The Stanislavsky system is what many successful people refer to. However, not everyone knows what it is and the essence of this phenomenon. If you like self-development, then you should, at least theoretically, know the Stanislavsky system.
Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky
The Stanislavsky system is a theory of stage art, a method of acting technique. It was developed by the Russian director, actor, teacher and theater figure Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky in the period from 1900 to 1910.
For the first time, the system solves the problem of consciously comprehending the creative process of creating a role, and determines the ways of transforming an actor into an image.
Naturally, Stanislavski used in his work important aspects of heuristics in general, and lateral thinking in particular. This is despite the fact that at that time these areas of science did not exist as independent disciplines.
The goal of Stanislavsky's system is to achieve complete psychological authenticity of acting.
The system is based on the division of acting into three technologies: craft, performance and experience.
- Stanislavski's craft is based on the use of ready-made cliches, from which the viewer can clearly understand what emotions the actor has in mind.
- The art of performance is based on the fact that during long rehearsals the actor experiences genuine experiences, which automatically create a form for the manifestation of these experiences, but during the performance itself the actor does not experience these feelings, but only reproduces the form, the ready-made external drawing of the role.
- The art of experience - the actor experiences genuine experiences during the game, and this gives birth to the life of the image on stage.
The system is fully described in the book by K. S. Stanislavsky, “The Actor’s Work on Oneself,” which was published in 1938.
Stanislavsky died in 1938, but his scientific achievements and creative understanding of human psychology are relevant to this day. In this article we will look at the 7 basic principles that make up the Stanislavsky system.
Action is the basis of performing arts
The Stanislavsky system is a rather conventional concept. The author himself admitted that a student can only learn skills and gain experience through close communication with the teacher.
That is, it is simply impossible to achieve a good result from a distance. It’s interesting that many people understand Stanislavsky’s system differently. Even its main conditions may differ for different actors or directors.
The principle of operation should be considered the central element of the system.
Action, in turn, is the basis of stage art, since any performance consists of many actions, each of which should lead to the achievement of a specific goal.
When building his role, the artist should not simply imitate the emotions and feelings of his character, because then his acting will turn out to be false.
On the contrary, the actor is obliged to try to build a chain consisting of simple physical actions. Thanks to this, his performance on stage will be truthful and natural.
Konstantin Stanislavsky creates his own diamond production
Meanwhile, the demand for diamond dies in the country was growing. Taking into account the current circumstances, Stanislavsky created his own diamond production at the factory. This required considerable expense and several years of hard work.
The specifics of the new production were akin to the production of bearings from hard precious stones in the watch industry. The diamond workshop came into operation relatively quickly - in 1894. However, it was still a long way from producing its own diamond dies. At first, we had to limit ourselves to polishing the worn-out diamonds. But this was also a great achievement - there was no longer a need to send portages for repairs abroad.
Gradually the workshop was filled with machines and equipment, its technology became more advanced. At the beginning of 1899, the board made an important decision: to create a diamond drilling department. Two French specialists were hired at the factory, and the diamond workshop was moved to larger premises. Soon it was equipped with Swiss machines, as well as machines made by their own craftsmen.
This is how the first diamond drilling workshop appeared in Russia. Stanislavsky’s right hand in its creation was the engineer T. M. Alekseenko-Serbin, who developed the original machines for processing diamonds. The mechanic P. Burylin turned out to be an excellent organizer and inventor of grinding machines. Stanislavsky subsequently handed over to them the work of his youth with a light heart.
Soon the workshop was able to fully satisfy the needs of its factory. The place of the Tsar Stone in production is indicated by the following figures: in 1898, of the available 16,757
- there were 9443 diamond lugs,
- ruby – 7077 and
- sapphire - 237 pcs.
Workers received additional bonuses for the production of diamond dies.
Legacy of Konstantin Sergeevich
The diamond workshop took five years of Stanislavsky’s life. But during this time he also created 14 vivid stage images. Konstantin Sergeevich played
- Othello in Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name,
- Benedict and Malvolio in his comedies Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night.
