If you are struggling to decipher your Boal from your Brecht, your Meisner from your Marowitz, or your Adler from your Artaud, this is the book for you.
Who are the great teachers and theorists of dramatic art?
What methods are associated with which practitioners?
How does their work connect to one another?
When was 'realism' as a concept born?
How did David Garrick's ideas about acting impact those of Stanislavski, Grotowski and Brecht?
What were the foundational ideas of Joan Littlewood?
All of these questions and many, many more are answered in this book, which offers a refreshingly accessible survey of the major acting teachers from the early 1700s up to the present day.
It looks at what their major influences were, where their ideas came from and their legacy.
Structured by practitioner and arranged in chronological order, this much-needed book brings together the foundational acting theories that have shaped the arts scene for centuries.
INTRODUCTION
Skinning the Cat
Evolution of acting theories and practices currently in use
From Russia with Love
How Stanislavski’s realism became the American style of acting
PART 1: The Game-Changers in Theatre
David Garrick (1717-1779)
Shakespeare with Psychology
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
The Paradox of Acting
Adolphe Appia (1862-1928)
Myth Dream Archetype
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858-1943)
Moscow Arts Theatre
Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938)
The Master
Jaques Dalcroze (1865-1950)
Eurhythmics
Frederick Mathias Alexander (1869-1955)
Alexander Technique
Gordon Craig (1872-1966)
Actors as Übermarionettes
Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940)
Biomechanics and the Method of Physical Action
Maria Ouspenskaya (1876-1933)
American Lab Theater
Jaques Copeau (1879-1949)
Théâtre de Vieux Colombier
Rudolf Laban (1879-1958)
Laban Technique
Yevgeny Vakhtangov (1883-1922)
Creative Individuality
Nikolai Demidov (1884-1953)
Actor Types
Charles Dullin (1885-1949)
The Complete Actor
Richard Boleslavsky (1880-1937)
American Lab Theater
Michael Chekhov (1891-1955)
Psychological Gesture
Irwin Piscator (1893-1966)
Objective Acting
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)
Theatre of Cruelty
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Verfremdung
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Montage of Attractions
Lee Strasberg (1901-1982)
The Method
Harold Clurman (1901-1980)
On Directing
Stella Adler (1901-1992)
Substitution, Action, and Justification
Moshé Feldenkrai (1904-1984)
Feldenkrais Method
Sanford Meisner (1905-1997)
Imaginary Circumstances
Viola Spolin (1906-1994)
Mother of Modern Improvisation
Robert Lewis (1909-1997)
Method, or Madness?
Joan Littlewood (1914-2002)
Theatre’s Radical Lioness
Uta Hagen (1919-2004)
Respect for Acting
Jacques Lecoq 1921-1999
The Pleasure of Play
Peter Brook (1925-)
The Empty Space
Judith Malina (1926-2015) and Julian Beck (1925-1985)
The Living Theatre
Susana Bloch (?)
Alba-Emoting TM
The Neighborhood Playhouse (1928- )
The Group Theatre (1931-1940)
Augusto Boal (1931-2009)
Theatre of the Oppressed
Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999)
Poor Theatre
Charles Marowitz (1934-2014)
The Ur-text
Joseph Chaikin (1935-2003)
Open Theatre
Eugenio Barba (1936- )
Theatre Anthropology
Tadashi Susuki (1939- ) and Anne Bogart (1951- )
Viewpoints
The Actors Studio (1947- )
David Mamet (1947- )
Practical Aesthetics
Robert Lepage (1957-)
Alchemist of Imagistic Theatre
Simon McBurney (1957- )
Théâtre de Complicité
Part 2: Flowering of Dramatic Realism in Cinema
Neo-Realism (Italy from 1943)
Kitchen Sink Drama (England from 1956)
Satyajit Ray (1921-1992)
Writing as an integral part of directing
John Cassavetes (1929-1989)
Personality is Plot
Sydney Pollack (1934-2008)
Film as a collective experience
Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)
Hard-boiled straight-shooting
Ken Loach (1936-)
Intersection of the personal with the political
John Sayles (1950-)
Humanity and nuanced observation
Index
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