| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
In each of the six lessons -- on the surface, six acts of a drama -- Boleslavsky presents the skills and tools of the classically trained actor: Concentration, Memory of Emotion, Dramatic Action, Characterization, Observation, and that elusive tool called Rhythm. In each chapter, he manages to show how these tools are applied through the three basic aspects of the actors craft: Emotion, Intellect, and Body. Unlike the American Method of Lee Strassberg, he stresses the balance among these three aspects throughout all of his 'lessons' to the creature.
Among the many delightful moments in these lessons, in the chapter on characterization, shows how an actor must approach the performance of a Shakespearean role: "All you have to do is grasp the characterization of Shakespeare's mind and follow it" (82-83). Of course, Boleslavsky knows that this is no simple task, but he is able to put it in simple terms for us to begin the process of "grasping" it.
Finally, one could make a case for non-acting artists to read this book also. It is a treatise on creativity in general, as well as acting specifically, when, for example, it says, "The theatre exists to show things which do not exist actually. When you love on stage, do you really love? Be logical. You substitute creation for the real thing. The creation must be real, but that is the only reality that should be there" (41).The universality of Boleslavsky's art is inescapable.
No better tract for the actor exists; no actor should live without this at his or her side.
Writing his text in the form of a play script, Boleslavski lays out a series of easily definable and highly applicable excersises that aid tremendously towards developing the acting instrument.
Although it is impossible to learn acting from simply reading a book, if used as a complimentary text in a hands on acting class, Boleslavski's book will help one build a solid foundation upon which one can begin legitimate work in the Theatre.
However, on a strongly personally biased note, skip the second chapter, entitled "Memory of Emotion". If done improperly, this second chapter can lead to incredibly self conscious acting posing as psuedo-therepy.
The chapters of Rythym, Concentration, Dramatic Action, Characterization and Observation however prove helpful, practical and definable. Please begin with this tome.