Introduction to Acting

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Introduction to Acting

• Brian Brophy

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Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky1863-1938

• We must love the art in ourselves, not ourselves
  in the art.

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Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956

• Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a
  hammer with which to shape it.

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Early Questions

• In the early phase of his career (1880s), the
  notebooks of Kostya are filled with deep
  questions
• What is the physiological aspect of the role?
• The psychic aspect of the role?
• What were the differences between character
  acting and personality acting?

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Questions

• How could actors stimulate their imagination and
  therefore their creative will? And how did
  actors get inside the directors ideas?

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How to Stimulate the Imagination?

• At the age of 25, Kostya locked himself in the
  cellar of a castle to help him visualize the role
  of the old Miserly Knight. He was determined to
  find the missing component to his character, by
  somehow re-creating the cellar memory in his
  performance. Reportedly, he caught a deathly
  cold, but the experience began to lay the
  groundwork for his theory of affective memory .

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Affective Memory (1909)

• Also known as emotion memory or sense
  memory. The term describes the process of
  recalling situations from your own experience
  (including events that youve read about, heard
  about, or seen, as well as directly experienced)
  that are analogous to the characters situation

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Affective Memory Cont

• It involves the collaborative work of the
  imagination and all your senses (taste, touch,
  sight, smell and hearing) in recalling incidents.
  Finding an appropriate affective memory is a
  means of empathizing with the contents of the
  play so that you can invest them with something
  from your personal landscape

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Affective Memory Cont

• This process of empathy should prevent your
  characterizations becoming cliched and formal.
• Bella Marlin

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Biography in Social and Artistic Context

• 1.The Amateur years 1863-1898
• 2. The Director Dictator 1891-1906
• 3. Round the Table Analysis 1906-early 30s
• 4. The Final legacies 1930s-1938 and beyond.

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1863-1938

• Born two years after the abolition of serfdom,
  Stan came from a wealthy family that made gold
  and silver braiding for military decorations and
  uniforms, while the Sergeyev clan was directly
  descended from serfs themselves.

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Kostyas Childhood

• Raised by a peasant nanny and educated by a
  university trained governess, the Alexeyev
  household along with their nine children mingled
  superstition with modern liberal thinking(and)
  an obsessive fear of sickness

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Childhood

• On many Russian estates the serfs were trained by
  amateur directors for comic and musical
  performances. Once serfdom was abolished, the
  practice died out, but the Alexeyev household
  began to mount their own spectacles. One
  significant performance to the six year old
  Kostya was as Father Winter.

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Father Winter

• The Alexeyev clan produced an elaborate fairy
  tale for their mothers birthday party. Kostya,
  dressed in a sheet of white cotton and wool,
  holding a branch made of rolled cotton, told to
  stay away from the flames of the candles on the
  stage, yet, feeling self- conscious and anxious
  of not being told or knowing where to look, set
  himself on fire

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At the Circus

• Kostyas mother exposed him and his siblings to
  all the performing arts including the ballet,
  opera and circus. At eight years of age, overcome
  by the pink-leotarded equstrienne in the circus
  ring, riding round on her horse, Kostya broke
  free from his mother and ran into the ring and
  kissed her, much to the embarrassment of his
  siblings.

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Active Imagination

• Kostya constructed his own puppets with miniature
  stage designs and staged French comedies and
  musicals with his sisters playing parts most
  opposite to their innate personality. The
  introverted sister chose to play coquettes or
  flirtatious women, whereas the extroverted sister
  loved to play nuns actors have tendency to play
  their opposites.

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Alexeyev Circle

• The family creates its own amateur theater
  company and achieves renown as the best
  non-professional theater company in Moscow.
  However, once he turns 18 Kostya is ready to move
  on

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Maly Theater

• Desperate to be in front of an audience, he moves
  to Moscow and studies at Maly where he is tackles
  the idea of inspiration. Where does it come from
  if an audience is unresponsive? He finds
  inspiration from his fellow actor on stage and in
  their eyes

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Alexeyev becomes Stanislavsky

• After watching the great Italian tragedian
  Tommaso Salvini perform Othello, Kostya says
  Salvinis passion was so powerful that it was as
  if burning lava was pouring into his heart when
  he performed. He shaves his goatee and changes
  his name.

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• Beginning to act more frequently with his trimmed
  goatee in the Italian style and new name at
  night, he works by day as a manager in his
  fathers business. One night his parents come
  watch him perform in a risque French melodrama
  they are embarrassed and his father scolds him
  the next day, yet seeing his sons commitment
  offers him funding for a new theater company.

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The Society of Art and Literature

• In 1888,professional director and playwright
  Alexander Fedotov is hired to work with Kostya
  and immediately makes his mark upon the
  enthusiastic actor.

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Hungry to Act

• Fedotov tells kostya to find his character models
  from living people and not from imitating other
  actors interpretations. He begins to understand
  the necessity of a relaxed body and using
  opposite character traits to portray more fully
  rounded and interesting characters.

