Uta Hagen, Master Teacher, Master Actor
Uta Hagen was one of the greatest acting teachers to ever live. Not only that but she was a brilliant stage actress with a career that stretched over six decades.
She was born in Germany and her parents moved to the US shortly after. Her mother was an opera singer, and her father was a professor of art history at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. She started acting there before moving to NYC when she was 18. Her first professional role was Ophelia in Hamlet and then she went on to play Nina in the Seagull on Broadway. She spent most of her adult life working on Broadway, receiving two Tony awards and a Life Time Achievement Tony Award as well.
She taught at HB studios in NYC for years. Lucky were the actors who got to study with her! I wasn’t one of them, but I remember studying her technique in college. Her book Respect for Acting was I believe the first real acting book I ever read. We’d do her exercises and break down scenes according to her instructions. It was wonderful.
She was so passionate about getting to the soul of the character, to being a real human being on stage—which is what great acting is all about.
I love what she said here: “In 1947, I worked in a play under the direction of Harold Clurman. He opened a new world in the professional theatre for me. He took away my ‘tricks’. He imposed no line readings, no gestures, no positions on the actors. At first I floundered badly because for many years I had become accustomed to using specific outer directions as the material from which to construct the mask for my character, the mask behind which I would hide throughout the performance. Mr. Clurman refused to accept a mask. He demanded ME in the role. My love of acting was slowly reawakened as I began to deal with a strange new technique of evolving in the character. I was not allowed to begin with, or concern myself at any time with, a preconceived form. I was assured that a form would result from the work we were doing.”
Yes, truly great acting is about revealing yourself. Your humanity, letting, as she says, “the character flow through you.”
If you haven’t read her books Respect for Acting or A Challenge for the Actor, do yourself a favor and get on that now.
Thanks Uta for your passion, talent and teachings.
Watch the recording of Uta Hagen teaching.
Get Uta Hagen’s books Respect for Acting & A Challenge for the Actor.
