Method Acting acting classes Vancouver,BC Konstantin Stanislavky > Marya Knebbel > Anatoly Efros > Mladen Kiselov > Assen Gadjalov >... If anyone offers you Method Acting classes in Vancouver BC, ask - Who their acting teachers are.

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Methodica Acting Studio for Film and Theatre 2020, Vancouver, BC

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The well-known Stanislavky method - spread the knowledge. The topic of the month - August 2010 - Synchronization and communication; creating with in a team

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Acting classes in Vancouver - part-time for beginners Method Acting school in Vancouver BC offers a production based part-time Method acting classes. Acting students perform in theatre and film productions. Part-time Method acting classes in Vancouver, BC start every month.

Method acting classes - part-time audition techniques Overview: The student develops acting skills through a series of exercises based on the principles of film reality. Actors acquire a technique that allows them to access their emotional life and express it through natural and truthful behavior in front of a camera at the time of an audition.

Method acting classes - part-time - film scene study Overview: Film scene study is designed to introduce students to the technical part of the Method acting process for camera. Part-time Method acting classes in Vancouver, BC start every month..

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Method acting classes in Vancouver - part-time - performance class Overview: Performance class is designed to showcase student's work. Film or theatre production will be presented in the studio theatre for three nights last weekend of the month.

Monthly Progressive full-time Method acting courses for beginners - New admissions Vancouver Method acting school offers monthly progressive Method acting education in Vancouver BC. The course starts every month and includes a new Method acting topic, exercises, theoretical discussions, and a performance at the end. Part-time Method acting classes Vancouver.

Four months of full-time Method acting classes - September 06, 2010 Vancouver Method Acting school offers full-time Core Method Acting course. The classes are created to help actors to develope and stay in good professional shape. Full-time acting students perform in theatre and film production. Part-time Method Acting courses in Vancouver, BC.

Monthly Progressive full-time Method acting classes One must study discipline of spirit; without it one cannot become free. Nicholas Roerich

Six months of full-time, film Method acting classes, evenings - January 06, 2011 Vancouver Method acting school offers full-time film Method acting training. The course is created for beginner actors. Classes start at 6.00 pm and end at 9.30 pm. Part-time Method Acting courses in Vancouver, bc.

What is Method Acting? What is Non Method Acting?

Method acting school in Vancouver BC, V6B 2K9, Canada
About Methodica Acting Studio: Methodica is a Method Acting School in Vancouver with focus in Film Method Acting, TV Method Acting and Theatre Method Acting. Offers also Method Acting classes in Toronto, Method Acting classes for directors, Design classes. Methodica Acting Studio also offers method acting classes for theatre and TV and is dedicated to the achievement of highest standards in training of actors and directors for film and theatre drawing upon the traditions established by Stanislavsky and then continued in America by Lee Strasberg. The focus of METHODICA is on the quality of work rather than on the volume of enrollment. Each student receives individual attention and support and is encouraged to strive and discover his/her relationship with acting or directing as a form of self-expression. Method Acting School is on the quality of work than on the volume of enrollment.
Each student receives individual attention and support and is encouraged to strive and discover his/her relationship with acting or directing as a form of self-expression. Attention in the acting courses will be paid to the effective movement within a performance space and working with others. The final Method Acting class of every 3-month period will be in the form of public performance.
Acting School Methodica is an academy of performance art and design founded in Vancouver, Canada in 1998 by Assen Gadjalov. Methodica is a Greek expression that literally means "the methods or organizing principles underlying a particular art, science, or other area of study; in philosophy – the study of organizing principles and underlying rules, the study of methods of research." Acting School Methodica has a social program, the Methodica’s ideals are that the artist must recognize his social responsibility to the community and likewise, the community must accept and support the artist. In the artistic theory, Acting School Methodica strived to produce a new approach to film, theatre acting, directing and design that incorporated artistic design, craftsmanship, and modern performance theories. Our aim is the use the principles of Classical Stanislavski theatre acting approach in its pure form without ornamentation.
Acting School Methodica was founded by combining the Academical theoretical studies and the production based Arts and Crafts professionalism, thus students are trained as both artist and craftsman. The School became one of the best-known progressive institutions for performance art and design instruction in Vancouver, Canada. The major goals of the acting school are to encourage film craftsmen and performance artists to collaborate, to elevate the status of film and stage arts and crafts, and to maintain relations with industry and craft leaders in order to eventually become independent  unique artists.
Proponents of Acting School Methodica wished to articulate contemporary culture through the creation of new forms that are designed for everyday living art. Methodica artists characteristically have sharp eye for observation, smooth and friendly behavior, and deeply rooted professionalism. The performances preferred are psychologically realistic and sociologically provocative.

Method Acting? What is Method Acting acting?
Method Acting acting technique was introduced in America in the 1920s by the Russian theatre director, theorist and actor Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavsky's System focused on the development of realistic characters as well as stage worlds. In order to create an ensemble of actors all working together as an artistic unit, he began organizing a series of studios in which young actors were trained in his system. At the First Studio of MAT, actors were instructed to use their own memories in order to naturally portray a character's emotions. In order to do this, actors were required to think of a moment in their own lives when they had felt the desired emotion and then replay the emotion in role in order to achieve a more genuine performance. Stanislavski soon observed that some of the actors using or abusing Emotional Memory were given to "hysteria." Although he never disavowed Emotional Memory as an essential tool in the actor's kit, he began searching for less draining ways of accessing emotion, eventually emphasizing the actor's use of imagination and belief in the given circumstances of the text rather than her/his private and often painful memories. The Stanislavsky Method acting System, is a systematic approach to training actors to work from the inside outward. This system is at some point different from but not a rejection of what he states earlier in Affective Memory. At the beginning, Stanislavsky proposed that actors study and experience subjective emotions and feelings and manifest them to audiences by physical and vocal means - Theatre language. While his Acting System focused on creating truthful emotions and then embodying these, he later worked on The Method of Physical Actions. This was developed at the Opera Dramatic Studio from the early 30s, and worked like Emotion Memory in reverse. The focus was on the physical actions inspiring truthful emotion, and involved improvisation and discussion. The focus remained on reaching the subconscious through the conscious. Stanislavsky survived the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, with Lenin apparently intervening to protect him. In 1918, Stanislavsky established the First Studio as a acting school with acting classes for young actors and wrote several works: those available in English translation include: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, Creating a Role, and the autobiography My Life in Art. Stanislavsky always thought of his acting system as if it were a table of contents for a large book which dealt with all aspects of Method Acting acting. His final work, now known as The Method of Physical Actions (see Stanislavsky System) , is in no way a rejection of his early interest in sense and affective memory. At no time did he ever reject the notion of emotion memory; he simply found other means of accessing emotion, among them the absolute belief in given circumstances; the exercise of the imagination; and the use of physical action. Konstantin Stanislavsky had a dictum that he probably believed throughout his life: that one should always approach a role as directly as possible, and then see if it "lives." If the actor and the role connect, and the role comes to life, why apply a technique, a system? Such a success may only happen once or twice in one's life -- or never -- so the remainder of one's performances require technique. However, each individual actor must decide whether or not an approach 'works' for him. While Stanislavsky was not the first to codify some system of acting (see, for instance, any number of Victorian gesture-books for actors) he was the first to take questions and problems of psychological significance directly. In fact, Stanislavsky started attempting to create a system of acting classes before psychology was widely understood and formalized as a discipline. When it finally was formalized, psychology influenced Stanislavsky's system tremendously. Though his approach changed greatly throughout his life, he never lost sight of his ideals: truth in performance and love of art. Stanislavsky's Method acting System is a complex method for producing realistic characters; most of today's actors on stage, television, and film owe much to it. Using "The System", an actor is required to deeply analyze his or her character's motivations. The actor must discover the character's objective in each scene, and a "Super Objective" for the entire play, which can direct and connect an actor's choice of objectives from scene to scene. One of Stanislavsky's methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character's objective was his "magic if". Actors were required to ask many questions of their characters and themselves. One of the first questions they had to ask was, "What if I were in the same situation as my character?" The "magic if" allowed actors to transcend the confines of realism by asking them what would occur "if" circumstances were different, or "if" the circumstances were to happen to them.Stanislavsky and his System are frequently misunderstood. For example, often the System is confused with the Method acting. The latter is an outgrowth of the American (mainly New York) theatre scene in the 1930s and 40s, when actors and directors like Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, Lee Strasberg, etc., first in the Group Theatre and later in the Actors Studio, discovered Stanislavsky's system. Stanislavsky's emphasis on life within moments, on psychological realism, and on emotional authenticity, seemed to attract these actors and thinkers. While much work was done with the works of playwrights like Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams, the Method acting was eventually applied to older works like those of William Shakespeare. Indeed, controversy remains contesting the appropriateness of a Method Acting acting approach to pre-Modernist plays; for while the System and Method acting share many characteristics, they differ immensely. Method acting places a heavy emphasis on Emotion Memory, that is, recalling experienced emotions for use in performance (which Stanislavsky found to be ineffective in his later years in his acting classes).
The Stanislavsky Method acting System is often confused with the Method Acting because of its close ties to the New York theaters, and again because of American figures like Stella Adler -- who visited, and was taught by Stanislavsky himself. Also, perceptions of the Stanislavsky Method acting System are frequently confused, because Stanislavsky had, throughout his life, no single focused project. Training was highly physical and demanding, and it is Stanislavsky's never-failing respect for physical action that brought his system to a point of apotheosis, a way of reaching emotional truth and psychological realism while maintaining a grip on control of the physical. Further: freeing oneself up for performing anything, be it Modern theater or Greek. Late in his life Stanislavsky put much faith in an approach he called the Method of Physical Action. (The use of the word Method acting, again, causes confusion with Strasberg's Method acting.) This approach, Stanislavsky surmised, finally dealt completely with the instrument of the actor and with a universality of performance. The Method of Physical Action (hereafter, MPA) is complex. It requires an understanding of the significance of physical action, and in the performance of physical action. The idea behind the MPA is fairly simple, but its implications are profound. It is based on the idea that the only thing an actor will ever have control of in his life is his body. There is never a direct line to emotions in performance, only to the body. Emotions may be remembered and brought up via emotional memory, but Stanislavsky generally considered this a rehearsal tool or technique of research, at best. There is, in the end, only the body. Therefore the actor and the director must work hard to use the body, that is, the body's performance of physical action, as the primary material of creation. That is the subject of the rehearsal process: how to come to physical actions that affect the actor and bring the scene to life at the same time. So in one pass both emotional and aesthetic considerations of a scene are dealt with. The actor can work with an enormity (indeed, infinity) of options; he senses the entire landscape of possibilities of performance. The MPA is so simple that it is almost a default technique, to a kind of techniqueless technique (figure out what to do: where is the technique in that?). Two necessities are required: first, that thorough physical training is always required, and second, an understanding of what a truly good physical action comprises. Both can take years of experience and reflection until an actor is fully equipped to handle a role. The art of performance cannot be learned from literature, only from action: from performance, and observation, Stanislavsky thought late in life. This late stage unfortunately receives little notice or appreciation in most summations of Stanislavsky's life and technique. Most authors are satisfied to identify Stanislavsky with his Method acting System and with the contributions that such an approach has made towards the film and theatre in the 20th Century. This is due in part to the limited literature on the subject; and many of the authors (author-actors and author-directors) that have come in Russia since Stanislavsky remain untranslated, despite the value of their work. Some books are available, such as Vasiliy Toporkov's "Stanislavsky in Rehearsal," and Jean Benedetti's "Stanislavsky and the Actor. "There is a story that an actress who had once been in a play directed by Stanislavsky came to him years later and informed him that she had taken very copious notes of him and of his technical approach during rehearsals; she wanted to know what to do with these notes. He replied, 'Burn them all.' The anecdote, whether true or not, is illustrative of Stanislavsky and his approach.
The Stanislavsky of later life is not the same as the Stanislavsky who championed emotion and sense memory. At times, Stanislavsky's methodological rigor bordered on opacity: see, for instance, the chart of the 'Stanislavsky Method acting System' included as a fold-out in editions of Robert Lewis' book Method or Madness, a series of lectures. The chart, made by Adler, is very complicated, listing all aspects of the actor and of performance that Stanislavsky thought pertinent at the time. His dedication to completeness and accuracy often contended with his goal to create a workable system that actors would actually use. See also his description of the correct way of walking on stage, in his book translated into English as "Building a Character." His interest in deeply analyzing the qualities of a given phenomenon were meant to give the actor an awareness of the complexities of human behavior, and how easily falsehoods -- aspects of behaviour that an audience can detect without knowing it -- are assumed by an untrained or inexperienced actor in performance. All actions that a person must enact, walk, talk, even sit on stage, must be broken down and re-learned, Stanislavsky once insisted. Such rigors of re-learning were probably constant throughout his life. Stanislavsky, a man of institution, his own Moscow Art Theatre and its associated studios, was a great believer in formal (and rigorous) training for the actor.

Who was Konstantin Stanislavsky?
About Stanislavsky system:

The Stanislavski System is not an abstraction; it is an activity and a practice. It is a working method for working actors. It is a system because it is coherent, logical - systematic. Anyone who imagines that the System will yield results through a purely intellectual, detached comprehension of its basic ideas will be disappointed. The System is not a theoretical construct, it is a process. The texts of Stanislavski which we possess are a guide to that process and an invitation to experience it directly, personally and creatively.
The texts, however, are more complicated than they at first seem. Stanislavski only saw two books through the press, My Life in Art (first published in America, 1924) and An Actor Prepares (first published in America, 1936). The other text which we possess, Building A Character and Creating A Role, are editorial reconstructions based on existing drafts and notes. All the books, moreover, with the possible exception of My Life in Art, which was revised twice, in 1926 and 1936, were regarded by Stanislavski as provisional. The Archives contain revisions and new material which were intended for subsequent editions.
The aim of the present book is to provide a framework in which the available texts can be read, to supply supplementary information which will make their meaning clearer and to place them in the context of the sequence of books which Stanislavski planned but did not live to complete.
It is in no sense a biography. Insofar as the System results from Stanislavski's analysis of his own career, biographical elements are used to demonstrate the origin and evolution of his ideas. A complete personal portrait, however, is not attempted. Where necessary, lines of enquiry are pursued out of chronological sequence. When certain basic positions to which Stanislavski adhered all his life are under discussion, readers will, therefore, find quotations drawn from different periods.
Wherever possible quotations are taken from English-language editions. There are, however, substantial differences between the English texts and the eight-volume Soviet edition of the Collected Works. Where a choice has been necessary, the Soviet edition has been preferred. An outline of the major differences is given in the Appendix. I am greatly indebted to the scholarly introductions to the individual volumes of the Collected Works by G. Kristi and V. H. Prokoviev. I have also been greatly helped by two seminars on the Stanislavski System arranged by the Soviet Centre of the International Theatre Institute in October 1979 and April 1981 when it was possible to consult leading Soviet directors, actors and teachers on the later developments and workings of Stanislavski's methods. I would, in addition, like to thank Professor Alexei Bartoshevich, professor of Theatre History at GITIS (State Institute for Theatre Arts) for his generous advice and guidance. Any misunderstandings are, of course, entirely my own.
J.B.

FOUNDATIONS
Had Stanislavski been a 'natural', had his talent - some would say his genius - as an actor found an immediate, spontaneous outlet, there would be no System. As it was it took years of persistent, unremitting effort to remove the blocks and barriers which inhibited the free expression of his great gifts. His search for the 'laws' of acting was the result of that struggle.
Stanislavski's career might be described as the painful evolution of a stage-struck child into a mature and responsible artist and teacher. He remained stage-struck to the end, adoring the smell of spirit-gum and grease-paint. His infatuation with theatre, with play-acting kept his mind fresh and open to new ideas to the very end. At the same time theatre was, for him, a matter of the highest seriousness, both artistic and moral. It was a disciplined activity which required dedication and training. What we receive as the System originated from his attempt to analyse and monitor his own progress as an artist and his attempts to achieve his ideas as an actor and meet his own developing standards, and it is all the more valuable for being born of concrete activity since the solutions he found were lived and not the result of speculation or abstract theory. The System is his practice examined, tested and verified. Although he received help along the way from actors and directors the System is essentially Stanislavski's own creation. For, while others could define for him the results that were required, they could not define the process by which those results might be achieved. This he had to do for himself. My Life in Art is the story (not always accurate) of his failures; false starts and successes.
Stanislavski was born in 1863, the second son of a family devoted to the theatre. He made his first stage appearance at the age of seven in a series of tableaux vivants organised by his governess to celebrate his mother's name day. When he was fourteen his father transformed an out-building on his country estate at Liubimovka into a well-equipped theatre. Later, a second theatre was constructed in the town house in Moscow. Stanislavski's real début as an actor was made at Liubimovka in September 1877, when four one-act plays, directed by his tutor, were staged to inaugurate the new theatre. As a result of that evening an amateur group, the Alexeyev Circle, * was formed, consisting of Stanislavski's brothers and sisters, cousins and one or two friends.
It is at this date that Stanislavski's conscious, artistic career can be said to begin. During the period 1877 to 1906, which he describes as his Childhood and Adolescence, † he encountered the fundamental problems of acting and directing which he resolved as best he could.
He spent the day of that 5 September, according to his own account, in a state of extreme excitement, trembling all over in his eagerness to get on stage. In the event the (Alexeyev was the family name. Stanislavski was a stage name.) performance was to produce more perplexity than satisfaction. He appeared in two of the plays, A Cup of Tea and The Old Mathematician. In the first he felt completely at ease. He was able to copy the performance of a famous actor he had seen, down to the last detail. When the curtain fell he was convinced he had given a splendid performance. He was soon disabused. He had been inaudible. He had gabbled and his hands had been in such a constant state of motion that no one could follow what he was saying. In the second play, which had given him so much more trouble in rehearsals, he was, by contrast, much better. He was at a loss to resolve the contradiction between what he felt and what the audience had experienced. How could he feel so good and act so badly? Feel so ill at ease and be so effective?
His response to the problem was crucial. He began to keep a notebook, in which he recorded his impressions, analysed his difficulties and sketched out solutions. He continued this practice throughout his life, so that the Notebooks span some sixty-one years of activity. * It is characteristic of Stanislavski that he never shied away from contradictions or refused the paradoxical. He worked through them.
His frequent visits to the theatre provided him with models and examples. At the Maly Theatre - his 'university' - as he called it - there were still the survivors of a once great company. He was also able to see foreign artists such as Salvini and Duse, who appeared in Moscow during Lent, when Russian actors were forbidden by the church to perform. The contrast between the ease, naturalness and flow of the actor of genius and his own desperate efforts, either gabbling inaudibly or shouting, either rigid with tension or all flailing arms, made a profound effect on him. They created, he could only imitate more or less well what others had done before. The attempt to discover in what the 'naturalness' of the great actor consisted is the seed from which the System grew.

