Using the Stanislavski Method to Create a Performance

Using the Stanislavski Method to Create a Performance

Always start from an understanding of the text. Script Analysis

Read the play for its story. • Look for the facts of what happens, what the characters do, and how the plot unfolds. • This includes the backstory—what happens before the play starts. • Look at the play’s given circumstances. • Identify the play’s setting and research it. • Familiarize yourself with the history, manners, culture, fashion, style of movement, mind-set, and behavior of the world of the play.

The Six Planes • The External Plane: the events, the facts • The Social Plane: the historical and cultural context • The Literary Plane: the playwright’s voice, style, rhetoric, and structure. • The Aesthetic Plane: the production elements, such as costumes and scenery. • The Internal Plane: the characters’ inner lives and psychology • The Physical Plane: the “plastic” of the character, meaning the way the character looks, moves, and talks.

Heart • Focus on the heart of the play—its themes, the main character’s struggle on an emotional and psychological level, the protagonist’s hamartia (core wound, tragic flaw, etc.), what is at stake.

Your Role • Re-read and consider the play from your character’s perspective. • What is your character’s journey through the story of the play? What does he/she want? What are his/her obstacles? What tactics does he/she employ?

What to Look For and How to Approach the Role Table Work

Analyze the Relationships • What does your character want from each of the other characters? • How does your character feel about each of them? • How well does your character understand the other characters? • How well does your character understand his- or herself? • How does your character relate to other people?

Units • Each character in a play has a superobjective—the ultimate dramatic need that guides his/her journey over the course of the whole play. • The superobjective can be broken down into smaller, more manageable, easily studied units. Each unit consists of a major step towards the achievement of that superobjective. • Keep the “big picture” in mind as you divide the script into units, making sure each unit contributes to the overall throughline (the logical progression of events leading the protagonist towards his/her intended superobjective—whether or not it is achieved). • Be aware of the counter-throughline (the logically progressing efforts of the antagonist OR the logical progression of the obstacles).

Beats • Further divide each unit into beats—a character’s use of one tactic in his/her attempt at achieve the goal of the unit. Units often have many beats. • A character will use one tactic to achieve the objective of the unit or a step therein. Based on its perceived success or failure, he/she will adapt the tactic to the new circumstances. • Score your script: In preparation for playing the role, place brackets around each beat in which your character participates. For each beat, write out the (I) Intension, (O) Objective, and (N) Name. • Discuss your beatwork with your director and/or scene partner, to insure that you are all in agreement about the action of the scene.

Follow the Leader • Who is the leader in the scene? Who is the follower? Which is your character? • Note: A character may lead in one beat/unit/scene and follow in another.

Transition • What do you do at each change of beat? What new action do you take? • While you may be able to analyze the text to observe your character’s shift in tactics, much of this is best discovered while working with the other actors in the scene.

Exploring the Physical Life of the Character Character Work

Given Circumstances • Consider how the Given Circumstances of both the play and the character effect the physicality of your characterization. • The Play: time period, setting, time of day, weather, historical context, cultural context, etc. • The Character: social class, family dynamics, social dynamics, education, wealth, manners, philosophy, religiosity, relationships, personal history, gender, race, sexuality, personality, present emotional state, etc. • Use this information to guide you in establishing how the character moves, speaks and physically interacts with others and his or her environment.

Voice • Stanislavski often said it was by means of the word, of language, that the character’s objective would be fulfilled. • You must give the lines shadings, nuances, mood, coloration, emotional reality, and energy, all of which should ideally arise organically—not mechanically—by means of precisely setting up the framework in your mind. Do this by finding the right moment-to-moment “if.” • Use your training in speech and dialect to find the voice of the character. Find the cadence and timbre of the character’s voice through your observation of the world around you.

Plasticity of Movement • Part of your job is to embody the physical life of the character, including his/her posture, gait, use of gesture, expression, eye contact, and general movement styles. • Again, this is something that is embodied organically without seeming preconceived or calculated by means of finding the right “if.” • It is important for you to be observant of the repertoire of movements in the people around you. Also, look for the animal-like movements exhibited by those around you.

