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My Life in Art Stanislavsky
My Life in Art Stanislavsky
My Life in Art Stanislavsky
It was first commissioned while Stanislavski was in the United States on tour with the Moscow Art heatre! and was first published in "oston! Massachusetts in #nglish in $%&'. It was later revised and published in a Russian(language edition in Moscow under the title . It is divided into ' sections entitled) $(Artistic Childhood! &(Artistic *outh! +(Artistic Adolescence and '(Artistic Adulthood.
Contents
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$ Section .ne ( Artistic Childhood & Section wo ( Artistic Adolescence + Section hree ( Artistic *outh ' Section /our ( Artistic Adulthood 0 References
acting that he achieved in those ten years! through his e6perience as an actor and a director. 4e also tells about his ac>uaintance and relationship with 9ev olstoy. .ne of the events that led to the founding of the Moscow Art heatre was Stanislavski1s ac>uaintance with the theatre1s co( director and co(founder ?ladimir :emirovich(@anchenko! who at the time was a well(known Russian playwright and director of the drama school of the Moscow 5hilharmonic Society. Among the schools graduates in the class of $2%2 were .lga Anipper and ?sevolod Meyerhold. At the Moscow Art heatre Stanislavski was in charge of the directing side of all productions and :emirovich(@anchenko was in charge of the literary side. At least they agreed that each of them would have the power of veto in their area of e6pertise! whenever an agreement could not be made on a particular subBect. he second half of section three describes the first nine years of the Moscow Art heatre1s e6istence up until their first international tour in $%C3! when they traveled to "erlin. Stanislavski spends most of this section describing in dramatic detail his relationship with Anton Chekhov and the productions of Chekhov1s plays! beginning with their first production of < he Seagull<! which had been originally staged in St. 5etersburg! and ending with their production of < he Cherry .rchard< in $%C' and Chekhov1s death that same year. 4e describes what it was like staging these plays with the aid of Chekhov himself! often through correspondence due to his tuberculosis which forced him to spend the winters in the Crimea. 4e discusses his breakthroughs in the art of acting that were found through working on these plays! which laid the foundations for <realism< in the theatre. Stanislavski felt that the reason why other contemporary theatre groups had no success with Chekhov1s plays is because they were trying to perform them using the old school of acting! which consisted grand gestures and loud declamations that overpowered the simplicity in Chekhov1s works. Stanislavski discovered that Chekhov1s plays were most effective when the actors utiliDed stillness and silence on stage.
heatre1s productions of various plays! including Ivan urgenev1s <A Month in the Country<. 4e also talks about the Russian Revolution of $%$= and its effects on the heatre. 4e ends the book with a chapter entitled <Conclusions and the /uture<! in which he discusses several of his conclusions about the art of acting and his <system<! which as he states! consists of two parts) $( an actor1s internal and e6ternal work on himself 7<An Actor 5repares<8! &( an actor1s internal and e6ternal work on a role 7<"uilding a Character< and <Creating a Role<8. 4e ends by stating that he will divulge on this in his ne6t book! which he does in the three volumes. Interestingly! having written those three volumes! he continued to reinvent his <system< and reformulate many of his opinions on acting. It seems as though he never found the answers to all of his >uestions. "ut he certainly got closer than most people before him and after. 4e laid the foundation for many of those who came after him! namely teachers like Stella Adler! 9ee Strasberg! and Sanford Meisner! who passed on his legacy to the ne6t generation of stage and film actors.