Stella Adler - Three Sisters (1)

[GeorgeWTush]

No, no. The actress who could play Stella is Elaine Stritch. She has the theatrical size and explosiveness that Stella knew how to deliver. To play Stella, one must be bigger than life. Stritch studied with Stella and eventually taught at her studio. She could do it.

[Filmdude0]

If a feature would be made about her work there is only one actress to play her.: Angela Lansbury :)

[ActorInPanic]

@Filmdude0 Brilliant casting idea.

[Filmdude0]

@ActorInPanic Thanks...I think so too :)

[rodanosamehr]

Thank you Milton for sharing these gems!

[miltonjustice]

@Khymy I assume that you've had an extremely successful career and can speak from your more advanced knowledge.

[tirayi]

Is that a giant glass of red wine?

[nika424242]

She puts her heart and soul into every word. Her every word is love. She gives her heart away to her students...

[actorob50]

beautiful.

[greenrate]

Sheesh. Way too much intellectualizing that has nothing to do with what's going on in the play .

Make it simpler: what specific emotion informs the character's action at the moment?

If you don't know . . . or can't attune yourself to it . . . you need to find out how to.

The emotion is the primary thing. IT patterns the actions and events -- not the other way around. The actions and events DON'T "cause" it or "explain" it.

[JoeHamid11]

She is associating the emotion to the line and being specific not intellectualizing though at least in my mind. I just think that her techniques somewhat work for me if they don't for you then that is fine.

[actorob50]

they worked okay for Brando.

[Timthethespian89]

You don't really know what you're talking about do you? Yeah, that's what I thought. You don't.

[tjrine85]

while i agree you don't want to intellectualize too much, i think you're way off about emotion. never make the emotion your point of attack. we have no control over our emotions and so to try to play it is completely fake. you NEED to play your action. what is your objective? what do you want and how will you get it? that's the only real control we have. when that is play honestly and openly, then you will have a true emotional response.

[henrysvg]

@tjrine85 bravo!

[LittleImpaler]

@tjrine85 Playing the objective and knowing you want, hardly never works in play or script, because 99. of the time the character doesn't know what they want. Instead one should analyze the script, and understand the world the character lives in, what is truly being said, and see the world from their character point of view (by leaving all personal judgments from the actor point-of-view. Such as my character is evil and ect.) People who are evil, don't see themselves as evil. ...

[LittleImpaler]

@tjrine85 truly understand the relationships you have with each of the character, when actors don't under their relationships, you fall into telling and not conveying. One should play it moment by moment not chasing after an objective, what do I want. when actor do that it takes you out of the scene. Makes what you do boring. Thought brings emotion, not the other way of around. By truly understanding, not playing the character by your emotions, you'll give a muplit-denominational...

[LittleImpaler]

@tjrine85 character and not flat character. Even when there is an objective, an actor should never play it. Looking for the want and need ,and the objective makes you lose sight of what is really needs to be seen. And that is by understanding. When you truly understand, your emotions and imagination flows better. How will you get it, never works, because it not a battlefield on the stage. People don't always fight for what they want. If the script calls for it, then fight what...

[LittleImpaler]

@tjrine85 what you want, but why fight for what you want???? When character isn't doing that. Everyday people don't always have battle with themselves or other people.

[1200yearss]

ummmmmm u actually think ur smarter about theatre than this lady? rofl

[greenrate]

Well . . maybe you could leave my mental health (such as it might be) out of it for just a moment . . . and explore instead the fundamental psychological premise that human actions are motivated by emotions.

If you want to portray a person's actions realistically, you need to have an understanding of what emotion is underlying the actions . . . attune yourself to that emotion . . . and have it pattern your posture, movement, etc.

[Talli732]

its true, but you are working backwards, and ultimately blocking yourself, if you work from emotion to action, you must use the action to find the emotion.

[greenrate]

It seems to me that your perspective is much more open to a criticism of "working backwards" -- from EFFECT (action) to CAUSE (emotion) -- than my own more realistic and natural one.

Just consider the practical contradiction in what you're proposing: how can you "use the action to find the emotion" . . . if you can't know anything true ABOUT the multi-faceted nature of that action . . . without the unique and specific emotion that underlies, motivates, and defines that action's nature?

[henrysvg]

@greenrate It is my belief that there is no universally wrong way to act, to live the role honestly and effectively. The work of an actor is far too personal a thing to say "this is how you do it - if you don't do this way you're not doing it." I have been acting long enough to have any opinions on method or what have you that would be worth their parchment, but I strongly believe that most actors will admit their method is a grab bag, personalized mashup of various techniques which worked.

[LittleImpaler]

@greenrate Acting is not all about the emotions. If acting was all about the  emotions, acting would be boring. To really play a real to life character, one needs to understand their character, the world and what is really going on. If you don't truly understand the character or the world, you cannot play character. If actors find all this studying and anaynalizing too much work, then acting should not be their job. Acting is not an easy job. Acting is studying and understand...

[LittleImpaler]

@greenrate understanding the human condition. And like Uta Hagen once said. "You take the easy road to acting, you'll be crap."

[RCane12]

Thanks so much for posting this!

[maximillion17]

just saw this play...was great x

[bohemianparadise]

Amazing. please if you have more of her, keep them coming.

[mason5r]

this is great. keep them coming. thanks alot