Method acting school
In 1885, at the age of twenty-two Stanislavski entered a drama acting school. The experience lasted three weeks in acting classes. His rapid departure was caused partly by the fact that he could not attend full-time acting classes. He had finished his studies early and gone into the family textile business. He could not always get away from the office. More important, however, was his swift recognition of the fact that the acting school could not give him what he was looking for - a properly thought-out acting classes in method of working, a means of harnessing his own natural creativity. Not only did the acting school fail to provide such a method in it's acting classes, it could not even conceive that such a method acting existed. All his acting teachers could do was indicate the results they wanted, not the means to achieve them in their acting classes. At best, they could pass on the technical tricks which they themselves had acquired.
The young Stanislavski needed guidance and discipline badly. The greater barrier to his development as an artist was his image of himself as an actor. He saw himself continuously in dashing 'romantic' roles. It was what he himself defined as his 'Spanish boots' problem. Thigh boots, a sword and a cloak were fatal to him. Any progress he might have made towards truth and naturalness was immediately wiped out. He became a musical-comedy stereotype - all swagger and bombast. The only teacher at drama school who might have been some help to him, Glikeria Fedotova, left the acting classes about the same time he did. He was fortunate enough to meet her again later, as well as her husband, at a critical moment in his career.

A theatre in decline
Russian theatre in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was in a poor state. There were the great stars of the Maly Theatre whom Stanislavski describes in terms of such admiration and affection, but they were mainly of the older generation and they were surrounded by mediocrity. The monopoly of the imperial theatres had been abolished in 1882. Thereafter commercial managements threw on plays to make quick profits. As Stanislavski remarked, the theatre was controlled by barmen on one hand and bureaucrats on the other. A few brilliant individuals shone here and there.
On the whole, observation of professional practice could only show Stanislavski what to avoid. In an unpublished manuscript he describes a typical rehearsal period. First came the reading and the casting of the various roles. Some discussion of the play's meaning was supposed to take place but generally there was insufficient time. The actors were left to find their own way. Then came the first rehearsal.
It took place on stage with a few old tables and chairs as a set. The director explained the decor: a door centre, two doors on each side etc.
At the first rehearsal the actors read their parts book in hand and the prompter was silent. The director sat on the forestage and gave his instructions to the cast. 'What should I do here?' asked one actor. 'Sit on the sofa, ' the director answers. 'And what should I be doing?' asks another. 'You are nervous, wring your hands and walk up and down, ' the director orders. 'Can't I sit down?' the actor persists. 'How can you possibly sit down when you are nervous?' replies the bewildered director. So the first and second acts are set. On the next day, that is to say the second rehearsal, work continues in like manner with the third and fourth acts. The third and sometimes the fourth rehearsal consist of going through the whole thing again; the actors move about the stage, memorizing the director's instructions, reading their lines in half-voice i.e., a whisper, gesticulating strongly in an attempt to arouse some feeling.
At the next rehearsal the lines must be known. In theatres with money this may last one or two days, and another rehearsal is arranged where the actors play without script but still at half voice. The prompter, however, works at full voice.
At the next rehearsal the actors are expected to play at full voice. Then dress rehearsals begin with makeup, costumes and the set. Finally there is the performance. *
This seems to have been a comparatively disciplined affair. More often than not the actors simply took over, ignoring the director, settling for what they knew best. An actress would move to the window or the fireplace for no better reason than that was what she always did. † The script meant less than nothing. Sometimes the cast did not even bother to learn their lines. Leading actors would simply plant themselves downstage centre, by the prompter's box, wait to be fed the lines and then deliver them straight at the audience in a ringing voice, giving a fine display of passion and 'temperament'. Everyone, in fact, spoke their lines out front. Direct communication with other actors was minimal. Furniture was so arranged as to allow the actors to face front.
Sets were as stereotyped as the acting: wings, back-drops taken from stock, doors conventionally placed, standing isolated in space with no surrounding wall. The costumes were also 'typical'. When Stanislavski attempted to have costumes made to specific designs he was told, with some asperity, that there were standard designs for character types and would continue to be. There was no sense of a need for change or renewal. The amateur theatre reflected the practice of the professional, only worse.
If Stanislavski wanted models or guidance he would have to look back a generation or so earlier, to the great days of the Maly Theatre when artistic standards had been set and discipline imposed by two men of genius, the actor Mikhail Shchepkin and the writer Nikolai Gogol. The actors Stanislavski so admired were impressive not merely because they had talent but because they had been trained at this school, where the first steps had been taken towards a genuinely Russian theatre and the creation of a genuinely Russian style - Realism.

Development

Meisner developed this technique after working with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Group Theatre and as head of the acting program at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and continued its refinement for fifty years [1]. Today the technique is part of a two-year program at the Neighborhood Playhouse and at the school which is authorized by his estate to use his name, the Sanford Meisner Studio.
[edit]Components

Meisner Training is an interdependent series of exercises that build upon one another. The more complex work supports a command of dramatic text.
Meisner students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to text. The technique develops the behavioural strand of Stanislavski's 'system', via its articulation in an American idiom as Method acting. The technique asserts that by emphasizing "moment-to-moment" spontaneity through communion with other actors, behaviour that is truthful under imaginary circumstances may be generated.
Meisner emphasized doing with early training heavily based on actions. The questions "what are you playing" and "what are you doing" are frequently asked in class to remind actors to commit themselves to an objective rather than a script. Silence, dialogue, and activity all require the actor to find a purpose for performing the action. By combining the two main tasks of focusing one's attention on one's partner and committing to an action, the technique aims to compel an actor into the moment (a common Meisner phrase), while simultaneously propelling him or her forward with concentrated purpose. The more an actor is able to take in the partner and the partner's surroundings while performing in character, the more Meisner believed they are able to leave himself or herself alone and "live truthfully."
The most fundamental exercise in Meisner training is called Repetition [2]. Two actors face each other and "repeat" their observations about one another back and forth. An example of such an exchange might be: "You're smiling." "I'm smiling." "You're smiling!" "Yes, I'm smiling." Actors are asked to observe and respond to others' behavior and the subtext therein. If they can "pick up the impulse" — or work spontaneously from how their partner's behavior affects them — their own behavior will arise directly from the stimulus of the other.
Later, as the exercise evolves in complexity to include "given circumstances," "relationships," actions and obstacles, this skill remains critical. From start to finish — from repetition to rehearsing a lead role — the principles of "listen and respond" and "stay in the moment" are fundamental to the work.
As in all Stanislavskian-derived approaches, for a Meisner actor traditional line memorization methods that include vocal inflections or gestures are avoided. It is taught that doing so merely increases the chance the actor will miss a "real moment" in service of a rehearsed habit or line reading. Meisner actors learn lines dry, "by rote," without inflection, so as not to memorize a line reading. When the line is finally to be delivered, its quality and inflection is derived from the given moment.
The improvisatory thrust of the technique should not be misconstrued as permission to wing it or to go unprepared. Meisner training includes extensive work on crafting or preparing a role. As students mature in the work, they get to know themselves and can make use of this self-knowledge by choosing actions compelling to their particular instrument. They "come to life" through informed, provocative choices. Actors prepare emotional responses by "personalizing" and "paraphrasing" material and by using their imagination and "daydreaming" around a play's events in highly specific ways that they've learned are especially evocative to them personally.
When circumstances are advanced, this preparation must be accomplished with specificity and depth, or else the actor's attention simply cannot move away from self and onto the moment. Solid preparation supports the spontaneity, an idea articulated by Martha Graham when she wrote, "I work eight hours a day, every day, so that in the evenings I can improvise."
[edit]Character development

Despite some misconceptions, Meisner work also addresses the development of character, though in an indirect way. Character attributes such as "mousy," "vindictive," or "noble" are the result of actors' choices when juxtaposed to the story in the text.
Rather than specifically playing "mousy", a Meisner actor would instead want to continually appease another character to create the appearance of the quality. Such derivation of attributes or qualities from specific actions is a critical skill developed by Meisner students. Instead of specifically portraying the personality traits required, the actor instead behaves in such a way that the audience believes the character embodies the traits.

'An Actor Prepares' by Konstantin Stanislavsky

What Stanislavski has undertaken is not to discover a truth but to bring the truth in usable form within the reach of those actors and producers who are fairly well equipped by nature and who are willing to undergo the necessary discipline.
1. The First Test
3 First lesson: turn up to rehearsals on time!
5 If rehearsal seems stilted, the same old stuff, change something: setting, privacy, mood, etc.
2. When Acting is an Art
13 Ideally an actor should be carried away in his part, by the subconscious (as long as it carries him in the right direction). But it's impossible to control the subconscious without destroying it.
14 You must “live the part” by “actually experiencing feelings that are analogous to it, each and every time you repeat the process of creating it.”
15 “Plan your role consciously at first then play it truthfully.” “We must assimilate a psychological technique of living a part, and that this will help us to accomplish our main object, which is to create the life of a human spirit. We must then “express [the life of a human spirit] in a beautiful, artistic form.”
16 The body must be up to it.
18-20 Another method: the “art of representation.” The original preparation of a role is good and true but subsequent performances are fixed, cold copies of its external representation without feelings. We prefer that each performance must be fresh and felt.
19 Be careful when rehearsing with a mirror — teaches you to watch the outside, not the inside.
22-23 The school of the art of representation says the stage is too poor in resources to create life, so we must use these conventions. It may delight you but won't move you. Its form is interesting rather than content. “Your astonishment rather than your faith is aroused.”
24-6 Mechanical acting: acting with clichés. Shaking fist for revenge, putting hand over heart to express love. Peasants spitting on floor, military men clicking heels. Tearing hair in despair. Clichés will fill every spot in a role that's not solid with living feeling. But it still takes work to achieve mechanical acting.
27-9 Over-acting: using the first stereotypes, rubber stamps and first impressions that leap to mind, without even sharpening or preparing them for the stage. Common in beginners and can grow into the worst kind of mechanical acting.
29 “Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.” A character built on stereotype cannot grow.
31
“Now remember firmly what I am going to tell you: the theatre, on account of its publicity and spectacular side, attracts many people who merely want to capitalize their beauty or make careers. They take advantage of the ignorance of the public, its perverted taste, favouritism, intrigues, false success, and many other means which have no relation to creative art. These exploiters are the deadliest enemies of art. We have to use the sternest measures with them, and if they cannot be reformed they must be removed from the boards. Therefore … you must make up your mind, once and for all, did you come here to serve art, and to make sacrifices for its sake, or to exploit your own personal ends?”
3. Action
35-7 Whatever happens on stage must be for a purpose, even if you outwardly appear to be doing nothing. You must act either outwardly or inwardly.
40-41 Never simply try to act emotions — emotions are caused by something that has gone before, and it's this that you should think of. The result will produce itself.
46 “If acts as a lever to lift us out of the world of actuality into the realm of imagination.”
4. Imagination
70 The actor must use his imagination to be able to answer all questions (when, where, why, how). Make the make-believer existence more definite.
71 If you do or say anything on stage without fully realising who you are, what you're doing, how you got there, etc, you're not using your imagination. If someone asks “is it cold outside?” you should “remember” what it was like when “you” were last out — the sights, sensations, etc — before answering.
5. Concentration of Attention
75 “An actor must have a point of attention, and this point of attention must not be in the auditorium.”
82 “Solitude in Public”: when you are in public (e.g., on stage) but have a small circle of attention and feel alone within it.
83-5 Your focus of attention can be larger areas, but this is harder to maintain — if it begins to slip, withdraw the attention to a smaller circle or single object/point, then gradually enlarge the circle of attention again.
88 At the end of every day, in bed, you should go over everything that happened in great detail, both appearance and inner emotions. Also try to refresh earlier memories of places, events, people. “That is the only way to develop a strong, sharp, solid power of inner and outer attention.”
89 You should give the objects of your attention on stage an imaginary life (where did it come from, who's used it, etc) so that they're more interesting to you.
93 Observe things in daily life — bestow them with imaginary backgrounds to heighten various emotions. Remember those scenes and draw on them.
93-4 When interacting with people, attempt to comprehend their inner emotional life through their actions, thoughts and impulses. Why did they do that? What did they have in mind?
6. Relaxation of Muscles
95-104 The actor should practice relaxing his muscles; we tend to be too tense.
104-6 If the actor believes in the purpose of an action, the movement will be more believable.
106-110 When performing a single gesture, only the muscles necessary for that gesture should be used.
7. Units and Objectives
111-116 When analysing a play you should look for the overall theme/idea. Then break it up into parts. Then break those up… keep going until you have a series of actions that can be made interesting, but don't forget the overall theme.
116-126 Decide on the objective for each unit. It should be a verb, an action, something you need/want to do.
8. Faith and a Sense of Truth
130-1 Don't try too hard to be truthful (to create a believable part) or you'll over do it.
133 When criticising the work of others look for the good points, because the audience will want to believe what they see, not look for the unconvincing [seems a bit hopeful to me, but justifies why everyone in acting classes is so relentlessly, frustratingly positive about even hopeless performances].
143 When offstage either “play for yourself”[?] or “confine your thoughts to what the person you are portraying would be doing if he were placed in analogous circumstances.”
142-4 Repeat a sequence of physical actions over and over, with belief in their reality, until they become a single sequence: “the life of a human body.”
145-7 Where you have believable actions, it's a better basis on which to “achieve the creation of the subconscious life of the spirit of a role.”
150-1 The difference in approach to, say, comedy and tragedy is only in the circumstances surrounding the actions of the person you're portraying. Don't think about the emotions — think about what you must do.
9. Emotion Memory
163-? You should use memories of emotions to recreate them on stage, sometimes fuelled by memories of sensations (smell, taste, etc).
177 You cannot use everyone else's feelings, or made-up feelings. They always come from you. So you will always be playing yourself, “but it will be in an infinite variety of combinations of objectives, and given circumstances which you have prepared for your part, and which have been smelted in the furnace of your emotion memory.” You can only play parts well that you have the appropriate feelings for.
183-4 Set, lighting etc. set the mood for the actors, and aren't just for impressing the audience.
184-6 To repeat a feeling that occurred accidentally, don't start with the results — look for the original stimulus and use that.
188-90 We can use emotions generated by events we've only witnessed or read about, not just experienced.
192

“Do you realise, now that you know what is required of an actor, why a real artist must lead a full, interesting, beautiful, varied, exacting and inspiring life? He should know, not only what is going on in the big cities, but in the provincial towns, far-away villages, factories, and the big cultural centres of the world as well. He should study the life and psychology of the people who surround him, of various other parts of the population, both at home and abroad.”
10. Communion
198 When doing soliloquies you need to find a subject and object inside yourself. Try to establish communication between brain and solar plexus.
199-202 When communicating with a partner, maintain a constant flow, using eyes, body, emotions when not speaking, every time you act the part.
202-3 If you lack a partner for practice, don't imagine one — find one. Or you get out of the habit of interacting with real people.
205-222 [Stuff about communicating by transmitting and receiving “rays”. Don't get what he's on about.]
11. Adaptation
223-8 On stage and in life we adapt our behaviour, voice, mannerisms, etc in response to the situation, who we're talking to and what we want.
234-9 Many adaptations are unconscious. Also, types of conscious adjustments: rubber stamps / stereotypes / stencils originate from the theatrical routine and are lifeless; adaptations suggested by other people, e.g. director, other actors (but always adapt these to your own needs). Mechanical adjustments can be subconscious or conscious — natural human adaptations that become habitual. [These are good apparently, but I don't understand how they differ from rubber stamps.]
12. Inner Motive Force
245-7 “Three impelling movers in our psychic life”: mind, will and feelings.
249 You can use any of the three to initiate the creative process, and it will in turn prompt the others. [I'm losing him here.]
13. The Unbroken Line
252-7 The life of a character should be an unbroken line of events and emotions, but a play only gives us a few moments on that line — we must create the rest to portray a convincing life.
257-260 The actor's attention must be an unbroken stream attracted by different objects in turn (but not the audience!).
14. The Inner Creative State
261-2 Our “inner motive forces” [what are they?] combine with the “elements” [the techniques, talents, ambitions, etc earlier in the book] “to carry out the purposes of the actor,” with the aim of searching for the common fundamental objective. The “elements” are now called “Elements of the Inner Creative Mood”.
262-3 The creative mood is worse than the normal state because it's involved with theatre and self-exhibition. Better because it includes solitude in public — spectators rouse creative energy.
263-5 Performance may be bad if the actor's creative apparatus isn't functioning or if he has mechanical habits. Or if he hasn't freshened up an old role. Or stage fright. Or if one element in the composition is wrong. One false note destroys the whole truth.
[All the above in this chapter is very woolly and I'm not sure what he's saying other than “do everything well”.]
265-6 An actor should arrive at his dressing room two hours before going on for inner preparation. First, relax muscles.
“Then comes: Choose an object — that picture? What does it represent? How big is it? Colours? Take a distant object! Now a small circle, no further than your own feet! Choose some physical objective! Motivate it, add first one and then other imaginative fictions! Make your action so truthful that you can believe in it! Think up various suppositions and suggest possible circumstances into which you put yourself. Continue this until you have brought all of your 'elements' into play and then choose one of them. It makes no difference which. Take whichever appeals to you at the time. If you succeed in making that one function concretely (no generalities!) it will draw all the others along in its train.”

