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The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER , TIME MAGAZINE , SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE , VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR
“Entertaining and illuminating.”-- The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”-- New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”-- Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I’ve ever read.”--Nathan Lane
The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting―an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood.
On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia’s crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told.
Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull . He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski’s ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group’s feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture.
Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman-- The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER , TIME MAGAZINE , SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE , VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR
“Entertaining and illuminating.”-- The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”-- New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”-- Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I’ve ever read.”--Nathan Lane
The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting―an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood.
On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia’s crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told.
Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull . He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski’s ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group’s feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture.
Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman-- The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2022
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December 26, 2022This was loooong – but an incredibly exhaustive account of how method acting came to be; from Stanislavski to Lee Strasburg, with fun anecdotes about Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, and Meryl Streep. Overall, really informative though I won't lie that the first part that takes place in Russia had me snoozing a bit.
November 3, 2021
The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act by Isaac Butler is an engrossing history of both the style of acting most of us think of as Method acting as well as of theater and film.
I came to this book as someone who loves both theater and film and have studied some history but also as someone with no artistic ability in these areas at all. So my hope was to gain a better idea of what "The Method" is and how it came about. I also expected some anecdotes and interesting stories. Well, this volume exceeded expectations in every facet. The history was much more detailed than I would have thought, the anecdotes and stories were both plentiful and essential to the telling of the history. It is all brought together in a very engaging and readable style that both informed and entertained me.
I knew almost from the beginning I was in for a treat by the way Butler told the story of Frances McDormand's early experience in Blood Simple. In addition to those interested in the history of film, theater, and/or acting I think the casual reader who simply enjoys reading about the interactions of celebrities (and near-celebrities) will find a lot to enjoy here. While I am by nature a rereader of books, this isn't the type I often reread just for pleasure. Yet I am actually looking forward to revisiting this one in another year or so.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
I came to this book as someone who loves both theater and film and have studied some history but also as someone with no artistic ability in these areas at all. So my hope was to gain a better idea of what "The Method" is and how it came about. I also expected some anecdotes and interesting stories. Well, this volume exceeded expectations in every facet. The history was much more detailed than I would have thought, the anecdotes and stories were both plentiful and essential to the telling of the history. It is all brought together in a very engaging and readable style that both informed and entertained me.
I knew almost from the beginning I was in for a treat by the way Butler told the story of Frances McDormand's early experience in Blood Simple. In addition to those interested in the history of film, theater, and/or acting I think the casual reader who simply enjoys reading about the interactions of celebrities (and near-celebrities) will find a lot to enjoy here. While I am by nature a rereader of books, this isn't the type I often reread just for pleasure. Yet I am actually looking forward to revisiting this one in another year or so.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
January 24, 2022
A biography of the Method arguing that it is one of the most influential cultural movements of the 20th century. And I would definitely agree that the author makes that argument successfully.
This sucker is DENSE as all hell if you’re not familiar with the subject (which I absolutely was not), but it’s still an incredibly compelling read.
This sucker is DENSE as all hell if you’re not familiar with the subject (which I absolutely was not), but it’s still an incredibly compelling read.
June 29, 2023
Shoutout Acting 101 with Rebecca! Amazing class, way more fun than the majority of the acting classes in this book. After reading this, I now have very strong feelings about which school of the Stanislavski Method I subscribe to.
March 17, 2022
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski helped form the Moscow Art Theater and codified the style of acting associated with it—inward and naturalistic, based on self-analysis and the actor's rigorous dissection of the playwright's work into a series of tasks, each with its own motivation. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act is Isaac Butler's rigorous examination of that system's origins, and its migration from Russia to the U.S. in the early nineteen-hundreds.
Much of The Method covers the various clashes between its American practitioners. Rifts developed between his students, all of whom claimed to be his truest disciples. Lee Strasberg, transforming Stanislavski's system into the what came to be known as Method Acting, emphasized a notion of emotional memory that influenced an entire generation of Hollywood actors; Stella Adler emphasized a less painful psychological approach that aimed to discover truths through stage action.
Butler's examination of how the Method's domination of the American cinema in the mid-twentieth century is perhaps the book's most compelling section. The narrative reaches a climax in the nineteen-seventies in a dissection of the Method's downfall, as it became less a rebellion and more the orthodoxy, and as critics increasingly stereotyped its adherents as narcissists who refused to break character even when the cameras weren't rolling.
In his coda, Butler examines how the century-old system continues to transform itself. If there's any oversight in the narrative, it's in its disinterest in examining Stanislavski's influence in other countries than the U.S., but admittedly, the book states its focus up front. Students of the theater will relish this comprehensive history and its thorough documentation, and actors will appreciate discovering the genesis of precepts that they and even their teachers probably have long taken for granted.
Much of The Method covers the various clashes between its American practitioners. Rifts developed between his students, all of whom claimed to be his truest disciples. Lee Strasberg, transforming Stanislavski's system into the what came to be known as Method Acting, emphasized a notion of emotional memory that influenced an entire generation of Hollywood actors; Stella Adler emphasized a less painful psychological approach that aimed to discover truths through stage action.
Butler's examination of how the Method's domination of the American cinema in the mid-twentieth century is perhaps the book's most compelling section. The narrative reaches a climax in the nineteen-seventies in a dissection of the Method's downfall, as it became less a rebellion and more the orthodoxy, and as critics increasingly stereotyped its adherents as narcissists who refused to break character even when the cameras weren't rolling.
In his coda, Butler examines how the century-old system continues to transform itself. If there's any oversight in the narrative, it's in its disinterest in examining Stanislavski's influence in other countries than the U.S., but admittedly, the book states its focus up front. Students of the theater will relish this comprehensive history and its thorough documentation, and actors will appreciate discovering the genesis of precepts that they and even their teachers probably have long taken for granted.
February 27, 2022
There's a scene in the show Barry where an actor dies, and his partners in his class immediately start turning that into material. One of them says something to the extent of 'finally, we're going to make it about ourselves!' which, of course, is all they ever do. This is the book version of that. It's a bunch of very self-involved people arguing about whether actors should start with emotion and then build character or vise-versa, a debate that pretty much died in the 80's when audiences decided they were actually interested in light sabers.
Best part of the book is the chapter where a skeptic of the Method makes a completely-convincing argument that the point of acting is to make THE AUDIENCE feel emotion, not the actors, and all the navel-gazing has limited external value.
The Method reminded me a little bit of Chuk Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, written about hair metal, which is also a piece of criticism written about art that the author clearly loves but also by all accounts appears to be dead and buried and should probably stay that way. Butler does a great job of explaining the theory, the people, and the impact of each, and I do recommend the book, although I'm not sure he couldn't have pasted the 100+ page bibliography on google docs or some thing and saved everyone on costs.
Best part of the book is the chapter where a skeptic of the Method makes a completely-convincing argument that the point of acting is to make THE AUDIENCE feel emotion, not the actors, and all the navel-gazing has limited external value.
The Method reminded me a little bit of Chuk Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, written about hair metal, which is also a piece of criticism written about art that the author clearly loves but also by all accounts appears to be dead and buried and should probably stay that way. Butler does a great job of explaining the theory, the people, and the impact of each, and I do recommend the book, although I'm not sure he couldn't have pasted the 100+ page bibliography on google docs or some thing and saved everyone on costs.
February 4, 2023
Fantastic stuff. A very digestible history of a tumultuous century in acting development (and the social upheaval that inspired new artistic expressions) and also some of the best writing on acting - what makes it good, what compels an audience, what is "real" and "true" and are they important - I've ever encountered. Butler breaks down the difference in styles and approaches between teachers and performers, and (while this might be my familiarity with and the availability of the 1950s-1970s screen stars' works) he clearly illustrates and examines the diverging paths of "The Method" and how they manifest in the performances of Clift, Brando, Pacino, De Niro, and many more. Hugely recommended for any theatre kids and movie buffs alike.
