The First Six Lessons - How one book helped me see method acting through different eyes

Scrolling through Reddit yesterday, I came across an AMA (ask me anything) session held by David Strasberg, the son of Lee Strasberg - widely known as the father of Method Acting. Thus far, I have been subtly discouraged from using method acting as many view it as dangerous and emotionally draining. However, curiosity lead me on and I read through the thread - and I thus chanced upon Strasberg elaborating on his favorite resources for method acting, one of which was a book called Acting The First Six Lessons by Richard Boleslavsky.

The book, at first glance, was immediately an intriguing read. The entire text, save the preface and introduction, was written in a play format between predominantly just two characters: "I", the teacher, and "The Creature", a young woman who progresses through the stages of being an actor over the years and chapters, growing from a total beginner in the craft to a successful adept who understands the value of continuous training and practice. Through the often profound conversations between the two characters, Boleslavsky presents the core tenets of method acting and explains it in an incredibly lucid manner. Perfect for the young actor who needs a little more than reading techniques off a textbook, perfect for me.

What acting is and isn't

I immediately identified with The Creature. She was a young woman, just starting out, looking for guidance and someone to point her in the right direction. The first chapter presented a primer of the actor's mindset. The narrator illustrates this by telling The Creature to recite King Lear's lines, once in character and once out of character. She nailed the first half, but when it came to reciting the lines as herself, she stumbled through the words - clearly, she had a character, but she did not have a connection to it. As the narrator then chides her, "You want to play a Chopin Nocturne without knowing where the notes are." Those notes, as the narrator explains, are simply our five senses: Sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.

He then asks the Creature to listen to the scratching of a mouse in the corner, and then a symphonic orchestra playing the march of Aida. She performs both actions - unconnected actions that is spurned from no emotion, and if there had been emotion it was not evoked from the given objectives. As the narrator puts it, The Creature barely recognizes "the difference between the lower do and the higher do". He terms this ability as concentrating spiritually, something that every actor must learn through repeated exercises and repeated training - simply put, it is the art of Stanislavski's As If. 

Through The Creature's blunder, we learn the importance of not just playing the character, but also understanding the text at its core. This is in line with the teachings of Stanislavski - actions are derived from emotion, emotion is derived from objective, and objective is derived from the text.

The constituents of actor training

Boleslavsky then expands on the idea of actor training - he believes that an actor must be educated physically, culturally and spiritually. 

Physical education is what it is: Students of the theatre have one instrument, and it is their body. Vocal placement and diction, singing, movement and dance are just some of the methods used to create a "well-educated" body which responds to the range of a competitive actor. Boleslavsky writes that every actor should spend an hour and a half a day on physical training and maintenance for two years, in order to be "pleasing to look at". While some may, in today's context, disagree with such a perspective, there is still some merit in the process of physical education and training, especially in terms of building stamina and range for the stage and screen.

Cultural education refers to the intellectual development of an actor. A culturally aware actor knows the roots of their craft and all of the great people whose legacies they stand on, who is sensitive to the cultural context of every story that they have the honor of telling. Besides, they should also strive to learn as much as they can about psychoanalysis and the logic of feeling, for as the narrator explains, it would "make an actor who could play a great variety of parts".

Finally, the education and training of the soul - which the narrator terms as "the most important factor of dramatic action" - creates an actor who is imaginative and connected to their part, capable of living through any situation demanded by the author. This aspect of the craft is acquired through long and hard training, repeated exposure to experimental parts, and plenty of time and experience. As he puts it, "the work for this consists [of] the development of the following faculties: complete possession of all the five senses in various imaginable situations; development of a memory of feeling, memory of imagination or penetration, memory of imagination, and, last, a visual memory."

How method acting works

If the first chapter was a primer to the art of acting, then the second might be described as a primer to the art of acting through emotional memory. One year later, The Creature returns to the narrator asking for help with a new part. She was struggling with a scene where she had to feel both an intense longing to leave and be free, and an equally intense feeling of guilt for leaving her family behind. The narrator prods her, "You must be happy and sorry at the same time. Gleaming and tender." A seemingly impossible task. Can anyone blend these two feelings consciously? Maybe, but it would be exceedingly difficult. That was where emotional memory came in. The Creature expressed incredulity at the concept: How can one be something without feeling it?

We are then introduced to a couple of new tools - the first of which was unconscious memory. Have you ever said a word, an inside joke among friends, and had everyone giggling spontaneously? That's unconscious memory. It's highly likely that none of your friends were thinking about the specific instance in which the inside joke was created, and they might even have forgotten how it began, but somehow, the unconscious memory of that emotion stuck with them. The word becomes a trigger, and the trigger is funny. That's how everyone just "gets it", because the emotions have been so deeply imprinted in their minds that they can react by instinct alone.

The second tool was retrieving personal experiences. The narrator instructs The Creature to think of a time she felt a double feeling like her character in the play. She recounts the moment she left her brother for a trip abroad, and gradually, she narrates less and less - she was now living that moment. She was acting. And without skipping a beat, the narrator tells her to stop right there and to recite her speech from her play. After all was said and done, he explains that her experience of such a double feeling was a fortunate accident, but she has the autonomy to exercise her artistic sense and to determine if the method was relevant to her problem, and if she can use it in her character's life. He concludes that to imitate is wrong, but to create is right.

Conclusion

The rest of the book is just as informative a read. In brief, it discusses how an actor might approach a role through the eyes of the author instead of the character, makes a case for the importance of heightened awareness and observation skills, and the incorporation of rhythm and pace in acting, among other valuable lessons. In 123 pages of text, I have gained a newfound respect for the art and craft of method acting and how it can be applied to my future roles as a young actor.

This is a book review of "Acting - The First Six Lessons" by Richard Boleslavsky. Written and published in 1933, many drama educators have recommended the textbook to new students who seek to better understand how method acting and various forms of memory can be incorporated into their ever-evolving toolbox.