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AhhhLove

• He falls in love with Masha Perevoshchikova and
  realizes when he is in love, and in every role he
  plays, he improves markedly. Lightness and
  subtlety. Kostya marries Lillina, Mashas stage
  name, in 1889 and the two are inseparable until
  the end.

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• Between 1890-1896 Kostya is regarded as Moscows
  most interesting and modern stage director
  (Gordon). The Society has many hits including
  Othello with Kostya as director and star, but
  eventually the company loses inspiration and
  several shows fail, and Kostya is invited to
  start a new company with critic and dramturg
  Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchencko

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Moscow Art Theater

• 18 hour meeting with Danchencko.
• Treating all actors with respect
• Dressing rooms
• Democratic ensemble
• Today Hamlet, tomorrow an extra
• Although actor based, lights, music, set,
  costumes, direction and mise en scene would serve
  the plays thesis.
• Summer training in Pushkino
• Opens in 1898, the year of Brechts birth

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MAT

• First Season
• Czar Fyodor The court intrigues of boyars around
  a powerless czar, banned by Russian censors for
  three decades.
• Merchant of Venice
• The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

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The House of Chekhov

• From 1898 to 1903 Kostya directs Chekhovs Cherry
  Orchard, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters Seagull
  and Maxim Gorkys Lower Depths (1902), to name
  just a few.
• The Russian audiences are overwhelmed by these
  new plays and tickets for a MAT show are sold out
  every performance.

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MATs Reputation Grows

• Due to Kostyas detailed realism, he would
  create a great spectacle of the ordinary and
  banal. The smallest activity and interaction in
  the text could be filled with dozens of scenic
  detail and unspoken communications. Everyday life
  could be made totally exotic and, in so doing, a
  deeper psychological truth between the characters
  could be mined.
• Gordon (20)

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MAT Tours

• Three hundred performers and backstage workers,
  including a Board of Directors, stockholders and
  loyal patrons make up the universe of MAT.
• As the 1905 Russian Revolution rumbles throughout
  the land, and the Japanese defeat the Russians in
  the Russo-Japanese War, the MAT travels to
  Germany and Central Europe.

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Images of Kostya

• Dr. Astrov in Uncle Vanya 1899

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Images

• Vershinin from Three Sisters (1901)

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Images

• As Rakitin in A Month in the Country (1909)

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The Creative State of Mind

• The oldest features of Kostyas System, the
  building blocks for the actors working on
  him/herself include
• 1. Relaxation
• 2. Concentration
• 3. Naivete

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Relaxation (1906)

• One of Kostyas first discoveries was that
  muscular tension limits the actors capacity to
  feel as well as move. Free from tension is
  essential for stage creativity.

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Concentration (1906)

• The development of the actors ability to focus
  or concentrate on a single sensation or object is
  the first step necessary in producing the
  CREATIVE STATE OF MIND. By concentrating on an
  object, the actor learns to make himself
  interested in it. This in turn takes his/her
  attention away from the audience, leading him/her
  directly and unerringly into the on-stage
  reality.
• Gordon (234)

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Naivete

• The state or quality of being inexperienced or
  unsophisticated, especially in being artless,
  credulous, or uncritical.
• Free Dictionary
• 2. To enter into a plays imaginary
  circumstances, the actor must relearn and develop
  his childlikepowers to completely believe in
  invisible stimuli
• Gordon (239)

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Naivete
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Lower Depths

• Akira Kurosawa adapted Maxim Gorkys masterpiece,
  first presented by MAT with Stanislavsky in 1902.
  
• His film version made in 1958 titled Donzoko, is
  set in mid-1800s Japan chronicling the desperate
  lives of the poor and downtrodden urban masses.

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The Director Dictator 1891-1906

• Where the ideas came from
• 1. Production plan create myriad details on
  movement, acting, voices, body positions on
  stage( blocking, or mise en scene),etc.
• 2.German Saxe-Meiningen productions. Director
  Ludwig Chronegk directed with absolute military
  discipline. Impressed with scenography.

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The Seagull

• First production a disaster (1896).
• Play called for an inner activity, but actors
  emploi (type) was useless.
• Kostya directs it in 1898.
• His production plan works brilliantly.
• His careful devotion to detail and mise en scene
  creates something never seen before in Russia.

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Two Revolutions

• Theater production attention to stage detail
• Acting styles truthful portrayal of life of
  the human spirit OR psychological realism

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Autocratic Director

• Kostya directs all of Chekhovs plays with the
  iron will, and externally imposing actions upon
  the actors and exactly guiding them in how to
  play the scenes.
• Even Chekhovs wife complains as the creative
  freedom of the ensemble was shackled to the
  directors designs.

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Kostya Gets Straightjacketed

• Nemirovich-Danchencko direction of Julius Caesar
  and Lower Depths, gives Kostya a taste of his own
  medicine.

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18-19th c Acting Styles--Pre Stanislavsky

• Classical Acting--Copying statues and with
  decorum and balance
• Romantic Acting--windy, wild exuberance of inner
  impulses

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Inner Justification

• If the director forces the actors to behave
  according to his production plan and mise en
  scene, s/he is in danger of not allowing the
  actors to investigate their own inner
  justification.

