Albert Filozov and the Method of Physical Actions

Abstract

As a complementary piece to her preceding article on the formative significance of The Seagull to Stanislavsky's early thinking, Bella Merlin here looks at the play in the context of Stanislavsky's later work, when he was developing the Method of Physical Actions – an approach to a text which placed improvisation and the physical exploration of a scene at the centre of the actor's rehearsal process. This was in some ways a contravention of what was becoming codified in the West (through limited material being available in translation) as the psychological basis of the system. In 1995, Bella Merlin undertook a ten-month course of actor-training at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, where she worked with acting ‘master’, Albert Filozov, who had trained with Mikhail Kedrov, one of the first developers of Stanislavsky's work following his death in 1938. Here, she examines the roots of Filozov's training and the nature of the Method of Physical Actions in theory and in practice. Bella Merlin trained as an actress in Britain and Russia, and has worked extensively in theatre and television. She is currently a lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, where her area of research is acting processes and the psycho-physical nature of performance. This article is based on a paper delivered at the ‘Flight of the Seagull’ conference at the Alexandrinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, in November 1996, to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the premiere of The Seagull.