Konstantin Stanislavski

A portrait of Konstantin Stanislavsky by Valentin Serov.

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky (Template:Lang-ru) (January 17 [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – August 7, 1938), was a director and acting innovator, responsible for a great deal of the acting technique used during the 20th century, all over the world.

Stanislavsky was born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev in Moscow to a wealthy family in 1863. He came from a prosperous Russian family who manufactured gold and silver braiding for military decorations and uniforms. Marie Varley, his grandmother, was a touring French actress and the only member of his family from an artistic background. Stanislavsky had eight siblings, who joined the young boy in creating elaborate theatricals on birthdays and holidays. The family created its own amateur theatre and Stanislavsky frequently acted in these miniature shows, usually meant for birthdays or holidays. At eight years old, Stanislavsky became interested in the circus, and often directed and starred in his own imaginary circuses. Another passion for the young Stanislavsky was puppetry, where he put on scenes from The Corsair and The Stone Guest. With puppetry, he learned to hone in on his love of detail--a quality Stanislavsky would incorporate in his directing later on in life with the Moscow Art Theatre. At fourteen, Stanislavsky started what would be numbers of notebooks filled with observations, aphorisms and problems. As a blossoming actor, Stanislavsky would dress as a tramp and go down to railroad yards, or disguise himself as a gypsy. Konstantin took a firm decision, despite the opposition of his father, to study theatre.

Career to Moscow Art Theatre

In 1881, Stanislavsky studied at a conservatory in Moscow, where he was taught how to act by imitation. Weeks later and unfulfilled, Stanislavsky went to study at the Maly Theatre, where he learned to rehearse well, appear fresh during performances, and extract energy from the other stage players, rather than the audience. However Stanislavsky's enlightenment came mostly from his encounter of Italian master actor Tommaso Salvini's portrayal in Othello. Stanislavsky thought Salvini was a "tiger of passion," full of truthfulness, power, artistry, graceful movement and perfection. Stanislavsky shaved his goatee and trimmed his moustache like Salvini and, at twenty-five, adopted the name Stanislavsky, unsurprisingly similar to Salvini's name. Stanislavsky's inspiration would mostly come from the desire to please an audience- a quality that would give him great despondency when those needs weren't being met. Stanislavsky acted in romantic bon vivants in slightly risque French farces and eventually funded the Society of Art and Literature in 1888, where he gained experience of aesthetics and stagecraft. At the Society, Stanislavsky hired the director Alexander Fedotov to establish and teach Stanislavsky and his theatre. Fedotov taught Stanislavsky many things such as extracting character models from real people rather than other actors' interpretations, using opposing character traits (for example, "a good guy discovering his evil traits"), and using many relaxation techniques. Stanislavsky had his fair share of problems during these years: he resorted to stage clichés, he had inspiration problems, and he was sometimes overwhelmed with too many theories, making him self-conscious. It was at this time that he wed his love, Masha Perevoshchikova, which he cited as a great benefit for his acting. When the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen's German theatre troupe visited Russia, Stanislavsky did not admire the acting or the content matter of the productions that much, however, Stanislavsky adored the realism of the design and costumery as well as the discipline of the rehearsal which is yet another example of Stanislavsky extracting what he likes about certain theories and practices, and discarding the rest. Stanislavski began attaining a reputation throughout Moscow as a modern and innovative director with such productions as Uriel Acosta, Othello (where Stanislavski travelled to Venice for costumes and artifacts) and The Bells. In 1897, the Society had a slew of failed productions and unmotivated actors. It was then that critic, teacher and dramaturg Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, conversed with Stanislavsky for 18 hours about their problems with modern theatre and their desire to create what would be known as the Moscow Art Theatre.

The Moscow Art Theatre

In 1897 he co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT) with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, but the theatre started operating in 1898. The first production MAT produced was the critically acclaimed and previously censored Czar Fyodor by Alexei Tolstoy. Anton Chekhov's The Seagull was performed. Initially Chekhov did not grant Danchenko's request to perform the play because he wanted a more experienced troupe to perform it. Stanislavksy beautified and innovated Chekov's script, and it created shock in the audiences. According to The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia, by Mel Gordon, "his detailed realism transformed the most commonplace scene into an orchestrated display of minute effects... something modern had been born." The MKhAT had created what became known as psychological realism. Psychological realism embodied hidden conflicts within relationships, which exposed that which is so embedded in everyday life. Chekhov never liked the rendition of his play, but the rest of the audience, and the rest of the world, started to like the work of the MKhAT. It was then that the MKhAT became known as the House of Chekhov as they produced Chekhov's melancholic plays like Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. The Moscow Art Theatre became a venerable institution and opened up classes in dance, voice and fencing. During the Russo-Japanese War, the group traveled to Germany and Eastern Europe, where they were so admired that one German playwright called them "artistic divinities." Parades were made in their honor, as the Europeans never saw such brilliant theatre. Upon returning to Russia, Stanislavsky fell into an artistic crisis, where his acting and directing became erratic, as he professed his lack of fulfillment and inspiration. He went to Finland with his wife to vacation, and came back to give birth to his acting system that would change what it means to be an actor.