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Exercises
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Affective Memory,Communication (1906) and Rhythm
(1906)

• Although practiced in the classroom exercises,
  these were frequently associated with the private
  and individual process of creating a role.

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Affective Memory (1909)

• Also known as emotion memory or sense
  memory. The term describes the process of
  recalling situations from your own experience
  (including events that youve read about, heard
  about, or seen, as well as directly experienced)
  that are analogous to the characters situation

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Communciation (1906)

• Acting is a special form of communication. To go
  beyond the playwrights words, an actor must
  learn to deliver a deeper, living message to the
  audiencethe actor communicates or radiates a
  subtext of thoughts and feelings to his partners,
  which then, in turn, affects the audience.
• Gordon (232)

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What time is it?

• Communicate to your partner the following
  thoughts
• Am I late?
• Why are you late?
• Why dont you leave?
• My God this is boring!
• Please tell me the time!

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Rhythm (1906)

• All human activity follows some rhythmic pattern.
  Each actor must find the proper rhythm fo his/her
  character and all his/her stage activities.

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Round the Table Analysis 1906-1930s

• Detective work with actors and playscript around
  the table yielded great insights
• 1.Given circumstances
• 2. Pauses
• 3. Bits
• 4. Objectives
• 5. Action

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Given Circumstances

• All the pieces of information needed by actors to
  make the appropriate decisions when interpreting
  their characters. They include the story of the
  play, its facts, events, epoch, time and place of
  action, conditions of life, the actors and
  regisseurs interpreta- tion, the mise en scene,
  the production, the sets, costumes, properities,
  lighting and sound effects.
• Merlin 158

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Pauses

• A pause is full of inner action and emotional
  intensity. It is the silent, inner continuation
  of one action and the preparation for a new
  action.

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Two types of Pauses

• 1. The logic pause comes at the end of a line and
  a stanza, giving literary sense and
  intelligibility to a text.
• 2. Psychological pause can appear anywhere, as
  long as it is necessary and breathes life into
  the text..
• Merlin 160-161

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Bits

• Beats? Beads? Borscht?
• A section of text in which the characters are
  clearly pursuing a particular objective. At the
  point at which one characters objective is
  thwarted or achieved, a new dynamic usually
  begins and so a new bit starts
• Merlin 158

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Objective

• An objective (task) is the main desire motivating
  a characters behavior in a scene or in a
  particular bit, and is directed towards the
  on-stage partner.

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Action

• Every moment that the actor is on stage and every
  line of text consists of an action. It is
  directed towards the other characters in the
  scene, and is usually expressed as a transitive
  verb (I persuade you, I threaten you, I
  enchant you, etc.).

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Action!!

• Each action is like a bead if you string the
  beads together, you have your characters through
  line of action, which then propels and guides you
  through the entire play.
• Merlin 156

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What Stands in Your Way of Achieving your
Objectives?

• OBSTACLES!

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Hedda Gabler (1891)

• Hedda, the independent daughter of General
  Gabler, recently deceased, marries George Tesman,
  a dull but well meaning research scholar. On her
  honeymoon she realizes that her marriage is a
  mistake and by staying with George she condemns
  herself to a living death as trophy wife in a
  middle class home

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Hedda Gabler

• The challenge of the actor is to make the
  dullness of the bourgeoisie such an obstacle to a
  fulfilled life that Hedda kills herself to escape
  it.
• Kaplan 38

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Prana (1906)

• Derived from Indic-culture, a Sanskrit word
  referring to waves of the universal life force.
  Kostya and Suler believed that invisible rays of
  Prana could be produced in the hands, fingers
  tips, and eyes of the performer. Powerful means
  of COMMUNICATION between actors and their
  audience.
• Gordon (240)

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Legacy

• Stanislavski's work was as important to the
  development of socialist realism in the USSR as
  it was to that of psychological realism in the
  United States.3 Many actors routinely identify
  his 'system' with the American Method, although
  the latter's exclusively psychological techniques
  contrast sharply with Stanislavski's
  multivariant, holistic and psychophysical
  approach, which explores character and action
  both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside
  in'.4

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Influences on Stanislavsky

• Stanislavski's work draws on a wide range of
  influences and ideas, including his study of the
  modernist and avant-garde developments of his
  time (naturalism, symbolism and Meyerhold's
  constructivism), Russian formalism, Yoga,
  Pavlovian behaviourist psychology, James-Lange
  (via Ribot) psychophysiology and the aesthetics
  of Pushkin, Gogol, and Tolstoy. He described his
  approach as 'spiritual Realism'.

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Whoever empathizes with someone, and does so
completely, relinquishes criticism both of the
object of their empathy and of themselves.
Instead of awakening, they sleepwalk. Instead of
doing something, they let something be done with
them.Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht

• In 1955, Brecht read Toporkovs book and changed
  his antipathy towards the System as the Method of
  Physical Action corresponded very much with his
  own approach. Brecht thought the American
  adaptation of the System, indulged the actor,
  leading to great emotional excess. To his
  surprise, Stanislavski in Rehearsal fully
  dissuaded him form his assumptions.