Talk:Stanislavski's system/Archive 1

Assessment
Because of the referencing problems in this article, I am rating it as a "start". -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Old comment
I seem to recall Stanislavski retracting the MPA on his deathbed, is this verifiable? ZoomZip 18:56, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article doesn't say what the System is!
This article needs some serious revision to make it understandable to the average reader.

I've read this entire article, and I still have no idea what the System is. I know that it is a technique of acting, that it's different from the Method (which also isn't really explained here), and that it was important.

But I have no idea what it means to act according to the System, whether in preparation or performance.

Maybe it's all there, buried in anecdotes and commentary. But nothing's spelled out -- could someone with some expertise in the field please clarify this entry? --Dablaze 11:28, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd agree. After reading the article, I still don't understand what it really is, or the distinction between the Method and the System. People unfamiliar with the actors mentioned there will find it unintelligible. --69.158.56.18 00:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to add sections about various techniques in the Stanislavski System? This is something I would love to do given a good amount of interest. I am by no means an expert, merely a student, but I have several relevent sources as well as my own experience to draw from. --Terron 16:44, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) Yes Please!!!!Stanislavski

I think the main problem is that whoever wrote much of the text in this article was practically in love with Stanislavsky. "Coming from Stanislavski, a man who in the end, was always brilliantly practical." And then it gets positively grandiose, and far too wordy: "Training was highly physical and demanding, and it is this never-failing respect which Stanislavski ever harbored for physical action that brought his system to a point of apotheosis, as it were, a way of reaching the gods of emotional truth and physicological realism while having a grip on control of the physical, and further, freeing oneself up for performing anything, be it Modern theatre or the Greeks." Please. Can anyone really tell what that means? It needs massive POV cleanup and editing merely for being completely obtuse, if nothing else.--Pathogen 01:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The core of Stanislavsky's system is "Action." "Action" is "movement plus desire" or "movement with purpose." Stanislavsky's system can be understood as the Structures of Action as defined by current Russian practitioners, such as Yevgeny Lanskoy, Slava Dolgatchev and Marat Yusime. IT is a way to act--it is the core of Stanislavsky's system. Action is applicable to all genres of plays, and to dance performance. We all have "actions" every moment of our lives. It can be expressed with a difinitive verb; for example: I want to convince you that I understand fully the implications of Stanislavsky's system, so you will put my comments in Wikipedia. I am writing my PhD on just this subject at New York University.

Robin Levenson, 10-25-05, refer to Sharon Carnicke's Stanislavsky in Focus and Francis Fergusson's Idea of a Theatre.

The description.

With respect to Stanislavski's "Method", an acting instructor at the University of Michigan called it combining "technique into acting". This is less clear than what I read in the description. However, when the instructor helped students "use" the Stanislavski Method, it was more than putting yourself into the position of the character, more than walking the streets that they might walk, etc. He finally postulated that, after analyzing the character and their motives that one might dig into his or her own past for some comparable life experience. Perhaps, if a character might need to cry, thinking of some past grief from one's own life, such as the death of a pet, to bring him to tears would be combining technique into acting.

When watching James Dean's riveting performance in "East of Eden", I paused to wonder whether Mr. Dean had conjured up his unstoppable crying in front of his ungrateful father by analyzing the character or by remembering and drawing on some horrible grief from his past that appeared to bring him to the point of what appeared to be uncontrolled crying. I later read that Raymond Massey, the father, was not a fan of method acting, and that he resented Mr. Dean and the entire scene. I wonder what Stanislavski would have said. I wondered whether James Dean was keeping just one step away from his character when it didn't look like it.