Inside/Outside • Stanislavski’s Method suggests extensive work on the inner life of the character, maintaining that the actor’s use of body and voice will then emerge out of the that unified, clear vision of the character’s inner life. • As the practice of Stanislavski’s Method developed, later practitioners found that working from the inside out was too cerebral, and they began exploring working from the outside in to create more physically interesting performances. The effect, however, seemed to lead to less unified and thoughtful work. • At present, most Method practitioners suggest working simultaneously from the inside out and the outside in—in order to create performances that are both mindful and physical

The Paradox • A paradox is the truthful co-existence of two polar opposites. • Actors often find great freedom to riff within the confines of very rigid and specific parameters of characterization and action. • It is not unlike how musicians can “jam” or create solos out of a strict, repetitive chord progression.

Breathing Life Into the Text Putting It On Its Feet

Entrance • Before you enter, you should know where you have just been, what were the conditions of this previous space, what you have just been doing, why are you coming into this new space, what is this new space, and what do you immediately want as you enter? • Explore the moment of orientation—that is, the moment in which you orient yourself to where you are and, if applicable, to the other character(s) in that new space. • How does your entrance alter the particles in the space?

Blocking • As you design the blocking, let it emerge organically as part of the objectives of the characters. Blocking should be purposeful—not decorative or separate from the intentions of the characters. • As much as you can, design blocking so that it adheres to the principles of stage presence and blocking that you have studied; however, your first responsibility is truth of characters in the moment.

Stage Business • Is there any stage business that could be incorporated into the scene? • Stage Business can help give the actor an way to enter into the reality of the scene. Using the principle of Spheres of Concentration, you can first find the reality of stirring a pot, going through a stack of mail, setting the table, and then expand outward to the larger, more challenging realities of the scene. • Stage Business should be relevant to the overall action of the scene, help to establish setting and mood, reveal character, and if possible, make a symbolic contribution to the meaning of the scene.

Draw To The Opposite • Stanislavski noted the existence of contradictory positive and negative character traits, desires, and impulses. • Look for opportunities for villains to be charming and heroes to be wicked, etc. • Likewise, behavior and speech is often the opposite of one’s emotions or intentions. Characters often suppress emotions that threaten to expose them. Have you ever told someone to call you, hoping that you will never hear from them again?

Memorization • Begin to memorize the words and blocking in concert, as they are inseparable. • This should be the halfway mark in your rehearsal process. As is often misperceived by the novice, memorization is not the final product of the rehearsal process.

Polishing the Mechanics and Finding the Deeper Life of the Character Refining

Basic Tools • Use relaxation and concentration exercises to prepare for all rehearsal and performance work. Remove tension and sharpen your focus to welcome in order to welcome the life of the character into your body. • Use sense memory and affective memory efforts to recreate and fully inhabit the reality of each beat of the text.

The Journey of the Character • Take into account what happens to the characters before the play begins—the backstory. • Take into account what happens in the time between the scenes when the character is offstage—the between-time. • Take into account what happens to your character after the scene ends. Are you setting up the character for where he/she is headed? • Consider how the accumulative affect of the action might alter both the inner life and the physicality of the character.

Explore Relationships Further • What does your character want in each of the relationships with the characters in each beat? • Does the character succeed in getting what he or she wants from the other character(s) in each beat? • What does the character do when he/she does or does not attain an objective?

Deepening Motivation • Through all of the work up until now, you may be starting to get a clearer glimpse of the character’s underlying, subtextual unconscious motivations and ambivalences, which will add depth to your characterization as they gradually dawn on you and emerge because of your work on the script.

Re-Score • Look back through your beatwork and refine/adjust it based on your discoveries. • Allow yourself to “forget” what you have chosen (because it has been assimilated and absorbed into the preconscious area of the unconscious) as you act organically when you actually perform the rehearsed piece, at which point all the work on the role is pushed away from conscious awareness and acting it—performing it—takes over.

Rhythm and Tempo • By this time, too, you will have found the correct rhythm and tempo for each line, beat, unit, scene, act, and the play as a whole.

Perform • As you begin to perform the piece for audiences, continue to discover new things and refine your work.

Using the Stanislavski Method to Create a Performance