Constantine Stanislavsky

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (; Russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, IPA: [kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj]; né Alekseyev; 17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian and Soviet theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor, and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his "system" of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.

Stanislavski (his stage name) performed and directed as an amateur until the age of 33, when he co-founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) company with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, following a legendary 18-hour discussion. Its influential tours of Europe (1906) and the US (1923–24), and its landmark productions of The Seagull (1898) and Hamlet (1911–12), established his reputation and opened new possibilities for the art of the theatre. By means of the MAT, Stanislavski was instrumental in promoting the new Russian drama of his day—principally the work of Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, and Mikhail Bulgakov—to audiences in Moscow and around the world; he also staged acclaimed productions of a wide range of classical Russian and European plays.

He collaborated with the director and designer Edward Gordon Craig and was formative in the development of several other major practitioners, including Vsevolod Meyerhold (whom Stanislavski considered his "sole heir in the theatre"), Yevgeny Vakhtangov, and Michael Chekhov. At the MAT's 30th anniversary celebrations in 1928, a massive heart attack on-stage put an end to his acting career (though he waited until the curtain fell before seeking medical assistance). He continued to direct, teach, and write about acting until his death a few weeks before the publication of the first volume of his life's great work, the acting manual An Actor's Work (1938). He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of Lenin and was the first to be granted the title of People's Artist of the USSR.

Stanislavski wrote that "there is nothing more tedious than an actor's biography" and that "actors should be banned from talking about themselves". At the request of a US publisher, however, he reluctantly agreed to write his autobiography, My Life in Art (first published in English in 1924 and a revised, Russian-language edition in 1926), though its account of his artistic development is not always accurate. Three English-language biographies have been published: David Magarshack's Stanislavsky: A Life (1950); Jean Benedetti's Stanislavski: His Life and Art (1988, revised and expanded 1999). and Nikolai M Gorchakov's "Stanislavsky Directs" (1954). An out-of-print English translation of Elena Poliakova's 1977 Russian biography of Stanislavski was also published in 1982.

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. He produced his early work 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. Stanislavski organised his techniques into a coherent, systematic methodology, which built on three major strands of influence: (1) the director-centred, unified aesthetic and disciplined, ensemble approach of the Meiningen company; (2) the actor-centred realism of the Maly; and (3) the Naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement.

The system cultivates what Stanislavski calls the "art of experiencing" (to which he contrasts the "art of representation"). It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will 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"). Stanislavski's earliest reference to his system appears in 1909, the same year that he first incorporated it into his rehearsal process. The MAT adopted it as its official rehearsal method in 1911.

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 is improvised. "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the given circumstances."

Just as the First Studio, led by his assistant and close friend Leopold Sulerzhitsky, had provided the forum in which he developed his initial ideas for the system during the 1910s, he hoped to secure his final legacy by opening another studio in 1935, in which the Method of Physical Action would be taught. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises described in his manuals. Meanwhile, the transmission of his earlier work via the students of the First Studio was revolutionising acting in the West. With the arrival of Socialist realism in the USSR, the MAT and Stanislavski's system were enthroned as exemplary models.

Stanislavski had a privileged youth, growing up in one of the richest families in Russia, the Alekseyevs. He was born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev—he adopted the stage name "Stanislavski" in 1884 to keep his performance activities secret from his parents. Up until the communist revolution in 1917, Stanislavski often used his inherited wealth to fund his experiments in acting and directing. His family's discouragement meant that he appeared only as an amateur until he was thirty three.

As a child, Stanislavski was interested in the circus, the ballet, and puppetry. Later, his family's two private theatres provided a forum for his theatrical impulses. After his debut performance at one in 1877, he started what would become a lifelong series of notebooks filled with critical observations on his acting, aphorisms, and problems—it was from this habit of self-analysis and critique that Stanislavski's system later emerged. Stanislavski chose not to attend university, preferring to work in the family business.

By now well known as an amateur actor, at the age of twenty-five, Stanslavski co-founded a Society of Art and Literature. Under its auspices, he performed in plays by Molière, Schiller, Pushkin, and Ostrovsky, as well as gaining his first experiences as a director. He became interested in the aesthetic theories of Vissarion Belinsky, from whom he took his conception of the role of the artist.

On 5 July [O.S. 23 June] 1889, Stanislavski married Maria Lilina (the stage name of Maria Petrovna Perevostchikova). Their first child, Xenia, died of pneumonia in May 1890, less than two months after she was born. Their second daughter, Kira, was born on 2 August [O.S. 21 July] 1891. In January 1893, Stanislavski's father died. Their son Igor was born on 26 September [O.S. 14 September] 1894.

