Central Conceptions in Stanislavski's System

Author(s): Burnet M. Hobgood

Source: Educational Theatre Journal , May, 1973, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1973), pp. 147-159
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3205864

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 BURNET M. HOBGOOD

Central Conceptions in Stanislavski's

System

S tanislavski has exerted a greater influence on modern practice and thought about
acting than any other individual in Western theatre. Is it not curious, then, that his
influence has been largely an indirect one, in that Stanislavski's conceptions became
known in the theatre outside Russia in versions presented by his students and admirers?
Moreover, the general understanding of Stanislavski's "system" still relies primarily on
interpretations of his teaching and from extensions of his practice.

The American "Method," for example, has been plainly identified by Lee Strasberg
and others as an adaptation from Stanislavski which owes heavy debts to Vakhtangov and
the work of the Group Theatre.' Michael Chekhov diverged from the master to make
emphases that were peculiarly his own. Comparison of writings by followers of
Stanislavski with his own books reveals their dependence on ideas which held an
importance in the early phases of the "system's" formulation.2

Publication of English translations of Stanislavski's works did not clarify matters

entirely. J. J. Robbins' rendering of My Life in Art, made in 1924 from the author's first
manuscript,3 adopted certain English terms as equivalents for the Russian originals which
seem to have impressed later translators, who continued their use. Elizabeth Reynolds
Hapgood, in her skillful and carefully prepared translations of Stanislavski's main
treatises, not only had to deal with the problem of accurate equivalents in English but
also, like Robbins, worked from texts which Stanslavski later improved, I believe, by
revision.4

Since 1961, when Iskusstvo completed publication of Stanislavski's Collected Works in

Moscow, it has been possible to offer a clearer interpretation of Stanislavski's intended
meanings. If we avoid overweighting inquiry with attention to red herrings like "the
method of physical actions,"5 we can develop a surer understanding of the central

A Fellow and a past President of ATA, Burnet Hobgood is Chairman of the Division of Dramatic Arts
at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
1 Paul Gray, "From Russia to America: A Critical Chronology" in Stanislavski and America, ed.
Erika Munk (New York, 1966), pp. 159-161.
2 For example, Richard Boleslavski, Maria Ouspenskaya.
3 The book is currently available from Theatre Arts Books, New York. Cf. My Life in Art, trans. G.
Ivanov-Mumjiev (Moscow, n.d.); this translation was made from Stanislavski's last manuscript.
4 Letter of E. R. Hapgood to the author. Mrs. Hapgood relates that the people with whom she
checked on the translation of terms into English were former members of the Moscow Art Theatre,
including the Bulgakovs, Maria Ouspenskaya, Tamara Daykarhanova, Richard Boleslavski.
5 The Soviet interpreters and editors of Stanislavski advocate the view that Stanislavski adopted
the so-called "method of physical actions"-which, to be brief, has the actor improvise without use of
the play's text, in order to develop an inner sense for the role before studying the play or developing
an inner sense for the role. They contend that Stanislavski finally had more faith in such an approach,
implying that he abandoned emphasis on an actor's inner realizations. Magarshack, in Stanislavski:A
Life, tends to agree with them.

147 /

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 148 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

conceptions developed by Stanislavski. This essay deals with key terms of the "system,"
suggesting English equivalents and offering fresh explications.

As early as 1912 Stanislavski made distinctions among the kinds of acting to be seen in
the theatre.6 He never changed these views.

The kind of acting for which he had only contempt consisted of familiar stereotypes;
the player observed experienced actors and copied their manner and gestures. In spite of a
career devoted to the mere collection of cliches (in Russian, shtamp), such an actor had
the effrontery to regard himself as a "craftsman."7

For the second type of acting Stanislavski held respect and termed it iskusstvo
predstavlenia, which translates most clearly as "the art of presentational performance."
The descriptions of this class of actors by Tortsov in the second chapter of An Actor
Prepares (pp. 17-22), citing the elder Coquelin as exemplar, correspond to critical
discussions of "presentationalism" in acting, with the difference that Stanislavski focuses
on role development entailed by such acting instead of making the conventional emphasis
on the external appearance of this "audience-centered" mode.

