Experiencing Stanislavsky Today

Training and Rehearsal for the Psychophysical Actor

Stephanie Daventry French, Philip G. Bennett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136519338
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

This pioneering introduction to Stanislavsky's methods and modes of actor training covers all of the essential elements of his System. Recreating 'truthful' behaviour in the artificial environment, awareness and observation, psychophysical work, given circumstances, visualization and imagination, and active analysis are all introduced and explored.

• Each section of the book is accompanied by individual and group exercises, forming a full course of study in the foundations of modern acting.
• A glossary explains the key terms and concepts that are central to Stanislavsky's thinking at a glance.
• The book's companion website is full of downloadable worksheets and resources for teachers and students.

Experiencing Stanislavsky Today is enhanced by contemporary findings in psychology, neuroscience, anatomy and physiology that illuminate the human processes important to actors, such as voice and speech, creativity, mind-body connection, the process and the production of emotions on cue. It is the definitive first step for anyone encountering Stanislavsky's work, from acting students exploring his methods for the first time, to directors looking for effective rehearsal tools and teachers mapping out degree classes.

Chapter 1
An Invitation to the Quest for Inspiration

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”¹

—Henry Miller

• ■ Enter the Actor … You
• ■ What Is Inspiration?
• ■ The Actor’s Creative Journal
• ■ What Are Audiences Hoping for in a Performance?
• ■ The Path to Peak Performance—Myths and Realities
• ■ If You Have Talent, Why Do You Need Technique?
• ■ The Actor’s Palette—Stanislavsky and Beyond

Enter the Actor … You

You have taken a leap, entered an acting class, and opened this book. Exploring the terrain of acting requires curiosity and courage. If you apply yourself to this journey actively and with discipline, you will make amazing discoveries about yourself, human existence, and the art of acting. Every new class, new company, new play or screenplay, new performance is uncharted territory for continued investigation and discovery. If you can approach growing as an actor with beginner’s mind, no matter your level of experience, and engage fully in each new opportunity, expansion and insight await.

Beginner’s mind is a Zen concept designed to increase our capacity for learning and growth. The practitioner empties his mind of preconceptions, releases preprogramed habits, and is ready to accept new ideas offered and consider the possibilities. This perspective can be helpful for openness to learning whether the student is a neophyte or more experienced in the area of study.

Of course you could settle for the limiting alternative expressed by Shakespeare’s character Macbeth, who describes human existence as “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more” and offer merely “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Macbeth V.v. lines 2381–2385). Acting need not be merely a clever bag of illusions, however, but can be a path to greater awareness, truth, and communication. The actor has the power to be like a shaman from an ancient culture, leading the audience into a deeper understanding of themselves, other human beings, our present world, and our history. While still critiquing bad acting in his speech to the players, Shakespeare, through Hamlet, nevertheless expresses hope for theatre art “to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature” (Hamlet III.ii. lines 17–24). By taking this class, by opening this book, you have taken the first step to becoming an inspired and inspiring artist.

Figure 1.1 Bamboo forest, Kyoto, Japan.

Photo : Stephanie Daventry French

What Is Inspiration?

Artists, inventors, scientists, and athletes all understand that in order to achieve anything worthwhile and to feel the keen sense of aliveness possible through their endeavor, they must find an entry point into a state of peak performance. This state is referred to in various fields by different terms, such as the zone (sports), flow (psychology and business), or inspiration. As artists, we most commonly use the term inspiration. Inspiration comes “from the Latin inspirare: ‘to breathe’ or ‘blow into.’ The word was originally used of a divine or supernatural being, in the sense of to ‘impart a truth or idea to someone.’”² Inspiration is something very difficult to describe but very clear when one witnesses it or experiences it directly. Here are a number of ways we sought to describe this experience that may remind you of moments when you have been inspired.

Inspiration can be:

• a realization of great clarity—an “aha” moment when something that had been challenging is deeply understood;
• knowing without thinking (when the truth of something is known at a gut level prior to thinking it through logically—perhaps only after this knowing are the facts and logical path shown to support it);
• an insight, answer, or solution that comes to us spontaneously from the subconscious mind;
• a heightened sense of aliveness (akin to being in love); or
• a sense of being touched by a profound collective experience, the collective unconscious, the divine, God, or however you perceive this vast body of wisdom greater than any one of us alone (this can happen, for example, at a religious ceremony where a part of the ritual is collectively experienced at a profound level, or at a concert when the musicians and audience are elevated through collective song or dance).

The Collective Unconscious and Universality in Art

The collective unconscious—so far as we can say anything about it at all—appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious. … We can therefore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.³

When a work of art is considered universal, touching and inspiring people across time and cultures, the artist may be tapping into motifs from the collective unconscious.

In acting, inspiration can take many forms; some examples include:

• a clarity of mind whereby an actor knows instinctively what to do as the character (in a state of true inspiration everything we do is right for the character);
• a sudden insight that provides a creative solution to a particularly perplexing challenge in the script;
• a deep understanding of the human psyche (the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind) that can be accessed and conveyed;
• a production where all the disparate insights into the play coalesce into a unified aesthetic (a guiding artistic principle);
• a shared experience between performers and audience; or
• a superconscious state, an experience whereby life is breathed into an artistic creation, and real emotions and insights are triggered in artist and audience.

