system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
atic approach to training
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...
s that the Russian
theatre practitioner
A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs his or her practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these tr ...
Konstantin Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian Soviet Fe ...
developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing" (with which he contrasts the "
art of representation
The "art of representation" (russian: представление, predstavlenie) is a critical term used by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski to describe a method of acting. It comes from his acting manual ''An Acto ...
art of representation
The "art of representation" (russian: представление, predstavlenie) is a critical term used by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski to describe a method of acting. It comes from his acting manual ''An Acto ...
's "actor of reason" and his "art of experiencing" corresponds to Shchepkin's "actor of feeling"; see Benedetti (1999a, 202). It mobilises the actor's
conscious
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
thought and
will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and
subconscious
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.
Scholarly use of the term
The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...
behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a "task").
Later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the "Method of Physical Action". Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active representative", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are
improvised
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
.Benedetti (1999a, 355—256), Carnicke (2000, 32—33), Leach (2004, 29), Magarshack (1950, 373—375), and Whyman (2008, 242). "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the
given circumstances The term ''Given Circumstances'' is a principle from Russia, Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski's methodology for actor training, formulated in the first half of the 20th century at the Moscow Art Theatre.
The term given circumst ...
."Quoted by Carnicke (1998, 156).
Thanks to its promotion and development by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of Stanislavski's theoretical writings, his system acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed a reach, dominating debates about acting in the West. Stanislavski’s ideas have become accepted as common sense so that actors may use them without knowing that they do.
Stanislavski before his system
Having worked as an
amateur
An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...
actor and director until the age of 33, in 1898 Stanislavski co-founded with
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko
Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (russian: Владимир Иванович Немирович-Данченко; , Ozurgeti – 25 April 1943, Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer an ...
the
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; russian: Московский Художественный академический театр (МХАТ), ''Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr'' (МHАТ)) was a theatre company in Moscow. It was f ...
(MAT) and began his professional career. The two of them were resolved to institute a revolution in the staging practices of the time. Benedetti offers a vivid portrait of the poor quality of mainstream theatrical practice in Russia before the MAT:
The script meant less than nothing. Sometimes the cast did not even bother to learn their lines. Leading actors would simply plant themselves downstage centre, by the prompter's box, wait to be fed the lines then deliver them straight at the audience in a ringing voice, giving a fine display of passion and "temperament." Everyone, in fact, spoke their lines out front. Direct communication with the other actors was minimal. Furniture was so arranged as to allow the actors to face front.
Stanislavski's early productions were created without the use of his system. His first international successes were staged using an external,
director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
-centred technique that strove for an organic unity of all its elements—in each production he planned the interpretation of every role, blocking, and the '' mise en scène'' in detail in advance. He also introduced into the production process a period of discussion and detailed analysis of the play by the cast. Despite the success that this approach brought, particularly with his Naturalistic stagings of the plays of
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
and
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
, Stanislavski remained dissatisfied.
Both his struggles with Chekhov's drama (out of which his notion of
subtext
Subtext is any content of a creative work, which is not announced explicitly (by characters or author), but is implicit, or becomes something understood by the audience. Subtext has been used historically to imply controversial subjects without ...
emerged) and his experiments with
Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sy ...
encouraged a greater attention to "inner action" and a more intensive investigation of the actor's process. He began to develop the more actor-centred techniques of "
psychological realism
In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of the characters. The mode of narration examine ...
" and his focus shifted from his productions to rehearsal process and
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
. He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training and to experiment with new forms of theatre.
Throughout his career, Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a rigorous process of artistic self-analysis and reflection. His system of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his performances, beginning with a major crisis in 1906.
Stanislavski eventually came to organise his techniques into a coherent,
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
atic methodology, which built on three major strands of influence: (1) the director-centred, unified aesthetic and disciplined,
ensemble
Ensemble may refer to:
Art
* Architectural ensemble
* ''Ensemble'' (album), Kendji Girac 2015 album
* Ensemble (band), a project of Olivier Alary
* Ensemble cast (drama, comedy)
* Ensemble (musical theatre), also known as the chorus
* ''En ...
approach of the Meiningen company; (2) the actor-centred realism of the Maly; and (3) the Naturalistic staging of
Antoine
Antoine is a French given name (from the Latin ''Antonius'' meaning 'highly praise-worthy') that is a variant of Danton, Titouan, D'Anton and Antonin.
The name is used in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, West Greenland, Haiti, French Guiana ...
and the independent theatre movement. Stanislavski's earliest reference to his system appears in 1909, the same year that he first incorporated it into his rehearsal process.
Olga Knipper
Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova (russian: Ольга Леонардовна Книппер-Чехова, link=no; – 22 March 1959) was a Russian and Soviet stage actress. She was married to Anton Chekhov.
Knipper was among the 39 ori ...
and many of the other MAT actors in that production—
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (; rus, links=no, Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́невIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; 9 November 1818 – 3 September 1883 (Old Style dat ...
's comedy '' A Month in the Country''—resented Stanislavski's use of it as a laboratory in which to conduct his experiments. At Stanislavski's instistence, the MAT went on to adopt his system as its official rehearsal method in 1911.