Indeed, delineation of differences between formalistic and realistic acting were not
unusual in Russian theatre criticism in the early twentieth century; this probably explains
why it was the Russian emigre Alexander Bakshy who introduced the "presentational-
representational" distinction to English and American criticism. It would seem that Mrs.
Hapgood, at work on An Actor Prepares, did not know of Bakshy's widely accepted
distinction because she rendered iskusstvo predstavlenia as "the art of 'representation' ";
this caused some confusion among students who recognized Coquelin's approach as
presentational, according to Bakshy's distinction.8

Stanislavski did not of course name the third type of acting with a term neatly
antithetical to presentationalism. Having dismissed the first kind of performance con-
temptuously as imitative and therefore not artistic, he intended to set up two contrasting,

This advocacy of "the method of physical actions" suits the Marxist-Leninist aesthetic. It cannot
be easily justified, since Stanislavski's writings, especially Vol. II of the Collected Works (known in
America as An Actor Prepares), call for and comment on etudes and improvisations of both types.
Hence Mrs. Hapgood believes, and I would say that the evidence lies heavily with her view, that the
discoveries Stanislavski made by emphasizing physical realizations of actors were merged by him into
the "system." If Stanislavski had wanted to establish a separate method in contrast with his previous
work, he had ample opportunity to say as much in his last writing on the subject; but he did not.
6 K. S. Stanislavski: Articles, Speeches, Notes, Letters, ed. G. Kristi and N. Chushkin (Moscow,
1953), pp. 395-421.
7 Remesslo is the Russian word. Mrs. Hapgood decides, in An Actor Prepares, to render it
"mechanical acting," which has the right connotations.
8 If it were not for the fact of an established distinction between presentational and representa-
tional theatre, there would be no interpretive question about Mrs. Hapgood's choice. This confusing
usage is perpetuated in one of the latest translations of a Russian theatre work; Miriam Goldina, in her
1969 rendering of Ruben Simonov's Vakbtangov, follows the choices of terms made by preceding
translators.

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 149 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

legitimate schools of acting. They were iskusstvo predstavlenia and iskusstvo

perezhivannia. The latter was his name for the system of acting that he taught. Because
Stanislavski adhered to this term consistently, one feels a need to establish an English
equivalent for it in critical discussion.

Popular usage in the American theatre would inaccurately have us think of Stanislav-
ski's school of acting as "the art of living the part." This would follow the practice of
Robbins in translating My Life in Art; "living the part" appears frequently in that book,
although one cannot be certain that Robbins was the first to make this choice. Many
articles and explanations of Stanislavski's work had been seen in English before Robbins
published his translation, only a few of these pieces exhibiting an awareness that the
"system" had a uniquely central term and name. In correspondence with me, Mrs.
Hapgood acknowledged the centrality of perezhivannia and noted that she chose to
render the term in different ways, in hopes of achieving more clarity in each context. I
take her decision to be a responsible one.

Three native Russians make other choices. In his pair of books on Stanislavski David
Magarshack employs several equivalents for the term, but prefers "enter into the feelings
of the part." Marc Slonim (Russian Theatre: From the Empire to the Soviets) and Edgar
Lehrman (translator of N. A. Gorchakov's Theatre in Soviet Russia) prefer, simply,
"experiencing." From Russia we have an excellent English translation of My Life in Art,
published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow), which uses several
English phrases, including "living the part."

The difficulty traces to Russian grammar's morphology and calls for a brief review.
Perezhivannia is a Russian "noun of action" derived, Russian linguists advise us, from the
verb perezhit. It may be given in English by "to experience," "to undergo," "to endure,"
"to relive an experience," etc.9 The Dictionary of Contemporary Russian Literary
Language refers to the noun as "a way of experiencing unfavorable conditions", the
editors cite Stanislavski's usage separately, summarizing it as "the genuine penetration of
a psychic state in a represented character."

To return to the original point, I should again emphasize that Stanislavski uses this
Russian noun of action or related verb forms whenever he speaks terminologically. When
he employs alternatives, he chooses words or phrases which literally mean "live the life of
the role," "feel the role," "apprehend the role," or "make the role live." The merest
knowledge of the Russian tongue would demonstrate how much easier it would have been
for him to say "live the role," but he didn't do so and I think we are safe in concluding
that he did not mean that. He elected a more complex term in order to convey a subtler
meaning. Thus, it makes sense to follow him by settling upon a single English equivalent
which has verb and noun forms.

The English active and nominative meanings of "experience" offer the most satis-
factory equivalents. This would make Stanislavski's third type of acting "the art of
experiencing in performance" and would charge an actor with the task of "experiencing
the role" when he plays it. (The fact that such disparate American thinkers as John

9 See B. O. Unbegaun, Russian Grammar (Oxford, 1957), pp. 77-78. Also F. M. Borras and R. F.
Christian, Russian Syntax, (Oxford, 1959), p. 294.

