Stanislavski and Realism

1. Stanislavski and Realism Ms Leah Stewart MSC

2. Constantin Stanislavski • Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (Russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский) (17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August, 1938), was a Russianactor and theatre director. (Wikipedia)

3. Constantin Stanislavski • Stanislavski treated theatre very seriously. • Actors working with him needed to be dedicated and ready for very trying rehearsals • Stanislavski developed a method for characterising realistic characters, known as The Method or The System.

4. Constantin Stanislavski • This system starts with breaking up the text into units and beats • Unit – a section of text that has one uniting objective • Beat – an individual thought or moment in the unit • This will enable the actor to understand what drives the action and how best to create dramatic tension.

5. Fundamental Questions • Who am I? – Think about your characters personality, age, appearance, family background, beliefs, prejudices, interests and so on. • What time is it? – Consider the age, century, month, week, day, hour in which the action takes place. • Where am I? – Consider the setting of the play. Country or city? Kind of house the characters live in? What room and what part of the room does the action take place in?

6. Fundamental Questions • What surrounds me? – Consider the environment. Are there people around? What furniture, colours, smells, textures, sounds etc. • What are the given circumstances? – Details of your recent past, how are your feeling now, what is about to happen to you, and these can change from moment to moment. • What are my relationships? – to those around you and the events that are happening.

7. Fundamental Questions • What is my objective? – Know what you want to get or achieve in each scene. • What is the obstacle? – What is stopping you from achieving this? • What is the action? – What are you doing to get what you want? • What is my superobjective? – What is your main goal in the overall play? • What is my through-line of action? – This is the current connecting all the characters together and directing them to the superobjective, linking all the units in the play.

8. Fundamental Questions • The Magic If – If I were in this situation, what would I do?????

9. Memories • Emotional Memory – The memory of an emotion; emotional memory can be used to create feeling on stage. • Muscular Memory – using the memory of a physical sensation to re-create a sensation onstage.

10. Use of the System • Ultimately very useful in creating realistic characters as it focuses on creating believable characters. • Can use previous memories of the actors to create “real” reactions to others on stage. • Why else??

11. Representational styles • Realism – Potentially real situations, plausible and realistic characters, working props on stage etc • Naturalism – heightened form of realism – eg. if a character is cooking in the text they would be cooking on stage with kitchen smells.

12. Homework • Find 10 facts about Realism and make sure they are in your Drama file. You will need these for your exam.