STAGE REVIEW : Holmes Updates Boleslavsky With Lessons in ‘Acting’

Michael Holmes has updated his dramatization of Richard Boleslavsky’s “Acting: The First Six Lessons” for a return engagement at the Chandler Studio in North Hollywood, where it first played in 1988.

This series of dialogues between acting teacher “B” and his young student, “The Creature,” now includes references to more recent theatrical figures, instead of the people cited in the 1934 original.

Some of these references are self-serving. Among the stellar figures praised in the show are Uta Hagen and Michael Keaton, who just happen to have been a teacher and a student of Holmes, according to the program and a flyer posted in the lobby.

The production remains an intriguing glimpse into the craft of acting. Holmes and Stephanie McGurn re-create their leading roles, joined briefly by Lu Leonard as McGurn’s skeptical aunt and Dwight Larick as a stage doorman with a touch of the poet.

At second glance, however, the second act of “Acting” needs a sharper rhythm and keener conflict--two of the very qualities that “B” touts in his lessons. Near the end, when “B” refers to “the secret of existence,” the pomposity meter jumps skyward and remains there until the end.

“Acting: The First Six Lessons,” Chandler Studio, 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood, Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 15. $10. (818) 780-6516. Running time: 2 hours.