Konstantin Stanislavski, (born Konstantin Alekseyev, and sometimes spelt Constantin Stanislavsky), was 14 years old when he first established ft. on the stage that his parents owned in 1877. His love of the theater blossomed throughout his life, leading him to be one of the world's most important theatre practitioners thus far. His work in the field of theatrical rehearsal techniques made him a household name for crisis students worldwide. He posted many literature and guides made to give episode students an insight into "realism", including 'An Actor Prepares' and 'Building a Identity', which put together various famous rehearsal methods designed to allow an actor to fully relate with their character, to the point they are not simply pretending to be them, but actually living their lives. He argued that the actor should "Love the art work in yourself, not yourself in the art" [1], looking for the sentiment within themselves as opposed to what in the script.
Stanislavski's pioneering eyesight for the theatre was that character types should be believable, and the story should focus on the feelings portrayed, engaging the audience through means such as empathy. He argued that anything put forward on the stage should be a precise account of true to life, a thought which produced from his distaste for the melodramatic theatre he had developed with. However, Stanislavski is one of several famous theatre professionals, all with a totally different idea of what theater should be. For instance, Bertolt Brecht submit the theory of 'Epic Theater', which educated that the audience should be alienated from the action onstage, struggling to identify with the individuals, but instead being still left with questions to ask themselves. He assumed the audience couldn't possibly empathise with the personas onstage because there have been so many specific differences in contemporary society itself- "society cannot talk about one common communication system so long as it is put into warring factions" (Brecht, 1949, paragraph 55[2]). Brecht wanted the audience to leave the theatre debating their morals. Another renowned theatrical practitioner is Antonin Artaud, who argued that any performance should deeply influence the audience. In order to accomplish that, he used non-naturalistic lamps and sound to make a disturbing atmosphere. Artaud wished his audience to leave the theatre having changed within themselves. With three such different goals from each specialist, it is difficult to make sure whether any of them had a particularly valid point. All three theories are widely reputed, but each contrasts and troubles the next, and therefore, in order to think in one of them, you must eliminate the others as valid.
These conflicting theories became the start of the main ideas behind this project. I wanted to learn whether there was a good way to show whether Stanislavski's ideas are affective to the audience in conditions of creating a more sensible performance than one with normal rehearsal, or indeed rehearsal methods devised by other professionals. To be able to determine this, I needed to carry out deeper research into Stanislavski's system.
The system itself is deep and intricately comprehensive, with many different aspects in regards to what Stanislavski considered a 'good performance'. However, some points are evidently more significant to him than others. According to the online Encyclopaedia Britannia [3], the primary features are 'Given Circumstances and the Magic If', and 'Emotional Memory space'. 'Models and Objectives' is also a major feature of the machine, so they are the three aspects I thought we would refine my research to in order to establish an improved knowledge of Stanislavski's method of acting.
'Given Circumstances and the Magic If'
Stanislavski said that "what's important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the real truth within myself" [4], and therefore anything submit on the stage must be true. He recognized this idea was a potential issue because all operating is, essentially, a rest. He therefore said that all celebrities should be as true to themselves as they can while playing a part. The theory behind Given Circumstances is the fact actors admit that, with the script of the play, they are given a couple of circumstances which they must abide by in order to make the story. Given circumstances can relate to either the type or the play itself, plus they incorporate character's years, gender, social course, and the play's time frame, setting and public/historical/political implications. For an actor to give a true performance, Stanislavski put an enormous emphasis on the importance of research into the given time frame or situation so the performer would truly understand their role. He educated that the study must be completed until an acting professional can totally flesh out his personality, and answer any questions given to them about their character's parentage, child years, and life happenings, even if these aren't talked about in the script. Once the Given Circumstances have been realised, Stanislavski recommended that the celebrities utilised a linked facet of his theory, called the 'Magic If', in order to deal with them. The 'Magic If' is a technique where the actor asks himself "given the circumstances already determined by the playwright, easily was this persona, and I is at this example, how would I behave?". In his publication 'An Actor Prepares', Stanislavski talked about the professor using the exemplory case of pretending to be always a tree. "Say to yourself: "I am I; but easily were a vintage oak tree, occur certain encircling conditions, what would I do?" and decide what your location is. . . in whatever place influences you most" (Stanislavski, 1937, p65[5]). Stanislavski asked that his students allow their imaginations to flourish through techniques such as Given Circumstances and the Magic If, to create deeper, more reasonable performances.
