Stanislavsky’s method and some conceptual echoes in Russian culture

Abstract

ABSTRACT Konstantin Stanislavsky created his artistic method of psychological symbolism, trying to overcome the legacy of the socio-typological theatre of the nineteenth century, where the actors’ internal resources were aimed at reproducing recognizable social reflexes of consciousness. Alexander Ostrovsky`s theatre consolidated this tradition in Russian theatrical culture, offering a powerful ensemble of dramatic characters and typical situations of Russian life. The theatre production becomes a continuous discovery of the author’s intention by the director, not a simple presentation of social types. The truth of life, the manifestation of essence as an identity in all changes of action, the fullness of experience, and the persuasiveness of the presentation are the leading motives in the perception of the artistic system of Stanislavsky by Russian directors of the Soviet era such as Oleg Efremov and Georgi Tovstonogov. These directors saw the merits of Stanislavsky’s artistic method, but also recognized the need for innovations as they contemplated an artistic trajectory of the Moscow Art Theatre. However, an essential revision of the psychological symbolism of Stanislavsky, for whom the possibility of the creation was based on a simple reflection of the most intense effects of impulsive expressions of our internal nature, took place in the late Soviet and post-Soviet time in the phenomenological theatre of Piotr Fomenko, Anatoli Vasiliev and Аndrei Zholdak, in which every symbolizing consciousness became a natural attitude – an approach different from the one that focused on capturing the essence of reality of human life.