The Lee Strasberg Notes by Lola Cohen

Author:Lola Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Arts
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2010-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Working with the actor

The director serves as a bridge between the writing and the actors. An essential part of the director’s work is motivating the actor and drawing the actor’s attention to the possibilities inherent in a scene. What has to be emphasized at a certain moment? You must encourage the actor to create logical behavior and evoke emotions that make the words come alive to create images of reality, not masks of reality.

It’s important for directors to understand the actors’ problems and what they may be experiencing. On the page it may look very easy as you explain what you want, yet it can be difficult when the actor has to carry out your direction. The director may be unaware of this basic problem and say, “Since I told you what to do, I don’t understand why you can’t do it. You’re an actor.” These directors aren’t aware that certain things are more difficult mentally than they seem to be. It’s one thing to explain how to do something and another thing for the actor to be able to do it. For example, I can criticize a great musician like Heifetz for his interpretation of a piece. I’ve heard a lot of music and have seen many different performances. There’s only one problem. I myself don’t play an instrument. The fact that I know the music doesn’t make me able to play it. It might not be so easy for the director himself to do what he abstractly believes the actor should be doing.

A director makes a mistake, however, if he tells the actor to do things in the scene that are part of the director’s imaginative reality; you’re not really helping the actor because your vision of emotional reality is different but no more real than his. And it’s the actor’s that matters for the scene. For instance, you say something about a window; unless the actor’s window is one from the actor’s reality, the window won’t stimulate the reaction the director desires. Only a reality that’s the actor’s reality – not mine, or yours, or the playwright’s – can be relied on. Once it works, it can be relied on to work the majority of times, which is as much as we can expect. Even the other times it will work sufficiently to give the actor the basic reality that he needs even though it isn’t the complete response.

At the Actors Studio, we were doing a play in which I encouraged the actors to work by themselves by staging it without a director. The play, which was considered one of worst plays by an outstanding playwright, still has, I believe, one of his best characters. I had certain ideas about how to stage the play, acting out certain moments instead of speaking about them. To my delight, the play has a very good chance of turning out to be one of the finest plays that playwright ever wrote. It’s a complete surprise to me because we didn’t expect the play to be so amusing and entertaining.

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