Konstantin Stanislavski
A Brief Biography
Konstantin Stanislavki is perhaps the most influential acting teacher who ever lived. With a career spanning over half a century, Stanislavski taught, worked with, and influenced many of the great actors and acting teachers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the grandfather of method acting, Stanislavski’s system of training and way of thought about acting forms the basis for a significant portion of modern acting, particular in America.
Stanislavski was from a wealthy and influential family, and grew up carefree and well educated. Surrounded by the lively and expanding Russian artistic culture, and part of the class of people who made it happen, Stanislavski was privy to many of the creative geniuses of the day from an early age. In My Life in Art, he talks about his position as the son of a wealthy merchant making him a member of the educated and culture elite, with exposure to people from all walks of life and every imaginable discipline. He recalls his first stage appearance vividly, and says of his feelings that day: “These four impressions, of the pleasure of success, of the bitterness of failure, of the discomfort of unreasonable presence on the stage, and the inner truth of reasoned presence and action on it, control me on the stage even at the present day.” (Stanislavski, My Life in Art 24)
It was in such early shows at his home that Stanislavski began his lifelong habit of reviewing, critiquing, and reworking his acting. Throughout My Life in Art, Stanislavski makes it clear that hard work, technique, polish, and training are essential to an artist. Talent and feeling alone do not make an incredible performer. However, he also stresses that to imitate a teacher is neither learning nor art, and that students should be allowed to explore and play things in their own way, because that work is real and believable. His first experience in theatrical school left him feeling a lack of instruction in the method of constructing the life of a role. Stanislavski struggled with the roots of bad acting techniques and habits throughout his career, often mentioning in his autobiography that he would feel them creeping back in if he got lazy or frustrated. He participated in various boards, societies, and theatres before founding the Moscow Art Theatre with Vladimir Namirovich-Danchenko in 1897. Their performance of The Seagull, a now-famous work of Anton Chekhov, was the monumental founding event for the theatre. Chekhov and Stanislavsky would have a close and inspirational relationship for the rest of Chekhov’s life, as they encouraged and challenged one another.
The deaths of Anton Chekhov and Savva Morozov , the primary patron of the Theatre, were a devastating blow to Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre. Unable to find satisfaction in acting, he spent the summer of 1906 in Finland, thinking. In his disillusioned state, however, he could not find it in himself to recapture the creative spirit that allows an actor to form inner life. Often the creative mood strikes by accident. He decided to find a way to make it happen consciously, by the will of the actor. He embarked on an intense study of the great actors of the day, and came to the conclusion that they all had something in common — the first thing he noticed was their “physical freedom, in the lack of all strain.” (Stanislavski, My Life in Art 463) Next, he began to notice that the “creative mood”, as he called it, was strongest when the actor takes no notice of the audience, consumed by what is happening onstage and within himself. When an actor concentrates on what he is doing, the audience feels an innate need to watch what he is concentrating on. And so, he “perceived that creativeness is first of all the complete concentration of the entire nature of the actor.” (Stanislavski, My Life in Art 465) Next he observed the importance of truth. An actor must always believe what is happening onstage, and the only thing worth believing is the truth. The actor must find the truth in the role; a truth that cannot be found in scenery or text, but within the actor, in his connection to the reality of the text. This was the birth of Stanislavki’s “magic if”. The actual reality on a stage is not the truth, but when “if” comes into play, an entire world of imagined reality forms, and in this the actor can believe. He also came to reevaluate his physical relaxation exercises, realizing that just relaxing and isolating the body onstage is not enough — not only do the muscles have to reach, but the mind and spirit with them. Movement for movement’s sake is nothing; it’s only when you add a purpose or a need behind it that they become worth something. Stanislavski answered questions about the validity of a system for creativity by explaining that the “superconscious” region of creativity is the ultimate miracle worker in the creative process; however, his conscious method serves and enhances the superconscious.
A turning point in Stanislavski’s life and work came around 1911, when, while producing Hamlet, director Gordon Craig and Stanislavski’s close friend Sulerjitsky made Stanislavski understand that his perception of what was “natural” in his own acting was in fact far from it. He spent the next several years working and reworking with his system to attempt to gain that realism he craved. The unpolished nature of the system and his own struggles with his acting made him highly unpopular with the company and he struggled for years with hostile and unproductive relations with the actors. Later in life he would come to the realization that his system could not be taught in a day or even a year, but required study and implementation across many years until it became second nature.
Tired of trying to teach established actors an entirely new way of thinking, he founded his own studio to teach young people. The First World War began soon after, and the Second and Third Revolutions came up quickly after that, entirely changing the structure of Russian society. Theatre became open to the peasant class, and the entirely new audience dynamic radically altered the experience of the actor — Stanislavsky notes that the new spectators were not there to be entertained, but to learn. The revolt against the elite during the Third Revolution left the doors of the theatre open exclusively to the lower class; people who had never experienced the theatre, and had to be taught how properly to experience it. And yet, Stanislavsky seemed to find them the best sort of spectator — those who deeply and truly experienced and appreciated what happened on the stage, who sat in silence to contemplate thoughts they had never been faced with before. This “new public”, as Stanislavski repeatedly refers to it, was uniquely and earnestly engrossed in art.
