the work as treing a mixture of Hogarth, the Marx
Brothers, and Charlie Chaplin. The work of Harold
Clurman in his Group Theatre productions seemedcharacterized by a psychological intensity, demonstrated in
Clifford Odets's Paral,ise Lost and in the freer and more
vivid realism of Awahz and,Sing! and GoldenBo1. Robert
Lewis's production of M1 Heart's in the Hi.ghlnnds,by
William Saroyan, was an excellent example of fantasy
realism and demonstrated a search for a stylized reality
which continued to characterize his work in the theatre.
Elia Kazan'swork asa director, which started in the Group
Theatre, was highly dynamic. But the demands of the
material forced him to be essentiallyrealistic, though there
were signsof a heightened theatricality in some of his later
productions, such as./B by Archibald Macl-eish. The full
scope of Kazan's theatrical vision as indicated in a projected production of a classic Greek play has never,
unfortunately, been shared with the public.
The Group Theatre was not so much a period of
discoveryasit wasa period of utilizing previous discoveries
in the process of actual professional productions. The
concern during this period was with practical application

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rather than theory. It was a way of testing what we had
learned from the Stanislavskysystemas prisented by our
own teachers;it was also an attempt to checkour knowledge and our ability to use those principles to achieveour
own results,without imitating what Stanislavsky
and his
other followers achieved.

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TheActorsStudioandMyClasses

\ A /"t* I became the artistic director of the Actors

V V Studio in rg48, I cameto realizemore and more that
an actor could experienceand yet not be able to express
an emotion. I had always known about this problem and
had dealt with it in the practicalterms of production. But
now, I was fully aware of this as a central problem in
acting.
Shikespearehas Hamlet expound on the actor'seffort
to "force his soul so to his own conceit . . . and all for
nothing! For Hecuba! . . . What would he do had he the
the cue for passionthat I have?"The French
' motivelnd
directorJacques Copeau described this inability to find his
"cue for passion" as "the actor's struggle with his own
blood." This was the problem we set out to solve'
However, I was discoveringsomething else: the actor
could "strugglewith his own blood" and find "the cue for
passion,"and yet somehowbe unable to expressit. Thrs
was somethingthat had not been recognizedthroughout
the history of our art! This difficulty in expressingoneself

