T h e y were all established, Pulitzer P r i z e - w i n n i n g authors and true liberals w h o believed that theatre should have social meaning providing moral enlightenment. T h e y had many successful productions and were joined in the passing years b y other prominent playwrights.
B u t as they, too, were operating under the system of profit and loss, i n economic competition w i t h the rest of Broadway, their path was strewn w i t h all the problems of the commercial scene w h i c h finally engulfed them, spiritually as well as economically. B u t let me go back to the twenties for the proper sequence of our evolution. Fired by her admiration of European actors and their traditions, she founded the C i v i c Repertory o n Fourteenth Street.
W i t h unbelievable skill and tenacity, she enlisted philanthropic support for the productions of classical and neoclassical plays performed in repertory by a standing company w i t h the occasional addition of guest players. F r o m to the theatre was able to operate at prices that allowed real theatregoers few of w h o m are rich as well as y o u n g people to attend w i t h regularity.
The C i v i c is remembered by many w i t h love and nostalgia and for the fact that a professional repertory had actually once existed in America. I knew of the Civic's reputation and believed that it was the only k i n d of theatre I wanted to dedicate myself to.
I didn't k n o w that it had been out of existence for five years, and that L e Gallienne was then battling to reestablish herself in independent productions while valiantly dreaming of a new C i v i c. Inevitably, the economic collapse of and the ensuing depression of the s had its effect o n the entire theatre community.
Social consciousness was almost forced on members of all the arts and it developed to a high degree. M a n y actors' "labs" and w o r k shops arose, based on political activism. But the G r o u p Theatre was conceived as a theatre not only of social ideas but one w i t h high artistic ideals.
Strongly influenced by the principles of Stanislavsky and the precepts under w h i c h the M o s c o w A r t Theatre had been built, it arose under the leadership of H a r o l d C l u r m a n. It began as a summer colony i n Connecticut in They shared a disgust for commercialism and hotly debated everything from a lack of artistic integrity to inadequacies in acting and directing. They longed for an ensemble of merit w i t h a shared language and ever-improving acting skills to perform plays of social significance.
As always in art, the inception of a fruitful collaboration is made possible by shared passions, by the airing of passionate disagreements, as well as by a search for answers. N o t h i n g comes of the superficial social intercourse so c o m m o n l y practiced by would-be artists.
In the summer of , w i t h the encouragement and some financial assistance of the Theatre G u i l d , C l u r m a n was able to persuade the others to join in the experiment in Connecticut w i t h only a promise of r o o m and board. E d w a r d Bromberg, and Clifford Odets.
The roster is testimony to the impact the G r o u p made on our theatre. F o r ten years they were a major force in N e w Y o r k , making for change in directing, ensemble acting, and the k i n d of plays that attracted a new audience as well as. E v e n worse, the jobs on w h i c h most actors subsist while waiting for roles in the theatre had also disappeared: waiting on tables, w o r k i n g i n restaurant kitchens, doing office w o r k , running errands, or being domestics. T h e y were truly on the street.
Y o u n g H e n r y Fonda joined the ranks of those selling apples on Times Square. In it there are many lessons to be learned from their successes and perhaps even more from their failures.
There was even an initial promise of no government interference or censorship. The project was so vast, so ambitious, it's a miracle that it ever got o n its feet, but it survived from to Its defeat was entirely due to red-baiting congressional committees, w h i c h , in any event, wanted it off the federal payroll.
The statistics make m y head spin. In four years, more than 1, projects were produced including everything from circuses, puppet shows, and musicals to operettas, new plays, and classics. In the first year alone, more than 12, theatre workers were employed in thirtyone cities; their w o r k reached an audience numbering in the millions.
Playwrights, impressed by these efforts, contributed their w o r k w i t h out asking for royalties. Some of the productions were highly successful; others were innovative. A l t h o u g h the caliber of w o r k was often poor, it never seems to have lacked in the enthusiasm of the performers. A m o n g the plays produced were fourteen by O ' N e i l l , nine b y Shaw, T. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, an all-black Macbeth, and M a r l o w e ' s Doctor Faustus under the aegis of O r s o n Welles and J o h n Houseman, w h o collaborated soon afterward in the creation of the exciting though short-lived M e r c u r y Theatre.
