The Given Circumstances of ‘The Method’

AMERICAN THEATRE: The subtitle of Isaac Butler’s intelligent and entertaining book flags his expansive intentions. The Method is not (just) about the naturalistic, emotionally charged acting style most famously associated with Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio. It is indeed the story of “how the twentieth century learned to act”—or, rather, the history of a sea change in the notion of what good acting is, and how it could be achieved, that began in a Russian theatre at the turn of the century and traveled across the globe via American movies.