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Stanislavski and the Tactical Potential of Everyday Images

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2013

STEFAN AQUILINA
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Abstract

This essay discusses Stanislavski's rehearsal use of images derived from everyday life. This discussion focuses on a relatively obscure chapter of Stanislavski's career, his 1932–3 work on Artists and Admirers, the rehearsal notes of which are unavailable in English translation. The essay contends that everyday images not only facilitated communication between rehearsal participants, but also projected outwards to the highly regulatory political scene of the time. More specifically, the ephemeral nature of everyday images will be identified as a ploy that eluded the Communist Party's appropriation of Stanislavski's work. Michel de Certeau's theories on everyday life, particularly his elaboration on strategies and tactics, will serve as a theoretical framework for such a discussion.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 229 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2013 

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References

NOTES

1 Anatoly Smelianski, ‘Introduction’, in Stanislavski Studies, 1, http://stanislavskistudies.org/issues/issue-1/introduction/ accessed 1 June 2012.

2 As far as I could ascertain, only Jean Benedetti refers very briefly to this production. See Stanislavski: His Life and Art (London: Methuen, 1999), pp. 342, 350, 353. The rehearsal notes can be found in Vinogradskaia, I., ed., Stanislavski Repetiruiet (Stanislavski Rehearsing) (Moscow: Moscow Art Theatre, 2000), pp. 214–50Google Scholar. This source is central to my exposition and references and quotations from it will be given in parentheses. Translations by Anastasia Lesnikova (Avatar Ltd). Editing by Maria Kabanova and the author. My discussion here sits alongside another reading I give of this source, one that highlights Stanislavski's practice in the early 1930s as an accumulation of past approaches rather than as a sole reliance on physical action. See Aquilina, Stefan, ‘Stanislavski's Accumulative Practice in Artists and Admirers Rehearsals (1932–33)’, Stanislavski Studies, 2, February 2014 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

3 Toporkov, Vasily, Stanislavski in Rehearsal, trans. Edwards, Christine (New York and London: Routledge, 1979), p. 9Google Scholar. Accounts that discuss Stanislavski's writings, including his choice of terminology and their English equivalents, are Carnicke, Sharon Marie, Stanislavski in Focus (Oxford: Routledge, 2009), pp. 76–147Google Scholar; Carnicke, ‘Stanislavsky: Uncensored and Unabridged’, Drama Review, 37 (Spring 1993), pp. 22–37; Benedetti, Jean, ‘Translator's Foreword’, in Stanislavski, Konstantin, An Actor's Work (Oxford: Routledge, 2008), pp. xv–xxiiGoogle Scholar; Benedetti, Stanislavski: His Life and Art (London: Methuen, 1999), pp. 318–53; Benedetti, Stanislavski and the Actor (London: Methuen), pp. 150–51; and Pitches, Jonathan, Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), pp. 29–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similar works not in the English language include Mollica, Fabio, ‘Di Stanislavskij e del significato di pereživanie’ (On Stanislavski and the Meaning of Perezhivanie), Teatro e Storia, 11 (October 1991), pp. 225–55Google Scholar.

4 See Bella Merlin, ‘“Where's the Spirit Gone?” The Complexities of Translation and Nuances of Terminology in An Actor's Work and an Actor's Work’, Stanislavski Studies, 1, http://stanislavskistudies.org/issues/issue-1/wheres-the-spirit-gone-the-complexities-of-translation-and-the-nuances-of-terminology-in-an-actors-work-and-an-actors-work/ accessed 14 July 2012.

5 I have identified at least forty examples of such images in the thirty pages or so that make the rehearsal notes of Artists and Admirers.

6 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, quoted in Chaney, David, Cultural Change and Everyday Life (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 38Google Scholar. Helpful introductions to the theme of ‘everyday life’ and the way that it was treated by, amongst others, de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes and Georges Perec are Gardiner, Michael, Critiques of Everyday Life (Oxford: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar; and Sheringham, Michael, Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

7 Stanislavski, Konstantin, ‘On Various Trends in Theatrical Art’, trans. Shartze, Olga, in Stanislavski, Selected Works (Moscow: Raduga Publishers, 1984), pp. 133–90Google Scholar, here p. 167.

8 See also his reference to the intermediate shades between the colours red and blue seen by the artist but not the house painter (217) and the sequential diagnosis of a patient's sickness (229) as further images used to explain gradual development.