Experiencing the role
This system is based on "experiencing a role." This principle demands that as an actor, you should "experience feelings analogous" to those that the
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
experiences "each and every time you do it."Stanislavski (1938, 19) Stanislavski approvingly quotes
Tommaso Salvini
Tommaso Salvini (1 January 182931 December 1915) was an Italian actor.
Life
Salvini was born in Milan to parents who were both actors, his mother being the popular actress Guglielmina Zocchi.
Finding the boy had a talent for acting, his father ...
when he insists that actors should really feel what they portray "at every performance, be it the first or the thousandth."
Not all emotional experiences are appropriate, therefore, since the actor's feelings must be relevant and parallel to the character's experience. Stanislavski identified Salvini, whose performance of
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
he had admired in 1882, as the finest representative of the art of experiencing approach. Salvini had disagreed with the French actor Cocquelin over the role emotion ought to play—whether it should be experienced only in rehearsals when preparing the role (Cocquelin's position) or whether it ought to be felt in performance (Salvini's position).
On this basis, Stanislavski contrasts his own "art of experiencing" approach with what he calls the "
art of representation
The "art of representation" (russian: представление, predstavlenie) is a critical term used by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski to describe a method of acting. It comes from his acting manual ''An Acto ...
" practised by Cocquelin (in which experiencing forms one of the preparatory stages only) and "hack" acting (in which experiencing plays no part). Stanislavski defines the actor's "experiencing" as playing "credibly", by which he means "thinking, wanting, striving, behaving truthfully, in logical sequence in a human way, within the character, and in complete parallel to it", such that the actor begins to feel "as one with" the role.
Stanislavski's approach seeks to stimulate the
will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
to create afresh and to activate
subconscious
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness.
Scholarly use of the term
The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...
processes sympathetically and indirectly by means of
conscious
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
techniques. In this way, it attempts to recreate in the actor the inner, psychological causes of behaviour, rather than to present a
simulacrum
A simulacrum (plural: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin '' simulacrum'', which means "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, u ...
of their effects. Stanislavski recognised that in practice a performance is usually a mixture of the three trends (experiencing, representation, hack) but felt that experiencing should predominate.
The range of training exercises and rehearsal practices that are designed to encourage and support "experiencing the role" resulted from many years of sustained inquiry and experiment. Many may be discerned as early as 1905 in Stanislavski's letter of advice to Vera Kotlyarevskaya on how to approach the role of Charlotta in
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
's ''
The Cherry Orchard
''The Cherry Orchard'' (russian: Вишнёвый сад, translit=Vishnyovyi sad) is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Written in 1903, it was first published by ''Znaniye'' (Book Two, 1904), and came out as a separate edition ...
'':
First of all you must live the role without spoiling the words or making them commonplace. Shut yourself off and play whatever goes through your head. Imagine the following scene: Pishchik has proposed to Charlotta, now she is his bride... How will she behave? Or: Charlotta has been dismissed but finds other employment in a
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...
of a
café-chantant
(French: lit. 'singing café'), , or , is a type of musical establishment associated with the Belle Époque in France. The music was generally lighthearted and sometimes risqué or even bawdy but, as opposed to the cabaret tradition, not parti ...
. How does she do gymnastics or sing little songs? Do your hair in various ways and try to find in yourself things which remind you of Charlotta. You will be reduced to despair twenty times in your search but don't give up. Make this German woman you love so much speak Russian and observe how she pronounces words and what are the special characteristics of her speech. Remember to play Charlotta in a dramatic moment of her life. Try to make her weep sincerely over her life. Through such an image you will discover all the whole range of notes you need.
Exercises such as these, though never seen directly onstage or screen, prepare the actor for a performance based on experiencing the role. Experiencing constitutes the inner, psychological aspect of a role, which is endowed with the actor's individual feelings and own personality. Stanislavski argues that this creation of an inner life should be the actor's first concern. He groups together the training exercises intended to support the emergence of experiencing under the general term "
psychotechnique Psychotechnique forms part of the Stanislavski's system, 'system' of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal developed by the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski. It describes the inner, psychological elements of training that su ...
".
Given circumstances and the Magic If
Stanislavski's "Magic If" describes an ability to imagine oneself in a set of fictional circumstances and to envision the consequences of finding oneself facing that situation in terms of action.Counsell (1996, 28). These circumstances are "given" to the actor principally by the playwright or screenwriter, though they also include choices made by the director, designers, and other actors. The ensemble of these circumstances that the actor is required to incorporate into a performance are called the "
given circumstances The term ''Given Circumstances'' is a principle from Russia, Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski's methodology for actor training, formulated in the first half of the 20th century at the Moscow Art Theatre.
The term given circumst ...
". "It is easy," Carnicke warns, "to misunderstand this notion as a directive to play oneself." A human being's circumstances condition his or her character, this approach assumes. "Placing oneself in the role does not mean transferring one's own circumstances to the play, but rather incorporating into oneself circumstances other than one's own."
