stanislavsky techruss

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28 THE STANISLAVSKY TECHNIQUE: RUSSIArich voice failed to register its full, trademarked tones oflyrical sincerity and psychological candor. Like a self-con-scious, amateur actor, he returned to rehearsing before amirror. Once, during a performance of Uncle Vanya, he losthis powers of concentration; his mind kept pathologicallywandering back to an offstage conversation. Worst of all,neither the MAT nor his audience seemed to care or noticewhat he felt inside.

THE CREATIVE STATE OF MINDDuring his convalescence, Stanislavsky searched desper~

ately for answers. He examined his volumes of notebooks,studied children at play, went for long walks, thought aboutthe successes and failures of his and other actors' careers.He investigated these threads for a common bond. Finally,it came to him. Every actor he respected shared certainqualities: there was a kind of aura around them on the stage.Audiences sensed something different about these perform-ers. They were relaxed yet filled with a concentrated energy.They were completely involved in the theatrical moment,possessing an ease and liveliness that gave each of their rolesa special charge. The performances of these actors remindedStanislavsky of the absolute absorption and rapture childrenfeel when building sand castles-the same feeling that visualartists have when finishing paintings, the purposefulnessthat heightens adolescents' minds when writing love letters.Time and place transform themselves. Actions and feelingsintensify, sublimate, wax artistic. Solely through the

Leopold Sulerzhitsky, The System, and the First Studio 29strength of their faith and imagination, the child, the artist,and the !over transport themselves on to another, more cre-ative plane.Stanislavsky called this inspired artistic condition, the

Creative State of Mind. It was the intense and expansivemood that writers and artists need to create. Exactly likelove, it appeared to be instinctive yet remained a passion be-yond the boundaries of any mental control. The CreativeState of Mind, for most artists, could not be summoned at amoment's notice; it vanished as unexpectedly as it came.But great actors intuitively knew how to "create" it on thestage. In happier times, Stanislavsky also felt this state:suddenly his clumsiness and muscular tensions disappeared;he imperceptibly merged with his role and radiated a specialenergy that comes with being fully alive on the stage. Thisartistic fire, this sense of being that allows the actor to forgetabout the critical presence of the audience should be availableto every actor. Yet only a celebrated handful could consis-tently reproduce it. One thing became evidentto Stanis-lavsky, the potent Creative State of Mind could not be willeddirectly, so deeply was it imbedded in the mysterious anddeeper recesses of the human mind. Perhaps hypnosis orphysical exercises could stimulate and control it. Exploringand developing methods to release the actor's creative powerwould now preoccupy Stanislavsky.In August of 1906 when Stanislavsky returned to

Moscow, members of the MAT showed little interest in theirdirector 's discoveries. In fact, many of them thought thatStanislavsky was much better as an actor and director with-


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30 THE STANISLAVSKYTECHNIQUE: RUSSIAout his theories, which some found overly obsessive. Andthe more excited Stanislavsky became over his analysis andideas, the more Nemirovich-Danchenko and the othersfeared for his mental balance. Every mature actor has a dryperiod, they warned. Accept it. Why change your workingmethods if everyone praises them? Still, Stanislavsky wasdetermined to test his theories about the Creative State ofMind as best he could, by using himself as a guinea pig.

ENTER LEOPOLD SULERZHITSKY

Only one person seemed to understand the inspired fervorand significance of Stanislavsky's hypothesis. This wasLeopold Sulerzhitsky, the MAT stage hand andjack-of-all-trades, who was Stanislavsky's junior by ten years. A col-orful adventurer with a gift for storytelling, "Suler"-as hewas re-christened by Maxim Gorky-was a favorite with thecompany, staff, and families of the MAT. Suler's lifeincluded stints in every kind of calling and occupation: hehad been a fisherman in the Crimea, a merchant marine andsailor, a tutor and painter, a farmhand, a hobo, and a smug-gler of pamphlets for the outlawed Social Democratic Party.A schoolmate of Lev Tolstoy'S daughter, Suler converted toTolstoy'S social philosophy and militant pacificism in histwenties. Convicted as a conscientious objector and revolu-tionary, Suler served time in an army prison, a lunatic asy-lum, and was exiled later to Central Asia. Tolstoy was sotaken with him that he declared Suler was "the purest man Iever knew.... All Three Musketeers rolled into one."

