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Sandbox for the article on Konstantin Stanislavski
  • Need to check old style dates pre/post 1900 - difference in calendars

He discovered his "principle of opposites," as expressed in his aphoristic advice to the actor: "When you play a good man, try to find out where he is bad, and when you play a villain, try to find where he is good."[1]

Need to check this more thoroughly, since Benedetti challenges the accuracy of Stan's dating of this discovery.

Introduction

Konstantin Stanislavski
OccupationTheatre director · Actor ·
Theatre theorist
Literary movementNaturalism · Psychological realism · Socialist realism · Symbolism
Notable worksFounder of the Moscow Art Theatre
An Actor's Work
My Life in Art
SpouseMaria Petrovna Perevostchikova
(stage name: Maria Liliana)

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (Template:Lang-ru) (17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August, 1938), was a Russian actor and theatre director.[2] Throughout his life, Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a process of rigorous artistic self-analysis and reflection.[3] His 'system' of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his performances, beginning with a major crisis in 1906.[4] Building on the director-centred, unified aesthetic and disciplined, ensemble approach of the Meiningen company, the actor-centred realism of the Maly, and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement, Stanislavski organised his techniques into a coherent, systematic methodology.[5] He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training and to experiment with new forms of theatre.[6] His development of a theorised praxis—in which practice is used as a mode of inquiry and theory as a catalyst for creative development—identifies him as the first great theatre practitioner.[7]

Theatre-making is a serious endeavour that requires dedication, discipline and integrity, Stanislavski thought, and he viewed the work of the actor as an artistic undertaking.[8] He treated the theatre as an art-form that is autonomous from literature and one in which the playwright's contribution should be respected as that of only one of an ensemble of creative artists.[9] Following a legendary 18-hour discussion with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, in 1898 Stanislavski and Nemirovich founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) company. Its influential tours of Europe (1906) and the US (1923-4) and its landmark productions of The Seagull (1898) and Hamlet (1911-12) established his reputation and opened new possibilities for the art of the theatre.[10] By means of the MAT, Stanislavski was instrumental in promoting the new Russian drama of his day—principally the work of Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, and Mikhail Bulgakov—to audiences in Moscow and around the world; he also staged acclaimed productions of a wide-range of classical Russian and European plays. He collaborated with the symbolist director and designer Edward Gordon Craig and was formative in the development of several other major practitioners, including Vsevolod Meyerhold (whom Stanislavski considered his "sole heir in the theatre"), Yevgeny Vakhtangov, and Michael Chekhov. Stanislavski's approach to theatre-making responded to a wide range of influences and ideas, including his study of the modernist and avant-garde developments of his time (naturalism, symbolism and Meyerhold's constructivism), Russian formalism, Yoga, Pavlovian behaviourist psychology, James-Lange (via Ribot) psychophysiology, and the aesthetics of Belinsky and the realists Pushkin, Shchepkin, Gogol, and Tolstoy.[11]

Stanislavski's innovative contribution to modern acting theory has remained at the core of mainstream western performance training for much of the last century.[12] That many of the precepts of his 'system' seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its hegemonic success.[13] Actors frequently employ his basic concepts without knowing they do so.[14] Thanks to its promotion and elaboration by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of his theoretical writings, Stanislavski's 'system' acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed an international reach, dominating debates about acting in Europe and America.[15] His work was as important to the development of socialist realism in the Soviet Union as it was to that of psychological realism in the United States.[16] Many actors routinely equate his 'system' with the American Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast sharply with Stanislavski's multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach, which explores character and action both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside in' and treats the actor's mind and body as parts of a continuum.[17]

Stanislavski was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin and was one of the first to be granted the title of People's Artist of the USSR.[18]

Very nice, but: it needs to summarise the final article. So the books, the Method of Physical Actions.

Biography

See the Biography of Konstantin Stanislavski

I am currently editing my biography of Stanislavski, in order to trim it down to a more manageable size.

You can find the latest edit here.

The 'system'

See the article on Stanislavski's 'system'

I am currently editing this section on Stanislavski's 'system'. Click here to read the current edit.

Productions

For a more comprehensive list, see List of productions directed by Konstantin Stanislavski.

(draft: List of productions)

He also worked with a number of important artists, stage designers, and composers, including Viktor Simov, Alexandre Benois, Aleksandr Golovin, and Konstantin Korovin.

Legacy

Members of Stanislavski's First Studio in 1915.