In preparation and rehearsal, the actor develops imaginary stimuli, which often consist of sensory details of the circumstances, in order to provoke an organic, subconscious response in performance. These "inner objects of attention" (often abbreviated to "inner objects" or "contacts") help to support the emergence of an "unbroken line" of experiencing through a performance, which constitutes the inner life of the role. An "unbroken line" describes the actor's ability to focus attention exclusively on the fictional world of the drama throughout a performance, rather than becoming distracted by the scrutiny of the audience, the presence of a camera crew, or concerns relating to the actor's experience in the real world offstage or outside the world of the drama. In a rehearsal process, at first, the "line" of experiencing will be patchy and broken; as preparation and rehearsals develop, it becomes increasingly sustained and unbroken.
When experiencing the role, the actor is fully absorbed by the drama and immersed in its fictional circumstances; it is a state that the psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi (, hu, Csíkszentmihályi Mihály Róbert, ; 29 September 1934 – 20 October 2021) was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental ...
calls " flow." Stanislavski used the term "I am being" to describe it. He encouraged this absorption through the cultivation of "public solitude" and its "circles of attention" in training and rehearsal, which he developed from the
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally cal ...
techniques of
yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...
. Stanislavski did not encourage complete identification with the role, however, since a genuine belief that one had become someone else would be
pathological
Pathology is the study of the causal, causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when us ...
.
Tasks and action
An actor's performance is animated by the pursuit of a sequence of "tasks" (identified in Elizabeth Hapgood's original English translation as "objectives"). A task is a problem, embedded in the "
given circumstances The term ''Given Circumstances'' is a principle from Russia, Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski's methodology for actor training, formulated in the first half of the 20th century at the Moscow Art Theatre.
The term given circumst ...
" of a scene, that the character needs to solve. This is often framed as a question: "What do I need to make the other person ''do''?" or "What do I want?"
In preparing and rehearsing for a role, actors break up their parts into a series of discrete "bits", each of which is distinguished by the dramatic event of a "reversal point", when a major revelation, decision, or realisation alters the direction of the action in a significant way. (Each "bit" or "beat" corresponds to the length of a single motivation
ask or objective
Ask is the active verb for a direct question.
Ask may also refer to:
Places
* Ask, Akershus, a village in Gjerdrum municipality, Viken county, Norway
* Ask, Buskerud, a village in Ringerike municipality, Viken county, Norway
* Ask, Vestland, a ...
The term "bit" is often mistranslated in the US as "beat", as a result of its pronunciation in a heavy Russian accent by Stanislavski's students who taught his system there.)
A task must be engaging and stimulating imaginatively to the actor, Stanislavski argues, such that it compels action:
One of the most important creative principles is that an actor's tasks must always be able to coax his feelings, will and intelligence, so that they become part of him, since only they have creative power. ..The task must provide the means to arouse creative enthusiasm. Like a magnet, it must have great drawing power and must then stimulate endeavours, movements and actions. ''The task is the spur to creative activity, its motivation. The task is a decoy for feeling.'' ..The task sparks off wishes and inner impulses (spurs) toward creative effort. The task creates the inner sources which are transformed naturally and logically into action. The task is the heart of the bit, that makes the pulse of the living organism, the role, beat.
Stanislavski's production of '' A Month in the Country'' (1909) was a watershed in his artistic development, constituting, according to Magarshack, "the first play he produced according to his system." Breaking the MAT's tradition of open rehearsals, he prepared Turgenev's play in private. The cast began with a discussion of what Stanislavski would come to call the "through-line" for the characters (their emotional development and the way they change over the course of the play). This production is the earliest recorded instance of his practice of analysing the action of the script into discrete "bits".
The pursuit of one task after another forms a through-line of action, which unites the discrete bits into an unbroken continuum of experience. This through-line drives towards a task operating at the scale of the drama as a whole and is called, for that reason, a "supertask" (or "superobjective"). A performance consists of the inner aspects of a role (experiencing) and its outer aspects ("embodiment") that are united in the pursuit of the supertask.
In his later work, Stanislavski focused more intently on the underlying patterns of dramatic conflict. He developed a rehearsal technique that he called "active analysis" in which actors would
improvise
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
these conflictual dynamics. In the American developments of Stanislavski's system—such as that found in
Uta Hagen
Uta Thyra Hagen (12 June 1919 – 14 January 2004) was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' by Edward Albee, who called her "a p ...
's ''
Respect for Acting
''Respect for Acting'' by actress and teacher Uta Hagen (Wiley Publishing, 1973) is a textbook for use in acting classes. Hagen's instructions and examples guide the user through practical problems such as: "How do I talk to the audience?" and "Ho ...
'', for example—the forces opposing a characters' pursuit of their tasks are called "obstacles".
Method of Physical Action
Stanislavski further elaborated his system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the "Method of Physical Action".Benedetti (1999a, 325, 360) and (2005, 121) and Roach (1985, 197—198, 205, 211—215). The term itself was only applied to this rehearsal process after Stanislavski's death. Benedetti indicates that though Stanislavski had developed it since 1916, he first explored it practically in the early 1930s. The roots of the Method of Physical Action stretch back to Stanislavski's earliest work as a director (in which he focused consistently on a play's action) and the techniques he explored with
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (russian: Всеволод Эмильевич Мейерхольд, translit=Vsévolod Èmíl'evič Mejerchól'd; born german: Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold; 2 February 1940) was a Russian and Soviet theatre ...
and later with the First Studio of the MAT before the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
(such as the experiments with
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
and the practice of anatomising scripts in terms of bits and tasks).
