Stanislavski's Acting Essay

The work and theories of Konstantin Stanislavski have everything to do with the constant battle between an actor’s conscious and their subconscious. Stanislavski’s goals in modernizing the world of theatre were to stop actors from simply playing a role, and instead, becoming a character through careful examination of the character’s motivations, desires, and dialogue, all to create a subtext. Within Stanislavski’s system, these internal conflicts, feelings, and beliefs, should all be demonstrated as said subtext hidden in the actions and movements of the actor on stage. An important part of his system denoted ‘circles of attention,’ maintained that “a sense of isolation” was necessary “in order to produce a characterisation and avoid unnecessary
• Superobjective- The final goal of every performance is “to carry across the main idea.” It makes the theme “concrete” by controlling “each character’s logic of actions.”
• Through line of action- The “active execution” of the superobjective. Stanislavski directs actors to “mentally trace a line which will run through [their roles.]” Actors are directed to use the through line to assure that they have “the right activity, order, logic, color, contrast, and that all these elements contribute to the projection of the superobjective.”
• Emotional memory-In this technique, actors draw into their own emotional archives to accurately represent a character in an emotional sense.
• Method of physical action-The method of physical action demands of the actor an ability to portray underlying conflicts in subtle action. For example, an actor should be able to present emotion and conflict of the rising action in simple tasks, say driving a car.
• Subtext- This method is intended to reveal emotion and intention through subtle action. Through purposeful body language, the actor can convey a deeper and more dimensional experience than the dialogue
Under his methods, the relationship between the audience and the actor must be separated. An actor’s state of “always...being worshipped...spoils him.” This means that the confidence gained in the constant wave of affection from audiences only produces impure results. In serious acting, to create true art, the actor must be separated from the praise and the reward of performance. In art, there is no goal other than to perform to a theme.
In his book, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski describes his own process in becoming Othello in a performance of William Shakespeare’s Othello. Stanislavski writes, “Hardly had I read two pages when I was seized with a desire to act. In spite of myself, my hands arms, legs, face, and facial muscles and something inside me all began to move.” He used props around his house to get into character, with a “large ivory paper-cutter” as a “dagger” and an “umbrella...pressed into service as a scimitar.” Theatre is truly about feeling in the eyes of Stanislavski. It did not matter to him that his props were inaccurate to the setting of Othello. In his process, not every rehearsal came of something; some rehearsals were just to become comfortable with the script and with the stage. This