Constantin (Konstantin) Stanislavski (Stanislavsky )

Who is he? Born in Moscow, Russia in 1863 An actor and moved on to become a director and teacher He developed a new approach to acting It took years of experimenting to get to what is now known as the Stanislavski System What is Naturalism?

Why did he create a system? As an actor, Stanislavski saw a lot of bad acting - what he termed as ‘artificial’ Stanislavski wanted actors to work on characters from the inside - more real performance This was a new way of thinking at the time

What is the system in a nutshell? The Stanislavski System is an intense character development process that strives to make a performance "real" and not artificial 1. Bring an actor's experiences into the role 2. Expand an actor's imagination

Inside Out -He thought that characters should be created from the inside out. -He believed that actors should draw on their own memories and experiences to create their character -He also believed that actors should create a back story, beliefs and inner thoughts as a real person

Given Circumstances Given Circumstances are things the playwright tells you – location, time period, characters You can use a script to look for what the playwright tells you about your character – what are they like, what do they do, what is their personal life like, what are their opinions etc

Always think… What do I do as my character? Why do I do it? And how do I do it?

Emotion Memory Actors are required to remember a time when they felt the emotion they are trying to show in their character and use that to help them perform For example: if you character is over the moon, you could think about a time when you felt the same and use that to help you act this way

Magic If… “I am me, but IF I were in this situation, how would I feel and what would I do?” Of course, the actor knows they aren’t in this situation but the MAGIC IF helps you think about what you would do if you were…

Who is good at this? Children? Adults? And…Why?

Imagination It’s all about IMAGINATION! This is highly important in Stanislavski’s system – you have to believe in what you are doing! However… “The actor must believe they are Hamlet, but they should never ACTUALLY believe they are Hamlet, otherwise they need some serious help”

Tempo - Rhythm Tempo means the speed at which you do an action or say a line – could be slow, medium or fast – what would it mean do speak fast or slow for instance? Rhythm is INTERNAL – the INTENSITY of the emotion you feel e.g. how can you show that you feel angry very strongly or you are mildly happy?

Stuff so far… Naturalism Given Circumstances Emotion Memory Magic If Tempo-Rhythm Summarise Stanislavski’s system…what did he want?

Units & Objectives A unit is a part of a scene in which contains an objective for a character (There might be more than one in a scene!) This objective is what the character is striving for… FOR EXAMPLE: In a piece of text you read, you might decide that your character’s objective is to annoy someone, or flirt with them etc…This is their motivation

SUPER OBJECTIVE The ‘Super Objective’ is the objective for the character for the whole play! It is the main theme for them and everything drives towards the super objective – their final goal in the play For example: a character’s super objective might be to have completed something or have a partner etc…

Subtext Subtext is the underlying meaning in text “Read between the lines!” It is NOT spoken but interpreted by the actor through posture, gesture, expression & body language etc…

Have a go… “Jane accidentally runs into Tom, whom she finds extremely annoying. Social necessities oblige her to be pleasant to him, while underneath she wants to get as far away from him as possible.” What is her objective? What is the subtext?

What did you come up with? Subtext: something happened for her not to like Tom very much! Objective: to get away from Tom

Concentration & Relaxation Stanislavski believed it to be highly important that actors were relaxed so not to get nervous (a ‘controlled body and mind’) but also to concentrate on what was going on… CIRCLES OF ATTENTION – like a personal space bubble!

Stan the Man Naturalism Given Circumstances Emotion Memory Magic If Tempo-Rhythm Units (of action) and objectives Super Objective Circles of attention