Lee Strasberg’s Dream of Passion

Wow, just finished a flashback book back to my days in the world of drama/theatre, Lee Strasberg’s Dream of Passion.  Yes, for those who didn’t know I have a MFA in Directing of Theatre and I thought and hoped I would be directing on the big stage… well, maybe I am, Directing Student Life at NYU, that’s a pretty big stage, ok, I digress.  Strasberg is known as THE American inspiration for a new way to approach acting in the mid twentieth century.  Strasberg’s work was formed through his study of the great Russian acting teacher Constantin Stanislavski.  The Strasberg approach is known as “Method acting” which is based on the idea that to develop a deeper emotional and cognitive connection to the character, actors need to identify personally with them.  Actors are trained to reproduce the character’s emotional state by recalling personal sensations and emotions from their own life.  Strasberg asked his actors to replace the play’s situation with the actor’s own experiences.  Strasberg presents techniques grounded in replacement of emotions from one’s own life.  I remember being trained in many of his techniques, using relaxation, sense memory exercises, improvisation, and animal work – pretending to be an animal to help one with freer movements.  The book begins with an introduction by Evangeline Morphos, who at the time was the Director of the Undergraduate Acting Program at….. NYU!   (I swear one in ten books I read have an NYU reference in it, love it!).  After the intro, Strasberg shares how he entered the theatre, his influences, and how he developed his own techniques for acting.  His illustrious career is captured in pictures within the book and the various people who helped him create his thinking on how to improve the actor’s work.  He worked at a time that realism was taking over the main productions on Broadway and he was desperately attempting to make his audience “truly feel” the emotions that the actor was attempting to convey.  His work was very much working from the “inside -  out” which was later challenged by top acting teachers like his own student Stella Adler, a famous NY actress, and name of one of the NYU theatre studios.  Strasberg dissects many performances of actors and why it was so hard to recreate a part, night after night.  Strasberg was one of the most influential teachers for acting of his time, and beyond.  From Marilyn Monroe, to today’s stars Chris Evans and Anne Hathaway.  As a former director, I regularly had rehearsals using many of his strategies to try and help actors find their motivation through a recreation of their own life journey.  It makes great sense.  It was fun to recreate and trek back to my earlier life in theatre.  While I enjoyed it, non-theatre people may find it rather tedious and uninteresting.  But if you wonder how actors approach this work, or you need to do some acting on the job, take a look.  The exercises on how to relax are good for all.