Many of Stanislavski's former students taught acting in the USA, including Richard Boleslavsky, Maria Ouspenskaya, Michael Chekhov, Andrius Jilinsky, Leo Bulgakov, Varvara Bulgakov, Vera Solovyova, and Tamara Daykarhanova.[19] Others—including Stella Adler and Joshua Logan—"grounded careers in brief periods of study" with Stanislavski.[19] Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya founded the influential American Laboratory Theatre in 1923. One of Boleslavsky's students, Lee Strasberg, went on to co-found the Group Theatre (1931-1940) in New York with Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford. Together with Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, Strasberg developed the earliest of Stanislavski's techniques into "Method acting," which he taught at the Actors Studio.[20] Meisner, an actor at the Group Theatre, went on to teach at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where he developed what came to be known as the Meisner technique.

"seemingly endless hostility among warring camps, each proclaiming themselves his only true disciples, like religious fanatics, turning dynamic ideas into rigid dogma."[21]


Jerzy Grotowski regarded Stanislavski as the primary influence on his own theatre work.[23]

Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl were the first to introduce Stanislavski's techniques to Britain.[23] In their Theatre Workshop, the experimental studio that they founded together, Littlewood used improvisation as a means to explore character and situation and insisted that her actors define their character's behaviour in terms of a sequence of objectives.[23] The actor Michael Redgrave was also an early advocate of Stanislavski's approach in Britain.[23]

Fictional references

Mikhail Bulgakov satirised Stanislavski by means of the character "Ivan Vasilievich" in his novel Black Snow (also called The Theatrical Novel). While Bulgakov portrays him as a great actor, he suggests that his famous "method" hinders actors' performances with its ridiculous exercises. Despite this caustic assessment, Stanislavski and Bulgakov remained good friends.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 39), Magarshack (1950, 67-68), Milling and Ley (2001, 10-11), and Worrall (1996, 27). Stanislavski made this discovery during his work on the society's production of Aleksey Pisemsky's historical play Men Above the Law in 1889. The title of the play has also been translated as Despots and A Law unto Themselves. Stanislavski played Imshin in a production that opened on 26 November 1889. He directed another production of the play with the Society in 1895.
  2. ^ For dates prior to the Soviet state's switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1918, this article gives the date in the New Style (Gregorian) date-format first, followed by the same day in the Old Style (Julian) date-format (which appears in square brackets and slightly smaller); this is to enable an accuracy in dates given in line with the published sources. Thus, Stanislavski was born on the 17 January according to the Gregorian calendar that is in use today, while his birthday was 5 January according to the Julian calendar that was in use at the time. For more information on the difference between the two systems, see the article Old Style and New Style dates. Dates after 1 February 1918 are presented as normal. The introduction to this article draws on the introductions and overviews in the following commentaries: Banham (1998), Benedetti (1989), Carnicke (1998), Counsell (1996), Innes (2000), Milling and Ley (2001).
  3. ^ Benedetti (1989, 1) and (2005, 109), and Milling and Ley (2001, 3-5).
  4. ^ Benedetti (1989, 1). Stanislavski began developing a 'grammar' of acting in 1906; his initial choice to call it his System struck him as too dogmatic, so he preferred to write it as his 'system' (without the capital letter and in inverted commas), in order to indicate the provisional nature of the results of his investigations. Modern scholarship follows that practice. See Benedetti (1999a, 169), Gauss (1999, 3-4), and Milling and Ley (2001, 1). need citation for relation to blocks and crisis
