ABSTRACT
It’s so strange. My engagement with Stanislavsky’s work has been intensive and ongoing for twenty-five years. And yet I never cease to discover new aspects and try new tools. Obviously, the compactness of this book can’t accommodate all the events and roles which preoccupied Stanislavsky and unquestionably affected his developing ‘system’. So I urge you to turn to the myriad books and biographies that are available, not least of which are Jean Benedetti’s Stanislavski: His Life and Art (1999) and Sharon M. Carnicke’s brilliant Stanislavsky in Focus (Second Edition 2009). Indeed, all the books cited in the Selected Bibliography elaborate on theories and ideas touched upon in this volume. And wonderful scholarship and discoveries continue to emerge. However, the aim here has been to trace the main strands of Stanislavsky’s ‘system’ and production practice, from his early amateur dabblings to his deathbed, dispelling a few myths along the way. In seeing how his ideas form a mesh, toing and froing across the chronology of his life, we quickly realise that his final legacies – the Method of Physical Actions and Active Analysis – were inevitable and invaluable. And they’re liberating approaches to stage production.