He shone in the comedies of A. N. Ostrovsky
- "Savage"
- “It shines, but does not warm”
- "Warm heart".
He was the director and performer of the role of Heinrich in the fairy tale play by G. Gaup, which had exceptional success with the public.
At the same time, Stanislavsky staged excerpts from operas
- “The Queen of Spades” and “Cherevichki” by P. I. Tchaikovsky,
- “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and “Ivan Susanin” by M. I. Glinka,
- “Ratcliffe” by C. A. Cui et al.
At the same time, work was underway to create a new theater. Here is what Stanislavsky wrote about his goal in the book “My Life in Art”:
“The program of the new business was revolutionary. We protested against the old manner of acting, and against theatricality, and against false pathos, declamation, and against the actor's play, and against the bad conventions of staging, scenery, and against the premiership, which spoiled the ensemble, and against the entire structure of the performances, and against the insignificant repertoire theaters of that time."
For the premiere on October 14, 1898, A. K. Tolstoy’s tragedy “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich” was chosen. The play began with significant and prophetic words: “I firmly hope for this matter.” From them came the account of the glorious creative victories of the Moscow Art Theater, which has survived to this day.
Don't play, but live
Truthfulness, in Stanislavsky's system, is one of the most important elements. No actor or director can portray something better than what exists in nature, in the real world.
Nature is both the main artist and the tool, which means it is what needs to be used. When performing in front of an audience, you must not just play the role, but live it entirely.
In the notes of Stanislavsky himself the following phrase is found: “During my show of Khlestakov, I also felt for minutes that I was Khlestakov in my soul.” Any role should become an important part of the artist himself.
But in order to achieve such a result, the speaker should use his life experience and imagination, thanks to which he will be able to believe that he is performing exactly the same actions as his hero.
In this case, all the components of the role and your acting tasks will not be far-fetched, but literally parts of yourself.
Analysis
A person is designed in such a way that he is often unable to analyze his own emotions. He fails to notice what he feels when he eats, walks or talks. We also do not tend to analyze the actions of other people.
An actor, on the contrary, must be a very good researcher. For example, he should examine in detail how his typical day goes. Or observe the behavior of a person trying to please the people he came to visit.
These and other observations should become habitual. Thanks to this, the actor or director will be able to collect certain information and gain experience. Among other things, he will be able to competently build a chain of physical actions, and therefore his character’s experiences.
Simplicity, logic and consistency
According to Stanislavsky, the score (chain) of physical actions should be as simple and clear as possible. Due to the fact that the artist has to perform hundreds of times in front of the audience, he must relive his role again and again, and with a complex scheme of actions, he will certainly get confused.
It will be much more difficult for him to express any emotions on stage, and for the viewer, in turn, it will be more difficult for him to analyze his performance. Stanislavsky believed that almost all people’s actions are very logical and consistent. Therefore, they should be the same during a theatrical production.
Logic and consistency must be present in everything: goals, desires, thoughts, emotions, actions and other areas. Otherwise, the same confusion will continue.
Simple exercises to develop acting skills
Acting exercises can be considered anything that develops the basic qualities of an actor, listed in the subsection “acting self-development.”
Here are the simplest of those offered by acting training according to Stanislavsky:
- Imitation.
When in a crowded place, find a person who piques your interest and watch him. Come up with the necessary circumstances for him and try to reproduce a small fragment of his behavior yourself, trying not to miss a single characteristic feature. - Memory of physical actions.
Let us remind you that the right physical action can evoke the right emotion. Their non-objective reproduction will help develop a memory of physical actions. Simulate breakfast without food, dishes and cutlery, take a shower without a bath or water, draw without pencils and paper, etc. - I am in the proposed circumstances.
Develop your imagination by inventing unusual circumstances for yourself and trying to exist in them as truthfully as possible. Usually this exercise is performed in the form of sketches: the “pipe burst” sketch, the “first time at the skating rink” sketch, the “desert island” sketch, etc.
