No name in acting is accorded the reverence by the American theatre as is Stanislavski's. He has been the high priest of American acting since the 1930's when the Group Theatre incorporated his system into their program; and today, a modified Stanislavski System is central to the “Method” of the Actor's Studio. Whether this great regard for Stanislavski has been a good thing for our theatre is much debated, but very little has been said about the effect of Stanislavski's System upon the way the actor approaches the written text of a play. It is time this be considered, for the effects have been insidious and may well have been harmful to the art of our theatre.

A concept of the theatre has been lost. And in direct proportion to the manner in which the theatre limits itself only to allowing us to penetrate into the intimacy of some puppet or to transforming the spectator into a Peeping Tom, it is to be expected that the elite will turn away from it and the crowds will go to the movies, the music halls, or the circuses, in search of violent satisfactions which at least have no false pretenses.

After the wear and tear to which our ensibilities have been subjected, it is certain that, before all, we have need of a theatre that will awaken us: heart and nerves.

The misdeeds of the psychological theatre since Racine have made us unaccustomed to that violent and immediate action which the theatre must possess.