'Emotional Memory'
Another technique which was blessed from Stanislavski's belief that acting must be real is Mental Storage area, sometimes known as Affective Storage area. Shelley Winters, a good example of a famous celebrity with ultimate opinion in the Stanislavski System, said that as an actor you must be happy to "action with your marks" [6], or in layman's conditions, be willing to allow your inner emotions and past experience to show through. This is essentially the key conditions of Emotional Ram, which requires the actor to sketch on earlier personal experience which led to a similar feeling to which their character is experiencing. After the actor has discovered the experience, they are encouraged to allow the feelings they felt once again take over their mind and body, reinstating the framework and mind-set before emotion is real. The feeling must then seamlessly be employed to the script or personality, as Stanislavski thought this might make the performance more believable because the feelings holds true to the actor. Peter Oyston, founding Dean of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts and regular professor/director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Fine art in London, created a rehearsal method specifically made to enhance the feelings from memory. He publicized this, and other methods referring to Stanislavskian techniques, in a Dvd movie documentary called "How to use the Stanislavski System" (2004). The Psychological Memory section can be looked at on YouTube [7], and instructs the student to keep in mind a time when they privately felt an feelings which shadows or parallels that required from the text. They should talk about the situation they are keeping in mind out loud, until the emotion takes over their brains and bodies. Then, they must seamlessly copy their speech using their own recollections to the script directed at them, moving the emotions at the same time.
'Units and Objectives'
One of the very most prominent areas of Stanislavski's method is his idea that any character in virtually any play has a 'Super-Objective' throughout the action; an aim or driving power which sustains throughout the play. Stanislavski educated that this Super-Objective must stay static in each actor's head throughout their rehearsal and performance, which even though it may not be mentioned, or even apparent, they must take it upon themselves to research and find out it. Once it has been accomplished, he thought that the script could then be divided into smaller Targets, which would change many times throughout the part as the story deepened. Each Purpose must be a verb, to become an 'productive purpose'. He asked celebrities to divided their script into Items and Targets. Most pieces of drama are divide by the playwright into some scenes and works, allowing the action to move in time or environment, but Stanislavski found that a target could run through and overlap into different moments, or change very all of a sudden in the middle of an work. He therefore introduced the concept of Units, that are yet another way of dividing up a play- each device should contain one objective.
The diagram above outlines the complicated details of the areas of Units, Objectives, and Super-Objectives. The Throughline of Action is desire to in a character's brain throughout the entirety of the play, which culminates in the Super-Objective. On the other hand, each personality has a number of different Objectives which are split between your Units the celebrities devised for the script. These Aims can take the character to numerous different places, but their Super-Objective will always stay the same.
Furthermore, the Objectives themselves are equally as complete. Stanislavski said that all Aim could be divided into the Target, the Obstacle and the Action. Desire to is what the type is trying to attain in that particular unit. The obstacle is something which prevents or restricts them from satisfying their purpose, and the action is the steps the character takes in order to avoid or defeat the obstacle.
Stanislavski accepted that it's impossible for a play to achieve a smooth finish off where objectives are concerned because often, the action occurs off stage. The character types come and go, and the time changes, so we as an audience cannot see the whole storyline. Stanislavski said that in order to get over this, actors should always be consciously aware of their Super-Objective.