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 150 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

Dewey, in Art as Experience, and Viola Spolin, in Improvisation for the Theatre, choose
the same word to express similar intentions admittedly influences my decision.)' 0

To support this interpretation, I shall try to fix the significance for Stanislavski of this
paramount term. Stanislavski, however, continuously reviewed and attempted to convey
more exactly the substance of his insights, discoveries, and conclusions, and the meaning
of this central term altered somewhat in the process.

The following exposition is not intended to denigrate any versions or extensions of

Stanislavski's teachings. My study is of Stanislavski's writings in their Russian texts, so
admirably edited (except for certain biases understandably reflecting the Marxist-Leninist
aesthetic of the U.S.S.R.) by our Soviet colleagues.' 1 My critical procedure focuses on
Stanislavski's intentions, leaving it to his followers or inheritors to explain their versions.

II

The crucial role of perezbivannia in Stanislavski's thinking manifests itself not only in
his repeated terminological usage in all discourses from 1912 (and before) to his death.
The Russian title of his magnum opus on the art of acting, the only book on the subject
which he completed, translates literally as The Actor's Work on Himself in the Creative
Process of Experiencing. The central term of the "system" identifies both what the actor
does when he plays correctly and the whole process of developing himself into a theatre
artist.

When an actor experiences a role, Stanislavski believed, the fully realized personality
of the character so dominates the occasion that the actor's own personality virtually
disappears. A fusion (sblizhennia) merges actor with character and, for the moment,
makes it irrelevant to the spectator that the actor has an identity other than that of the
character. The surest means to this end comes when the actor learns how to align his
psyche with the imagined psyche of the dramatic character, for then an authentically
organic process of creation can happen.

Experiencing should not be understood to denote an ecstatic state in which the actor
pretends "to be the character." In fact, Stanislavski decided this concept was absurd. On
the other hand, an actor's sole reliance on his intuitive powers to create a role seemed an
unpardonable expression of vanity. The theatre artist needs to seek humbly for a system
of preparation as painstaking and rigorous as that followed by a great concert artist.

Certainly you are aroused and begin to feel yourself in the position of the play's character, to
experience it yourself, but analogically with its feelings. Work in such a way with every role, and it
will be shown that every moment of your life on the stage will be aroused (called forth) according

10 See, e.g., Dewey's chapter entitled "Having An Experience," particularly pp. 43-46. At the
culmination of the discourse Dewey asserts: "An experience has pattern and structure, because it is
not just doing and undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relationship.... This relationship
is what gives meaning; to grasp it is the objective of all intelligence. The scope and content of the
relations measure the significant content of an experience."
Spolin explains a key aspect of improvisational games thus: "Experiencing is penetration into the
environment, total organic involvement with it. This means involvement on all levels: intellectual,
physical, and intuitive" (p. 3).
11 Collected Works, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1954-61).

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 151 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

to experiencing. An uninterrupted series of such moments creates a continuous line in the

experienced role, its "human spiritual life."'12

In order that his students would fully comprehend the techniques of analogical discovery
and development, Stanislavski worked out the elaborate strategies of training actors
which have subsequently attracted so much emulation.

In a broader sense, the system of actors working on themselves which Stanislavski built
piece-by-piece over thirty years comprises an effort to insure creative work on the stage.
The most thrilling, expressive moments he had known in the theatre as a spectator
transpired when great and gifted players revealed the essence of their roles with
astonishing creativity. Salvini, Rossi, Duse-and perhaps the Moscow Art Theatre's
Kachalov and Knipper-Chekhova-showed him performances rich in unique insights,
always compellingly alive and fresh. Observing and reflecting on the work of these
geniuses, Stanislavski decided that they followed a complex but natural creative process.
He set out to identify and master the elements of that process.

Proceeding by trial and error, helped by students testing his hypotheses in problem-
solving &tudes or exploratory improvisations, Stanislavski discovered the principles for
experiencing in the theatre that lie beyond analogical exploration. Having for so long
watched the gradual unfolding of key ideas in an experimental quest, he was quick to
disclaim his authorship of major principles.

There is no such thing as "my" system or "your" system. There is one system: organic creative
nature. There is no other system.

I promise in writing that if a student working in the theatre says something important for
understanding the laws of organic nature, I will study under him gratefully ...

But it is necessary to remember that what is called "the system" (it shouldn't be "the system"
but "the nature of creativity") doesn't become static; it is changing every day. 13

These statements bespeak an empirical attitude. And, to be sure, Stanislavski's chief

conceptions remained flexible through the years and benefited from the eventual research
and study which he conducted with his students.

