PP02 THE Stanislavski SYSTEM

THE Stanislavski SYSTEM
 ACTION
• Action is concerned with meaningful and
purposeful activity on stage.
• Includes concentrated stillness and inner
intensity.
• Always act with purpose.
There must be a ‘WHY’ ‘?’
Why am I coming through the door?
Why am I sitting down?
Why am I still seated?
Why am I moving forward?
ACTION Activity
Enter a room for various reasons
– to fetch something
– to see what is burning
– to yell at somebody
– to hide
Sit on a chair for various reasons
– to read a book
– to paint your toe nails
– to hide something under the cushion
– to look into his eyes
– to cry
 IF
• The ‘magic if’ opens up possibilities for
the actor of creating a whole new life for
the character and stimulating new
emotions.
• What would happen if…?
– This was a real place
– The actor next to me was my
brother/sister/brother.
IF Activity
IMPROVISE : ???
• what would you do if the lights went out
• a murderer was behind the door
• you found you were adopted
• you were saddled with someone else’s baby
• you or your best friend was pregnant
• you had AIDS
 GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCE
• The basis for an actress and her role.
• Given circumstance is created by the
playwright, director and designer.
– the story of the play
– facts, events, time and place of action
– conditions of life
– actor’s and director’s interpretation
– the production, sets, costumes, props
– lighting and sound effects
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCE Activity
• develop a scenario using the above given circumstances
as guide
• decide how best to communicate the circumstances e.g. a
family funeral; packing to leave (holiday, emigrate, better
home, poorer home)
• create an environment and act out a moment from the
scenario
 THE IMAGINATION
• The actor must believe in the given
circumstances using the imagination
• Suspend disbelief, function at a high degree
of involvement.
• When you begin to study a role you gather all
necessary information and then supplement
with your imagination.
• Actors usually rely on visual stimulus: who
you are, where you came from, why, what
you want, where are you going and what will
you do when you get there.
IMAGINATION Activity
• after preparing your characters, get the cast to question each other
as above in character [‘hot seat’]
• find out what is said about the character (others and self)
• analyse the actions of the character
• use photographs, paintings, music to come to terms with the
character
• character = animal
 CIRCLES OF ATTENTION
• This leads the actor to relax and focus
on stage (called ‘solitude in public’).
• Slowly, like ripples in a pond, it radiates
outwards until it embraces the entire
stage.
CIRCLES OF ATTENTION Activity
• draw the audience’s attention by the intensity of your own
focus
• stillness or action can do this
• how do you extend it?
– looking at someone or something else
– listening to someone or something
• or use a hoop, then remove it.
 UNITS & OBJECTIVES
• Units of action, dominated and controlled by
the objectives within them.
• A unit ends with the end of the objective.
• Likened to buoys in a channel they are
guides for an actress on her voyage (helps
with learning lines too!).
• Describe with verbs: “I wish to… obtain power
over, apologise, impress, get hold of, care for
etc.
UNITS & OBJECTIVES Activity
• Track the units and objectives of the plays we have
studied this year
 SUPER-OBJECTIVE AND
THROUGH-LINE OF ACTION
• What is the overarching objective of the

play?
• Through-line: the main current that
galvanises (stimulate to action) all the
small units and objectives.
• What is the motivation?
SUPER-OBJECTIVE & THROUGH-LINE
OF ACTION Activity
• find the super-objective of the play and for each character

• find how they create a through-line for themselves ---
what drives each character forward?
 EMOTION MEMORY
• As your visual memory can reconstruct an
inner image of some forgotten thing, place or
person, your emotion memory can bring back
feelings you have already experienced.
• This can be triggered by sound, smell or
touch.
• Actors were encouraged to create a reservoir
of memory or stored experiences from which
to draw and on which to build to help create a
character.
EMOTION MEMORY Activity
• use a
– picture/photograph
– a piece of music
– a smell
to trigger a memory
• devise an improvisation to express your feelings from that
time
• try and link that to text
 1TEMPO-RHYTHM IN MOVEMENT
• Where there is life there is action; wherever
action, movement; where movement, tempo;
and where there is tempo there is rhythm.
• Each character has her own rhythm & tempo
according to her circumstances and
personality.
• The inner rhythm may differ from the outer
rhythm that conforms to tempo of the overall
scene as influenced by the other characters.
 2TEMPO-RHYTHM IN MOVEMENT
• An inner turmoil could be identified through its
outer manifestation, or concealed by a show
of calm. Two rhythms are created, the one
contradicting the other, leading to interesting
dramatic tensions within the performance.
• It is important that rhythms are kept distinct.
All too easily a group of actors can pick up
each others’ rhythms, creating a generalised
beat, which all too often is the slowest.
TEMPO-RHYTHM IN MOVEMENT
Activity
• work out a rhythm for the characters in the plays you have
studied or the scenes you are presenting for practical
exam.
• who is still, who is faster, and how does the tempo of the
overall scene increase or drop?
10
THE METHOD OF PHYSICAL ACTION
• Towards the end of his life, with An Actor

Prepares all but published, Stanislavski
increasingly placed emphasis on physical
expression as a way of training.
• There was more emphasis on improvisation
as a way of unlocking aspects of both the text
and the role.
• Grotowski Poor Theatre (1933-1999)
explored the physical action of the actor.
DoFeelThink

PP02 THE Stanislavski SYSTEM

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THE Stanislavski SYSTEM

• What is the overarching objective of the

• find the super-objective of the play and for each character

• Towards the end of his life, with An Actor

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