  5. ^ Benedetti (1989, 5-11, 15, 18), Counsell (1996, 24), and Innes (2000, 53-54).
  6. ^ Gauss (1999, 3) and Milling and Ley (2001, 6).
  7. ^ Benedetti (1989, 1) and Counsell (1996, 25). Stanislavski's 'system' is, Benedetti argues, "his practice examined, tested and verified."
  8. ^ Benedetti (1989, 1), Carnicke (1998, 162), and Magarshack (1950, 376). Magarshack writes that Stanislavski considered "the pre-eminent position of the art of the actor" to be "the fundamental principle of the art of the stage."
  9. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 124, 202) and (2008b, 6), Carnicke (1998, 162), and Gauss (1999, 2). In 1902, Stanislavski wrote that "the author writes on paper. The actor writes with his body on the stage" and that the "score of an opera is not the opera itself and the script of a play is not drama until both are made flesh and blood on stage"; quoted by Benedetti (1999a, 124).
  10. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 165), Gauss (1999, 1), and Milling and Ley (2001, 13-14).
  11. ^ Neither the Soviet nor the American approaches "found Stanislavsky's study of avant-garde and Eastern arts of more than passing interest," Carnicke explains; her own study is one of a number that seek to redress that (1998); see also Milling and Ley (2001). For the relationship to Russian formalism, see Carnicke (1998, 161-162). For the influence of Yoga, see Carnicke (1998, 138-145), Leach (2004, 30-31), Magarshack (1950, 322), and White (2006). For the influence of Ivan Pavlov and Behaviorism, see Roach (1985). For the influence of Théodule-Armand Ribot and the James-Lange theory, see Benedetti (1999a, 184-185), Bentley (1962, 275-278), Carnicke (1998, 131-138) and Whyman (2008, 117-122). For the influence of Leo Tolstoy, see Benedetti (2005, 120) and Carnicke (1998, 110-112); Rudnitsky argues that the "universal recognition of Stanislavski's and Nemirovich-Danchenko's masterpieces of direction has been conditioned to a great degree by the organic connection between their work and the traditions of nineteenth-century Russian prose, which has enriched the cultural and spiritual heritage of mankind" (1981, 141). For the influence of Vissarion Belinsky, see Benedetti (1999a, 35-37). For the influence of Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Shchepkin, and Nikolai Gogol, see Benedetti (1989, 5-11), (1999a, 14-17) and (205, 100-109).
  12. ^ Banham (1998, 1032), Carnicke (1998, 1), Counsell (1996, 24-25), and Leach (2004, 29).
  13. ^ Counsell (1996, 25).
  14. ^ Counsell (1996, 25).
  15. ^ Banham (1998, 1032), Carnicke (1998, 1, 167), Counsell (1996, 24), and Milling and Ley (2001, 1).
  16. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 2) and Carnicke (1998).
  17. ^ Benedetti (2005, 147-148) and Carnicke (1998, 1, 8). Not only actors are subject to this confusion; Lee Strasberg's obituary in The New York Times credited Stanislavski with the invention of the Method: "Mr. Strasberg adapted it to the American theatre, imposing his refinements, but always crediting Stanislavsky as his source" (Quoted by Carnicke 1998, 9). Carnicke argues that this "robs Strasberg of the originality in his thinking, while simultaneously obscuring Stanislavsky's ideas" (1997, 9). In a note from 1913 Stanislavski wrote that a character "is sometimes formed psychologically, i.e. from the inner image of the role, but at other times it is discovered through purely external exploration"; quoted by Benedetti (1999a, 216). Neither the tradition that formed in the USSR nor the American Method, Carnicke argues, "integrated the mind and body of the actor, the corporal and the spiritual, the text and the performance as thoroughly or as insistently as did Stanislavsky himself" (1998, 2). For evidence of Strasberg's misunderstanding of this aspect of Stanislavski's work, see Strasberg (2010, 150-151).
  18. ^ Carnicke (1998, 33) and Magarshack (1950, 385, 396).
  19. ^ a b Carnicke (1998, 3).
  20. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 4).
  21. ^ Carnicke (1998, 5).
  22. ^ Allain and Harvie (2006, 70).
  23. ^ a b c d Leach (2004, 46).

