Stella Adler - Stanislavski and The Method

Stanislavski and The Method

Adler was the only American actor to study with Constantin Stanislavski. She was a prominent member of the Group Theatre, but differences with Lee Strasberg over the Stanislavski System (later developed by Strasberg into Method acting) made her leave the Group.

Adler once said: 'Drawing on the emotions I experienced, for example, when my mother died to create a role, is sick and schizophrenic. If that is acting, I don't want to do it.'

Adler met with Stanislavsky again later in his career and questioned him on Strasberg's interpretation. He told her that he had abandoned emotional memory (which had been Strasberg's dominant paradigm) but they both believed that the actor did not have what is required to play a variety roles already instilled inside them, extensive research was needed to understand the experiences of characters who have different values originating from different cultures. For instance if a character talks about horse riding you need to know something about horse riding as an actor, other wise you will be faking. More importantly one must study the values of different people to understand what situations would have meant to people, that in the actor's own culture might mean nothing. Without this work she said an actor walks onto the stage "naked." This approach is what one of her students, Robert De Niro, became famous for. She also trained actors sensory imagination to help make the characters' experiences more vivid (a commonality between her and Strasberg). Mastery of the physical and vocal aspects of acting, she believed, was necessary for the actor to command the stage: all body language should be carefully crafted and voices need to be clear and expressive. She often referred to this as an actor's "size" or "worthiness of the stage." Her biggest mantra was perhaps, 'in your choices lies your talent,' she would encourage actors to find the most grand character interpretation possible in a scene, another favourite phrase of hers regarding this was 'don't be boring.'