Leopold Sulerzhitsky, The System. and the First Studio 31At the turn-of-the-century, Suler helped a group of

Dukhobers emigrate from the Caucasus to Newfoundland inCanada. For two years, Suler helped them establish theirTolstoyan collective in the New World, learning in returntheir Eastern-influenced religious practices. So successfulwas Suler that Tolstoy recalled him to Europe, to assist withanother commune in Cyprus. A bout of yellow fever, how-ever, brought Suler to the Crimea, where he watched theMAT perform during their summer schedule. The MAT'sartistic purity and uncanny ability to touch the audience'ssoul electrified Suler. Through his friend Gorky, he imme-diately made contact with Stanislavsky. Although he had noserious acting background, Suler was an accomplishedpainter and writer. His talent for music, singing, and dane-ing-Isadora Duncan would later praise him-might proveuseful, Stanislavsky decided. Besides, Suler's open-facednaivete and childlike manner were infectious. Suler washired in the ill defined job category of "stagehand."Curiously, only Suler, a theatre non-professional, under-

stood Stanislavsky's excitement over his Baltic discoveries:the secret of great acting involves unearthing the mind's cre-ative potential; the development of affective physical andpsychophysical exercises must be the first path to a con-sistent awakening of the Creative State of Mind. Suler evenoffered a name for these exercises, yoga. This was the San-skrit term that the Newfoundland Dukhobers called theirdaily spiritual and bodily regimen. Stanislavsky leaned for-ward in anticipation. Every morning, Suler recalled, theDukhobers performed a meditation on their daily activities.


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50 TIIE STANISLAVSKY TECHNIQUE: RUSSIAformers, would be freshly indoctrinated in the themes andexercises of the First Studio's Creative State of Mind. ForStanislavsky too, the four-year experience allowed him tosimplify and test his basic theories from Relaxation to Com-munication.Before their classes with Stanislavsky, the student-singersgave little thought to their stage or character work beyond theperfection of their vocal qualities. When one baritone beganto sing Valentine's aria from Faust, Stanislavsky interruptedhim, declaring that the piece was unintelligible. The studentbalked. Was his diction poor? Stanislavsky told him no. Infact, it was quite good. The problem was in the meaning ofthe aria. "To whom are you singing?" Stanislavsky asked.The baffled student replied, to him, his teacher, the greatStanislavsky. The "Professor" reminded the student that hewas singing to God; in the aria, Valentine is praying to God.The student was asked if he had ever prayed as a child. Ifso, to forget all about the class, his fellow singers, and tokneel and pray. Remembering the times of his childhoodwhen he bowed before an icon, the baritone turned his backand kneeled. Beginning the song again, his rendition ofValentine's aria grew out of a deep emotional contact. ToStanislavsky and his class, the booming operatic tones gaveway to a softer, more varied human voice: it was the truemusical sound of a man appealing for divine inspiration.Stanislavsky proved that, like the actor, the opera singer,too, can make a deeper and more profound connection withhis audience by delving beneath the stylistic, presentationalconventions of the genre.

