Konstantin Stanislavski

He is one of the greatest and most influential practitioners of modern theatre. He took the approach that actors must really inhabit the role that they're playing, so not only should the actor know their lines and have the motivation for those lines, they should know every detail of their characters life offstage and onstage. Through this we have established Stanislavski as a director and practitioner whose performances are naturalistic. 

Background

His real name was Konstantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev but he used Stanislavski as his stage name is 1884.
He was born in 1863 and was a part of one of the most affluent families in Russia, and he died when he was 75 in 1939
His family loved theatre and had the opportunity to  indulge in theatricals as a child
Although when he adopted a stage name it was to mask his theatricals from his family, but then in 1887 his father gave him his approval and he became an established figure.

As a devoted theatrical practitioner, he made precise, detailed notes and evaluated his work, which he continued to do throughout his career. He later wrote major texts on the art of performance which include:

• My Life in Art
• An Actor Prepares
• Building a Character
• Creating a Role

Moscow Art Theatre 

Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko founded this company in 1898. It was both successful and largely influential in the world of theatre and survived until it was divided into 2 groups in 1987 

When Stalin was the ruler of Russia, Stanislavski was eager to appease him to establish the survival of his theatre. During this period the company's work represented the political voice of USSR, which was represented by Socialist realism. He was able to stay as a follower of realism but the theatre company's performances promoted socialist political beliefs. This case abided until 1970 when a movement occurred towards the essence of Stanislavski's method.  

The actor had to go no further in his quest for truth than to base his art on his increasing experience of the world surrounding him, meditated and enhanced by the directors explanations and the rehearsal process.

It took a bit of time to acquire a fitting premises and it wasnt until their 5th season that they became the Moscow Art Theatre. The stage was functional, the orchestra pit was removed, and the most up to dat technical and lighting equipment was installed. 

They sought to:

- Choose plays from the classical collection, but also encourage new writing 

- Treat actors with respect and in return respond with complete dedication to the new discipline 

- Rehearse all performances for an agreed amount of time and exceed all productions with new costumes and designs.   

   

Naturalism and Realism

Realism was a theatrical movement that took place during the 19th century, seeking to represent real life on stage. Stanislavski was a devoted follower of realism throughout his working career.    

Naturalism is also used to portray the same thing but it also means the belief that humans are formed by what they've inherited from their families and surroundings.  

Stanislavski was dedicated to realism throughout his career and stood against the scientific concept of naturalism, and experimentation was his main approach to theatre. Stanislavski explored symbolism, and undertook a high praised production of Othello. 

Biography

Throughout his life he insisted on experimentation, for the actors and for the texts he worked on. His close relationship with Chekhov is critical here, although he was also brave in his choice to collaborate with authors such as Maeterlinck, and Bulgakov. 

It was Stanislavski's quest for knowledge and his passion for perfection that drove him from the closed world of semi-private companies into the national and international world of professional theatre. 

His legacy was a system of approaching the imprecise science of acting. He attempted in a systematic method to lay down ground rules for approaching a character and for how an actor could employ their body, mind, voice in such a creation.  

Stanislavski Method 

During the Moscow Art Theatre's first years, he worked on supplying a guiding structure for the actors to constantly attain deep, meaningful and disciplined performances. He also believed that actors required to abide in authentic emotion while performing, and while doing this they could bring upon feelings that they experiences in their personal lives. He also developed exercises that motivated actors to explore character inspiration, giving performances depth and a modest realism while focusing on the parameters of the production. This technique is known as the Stanislavski Method or The Method.         

Career beginning 

Society of art and literature (1888)

Stanislavski went through the long and painful process of rehearsing and performing in The Miser Knight by Pushkin, which was his first actual semi-professional role. 

Othello (1895)

Othello by Shakespeare had fascinated Stanislavski for years, and when he was about to form the Art Theatre he decided to take on both the direction and the leading role. He visited Venice in 1895 to research the locations and to buy fabrics, furniture and properties. He prepared a detailed production plan, which included the stage directions and gave life and energy to the text. It was his intention from the start to reproduce as much of the reality of the play as possible.  

The seagull (1898)

Stanislavski was a joint director of the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1898 a bet was made to revive Chekhov's The Seagull as part of the first season's collection. For the task of setting up the mise-en-scene, Stanislavski began what by now is regular practice of annotating the text in detail with both visual elements and auditory elements. The emotional motivation of the characters was revealed through the understanding and acknowledgment of the subtext, which allowed the performance to confirm that the company was working at the height of its potential.   

Later years and Legacy 

The Moscow Art Theatre engaged in a world tour during 1922 to 1924 visiting parts of Europe and the US. Method acting turned into a highly influential, revolutionary technique in Theatre and Film (Hollywood) during the mid 20th century. 

