ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the path of Maria Osipovna Knebel, the organizer/author of Analysis through Action. Knebel was uncommonly fortunate to have earned the tutelage of four great mentors: her father, a publisher; Mikhail Chekhov, virtuoso actor and improviser; Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Moscow Art Theatre co-founder and advocate of deep textual analysis; and of course Konstantin Stanislavsky, who tutored her in her first attempts at teaching and directing. Initially trained by the imagination-driven M. Chekhov, she then moved to the rigorous Second Studio, which then led to a lengthy period as a “second order” actor at the Art Theatre, where she acted for and eagerly observed Danchenko and Stanislavsky. Ultimately pushed out of the Art Theatre by Mikhail Kedrov, Knebel then played an enormous role in saving the Russian theatre from the iron grip of Soviet Realism, teaching at GITIS and serving as Artistic Director of the Central Children’s Theatre. It was at these two institutions that she laid the groundwork for Analysis through Action, and concurrently authored several books. The concluding section of this chapter is based on excerpts from her lengthiest description of the Analysis through Action process.