Leopold Sulerzhitsky, The System. and the First Studio 51STANISLA VSKY'S FIRST PUBLICEXPLANATION OF THE SYSTEM

Despite the MAT's international popularity since its Euro-pean tour, little was actually known or written aboutStanislavsky's System before 1919. For many yearsStanislavsky strictly forbade his students to even speakabout it publicly. Leaks were uncommon because sub-servience to the Master was complete. The theatricalist di-rector and writer Fyodor Komissarzhevsky wrote a polemi-cal booklet in 1916, entitled The Actor and Stanislavsky'sTheory, attacking what he thought were the foundations ofthe System: a dependence on naturalism; the creation of justtwo or three "sensations" (from his Affective Memory) foreach performer over an entire evening; a vain attempt tothrow out the actor's natural imagination and replacing itwith a pseudo-scientific analysis of the "magic of acting."Without any firsthand knowledge of Stanislavsky's trainingtechnique or philosophy, Komissarzhevsky merely recordedprevailing gossip and cliches spread by First Studio detrac-tors. Except for the accused themselves and a few theatrehistorians, almost no one paid much attention to Komis-sarzhevsky's diatribe.After the Revolution, Michael Chekhov and ValeriSmyshalayev wrote short interpretations of the System forworkers' publications and suffered Stanislavsky's wrath.Other members of the various studios of the MA T gave ab-brievated workshops and lectures in the System, often withrushed and confusing results. (For the first time outside theMAT studios, actors complained about the idiocy of those


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52 THE STANISLAVSKY TECHNIQUE: RUSSIAexercises where they had to behave like insects and animals.)In 1919, Vakhtangov published a bitter attack on "ThoseWho Write of the Stanislavsky System." But, if anything,Vakhtangov's article was a veiled plea for the master himselfto publish, if only in self-defense, his important accom-plishments.Finally in 1921, the first technical commentary by

Stanislavsky on his System appeared in the journal antholo-gy, Teatralnaya Kultura. It was entitled "Craft" and sum-marized the theoretical basis of his First Studio discoveries.According to Stanislavsky, three trends in acting were inexistence in 1921: 1) Acting of Craft, 2) Acting of Image,and 3) Acting of Emotional Identification (or Experience).

Acting of CraftThe craftsman-actor has a limited means of expression

based on stage cliches and his private storehouse of estab-lished responses to character types and texts. The principlestrength or weakness of a stage feeling is normally indicatedthrough the raising or lowering of the performer's voice.The craftsman-actor uses gestures and expressions to illus-trate words rather than feelings. Movement on the stage fre-quently follows a preplanned pattern or an established picto-rial compositon. Everything done on the stage is done withself-conscious care and therefore without real human emo-tion. To manufacture a feeling, the craftsman-actor will re-sort to physical tricks, forcing tears or laughter. Hyperven-tilation, for instance, would induce a state of anxiety. Afollower of convention and instant results, the craftsman-

Leopold Sulerzhitsky, The System, and the First Studio 53actor takes great pride in his abilities to habitually mimic thework of greater craftsmen. The fact that his interpretationhas been done before (or endlessly) is a source of satisfac-tion and comfort to him. Tricks, in other words, have be-come trademarked.

Acting of ImageBy comparison, the image-actor may start work on a role

by substituting events in the character's life with those in hisown. Using his imagination and observations drawn fromeveryday life, he then adds different physical traits and psy-chological intentions to the character. He searches to findthe character outside himself. After a period of trial and er-ror, the image-actor has constructed his character. First heassimilates the character in rehearsal and then on stagedemonstrates his results. Here, Stanislavsky claims, artisticcreativity forms the core of the image-actor's interpretation,but such an actor refuses to actually create, or live, on stage.Although his physical conception of the character may betotally original, the image-actor behaves in an artifically rotemanner. In more ways than he would like to think, the im-age-actor resembles the actor of craft, adding a bit moreoriginality.Acting of Emotional Identification (or Experience) [IFor Stanislavsky, only the third kind of actor, the one

who emotionally experiences on stage, is fully creative. Hisacting preparations can be divided into three steps: 1)con-


