Stanislavski
The Russian Revolution
Constantine Stanislavski is considered the most important person in the history of acting and the father of modern acting. He was born in Moscow to a wealthy family and started acting at a young age in small family theaters.
At that time, an actor’s playing was considered excellent if he did not use his original voice, if he declaimed his lines in an artificial manner, if he accompanied each word a gesture.
At first, Stanislavski wasn’t satisfied with his acting as all he did was imitate his favorite actors. He then started a search of excellence that would occupy the rest of his life. He wanted to be able to “play truthfully” and not to be just a copy of his teachers. The great question remained: “How does one combine the need to pretend, with the need to expression something true?”
He then created with playwright and teacher Danchenko the Moscow Art Theater, the most important and influential theater of the twentieth century. They implemented more rigorous discipline and added originality and realism to the plays. Sets were more realistic, offstage sounds were used to create atmosphere. Yet Stanislavski felt dead on stage, that he acted mechanically, so he left the MAT and started a journey to find to find “the inner truth”.
Years or struggle and searching will lead to the Stanislavski’s System: techniques used to make actors draw believable emotions to their performances.
The main components of the system are: Relaxation, concentration, given circumstances and action.
The three pillars of an actor’s inner landscape are mind, will and emotion. If an actor’s mind, will and feelings are all engaged, he will become alive.
Concentration: actors must be trained to force their attention onto the stage and its reality instead on focusing on the audience or their nervousness. Actors must have an object of attention when being and stage and focus solely on this object (which can be another actor too). When an actor looses
Constantine Stanislavski is considered the most important person in the history of acting and the father of modern acting. He was born in Moscow to a wealthy family and started acting at a young age in small family theaters.
At that time, an actor’s playing was considered excellent if he did not use his original voice, if he declaimed his lines in an artificial manner, if he accompanied each word a gesture.
At first, Stanislavski wasn’t satisfied with his acting as all he did was imitate his favorite actors. He then started a search of excellence that would occupy the rest of his life. He wanted to be able to “play truthfully” and not to be just a copy of his teachers. The great question remained: “How does one combine the need to pretend, with the need to expression something true?”
He then created with playwright and teacher Danchenko the Moscow Art Theater, the most important and influential theater of the twentieth century. They implemented more rigorous discipline and added originality and realism to the plays. Sets were more realistic, offstage sounds were used to create atmosphere. Yet Stanislavski felt dead on stage, that he acted mechanically, so he left the MAT and started a journey to find to find “the inner truth”.
Years or struggle and searching will lead to the Stanislavski’s System: techniques used to make actors draw believable emotions to their performances.
The main components of the system are: Relaxation, concentration, given circumstances and action.
The three pillars of an actor’s inner landscape are mind, will and emotion. If an actor’s mind, will and feelings are all engaged, he will become alive.
Concentration: actors must be trained to force their attention onto the stage and its reality instead on focusing on the audience or their nervousness. Actors must have an object of attention when being and stage and focus solely on this object (which can be another actor too). When an actor looses