15. The Super-Objective
271-3 You should work out the super-objective of the play — everything should converge to carry this out. It must be the fundamental driving force. Easier to determine in a good play. It must have a verb.
273-280 The “through line of action” must guide everyone toward the super objective. All the smaller units and objectives must serve this common purpose.
277-8 If you, say, rejuvenate a play with a modern theme, that must be grafted on to the super-objective, not be a distraction from it.
16. On the Threshold of the Subconscious
285-6 If something happens accidentally on stage (e.g., a chair tipping over)… the actor should learn to use this in his part, as this can draw you closer to the subconscious.
294-5 Achieve a “creative state” (relax appropriate to the part) and then introduce an “unexpected spontaneous incident, a touch of reality” germane to the super objective and line of action. Where to find this touch of truth:
Everywhere: in what you dream, or think, or suppose or feel, in your emotions, your desires, your little actions, internal or external, in your mood, the intonations of your voice, in some imperceptible detail of the production, pattern of movements.
While the excitement of this lasts, “you will be incapable of distinguishing between yourself and the person you are portraying.”
300 The through line of action is made up of a number of large objectives. These contain many smaller objectives, which are transformed into subconscious actions.
301 We need a super-objective which is “in harmony with the intentions of the playwright and at the same time arouses a response in the soul of the actors.”
301-2 The same theme will affect different actors differently. [I'm not clear if the “theme” is the same as the super-objective — he seems to switch between the two terms.] If an actor is given a super-objective he must “filter it through his own being until his own emotions are affected by it.” Else, find the super-objective/theme for himself.

AFTERWORD BY ANATOLY SMELIANSKY
A FEW WORDS ABOUT STANISLAVSKI’S ‘MAJOR BOOK’
AND THE MAN HIMSELF
1.
The world of the theatre knows Stanislavski’s book An Actor Prepares very well. It appeared in 1936 and since then has often been published in many languages and many lands. Paradoxically, it is least known in the author’s own country. That requires some explanation. Konstantin Stanislavsky (that was what his friends called him behind his back at the Art Theatre) wrote his book at the behest of an American publisher and gave his translator, Elizabeth Hapgood, a totally free hand. The manuscript was cut and adapted to suit the tastes of the American reader, who wanted a kind of ‘Beginners’ Manual’. The translator accomplished her mission. The book found its place in the English-speaking world. It appeared in Russian two years later, after Konstantin Stanislavsky’s death but not in the form in which Elizabeth Hapgood had presented it. A great deal had been rewritten, expanded, rethought in as much as Konstantin Stanislavsky continued to work on his system in those two final years and many thoroughgoing decisions were taken, yet again. The idea of the Method of Physical Actions emerged. It painted the grammar of acting in a new light. Besides which, Konstantin Stanislavsky was fully aware that his book would come out in the Soviet Union of 1938, and that had to be taken seriously into account.
The Russian version evolved in an atmosphere of extremes. In August 1934 Konstantin Stanislavsky returned from France to Moscow after lengthy treatment, passing through Germany where the Nazis were already in overall control. Hitler in Berlin, Stalin in Moscow: this was the choice, which Konstantin Stanislavsky faced, as did most European artists. Publicly, K.S. preferred Stalin. In reality his choice was not so unambiguous. From the summer of 1934 to the end of his life, i.e. prior to 1938, Konstantin Stanislavsky did not set foot inside the Art Theatre he had founded, the Art Theatre, which now thought of him not in terms of his artistry but of his ‘efficacy’, i.e. as having nothing to do with major questions of art or of the development of that art. He worked at home with young actors and singers in the last of his studios, the Opera-Dramatic Studio. In reply to a question from Elizabeth Hapgood, he answered somewhat enigmatically, ‘There is a rumour that I have quit the Art Theatre. It’s a lie. The rumour stems from the fact that since my illness I have not been to the theatre, that is the reason. In winter, when there is ice and cold I can’t leave the house. I have cardiac spasms (angina pectoris).
In spring when I might be able to go and see my own and other people’s productions, theatres like the Moscow Art Theatre and the opera are on tour. In the autumn, when performances begin again, I have to take a holiday. My work is conducted (for the all the theatres and the studios) only in my home in Leontievski Lane.’ Nature knows no such weather in which he could visit the Art Theatre of which he was head. But, of course, it was not a matter of ice and cold. Stanislavski did not set foot inside the theatre he ran for four years, it was a mark of general opposition, a voluntary rejection of it, which for various reasons served everyone. Condemned to a kind of house arrest, he made good use of it. He took no part in Soviet life, did not sign any group letters supporting the murder and torture of dissidents, did not stage propaganda plays. As far as was possible, he preserved his autonomy. The period in which the Russian version of the book on acting was completed was the transition from ‘vegetarianism’ (as Anna Akhmatova put it) to ‘the age of blood’. It should not be thought that Stanislavski was sheltered from the terror in his home as on a kind of island retreat. As early as June 1930 one of his favourite nephews had been arrested. Neither his status as a ‘sacred cow’ nor his pleas to the head of the secret police Heinrich Yagoda were of any help. Mikhaïl Alekseev died in jail. The only gesture of kindness that was made by the authorities was to hand his dead body over to his relatives. Other close relatives were arrested and Konstanton Stanislavsky took charge of their children. The word ‘concentration camp’ appears for the first time in his letters to mean imminent death. Confined in his comfortable jail house in Leontievski Lane (the name was changed to Stanislavski Street in his lifetime), he decided to complete his ‘great book’, which, in Russian, would be called The Actor’s Work on Himself in the Creative Process of Experiencing. The key word in this title is ‘experiencing’ which, like many of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s terms, defies adequate translation. This actor-teacher’s slang was adopted by Stanislavski’s pupils but was obscure for those unacquainted with the general spirit of his understanding of Method acting. An edited version appeared in America. Konstantin Stanislavsky prepared a book for his contemporaries with its meaning uncut. This book is now being offered to the English-speaking reader. The problem of translation is the problem of a general understanding of the Stanislavski system. And so we must be mindful of the circumstances in which Konstantin Stanislavsky decided on two versions – one for the world at large and one for Russia – and that what we in Russia call the system in the English-speaking world is often called mistakenly the Method.
2.
For many years the system existed in oral form, as a kind of theatrical folklore. It changed according to those who taught it, to those who ‘narrated’ it. Repeated attempts to set forth Stanislavski’s teaching in his place, produced resistance from the author. This was even the case when the system was expounded by as intelligent a pupil as Michael Chekhov. That was the case when, let us say, the Art Theatre director Ilya Sudakov did the same (at the beginning of the 30s). In this last case Konstantin Stanislavsky went into a fury: ‘It is not a matter of an author’s pride,’ he wrote to Tamantsova on 1 February 1934, ‘but the fact that the thing I love most, to which I have dedicated my life, has been cynically violated and given over to the judgement of the crowd in mutilated form.’ We need to understand not only the emotional but, the substantive reason why he was unwilling for so long to start a book on ‘his precious creation’ – the system – and generally pin it down in words. In his letters to Elizabeth Hapgood in 1936 he partially reveals the secret of his actorwriter laboratory. ‘What does it mean, writing a book about the system? It does not mean writing down something that is already cut and dried. The system lives in me but it has no form. It is only when you try to find a form for it that the real system is created and defined. In other words, the system is created in the very process of being written down.’ The book had been written for America but Konstantin Stanislavsky was worried by a possible reaction in Russia. The views of his editor, Lyubov Gurievich, who had been one of the first to read the manuscript, confirmed his worst forebodings. His friend as well as his editor, whom he trusted absolutely, explained clearly and directly to him that his book with all its examples and ideals that stemmed from a pre-revolutionary view of an actor’s life were doomed in the new Russia. She suggested that Konstantin Stanislavsky was completely out of touch with the new historical situation, that his favourite examples about precious jewels would be wide of the mark and even offensive.
‘Dear Konstantin Sergeevich don’t talk to the poor and starving about jewels and investments because it will only provoke bitter irritation in some and a brooding sense of resentment in others,’ she admonished this white-haired child of a prophet on 1 April 1929. Mrs Gurievich was not just speaking for herself but for 95 per cent of the ‘ordinary, underprivileged intellectuals’. She suggested that he bring his book into line with contemporary life and adapt it to the needs of new post-revolutionary generations. She used basic concepts of the system as arguments, ‘ “Contact” with life and “adaptation” to his times – adaptation in the purest, noblest sense of the word, not some tawdry camouflage or compromise, is an artist’s duty if he wishes to be effective. This “adaptation” requires great mental effort, which you, given your way of life, have never had an opportunity to follow through. Almost every page of your book is revelatory in that regard.’ Broken in spirit, this woman soon wrote a special ‘Memo’ in which she presented Stanislavski with a plan for completing the system and ‘adapting’ it to contemporary life, both Soviet and American. The greatest difficulty in completing the manuscript, in the editor’s opinion, was the fact that the tastes, ideas, moods of Russian and foreign society had never been further apart than at the present moment. Two worlds stood opposite each other as though prepared for armed conflict. The life, habits, domestic customs of our own pre-revolutionary life and the present Western way of life were inimical to the ‘Soviet people’ . . . as belonging to the capitalist system. And so, everything in the book that dated from an earlier life, literary descriptions, modes, examples that would draw a Western reader to it would be greeted with hostility by the Soviet people. The demands of home and abroad are irreconcilable.
In her second point, Mrs Gurievich sets out a list of ideological postulates that could not but frighten an author living, as it were, in anotherperiod. She knew his weak spots. The most dangerous offence was his beloved ‘neutrality’, which she reminded him, ‘would be equated by the party as being reactionary or counter-revolutionary’. She warned K.S. that he must be prepared for ‘massive accusations of a similar kind’ and so he had to address the burning questions of a new era. Not to do so wouldhave ‘fateful consequences for the book’.
This was the programme for ‘conforming to the contemporary situation’ of which Konstantin Stanislavsky ticked every point with a Yes. Had he followed all these points through it would undoubtedly have meant the death of his forthcoming book and of his life’s work. The agonising years of ‘work on himself ’ began. But he just could not adapt. His genius would not allow it. Broken in spirit and law-abiding he started to baulk. ‘If I work in even one of the examples you have found for our young contemporaries,’ he wrote in a draft letter to Mrs Gurievich, ‘I can say in all confidence that not only will my book never be published but I will never be allowed into America.’ That was not included in the letter he sent. What was included was much more forthright in its expression.
‘The book . . . speaks of the art of an older era, which was not created under the Bolsheviks. That is why the examples are bourgeois.’ Despite his usual display of political naivety, as he started work he could define absolutely precisely points that could be censored. ‘To my mind, the greatest danger of the book is “the creation of the life of the human spirit” (you are not allowed to speak about the spirit). Another danger: the subconscious, transmission and reception, the word soul. Wouldn’t that be a reason to ban the book.’ Historic change swept through the life of the Art Theatre. It was canonized. It was decided to create an academy alongside it, ‘a forge for a creative workforce’. Model ‘socialist’ textbooks were required. The system took on a new direction. It ceased to be an actor’s personal work and exploits. Konstantin Stanislavsky followed the government’s superedicts. A special committee was set up to verify Stanislavski’s writings from the point of view of the latest scientific advances. Particular alarm was caused by the draft of the final and most difficult chapter, ‘On the Threshold of the Subconscious’, which quintessentially defined his conception of the actor’s art. The correspondence with a party official Aleksei Angarov reveals the direction in which they tried to steer Stanislavski in this matter, in an attempt, in exactly the same spirit as the ‘black séance’ in Bulgakov’s Master and Marguerita, to unmask ‘his mystical terminology’. (The irony of this story is that the official who kindly allowed Konstantin Stanislavsky to use his favourite concepts was very soon arrested and liquidated.)
Lyubov Gurievich stopped work as his editor. She could not endure Konstantin Stanislavsky’s endless corrections, changes, and obstinacy. ‘An old friend was not unfaithful but forced by fate was invalided out like a wounded soldier’ (from one of her valedictory letters to Konstantin Stanislavsky).
In the Russian version he was reaching out to the future. An Actor’s Work on Himself came out a few weeks after Stanislavski’s death. The pressure of the given circumstances can be felt in his last book.
There is not the same freedom with which he wrote My Life in Art. The first book is a book of major questions. The second is a book of answers. My Life in Art is confessional, An Actor’s Work on Himself is professional. The attitude of an omniscient teacher and a genuflecting pupil are the principal ‘psychological gestures’ of the book and unconsciously reflect the dominant ‘gesture’ of the time. The majority of the omissions in the book are concerned with matters that he would not explicitly declare or explain.
But he did not renounce the heart of the system, that is, his own heart. Fundamentally, his ‘grammar’ of acting is full of heroic acts of rejection. Antiquated in its machinery, Stanislavski’s book managed to evoke the spirit ‘not of contemporary but of the old, eternal, immutable art of the actorcraftsman and not of the actor-activist.
He did not allow the actor-activist in his home. Within the confines of his ‘great book’ as in his house in Leontievski Lane, there was not the least hint of the real Soviet world within which it was completed and refined. In both there was an almost museum-like clinical purity. Evidently, as far as possible, the book preserved what Osip Mandelstam described as ‘stolen air’, that is the air of another culture and other beliefs.
3.
And, finally, a few comments relating to the daily life of the Method acting system in contemporary Russian theatre. There the problem is not to translate from Russian into English but the equally complex problem of translating from Russian into Russian. The approach to the system and the way it is interpreted changed endlessly after Konstantin Stanislavskt’s death, countries changed and the understanding of the actor’s art changed. With the rehabilitation and reinstatement of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s major opponents, who had been liquidated by the Soviet regime, it became clear that the system had to be placed within the broad context of Russian and world theatre. Account had to be taken of the changes made by Meyerhold and Brecht, Michael Chekhov, Vakhtangov,
Taïrov and Grotowski. New generations of Russian actors and directors undertook the enormous labour, often unbeknown to those abroad, of talking through the system and its basic terms. They tried to understand the system beyond the barriers to understanding. I will give just a few examples.
A few years ago, the actor Oleg Borisov’s diaries were published posthumously. Borisov was probably one of the most important actors of post-Stalinist Russia. He graduated from the Studio-School of the Moscow Art Theatre, having imbibed the Stanislavski system with his mother’s milk, he worked with Tostonogov, played in Dostoievski’s Krotkii directed by Lev Dodin, spent many years at the Art Theatre. If we are to look for an actor to symbolize the Russian school of acting and what we understand by the system, that man is Oleg Borisov, as in his time was Michael Chekhov, possibly one of the first candidates for that vacancy. In his diaries, the actor recounts how he adapted K.S.’s system to his own ‘immune system’. He started from the fact that much had changed since Konstantin Stanislavsky had died and his system had been introduced into Russian schools ‘blood boiled, overflowed and how they drank it!’ Highly significant ideas underwent revision. The actor knows that the most important element in the system is to discover a conscious path to the unconscious, ‘to switch off the brain entirely, to become a blank sheet of paper and move into the unconscious in a neutral state’. The problem is to know which technique will work. It all begins with the script. The actor removes all the punctuation marks (‘once the first sign of life appears then you can feel a pulse – then you can draw the first line’). He followed Konstantin Stanislavsky in not trusting words, only deeds, but he refused to deal with them according to the system. He, essentially, rejected the ‘through-action’, at least in the way that it was taught in school. ‘First, set up a series of complete actions, then choose the most important of them. A mosaic is formed with no “threads”, no through-action or the usual transitions. These must then be conveyed to the audience . . . Let everything in man’s character be unexpected. The unexpected is the most precious feature in art. But what are we to do in the pauses, in other scenes? Disappear into the shadows. Give a breather. Only shoot at the right moment. Arrhythmia, unpredictability that is what it is for. Of course, even unpredictability has to be structured, to avoid being meaningless. The actor makes friends with the eminent coaches and football-players of his time and he derives the idea of arrhythmia from new unexpected ways of playing football.’ I offer this example so that the reader may understand how the Stanislavski system changed and survived in Russian theatre.
In his book, Valery Galendeev, a well-known teacher of Lev Dodin, comes across, like Dodin, as one of the most powerful of Stanislavski’s successors in contemporary Russian theatre, adapting Konstantin Stanislavsky’s system to himself. He invented his own slang in parallel to Stanislavski’s. Dodin did not use the word ‘concept’ but replaced it with the idea of an agreement, as in to come to an agreement. These cautious words mean a level of mutual understanding between the participants, to counterbalance the director’s own individual ideas as he approaches the other members of the rehearsal with his ‘concept’. Dodin did not use the term throughaction, fearing, like Borisov, to coarsen the very material the actor was using, and to lose the unforeseen in what he did onstage. ‘I use the idea of action and counteraction instead,’ the director said to me, ‘that stops the actor from creating one line for a role out of one through-concept, that oversimplifies the acting.’ Anatoly Efros, another outstanding director and teacher of the post-
Stalinist period, developed the so-called improvisatory method. Efros (following in the footsteps of his teacher, Marya Knebbel, a direct pupil of Stanislavski) tried once more to discover a basis which would enable the actor to use the improvisatory method of rehearsal, i.e. an endless attempt to test out and get into the play. This method has its origins in Stanislavski’s final ideas but places the actor’s improvisations at the centre of a given play. Efros invented his own slang, in which the unwelcome notion of throughaction was close to a cardiogram, in which there was a flat line (indicating death). For Efros the proper way to build a role recalled a ‘curve’, a real cardiogram, with its proper peaks and troughs and arrhythmia, etc. Oleg Efreimov, with whom I was fortunate enough to work for many years at the Art Theatre (he ran it for thirty years), attempted to translate from Russian into Russian Stanislavski’s highly important notion of the term perezhivanie, ‘experiencing’, which we now find highly obscure. In his mouth it almost always seemed to sound like ‘living in’ by which was understood the actor’s ability to penetrate and fill every moment of his life onstage with vibrant material at times to create life, at others to complete an action. Living in means remaining alive in every second of the stage action, which moves ahead as a non-stop, complex process. This living process (experiencing for Konstntin Stanislavsky) is confronted each time by another kind of acting, which Konstantin Stanislavsky called representation and which Grotowski called the art of composition.
I had the occasion to hear another modification to the Stanislavski system from another director and teacher, Piotr Fomenko. The actor, Stanislavski suggested, must first of all understand what the character wants at any given moment, what drives his behaviour. But, Fomenko objects, quite often the actor, like anyone, does not know what he wants and in strict terms his action consists of trying to figure out what it is he really wants (incidentally, this mood is highly characteristic of many of Chekhov’s heroes).
Anatoly Vasiliev, in the 80s, was involved in a sharp polemic with a French Stanislavski scholar (in Paris at a symposium devoted to Stanislavski).
The well-known Russian director was aghast at the primitive interpretation (in fact a straight translation) of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s classroom slang as rigid formulae, a terminology that had lost all living sense. There is a whole section in the system called ‘bits and tasks’. So the word task which Konstantin Stanislavsky used, means in the theatre not so much the process of setting ultimate goals for the actor, as the process of planting a seed, teasing the actor with something emotionally enticing, subtleties that provoke him into action, into the creative act. If you translate the word task literally, the director suggested at this symposium, it means you reduce it to something primitive, you kill the actor’s living soul along with the living soul of the system. I have mentioned one or two modifications to the system by contemporary Russian teachers and directors which stand alongside the classic modifications to it in the course of the last century made to it by Stanislavski’s contemporaries and pupils and his major opponents. We should not forget that even when the Russian version of An Actor’s Work on Himself was completed, Stanislavski asked Meyerhold to teach Biomechanics in the last of his studios. When Meyerhold’s theatre was destroyed, he was unemployed but Konstantin Stanislavsky not only stretched out a helping hand to the condemned man, he set up a meeting between creative minds. He compared their coming together to digging a tunnel from opposite ends so that they should finally meet in the middle. The meeting did not last long. In August 1938 Stanislavski died. Within a year Meyerhold was arrested, tortured in the cellars of the Lubyanka and shot. Discussions on the system were cut short for decades.
This discussion has come alive again at another level. The ‘great book’, its Russian version, remains, in its thinking, a significant and provocative monument in the culture of world theatre. It is fought with, it is modified in all sorts of ways, but no one seriously concerned with teaching theatre across the world can refuse to acknowledge K.S.’s work, just as no one interested in chemistry can refuse to acknowledge the periodic table created by Dmitri Mendeleiev. The comparison may not be entirely appropriate, but it seems to me essentially true.
Anatoly Smeliansky, PhD,
Rector of the Studio-School of the Moscow Art Theatre, editor-in-chief of the new Russian edition of Stanislavski’s Collected Works in ten volumes

