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Konstantin Stanislavski's 'system' of training, preparation, and rehearsal technique considers what actors communicate through their actions to be as important as the actual dialogue that they speak.[1] It is on the basis of the deeds and actions of the characters portrayed, Stanislavski argues, that an audience expects to understand and judge them.[2] "Action" ([deistvie] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) is what an actor does to attempt to fulfil a "task".[3] Tasks arise from the situations that confront a character during the course of a drama.[4] Actors stimulate their imaginations with a question to which they respond with action: "what would I do if I were in this situation?"[5] Action is described with active, transitive verbs and has both an outer, physical dimension and an inner, mental one.[6]

Stanislavski believed that conscious preparation is necessary to establish a pathway from an actor's unconscious sources of creativity to its expression through concrete and specific actions.[7] To that end, he argued that actors must study the course of the play's action in detail in the early stages of a rehearsal process.[8] In his actor training, he encouraged his students to play games of "what if...", in which they would imagine a creatively stimulating set of circumstances that provoked them to take action.[9] These improvisations trained them to use their imaginations in a focused and active exploration of the given circumstances, to follow through the consequences of any choice that they made in a logical sequence, and to justify their inner and outer actions.[10] A clear and vivid imagination is an important ability for an actor, since it incites inner action, followed by outer, physical action.[11]

Impulse, justification, and task

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From as early as his work at the First Studio in the 1910s, Stanislavski taught that "action" is what an actor does to attempt to fulfil a "task".[12] Tasks arise from the situations that confront a character during the course of a drama.[13] Stanislavski recommends the use of what he calls the "magic if" to initiate the actor's involvement in the character's problems and experience—actors pose a question to themselves that stimulates their imaginations and that they answer with action: "what would I do if I were in this situation?"[14] Action is what the actor does to address the problem that the "given circumstances" of a scene present.[15] Stanislavski argued that the actor's choice of actions must be appropriate to those circumstances.[16] Action is described with active, transitive verbs, such as arouse, beg, belittle, bully, challenge, confront, dismiss, encourage, entertain, flatter, ignore, impress, intimidate, mock, placate, reassure, tease, or threaten.[17] It has both an outer, physical dimension (vneshnee, fizicheskoe) and an inner, mental one (vnutrennee).[18]

Inner Impulse • concrete and specific vs. "in general" • justification

When an actor selects a task, its ability to impel action is a primary consideration.[19]

"There is an unbreakable bond between the action on the stage and the thing which precipitated it."[20]

Stanislavski draws a distinction between actions, which constitute the substance of drama, and activities (such as cleaning, dressing, eating, or smoking), which provide a context for its action.[21] When an activity is driven by a character's task, it becomes an "action".[22] Action is distinguished from other types of dramatic event insofar as it is purposeful—as the theatre semiotician Keir Elam explains, an "action" is performed when "there is a being, conscious of his [sic] doings, who intentionally brings about a change of some kind, to some end, in a given context."[23]

According to the principles of what Stanislavski called the "art of experiencing", actors seek to create afresh each time, both in rehearsal and performance, by responding to the intentions that cause an action rather than reproducing the action itself (as the "art of representation" would).[24]

The actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of the task that the character seeks to address at any given moment.[25]

"Everything that happens onstage must occur for some reason or other."[26]

Stanislavski calls actions that the actor does not justify "mechanical" and suggests that such actions are usually performed more quickly than justified ones.[27]

Acting that is based on traditional, histrionic conventions rather than "human actions in real life", Stanislavski calls "ham" or "stock-in-trade acting".[28] "At moments of intimacy," he writes of actors who perform in this way, "they come right downstage, look at the audience, and declaim their non-existent experiences in a loud, flashy emotional way."[29]

Scoring of actions

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The actor's individual actions with which he or she responds to the character's tasks are connected together in a "score" of the part (partitura deistvii, used in the same sense as a musician's "score"), which forms a "through-action."[30] The combined action of all the actors' scores, as formed by their analyses and mutual adjustments in rehearsals, contributes to the overall score of the performance.[31] In addition to the necessity of adapting each score to the interaction with the other characters during rehearsals, Stanislavski insists on the importance of "condensing" each score, in which all superflous emotion is stripped away and a simple, clear, and compelling form of embodiment is sought.[32]

Action and emotion

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The selection, shaping, and control over their actions enables the actors to evoke emotional experience and subconscious behaviour indirectly, since a sequence of feelings are provoked by their "through-actions".[34]