After the Russian Revolution in 1917, he faced a bit of criticism for not creating communist work, although he was able to preserve the company's unique perspective and not dealing with an imposed artistic vision. During a performance that commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Art Theatre, he suffered a heart attack. 

He then spent his later years concentrating on his writing, directing and teaching  

The System in Detail

Action- This was one of the most important elements for Stanislavski: he created action to be concerned with the meaningful, purposeful activity of an actor onstage.

From the beginning he made distinctions between action for its own sake, as a physical form, and action that can be perceived as action due to a concentrated stillness on stage, which he refers to as 'inner intensity'.

His aim was to demonstrate that there is never a time in which the actor is not engaged in a process of enactment, but at the same time he suggested that it must always have a purpose.

He used an example of the story of the mental man who lurks behind a door, and he used the door and the dilemma of the choice to either open it or not

If-  Also known as the 'magic if', it opens up possibilities for the actor of 'creating a whole new life', of encouraging new emotions.

It remains for an actor to make believe: 'sincerely to believe in the possibility of what you are called upon to do on the stage', or which he later called the 'imaginative fiction of another person'. Its not solely the person, but the circumstances surrounding them.

The Given Circumstance- is the foundation for an actor and their role, they are conceived in the playwright, director and designer and create the context in which the actor may question: what if?

His list of circumstances:
- story of the play
- its facts, events, epoch, time and place of action
- conditions of life
- actor's and director's interpretation
- production, sets, costumes and properties
- lighting and sound effects

The actor needs to believe in the given circumstance, which will allow them to function at a high level of involvement.

The Imagination- Stanislavski's teaching relies heavily of visual stimulus for the evolvement of this faculty.

Circles of Attention- During the majority of his early career he was concerned with his inability to relax onstage, so he then studied ways to help actors relax and focus on stage.

He used a device that he named Circles of Attention to portray his point. Its sole purpose was in giving the student a focus for their attention.

In the smallest circle an actor could create what he called Solitude in Public, which was a condition that focuses the actor within themselves. By increasing the focus the actor could start taking in further objects and slowly,  through concentration, the entire stage is brought in focus. 

Units and Objectives- The idea of Units was that a performance can be broken down not just into scenes by the author, but by the director or actor into units of action.

These units are controlled by the objectives within them, a unit ends with the end of the objective.

One of the most significant features of the objectives contained within the units was that they are active, driving the text forward. For this very reason he insisted on describing them with verbs rather than nouns.

The Super-objective and Through-line of Action- He firstly emphasised the importance of identifying an overarching objective within a play. Secondly, through-line could be described as the major current 'that galvanises all the small units and objectives'. 

Emotion memory- This feature of the system was destined to become one of the most controversial, due to its adoption by a few practitioners of the American 'Method' during the 1940s and 1950s. Stanislavski's nearly completed disavowal of it in later life was due to both its limitations and the fact that it resulted to introspection and self-reflective plays that failed to communicate.

Stanislavski believed that it was an actor's job to encourage their 'emotion memory' by making a conscious effort to widen their range of experience: to create, as it was, a reservoir of memory from which to draw and on which to build. This memory could be used to tap into when the actor was working towards the development of a character. Equally, as Stanislavski found, it may be used to re-invent emotions that were fixed previously during rehearsals and that required reproduction in performance from one night to another.     

Tempo-rhythm in Movement- His later concentration with this aspect of the System marks an important move away from the internalised work of Emotion memory.

By setting various metronomes ticking at the same time but having different beats, Stanislavski showed how an actor is required to find their own rhythm while at the same time being surrounded by other actors, who would have their own rhythm.   

Therefore an actor that may be frantic with worry may be acting in a scene where everyone else is discussing something as boring as the weather.

Stanislavski also manages the way that different external, physical tempo-rhythms could affect the atmosphere of a certain text. He brings attention to the strength of stillness, which in itself is a tempo-rhythm, and how it can be contrasted with quick movement by other characters in the same scene.

The Method of Physical Action- Towards the end of his life, he increasingly emphasized on physical expression as a method of training.

Once objectives and lines of physical action were identified, it was by the physical doing that the actor may find 'solidity and depth'. This led to more emphasis on improvisation as a method of unlocking aspects of both the text and the role.

In the final stages of revision of his teaching he continued to process and draw together the rehearsal process. 


Finale- 
Appearing from the need for a whole truth of thought, feeling and expression to be communicated by actors to their audience, this System made sure that the code of Naturalism and Realism has dominated theatre and film largely for the past 50 years.



  

References:

Drama and theatre studies textbook 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zxn4mp3/revision

https://www.biography.com/people/constantin-stanislavski-9492018