Tentativi di evasione dal Metodo: nuovi stili recitativi e approcci alla creazione scenica per il teatro Off-Off Broadway

At the beginning of the 1960s the Off-Off Broadway movement grew in New York City, creating a distinctive approach to thinking about and doing theatre. A new dramaturgical style was born to answer both issues related to American social circumstances and to the particularity of venues where performances were presented. Small coffee houses, basements and lofts hosted one-act plays in a space shared with the audience seated at coffee tables. A context that imposed a brilliant and physical acting style to catch the attention of the spectators in a brief time. The young and inexperienced actors were traditionally trained but, with the development of the movement, it became clear that the Actors Studio Method couldn’t work anymore and that a new style of acting was needed. The article presents the case of two artists, Tom O’Horgan and Joseph Chaikin who, inspired by European masters such as Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, developed their research for a new actor training as an answer to the need for a new performative style.