The Method Gun, courtesy of Rude Mechs. L-R, Hannah Kenna, Lana Lesley, Jason Liebrecht, Shawn
Sides, Thomas Graves.
Acting teacher Stella Burden influenced a great many thespians before she vanished mysteriously in the middle of rehearsals for a production of
A Streetcar Named Desire. The creator of “The Technique,” a conflation of traditional acting techniques and the dangerous tribal rituals Burden witnessed in her extensive world travels, she was known for her psychologically demanding training methods which encouraged extreme risk taking and often pushed actors to the brink.
Or, Burden never existed at all, and is actually a fictional combination of Stella Adler, guru to Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, and Chris Burden, the controversial performance artist famous for having a friend shoot him as part of a conceptual art piece. The cast and director of
The Method Gun, on stage Nov.11-14 at Z Space, enjoy maintaining an air of mystery around Burden. When talking with director Shawn Sides and cast member Lana Lesley, it’s hard to tell when they’ve shifted from the reality of the play to flesh-and-blood historical reality.