Overarching goal and cross-cutting action
One of the most important conditions of the Stanislavsky system is such a concept as a super task. Neither artists nor directors should in any way neglect the ideas of the author of the play for the sake of their own opinions.
The director is obliged to fully reveal the author's idea and try to express it on stage. And an actor, in addition to this, should also be as deeply imbued with the ideas of his characters as possible. The main task is to express the main idea of the work, since this is the main task of the performance.
All members of the acting team must try to achieve this goal. This can be achieved by identifying the main line of action that runs through all parts of the work and is called end-to-end action.
Elements of acting in the Stanislavsky system
Table of contentsIntroduction
Part 1. Elements of acting in the context of the “system” K.S. Stanislavsky
1.1 Structure of Stanislavsky’s “system”
1.2 Elements of acting, their sequence and relationship
1.3 Unity of mental and physical in acting
Part 2. “Training and drill”
Conclusion
Literature
With the name K.S. Stanislavsky is associated with an entire era in the life of Russian stage art. The system of acting creativity he created belongs to the present and future of the Soviet theater. It developed the foundations of the materialist theory of stage realism, which ensures the further progress of theatrical art.
Stanislavsky’s “system” is designed to help the actor create living, typical images in which deep ideological content would be embodied through the means of stage art.” The result of the search of my entire life is my so-called “system,” writes Stanislavsky, “a method of acting that I have discovered, allowing the actor to create the image of a role, reveal the life of the human spirit in it and naturally embody it on stage in a beautiful artistic form.” This is how Stanislavsky defines the goal of the system of acting creativity he developed. In order for the stage image to be artistically convincing, the actor must, according to Stanislavsky, not seem to exist, but actually exist on the stage, not present himself, but live. He must always remain a living person on stage, i.e. to sincerely feel, think and act in the proposed circumstances of the role, observing the logic of life and the laws of organic nature. To do this, he must perfectly master normal, natural creative well-being, which has nothing in common with the conventional “actor’s” well-being, suitable only for the mechanical presentation of a role. The first step in mastering the art of an actor lies, according to Stanislavsky, in the ability to bring oneself into a natural, normal creative state of health on stage, contrary to all the conventions of theatrical performance. The problem of creating a living stage image based on the natural creative well-being of the actor was the main subject of study for Stanislavsky throughout his entire artistic life. The solution to this most important question of the actor’s art contains the main content of Stanislavsky’s “system”.
Thus, under the code name “Stanislavsky’s system” a wide range of issues of theatrical practice and theory developed in Stanislavsky’s creative heritage is concentrated. These include issues of the art of the actor and director, artistic technique, theatrical aesthetics, ethics, creative methodology, theatrical pedagogy, organization of collective stage creativity, etc. However, all these areas of stage activity, heterogeneous in nature, are only different branches coming from a single root: they are permeated with the general ideological and creative concept of the creator of the “system” and therefore mutually determine each other.
System K.S. Stanislavsky is a single, inextricably linked whole. Each section of it, each part, each provision and each principle is organically connected with all other principles, parts and sections. Therefore, any division of it (into sections, topics, etc.) is theoretical and conditional. However, studying the K.S. system Stanislavsky, like any science, can only be studied in parts. Stanislavsky himself pointed this out.
In contrast to previously existing theatrical systems, it is based not on the study of the final results of creativity, but on identifying the reasons that give rise to this or that result. The actor should not represent the image, but “become the image”, making his experiences, feelings, thoughts his own.
The system consists of two sections:
· First section
is dedicated to the problem of an actor working on himself. This is a daily workout. The purposeful, organic action of an actor in the circumstances proposed by the author is the basis of the art of acting. It is a psychophysical process in which the mind, will, feeling of the actor, his external and internal artistic data, called elements of creativity by Stanislavsky, participate. These include imagination, attention, ability to communicate, sense of truth, emotional memory, sense of rhythm, speech technique, plasticity, etc.
· Second section
Stanislavsky's system is devoted to the actor's work on the role, which ends with the organic fusion of the actor with the role, transformation into the image.
