Word: strasberg
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...believe Shakespeare was Shakespeare," Strasberg continued, "and that he was an actor." He said the best clue to Shakespeare's ideas on acting is not to be found in Hamlet's oft-cited directions to the Players (Act iii, 2), but rather in Hamlet's 'O what a rogue and peasant slave' soliloquy (Act ii, 2), especially the lines, "Is it not monstrous that this player here,/ But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,/ Could force so his soul to his own conceit/ That from her working all his visage wann'd,/ Tears in his eyes, distraction...
Since an actor has his lines furnished to him, just what does he create? Strasberg answered, "An actor creates character; he creates a new human being." From the 18th century he cited the example of David Garrick's interpretation of King Lear, in which Garrick "showed for the first time the whole process though which a person actually goes insane." And from the 19th century he mentioned Edmund Kean's conception of Shylock as an Italian Jew only 38 years old, and said he wished somebody else would dare to try this approach sometime...
Another creation of the actor, Strasberg felt, is the feeling of humanity. "All the other arts can only come close to capturing a sense of humanity; acting alone can really...
...Strasberg said he wanted to conclude with "a most moving experience." Where-upon he read the short article, 'The Sucess and Failure of a Role,' which the late Walter Huston contributed to the fascinating anthology Actors on Acting...
...reading of Huston's remarks pointed up Strasberg's concern over "the lack of a trained audience." And it was particularly timely in view of Earle Hyman's current recreation of the same role at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut (which I discussed at some length in these pages two weeks...