A familiar exemplory case of this aspect of the Stanislavskian Theory is Shakespeare's tale of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo's Super-Objective is to see true love. He begins the play with the objective of marrying Rosaline, and this continues to be his objective before Unit shifts at the Capulet party. Here, Romeo's objective becomes to determine more about Juliet, and later becomes to marry her. Towards the finish of the party, however, Romeo talks with Juliet's nurse, who says him that "her mother is the girl of the home" -that Juliet is a Capulet(Shakespeare, 1973, p. 910 [8]). This provides the obstacle, since Romeo's family, the Montagues, have a historical feud with the Capulets. Romeo then takes on a new action, which is to beat the feud between your people, even if it means the few have to lay about it. Romeo doesn't have the ability to totally achieve his Super-Objective, because he never encounters the simpleness of love he was looking for- both he and Juliet have to expire in order to truly be mutually.
Of all the areas of Stanislavski's method, these three end up being typically the most popular among modern day performers.
Having researched the key areas of Stanislavski's system, I devised ways to be able to assess the effectiveness of them over a live show by young actors, as this would let me establish whether the method will in fact help to produce a more believable performance. I decided to conduct an experiment into the effectiveness of Stanislavski's system. I decided to utilise my associates at an area youth crisis group, which is made up of young celebrities and stars aged between 11 and 17 yrs. old. For the experiment to be a reasonable test, I determined to separated them equally into two groupings, and give each group the same circumstance to work with. I planned to leave group one, the control group, to rehearse to their own methods, while performing group two's rehearsal functions myself, providing them with tasks similar to those place by Stanislavski to his own pupils. Following the groups had had the same time frame to rehearse, I wanted to invite an audience to watch their shows. The audience were to get a questionnaire after the performances, asking which group's interpretation of the circumstance they found more convincing and realistic. I intended to film both sets of rehearsal functions in order to put together a short documentary. The results of the audience questionnaire were intended to ascertain whether Stanislavski's rehearsal methods have a genuine effect on making present day performance more natural.
In order for this test to work, I firstly were required to create an idea. Formerly, I devised a script which revolved around the issue of teenage being pregnant, which really is a growing concern in the current population. The script included four gender specific personas, and I intended to have both categories perform the same piece; one using Stanislavski's techniques, and the others using general rehearsal operations. Having written the short play, and talked briefly to the kids at the theatre, it became apparent that there was more desire for the workshop than I had formed expected. Another problem with using a script could have been that the audience would have observed the same part twice, and would be looking at the actor's specific performances instead of the believability of the bits. Since it could have been unfair of me to cast the roles, I instead decided to take a different approach in order to add everyone. I devised a situation, again based mostly around a teenage pregnancy, that every group can use as the central of their piece of drama. They might then devise the rest of their takes on alone. This designed that all group could incorporate a versatile amount of participants, and ensured two unique, original performances.
With my idea at heart, I next needed to devise some Stanislavski-based rehearsal techniques for my group to work with during their preparation for the development. Keeping the topics of 'Given Circumstances and the Magic If', 'Emotional Memory space', and 'Products and Goals' at heart, I devised three rehearsal techniques specifically customized to Stanislavski's ideals. With these techniques devised, I had formed to actually carry out the rehearsal and performances. To carry out this, I'd desire a space, two groups of actors, a party of responsible men and women with CRB assessments and an audience. I contacted the chairman of the theater and booked myself a studio performance room for Saturday another of April. I then sent out characters to the stars involved with the Nonentities Children Theatre. The letters outlined the job and the experimental side of the day, offered the opportunity to go through the technical side of theater, and called for a reply. I received 18 positive replies back, which was many more than the initial 12 participants I put at heart, making the situation idea far more usable. Then i had to divide the celebrities into two different categories, a control group, who would lead themselves, and the experimental group, who I'd steer using Stanislavski's methods. The groups would have to be evenly weighted with talent, as it was important to get this to experiment as good as you can by not allowing acting ability to chuck it. I therefore separated the celebrities into groupings myself, aiming to balance the age groups in each group while putting responsible actors I could trust to work independently in the control group, and actors open to co-operation and prepared to pay attention in the Stanislavski group. The Indie Variable of the research was 'whether Stanislavski's methods were put on rehearsals', and the Dependant Variable was 'whether the performance was more believable predicated on the rehearsal method used'. My hypothesis was: "The techniques found in rehearsal will come with an have an impact on on the performance given".
