STANISLAVSKI

AND T H E ACTOR
by the same author
Stanislavski: An Introduction
Stanislavski: A Biography
The Moscow Art Theatre Letters
Dear Writer . . . Dear Actress...
(The Love Letters of Olga Knipper
and Anton Chekhov)
STANISLAVSKI
AND T H E A C T O R

Jean Benedetti
First published by Methuen in Great Britain in 1998

PUblished in the USA by

Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Copyright © 1998 by Jean Benedetti

Jean Benedetti has asserted his right under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to
be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN 0 87830 090 2
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
and from the Library of Congress
Methuen, an imprint of Random House UK Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SWIV 2SA

Typeset by MATS, Southend-on-Sea, Essex

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vi
Introduction vii
How to Use this Book xvi
Stanislavski: A Biographical Note xviii

Part One
A n Outline of the Method of Physical Action 1

Part Two
The Stanislavski 'system' 13
Physical Action 16
Mental Action 32
Mind and Body 69
Interaction 74
Tempo-rhythm 80
Verbal Action 87
Physical Characterization 95
Total Action 98
Performance Mode 102

Part Three
The Method of Physical Action in Rehearsal 103

Part Four
Stanislavski's Master Classes on Hamlet 131

Conclusion 149
Appendix One: Variations in Terminology 150
Appendix Two: Index of the Principal Terms Used 152
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M y sincere and grateful thanks are due to Martin Kurten,

Stanislavski's translator into Swedish, who brought his
considerable expertise to bear on an early draft and made many
invaluable suggestions which have been incorporated into the
final text.
I am also grateful to Professor S. Nikulin and Art Publishers,
Moscow for kind permission to use and translate material from
Novitskaya's book, Uroki Vdoxnovenija (Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1984)
and from the Stanislavski transcripts contained in Stanislavsky
Repetiruet, (Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1987).
A l l translations of texts, unless otherwise indicated, are my
own.
The quotation from Stanislavski's production plan for Othelb,
(
is taken from Rezhisiorskij Plan Otelk\ Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1945.
Finally, my thanks, as ever, to Michael Earley, my publisher,
for his sympathetic and perceptive guidance and advice in
shaping the book and bringing it to its final form.
INTRODUCTION

Konstantin Stanislavski is the most significant and most

frequently quoted figure in the history of actor training. H e is
also the most consistently and widely misunderstood. By 1980,
after spending ten years devising and teaching acting courses
based on the Stanislavski 'system' at Rose Bruford College in
England, and seeing work elsewhere, both in the U K and
abroad, I had become aware of the confusion that existed as to
what precisely the 'system' was. It was often identified either
with a primitive kind of 'naturalism' or with Lee Strasberg's
Method.
It was then that I started to write Stanislavski: A n Introduction
(Methuen, 1982),, in an attempt to provide students with an
account of the origins of the 'system' and a guide to reading
Stanislavski's published works. I had to rely at that time on
existing English-language translations of these books,
unsatisfactory and misleading though they sometimes were
because of heavy cuts. A n Actor Prepares, for example, is only
about half the length of Stanislavski's original. But these were
the only texts available for students to buy and there seemed no
prospect, for copyright reasons, of producing much-needed
new translations. I followed the Introduction with Stanislavski: A
Biography (Methuen, 1990) in which I tried to chart the long and
often painful path Stanislavski followed in order to understand
the nature of the art to which he had devoted his life.
M y continuing work at my own college, and as consultant
and examiner to other institutions, together with my fourteen-
year term as President of the Theatre Education Committee of
the International Theatre Institute ( U N E S C O ) convinced me
of the absolute necessity of providing new translations that
would make available what Stanislavski had actually written.
M y view was shared internationally by colleagues equally
anxious to produce versions in their own languages. I recalled
viii Introduction

