This book analyzes the acting aesthetic of Brecht, Ionesco, Pinter, and Shepard and presents a detailed methodological approach to the performance of their plays. The originality of the book lies in the systematic and critical analysis of both the process of preparing a role and the shifting assumptions on matters essential for a coherent acting methodology for each playwright. The book is distinctive in that it focuses almost exclusively on the playwrights' published remarks concerning theatre and acting, supplemented with observations by actors and directors who were close collaborators with the playwrights on productions. The analysis begins with a chapter that examines and questions the applicability of the Stanislavsky system that still dominates the post-World War II theatrical scene. The following four chapters are devoted to the playwrights' construction of a coherent view of theatre and acting. An approach to acting is critically examined from the standpoint of the function, means and manner in which the role is realized with regard to the relationship of the actor to self, to the text, to the character and other characters, to the director, and to the audience. At the end of each chapter, a summary of the essential elements for an approach to the role is offered, accompanied by a proposed acting methodology. In the conclusion, an analysis is presented that recognizes what may be applied through Stanislavskian methods and the divergences which demand particularized responses to the plays of Brecht, Ionesco, Pinter, and Shepard.