Point of View:
Method Acting - or no Method Acting:
Presentational and Representational acting
Method Acting styles also exist on a continuum, with extreme presentational styles at one end and extreme representational styles at the other. The distinction between the two is not clear-cut. Viewers' knowledge, experience, and expectations help to determine whether or not a particular Method acting performance will be seen as presentational or representational. Moreover, the two styles appear in different films made during the same period, and are often found in the same film. Gradations of presentational and representational Method acting styles exist even in the earliest years of film performance. While a presentational Method acting style marks performances in single-scene novelty pieces such as The May Irwin Kiss (1896) and Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance (1901) and single-scene trick films such as The Lady Vanishes (1896) and How It Feels to Be Run Over (1901), other types of single-scene films seem to capture the "natural" behavior of individual human beings. For example, many slice-of-life actualités produced by thère Company are staged to suggest scenes of individuals engaged in familiar activities and are crafted so that the Method acting actions of selected individuals disclose discernible personality traits. In actualités such as La Sortie des usines Lumière (Leaving the Lumière Factory, 1895) and Bataille de boules de neige (Snowball Fight, 1896), the men singled out riding a bicycle through the crowd in each film seem to enjoy the opportunity to clown around. In Enfants pêchant des crevettes (Children Digging for Clams, 1896) a young woman in the foreground seems to be a bit anxious about being photographed. While these individuals reveal their awareness of the camera, in contrast to the novelty pieces or trick films, the individuals are not presented as if they are onstage but instead as if they are reenacting scenes from daily life and inadvertently revealing aspects of their individual personalities.
The Method acting style or styles featured in a film reflect the conception of character and the conception of cinema at the heart of that specific film. Put in the simplest terms, presentational Method acting styles are used to present character types or social types, while representational Method acting styles are used to represent characters with ostensibly unique personality traits. For example, the presentational Method acting style found in Making of an American Citizen (Alice Guy Blaché, 1912) illuminates identifiable social types, while the representational style of Lillian Gish's (1893–1993) performance in The Mothering Heart (1913) suggests a character with certain individual qualities. Presentational Method acting styles can also be found in modernist films that are designed according to pictorial or graphic principles. In a film such as Oktyabr (Ten Days that Shook the World and October, 1927), Eisenstein uses the evocative power of the stage picture and the polemical power of the social tableau to make his directorial statement. By comparison, representational Mehod acting styles are often found in mainstream films that are designed according to novelistic principles. In Wuthering Heights (1939), William Wyler uses the cinematic frame to create a window on a verisimilar world that invites audiences to locate occasions for emotional resonance.
Studies of Method acting in early cinema often discuss the presentational performance styles in American and European films produced before 1913. Scholars agree BERTOLT BRECHT b. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, Augsburg, Germany, 10 February 1898, d. 14 August 1956
Bertolt Brecht is a central figure in twentieth-century theater. A playwright who moved into directing to have an influence in the production of his own work, Brecht's first plays reflected the influence of dadaism and expressionism. He began directing in 1924 and had his first success in 1928 with The Threepenny Opera. Active in German theater until Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Brecht spent the next fifteen years in exile. During this period Brecht wrote the plays for which he is best remembered, but his work was rarely produced until he returned to (East) Germany. In the 1950s touring productions of Brecht's plays had a salient influence on Roland Barthes, Jean-Luc Godard, and others interested in modernist aesthetics and left-leaning politics.
Brecht's writing on theater practice also had a profound influence on theater and film. By the 1970s, Brecht's critique of conventional theater provided a model for politically engaged cinema that featured aesthetic experimentation. Sustained interest in Brecht's call for experimental stage practice still prompts filmmakers and stage practitioners to explore alternative relationships between performer, director, and audience.
Brecht is best known for defining distinctions between epic theater and mainstream Metod acting dramatic theater. According to Brecht, the two types of theater have different objectives—epic theater is designed to illuminate the operations of social and political power, while dramatic Method acting theater accommodates people to existing social realities. Epic theater does not have a fixed style or set of techniques, and the logic for selecting and combining aesthetic elements is different from that used in dramatic theater. In epic theater, dramatic, visual, and aural/musical elements are placed in counterpoint to emphasize the constructed nature of representation itself. By comparison, dramatic Method acting theater orchestrates dramatic, visual, and aural/musical elements to create a coherent and emotionally engaging reflection of the world as it is defined by the traditions and myths that serve the interests of those in power.
In Brecht's productions, actors' gestures and vocal expressions were presented in spatial and/or temporal counterpoint to other performance and staging elements. At any moment, disparities between lighting, scenic, musical, and performance elements called attention to the concrete reality of the elements themselves. Rather than coming together to create a seamless stage picture, the disparate performance and staging elements kept meaning in play and made the entire theater event strange. Building on Russian formalists' concept of "making strange" and the Prague School's theories on the social function of art's "foregrounding effect," Brecht used the term "verfremdungseffekt" (alienation) to describe the effect of visual, aural, and comedic/dramatic collage techniques that keep audiences attentive to connections between social realities and the situations presented onstage.
Throughout his career, collaboration was integral to Brecht's work as a playwright and director. He worked closely with individuals such as director Erwin Piscator, composer Kurt Weill, actress Lotte Lenya, and actress Helene Weigl, with whom he founded the Berliner Ensemble in 1949. The Threepenny Opera (1928), Life of Galileo (1937), Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), The Good Person of Setzuan (1943), and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948) are among his best-known plays. After fleeing from German-occupied countries in Europe, Brecht lived in southern California from 1941 to 1947. During that time, he collaborated occasionally with actors, directors, and screenwriters working in Hollywood. He chose to leave the United States in 1947 after turning in a remarkable performance before the House Un-American Activities Committee as the eleventh unfriendly witness in a group that later became known as the Hollywood Ten.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Kuhle Wampe (1932), You and Me (1938), Hangmen Also Die (1943)
FURTHER READING
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Film and Radio, edited and translated by Marc Silberman. London: Methuen, 2000. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, edited and translated by John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964.
Esslin, Martin. Brecht: The Man and His Work. New York: Norton, 1974.
Lellis, George. Bertolt Brecht: Cahiers du Cinéma and Contemporary Film Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1982.
Walsh, Martin. The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 1981.
Cynthia Baron

PLEASE, read the books:

TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
Jean Benedetti

This book is neither a literal nor an academic translation but rather an attempt to follow Stanislavski’s original intention: to provide an accessible account of the ‘system’ for actors in training without abstract theorizing. Hence the form he chose: a diary kept by a young student in which he describes the acting classes given by Tortsov (Stanislavski) and his own struggle, alongside his classmates, to master a new method. An Actor’s Work has always presented problems both to Russian- and non-Russian-speaking readers. First it is a work that is only half written. In 1888 when he was in his mid-twenties Stanislavski conceived the idea of a ‘grammar’ of acting. His first attempt, A Draft Manual dates from 1906 when the ‘system’ began. Thereafter he attempted formal exposition in the form of lectures and classes but came to the conclusion that actors did not respond to this kind of approach. He gave a series of talks at the Bolshoi school between 1919 and 1921, which represent the first tentative account of the ‘system’ but he never attempted to publish them. He then experimented with the novel form, The Story of a Role, The Story of Production both of which he abandoned. Finally, in the late 1920s, he decided upon a diary form, a journal kept by a student as he goes through the process of training, An Actor’s Work on Himself.
He began work after his heart attack of 1928, which put an end to his acting career, drawing heavily on earlier incomplete articles and his Notebooks, so that much of the material dates from before the Revolution.
Intended as a single volume, it outlined a two-year course of training in which the student first learns the process by which the inner life of a character is created and then how this is expressed in physical and technical terms. The result is a unified, coherent psycho-physical technique.
The accidents of history, which I have discussed elsewhere, caused the two aspects of training to be separated out. A single volume to become two so that some thirteen years separate the Russian edition of Part One (1938) and Part Two (1953). Thus the unity of the psycho-physical technique was lost. Even Elizabeth Hapgood, Stanislavski’s first translator, thought they were separate books and that Part Two represented a revision of the ideas contained in Part One. From the very beginning, Stanislavski had serious misgivings about dividing the book. He feared that the first volume, dealing with the psychological aspects of acting would be identified as the total ‘system’ itself, which would be identified as a form of ‘ultranaturalism’. His fears were justified. Directors have seen the ‘system’ as purely ‘psychological’. They are unaware of the enormous emphasis Stanislavski placed on physical and vocal technique and on a detailed analysis of the script. I have, therefore, attempted to restore the unity of Stanislavski’s teaching concept by recreating a single volume as was originally intended.
One of the difficulties of presenting a readable account of Stanislavski’s ideas is his style, which is, at considerable variance with his other writings. He was haunted by the possibility that he would be misunderstood, as had so often been the case in the past, even by close associates. In consequence his tendency was to overwrite and over-explain, using several words where one or two would do, and repeating definitions like a mantra. His style all too often obscured his meaning. When his life-long friend and theatre historian, Lyubov Gurievich, saw Stanislavski’s first draft chapters in 1929 she understood the problem. They were repetitive and verbose. She suggested to Stanislavski that he should complete the book and that then the two of them should edit and cut it into readable form. Stanislavski had two other collaborators on the book, Norman and Elizabeth Hapgood. Mrs Hapgood spoke fluent Russian and had been Stanislavski’s interpreter at a White House reception in 1923, while her husband, Norman, was an experienced publisher and editor.
In 1929 Stanislavski renewed his acquaintance with Mrs Hapgood in Nice, where he was convalescing after his heart attacks. They agreed to collaborate on an American translation. The first thing Norman Hapgood did was to take his blue pencil and edit down Stanislavski’s partial draft while Elizabeth Hapgood suggested certain revisions that were then translated back into Russian. When Stanislavski returned to Russia, the book was still unfinished. Mrs Hapgood took the completed chapters back with her to America but did not receive the remaining chapters until 1935.

Stanislavski’s task on his return to Moscow was to prepare the Soviet edition, working once again with Mrs Gurievich. It is with this edition that we are now concerned. This edition was to differ substantially from the edition given to Mrs Hapgood; the reasons for this were two-fold. First, Stanislavski would endlessly rewrite, whilst Mrs Gurievich used her ‘blue pencil’. She would carefully edit his drafts and introduce an element of order. Unfortunately he would then revise and rewrite, reintroducing chaos. Finally, in despair, Mrs Gurievich had to give up the unequal struggle so that the final chapters of Part One are Stanislavski’s alone and the deterioration in the writing is all too evident. Even after the proofs had been returned to the printers, he continued to draft sections for a possible second edition. Thus, even the Russian edition of 1938 was, in his mind, ‘provisional’.
Second, he was locked in a bitter battle with pseudo-Marxist Soviet psychology, which was Behaviourist and did not recognize the existence either of the subconscious or of the Mind. Consequently, he substantially rewrote whole passages in an attempt to appease the authorities. Nowhere are the differences between the two editions more marked than in Chapters 14, 15 and 16. The reasons for the difficulties of Stanislavski’s style go deeper than his personal foibles. His was a pioneering effort. He was attempting to define the actor’s processes (mental, physical, intellectual and emotional) in a comprehensive way that had never been undertaken before. His problem was that there was no available language or terminology to which he could turn. Many concepts, which we now take for granted such as nonverbal communication or body language did not exist. Even the notion of comprehensive, systematic training did not exist. Teaching in drama schools consisted mainly in students preparing scenes that were then reworked by the tutor. Sometimes a student would only prepare one or two scenes throughout his entire studies and would merely learn to copy his master’s tricks. He had no coherent process, no ‘grammar’ of his own. Stanislavski wanted to develop the actor-creator. He was driven, therefore, to cobble together a ‘jargon’ that was unknown outside the Art Theatre.
His experience of teaching the ‘system’ in the early years had made him wary of formal lecturing or of using scientific terminology. Actors either shied away from it or bandied technical terms about to give the impression that they understood, when in reality, they did not.
1 For a full account of the writing, translating, editing and publication of the work and on the differences between the American 1936 edition and the Soviet 1938 edition see my Stanislavski his Life and Art, 3rd edition, 1999.

