stanislavski

The Stanislavski System

A Technique for Realistic Acting
(taken from the book, "Theatre, The Lively Art")

Before the realistic drama of the late 1800s, no one had devised a method for achieving this kind of believability. Through their own talent and genius, individual actresses and actors had achieved it, but no one had developed a system whereby it could be taught and passed on to future generations. The person who did this the most successfully was the Russian actor and director Constanin Stanislavski.

A cofounder of the Moscow Art Theater in Russia and the director of Anton Chekhov's most important plays, Stanislavski was also an actor. He was involved in both traditional theater (using stylized, nonrealistic techniques) and the emergence of the modern realistic approach. By closely observing the work of great performers of his day, and by drawing on his on acting experience, Stanislavski identified and described what these gifted performers did naturally and intuitively. From his observations he compiled a series of principles and techniques which today are regarded as fundamental to both the training and the performance of actors and actresses who want to create believable characters onstage. We might assume that believable acting is simply a matter of being natural; but Stanislavski discovered first of all that acting realistically onstage is extremely artificial and difficult. He wrote:
All of our acts, even the simplest, which are so familiar to us in everyday life, become strained when we appear behind the footlights before a public of a thousand people. That is why it is necessary to correct ourselves and learn again how to walk, sit, or lie down. It is essential to re-educate ourselves to look and see, on the stage, to listen and to hear.

To achieve this "reeducation", Stanislavski said, "the actor must first of all believe in everything that takes place onstage, and most all, he must believe what he himself is doing. And one can only believe in the truth." To give substance to his ideas, Stanislavski studied how people act in everyday life and how they communicated feelings and emotions; and then he found a way to accomplish the same things onstage. He developed a series of exercises and techniques for the performer which had the following broad aims:

	1. To make the outward behavior of the performer - gestures, voice, and the rhythm of movements- natural and convincing. 2. To have the actor or actress convey the goals and objectives-the inner needs of a character. Even if all the visible manifestations of a character are mastered, a performance will appear superficial and mechanical without a deep sense of conviction and belief. 3. To make the life of the character onstage not only dynamic but continuous. Some performers tend to emphasize only the high points of a part; in between, the life of the character stops. In real life, however, people do not stop living. 4. To develop a strong sense of ensemble playing with other performers in a scene.

Let us now take a look at Stanislavski's techniques.


Relaxation
	When he observed the great actors and actresses of his day, Stanislavski noticed how fluid and lifelike their movements were. They seemed to be in a state of complete freedom and relaxation, letting the behavior of the character come through effortlessly. He concluded that unwanted tension has to be eliminated and that the performer at all times attain a state of physical and vocal relaxation.

Concentration and Observation
	Stanislavski also discovered that gifted performers always appear fully concentrated on some object, person, or event while onstage. Stanislavski referred to the extent or range of concentration as a circle of attention. This circle of attention can be compared to a circle of light on a darkened stage. the performer should begin with the idea that it is a small, tight, circle including only himself or herself and perhaps one other person or one piece of furniture. When the performer has established a strong circle of attention, he or she can enlarge the circle outward to include the entire stage area. In this way performers will stop worrying about the audience and lose their self-consciousness.

Importance of Specifics
	One of Stanislavski's techniques was an emphasis on concrete details. A performer should never try to act in general, he said, and should never try to convey a feeling such as fear or love in some vague, amorphous way. In life, Stanislavski said, we express emotions in terms of specifics: an anxious woman twists a handkerchief, an angry boy throws a rock at a trash can, a nervous businessman jangles his keys. Performers must find similar activities. The performer must also conceive of the situation in which a character exists (which Stanislavski referred to as the given circumstances ) in term of specifics. In what kind of space does an event take place: formal, informal, public, domestic? How does it feel? What is the temperature? The lighting? What has gone on just before? What is expected in the moments ahead? Again, those questions must be answered in concrete terms.

Inner Truth
	An innovative aspect of Stanislavski's work has to do with inner truth, which deals with the internal or subjective world of characters - that is, their thoughts and emotions. The early phases of Stanislavski's research took place while he was also directing the major dramas of Anton Chekhov. Plays like The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard have less to do with external action or what the characters say than what the characters are feeling and thinking but often do not verbalize. It becomes apparent that Stanislavski's approach would be very beneficial in realizing the inner life of such characters. Stanislavski had several ideas about how to achieve a sense of inner truth. one being the magic if. If is a word which can transform our thoughts; through it we can imagine ourselves in virtually any situation. "If I suddenly became wealthy..." "If I were vacationing on the Caribbean Island..." "If I had great talent..." "If that person who insulted me comes near me again..." The word if becomes a powerful lever for the mind; it can lift us out of ourselves a give us a sense of absolute certainty about imaginary circumstances.

Action Onstage
	What? Why? How? An important principle of Stanislavski's system is that all action onstage must have a purpose. This means that the performer's attention must always be focused on a series of physical actions linked together by the circumstances of the play. Stanislavski determined these actions by asking three essential questions: What? Why? How? An action is performed, such as opening a letter (the what). The letter is opened because someone has said that it contains extremely damaging information about the character (the why). The letter is opened anxiously, fearfully (the how), because of the calamitous effect it might have on the character. These physical actions, which occur from moment to moment in a performance, are in turn governed by the character's overall objective in the play.

Through Line of a Role
	According to Sstanislavski, in order to develop continuity in a part, the actor or actress should find the superobjective of a character. What is it, above all else, that the character wants during the course of a play? What is the character's driving force? If a goal can be established toward which the character strives, it will give the performer an overall objective. From this objective can be developed a through line which can be grasped, as a skier on a ski lift grabs a towline and is carried to the top. Another term for through line is spine. To help develop the through line, Stanislavski urged performers to divide scenes into unit (sometimes called beats). In each unit there is an objective, and the intermediate objectives running through a play lead ultimately to the overall objective.

Ensemble Playing
	Except in one-person shows, performers do not act alone; they interact with other people. Stanislavski was aware that many performers tend to "stop acting," or lose their concentration, when they are not the main characters in a scene or when someone else is talking. Such performers make a great effort when they are speaking but not when they are listening. This tendency destroys the through line and causes the performer to move into and out of a role. That, in turn, weakens the sense of the ensemble - the playing together of all the performers.

Stanislavski and Psychophysical Action
	A character's actions will lead to his / her emotions. (This is a tough one.) Stanislavski began to develop his techniques in the early part of the twentieth century, and at first he emphasized the inner aspects of training: for example, various ways of getting in touch with the performer's unconscious. Beginning around 1917, however, he began to look more and more at purposeful action, or what he called pyshophysical action. (An action which has a purpose, and leads to feelings about the action taken.) A student at one of his lectures that year took a note and noticed the change: "Whereas action previously had been taught as the expression of a previously- established 'emotional state,' it is now action itself which predominates and is the key to the psychological." (Read this next line carefully) Rather than seeing emotions as leading to action, Stanislavski came to believe that it was the other way around: purposeful action undertaken to fulfill a character's goals was the most direct route to the emotions. Example 1: A character is sitting at a dinner table. All of a sudden the character quickly stands up and throws the plate at the wall, thus causing more anger in the character. Rather than just trying to be mad, the character made an angry motion, throwing a plate, that made the anger greater. Example 2: Character A gives Character B a hug. Character A may now feel closer to the other character, and happier, since giving a hug.) Example 3: If you have ever seen the football player before a game who shouts, lifts weights, yells, or gets angry to psyche himself up before a game, that is psychophysical action.