Acting: The First Six Lessons. (Theatre Arts Book)
by R. Boleslavsky
For actors by an actor of rare subtlety and imagination; for directors by a brilliant versatile director. Richard Boleslavsky's knowledge of the theatre was based on wide experience. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre and director of its First Studio, he worked in Russia, Germany and America as actor, director and teacher. On Broadway, he produced plays and musical comedies and he was a leading Hollywood director.
Take notes in class (use your journal, keep it with you all the time). If you don't understand some terminology, go to Glossary. Also, each topic on this syllabus is connected with the appropriate page, but the pages are designed for all levels of acting and directing. If you miss the class, you won't know how much you should know and you will read it all. Don't miss classes.
If you have a legitimate reason for not being in class, you call in, leave a message or email me.
The Master-File with monologues and scenes is in the Library on reserve (select the pages, copy them and put back).
If you don't show up for rehersals with your partners, they drop you -- they get the grade, you don't.
For Homework and Jounal keeping instructions go to the THR221 and Journals pages.
If you want to see a sample of the test on Acting Theory, please, go to Forms & Samples page.
HOW TO WORK with Yourself
You can print out the entire site and use it as a textbook, or mark the selections you need and print them only. Follow the links in each class and read the pages related to the topics. If you need more information, use the outside links on my pages, or search the Net. The text for monologues and scenes are not posted, but in the library on reserve. You can use the monologues and scenes I have on my site, they’re copyright free (that’s why I can post them). Don’t waste your time on search for a perfect-for-you monologue/scene. Go with the instinct, do the cold reading in class; you can change your mind later, when you’ll get the feedback from the class. Don’t memorize the lines, not till you went through some analysis, dramatic breakdown and develop your idea about the character and movement (floor plan). Don’t go through useless read-through in class; we are here to work on your piece, even for cold reading you should have some ideas about the role. Throw them at us, try and test your design!
If you can’t make your mind, I’ll select the text for you. We want to have a good performance, not a great literature presented. (Usually they are together, but if a monologue is above your head, go for something you understand and feel for).
Do you have somebody at home or dorm to perform for? Torture them -- tape-recorder is good, but humans are better. Use them to feed you lines, this way you’ll get rid of the papers in your hands sooner.
No-no Things: Nobody needs to know that you forgot your line. We don’t care for words, we are into acting. Don’t stop. Don’t appologize, don’t curse yourself outloud. Do it later at home.
No-no: Don’t get into this “talent stuff” -- am I talented, I am no good, bad, do I have a potential, I suck, stink and etc. The class is not an academy award, you’re here to get as much as you can out of yourself. Let the others judge you.
Do it: If you don’t like somebody’s performance in class, speak up your mind. You don’t have to butcher your classmates; imagine yourself doing their material -- how would you have done it? That’s a constructive criticism for you! Besides, if you don’t speak in class, you do disservice to all, including yourself. You don’t learn how to articulate your ideas.
On your first day in class all of you have "A"s! Try to keep up good grades!
Subscribe to wwwilde, your class eGroup -- and post your resume and first monologue (see archives). Here is 2003 sample:
Hey There Everybody! My name is Joseph Alloway, I am 19 years
old, single, extremely attractive to members of the opposite sex,
and currently enrolled as a theater major at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks campus.
I have selected for your reading and listening and viewing
pleasure a monologue from Eat your Heart Out by Nick Hall. This
monlogue is by Charlie, the main character of the play, and it opens
the show.
If there's one thing I can't stand in the theater,it's walking
out alone on stage at the beginning of a show to open the show cold.
(Grins) But it's better than waiting tables. I'm Charlie, (with
irony lacing voice)... Your waiter for this evening. I'd rather be
onstage tonight.Waiting tables is a toy job. You probably don't
know what a toy job is. I'll explain. A toy job is a job that you
do not really care about,that you do to make a living, While you
wait for a chance to to the job that you want to do. (Beat) But
maybe you knew already?Being a waiter is sort of a standard job for
an actor; it's expected. I mean, if your a dentist or an insurance
salesman and somebody says, "Where ya workin' nowadays?", and you
say, "I'm a waiter at this little French place on fifty-sixth
street," They'll think your a failure. But if your an actor they
understand. So. (Indicates Reastaurant) Ici, personnene parle
francais. (Beat) That's the name of the place. Yeah, well, I
didn't get it the first time either. It means no one here speaks
French. It's really a lunch place. At lunch they use four
waiters. After lunch through dinner: one waiter. (Indicates
himself) We just get a few semi-regulars in the evenings,and now,
between lunch and dinner, nothing.The food's good, French,
reasonable. At lunch you can get a great meal here for three fifty,
four bucks.Of course, the price soars if you start ordering little
extras, like coffee.
ASTROFF: Yes, ten years have made me another man. And why? Because I am overworked. Nurse, I am on my feet from dawn till dusk. I know no rest; at night I tremble under my blanket for fear of being dragged out to visit someone who is sick; I have toiled without repose or a day's freedom since I have known you; could I help growing old? And then, existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life, and goes heavily. Everyone about here is silly, and after living with them for two or three years one grows silly oneself. It is inevitable. [Twisting his moustache.] See what a long moustache I have grown. A foolish, long moustache. Yes, I am silly as the rest, nurse, but not as stupid; no, I have not grown stupid. Thank God, my brain is not addled yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I need nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her head.] During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from the railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been deadened awoke again, my conscience tortured me as if I had killed the man. I sat down and closed my eyes--like this--and thought: will our descendants two hundred years from now, for whom we are breaking the road, remember to give us a kind word? No, nurse ... they will forget. (Uncle Vanya, Chekhov)
Simposia, Discussion, Feedback
Dionysos: You start acting with improvisation!
Apollo: Study the classics first!
Meyerhold: Physical, physical first! Make them move!
Stanislavsky: Go for Chekhov! Let them understand the inner drama...
On Method Acting
Practiced by such actors of stature as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Julie Harris, Dustin Hoffman, and Ellen Burstyn (not to mention the late James Dean) the Method offers a practical application of the renowned Stanislavsky technique.
Stella Adler: The Art of Acting (Applause Acting Series)
Stella Adler was one of the 20th CenturyÕs greatest figures. She is arguably the most important teacher of acting in American history. Over her long career, both in New York and Hollywood, she offered her vast acting knowledge to generations of actors, including Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro. The great voice finally ended in the early Nineties, but her decades of experience and teaching have been brilliantly caught and encapsulated by Howard Kissel in the twenty-two lessons in this book.
