Strasberg at the Actors Studio: Tape-Recorded Sessions

by Robert H. Hethmon (Editor), Burgess Meredith (Preface)

"A fascinating close-up of Mr. Strasberg's philosophy of theatre and method of working with actors."--Eliot Fremont-Smith, The New York Times Unavailable for over fifteen years, these transcripts of Strasberg's private acting classes provide a revealing look at one of the nation's most famous acting schools and its controversial leader.

Genres: Film

446 pages, Paperback

First published May 8, 1968

Reviews

[Jorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

The majority of this book consists of transcripts of Strasberg's notes, direction, praise, and admonishments to unnamed actors following their performances. This is interesting to a degree as a window into Strasberg's personality but it's almost useless to read the feedback without being able to see the performances themselves. About 280-odd pages into the book, there's a section where Strasberg shares his insights on acting in general and that content is brilliantly enlightening. I wish the book consisted of more of that sort of thing. Otherwise, most of the book is just conversations taken out-of-context.

[Joeylopez86 lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've learned every aspect of acting from this book. Lee Strassberg touches on every problem that the working actor has and helps turn those problems into something that you can utilize and use for your work.

I recommend this book to every Actor and Actress.

[Farshid JAHED · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LIKE IT

[Yisrael Dubov · Rating 3 out of 5]

So hard to get through.

Supposedly this book is virtually just one big transcript of Strasberg's classes throughout the years (obviously edited down), and it shows. I don't know if the author actually edited Strasberg's words or just doesn't believe editors should be a thing. Whatever the case, this book was so bland and difficult to traverse.

Now this is not to say that there wasn't any valuable information in it; there absolutely was. But Strasberg's own book, "A Dream of Passion" (which most likely WAS passed through an editor) was a beautiful piece of work. This one just lacked everything you want in a good educational book. I'd understand it's dry style had it been presented like a textbook, but frankly it didn't even have that much useful information to warrant its blandness.

In conclusion, I'm sure there are plenty of books out there to learn what THE METHOD is all about without having to go through the unfortunate incident that is this book.

Should be 2 stars but I gave it 3 for the information.

[Abi]

*for uni*