Stanislavski

The basics of Stanislavski:

He was of Russian heritage and born in the 19th century, he came up with the theory of naturalistic acting.

Throughout Stanislavskis' career he spent a lot of time devising a type of acting that could either be classed as a system or method. He believed that good acting was natural acting, and wanted to find a connection between emotions and physical appearance. In this respect, audience members were told every detail, whereas with Bertolt Brecht we notice an opposing style of acting. Brechts' thoughts of Stanislavski was that the audience members 'hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom'.

 Throughout the rehearsal process up until the main performance Stanislavski worked of three methods and used these methods as the basis of acting.

Stanislavski thought that getting to know the piece of text you are working on in detail was the best way to start a production.

Step 1: Mining the text

Mining the text is all about four things,
- The first reading
- The text
- Mental Reconnaissance
- Given Circumstances

These four sections allow an actor to successfully engage in their performance text and understand the context and what the motives of their characters are.

'This moment of your first meeting with a part should be unforgettable... The loss of this moment is irreparable because a second reading no longer contains the element of surprise so potent in the realm of intuitive creativeness.' (Merlin.B, 2007, 57)

This quote explains the importance and highlights the speciality of the first reading as this is the first look into a character and in this first reading you bring your character to life for the first time and learn with the character as the reading goes forward.

The text is when you as an actor begin to add characteristics to a character. You begin to develop the voice and depth of your character bringing them to life, bringing them from the written word, to the spoken word.

Stanislavski started to move away from the conventional way of directing actors, instead of telling the actors exactly what they needed to do,  he started to meet up with the cast and allowed them to input ideas. He believed this method ensured that fresh ideas would be inputted and also it allowed the entirety of the cast to have a good understanding of the piece as they would dissect the text together.

The given circumstances is what stanislavski described as the body of a performance. This included:
- The story of the play
- The Who, What, When, Where, How
- The characters background
- The actors and directors interpretation
- Stage pictures
- Set details

All of the above help to bring a performance together. They create the main body of a great performance to enhance the quality of a performance. These different attributes of a performance can change the way a performance is watched or interpreted.

Step 2: Embodying the role

Embodying the role is bringing the character to life in practical rehearsals. This means that scripts are dropped and the actor is vulnerable but is free to do any action they please. The actor now has the opportunity to create a full body persona of their specific character and play with how their character acts in different situations.

Stanislavski believes that there is an action, then reaction, then decision and finally the next action.

This basic four step situation is how he believed method acting worked successfully. By creating this the actors knew what happened next but also had the freedom to act how they thought fit.

Stanislavski was concerned about the truth. He wanted each performance to be truthful and believable.

'He believed that a sense of truth marked the difference between craftsman and an artist' (Merlin.B, 2007, 115)

This shows that Stanislavski values the importance of truthful acting and that method acting is proper acting, meaning that this is he true way to act.

Step 3: Approaches to Rehearsal

The approach to rehearsal is how you operate with others during the rehearsal process. Rehearsing with others makes a performance more real as you then begin to feed of what the other persons character is, making the connection between characters stronger and more truthful. Allowing the audiences to fully understand the characters relationship with each other and what is happening in the scene.

Stanislavski is an iconic performer and his theories within the industry have been studied and practiced for many years. His work has inspired generations of performers as well as creating controversy with that of Brechts work. Stanislavski created a type of performance that was new and truthful that audiences liked, however as the times move on, the more informal way of performing has become popular and post dramatic art has increased in popularity.

All in all Stanislavskis method is a type of performance but it does not however, explain what performance is and it is not the definition of performance.