ABSTRACT
Here we survey the Supertask, which Stanislavsky more or less said was the point of it all. The Supertask (aka super-objective, spine, main idea, poetic heart, etc.) is the large idea that holds together the play, the actor, and the production – all Events contribute to constructing the Supertasks. Here we analyze three variants of Supertasks: the Supertask of the Play, the Supertask of the Role, and the Supertask of the Production, also called the Scream of the Production. The term goes back to Gogol, who contended that the actor must have “an eternal nail sitting in his head” – this ‘nail’ evolves in Stanislavsky’s appropriation to become the Supertask of the actor – a goal for which they strive throughout the play and which undergirds their every Event. But the play has its Supertask as well, which can be found embodied in the Supertask of the central character and is correlative to the other characters as well. Finally, the Supertask of the Production is the raison d’être of this particular production, the compelling reason the director and/or the company gives birth to their bespoke production. Supertasks may be known beforehand, stated early in rehearsal, or discovered or revised during rehearsal. Over time Études will both reveal and be dependent on the Supertask of the Play, the Actor, and the Production.
