The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit

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In Part II, Merlin adopts a more subjective, practice-based approach: first, she assimilates the language-based ‘system’ of Stanislavsky into the visual realm of film and, thereafter, applies her evolving Anglo-Russian-American perspective to the classroom. The image I use when I’m directing using Active Analysis is that the play is a trellis; my actors are the ivy, winding their way around the trellis; and as the director I’m the gardener. These compact, well-illustrated and clearly written books will unravel the contribution of modern theatre's most charismatic innovators. Lofty discussions led by Oxbridge-graduated directors had caused creative spasticity in Packer (just as they had with Stanislavsky’s actors). How can we convince our audience that what we’re saying as actor/characters is the spontaneous expression of feelings provoked by the chain of fictional events?

Late in life he realized that physical actions can induce emotions just as much as the other way around. For many of us born before social media ruled our lives, college was, as Twenge describes it, ‘a place for learning and exploration, and that includes being exposed to ideas different from your own. All too often as actors, our haste to learn our lines as quickly as possible diminishes our experience of how our words actually land on our listeners.So for example when Gertrude says ‘Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,’ Hamlet picks up on her syntax, replying, ‘Mother, you have my father much offended. And yet navigating this kind of material is tricky for the iGeneration who uphold that ‘it’s harder to protect your mind than your body. The true adjustment will come on the stage as a result of the correct state of the actor in the character, from his desire to fulfill the problems of the part in the given circumstances.

If could justify my actual feelings within the realm of the play’s given circumstances, I could overcome them. Each improvisation – or étude – becomes more fully-fledged and embodied, and grows closer to the actual script. It is not quite as anarchic as Mike Alfred’s “different every night” with actors choosing different exits and entrances each time. He was exploring Eastern philosophies, yoga, prana and the chakras but he couldn’t talk about it very much.Each section offers definitions of the key terms found in Stanislavsky's teaching, illustrated with quotations and examples from Stanislavsky's own work. I quickly realised that Stanislavski had just got into every single active molecule of the actors and the teachers and the audiences. On the Active Analysis of Plays and Roles, Maria Knebel, in unpublished translation by Mike Pushkin with Bella Merlin. And the way to start figuring out what those thought processes might be is to study the screen directions written into the script. The dopamine kick that floods a young brain when a post is liked or a tweet ignites a Twitter-buzz are leading to serious addictions.

And of course the pause: Stanislavsky was insistent that ‘The actor always cheats you during moments of surging temperament. a serious, no-nonsense interpretation of Stanislavsky's thinking written by an actor-teacher with considerable experience. The mechanics of each are very close: read the scene, discuss the scene, improvise the scene, discuss the improvisation. So as actor trainers it’s our duty to open up dialogues about acting that ensure the psychophysical nature of our art is valued and practiced. Looks under the mattress, finds her document files, looks inside the stuffed bunny and finds the packet of cigarettes where she used to put the money, opens it, but it is empty.

With the cast, crew and creative team seated in one large circle, the actors involved in a particular scene stand up inside the circle and ‘work through the scene on their feet’. And this shifting began so recently that I don’t know what the landscape will look like until the rocks have settled. In the old-fashioned way of working, where you learn the lines, you learn the “blocking” (a word I cannot abide), you get up and do the same scene every night. In many respects Michael Chekhov’s emphasis on imagination is an absolutely invaluable balance to your own emotional repertoires. All too often as actors we simply don’t sound as connected to our scripted words as a plant is connected to its roots and foliage.