Benedetti emphasises the continuity of the Method of Physical Action with Stanislavski's earlier approaches; Whyman argues that "there is no justification in Stanislavsky's 'sic''writings for the assertion that the ''method of physical actions'' represents a rejection of his previous work". Stanislavski first explored the approach practically in his rehearsals for '' Three Sisters'' and ''
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
'' in 1934 and ''Molière'' in 1935.
Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active analysis", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are
improvised
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
. "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the
given circumstances The term ''Given Circumstances'' is a principle from Russia, Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski's methodology for actor training, formulated in the first half of the 20th century at the Moscow Art Theatre.
The term given circumst ...
." He continues:
For in the process of action the actor gradually obtains the mastery over the inner incentives of the actions of the character he is representing, evoking in himself the emotions and thoughts which resulted in those actions. In such a case, an actor not only understands his part, but also feels it, and that is the most important thing in creative work on the stage.
Just as the First Studio, led by his assistant and close friend
Leopold Sulerzhitsky
Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (russian: Леопольд Антонович Сулержицкий; September 27, 1872 – December 30, 1916) was a Russian theatre director, painter and pedagogue of Polish descent. He is associated with the Mosc ...
, had provided the forum in which he developed his initial ideas for his system during the 1910s, he hoped to secure his final legacy by opening another studio in 1935, in which the Method of Physical Action would be taught. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises described in his manuals.Benedetti (1998, xii) and (1999a, 359—363) and Magarshack (1950, 387—391), and Whyman (2008, 136). Benedetti argues that the course at the Opera-Dramatic Studio is "Stanislavski's true testament". His book ''Stanislavski and the Actor'' (1998) offers a reconstruction of the studio's course. Meanwhile, the transmission of his earlier work via the students of the First Studio was revolutionising acting in the
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
. With the arrival of
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
in the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, the MAT and Stanislavski's system were enthroned as exemplary models.
Many actors routinely equate his system with the American
Method
Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to:
*Scien ...
, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast sharply with the multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach of the "system", which explores character and action both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside in' and treats the actor's mind and body as parts of a continuum. In response to his
characterisation
Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons (or other beings or creatures) in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometimes used as a synonym. This representation may include direct method ...
work on Argan in
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
's '' The Imaginary Invalid'' in 1913, Stanislavski concluded that "a character is sometimes formed psychologically, i.e. from the inner image of the role, but at other times it is discovered through purely external exploration." In fact Stanislavski found that many of his students who were "method acting" were having many mental problems, and instead encouraged his students to shake off the character after rehearsing.
Theatre studios and the development of Stanislavski's system
First Studio
The First Studio of the
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; russian: Московский Художественный академический театр (МХАТ), ''Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr'' (МHАТ)) was a theatre company in Moscow. It was f ...
(MAT) was a theatre studio that
Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian th ...
created in 1912 in order to
research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
and develop his system. It was conceived as a space in which
pedagogical
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and Developmental psychology, psychological development of le ...
and exploratory work could be undertaken in isolation from the public, in order to develop new forms and techniques. Stanislavski later defined a theatre studio as "neither a
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
nor a dramatic school for beginners, but a laboratory for the
experiments
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...
of more or less trained actors." The First Studio's founding members included
Yevgeny Vakhtangov
Yevgeny Bagrationovich Vakhtangov (also spelled Evgeny or Eugene; russian: Евге́ний Багратио́нович Вахта́нгов; 13 February 1883 – 29 May 1922) was a Russian-Armenian actor and theatre director who founded the ...
,
Michael Chekhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov (russian: Михаил Александрович Чехов; 29 August 1891 – 30 September 1955), known as Michael Chekhov, was an American actor, director, author and theatre practitioner. He was a nephew o ...
,
Richard Boleslavsky
Richard Boleslawski (born Bolesław Ryszard Srzednicki; February 4, 1889 – January 17, 1937) was a Polish theatre and film director, actor and teacher of acting.
Biography
Richard Boleslawski was born Bolesław Ryszard Srzednicki on February ...
, and
Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (russian: Мария Алексеевна Успенская; 29 July 1876 – 3 December 1949) was a Russian actress and acting teacher.Nissen, Axel. 2006. ''Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywoo ...
, all of whom would exert a considerable influence on the subsequent
history of theatre
The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and ''the ...
.
Leopold Sulerzhitsky
Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (russian: Леопольд Антонович Сулержицкий; September 27, 1872 – December 30, 1916) was a Russian theatre director, painter and pedagogue of Polish descent. He is associated with the Mosc ...