that as early as 1953, Bertolt Brecht, realising the inadequacy of

his own knowledge, had called for complete translations of
Stanislavski's work so that he could clear up his own confusions.
In the early 1990s the copyright problems surrounding
Stanislavski's works were resolved, and long-overdue work
could start on new versions of A n Actor's Work on Himself, Parts
One and Two (Rabota Aktiora nad Sobqj) and A n Actor's Work on a Role
(Rabota Aktiora nad Rolju) which had appeared in English as A n
Actor Prepares (1936), BuildingA Character (1950) and Creating a Role
(1961). It seemed that students and tutors would at last have
available the teaching material they needed. In the event,
however, the project raised a number of major problems.
First, Stanislavski was not a natural writer. His most accessi-
ble and entertaining book, My Life in A r t , was dictated to his sec-
retary and so has all the ease of his conversational style. But
when he sat down to write about his methods, in his effort to be
absolutely clear he relendessly crossed all the Y s and dotted all
the Ts, thus achieving the very opposite of what he intended.
His style became convoluted, verbose and confusing. There are
passages which almost defy comprehension, let alone transla-
tion. Y o u can see what he means but the words get in the way.
M a n y specialists felt that by using the fictional form of an imag-
inary student's diary and by disguising himself as Tortsov,
Stanislavski had merely added to his problems - and ours.
Some Russian teachers admitted to me that they had never read
A n Actor's Work on Himself But these were private admissions. N o
one wanted or, perhaps, dared to admit in public that
Stanislavski's books were a problem. They were, after all, sup-
posed to be the collective Bible of acting.
By the time the Soviet authorities began to issue the eight-
volume Collected Works in the 1950s, Stanislavski had long been
established in the Stalinist pantheon as a cult figure beyond
criticism. His writings had to be treated with reverence and
awe. If, in the United States, Stanislavski had suffered from
savage and often inept editing, in the U S S R he suffered from no
editing at all. Yet he himself always recognised his need for
editorial advice and relied on friends and associates to help him,
though they were often driven to despair by his constant
 Introduction ix

revisions and additions after they had introduced a measure of

order into his drafts.
Second, there was the problem of Stanislavski's terminology,
the special set of terms he devised for the main elements of the
'system', a problem compounded by the fact that Stanislavski
never hesitated to change terms, or use different terms in differ-
ent situations in the same period of his life. The terminology he
used when teaching was not always the terminology he used in
his published books or in his drafts. Sometimes he would use
alternative terms in two different classes. The 'system' was not
about words but about method. In A n Actor's Work on Himself,
Stanislavski/Tortsov rather impatiendy tells a student that pro-
vided he understands the nature of the activity he is engaged in,
it doesn't matter what name he gives it.
While Stanislavski wanted his ideas to be scientifically valid,
he did not want to create an abstract jargon so obscure and
complicated that it would block an actor's creative processes or
become an end in itself. He envied musicians who had a set of
words indicating tempo, rhythm and expression that provided
a quick, universal way of communicating. Actors and directors
needed a similar shorthand which they could use when entering
into lengthy, abstract discussions.
To create an equivalent to musical terms, Stanislavski tried to
use ordinary, everyday words, occasionally shaping their mean-
ing to suit his purpose. The difficulty is that words that are ordi-
nary in Russian are not always ordinary or idiomatic when
translated into other languages. The problems all translators
experience in trying to find workable equivalents were the sub-
ject of a number of international seminars in the late 1980s but
they have still not been completely resolved. Where you find
two or three Stanislavski specialists together, you will find a
heated debate about words. But there is general agreement on
one fundamental principle: whatever terms we use in transla-
tion, we must create an easy, simple, unpretentious working
vocabulary to be used in the classroom and the rehearsal room.
This automatically precludes some of the alternative acting
and performance vocabularies that have been developed over
recent years to discuss the actor's process and performance.
x Introduction

These are rooted in anthropology, sociology and semiology and

whatever their undoubted intellectual or theoretical merits, they
belong to the social sciences; they are the language of commen-
tary and critical analysis, not of creative rehearsal work. None of
them would help a student get through the most elementary act-
ing exercise. Actors in rehearsal do not explore concepts, or
work on the basis of a theory of performance. They are con-
cerned with getting into the script, not viewing it from the out-
5
side. 'Art ends where philosophy begins, Stanislavski stated.
The problem of finding usable equivalents, therefore, goes on.
Stanislavski always stressed the provisional nature of his findings,
hence his usage of the 'system' with a small's' and in quotes,
never System, with a capital'S' that suggested a closed and rigid
theory. The truth of the matter might be constant but our for-
mulation of it, and the words we use to describe it, change.
Third, even supposing we manage to solve the problems of
translation, there would still be another formidable barrier for
modern readers. Reluctant though we may be to admit it,
Stanislavski's books are now historic documents. H e was born
in 1863; his outlook and style belong to the nineteenth century.
His books are of their time and any translation has to take that
into account and reflect in its style the very special period
flavour of the originals. Reading and studying them closely over
many years, I have become increasingly aware of the mental
effort that has to be made to place them within their historical
context, without which they cannot genuinely make sense. The
principles of the 'system' may be constant, but the manner and
style in which they are expressed is conditioned by time and
place. Stanislavski recognised this when, in the 1938 preface to
A n Actor's Work on Himself Part One, he acknowledged that much
of the material and most of the examples he used were twenty-
five years old, dating from the old Russia before the Revolution.
Regrettably, there was no time to update them.
Fourth, the texts that have come down to us are not com-
plete. They are fragments of a grand design which Stanislavski
oudined in a letter to his secretary at the end of 1930. H e envis-
aged a sequence of seven books. The first of these was the
Russian edition of My Life in A r t published in 1926 (still not sat-
 Introduction xi