Stanislavski’s ‘jargon’ is made up of disparate elements. Where possible he used ordinary, everyday words, what he called his ‘home-grown’ vocabulary. Thus when analyzing a play he did not talk about dividing it up into its component parts or sections, but of cutting it up into ‘Bits’ or pieces, as you would carve a lump of meat.2 In defining their course of action, actors set themselves ‘goals’, gave themselves simple, practical direct ‘Tasks’, not high-flown philosophical or emotional purposes. For the rest, he took what he could where he could. When he came to discuss non-verbal communication, he drew on concepts drawn from yoga which he had studied in the early 1900s. Where there were technical, scientific definitions such as intellect, feeling and will, he used them. Sometimes he would adapt words to suit his own purpose. This is the case with his decision to use the French word mise-en-scène/mises-en-scène to denote the outer stage action which literally ‘puts on stage’ the inner action of the play either as a whole or at individual moments.3 The most significant example, perhaps, is his use of the key term experiencing (perezhivanie) which denotes the process by which an actor engages actively with the situation in each and every performance. He was sometimes obliged, particularly when dealing with the subconscious to create his own terms and definitions which are often highly convoluted and confusing. The reader has to come to terms with the ‘jargon’ just as the students do in the book.
Indeed that is the book’s purpose: for the reader to experience the students’ learning process. As an aid, I have, as in previous books, given the major terms of ‘system’ initial capital letters to indicate their transformation from everyday words to technical definitions.
THE USA AND RUSSIA: A HISTORY OF PUBLICATION

An Actor Prepares

For commercial reasons, Part One, An Actor Prepares was reduced by Mrs Hapgood and Edith Isaacs, managing editor of Theatre Arts Books, to almost half its length. It loses its essential form as the diary of a first-year student, and becomes a straight narrative. Many of the lively classroom discussions where ideas are hammered out, not to mention the humour, disappeared. There is, in the original, no Director-enunciating principles in the abstract, but a rigorous and sympathetic teacher who guides students through a process of trial and error. Mrs Hapgood also decided not to use Stanislavski’s home-grown terms but to replace them with rather more abstract words. Thus, ‘Bit’ becomes ‘unit’.

Building A Character

Part Two, Building a Character again in the translation by Elizabeth Hapgood, presents much more serious editorial problems. Stanislavski did not live to complete Part Two. At his death in 1938 only one or two chapters, such as that on Speech existed in draft, although the overall contents of the book were clear. There were, in addition, a number of fragments of varying length that would have provided the basis for the completed manuscript.
Three versions of Part Two are available. The first, translated by Elizabeth Hapgood, which appeared in 1950, was based on material supplied by Stanislavski’s son, Igor. Mrs Hapgood believed that this material represented Stanislavski’s final thoughts. In 1955, Part Two appeared as Volume 3 in the 8-volume Soviet edition of Stanislavski’s Collected Works. It included material from the archives unavailable to Mrs Hapgood. It was presented as a reconstruction. In 1990, a further expanded version appeared as
Volume 3 of the new 9-volume edition of the Selected Works and was clearly marked Material for a Book. Although the 1955 and 1990 editions were fully annotated, no editorial work was done on the body of the text. Close examination of the published Russian texts reveals how rough a state the material is in. Much of it is drawn, as internal evidence indicates, from earlier periods of Stanislavski’s life, not from the mid-1930s. Many passages are variant versions of material that had already been used in Part One. Other material is repeated in more than one section. Even in apparently complete chapters there are repetitions. In the chapter on Speech, for example, punctuation, stress and pauses are discussed twice with slightly different examples. Some material
in the section The General Creative State may well have been intended for Chapter 15 of Part One. This is of interest to specialists and scholars, but if an attempt is to be made to produce a book which, in accordance with Stanislavski’s wishes is to be of practical use in actor training, to be used in conjunction with Part One, a degree of editorial work is necessary.
I have removed as far as possible redundant passages or material, which has been used in Part One. I have also removed the sections in the chapter on Speech which discuss the correct pronunciation of Russian consonants and which have little meaning for non-Russian speakers. Technical training in voice and body have advanced considerably in theatre schools and conservatoires since the 1930s so that some of Stanislavski’s ideas, which were pioneering at the time, are now of only historic interest. I have, therefore, edited and conflated two original chapters, Singing and Diction and Speech and its Laws into one, Voice and Speech. In the final chapters, Basics of the System and How to use the System, I have omitted almost entirely since they are fragmentary and largely summarize material from earlier sections. The revisions to Part One, which he intended for a second edition appear as Appendices at the end of the book, as do the practical exercises he suggested.
I have included Stanislavski’s original draft Preface, which has never been translated before. It was reconstructed by the editors of the current 9-volume from entries in Stanislavski’s Notebooks of the early 1930s. The original drafts set out his intentions much more clearly. The Preface to the 1938 Russian edition is essentially a political statement, a defence against criticisms he had received. I have also included in the Appendices the drafts Stanislavski made after the book had gone to the printer for a possible second edition.

THE ‘SYSTEM’ AND THE METHOD
One major obstacle to the proper understanding of Stanislavski’s teaching has been the widespread confusion between the ‘system’ and the Method as defined by Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio in New York. Strasberg was perfectly aware of the differences between his teaching and Stanislavski’s, which centred on the role of Emotion Memory.4 In the ‘system’ the primary emphasis is on action, interaction and the dramatic situation which result in feeling with Emotion Memory as a secondary, ancillary technique. In the Method, Emotion Memory is placed at the very centre; the actor consciously evokes personal feelings that correspond to the character, a technique, which Stanislavski expressly rejected. Whereas in the ‘system’ each section of the play contains something an actor has to do, in the Method it contains something he has to feel. Strasberg’s main concern was to enable the actor to unblock his emotions. There is little or no textual or dramaturgical analysis.
In the early 1950s, Strasberg took charge of the Actors’ Studio. The original founders, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis and Stella Adler were generally proponents of the ‘system’ in its late form. Adler spent six weeks in Paris in 1934 working with Stanislavski on the Method of Physical Action, which Strasberg categorically and angrily rejected when she explained it to him. A bitter dispute broke out among the teachers at the Studio.
4 See Chapter 9.

Strasberg was initially engaged exclusively as a teacher of theatre history and was not allowed to take acting classes since he was not trusted. It was with the departure of Elia Kazan to Hollywood that an opportunity arose for him to take over. He then refashioned the Studio in his own image. Indeed, he became the Studio; its teachings were his. It was in fact thanks to the impact of the films of Elia Kazan, and a series of commanding performances by actors such as Marlon Brando (taught by Stella Adler not Strasberg) that the Method achieved worldwide fame and was identified with the ‘system’. This was made possible because most actors and directors, as Stanislavski had feared, thought that An Actor Prepares, a cut version of half a book, was the complete ‘system’. The ‘system’ meant subjectivity and emotion.5 To compound the confusion, the term perezhivanie (experiencing) was commonly translated as ‘emotional identification’.
In the 1950s only one or two acting schools in the UK taught the ‘system’ as laid down by Stanislavski himself. Again the ‘system’ was identified with the Method, which was generally derided by successful professionals. Only Michael Redgrave, among the leading actors of his time had any real understanding of Stanislavski. It is only in the last thirty years that Stanislavski’s authentic teachings have become known in university drama departments and theatre acting schools. Yet even comparatively well-informed people still confuse the ‘system’ and the Method acting, hence the importance of reaffirming the integrity of Stanislavski’s thought.

THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK

A note should be added about the names of the characters in the book. Stanislavski followed a tradition by which characters were given names that reflected the essential nature of their personalities. Stanislavski becomes Tortsov, which derives from the word for creator. Tortsov is a combination of the mature Stanislavski and his mentor, the leading tenor of the Bolshoi, Fydor Komissarzhevski. The student keeping the diary is Nazvanov, meaning the chosen one. He is a combination of the young Stanislavski, with the same first name Kostya (Konstantin) and Stanislavski’s favourite pupil, Vakhtangov, who first came to Stanislavski’s attention as a stenographer. Other students are called Brainy, Fatty, Prettyface, Big-mouth, Youngster, Happy, Showy. These linguistic niceties are lost on non-Russian speakers. Indeed, the simple pronunciation of Russian names presents difficulties which can be a barrier to understanding.
5 For a detailed analysis of the problem, see Richard Horby, The End of Acting, Applause Books, 2000.

Mrs Hapgood wisely, and probably with Stanislavski’s agreement, gave each of the students first names and I, like translators into other languages, have followed her example.

The pupils
Darya Dymkova
Grisha Govorkov
Marya Maloletkova
Konstantin (Kostya) Nazvanov
Leo Pushchin
Pavel (Pasha) Shustov
Nikolai Umnovikh
Varya Veliaminova
Igor Veselovski
Ivan (Vanya) Viuntsov

The teachers
Ivan Rakhmanov
Arkady Tortsov

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my profound gratitude to Katya Kamotskaia, a professional actress and director, and graduate of the Vakhtangov Acting School in Moscow, for going through the draft translation and making many invaluable suggestions as to meaning and nuance. Our joint study of Stanislavski’s often convoluted and opaque text revealed the difficulties his style presents even for native Russian speakers when attempting to decipher his meaning. The final translation is the result of many hours of detailed discussion.

Jean Benedetti
October 2007

Method acting theory

Bertolt Brecht.

We have to say that presentational styles were dominant in films produced before 1908, and they have used various terms, including "histrionic," "melodramatic," and "romantic," to describe acting in early cinema. The salient point in their studies is that the early years of Anglo-European cinema often featured performances with emphatic and highly expressive postures and gestures. Linked to theatrical traditions in which tableaux were important, early film performances were marked by poses that forcefully embodied the emotional or narrative situation.
Many scholars see a transition in the 1910s from presentational to representational acting styles. The change in Method acting style is linked to the rise of naturalism in late-nineteenth-century theater and to developments in film practice as the movies became an entertainment form for middle-class audiences. Scholars have used terms such as "verisimilar acting," "naturalistic performance," and "realistic acting" to describe the representational styles of Method acting that accompanied the transition to feature-length films and the rise of the star Stanislavsky system. In contrast to the emphatic poses featured in presentational Method acting styles, representational Method Acting acting involves extensive use of props, blocking, and stage business to reveal dramatic conflict and characters' inner experiences.
By the 1920s representational Method acting styles were the norm in Anglo-European filmmaking, and thus an aspect of film practice open to challenge. While mainstream cinema continued to feature representational Method acting styles, filmmakers inspired by Soviet cinema rejected them on the grounds that they were one of the culture industry's more insidious methods for instilling false consciousness in mass audiences. Turning instead to epic theater and documentary forms, leftist filmmakers produced work such as Kuhle Wampe (1932) and Native Land (1942). Creating work that sometimes is compared to surrealist films of the 1920s and 1930s, experimental artists began using presentational Method acting styles to illustrate archetypical figures in dreamlike narratives such as Meshes in the Afternoon (1943).
Impatient with the conventions of commercial film and theater, modernists such as Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930) found inspiration in stage productions mounted by Bertolt Brecht's (1898–1956) Berliner Ensemble in the 1950s. The influence of Brecht's views on dramatic art is visible in films directed by Godard and in the work of filmmakers such as Danièle Huillet (b. 1936) and Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933), who were influenced by Godard's contributions to the French New Wave. In this line of modernist cinema, characters are presented as social types or stereotypes. Dispassionate performances obscure access to characters' inner experiences. Functioning as news readers more than characters, actors break the illusion of the fictional world by using direct address; working as cultural or media images more than characters, actors become pieces of the film's graphic design.
In Godard's films, Method acting performance elements are just one part of an audiovisual collage. Performances function independently of or in counterpoint to framing, editing, camera movement, and other cinematic elements. As models of social types, Godard's actors display little or no emotion. They often convey information about their characters' social and narrative situation by reenacting a gesture or assuming a pose drawn from film and media culture. For example, in a scene in Àbout de souffle (Breathless, 1960), Jean-Paul Belmondo (b. 1933) pensively draws his thumb across his lips, emulating a gesture his character has seen on a poster of Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957).
Brecht's writing on epic theater prompted film critics to see the truncated Method acting performance style in modernist films as "Brechtian." The term served to differentiate the minimalist presentation of social types from the more histrionic style used in early cinema. With impassive performances in modernist films identified as Brechtian, expressive performances in a representational Method acting style came to be seen as "Stanislavskian." The connection between representational Method acting performance styles and the Russian actor-director-theorist Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky (1863–1938) is not surprising. In 1906 the Moscow Art Theatre's first European tour prompted theater critics to discuss the marvelous details of the actors' stage business. Their reviews called attention to the actors' ability to create the impression of everyday life. During the Moscow Art Theatre's tours in America in 1923 and 1924, which featured productions from the company's 1906 tour (Tsar Fyodor, The Lower Depths, The Cherry Orchard, and The Three Sisters), American critics were MARLON BRANDO b. Omaha, Nebraska, 3 April 1924, d. 1 July 2004

Marlon Brando - the Method Acting actor:

Marlon Brando is often considered by many to be America's greatest actor in Method acting. He made his stage debut in 1944 and won acclaim for his 1947 performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Following his film debut in 1950 Brando quickly became the preeminent Method acting actor in postwar America. He received Academy Award® nominations for his performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), and Julius Caesar (1953), and an Oscar® for his performance in On the Waterfront (1954).
Publicity surrounding these films helped to establish the idea that Brando's acclaimed performances represented the arrival of Method acting in Hollywoodand America. To understand Brando's work as a Method acting actor, however, it is important to recognize that the principles of Method acting and actor training associated with the Method acting were developed by three different individuals: Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner. Each focused on different methods of preparation and character development: Strasberg focused on affective memory, Adler emphasized imagination, and Meisner stressed the importance of actors' connection. Brando took classes at the Actors Studio when it opened in New York in 1947, but he did not study with Strasberg, who joined the Actors Studio in 1948 and became its artistic director in 1951. Instead, beginning in 1942, Brando studied with Adler at the New School in New York. The New School's Dramatic Workshop, established by Erwin Piscator, who established the principles of epic theater that Bertolt Brecht would make famous, gave Brando the chance to perform in Shakespearean and symbolist productions. Studying with Adler, Brando was trained not to use memory and personal history as the basis for developing characterizations, but to enter into a character's fictional world by studying the script and historical accounts that would shed light on the character's given circumstances.
Working with Adler also instilled in Brando the belief that Method acting actors were not isolated artists, but instead citizens who should have a point of view about society. Brando's decision to protest Hollywood's representations of Native Americans by declining the Academy Award® for his performance in The Godfather (1972) is seen by many critics as a flamboyant gesture of a short-lived political stance. Yet, careful review of the roles Brando selected throughout his career reveal an engaged and long-standing interest in decrying the unchecked exercise of power. Brando's characterizations in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and Burn! (1969) are especially rich for their depiction of power's devastating effects. His portrayals in The Ugly American (1963), The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now (1979) are good examples of his ability to craft performances in Method acting that suggest the allure and the ruthlessness of men who operate beyond the boundary of social norms. While he is often associated with the rebel characters he portrayed, Brando is best understood as a gifted Method acting actor, skilled enough to create performances that also invariably exposed the downside of rogue masculinity.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Wild One (1954), On the Waterfront (1954), The Young Lions (1958), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Burn! (Queimada!, 1969), The Godfather (1972), Last Tango in Paris (1973), Apocalypse Now (1979), A Dry White Season (1989)
FURTHER READING
Brando, Marlon, with Robert Lindsey. Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me. New York: Random House, 1994.
Hodge, Alison, ed. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Krasner, David, ed. Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.
McCann, Graham. Rebel Males: Clift, Brando, and Dean. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
Shipman, David. Brando. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1974.
Cynthia Baron

