Talk:Konstantin Stanislavski/Archive 2

Clarification of "Method of Physical Actions"
I think I should clarify something for those who are interested. I'm not sure if this knowledge could be incorporated into this article, but I invite anyone to try and edit the article as they see fit. It is good work, and I feel uncomfortable changing it. Perhaps some statements should just be augmented if not removed. Mainly because of a problem with translation. The term that Stanislavsky used was in Russian "физические задачи" or just "задачи", which literally means physical tasks, or problems, or objectives. However, it is frequently referred to as physical actions, or simply "actions" in America. "Psychological actions" were always an important part of his method. An "action" refers to a verb that an actor uses to identify a "beat" or "unit" (a dramatic section with a single theme) in a scene. An actor keeps these "actions" or "objectives" in mind, be them more physical or more psychological, during the scene to keep his or her mind off of their emotions, allowing them to come naturally and easily. This also helped the actors remember the sequence of their scenes without worrying about their lines. It was intended to be a tool, not a complete method in and of itself. The same thing applies to "emotional memory" and "sense memory".

The thing that this article misrepresents is that it makes it seem like Stanislavsky develops this systems after 1930, but in fact, this was just one aspect of his system that he started to develop after 1907. It eventually became more of a central aspect of his system, overpowering emotional memory. abbadonnergal 12:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

MENA ON! had terets —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.196.26.3 (talk) 10:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This comes off as a bit grasping

 * That many of the precepts of his 'system' seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its hegemonic success. Actors frequently employ his basic concepts without knowing they do so.

When I read this, I think someone somewhere has a strong attachment to Stanislavski's school and is a little too keen to promote it as the be-all and end-all of acting. It just sounds needy. Vranak (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's sourced and reflects what the sources say about it (as well as being accurate). You don't have to be a follower of Stanislavski to recognise that his system forms the basis for most drama training in the West today, whether it is identified as such or not. Besides the sources that say so, you could pick up more or less any handbook of acting and find much of his work presented there unattributed but as "acting" per se. Such a recognition doesn't make any assessment of the alternative or parallel traditions. It simply indicates the influence his systematic approach has had. The emotional implications that you read--attachment, over-estimation, neediness--aren't there in the text. DionysosProteus (talk) 15:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * OK I hear ya. It just comes off sounding like if Stanislavski didn't develop his ideas, actors today wouldn't be able to act worth a damn. I don't know if that was the intent, but that's just me. Vranak (talk) 05:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Later life?
The article needs to tell us more about what became of Stanislawski during and after the Bolshevik Revolution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.252.144 (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd also be very curious! -Darouet (talk) 04:32, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Fictional References
How Strict is the fictional references supposed to be? He's everywhere these days. I'm wondering if some references i could add would have a place in that section. An Example would be the homage' to Stanislavski in the TV Show "Get Smart". There is an episode, and i can elaborate more on this later, in which they must stop the dreaded Dr. Stanislavski from freezes earth with his "Stanislavski Method". This is just one, some others are less.... comedic. Any thoughts? Humans Live to Love and Love to Live. Where does anger fall into that? ~Anonymous (talk) 02:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)Idiotninja 6/16/09

Gregorian vs Julian Calendar
I'd like to ask someone who knows to change when he was born to the correct date. it says the 17th of january and the 5th of january. please help clear it up!!! thanks :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.11.69 (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Russia did not change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until after the Russian revolution. By the time  Stanislavski was born this had resulted in a 12-day difference between the two calendars. Thus Jan 17 in Britain was Jan 5 in Russia.--Diannaa (talk) 22:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the argument, but your reasoning is a little confused. Stanislavski was born in the 19th century, before the Revolution.  At that time, the difference between the calendars was 12 days.  By the time the Russian government adopted the Gregorian calendar, the difference had increased to 13 days.  But that's irrelevant to Stanislavski.  Had the Gregorian calendar been in place when he was born, it would have said 17 January.  But the Julian calendar was in place, and it said 5 January.  --  JackofOz (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is an article that explains it better than I could: Old Style and New Style dates.  --Diannaa (talk) 01:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Biography
The current biography indicates that "Stanislavski" was the surname that he was born with, but then immediately contradicts itself by stating that this was a stage name. Can someone correct this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.28.216.58 (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Constantin - Konstantin?
Care to discuss the variation between K and C in the main post and the infobox?