In February 1891, Stanislavski directed Leo Tolstoy's The Fruits of Enlightenment for the Society of Art and Literature, in what he later described as his first fully independent directorial work. But it was not until 1893 he first met the great realist novelist and playwright that became another important influence on him. Five years later, the MAT would be his response to Tolstoy's demand for simplicity, directness, and accessibility in art.

Stanislavski's directorial methods at this time were closely modelled on the disciplined, autocratic approach of Ludwig Chronegk, the director of the Meiningen Ensemble. In My Life in Art (1924), Stanislavski described this approach as one in which the director is "forced to work without the help of the actor". From 1894 onward, Stanislavski began to assemble detailed prompt-books that included a directorial commentary on the entire play and from which not even the smallest detail was allowed to deviate.

Whereas the Ensemble's effects tended toward the grandiose, Stanislavski introduced lyrical elaborations through the mise-en-scène that dramatised more mundane and ordinary elements of life, in keeping with Belinsky's ideas about the "poetry of the real". Using his rigid and detailed control of all theatrical elements, including the strict choreography of the actors' every gesture, in Stanislavski's words "the inner kernel of the play was revealed by itself". Analysing the Society's production of Othello (1896), Jean Benedetti observes that:

Stanislavski's historic meeting with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko on 4 July [O.S. 22 June] 1897 led to the creation of what was called initially the "Moscow Public-Accessible Theatre", but which came to be known as the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). Their eighteen-hour-long discussion has acquired a legendary status in the history of theatre.

Nemirovich was a successful playwright, critic, theatre director, and acting teacher at the Philharmonic School who, like Stanislavski, was committed to the idea of a popular theatre. Their abilities complemented one another: Stanislavski brought his directorial talent for creating vivid stage images and selecting significant details; Nemirovich, his talent for dramatic and literary analysis, his professional expertise, and his ability to manage a theatre. Stanislavski later compared their discussions to the Treaty of Versailles, their scope was so wide-ranging; they agreed on the conventional practices they wished to abandon and, on the basis of the working method they found they had in common, defined the policy of their new theatre.

Stanislavski and Nemirovich planned a professional company with an ensemble ethos that discouraged individual vanity; they would create a realistic theatre of international renown, with popular prices for seats, whose organically unified aesthetic would bring together the techniques of the Meiningen Ensemble and those of André Antoine's Théâtre Libre (which Stanislavski had seen during trips to Paris). Nemirovich assumed that Stanislavski would fund the theatre as a privately owned business, but Stanislavski insisted on a limited, joint stock company. Viktor Simov, whom Stanislavski had met in 1896, was engaged as the company's principal designer.

In his opening speech on the first day of rehearsals, 26 June [O.S. 14 June] 1898, Stanislavski stressed the "social character" of their collective undertaking. In an atmosphere more like a university than a theatre, as Stanislavski described it, the company was introduced to his working method of extensive reading and research and detailed rehearsals in which the action was defined at the table before being explored physically. Stanislavski's lifelong relationship with Vsevolod Meyerhold began during these rehearsals; by the end of June, Meyerhold was so impressed with Stanislavski's directorial skills that he declared him a genius.

The lasting significance of Stanislavski's early work at the MAT lies in its development of a Naturalistic performance mode. In 1898, Stanislavski co-directed with Nemirovich the first of his productions of the work of Anton Chekhov. The MAT production of The Seagull was a crucial milestone for the fledgling company that has been described as "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama." Despite its 80 hours of rehearsal—a considerable length by the standards of the conventional practice of the day—Stanislavski felt it was under-rehearsed. The production's success was due to the fidelity of its delicate representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the time.

Stanislavski went on to direct the successful premières of Chekhov's other major plays: Uncle Vanya in 1899 (in which he played Astrov), Three Sisters in 1901 (playing Vershinin), and The Cherry Orchard in 1904 (playing Gaev). Stanislavski's encounter with Chekhov's drama proved crucial to the creative development of both men. His ensemble approach and attention to the psychological realities of its characters revived Chekhov's interest in writing for the stage, while Chekhov's unwillingness to explain or expand on the text forced Stanislavski to dig beneath its surface in ways that were new in theatre.

