Stanislavski Revisited
Okay, okay, there’s a lot of people got their panties in a bunch about my recent blog about Stanislavski. Let me reiterate that my central point is that Stanislavski is not so useful tobeginners. His work, particularly the newly translated and assembled stuff like ‘An Actors Work’ and ‘An Actors Work on a Role’ can be very informative and eye opening to people interested in acting. The problem is that these books are fascinating, but they are liable to confuse the beginner.
It is my opinion that at the heart of Stanislavski is the best way possible to bring truthful acting to the stage or screen. However, about 90% of it isn’t that useful, it’s a reaction to the acting of the time and we simply don’t have that to react against these days. Nonetheless, of course he offers some gorgeous pearls to the actor too.
Stanislavski was an amateur actor who became a professional, mainly against the wishes of his family. That’s something a few of us can appreciate, he wasn’t doing the sensible thing, he joined the circus (not literary), the freak show that is the life of an artist now as then. He sought through meticulous self-anaylsis to find the root of and route to truthful acting.
The problem is that I believe he took a wrong turn, because he started from the point of view that the actor was a creative artist like writer or sculptor. That’s a nice idea, it makes the actor feel like a creator, but it simply isn’t useful to the actor. So over and over again in his work, he talks about trying to find the right ‘creative state’. But there isn’t one. And so much of his time was wasted in fruitless discovery. But that doesn’t mean that we write him off entirely. His work on breaking down the play, his work on action and intention, and his continued search for the truthful actor, that’s inspiring and that’s very helpful to actors.
But when reading his work, particularly the Hapgood translations, the neophyte will struggle to separate wheat from chaff. I mean the great man no disrespect, there’s a picture of him on the studio wall, next to Meisner and Mamet. But he made a simple mistake. The actor’s job isn’t to create a character, it isn’t to create the soul of a new character, it is to reveal their own truth and humanity to the audience as they tell them the story of the play.
I’ve got books and books full of lovely exercises that Stanislavski created or inspired. They’re all great fun to do, but they don’t help. Count the invisible change in your pocket. Do mental maths whilst attempting to move a piano. And I can even see the point of some of them. But beyond extra-curricular fun, they’re no use to the actor. They’re fun, but when attempting to apply them to the work of the actor, they’re horseshit. Sorry big man, but they are, and your mistake will not be ours. You have a rightful place in theatre history, but someone needs to take a look at his contribution and strip away the silly nonsense and look at his real discoveries, his real contributions to the art of the actor.