Unit 11: Research

Historical and Contemporary information:

It’s very easy to over-simplify the method of Konstantin Stanislavski, one of the greatest and most influential of modern theatre practitioners. The main thing to remember is that he takes the approach that the actors should really inhabit the role that they are playing. So the actor shouldn’t only know what lines he needs to say and the motivation for those lines, but also every detail of that character’s life offstage as well as onstage. In this way we can establish Stanislavski as a director and practitioner whose productions are naturalistic
Moscow Art Theatre:

The company was founded in 1898 by Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko.The company was a joint stock company owned by shareholders. This created a strong collaboration and community behind the venture. It did also mean Stanislavski was challenged at times but his wealth was undeniably useful to him when he was exploring or developing a new field. It was both successful and hugely influential in the world of the theatre and survived until it was split into two troupes in 1987. It was, of course, affected by the political turmoil in Russia from 1917.

When Stalin controlled Russia, Stanislavski was keen to appease him to ensure the survival of the theatre. During this time the company’s work reflected the political voice of the USSR, as represented by Socialist realism. Stanislavski was able to remain a follower of realism but the theatre company’s plays promoted socialist political beliefs. This remained the case until 1970 when there was a movement back towards the essence of Stanislavski’s method. -https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxn4mp3/revision

Styles and Techniques:
Bear in mind that Stanislavski was committed to realism throughout his career and came to stand out against the scientific idea of naturalism. Remember too that experimentation was his key approach to theatre. There may be typical productions of Chekhov plays with extraordinarily realistic sets but Stanislavski also, for instance, explored symbolism

The System

This term refers to the methods used by Stanislavski to foster a good performance in his actors. It focuses mainly on helping an actor recall the emotions needed for a role. Don’t confuse ‘method acting’ with the System. Method acting is how Stanislavksi’s work was interpreted by others, in particular, actors and directors in the film industry. -https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxn4mp3/revision

Emotional memory is when the actor finds a real past experience where they felt a similar emotion to that demanded by the role they are playing. They then ‘borrow’ those feelings to bring the role to life.

Stanislavski provided a route map for exploring what he called "that conscious road to the gates of the unconscious", which is the foundation of modern theatre. And it is a map that no actor, even today, can afford to ignore.Michael Billington, The Guardian. 9 May 2009

Quotes by Stanislavski: 

“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.
“It is not enough to discover the secret of a play, its thought and feelings—the actor must be able to convert them into living terms.” ― Konstantin Stanislavski, Creating a Role
“The verbal text of a play, especially one by a genius, is the manifestation of the clarity, the subtlety, the concrete power to express invisible thoughts and feelings of the author himself. Inside each and every word there is an emotion, a thought, that produced the word and justifies its being there.”
― Konstantin Stanislavski, Creating a Role

“Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part”
― Konstantin Stanislavski 

“In the circle of light on the state in the midst of darkness, you have the sensation of being entirely alone... This is called solitude in public... During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle, like a snail in its shell... You can carry it wherever you go.”
― Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54455.Konstantin_Stanislavski

Russian Konstantin Stanislavski, who developed "The Method", is the Patriarch of modern acting theory, with his three American prophets being acting teachers Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. With Stanislavski as the Patriarch of modern acting, Brando, via his work with his teacher Stella Adler, became its realized messiah. Before Brando, acting was more theatrical, mannered and emotionally confined. Brando shattered those stilted conventions by mastering the new way and ignited an acting revolution. He was a raw nerve, an open wound exposed to the world.
http://mpmacting.com/blog/2015/4/1/marlon-brando-and-the-big-bang
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/31/priority-time-marlon-brando-class-actor-even-acting-school/