Acting: The First Six Lessons
“Acting: The First Six Lessons”, a dramatization by Beau Bridges and his daughter, Emily, is based on a classic text on the art and craft of the thespian. Written by Richard Boleslavsky, in 1933, the Boleslavsky handbook gained the understated admiration of the knights of the British Theatre, however; it also caught on among the budding method actors in America. After all, Boleslavsky’s “Lessons” number only six—concentration, memory-of-emotions, dramatic action, characterization, observation, and rhythm—and take place as a series of dialogues between The Teacher and The Creature. The former is a guru in the orthodoxy of acting. The latter is a lovely and callow aspirant to the art form. Through their Socratic interchanges and theatrical incantations, we see the slow-moving