The system includes a number of techniques for stage creativity. One of them is that the actor puts himself in the proposed circumstances of the role and works on the role from himself. There is also the principle of the “typical approach”. It has become widespread in modern theater. This principle comes from cinema and is used today in both cinema and advertising. It lies in the fact that the role is not assigned to the actor who, using the material of the role, can create an image, but to the actor who coincides with the character in his external and internal qualities. In this case, the director relies not so much on the actor’s skill as on his natural abilities.
An actor’s instrument is his internal (mental) and external (physical) data, which Stanislavsky calls “elements of creativity.” The actor's body, voice, nerves, temperament are his tools of labor, uniting the creator and the material into a single whole. Professional stage acting is possible only under the condition of masterly mastery of the entire spectrum of one’s psychophysical data. To the elements of acting K.S. Stanislavsky relates elements of experience and elements of embodiment:
1. Attention.
It is the basis of the actor's internal technique. Stanislavsky believed that attention is a conductor of feelings. Depending on the nature of the object, attention differs between external (outside the person himself) and internal (thoughts, sensations). The actor's task is to actively focus on an arbitrary object within the stage environment. “I see what is given, I treat as given” - the formula for stage attention according to Stanislavsky. The difference between stage attention and life attention is fantasy - not an objective consideration of an object, but its transformation.
2. Imagination and fantasy.
For an actor, to fantasize means to internally lose. When fantasizing, the actor does NOT draw the object of his imagination outside of himself, but feels himself acting as an image. When imagining something from the hero’s life, the actor does not separate himself from him.
3. Sense of truth and faith
. With the help of stage justifications, that is, true and captivating motivations, the actor turns fiction into artistic truth for himself, and, consequently, for the viewer. An actor's faith is a consequence of his conviction that what he is doing on stage is correct. The viewer believes what the actor believes.
4. Communication
. An actor must be able to communicate. To do this, you need not only to act yourself, but also to perceive the actions of others, make yourself dependent on your partner, be sensitive, pliable and responsive to everything that happens on stage. What happens in the souls of the actors is not as important as what happens BETWEEN them.
5. Interaction.
Interaction with a partner is the main type of stage action. It flows from the very nature of dramatic art. In the process of stage interaction, the idea of the play and the characters of the characters are revealed, that is, the main goal is achieved
6. Emotional memory.
An actor can evoke this or that feeling based on his own emotional experience. Having arisen initially as a revival of what has been experienced many times in life, the stage feeling is subsequently brought into connection with fictitious stage occasions.
7. Muscle freedom
- the ability of an actor to naturally perform a wide variety of movements. This is a state of the body in which each movement of the body in space expends as much muscular energy as this movement requires. Knowledge gives confidence, confidence gives rise to freedom, and this, in turn, finds expression in the physical behavior of a person.
8. Action.
A volitional act of human behavior directed towards a specific goal is the classic definition of action. An actor's action is a single psychophysical process of achieving a goal in the fight against the proposed circumstances of a small circle, expressed in some way in time and space. In action, the whole person appears most clearly, that is, the unity of the physical and mental. An actor creates an image through his behavior and actions. Reproducing this (behavior and actions) is the essence of the game.
9. Logic and consistency
thoughts, feelings, actions (internal and external), desires, tasks, aspirations, fiction, imagination. With the exception of individual cases, everything in life, and therefore on stage, should be logical and consistent.
10. We achieve this through physical actions.
11. Physical action method
. It lies in what makes the actor fantasize, justify, and fill physical action with psychological content. Physical actions become the reel on which everything else is wound: internal actions, thoughts, feelings, fictions, imagination.
12. Inner stage well-being
. The correctness of the actor’s inner well-being is manifested in the fact that the actor reacts to everything that happens on stage as a given character freely and directly, exactly as it usually happens in real life. No violence, no coercion, complete freedom - this is the main sign of inner stage well-being.
13. “If…” and proposed circumstances
. A technique of creative transformation into a stage image, which consists in the fact that the actor creates in his imagination certain circumstances of the external environment and poses the question: What would I do if these circumstances were not a fiction of the imagination, but true reality. The proposed circumstances induce the actor to perform certain actions that embody the image. The “If only” technique protects the actor from cliches and encourages him to create on his own.
