ABSTRACT
It is custom ary to call what we have been study ing ‘the Stanislavski system’. That is a mistake. The strength of this method lies precisely in the fact that no one conceived it, no one inven ted it. We are born with this creat ive capa city, this ‘system’ inside us. Creativity
is a natural need and you would think we would be incap able of creat ing other than correctly accord ing to the ‘system’. But, aston ish ingly, we lose what nature has given us the moment we walk onstage and instead of creat ing we posture, coun ter feit, playact and repres ent. The sense of being forced, subjec ted to some thing alien can only disap-
pear when actors have made some thing other than them selves. The ‘system’ helps this process. Its magic ‘ifs’, Given Circumstances, invent ive ness, lures make the other its own. The ‘system’ can make you believe in things that do not exist. And where there is truth and belief you have genuine, product ive, specific action, exper i en cing, the subcon scious, creativ ity and art. Things that are thrust on an actor, or sugges ted to him must not only be absorbed by him but made his own. It was only then that Stanislavski sugges ted it was possible to speak about acting as a valu able art, only then, for him, was the exist ence of theatre justi fied.