At the beginning of the "system's" development perezbivannia meant that the actor,
in total collaboration with the acting ensemble, sought completely sincere expression;
and, as Stanislavski explains in My Life in Art, the search for truthful interpretation
depended then on "the line of intuition" to divulge the requisite qualities and
motivations of the role. Essentially, it was a Tolstoian concept, merging the views of
Stanislavski with the persuasive ideas of Sulerzhitski, his closest associate in conducting
studio training of young students. "Suler" was a devoted follower of the great novelist, of
whom Stanislavski stood in awe. The percepts of Tolstoi's aesthetic, voiced with special

12 Collected Works, Vol. II: The Actor's Work on Himself, Part One: Work on the Self in the
Creative Process of Experiencing, ed. V. Prokofiev and G. Kristi (1954), p. 26. My translation, as are
all translations from Stanislavski in this essay; my emphasis.
13 Articles, Speeches, Talks, Letters, p. 653. From a stenographic account of a dialogue between
Stanislavski and the senior members of the Moscow Art Theatre which took place in 1936. It has
special interest because Stanislavski discusses the ways in which directors should apply "the system" in
work with actors. A partial translation appears in Cole and Chinoy's Directors on Directing.

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 152 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

forcefulness in the remarkable fifth chapter of What Is Art?,14 undoubtedly had an

impact on both men. The chief thrust of the player, to simplify, became to identify
himself with his character as completely as possible by inducing analogous psychological
states in himself.

Now this initial formulation of experiencing still has wide currency. Yet Stanislavski
persisted in his experimental quest unsatisfied, perhaps because certain of the most
convincing answers to questions he had raised brought him to other, more difficult
problems. At all events, he revised and amended the substance of his central conception
into the rather complex theory that he presented in his major work, translated by
Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood as An Actor Prepares.

It will be helpful to examine other important conceptions offered by Stanislavski

before returning to the final significance of experiencing as the key idea, the hub of the
wheel on which the "system" turns.

III

Three distinctive propositions appear in Stanislavski's second book on acting, post-

humously published from somewhat different texts in America and Russia and known
here as Building a Character. 1s Planned for many years, work on this book had to be set
aside and left unfinished while Stanislavski completed the first volume for Russian
publication before his death in 1938.16

The Russian title of the book, in deliberate parallel with the first treatise on acting,
comes literally into English as The Actor's Work on Himself in the Creative Process of
Embodying. We are not to think, however, that embodying (voploshchenia) involves
another creative process; experiencing remains the best name for the entire process, and
embodying is a second major phase of the actor's development of himself and his art. This
phase concerns the externals and techniques of performance.

In a preface which appears only in the Russian edition Stanislavski has the master
teacher Tortsov state the theme of embodying: "to make visible the invisible creative life
of the actor."' 7 So that this may be feasible, the students must discipline their voices and

14 Tolstoi chooses two verbs to convey the sense of genuine emotional expression that he
advocated, one of them being perezbit. See also Chapter 15, in which Tolstoi treats the conditions
necessary to the artist's communication with the public.
1 5 The very different arrangement of materials in the respective Russian and English volumes
shows that Mrs. Hapgood operated with an unlike text. Although the content is substantially the same,
the Soviet edition (published six years after Building a Character) offers more materials from
Stanislavski's hands.
16 An Actor Prepares appeared in 1936 in the U.S. The Soviet edition (see note 15 above) came
out two years later. Mrs. Hapgood has told me that when she last visited Stanislavski, fifteen months
before he died, the Soviet press authorities threatened not to publish the book unless he removed
words like soul, spirit, ideal. He refused to comply, obviously, and the book was printed as he wished.
17 Collected Works, Vol. III: The Actor's Work on Himself, Part Two: Work on the Self in the
Creative Process of Embodying, ed. V. Prokofiev and G. Kristi (1955), p. 28. It is likely that Mrs.
Hapgood did not see this preface until the third volume of the Collected Works appeared in the U.S.
As she explains in her own prefatory note to Building a Character, the materials she translated for the
book came to her piecemeal over a period of years from Stanislavski's family.

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 153 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

physical beings strictly. Likening actors to musical instruments, Stanislavski taught that
body and voice need to be in excellent condition to respond expressively to the delicate
impulsions of inner experiencing. Unfortunately, the attention given by Stanislavski to
this aspect of an actor's development, reinforced by the invention of multifarious
schemes for drilling and teaching correct habits, has never been fully appreciated outside
Russia.

Throughout this book Stanislavski refers to what may be seen as a test of a player's
skill in embodying: acted action must have "scenic" quality, that is, it must "play" and
project significantly or it may be justly inferred that the actor's inner experiencing has
little merit or usefulness. Since the object of the "system" is to enable the actor t
incarnate the role, if need be transforming himself in the process, embodying requires the
actor to cultivate a superbly conditioned instrument, himself, to create eloquen
truthfulness on the stage.

