Given the lamentable record of so many famed actors in living what most people would consider the "good life," the idea of looking to the theories of those who make it their business to teach those actors their craft as a guide to creating that "good life" for non-actors seems counterintuitive at best, if not downright madness. Yet that is exactly what psychoanalyst Paul Marcus and his actress daughter Gabriela set out to do in Theater as Life: Practical Wisdom Drawn from Great Acting Teachers, Actors, and Actresses. From Stanislavski to David Mamet, although not in that order, they look to the work of most all of the major acting gurus for life lessons for the rest of us, and darned if they don't find them.
They begin by arguing from the analogy between life and theater made most famously by Shakespeare in As You Like It, that since men like actors play many roles it stands to reason that they must necessarily profit from learning how great actors are taught to prepare for those many roles and use it in their own lives. Now leaving aside the questionable logic of argument by analogy, it is no doubt true that people behave in different ways at different times in different situations. Whether it is called a different role or something else, at age 60 we are not what we were at age 20. We act differently when with our boss, than when we are with our children. We behave in school one way, in a bar another. If we buy this, perhaps the Marcus's have a point.
Theater as Life devotes individual chapters to the analysis of the ideas of those influential theorists who could reasonably be considered the major acting teachers—nine of them: Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Viola Spolin, Bertolt Brecht, Tadashi Suzuki, Jerzy Grotowski and the aforementioned Stanislavski and Mamet. It also includes a chapter on the comic actor, but the focus here is not on one particular theorist or teacher, but a compendium of ideas from a bunch of sources, especially the comics themselves. The authors make no attempt at exhaustive explanations of entire acting programs, but focus on the ideas about creating a successful life on stage which would be applicable to creating a successful life off stage.
Article comments
1 - jacii Ward
I have taken a workshop with many so called famous teachers who often charge hundreds just to sit and observe. I took one again recently with a relatively unknown acting teacher John Pallotta in New York City- He is amazing and did not cost me a dime. I would encourage you to google him and check him out. he is called The Actor Whisperer. This is his site www.johnpallotta.com