Sources

Template:Commoncat

Primary sources

  • Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1936. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen, 1988. ISBN 0413461904.
  • ---. 1938. An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 041542223X.
  • ---. 1950. Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage. Trans. David Magarshack. London: Faber, 2002. ISBN 057108172X.
  • ---. 1957. An Actor's Work on a Role. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. ISBN 0415461294.
  • ---. 1961. Creating a Role. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Mentor, 1968. ISBN 0450001660.
  • ---. 1963. An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Methuen, 1990. ISBN 0413630803.
  • ---. 1968. Stanislavski's Legacy: A Collection of Comments on a Variety of Aspects of an Actor's Art and Life. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. Revised and expanded edition. London: Methuen, 1981. ISBN 0413477703.
  • Stanislavski, Constantin, and Pavel Rumyantsev. 1975. Stanislavski on Opera. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0878305521.

Secondary sources

  • Allain, Paul, and Jen Harvie. 2006. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415257212.
  • Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521434378.
  • Benedetti, Jean. 1989. Stanislavski: An Introduction. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413500306.
  • ---. 1998. Stanislavski and the Actor. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413711609.
  • ---. 1999a. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413525201.
  • ---. 1999b. "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898-1938." In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 254-277).
  • ---. 2005. The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, From Classical Times to the Present Day. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413773361.
  • ---. 2008a. Foreword. In Stanislavski (1938, xv-xxii).
  • ---. 2008b. "Stanislavski on Stage." In Dacre and Fryer (2008, 6-9).
  • Benjamin, Walter. 1986. Moscow Diary. Trans. Richard Sieburth. Ed. Gary Smith. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP. ISBN 0674587448.
  • Bentley, Eric. 1962. "Emotional Memory." in The Theory of the Modern Stage: An Introduction to Modern Theatre and Drama. Ed. Eric Bentley. New York and London: Applause, 1997. 275-278. Rpt. of "Who was Ribot? or: Did Stanislavsky Know Any Psychology?". Tulane Drama Review (1962).
  • Bradby, David, and John McCormick. 1978. People's Theatre. London: Croom Helm and Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 085664501X.
  • Braun, Edward. 1982. "Stanislavsky and Chekhov". The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413463001. p.59-76.
  • ---. 1995. Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. Rev. 2nd ed. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413727300.
  • Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801481546.
  • Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 9057550709.
  • ---. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11-36).
  • Chamberlain, Franc. 2000. "Michael Chekhov on the Technique of Acting: 'Was Don Quixote True to Life?'" In Hodge (2000, 79-97).
  • Clark, Katerina et al., ed. 2007. Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917-1953. Annals of Communism ser. New Haven: Yale UP. ISBN 0300106467.
  • Counsell, Colin. 1996. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415106435.
  • Dacre, Kathy, and Paul Fryer, eds. 2008. Stanislavski on Stage. Sidcup, Kent: Stanislavski Centre Rose Bruford College. ISBN 1903454018.
  • Hagen, Uta. 1973. Respect for Acting. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0025473905.
  • Gauss, Rebecca B. 1999. Lear's Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre 1905-1927. American University Studies ser. 26 Theatre Arts, vol. 29. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0820441554.
  • Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed. 1983. The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP. ISBN 0192115464.
  • Hobgood, Burnet M. 1991. "Stanislavsky's Preface to An Actor Prepares". Theatre Journal 43: 229-232.
  • Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415194520.
  • Innes, Christopher, ed. 2000. A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415152291.
  • Leach, Robert. 1989. Vsevolod Meyerhold. Directors in perspective ser. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521318432.
  • ---. 2004. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415312418.
  • Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521432200.
  • Magarshack, David. 1950. Stanislavsky: A Life. London and Boston: Faber, 1986. ISBN 0571137911.
  • Markov, Pavel Aleksandrovich. 1934. The First Studio: Sullerzhitsky-Vackhtangov-Tchekhov. Trans. Mark Schmidt. New York: Group Theatre.
  • Milling, Jane, and Graham Ley. 2001. Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0333775422.
  • Mirodan, Vladimir. 1997. "The Way of Transformation: The Laban-Malmgren System of Dramatic Character Analysis." Diss. Royal Holloway College, U of London.
  • Mitter, Shomit. 1992. Systems of Rehearsal: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski and Brook. London and NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415067847.
  • Moore, Sonia. 1968. Training an Actor: The Stanislavski System in Class. New York: Viking. ISBN 0670002496.
  • Pitches, Jonathan. 2006. Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415329078.
  • Ribot, Théodule-Armand. 2006. The Diseases of the Will. Trans. Merwin-Marie Snell. London: Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprints. ISBN 1425489982. Online edition available.
  • ---. 2007. Diseases of Memory: An Essay in the Positive Psychology. London: Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprints. ISBN 1432511645. Online edition available.
  • Roach, Joseph R. 1985. The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Theater:Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472082442.
  • Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1981. Meyerhold the Director. Trans. George Petrov. Ed. Sydney Schultze. Revised translation of Rezhisser Meierkhol'd. Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1969. ISBN 0882333135.
  • ---. 1988. Russian and Soviet Theatre: Tradition and the Avant-Garde. Trans. Roxane Permar. Ed. Lesley Milne. London: Thames and Hudson. Rpt. as Russian and Soviet Theater, 1905-1932. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0500281955.
  • Schuler, Catherine A. 1996. Women in Russian Theatre: The Actress in the Silver Age. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415111056.
  • Solovyova, Inna. 1999. "The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1929-1953." Trans. Jean Benedetti. In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 325-357).
  • Strasberg, Lee. 1965. Strasberg at the Actors Studio: Tape-Recorded Sessions. Ed. Robert H. Hethmon. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. ISBN 1559360224.
  • ---. 1987. A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method. Ed. Evangeline Morphos. New York and London: Penguin. ISBN 0452261988.
  • ---. 2010. The Lee Strasberg Notes. Ed. Lola Cohen. Oxon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415551862.
  • Toporkov, Vasily Osipovich. 2001. Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years. Trans. Jean Benedetti. London: Methuen. ISBN 041375720X.
  • Vakhtangov, Evgeny. 1982. Evgeny Vakhtangov. Compiled by Lyubov Vendrovskaya and Galina Kaptereva. Trans. Doris Bradbury. Moscow: Progress.
  • White, Andrew. 2006. "Stanislavsky and Ramacharaka: The Influence of Yoga and Turn-Of-The-Century Occultism on the System." Theatre Survey 47 (May): 73-92.
  • Whyman, Rose. 2008. The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance. Cambridge: Cambrdige UP. ISBN 9780521886963.
  • Worrall, Nick. 1996. The Moscow Art Theatre. Theatre Production Studies ser. London and NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415055989.
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