, who had been Stanislavski's
personal assistant
A personal assistant, also referred to as personal aide (PA) or personal secretary (PS), is a job title describing a person who assists a specific person with their daily business or personal task,. it is a sub-specialty of secretarial duties ...
since 1905 and whom
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
had nicknamed "Suler", was selected to lead the studio. In a focused, intense atmosphere, its work emphasised experimentation, improvisation, and self-discovery. Until his death in 1938, Suler taught the elements of Stanislavski's system in its germinal form: relaxation, concentration of attention, imagination, communication, and emotion memory. On becoming independent from the MAT in 1923, the company re-named itself the Second Moscow Art Theatre, though Stanislavski came to regard it as a betrayal of his principles.
Opera Studio
Benedetti argues that a significant influence on the development of Stanislavski's system came from his experience teaching and directing at his Opera Studio. He created it in 1918 under the auspices of the
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, literally "Big Theater", p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈatər) is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and ope ...
, though it later severed its connection with the theatre.The studio underwent a series of name-changes as it developed into a full-scale company: in 1924 it was renamed the "Stanislavski Opera Studio"; in 1926 it became the "Stanislavski Opera Studio-Theatre"; in 1928 it became the Stanislavski Opera Theatre; and in 1941 the theatre merged with Nemirovich's music studio to become the
. Nemirovich had created the Moscow Art Theatre Music Studio in 1919, though Stanislavski had no connection to it; see Benedetti (1999, 211; 255), Leach (2004, 20), and Stanislavski and Rumyantsev (1975, x). Stanislavski worked with his Opera Studio in the two rehearsal rooms of his house on Carriage Row (prior to his eviction in March 1921). His brother and sister, Vladimir and Zinaïda, ran the studio and also taught there.Benedetti (1999, 256). It accepted young members of the Bolshoi and students from the
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...
. Stanislavski also invited
Serge Wolkonsky
Prince Serge Wolkonsky (also referred to as Sergei Mikhailovitch Volkonsky; russian: Серге́й Миха́йлович Волко́нский) (4 May 1860 – 25 October 1937) was an influential Russian theatrical worker, one of the first R ...
to teach
diction
Diction ( la, dictionem (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story.Crannell (1997) ''Glossary'', p. 406 In its common meanin ...
and Lev Pospekhin (from the Bolshoi Ballet) to teach expressive movement and
dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
.
By means of his system, Stanislavski aimed to unite the work of
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; April 12, 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass v ...
. He hoped that the successful application of his system to
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
, with its inescapable conventionality, would demonstrate the universality of his methodology. From his experience at the Opera Studio he developed his notion of "tempo-rhythm", which he was to develop most substantially in part two of ''An Actor's Work'' (1938).Benedetti (1999, 259).
A series of thirty-two lectures that he delivered to this studio between 1919 and 1922 were recorded by
Konkordia Antarova
Concordia Antarova (russian: Конкордия Евгеньевна Антарова, also known as Cora Antarova, 25 April 1886 O.S./13 April 1886 (N. S.) – 6 February 1959) was a Russian contralto who starred in the Bolshoi Theater for mo ...
and published in 1939; they have been translated into English as ''On the Art of the Stage'' (1950). Pavel Rumiantsev—who joined the studio in 1920 from the Conservatory and sang the title role in its production of ''
Eugene Onegin
''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Евгений Оне́гин, ромáн в стихáх, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, r=Yevgeniy Onegin, roman v stikhakh) is a novel in verse written by Ale ...
'' in 1922—documented its activities until 1932; his notes were published in 1969 and appear in English under the title ''Stanislavski on Opera'' (1975).
Opera—Dramatic Studio
Near the end of his life Stanislavski created an Opera—Dramatic Studio in his own apartment on Leontievski Lane (now known as "Stanislavski Lane"), under the auspices of which between 1935 and 1938 he offered a significant course in the system in its final form.
Given the difficulties he had with completing his manual for actors, in 1935 while recuperating in
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
Stanislavski decided that he needed to found a new studio if he was to ensure his legacy. "Our school will produce not just individuals," he wrote, "but a whole company." In June he began to instruct a group of teachers in the training techniques of the 'system' and the rehearsal processes of the Method of Physical Action. The teachers had some previous experience studying the system as private students of Stanislavski's sister, Zinaïda.Benedetti (1999a, 363). His wife, Lilina, also joined the teaching staff. Twenty students (out of 3500 auditionees) were accepted for the dramatic section of the Opera—Dramatic Studio, where classes began on 15 November 1935. Its members included the future artistic director of the MAT, Mikhail Kedrov, who played
Tartuffe
''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; french: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical thea ...
in Stanislavski's unfinished production of
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
's play (which, after Stanislavski's death, he completed).
Jean Benedetti argues that the course at the Opera—Dramatic Studio is "Stanislavski's true testament." Stanislavski arranged a curriculum of four years of study that focused exclusively on technique and method—two years of the work detailed later in ''An Actor's Work on Himself'' and two of that in ''An Actor's Work on a Role''. Once the students were acquainted with the training techniques of the first two years, Stanislavski selected ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' and ''
Romeo and Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...