In response to Stanislavski's encouragement, Maxim Gorky promised to launch his playwrighting career with the MAT. In 1902, Stanislavski directed the première productions of the first two of Gorky's plays, The Philistines and The Lower Depths. As part of the rehearsal preparations for the latter, Stanislavski took the company to visit Khitrov Market, where they talked to its down-and-outs and soaked up its atmosphere of destitution. Stanislavski based his characterisation of Satin on an ex-officer he met there, who had fallen into poverty through gambling. The Lower Depths was a triumph that matched the production of The Seagull four years earlier, though Stanislavski regarded his performance as external and mechanical.

The productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Lower Depths remained in the MAT's repertoire for decades. Along with Chekhov and Gorky, the drama of Henrik Ibsen formed an important part of Stanislavski's work at this time—in its first two decades, the MAT staged more plays by Ibsen than any other playwright. In its first decade, Stanislavski directed Hedda Gabler (in which he played Løvborg), An Enemy of the People (playing Dr Stockmann, his favorite role), The Wild Duck, and Ghosts. "More's the pity I was not a Scandinavian and never saw how Ibsen was played in Scandinavia," Stanislavski wrote, because "those who have been there tell me that he is interpreted as simply, as true to life, as we play Chekhov". He also staged other important Naturalistic works, including Gerhart Hauptmann's Drayman Henschel, Lonely People, and Michael Kramer and Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness.

In 1904, Stanislavski finally acted on a suggestion made by Chekhov two years earlier that he stage several one-act plays by Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian Symbolist. Despite his enthusiasm, however, Stanislavski struggled to realise a theatrical approach to the static, lyrical dramas. When the triple bill consisting of The Blind, Intruder, and Interior opened on 15 October [O.S. 2 October] 1904, the experiment was deemed a failure.

Meyerhold, prompted by Stanislavski's positive response to his new ideas about Symbolist theatre, proposed that they form a "theatre studio" (a term which he invented) that would function as "a laboratory for the experiments of more or less experienced actors." The Theatre-Studio aimed to develop Meyerhold's aesthetic ideas into new theatrical forms that would return the MAT to the forefront of the avant-garde and Stanislavski's socially conscious ideas for a network of "people's theatres" that would reform Russian theatrical culture as a whole. Central to Meyerhold's approach was the use of improvisation to develop the performances.

When the studio presented a work-in-progress, Stanislavski was encouraged; when performed in a fully equipped theatre in Moscow, however, it was regarded as a failure, and the studio folded. Meyerhold drew an important lesson: "one must first educate a new actor and only then put new tasks before him", he wrote, adding that "Stanislavski, too, came to such a conclusion." Reflecting in 1908 on the Theatre-Studio's demise, Stanislavski wrote that "our theatre found its future among its ruins." Nemirovich disapproved of what he described as the malign influence of Meyerhold on Stanislavski's work at this time.

Stanislavski engaged two important new collaborators in 1905: Liubov Gurevich became his literary advisor, and Leopold Sulerzhitsky became his personal assistant. Stanislavski revised his interpretation of the role of Trigorin (and Meyerhold reprised his role as Konstantin) when the MAT revived its production of Chekhov's The Seagull on 13 October [O.S. 30 September] 1905.

This was the year of the abortive revolution in Russia. Stanislavski signed a protest against the violence of the secret police, Cossack troops, and the right-wing extremist paramilitary "Black Hundreds", which was submitted to the Duma on the 3 November [O.S. 21 October] 1905. Rehearsals for the MAT's production of Alexander Griboyedov's classic verse comedy Woe from Wit were interrupted by gun-battles on the streets outside. Stanislavski and Nemirovich closed the theatre and embarked on the company's first tour outside of Russia.

The MAT's first European tour began on 23 February [O.S. 10 February] 1906 in Berlin, where they played to an audience that included Max Reinhardt, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arthur Schnitzler, and Eleonora Duse. "It's as though we were the revelation", Stanislavski wrote of the rapturous acclaim they received. The success of the tour provided financial security for the company, garnered an international reputation for their work, and made a significant impact on European theatre. The tour also provoked a major artistic crisis for Stanislavski that had a significant impact on his future direction. From his attempts to resolve this crisis, his system would eventually emerge.

Sometime in March 1906, Jean Benedetti suggests that it was during An Enemy of the People—Stanislavski became aware that he was acting without a flow of inner impulses and feelings and that as a consequence his performance had become mechanical. He spent June and July in Finland on holiday, where he studied, wrote, and reflected. With his notebooks on his own experience from 1889 onwards, he attempted to analyze "the foundation stones of our art" and the actor's creative process in particular. He began to formulate a psychological approach to controlling the actor's process in a Manual on Dramatic Art.