Lee Strasberg on “the blight of Ibsen”

I always thought the following anecdote from Clifford Odets’ 1940 journal was hysterical, and also thought-provoking.

Entry from Journal

April 17, 1940

In the early evening went to Lee Strasberg’s house for dinner. Paula’s mother was there, preparing the dinner, and I understood a great deal about Paula from seeing her mother’s weak face. For the first time in ten years the tensions are down between Lee and myself — so we were both able to relax.

He spoke of what he called “the blight of Ibsen”, saying that Ibsen had taught most writers after him how to think undramatically. He illustrated this by an example. A man has been used to living in luxury finds he is broke and unable to face life — he goes home and puts a bullet in his head. That, Lee said, any fair theatre person can lay out into a play. But it is not essentially a dramatic view of life. Chekhov is dramatic, he said, for this is how he treats related material: a man earns a million rubles and goes home and lies down on them and puts a bullet in his head.

Ha!!

This entry was posted in Books and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.