The Classroom Or The Couch

In the eleven years that I spent studying, working for and with, and socializing with Lee Strasberg (and his family), I never heard him say anything disparaging or in any way denigrating about another actor, director, or teacher. He would sometimes recognize and discuss the ways that he thought acting and directing might be improved in a particular project, but he always left teachers out of his comments. I once heard him ask a student where he had studied previously. When the student answered, “with Sandy Meisner”, Lee said, “Good. That’s a strong foundation for us to continue our work”.

Yet other teachers have often felt the need to put down Lee Strasberg and his work. Even among my university colleagues there is an underlying condescension about The Method when they speak with their students. Some will say that they should be careful about the emotional content. Others will say that it was fine that they did that type of work while in my class, but now they must “move on” to the real job of acting. When I ask these people how they formed their opinions, or where they gained their knowledge of The Method, the responses are invariably “that’s what I’ve heard”,  or “that’s what I’ve read”. These are people who never studied or educated themselves as to the true content of Lee Strasberg’s work. In other words, these educators pass on rumors, innuendos, and misinformation.

One of the most egregious misrepresentations of what went on in Lee’s classroom (and in current times, mine) is the idea that we explore the deep psychological workings of each actor. Quite the opposite. When any actor began to show signs of going in that direction, Lee was quick to point out that he “wasn’t qualified for that”. He (and I) would say that “if you feel a need to explore the reasons behind your responses, you must go to a qualified professional. For us it is enough that you recognize a response that you can bring to your performance”.

But the distortions about The Method continue. Just the other day I read the following statement from a well-known teacher. “The Method’s ill-educated and misguided approach to tinkering around in the mind of the actor is frightening. Stanislavski gave all of that up in favour of an approach focusing on ‘action’. Your own psychological state is not the playground of an acting teacher; you don’t know what a potentially explosive minefield of unresolved issues that you are poking around in. Messing with that stuff isn’t brave, it’s stupid”.  I have purposefully left this unattributed in order to follow Lee Strasberg’s example of not identifying the shortcomings of others.

Then what is it that we do in the classroom, and how has it been misunderstood in the ways that it has been, and to the extent that it has been? That question could probably be the topic of a full book, or at least a dissertation. Instead, I would like to present an example of what we do, how we do it, and under what circumstances it can become distorted.

The “Personal Object” is an exercise that affects us emotionally. It is used to color an actor’s mood so that it is in alignment with his/her character in a scene. It is not used to elicit a response to an action onstage. To clarify, if my character woke up in an angry mood that generally affects his behavior, I might use a Personal Object to put me in that mood. But if another character behaves aggressively towards me I allow myself to respond to that action and there is no need for a Personal Object.

It is not unusual when exploring a Personal Object as an exercise by itself for an actor to respond in unpredicted ways. When first describing Personal Object work to students, I use one of my own to illustrate this point –  I have a cap that was made for me by my father when I was 14 years old. (That’s a very long time ago, and I actually still have the real cap). He made it for me during the night before my first day on a summer job as a laborer for a construction company building houses. My father had done similar work at a similar age. He told me that he used to take a man’s fedora, cut off the brim, and roll up and notch the hem. (This is the type of hat worn by Jughead in The Archie comics). It was meant to keep the sun off his head and the dust out of his hair. When I woke up the next morning to leave for work, I found that he had cut up one of his hats in just such a way. My new headwear was hanging on the doorknob of my room.

I truly thought that when I created and explored this Personal Object it would lead me to a feeling of the closeness and love that went into making it. Instead, it leaves me feeling a deep sense of loss; the type of loss that one feels when hit with the realization that something is gone forever and can never be recaptured (not the cap, I still have that; but the relationship. I lost my father in 1980). Boy was I surprised by this. I was, however, very willing to accept this response and add it to my repertoire of useful acting tools. I remember asking Lee why my response was so different from what I anticipated. He said, “Why do you care ‘why’? It’s enough to know what. Now when you go into a scene that requires you to feel that way, you know what will get you there. If you can’t accept that and have a great need to know, you have to go to someone who can help you. That’s not the job of an acting teacher”. He did add that if I, or any student, was uncomfortable with the true response, we could choose to leave it alone. There would be other ways to accomplish the same goal.

There’s no need to imagine what would have happened if Lee had tried to guide me or push me to an understanding of the disparity between my anticipated and actual responses. There have been many teachers who claim to do his work who do just that with their students. It rarely ends well. It’s not my job to know why these teachers do that any more than it is that teacher’s job to poke around in the psychology of their students. Perhaps it gives them some sense of control or power. Maybe it elevates them in their own minds to the status of an all-knowing teacher. No matter what the reason, it is misguided, potentially destructive, and certainly unprofessional.

What I do know is that this was never Lee Strasberg’s way of teaching. Nor can it be attributed to Method Acting. The responsibility for this distortion comes from incompletely trained people who now decided that they are going to teach. Each of us has to discern who is helpful and who is destructive. And just as one must sometimes walk away from an uncomfortable response to find another way, so must one must walk away from those overstepping and potentially destructive teachers to find someone more knowledgeable and responsible.