Drama and dramatic structure

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Stanislavski considered action as the outer form of drama and emotion as its inner content.[36] Under the influence of the aesthetic ideas of Leo Tolstoy (as expressed in What is Art?), he thought that the arts are united by their common effort to convey emotion.[37] In this scheme, action distinguishes theatre from other forms of art.[38] "People on stage act", he wrote, "and these actions—better than anything else—uncover their inner sorrows, joys, relationships, and everything else about the life of the human spirit on stage."[39] If action is the medium-specific language by which affective material is communicated in the theatre, then his 'system', Stanislavski proposed, is its grammar.[37]

Action forms a crucial part of the analytical practice of Stanislavski's 'system', which offers a critical vocabulary that treats the dramatic text as a score for performance and characters as agents of the plot.[40] Dramatic texts, Stanislavski understood, contain a structure of actions.[41] In his later work, he encouraged the "active analysis" (deistvennyi analiz) of a play, in which actors improvise that structure.[42] Instead of engaging in at-the-table discussions, the cast translate the text into what Vasily Toporkov calls "the language of actions" and thus, over the course of successive improvisations, act out the dynamic potential of each scene.[43] "The best way to analyze a play", Stanislavski wrote, "is to take action in the given circumstances."[44] Rehearsals identify the structure of conflict—with its inciting events, varying strategies, and abrupt reversal-points—that articulates the dynamics of action and counter-action in each scene.[45] Stanislavski thought that actors could memorise a play's structure of action more easily and quickly than its words.[46] Stella Adler advised that actors find it far easier to remember their lines after they have explored its action in this way and paraphrased its dialogue.[47]

The actors' use of the Naturalistic convention of the fourth wall renders the action self-contained and autonomous from the audience.[48]

Acting is inseparable, he thought, from its structural form in action.[49] In contrast to the approach that Lee Strasberg's formulation of the Method takes, which promotes the power of the director in its understanding of action as a tool to manipulate actors, Stanislavski's approach promoted a creative actor who discovers actions from the "facts" of the play and in exercising control in this way assumes responsibility for its interpretation.[50]

Notes

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  1. ^ Carnicke (1998, 148).
  2. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 55).
  3. ^ Carnicke (1998, 151) and (2000, 24). The standard scholarly edition of Stanislavski's writings translates the term "zadacha" as "task", but it has also been translated as "objective" and "problem".
  4. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122).
  5. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122).
  6. ^ Carnicke (1998, 169) and (2000, 24), Gillett (2007, 210), and Stanislavski (1938, 40, 55-59).
  7. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 9).
  8. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 9).
  9. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 65-69).
  10. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 65-69).
  11. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 65).
  12. ^ Carnicke (1998, 151) and (2000, 24). The standard scholarly edition of Stanislavski's writings translates the term "zadacha" as "task", but it has also been translated as "objective" and "problem".
  13. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122).
  14. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122) and Stanislavski (1938, 48-51).
  15. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122-123), Carnicke (2000, 24), Gordon (2006, 51), and Stanislavski (1938, 46-47, 52-53). Stanislavski defines the term "given circumstances" in An Actor's Work: "They mean the plot, the facts, the incidents, the period, the time and place of the action, the way of life, how we as actors and directors understand the play, the contributions we ourselves make, the mise-en-scène, the sets and costumes, the props, the stage dressing, the sound effects etc., etc., everything which is a given for the actors as they rehearse. [...] 'If' is a spur to a dormant imagination, and the Given Circumstances provide the substance for it" (1938, 53).
  16. ^ Carnicke (2000, 24) and Stanislavski (1938, 42).
  17. ^ Carnicke (2000, 24) and Gillett (2007, 210).
  18. ^ Carnicke (1998, 169) and (2000, 24) and Stanislavski (1938, 40, 55-59).
  19. ^ Carnicke (1998, 152).
  20. ^ Stanslavski (1963, 9).
  21. ^ Carnicke (2000, 24).
  22. ^ Gordon (2006, 52).
  23. ^ Elam (1980, 121-123) and Pfister (1977, 200-201).
  24. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 201) and (2005, 124), Carnicke (2000, 17), and Stanislavski (1938, 16-36). Benedetti explains that the late 19th century "saw the birth of the human sciences—clinical psychology, sociology, linguistics. The notion of the free-existing Passions was no longer valid. The emphasis was now on the process by which patterns of behaviour and emotion were produced" (2005, 120). Stanislavski's "art of representation" corresponds to Mikhail Shchepkin's "actor of reason" and his "art of experiencing" corresponds to Shchepkin's "actor of feeling"; see Benedetti (1999a, 202).
  25. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 182-183).
  26. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 39).
  27. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 45).
  28. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 55-58)
  29. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 55).
  30. ^ Carnicke (1998, 169) and (2000, 24), Gordon (2006, 51), and Stanislavski (1929, 31).
  31. ^ Stanislavski (1929, 31).
  32. ^ Stanislavski (1929, 31).
  33. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 43).
  34. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 170) and (2005, 123).
  35. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 40).
  36. ^ Carnicke (1998, 147-148) and Gordon (2006, 51).
  37. ^ a b Carnicke (1998, 147).
  38. ^ Carnicke (1998, 147, 155).
  39. ^ Quoted by Carnicke (1998, 147).
  40. ^ Carnike (1998, 159) and Gordon (2006, 51).
  41. ^ Carnicke (1998, 154) and Gordon (2006, 37).
  42. ^ Benedetti (2005, 121-122), Carnicke (1998, 154-157), and Gordon (2006, 51).
  43. ^ Quoted by Carnicke (1998, 157).
  44. ^ Quoted by Carnicke (1998, 156).
  45. ^ Carnicke (1998, 159-162).
  46. ^ Carnicke (1998, 157).
  47. ^ Carnicke (1998, 154).
  48. ^ Benedetti (2005, 110); see Szondi for more on the autonomy of drama (1965).
  49. ^ Carnicke (1998, 162).
  50. ^ Carnicke (1998, 162-166) and Gordon (2006, 51).