Some actors just seem to play themselves, like James Stewart is always James Stewart, or is he? Ejwoodward (talk) 05:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Stop the Jason Bennett Spammers
This entry has been repeatedly spammed by Jason Bennett and his supporters. If this spam appears again, it should be deleted. Mr. Bennett's Wikipedia entry has been deleted for not being notable and his spam has been removed many times. Please help keep Wikipedia a place for sharing information not advertising. Tree Trimer 10:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

What is it?
I came to the talk page to find out if anyone else had wondered why the article doesn't say what the system is. It turns out they had, almost two years ago. Surely it can't be that hard to explain? HenryFlower 18:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. And once that is done it would also be good to discuss those who disagree with Stanislavski's view of acting on ideological grounds (for instance Brecht would have been, but I don't know whether he ever explicitly said anything about Stanislavski). If I am not mistaken, Stanislavski was the official acting technique of the Soviet Union. The ideological grounding of Stanislavski is therefore no trivial matter. Ireneshusband 03:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure who has actually read the very first paragraph of this article, but it briefly tells us that Stanislavski's System consisted of having the actor using emotion to use his / her ability and give an impressive / emotional performance to the audience(s). He tried to use this System for massive improvements for others so that they felt the character and expressed their feelings / emotions. A note about Bertolt Brecht, his Method and Stanislavksi's System are almost the opposite to each other, because Bertolt Brecht didn't want to show the emotion through the human body, but through objects / props to tell the audience their feelings / mood. That's all I have at the moment between the two, but from what I know, they are very different, and yes it does explain briefly what Stanislavski's System is. Tombo123 16:35, 29 September 2006 (UT)

Move section "Other approaches"
Shouldn't we move the section "Other approaches" into Acting or Actor? Peter S. 22:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Or actually, into an article generally on techniques and systems in acting. --LQ 12:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Better summary. . . maybe?
Using the wording here, along with information I've learned in my acting studies, I've come up with a summary of Stanslavski's methods that may make more sense. It follows.

The Stanislavski System is an approach to acting developed by Konstantine Stanislavsky, a Russian actor, director, and theatre administrator at the Moscow Art Theater. The System is the result of Stanislavski's many years of efforts to determine how a human being can control, in performance, the most intangible and uncontrollable aspects of human behavior: things such as emotions, and artistic inspiration.

While Stanislavski was not the first to codify some system of acting (see for instance, any number of Victorian gesture-books for actors) it was for all intents and purposes the first to take questions and problems of psychological significance head on. The System arose as a result of the questions a young Stanislavski had regarding great actors whom he admired in his youth, who seemed to operate on different rules than everyone else, and yet like everyone else, they were susceptible on some nights to flashes of inspiration, of completely 'being a role', while on other nights their performances were good or merely accurate.

Early in his teaching career, Stanislavski created the Stanislavsky System, which was based on his belief that the secret of art was in discovering creativity. The System was designed to help an actor develop a character by identifying his objectives, thereby determining what emotions would be felt by a character in a given scene. The System encouraged using a concept called "emotional memory"--remembering how one felt in a particular situation and relating that memory to similar circumstances of a character in a play.

It has until recent years been held that Stanislavsky's true method taught that actors needed to move, perceive and feel as the character, not merely pretend to do so.

Late in his life, however, Stanislavski began putting much faith in an approach he called The Method of Physical Action, which is based on an idea that always fascinated Stanislavski: that emotional life is a kind of two-way street; further, that the only thing an actor will ever have control of in his life as regards himself is his body, nothing more, which he learned from his earliest acting influences, whom he witnessed "getting lost in" and "becoming" their characters. This physical approach, Stanislavski surmised, finally brought him to a complete dealing with the instrument of the actor, and further with a universality of performance. It is the marriage of The System and The Method of Physical Action that truly represents Stanislavski's beliefs and theories.

This late stage unfortunately receives little notice or appreciation in most summations of Stanislavski's life and technique. In essence, the goal that remained throughout the life of Stanislavski was to formulate some codified, systematic approach that might impart to a given actor some grip on his 'instrument'--that is, himself--beyond immediate physical control. Therefore the actor and the director must work hard using the body, that is, the body's performance of physical action, as the primary material of creation. That is the subject of rehearsal: how to create a character, discover his motivations, determine the appropriate emotional reactions, then come to physical actions that affect the actor and bring the scene to life at the same time. So in one pass both emotional and aesthetic considerations are dealt with, and a way of working is given while the enormity (indeed, infinity) of options, the entire landscape of possibilities of performance, are sensed.

lisa work for drama
hay im lisa well its a good page but i would like to know haw he came up with these sistum's and if he had help or not an haw long it took him ..thank ...--203.184.59.220 21:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)lisa

For God's sake, woman, learn to spell! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.93.220 (talk) 11:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The 9 Questions
I couldn't see it clearly anywhere but these are stanislavskis 9 questions-is this what this article is about?

a. Who am I? b. Where am I? 3. What time is it? 4. What surrounds me? 5. What are the given circumstances? 6. What is my relationship? 7. What do I want? a. Super-objective b. Objective 8. What's in my way? 9. What will I do to get what I want?