Stanislavsky's System

Stanislavsky's System focused on the development of realistic characters as well as stage worlds. In order to create an ensemble of actors all working together as an artistic unit, he began organizing a series of studios in which young actors were trained in his system. At the First Studio of MAT, actors were instructed to use their own memories in order to naturally portray a character's emotions. In order to do this, actors were required to think of a moment in their own lives when they had felt the desired emotion and then replay the emotion in role in order to achieve a more genuine performance. Stanislavski soon observed that some of the actors using or abusing Emotional Memory were given to hysteria. Although he never disavowed Emotional Memory as an essential tool in the actor's kit, he began searching for less draining ways of accessing emotion, eventually emphasizing the actor's use of imagination and belief in the given circumstances of the text rather than her/his private and often painful memories.

The Stanislavsky System, is a systematic approach to training actors to work from the inside outward. This system is at some point different from but not a rejection of what he states earlier in Affective Memory. At the beginning, Stanislavsky proposed that actors study and experience subjective emotions and feelings and manifest them to audiences by physical and vocal means - Theatre language. While his System focused on creating truthful emotions and then embodying these, he later worked on The Method of Physical Actions. This was developed at the Opera Dramatic Studio from the early 30s, and worked like Emotion Memory in reverse. The focus was on the physical actions inspiring truthful emotion, and involved improvisation and discussion. The focus remained on reaching the subconscious through the conscious.

Stanislavsky survived the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, with Lenin apparently intervening to protect him. In 1918, Stanislavsky established the First Studio as a school for young actors and wrote several works: those available in English translation include: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, Creating a Role, and the autobiography My Life in Art.

Stanislavsky always thought of his system as if it were a table of contents for a large book which dealt with all aspects of acting. His final work, now known as The Method of Physical Actions (see Stanislavsky System) , is in no way a rejection of his early interest in sense and affective memory. At no time did he ever reject the notion of emotion memory; he simply found other means of accessing emotion, among them the absolute belief in given circumstances; the exercise of the imagination; and the use of physical action.

Legacy

Stanislavsky had different pupils during each of the phases of discovering and experimenting with a Universal System of acting. One such student, Ryszard Bolesławski, founded the American Laboratory Theatre in 1925. It had a tremendous impact on American acting, when one of Boleslawski's students, Lee Strasberg, went on to co-found The Group Theater (1931-1940) with Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the first American acting company to put Stanislavsky's first discoveries into theatrical practice. Boleslawski had been in Stanislavsky's class when experimenting with Affective Memory. Stanislavsky's theory later evolved to rely on Physical Action inducing feelings and emotions. Affective Memory is applied in Stanislavsky's System but not as much so as in Lee Strasberg's Method.

Stella Adler, the only American to study with Stanislavsky, was taught the Method of Physical Actions in Paris for five weeks in 1934. With this new knowledge she came to Lee Strasberg and introduced to him the new Method of Physical Actions. Strasberg understood the differences but rejected the Method of Physical Actions. He believed that acting was recollection of emotion. Adler said of Strasberg: "He got it all wrong."

Among the actors who have employed Stanislavsky's System in some form are Jack Nicholson, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Harvey Keitel, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Robert Duvall, Johnny Depp, Sidney Poitier, Jessica Lange, William Hurt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, Jane Fonda, Henry Fonda, Benicio Del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Vincent D'Onofrio, Kate Winslet, Adrien Brody, Denzel Washington, Elizabeth Taylor, Hillary Swank,Sarah Nahapiet, Anthony Hopkins, and Sean Penn.

Charlie Chaplin said, "Stanislavky's book, An Actor Prepares, helps all people to reach out for big dramatic art. It tells what an actor needs to rouse the inspiration he requires for expressing profound emotions."

Sir John Gielgud said, "This director found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students." Gielgud is also quoted as saying, "Stanislavsky's now famous book is a contribution to the Theatre and its students all over the world."

Stanislavsky's goal was to find a universally applicable approach that could be of service to all actors. Yet he said of his System, "Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you."

Stanislavsky's aim was to have all of his character's performed as real as possible. He was well known for the realism of his plays.

Fictional References

Mikhail Bulgakov satirized Stanislavsky through the character Ivan Vasilievich in his novel Black Snow (also called "The Theatrical Novel"). (It is no coincidence that Ivan Vasilievich was the name and patronymic of the notorious sixteenth-century tsar Ivan the Terrible.) In Bulgakov's novel, Ivan Vasilievich is portrayed as a great actor, but his famous acting "method" is held up as a farce, in fact often hindering actors' performances through ridiculous exercises. Bulgakov's cutting portrait of Ivan Vasilievich likely reflects his frustrating experiences with Stanislavsky during the latter's eventually aborted production of Bulgakov's play A Cabal of Hypocrites in 1930-1936. While this depiction of Stanislavsky is in stark contrast to most other descriptions, including those of Westerners who had met him, it should be noted that Bulgakov and Stanislavsky were otherwise good friends.