April 26, 2024
compelling, sprawling twentieth century cultural history that ALMOST filled the mike nichols bio-shaped hole in my heart
February 2, 2022
“The Method” refers to what has been called “Method Acting.” No discussion of The Method would be complete without a solid grounding in its founder, Stanislavsky. This narrative takes the history back to its foundations with the life of Konstantin Stanislavski in Russia in the late 1800s. (Stanislavski is an assumed name, as his family were successful merchants.). The author sets up these beginnings and then launches into a narrative of the formative time that Stanislavski spent with his theater partner Nemirovich.
Together, Stanislavski and Nemirovich revolutionized what audiences saw on the stage in Russia. Their partnership incorporated real research into the past for classic plays and changed set design and audience perception. Stanislavski acted as the director, rehearsing actors in his vision until the actors were exhausted. This company later became known for their rendition of “the notorious flop” The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.
I find in reading the history of Stanislavski’s Russian troupe that he wanted actors to turn their backs to the audience when the scene required it. (We were yelled at in high school by the theater director for even getting close to showing our backs to the audience! Yeah, high school.) Stanislavski wanted realistic performances. He wanted the performer to inhabit the role. In the early 1900s, Stanislavski had an internal crisis which resolved itself into a style that he called the “system.” Years later it would be interpreted by film actors and directors and morph into the method.”
Stanislavski and Nemirovich’s Moscow Art Theater made it to the U.S. on tour after the Russian Revolution and was a smash hit. However, two people were fired and stayed on in the U.S. teaching acting. Lee Strasberg happened to take some of those classes until he felt he was ready to act. He then struck out on his own, and with Harold Clurman, made plans for a truly American acting theater and style that was simpler and lower key: thus was born the method. But boy, there were many twists, turns, and variations in teaching acting.
I know I am really jumping over a lot but I want to emphasize that when someone is called “a method actor,” they may or may not be. And, what kind of method actor? There are variations under various interpretations of what should be taught to actors (that shorthand includes females). In the 20th Century there were 3 main coaches teaching “method acting:” Lee Strasburg, Stella Adler, and Sanford (Sandy) Meisner. This book also discusses other studios and other coaches but these three coaches receive the focus. The three may all have started at the Group Theater of the 1930s, but their approaches varied widely. Widely enough for a massive feud between Strasburg and Adler. It is fascinating and sad that interpretations of a style have riven such deep divisions in the acting world.
Likewise, there are many actors who were method actors but the book focuses on actors such as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and later, Robert DeNiro. There are also actors out there that say they are method actors but never reached tutelage from Adler, Meisner, or Strasburg. The practitioners of this style of the art of acting are nearly gone, and are being replaced by new interpretations of what the audience wants to see.
“What is method acting” has been a burning question for a long time; the author points out all of the differing views and traditions, and allows the reader to draw the conclusions.
This is a well-researched and written book. The subject matter is complex; only someone with a historical knowledge of the theater and film could’ve written it. I found it not only fascinating, but now can see over-generalizations made by biographers of actors. The fine differences are a lot to keep straight.
Thank you to Isaac Butler, Bloomsbury Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a pre-publication galley of this book. My opinions are my own and I didn’t receive anything for posting a review.
Together, Stanislavski and Nemirovich revolutionized what audiences saw on the stage in Russia. Their partnership incorporated real research into the past for classic plays and changed set design and audience perception. Stanislavski acted as the director, rehearsing actors in his vision until the actors were exhausted. This company later became known for their rendition of “the notorious flop” The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.
I find in reading the history of Stanislavski’s Russian troupe that he wanted actors to turn their backs to the audience when the scene required it. (We were yelled at in high school by the theater director for even getting close to showing our backs to the audience! Yeah, high school.) Stanislavski wanted realistic performances. He wanted the performer to inhabit the role. In the early 1900s, Stanislavski had an internal crisis which resolved itself into a style that he called the “system.” Years later it would be interpreted by film actors and directors and morph into the method.”
Stanislavski and Nemirovich’s Moscow Art Theater made it to the U.S. on tour after the Russian Revolution and was a smash hit. However, two people were fired and stayed on in the U.S. teaching acting. Lee Strasberg happened to take some of those classes until he felt he was ready to act. He then struck out on his own, and with Harold Clurman, made plans for a truly American acting theater and style that was simpler and lower key: thus was born the method. But boy, there were many twists, turns, and variations in teaching acting.
I know I am really jumping over a lot but I want to emphasize that when someone is called “a method actor,” they may or may not be. And, what kind of method actor? There are variations under various interpretations of what should be taught to actors (that shorthand includes females). In the 20th Century there were 3 main coaches teaching “method acting:” Lee Strasburg, Stella Adler, and Sanford (Sandy) Meisner. This book also discusses other studios and other coaches but these three coaches receive the focus. The three may all have started at the Group Theater of the 1930s, but their approaches varied widely. Widely enough for a massive feud between Strasburg and Adler. It is fascinating and sad that interpretations of a style have riven such deep divisions in the acting world.
Likewise, there are many actors who were method actors but the book focuses on actors such as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and later, Robert DeNiro. There are also actors out there that say they are method actors but never reached tutelage from Adler, Meisner, or Strasburg. The practitioners of this style of the art of acting are nearly gone, and are being replaced by new interpretations of what the audience wants to see.
“What is method acting” has been a burning question for a long time; the author points out all of the differing views and traditions, and allows the reader to draw the conclusions.
This is a well-researched and written book. The subject matter is complex; only someone with a historical knowledge of the theater and film could’ve written it. I found it not only fascinating, but now can see over-generalizations made by biographers of actors. The fine differences are a lot to keep straight.
Thank you to Isaac Butler, Bloomsbury Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a pre-publication galley of this book. My opinions are my own and I didn’t receive anything for posting a review.
November 27, 2023
My full review is here.
https://artsfuse.org/256138/book-revi...
Encompassing a century of acting training beginning in Russia, the book traces the history of the Method, Stanislavsky's initial idea through its many incarnations, diversions, and adaptations. It encompasses world and social history for context, theater history for reference, and lots of specifics about the acting process. The book pulls together so much that I've read, trained, and have been curious about since acting became an obsession when I was young, through college, and beyond. I own and have read many of the acting books mentioned in the text and this book pulls them all into focus. along with specifics on actors and practitioners.
Having never really applied myself to acting as a career except in bits and pieces, the book brings into perspective and focus much I find fascinating about the craft. It is wonderfully written with solid information on the teaching of acting, concluding with relevant contemporary observations and ideas about what acting means, its challenges, and its importance as an art form.
For me, this was a hefty read that I couldn't get enough of. I'll have to follow up with James Lipton's book, and a few biographies. Brando's biography, The Contender, for instance, is one that complements this book well. There are also plenty of films worth revisiting or seeing for the first time after reading this.
https://artsfuse.org/256138/book-revi...
Encompassing a century of acting training beginning in Russia, the book traces the history of the Method, Stanislavsky's initial idea through its many incarnations, diversions, and adaptations. It encompasses world and social history for context, theater history for reference, and lots of specifics about the acting process. The book pulls together so much that I've read, trained, and have been curious about since acting became an obsession when I was young, through college, and beyond. I own and have read many of the acting books mentioned in the text and this book pulls them all into focus. along with specifics on actors and practitioners.
Having never really applied myself to acting as a career except in bits and pieces, the book brings into perspective and focus much I find fascinating about the craft. It is wonderfully written with solid information on the teaching of acting, concluding with relevant contemporary observations and ideas about what acting means, its challenges, and its importance as an art form.
For me, this was a hefty read that I couldn't get enough of. I'll have to follow up with James Lipton's book, and a few biographies. Brando's biography, The Contender, for instance, is one that complements this book well. There are also plenty of films worth revisiting or seeing for the first time after reading this.