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is true not only lbr actors, but for all human beings. I
began to seek its sources.
It wasnot hard to discoverthem. Whatevercapacitiesthe
human being is born with, it is by meansof training and
conditioningthat he learnsto use them. He learnsto walk
of the mechanismsthat go
and talk without any awareness
into theseorocedures.He learns to make musicalsounds
without knbwing what his throat hasto do to achievethem.
ofthe
He learnsto pronouncewordswithoutany awareness
musclesand nervesthat participatein that activity.It takes
five yearsfor a child to learn to put his shoeson and tie the
laces.Once he haslearnedhow to do it, he simplydoesit by
habit.He developshabitsofthought, ofspeech,ofbehavior,
of attitudestoward his environment.
He alsodevelopshabitsof expression.He is conditioned
to expresshis feelingsand emotions not by the nature,
character,and strength o[ his own emotionalresponses,
but by what societyor his environment will permit. He is
usually aware of his physicalhabits, but has little knowledge of his sensoryand emotional reactions.
By the time an individual arrives at the age where he
beginsto aspireto be an actor, he is to someextent aware
of his physicalattributes,such as his voice, speech,and
movement patterns.He has little or no knowledgeof the
strengths and weaknessesof his sensory and memory
equipment;even lessdoeshe understandthe behaviorof
his emotionsand the way in which he expressesthem.
Often he doesso in wayswhich becomeso limited that
we call them "mannerisms."Since to the individual these
he thinks of them asbeing real
are his natural expressions,
and true and doesnot perceivethat they are mannered.At
the Actors Studio I had to find ways of dealing with an
actor'smannerismsthat obscuredthe truth of expression
that involvesthe relationshipbetweenintensityoi fceling
and emotion.
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nately, have confused the existenceof emotional memories
with ihe difficulty that most peoplehavein recallingthem
at will. It is preciselythis problem of recall that was ot
becauseof its application
maior significanceto Stanislavsky
to ill scfioolsor stylesof acting'
Ribot cited his own investigationsin which he asked a
variety of people to revive or recapture an emotlonal
In one of his studies,a young man of twenty
-.*o.".
,nrde an effort to remember the feeling of ennui that he
had experienced on his first day in the. barracks' The
yo,rng -^r, shut his eyesand abstractedhis thoughts' He
hr., ?at a slight shiver down his back, a feeling of
something unp"leasantthat he would prefer not to- hav
felt aeain. Thii uncomfortable feeling was connected wrth
a uagire sensationthat did not firmly materialize' t1: 'h:l
visuilized the barrack yard where he used to walk; thls
imase *.s replaced by that of a dormitory on the third
g""i. rn." he saw himsetf seated at a window, looking
through it, viewing the endre camp grounds' While the
i-un.'t"on disappEared,there remiined a "vague idea of
bein"sseatedat a window and then a feeling of oppression'
*.ur'in.rr, rejection and a certain heavinessof the shoulders." ThroJghout, the feeling of ennui p-ersisted
-^
Ribot noted that a characteristic peculiar to attectrve
memorv is the slownesswith which it developed' Actually'
I discoveredthat after sufficient exercise,the recall can be
accomplishedin one minute.
Ribot's discoveries obviously played a great role in
Stanislavsky'sgrowing awareness of the actor's unconscious proiedu-res duiing the creative process' This pre,.ttt d't solution to p.oibl.m that had previously evaded
"
comprehension: Whaihappens when the actor is inspired'
o. *iut is the nature of the actor's inspiration?
Memory can be divided into three categories' First'
there is mental memory, which can be easily controlled'
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We try to remember where we were yesterday at this
particular time, and most people will be able to do so. The
second kind is physical memory, which teachesus how to
control our muscles. During the processof learning, we
are quite consciousof what we are doing, but after we have
achieved it, it continues to be repeated automatically by
memory. For example, at the age of five, my son David
grandly announced that he was able to tie his shoelaces.It
took five years to train his muscles to deal with that task.
After a while, tying his shoelacesbecamehabit; the memory functioned automatically.The third kind of memory is
affective memory. It consistsof two parts: sensememory
and emotional memory.
Affective memory is the basic material for reliving on
the stage,and therefore for the creation of a real experience on the stage.What the actor repeats in performance
after performance is notjust the words and movementshe
practiced in rehearsal, but the memory of emotion. He
reachesthis emotion through the memory of thought and
sensation,
Psychologistsdisagree on the actual nature of emotion:
What takes place psychologically? In what area is an
emotion localized?How are emotions stimulated?How are
they expressed?Many of these questions have not been
answered sufficiently.
A startling study on the presence and the workings of
affective memory (both sense memory and emotional
memory) is the work of a Canadian brain surgeon, Dr.
Wilder Penfield. In the course of surgically treating patients who suffered from epileptic seizures,he stumbled
on the fact that electricalstimulation ofcertain areasof t}re
brain occasionallyproduced a state in which the patient
"relived" a previous experience. On first encountering
these flashbacks in rg33, he was incredulous. A young
mother told him she was suddenly aware of being in her
r r3

