“In Pieces” by Sally Field (post 3): Performing for Lee Strasberg, Field’s madwoman, red rage, ragamuffin, and rock-solid “pieces” work together

Sally Field’s acting career started in television, playing the cute, title characters in Gidget and The Flying Nun. She did not consider these serious roles, but wanted to become good, so she signed up for classes at the Actors Studio.

“I’d signed up to do a scene at the Actor’s Studio…and the moderator would be Lee Strasberg (1). I remember feeling dark and depressed, dressed in my ragamuffin clothes as I sat on the floor of the theater arts section at the public library…I was looking for scenes between two characters when I stumbled upon a long one from Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Respectful Prostitute…Immediately, I asked Paul, one of the actors I’d worked with in exercise class, to play the rich southern bigot, Fred, to my Lizzie the prostitute…”

Performing the scene: “As my fellow actor began to grope me, rubbing his hands intimately over my body, the madwoman part of me stayed present, and when he began to choke me—truly lost in the task—the red rage of me pushed him away, while I jumped to my feet crying ragamuffin’s tears, and the rock-solid piece of me said the required dialogue. All the pieces, the voices, the parts of me came together. Worked together. Lived for that moment…together.

“Then the scene was over. Lee had not stopped us when our allotted fifteen minutes were up, like he had done with all the other scenes [performed by other actors]. Our Respectful Prostitute had taken forty-five minutes…

“He asked, ‘Why are you here? You work. A lot of people here don’t and you do. You’re doing very well. Why are you here?’

“ ‘Because I want to be good,’ I said.

“ ‘You are good’ he said. ‘Good enough to work all the time…I let this scene continue. I wanted to watch you. You were quite brilliant’ ” (2, pp. 193-196).

Comment

One important difference between the normal version of multiple personality, multiple personality trait, and the mental illness, multiple personality disorder, is that the alternate personalities in the normal version work together (or at least not at cross purposes). Therapy for multiple personality disorder helps alternate personalities get along with each other.

1. Wikipedia. “Lee Strasberg.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Strasberg

2. Sally Field. In Pieces. New York, Grand Central Publishing, 2018.