Certainly one of Stanislavski's most respected contributions has to be his delineation

of subtext. He withheld its explication until he examined voice and speech, to which
subtext was closely related in his thinking. It parallels and extends the concept of
embodying.
Stanislavski's own presentation of subtext needs review here.

[Subtext] is not the obvious, but the inner sense of the role's human spiritual life, which flows
continuously under the words of the text, always justifying and vivifying them.... [The subtext]
is that which impels us to utter the words of the role. 18

Hence, one of the actor's major tasks lies in giving the implicit content of the play, the
subtext, a specific formulation. An interplay will occur between the text and the subtext
as the actor finds means to "illustrate the subtext." The dramatist's text provides a
constant factor while each acting ensemble's subtextual discoveries are uniquely theirs
and give freshness to their interpretation. Any interpretation of a play is correct if its
subtext is fully justified by the text.

Plainly, Stanislavski believed that theatrical performance should have status as a

creative art rather than as an interpretative process which simply mediated between
author and audience. Discovery of a drama's subtext is a more difficult and original task
than imagined by literary critics who, having never explored texts in the way actors must
do, consider performance to be a second-hand and wholly derivative process. In
Stanislavski's aesthetic, the merit of a drama is proportionate to the richness of its
subtext and discovery of the subtext is the actor's principal means of creating artistic
performance.

All of this means that the words, the text of a play, do not have value in and of themselves, but
become valuable by virtue of the inner content-or the subtext which they contain. We often
forget this when we tread the boards.

We should not also forget that the printed play remains an incomplete piece of work until it is
performed on the stage by actors and activated by their living human feelings, just as a written
musical score is not a symphony until it is performed by an orchestra of musicians in concert.
Only when people-performers of a symphony or a play-activate the subject of the presented
work from their own experience, is there revealed in [the work] through the performers the
spiritual mystery, the inner essence for the sake of which it was created. The meaning of a created
18 Ibid., p. 84.

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 154 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

work lies in the subtext. Without it the words don't belong on the stage. In the creative act the
word is from the dramatist, the subtext is from the actor. If it were otherwise, the audience would
not wish to be in a theatre watching actors, but would sit at home and read the play.l 9

A "reflexive effect" operates, Stanislavski maintained, when a performance illustrates the

subtext, that is, the players' realization of inner content conditions their acting. Deferring
to Mrs. Hapgood's acute rendering of one passage, the actor must "compose the music
of his feelings to the text of his part and learn how to sing those feelings in words."2 0

In the early days of his theorizing Stanislavski either did not see the need to cope with
or deliberately avoided the problem of the actor's duality. As noted, his initial conception
of experiencing called for an identification of actor and character so close as to deny
pertinence to the fact that the actor continues to be himself while portraying a character.
Eventually Stanislavski confronted the so-called paradox of acting, and, when he did, the
position he took necessitated the alteration of his earlier propositions.

The issue of this confrontation of duality in acting was the conception of perspective,
the third major formulation of the book, Embodying.

Perspective signifies a sense of proportion. The dramatic character's perspective relates

to his past and to his status in the present moment; parallel to this, the actor's perspective
relates to the future of the dramatic action and to the way in which the role should be
played. A truly absorbing performance results only when both perspectives illuminate the
play: the character's perspective shows the vulnerability of the fictive person in the
situation, and the actor's perspective controls the dynamics of the performance out of an
awareness of what is yet to be played and of its meaning.

Let us agree to say that "perspective is a designed, a harmonious correlation and distribution
which comprehends everything in the entire play and the role.21

Quite a number of features in the "system" benefit from this notion, which may be
demonstrated by referring to one of them: Stanislavski's persistent practice of hyphen-
ating the names of actor and character, for example, Stanislavski-Stockman. Instead of an
idiosyncracy, the device proves to be a metaphor expressing the simultaneous presence on
the stage of an illusory character and the maker of that illusion. Indeed, the Stanislav-
skian actor is charged to keep so much in mind that a conception like perspective is
essential to assist his organization of the work.

The significance of perspective eludes the critics of Stanislavski's proposals. Its

articulation takes the rug out from under those who depict the Stanislavskian actor as an
introspective, self-indulgent mumbler and stumbler. Doubtless, inept or half-trained
exponents of the "system" gain opportunities to offend the sensitive playgoer, but the
sins of these actors can hardly be laid at Stanislavski's door.

