Introduction to Stanislavski
And after all that, some of my newer students asked me to give them a little introduction to Stanislavski. To give them some background and history to this debate and I’ve agreed to do that here.
Konstantin Alexeyev or ‘Stanislavski’ as he is known by his stage name, is remembered as the father of modern acting. He was the first to systemize the actor’s process into logical steps and pursued the truth in acting at all costs.
His work was first derided, as anyone who tries to change the status quo, but eventually has become the backbone of much of the Western tradition of acting. His work appears for us in several poorly translated volumes known as the ‘ABC’ of acting – An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role. He also published an autobiography called My Life in Art. There are many excellent biographies written about Stanislavski and because people cannot agree entirely on his intentions for his ‘system’ of acting, there are hundreds of books, each interpreting Stanislavski’s work for themselves.
Recent translations of the first two books are more accessible and successful, most notably Jean Benedetti An Actor’s Work. He founded the highly successful Moscow Art People’s Theatre in Moscow with his collaborator Nemirovich-Danchenko and premiered the works of Anton Chekhov. The acting style shocked and captivated the Russian audiences and delivered a whole new perspective on acting. The company toured America many times leading to actors emigrating to the USA and teaching Stanislavski’s ideas there.
Stanislavski’s work centred on creating the inner life of the role and he dedicated his life to discovering how to stimulate the creative state of mind so that the actor could find inspiration at a moment’s notice. Although many focus on Stanislavski’s assertion that the actor should ‘live the part’, he also believed that the actor was a far more interesting person than any character could ever be. His early work focused on the truthful production of emotion, which gave rise to his renowned ‘Affective’ or ‘Emotion’ Memory exercises, later to become the fulcrum of American ‘Method’ acting. His later work focused on the relationship between the physical and the psychological and was called the method of physical action. Acting terms such as ‘Objective’, ‘Beat’, ‘Stage Direction’, ‘Motivation’ and ‘Action’ were coined by Stanislavski in his pursuit of a systematic approach to acting.
Stanislavski never stopped experimenting for his entire life. He was tireless in his quest for the root of truthful acting. Since his death, revisionists across the world have attempted to claim ownership of his true intention. Most recently certain experts have attempted to ‘revise’ the historical record and tell us all what Stanislavski intended. No one really knows, but that doesn’t stop these ‘experts’ attempting to claim that they are in possession of the truth. Unfortunately, they only reflect their own prejudices in what they choose to highlight or hide.
Macy once said that Practical Aesthetics is the next evolution of the Stanislavski system, but this is not true, it is only small components of it – the ones that work in practice. The rest has been left to the side. I believe that with Stanislavski’s love of experimentation, he would have approved of this approach.