Stanislavski's system

Stanislavski's system is a systematic approach to training actors that the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski developed in the first half of the 20th century. Stanislavski was the first in the West to propose that actor training should involve something more than merely physical and vocal training. His system cultivates what he calls the 'art of experiencing' (with which he contrasts the 'art of representation'). It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a 'task'). Later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the 'Method of Physical Action'. Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an 'active analysis', in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised. 'The best analysis of a play', Stanislavski argued, 'is to take action in the given circumstances.' Thanks to its promotion and development by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of Stanislavski's theoretical writings, his system acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed a reach, dominating debates about acting in the West. Stanislavski’s ideas have become accepted as common sense so that actors may use them without knowing that they do. Many actors routinely equate his system with the American Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast sharply with the multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach of the 'system', 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. In response to his characterisation work on Argan in Molière's The Imaginary Invalid in 1913, Stanislavski concluded 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.' In fact Stanislavski found that many of his students who were 'method acting' were having many mental problems, and instead encouraged his students to shake off the character after rehearsing. Throughout his career, Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a rigorous process of artistic self-analysis and reflection. 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. Having worked as an amateur actor and director until the age of 33, in 1898 Stanislavski co-founded with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) and began his professional career. The two of them were resolved to institute a revolution in the staging practices of the time. Benedetti offers a vivid portrait of the poor quality of mainstream theatrical practice in Russia before the MAT: Stanislavski's early productions were created without the use of his system. His first international successes were staged using an external, director-centred technique that strove for an organic unity of all its elements—in each production he planned the interpretation of every role, blocking, and the mise en scène in detail in advance. He also introduced into the production process a period of discussion and detailed analysis of the play by the cast. Despite the success that this approach brought, particularly with his Naturalistic stagings of the plays of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky, Stanislavski remained dissatisfied. Both his struggles with Chekhov's drama (out of which his notion of subtext emerged) and his experiments with Symbolism encouraged a greater attention to 'inner action' and a more intensive investigation of the actor's process. He began to develop the more actor-centred techniques of 'psychological realism' and his focus shifted from his productions to rehearsal process and pedagogy. He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training and to experiment with new forms of theatre.