M a r c Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock was considered so "subversive" as to be partially responsible for the act of Congress that ended the Federal Theatre in June of O n e congressman asked if Christopher M a r l o w e was a communist. Others found Shakespeare too subversive. N o t e the parallel in recent Congressional attempts to eliminate the N a tional E n d o w m e n t for the A r t s or those of the M o r a l Majority to try to have Romeo and Juliet taken from the shelves, claiming that it encourages teenage suicide and drug use.
The central figure in charge of the Federal Theatre was the phenomenal Hallie Flanagan. Little was stirring of a noncommercial nature except for the ventures begun by European refugees like the theatre department at the N e w School for Social Research headed by E r w i n Piscator, the opening of the M a x Reinhardt Seminar i n California, and, in , i n N e w Y o r k , the founding of the H B Studio b y H e r bert Berghof.
Berghof wanted to create a space and a home i n w h i c h he and his colleagues could experiment and study to improve their skills instead of hanging around drugstores and cafes like vagrants, complaining about their inability to find a creative outlet.
In the A c t o r s ' Studio, of w h i c h Herbert Berghof was a charter member, was founded, on the same principle. Meanwhile, w i t h the arrival of new playwrights like Tennessee Williams, H o r t o n Foote, and A r t h u r M i l l e r , and productions of the established Playwrights C o m p a n y , plus important new forms of the A m e r i c a n musical, the forties ended w i t h a sense of hope and started off the fifties w i t h a.
A s the decade drew on, productions declined i n quality and popular commercial fare prevailed, but even when things seemed rosier many of us were unhappy w i t h the lack of continuity and the conditions of marketing that always accompanied our efforts.
But the curtain of M c C a r t h y i s m had descended over the nation and for most of the "fabulous fifties" its influence on the established theatre community of writers, directors, and actors made for an atmosphere of fear and the occasion for betrayals, sellouts, and suicides, or simply the stifling of voices.
Unless you're already familiar w i t h this black period when personal beliefs and convictions were challenged, when being left of center was considered a crime, when people of note were made the dupes of congressional committees in order to intimidate lesser-known citizens into submission, y o u can read about it in the many available political assessments or in the biographies of the victims and the perpetrators of these crimes.
It's important if y o u want to guard against the recurrence of such shameful times. I still have difficulty in dealing w i t h m y memory of those days, so deeply was I wounded. I w o u l d like to reprint a statement I was allowed to make by E d w a r d R. M u r r o w , the courageous journalist w h o took a stand against Senator Joseph M c C a r t h y , w h o was responsible for some of the anti-Communist witch-hunting of the period. F o r a while, one of the features of M u r r o w ' s radio program was a segment called " T h i s I Believe.
M o r e than a hundred of their statements were eventually gathered in a little b o o k. M i n e begins w i t h a quotation: "I know that in an accidental sort of way, struggling through the unreal part of my life, I haven't always been able to live up to my ideal.
But in my own real world I've never done anything wrong, never denied my faith, never been untrue to myself. I've been threatened and blackmailed and insulted and starved. But I've played the game. I've fought the good fight. A n d now it's all over, there's an indescribable peace.
I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. It is the credo of an artist, a specific human being, and only part of the author's credo, whose beliefs are summed up in the entirety of his work.
Not being a writer, a prophet, or a philosopher, but an actress, I will again employ the help of a playwright to paraphrase my faith: I believe in the ancient Greeks who initiated our theatre 2, years ago, in the miracle of Eleonora Duse's gifts, in the might of truth, the mystery of emotions, the redemption of all things by imagination everlasting, and the message of Art that should make the untiring work and striving, the inspiration and creation of all actors blessed.