January 29, 2024
Ça m'a donné le goût de jouer dans quelque chose. J'ai fait quand même pas mal de théâtre au secondaire. C'tu tough être casté dans du théâtre d'été?
Après toutes ces pages, je ne peux toujours pas te dire c'est quoi, en réalité, la Méthode. Enfin si, mais c'est compliqué. Trop. Pour rien.
L'anecdote de Dustin Hoffman devant Laurence Olivier qui s'épuise à bâtir son rôle, Méthode style, ne dormant pas pendant des jours, pour qu'Olivier lui dise au final « Ça te dirait pas de ''jouer'' à la place? » *Chef's kiss*
Fuck, je viens de réaliser que j'ai commencé ce livre il y a un peu plus d'un an.
Après toutes ces pages, je ne peux toujours pas te dire c'est quoi, en réalité, la Méthode. Enfin si, mais c'est compliqué. Trop. Pour rien.
L'anecdote de Dustin Hoffman devant Laurence Olivier qui s'épuise à bâtir son rôle, Méthode style, ne dormant pas pendant des jours, pour qu'Olivier lui dise au final « Ça te dirait pas de ''jouer'' à la place? » *Chef's kiss*
Fuck, je viens de réaliser que j'ai commencé ce livre il y a un peu plus d'un an.
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May 1, 2022LOVED this book. I absolutely love how Isaac Butler writes and every single page here taught me something new.
April 29, 2022
i’ m having second thoughts about all this “acting” stuff
July 5, 2023
This book was *so* much more than what I expected. Butler does an exceptional job tracing back the inception of method acting from the 1890s in Russia through it’s utilization and adaption during the rise of the 20th century. Ultimately, it’s clear the method is still a foundational framework for leading actors today.
I often found myself wishing for an accompanying syllabus to help refresh the historical moments or to keep track of all the plays and films mentioned. I imagine there are many BFA programs that could build an entire curriculum off Butler’s work.
I often found myself wishing for an accompanying syllabus to help refresh the historical moments or to keep track of all the plays and films mentioned. I imagine there are many BFA programs that could build an entire curriculum off Butler’s work.
May 29, 2022
I went long on this one so I posted it on Medium. It's great!
https://medium.com/@brendenmgallagher...
https://medium.com/@brendenmgallagher...
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October 26, 2022I picked this one up for research purposes (hint, hint), and it was a pleasure to read. I find Method acting fascinating. Discovering its origins, its ups and downs, and its many definitions was a fun ride.
February 13, 2022
This was great. Serves as a useful history of the Method from its origins to present day. If you’re looking for an instruction manual, this isn’t it, but it will put into context what you’ll learn from books by Stanislavski, Haggen, Meisner, and Adler.
July 4, 2022
Minunata carte, aducatoare de adevarate revelatii. Nu doar pentru profesionisti - dar, evident, mai ales pentru ei.
Shelved as 'abandoned-dnf'
July 5, 2022DNF @ 25%.
Will probably come back to it at a later date.
I think it's a case of "good book, wrong time to try to get into it."
Will probably come back to it at a later date.
I think it's a case of "good book, wrong time to try to get into it."
April 2, 2022
Vital, spectacular.
August 7, 2022
A fascinating and detailed historical dive into Method acting, it's origins in Russia, how it came to America, its permutations through the present day.
March 21, 2023
(From the introduction): "The Method is not merely an acting theory, or a reliable way to cry on cue. It is a transformative, revolutionary, modernist art movement, one of the Big Ideas of the 20th century... the "system" and the Method brought forth a new way of conceiving of human experience, one that changed how we look at the world, and at ourselves. We live today in the world - and with the aesthetic taste - that the Method helped usher in... but both the "System" and the Method could create as many problems as they solved, particularly when wielded by dogmatists who thought that they were the only right way to get to the truth."
"'We are Americans new,' Clurman told Aaron Copland. 'We need Art which, to begin with, is simply the conscious embodiment of our experience. Culture serves as self-realization for us as individuals and as a community.'" (Pg 142)
This is a superb and thoughtful and stupendously researched chronicle of people who have their contradictions and wants and needs and come upon their epiphanies sometimes by accident but not without years of work and bad times and failures first, acting tome second. It doesn't mean that Butler isn't compelled to show his readers what acting is all about, on the contrary that sort of *is* what the book is dealing with. What are even "Given Circumstances," which is an oft repeated phrase here? You've been seeing it your whole life with TV and films and theater, and you just don't know what it means... till Butler can explain it.
In other words, don't feel nervous, if you're the kind to be so, that this be all "Theory," which can be or seem sort of dry to those who haven't paid lots of money as college students to be yelled at. On the contrary, this is at once a packaging and a truly epic story of the theories - primarily that of Perezivanie as used by the Russians and then picked up and expanded upon by Americans - that makes me understand acting better than I ever have (and as a writer and director I have tried to very much over the years, but I digress).
"... the ultimate goal of Theater artists is a creative theatrical performance, which Boleslavsky defines as 'a collective creation that expresses in *visible, audible* and *rhythmic* images some *real* manifestations of *imaginary life, places and people,* by means of *clear, precise* and *natural feelings and emotions* of the human soul.' Of the utmost importance was the actor, who, as both the artist and the artist's material, 'lives his parts.'" (Pg 126)
I liked that he started it off clearly stating that this is a biography *of* the Method, and so that means showing the evolutions of the people who shaped and controlled and broke and created tendrils from it was possible. It's less like a biography of any one person or system than, how do I put this? It's like someone wrote a biography of a beautiful, crazy-large and idiosyncratic oak tree. It has so many branches and places that come off from it, but ultimately it comes back to the roots and the main center (what is that called uh... the trunk, where's my brain today) of this question: how do actors make an audience not just believe what they are seeing, but to make the *style* of acting so imperceptible that an audience doesn't see the acting (for stage and screen which, as this book makes so greatly and comprehensive for even a layman, are two different things)... or, that's not entirely correct, rather it's what it means for these styles to create an illusion for the watcher.... and this illusion via the Method, which means several things to several kinds of people and actors and directors and writers and other artists and criticis, is the controversial cornerstone of the 20th century.
And like any tree that is worth studying in the most complex detail possible, not every tree limb or branch will be as absorbing or involving necessary as others will. I did get into the sections, really the first half of the book more or less, about the development of the "System" with Stanislavski, Boreslavski, Ouspenskaya, and the Moscow Art Theater, and Butler doesn't make it too complicated to remember the names, but it does take so long to explain and render their story of this development dramatically that I did become impatient. I don't mean this entirely as a heavy criticism so much as an observation, since it is still very well written and with what seems every bit of research possible (and when a moment or moments are unknown about what one person said to another or the outcome of an event, the book is up front about it). But I can't help but find this book so much more of an involving story once the Moscow Art Theater performs in America and those rascals Strasberg, Adler, Clubman, Odets, John Garfield and eventually Kazan come in to the picture and what they do with the Method to transform American acting.
Is that some American bias? I don't think so. It's really just down to finding the history of the American theater, how this Group Theater project developed in the 1930s and that there were so many distinct and dynamic personalities and clashes of ideals and temperaments, that that is what stands out for giving Butler so much to work with - and that, perhaps this is just my interpretation, this period in history is what gets his mind and pulse racing, how this can be inspirational at a time in history where segments of society want art to be conservative and simplistic.
He maybe has to work slightly harder to make the Russian story as vigorous and magnetic, though he does, while the stories and relationships with Strasberg and Adler and Clurman alone make for something out of high school. That could also sound like a knock, like it is too shallow, but it isn't; it's simply that these are some of the most interesting figures I've ever read in a biography, so wound up in their own histories and how they were raised (or precisely were failed by their parents), and when they became fully immersed into this discovery of what acting can be, the tensions and harmonies are passions are staggering to behold. And I'm sure many books have been written about the individual characters here (Odetts alone I'm sure has had a few and he deserves them given his story and part in the Group), but having them all here makes it like this, forgive the analogy, like digging into a cohesive overview of an extended universe of characters. Will Franchot Tone show up in the end credits of the John Garfield story? Who knows.
