American Russian Theatrical Alliance

Missing Links (Stanislavsky System You've Never Heard About)

For over fifty years, the majority of American actors have been trained in some variation of a method derived from early Konstantin Stanislavsky’s teachings circa 1920. Since then, Stanislavsky had changed his mind about many aspects of his teachings and had worked on improving his system until his death in 1938. There are 18 years of major development of the system that are missing from the North American version………

In 1923 Stanislavsky and his Moscow Art Theater came to the USA and stunned the American audiences with their unprecedented realism and emotional life in acting. The tour was such a success that the second season was quickly booked. It spanned New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, Hartford, and New Haven. But these plays had been performed for years, and Stanislavsky had second thoughts about the overall effectiveness of some of his teachings when he tried to rehearse a new play unsuccessfully.

American actors urgently sought out Stanislavsky and his students for training. Stanislavsky’s system was, even in its unfinished form, such a powerful force that it became the CORNERSTONE for most of the existing acting techniques in North America. Lee Strasberg at the Group Theater and the Actors devised a method based on their interpretation, some say misinterpretation, of Stanislavsky’s earliest ideas. These ideas, formed approximately between 1906 and 1920, were taught in New York at the American Lab Theatre by Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya, Stanislavsky’s former students who had immigrated to the United States. Later the method was expanded upon by many of Strasberg’s followers and followers of followers. Many prominent teachers, like Stella Adler and Stanford Meisner, developed their own techniques using Stanislavsky’s early teachings as their starting point.

In 1924 after the tour, Stanislavsky went back to Russia to continue working on the system. The Moscow Art Theater, co-founded by Stanislavsky in 1898, served as his lab and playground. Here the system was created, tried, researched, and improved upon. Influenced by some of his most talented students, Stanislavsky re-evaluated many aspects of his early teachings, including the Affective Memory technique, a concept of applying his system to “Theatrical Realism”, and the Concentration on Objects theory.

Stanislavsky’s Affective Memory theory was based on the premise that an actor needed to recall his/her real life experiences to truthfully portray emotions of a character: If the character was about to cry, the actor was supposed to recall some tragic events of his/her life to invoke the tears. Later, Stanislavsky discovered that Affective Memory is not the only way to demonstrate truthful emotions. One of the events that drew Stanislavsky to that conclusion was a brilliant performance of his student Michael Chekhov.

Chekhov was asked to enact a true dramatic situation as an exercise in Affective Memory. He recreated extremely effectively his father's funeral. Stanislavsky believed that Chekhov had recently lost his father and actually needed some time to recover from the tragedy. Soon after, to his great surprise, Stanislavsky learned that Chekhov's father was still alive and in sound health.

Another aspect that Stanislavsky reconsidered was how his system applied to “Theatrical Realism”: Stanislavsky had thought that his system could be only applied to the style of “theatrical realism”(everything on the stage should be as truthful as possible: props, costumes, makeup, the way actors speak, etc.). Vakhtangov showed Stanislavsky that the system could be successfully applied to any style of theatrical production, and not only “theatrical realism”. The most brilliant example of this was a production of “Princess Turandot” directed by Vakhtangov. He had actors dress and make up on the stage and stagehands change sets in view of the audience. Stanislavsky was completely smitten by the play. He accepted that realism was not important in implementing his system.

Vakhtangov also enhanced Stanislavsky’s Concentration on the Objects theory. Concentration on Objects said that an actor while performing should constantly shift his/her attention from one object to another to conjure a floating, smooth performance. By object Stanislavsky meant physical objects (various parts of actor’s body, a chair, a table, etc.). Vakhtangov showed Stanislavsky that concentration on Inner Objects (imaginary objects) or Thoughts would bring much more depth to an actor’s performance. Stanislavsky accepted it and enhanced his Concentration on Objects theory.

Vakhtangov and Chekhov both showed Stanislavsky that actors don’t have to use only their real life experiences in creating a character. They created a theory called “Fantastic Realism” that says that an actor can use his/her imagination and fantasy on the same level with his/her memory while preparing a character. They developed exercises that allow a performer to implement “fantastic realism” in his/her acting. (These exercises are a part of our course.)