IV

Tributes paid to Stanislavski, in both words and practice, emphasize how his
inventions and insights led the way to a more effective training of actors, at the same time

19 Ibid., p. 85.
20 Building a Cbaracter, p. 110.
21 Collected Works, III, 135.

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 155 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

developing a vocabulary for the work of performance. His contributions as a practical

theorist on how the actor should go about studying and preparing a role and on how the
director should function remain underestimated. When Stanislavski's ideas on these

subjects are brought together, from various writings (some of them still untranslated),
may conclude that this part of the "system" has more value than the most fam
aspects of it.

Stanislavski's conception of role development has never been adequately appreciated,

even though some of its features may be recognized. The principal items involved are: the
score of the role (partitura), the over-all task (sverkbzadacb), and through-action
(skvoznoi deistvia).22 The whole system depends on the latter two, Stanislavski
repeatedly said.

A sophisticated musical amateur, Stanislavski borrowed from music in developing his

innovations for theatre practice, including the notion of creating through script study a
means of notation for dramatic action similar to a musical score (partitura). Believing,
however, that action comprised the medium of drama, he sought a new form of notation.
His ingenuity produced what, I suggest, might be termed a principle of partitioning, or
dividing, dramatic action into small units, like phrases in music. He called these phrases
"bits" or "episodes" (kooski).2 3 His practice was to decide upon a title for each "bit," a
name describing its dramatic function or emotional tone, and to choose a verbal
expression that characterized in a highly specific fashion the action in the dramatic unit.
The succession of "bits," with their titles and verbal phrases, amounted to "the score of
the role," which the actor was to prepare and polish during preparation for performance.

This systematic procedure in dramatic analysis, which identifies phrases of action as

short as one word and as long as several pages of text (depending on the actor's
perception), has at its heart the selection of the verb or the verbal expression in a
paradigm which goes: "I want or wish to [verb] in order to [optional statement of
purpose] ." The verb is to be an infinitive highly appropriate to the dramatic moment,
suggesting immediately forthcoming action of a specific and purposeful physical kind,
among other things. It should thereby summarize the actor's plumbing of the subtext and
exactly delineate the character's momentary "task" (zadach).24 The actor's work in each
phrase, then, is to show the character striving to fulfill the task; and, of course, dramatists
construct plays so that characters usually do not fulfill all their tasks even if they strive

22 Concentrated expositions may be found in Experiencing (Vol. II) and The Actor's Work on the
Role (Vol. IV).
23 In the untranslated preface to Experiencing, Stanislavski observes that he had to invent a
terminology where none had existed. This term "bit" most likely derives from Russian theatre jargon.
How American students transformed the term into "beat," whose connotations bear little resemblance
to the intended meaning, remains a minor puzzle.
24 "Task" now seems the clearest equivalent in English since the word has come into wide use
among American actors. Mrs. Hapgood has explained to me her choice of "objective" for zadacb, thus:
"As you remember, Stanislavski wished to have this word impel his students to take action. To my
mind that is why 'objective,' a place to be reached, is much more dynamic in quality than 'problem,'
or 'task.' This is especially true of 'problem' which seems to me more static, intellectual, something
you can sit and mull over." (She is commenting on the choice of "problem" by David Magarshack in
his interesting Introduction to Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage.) My response, in addition to the
first sentence of this note, would be that "task" implies "something to be done," which therefore has
the best connotations for the purpose.

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 156 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

mightily to do so, for the action takes a new turn which calls for a new task to be pursued
in response.

Two notes should help clarify this crucial feature of partitioning. They concern
Stanislavski's own policy in the selection of verbs and the role of motivation.

The task, Stanislavski urges, must be a "lure" (mankost) which impels or draws the
character into physical action and animates the actor's sensibility at the same time. It
must have an attraction that pulls the character to fulfill it while expressing an idea in
which the actor can have complete belief.

Coincidentally, the Russian language gives Stanislavski a striking means of realizing

part of this prescription which he consistently exploits, although he never speaks of it,
presumably because it could be taken for granted with his Russian students. This feature
of the "system" has until now been unrecognized by English-speaking students.

In Russian, verbs have "aspects"; this means that verbs come in pairs for each
denotative meaning. One aspect connotes incompleted action (a progressive present or
past), whereas the other verb of the pair connotes action completed or to be completed
(in a definite future or past).2s Stanislavski always chooses infinitives from concrete
verbs of the latter aspect, which invariably signify future action.

This policy reinforces his demand that the task express something which in the
character's view will happen or is about to happen. A sense of impending event or
anticipated action, on the part of the character, should infuse the task and thereby
increase the intensity of its attraction.

