"THE EMOTIONAL memory of an actor is an actor's wealth," said the man who taught Marlon Brando how to mumble convincingly. "Mr. Method" was explaining the Stanislavsky method to a group of German actors in a two-week seminar at Bochum.

Lee Strasberg, who almost single-handedly changed the sound of the American theater from the high-flown declamation of the 19th century to the more realistic style that has characterized the stage of recent decades, amplified his point with a young actress She's playing a young prostitute reclining on a chaise tongue. reminiscing about her first love.

It's a good scene, an excellently played scene. The actress shows much talent. The audience applauds

Strasberg moves onto the stage. He remarks on her excellent acting. Then he begins asking why she did certain little things while she talked. They were the classical little whore moves.

"I'm playing a whore and I wanted to convey that fact with the slight vulgar moves "

"You're not whoring now," Strasberg said, "you're reminiscing, aren't you? And besides whores aren't that obvious any more."

Strasberg demonstrates how he was once approached by an attractive prostitute in a New York hotel lobby

It was all eye work and subtle body stance, obvious but devoid of vulgarity.

"You can make me look where you want me to with your eyes and that' s all the information I need to know that you're whoring "

A bit of joking and discussion and Strasberg manages to have the actress think of her first love then he asks her to speak the lines while thinking of him and the transformation is so astonishing that the audience stands and applauds.

'Whores are human. too'" Strasberg remarked.

To call Lee Strasberg a great teacher of acting is as redundant as saying the ocean is wet.

The man they call "Mr. Method" was recently honored in Hollywood where they claim American theater and film wouldn't be what it is without him.

Strasberg's name is inextricably connected with the Actor's Studio, that phenomenal New York acting school founded in 1947 by Elia Kazan and Cheryl Crawford.

Strasberg was born in Austria in 1901. His family went to the U.S. in 1909 but he still retains a large, passive knowledge of German which he demonstrated in Bochum as he fielded questions asked in German but answered in English.

After his studies at the American Laboratory Theater he directed and acted in his first play in 1925.

In 1930 he was co-founder of the Group Theater out of which the Actor's Studio grew.

Strasberg is credited with being the inspirational center of this impressive and talented group.

The reputation of the Actor's Studio grew as it consistently produced such actors as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Eva Marie Saint, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Rod Steiger, Warren Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Robert de Niro, Al Pacino and Strasberg's daughter Susan.

"The Method," Strasberg told the seminar in Bochum, which drew enthusiastic actors from all over Germany, "is based on the Stanislavsky method of teaching. The idea is to get back to the naturalness of the actor. We do this by using the experience of the individual actor, he or she learns to draw on what I call the 'emotional memory.'"

Stanislavsky - Constantine Sergeyevich Alexeyev (1863-1938), co-founder of the Moscow Art Theater - is often called the "revolutionizer" and the "father of the modern Russian theater."

Strasberg is considered one of the foremost experts on Stanislavsky theory, which stresses the importance of interpreting stage roles according to their subjective inner realities. In other words, the actor should immerse himself in the character, not merely play a role.

Strasberg has taught seminars all over the world. What brought him to to Bochum?

"Very simple," Strasberg said, "they asked me to come. One of the theater directors here had attended seminars I gave in Paris and Buenos Aires and thought it would be interesting to the Germans".

"It's the first time in West Germany. I did give one in East Berlin several years ago."

Impressions?

"You know, I really didn't know what to expect here. There aren't any German world stars as there were before the war. The war, of course, left the country a cultural wasteland. I had heard of the new German filmmakers who are praised by the American critics, but I was totally ignorant of what is happening here theatrically."

Having taught his seminar in East Berlin, Strasberg said he was quite familiar with the Brecht theory of "estrangement" on the stage but saw no great antithesis to his own teaching.

"Estrangement" is defined by Brecht as a method of acting that allows the audience to see that one is "acting" a role and not identifying totally with the character.

The purpose, Brecht said, is to keep the audience from merely enjoying a play but making them think.

But actors "still must act," Strasberg said.

What were his impressions of West German actors and acting?

"I have never seen so much talent in all my years of teaching. By talent I do not mean trained actors, I mean natural ability and presence. I have never seen so many good-looking actors, people who would be presentable on the stage or in film. Here they like to separate film acting from stage acting but I must say that I've been impressed.

"There's a lot of theorizing, a lot of argumentation and training seems to be very vocal but on the other hand they are unusually responsive. So many of them want to come to New York to learn at the Studio that we've had to discourage them coming without first making plans on how they will live over there."

What did he think of the European system of state-subsidized theaters? "That's the way it should be. A country lives also by its cultural influence. The Soviets hive their Bolshoi, the Germans, Brecht. Our popular culture has swept the world but we tend to let our high culture wither unsupported, or go on beggars' crutches. It's very wrong."

The 77-year-old Strasberg's seminar consisted of two weeks of lectures, six days a week.

The seminar was crowded with German actors from stage, film and television. They averaged 250 a day.

Strasberg worked at the seminar with simultaneous translation. He demonstrated himself or with actors, he told anecdotes and issued dictums.

Like Stanislavsky, Strasberg said, his method is to train the actor to act intelligently through trained reflexes.

"Not to know but to experience is the actor's real wealth. We want to create a reality not imitate it. And this must be learned and practiced as the musician learns his instrument. But an actor is both piano and pianist."

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