Uta Hagen

Cort Theatre, The Theatre Guild presents Uta Hagen in Margaret Webster's production of Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan," with John Buckmaster, Andrew Cruickshank, Alexander Scourby, Robert Pastene, Frederic Worlock, directed by Miss Webster, scenery designed by Richard Harrison Senie, costumes designed by Elinor Robbins, original score by Lehman Engel, production under the supervision of Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner.

This book discusses the actor's goals, techniques, relationship to the physical and psychological senses, animation of the body and mind, listening and talking, and expectation. It includes useful exercises to help the actor in many areas.

The famed "object exercises" of Hagen are described here for the first and possibly only time. In fact, there are three divisions of the text: part one is The Actor, part two is The Object Exercises and part three is The Play And The Role. Hagen and Herbert Berghof practiced and taught these lessons at the Berghof school in New York (which produced at least a hundred Broadway and Hollywood household names) and Hagen pursued her own simultaneous acting career according to them. Sense memory, identity, substitution and many other topics are covered as they were in the classes from 1947 through the 1960's.