Portrait of Marlon Brando at the time of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), is equally impressed by the simplicity and naturalness of the actor's Method acting performances.
There is a connection between the multidimensional "The System" Konstantin Stanislavsky developed over the course of his career and representational Method acting performance styles because the Stanislavsky System included new methods that Method actors could use to prepare for and execute Method acting performances suited to the demands of late-nineteenth-century naturalism. For example, in place of studying painting or sculpture to create poses that would reveal characters' emotional states, method actors using Stanislavsky's System learned to use script analysis to understand a character's circumstances and a script's fictional world. Rather than working to create certain images in their performances, Stanislavsky's actors trained in Method acting turned to historical research and observation of everyday life. This research provided the basis for actors training in Method acting imaginative creation of details about their characters' life history and social environment. When combined with exercises that enhanced Method actors' ability to relax on stage and focus their attention on fellow actors in Method acting, the process of script analysis devised by Method of Stanislavsky System made it possible for Method actors to create Method acting performances that seemed to be lifted from everyday life.
From the 1920s forward, most actors in the United States have approached Method acting performance using strategies based on their understanding of the approach to Method actor training, character development, and performance outlined in the Stanislavsky System. In the 1930s dialogue directors, who worked with film Method actors to develop characterizations, and drama coaches, who developed actor-training programs for the studios, became an integral part of Hollywood's industrial production process. At institutions such as the American Academy of Dramatic Art and the Pasadena Playhouse, Method actors working in film learned scientific, modern, and systematic methods for developing characterizations and working in film. Many film Method actors took classes at the Actors Laboratory in Hollywood, which was established in 1941 by Group Theatre actors Morris Carnovsky (1897–1992), Roman Bohnen (1894–1949), J. Edward Bromberg (1903–1951), and Phoebe Brand (1907–2004) (all of whom shared Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner's opposition to Lee Strasberg's interpretation of Stanislavsky). Courses at the Actors Lab and at long-established institutions, and working sessions with drama coaches such as Sophie Rosenstein, were all grounded in Stanislavsky's view that Method actors must ask what the character would do in the given circumstances. In the late 1940s, when studios reduced their investment in contract players and communist-front allegations forced the Actors Lab to close, Robert Lewis (1909–1997), Elia Kazan (1909–2003), and Cheryl Crawford (1902–1986) established the Actors Studio in New York. Soon after, Lee Strasberg (1901–1982) assumed the role of artistic director, and in the decades that followed, Strasberg popularized the American Method acting, which inverts Stanislavsky's System by encouraging the Method acting actor to ask how he or she would feel in the character's situation.
The distinction scholars seek to describe by referring to Brechtian and Stanislavskian Method acting performance styles is an important one, but it is better understood as a contrast between presentational and representational styles. In a Hollywood studio–era film such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939), editing and framing choices are subordinate to Method actors' movements and facial expressions. Like the film's musical score and sound design, they serve to enhance audience access to characters' subjective experience and desires. Method actors' performances are designed to disclose the inner lives of their characters. By comparison, in a modernist film such as Godard's Weekend (1967), editing and frame compositions often exclude close-ups. That approach eliminates cathartic or emotion-laden moments from the screen. Weekend's editing, framing, sound design, and camera movement also are often unrelated to Method actors' movements or interactions, serving instead to provide commentary on the film's polemical vignettes. The figures in the film are not defined by their personality traits, but instead represent social types shaped entirely by external forces.
As shorthand, it might make sense to discuss Stanislavskian Method acting performances in films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Brechtian performances in films such as Weekend, but doing that obscures important information about the multifaceted system Stanislavsky developed. Today, scholars and practitioners alike recognize that Stanislavsky's System can be used to create a range of Method acting performances styles. They see the value of analyzing scripts to understand the problems characters need to solve to reach their goals, the specific actions characters will use to reach their goals, and the structure of scenes that arises from the actions characters take in pursuit of their goals. Many scholars now recognize that Brecht actually used Stanislavsky's System to develop Method acting performances and that Brecht's approach to staging required Method actors to use direct address, truncated performances, and animated Method acting styles imbued with the dynamic energy of circus and music hall performances.
Describing Method acting performances in mainstream Hollywood films as Stanislavskian and performances in modernist European films as Brechtian dissuades observers from seeing that even in largely representational performances, Method actors step outside their characters to comment on their characters and on their Method acting performances. What makes Method acting performances so compelling in Cassavetes's films, for example, is the fact that they not only create memorable characters, but also contain moments when Method actors seem to comment on the narrative and on their participation in the film. The Brechtian potential of Stanislavskian Method acting performances is also disclosed by many of Orson Welles's performances. His portrayals in Jane Eyre (1944), The Third Man (1949), The Long Hot Summer (1958), Touch of Evil (1958), and Campanadas a medianoche (Chimes at Midnight, 1965) do not simply present audiences with a character, or even the star Method acting performance of a character. Instead, Welles's portrayals enlist sympathy for the characters, critique the social and economic conditions the characters exemplify, and comment on Welles as an artist working in a capital-intensive industry.

Method acting theory

Method acting teachers and directors

About Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold - Method acting coach:

Meyerhold's revolutionary Biomechanics technique was first shown publicly in June of 1922. Meyerhold introduced the Method acting technique within the confines of the new sociopolitical structure of the Soviet Union. The Communist revolution moved society into a mechanical age; one who puts the skilled worker at the forefront of citizenry and societal involvement. It is the age of the scientific revolution based heavily on Taylorism, posited by Frederick Taylor, writer of The Principles of Scientific Management. In his book, Frederick Taylor speaks of a system “designed to increase industrial output by rationalizing the production process. Meyerhold said in June 1922:

In the past the Method actor has always conformed to the society for which his art was intended. In future the Method actor must go even further in relating his technique to the industrial situation. For he will be working in a society where labour is no longer regarded as a curse but as a joyful, vital necessity. In these conditions of ideal labour art clearly requires a new foundation […] The Method actor embodies in himself both the organizer and that which is organized (i.e. the artist and his material). The formula for Method acting may be expressed as follows: N = A1 + A2 (where N = the Method actor; A1 = the artist who conceives the idea and issues the instructions necessary for its execution; A2 = the executant who executes the conception of A1). The Method actor must train his material (the body), so that so that it is capable of executing instantaneously those tasks that are dictated externally (by the Method actor, the director…) […] since the art of the Method actor is the art of plastic forms in space, he must study the mechanics of his body.

Meyerhold would go on to underscore that everything in psychology, and therefore emotion is dictated by physiological process; or put more plainly, movement. In this seminal demonstration, Meyerhold’s students exhibited a number of Biomechanical “études.” The études are basically movement scores, or a series of movements that, in a way, tell a short story; comprising a score from the sum of their parts. The études demonstrate what Meyerhold and his pupils called “acting cycles.” The acting cycle has three parts: Intention, realization, and reaction.
The separate movements are comprised of four distinct parts, they are: otkas (literally, refusal), posyl (literally, the sending), stoika (or stance), and tormos (the brake). The otkas is the movement in preparation of the action itself and is manifested in a movement in the opposite direction, like a spring. The posyl is the actual execution of the intended action, set up by the otkas. And the stoika is both the completion of the movement (coming to a halt) as well as the starting block for the next movement in an étude. Tormos is the “brake” or “resistance.” It is that which helps the body to move in a fluid and controlled motion through all stages of a movement. The Method actor not utilizing tormos will be sloppy and unmeasured; without precision in the otkas, posyl, and stoika. Some examples of solo classical études are “Throwing the Stone,” and “Shooting from the Bow.” In addition, each étude begins and ends with the “Daktyl,” a rhythmic movement including all the parts of a Biomechanical movement (otkas, posyl, stoika, tormos). This movement is meant to set the rhythmic and energetic tone for the execution of the etude.
Before an Method actor can begin to work on the études in a truly meaningful way, they must be subject to rigorous physical Method acting training to develop muscle, balance, and flexibility, as well as participating in exercises that develop a sense of their spacial relationship to and awareness of the other Method actors on stage and the environment. Once the Method actor has completed these exercises and has worked on the individual études, they can begin working on études with a partner. In these two-person études, the Method actors share a movement score and must work together through observation and response. Some examples of classical études are “The Slap,” “The Stab with the Dagger,” and “The Leap onto the Chest.”
These exercises in Biomechanics have as their basis, a technique of Method acting which does not exclude psychological or emotional response, but instead, posits a new process for achieving said response, as well as creating expressionistic arrangements of the body in space. In Meyerhold’s Biomechanics the inner is derived from the outer; it is the physiologicalMethod acting work which excites the psychological. The Method actor therefore must internalize the basic principles of Biomechanics as a result of their work. This includes the crucial “Principle of Totality,” which is the idea of the entire body being involved in every single physical movement; and with regards to center of gravity, tension and release, and rhythm of movement.
Advanced work in Biomechanics includes music with the études (including piano pieces Meyerhold originally selected for specific movement scores). Since the outer physiology prescribes the inner emotion, once the Method actors have mastered the études, they are invited to vary the movement score by “structuring it emotionally.” There is most certainly a large element of improvisation that will happen at this point, as the Method actors are able to communicate with each other in profoundly visceral ways and manipulate their bodies to the fullest extent. The Method actors respond to each other as well as to the introduced music, sometimes working with it and sometimes against it.
When one watches a Biomechanical Method acting etude they cannot help but reflect on the seemingly melodramatic and overly emphatic nature of the movement scores (especially one like “the stab with the dagger”; but Meyerhold was battling naturalism, and was heavily influenced by the “over-the-top” style of commedia dell’ arte. He wanted Method actors in his Method acting productions who would not say things like “my character wouldn’t do that,” because if Meyerhold prescribed a physical activity, the Method actor must perform it and derive the inner emotional response from the physical activity he was performing (hence the N = A1 + A2 equation). This way of moving is far removed from any type of natural behavior, and that is exactly what Meyerhold strived for. His “Theatre of the Grotesque” employed a philosophy that art and life were completely different, and should make no attempt to imitate each other. It is no surprise, in many ways, that it is a director and Method acting coach who developed it, based on the sort of productions he wanted to make, and the inability of the Stanislavskian Method actor to meet the challenges therein.
In production, Biomechanics first appeared in Meyerhold’s Method acting production of The Magnanimous Cuckold Meyerhold said of the production, “With this production we hoped to lay the basis for a new form of theatrical presentation with no need for illusionistic settings or complicated props, making due with the simplest objects which came to hand and transforming a spectacle performed by specialists into an improvised performance which could be put on by workers in their leisure time.” Throughout the rehearsal process for the Method acting performance, the Method actors had been training in all sorts of physical technique in everything from tumbling and fencing to mime (and, as we came to learn, Biomechanics as well; in fact, the seminal movement of the étude “The Leap to The Chest” was featured, and it is likely that many others were as well).
Biomechanicstrains the body in a codified way to work from the outside in. To tap into a psychological and emotional life through the outer physical form, and a codification of Method acting training. These Method actors trained in Biomechanics are truly athletes.
The development of Meyerhold’s Biomechanics is a clear product of Meyerhold’s interpolation of experience over time. It combines Japanese movement sensibilities, commedia dell’ arte, plasticity, musical rhythm, and science to the ends of creating a very specific aesthetic for a very specific ideology of what theatre should look like. To quote Anton Chekhov in a conversation with an Method actor during a rehearsal of his play, The Seagull: “The stage is art. There’s a genre painting by Kramskoy in which the faces are portrayed superbly. What would happen if you cut the nose out of one of the paintings and substituted a real one? The nose would be ‘realistic’ but the picture would be ruined.”
The bio-mechanical system of the Method acting Coach Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold can be defined not only as a system for the basic grounding of Method actors and stage articulation, but also (although not quite finalised, is still well enough set out) of a global theatrical system. In connection with this, one should bear in mind the opinion stated by Aleksey Aleksandrovich Gvozdev, who, when speaking about a theatrical system, refers to it as the "relationship between dramaturgy, stage, Method actor’s performance and the spectators." Coming in between the interaction of these four elements: stage area, audience, Method actor’s performance and dramatic substance, followed by the theatre Method acting director with his role as an innovative power to elevate all these elements, one can find the main features of the creative work of Vsevolod Emilevich, and in the same scope, the theory of biomechanics. Among the first theoretical and practical innovations which Meyerhold introduced through his text as a Method acting theatre director, is the re-structuring of the stage, deconstruction of the stage area and the abandonment of the concept of "a box without the fourth wall". His reformation of the stage begins with the approach to Method acting style, published during his period at the Theater-Studio. This stylisation leads Meyerhold - the Method acting coach, to the "arrangement of the stage with flat surfaces", specifically, to eliminate the scenery and present the Method actor, as a pricipal mechanism for theatrical expression, as the "setting". This is the beginning of the deconstruction of the stage space, inherited from the old theatre, the theatre called by Aleksey Gvozdev "a theatre of the Renaissance", which, apart from anything else, encourages the box-stage idea. The de-structuring of the stage made Meyerhold take an interest in theatrical Method acting systems which had abandoned the box-stage, more precisely, in the theater of the pre-Renaissance period, mainly the Spanish theater, commedia dell’arte and, certainly, the ancient theater: "If the Conditional theater prefers the destruction of decorations , despises ramps , isn’t that theater leading to the resurrection of the theater from antiquity? Yes, it is. The ancient theater, judging by its architecture, is a theatre which contains everything necessary to our contemporary theatre: it has no decorations, the space is in three dimensions. The ancient theater with its simplicity, with its auditorium in the shape of a horse-shoe, with its orchestra, is a unique theater which can be used for a varied repertoire: Fairground Booth of Blok, The Life of Man of Andreyev, the tragedies of Maeterlinck..."
The disarrangement of the stage, which in practice began in the Theater-Studio, and which was theoretically explained in the article "To the history and technique of the theater", had its climax in the constructive solution of the The Magnificent Cuckold and The Death of Tarelkin. The stage in these two Method acting performances not only resembles the renaissance box, but is also made as dynamic as possible and put completely to the benefit of the performance itself. It is stripped to the maximum extent, left with only enough elements to enable the Method actor to convey his art. So, in the 20’s, Meyerhold’s dreams from 1912 finally came true, when he published To The History And Technique Of The Theater: the props on stage are not mise en scene any more, but rather a supplement to the actor’s body and movement. Thus, the wings of the windmill in The Magnificent Cuckold rotate in strictly defined moments, actors vigorously pass through the meat-grinding machine in The Death of Tarelkin, the stairs in the Cuckold are a three-dimensional extension of the area used. The lighting is also subservient to the arrangement of the stage area. Meyerhold is one of the first Method acting theatre directors of the 20th century who moved the lighting from the stage to the auditorium. In addition, Meyerhold elevated the role of light and lighting to a level equal to the role of music and rhythm in the Method acting performance. "The light should touch the spectator as does music. Light must have its own rhythm, the score of light can be composed on the same principle as that of the sonata."
Disarrangement of the "box-stage" in the Method acting theatrical system inevitably includes another element, which is very important to Meyerhold – the spectator. An imaginary wall of the room no longer separates the stage from the auditorium. Method Actors do not play "as if they are alone"; and they are supposed to be aware of the audience’s reaction at any moment: "A specific peculiarity of the actor’s creativity (as opposed to the originality of the playwright, the theatre director or the other artists) is that the creative process is being conducted in front of the audience. As a result, the actor and the spectator are interposing a particular mutual relationship, specifically, the actor puts the spectator in the position of a sounding board, which reacts to every action upon his command. And vice versa – sensing his own resonator (the audience), the actor immediately reacts, by improvisation, to all the demands coming from the audience. Following a series of signs (noise, movement, laughter etc.), the actor must define the attitude of the audience towards the performance correctly." Thus, Meyerhold contends, the goal will be achieved – "having control over the audience, arousing even the most indifferent spectator’s emotions." The Method acting theatre director must also think of the structure of spectators and their reactions while creating the play: "A theatre director makes a great mistake if he does not take account of the audience while preparing the play..." In order to fulfil this request, Method acting coach - Meyerhold thinks that "primarily, the spectator should be placed so that the rhythm of the play can reach right down inside him." Therefore the proscenium, as the best way of reaching this goal, is introduced. The proscenium of Vsevolod Emilevich is the bridge between the stage and the auditorium, enabling the audience to infiltrate their emotions into the play. The function of the proscenium, its redesign in fact, offered a new role to the audience, and led to the final destruction of the box-stage. According to Vsevolod Emilevich, the architecture of the Renaissance theater, by its separation from the auditorium seats, balconies and boxes, does not correspond to the essence of theater itself, since the spectator is set apart from the play. Furthermore, such separation is not suitable because of the different angles from which the audience follows the events on the stage. (This attitude, expressed in 1934, corresponds to the systems of a triangle-theater and straight line-theater, mentioned by Vsevolod Emilevich in 1912. In the triangle-theater, the spectator is outside the triangle, while in the straight line-theater, the audience is already involved within the Method acting theatrical structure. Meyerhold chose the straight line-theater, which offers many opportunities to the Method acting theatre director to emphasize the temporary nature, as a natural feature of the scenic art). In order to avoid separation of the audience from the play and at the same time, involving the audience into the Method acting play, Meyerhold suggests, firstly, "disarrangement of the box-stage. The first attack was made by those who extended the proscenium deep inside the auditorium. The new theatre will have no box-stage; there is only the proscenium, where the Method action takes place. In the ancient theatre, that place was called the orchestra. The orchestra can have a circular, quadrangular, trianglular or elliptical shape, it does not matter which. Its shape meets the demands of the composition, as decided by the Method acting theatre director, as the creator of the whole project."
The contemporaries of Vsevolod Emilevich reacted noisily to his interpretation of the dramaturgical material. It is the dramaturgical material, not the dramaturgy! It develops from the material shaped by the Method acting theatre director according to his own needs, depending upon the imaginary structure of the play and upon one’s own theatrical aesthetics. At this point, one can see the serious disagreement between the attitudes Meyerhold - the Method acting coach, held in his early years to those of his mature ones. While in 1912, he considered that "the new theater arises from literature", ten years later Vsevolod Emilevich had no time to wait for the dramaturgy which corresponds to his theater, but "he takes over the initiative himself and uses his own theatrical methods in order to imbue a new spirit into the old body." With Meyerhold, the issue of which element had priority: drama text – theater, simply does not exist. Everything is subordinated to the Method acting theatrical expression as a whole. Therefore, without having any prejudice, in 1924 he dissects the play The Forest by the classicist Ostrovsky into 33 episodes, thus abandoning all the "rules of fine behaviour" and respect to Russian classical dramaturgy. Moscow, as well as the whole of theatrical Russia was scandalized in 1926, finding Gogol’s The Government Inspector, (sometimes titled The Inspector General) completely changed. Meyerhold remodelled the Gogol’s comedy, deleting whole scenes, makes one character out of two. The outcome was: Vsevolod Emilevich created a performance in which there are only traces of Gogol; however, the theatre director Meyerhold is constantly present. Vsevolod Emilevich, while analyzing The Government Inspector in front of his theatre staff, says: "What makes this play difficult is that, like other plays, it is directed towards the Method actor, not towards the Method acting theatre director." Meyerhold is quite certain about who should manage the complex theatrical mechanism Therefore, the Master, should "create (through changes in the text, amongst other things) a situation which would be easiest for the actor, enabling him to put on the performance without any difficulties." Such an approach gives the Method acting theatre director an opportunity to model the text and adjust the dramaturgical material to his own theatrical and aesthetic needs and principles. At the same time, the Method acting theatre director, while selecting the play, is no more limited by the dramaturgic or literary values of the text. Simply, it is possible to take low-quality dramatic material and re-arrange it. The limits, in this case, are set only by the creative powers of the Method acting theatre director and of the Method actors.
Finally, we have reached the fourth basic element in the Method acting theatrical system advocated by Meyerhold: the Method acting coach and actor. Prior to giving a resume of Vsevolod Emilevich’s attitudes about the method actor and actor’s play, we will briefly point to the specific relationship between the Method acting actor and the Method acting theatre director in Meyerhold’s theatrical concept. Very often, at different times and at different places, Meyerhold defines the Method actor as the main, fundamental element of the Method acting theatrical performance. At first sight, such a definition is opposed to his proclaimed attitude that the theater of Vsevolod Emilevich is a director’s theatre, a Method acting system where the Method acting theatre director is the principal creator of the play. But only at first glance. Specifically, since the Method actor is, to Vsevolod Emilevich, the central figure in the theater, he is the only "medium" by which the Method acting theatrical director’s ideas can be transmitted to the audience. Therefore, in one of his appeals, Meyerhold calls the Method actors "living representatives of the theatre director’s idea." Certainly, in order to be successful, the actor should have great natural creativity, in order to convey the Method acting theatre director’s instructions through his own creative filter. According to Vsevolod Emilevich, the task of the Method acting theatre director is "to sublimate certain elements of the play, certain characters, each part, into an organic whole, suitable to his own general idea of the complete play." On the other hand, the actor’s task, while accepting some of the Method acting theatre director’s ideas about his character, is to convey them through his own creative filter and transfer them to the audience. The main issue in this piece of work is to study this transmission, namely, the manner of the Method actor’s performance and the preparations for that Method acting performance.
The biomechanics, conceived by Vsevolod Emilevich, is simultaneously both a particular Method acting system for actor’s training and a way of an actor’s performance, whose purpose is to effect the main request made by Meyerhold on the stage, a request which he had made as early as 1905, in the theater studio, and didn’t give up until his imprisonment in 1939: the flexibility of the Method actor to convey his own creation through his body (consciously controlled!) and his movements. "The creativity of the actor is shown in his movements, which are, through the excitement, enriched by glare, colours and skills in order to stimulate the spectator’s imagination." The biomechanic Method acting system, according to Meyerhold, "is not a theatrical system, nor a specific kind of training; it is a part of the exercises in the area of culture." However, this training is completely integrated within Meyerhold’s theatrial system, requiring the actor to be a perfect machine using the material performed in front of the audience – his body, to the utmost limits: "The material of the actor’s art is the human body, i.e. the torso, the limbs, the head and the voice. While studying his material, the actor should not rely upon the anatomy, but upon the possibilities of his body, as a material for stage performance. "
The biomechanical way of Method acting training the actor’s body starts from the principles of tailoring the movements. The theory of Frederick Winslow Taylor for rejecting all unnecessary movements during the work, in order to reach greater productivity and effectiveness, and reduce the consumption of physical power of the worker, corresponds to Meyerhold’s experiments in the theater and to his searching for an Method actor who will respond to these experiments. "In the work process, it is possible not only to distribute properly the rest period, says Meyerhold in one of his speeches, but it is necessary to find such moments during work, (Meyerhold’s italics – M. P.) which will thus provide the very best use of the whole working time. This refers completely to the Method acting actor of a future theater." The part which Meyerhold stressed in this declaration is, in fact an improvement of Taylor’s theory. However, Vsevolod Emilevich, in his creative demands, cannot be reduced to beeing a mere imitator of the thesis "man-machine", which was very popular in Soviet Russia in the years after the October Revolution. It is quite clear that he recognizes the Method actor as some kind of a machine (one of the principles of biomechanics says: "the body is a machine, the worker is a machinist"), with a very important correction – he lets the actor preserve creativity in his acting. That is the idea of actor’s ambiguity. Specifically, starting from Coquelin senior, saying that the actor is both a creator and a substance to the creativity, Meyerhold says: "It seems that in each actor, when starting to play his role, there are two actors: the first one is himself, the actor who actually exists and is ready to play the role on stage – A1, and the second, who doesn’t yet exist, whom the actor is ready to send on stage – A2. A1 looks upon A2 as material which still needs to be worked upon. Firstly, A1 should consider A2 within the stage area, since it is clear that the actor’s performance depends greatly upon the size of the stage, its shape etc." Such a structured concept of the actor’s technique is linked to the need for "excitement", as a necessary element in the actor’s art. To Meyerhold, "the excitement is the capability to convey an externally received task through feelings, movements and words. The co-ordinated demonstration of reflecting excitement, in fact, represent the Method acting actor’s performance." The actor-creator (A1 – using the terminology of Vsevolod Emilevich), quite consciously, using his previous knowledge, capabilities, physical abilities and, of course, following the theatre director’s own concept, shapes the material which is at his disposal -- primarily his own body. Up until now, the need for biomechanics and its principles, primarily as a method of training for an actor, but also as a principle for stage performance, has only been applied to its fullest extent in a couple of performances (in the Magnificent Cuckold and in the Death of Tarelkin). From this point of view, The Cuckold is, perhaps, the most extreme example of Meyerhold’s work, but, as Vsevolod Emilevich says, "The Generous Cuckold" "was to demonstrate the basis of the new technique of the play in a new artistic situation," particularly, to raise the actors’ performance to the absolute limits of the experiment, to test in practice the theoretical surmises of Meyerhold and his colleagues.
Biomechanics, in a way, raises these theoretical attitudes to their culminating height. Vsevolod Emilevich said, "if the tip of the nose works – so does the whole body". This continues the tradition of stressing the need for an Method acting actor "to observe himself" on the stage, in other words, stressing (once again) the actor as one who synthesises both the creation and the material from which that creation is made. This idea means that an Method acting actor has to be capable of "co-ordinating in the space and on stage, the ability to find himself in the whole course of the play, the ability to adjust and the ability to define visually the distance between actors on the stage." The actor must have these qualities in order to construct the whole performance in the best possible way and to give the theatre director (the final sublimater of the creativity of all participants in the theatre) the means by which to plan the development of the performance to the smallest detail.
One should bear in mind that the whole concept of the actor’s performance, the introduction of biomechanics into the theatre, is, as far as Meyerhold is concerned, only part of a constant effort to define a theater which will go back to the roots of the theater, which will resurrect the inherited dependence of the theatre, as a working principle. Whatever variety there was in his creative work, whatever verbal inconsistencies and contradictions there may have been, Meyerhold’s creative work has, over forty years, been directed towards one unique goal: not to let theater be the same as life.
Translation: Evdokija Zafirovska

