An Actress Prepares: Women and "the Method"

by Malague; Rosemary

• ISBN13: 9780415681568
• ISBN10: 0415681561
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

"Everyday, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?" An Actress Preparesis the first book to interrogate method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses The Method not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. An assessment of Stanislavski's System sits alongside case studies of the four actor trainers who brought its teachings to the US in the form of The Method - Strasberg, Adler, Meisner and Hagen. This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of method acting seeks to recover elements of the Stanislavskian approach, to reclaim method acting from its patriarchal characteristics and to empower women who act.