I experienced my first problem of your day when the stars found its way to the morning. Shortly prior to the workshop was to occur, a letter have been sent to all associates of the junior theatre outlining the necessity for a new leader and the cancellation of sessions until another letter was sent out. It became apparent that many of the celebrities who had wanted to become a part of the workshop acquired assumed which it, too, was cancelled, so the final number of stars I had to work with was just 10. Although I had fashioned to adjust the group list, the smaller number of members made your day as a whole more personal, and the group sizes more manageable, therefore i feel it was an advantageous circumstance. Once everybody had authorized in, I conducted a brief warm-up, asking all members to think of just how different characters transferred and spoke in true to life, asking them to act believably, not merely as caricatures. I then split up the stars into groups, and find the two ladies who I felt would be most capable of acting the part of the pregnant teen. I asked both groupings to make a piece of crisis focussing round the pregnancy that could keep going between 10 and 15 minutes, and I gave each group a list of criteria that they need to stick to, including aspects such as using younger members in younger roles, including lots of monologues from different personas, and that they must write down the decisions made in early rehearsal. I informed the control group that they were allowed to use music, and dramatic techniques such as physical theatre and freeze casings, while the Stanislavski group had to endeavour to make their heroes and circumstances suitable to real life, and were informed never to use out-of-place techniques like freeze framing. The training video was set to track record as the communities split into two different rooms, and I allowed the control group to maintain themselves for the majority of the day, while I caused the Stanislavski group, asking these to use my previously-prepared rehearsal techniques.
The first strategy I provided them was designed to support 'Given Circumstances and the Magic If'. I asked each group to use the first stages of rehearsal to produce mind-maps around the pieces of dilemma. Whilst the control group's map layed out the storyline, the Stanislavski group were asked to spend an hour and a half fleshing out their characters, and the relationships and links between them. They gave each personality a name and an era, they published about their belief's and opinions, and decided after how their heroes met. Each professional developed an in depth history for their character, tugging from personal experience and their imaginations to set-up steady backgrounds. These are aspects associated with 'Given Circumstances and the Magic If' because they request the members to firstly appreciate the Circumstances the script offers them, and secondly to flesh out their characterisation by putting their characters in different situations through use of the Magic If.
The second approach I devised related to 'Feeling Memory space'. I used this technique when working with the actress participating in the pregnant girl. We applied it to the world in which she actually is told that the test is positive. I asked her to think about a period when she experienced lost, and perhaps didn't have anybody she could talk to about it because nobody had been in that position before her. She spoken of a time when her parents were going through a messy divorce, and she experienced minimize of from the both of them. She spoke openly and widely, and answered my questions seriously. As time passed, she was drawn further and additional into her storage and the thoughts which were present in those days, so that when I finally asked her to start discussing from her character's point of view, her behaving became real. She didn't need to fake the tears, because she was filled with the feeling her identity was filled with.
