Product Description

An original member of the famed Group Theater, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists to come out of the American theater. As a Stanislavsky disciple and founder of her own highly esteemed acting conservatory, the extravagant actress was also an eminent acting teacher, training her students--among them Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Robert DeNiro--in the art of script interpretation.

The classic lectures collected here, delivered over a period of forty years, bring to life the plays of the three fathers of modern drama: Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov. With passionate conviction and shrewd insight, Adler explains how their plays forever changed the world of dramaturgy while offering enduring insights on society, class, culture, and the role of the actor. She explores the struggles of Ibsen's characters to free themselves from societal convention, the mortal conflicts that trap Strindberg's men and women, and the pain of loss and transition lyrically evoked by Chekhov. A majestic volume, Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov allows us to experience the work of these masters "as if to see, hear and feel their genius for the first time." (William H. Gass)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #203763 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-12
• Released on: 2000-09-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Booklist
Cofounder in the 1930s of the Group Theater and best known later as the formidable force behind the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, Adler was an articulate, opinionated, intellectually gifted member of the profession, as these talks on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov attest. Culled from a lifetime of lectures and edited into rough essay form by Barry Paris, they exhaustively examine the major works of those three seminal modern playwrights. They are not academic exercises, for Adler's goal was to show her acting students how to break down those intimidating plays into easily digestible parts, the better to bring them to life onstage. Adler's microscopic dissection of a role like that of Nora in A Doll's House is fascinating. Unfortunately, her close, complete reading has a downside in this book--repetitiveness. Furthermore, not even Paris' expertise disguises the fact that these pieces were originally spoken. Digression and repetition may be helpful in a classroom lecture but are not as forceful on the page as a lean, careful essay would be. Sadly, this is all she "wrote." Jack Helbig

From Kirkus Reviews
The late acting teachers legendary lectures on script interpretation lose something when transposed to the printed page, though they still make a fine introduction to modern drama and the acting style it requires. Like Moscow Art Theatre director Konstantin Stanislavsky, with whom she studied, and like her fellow members of the Group Theatre, which popularized his revolutionary acting technique in America, Adler (190192) stresses the actors role as servant to the playwright. Ibsen and his successors created a new kind of drama based on middle-class life and speech, she asserts; since what people say isnt necessarily what they mean, actors in these plays must imagine and convey their characters inner lives beneath and beyond the textbut always for the purpose of illuminating its themes. Adlers interpretations stick closely to received wisdom: Ibsen depicts the individual struggling for liberation from societys conventions; Strindberg portrays men and women in mortal conflict; Chekhov is the poet of nostalgia and loss. Nonetheless, her specific examples of how an actor can particularize these themes in an individual characters actionse.g., Noras habit of hiding things in A Dolls Houseare fascinating. Its hard to say what exactly film biographer Paris (Garbo, 1995, etc.) did to edit Adlers talks, which, judging by internal references, date from the mid-'70s through the mid-'80s. He provides very few footnotes, and he eliminates neither her repetitions nor her actressy asides for the benefit of her audience (Ill tell you because I want you to love me). More rigorous cutting would have better highlighted Alders very serious commitment to these plays and to the art of acting. Despite these flaws, Adler is majestic and inspiring as she speaks to us from a bygone age in which the theater was the principal creative home for actors who achieved dignity from their abilities as interpretive artists, not from their celebrity status or their paychecks. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"No critic has ever talked about theater . . . with more insight and passion. Earthy and sophisticated, imperious and droll, [Adler] had the gift of making plays written over 100 years earlier seem excitingly modern." --The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Plunges you into the world of theater . . . [and] reveals Stella Adler as a literary and social analyst, Stella Adler as an acting teacher, and Stella Adler as a great personality." --The New Republic

"These inspired lectures are evidence that Stella Adler is hands down the greatest acting teacher America has produced. . . . Nobody with a serious interest in the theater can afford to be without this book." --John Guare

"One regrets never having seen [Adler] perform, but reading her on these writers, especially Chekhov, is the next best thing." --The New York Times -- Review

Customer Reviews

Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov
This book is a must for serious actors who wish to further their understanding of the great writers for the stage. Before reading this book, I was, as an actor, very intimidated by the works of all three writers, but now feel like I can approach their plays with some degree of clarity and purpose. Adler writes from the point of view of performer, literary analyst, and teacher, a combination that serves to leave the reader inspired to tackle these three catalysts of the theatre.

Excellent book on great playwrights and more!!
Whether you are an actor, director, or just someone interested, these lectures of Stella's make you feel as though you are in a class with her, gaining the benefit of her years of experience in the theater. Given her significant experience observing her father (a noteworthy actor) but also her own experience in the famous Group Theater, she has a unique background and a wealth of understanding that fuels her ability to convey the essence of these three playwrights and their works.

Her goal is to get the actor (or director, for that matter) to understand the absolute criticality of getting at the heart and soul of any play and any of the roles (characters) within. In the case of any playwright, Stella Adler points out through wonderful examples that one must not only seek to understand a playwright, but also the time in which he or she lived, all in addition to the time period within the play itself.

Her vibrant soulful expression of the material seems connected itself with grasping the material. She's does not mull over reams of boring details of fringe intellectual material, but rather she's full of uncompromising excitement and clarity about how the material of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov is full of issues which have stakes that are no different than sort of dilemma's people deal with today. Yes, some standards and things are different, but that's part of what she helps one to overcome. From what she conveys, I walked away from the book having deep passions for what the different characters had to deal with.

Before I read this book, I had no clue who Ibsen, Strindberg, or Chekhov were. When I got this book, I also picked up a copy of each of the plays she discusses. They were distant to me at first, but I'm grateful I didn't shy away. Immediately, as I started reading her book alongside of each play, she made things seem so clear, exciting, full of life, and comprehensible. It became easy and fun to grasp what could have otherwise been dry and boring and absent of any return.

For example, I had no idea Ibsen could be thought of as one of the first contemporary feminist playwrights, but in this book, Stella Adler brings that reality to life. There is fuel for the actor's soul to be had in this sort of understanding because, in a fun and tangible manner, it cultivates an understanding within one's heart of what's at stake, which is connected with the emotions and passions that are required to drive life-filled heightened theatrical action.

Insightful and inspring but from one perspective only
This is definitely a theater must. Stella Adler, probably one of the best American acting teachers talking about three of the greatest playwrights (Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov) ever. It is hard where to categorize this book for it points out ways (or I should say one way for Chekhov) to approach the plays of these Playwrights to the Actor but it is also very academic and analytic of the plays at the same time. Most of the entries, broadly discuss the play going from the actor's point of view to the directors to historical facts to the author's life etc. It is very insightful and inspring but There is only one problem I have with this book is her aggressive assumption that the only approach to Chekhov can be through Stanlisvaski's method and any other way is wrong. Now I agree that Stanislavski goes hand in hand with the Realism period but as Chekhov himself said "I wrote vaudevilles and Stanlisvaski has staged them as sentimental dramas". What is my point? That in theatre you cannot approach everything from one school of thought. We in the Theatre fight too much about Technique instead of moving audiences and transforming them. Still though, this book is worth reading and has great insights on these three playwrights.