And my goodness, the times when a pioneer and iconoclast creates the frictions and contradictions that make an entire movement so interesting... and perhaps unstable to an extent. Example:
"According to (Stella) Adler, Stanislavski and the Group had gotten his 'system' wrong. He did not use, and did not think people should use, emotional memory exercises. Problems, action, the given circumstances, and imagination were the keys to the 'system.' You got to emption through them, not the other way around. 'If your director says, please feel [first] and then tou will be able to play, tell him 'when I know how to swim then I will go into the water,'' Stanlislavski said. 'Can one swim without going into the water? One cannot feel and then do the problem- first act the problem for the physical action and then you will be able to feel.'" (Pg 171)
See, fascinating explanation... and to which I'm sure some actors may disagree reading. And that's fine. Sometimes people are right and wrong depending on the (ahem) given circumstances. That's a joke.
My point is, this book is loaded with ancedotes and stories about the PROCESS (big capital letters) of how art is created by human beings who can be screwed up and so attuned with their skills as leaders and followers (or in the case of Marlon Brando, my way of the highway), and it's equally dense storytelling while being easily readable. It's contains the qualities of academic inquiry while still being about who did what to whom on the kind of dramatic levels that would make for its own gristle for a text somewhere down the line (I'm sure at least a few of these figures have had whole plays and movies made about them, authorized or no). And as the book breathes new life and urgency to want to revisit those films of Clift and Brando and Newman and Steiger and of course Pacino (the story of The Godfather making of may be worth the price of the book by itself for it being all about the Acting style clashes and how it... all worked).
Oh, and did I mention how deftly and powerfully Butler writes about politics (and class, rest assured he does touch on accents and how that was a major issue for actors)? The two can't be separated, despite what Elia Kazan thought. That whole section on pg 186 where Butler writes about the performance of Lefty where everyone realized things were... real, and potent, and about what real lives can be as represented on that stage... wow.
(PS: I wonder if Marilyn Monroe had met Stella Adler instead of Strasberg if she would've lived a little longer and... sorry not sorry thing... I agree with Butler 1000% on James Dean. Total copycat. Ok I'll rush to the exits now...
"'We are Americans new,' Clurman told Aaron Copland. 'We need Art which, to begin with, is simply the conscious embodiment of our experience. Culture serves as self-realization for us as individuals and as a community.'" (Pg 142)
This is a superb and thoughtful and stupendously researched chronicle of people who have their contradictions and wants and needs and come upon their epiphanies sometimes by accident but not without years of work and bad times and failures first, acting tome second. It doesn't mean that Butler isn't compelled to show his readers what acting is all about, on the contrary that sort of *is* what the book is dealing with. What are even "Given Circumstances," which is an oft repeated phrase here? You've been seeing it your whole life with TV and films and theater, and you just don't know what it means... till Butler can explain it.
In other words, don't feel nervous, if you're the kind to be so, that this be all "Theory," which can be or seem sort of dry to those who haven't paid lots of money as college students to be yelled at. On the contrary, this is at once a packaging and a truly epic story of the theories - primarily that of Perezivanie as used by the Russians and then picked up and expanded upon by Americans - that makes me understand acting better than I ever have (and as a writer and director I have tried to very much over the years, but I digress).
"... the ultimate goal of Theater artists is a creative theatrical performance, which Boleslavsky defines as 'a collective creation that expresses in *visible, audible* and *rhythmic* images some *real* manifestations of *imaginary life, places and people,* by means of *clear, precise* and *natural feelings and emotions* of the human soul.' Of the utmost importance was the actor, who, as both the artist and the artist's material, 'lives his parts.'" (Pg 126)
I liked that he started it off clearly stating that this is a biography *of* the Method, and so that means showing the evolutions of the people who shaped and controlled and broke and created tendrils from it was possible. It's less like a biography of any one person or system than, how do I put this? It's like someone wrote a biography of a beautiful, crazy-large and idiosyncratic oak tree. It has so many branches and places that come off from it, but ultimately it comes back to the roots and the main center (what is that called uh... the trunk, where's my brain today) of this question: how do actors make an audience not just believe what they are seeing, but to make the *style* of acting so imperceptible that an audience doesn't see the acting (for stage and screen which, as this book makes so greatly and comprehensive for even a layman, are two different things)... or, that's not entirely correct, rather it's what it means for these styles to create an illusion for the watcher.... and this illusion via the Method, which means several things to several kinds of people and actors and directors and writers and other artists and criticis, is the controversial cornerstone of the 20th century.
And like any tree that is worth studying in the most complex detail possible, not every tree limb or branch will be as absorbing or involving necessary as others will. I did get into the sections, really the first half of the book more or less, about the development of the "System" with Stanislavski, Boreslavski, Ouspenskaya, and the Moscow Art Theater, and Butler doesn't make it too complicated to remember the names, but it does take so long to explain and render their story of this development dramatically that I did become impatient. I don't mean this entirely as a heavy criticism so much as an observation, since it is still very well written and with what seems every bit of research possible (and when a moment or moments are unknown about what one person said to another or the outcome of an event, the book is up front about it). But I can't help but find this book so much more of an involving story once the Moscow Art Theater performs in America and those rascals Strasberg, Adler, Clubman, Odets, John Garfield and eventually Kazan come in to the picture and what they do with the Method to transform American acting.
Is that some American bias? I don't think so. It's really just down to finding the history of the American theater, how this Group Theater project developed in the 1930s and that there were so many distinct and dynamic personalities and clashes of ideals and temperaments, that that is what stands out for giving Butler so much to work with - and that, perhaps this is just my interpretation, this period in history is what gets his mind and pulse racing, how this can be inspirational at a time in history where segments of society want art to be conservative and simplistic.
He maybe has to work slightly harder to make the Russian story as vigorous and magnetic, though he does, while the stories and relationships with Strasberg and Adler and Clurman alone make for something out of high school. That could also sound like a knock, like it is too shallow, but it isn't; it's simply that these are some of the most interesting figures I've ever read in a biography, so wound up in their own histories and how they were raised (or precisely were failed by their parents), and when they became fully immersed into this discovery of what acting can be, the tensions and harmonies are passions are staggering to behold. And I'm sure many books have been written about the individual characters here (Odetts alone I'm sure has had a few and he deserves them given his story and part in the Group), but having them all here makes it like this, forgive the analogy, like digging into a cohesive overview of an extended universe of characters. Will Franchot Tone show up in the end credits of the John Garfield story? Who knows.
And my goodness, the times when a pioneer and iconoclast creates the frictions and contradictions that make an entire movement so interesting... and perhaps unstable to an extent. Example:
"According to (Stella) Adler, Stanislavski and the Group had gotten his 'system' wrong. He did not use, and did not think people should use, emotional memory exercises. Problems, action, the given circumstances, and imagination were the keys to the 'system.' You got to emption through them, not the other way around. 'If your director says, please feel [first] and then tou will be able to play, tell him 'when I know how to swim then I will go into the water,'' Stanlislavski said. 'Can one swim without going into the water? One cannot feel and then do the problem- first act the problem for the physical action and then you will be able to feel.'" (Pg 171)
See, fascinating explanation... and to which I'm sure some actors may disagree reading. And that's fine. Sometimes people are right and wrong depending on the (ahem) given circumstances. That's a joke.
My point is, this book is loaded with ancedotes and stories about the PROCESS (big capital letters) of how art is created by human beings who can be screwed up and so attuned with their skills as leaders and followers (or in the case of Marlon Brando, my way of the highway), and it's equally dense storytelling while being easily readable. It's contains the qualities of academic inquiry while still being about who did what to whom on the kind of dramatic levels that would make for its own gristle for a text somewhere down the line (I'm sure at least a few of these figures have had whole plays and movies made about them, authorized or no). And as the book breathes new life and urgency to want to revisit those films of Clift and Brando and Newman and Steiger and of course Pacino (the story of The Godfather making of may be worth the price of the book by itself for it being all about the Acting style clashes and how it... all worked).