There is more info on that but i hope that helped somebody :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.238.37.43 (talk) 06:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Work needed on article
This article needs so much work, it's hard to know where to begin. It contains many factual inaccuracies, for a start. The second sentence, for instance, reads "The ‘system’ is the result of Stanislavski's many years of efforts to determine how a human being can control in performance the most intangible and uncontrollable aspects of human behavior: such as emotions, and artistic inspiration", which is patently untrue; he never claimed it was possible to control either of these things. Before I start on a rewrite, I've standardized his name and moved the page to a more appropriate title, for three reasons: I will sort out the redirects now.
 * Because Constantin Stanislavski is the version of his name on all of his published writings in english, at least in Britain and the US (see Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com - although they list the name inconsistently, if you look at the pictures of the books, you can read it for yourself); it's also the version of his name that gets the most hits on a google search.
 * Because Stanislavski always referred to his system as his ‘system’, to indicate its provisional nature
 * Because the article ought to conform to wikipedia capitalization guidelines (system not System)
 * DionysosProteus 20:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That all sounds good. A minor point: I restored a few names to the "See also", such as Hagen and Stasberg, because those folks are associated with Stanislavski's school, even if they did not study with the man himself. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 20:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. The trouble is, they're not associated with his school, but rather with Method acting, which has its own page. It's inconsistent to have these (and only these) here. The method has a fair amount of coverage (albeit in as much need of work as the rest) in the article already, and anyone interested in the US approaches can't fail to come across these articles. In general, the articles fail to distinguish in a clear and consistent way between the two approaches, but they are very different. I fear an American bias is clouding the Wikipedia coverage at present. It makes more sense, for instance, to highlight Meyerhold in that list, given Stan declared him his heir in the theatre on his deathbed (so the story goes). DionysosProteus 21:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Rather than a generic "see also" perhaps a list of notable students would be more useful to readers? ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 21:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That's an excellent idea. I'm finishing off another article at present, but will move onto this and the system in the next few days. Notable students would help develop the coverage of the Russian tradition, which seems to have become increasingly important post-Soviet era to theatre training in the West. DionysosProteus 22:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Students

 * I've replaced the See Alsos with a list of significant students. The ones with no article yet are those that stayed behind in America to teach. I'm putting the list below with search parameters, so if anyone wants to start an article that'll provide some clues. I'll put them in a sandbox, so this can provide a space in which to gather material for a fully-fledged article. I need some more research before I can put a decent list of the other Russian student-teachers. Note that there is the usual problem of translating Russian names into an English version, so might want to explore alternative spellings also. Please feel free to add other significant students to the sandbox for research, with a note up here to say where it says they're significant students of his. The one's I've started with are given in Sharon Carnicke's Stanislavsky in Focus (p.3).

DionysosProteus 17:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)



Andrius Jilinsky

 * Search -
 * Author of The Joy of Acting: A Primer for Actors (Peter Lang, 1990) ISBN 0820409693.
 * Member of the Moscow Art Theatre, Michael Chekhov's company and Yevgeny Vakhtangov's first studio.
 * Married to Vera Solovyova
 * Taught Horton Foote

Leo Bulgakov

 * Search -

Varvara Bulgakov

 * Search -

Vera Solovyova

 * Search -

Tamara Daykarhanova

 * Search -
 * With a famous revue called Balieff's Chauve Souris, which toured Europe.
 * Married to Sergius Vassiliev
 * Worked with Maria Ouspenskaya before she went to Hollywood
 * Started her own school, The Tamara Daykarhanova School for the Stage