The Actor’s Creative Journal

Developing more awareness of yourself, and of others, is a key to acting. One tool that can be very helpful in this process is a creative journal. In it, you can write down insights as you observe yourself and others in the process of acting, observe real human behavior, and consider other topics of relevance to acting. Engaging in this way will help you retain and understand the new concepts, as well as enhance your ability to use the new information. You can write notes for classes and rehearsals, creative observations, and details of interesting human behavior. If you write in enough detail, you can go back and draw on these resources later for various characters and plays. Throughout this book, we will suggest reflection journals on specific topics. Here is the first of these:

1.1 Reflection Journal—Inspiration

Recall and jot down one or more moments in your own life when you have experienced or observed inspiration. Do you recall any specifics as to physical sensations, thoughts, or emotions?

What Are Audiences Hoping for in a Performance?

It is easiest to start with a clear goal and figure out the steps we need to take to achieve it. Theatre is a collaborative performing art presented to a public group, rather than a solitary art appreciated by solitary members of the public. Perhaps a good starting place is the question, What are audiences hoping for from an actor’s performance?

Audience members come to the theatre for a variety of reasons. Some of them are similar to the reasons we go to a live sporting event or a live music concert even though the quality might be much better if we were to watch it on television or listen to a high-definition recording. There is a need for collective experience, for feeling part of a group. We get great joy in collective expression—cheering together or heckling our opponents. At a music concert we may sing or dance with others. At the theatre, we laugh together, cry together, applaud together, and sometimes listen intently in silent, collective awe with hundreds of other people, perhaps releasing a sigh at a moment of familiar human truth. Most of us have experienced release when we let out a deep, extended belly laugh, or sob as we identify with a character’s plight. These experiences can be even more powerful when echoed by others in the audience. At a live performance, the audience’s responses affect the performers as well; thus audience and performers are cocreators of the event.

“In the theatre with a packed audience, with a thousand hearts beating in union with the actor’s heart a wonderful resonant acoustic is created for our feelings. For every moment genuinely experienced onstage we get back a response from the audience, participation, empathy, invisible currents from a thousand living, emotionally stimulated people who create the performance with us.”

—Stanislavsky, 2009: 294

At other times a performance can help us gain insights into ourselves. We cannot always see clearly what to do as crises arise in our own lives; however, from aesthetic distance, observing similar dilemmas performed before us on stage or in a film, we can consider possible solutions and learn from the effective or ineffective choices attempted by characters in the story. Sometimes, an actor demonstrates an understanding, through the character’s dilemma, of an issue that we thought was unique to us, perhaps a shameful secret we have hidden and been burdened by. When we realize, from observing it truthfully depicted on stage, that others have experienced this, too, this in itself can be profoundly healing and we may feel less isolated.

Many people go to see theatre or films for entertainment or escape. A great performance can transport us to another life and time, thereby broadening our understanding of others and the world. Sometimes our own problems seem small as we put them in a larger perspective. We may laugh in the comedies at the ridiculousness of the petty struggles of life and feel relief from life’s burdens.

“The theatre infects the audience with its noble ecstasy.”

—Stanislavsky quoted in Moore, 1978: 5.

We are also drawn to greatness—both in the level of accomplishment of the athletes, musicians, or actors, and in the mountain they are attempting to climb before us at the current event. Plays and films generally reveal characters in challenging circumstances and also demand great feats of artistry from the actor to express this struggle. If the actors are inspired, they can provide a bridge so that the audience moves through that engaging experience with the characters. Through a great actor, we can be moved to depths of emotion—the agonies and the ecstasies—that make us feel more alive.

We live a more expansive life through identifying with a good actor in a role: We fall in love; we are triumphant, or we get revenge unfettered for a moment by moral restraint and lawful behavior; we speed through a car chase in a hot car out of our price range; we find, through our heroes, power to triumph against unjust forces. To be in the presence of an inspired artist can be equally inspiring for the audience.

The Path to Peak Performance—Myths and Realities

Many people watch sports, mo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Illustration Acknowledgments
• Acknowledgments
• 1. An Invitation to the Quest for Inspiration
• Part 1: Psychophysical Conditioning
• Part 2: Psychophysical Action: Engaging Others
• Part 3: Active Analysis
• Part 4: Honoring Our Acting Legacy
• Appendix I—A Selected Glossary: Terminology of the Stanislavsky System with Supplemental Terms
• Appendix II—10 Yoga Poses
• Appendix IIIa—Basic and Intermediate Improvisation Worksheets
• Appendix IIIb—Intermediate and Advanced Improvisation Worksheet
• Appendix IV—Additional Actions for Selection and Practice
• Appendix V—Sample Text Analysis: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Act 2, Scene 2 (Andrei and Ferapont)
• Appendix VIa—The Properties of Vowels (with IPA Vowel Articulation Chart)
• Appendix VIb—The Properties of Consonants (with IPA Consonant Articulation Chart)
• Appendix VII—Full List of Exercises and Improvisations by Category
• Bibliography
• Index