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54 THE STANISLAVSKY TECHNIQUE: RUSSIAsciously creating the character's circumstances that are sug-gested by the playwright and director by learning and imag-ining all the details about the character's inner and externalconditions; 2) unconsciously placing himself in the charac-ter's world, feeling his real feelings, through AffectiveMemory (the actor's remembered emotions); 3) embodyingthe physical and emotional character in an adjustment to thetheatrical and directorial needs of the production. Unlike theimage-actor, who uses his private memories or imaginationone time to build the character in rehearsal, the performer ofexperience creates fully onstage and even changes during thelife of the role. Rather than demonstrating his superb physi-cal controls as the character, the experience-actor behaves asif everything onstage were happening to him for the firstt ime.The difference between these two actor-types is clear from

the audience's response. In daily life, Stanislavsky wrote,people are normally only conscious of their activities some10% of the time. On stage, the image-actor is 100% con-scious of his characterization (which is to say, it is com-pletely controlled). Watching this, the spectator knows in-ternally that he is only seeing an imitation of an individual.The actor of experience, however, works with his un-conscious powers just as people do in everyday life, creatingsomething more humanly and artistically profound. Also,the actor of experience creates a natural and dynamic fusionof his true inner character with that of the playwright's.Stanislavsky claimed that an actor trained in his System maynot be a better moving or sounding performer than a good

Leopold Sulerzhitsky, The System, and the First Studio 55image-actor. But the Stanislavsky performer has the abilityto connect and identify with the spectator's unconsciousnessin such a way as to leave an impression lasting far beyondthat of the image-actor.The vividness of everyday human expression often etchesitself on our private memories in a way that most acting can-not. Watching the reality of two men argue and then fightunder a street light on a deserted street at night or a youngcouple, desperate in their first love, seated in the corner of acheap restaurant strike us in a different and more forcefulway than viewing normal actors imitating the same activitieson stage. This is because silent or unconscious thoughtsmanifest themselves with more immediacy in life. As spec-tators, we naturally perceive and record mentally the real be-havior of people (which include conscious and unconsciousactivity) more deeply than the physical miming of actors-although the actors' imitation may give us a direct but short-lived pleasure.By stimulating his unconsciousness to react directly to

dramatic realities, or circumstances, the actor of experienceachieves a psychological truthfulness that recreates for theaudience the startling impact of rea1life. But to work on thisdaring esthetic plane, the actor must spend a great deal oftime exercising his inner life, or "working on oneself." Todo this, Stanislavsky formulated a somewhat revised FirstStudio program of Relaxation, Concentration, AffectiveMemory, Sense of Truth, Beauty, Rhythm, Feeling ofLogic, Communication with an Audience, and Radiation.Although the recalling of the performer's feelings through

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-~ -------- ~ -- - - - - - - - - - - - -56 THE STANISLAVSKY TECHNIQUE: RUSSIAAffective Memory comprised the creative core of Stanis-lavsky's System in 1921, it was only the first of two steps."Once having accomplished the arousal of emotions called forin the text (repeated in rehearsal until they come naturally),then the actor has to make the character stageworthy bymeans of physical embodiment-voice, inflection, body im-age, and movement.

FIRST STUDIO EXERCISES (1911-23)Although the First Studio was both a producing unit and

theatre laboratory, an atmosphere of "exercise madness"permeated all the years of its existence. Literally hundredsof exercises were tried and either incorporated or discarded.Under Sulerzhitsky's leadership, a Bible-like tome rested ona wooden stand by the door of the studio. In the book, theseindividual exercises and more complicated acting etudes(group or improvisational work) were entered. Studentswere encouraged towrite their commentaries on the work aswell as invent and test out their own training techniques.During the First Studio's initial years, special days were setasidefor thispractice.Truly a laboratory thatfunctioned by trial and error, no

single standardized curriculum of actor training was estab-lished during the years of the First Studio. The trainingchanged constantly. Frequently the actors only practiced or"tested" onefeature or aspect of the System on a given day.Before the First Studio's stage successes and the Revo-lution, everything was influx; evolving and ever changing.Stanislavsky and Suler always viewed their work as experi-mental and imperfect. This was the primary reason therewas so much hesitation about revealing the System either inprint or in a set program. A premature definition or fixedregimen could lead, theyfelt, to a false and rigid program ofactor training. And the two First Studiofounders knew that

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