What does this mean with regard to character motivation? Well, it rather changes
matters! Indeed, not until a reader of Stanislavski reflects on it does he realize that the
"system" seldom speaks of motivation per se. Instead, "aspiration" (stremlennia) is
spoken of more often. A "line of aspiration" corresponds, Stanislavski tells us, with the
"unbroken line" (nepreruivnia linia) of significant and unrelated expression throughout
any work of art.2 6 If the dramatic character can be seen as striving to fulfill tasks which
lie ahead, it makes sense to conceive a character's progression in terms of aspiration
toward a goal-as opposed to explaining his actions by motivations rooted in the past.

All of this comes clearer and the interrelation of Stanislavski's central conceptions
emerges with greater sharpness when we turn to the conceptions of "over-all task" and
"through-action." They offer to the Stanislavskian actor a method of organizing his work
in coherent, purposive flow.

25 In Russian, both verbs of an aspectual pair have the same denotation and are given similar
conjugations. To illustrate further the differences in implicit meaning: mesbat means "stopping" or
"preventing" in the present moment; its pair-verb is pomesbat, which means "stop" or "prevent" at a
definite future moment. Cf. Unbegaun, Russian Grammar, pp. 164-165.
26 Collected Works, II, 309. Judging from his last written pieces, Stanislavski would have been
more likely to ask an actor to "activate" (subtext) or "justify" his action than to inquire into
motivation.
One familiar with the propositions of Susanne K. Langer is reminded at this point of her
characterizing drama as a "mode of destiny" in which what is about to happen has more significance
than what is happening. See Feeling and Form (New York, 1953), p. 307.

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 157 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

The over-all task provides the keystone in the construction made by the analysis of
dramatic phrases (the score of the role). Selection of the over-all task needs to be
governed by the same strictures which apply to the task of a phrase, that is, it should be a
verbal expression centering on the infinitive, but the over-all task must have broader
scope and possess a magnetic, irresistible attraction to the actor-character.
It attracts to itself all tasks without exception, and arouses the creative aspirations of the motive
forces of psychic life as well as the elements of the actor-character's state of mind.2 7

The "line of aspiration" unifies the small tasks which are momentary efforts to attain
realization of the supreme goal. In exemplification, Stanislavski cites over-all tasks which
helped him: for Chatski in Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, "I wish to struggle for freedom";
for Argan in Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire, "I want to be thought sick"; for Hamlet, "to
purify the whole castle and the whole world from evil, and to draw everything into this
action, in order to redeem my martyred father." The over-all task statement is thematic,
but it is active and act-able, in contrast with the usual literary thematic statement of a
play's meaning.

Through-action, on the other hand, is the disciplined process of correlating all tasks.
When he first introduces the concept of tasks, Stanislavski observes that they must be
kept in a channel (farvater) to be productive. In his exposition on through-action he
shows how this may be done, by seeing the play in terms of large units ("scenes," we
might say) made up of the small phrases; the large units each have a task which holds a
commanding relation to the tasks of the small phrases. In other words, the actor should
recognize incorrect or inappropriate tasks (and be able to revise them) in the interest of
creating the "unbroken line" of development.

But the line of through-action unifies [the small tasks] and all the elements, its transpierces them
exactly like a thread with separate beads, and directs them toward the general over-all task.28

This conception reminds one of cinematic structure, in which it is said that the shot is the
basic unit of a film, and that shots are edited to construct scenes, scenes make sequences,
and sequences go together to become the whole motion picture.

This novel theory of dramatic construction, born out of a concern to take tangible
action as the medium of theatre and drama, awards a heavy significance to the choice of
verbal expressions to pinpoint actions in the small and large units, as well as in the over-all
task. More to the point, the infinitives selected become key referents for the actor at
work. Let it be noted, too, that Stanislavski passes over the idea of the dramatic as a
mode of expression in the present tense, to paraphrase Schiller. He conceives a drama as a
gestalt, composed of unlike and yet closely related parts, which is oriented to the future.

27 Collected Works, Vol. IV: The Actor's Work on the Role: Materials Toward a Book, ed. G.
Kristi and V. Prokofiev (1957), p. 162. The "elements" refers to the sixteen terms of Stanislavski's
psychic technique, which are: "If," "given circumstances," "imagination," "emotional memory," and
"communication"; "liberation of the muscles," "attention," "sense of truth and belief," and "logic
and consistency"; "tempo-rhythm," "characterization," "restraint and finish," "ethics and discipline,"
and "charm and allure." I list them here in three groups, as I should propose their reordering for
greater clarity; the first group has special bearing on psychic technique, the second on "the creative
state of mind," and the third on "embodying." Two more "elements" do not fall into these
categories: "episodes and tasks" has more to do with creating a role and "adaptation" is a mediating
element among the others.
28 Collected Works, II, 338.