'' for their work on roles.Benedetti (1999a, 368). He "insisted that they work on classics, because, 'in any work of genius you find an ideal logic and progression.'" He worked with the students in March and April 1937, focusing on their sequences of physical actions, on establishing their through-lines of action, and on rehearsing scenes anew in terms of the actors' tasks.Benedetti (1999a, 368–369). "They must avoid at all costs," Benedetti explains, "merely repeating the externals of what they had done the day before."
Heritage
Many of Stanislavski's former students taught acting in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, including
Richard Boleslavsky
Richard Boleslawski (born Bolesław Ryszard Srzednicki; February 4, 1889 – January 17, 1937) was a Polish theatre and film director, actor and teacher of acting.
Biography
Richard Boleslawski was born Bolesław Ryszard Srzednicki on February ...
,
Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (russian: Мария Алексеевна Успенская; 29 July 1876 – 3 December 1949) was a Russian actress and acting teacher.Nissen, Axel. 2006. ''Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywoo ...
,
Michael Chekhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov (russian: Михаил Александрович Чехов; 29 August 1891 – 30 September 1955), known as Michael Chekhov, was an American actor, director, author and theatre practitioner. He was a nephew o ...
, Andrius Jilinsky, Leo Bulgakov, Varvara Bulgakov, Vera Solovyova, and Tamara Daykarhanova.Carnicke (1998, 3). Others—including
Stella Adler
Stella Adler (February 10, 1901 – December 21, 1992) was an American actress and acting teacher. ''
Joshua Logan
Joshua Lockwood Logan III (October 5, 1908 – July 12, 1988) was an American director, writer, and actor. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the musical '' South Pacific'' and was involved in writing other musicals.
Early years
Logan ...
—"grounded careers in brief periods of study" with him. Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya went on to found the influential
American Laboratory Theatre
The American Laboratory Theatre was an American drama school and theatrical company located in New York City that existed during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a publicly subsidized, student-subscription organization that held fund-raising campaign ...
(1923—1933) in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, which they modeled on the First Studio. Boleslavsky's manual ''Acting: The First Six Lessons'' (1933) played a significant role in the transmission of Stanislavski's ideas and practices to the West. In the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, meanwhile, another of Stanislavski's students,
Maria Knebel
Maria Osipovna (Iosifovna) Knebel (russian: Мари́я О́сиповна (Ио́сифовна) Кне́бель; 1 June 1985)For dates before the Soviet state's switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, this ...
, sustained and developed his rehearsal process of "active analysis", despite its formal prohibition by the state.
In the United States, one of Boleslavsky's students,
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931 ...
, went on to co-found the Group Theatre (1931—1940) in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
with
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS.
and
Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford (September 24, 1902 – October 7, 1986) was an American theatre producer and director.
Biography
Born in Akron, Ohio, Crawford majored in drama at Smith College. Following graduation in 1925, she moved to New York City and ...
. Together with Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, Strasberg developed the earliest of Stanislavski's techniques into what came to be known as "
Method acting
Method acting, informally known as The Method, is a range of training and rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, u ...
" (or, with Strasberg, more usually simply "the Method"), which he taught at the
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded ...
. Boleslavsky thought that Strasberg over-emphasised the role of Stanislavski's technique of "emotion memory" at the expense of dramatic action.
Every afternoon for five weeks during the summer of 1934 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, Stanislavski worked with Adler, who had sought his assistance with the blocks she had confronted in her performances.Benedetti (1999a, 351) and Gordon (2006, 74). Given the emphasis that emotion memory had received in New York, Adler was surprised to find that Stanislavski rejected the technique except as a last resort. He recommended an indirect pathway to emotional expression via physical action. Stanislavski confirmed this emphasis in his discussions with
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS.
in late 1935. The news that this was Stanislavski's approach would have significant repercussions in the US; Strasberg angrily rejected it and refused to modify his approach. Adler's most famous student was actor
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...
. Later, many American and British actors inspired by Brando were also adepts of Stanislavski teachings, including
James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause' ...
,
Julie Harris
Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary stage work, she received five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play.
Harris debuted on Broadway in 1945, against the wish ...
,
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
,
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
,
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel ( ; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He first rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with ...
,
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...
,
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayals of complicated women in dramas, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Em ...
,
Daniel Day-Lewis
Sir Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English retired actor. Often described as one of the preeminent actors of his generation, he received numerous accolades throughout his career which spanned over four decades, incl ...
and
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
.
Meisner, an actor at the Group Theatre, went on to teach method acting at New York's
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is a full-time professional conservatory for actors in New York City. First operational from 1915 to 1927, the school re-opened in 1928 and has been active ever since. It is the birthplace of th ...
, where he developed an emphasis on what Stanislavski called "communication" and "adaptation" in an approach that he
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
ed the "
Meisner technique
The Meisner technique is an approach to acting developed by American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.
The goal of the Meisner approach is for the actor to not focus on themselves and instead concentrate on the other actors in the immediate ...
". Among the actors trained in the Meisner technique are
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...
,
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), known professionally as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actors, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Gol ...
,
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton ('' née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Gl ...
and
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 20 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 movies or shows and produced over 44 films. For his film ''Out ...
.