The third technique was designed to compliment 'Models and Aims'. After the actors got created their storyline, I asked those to divide it up into scenes, such that it was as near to a standard scripted piece of drama as it can be. We talked about each with their individuals, and what their Super-Objectives would be. The celebrities decided after everyone's objectives as a group, which brought a deeper degree of understanding to the piece. They made the decision that the father's Super-Objective is always to protect his children, while Rosie, the pregnant girl, aimed to face her future head on. I then asked each acting professional to divide up the play to their own Models, focussing on the shifts in feelings. This process demonstrated difficult for the younger participants of the group, so the group as a whole helped them to identify their Systems. There turned out a great variety in the quantity of Systems in the part for each character; as the pregnant girl had almost one per field, the father had only two. Furthermore, the move between Devices for him came up suddenly in the middle of his monologue, which was right by the end of the piece- before then his persona had wanted a similar thing throughout. I asked the group to literally improvise the scenes they had revealed, and also to stop the action when they encountered their obstacles. After they got all found their hurdles, these were asked to continue operating while finding ways to defeat this obstacle- their action. Then i asked them if indeed they had found the other actor's activities in the landscape, so that everybody was alert to the decisions their group was making. This in-depth workshop category on 'Devices and Super-Objectives' made the young actors aware and educated in the field, while also allowing them to know their individuals inside out by knowing what they want, and how they could go about obtaining it.
A couple of hours before the performances were slated to begin with, I took records on the rehearsal processes of both categories. The control group experienced included an omniscient narrator who could stop the action and create new individuals. The narrator sat in the center of the piece throughout a lot of the action, until the final arena where he became an engaged character. A narrator is generally used to create a sense of remarkable irony, where in fact the audience gain knowledge that the character types don't yet know. However, this type of narration is almost never set within the part itself, more regularly a words over or such like. Additionally it is unrealistic that the narrator, who's generally removed from and natural to the action, suddenly become 'real life' and hop into the landscape. The group also used a split-screen technique to enable them to show two different apartments rentals at the same time, which works well to the audience but unrealistic, as while action is playing out in one space, the people in the other must be frozen. This creation of 'freeze-framing' is difficult to hold for extended periods of time, and will not occur in a genuine situation. Another technique they used was audience-participation, where one person in their cast sat in the audience until the final moments of the play, where she rose, walked over the stage, took out her mobile and called the police. I figured the control group possessed included various aspects of performance which were designed to make the action more interesting to the audience, and add the component of surprise, but were not made to look or feel sensible. They had put in only half an hour mind-mapping their decisions, and talked about their other decisions while in physical form rehearsing.
The Stanislavski group spent an hour. 5 developing their characters, and another hour developing their storyline, so they were left with four A3 sheets of paper detailing their entire performance. They used only 1 location, the teenager's bedroom, so that there was never a collection change needed, because it would interrupt the storyline and distract the audience. The group's monologues were sent to a person, instead of the audience, so the barrier between your audience and the character types stayed strong. Had the actors been speaking with the audience, their speeches would have seemed less genuine.
After five time of rehearsal, it was time for the ultimate performances. Each actor had been asked to ask some family members or friends, and associates of the theater came along to get involved too. Each audience also included the stars from the other group, making the ultimate audience amount 19 participants. I observed the shows, but didn't participate in the questionnaire, as I would have been biased toward the Stanislavski group. I released the bits, and talked about the task the actors acquired undertaken over the day. The audience weren't informed which group was the control group, and which group was the Stanislavski group, until both performances had finished, meaning that they couldn't be biased in favour of Stanislavski either. I also asked these to be of an open mind, rather than answer the questionnaire towards the production their child was associated with, informing them these were judging my direction, not the individual actor's expertise. The audience observed the control group first, and received time to complete their questionnaires while we set up the stage for the Stanislavski group. After both performances had finished, I thanked everyone when planning on taking part and gathered in the questionnaires.
Having extrapolated my results, it became obvious that there was a general sense that the Stanislavski creation was more believable. When asked "was the main story believable", 66% of the audience thought that the control group's part was "a dramatised and exaggerated version of true to life", while 95% thought that the Stanislavski group's piece "could credibly happen in true to life". Having performed thoroughly with the pregnant identity from the Stanislavski group, I had been satisfied that 42% of the audience thought that she portrayed the motherhood flawlessly, while an additional 42% thought that she portrayed it very well, while in the control group, these percentages merged only reached 44%. I asked the audience to rate how believable they felt the overall shows were, and 56% scored the control group's performance at an 8/10 or higher, while 94% scored the Stanislavski performance at an 8/10 or more. Overall, it is noticeable that the Stanislavski group's performance was more extensively believed.
