Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg are the most famous acting practitioners in Hollywood and even in the world. While Strasberg is renowned for his method approach and Adler for her realistic approach, both schools deserve a lot of acclamation. This article will explore the methods and acting exercises they used to train their students.
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg, born in1901, was an American actor, director, and acting teacher. In 1951, he became the Actors Studio director in New York City. In 1969, Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and Hollywood to teach his pioneered work.
Strasberg’s acting method is built on his philosophy that for an actor to be believable, he must believe his role and not just imitate real life. The main goal of his “method” is to help the actor create real thoughts and emotions under imaginary circumstances. “The Method” is one of the most popular acting techniques. It was the method of choice for film and television actors in Hollywood.
Some of the famous actors who studied with Lee Strasberg are Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Fonda…
Check out this post we wrote about Actors who used the Method and went too far with it.
What are the characteristics of “Method” acting?
Relaxation
Lee Strasberg was convinced that a relaxed actor could enter a role and focus on a scene much more than a tense actor. So removing tension from the body is a big part of this acting technique. Actors concentrate on one aspect of their body at a time; moving and releasing it until it is free from tension.
Sense Memory and Concentration
Method actors use sense memory to connect to the given circumstances of the play – or movie – and their characters.
Emotional Memory
In the Method, actors can use their own experiences to connect with their character’s emotional state. To do that, method actors use sense memory to recall a touching memory from their past.
But it is worth mentioning that this point has some withdrawals. Many actors initially feel overwhelmed by the emotions they experience with this exercise. Hence, it requires the guidance of a trained teacher and experience with simpler sense memory exercises.
Characterization
One of the strangest things you’ll see in Method acting class is actors walking around the classroom like animals. Actors use sense memory to explore what the animal sees, smells, hears, etc. Eventually, actors start to incorporate their animal characters with their human characters.
Script Analysis and Scene Work
Method acting is not just about sense memory. Actors learn how to break down a script, look for character clues and find the objective of a scene. Students learn to explore a part through improv techniques and substitutions, where actors substitute a relationship in the play for a relationship they have in real life, helping them relate to the conflict and their scene partner.
Lee Strasberg’s Acting Exercises
Lee Strasberg was focused on solving acting blocks and actor problems. This led him to develop a lot of unique exercises that do just that. The most popular is the moment-to-moment exercise, which helps the actors escape their real-world situations and be in the moment.
There are other acting exercises that Lee Strasberg did with his students and specific exercises to help the actor master the above points.
For example, the practice for sense memory and concentration includes simple exercises like the feeling of drinking coffee for beginner actors. While more advanced students learn to combine several sense memories at a time to create a character.
The place exercise has actors create a place for their characters through what they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. One viral exercise for working on emotional scenes is the personal object exercise. In that, students use their senses to explore an object with great emotional value.
Another helpful Lee Strasberg exercise is the private moment, which allows actors to feel private in public and avoid stage fear by re-creating that experience through their senses.
For the emotional memory, if an actor is trying to connect with a character who feels the loss, they will try to recall an experience from their past when they felt loss by re-creating what they saw, tasted, smelled, heard, and touched that day.
Inspired by Stanislavsky, his method prompts actors to deepen and enhance their emotional connection to the material. So they try incorporating the characters’ experiences into their own lives.
For the characterization, Lee Strasberg did the animal exercise which is a very useful tool for actors to explore their characters. Students spend some time watching the animal, then recreating not only how the animal moves, but how it interacts with the world through its five senses.
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was a Broadway 22-year-old actress when she attended a performance by Constantine Stanislavski and his Moscow Art Theatre in 1922. His U.S. tour was a transformative moment for American theatre in general and would have a large impact on Stella Adler’s life in particular.
In 1931, Adler became one of the founding members of The Group Theater, along with Lee Strasberg and 2 other members. It would go on to become arguably the most influential ensemble in the 20th century, its influence extending beyond theatre and into cinema.
Adler received 5-week training with Stanislavski becoming the first American to be taught by Stanislavski himself. Adler then splits from the Group Theater and from Lee Strasberg because each one of them interpreted Stanislavsky’s method differently as we’ll see in this post.
Some of the actors who studied with Stella Adler: were Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, Dolores del Río, Robert De Niro, Elaine Stritch, Martin Sheen, and Manu Tupou…
Stella Adler believed that actors’ talent lies in their imagination. This theater and film actress turned acting teacher trained with Stanislavsky and studied the method, but didn’t believe that an actor needs to relive past experiences to connect with the character. Through years of teaching, she developed an acting method that helps actors be truthful on stage by fully believing in the circumstances of the play.
Here are some points that describe the method of Stella Adler:
- Acting is Doing
The actor must always do something on stage. He looks for actions in the script (for example, “to teach, to confess, to beg”, etc.) and finds the human conflict in them. He must have a justification for each action (know exactly why he is performing each action). - Developing the imagination
An actor develops his imagination by first observing the world around them in very specific details. they can then create specific images in their minds in order to surround themselves with things that are true to them on screen. If they succeed, the audience will see through their eyes. - Training the mind
Actors must have a real understanding of the script in order to reveal its secrets to the audience. They must study the text and its ideas but also research the social situations of the play. - Size
Actors need strong bodies and voices for the stage so they can bring size to their actions. Her students learned to always bring a bigger meaning to the text.
Stella Adler’s acting exercises
Adler works on various exercises to increase the imagination of the actors such as describing objects and trying to relate to them, for example, she might ask an actor to describe very specific details of an object they choose, and the more they describe in specific details the more the object is alive and the more the audience feels it.
Another exercise that aims to make the actor look real and natural in his role is paraphrasing, where Adler makes her students choose a random sentence and try to make up a reason for saying it, first the actor needs to understand the idea, then respond to it and make it his own until he feels a real need to communicate it.