14. Aspiration line.
To experience it, you need a (relatively) continuous life line of the role and the play. Instead of creating many logical lines for each of the elements, the actor's entire attention should ultimately be directed to creating one main line, that is, the logic of the actor's action on stage.
15. Tempo-rhythm -
execution of certain physical and mental movements that carry out a given action in a limited space at a set speed and in a certain time. Pace is a leading sign, since it is the pace of action that most often characterizes the state of the psyche. [
16. "Monkey" -
triggers of emotional memory. A “decoy” for action is some fact, event, incident, judgment, phenomenon, news, etc. A “many” task naturally evokes urges of desire, aspirations that end in action.
17. Supertask and “end-to-end action”.
The ultimate goal is what the actor ultimately strives for. The ultimate task must be sought not only in the role, but also in the soul of the artist himself. Only such a super-task, which has become personal, gives rise to emotional impulses in the actor to take the actions necessary to implement it. Stanislavsky called this effective path to achieving the super task “through action.” The cross-cutting action runs through the entire play, defining the task of each individual scene and filling the actions necessary for its implementation with emotional content. Without a super-task and end-to-end action, both the role and the performance fall apart into separate scenes, devoid of a single concept that unites them.
18. Atmosphere
is considered in “System” as the emotional coloring of every action, scene, episode, and entire performance. Depends on the proposed circumstances, on the event, on the ultimate task, conflict, tempo, is interconnected with the end-to-end action, depends on the character on his character, contributes to the creation of the integrity of the performance.
19. External characteristic
is created with the help of makeup, plastic surgery, costume, speech, etc. External character can be created intuitively, as well as purely technically, mechanically from a simple external trick. An actor can obtain external characterization from himself, from others, from real and imaginary life, from intuition or from observations of himself or others, from everyday experience, from acquaintances, from paintings, engravings, drawings, books, stories, novels, or from simple case - it doesn't matter. The main thing is not to lose yourself internally.
20. Pieces and tasks.
Stanislavsky proposes a standard problem-solving technique for working on a role: breaking a complex problem into simpler subtasks, then breaking them down into even simpler ones, and so on down to the “trivial” ones, with which it is clear what needs to be done. Namely, he suggests breaking the play into “chunks.”
21. Engines of mental life.
Stanislavsky includes mind, will and feelings among them. Depending on which of these elements is more developed in a person, there are actors of the intellectual, volitional and emotional types.
22. Plastic -
the ability to expediently distribute muscular energy. The requirement for an accurate measure of muscular energy for each movement is the basic law of plasticity. Whatever the nature and pattern of the movement, it must be beautiful, i.e. subject to the internal law of plasticity.
23. Diction and singing.
This does not mean singing in its pure form, but the use of the basic laws of sound production inherent in vocal skill, mandatory for both the singing and speaking actor. The need to find that “continuous line” of voice - tone, that tonal core that permeates and connects all our speech with its mobility, variability, stops, accents, tempo and rhythm.
24. Speech on stage.
The technique of stage speech is the building material with the help of which the content of the stage image develops its expressive form. The technique of stage speech, of course, does not exhaust all the material in which the actor creates, but it is its most important component element. K.S. Stanislavsky insistently says that the accurate and vivid transmission of the inner life of an image depends entirely on the exact vocal and pronunciation expression corresponding to it. Only by mastering the voice and pronunciation are free word creation, the word action of an actor of the school of experience, possible. If the voice does not obey the actor, if it is poor in overtones or is deliberately loud from trying to be heard, if there is no ability to pronounce a phrase coherently, if the diction is not clear enough, and the stage pronunciation does not correspond to the laws of orthoepy, if the words knock “like peas on a board,” the unity of content and form in the actor’s performance is violated, i.e. the content of the art of experience is distorted.
