The Stanislavski System Read online

  But in trying to make his actions truthful, an actor must remember that there are varieties of truth. There is uninteresting truth as well as interesting or unusual truth. In executing his actions, inner and physical, an actor must always look for the unexpected and the true at the same time. His actions must be free from unattractive details. They must be real but in good taste. Actions will be impressive if they are unusual, different. To find such unusual forms of truth, an actor must see and watch, absorbing all possible impressions.

  Improvisations (see instructions on pages 22–24)

  1. Treat a chair as a vicious dog; as a throne; as a seat in a space ship.

  2. Drink a liquid as a poison; as a cocktail; as hot tea.

  3. Find a hidden object; then repeat your search after you know where it is hidden.

  4. Stab yourself with a letter opener. Treat it as if it were a dagger.

  Without objects:

  5. Put a sheet of paper into an envelope. Thread a needle. Raise a pail full of water; raise an empty pail. Put a book on a shelf.

  6. Dress for work. Take time to concentrate on building the given circumstances.

  7. Dress for a party. Do it concretely. Use consecutive details.

  8. Undress in a hospital; at home.

  Special attention must be given to the size, shape, and weight of imaginary objects. Do these exercises at home with real objects, watching carefully the movements and positions of your body, hands, fingers.

  To make those who watch you believe in what you are doing, you must achieve perfection in your actions. The exercises will teach you to do every physical action precisely, clearly, and logically.

  Communion

  To make the meaning and logic of his actions understandable to the spectators, an actor must communicate with them indirectly, through his communion with other actors. Stanislavski showed that (except in special cases, such as commedia dell’arte) when an actor has direct contact with spectators he becomes merely a reporter instead of a live character. This relationship disrupts the truth of the performance and distracts the audience from the play itself. An honest, unbroken communion between actors, on the other hand, holds the spectators’ attention and makes them part of what takes place on stage.

  The actor must be in communion with his real partner, not with an imaginary person. As our behavior in life depends on people around us, the actor’s behavior as a character is related to that of the people around him; he has different relationships with those, for instance, who are friendly and with those who are hostile. His use of the “magic if” and of his imagination will help him to develop the proper attitudes toward each of his fellow actors. The actor depends upon the onstage events—conflicts, sympathies, antipathies, and other relationships among the characters; these events happen through the efforts of the entire group.

  To be in communion with another person on stage means to be aware of that person’s presence, to make sure that he hears and understands what you tell him and that you hear and understand what he tells you. That means mutual influence. Just as in life we see images before we speak, the actor, in order to influence his audience, must see images and transmit them to his fellow actors, and through active transmission of his lines an actor will impress on his fellow actor what he wants him to see and to hear. If he knows his action and energetically communicates it to the other actor, he will be “carried away” by the experience of the character he portrays. If he communicates with determination even to a bad actor, the other will respond. An actor must absorb what other persons tell him; their words, actions, and thoughts must come to him as if he were hearing them for the first time. During a dialogue, thoughts, projects, memories, or decisions must flow through the minds of the one who talks and of the one who listens. Their reactions must be physical and psychological and should not be interrupted when another actor speaks, or during silences and pauses. If an actor, while trying to influence his partner, strives to obtain a definite physical result (for instance, a smile, a shrug of a shoulder, a movement of the spine), his aim becomes concrete; his imagination will be stirred and his attention concentrated, and he will achieve a strong communion. The gestures of the body before and after the words must project what words cannot project. Verbal action depends on physical action.

  But sometimes an actor talks to himself on stage. A monologue is a concentrated process of thinking aloud, expressing the character’s mood—his thoughts and feelings. Without offering this as a part of his System, Stanislavski described how he himself behaved in order to be in communion with himself. He made the brain and the solar plexus, which are two centers of our nerves’ life, “talk” to each other. He felt as if he had two I’s which established a steady dialogue between themselves as if they were two actors.

  To communicate with an imaginary object (for instance, the ghost of Hamlet’s father), an actor must use the “magic if,” telling himself honestly what he would do if he saw a ghost. The actor can also influence the audience through his contact with objects on stage, of which he must be properly aware.

  An actor should not practice a dialogue without another person; otherwise he can become accustomed to receiving no reaction and might have difficulty in communicating on stage with a person who does react. An actor must learn to respond to his fellow actor, for it is what happens between the characters that is important and interesting to the audience. True communion takes place when a slight change in intonation of one evokes a change in intonation in another; change in the expression of a face of one will provoke change in another. Intonation, movement, and gesture are valuable if they arise from communion with the partner.

  In mass scenes an actor may communicate with various people in the crowd. He may be in communion with one person or with all of them. Stanislavski demanded from each actor—not only the principals but even those who took part only in the mass scenes—a detailed biography of the character he was portraying. Actors without a single word to say created characters full of inner content and brought individual life to the stage.

