Uta Hagen was born in Germany in 1919 and made her Broadway debut in 1938 as Nina in the Lunt-Fontanne production
of The Sea Gull. Among some of the twenty or more Broadway productions in which she has starred are: Othello, Key
Largo, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Country Girl, Saint Joan, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Recently she
starred in the Twentieth-Century Fox film The Other. Even during her playing engagements she has never stopped
teaching at the HB Studio. Geraldine Page, Fritz Weaver, Jason Robards, Jack Lemmon, Steve McQueen are only a few
of the many fine actors she has helped to send on their way. She has also performed and directed at the HB Playwright's
Foundation in numerous productions. Miss Hagen has been ably assisted in the writing of this book by Haskel Frankel,
drama critic of The National Observer.
Review
"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
Submitted By Publisher, June, 2003
Summary
This is a book for people who respect--or wish they could--the theatre on both sides of the footlights, for
the actor and audience who favor truth in a creative process. The constructive stages of work delve into performance
as well as the issues surrounding a necessary change in the theatre. Among Hagen's distinguished students were
Jack Lemmon, Geraldine Page, and Jason Robards.
Table of Contents
PART ONE: The Actor. Introduction.
1. Concept.
2. Identity.
3. Substitution.
4. Emotional Memory.
5. Sense Memory.
6. The Five Senses.
7. Thinking.
8. Walking and Talking.
9. Improvisation.
10. Reality.
PART TWO: The Object Exercises. Introduction.
11. The Basic Object Exercise.
12. Three Entrances.
13. Immediacy.
14. The Forth Wall.
15. Endowment.
16. Talking to Yourself.
17. Outdoors.
18. Conditioning Forces.
19. History.
20. Character Action.
PART THREE: The Play and the Role. Introduction.
21. First Contact with The Play.
22. The Character.
23. Circumstances.
24. Relationship.
25. The Objective.
26. The Obstacle.
27. The Action.
28. The Rehearsal.
29. Practical Problems.
30. Communication.
31. Style.
