strasberg.com

A note from a reader

Written by David Lee Strasberg Tuesday, 19 January 2010 01:01

The move to the new Strasberg.com has taken a lot of work, but I am happy to have a new and improved on-line home for our work. I appreciate the feedback that I have gotten from the actors out there who have read this blog and checked out the new site.

I would like to share a wonderful comment that was posted by a reader and former student.

David,

I greatly admire this new energy in raising the profile of your father’s work. The combination of what he was intelligent enough to preserve and insightful enough to expand has, I think, created a breadth to our understanding of acting that too few seem capable of dealing with all at once.

Often I come across a practitioner who, in his ignorance, has dismissed what he feels Lee was about. Yet he will then go on to complain of an acting problem that is absolutely contained within what Lee would practice!

You must keep it up. There are lessons in his oft-misunderstood practice that are so valuable and universal. Lee himself would lament

over how only in acting – not helped by its here-one-moment-gone-the-next nature – does knowledge get lost. Or, worse yet, go backwards. There are very few fields in which we would tolerate that nowadays. I can’t help but feel that’s worth considering within the context of general humanity. Our knowledge of acting – in the sense of living truthfully within imaginary circumstances – is increasingly confused and split while everything else goes forward at the rate of knots?! That’s insane. We’re languishing WAY behind. It’s embarrassing, to be honest – especially in a society that sees our interest in acting as a disguise for our lust for money and fame. We need to communicate what acting IS, what it INVOLVES – so that RESPECT is once again given to those who devote themselves to pursuing it, rather than idolization to those beautiful few with the right contacts.

It is worthy. And noble. It is pure, when dealt with in a certain spirit. And there are few who believed that more, or committed themselves more to making that a reality, than your pop.

Awesome stuff. Great job.

Getting to touch the lives of our actors is what makes this profession worthwhile, and  I thank Suresh for his sentiments.

DLS