Stanislavski, Konstantin

Stanislavski, Konstantin (1863-1938), Russian actor, director, and author of An Actor Prepares (1936) and Building a Character (published posthumously in 1948). Stanislavski created a performance technique that had an enormous effect on contemporary American acting, and he developed a system of actor training that became widely accepted throughout the world. Acknowledged as the most influential personality of Russian theatre, Stanislavski co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT), which was regarded as one of the world's outstanding theatre companies.

Stanislavski was born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev in Moscow. The son of a wealthy manufacturer, Stanislavski was granted much financial backing for his amateur theatrical ventures. In 1897 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko joined with Stanislavski to create the MAT, Russia's first completely ensemble, professional theatre. Supported by private patronage and general subscription, the MAT offered a yearly season of high-quality drama. The MAT's first project, Czar Fyodor (1898), resembled other historically-based productions of the time. The MAT's second staging signalled a change in Stanislavski's approach to directing. Nemirovich-Danchenko secured the rights to The Seagull (produced in 1898), a contemporary play about Russia's intelligentsia written by Anton Chekhov. Stanislavski transformed the simple stage directions into a carnival of tiny details and moody effects. The performance was stretched out with long pauses and gloomy stares. These concentrated activities drew the audience deeply into Chekhov's invisible universe of frustration and regret. The secret desires and monotony of daily life were exposed in the truthful emotions and actions of the performers. Stanislavski called this effect “psychological realism”.

From 1907 until his death, Stanislavski devoted himself to developing a revolutionary system of actor training. His productions were mostly experiments in this process. He quickly applied what he learned to mainstage work. Stanislavski discovered that actors who recalled their own feelings and experiences and substituted them for those of their characters were able to achieve a special link with the audience. This difficult mental technique allowed performers to repeat their scenic work without having to rely on repeated inspiration. The superficial reality or truthfulness of the script became immaterial to the emotional reality of the actor.

In the period after the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stanislavski explored the possibilities of a totally improvised theatre. He subsequently attempted to give performers the artistic means of breaking down a text according to the motivations of the character and beliefs of the playwright. This was traditionally under the control of the director. At the end of his life, however, Stanislavski experimented with a formula that once again gave the director total intellectual control over the rehearsal process. He called this “the theory of physical action”.

See also Theatre Production; Drama and Dramatic Arts; Stanislavski Method.