An Actor's Work on a Role

Konstantin Stanislavski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135203436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

An Actor's Work on a Role is Konstantin Stanislavski's exploration of the rehearsal process, applying the techniques of his seminal actor training system to the task of bringing truth to one's chosen role.

Originally published over half a century ago as Creating a Role, this book was the third in a planned trilogy – after An Actor Prepares and Building a Character, now combined in An Actor's Work – in which Stanislavski sets out his psychological, physical and practical vision of actor training.

This new translation from renowned scholar Jean Benedetti not only includes Stanislavski's original teachings, but is also furnished with invaluable supplementary material in the shape of transcripts and notes from the rehearsals themselves, reconfirming 'The System' as the cornerstone of actor training.

Part I
Drafts 1929–1937

1
OTHELLO 1930–1932

TORTSOV’S INTRODUCTION

‘We are starting our [third]¹ year with everything we acquired in the previous year in good order. If we have not mastered it fully, you are sufficiently aware of what you have to do with your artistic apparatus, both mental and physical.

‘You know what the general working state is. That enables you to study the next phase in our syllabus: work on a role. For that we need a role to study. So much the better if we find a complete play we can use and if each of you finds a suitable part in it. Let’s start with the choice of the play. Let’s decide what we are going to perform, or, rather, what we are going to study and how to apply what we learned during the [second] year.’

The whole class was taken up with selecting the roles, extracts and the complete play on which we shall work.

I will not describe the long disagreements and conversations that are inevitable in these kind of discussions. We are all too familiar with the kind of scenes that occur in amateur circles and productions. I prefer to describe the reasons which guided Tortsov in avoiding plays that were beyond us, and which he considered too difficult and dangerous for raw beginners.

To my great joy his choice fell, no more no less, on Othello.

These were his reasons:

‘We need a play that will appeal to you and offer all, or most of you, suitable roles. Othello appeals to everyone and it is wonderful to cast …

‘Othello is also suitable because there are many small parts and crowd scenes. I shall give these to our young collaborators in the theatre with whom we have to go on working this year, as we did last, on the “system”.

‘Shakespeare’s tragedy, as I have often stated, is too difficult for beginners. Moreover it is too complex to stage. This will protect you from cobbling performances of roles together which are beyond your limited strength. I am not going to make you perform a tragedy. We only need it as material to study. We could not find a better play than this. It is first class and there can be no doubt as to its artistic quality. Besides which, this tragedy is sharply etched in its individual bits and the logical sequence in the development of its tragic emotions the throughaction and the supertask.

‘There is a further practical consideration. You beginners are drawn to tragedy. This is mostly because you do not know their tasks and demands. Get to know what they are as soon as you can, as closely as you can, so as not to fall victim to unimaginably dangerous temptations.

‘Every director has his own individual approach to a role and a way of putting it into practice. But it must not be set in stone. But its basic phases and psychophysical techniques drawn from our own nature must be exactly obeyed. You must know them and I must demonstrate them in practice and make you feel them and test them out for yourselves. This, so to speak, is a classic example of the process of working on a role.

‘But apart from that you must come to understand and master all kinds of variants because the director varies them according to need, the progress of the work, the situation and the individual actors’ personalities. That is why I will deal with the very many scenes in Othello differently. That is why I will do the first scene using the basic, classic pattern, while in other, later scenes I shall constantly introduce new techniques, sequences and variants into their structure. On each occasion I will warn you in advance.’

FIRST ACQUAINTANCE OF THE PLAY AND THE ROLE

‘Let’s read Othello’, suggested Tortsov at the beginning of the class.

‘We know it! We’ve read it!’ several voices exclaimed.

‘Splendid! In that case, tell me what it’s about.’

Nobody said anything.

‘It’s difficult to relate the contents of a complex psychological play because at first we are satisfied with conveying the action, the succession of events.’

But no one responded to this suggestion either.

‘You start!’, Tortsov urged Grisha.

‘But for that, you see, you have to know the play!’, he evaded.

‘But you do know it.’

‘Look, please, I’m sorry, I know the whole of the role of Othello, by heart, because it’s my kind of role but I have scarcely looked at the other parts’, our ‘tragedian’ admitted.

‘Is that the way you first got to know Othello!’, Tortsov exclaimed. ‘That’s pathetic! Perhaps you can tell us the contents of the play?’, said Tortsov, turning to Vanya who was sitting next to Grisha.

‘There’s no way I can do that. I read it but not all of it because there were several pages missing.’

‘And you?’, said Tortsov to Paul.

‘I don’t remember the whole of the play as I saw it with touring foreign stars. And, as we know, they cut anything superfluous, that is, that has nothing to do with their role’, Pasha stated.

Tortsov merely shook his head.

Nikolai had seen the play in Armavir but in such a bad production that it would have been better had he not seen it.

Leo read the play in a train and so his memories were a blur. He only remembered the big scenes.

Leo had read all the critical articles on the play from Hervnius² onwards, but he could not relate the facts of the play or their sequence.