Olga Gzovskaya

 * Search - Gzovskaia
 * Played Ophelia in the 1911-12 production of Hamlet

Alyssa Koonen

 * Search - Alissa

Lidia Koreneva

 * Search -

Vera Baranovskaya

 * Search - Baranovskaia

Discussion on 'system' convention (moved from Requests for move)

 * *Stanislavski's 'system' → Stanislavsky System Stanislavski System — Per naming conventions and Manual of Style; we don't use possessives for no reason, we do capitalize proper names of theories, and we don't use weird quoting just because the progenitor of the theory prefered to write "my 'system'". Move blocked by a messed-with redirect. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 00:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * STRONG OPPOSE: the usage is in line with the standard scholarly works, not merely the originator. It is not the Stanislavski 'system', it is his system. It's not a brand name. The possessive isn't used "for no reason". It's the way the approach is described in the literature. I can provide a long list of scholarly works that use it that way. The 'mark' is used in general when we indicate an 'unusual' way of using a word or an unfamiliar phrase, or that it is not to be taken in its ordinary sense. This is why it's used here. Both by Stanislavski himself and by those that write about him. Also, it is Stanislavski, not Stanislavsky, as per his published works. DionysosProteus 01:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: You don't need to YELL AT EVERYONE like that. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 09:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Support per nom, but with the proviso that the spelling of Stanislavsky/i's name should follow the normal WP style - and match the article - whatever that is. Also shouldn't this discussion be on the Talk page? -- Kleinzach 01:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The -y was just a typo (though one engendered by the article itself not using a consistent spelling; it has the -y version in it at least twice.) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 09:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Neutral This should be discussed on the talk page. The two elements to consider are the term used by the creator of the system, and the term most widely recognized by readers. Redirects can take care of variations.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 04:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Rescinded (on procedurual not substantive grounds): I don't think this forum or that article's talk page are proper venues, after all, to settle this; have brought the issue up at WT:MOS more generally, as the underlying problem affects a number of other articles as well. (The gist is that it is a POV problem to scare-quote in this manner, and even more broadly, there are POV issues associated with adopting strange spelling conventions, especially odd capitalization, in various circumstances.) Too big a discussion for WP:RM. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I did a move from Stanislavski's 'system' to Stanislavski's system before seeing the discussion. However, policy is fairly clearcut. Manual of Style (trademarks) says, "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official"."  We don't have Time (magazine) at TIME, even though they strongly prefer the latter.  The same goes here.  The 'system' spelling can remain in the intro and when it is originally explained.  As for -i/-y, I don't care.  Superm401 - Talk 07:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Explain the system
I attempted to explain the system further, in the top paragraph for easy access, but I am only a year 11 student who just finished studying him at school, not a trained scholar, so please feel free to edit or remove. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebinoz (talk • contribs)
 * Thanks for adding that. What was your source for your description? I think we should make sure it's properly referenced, and move it into a section of its own. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 01:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Aspects of the system
Would it be appropriate to write about the different aspects of the system e.g. emotion memory, inner monologue etc. within the article or do better for them to each have their own article? Or should I just not at all- I don't really wanto go to all the bother to find out is doesn't conform to some wikipedia policy. --Veggieburgerfish (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Be bold, and edit. The guidelines aren't obscure; just try to ensure that the description has a neutral POV and only says what the sources say (in different words, of course). Adding an in-line reference at the end of a sentence (or paragraph, if it's all from the same source) giving the reference will help that--gives others the ability to go check for themselves, should we feel so inclined. The article's in pretty poor shape, so I'd suggest working out from here. If a topic gets too big, it can grow into its own article easily enough. Happy editing. DionysosProteus (talk) 00:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Too much logic
Sections like "The entire section during which the character searches for a tea bag would be a unit. When he decides to call on a neighbour is called a bit."

This is crap. It wouldn't be a 'unit' or a 'bit'. Things just happen. In life, you don't call looking for a contact lens a 'unit', and when you call someone else to help, it isn't a 'bit'. When writing about acting (techniques in particular) make sure that you think of it as real life. The true way Stanislavki's technique is utilised makes it seem like real life.

Life is hardly ever logical, so don't think of acting as logical. Life, acting, emotions... It's all one big inter-connected thing.

--Thatguykalem (talk) 09:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC)