Accidentally On Purpose: Reflections on Life, Acting and the Nine Natural Laws of Creativity

by John Strasberg

Overview

(Applause Books). Based on his own experience and the teachings of his celebrated but distant father, Lee, John Strasberg defines the talent of becoming real in a role. He surveys the traditional partition between life and theatre, and urges actors to make it a dynamic living membrane through which vital elements may pass. John Strasberg has written his own intensely personal story about his father's work and the Strasberg dynasty. It is a painful odyssey during which he relives the often demanding role he played as son to a man who was the central father figure to a generation of American actors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557831965
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/01/2000
Series:	Applause Books
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.39(h) x 0.90(d)

Editorial Reviews

The author is the son of Lee Strasberg (a major force in the history of the Actors Studio), brother of Susan (the actress) and a would-be theater guru in his own right. His book is a combination autobiography ("My parents were too busy with their own dreams of success... for me") and a how-to guide to creative acting, his answer to his father's famous "Method," which, he says, only taught actors to think like actors. Lee Strasberg is presented as a selfish martinet who came alive only at the Studio. The author's mother is seen as a neurotic who sacrificed her independence for, first, her husband, then, for Marilyn Monroe. Monroe appears briefly (she gave the author a car when he was 18) as doeven more brieflyFranchot Tone (whom the author would have preferred as a father), John Garfield, Al Pacino, Geraldine Page and various Actors Studio hangers-on. Strasberg also touches on his two marriages, his work at the Film Board of Canada, his acting schools in France and Spain, his experiments with LSD and his Reichian therapy. In much greater detail, he reprises scenes he performed in class at the Studio andwith less enthusiasmplays presented by the Studio theater company in the early 1960s and by his own company, The Real Stage, in the late '70s. This highly egocentric performance ends with a discussion of the "natural laws of creativity," which owe a lot to Wilhelm Reich. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This impressionistic collage includes memories of Lee Strasberg, John's father; an autobiography of the struggle to find a life and a career; an artistic/philosophical manifesto ("What I have learned from the theater"); and an acting text ("Here's how to do"). On every page, the book circles through all these elements without much transition or any apparent structure. It is in desperate need of an editor to sort it out. Lee Strasberg's shadow looms over it like a ghost who has not been sufficiently laid to rest. The result is too emotionally charged to work as an insider's view of the Actor's Studio. There may be a good book in this, and there is certainly an important book in John Strasberg. But this is not it. Of interest solely to theater scholars.Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.

Library Journal

Strasberg recounts his career as actor, director, producer, teacher, and writer, focusing on the talent of becoming real in a role. He discusses the traditional partition between life and theater and between art and the artist, and advocates making in permeable so that vital elements can pass through, even though they may be lost forever. No bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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