The Stanislavsky Method

A detailed Summary of The Stanislavsky Method

When I came off of the stage that first night, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was ecstatic, on a natural high. Suddenly, I had found my place in the world. As I have gotten older and more experienced, I have learned that acting is not just

reciting lines in front of an audience. There is a technique to acting. It is known as the "method", "method acting", or the "Stanislavsky method".

The method was created by Konstantin Stanislavsky, a Russian actor, director,producer and founder of the Moscow Art Theatre which opened in 1898. Stanislavsky had many shortcomings as an actor and worked obsessively to improve his voice, diction and body movement. As a director and producer, Stanislavsky believed that the mere

external behavior of an actor was not sufficient to portray the unique inner world of a character. He felt that once an actor felt what the character was feeling, the emotion would then manifest itself physically, making the performance believable. This idea was

the basis for the method that Stanislavsky created, now the most common acting style in Western theatre.

Stanislavsky's method begins with relaxation. He called in an "occupational disease." One of Stanislavsky's most famous stu

dents, Lee Strasberg, believed it to be the actor's worst enemy. The exercise Stanislavsky developed for relaxation is meant to

pulling events from an actor's past, the actor then feels the corresponding emotion. The actor begins the exercise by of getting a mug of coffee, or anything for that matter, and setting in front of them. First, the actor explores the mug and the coffee inside the mug with their sense of sight. The actor asks himself as many questions as he can think of,relating to the sight of the mug. Once the actor has exhausted every question he can think of for sight, he then moves to another sense, such as touch. The exercise continues

one something different to concentrate on. The director then gives Actor A a multiplication problem to do in his head, while the director tells Actor B to just concentrate on his partner. A trick like that can dramatically change the scene. Another concentration exercise used by Stanislavsky also helps an actor focus his concentration. In this exercise, Stanislavsky would set the stage lights in a wide circle around one actor onstage, by himself. Stanislavsky would then tell the actor that he could concentrate on

this way until the actor has asked every question that he can think of, for each of the five senses. Once the coffee cup has been taken a way, the actor should then be able to recreate it from memory. As time goes on, the actor should be able to recreate the cup within a matter of five to fifteen seconds. Once able to do that, the actor moves on to bringing up past events and actions from his own life.

actor find where they, personally, hold their tension. Once an actor knows where they hold their tension, they can begin to release it, letting as little of themselves show through the character they are portraying.

any of the objects within the circle. As the actor got used to this boundary, Stanislavsky would slowly decrease the size

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Approximate Word count = 1298
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts