Konstantin Stanislavsky

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Stanislavsky, Konstantin (1863–1938), director, actor, and author. The famous Russian theorist, who co‐founded the Moscow Art Theatre, promoted theories of realistic, psychologically probing acting that discarded the seemingly artificial conventions of the past. He came to the United States in 1923 with his company and offered a superb example of his theory put to practice, as well as giving interviews that shed further light on his ideas. Also, Stanislavsky's books were soon translated into English and widely read in America. The acting of several ensembles in the 1930s, such as the Group Theatre and the later “Method” technique advocated by Lee Strasberg, were clearly and often admittedly influenced by Stanislavsky's theories. Frequently overlooked was the fact that Stanislavsky rose to prominence just as sophisticated electric lighting was making stages brighter and thus minimizing the need for the heavy makeup and exaggerated gestures that had prevailed until then. For better or worse, most modern acting and directing are descended from Stanislavsky. Autobiography: My Life in Art, translated by J. J. Robbins, 1924.

The Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) originated a system of acting. He was a cofounder of the Moscow Art Theater, where his productions achieved the zenith in 20th-century naturalism.

Constantin Stanislavsky was born Constantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev on Jan. 18, 1863, in Moscow. He was the son of a rich industrialist. His stage name, Stanislavsky, was taken from an actor whom he met in amateur theatricals. Stanislavsky's excellent classical education included singing, ballet, and acting lessons as well as regular visits to the opera and theater. By the age of 14 he was acting in performances at the family estate, where his father had built a theater. After completing his formal education, Stanislavsky entered the family business, enthusiastically devoting himself at the same time to a career in semiprofessional theater. Beginning in 1888 he directed and acted in performances for the Society of Art and Literature, which he had founded, and he continued these productions until 1897 under the sponsorship of the Hunting Club.

On June 22, 1897, Stanislavsky 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. Although the opening production in October 1898 of Alexey Tolstoy's Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich was a tremendous popular success because of its realism, it was with Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in December that Stanislavsky discovered a play ideally suited to his artistic aspirations and naturalistic methods. In the next 2 decades the Moscow Art Theater attained international recognition with productions widely ranging in style: Maxim Gorky's sociopolitical 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 Stanislavsky worked out his theories by exploring the most difficult problems of acting with his company. An indication of the success of his system was the emergence from his training methods of all the best Russian actors of the early 20th century. 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." Stanislavsky 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 must never lose control of his creation and must have the technical discipline to repeat his previously experienced emotions at every performance. The actor's interpretations must be unified in the same way that the central idea of the play was realized through the unity of direction, acting, and production design. 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, came to be known in the United States as the "Method."

Opposed to the acrobatics and constructivism of avant-garde directors, Stanislavsky continued to present his prewar repertory for 5 years after the 1917 Revolution, and then he traveled with his company in western Europe and the United States from August 1922 to September 1924.

My Life in Art, the only book by Stanislavsky to be published in the Soviet Union during his lifetime, appeared in 1924. In response to criticisms that he had never staged contemporary Communist plays, Stanislavsky directed several dramas of revolutionary significance. Even so, he was attacked by proletarian critics for catering to "progressive bourgeois" audiences. Determined to maintain his integrity and the high standards of production upon which the Moscow Art Theater was founded, he resisted pressures to force his company to perform plays unworthy of its distinguished tradition. Fortunately for Stanislavsky, by the 1930s Communist theoreticians had elected to explain his system in terms of dialectical materialism. The Moscow Art Theater was venerated as the fountainhead of "social realism," and Stanislavsky occupied once again a central position in the Russian theater. During his last years he concentrated on giving the final touches to his writings. Stanislavsky died in Moscow on Aug. 7, 1938.

Further Reading

Stanislavsky's writings include My Life in Art, translated by J. J. Robbins (1924); and An Actor Prepares (1936; rev. ed. 1956), Building a Character (1949), Stanislavsky's Legacy (1958; rev. ed. 1968), and Creating a Role (1961), all translated by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. The standard biography is David Magarshack, Stanislavsky: A Life (1950). Discussions of the system are in Robert Lewis, Method - or Madness (1958); Christine Edwards, The Stanislavsky Heritage (1965); and Sonia Moore, The Stanislavski System (1965).

Additional Sources

Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: a biography, New York, NY:Routledge, 1990.

Jones, David Richard, Great directors at work: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Kazan, Brook, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Magarshack, David, Stanislavsky: a life, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1986.

(1863 - 1938), actor, director, acting teacher.

The first creator of a comprehensive guide to actor training, Stanislavsky emerged as one of the most influential theater personalities of the twentieth century. His work continues to shape theatrical discourse into the twenty-first century.

Born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev to the wealthy Alexeyevs, he first performed in a fully equipped home theater outside Moscow. Because of his social class, he limited his theatrical ambitions to the amateur sphere. In 1888 he founded The Society of Art and Literature, a critically acclaimed theater club, where he established himself as an outstanding actor and emerging director. As his talents became known, he adopted "Stanislavsky" (1884) to protect his family name. In 1897 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, playwright and head of the only acting school in Moscow, invited Stanislavsky to cofound The Moscow Art Theater (MAT) as a professional venture. The two agreed to produce plays of contemporary import, bring European stage realism to Russia, and ensure that the work of directors, designers, and actors would embrace unified dramatic visions. The theater opened with an historically researched production of Alexei Tolstoy's Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1898). Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (1898) secured the company's fame. Stanislavsky directed and acted in productions such as premieres of Chekhov's plays (1898 - 1904), Henrick Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1902), and Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths (1902).

In 1906 Stanislavsky lost inspiration as an actor and retreated to Finland in despair. The crisis induced his passionate desire to systematize acting. He devoted the rest of his life to collecting, developing, and teaching ways to control inspiration. His "System" went through continuous evolution incorporating the experience of great actors, behaviorist psychology, yoga, and other sources that illuminate the creative process. Stanislavsky's experimental stance caused friction, which ignited in 1909 when he applied his ideas to Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Nemirovich's hostility prompted Stanislavsky to transfer his experiments into a series of studios, adjunct to the main company, even as he continued to act and direct at MAT. The First Studio, founded in 1911, became his most famous laboratory, because it laid the System's foundation.

With the Bolshevik revolution, Stanislavsky and MAT were reduced to poverty. From 1922 to 1924, Stanislavsky toured Europe and the United States with the company's earliest and most famous productions in an effort to recoup financial stability. During this period, he also began to write, publishing My Life in Art in 1924. This period guaranteed his international influence.

Upon returning to Moscow, Stanislavsky faced growing Soviet control over the arts. His connections with the West and his production of Mikhail Bulgakov's play about White Russians, The Days of the Turbins (1926), came under attack. From 1934 to 1938, during the Soviet purges, Stanislavsky was weakened by an enlarged heart and confined to his home. Stalin simultaneously canonized the director's realistic work as the vanguard of Socialist Realism. Isolated from the wider world, Stanislavsky continued to write, teach, and develop his ideas in his home until his death in 1938 of a heart attack.

Bibliography

Benedetti, Jean. (1990). Stanislavski: A Biography. New York: Routledge.

Carnicke, Sharon Marie. (1998). Stanislavsky in Focus. London: Harwood/Routledge.

Smeliansky, Anatoly. (1991). "The Last Decade: Stanislavsky and Stalinism." Theatre 12(2):7 - 13.

—SHARON MARIE CARNICKE