All elements of Stanislavsky’s “system”, analyzed in the first and second parts of “The Actor’s Work on Oneself,” are, in essence, the constituent elements of stage action, which cannot be carried out without the participation of creative attention, emotional memory, imagination, logic and sequence of actions and feelings, muscle freedom, plasticity, voice control, etc. Constant improvement of these elements constitutes the content of “The Actor’s Work on Oneself,” which involves daily training and drills aimed at improving acting technique. Mastery of one’s “instrument”—psychophysics—allows an actor to work fully and professionally on stage, regardless of inspiration, or rather, to enter the desired creative state exactly when it is needed; by an effort of will to achieve the correct creative well-being.
Human behavior has two sides: physical and mental. Moreover, one can never be separated from the other and one cannot be reduced to the other. Every act of human behavior is a single integral psychophysical act. Therefore, it is impossible to understand a person’s behavior and actions without understanding his thoughts and feelings. But it is also impossible to understand his feelings and thoughts without understanding his objective connections and relationships with the environment.
Stanislavsky views creativity as a psychophysical process. At the moment of creativity, he writes, “an interaction is created between body and soul, action and feeling, thanks to which the external helps the internal, and the internal causes the external.”
Starting from this view of the creative process, he approached the creation of a practical method of acting as an actor, which later became known as the method of physical actions.
The fundamental principles of this method are set out in his book “The Actor’s Work on Oneself” (in the chapter “The Sense of Truth and Faith”) and in the materials published in the fourth volume of the Collected Works. Rejecting a direct approach to arousing creative experience, which can cripple the nature of an actor, Stanislavsky persistently proposes to study the approach to arousing the psyche through the organization of the physical life of a role. “The truth of physical actions and the belief in them excite the life of our psyche,” he states. “By creating a logical and consistent external line of physical actions,” says Stanislavsky, “we thereby learn, if we look closely, that in parallel with this line another line is born within us - the line of logic and consistency of our feelings.”
The psychophysical nature of stage action and its constituent elements thus becomes the main object of teaching. The artistic technique he created is entirely aimed at ensuring that a predetermined stage action performed in the circumstances of a play retains all the properties of a genuine, living, organic action performed in life.
Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky laid the main foundations of an actor’s system of working on himself, which he called “Training and Drilling.” Stanislavsky trusted the field of stage creativity with the scientific discoveries of I.I. Pavlova and I.M. Sechenov, exploring the organic nature of sounding thought as a result of productive living thinking. K.S. Stanislavsky was the first in Russia to talk about muscle relaxation and the necessary tensions that support a person’s posture, studied the laws of natural communication and truthful behavior, and sought to use the power of emotional memory, mind and will in acting practice. Speech - its pace, rhythm, intonation, pauses - was studied by him and acquired psychotechnics for working on the role.
“The main method of work of the theater school, from the point of view of K.S. Stanislavsky, writes G.V. Christy, is the independent work of the students themselves. This means: independent discovery of creative material and creation of sketches, independent work on oneself to eliminate physical and internal deficiencies (as discussed in the section on posters), independent, under the supervision and control of a teacher, improvement of one’s artistic abilities. All school exercises, according to K.S., should gradually become part of the actor’s individual toilet...”
In addition to self-observation training, you can see two more types of training from Stanislavsky, united by the name “actor’s toilet.” G.V. Christie describes its contents as follows: “The actor’s toilet, as conceived by K.S. Stanislavsky, this is a daily training of internal, psychological and physical qualities that help the actor’s creativity. “The Actor’s Toilet,” which is a summary of all the exercises in the system, was intended to strengthen, develop and constantly improve artistic technique. Before the start of studio shows, K.S. often conducted a 15-minute toilet-tuning, bringing the actors to the desired state of health. “Toilet-tuning” usually began with the actor concentrating his attention on some simple, often pointless action, freeing himself from unnecessary tension and interfering nervousness. Then the imagination and other elements of the actor’s well-being were stirred up. Exercises for changing rhythms and quickly adapting to the mise-en-scène stimulated creative activity and readiness for action. “Toilet-tuning” usually ended with a collective sketch, directly leading to the upcoming show.”