In the other part of my life I feel "guilty" about living up to my ideal, but not as much as poor Louis Dubedat and, of course, not for the same reasons. I have in my life to guide me the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and I believe in them to the letterto the dismay of some.
These great makers and shakers have helped me to find reason, majesty, and greatness in the world. They have helped me to drown out the frenetic racket made by the compromisers who try to bend ideals to fit their practical needs and personal appetites and to deprive us of our spiritual salvation. The knowledge that every day there is something more to learn, something higher to reach for, something new to make for others, makes each day infinitely precious.
A n d I am grateful. One thing makes for another. Shaw wouldn't be without Shakespeare, Bach without the words of Christ, Beethoven without Mozartand we would be barren without all of them. I was proud the day I first learned to make a good loaf of bread, a simple thing which others could enjoy, or to plant a bulb and help it to grow, or to make a character in a play come off the printed page to become a human being with a point of view who can help others to understand a little more; all these things, and the effort to do them well, make it possible for me while "struggling through the I survived this time of tapped phones, of the F.
I , tippy-toeing in one's footsteps, of anxious glances over the shoulder i n a cafe to make sure that no discussion was being overheard. I survived in a healthier state than many others. I had no guilt to deal w i t h since I hadn't betrayed anyone. I didn't bear resentment at having been betrayed or " n a m e d " to congressional committees, because m y accusers remained anonymous.
I didn't go to jail, I didn't k i l l myself, and, as for the blacklists w h i c h barred me from T V and films, they simply removed me from any temptations or lures into the commercial w o r l d or the temptation to compromise m y goals any further than I was already doing o n Broadway.
B u t it was the only time in m y life when I was made fearful or felt that I had lost control over m y o w n destiny. A n d for that, I have the right to remain outraged!
The relationship between the vast social upheavals of the sixties and seventies and the theatre is still hard for me to put into perspective objectively except for m y awareness that artists were late in reflecting or illuminating these times. In January at the inauguration of our new, y o u n g president w i t h the poet Robert Frost at his side, we were challenged to acknowledge that our freedoms must be earned b y the acceptance of our responsibility for them, that we must again seek to do something for our country rather than just for ourselves.
M a n y accepted this challenge. The Gandhi-like civil rights movement made great inroads on our culture but these promises were dampened b y the tragedies of the assassinations of Kennedy and M a r t i n Luther K i n g J r. In the next administration the situation worsened as the war reached into C a m b o d i a and the public learned more and more about corruption i n our leadership.
Meanwhile, the silence of the M c C a r t h y generation had been broken b y their children i n reaction to their parents' lack of social i n volvement, as well as to their middle-class and often hypocritical values and the importance that had been given to the acquisition of material things. The rebellion of the young, which, of course, i n volved many moderates, also included two kinds of extremists w i t h O n the one hand were the "flower children" w h o preached love and peace and looked for the simplest k i n d of existence, w o r k i n g o n l y to achieve the barest necessities for c o m m u nal living.
M a n y of them were undone by the failure of their ventures and, particularly, by a further escape from reality into the w o r l d of drugs and what they called mind-expanding chemicals. O n the other hand, we saw fanatical y o u n g political activists w h o believed they could change the established w o r l d b y terrorist tactics against villains of their o w n choosing.
They, too, were undone, occasionally by accidentally b l o w i n g themselves up w i t h their homemade bombs. The events in A s i a increased the polarization of our country w i t h ever-growing numbers of conscientious objectors, peace marches, and movements that finally brought the tragic war in Vietnam to an end. T h e n , after the enforced resignation of the president and, in m y lonely opi ni on, the four-year revival of an honorable Democratic presidency, we arrived in the eighties.
But what was happening i n the arts during the two prior decades? F o r many years theatre activity seems to have been o n l y slightly touched by the turbulent times, probably because of the lingering fear of new congressional crackdowns on political beliefs.
If government troops could shoot d o w n students at K e n t State, what could Congress do to an artist? In , E d w a r d Albee's bitter and cynical indictment of middle-class social mores, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolffy made a big splash and influenced many of his younger colleagues for years to come.
