Stanislavski
Constantin Stanislavski was born on January 17th 1863, in Moscow.
Stanislavski
evolved his own system of preparing plays which resulted in
remarkable ensemble
acting. After he finished school, Stanislavski did not
like the melodramatic
style of acting which was popular in Russia, and
throughout the rest of the
world. Stanislavski met with a successful
playwright and teacher of theatre,
called Vladimir Nemitovich - Danchenko to
discuss ways of changing Russian
theatre. They met on 22 June 1897. After
this meeting they formed the Moscow Art
Theatre, which was established
with the aim of finding new truth and realism in
theatre. In 1906 he began to
develop a system for training actors. He was also
working as an actor and a
director at this time. In 1913 he set up an
experimental theatre designed to
develop acting techniques, called First Studio.
On 29th October 1928
Stanislavski had a heart attack. This forced him to give up
acting, but he
was able to concentrate on directing, teaching and writing for
the rest of
his life. This method had a scientific approach and was developed
over many
years of trial and error. It requires an actor to experience the
feeling of
living the life of another person. The basis of his approach was that
actors
must believe everything that was happening on stage. Stanislavski made
this
possible by teaching actors to recall their own feelings and
experiences.
It aims first at getting the actor to arouse the emotions
they have felt in the
past. This can then be transformed into the character
they are portraying.
Observation was another important aspect of
Stanislavski's teaching. He thought
it helped actors to learn more about
people and their behaviour. He believed the
more an actor observed, the more
they learnt. Another very important part of
Stanislavski's teachings is a
simple question. 'What if?'. Stanislavski called
this the 'magic if'. This
technique was designed to make the actor ask 'what if
I was in this
situation'. If the actor feels this is real, it automatically
becomes
realistic for the audience, and this was Stanislavski's aim.
Stanislavski
aimed to produce dramatic characterisations of great realism and
psycological
truth. He demanded a lot from his students, such as intelligence,
complete
self discipline, perfect control over voice, diction, physical movement
and
the ability to experience a whole range of human emotions from his
actors.
He expected actors to analyse completely their characters so they
could
understand why they behaved the way they did. He instructed all his
actors to
analyse themselves as well as the characters. Stanislavski
developed a style of
realism which still influences plays and actors all over
the world.