isfactorily translated into English). This was to be followed by

books on acting, directing and opera. A n Actor's Work on Himself
was originally conceived as a single volume covering both the
mental and physical aspects of an actor's technique, but for
technical reasons it had to be split into two parts. Stanislavski
was not happy about this decision as he feared that if Part One
appeared alone it would convey a false impression of'ultra-nat-
uralism', which has indeed proved to be the case. H a d Part One
not appeared separately, however, we might never have had
another completed book after My life in A r t .
A n Actor's Work on Himself Part One was published in
September 1938, only a few weeks after Stanislavski's death, but
it was already out of date since he had drafted a number of
passages for insertion into future editions. In the preface he also
regretted that he had not had time to write a handbook of
exercises that would set out day-to-day, classroom work in
greater detail and could be used in parallel.
One or two chapters of Part Two were completed by his
death, but the rest were i n note or draft form. The new Russian
edition collates the material more effectively but the text is still
provisional.
A n Actor's Work on Himself on a Role was never even started. The
book, as we have it, is 'material for a book', a compilation of
articles and drafts drawn from various periods of Stanislavski's
life. Even the new revised version of 1991 is simply an expan-
sion of earlier editions with the addition of much new material.
At Stanislavski's death, therefore, all that was left of his grand
design was My Life in A r t (1926), one volume on acting still being
revised, a series of drafts and some titles. M u c h of the material
was not published until the 1950s.
Unfinished, provisional though they are, these books are still
essential documents which we must have complete, if we are to
understand Stanislavski's mind and thinking and the origins of
the 'system'. Anyone interested in Stanislavski must read them.
But without the manual of exercises that should have accom-
panied them, they do not provide, for the strict purposes of
training, a clear practical guide to detailed, daily classroom
work over three or four years' study. They only provide a set of
xii Introduction

principles, strategies, guidelines, with a small number of acting

exercises and improvisations, some of which are repeated three
or four times over, to illustrate the processes.
What then do we do in the classroom? How, at the end of the
twentieth century, and sixty years after Stanislavski's death, are
we to study the 'system'? H o w are we, teachers and acting
students, to achieve a clear view of what it is, to get the 'inside'
view as it were, that enables us to master our craft? If not the
books, then what?
The answer is to be found elsewhere, in the work of the
Opera-Dramatic Studio where from mid-1935, when he was
seventy-two and very ill, until a few weeks before his death in
August 1938, Stanislavski, with a group of assistants, gave a
complete course in the 'system'. It was his desperate response to
the realisation that he would never complete his books, his final
attempt to pass on his ideas as a coherent whole. The four years
of the course covered the same ground as Stanislavski's three
projected books on the actor's work.

In June 1935, eleven hand-picked young actors and directors

gathered at Stanislavski's apartment at 6 Leontievski Lane (now
Stanislavski Lane). They were to be his assistants. As pupils of
his sister, Zinaïda, they had a basic knowledge of the 'system'.
During the summer they auditioned some 3,500 students of
whom twenty were selected for the drama section. Then, in the
autumn, Stanislavski took them through the elements of the
'system' again and demonstrated his rehearsal method. The
first class with students took place on 15 November 1935.
Stanislavski did not write down what he taught but his
assistants and students made extensive notes while his own
sessions were taken down, like all his work, in shorthand. We
thus have a record of the 'system' as taught in the classroom,
simply, directiy, practically, not, as in A n Actor's Work on Himself,
in the form of a diary kept by an imaginary student.
The work of the Opera-Dramatic Studio is Stanislavski's true
testament. This legacy was handed down from teacher to
teacher in major theatre schools, and a tradition of training was
created long before a full edition of his works was published.
 Introduction xiii