If you look through the manuscripts and notebooks of the Stanislavsky period of 1928 - 1938, you can often find notes entitled “training and drill” or “problem book”. Under such headings, he wrote down various exercises and studies (often in outline, sometimes only in title). There are also exercises that train the actor’s apparatus - his imagination, creative hearing, mental speech skills, development of sensory perceptions, etc. There are also tasks on plasticity, rhythm, stage groupings, staging, and handling of cloaks and swords. There are speech exercises and instructions on posture, gait, and gestures.
It is clear from everything that he imagined the future “Problem Book” as a collection of exercises in all sections of acting psychotechnics. Let's see what requirements Stanislavsky makes for general training. If the main task of self-observation training is to organize and maintain constant control over the creation of new, necessary habits and the eradication of old, unnecessary ones; for the renewal of memory reserves and for the elimination of dead devices: if the “toilet-setting” and the “actor’s toilet” prepare creative well-being in the general sense required for a given actor, then what are the general goals of those training exercises that make up the content of classes in the training class and drills?
“It is not enough to live with a sincere feeling,” writes Stanislavsky, “you must be able to identify it, embody it. For this, the entire physical apparatus must be prepared and developed. It is necessary that he be sensitive to the last degree and respond to all sorts of subconscious experiences and convey all their subtleties in order to make visible and audible what the artist is experiencing. By physical apparatus we mean a well-produced voice, well-developed intonation, phrasing, flexible body, expressive movements, facial expressions.” We are talking, as it were, about external stage well-being, the development of which takes place in training in stage movement, fencing, dance, speech technique, etc. But Stanislavsky develops this idea elsewhere. He writes about the need to “make the physical apparatus of embodiment, that is, the bodily nature of the artist, subtle, flexible, precise, bright, plastic, like the capricious feeling and elusive life of the spirit of the role that he is called upon to express. Such an apparatus of embodiment must not only be excellently developed, but also slavishly subordinate to the internal orders of the role. Its connection with the inner side and interaction must be brought to an instant, unconscious, instinctive reflex.”
What is this - the interaction of external and internal, expressed in a reflex? One should not think that Stanislavsky in this case meant something figurative and figurative by the word “reflex”. In other words, any action of a person - an episode of his life action - is always his interaction between the impulse of external circumstances and internal reaction. By analyzing external influences and their subsequent synthesis, a reflex is formed as a stable reaction of the body to these repeated influences of the external environment.
There is no doubt that Stanislavsky, speaking about a reflex, means the reproduction of a selected episode of a life action by the actor’s trained physical apparatus, a creative apparatus, cleared of everything random and atypical that “happens in life,” an apparatus that is subtle, flexible, precise, bright, plastic, who knows how to live according to the laws of life contained in a role, in a sketch, in an exercise.
Acting training, therefore, should bring the student’s creative apparatus into line with the requirements of the creative process. The training improves the plasticity of the nervous system and helps to polish, make flexible and bright the psychophysical instrument of the actor, to reveal all his natural capabilities and subject them to systematic processing, to expand the efficiency of all the necessary ones from the available ones, to muffle and eliminate the unnecessary ones and, finally, to create the missing ones, as far as possible. it's possible. These are his main tasks.
Some sample exercises to improve acting technique:
"Mannequins" Full body tension exercise.
One student can take any position and tense the whole body, the other student takes the person in the pose /mannequin/ to another place. The position of the first should not change, the body should not relax.
"Rag Dolls" The exercise is not complete relaxation of the body.
The students are rag dolls hanging from nails. They are removed from the stud and thrown onto the floor.
Exercises to develop collectivity and relationships.
1. Paired, coordinated pointless actions: sawing wood; drag a large box, a sofa; move the cabinet; row; row play tennis; play ball, etc.