Meyerhold's Biomechanics

About Vsevolod Meyerhold http://web.syr.edu/~kjbaum/aboutvsevolodmeyerhold.html
(10. 2. 2008):
Vsevolod Emilovich Meyerhold (1874-1940) was one of two actors fresh out of drama school who were invited to join the newly formed Moscow Art Theatre in the spring of 1898. (The other was Olga Knipper, Chekhov’s future wife.) Meyerhold stayed with the Art Theatre for four years, playing approximately eighteen roles-including Treplev in the Art Theatre’s original production of Chekhov’s Seagull.
Meyerhold became increasingly interested in exploring other theatrical forms in addition to the Realism/ Naturalism of the Art Theatre. His real interest was no longer in a theatre that seeks to "recreate" life and whose laws are those of "nature." Rather, Meyerhold sought a theatre capable of revealing "inner dialogue by means of the music of plastic movement" (Meyerhold on Theatre, Edward Braun). Meyerhold left the Art Theatre and began developing his own aesthetic.
Meyerhold regarded movement, gesture, space, rhythm and "music" as the primary elements of the "language of the theatre." He dreamed of "retheatricalizing" the theatre, of creating a theatre that would give its audience truthful images of life but that wouldn’t seek to imitate or copy life.
A Method acting director should, according to Meyerhold, begin his work in rehearsal with the search for form. And this search begins with the creation of a "movement score" for the production. The director’s task is to create "a pattern of movement on the stage" by means of a "deft mastery of line, grouping and costume color" (V. E. Meyerhold quoted in Braun). Movement on the stage is created not only by "movement in the literal sense, but by the disposition of lines and colours and by the ease and cunning with which these lines and colours are made to cross and vibrate" (V. E. Meyerhold quoted in Braun).
Meyerhold’s directorial experiments led to an invitation from Stanislavsky to head a new experimental Studio at the Art Theatre. While this first Studio was short-lived, Meyerhold’s work there led him to a crucial realization. There was a general consensus among theatre people who had seen dress rehearsals that there were some interesting experiments in suggestive and nonrepresentational design, but that the acting was terrible. The actors were simply not equipped to meet the demands Meyerhold made of them. Meyerhold realized that from now on an exploration of actor training was going to have to run in tandem with his exploration of form in the theatre. Like the American pioneers in modern dance after him, he would have to create a system for training artists that would enable them to give life to the forms he envisioned. For the next thirty-five years, Meyerhold explored a vast array of styles as a director and developed the system of actor training and approach to theatre that would become known as "Biomechanics."

Meyerhold's Biomechanics http://web.syr.edu/~kjbaum/meyerholdsbiomechanics.html
(10. 2. 2008):
"If the tip of the nose works, the whole body works."
V. E. Meyerhold
Biomechanics is an approach to actor training and to theatre developed by Russian Method actor, director and teacher, Vsevolod Meyerhold during the 1920’ and 1930’s. For political reasons, Biomechanics was forced underground after Meyerhold’s execution by the Soviet regime in 1940. During the 1970’s it began to re-emerge semi-secretly.
In 1972 Moscow’s prestigious Theatre of Satire invited the teacher of Biomechanics from Meyerhold’s own school, Nikolai Kustov, to train a group of the Theatre’s young actors. One of these was Gennadi Bogdanov. Mr. Bogdanov has become one of the leading exponents of the living tradition of Meyerhold’s work. Glasnost and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union have brought Mr. Bogdanov invitations to teach in the West-first in Europe, then in the United States. Thus Meyerhold’s legacy has become available for study here.
This approach, which Meyerhold developed over some thirty-five years of experimentation and exploration as a director and as a teacher, provides the acting student with a comprehensive, detailed program for the development of her/ his psycho-physical instrument. Probably the most striking thing about training in Biomechanics is the degree of integration between "purely" physical training and the application of that physical work to concerns specific to acting.
A course in Biomechanics begins with physical training. But the purpose of that training is to forge the connection between mind and body, to "teach the body to think." In Biomechanics, even the simplest exercises that at first glance might seem to be essentially traditional ones designed solely to develop physical capacities such as strength, agility, coordination, balance, flexibility and endurance become-because of the thought process involved-acting exercises. Thus while students run, jump and work every muscle and joint in a dizzying array of exercises during the initial physical training phase of the work, they are already required to be continually aware of their relationship to the space and to the other actors in their "ensemble"-as well as their own "inner movement."
The training is highly systematic and sequential. Thus it begins with fairly simple (although not necessarily easy!) exercises. In time actors are asked to do a great variety of exercises: work with objects such as balls and dowel rods, leaps and rolls over platforms and up and down ramps and stairs, and partner lifts and acrobatics. This phase of the work culminates in the study of the Classical Biomechanical Etudes. These are highly stylized movement pieces which Meyerhold choreographed as exercise material for his students.
The kinesthetic, spatial and relational awarenesses that the student develops through training in Biomechanics may, initially, be primarily in terms of the physical demands posed by the exercises. But as the training progresses, the actor’s moment to moment awareness expands and deepens. As a result, Biomechanics provides the student with a concrete methodology for addressing-physically and through action-issues of acting that are almost universally regarded as fundamental in the Western tradition since Stanislavski. These include: "as if for the first time," "give and take," "listening," "seeing," and "moment before."
All of this develops the actor’s sense of her/ his psycho-physical being as a malleable instrument and an awareness of space and rhythm as variables to be explored in the creation of a role. The actor’s heightened awarenesses and capacities are equally valuable for work that is highly theatrical or absolutely realistic. As Igor Ilynsky, one of Meyerhold’s finest actors, put it: "Technique arms the imagination" (quoted in Meyerhold at Work, Paul Schmidt).

Krátký film s ukázkou http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Drama/directors/stan2.mov
(10. 2. 2008)

http://act.vtheatre.net/biomech.html
(10. 2. 2008)
Meyerhold proposes „1 – 2 – 3“ structure as a composition of action. VOCABULARY OF MOVEMENT in his own words bigins with Excitability.
An Method actor must posses the capacity for Reflex Excitablity. Nobody can become an actor without it.
Excitability
Excitability is the ability to realize in feeling,1 movements and words a task which is prescribed externally.
The manifistation of excitability
The coordinated manifistations of excitability together constitute the actor's performance. Each separate manifistation comprises an acting cycle.2

Each acting cycle comprises three invariable stages:
1. INTENTION
2. REALIZATION
3. REACTION
The intention is the intellectual assimilation of a task prescribed externally by the dramatist, the director, or the initiative of the performer.
The realization is the cycle of volitional, mimetic and vocal reflexes.
The reaction is the attenuation of the volitional reflex as it is realized mimetically and vocally in oreparation for the reception of a new intention (the transition to a new acting cycle)...
[Meyerhold, Bebutov and Aksyonov, Emploi aktera, Moscow, 1922, pp. 3 – 4]4
Basic composition of movement consists (as any other composition) of exposition (intention), middle (realization) and resolution (reaction). [Garin's dedcription of the errow etude.]
Again, acting as reacting. By reacting to imagenary event we creat this event – visualization. (Pantomime is based on this phenomena). By reatcing to space, we creat space. Distance gives ua a tool to contrast the space. The intention (preparation) gives us not only a sense of distance, but a direction as well. That's how space dimention becomes dramatic.

About Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein:

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet Russian film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and October, as well as historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. His work vastly influenced early film makers owing to his innovative use of and writings about montage.
In the autumn of 1928, with October still under fire in many Soviet quarters, Eisenstein left the Soviet Union for a tour of Europe, accompanied by his perennial film collaborator Grigori Aleksandrov and cinematographer Eduard Tisse. Officially, the trip was supposed to allow Eisenstein and company to learn about sound motion pictures and to present the famous Soviet artists, in person, to the capitalist West. For Eisenstein, however, it was also an opportunity to see landscapes and cultures outside those found within the Soviet Union. He spent the next two years touring and lecturing in Berlin, Zurich, London, and Paris. In 1929, in Switzerland, Eisenstein supervised an educational documentary about abortion directed by Edouard Tissé entitled Frauennot - Frauenglück. In late April 1930, Jesse L. Lasky, on behalf of Paramount Pictures, offered him the opportunity to make a film in the United States.[21] He accepted a short-term contract for $100,000 and arrived in Hollywood in May 1930. However, this arrangement failed. Eisenstein's idiosyncratic and artistic approach to cinema was incompatible with the more formulaic and commercial approach of American studios. Eisenstein proposed a biography of munitions tycoon Sir Basil Zaharoff and a film version of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, and more fully developed plans for a film of Sutter's Gold by Jack London, but on all accounts failed to impress the studio's producers. Paramount then proposed a movie version of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. This excited Eisenstein, who had read and liked the work, and had met Dreiser at one time in Moscow. Eisenstein completed a script by the start of October 1930, but Paramount disliked it completely and, additionally, found themselves intimidated by Major Frank Pease president of the Hollywood Technical Director's Institute. Pease, an anti-semite and anti-communist, mounted a public campaign against Eisenstein. On October 23, 1930, by "mutual consent," Paramount and Eisenstein declared their contract null and void, and the Eisenstein party were treated to return tickets to Moscow, at Paramount's expense.