This body of practice, therefore, essentially remained the

preserve of Stanislavski's disciples and their successors. Outside
Russia it was known only to a handful of specialists who
managed to observe class work at first hand.
In 1984, however, Irina Novitskaya, who had been one of
Stanislavski's assistants at the Studio, published a personal
account of its foundation and its work in her book, Uroki
Vdoxnovenija which she based on notes taken by herself and her
colleagues.
Having used it regularly as a source of material for my own
teaching, my first inclination was to translate and perhaps edit
Novitskaya's book and so provide a clear, authentic account of
the 'system' as taught by Stanislavski. It seemed the simplest
solution to our problems. But when I came to look at it more
closely, not as an occasional source of information, but as a
complete whole, I realised that it is no more immediately
accessible to a young reader than Stanislavski's own works. It is
a mixture of personal reminiscences, accounts of the work
which she developed after Stanislavski's death, and her own
explanations of the elements of the 'system' with liberal
quotations from Stanislavski's works. It is as much an act of
homage to a beloved teacher as a definition of principles. The
very title, Inspiring Lessons, is indicative of the tone.
At its core, however, are sets of exercises and improvisations,
examples of student work, Stanislavski's outline of his rehearsal
method with examples of its practical application, and verbatim
accounts of his own rehearsal classes. These make up the hard
information which we need for our daily work.
I decided, therefore, that I would use this factual, practical
core of Novitskaya's book as the centre of my own, but that all
exposition of the elements of the 'system' and any explanation
of the rationale of Stanislavski's rehearsal method would be
mine, based on my own previous research and the teaching I
had done at all levels, both in the U K and elsewhere, from
secondary to post-graduate. That experience had indicated the
path I should take. Students and teachers required an
explanation of Stanislavski's work clearly expressed in the
vocabulary of our own time. I had to modernise.
xiv Introduction

I felt this modernisation was legitimate. Stanislavski always

insisted that his work had to be useful and that it should be
extended and developed. He also recognised that different
countries and different cultures would need to adapt the
'system' to their own requirements. The one condition he laid
down was that its basic principles, which he believed to be
rooted in human biology, should be respected. I have accepted
that invitation and that limitation. Whatever the degree of
modernisation, it is a matter of presentation, not substance.
Stanislavski and the Actor stricdy respects the sequence of study
that Stanislavski laid down both for the 'system' and for the
rehearsal process.
Stanislavski hoped that eventually science would provide a
clear set of terms to replace his own home-grown vocabulary.
At the time he was writing, the right kind of scientific research
did not exist. But in the sixty years that have passed since his
death there have been significant developments i n the study of
memory, linguistics, non-verbal communication and reception
theory, much of which has entered common parlance. We all
talk freely now about 'body4anguage', but it is a term that has
only been current for about twenty-five years. I have used such
simple, basic modern concepts to explain the elements of the
'system' to a readership at home in the new scientific world.
I have also taken account of the gulf between the oppressive,
technically backward Soviet Union of the 1930s and the
modern technological society of the millennium. Stanislavski
always insisted that all exercises should be closely related to
students' direct, day-to-day experience. I have accordingly
updated some of the exercises.

One further word of explanation is essential. Stanislavski's

rehearsal method came to be known by his successors as the
'Method of Physical Action'. This is a term that has caused
much confusion. Many assume it means that acting is reduced
only to what actors do physically on stage, or that it is con-
cerned with problems of stage movement.
Some Russian teachers have preferred the term, the Method
of Analysis through Physical Action. This is more accurate.
 Introduction xv

What Stanislavski wanted to provide was a method for actors to

explore the play, the events as they unfold, in terms of what they
would do in the various situations the author provided, using
exercises and improvisations. It is active analysis on the
rehearsal-room floor, as opposed to the reflective, formal
analysis that takes place in the study; it first asks what happens,
rather than what the dramaturgical structure is. For Stanis-
lavski, the Method of Physical Action was the most effective way
for actors initially to get into the play; it provided the means to
liberate their imagination and their creative forces. Physical
action is the foundation on which the entire emotional, mental
and philosophical superstructure of the ultimate performance is
built.
fean Benedetti
Les Fontenelles
August 1 9 9 7
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Stanislavski and the Actor is intended to be a free-standing, con-

temporary manual that can be used in class without reference
to other works. In some sense it represents the manual that
Stanislavski wanted, but did not have time, to write.
While it is intended principally for young actors in training
and their teachers, I hope that it may be useful to others who
are interested in the art of acting. Those who are concerned
with the comparative study of acting methods may find Part
One especially relevant, while those whose concern is the
rehearsal process may be more interested in Parts Three and
Four. Some teachers and students may wish to concentrate on
Part Two. The four parts can, in fact, be read in the order that
best suits the reader's needs.

The scheme of the book is as follows:

Part One: M y own outline of the basic principles underlying

the Method of Physical Action, expressed in terms of con-
temporary knowledge.
Part Two: A n examination of the elements of the 'system' and
actor training. Each section begins with my own explanation of
the subject matter and is followed by sets of exercises, most of
which are taken from Novitskaya, and some of which I have
modified to meet the contemporary situation. Other exercises I
have invented, using the Stanislavski exercises as a model. This
is particularly true of those concerning language and speech
patterns. Stanislavski was fond of quoting examples from
Russian literature, plays and books unfamiliar to non-Russian
readers. These have been replaced with parallel examples from
English literature. Descriptions of work by the students at the
Studio are clearly marked 'Studio Notes'. This section recon-
structs the handbook Stanislavski wanted to write.