Oh, and did I mention how deftly and powerfully Butler writes about politics (and class, rest assured he does touch on accents and how that was a major issue for actors)? The two can't be separated, despite what Elia Kazan thought. That whole section on pg 186 where Butler writes about the performance of Lefty where everyone realized things were... real, and potent, and about what real lives can be as represented on that stage... wow.
(PS: I wonder if Marilyn Monroe had met Stella Adler instead of Strasberg if she would've lived a little longer and... sorry not sorry thing... I agree with Butler 1000% on James Dean. Total copycat. Ok I'll rush to the exits now...
February 16, 2024
I have been an actor for over half my life. I don’t know how I have gone this long without understanding how all of these acting techniques stem from the same person in the same way that all modern dance stems from ballet. This book, in great detail, chronicles Stanislavsky’s quest to find a new and inventive way to what he eventually called “perezhivanie”. There is some thing about having a dream for something better then going and trying to find it that is very inspiring. This book gave me the same feeling that I got when I read. Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told and Mike Nichols: A Life
I believe we are in a very interesting time in terms of what acting which the author addresses in the afterward. I read this book to get back to grounding myself in some sort of connection to hearing someone have an opinion of what acting is… The industry (post Covid and the strikes) has felt very precarious and overwhelming and in some sort of floating state where everything is nothing and nothing is everything. It’s been easy to get pulled away to followers, agents, auditions and forget the tradition I come from. I feel as though I’ve just discovered my family tree and feel its roots connected back even more. Feeling incredibly humbled and inspired. I now plan, in chronological order, on reading Stanislavki, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Chekhov, Strausbrug, Adler, Meisner, & Hagen. Knowing that all these people shared space with the next is moving beyond all measure.
I believe we are in a very interesting time in terms of what acting which the author addresses in the afterward. I read this book to get back to grounding myself in some sort of connection to hearing someone have an opinion of what acting is… The industry (post Covid and the strikes) has felt very precarious and overwhelming and in some sort of floating state where everything is nothing and nothing is everything. It’s been easy to get pulled away to followers, agents, auditions and forget the tradition I come from. I feel as though I’ve just discovered my family tree and feel its roots connected back even more. Feeling incredibly humbled and inspired. I now plan, in chronological order, on reading Stanislavki, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Chekhov, Strausbrug, Adler, Meisner, & Hagen. Knowing that all these people shared space with the next is moving beyond all measure.
February 9, 2022
Everyone has a sense of what a good performance looks like. Sure, there’s some room for individual interpretation there, but whether we’re watching a movie or a play or a TV show, we have a certain baseline understanding of what “good” is.
But how does the performer get there?
Isaac Butler’s new book “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act” is the story of one celebrated, well … method … of doing just that. From its origins in the Russian theatre scene in the early part of the 1900s to its gradual-then-rapid ascent to the apex of American acting, the Method spent decades as one of the preeminent schools of thought regarding performance.
This book treats the Method almost biographically, walking the reader through its embryonic stages with Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre through the acolytes crossing the Atlantic and delivering it to America to the splintering and development of assorted variations on the theme, all of them falling under the umbrella of “the Method.” It is, for intents and purposes, a biography of the Method. Not of those who created it or those who learned it, but of the Method itself.
Some of the greatest actors in American history – stage and screen alike – were students of the Method, though not all learned precisely the same method from the prominent and iconoclastic instructors that brought it to life in the middle of the century. Still, there’s no disputing the impact that the philosophy (however you choose to define it) had – and continues to have – on the acting world.
It all started over a century ago in Russia. A gifted actor named Konstantin Stanislavski sought a way to replicate his own ideas and philosophies of performance. He devoted years to developing what he called “the system,” refining it and sharing it with his partners and peers as he breathed life into the Moscow Art Theatre, an institution that would for a time be recognized as one of the preeminent theatres in the world, presenting groundbreaking revivals and original works that defied the performative conventions of the time.
Great acting was something that was entirely external. Young performers studied assorted gestures and poses that were understood to indicate certain feelings and ideas. If you held your hand one way, it meant this. Another, it meant that. The way you stood, the way you moved – all of it dictated and codified.
Stanislavski introduced interiority to the stage. Instead of utilizing universal gestures and the like, he and his students sought inner characterization. They sought to feel rather than present an exaggerated physical representation of feeling. Their performances were driven by internal choices and actions rather than strictly by scripts and conventions. It was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
However, what we came to know as “the Method” was born when Stanislavski’s system made its way across the ocean. During a U.S. tour by the Moscow Art Theatre, a number of American artists were captivated by the possibilities presented. That captivation would lead to a theatrical revolution in America.
Starting with the experimental and paradigm-shattering work of the Group Theatre, the system would change and evolve into something else … although no one seemed to agree on just what that something else was.
Three teachers would come to embody the Method and its place in American acting – Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. All three came to the Method from different directions, with each bringing their own ideas and experiences into play. Their students would redefine what it meant to be an American actor.
Perhaps the best-known Method proponent was Marlon Brando, though even his connection to the philosophy was complicated. The truth is that just about every prominent actor from WWII up through the 1970s was at least tangentially attached to Method acting, whether they studied with a specific teacher or simply internalized some of the ideas. The proliferation of academic theatre programs only expanded the Method’s reach.
While the Method has fallen out of favor in recent years, there’s no disputing the significance of its impact on American acting. Stage, screen, doesn’t matter – there is Method in that madness.
As someone who spent time in two different academic theatre programs a decade apart, I am familiar with the fundamentals of the Method – particularly since my stints straddled the shift in attitude regarding the philosophy. Early on, I was skeptical of the Method’s broad acceptance; later, I was equally skeptical of its general dismissal. As is so often the case, reality lay somewhere in between.
Even with that level of familiarity, “The Method” proved fascinating. The story of the philosophy’s growth and evolution plays out in the same manner as any good biography, with each high point explored with scholarship and thoughtfulness. A book like this could have easily read as dry and/or academic, but instead, Butler has woven his thorough research into a compelling narrative, one with heroes and villains and misunderstood figures from the nebulous middle space. All this while also producing a work of theatre history exploring arguably the most significant development in the history of American acting.
The early history, with Stanislavski and the MAT and his other, more experimental endeavors, is interesting, to be sure, but to my mind, things really start to soar when we see just how explosively the Method landed on American shores. Over the course of just a few years, the entire face of the discipline completely and fundamentally changed; within those changes, some of our greatest performers were forged.
“The Method” will be of great interest to fans of history and the theatre, of course, but the truth is that anyone can read this book and engage with it. Butler has crafted an impressive and engaging work of nonfiction, a book that will prove fascinating to anyone who picks it up.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” – Polonius, “Hamlet,” Act II, scene ii
But how does the performer get there?
Isaac Butler’s new book “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act” is the story of one celebrated, well … method … of doing just that. From its origins in the Russian theatre scene in the early part of the 1900s to its gradual-then-rapid ascent to the apex of American acting, the Method spent decades as one of the preeminent schools of thought regarding performance.
This book treats the Method almost biographically, walking the reader through its embryonic stages with Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre through the acolytes crossing the Atlantic and delivering it to America to the splintering and development of assorted variations on the theme, all of them falling under the umbrella of “the Method.” It is, for intents and purposes, a biography of the Method. Not of those who created it or those who learned it, but of the Method itself.
Some of the greatest actors in American history – stage and screen alike – were students of the Method, though not all learned precisely the same method from the prominent and iconoclastic instructors that brought it to life in the middle of the century. Still, there’s no disputing the impact that the philosophy (however you choose to define it) had – and continues to have – on the acting world.
