First, I would like to make a list of the top 5 “bon mots” that make this interview awesome:

5 Schiavo-ization of theatre as an art form

4 Training? Dogs are trained, not artists.

3 For some reason, artists see themselves as spiritual, emotional, and intellectual Gullivers tied down by millions of low-brow Lilliputians.

2 There’s got to be a progressive way to speak to conservatives. (Hint: it doesn’t involve dehumanizing them.)

1 class is, to appropriate Pinter, the weasel under the cocktail cabinet. Nobody wants to talk about the fact that 80% of the theatre audience is drawn from the top 15% of America’s economic class. Thus, government support of the arts looks like another handout for the rich.

Touche. We should talk about this weasel. Despite our effort to ignore him, he is making a lot of noise.

So well done, except, wait a second, that quote about Stanislavsky is ridiculous. Trying to teach acting without referencing or acknowledging Stanislavsky would be the equivalent of trying to be a painter without acknowledging the existence of the colour white. Any theory or approach to making acting or directing A CRAFT either appropriates his techniques or exists in relation to how it rejects them, but they are always in the picture.

Incidentally, Stanislavsky would probably throw those 3 books out also. The Stalinist regime pretty much forced him to write the 2nd and 3rd and he later rejected much of the first in conversations with Michael Chekov, never mind the fact that it is written in an implausibly pedantic style. But come on, lets try to direct or act in a play without talking considering given circumstances….