Book Review: “The Method” by Isaac Butler

The Method by Isaac Butler

This book was way more interesting than I expected it to be.  A history of theater, of acting, of acting theory?  Not something I know much about, nor especially worry about.

Of course, I realized reading this that I—and everyone—have been immersed in theatrical presentations for my whole life.  Movies, and then TV, and now the Internet is wall to wall storytelling, as well as meta stories of celebrity and cultural markers in movies and TV shows.

Which means that this history underlies a huge chunk of the culture I grew up in, and currently live in.  Even though I knew nothing of this history, I certainly have witnessed its results.

As the subtitle suggests, this is a history of “How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act”, beginning with how Russia learned to act in the nineteenth century.  I make no apologies for knowing nothing about theater in Tsarist Russia, nor for that matter nothing about nineteenth century theater anywhere.

But even I know the name Stanislavski (hey, my fingers even spelled it correctly, first try!), and even I have heard of “Method Acting”, attributed to him.  And now, thanks to Butler, I know a whole lot more about what Stanislavski thought he was up to, how these ideas came to America, and how they rooted, grew, and mutated in America.

No one is surprised at the personality conflicts, feuds, and factions that emerged.  The heart of Butler’s book is navigating the shifting sands of ideas about how to act, which often involved claiming or condemning Stanislavski’s mantle (rightly or wrongly).  Shockingly enough, disputes among theatrical people tend to get, well, theatrical.

Not trained as an actor, I can’t necessarily parse all the details of these disputes.  I gather from Butler than much of this is not necessarily well explained or theoretically coherent.  Acting is an art, art isn’t easy to explain.

My training in psychology certainly flags a lot of these practices as powerful and potentially dangerous.  (For that matter, my training in anthropology helps me understand tribal behavior when I see it.)

This book would all be dry and academic history if it ended in the 1930s.  Nineteenth century Russian theater.  Influence major changes in America, with a new realist school of acting taking hold in New York.  Art theater versus commercial.  American acting versis British acting.  Etc.

But, of course, the story continues.  In Hollywood.  And then TV.

Which meant, among other things that millions rather than thousands of people were exposed to all kinds of acting. 

Along the way, “Method Acting” came to mean something like “serious American acting”.  Butler makes clear that this popular conception had little to do with Stanislavski or even what the actors themselves did or believed.  Popular ideas about how to act were stereotyped and mostly inaccurate—but highly romantic, and often reflected the times.

On the other hand, many of the techniques became ubiquitous—table work, dividing the play into small units of action, asking the questions, “What does your character want? What is in the Way? What will they do to get it?”  Whether you love or hate Stanislavski, or have never heard of him, this is how actors are trained in America.

And, of course, the Stanislavski-influenced generation of actors, directors, and teachers had massive influence on storytelling and American culture.  The last parts of Butler’s book recounts all the Stanislavski’s students’ students who made important movies.

The end of the story isn’t so much the deliberate overthrow of The Method as the blooming of a thousand flowers.  The flood of movies and TV in America made it possible for lots of people to get in the game.  Acting school isn’t necessary or even necessarily useful to becoming an actor or film maker.  And there are schools (and theaters) everywhere, so you don’t need to go to New York to tell stories. 

Honestly, Stanislavski just doesn’t matter any more.  He’s just there, all the time.

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1. Isaac Butler, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, New York, Bloomsbury, 2022.

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