But throughout most of the sixties, B r o a d way flourished w i t h its usual fare and the inclusion of British imports. In one year alone there were sixteen English plays w i t h predominantly English casts creating a shutout of A m e r i c a n plays and performers. O f f - B r o a d w a y had also become recognized as an arena where profits could be turned.
Consequently, big business moved i n , the unions came w i t h ever-increasing " m i n i m u m " demands to make sure labor w o u l d not be exploited, box office prices rose, critics attended w i t h regularity, and popular plays were sought out w i t h an eye to moving them " u p t o w n " until, in most cases, there was little difference between being o n or off Broadway or, as Herbert used to say, " N o w we have small grocery stores d o w n t o w n trying to c o m pete w i t h the big ones u p t o w n.
A n answer to these conditions was temporarily found in a recurrence of the original O f f - B r o a d w a y movement.
In increasing n u m bers, even smaller stages and workshops in basements and lofts were occupied by y o u n g people hoping to escape from the new union demands and the high budgets they entailed, once again reaching out to be heard i n experimental works w i t h a m i n i m u m of financial risk.
These new ventures soon fell under a large umbrella dubbed OffOff-Broadway. The Cafe C i n o provided a platform for many y o u n g performers, directors, and writers like the gifted Lanford W i l s o n. Ellen Stewart began her Cafe L a M a m a , w h i c h is still very much alive today w i t h countless experimental productions. But, as a whole, the O f f - O f f - B r o a d w a y movement was q u i c k l y infected by marketing practices of one k i n d or another.
The more successful ventures merged w i t h O f f - B r o a d w a y ; many went under or degenerated into being mere showcases.
The very term showcase speaks for itself, illustrating that members of the profession are putting themselves on display to be bought by the highest bidder, each individual member of the venture serving his o w n ambitions to attract the agent or talent scout, the producer or author he has usually invited to "case" his w o r t h.
The possibility for a fruitful collaboration in the singleminded creative effort necessary to produce a serious w o r k of art is automatically eliminated. M a n y people consider the O f f - O f f Broadway movement a huge success. I consider it a dismal failure. A t best it has made way for a few exceptionally gifted individuals w h o , having begun w i t h youthful idealism, were fed right back into the mainstream of that same commerce from w h i c h they were initially escaping and where they usually remain w i t h one foot, teetering, w i t h the pretense that they are serving art.
W h e n , on occasion, they do achieve something of merit, it is an accident rather than a result of these conditions. Free Shakespeare in the Park, street theatre available to all and sundry: What a seemingly impossible achievement.
The growth of his people's theatre complex on L a fayette Street is an equally heroic accomplishment. Whether y o u applaud all the presentations or not is almost beside the point.
In , his production of Hair was the first to echo and reveal the existing problems of the young. The same can be said for his later success, A Chorus Line. I'm convinced that the daily hurdles he faces, the problems that must plague h i m in bringing about his successive efforts, problems that make artistic growth difficult, are similar to those w h i c h plague all projects that begin w i t h honest and idealistic intentions.
A m o n g these problems are many for w h i c h we actors refuse to take responsibility, the ones w i t h w h i c h I ' l l throw d o w n the gauntlet at the conclusion of this chapter.
Kaufman in earlier decades, began sweeping across Broadway w i t h social insight and compassion, and, so far, they continue to do so.
Perhaps in the future, in less farcical productions, they may even be recognized by those w h o n o w dismiss them as commercial fare for being plays that have arisen from the tradition of G o g o l and C h e k h o v. A l s o in the sixties, new support was coming from philanthropic foundations. Previously, foundations like F o r d and Rockefeller had offered help to science and education.
N o w they extended it to the artseven to the theatre. Smaller foundations followed suit, and a proliferation of regional theatres ensued. Foundations made it easier for established groups in Washington, D. Foundation support continues, and regional theatre has become a force to be reckoned w i t h , particularly as to the way in w h i c h it has moved into the B i g A p p l e.
