Director Adds a New Page to a 1934 Russian Text on Acting : Theater: The show consists of lessons on concentration, memory of emotion, dramatic action, characterization, observation and rhythm.

“The problem is the title,” Michael Holmes admitted. “It sounds like a tedious lecture.”

The show in question is “Acting: The First Six Lessons,” which is playing at the Chandler Studio in North Hollywood. It is based on Holmes’ adaptation of Richard Boleslavsky’s 1934 textbook of the same name. Boleslavsky, an actor with the Moscow Art Theatre who worked with Konstantin Stanislavsky, later founded the American Laboratory Theatre in New York, where his students included Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman. His book is still regarded as a valuable text on contemporary acting.

“When I first read the book as a teen-ager, I thought it would work onstage,” said Holmes, 52, who is also co-starring and directing the show. “It amazes me that it’s never been done before.”

Actually, it has been done once before--by Holmes, at the same theater in 1988. “Before, we did it exactly as it was written in 1934,” he noted. “A lot of our work was finding the formality and distance of that period. But this time, I thought it could be more accessible and immediate if we updated it, came at it fresh.”

Accordingly, Holmes’ Boleslavsky character (referred to as “B”) and his young blonde protegee (dubbed “The Creature”) are thoroughly modern figures, evolving in their relationship as the student grows in artistry. The show--like Boleslavsky’s book, which Holmes has faithfully reproduced--is divided into six acting lessons: on concentration, memory of emotion, dramatic action, characterization, observation and rhythm.

“The book is written in dialogue form,” explained Holmes, who dismisses any sexism in Boleslavsky’s labeling of the female student. “The Creature asks questions, and ‘B’ answers. It’s like a Socratic dialogue. And we watch her development: In the first lesson, she’s a novice. By the second, she’s a working actress. In the third, she’s working in film. In the fourth, she has the lead in a Broadway show. In the fifth, she’s a mature woman and artist. By the sixth lesson, she’s on the same artistic level as the teacher; they’ve become equals.

Actress Stephanie McGurn, a former student of Holmes’ who is reprising her 1988 performance as The Creature, feels the work’s updating (including references to such contemporary folk as Vanessa Redgrave, John Glenn and Michael Keaton) has made her own approach to the character more comfortable. “Playing with Michael is also different,” she said. “Before, I was with this old Russian character; now he’s this modern teacher. I can relax with the part more.”

The Texas-born Holmes, who quit college to venture to New York at 18, is the veteran of hundreds of stage roles in stock and regional theater. He cites two teachers as his biggest influences: Fanny Bradshaw, who taught him how to play Shakespeare (“she’d kill you if you ever got precious”) and Uta Hagen, who, he says simply, “taught me to act.” Hagen and Herbert Berghof’s HB Studio also set the standard he holds up before his own students today: “It’s about having a respect for the craft of acting--the craft itself.”

In 1978, Holmes moved to Los Angeles to join The Faculty, an acting school established by Charles Nelson Reilly at the Debbie Reynolds Studio in the San Fernando Valley. When the school later folded, Holmes continued teaching at the studio (renting space by the hour), before heading off to find his own space. In 1987 he founded the 30-seat Chandler Theatre, a plain storefront space sandwiched among a barber shop, a pet-grooming parlor and a trophy store. “We went in,” Holmes said proudly, “and made it into a theater.”

Since then, the theater has established monthly play readings and expanded its teaching staff; Holmes has added advanced acting classes in UCLA’s program for the master of fine arts degree to his own teaching roster. “I’ve worked a little bit in L.A. as an actor, but I don’t really go after it,” he said. “I like to do things that I feel have some value.” The standards may be lofty, he adds, but they’re emotionally necessary: “As actors, we’re like itinerant workers, going from job to job. You can’t hold onto youth or beauty, but you can hold onto your standards.”

“Acting: The First Six Lessons” plays at 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays at the Chandler Studio, 12443 Chandler Blvd., in North Hollywood until Dec. 15. Admission $10. (818) 780-6516.