Constantin stanislavski

During the 1950s the Actors Studio in New York City became well known in theater circles for teaching method acting. The work of the school - under the guidance of Lee Strasberg from 1948 to 1982 - was an extension of the teachings of the outstanding Russian director, actor, and producer, Constantin Stanislavski. What distinguished his method from other schools of acting was the insistence that the actors identify with a role by becoming totally involved in the inner life of the character. His severest criticism directed at an actor's performance was “I do not believe you”.

Constantin Stanislavski was born Constantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev in Moscow on January 18, 1863. He was the son of a rich industrialist. His stage name, Stanislavski, was taken from an actor whom he met in amateur theatricals. Stanislavski’s excellent classical education included singing, ballet, and acting lessons as well as regular visits to the opera and theatre. He made his first stage appearance at the age of seven in a series of tableaux vivants organized by his governess to celebrate his mother’s name day.

But his real debut as an actor was made in September 1877 when he was 14. Four one-act plays were staged and as a result of that evening an amateur group, the Alexeyev Circle, was formed, consisting of Stanislavski’s brothers and sisters, cousins and one or two friends. After completing his formal education, Stanislavski entered the family business, enthusiastically devoting himself at the same time to a career in semiprofessional theater. In 1888 he established the Society of Art and Literature as an amateur company. He directed and acted in performances for the company.

On June 22, 1897, Stanislavski met Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, a successful playwright and teacher in the Moscow Philharmonic Society School, at a Moscow restaurant in order to discuss the reform of the Russian stage. Out of their 18-hour meeting came the establishment of the Moscow Art Theater as a protest against the artificial theatrical conventions of the late 19th century. The opening production in October 1898 of Alexey Tolstoy’s Tsar Fyodor Ioanovich was a tremendous popular success because of its realism. But Stanislavsky thought that only with the production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull he discovered a play ideally suited to his artistic aspirations and realistic methods. A successful staging of The Seagull inspired the playwright to create Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard especially for the theater. Stanislavski himself acted leading roles in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard. In the next 2 decades the Moscow Art Theater attained international recognition with productions widely ranging in style: Maxim Gorky’s drama The Lower Depths (1902), Leonid Andreyev’s symbolic The Life of Man (1907), Maurice Maeterlinck’s enchanting fairy tale The Blue Bird (1908), and Hamlet with settings by Gordon Craig (1911).

During this period Stanislavski worked out his theories by exploring the most difficult problems of acting with his company. Rehearsals, which often resembled acting classes, began with discussions of the “super-objective” and the “through action” of the play, and at the same time the actor examined the previous history of his character, the “pre-text”.

Stanislavski believed that, through study of the play, analysis of the role, and recall of previous emotions, the actor could arrive at the “inner truth” of a part by actually experiencing the emotions he conveyed to the audience. Furthermore, the actor didn’t have to lose control of his creation and had to have the technical discipline to repeat his previously experienced emotions at every performance. This training, which aimed at stimulating the artistic intelligence of the actor, developing his inner discipline, and providing perfect control of such external means as voice, diction, and physical movement, is known in the United States as the “Method”.

In 1912 Stanislavski became the acting director of the Bolshoi Opera Studio. In 1918 he established the First Studio as a school for young actors. In 1922-24 the Moscow Art Theater company toured Europe and the United States. “My Life in Art”, the only book by Stanislavski published in the Soviet Union during his lifetime, appeared in 1924. While performing on October 29, 1928, he had a heart attack. He then concentrated on directing until his death in Moscow on August 7, 1938.