A Madness in the Method

Robert H. Hethmon wrote in Strasberg at The Actors Studio , �Sometimes [the actor] faces the task of repeating himself tonight at eight-forty, when the curtain rises, freshly and creatively�and finds himself stale, constricted, mechanical, dead, a bundle of mannerisms and clich�s.�

Method Acting was one means of attempting to overcome this and other acting obstacles. While today�s Method Acting schools practice a diversity of behavioral-styled, psychological techniques under the Method banner, the historical and technical origin of this approach dates from the late 19th century to French experimental psychologist, Theodore Ribot (1839�1916).

Ribot rejected spiritualist philosophy and combined psychology with biology, speaking of the �advantages� of �a psychology without a soul.� His theories were similar to, if not based on, those of the German behaviorist psychologist Wilhelm Wundt and Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov�the key idea being that man is a stimulus-response and soulless animal. In fact, Ribot praised Wundt in h is 1886 book, German Psychology of Today.

Founder of the Moscow Art Theater, director and acting coach, Konstantin Stanislavski, and later Lee Strasberg in New York, adopted Ribot�s �affective memory� techniques. Essentially, �The act or was asked to recall the details of an event from his own past. The recollection of these details would stir the actors with some feeling involved in the original experience, thus producing �mood,�� wr ote Harold Clurman, author of The Fervent Years.

It sounds harmless. However, for some, they didn�t just recall, they re-experienced the incident. They didn�t just remember or create; they dove headfirst into some traumatic incident in their life�and remained there. And some actresses�like Marilyn Monroe�were simultaneously undergoing manipulative psychoanalysis, a dangerous combination. In such cases, unwittingly, acting coaches were playing Russian Roulette with their students� minds.
Method Acting was in part based on the conditioning experiments of Pavlov.

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