The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance by Rose Whyman (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 725 mise-en-scènes fromsome laterproductions as well as elevencolourplates fromproductions by othertheatres, such as the BelorussianStateYiddish Theatreand theHebrew-language HaBima theatre. One wonders, however, whytheseplateswereincludedsincethebookhashardly a wordtosayabout anyoftheothertheatres; morediscussion ofthecomparative context would certainly have been welcome.In fact,theillustration thatgracesthecover of TheMoscow Yiddish Theater is actuallya costumedesignfromtheHaBima Hebrewlanguagetheatre. TheMoscowYiddish Theater will be of interest to art historians, theatre historians and anybody interested inJewish culture intheSovietUnion.Most importantly, itwilldrawfurther attention to thisremarkable theatre. Department ofHistory /Jewish Studies Program IndianaUniversity, Bloomington Jeffrey Veidlinger Whyman, Rose. The Stanislavsky System ofActing: Legacyand Influence in Modern Performance. CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridgeand New York, 2008.xviii+ 297pp. Illustrations. Notes.Appendix.Bibliography. Index.£50.00: $99.00. The seventieth anniversary, in 2008,ofthedeathofKonstantin Stanislavskii sawthepublication in Englishofthefirst authentic translation ofhisseminal workon actingtheory, AnActor's Work onthe SeJfiiQvß), hitherto onlyavailable in incompleteand bifurcated versionsas An Actor Prepares and Building a Character. Up until now,discussion ofStanislavskii' s so-called'system' ofactortraining has also been limited by itsconfusion withtheAmerican'Method' schoolas wellas byhisiconicstatusin theformer SovietUnion as boththe founder of theMoscow ArtTheatre,in 1898,and avatarof social realism in stagepractice. Drama schoolsthroughout theWestern worldhave tended to privilegehis theoriesover others as the fountainheadof scientific actor-training. Rose Whyman'stimelystudyis the first in Englishto begin a serious reassessment of the Stanislavskii legacyand to provideaccess to material whichwillenablea broaderdebatethanhitherto on thetheory's intellectual and practicalefficacy. Not only does she excavate in forensic detail the psychological andphysiological sourcesofStanislavskii' s ownideasbutundertakesa discussion ofthemerits anddemerits ofoppositional theories advanced bythree ofStanislavskii's former actors andco-workers, VsevolodMeierkhol'd, EvgeniiVakhtangovand Mikhail [Michael] Chekhov,occupyingalmost halfthevolume.The alreadywell-informed readerwilldiscovera mineof information helpfully organizedundera multiplicity of headingsand subdivisions , dealingnotonlywiththecomponents ofeach theory, butwiththe significant number ofindividual literary and socialinfluences on thepractitionersin question.Interested students may,however, despiteWhyman'sbest exegeticalefforts, findalreadydifficult ideas renderedeven more inchoate 726 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2OIO as theyare forcedto wrestle withtheories of actingwhichambitiously set out to providesolutions to problemsno less complexthanthemind/body dichotomy, relationships betweenspirit and matter, form and content, being and seeming, as wellas man'splace in nature. The methodological strategies of the book are exemplaryand include judicioushandling ofthecontributions offellow researchers whichhaveserved eitherto clarify or muddyinterpretation oftheoriginaltexts.However,the degreeofexhaustiveness thisentailshas leftlittle space fortheauthor'sown theoretical, ideological andhistorical perspectives, withtheresult thatassumptionsunderlying theworkofeach practitioner tendto be takenforgranted. Essentially, theStanislavskii 'system' is predicated on theuniversal relevance ofan intimate 'theatre ofillusion' which,in fact, is historically contingent on thedevelopment ofthepost-Renaissance roofed playhouse, culminating atthe end of thenineteenth century in the darkenedauditorium witha recessed proscenium archstageilluminated byartificial means. As manytheatre historians havenoted,thegreatperiodsoftheatre history in the Westernworld have been characterized by performance in open amphitheatres or public spaces and, in the case of Easternpractice,by essentially stylized forms ofactingand staging based on inherited traditions. In thiscontext, Stanislavskii's desirethattheactorachievea stateof emotionalauthenticity 'in thegivencircumstances' so as to promoteempathetic infection in an audiencecan seemlittle lessthanan extension ofeighteenthcentury dramaticSentimentalism, some of whose theorists he appears to havereadappreciatively. An actoroftheperiodsuchas David Garrick might have understoodthese ideas whereas the ElizabethanRichard Burbage, Shakespeare's leadingperformer, wouldhave been baffled by thenotionof 'publicsolitude'at theopen-airGlobe Theatre. Whileessentially a nineteenth-century figure, Stanislavskii was undoubtedly an outstanding twentieth-century 'man of the theatre'who inspiredboth devotion and awe inothers; Meierkhol'd was apparently inthehabitofrising respectfully to hisfeetwhenmerely taking a telephone call from Konstantin Sergeevich. He was also capable ofarousinghostility in erstwhile close collaboratorssuch as VladimirNemirovich-Danchenko, or ironicdisenchantmentinsomeonelikeMikhailBulgakov , whoseworksuffered at Stanislavskii's handsduringthe1930s.A former ArtTheatreactress, in a 1997BBC interview ,afforded an insightinto his sometimes terrifying impatienceas she recalledhow 'Stanislavskii neverlosthistemper. . . (pause)... he had fits of ragé . Whendiscussing thequestionofhisseemingly inviolable authority with a current member oftheMoscowArtTheatrehierarchy, theRussiantheatre specialist, Vera Gottlieb, was toldbluntly that'You can'tmilka sacredcow'. The realvalueofthepresent bookmaywellbe tostimulate debateaboutthe presentstatusof Stanislavskii and his theory as well as theviability of,or necessity for,alternative approachesto actingand staging in thetwenty-first century. London Nick Worrall ...