ABSTRACT
Lee Strasberg, the Method, and the Actors Studio have long been conflated in the minds of journalists and cultural historians since the 1950s. Yet the founders of the Studio – Cheryl Crawford, Bobby Lewis, and Elia Kazan – agreed to exclude Strasberg from their idealistic venture as soon as they concocted it in the summer of 1947. All past members of the Group, they had different and undeclared motives for this indelicate measure. To be sure, Strasberg was a persistent and difficult authority figure.
He took advice from no one and was undeviating in his pursuit of authentic emotional performance. Delighted, baffled, or unwelcoming responses from spectators, critics, casts, and production associates were normally immaterial to him. Lee only cared about more far-reaching concerns which, for him, meant unadulterated truth-in-art. His firstnight postmortems were rarely complimentary or outwardly supportive. Strasberg often rankled all but of the most devoted of his followers. And even Method zealots bridled at their teacher’s ferocious criticisms and later broke with him in stagy fits and denunciations. In October 1947, when Kazan extemporaneously welcomed the first
class of Actors Studio pupils, he defined the institution as a “homeland” for unattached performers. It was a timely but curious analogy. The State of Israel had just launched its diplomatic campaign for independence as a refuge for displaced Jews. For some old-timers, Kazan’s choice of words and his initial Studio improvisation – based on the word “Israel” – were either coincidental or subconscious references to his freelance and nomadic tutor, Lee Strasberg, born “Israel Strassberg.”
