Stanislavski Wrap-Up (In-class writing)

Stanislavski was a Russian actor who was bored by the overdramatic way actors performed, embellishing made up emotions as in the days of the Romans and Greeks. He wanted to see performances with actors who made their characters seem real, with complex motivations and emotions. This led him to create the now famous Stanislavski method, a way to help actors create and become the characters they were portraying. This kind of acting is called truthful acting.

Part of Stanislavski’s Method is using discovering every character’s super objective (ultimate goal in the pay) and germ (the core of the character). Bulding from there, the actor decides what the character’s objective will be for each scene, and what actions they will take to achieve it. The useful thing about this method is that it allows the actor to picture their character separate from themself, as a real person, rather than just a stereotypical role to perform. Audience members are more likely to relate to, understand, and sympathize with a character who acts like a complete person than a stock or token character. The one major con I see with this method is if a person were to go overboard in developing the character, and then try to shove more unnecessary details into the play than are needed. It is important to remember that, while each character has their own story, they must all fulfill their role in the production, first and foremost.

There is also the practice of emotional memory, in which an actor draws on their own past experiences to bring out real emotion appropriate to the scene. While this technique can be very successful for displaying real emotion on stage, it can be stressful for the actor if they have to draw on a dark time in their past to do it. More problamatic for Stanislavski, it creates a disconnect between the actor and the character, since the way the actor responded to that pas experience is likely at least somewhat different from how the character would respond in their current situation. This is the reason why Stanislavski ended up abandoning this method, though some of his pupils continued to teach it.

Stanislavski’s method was the foundation for what are now the standard acting practices in the modern world. Some actors will go as far as to remain in character even when not performing, a technique called “method acting” after Stanislavski’s method (Stanislavski himself would sometimes go out in public and pretend to be a certain- character). Thus, it is essential to cover his practices when learning about theater.

As a writer, I have always been interested in taking characters from media and expanding on them. Stanislavski’s method is essentially a more guided version of that, with th specific goal of improving the believability of the actor’s performance as a separate character. I will be sure to consider my character’s germ and super objective when stepping into a new role from now on, as a way to decide what kind of performance would be the most truthful.