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kitchen, listening to the voice of her son playing in the
yard. Each element of the original exPeriencewas reProduced: the neighborhood noises,the passing motor cars.
Another patient relived an experience in a concert hall;
each individual instrument was clearly defined.
In an effort to confirm his findings, Dr. Penfield was
intersted in further exploring the source of these sensa'
tions. He restimulated the samepoint thirty times. In each
instance the subject "relived" the experience. Dr. Penfield
called such responses "experiential." In real life' this
process is stimulated by some conditioning factor that
irouses it. For example, when someone tells you that he
met a particular individual whom you have strong feeling-s
to*rrd, yorrr heart starts pounding. You will find yourself
reacting merely to the mention or suggestion of that
even in his absence.
person,
While mental or physical actions can be controlled at
will, emotions cannot. You cannot tell yourselfto be angry'
to hate, to love, and so forth, Conversely,you cannot tell
yourself to stop feeling any of those emotions once they
are aroused. Iiis in this area that the starding methods of
Boleslavsky and Madame Ouspenskaya have made the
contribution in acting.
greatest
The "inspiration" I had noted in my earlier years had
occurred *hen a great actor worked unconsciously and
wasable to relive an overwhelming experienceand express
it in performance. I have spoken of Ben-Ami's inspiration
in I ohn thzBabtisr.But theseactors were not alwaysable to
reieat the eiperience at will. Recreating or reliving an
iniense emotional experience at will was at the core of our
work.
The actor trains himself to control "inspiration" through
an "emotional-memory" exercise. To try to recaPture or
relive an experience, the actor needs to be first of all
relaxed. so ihat there is no interference between the
r 14

THE VoYAcE CoNTINUES:II

activity of the mind and the other areas that are beino
induced to respond. I discovered that the o..r.rr.. o?
mental or physicaltension is often the result of anticipating
the way in which the emotion should happen,
,t w
interferes with the spontaneousflow of se'nsation.
"rri
It is not necessaryro go through the hours or days rt
took tor an event to develop. The actor starts five minutes
betore the emotional event took place.The correct process
of inducing a response is through the senses.He iries to
remember where he was.Sayhe wasin the yard. The actor
cannot simply think in generalities.The yard is composed
ot many objects that he sees,hears, touches,and so i-orth,
to which he assignsthe word 1ard.Only by formulating the
sensory concretenessof these objects can the emotiois be
stimulated. It is not sufficient toiay, ..It was hot,,, Rather,
the acror musr define precisely in what
h. .*p..i_
".."actor localizes
errcedthe particular heat he remembers; the
the concentration in that area to create not
iust a memory
but a reliving of that particul". .o...rt. "Th. u.to, ..members what he had on: the sight, texture, or sensation
of that material on the body. ThJ actor tries to remember
the event that caused the emotion, not in terms of the
sequenceof the story, but in terms of the various senses
that surrounded it. If anorher individual was involved, he
must be experienced in terms of sensememory as well.
As the actor comes closer to the moment of irrtarrra
emotionai reaction, the body will often .".., u ."""i..
tension to stop it; nobody likes to relive intense exoeriences. When the actor arrives at the moment of ilistl
intensity, he must be able to stay with the sensory.o...'n_
tration; otherwise, the actor,s will is out of control and he
may be carried away by the emotional experience.
I have seenmuch fear on the part ofminy people when
they first faced the problem of performing ifr'. .rir"tio""imemory exercise- fear of being carried away,asthey put
r r5
lr

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

Let us assumethe actor is playing the part of Hamlet in
a production directed in a new and original interpretation.
The director insists that while Hamlet performs the soliloquy "To be or not to be," he is drunk and laughing
hysterically as if it were all ajoke. The actor is forced to
struggle with his unconscious tendency to deliver the
speech in the low, intense, thoughtful, or spiritual tone
commonly associatedwith it. Though he may be able to
create the drunkenness and the laughter, every time he
has to speak, "the muscle of the tongue" (to use Stanislavsky'sphrase) would drag him back to the conventional
delivery. What we begin to prepare the actor for at this
early stage of his training is to fight against conventional
verbal patterns. The effort now is to train the actor to
control his involuntary habits of delivery and to permit the
words to take on whatever meaning may derive from the
actor's experience or behavior. Thus, the actor is capable
of results which he himself might not anticipate nor agree
with.
The exercisescontinue to become further complicated
when additional problems are added. In addition to the
overall-sensation, personal-object, and sound exercises,
the actor may be asked to create physical activities which
are part of a daily occurrence, such as getting dressed,
washing the face, brushing the teeth, combing the hair,
making breakfast,and so on. Attention must be paid to the
logical sequenceof these activities.The actor continues to
deal with the demands of his own ireativity and at the
same time maintains a necessaryphysical logic. Of course,
all these additional elements of attention demand full
sensory reality and not simply muscular imitation.
At this point in the training we will usually add a
monologue such as the one from Hamlet already mentioned. The actor does not act this monologue with the
meaning that it may have in the immediate context of the
| 42