Housewp (talk) 22:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's time that the article was moved to the 'K' spelling, now that the 70yr old translations have been superceded by the more recent standard translations An Actor's Work, An Actor's Work on a Role, and My Life in Art, all of which spell his name Konstantin Stanislavski. Objections? DionysosProteus (talk) 14:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No objections. As far I was concerned, it should never have been moved to Constantin in the first place.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 69.80.17.128, 24 September 2011
Constantin Stanislavski is a thearist and is the best men ever.

69.80.17.128 (talk) 14:40, 24 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Not included; not a helpful edit. --Dianna (talk) 15:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Maria Lilina
The article Constantin Stanislavski has been edited by Illyukhina who changed name Maria Lilina on line 41 to incorrect name Maria Liliana. There was no valid reference to this change. Google search shows that the name Maria Lilina is correct, also there is a Russian article in Wikipedia with the proper name: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Лилина,_Мария_Петровна I undid Illyukhina's edit but my change was reverted again leaving the article with incorrect name. Petrukhina (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 June 2012
Stanislavsky's famous book "On the Art of the Stage" (first paperback edition by Hill and Wang Dramabooks in 1961), is deliberately seen as being read for performance by actor Peter Sellers (acting as Aldo Vanucci) in the 1966 film "After the Fox" (Caccia alla Volpe) directed by Vittorio de Sica.

88.230.245.225 (talk) 21:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. TOW  talk  01:51, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 November 2012
Please could you add the name of Maria Knebel to the list of 'Significant Students'? Maria has a mention in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance and studied under Stanislavski at the Second Studio of the Moscow Arts Theatre. She went on to teach at GITIS which is now known as The Russian University of Theatre Arts, as part of the Faculty of Directing Drama.

Yours respectfully, Whatifits (talk) 18:07, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Dianna (talk) 20:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Revisit: Constantin vs Konstantin
This was discussed back in 2007, and the outcome was that the article should use Constantin, and there can be redirects from Konstantin.

That's all nice in theory, but what we have right now (and have had for too long to check back in detail, but probably back as far as 2007), is an article titled Constantin but which immediately starts out "Konstantin Sergeveich Stanislavski …”.  The article contains 5 instances of Constantin (including 2 template boxes), and 6 instances of Konstantin.

This is abominable. We have to be consistent, whatever decision we make.

I don't want to change anything right now, as I would like to revisit the issue of whether we call the guy Constantin or Konstantin. The 2007 discussion had some google results behind it, but it was hardly overwhelming, and those numbers may well be very out of date by now.

What do others think? We need to fix this quickly, one way or another. --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  22:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * What's usual wiki-practise for Russian names? The name is Константин Сергеевич Станиславский in the Cyrillic script. Regardless of which is used, we need to have internal consistency, both within the article and between this article and the template. -- Dianna (talk) 23:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have changed everything to agree with the article name for a stop-gap. -- Dianna (talk) 18:51, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 October 2013
After the sentence: "Clurman and Strasberg had a profound influence on American acting, both on stage and film, as did Stella Adler, who was also part of the Group Theatre and who had studied briefly with Stanislavsky and quarreled with Strasberg's approach to the work." in the Legacy section of this article, please add the following sentences: "Sanford Meisner, another Group member, joined with Adler in opposing Strasberg's approach. This conflict was the partial cause of the Group Theatre's dissolution.  After the Group broke up, Strasberg, Adler and Meisner each went on to found their own acting studios which trained many of the most prominent actors in American theater and film." The reason for this request is that Sanford Meisner was an equally prominent teacher as Stella Adler. Both went on to influence generations of important actors. They were allies and friends within the Group Theatre, opposed Strasberg together, and interpreted Stanislavsky's teachings in a similar way. Meisner deserves equal mention in the article. Meisner trained Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, Mary Steenburgen, JoAnne Woodward, directors Sidney Lumet and Sidney Pollack, and many, many more of the most prominent actors in American theatre and film. He is certainly a most important part of Stanislavsky's legacy in the U.S. and around the world. [Request by Robert Epstein, epsteinrob@yahoo.com, http://epsteinrob.wix.com/epstein-studio] 2601:A:3D00:28D:219:E3FF:FEDA:6E9F (talk) 23:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done:: please provide reliable sources and seek consensus on this talk page for such an addition. (By the way, the web site you linked to tries to download a lot of data and causes a stack overflow.) --Stfg (talk) 14:11, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Meisner is a well-known public figure who is equally famous as Stella Adler. There's no citation for the mention of Adler in the article, one is not necessary for Meisner; however I provide some links below. Meisner is one of the three major American teachers: Strasberg, Adler and Meisner. He is known by everyone in the acting world as the teacher of Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, etc. How would I seek consensus? Everyone in the acting world knows and acknowledges Meisner, except, apparently, this article. Here is the Meisner wiki article if that helps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meisner_technique; and a reference from that wiki article to Krasner's book on Strasberg, Adler and Meisner...!: Krasner, David. 2000a. "Strasberg, Adler and Meisner: Method Acting." In Hodge (2000, 129-150). You can also look at the rest of the references in the Meisner article, which mentions Meisner Technique as derived from Stanislavsky.

