The Art and Technique of Acting / Edition 1

by Howard Kissel

Overview

(Applause Books). Stella Adler was one of the 20th Century's 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557833730
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/01/2000
Series:	Applause Books
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	83,931
Product dimensions:	6.36(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.01(d)

Editorial Reviews

This second collection of Adler's papers precedes the material found in the previous collection (Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov, LJ 4/15/99), ending as she begins text analysis. Here Kissel (David Merrick) has taken tapes, transcriptions, notebooks, and other sources to reconstruct an acting course in 22 lessons. What results is Adler at her strongest. Coming from a theatrical family and having studied with Stanislavsky, she became an old-fashioned autocratic teacher determined to pass on the best that she knows. She was certainly the best of her generation. The lessons are graduated from very basic matters to quite complex issues of textual analysis and decorum. Though mostly monologs, they include enough exercises and student responses to get the flavor of Adler's work. Some themes run through these classes: American culture is bankrupt, Lee Strasberg got Stanislavsky wrong, and class and its formality must be learned in order to do major plays through the realist period. This is required reading for anyone interested in theater practice.--Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Drawing on an archive of notebooks, transcriptions, and audiotapes of Adler's work, Kissel (cultural critic with the New York ) presents the lessons and insights she brought to the craft of acting. Adler's classroom lectures are presented, and their significance is discussed. She addresses the discipline of the actor's body, mind, and imagination. She looks at the techniques for creating believable characters and bringing authenticity to the performance, and the importance of understanding time, setting and style. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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