While N e l s o n Rockefeller was governor of N e w Y o r k , he alone was responsible for persuading the federal government to involve itself in sponsorship of the arts, and the N a t i o n a l E n d o w m e n t for the A r t s was the result. These institutions still extend help to ventures of good w i l l , 2. In the seventies, often w i t h the help of Joe Papp, new playwrights appeared on the h o r i z o n , notably Sam Shepard, D a v i d Rabe, and Michael Weller.
O n the other hand, the Theatre of the A b s u r d had become increasingly absurd w i t h the arrival of "happenings," plays of audience confrontation, nudity, sexual acts depicted i n detail, and actors urinating into the audienceall i n the name of "art" or i n the name of "liberation" from old-fashioned theatre.
In their desperation to perform, actors got so confused that they allowed for unspeakable indignities. T w o y o u n g men once asked me what they could have done at an audition about being lined up by the stage manager to have their penises measured. Stunned, I answered, " Y o u shouldn't have let h i m!
F o r most of y o u , the s w i l l be remembered still unclouded b y feelings of past history. N o w that we are headed toward the twenty-first century, paying heavily for the extravagant, spendthrift Reagan years, y o u w i l l understand h o w the decade's excesses were reflected i n the theatrical super-spectaculars of A n d r e w L l o y d W e b ber and English imports such as Nicholas Nickleby.
O n e theatre was gutted to make r o o m for entire roller-skating ramps and r i n k s i n the name of "art. M a n y actors decided that the M e t h o d had had its day and reverted to formalism, i n imitation of the performers of English importations. N o t only i n N e w Y o r k , but all over the country in increasing numbers, "innovative productions" another phrase I detest have often been considered to be " m o d e r n " theatre. She had applied for a grant and was supposed to fill out a lengthy form including a request for a written proposal for her upcoming project, which the foundation would evaluate to see if she qualified for its support.
Diagonally across the first page, in large handwriting, she scrawled, "I don't make proposals. I make dances! T h e y are perpetrated by directorial "concepts" that place Troilus and Cressida i n the roaring twenties, Timon of Athens in the A m e r i c a n C i v i l W a r , As You Like It in a forest at the edge of a golf course w i t h actors dressed in knickerbockers carrying mashies and putting irons, or The Cherry Orchard on a white shag rug, ormore recentlyon Persian carpets.
A n y device is used to disguise the fact that neither the director nor his cast is able to live up to the author's intent. It simply points up the paucity of their vision and weakness of their skills. The " i n n o v a tions" are still very much w i t h us, encouraged by esoteric critical praise, proving the gullibility of an audience that wants to be " i n the k n o w " even while they're yawning out of the other side of their mouths. Perhaps someone w i l l attempt a combination of the fashionable seventies and eighties w i t h a production of an all-nude Hamlet, placing Elsinore in a health spa, in order to guarantee the theatre owner months of standing r o o m only.
Production costs spiraled, abetted by growing advertising costs and union demands and the increasing practice of featherbeddingranging from up-front office expenses to the n u m ber of cigarettes allegedly purchased for each performance by the prop department, inflated bids by costumers, designers, carpenters, and electricians to the limo service demanded by stars for transportation to and from w o r k.
W h e n challenged, the answers of the featherbedders are based on the philosophy that "everybody does i t , " always accompanied by the attitude that those w h o don't are "suckers" and. But I firmly believe that the high cost of inflation, as well as the current lack of resources resulting from a recession, are only excuses idealistic theatre people make for the plight of the theatre.
If y o u r heart pounds, as mine does, at the mere mention of the beginnings of a theatre like the N e i g h b o r h o o d , the Provincetown, the Theatre G u i l d , the C i v i c Repertory, the G r o u p Theatre, the Phoenix, or the A P A , it must also sink w i t h the awareness of each demise.
W e may also ask what happened to the promise provided for a time by some W e can place the blame on inflation, recession, depression, problems of profit and loss, the high cost of theatre tickets, lack of audience supporton union restrictions, on exploitation by big business, on real estate monopolies, on egomaniac producers or directors, on weak leadership, on opportunistic visions rather than artistic ones w i t h a clear point of view, even on the criticsand we w i l l be correct.