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 158 / EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL

A common conception from Romantic criticism holds only a minor place in this
theory. That is the "law of conflict," derived by Brunetiere and others from Hegel.
Stanislavski treats the phenomenon of dramatic intensification at crucial points in the
form of "counter through-action." That is, a line of action by one character meets a
contrasting line of action by another character, which produces more intense activity and
a clash of purposes that enhances drama with excitement. And yet the relegation of
conflict to a subsidiary place (Stanislavski takes just about a page in one book to consider
counter through-action29) seems not unnatural in a theatre practitioner who learned his
hardest lessons in the staging and acting of Chekhov's plays.

Critical examination of Stanislavski's writings in their Russian texts divulges, it is fair

to say, a more provocative and original thinker than he has ever been taken to be. The
actual import of many findings and formulations by Stanisalvski have been partially
hidden behind a language curtain.30 Looking at his theoretical contributions through this
curtain, we have confused one with the other and permitted them to mix. It is time to
give the originator of the "system" his due and to consider more precisely the meaning of
his teaching.

Admittedly, Stanislavski emerges a more persistent than systematic thinker when one
scrutinizes the many parts of his "system." This makes critical interpretation difficult.
One reason for his continual revision of major and minor tenets was simply his lack of
preparation for an ambitious project in theoretical criticism. Yet, to his credit, he
steadfastly persisted in seeking viable principles that would interrelate to become an
explanation for an "organic creative process" in the theatre.

The prime example of his remarkably sustained effort to refine and clarify a "system"
concerns the central conception. Experiencing underwent a number of subtle changes
from its initial meaning which, to oversimplify, called for the actor to identify closely
with his role. Stanislavski's original intention, to find means by which the source of
creativity, the subconscious, could be engaged in the work of the artist, remained
substantially the same. But he found it necessary to consider seriously the implications of
key conclusions, like through-action and perspective, and to pursue them. It may be that
his introduction to Pavlovian psychology, to which the Soviet editors of the Collected
Works repeatedly refer, also had an impact on him; certainly his teachings and rehearsal
methods often bear a marked resemblance, in their late stages, to those of behaviorist
psychology. At any rate, where before Stanislavski believed that the actor should rely on
only one technique of creating a role, he eventually recognized that natural alternatives
could be comprehended within his conception of experiencing.31

29 Ibid., pp. 345-346.

30 I should reiterate my respect and indebtedness to previous translators and interpreters of
Stanislavski. I have found that the English-speaking interpreters are either scholars of the Russian
language who have in common a fascination with the theatre or theatre practitioners possessing a
facility with the Russian language. Most of them display little familiarity with theatre and dramatic
criticism and seem unaware of the contributions of aesthetics to the theatre in Western Europe and the
U.S.

31 An interesting example, which shows an actor debating among alternatives, appears in T

Actor's Work on the Role, p. 280.

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 159 / STANISLAVSKI'S CENTRAL CONCEPTIONS

The general problem that Stanislavski decided he must resolve, I suggest, concerns the
degree of control which a player exerts over his preparation of a role and over his acting
of it. At first he proposed that the actor prepare a role by a given method, whose object
was to discover how he might induce in himself a state of being closely analogous to that
of the character-then to go into performances with an almost total absorption with the
character. Subsequently, he decided that artistic playing would more probably result
when the actor designed his interpretation, choosing from among legitimate methods of
preparation and, in performance, exercising a surveillance over his execution of the
design. Preserving perspective and through-action should not lead, however, to what we
often term "technical acting," that is, entirely calculated; nor could the actor who keeps
his inner response to the play in a balance with his critical sense experience a role. Both
of these approaches would diminish the fervent sense of "human spiritual life" which,
Stanislavski believed, had the greatest power and truth in the theatre. Yet if the actor
could learn to perform like a great concert artist, deeply absorbed in the music without
losing his awareness of through-lines and maintaining a sense of proportion, then he
would come nearest to compelling, inventive, and dynamic artistry. And this was the final
meaning of experiencing.

In a larger sense, experiencing designates an entire system of actor training and role
preparation for the Stanislavskian actor. Study of the Russian master's extensive inquiries
brings the conclusion that, while he was developing his ideas on acting, Stanislavski
eventually constructed an aesthetic of the theatre, a comprehensive theory revolving
about and further justifying the conception summed up in perezbhivannia.

As he looked at the theatre of his times and contemplated the form the art could take,
it was not enough for this man to deal with acting alone. His curious and critical mind
explored many phases of theatre practice, the performing arts and their literature, and the
place of the arts in society. Until his time no artist in the theatre had made a comparable
effort to understand the medium and to develop sound rationales for it. Perhaps no one
since has matched this contribution.

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