  The actor must make sharp use of his senses in order to achieve a strong sense of communion. When an actor without any physical tension sees intensely, hears intensely, and when his body expresses the mental processes, he has a complete “grasp,” as Stanislavski called it.

  Improvisations (see instructions on pages 22–24)

  1. Two persons are sitting in an opera house listening to a performance. A person next to them finds that one of his neighbors is familiar to him. Trying to remember where he could have met this person, he disturbs the others. Think of real parties, or other places, of people you know in real life. Be aware of each other’s behavior and react to it as you would in life, in a psychophysical way.

  2. Two secret agents meet in a public place (a restaurant, an airport, etc.), and one has to hand the other an important document. There is a detective in the same place watching them. Try to pass over the document without being caught. You must attract your partner’s attention. Be sure that he understands you and that you react appropriately to his behavior.

  Evaluate your partner; make certain that you succeed in transmitting your images to him. Use your body.

  Adaptation

  An adaptation, or adjustment, is really the overcoming of a physical obstacle in achieving an aim. Once the actor has his aim in mind, and has evaluated the qualities of the person with whom he has to deal, he will think of an adaptation. To execute an action which answers “What do I do?” and “Why do I do it?” an actor will use various adaptations. An adaptation answers the question “How do I do it?” All three—“What?” “Why?” and “How?” (action, aim, and adaptation)—are parts of the scenic task. While the action and the aim may be determined beforehand, the adaptation will depend on the partner’s behavior and on other obstacles that are encountered. In life we may know beforehand what we want to ask another person and why we want to do it, but how we do it often comes unexpectedly. Adaptations must be sought in the process of
executing an action.

  Adaptation is an especially effective means of communion between actors on the stage. To adjust oneself to another, one must be well aware of that person’s presence and personality. For example: you have an important appointment at five o’clock. It is four forty-five and your employer is still dictating to you in his office. The necessity for evaluating the circumstances in relation to your employer, for inventing an ingenious reason to leave and to be on time for your appointment, requires you to find an adjustment for the situation and to overcome the obstacle to your aim.

  Actors must adjust to one another on the stage, as people in life do when they meet. A human being’s behavior depends on his relationship with people around him: this law must be the basis of every scenic action. If you talk to a stupid person, you will try to adjust to his mentality and talk in a simple way so that he can understand you. If you are with a shrewd person, you have to act cautiously and look for subtle adaptations so that he does not see through you and does not guess what you have on your mind.

  New conditions of life, a new atmosphere, a new place, the time of day or night—all require appropriate adaptation. People behave differently at night and during the day. In a foreign country one adjusts oneself to local conditions. The quality and variety of adaptation are extremely important on stage. To be interesting, an adaptation must be imaginative, in good taste, strong, and sharp.

  Contrasting and unexpected adaptations are impressive. If, according to what is happening on stage, the audience expects an actor to scream at another actor, but instead of screaming he speaks softly, the effect can be very strong. If such an idea comes to an actor during a performance because he realizes suddenly that he will accomplish more that way with the man with whom he is angry, it means that it has come intuitively, subconsciously—at a moment of inspiration. He must not, however, repeat it during his next performance without first analyzing and understanding what made him behave in such an unexpected manner. Once he finds the reason, he may use it as the stimulus to this behavior every time he performs the same role.

  Adaptations should not be transformed into an aim of intentional effect on the audience, lest the truthfulness and logic of physical actions be disturbed and the actor be led to performing tricks for the spectators’ amusement. Adaptations should be logical in terms of the play’s given circumstances. Too much preoccupation with how, before the actor knows what he is doing and why, leads to superficial adaptations.

  When an actor fulfills truthfully a logical concrete action he achieves involvement of his psychophysical apparatus, his faculties function, and his inner mechanism of emotional reactions is involved. During such a creative process he may have brilliant ideas for adaptations which will come intuitively, subconsciously. But whether the actor observes an adaptation in life which he considers characteristic of his role or receives a suggestion for one from his director, he should bring it to the stage only after he has made it his own.

  Improvisations (see instructions on pages 22–24)

  Before choosing actions, build the circumstances.

  1. You want a favor of the person you meet for lunch. Try to achieve your purpose by means which would be most effective in the case. Take your time to build all the possible circumstances in which this could happen.

  2. Your children will return home from school at any minute. You do not want them to notice the effect of tragic news on you.

  3. You meet a man you were trying to avoid because you owe him an explanation. What will you do? Everything you imagine must be logical and concrete. Use all possible adaptations to achieve your aim.

