Uta Hagen

This is a special edition to mention the passing of Uta Hagen.

"I would like to disagree with George Bernard Shaw's statement that 'He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches' to express my personal belief that 'only he who can should teach,"  
Uta Hagen

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic. Uta Hagen

News sources across the globe are reporting the passing of Uta Hagen.  I think Drama educators probably have little idea of how she has contributed to their practice, yet it is apparent that she was a significant figure, if overlooked amongst our colleagues.

There are obituaries online at:

USA Today - Actress Uta Hagen, Broadway star of '60s, dies at 84

The actress was a versatile performer, at home not only in Shakespeare, Chekhov and Shaw, but in plays by Albee, Clifford Odets and Tennessee Williams. Hagen also was a dedicated acting teacher, running HB Studios with her husband, Herbert Berghof, who died in 1990.

Pioneer Press - OBITUARIES: Uta Hagen role roused Broadway

Hagen made few movies, the best known being "The Other" (1972), "The Boys From Brazil" (1978) and "Reversal of Fortune" (1990).

Tiscali - Duitse Broadway-ster Uta Hagen (84) overleden

BBC - Broadway star Hagen dies aged 84

Hagen's Broadway roles included appearing in Othello with famed black actor Paul Robeson.  Outspoken on political issues, Hagen found herself blacklisted after World War II, working instead as an acting teacher as roles dried up.

Recent News

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m4PRN/2003_June_9/102916984/p1/article.jhtml

NEW YORK -- NEW YORK, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Marking another milestone in her long career, theatre legend and three-time Tony Award-winning actress Uta Hagen, who recently received the National Medal of Honor for the Arts from President George W. Bush during a prestigious White House ceremony, will be joined by American Theatre Wing chairman, Isabelle Stevenson, HB Playwrights Theatre artistic director William Carden, Danny Meyer, and publishers Marisa Smith and Eric Kraus, to honor the members of the HB Playwrights Unit on the occasion of the publication of the first four volumes in the HB Playwrights Short Play Festival book series. The event will take place Monday, June 16th, 5:00-7:00pm at Mr. Meyer's Eleven Madison Park Restaurant.

WEBSITES

• Uta Hagen - Actress, Teacher, Writer...Legend
• Uta Hagen - Acting Exercises - a great selection of some effective lessons and acting exercises.
  • Written Exercise Format
  • Sample Written Exercise
  • Exercise 1: Physical Destination
  • Exercise 2: The Fourth Side
  • Exercise 3, Part I: Changes of Self
  • Exercise 3, Part II: Changes of Self
  • Exercise 4: Moment to Moment
  • Exercise 5, Part I: Recreating Physical Sensations
  • Exercise 5, Part II: Recreating Physical Sensations
    
• Six Steps - some acting exercises on Eric Meyer's site
• Uta Hagen at the Actors Wokshop
• It appears there is an entire course based on Uta Hagen's work at the University of Rochester 

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

by Uta Hagen (Author)

Theoretically, the actor ought to be more sound in mind and body than other people, since he learns to understand the psychological problems of human beings when putting his own passions, his loves, fears, and rages to work in the service of the characters he plays. He will learn to face himself, to hide nothing from himself -- and to do so takes an insatiable curiosity about the human condition.
from the Prologue

Uta Hagen, one of the world's most renowned stage actresses, has also taught acting for more than forty years at the HB Studio in New York. Her first book, Respect for Acting, published in 1973, is still in print and has sold more than 150,000 copies. In her new book, A Challenge for the Actor, she greatly expands her thinking about acting in a work that brings the full flowering of her artistry, both as an actor and as a teacher. She raises the issue of the actor's goals and examines the specifics of the actor's techniques. She goes on to consider the actor's relationship to the physical and psychological senses. There is a brilliantly conceived section on the animation of the body and mind, of listening and talking, and the concept of expectation.

But perhaps the most useful sections in this book are the exercises that Uta Hagen has created and elaborated to help the actor learn his craft. The exercises deal with developing the actor's physical destination in a role; making changes in the self serviceable in the creation of a character; recreating physical sensations; bringing the outdoors on stage; finding occupation while waiting; talking to oneself and the audience; and employing historical imagination.

The scope and range of Uta Hagen here is extraordinary. Her years of acting and teaching have made her as finely seasoned an artist as the theatre has produced.

Respect for Acting
by Uta Hagen (Author), Haskel Frankel (Author)

This fascinating and detailed book about acting is Miss Hagen's credo, the accumulated wisdom of her years spent in intimate communion with her art. It is at once the voicing of her exacting standards for herself and those she teaches, and an explanation of the means to the end. For those unable to avail themselves of her personal tutelage, her book is the best substitute." —Publishers Weekly "Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting is not only pitched on a high artistic level but it is full of homely, practical information by a superb craftswoman. crafts-woman. An illuminating discussion of the standards and techniques of enlightened stage acting." —Brooks Atkinson "Hagen adds to the large corpus of titles on acting with vivid dicta drawn from experience, skill, and a sense of personal and professional worth. Her principal asset in this treatment is her truly significant imagination. Her ‘object exercises’ display a wealth of detail with which to stimulate the student preparing a scene for presentation." —Library Journal "Respect for Acting is a simple, lucid and sympathetic statement of actors' problems in the theatre and basic tenets for their training wrought from the personal experience of a fine actress and teacher of acting." —Harold Clurman "Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting…is a relatively small book. But within it Miss Hagen tells the young actor about as much as can be conveyed in print of his craft." —Los Angeles Times "Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her." —Fritz Weaver "This is a textbook for aspiring actors, but working thespians can profit much by it. Anyone with just a casual interest in the theater should also enjoy its behind-the-scenes flavor. Respect for Acting is certainly a special book, perhaps for a limited readership, but of its "How-To" kind I'd give it four curtain calls, and two hollers of "Author, Author —King Features Syndicate

Uta Hagen's Acting Class
by Uta Hagen (Composer)

Also Uta Hagen's Acting Class: The Dvds

In the UTA HAGEN'S ACTING CLASS video set, the revered actress holds forth on all the salient points of her approach to character, probing the text, testing technique, and challenging her students to act and think; act and reflect; act and choose. Above all, the viewer will learn that in Uta Hagen's classes, acting is doing. Not thinking or feeling, but in action. Clear and practical, her teaching is behavior based. "It's in the doing that we believe."The videos, 90 minutes each, provide illuminating examples of her teaching points selected from two hundred hours of recorded classes over a two year period. All ten of her famous "Object Exercises" are performed and critiqued. We watch as the actors/students present their scene and Uta gives her comments. As the student re-works the scene, we actually see her guide the student to be better.

Kim Flintoff

Copyright © September, 2004