Sources

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Primary sources

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  • Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1929. "Direction and Acting." Article written for the Encyclopædia Britannica. Rpt. in Cole (1955, 22-32).
  • ---. 1936. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen, 1988. ISBN 0413461904.
  • ---. 1938. An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 041542223X.
  • ---. 1950. Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage. Trans. David Magarshack. London: Faber, 2002. ISBN 057108172X.
  • ---. 1957. An Actor's Work on a Role. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. ISBN 0415461294.
  • ---. 1961. Creating a Role. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Mentor, 1968. ISBN 0450001660.
  • ---. 1963. An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Methuen, 1990. ISBN 0413630803.
  • ---. 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. ISBN 0413477703.

Secondary sources

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  • Benedetti, Jean. 1989. Stanislavski: An Introduction. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413500306.
  • ---. 1998. Stanislavski and the Actor. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413711609.
  • ---. 1999a. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413525201.
  • ---. 1999b. "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898-1938". In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 254-277).
  • ---. 2005. The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, From Classical Times to the Present Day. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413773361.
  • ---. 2008a. Foreword. In Stanislavski (1938, xv-xxii).
  • ---. 2008b. "Stanislavski on Stage". In Dacre and Fryer (2008, 6-9).
  • Braun, Edward. 1982. "Stanislavsky and Chekhov". The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413463001. p.59-76.
  • Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 9057550709.
  • ---. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11-36).
  • Cole, Toby, ed. 1955. Acting: A Handbook of the Stanislavski Method. Rev. ed. New York: Bonanza. ISBN 0517050358.
  • Counsell, Colin. 1996. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415106435.
  • Dacre, Kathy, and Paul Fryer, eds. 2008. Stanislavski on Stage. Sidcup, Kent: Stanislavski Centre Rose Bruford College. ISBN 1903454018.
  • Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0416720609.
  • 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. ISBN 0820441554.
  • Gillett, John. 2007. Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach. London, Methuen. ISBN 978-0713677584.
  • Gordon, Robert. 2006. The Purpose of Playing: Modern Acting Theories in Perspective. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P. ISBN 0472068873.
  • Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415194520.
  • Leach, Robert. 2004. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415312418.
  • Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521432200.
  • Magarshack, David. 1950. Stanislavsky: A Life. London and Boston: Faber, 1986. ISBN 0571137911.
  • Milling, Jane, and Graham Ley. 2001. Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0333775422.
  • Pfister, Manfred. 1977. The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Trans. John Halliday. European Studies in English Literature Ser. Cambridige: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 052142383X.
  • Rayner, Alice. 1994. To Act, To Do, To Perform: Drama and the Phenomenology of Action. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 047210537X.
  • Roach, Joseph R. 1985. The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Theater:Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P. ISBN 0472082442.
  • Szondi, Peter. 1965. Theory of the Modern Drama: A Critical Edition. Ed. and trans. Michael Hays. Theory and History of Literature ser. vol. 29. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. ISBN 0816612854.
  • Toporkov, Vasily Osipovich. 2001. Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years. Trans. Jean Benedetti. London: Methuen. ISBN 041375720X.
  • Whyman, Rose. 2008. The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance. Cambridge: Cambrdige UP. ISBN 9780521886963.


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