Reconsidering Stanislavski and Barba in the light of neuroscience: a comparative study of organic acting

Abstract

This study, in consideration of contemporary scientific studies, re-examines the acting methods of Konstantin Stanislavski and Eugenio Barba, two directors who are generally considered to represent contrasting perspectives in terms of performers’ physical appearance on stage. The meeting point of these two theatre practitioners’ techniques is based on impulse and they both aim to realize an organic process in acting. The findings in contemporary studies in neuroscience which present to a large extent how the human organism functions, help us to reconsider the constitutive elements in the acting process. This article analyses the technical processes of creating impulse in both Barba and Stanislavski’s works with reference to several neuroscientific studies. Antonio Damasio’s Feeling of What Happens helps explain how motor functions in human organisms work when the senses are stimulated. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score highlights the function of scored sense impressions when an organism encounters stimuli that may re-activate them. Christian Keyser’s The Emphatic Brain mentions connections between intention and action. Furthermore, works by Damasio, Van Der Kolk and Keysers help us reconsider the crucial function of images in both Stanislavski’s and Barba’s techniques. The main goal of this article is to re-examine Stanislavski and Barba’s critical concepts in acting methods in the light of contemporary neuroscience and to highlight to what extent these impulse-based and organic techniques differ from each other in the training process and what remains common ground.