It all started over a century ago in Russia. A gifted actor named Konstantin Stanislavski sought a way to replicate his own ideas and philosophies of performance. He devoted years to developing what he called “the system,” refining it and sharing it with his partners and peers as he breathed life into the Moscow Art Theatre, an institution that would for a time be recognized as one of the preeminent theatres in the world, presenting groundbreaking revivals and original works that defied the performative conventions of the time.
Great acting was something that was entirely external. Young performers studied assorted gestures and poses that were understood to indicate certain feelings and ideas. If you held your hand one way, it meant this. Another, it meant that. The way you stood, the way you moved – all of it dictated and codified.
Stanislavski introduced interiority to the stage. Instead of utilizing universal gestures and the like, he and his students sought inner characterization. They sought to feel rather than present an exaggerated physical representation of feeling. Their performances were driven by internal choices and actions rather than strictly by scripts and conventions. It was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
However, what we came to know as “the Method” was born when Stanislavski’s system made its way across the ocean. During a U.S. tour by the Moscow Art Theatre, a number of American artists were captivated by the possibilities presented. That captivation would lead to a theatrical revolution in America.
Starting with the experimental and paradigm-shattering work of the Group Theatre, the system would change and evolve into something else … although no one seemed to agree on just what that something else was.
Three teachers would come to embody the Method and its place in American acting – Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. All three came to the Method from different directions, with each bringing their own ideas and experiences into play. Their students would redefine what it meant to be an American actor.
Perhaps the best-known Method proponent was Marlon Brando, though even his connection to the philosophy was complicated. The truth is that just about every prominent actor from WWII up through the 1970s was at least tangentially attached to Method acting, whether they studied with a specific teacher or simply internalized some of the ideas. The proliferation of academic theatre programs only expanded the Method’s reach.
While the Method has fallen out of favor in recent years, there’s no disputing the significance of its impact on American acting. Stage, screen, doesn’t matter – there is Method in that madness.
As someone who spent time in two different academic theatre programs a decade apart, I am familiar with the fundamentals of the Method – particularly since my stints straddled the shift in attitude regarding the philosophy. Early on, I was skeptical of the Method’s broad acceptance; later, I was equally skeptical of its general dismissal. As is so often the case, reality lay somewhere in between.
Even with that level of familiarity, “The Method” proved fascinating. The story of the philosophy’s growth and evolution plays out in the same manner as any good biography, with each high point explored with scholarship and thoughtfulness. A book like this could have easily read as dry and/or academic, but instead, Butler has woven his thorough research into a compelling narrative, one with heroes and villains and misunderstood figures from the nebulous middle space. All this while also producing a work of theatre history exploring arguably the most significant development in the history of American acting.
The early history, with Stanislavski and the MAT and his other, more experimental endeavors, is interesting, to be sure, but to my mind, things really start to soar when we see just how explosively the Method landed on American shores. Over the course of just a few years, the entire face of the discipline completely and fundamentally changed; within those changes, some of our greatest performers were forged.
“The Method” will be of great interest to fans of history and the theatre, of course, but the truth is that anyone can read this book and engage with it. Butler has crafted an impressive and engaging work of nonfiction, a book that will prove fascinating to anyone who picks it up.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” – Polonius, “Hamlet,” Act II, scene ii
September 2, 2023
Recommended for movie, TV, or stage nerds
Recommended for fans of the Russian Revolution.
I am a fan of actors. I get a charge out of watching a fine performance. I don't mean the entire movie or play (although I do like that too), but a moment. My favorite example is Vince Vaughn (Nick Van Owen) in the 1997 movie, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park." In one scene at the beginning of the movie, he is translating for the Spanish speaking barge captain. The captain has reservations about waiting at the island while Van Owen, Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm), and Richard Schiff (Eddie Carr) go exploring. The captain, in Spanish, says the local fishermen call these islands "las Cinco Muertes." Vaughn translates, "the five deaths, he says,"and then he shakes his head slightly left and right as if to negate what the captain is saying. It's a small moment but that one little head shake conveys so many things: the warning about the island, the mystery of the story, and the slight possibility that he doesn't believe him but maybe he does. I love that kind of stuff.
Which brings me to method acting and this book, "The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act," by Isaac Butler. As far as I know, Vaughn is not a method actor, but in that 1997 movie, his performance is an exemplar of the evolutionary change in the acting craft started in Russia by Konstantin Stanislavski in 1898 as told by Butler.
Before Stanislavski reimagined the acting craft, theater audiences were aware that the actors were performing. Everything was big and exaggerated in order to play to the people in the back. It was presentational. Stanislavski started a shift to perezhivanie. Loosely translated, it means something like “experiencing,” or perhaps “re-experiencing.”
Stanislavski called his set of perezhivanie techniques "The System". During the performance, actors would "experience" their roles so truthfully that the audience would forget they are acting. Actors would breakdown the role into bits, with the aim of “accomplishing each of these bits as truthfully as possible," like Vaughn.
Because of the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, Stanislavski brought the system to the United States where it changed how Americans actors approached their craft, first during the Great Depression, then on film in the postwar era.
It helped create one of the most famous American acting schools, The Actors Studio, founded in 1947 by directors Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis. It was a place where actors could work together without the pressures of commercial production and members learned Stanislavski's system. Noted alumni include Al Pacino, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Montgomery Clift, Sidney Lumet, Karl Malden, Patricia Neal, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, and Marlon Brando.
Lee Strasberg (Actor Studio director from 1948 to 1982) emerged as the authority for the system, extended the techniques, and helped transform Stanislavski's system into "the method." Actors used their own emotional memory for the purpose of dramatic motivation and tried to live the part. When Christian Bale and Robert Dinero lost weight for some of their famous roles (The Machinist, Raging Bull), they were doing method acting. When actors stay in character even when they are not filming (like Jim Carey in the 1999 biopic "Man on the Moon"), that's them using method acting to hopefully create a better performance.
There are criticisms. The Method takes a toll. For example, when Jessica Chastain stared in the Broadway show "Dollhouse" in 2023, there is emotional devastation and sadness to her performance. She doesn't pretend those emotions. She feels them, 6 days a week and twice on Sundays. Her brain and her body doesn't know that she's acting. She's going through the ordeal for real each time. And again, I don't know if Chastain would consider herself a method actress but you can see her craft as a direct line from it. Moderation is the key I guess but some actors have taken it to the extreme and many don't adhere to it at all.
Stella Adler, a former member of the Actor's Studio and student of Strasberg, grew to hate the method and formed her own school teaching what she called the Method of Physical Action. Actors of the day were either in Strasberg's or Adler's camp.
Butler's book tells this story of the evolution of the acting craft complete with all the drama inherent in any major disruption of anything but especially things that artistic types ae involved with. And there's a lot of it. If you're a movie, TV, or stage nerd, this book is for you. It will also appeal to anybody interested in the Russian Revolution.
---
References
Ochoa, S., 2022. Review: Isaac Butler’s history of modern acting “The Method” [Book Review]. Los Angeles Times. URL https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Morris, W., Dudley, E., Buetow, H., Weiss, S., 2022. Where’d All the Method Acting Go? [Podcast]. The New York Times. URL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/po...
Green, J., 2022. Is It Finally Twilight for the Theater’s Sacred Monsters? [WWW Document]. The New York Times. URL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/th... (accessed 1.1.23).
Fertel, R., 2022. The Method tells the story of the 20th century’s most controversial acting practice [WWW Document]. The A.V. Club. URL https://www.avclub.com/the-method-isa...
Recommended for fans of the Russian Revolution.
I am a fan of actors. I get a charge out of watching a fine performance. I don't mean the entire movie or play (although I do like that too), but a moment. My favorite example is Vince Vaughn (Nick Van Owen) in the 1997 movie, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park." In one scene at the beginning of the movie, he is translating for the Spanish speaking barge captain. The captain has reservations about waiting at the island while Van Owen, Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm), and Richard Schiff (Eddie Carr) go exploring. The captain, in Spanish, says the local fishermen call these islands "las Cinco Muertes." Vaughn translates, "the five deaths, he says,"and then he shakes his head slightly left and right as if to negate what the captain is saying. It's a small moment but that one little head shake conveys so many things: the warning about the island, the mystery of the story, and the slight possibility that he doesn't believe him but maybe he does. I love that kind of stuff.
Which brings me to method acting and this book, "The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act," by Isaac Butler. As far as I know, Vaughn is not a method actor, but in that 1997 movie, his performance is an exemplar of the evolutionary change in the acting craft started in Russia by Konstantin Stanislavski in 1898 as told by Butler.
Before Stanislavski reimagined the acting craft, theater audiences were aware that the actors were performing. Everything was big and exaggerated in order to play to the people in the back. It was presentational. Stanislavski started a shift to perezhivanie. Loosely translated, it means something like “experiencing,” or perhaps “re-experiencing.”
Stanislavski called his set of perezhivanie techniques "The System". During the performance, actors would "experience" their roles so truthfully that the audience would forget they are acting. Actors would breakdown the role into bits, with the aim of “accomplishing each of these bits as truthfully as possible," like Vaughn.
Because of the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, Stanislavski brought the system to the United States where it changed how Americans actors approached their craft, first during the Great Depression, then on film in the postwar era.
It helped create one of the most famous American acting schools, The Actors Studio, founded in 1947 by directors Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis. It was a place where actors could work together without the pressures of commercial production and members learned Stanislavski's system. Noted alumni include Al Pacino, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Montgomery Clift, Sidney Lumet, Karl Malden, Patricia Neal, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach, and Marlon Brando.
Lee Strasberg (Actor Studio director from 1948 to 1982) emerged as the authority for the system, extended the techniques, and helped transform Stanislavski's system into "the method." Actors used their own emotional memory for the purpose of dramatic motivation and tried to live the part. When Christian Bale and Robert Dinero lost weight for some of their famous roles (The Machinist, Raging Bull), they were doing method acting. When actors stay in character even when they are not filming (like Jim Carey in the 1999 biopic "Man on the Moon"), that's them using method acting to hopefully create a better performance.
There are criticisms. The Method takes a toll. For example, when Jessica Chastain stared in the Broadway show "Dollhouse" in 2023, there is emotional devastation and sadness to her performance. She doesn't pretend those emotions. She feels them, 6 days a week and twice on Sundays. Her brain and her body doesn't know that she's acting. She's going through the ordeal for real each time. And again, I don't know if Chastain would consider herself a method actress but you can see her craft as a direct line from it. Moderation is the key I guess but some actors have taken it to the extreme and many don't adhere to it at all.
Stella Adler, a former member of the Actor's Studio and student of Strasberg, grew to hate the method and formed her own school teaching what she called the Method of Physical Action. Actors of the day were either in Strasberg's or Adler's camp.
Butler's book tells this story of the evolution of the acting craft complete with all the drama inherent in any major disruption of anything but especially things that artistic types ae involved with. And there's a lot of it. If you're a movie, TV, or stage nerd, this book is for you. It will also appeal to anybody interested in the Russian Revolution.
---
References
Ochoa, S., 2022. Review: Isaac Butler’s history of modern acting “The Method” [Book Review]. Los Angeles Times. URL https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Morris, W., Dudley, E., Buetow, H., Weiss, S., 2022. Where’d All the Method Acting Go? [Podcast]. The New York Times. URL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/po...
Green, J., 2022. Is It Finally Twilight for the Theater’s Sacred Monsters? [WWW Document]. The New York Times. URL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/th... (accessed 1.1.23).
Fertel, R., 2022. The Method tells the story of the 20th century’s most controversial acting practice [WWW Document]. The A.V. Club. URL https://www.avclub.com/the-method-isa...
October 29, 2022
Clear and well paced, switching deftly between in-the-moment narration, larger setting of time and place, and essayist analysis; measured and even-handed about a controversial topic.
December 10, 2023
"To theorize about acting is to theorize about what a human being is and how a human being works. It is to theorize about what good art is and how good art is made."
I did not expect that this 2022 book on the history of Method Acting would end up becoming one of my favorite reads this 2023, or for that matter, for all time.
If this was a play, then its spine (or supertask, to use the book's jargon) is simple enough. It tells the history of hallowed names in theater - those of Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner - and how a cultural shift that began in Russia spread to America, and continues to impact how we view all acting in theater and film today.
To this reader, who experienced studying under different "theories" for different fields (in music, Kodaly and a smattering of Dalcroze ... in education, Montessori versus the traditional one... and in theater, the more traditional and strict style taught in universities versus the more easy-going, interior style in other workshops), the book was an utter revelation not merely of how impossible it is to safeguard a method against all other influences, but to what it says about human nature when people are passionately for or against one style of teaching as opposed to others.
Butler writes as a former actor does, infusing theory with practical examples that are nuggets of gold to any theater aficionado. He infuses cultural history writing with a dramatist's flair for conflict, making the historical figures come to life in a nonfiction book that was so exciting to read! It's quite possibly the best written nonfiction book I have ever read, never sacrificing academic rigor (the bibliography and notes alone took nearly half the volume) for artistry.
I put the book down with gratitude that it exists. It's a must-read for anyone teaching or involved in drama, for anyone who wants to give an intelligent response to the question "What IS good acting?"
But acting was never merely a form of entertainment.
Butler showed how actors, playwrights, in plays and films, crystallized and voiced the agonies of their current generation. Art as a mirror of its time. And thus, this fine book is more than the story of a pedagogical system. It is the story of humanity itself, and its struggle to overcome each decade's troubles.
And what about us humans, the audience of today? Butler writes:
"We live now in a Time of Performance. In this era, due in no small part to social media, we are more conscious than ever that we are performing for an audience of other people. We are also aware that we are the audience for everyone else’s performances, and we rate them, not with applause, but with hearts and thumbs-up, with emojis and retweets... it is unsettling to always be at least slightly aware that nothing is real, least of all ourselves... Today, the major challenge to an actor is not being heard, or seen, but seizing and holding an audience’s attention... Now acting and writing head instead toward clarity, worried that a surfeit of mystery and subtext risks committing the cardinal sin of art: boring the audience... This leads to the postmodern actor’s paradox: At a time when everything feels a little bit inauthentic, we crave simplified, clear acting that presents characters as coherent and easily knowable. We crave, in other words, a comforting lie about who we are."
I did not expect that this 2022 book on the history of Method Acting would end up becoming one of my favorite reads this 2023, or for that matter, for all time.
If this was a play, then its spine (or supertask, to use the book's jargon) is simple enough. It tells the history of hallowed names in theater - those of Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner - and how a cultural shift that began in Russia spread to America, and continues to impact how we view all acting in theater and film today.
To this reader, who experienced studying under different "theories" for different fields (in music, Kodaly and a smattering of Dalcroze ... in education, Montessori versus the traditional one... and in theater, the more traditional and strict style taught in universities versus the more easy-going, interior style in other workshops), the book was an utter revelation not merely of how impossible it is to safeguard a method against all other influences, but to what it says about human nature when people are passionately for or against one style of teaching as opposed to others.
Butler writes as a former actor does, infusing theory with practical examples that are nuggets of gold to any theater aficionado. He infuses cultural history writing with a dramatist's flair for conflict, making the historical figures come to life in a nonfiction book that was so exciting to read! It's quite possibly the best written nonfiction book I have ever read, never sacrificing academic rigor (the bibliography and notes alone took nearly half the volume) for artistry.
I put the book down with gratitude that it exists. It's a must-read for anyone teaching or involved in drama, for anyone who wants to give an intelligent response to the question "What IS good acting?"
But acting was never merely a form of entertainment.