But we forget that in our search for the blame, we may well have to place ourselves at the top of the list.
F o r example: The positive movements in our history, our floating islands of hope, have disappeared because they were deserted by the very artists w h o had initially sworn loyalty to them. I don't need to name names because they are easily traced, but in case after case, the ones w h o made the biggest splash in a given production were quickly lured away by the popular, more lucrative offerings of H o l l y w o o d and Broadway, having used their colleagues in the collaborative venture merely as stepping stones on which to reenter the w o r l d of " s h o w - b i z.
That is the real reason for our failures in the past and lack of growth in our existing attempts. N o n p r o f i t theatres are often visited by guest players w h o let the management and other actors feel they are doing them a favor by passing a little time w i t h them between their really important w o r k in film or on T V.
Let's face the fact that since the disappearance of the golden age of the actor-manager in the s, the acting profession as a whole has relinquished its responsibility to the theatre. It has willingly accepted the role of subservient child to a k i n d of parental control exercised by managers, producers, directors, even its o w n agents. This situation has worsened w i t h the years. It sometimes resembles the relationship of prostitute to p i m p , or the migrant fruit picker to the orchard bosses.
T a k i n g no position of their o w n , actors b o w and scrape to be hired or merely noticed. M a n y have befuddled their minds and p o i soned their talents w i t h drugs. M a n y stars have forgotten that, as in sports, they can only w i n the game together with a strong team, no matter h o w much they may seem to score personally.
W e must not fog ourselves w i t h illusions about an ideal theatre but fight for it all the way to the mountaintop. In the examination of our past and 2. Perhaps we don't all have the same mountain in mind and must first decide which one we're aiming for. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Includes index.
ISBN 1. H27 79Z. Open navigation menu. Close suggestions Search Search. User Settings. Skip carousel. Carousel Previous. Carousel Next. What is Scribd? Written by Uta Hagen. Document Information click to expand document information Description: Uta Hagen, one of the world's most renowned stage actresses, has also taught acting for more than forty years at the HB Studio in New York.
Her first book, Respect for Acting, published in , is still in print and has sold more than , copies. In her new book, A Challenge for the Actor, she greatly expands her thinking about acting in a work that brings the full flowering of her artistry, both as an actor and as a teacher. She raises the issue of the actor's goals and examines the specifics of the actor's techniques. She goes on to consider the actor's relationship to the physical and psychological senses. There is a brilliantly conceived section on the animation of the body and mind, of listening and talking, and the concept of expectation.
Did you find this document useful? Is this content inappropriate? Report this Document. Description: Uta Hagen, one of the world's most renowned stage actresses, has also taught acting for more than forty years at the HB Studio in New York. Flag for inappropriate content. The Alexander Technique For Actors. This practical book with illustrations links Alexander technique to acting, dancing and singing by the trainer of performers on The Lion King The Alexander Technique is a method of physical relaxation that reduces tension and strain throughout the body.
It promotes a beneficial use of movement that is stress-free by. Mozart -- a challenge for literature and thought. Dieser Band, der aus.
Her first book, "Respect for Acting, " published in , is still in print and has sold more than , copies. In her new book, "A Challenge for the Actor, " she greatly expands her thinking about acting in a work that brings the full flowering of her artistry, both as an actor and as a teacher.
She raises the issue of the actor's goals and examines the specifics of the actor's techniques. She goes on to consider the actor's relationship to the physical and psychological senses. There is a brilliantly conceived section on the animation of the body and mind, of listening ePub and talking, and the concept of expectation. But perhaps the most useful sections in this book are the exercises that Uta Hagen has created and elaborated to help the actor learn his craft.
The exercises deal with developing the actor's physical destination in a role; making changes in the self serviceable in the creation of a character; recreating physical sensations; bringing the outdoors on stage; finding occupation while waiting; talking to oneself and the audience; and employing historical imagination.
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