Training the Actor: Belasco and Mrs Carter

Clinton discusses how the professional partnership of writer-director David Belasco and the woman he trained for the stage, Leslie Carter, influenced the former's acting career. He reasons that Belasco's approach to actor-training may appear to be in total opposition to his need for self-discovery in shaping a role, and for that reason, was deeply pernicious to the creative processes overall. However, he concludes that the Svengali approach to actor training, which Belasco so emphatically represents, is not so alien from contemporary practice as one might initially suppose.