Unit 11: Essay Question

How has the Stanislavski System Influenced Contemporary Acting Practice Since The 1950's And Informed My Own Practise?

“Every person who is really an artist desires to create inside of himself another, deeper, more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him.” – An Actor Prepares, Constantin Stanislavski.

Konstantin Sergeivich Stanislavski officially adopted the stage name Stanislavski by the year 1884, he profoundly influenced the theatre of the 20^th century and beyond. Throughout his long life of 75 years, he developed a variety of naturalistic performance techniques that formed a system – ‘The Stanislavski System’, also referred to as method acting. Method acting aspires an actor to complete emotional identification of a character. Stanislavski went on to writing many books, which critically evaluate his career and his accomplishments in his autobiography, ‘My Life in Art’ he speaks carefully on his early passion for theatre. Stanislavski defied the expectations of family and social class by becoming an actor, after enrolling in drama school, he dropped out several weeks after. In his era the style of acting was unrealistic and over-dramatic. This emphasises the raw idea of Stanislavski’s system, Stanislavski loathed this style of acting because it did not truly convey human nature. Stanislavski believed that an actor should inhabit his role and learn the details of their characters life off stage to enhance a more three-dimensional performance. Stanislavski co-founded the ‘Moscow Theatre’ in 1898 with Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko, it was highly successful and with Stanislavski’s birth right wealth he was able to comfortably endeavour on new fields. In the era of Stalin’s dictatorship Stanislavski’s hand was forced into reflecting the political voice of the USSR, he was able to keep his beliefs as a follower of realism, but the company’s work purely promoted political beliefs up until 1970. The theatre thrived and his method of acting inspired and influenced many over renowned drama teachers including Stella Adler.

           The quote above was taken from “An Actor Prepares”, one of the four self-written books by Stanislavski. It highlights Stanislavski’s belief in realism and authenticity. This quote illustrates Stanislavski’s thoughts on how he urges practitioners to break traditions and explore their own method of acting instead on depending purely on his system. It suggests that if one is passionate enough about the art then they will have the skill to look further in depth within themselves to manipulate and form a character completely different to their natural self and take advantage of the ‘magic if’ by implementing themselves in the situation of the character.

              Stella Adler, a prodigy of Stanislavski, who trained closely with him in his theatre group interpreted the method differently and using her own interpretation she went on to becoming an acting lecturer herself, building a studio in her name. Her ideology and teachings became responsible of helping to craft one of the most memorable and legendary actors the world has ever seen. Marlon Brando. One of the techniques that complete the Stanislavski method is ‘emotional memory’, she considered drawing on a painful memory to create a role as sickening. Adler granted the technique ‘given circumstances’ more useful for an actor. She believed an actor should imagine the given circumstances of the situation when creating a character or playing a role in comparison to recalling moments in their personal lives. She understood the external and internal research an actor would need to embark on to create a realistic performance. The research would require an actor to think, how would my character feel in this situation? What emotion would be most useful to convey in this situation? How would my character walk? What does their voice sound like? The actor must use the material from their research and the text to become the character in question, Adler theorized that without doing this research then the actor walks on the stage ‘naked’ because the actor would be faking it. 

        Film acting using ‘the method’ became majorly popularized by who is known as one of the most memorable and remarkable actors of all time. Marlon Brando. Before Brando acting in the 1950’s was highly theatrical and emotionally confined, and Marlon shattered fixed conventions by mastering the Stanislavski system and leading an acting revolution. Brando is well known for his award-winning roll as Terry Malloy from the film On the Waterfront. Adler recalled that once she instructed the class to act like chickens and added that a nuclear bomb was about to fall on them. While most of the students in the class ran around and clucked, he was sitting calmly and pretended to lay an egg. When Adler asked him why he chose to react that way, he explained, “I’m a chicken – what do I know about bombs?” This is an example of how the technique helped him develop a unique sense of realism, he understands the truth in his role and to do anything extra would be fake and amateur. It is eye opening to see how naturally as actors fall into stereotypes without understand what they are being asked to portray. From personal experience in a lesson at school, we had to do an exercise where we had to act as if we were trying to walk through chin-high water. Everyone in the class, including myself, lifted their head up and slowed down their pace in walk. We never considered the circumstances of what the rest of our body is presenting, we had to remember that the audience can still see our bodies therefore we should show how every part of our bodies is being affected by the circumstance. We also didn't consider that we were underwater and that if the water is chin-high then it would be getting in our mouths. It really highlights how much we can miss when developing a character which is why actors require research because without research your character is not truthful. 
        Stanislavski’s development of naturalistic acting explored, changed and adapted the industry forever. His work heavily influenced the film acting from the 1950’s, which then lead to his work influencing modern day theatre acting for example I watched a political and social issue based devised play by Lynette Linton. The story of the play follows the under educated knowledge a young mixed race teenage has of her dual-heritage. She creates a YouTube channel surrounding makeup, but whilst fetishizing her tone of skin and those that share the same light complexion as her, she denigrates darker skin a face a huge backlash for it. However, the play also addresses that although mixed race people have apparent privileges, they still face racial abuse and aggression. The teens older brother attempts to pick up his fair skinned daughter but is prevented because he is of a darker tone. Stanislavski is implemented in this because he reacts truthfully which shows the audience he is emotionally connected, and we therefore understand the circumstance he is in and take on that emotion; we feel his frustration and hurt. This is effective because we leave the show with more social awareness and knowledge.

          Personally, I found it hard to use Stanislavski’s technique of ‘Emotional memory’ which is tapping into your own personal life, external from your character and borrowing those emotions to create a character. To do this you must allow yourself to be vulnerable and honest. In addition, I found no relation to the context of what my character was going through. So instead I used the technique “Given circumstance” and “finding the objective”. Now because I was presenting a monologue but still speaking to someone, the monologue had to be shown in a way you could see what motivates my reactions. Because I’m having a conversation. The monologue is quite vulgar and angry, so I needed to understand the storyline and what happens throughout the course of the play to see why my character (Dawta) could be so livid with her mother. Dawta labels her mother as a Bitch, because she felt her mother allowed her father to sexually abuse her but chose to ignore it so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the pain it would cause her mentally and how it would tear apart her family. Dawtas mother tries to mentally control Dawta by saying "Don't call me that" When she should be apologising, the irony is that she feels that she is owed respect from her daughter and is offended at the fact that her daughter is continuously calling her a bitch throughout their argument. It is almost as if her mum is neutral and shows no emotion or empathy at all to Dawta and doesn't even listen to Dawta, she just wants to win. My characters objective is to really drill it in to her Mums mind that her Mum betrayed her, and she was hurt by it. She wants to let her Mum know how angry she is and how she really feels about her. Sublimely all she really wants is an apology from her Mum for not protecting her.

      
“When you play an evil man, look to see where he is good. When you play an old man, look to see where he is young”.

        I whole-heartidly believe that Stanislavski’s method had a massive impact and contribution into why acting is what it is today and how people have used this method as a platform to tell the truth in acting. This quote is still useful today, it illustrates that instead of portraying complex characters in an anticipated two – dimensional way. We should use the magic if and think about why the character is how they are. What is their back story? Every protagonist has a flaw, so every antagonist must have a redeeming quality. Just like any older person doesn’t have to be portrayed as if their time is almost up, they could still be full of life an ambition just as much as a young person.