An Actor's Craft: The Art and Technique of Acting (review)

In An Actor's Craft: The Art and Technique of Acting, David Krasner presents us with a book designed for the more advanced students and teachers of acting. He states from the onset that rather than writing an introductory book on acting, his offering is a collection of exercises designed for those who already possess a foundation and wish to develop their craft further. Experienced in a whole host of techniques and processes, Krasner leads the reader on a path of discovery through the world of actor training and back to its origins. Along the way, he clarifies the purpose behind common training exercises like Lee Strasberg's "sense memory" and Sanford Meisner's "repetition," while comparing and contrasting different acting theories from both sides of the Atlantic.

Krasner joins a new generation of acting teachers who denounce what he describes as "one-size-fits-all" techniques, and instead draw on numerous diverse approaches, including the work of Grotowski and Chekov, providing the actor with a greater variety of tools than a single technique offers. He merges concepts from different theories, resulting in a composition of existing practices presented in a new light. Condemning the age-old contention between the "outside-in" and "inside-out" methodologies, he instead urges the actor to focus on the common goal and recommends that teachers reading the book develop a sense of freedom to push boundaries within their own work.

An Actor's Craft also provides an insight into how actor training has evolved over the past centuries. The book touches on Eastern performance philosophies, such as the work of Oida and Zarrilli; however, it is largely focused on the ideas introduced by Russian pioneers like Konstantin Stanislavski and the subsequent development of the American Method. Coming from a Method acting background, Krasner skilfully combines Strasberg's work with those of fellow Americans Stella Adler and Meisner, while continually crediting Stanislavski with laying the foundations for all Western actor training. Furthermore, by pointing out the similarities in the modus operandi of Stanislavski's disciples Yevgeny Vakhtangov and Vsevolod Meyerhold and their influence on the aforementioned American teachers, he not only underscores the irrelevance of past contretemps among acting methods, but also strengthens his case for an all-embracing approach.

Krasner's heterogeneous approach becomes apparent in the first part of the book, "Preparing the Mind and Body," which deals with the importance of the actor's work on them and his/her instrument. He introduces concepts like concentration, imagination, and physical awareness. In addition to the views of the American Method teachers, An Actor's Craft includes the work of an impressive number of practitioners, including Jacques Lecoq, Moshé Feldenkrais, and Anne Bogart, giving the reader a good opportunity to find a personal connection to the material. The first part of the book also contains a chapter on vocal flexibility, which highlights the importance of breathing and its influence on the acting process. This section is both informative and engaging; however, I did feel that the part dedicated to vocal flexibility was light on practical advice and overshadowed by the extensive coverage of physicality.

The second section, "Passion and Inspiration," contains the bulk of Krasner's innovative and exciting take on mixing techniques. He addresses a wide-ranging set of exercises and ideas from Meisner, Adler, and Strasberg, interwoven with thoughts and advice from practitioners like Vakhtangov and Uta Hagen. Krasner highlights core Method concepts like "experience," "observation," and "imagination," but instead of emphasizing the value of any one of them, he stresses the importance of each. Rather than suggesting that the creators of the techniques were in any way reductive in their approach, he celebrates the practitioners by combining their instincts and building on the initial ideas.

The notion of blending concepts is particularly inspiring in the part dealing with "actions," which combines existing theories to present modified versions of Stanislavski's "action analysis." The exercise "The Six Basic Actions" lends itself to a myriad of versions that...