‘It is very bad that such an important process as the first acquaintance with a writer’s work should have been done just anywhere: in a train, a cab or a tram. It is even worse that this is often done not to get to know the play but so you can pick the best roles.

‘This is how actors first get to know the classics which in time they will perform. This is the way they approach a role with which sooner or later they will have to merge, and in which they must find their second “self”.

‘This moment of getting to know a role can be compared to the lovers’ or spouses’ first meeting.³ It is unforgettable.

‘For me these first impressions are of decisive significance. At least they have always seemed so in my personal experience. What I first felt, for good or ill, finally without fail was present in my creative process and however anyone tried to take them away from me, they stayed firm. You cannot destroy them, you can improve them or iron them out of the play and they are embryonic experiences. Moreover, first acquaintance often leaves its imprint on all an actor’s later work. If our impressions at first reading are valid, that is an indication of future success. If this vital moment is lost, then the second and later readings will lack the element of surprise, so powerful in intuitive creative work. Correcting false impressions is more difficult than initially creating true ones. We must pay extreme attention to the first acquaintance with the role, which is the first phase in creative work.

‘It is dangerous to wreck this moment with a wrong approach to a work since it can create a false impression of the play and the work or, what is worse, a preconception. The battle against it is long and hard.’

When questioned by the students, Tortsov explained what he meant by ‘a preconception’.

‘It is many-sided. Let us begin with the fact that it can be for or against’, he said. ‘Let us take Grisha and Vanya. They both know Othello partially. One sees a lead role, the other does not know what is missing in the old incomplete copy he has.

‘For example, Grisha does not know the play, only one role. It is splendid. He is in raptures about it and takes the rest on trust. That’s all right if the play is a masterpiece, like Othello. But there are many bad plays with fine roles (Kean, Louis XI, Ingomar, Don Cesar de Bazan)⁴. Vanya could fill his missing pages with anything he liked. If he believed in his ideas, that could become a preconception quite unrelated to Shakespeare’s ideas. Leo started with critical commentaries. Are they infallible? Many of them talk mediocre rubbish and if we believe what they say, then that becomes a preconceived version, preventing a direct approach to the play. Leo read the play on a train, confusing the memories of his journey with the memories of the play. They cannot be reconciled. Nikolai, not without cause, is afraid to remember the performance he saw in Armavir. I am not surprised that, given his impressions, he has formed a poor opinion of the play.

‘Imagine that you cut one beautifully painted figure out of a canvas or that you are shown snippets from a large picture. Can you judge it or understand the whole picture from that? What errors can arise as a result! It is fortunate that Othello is perfect in all its parts. But if it were otherwise, and the writer has only been successful with his main character and the others were not worth noticing, then the actor who judges the whole play by one role would form a false but favourable impression. That is, so to speak, a favourable preconception. But if the writer had been successful with all the parts except the lead, then the false impression and the preconception would be on the other side and would be unfavourable.

‘Let me give you such a case.

‘A famous young actress, in her youth, had never seen Woe from Wit or The Government Inspector and only knew them from her lessons in literature. She did not remember the works themselves but the exposition and critical opinions of poorly gifted teachers with whom she studied. Her classes at school left her the memory that both classic plays were fine but … boring.

‘That is one of the many mistakes of preconception about which we are speaking. Fortunately for her she had to take part in both plays and only after many years, when the roles had become part of her was she able to remove the thorn, the preconception from her mind and see the plays with her own, not other people’s eyes. Now there is no greater admirer of these two classic plays. And you should hear what she says about her bad teacher.

‘Take care this does not happen to you as you approach Othello!’

‘We were not read the play at school and thus not given a false interpretation’, we stated.

‘Preconception cannot only be created in school but also elsewhere. ‘Imagine that up to the first reading you heard all manner of right and wrong, good and bad comments about it, and so you start to criticise it before you have even read it. We Russians are inclined to criticism and, what is worse, to shallow fault-finding. Many of us really believe that understanding and appraising a work of art and art itself consists in being able to reveal their flaws. It is much more important and difficult to look for the beautiful, that is to discover its merits.

‘If you are not armed with your own compelling, free attitude to a work and your opinions about it, you cannot stand up against the traditional view of the classics. This forces you to understand Othello in the same way “public opinion” states.

‘The first reading is often entrusted to anyone who turns up and has a big voice and clear diction. He is handed the manuscript a few minutes before the reading begins. Is it any wonder that this accidental reader recites the play the first way that comes into his head, without understanding its essential meaning.

‘I know of cases when the lead role has been given in an old man’s voice, not realising that the character who was called an “old man” was in fact young but took a disillusioned view of life and so acquired his nickname.

‘These kinds of mistakes can wreck the play and create a false impression and create a preconception.

‘But here’s the rub. Even a model reading which is too good, too talented, and clearly conveys the reader’s talent can create another aspect of preconception. Imagine that the reader’s and the author’s understanding are not the same. But the reader’s mistake is so talented and entrancing that the actor is captivated by it to the detriment of the writer’s ideas. In this...