  4. Meet a person you do not know.

  5. Take leave of an important person.

  Tempo-Rhythm

  Tempo-rhythm is an important condition for concreteness and truthfulness in the execution of physical actions. During every minute of life there are tempo (speed) and rhythm (varying intensity of experience) within us as well as outside us. Every movement, every fact or event takes place in a corresponding tempo-rhythm. We go to work and come home in different tempo-rhythms. There are different tempo-rhythms inside us when we listen to music and when we listen to a fire siren. We also look at a beautiful landscape and at a traffic accident in different tempo-rhythms. Every action on stage must be executed in the tempo-rhythm required in life.

  According to physiological laws, the correct tempo-rhythm contributes to concentration and consequently keeps the actor’s attention from distracting factors. It plays an important role in mastering the logic and consecutiveness of actions.

  Tempo-rhythm must correspond to the given circumstances. An actor cannot act sluggishly when energy is necessary. The truthfulness of actions will be lost, even when they are logical, if they are too slow or too fast.

  The building of struggles in a role influences the rhythmic pattern. The rhythm changes when the objects of a struggle change, and different means are used in the struggle. Tempo-rhythm reflects the degree of inner involvement and depends on physical readiness to fulfill an action.

  There is an individual right rhythm in every person. An actor must find it for the character he portrays. It will help him to feel correct in his role, and it is as important to him to find it as it is for a director to find the right rhythm for a whole performance.

  Correct tempo-rhythm, by helping to make the action truthful, helps to stir the actor’s emotions. It creates communion and ensemble work. Rhythm is a bridge between the inner experience and its physical expression. The wrong tempo-rhythm in one actor unbalances the other actors, and the audience then does not believe in what they say or do.

  Exercises and Improvisations

  (see instructions on pages 22–24)

  1. You are having breakfast and you are late for work. Find the correct tempo-rhythm.

  2. Write a letter to a person you love and write one to a creditor. Find a correct tempo-rhythm for each.

  3. Move with music. Justify inwardly the different tempo-rhythms. Your physical state must project the psychological state.

  Emotional Memory

  Stanislavski was constantly trying to increase his knowledge of all facets of man’s inner life. He studied psychology, physiology, and aesthetics as well as historical and theoretical writing on the theater. He conferred with scientists and intellectuals in various specialized fields, and was especially interested in the works of the French psychologist Théodule-Armand Ribot (1839–1916), whose term “affective memory” he used. Later, in the 1930s, he rejected this name and replaced it with “emotional memory.”

  An experience of the actor on stage is different from an experience in life. The difference lies in the fact that the actor lives on stage as the character and also as the actor who creates the character. The experiences of the actor-character influence one another and acquire a specific quality. The actor’s own experience, transformed into that of the character, is as sincere and deep on stage as in life. The quality of the actor’s performance depends upon the sincerity of his experience. And yet the quality of the experience on stage changes, as Stanislavski said, into a “poetic reflection of life’s experience.” He said, “Time is an excellent filter, an excellent purifier of memories of emotions once experienced. Moreover, time is an excellent artist. It not only purifies but is capable of poeticizing the memories.”

  The actor must live true experiences, but true stage experiences. The actor on stage lives a “repeated” experience, not a “primary” one, as Stanislavski said. Every actor knows the difference between a real-life experience and an experience on stage if he ever achieves an experience on stage. Indeed, if actors lived the same experiences as in life, there would be lunatics and murders on stage after every performance in which a character loses his mind or a murder is committed. It would be impossible for an actor to survive many performances in which he went through experiences and shocks as they are in real life. On the contrary, we know that suffering on stage gives the actor who achieves it a true joy.
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  It should be obvious, therefore, that a stage emotion is not the same as an emotion in life, first of all because it does not arise from an actual cause. The actor is capable of stirring a needed emotion within himself only because he has often experienced an analogous emotion in his own life. Every experience in life leaves a trace on our central nervous system, and thus the nerves which participate in a given experience become more sensitive to such a stimulus. Every adult has experienced most emotions, though perhaps not for exactly the same reason the actor must experience them on stage. People may go through different feelings of love, for instance: love for a person, a dress, an animal, sunshine. We have also hated someone, or an insect, or war. There is something common in all these cases: that is why they are all called love and hate.

  According to scientific data, emotional memory not only retains an imprint of an experience but also synthesizes feelings of a different nature. If a person has experienced, for instance, the feeling of envy because his friend has a better job, or wins a lottery, or receives a good role in a play, and if he has experienced such feelings many times, the common element in all these cases will have left a deep imprint on his memory. Stanislavski said, “From many preserved traces of what was experienced, one great condensed, magnified, and deepened memory of emotions of the same nature is formed. There is nothing superfluous in such a memory; there is only the essence. This is the synthesis of all the emotions of the same kind. It does not refer to a small, separate, private instance, but to all those of the same nature.” The actor must be capable of bringing out the imprint of a past experience and of making it respond to the conditioned stimulus on stage at the moment he needs it. Through rehearsals, the actor develops a conditioned reflex in which his emotion is stirred through the stage stimulus.