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGI,

play; rather he permits it to be affected by whatever
sensationshe is working on. Thus, the monologue may be
delivered in a sauna by someone who is responding to
some personal object, who at the same time is sleepy,
getting up, etc. The words take on utterly new meanings
and dimensions that might be demanded by a particular
director's interpretation.
After the actor has already performed this exercise
fully, we test his responsivenessto direction. We may ask
him, while he continues to maintain what he has done, to
add a completely new adjustment (such as pain), and to go
through the samesequenceagain. He must make sure that
the words will be permitted to adjust to this additional
element. By now, we are beginning to deal not only with
the problems of creating the reality, but also with the
problem of expressing that reality in diverse ways. This
prepares the actor for all kinds of demands that may be
made upon him in rehearsal and in production. He often
may not agree with these demands, but nonetheless,he
must be capable of executing them perfectly.
It is at this point that I begin to encourage the actor to
go beyond his everyday, casual behavior and permit a
fullness and vividness of expression which he rarely indulges in except in what I call the private moment.
Having realized that the actor's behavior on the stage is
often limited by the habits of expression which he has
developed in life, I searched for other possibilities that
would help to strengthen the actor's expressiveness.One
set of exerciseswas suggestedby a well-known phrase of
Stanislavsky'sabout the actor's capacity to establish for
himself the necessaryprivacy on the stage in order to
stimulate his concentration to work - the actor's need to
be "private in public," I had come acrossthis phrase often
and had not seenany significancebeyond that of the need
to concentrate. Rereading it on one occasion,however, it
r43

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

occurred to me that Peopleusually possessbehaviorr'vhich
thev perform in private that they do not indulge tn
p"6tiJty. In the midfifties I began to develop the privatemoment exercise.*
Many people,especiallywomen' have difficulty in car'
rying a tutt.. They never sing, excePtin private,and they
stop as soon as anyone, no matter how close that person
rn"'" b., interrups the privacy' When asked what they
weie doing, they will uiually answer, "Nothing at all'"
That is an-example of a simple, but very true, private
moment. People talk to themselvesin private: they talk to
others in private. They are not crazy, but they have things
within thim that they have not been able to express, and
they do so in private. Many people dance and behave in
vivid wavs,but onlY in Private.
Privacy is not to be confused with beingalone' One can
be alone'and not private. In fact, one can be private even
when one is not ilone. But under those conditions the
expressivenesswould be inhibited and therefore it has no
vaiue for us as an exercise. A private moment is not
characterizedby the nature of what takes place,but by the
for the actor
Darticular senseof privacy which it Possesses
iuho .*pr.r..t it. Thus, to the observer, the private moment in itself often does not seem to be private at all' lt is
not the deed itself which is private, it is its significance to
the individual that makes it private. Therefore, the ability
to perform a private moment in public when the actor
knows full *ill that he is being observed becomes a
valuable training device.
'The

very
tcrm unfortunately has often been misunderstood becausetht
a
Once
connotatiohspoPle,
suSSestive
Psychiatrisi
some
h"s,
fo,
*ta
*,ord_at
'one ot.lnosr
ca edmv of6ce to ask if it miSht be possiblefor him to observe
or
him
somethlngrePrenenslore
"
to
orirak.6bsccnc moments Pnr'at! suggested
rn Prtvare
Lxual. While there certainly are incidents and examples ot thls
behavior. thc exercis itself is not like that at all'

