2007年VOA标准英语-Famed US Institute Teaches Aspiring Actors

By Ravi Khanna
New York
04 April 2007
 

New York City is home to the famous Lee Strasberg Theater and film institute, which is known for training actors in what it calls ‘method acting¹.’  Urdu TV' s Ravi Khanna went inside the institute to find out more from its instructors² and students.

Located in downtown Manhattan, the world famous school looks very ordinary from the outside.  But ordinary, it is not.  Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Marilyn Monroe, Uma Thurman, Sissy Spacek and hundreds of other actors we see in American movies have been associated with the institute.

Geoffrey Horne teaches acting there.  He first met Strasberg in 1954 and has been associated with the institute from the very day it was established in 1969.  He describes Strasberg, who died in 1982, as an American genius.  Horne says he teaches his students to work on their characters in a play or a movie from the inside out – meaning first they should enter the character, find out where he is coming from, imbibe³ his feelings and then pay attention to what he wears or his mannerism⁴.

"What comes first in our life?” Horne asks.  “I am hungry, so I want to eat.  So what comes first is that I am hungry.  I am not going to eat first, I am hungry first. If I am upset because I am lonely, I go out and seek company.  So I am home alone, I am lonely, I have no one to talk to and there is nothing on television.  I have already eaten, I have already had a drink.  I am lonely.  I need contact with people.  That comes from the inside.  I go out and I search for friendship or companionship."

The teaching at the institute is famous for an acting technique that is known as ‘method acting.’  What is it?

"Teaching of the method is to help the actor be alive on the stage – not pretend to be alive, but be alive,” Horne says.  “Of course he is alive, because he is a person.  So much of the acting we see in the world – on stage, on film, on TV – is phony, it is fake⁵.  You do not really believe anything is happening.  We go to the theater to have an experience; we go the movies to have an experience.  So the method is to help the actor to have an experience, so that we in the audience can have the experience, a real experience."

Acting student Clara Govindan

To find out if his students like the technique, we spoke⁶ to Clara Govindan who has spent almost six months at the 18-month course.

"We have a lot of acting classes. We start with relaxation,” she says.  “We do sensory⁷ work, then we go into the scene work.  The sensory work is where we work on focusing on that aspect of method acting.  That is what method acting is."

But it was another student, Virginia Myers, who could really explain what the method is.

"Method acting consists of taking senses and feelings created by situations in your real life and then using them through imagination to recreate what the sensations⁸ were, and what the feelings were,” she says.  “For instance, I can hold this bottle of water in my hand.  Now I know how it feels like and I know how much weight it takes to hold the bottle.  And then I can put it down and I can imagine holding the same bottle in my hand.  I know what it feels like and how much strength it would take to hold the bottle, but it is not really there.  So if you can do something like that with your emotions and you can remember what it felt like to have your heart broken or something like that, then you can take those emotions and put them into a play."

She says she is working to act on stage and in the movies and hopes that one day we will see her on the movie screen.

1 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

2 instructors   

指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The instructors were slacking on the job. 教员们对工作松松垮垮。
• He was invited to sit on the rostrum as a representative of extramural instructors. 他以校外辅导员身份，被邀请到主席台上。

3 imbibe   

v.喝，饮；吸入，吸收

参考例句：

• Plants imbibe nourishment usually through their leaves and roots.植物通常经过叶和根吸收养分。
• I always imbibe fresh air in the woods.我经常在树林里呼吸新鲜空气。

4 mannerism   

n.特殊习惯，怪癖

参考例句：

• He has this irritating mannerism of constantly scratching his nose.他老是挠鼻子，这个习惯真让人不舒服。
• Her British accent is just a mannerism picked up on her visit to London.她的英国口音是她访问伦敦学会的。

5 fake   

vt.伪造，造假，假装；n.假货，赝品

参考例句：

• He can tell a fake from the original.他能分辨出赝品和真品。
• You can easily fake up an excuse to avoid going out with him.你可以很容易地编造一个借口而不与他一同外出。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 sensory   

adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的

参考例句：

• Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
• The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。

8 sensations   

感觉( sensation的名词复数 )； 感受； 知觉； 激动

参考例句：

• Whenever his physical sensations were a little under control the terror returned. 只要身体感官稍一正常，恐怖便又袭上心头。 来自英汉文学
• All sensations seemed to be magnified. 所有的知觉都很敏感。 来自英汉文学