It is important to notice that the potency of the performances given might not be entirely right down to the techniques of rehearsal used. Although I attempted to help make the experiment as good as is feasible by attempting to make the rehearsal methods the one changing, other extraneous variables may experienced an impact on the ultimate results. For example, since there were fewer members than planned, I had formed to shuffle the communities a little. This intended that the control group experienced two of the younger people in their piece, as the Stanislavski group had four older associates. The younger users of the theatre are less experienced and therefore don't have as many creative ideas to bring to the combination. Additionally it is apparent that almost 50 percent of the audience were family of younger actors, and therefore they are prone to vote towards their child's piece because they are happy to see them on stage. Although I asked the audience to keep an open mind, they could have been bias towards their family or friends, and this is a factor that could have affected the ultimate results.
At the start of my project, I asked myself "What is Stanislavski's Method of acting, and what lengths has it affected modern day performance?" Having carried out a considerable amout of research on Stanislavski and his methods, it became easier for me personally to determine them, also to easily identify the difference between his teachings, and those of other professionals. I found that Stanislavski's approach to acting is largely based across the actor's own interpretation of the character, aiming to keep the emotion real. I found that Stanislavski sought the audience to hook up with both storyline and the character types, and he achieved this interconnection by keeping th acting real, thus allowing the audience to hook up empathetically. Having created an experiment to see whether Stanislavski do indeed influence modern day performance, I found that the audience were effected by the group which used the Stanislavskian rehearsal techniques, so much so that one individual wrote on underneath of the questionnaire that their performance "actually helped bring tears to my eyes". While researching, I came across a website [9] where Jeni Whittaker (1999) argues that "Stanislavski is rightly called the 'daddy of modern theatre', his System of acting became the backbone of twentieth century theatre craft. Almost all other professionals use him as a starting place, either to create from or to behave against". This substantiates my primary hypothesis that Stanislavski has a major influence on modern day theatre. In conclusion, Personally i think that Stanislavski has an extended affect on present day theatre. Viewers of today wish not to be challenged or alienated, but to see characters they can relate to on the level, and nearly all theatre today employs this teaching, whether the director realises he's adhering to Stanislavski's theory or otherwise. Furthermore, when viewing two similar bits of theatre, it became evident that the audience tend to be more drawn towards that which used Stanislavski's rehearsal techniques because the character types and storyline were portrayed in a true alive manner. I found that Stanislavski is not only used in theatre, as many famous screen celebrities choose his methods when getting into character. Personally i think that the world is subjected to Stanislavski's teachings more than it realises, and therefore the effect of Stanislavski on modern day performing is significantly higher than I believed when I began the job.
References:
- Source unidentified, Stanislavski.
- Brecht (1949). 'A Short Organum for the Theatre', paragraph 55.
- Encyclopdia Britannica (2010). 'Stanislavsky method'. Encyclopdia Britannica Online; Retrieved February 22, 2010, from: http://www. britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/563178/Stanislavsky-method
- Source anonymous, Stanislavski.
- Stanislavski (1937). 'An Actor Prepares', (reprinted 1988) UK: Methuen Theatre LTD.
- Harry Governick for TheatrGROUP. (1992). An Interview with Shelly Winters; Retrieved Feb 22, 2010, from http://www. theatrgroup. com/Shelley
- Peter Oyston, 'How to make use of the Stanislavski System' Dvd movie(2004). Retrieved (via YouTube) April 12, 2010, from http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=zmhggaEuJj8
- Shakespeare (1973). 'Romeo and Juliet', from 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare- The Alexander Word'. London and Glasgow: Collins.
- Jeni Whittaker for DramaWorks. 'Stanislavski through Practice' (1999) Retrieved Apr 13, 2010, from http://www. dramaworks. co. uk/stanislavski. html