Butler showed how actors, playwrights, in plays and films, crystallized and voiced the agonies of their current generation. Art as a mirror of its time. And thus, this fine book is more than the story of a pedagogical system. It is the story of humanity itself, and its struggle to overcome each decade's troubles.
And what about us humans, the audience of today? Butler writes:
"We live now in a Time of Performance. In this era, due in no small part to social media, we are more conscious than ever that we are performing for an audience of other people. We are also aware that we are the audience for everyone else’s performances, and we rate them, not with applause, but with hearts and thumbs-up, with emojis and retweets... it is unsettling to always be at least slightly aware that nothing is real, least of all ourselves... Today, the major challenge to an actor is not being heard, or seen, but seizing and holding an audience’s attention... Now acting and writing head instead toward clarity, worried that a surfeit of mystery and subtext risks committing the cardinal sin of art: boring the audience... This leads to the postmodern actor’s paradox: At a time when everything feels a little bit inauthentic, we crave simplified, clear acting that presents characters as coherent and easily knowable. We crave, in other words, a comforting lie about who we are."
November 15, 2023
3.5 stars. I chose to read this not because I was interested in the history of acting, but because it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. There are a number of other nonfiction books that I've loved that have won this award: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2019 winner), How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (2021 winner), Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016 winner), Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity (2012 winner), and The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010 winner). So I thought I'd check out last year's winner, regardless of topic.
I did enjoy the book overall, even though I had to power through some parts that were a little boring to me (the theater politics between people I'd never heard of got a little old). I was worried that not knowing much about plays and movies would hurt my enjoyment of it, but it wasn't too bad, and occasionally I watched some clips on YouTube just to understand who people like Marlon Brando and Kim Stanley were.
I have never thought about acting as much as I did while reading this book, and it has given me a new lens to think about when I watch a movie or TV, and getting new lenses on a topic are one of my favorite reasons to read nonfiction. But I just don't think the topic was interesting enough for me to give this 4 stars.
I did enjoy the book overall, even though I had to power through some parts that were a little boring to me (the theater politics between people I'd never heard of got a little old). I was worried that not knowing much about plays and movies would hurt my enjoyment of it, but it wasn't too bad, and occasionally I watched some clips on YouTube just to understand who people like Marlon Brando and Kim Stanley were.
I have never thought about acting as much as I did while reading this book, and it has given me a new lens to think about when I watch a movie or TV, and getting new lenses on a topic are one of my favorite reasons to read nonfiction. But I just don't think the topic was interesting enough for me to give this 4 stars.
August 3, 2022
basically, i love drama between deceased historical figures and celebrities, especially when aforementioned drama is based upon such petty things as hard-to-define academic concepts and "craft". so my purpose in reading this book was to satiate my need to be knowledgeable about decades-old disputes that no one cares about anymore. and isaac butler delivered, at least in part.
i liked the stanislavski section, it was interesting. however, after the invention of the system and the ideas that would later form the method, the "narrative" of this book seems to lose steam. we spend what seems like an interminably long time with strasberg and the group theatre. so long, over so many decades and hours of the audiobook, that i at one point wondered when these people were going to die.
the epigraph of this book quotes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and the afterword quotes The Haunting of Hill House, and cameos by James Baldwin, Sholem Asch, and David Lynch briefly caught my interest. whenever someone i had even vaguely heard of or was familiar with their work was mentioned, i got really excited, as if someone i personally knew was being namedropped.
overall, this book packed a lot of knowledge into a 15-hour audiobook, knowledge that i'm fairly sure i will at least reference in my studies (outing myself as a theater student). maybe this is isaac butler's seemingly pro-method leanings affecting my reading, but i find myself at ease with the knowledge that the method was on the whole not as bad as the egregious examples of actors going to ridiculous lengths "in the pursuit of truth and accuracy" that we see in oscars season publicity.
i liked the stanislavski section, it was interesting. however, after the invention of the system and the ideas that would later form the method, the "narrative" of this book seems to lose steam. we spend what seems like an interminably long time with strasberg and the group theatre. so long, over so many decades and hours of the audiobook, that i at one point wondered when these people were going to die.
the epigraph of this book quotes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and the afterword quotes The Haunting of Hill House, and cameos by James Baldwin, Sholem Asch, and David Lynch briefly caught my interest. whenever someone i had even vaguely heard of or was familiar with their work was mentioned, i got really excited, as if someone i personally knew was being namedropped.
overall, this book packed a lot of knowledge into a 15-hour audiobook, knowledge that i'm fairly sure i will at least reference in my studies (outing myself as a theater student). maybe this is isaac butler's seemingly pro-method leanings affecting my reading, but i find myself at ease with the knowledge that the method was on the whole not as bad as the egregious examples of actors going to ridiculous lengths "in the pursuit of truth and accuracy" that we see in oscars season publicity.
May 8, 2023
I learned a great deal from this often wildly entertaining theatrical history. Like most moviegoers, I had only a vague sense that "the method" had something to do with Stanislavski and Stella Adler and Marlon Brando and that notorious Dustin Hoffman/Laurence Olivier quote. Butler begins in Russia in the late nineteenth century, with a movement bucking the traditional performance style, which long aimed to faithfully present the authorial text at the expense of any hint of realism. The Method takes us from Stanislavski to multiple generations of American acting teachers inspired by his thinking, and then to the great and not-so-great performances of the movie stars who learned from those teachers.
Granted, Butler struggles to make a clear connection between the acting lessons and the acting. Stanislavski, inventor of the notion of actors drawing on personal emotion and experience, never seemed to pin down what he believed about anything, and his disciples—Lee Strasberg, Adler, Sanford Meisner, and more—spent years squabbling. The actors who delivered signature "method" performances often scoffed at the entire premise. The whole idea was, and is, a mess.
As Butler moves forward through the decades, actors and performances become more familiar, and he feels freer to critique them, which is satisfying when one agrees (yes, James Dean is simply awful in Rebel without a Cause) and less so when one disagrees (IMO, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde's success has little to do with their leads' portrayals). What's more disconcerting is how the author, having chronicled at length philosophical clashes about how respectfully to treat scripted language, fails to address the fact that after Brando and A Streetcar Named Desire, some playwrights and screenwriters began writing for that style of acting. It's not as though every troupe was handed the same set of Shakespeare & Shaw & Williams & Miller plays and decided to handle them in radically different ways—sometimes actors began mumbling and overlapping because they were supposed to!
Acting in the '60s and '70s became so variegated that there's no way to discuss it coherently, and Butler wraps up his story not long after he gets to Raging Bull. Honestly, The Method is kind of a mess itself. But it's all bright and colorful, and a fun read even when the structure gets hazy. And again, I learned a lot.
Granted, Butler struggles to make a clear connection between the acting lessons and the acting. Stanislavski, inventor of the notion of actors drawing on personal emotion and experience, never seemed to pin down what he believed about anything, and his disciples—Lee Strasberg, Adler, Sanford Meisner, and more—spent years squabbling. The actors who delivered signature "method" performances often scoffed at the entire premise. The whole idea was, and is, a mess.
As Butler moves forward through the decades, actors and performances become more familiar, and he feels freer to critique them, which is satisfying when one agrees (yes, James Dean is simply awful in Rebel without a Cause) and less so when one disagrees (IMO, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde's success has little to do with their leads' portrayals). What's more disconcerting is how the author, having chronicled at length philosophical clashes about how respectfully to treat scripted language, fails to address the fact that after Brando and A Streetcar Named Desire, some playwrights and screenwriters began writing for that style of acting. It's not as though every troupe was handed the same set of Shakespeare & Shaw & Williams & Miller plays and decided to handle them in radically different ways—sometimes actors began mumbling and overlapping because they were supposed to!
Acting in the '60s and '70s became so variegated that there's no way to discuss it coherently, and Butler wraps up his story not long after he gets to Raging Bull. Honestly, The Method is kind of a mess itself. But it's all bright and colorful, and a fun read even when the structure gets hazy. And again, I learned a lot.
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