One of the most amazing recent phenomena in our theatre is the discovery and gradual acceptance by audiences and critics of the plays of Beckett, lonesco, Adamov, Genet, and Ghelderode. With a ...prudishness that is just about par for the course, we tend to reject these plays and label their authors opprobiously as
avant-garde.
But somehow—in spite of our rejection—these plays keep reasserting themselves; they have a mysterious hold on our sensibilities. We find ourselves going to them, being moved or amused by them, and applauding them fully aware that we don't always know what they mean or what their authors intend. For all their seeming unintelligibility and simplicity, these plays possess a vitality we have missed, and more important, in their boldly experimental nature they are symptomatic of the unrest which prevails in the contemporary theatre. These playwrights want to “fix” the theatre, and their plays suggest ways that have been taken to revitalize it.
No name in acting is accorded the reverence by the American theatre as is Stanislavski's. He has been the high priest of American acting since the 1930's when the Group Theatre incorporated his ...system into their program; and today, a modified Stanislavski System is central to the “Method” of the Actor's Studio. Whether this great regard for Stanislavski has been a good thing for our theatre is much debated, but very little has been said about the effect of Stanislavski's System upon the way the actor approaches the written text of a play. It is time this be considered, for the effects have been insidious and may well have been harmful to the art of our theatre.
