Stanislavsky in America: an actor's workbook

209 Pages·2010·1.56 MB·English

by  Mel Gordon

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Stanislavsky in America
Stanislavsky in America explores the extraordinary legacy that Konstantin
Stanislavsky’ssystemofactor-traininghasleftonactingintheUS.
Mel Gordon outlines the journey of Stanislavsky’s theories through
twentieth-century American history, from the early US tours of the
Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) to the ongoing impact of “The System” on
modern American acting.
This fascinating study by a leading theatre critic and practitioner
provides hundreds of original acting exercises, used by the pivotal US
figures who developed his teachings, such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler
and Bobby Lewis. By going back to these primary sources, Gordon cuts
through the myths and misapprehensions which have built up over
time.
Part memoir and part practical guide, Stanislavsky in America is an
essential resource for anyone wanting to understand Stanislavsky’s work
and his relationship with American theatre.
Mel Gordon is Professor of Theater at University of California, Ber-

keley. His previous books include The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia
(1988) and Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Revolutionary Acting in
Soviet Russia (1996) (co-written with Alma H. Law).
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Stanislavsky in America
’
An Actor s Workbook
Mel Gordon
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Firstpublished2010byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,
aninformabusiness
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2010MelGordon
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproduced
orutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,
nowknownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,
orinanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissionin
writingfromthepublishers.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Gordon,Mel.
Stanislavsky in America : a workbook for actors / Mel Gordon.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Method(Acting)2.Theater–UnitedStates–History–20thcentury.
3.Stanislavsky,Konstantin,1863–1938–Influence.I.Title.
PN2062.G662009
792.02’8–dc22

ISBN 0-203-86877-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10:0-415-49669-1(hbk)
ISBN10:0-415-49670-5(pbk)
ISBN10:0-203-86877-3(ebk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-49669-8(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-49670-4(pbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-86877-5(ebk)
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To Slava Tskuerman and Nina V. Kerova, my dear friends
and great artists.
They were the first Russians to inform me that the true
work of Stanislavsky could be found only in the studios and
stages of New York City and in the backlots of independent
Hollywood.
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Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Preface ix
1 The Stanislavsky System 1
2 American Laboratory Theatre: Richard Boleslavsky and
Maria Ouspenskaya 16
3 The Group Theatre 40
4 Russian Émigré Teachers 79
5 The Actors Lab in Hollywood 114
6 Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio 125
7 Stella Adler 150

8 Bobby Lewis 165
9 Sandy Meisner 176
Appendix: Studio programs 185
Selected bibliography 186
Index 189
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Acknowledgments
Over the years, undergraduate students from my New York University
and University of California, Berkeley courses provided much help in
obtaining unpublished documents, classroom descriptions, and personal
interviews. Among the most devoted – and valiant – were Isha Beck,
Cathy Bergart, Jeannie Collins, Tiffany Fraser, Sheila Marie Gordon,
David Jacobson, Lucy Lawrence, Brandon Plush, Elany Portafekas, Kris
Ryan,SteveSchub,AshleyWeber,andBarbaraWolkoff.Myresearchwas
greatly enriched because of their patience and sometimes superhuman
efforts.
Morethananyone,RobertEllermannguidedmyattempttoaccurately
preserve this uncharted and emotionally fraught history. His passionate
and practical knowledge of the Stanislavsky Technique always pointed
me in the proper directions. What is most valuable in this book should
be attributed to him.
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Preface
KonstantinStanislavskyspentmostofNewYear’sDay1923imagining
what America must be like. Five days out of Cherbourg, the RMS
Majestic carried sixty-two members of Europe’s famed Moscow Art
Theatre(MAT)toNewYorkCity,theinternationalJazz-Agemetropolis.
Stanislavsky wiled away the day, jotting down dreamy prognostications
of the futuristic city – it would be filled with towering skyscrapers,
surrounded by glass sidewalks. Its New World denizens would be in a
permanent hyperactive miasma from morn to dusk. The rest of the
cast, regulated to second-class cabins, gossiped about the possibility of
aeroplane transport, landing on the rooftops of Manhattan’s high-raise
business edifices.
The American conclusion of the 1923–24 tour, however, was unlike
any previous MAT venture and carried many risks. Its 1906 and 1922
seasons in Central and Western Europe brought the company phe-
nomenal acclaim and financial rewards, but Berlin, Vienna, Prague,
Zagreb, and Paris had substantial colonies of Russian-speakers and an
art-hungry press. In the United States, there was neither.

The Vilna-born impresario Morris Gest assured the MAT Board of
Directors and Stanislavsky that America would indeed be a hospitable
destination. He included himself and New York’s one million Yiddish-
speaking immigrants as true Russians. And the irrepressible American
producer reminded the theatre that he had already achieved sensational
commercial success with Nikolai Balieff’s Chauvre-Souris, the Russian
exile revue troupe, earlier that year.
The MAT and its Artistic Director desperately needed hard currency
to survive Lenin’s limited free-market New Economic Policy and time
to adjust to the changing tastes of the Soviet public. And as soon as the
papers were signed in the spring of 1922, Gest promoted the tour in
the New York press. He later crowed that the MAT season had
attained the largest advance sales in Broadway’s history.