9 On the particular everyday practices (such as queuing, shortages and propaganda) common in Soviet Russia during the early 1930s see Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Everyday Stalinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

10 For example, ‘Stanislavski was always moving forward, revising and modifying his methods so that no single formulation seemed satisfactory for very long. He rebelled against the notion that his System could be codified once and for all or that it should degenerate into a set of mechanical practices, repeated without thought or feeling.’ Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: An Introduction (London: Methuen, 1988), p. 50Google Scholar. See also Leach, Stanislavski and Meyerhold (Amsterdam: Peter Lang, 2003), p. 82.

11 Pitches, Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting, p. 49.

12 See also Stanislavski's description of the scene between Migaev and The Tragedian as the taming of a tiger (222).

13 Gordon, Mel, The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia (New York: Applause), p. 65Google Scholar.

14 Chaney, Cultural Change and Everyday Life, p. 6.

15 Stanislavski, Konstantin, My Life in Art, trans. Benedetti, Jean (Oxford: Routledge, 2008), p. 20Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., pp. 316–17.

17 Stanislavski here referred both to the daily financial, health and family concerns that an actor experiences as a human being (Stanislavski, L'Attore Creativo (The Creative Actor), trans. Clelia Falletti (Firenze: La Casa Usher, 1989), pp. 153–6) and to the ‘petty cares, squabbles and irritations, which complicate your life and distract you from your art.’ In An Actor's Work, p. 557.

18 See also Stanislavski's surprising exercise with emotions, when he asked the actors to keep things fresh by writing down a list of the scene's feelings like hatred, gentleness, love, wit, and so on. One of these feelings was then chosen at random and that particular day's work was made to revolve around it (238).

19 Originally published in French as L'invention du quotidien, Vol. I: Arts de faire (1980). I will be referring to a 1988 translation by Steven Randall (California: University of California).

20 Ibid., p. xiv.

21 Sheringham, Everyday Life, p. 222.

22 De Certeau, The Practice of Everday Life, p. xix.

23 Sheringham, Everyday Life, p. 159.

24 Carnicke, Stanislavski in Focus, p. 105.

25 On this Marxist variant, which saw all world phenomena being driven by material and economic factors, see ibid., pp. 94–6.

26 Benedetti, Stanislavski: His Life and Art, pp. 335–6.

27 On the formation, heyday and eventual demise of the RAPP see Clark, Katerina and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917–1953 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 150–1Google Scholar. See also Rudnitsky, Konstantin, Russian and Soviet Theatre, trans. Permar, Roxane (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988), p. 208Google Scholar.

28 Benedetti remarked on the irony which saw Stanislavski recommending for production Afinogenov's play Fear at the same time that the latter was making his criticism. The play was successfully produced by the Moscow Art Theatre in December 1931. See Benedetti, Stanislavski: His Life and Art, p. 338. For a fuller account of Stanislavski's work on Fear and relationship with Afinogenov see Wolfson, Boris, ‘Fear on Stage: Afinogenov, Stanislavsky, and the Making of Stalinist Theatre’, in Kiaer, Christina and Naiman, Eric, eds., Everyday Life in Soviet Russia (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), pp. 92–118Google Scholar.

29 Afinogenov, Aleksandr, ‘“Hleb”, V.Kirshon na scene MHATa’ (“‘Bread” V. Kirshon on the MAT Stage)’, in Radicheva, O.A., ed., Moskovskiy Hudozhestveniy Teatr v russkoi teatralnoiy kritike (The Moscow Art Theatre in Russian Theatre Criticism) (Moscow: Artist. Director. Theatre, 2010), pp. 22–8Google Scholar, esp. p. 26.

30 Stanislavski quoted in Benedetti, Stanislavski: His Life and Art, p. 337.

31 Stanislavski, Konstantin, An Actor's Work on a Role, trans. and ed. Benedetti, Jean (Oxon: Routledge, 2010), p. 55Google Scholar.

32 Zarrilli, Phillip, ‘General Introduction’, in Zarrilli, Philip, ed., Acting (Re)considered (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 1–4Google Scholar, here p. 3.

33 Barba, Eugenio, The Paper Canoe, trans. Fowler, Richard (London: Routledge), pp. 138–9Google Scholar, here p. 138.