Done Thanks for your improvement to the article. I've formatted the Krasner reference and I take it on faith that the chapter supports the text you asked to have added. Regards, Celestra (talk) 02:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Citation for name?
This edit by User:Robson correa de camargo added a citation ("Benedetti, 1988, 3") right after the name in the first sentence of the article. I guess there's been some controversy over the spelling, but this seems a bit unnecessary. I've removed it, but if there's a reason for it to be there that I can't see, by all means add it in again. Jfmantis (talk) 02:27, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

As my edit summary indicates, there's no hint in the lead whatsoever that Alekseyev was his real surname, and the Cyrillic rendering indicates the contrary; I thought it was vandalism. Only after I changed it, I realized it was not. In any case, there are much better ways to communicate this (which include not stating it in the lead at all, as I don't see it particularly interesting). No such user (talk) 07:32, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Re-revisit: Constantin vs Konstantin
Above, last year, Jack of Oz wrote:


 * what we have right now ... is an article titled Constantin but which immediately starts out "Konstantin Sergeveich Stanislavski" ... The article contains 5 instances of Constantin ... and 6 instances of Konstantin. This is abominable. We have to be consistent, whatever decision we make. ... We need to fix this quickly, one way or another.

Well, it's improved; the article now uses "Constantin" consistently except in the lead sentence, which starts with "Konstantin" and does not mention the other spelling. Alternate spellings belong in the lead (see WP:LEAD) but not to the exclusion of the chosen primary spelling. So the simplest fix would be to edit the lead sentence to read something like:


 * Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski (Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский; also transliterated as Constantin [insert patronymic here] Stanislavski; 17 January 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a Russian actor and theatre director.

(I don't know what spelling of Sergeievich was used in references that transliterated the first name as Constantin. I'd guess Sergeyevich, but someone needs to actually check.)

However, in the brief previous discussion in 2010, there seemed to be agreement that Konstantin should be the primary spelling, i.e. the article should be moved and all the uses of Constantin corrected. That makes sense to me, but if someone is going to do it, could they please actually make it happen? And even if this is done, the lead sentence still needs to mention both spellings, including the applicable form of the patronymic.

As an unregistered user, and since the article is semi-protected, I can't make either change myself. --174.88.135.88 (talk) 18:28, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Additional students
These are some notable people who studied with Stanislavski — adding their names to the list of his students in the article should be considered: Alisa Koonen, Stella Adler, Aleksei Dikiy, Maria Knebel, Miriam Bernstein-Cohen. Clockchime (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes - the most shocking thing about that list is that Knebel doesn't yet have an article, while the others do... She's by far the most famous. I'll see if I can do something about that at some point.  • DP •  {huh?} 14:01, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Joshua Logan
I reverted the good-faith edit that removed Joshua Logan’s name from a list of students — Joshua Logan did indeed study with Stanislavski, it’s reported in several places. I can cite two books that support this: Rebecca Schneider and Gabrielle H. Cody’s book, Re:direction: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. (2002)  There’s a quote (page 35) that says that Joshua Logan is one of the few American directors who traveled to the Soviet Union to study directly with Stanislavski. Sonia Moore’s book: The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor; Second Revised Edition. (Penguin 1984). Joshua Logan wrote the intro, and he says: “In the winter of 1930 and 1931 I had the unique opportunity of studying with Stanislavski in his studio home in Moscow and watching him direct rehearsals. Along with my fellow student the late Charles Leatherbee … “ etc.  Clockchime (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I looked into this some years ago, and I'm afraid it doesn't hold up. It is true that Logan visited the Soviet Union. By he only sat in on rehearsals (for The Golden Cockerel and Boris Godunov). He watched. It's not really the same as "studying with", much less "training with". I'm afraid it's a strained claim, made, no doubt, to bask in the holy holy of a true heir. As Benedetti writes, when he said to S that he wanted to start his own company modeled on MAT, S replied "don't copy, find your own answers."  • DP •  {huh?} 13:58, 26 August 2016 (UTC)