Though many others have contributed to the development of method acting, Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner are associated with "having set the standard of its success", though each emphasised different aspects: Strasberg developed the psychological aspects, Adler, the sociological, and Meisner, the behavioral.Krasner (2000b, 129). While each strand of the American tradition vigorously sought to distinguish itself from the others, they all share a basic set of assumptions that allows them to be grouped together.
The relations between these strands and their acolytes, Carnicke argues, have been characterised by a "seemingly endless hostility among warring camps, each proclaiming themselves his only true disciples, like religious fanatics, turning dynamic ideas into rigid dogma." Stanislavski's Method of Physical Action formed the central part of Sonia Moore's attempts to revise the general impression of Stanislavski's system arising from the American Laboratory Theatre and its teachers.
Carnicke analyses at length the splintering of the system into its psychological and physical components, both in the US and the USSR. She argues instead for its psychophysical integration. She suggests that Moore's approach, for example, accepts uncritically the
teleological
Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
accounts of Stanislavski's work (according to which early experiments in emotion memory were 'abandoned' and the approach 'reversed' with a discovery of the scientific approach of
behaviourism
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
). These accounts, which emphasised the physical aspects at the expense of the psychological, revised the system in order to render it more palatable to the
dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world con ...
of the Soviet state. In a similar way, other American accounts re-interpreted Stanislavski's work in terms of the prevailing popular interest in
Freudian
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
. Strasberg, for example, dismissed the "Method of Physical Action" as a step backwards. Just as an emphasis on action had characterised Stanislavski's First Studio training, so emotion memory continued to be an element of his system at the end of his life, when he recommended to his directing students:
One must give actors various paths. One of these is the path of action. There is also another path: you can move from feeling to action, arousing feeling first.
"Action, 'if', and 'given circumstances'", "emotion memory", "imagination", and "communication" all appear as chapters in Stanislavski's manual ''An Actor's Work'' (1938) and all were elements of the
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
atic whole of his approach, which resists easy schematisation.
Stanislavski's work made little impact on British theatre before the 1960s.
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...
and
Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
were the first to introduce Stanislavski's techniques there. In their
Theatre Workshop Theatre Workshop is a theatre group whose long-serving director was Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company, many of its productions were transferred to theatres in the West En ...
, the experimental studio that they founded together, Littlewood used
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
as a means to explore character and situation and insisted that her actors define their character's behaviour in terms of a sequence of tasks. The actor
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Elect ...
was also an early advocate of Stanislavski's approach in Britain. The first
drama school
A drama school, stage school or theatre school is an undergraduate and/or graduate school or department at a college or university; or a free-standing institution (such as the Drama section at the Juilliard School); which specializes in the pr ...
in the country to teach an approach to acting based on Stanislavski's system and its American derivatives was
Drama Centre London
Drama Centre London (often abbreviated as Drama Centre) was a British drama school in King's Cross, London, where it moved in 2011 after a major reshaping of the University of the Arts London. It was part of Central Saint Martins, a constitu ...
, where it is still taught today.
Many other
theatre practitioner
A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs his or her practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these tr ...
s have been influenced by Stanislavski's ideas and practices.
Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today.
He was born in Rzesz ...
regarded Stanislavski as the primary influence on his own theatre work.Leach (2004, 46).
Criticism of Stanislavski's theories
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the fir ...
, writing in the manner of a ''
roman à clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...
'', includes in his novel ''Black Snow (Театральный роман)'' satires of Stanislavski's methods and theories. In the novel, the stage director, Ivan Vasilyevich, uses acting exercises while directing a play, which is titled ''Black Snow''. The playwright in the novel sees the acting exercises taking over the rehearsals, becoming madcap, and causing the playwright to rewrite parts of his play. The playwright is concerned that his script is being lost in all of this. When he finally sees the play performed, the playwright reflects that the director's theories would ultimately lead the audience to become so absorbed in the reality of the performances that they forget the play. Bulgakov had the actual experience, in 1926, of having a play that he had written, ''The White Guard'', directed with great success by Stanislavski at the Moscow Arts Theatre.Bulgakov (2013)
See also
*
List of productions directed by Konstantin Stanislavski
This article offers a chronological list of productions directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. It does not include theatrical productions in which Stanislavski only acted.
Until he was thirty three, Stanislavski appeared only as an amateur onsta ...
*
List of acting techniques The following is a partial list of major acting techniques.
Techniques
*Classical acting is an umbrella term for a philosophy of acting that integrates the expression of the body, voice, imagination, personalizing, improvisation, external stimuli ...
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
*
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
*
Russian symbolism
Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It arose separately from European symbolism, emphasizing mysticism and ostranenie.
Literature
Influences
Primary ...
*
Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sy ...
*
Russian avant-garde
The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of avant-garde modern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its e ...
*
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Richard Wagner, Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu Roi, Ubu plays as a rejection of bot ...
*
Twentieth-century theatre
Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the 20th century, mainly in Europe and North America. There was a widespread challenge to long-established rules surrounding theatrical representation; ...
*
Theatre practitioner
A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs his or her practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these tr ...
*
Method acting
Method acting, informally known as The Method, is a range of training and rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, u ...
*
Constantin Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian ...
*
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931 ...