| 44

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

The procedure of creating the private moment is very
simple. The actor chooses a certain behavior in his life
which he does only in private, and at no other time. He
feels so specialabout this behavior that he stops it if he is
interrupted by the appearanceof another person. If he is
questionedabout it, he will deny that anything unusual has
been taking place. As in other exercises,when the actor
practicesthe private moment, he does not try to repeat or
imitate it. Once he aims at a preconceived result through
repetition or imitation, his awarenessof an audience only
intensifies.Part of the function of the private moment is to
permit the actor to lessenthis concern with the audience
and to give himself fully and unself-consciouslyto the
experience that he is creating.
The actor starts by creating the place, the environment,
the room in which the private behavior usually occurs. He
then adds the conditions that usually motivate this behavior; for instance, he is forced to question whether he
should continue as an actor, or, as a result of some insult,
he worries about his appearance.The actor does not now
imitate what he has previously thought or done. He now
truly tries to perform the exercise by dealing with the
original motivation. If he has difficulty, he goes back to
creating the place where the behavior took place. If he
doesn't feel motivated to behave as he had originally, he
doesn't. If he were private, he would. Therefore, obviously, he is not private enough. Thus he keepsstrengthening
his attention through concentration on the place and its
element of privacy. His concentration and degree of
involvement must deepen. He thus strengthenshis facility
to be private in public.
My development of this exercise has led to unexpected
discoveries.i had always thought that regardless Lf any
degree of reality, soliloquieswere only a theatrical device,
which, from a technical point of view, they obviously are.

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

It was my shock and surprise to discover how much people

soliloquized in real life; how much they engaged in imag'
inary confrontation with other people with a fullness and
vividness which they could not summon in public under
the actual conditions. Therefore, in addition to whatever
for the actor, it is of enormous
value this exercisepossesses
play precise scenes involving
him
to
helping
in
benefit
and the classics,but
in
Shakespeare
soliloquies not only
also in Chekhov, where there are many moments which
are the equivalent of soliloquies. For exagrple, in Un'cle
Vanya,Sonya returns to the room after Astrov has left. She
describesnot only her exhilaration, but also her concern
about her looks and about what people feel about her.
The private-moment exercise proves equally beneficial
in dealing with operatic moments, which are actually
nothing more than soliloquies- for example, the famous
scene in Der Rosenkaaalierwhen the Countess observes
herself in the mirror and ruminates on the ravages of
dme; or the last scene in La Trattinta where Violetta
examines herself in the mirror and expressesthe fullness
of her despair, hopelessness,and desires. These are usually thought of as theatrical devices.Actually, they are true
revelationsof human eventsthat take place in private. The
private moment has taught us that people's behavior in
private is not only more expressive and more vivid, but
more dramatic than one might ever imagine.
I do not stop with the private moment. Rather' the
private moment becomes a starting point for the other
exercisesthat the actor has already practiced. The actor
creates the private moment and maintains it as he adds
other elements unrelated to it: the overall sensation, a
personal object, daily activities, a monologue, a song,-and
io on. I have the actor do this, however' only after he is
capable of creating the private moment with sufficient
cohviction and commitment. This exerciseis one that the

actor does until he has accomplishedit. The exerciseitself

usually lastsabout an hour, which meansthat the acror is
capable of sustaining it for what would be the length of a
long act on the stage, or the span of time typically
demanded on a movie set.
I
. usually add at this time the animal exercise.This helps
the actor approach a part by recognizing the difference
betweenhimself and the character. This eiercise trains the
actor by forcing him to deal with the character'sbehavior
rather than relying on his own feelings.Sometimeswith
individuals who have a strong subjectivestreak,and whose
emotions lead to static behavior, we use this at an earlier
stage to get them away from their own subjectivefeelings
and to strengthentheir mental and physicit atrribures.
The specific value of the animal exerciseis that it leads
toward physical characterization.The exercisedoes not ar
th-ebeginning demand any sensoryexperienceexcept that
of pure observation. It does not demand any innei concentration on oneself. The actor observes a particular
animal in order to discover and register exactly how the
animal moves. He then tries objectively to imiiate those
movements.He soon perceivesthat this imitation demands
a totally different kind of energy in various parts of the
body than that which he himsClf possesses.
The h.r-a.,
being is able to move areaswhich the animal cannot move,
To imitate the oaw, for example, the acror simply moves
his arm; the animal, however, has no independeni energy
in that area. It cannot even hold its paws up and stand in
the r,vaythat a human being does so easilyin imitating it.
First, the actor notices the purely physical differen'ces
between himself and the animal, thin'he creates these
differences by the control of his physicalenergies.There is
no emodon, there is no sensationto begin with. Therefore,
the actor practicesobjective observation and begins to be
able to control, define, and command the areis within

