Two plays in repertory at Theatre West
By Ed Rampell
Acting The First Six Lessons is a clever adaptation of a sort of 1933 manual on the art and craft of Method acting by the Polish-born Richard Boleslavsky. This actor-director studied at the renowned Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre and was a director of its First Studio. After reportedly defecting to America, Boleslavsky directed Hollywood movies featuring stars such as John and Ethel Barrymore, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Irene Dunne in the 1936 screwball comedy Theodora Goes Wild. In 1923 Boleslavsky also established what may be the first U.S. school to teach the Stanislavski Method, the American Laboratory Theatre; his students included Stella Adler (Marlon Brando’s famed teacher), Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, who eventually established the Group Theater, which played a major role in stage history.
Beau Bridges and his daughter Emily have adapted (what I assume is) Boleslavsky’s Six Lessons of Dramatic Art into a play with 10 scenes. (In a clever bit of marketing during these hard times, copies of the play’s source book were on sale in Theatre West’s lobby.) The play stresses Boleslavsky’s acting teaching career and only alludes to his accomplished movie directing career, although he does defend screen acting to his student, who is baffled by the bits and pieces out of joint nature of movie acting.
Suffice it to say that in the play the Bridges have concocted a novice overacting actress seeks out the noted maestro so that Boleslavsky can teach her how to act. He starts with the importance of concentration for actors, who must be able to focus, use their imagination and transmute emotional memories from actual past occurrences to the dramatic material at hand. In the course of the drama we watch the development of the wannabe thespian as a stage and screen actress. Along the way the audience learns much about the technique and creative process of acting.
I found this to be absorbing and highly educational in an entertaining way. However, a female playwright and actress in the audience was critical of what could be viewed as the Svengali-like nature of the plot, wherein an older male molds the younger woman. Of course, never having been a female actress I did not have this subjective point of view (although I can see how others might) and did not consider this story to be, shall we say, a Bridges too far.
I thoroughly enjoyed the charming story and the father-daughter interaction of Beau and Emily Bridges, a voluptuous beauty who seems destined to continue the “family business.” The pony-tailed Beau told the audience he was 68, but he seemed far younger; as the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: “There’s no gray hair in his soul.” Recently I saw his brother Jeff in person at the Independent Spirit Awards in March, and he was the best-looking 60-year-old male I’ve ever seen. The Brothers Bridges inherited their father Lloyd’s good looks and genes, and Beau has been appearing onscreen since the late 1940s, in Abraham Polonsky’s 1948 Force of Evil, the 1949 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony and in the early 1960s in his father’s Sea Hunt TV series (which I remember watching as a kid). Beau’s endless screen credits include 1970’s integration film, The Landlord, and 1979’s labor drama, Norma Rae. So it was a kick to see Beau perform in person.
And unlike other thespians, such as Brando who frequently derided acting as an unworthy profession (well, if your father repeatedly put you down during your childhood as a big nothing, even if you later won two Oscars, millions and vast critical acclaim, you’d still hear your father’s voice in your addled head insulting you and belittling whatever you did), it was a joy to see the pleasure that Beau continues to take in his lifelong avocation, and the pleasure Emily also takes in this art and craft, as the latest member of this show biz dynasty. And their clear enchantment in being able to perform together in this family affair.
Acting: The First Six Lessons runs through May 16 on Fridays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. at Theatre West, 333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, L.A., CA 90068. For more info: 323/851-7977; www.theatrewest.org.