Ivana Chubbuck
Ivana Chubbuck is an American acting coach who heads a drama school in Los Angeles and also hosts acting workshops worldwide.
She is the author of the best-selling book ''The Power of the Actor'', published by a division of Penguin Books
Pen ...
*
Ion Cojar
Ion Cojar (January 9, 1931 - October 18, 2009) was a Romanian acting teacher, researcher and theatre director. He is the founder of a unique method that revolutionised the Romanian school of acting.
Ion Cojar as acting teacher
Ion Cojar changed ...
Notes
Sources
* Bablet, Denis. 1962. ''The Theatre of Edward Gordon Craig.'' Trans. Daphne Woodward. London: Methuen, 1981. .
* Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Benedetti, Jean. 1989. ''Stanislavski: An Introduction''. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. .
* Benedetti, Jean. 1998. ''Stanislavski and the Actor''. London: Methuen. .
* Benedetti, Jean. 1999a. ''Stanislavski: His Life and Art''. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. .
* Benedetti, Jean. 1999b. "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898–1938". In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 254–277).
* Benedetti, Jean. 2005. ''The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, From Classical Times to the Present Day.'' London: Methuen. .
* Blum, Richard A. 1984. ''American Film Acting: The Stanislavski Heritage.'' Studies in Cinema 28. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Press.
* Braun, Edward. 1982. "Stanislavsky and
Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
". ''The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski''. London: Methuen. . 59–76.
* Bulgakov, Mikhail. ''Black Snow (Театральный роман)''. Trans. Michael Glenny. Melville House; Reprint edition, 2013.
* Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. ''Stanislavsky in Focus''. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. .
* Carnicke, Sharon M. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11–36).
* Carnicke, Sharon Marie. 2010. "The Knebel Technique: Active Analysis in Practice." ''Actor Training.'' Ed. Alison Hodge. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. 99—116. .
* Counsell, Colin. 1996. ''Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre.'' London and New York: Routledge. .
* Gauss, Rebecca B. 1999. ''Lear's Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre 1905–1927''. American University Studies ser. 26 Theatre Arts, vol. 29. New York: Peter Lang. .
* Golub, Spencer. 1998. "Stanislavsky, Konstantin (Sergeevich)". In Banham (1998, 1032–1033).
* Gordon, Robert. 2006. ''The Purpose of Playing: Modern Acting Theories in Perspective.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. .
* Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. ''Twentieth-Century Actor Training''. London and New York: Routledge. .
* Knebel, Maria. 2016. "Active Analysis of the Play and the Role." In Thomas (2016).
* Krasner, David. 2000. "Strasberg, Adler and Meisner: Method Acting". In Hodge (2000, 129–150).
* Leach, Robert. 2004. ''Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction''. London: Routledge. .
* Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. ''A History of Russian Theatre.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Magarshack, David. 1950. ''Stanislavsky: A Life.'' London and Boston: Faber, 1986. .
* Mekler, Eva. 1989. ''Masters of the Stage: British Acting Teachers Talk About Their Craft''. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. .
* Milling, Jane, and Graham Ley. 2001. ''Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal''. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. .
* Mirodan, Vladimir. 1997. "The Way of Transformation: The Laban—Malmgren System of Dramatic Character Analysis." Diss. University of London: Royal Holloway College.
* Moore, Sonia. 1968. ''Training an Actor: The Stanislavski System in Class.'' New York: The Viking Press. .
* Postlewait, Thomas. 1998. "Meisner, Sanford". In Banham (1998, 719).
* Roach, Joseph R. 1985. ''The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting''. Theater:Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. .
* Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1981. ''Meyerhold the Director.'' Trans. George Petrov. Ed. Sydney Schultze. Revised translation of ''Rezhisser Meierkhol'd''. Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1969. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1938. ''An Actor's Work: A Student's Diary''. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1950. ''Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage''. Trans. David Magarshack. London: Faber, 2002. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1957. ''An Actor's Work on a Role''. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1961. ''Creating a Role.'' Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Mentor, 1968. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1963. ''An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting.'' Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Methuen, 1990. .
* Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1968. ''Stanislavski's Legacy: A Collection of Comments on a Variety of Aspects of an Actor's Art and Life.'' Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. Revised and expanded edition. London: Methuen, 1981. .
* Stanislavski, Constantin, and Pavel Rumyantsev. 1975. ''Stanislavski on Opera.'' Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Routledge, 1998. .
* Strasberg, Lee. 2010. ''The Lee Strasberg Notes.'' Ed. Lola Cohen. London: Routledge. .
* Thomas, James. 2016. ''A Director's Guide to Stanislavsky's Active Analysis.'' London: Methuen. .
* Toporkov, Vasily Osipovich. 2001. ''Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years.'' Trans. Jean Benedetti. London: Methuen. .
* Whyman, Rose. 2008. ''The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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* Worrall, Nick. 1996. ''The Moscow Art Theatre.'' Theatre Production Studies ser. London and NY: Routledge. .
University of Leeds
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
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Rose Bruford College
Rose Bruford College (formerly Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance) is a drama school in the south London suburb of Sidcup. The college has degree programmes in acting, actor musicianship, directing, theatre arts and various discipli ...