ABSTRACT
Of all the major Stanislavsky-based schools in America, the Hollywood Actors Laboratory (1941-50) continues to be the most neglected or unfairly treated by theatre scholars and historians. Despite its longevity – it lasted nearly as long as the Group Theatre – and enormous influence on postwar film acting, the Actors Lab is chiefly remembered today as the first institutional victim of the Hollywood Blacklisting and political suppression of left-wing organizations during the McCarthy era. Although the Lab can be considered the most direct and obvious link from the Group to the Actors Studio, its status as a serious West Coast theatre forum and innovative acting school has been overshadowed by its sudden and untimely demise. During its heyday in 1946, the Lab not only managed three independent
theatre companies in Los Angeles, it modernized the competing American interpretations of Stanislavsky training under a single roof. Former Group Theatre members developed an eclectic program in combination with teachers from the Vakhtangov tradition (ARTEF and Habima), and with Michael Chekhov and several of his disciples. The result was a broad assortment of Russian techniques for American film actors. If anything, the “Red Hunt” ultimately removed the Lab’s practicing screen actors from gainful employment in film into backstage instruction. This unintentionally ensured a third generation of professional Stanislavsky teachers in America.
By 1941, the epicenter of American performing arts culture had shifted inexorably from Broadway to Hollywood. But many of the East Coast’s
most celebrated stars found themselves stranded or lost in that unfamiliar sun-drenched terrain. Typically, major film projects that engaged these once hotshot New York writers, directors, and actors were delayed, postponed, or abandoned without warning or notice. Although stage performers experienced such disappointments in film
industries throughout the world since the turn-of-the-century, only in the United States was the cinema capital separated from its theatre hub by thousands of miles. It meant that there were no easy stage alternatives to the whims of film producers or studio heads. Even Manhattanites with constant work complained about the rigid casting selection in Hollywood, rarely inching beyond physical stereotypes; substandard scripts; mechanical rehearsal preparation; and indifferent direction that was frequently diverted into mending technological and scheduling problems. Many Broadway denizens felt that they had been shunted into a lucrative but arid cultural landscape. The Actors’ Laboratory announced its formation in January 1941. Six
actors and two directors met in a Los Angeles auto-repair garage one night and decided to create an organization that resembled the old Group Theatre. In fact, three of them – Bud Bohnen, Joe Bromberg, and Mary Virginia Farmer – had been charter Group members. Jules Dassin had studied with Benno Schneider at his Workers Acting Studio and acted with the ARTEF ensemble. The others – Lloyd Bridges, Jeff Corey, Dick Flake, and Danny Mann – received their professional training in Federal Theatre units or at small left-wing theatre companies. The initial goals of the Actors Lab were simple: to create a Stanislavsky-
based curriculum for young actors; to provide a flexible conduit for established performers to perfect their craft; and to produce an “artful” repertoire of classic plays and topical modern dramas. Unlike the Group, the Actors Lab had, more or less, a wide-open playing field for serious theatre. There were only a few competing acting studios in Southern California that emphasized internal technique and almost no outlets for experimental or serious live performance. Of course, Los Angeles was not a natural theatre-going town. But the Lab founders thought audiences could be nourished under the proper conditions, especially when stage-hungry film stars could be dropped into their ensemble productions. The first semester of classes naturally reflected the diverse back-
grounds and personalities of the Lab’s faculty: Bromberg instructed the beginners in the basic regimen of First Studio-like exercises; Farmer led a Scene Study workshop that encouraged Clurman-like analysis from the non-participants who watched; and Dassin organized an Advanced Acting course that emphasized external Vakhtangov-like psychology
