(updated below)
Chris Wilkinson at Guardian Online, in doing the weekly roundup of theatre blog conversation points to our conversation earlier about the Strasberg school.
Well, it turns out David Strasberg, who is continuing the legacy of father Lee (despite not being an actor or having a theatre background at all) has a blog. And not only that, he has a post up on the blog where he discusses McNulty's article. I don't think the post does him, his father, or his "institute" any favors:
People like to talk about theories of acting. But we are not theoretical. My father said our work is not a theory because a theory is something which has not yet been proven. So far, no interview has ever been able to capture that element in our training. How do you explain or describe the change in your life when you gain knowledge of yourself? When you learn discipline? When you learn a new skill? These moments are not accomplished by sitting around talking. The sky does not open up, and the angels don’t sing (usually, at least).
I think Mr. Strasberg might want to invest in a spokesperson, because, to be blunt:
this is how frauds talk. The above is pure snake-oil boilerplate: "Come invest a large amount of money and years of time in our program. Why? Well, we can't articulate why. We can't articulate what works about our methods or how, you'll simply know when you get there. After four years. And tens of thousands of dollars."Not only that, but neither David nor Lee Strasberg apparently understand what a theory is. A theory observes certain classes of phenomena and makes verifiable assertions about them. Theories aren't what you call something before it's proven. That's a hypothesis. It would be flattering to the Method-- or any other kind of acting system-- to call it a theory ,because it would mean that you could empirically show that it'll make you a better actor.
It only gets worse from there. "The power of training as an actor – or as anything else for that matter – is the momentum of countless hours spent getting better. How do you capture the grandeur of THAT in a tape recorder?" Well, David, the way you capture the grandeur of that on a tape recorder is being able to articulately talk about the thing that it's your business to do-- train people in being better actors. True, you cannot actually give Charles McNulty a first hand experience of suddenly doing something it takes years to accomplish, but you should be able to talk about it in a way that doesn't obviously reek of baloney to even casual observers.
Everyone who applies to your school at NYU has to be able to articulately talk about why they want to go there, you should probably be able to do the same. And maybe a few graduates of your program should be able to on your behalf to. Maybe someone younger than, say, Al Pacino if you want to claim your program is still relevant.
UPDATE: Not to continue beating a dead horse here, but I'd also note that David Strasberg pooh-poohs the negative aspects of McNulty's article by writing "Of course as a journalist McNulty is interested in finding drama. News needs either “New” or “Conflict” so they have to search for one or the other to make the article interesting." That's ridiculous. McNulty's article contains, amongst other things, negative assessments of the Strasbergian method from Ron Van Lieu, widely agreed upon as one of (if not the) best acting teacher for the stage in America. That's not just pointless conflict-drumming-up. If he wanted that, he would've gone to Mamet, who called the method a "cult" and basically worthless in his book "True And False". He didn't. he went to an actual authority on the subject, who commented about his concerns about the method. If Strasberg wants to explain why we shouldnt't listen to Van Lieu, or why he's wrong, that'd be one thing. But to dismiss all concerns by, essentially, attacking th media is ridiculous.
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