r46

| 47

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYAGE

himself to do what the animal does. He learns to repeat
with his own body the animal's physical energy, to build
toward a sensationof the physicallife of the animal - the
strength and power of the lion, the sleepinessof the cat,
the sirange way the monkey observes what the human
is doing, and so on. Thus, the actor learns to Practice
being
-imitate
ihe animal, physically, and with a sensory
and
attribute contained within the physical activity. At this
point, the actor.standsthe animal up, still maintaining the
lnergies that the animal has. Even if the actor has never
actuilly observed the animal stand up, he tries to create
how it would be done. The actor uses the sound of the
animal and often adds words spoken with the animal
sound. This process continues until we make a human
being with animal characteristics.Therefore, it becomesa
charicter. When you take the chimpanzee, for instance,
and you stand it up and make a character out of it, it's not
a chimpanzeeanymore. It becomesa character speakingin
a humin voice with human intonations, but having the
characteristicsof the animal' This helps the actor to create
a particular type of human being - a character- that is
from himself. The exercise leads to physical
r.b"."t
characterization in a performance.
Some actors dread the animal exercise. It seems as if
they are almost afraid of becoming animals.This turns out
to be nothing more than a struggle with their own habitual
behavior. The demand of performing the animal behavior,
of making the body do things which it is not accustomedto
doing, creates a struggle with the actor's habits, which
literally leads to a fear of the reaction.
An exercisethat the actor is introduced to very early in
his training and is encouraged to use easily without
demandingimmediate and intense resultsis the emotionalmemory exercise. It is central to many of the greatest
moments in performance. In the sequenceof the work, if
r48

THE FRUITSOFTHE VOYACE

I have not done so before, I now check it to make sure it
is properly done.
In the emotional-memory exercise,the actor is asked to
recreate an experience from the past that affected him
strongly. The experience should have happened at least
sevenyearsprior to the time that the exerciseis attempted.
I ask the student to pick the strongest thing that ever
happened to him, whether it aroused anger, fear, or
excitement. The student tries to recreate the sensations
and emotions of the situation in full sensoryterms. He
must recreate the circumstanceswhich led up to the
experience: where he was, who he was with, what he was
wearing, what he was doing, and so forth. I tell the actor,
"Do not pick a recent experience; not thar rhe recent thing
won't work. But the older the experience is, the better it is.
If it works, it's going to last for the resr of your life.
Whereas,something recent might work now and two years
from now it won't. The fact that something has already
worked, hasexisted for a long time and then is recaptured,
means it is there for all time."
The actor begins the exercise. He does not tell me the
story. He is not to worry about feelings or emotions, only
the sensoryobjects- what he sees,hears, touches, tastes,
smells,and what he is experiencingkinetically.The student shouldn't tell me, "I'm in a room." What he must do
is describe the sensationsas he tries bv sensememorv to
recapturethem,just as though he were doing an exercise
ln concentrauon.
Some acting teachersmisuse this exercise.They want to
know the stories. I don't want to know. The lessthe actor
tells me, the better. I only talk to the student if I feel he's
having some difficulty or if I want to check where his
concentrauonls.
Here is an example of the procedure in the emotionalmemory exercisethat wastaped at a sessionI conducted in
r4g