2. Pass the weights in a circle, changing objects all the time: now a heavy box, now bricks, now buckets of water, now empty ones. When acting, change the object with which you act, also change the goal / why are you doing this? /
Exercises on the magical “if only”
Without first talking about the “if” property, the teacher prepares a series of exercises, but for the students this is impromptu. Having taken a set of 5-6 objects, the teacher gives them one by one the object in their outstretched hands, while quickly saying:
1. Handing over a scarf - “here’s a shawl for you!”
2. Handing over the box - “there’s a frog here!”
3. Handing over the package - “there are worms in it. "
4. Looking at the student’s head - “Oh, oh, a huge spider is crawling on you.”
5. Give him something to drink from a bottle - “try it.” The student starts to try, and the leader says, “There’s kerosene in there.” acid." etc.
Exercises to develop imagination and fantasy
1. Mentally transport yourself to unfamiliar conditions that do not exist for you, but that can exist in real life: a flight into space, a trip around the world, a trip to the Arctic, Africa, etc. /draw material from books, movies, paintings, from people’s stories. /.
2. Move to the realm of the unrealistic, the fabulous:
a/ in search of a beautiful maiden, you find yourself in the kingdom of Princess Carrot, in the kingdom of Princess Icicle, in the kingdom of Koshchei;
b/ go down to the bottom of the sea to the Sea King, etc.
Exercises to develop logic and consistency.
1. Thread a needle and sew.
2. Repair a pencil with a penknife.
3. Write a letter, seal the envelope.
4. Put on and take off a coat, jacket, jacket, socks, stockings, boots, etc.
5. Take money out of your wallet and count it.
6. Cut the dress according to the pattern.
7. Comb your hair in front of the mirror.
8. Wash clothes - in a basin or washing machine.
9. Knead the dough and make pies.
10. Read a book.
Follow logic and consistency. Check on a real item.
Defining the basic principle of acting in Stanislavsky’s system, we can say that this is the principle of reincarnation, when the actor, as it were, personifies himself with his character, speaks and acts on his behalf.
An actor's working tools are his psychophysical data: plasticity; motor skills; voice data (diction, ligaments, breathing apparatus); ear for music; sense of rhythm; emotionality; observation; memory; imagination; erudition; reaction speed, etc. Accordingly, each of these qualities needs development and constant training - only this allows the actor to be in working shape. Just as a ballet actor has to start every day with a series of exercises at the barre, an opera actor with vocalization and chants, so a dramatic actor urgently needs daily training in stage speech and movement.
Each role played is a complex conglomerate of the creativity of several individuals: the playwright, director, composer, choreographer, artist, make-up artist and other members of the production team become full co-authors of the actor in the process of preparing the performance. However, during the performance itself, the actor is left alone with the audience; he becomes the ultimate conductor, the transmitter of the collective creative concept to the viewer. The audience itself becomes the most important co-author of the actor's work, making daily adjustments to the rehearsed role. The process of acting creativity is always carried out together with the viewer, at the time of the performance. And each performance remains unique, inimitable.
1. Burov A.G. The work of an actor and teacher - M., 2007
2. Zakhava B.E. The skill of an actor and director - M., 2008
3. Knebel M.O. The Word in the Actor's Work - M., 1970
4. Christie G.V. Education of an actor from the Stanislavsky school - M., 1968
5. Christie G.V. Basics of acting - M., 1971
6. Novitskaya L.P. Lessons of inspiration - M., 1984
7. Sibiryakov N. n. World significance of Stanislavsky - M., 1973
8. Sosnova M.L. The Art of the Actor - M., 2008
9. Stanislavsky K.S. Collected works - M., 1954
10. Stroeva M.N. Stanislavsky's directorial legacy - M., 1973
11. Toporov V.O. About the actor's technique - M., 1958
Collectivity
The ultimate task will become accessible only when all the artists join forces to work on the performance. Stanislavsky argued that mutual compliance and understanding of a common goal are extremely important.
When an artist tries to imbue himself with the ideas of an artist, writer or director, and an artist or writer with the desires of an actor, then everything will be great. Artists must love and understand what they are working on, and also be able to give in to each other.
If there is no mutual support in the acting team, the art will be doomed to failure. Many of you have probably heard Stanislavsky’s famous phrase: “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.”