He spent the rest of his life growing famous and perfecting his methods as an acting teacher, including writing various books. A gifted writer, Stanislavski’s books read more like novels than books on acting technique or even autobiography — they are full of life and a narrative spirit that connects the chapters in a linear chronicle that captures the reader and effectively ingrains their desired point in the mind. Through his books, the reader gets a glimpse at what the experience of being taught by Stanislavski may have been like, in addition to being privy to the thoughts and feelings of the master himself.
His books lay out not only the foundations for his philosophy as described briefly above (My Life in Art), but also detail the system itself, through the eyes of an acting student under the tutelage of a great “Director” (An Actor Prepares), as well as a more in-depth look at applying his ideas to the process of building a role (Creating a Role).
The very basis of acting is two-pronged, to Stanislavsky. The playwright provides the actor with information such as the actual events of the play, the setting, time period, character descriptions, etc, that makes up the given circumstances of a play. The actor then provides the “magic if”; a term coined by Stanislavsky to describe the question an actor asks himself in order to stimulate belief in the circumstances of the play. By asking if, the actor imagines what would or could happen, allowing him to flesh out the character, discover actions, and connect on a more intimate level with the work. By stimulating the actor’s imagination, it acts as a call to action. Action consists of everything an actor does on the stage, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Stanislavski does not allow action for the sake of action, however; all action that happens onstage must be for a purpose — it must have an “inner justification” (An Actor Prepares, 49) that leads to “productive activity” (An Actor Prepares, 56). Stanislavski focused quite a bit on the inner life of the actor. Anything that the actor must infer or construct beyond what the playwright provides is subtext. More specific within the realm of subtext is the inner monologue, or the train of thought of the character. In order to prevent breaks in acting between lines, actors fill in the blanks with the thoughts of the character — the impetus behind his next word or action, as well as his reaction to the other characters.
Often, the inner monologue, more so even than the dialogue, is driven by the character’s objective. An objective is, simply put, a goal. What the character wants or needs. Each section (unit or “beat”, commonly) of a part has an objective. Objectives must be realistic and believable, so that all actors onstage can interact truthfully with it. They must also be personal to the actor as well as applicable to the character, and have a deep, direct connection to the inner life of the character. Specificity is key in believability and in keeping the objective active, an essential part of moving the story along. All of the objectives for a character come together with their subtext to form the superobjective — the essence or overarching goal of a character throughout the entire play. In order to get from the emotional experiences of the inner life to the physical manifestation of those onstage, Stanislavsky employed tempo-rhythm, referring to the physical qualities of emotion. Tempo-rhythm involves both the inner self and the physical being. Tempo, as in music, refers to the speed of an action or an emotion. Internally, rhythm represents the intensity of an emotion. Physically, rhythm refers to the pattern of physical actions, gestures, etc. Just as music requires variations in tempo and rhythm to be interesting and feel real, so does acting. Natural variation gives a sense of authenticity to an actor’s work. But that authenticity cannot be achieved without one of Stanislavsky’s primary focuses in his own life and work — relaxation.
In My Life in Art, Stanislavsky regularly references “spasms” that occur on stage in moments of great tension or emotion. In An Actor Prepares, he goes into greater depth about the reasoning behind the need to relax every possible part of the body. When the muscles of the body are tense, actors are unable to fully employ any of their other faculties — mind, memory, or senses. Through the formation of habits and constant attention and checking, actors can make relaxing before a show and during portrayal of a role second nature, allowing themselves to fully explore the intricacies and emotional state of the role. He also notes that even the tensing of a single muscle is enough to put you out of balance, so constant review is necessary. Because it is not possible to fully remove tenseness, he advocates constantly observing oneself and ensuring that there is never an “extra amount of contraction” (106) at any point, until it becomes habit, especially in moments of extreme emotional tenseness.
A lifelong scholar, critic, and observer of acting, Stanislavski can be credited with many of the fundamental techniques still taught and used onstage today. His unique drive, scholarly focus, and singular desire to be truthful on the stage allowed him to participate in the fundamental formation of the Russian theatrical culture, and help it to become influential throughout the Western world.
Works Cited:
Sawoski, Perviz. “The Stanislavsky System: Growth and Methodology.”Santa Monica College. Santa Monica College, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. <http://homepage.smc.edu/sawoski_perviz/Stanislavski.pdf>.
Stanislavsky, Constantin. An Actor Prepares. Trans. Elizabeth Hapgood. N.p.: Aristophanes, n.d. Kindle Cloud Reader. Amazon, 16 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Stanislavsky, Constantin. My Life in Art. Trans. J. J. Robbins. Boston: Little, Brown, 1933. Print.
Stanislavski, Constantin. An Actor’s Handbook. Trans. Elizabeth Hapgood. New York: Theatre Arts, 1963. Print.
Stanislavski, Constantin. Creating a Role. Trans. Elizabeth Hapgood. Ed. Hermione I. Popper. New York: Theatre Arts, 1961. Print.