Eisenstein holding a skull made of sugar. Skulls and skeletons appeared in ¡Que viva México! depicting the Day of the Dead festival.
Eisenstein was thus faced with returning home a failure. The Soviet film industry was solving the sound-film issue without him and his films, techniques and theories were becoming increasingly attacked as 'ideological failures' and prime examples of formalism. Many of his theoretical articles from this period, such as Eisenstein on Disney have surfaced decades later as seminal scholarly texts used as curriculum in film schools around the world. Eisenstein and his entourage spent considerable time with Charlie Chaplin, who recommended that Eisenstein meet with a sympathetic benefactor in the person of American socialist author Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's works had been accepted by and were widely read in the USSR, and were known to Eisenstein. The two had mutual admiration and between the end of October 1930, and Thanksgiving of that year, Sinclair had secured an extension of Eisenstein's absences from the USSR, and permission for him to travel to Mexico to make a film to be produced by Sinclair and his wife, Mary Craig Kimbrough Sinclair, and three other investors organized as the Mexican Film Trust.
On November 24, Eisenstein signed a contract with the Trust "upon the basis of Eisenstein's desire to be free to direct the making of a picture according to his own ideas of what a Mexican picture should be, and in full faith in Eisenstein's artistic integrity" The contract also stipulated that the film would be "non-political", that immediately available funding came from Mrs. Sinclair in an amount of "not less than Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars", that the shooting schedule amounted to "a period of from three to four months", and most importantly that "Eisenstein furthermore agrees that all pictures made or directed by him in Mexico, all negative film and positive prints, and all story and ideas embodied in said Mexican picture, will be the property of Mrs. Sinclair..." A codicil to the contract, dated December 1, allowed that the "Soviet Government may have the [finished] film free for showing inside the U.S.S.R." Reportedly, it was verbally clarified that the expectation was for a finished film of about an hour's duration.

Eisenstein behind the camera directing ¡Qué viva México! on the Quetzalcoatl pyramid at Teotihuacán.
By December 4, 1930, Eisenstein was en route to Mexico by train, accompanied by Alexandrov and Tisse. Later he produced a brief synopsis of the six-part film which would come, in one form or another, to be the final plan Eisenstein would settle on for his project. The title for the project, ¡Que viva México!, was decided on some time later still. While in Mexico Eisenstein mixed socially with Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera. Eisenstein admired these artists as much as Mexican culture in general, they inspired Eisenstein to call his films, "moving frescoes". After a prolonged absence, Stalin sent a telegram expressing the concern that Eisenstein had become a deserter. Under pressure, Eisenstein blamed Mary Sinclair's younger brother, Hunter Kimbrough -- who had been sent along to act as a line producer -- for the film's problems. Eisenstein hoped to pressure the Sinclairs to insinuate themselves between him and Stalin, so Eisenstein could finish the film in his own way. The furious Sinclair shut down production and ordered Kimbrough to return to the U.S. with the remaining film footage and the three Soviets to see what they could do with the film already shot, estimates ranging from 170,000 lineal feet with "Soldadera" unfilmed, to an excess of 250,000 lineal feet. For the unfinished filming of the "novel" of Soldadera, without incurring any cost, Eisenstein had secured 500 soldiers, 10,000 guns, and 50 cannons from the Mexican Army. but this was lost due to Sinclair's canceling of production.
When Eisenstein arrived at the American border, a customs search of his trunk revealed sketches and drawings of Jesus caricatures amongst other material of a lewd pornographic nature. Eisenstein's re-entry visa had expired, and Sinclair's contacts in Washington were unable to secure him an additional extension. Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse were, after a month's stay at the U.S.-Mexico border outside Laredo, Texas, allowed a 30-day "pass" to get from Texas to New York, and thence depart for Moscow, while Kimbrough returned to Los Angeles with the remaining film. Eisenstein toured the American South, on his way to New York. In mid-1932, the Sinclairs were able to secure the services of Sol Lesser, who had just opened his own distribution office in New York, Principal Distributing Corp.. Lesser agreed to supervise post-production work on the miles of negative — at the Sinclairs expense — and distribute any resulting product. Two short feature films and a short subject — Thunder Over Mexico based on the "Maguey" footage Eisenstein in Mexico, and Death Day respectively — were completed and released in the United States between the autumn of 1933 and early 1934.

Late work

Eisenstein directing actor Boris Zakhava in Bezhin Meadow.
Eisenstein never saw any of the Sinclair-Lesser films, nor a later effort by his first biographer, Marie Seton, called Time In The Sun. He would publicly maintain that he had lost all interest in the project. Eisenstein's foray into the west made the now-staunchly Stalinist film industry look upon him with a more suspicious eye, and this suspicion would never be completely erased in the mind of the Stalinist elite. He apparently spent some time in a Soviet mental hospital in Kislovodsk in July 1933, ostensibly a result of depression born of his final acceptance that he would never be allowed to edit the Mexican footage which was turned over by Sinclair to Hollywood editors, who would irreparably alter the negatives. He was subsequently assigned a teaching position with the film school GIK (now Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography) where he had taught earlier and in 1933 and 1934 was in charge of writing curriculum. Eisenstein married filmmaker and writer Pera Atasheva (1900-1965) in 1934 and remained so until his death in 1948. In 1935, he began another project, Bezhin Meadow, but it appears the film was afflicted with many of the same problems as Que Viva Mexico — Eisenstein unilaterally decided to film two versions of the scenario, one for adult viewers and one for children; failed to define a clear shooting schedule; and shot film prodigiously, resulting in cost overruns and missed deadlines. Even though Soviet film executive Boris Shumyatsky encouraged Sinclair in undermining Eisenstein  it was derailed not as much as Bezhin Meadow by the Soviet film industry, but by its American backers.

Nikolai Cherkasov as Ivan the Terrible in Eisenstein's film of the same name.
The thing which appeared to save Eisenstein's career at this point was that Stalin ended up taking the position that the Bezhin Meadow catastrophe, along with several other problems facing the industry at that point, had less to do with Eisenstein's approach to filmmaking as with the executives who were supposed to have been supervising him. Ultimately this came down on the shoulders of Boris Shumyatsky, "executive producer" of Soviet film since 1932, who in early 1938 was denounced, arrested, tried and convicted as a traitor, and shot. (The production executive at Film studio Mosfilm, where Meadow was being made, was also replaced, but without further executions.)
Eisenstein was thence able to ingratiate himself with Stalin for 'one more chance', and he chose, from two offerings, the assignment of a biopic of Alexander Nevsky, with music composed by Sergei Prokofiev. This time, however, he was also assigned a co-scenarist, Pyotr Pavlenko, to bring in a completed script; professional actors to play the roles; and an assistant director, Dmitry Vasiliev, to expedite shooting. The result was a film critically received by both the Soviets and in the West, which won him the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize. It was an obvious allegory and stern warning against the massing forces of Nazi Germany, well-played and well-made. This was started, completed, and placed in distribution all within the year 1938, and represented not only Eisenstein's first film in nearly a decade, but also his first sound film. Unfortunately, within months of its release, the mercurial Stalin entered into his infamous pact with Hitler, and Nevsky was promptly pulled from distribution. Thwarted again on the morning of triumph, Eisenstein returned to teaching and was assigned to direct Richard Wagner's Die Walküre at the Bolshoi Theatre. Eisenstein had to wait until Hitler's double-cross sent German troops pouring across the Soviet border in a devastating first strike, to see "his" success receive its just, wide distribution and real international success.
Faina Ranevskaya as Princess Staritskaya in a screen test for Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1942).
With the war approaching Moscow, Eisenstein was one of many filmmakers evacuated to Alma-Ata, where he first considered the idea of making a film about Czar Ivan IV. Eisenstein corresponded with Prokofiev from Alma Ata, and was joined by him there in 1942. Prokofiev composed the score for Eisenstein's film and Eisenstein reciprocated by designing sets for an operatic rendition of War and Peace that Prokofiev was developing. Eisenstein's film, Ivan The Terrible, Part I, presenting Ivan IV of Russia as a national hero, won Stalin's approval (and a Stalin Prize), but the sequel, Ivan The Terrible, Part II was not approved of by the government. All footage from the still incomplete Ivan The Terrible: Part III was confiscated, and most of it was destroyed(though several filmed scenes still exist today). Eisenstein's health was also failing, he was struck by a heart attack during the making of this picture, and soon died of another at the age of 50. He is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Theory
Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the essence of the cinema. His articles and books — particularly Film Form and The Film Sense — explain the significance of montage in detail. His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers. Eisenstein believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a "linkage" of related images. Eisenstein felt the "collision" of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors. He believed that an idea should be derived from the juxtaposition of two independent shots, bringing an element of collage into film. He developed what he called "methods of montage":

Eisenstein taught film making during his career at GIK where he wrote the curricula for the directors' course, his classroom illustrations are reproduced in Vladimir Nizhni?'s Lessons with Eisenstein. Exercises and examples for students were based on rendering literature such as Honoré de Balzac's Le Père Goriot. Another hypothetical was the staging of the Haitian struggle for independence as depicted in Anatolii Vinogradov's The Black Consul, influenced as well by John Vandercook's Black Majesty. Lessons from this scenario delved into the character of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, replaying his movements, actions and the drama surrounding him. Further to the didactics of literary and dramatic content, Eisenstein taught the technicalities of directing, photography, and editing; while encouraging his students' development of individuality, expressiveness, and creativity. Eisenstein's pedagogy, like his films, were politically charged and contained quotes from Vladimir Lenin interwoven with his teaching.
In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict. He used stock characters, and the roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate classes, he avoided casting stars. Eisenstein's vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Like many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned a new society which would subsidize artists totally, freeing them from the confines of bosses and budgets, leaving them absolutely free to create, but budgets and producers were as significant to the Soviet film industry as the rest of the world. The fledgling war- and revolution-wracked and isolated new nation did not have the resources to nationalize its film industry at first. When it did, limited resources - both monetary and equipment - required production controls as extensive as in the capitalist world.

About Eugene Vakhtangov, Director (1883-1922)

Vakhtangov created a style he called fantastic realism out of a synthesis of Stanislavsky's emphasis on concentration and exploration of character and subject and Meyerhold's stylized movement and scenic elements. They look a lot like the stuff the expressionists came up with. His Method acting productions always looked unified and finished, if not coherent, because he insisted his actors be able to justify everything they did on stage.
In 1920 Stanislavky put him in charge of the Third Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre where he strove to establish a center for "theatrical realism" as "the tendency in the theatre arts that aspired creatively to establish a special and theatrical life on the stage, a life that would strike the audience as a new reality. This Theatrical life could be called life precisely because it would be presented with the conviction of real life."
He staged the groundbreaking production of The Dybbuk for then fledgeling Habima in Moscow.
His crowning achievement was his production of Carlo Gozzi's Turandot at the Third Studio which was named for him in 1926. Too ill to see the first performance, he heard of its great success and died three months later. It is the model for "theatrical" productions which follow. The actors wore modern evening clothes to which they added in the course of the action pieces of colored cloth. They used set pieces which they arranged in full view of the audience. It has been described as a combination of elegance, commedia dell'arte and charades. It is still in the repertory of the Vakhtangov Theatre.
His influence was passed on by many actors and directors who he had worked with in his brief career including Zavadsky, Simonov, Zakhava, Shchukin, and many others. There is a trend in Russian named for Vakhtangov.

Oleg Mirochnikov
Teaching and Professional Fellowship 2006-2007
The Vakhtangov Technique
Data gathering September - December 2006, Moscow
I started my research at The Vakhtangov State Theatre where I was given the opportunity to work with Vakhtangov’s original notebooks and diaries and with recordings of his lectures. It was soon apparent, that Vakhtangov’s experiments between 1919-1922 require very detailed investigation, for it is during this period that he began his radical re-evaluation of the application of the Stanislavski system and to develop the unique approach to theatre known as “fantastic realism”. Vakhtangov was not a keen theorist and did not leave a full account of his methodology due to his early death at the age of 36 and thus the Vakhtangov archive, quite moderate in volume and relatively fragmentary, did not therefore furnish me with the full picture of his methodology as a director and teacher. I was however particularly keen to get as much information as possible on the way in which he coached actors, conducted rehearsals and analysed plays. The curators of the archive therefore advised me to utilise the material and memories of Vakhtangov’s direct disciples and contemporaries, who might have left themselves  a more detailed account of his work.
To this end I therefore spent most of my time in Moscow at The Russian State Library, The Theatre Library and The Library of The Arts. All these libraries have a vast amount of data on Vakhtangov, most of which I studied carefully. The most important information was discovered in the materials from between 1918-1939, when many of those who wrote about Vakhtangov were not obliged to present him constantly as a devoted disciple of Stanislavski nor as a rigorous interpreter of his system, the attitude which had become and would remain for many decades de rigueur as the establishments’ approach. I also conducted 10 interviews with Vakhtangov scholars, with actors from The Vakhtangov State Theatre, teachers and directors of The Boris Shukin Theatre Institute and with family members descended from Vakhtangov’s original company. Most notable of these were discussions held with Dr V. Ivanov, who has been researching the Vakhtangov legacy for more than twenty years and is a recognised specialist on the unknown Vakhtangov. I attended classes and rehearsal at The Boris Schukin Theatre Institute in order to see how the Vakhtangov method is being taught at the very theatre school, which has been developing it over the last ninety years. My supervisor Dr Vladimir Mirodan spent a week in Moscow during which we discussed the progress of my research and ways in which it could be further developed.

Key findings
Vakhtangov is the first and arguably the only director in the history of the theatre to have achieved a practical synthesis of the methodologies of the two revolutionary masters of the Russian school of acting – Stanislavski and Meyerhold. He considered the combination of these methodologies as the apogee of theatrical synthesis and named it “fantastic realism”.
This concept gave rise to a theatrical paradox: the creation of an acting technique that was outwardly highly stylised and yet internally realistic. To put it another way an actor ought to have real and believable feelings on stage but they have to be presented in a theatrical, “fantastical” way. For Vakhtangov the theatre is not a copy of life but a condensed version of reality or in other words a super-reality.

Fantastic realism
Vakhtangov believed that in the age of cinematography the use of the naturalistic techniques in the theatre is anomaly. Theatre must not simply photograph or recreate reality but deepen our perception and understanding of it. This can only be achieved by revealing truth through lies and the probability in the improbable. In other words the theatre should freely turn the reality inside out in order to reveal it in all its complexity.
To bring a life event or character on stage is to subject it to the rules of the theatre, with its particular notion of space, time, and tempo-rhythm, which has very little in common with real life. In some instances it means selecting just one detail from a situation, or just one trait from a character and then playing imaginatively with or around it. At other times it means generalising or exaggerating facts of an event, establishing masks instead of clearly delineated characters and playing on contradictions and contrasts within the latter. As a result both event and character will gain a complexity, and reveal a psychological depth and unconventional physical manifestation . This is what in Vakhtangov’s view should take place in a “theatrical theatre” and this is what defines its “fantastical” nature.
According to Vakhtangov life events, people and objects undergo double transformation or game in the art of the theatre. The first one is the transformation from reality into play and the second is when the play is subsequently transformed into a stage production. In this double transformation what is real and what is fantastical? Events, people and objects or their theatrical interpretation? To give a clear answer to this was for Vakhtangov to destroy one of the most intriguing mysteries of interplay of real life and theatre.
“Fantastic realism “ is therefore a combination of the reality of life and the “fantastical” nature of theatre. To say it another way “fantastic realism” is theatrical realism i.e. a whole complex of theatrical methods by which one can express real life on stage.

The concept of a dramatic character
Vakhtangov believed that there is no such a thing as an objective character on stage. All characters created by actors are subjective. That is to say that they are a combination of the actor’s personality and what has happened to him so far that day, prior to his entrance on stage, plus his character’s objectives within the play. Therefore Hamlet, for example, will change every night because the actor has undergone different experiences that day before coming on stage. Far from subscribing to Stanislavsky’s principal that the actor should leave his day at the stage door, Vakhtangov strongly encouraged his actors to feed their immediate mood and experiences directly into their acting.
For Vakhtangov the first feeling with which the actor walks on stage or into a rehearsal room is his life state i.e. a chain of incidents that have happened to him and affected him thus far in the day. This state must be preserved, as it will enable the actor to bring to his role a sense of unique immediacy. The first mood of the actor is then followed by the second, or the character mood, which is activated by his actions in the play. The combination of the actor’s personal mood with the character’s states creates a rich colour range in the portrayal of a role. The fact that the actor keeps his personal mood active up to the very moment he walks on stage, renders unnecessary the special and often lengthy pre-performance preparation during which he works sublimating himself in order to become a character. Instead he should be able to take on his character in an instant or, using Vakhtangov’s own words “to jump into the role”.
I have designed an exercise which develops the actor ‘s ability to “jump into character” immediately. I have tested it with my second year students who found it both challenging and highly beneficial to their training.

The concept of “inner justification”

Vakhtangov established the concept of “inner justification” for the actor. Contrary to Stanislavsky, who placed the actor’s identification with the character as deriving from the circumstances of a play,Vakhtangov believed that the performer’s justification of his stage actions could be totally unrelated to the circumstances of either play or character. Justification is the actor’s secret weapon and he could invent his own inner reality for his actions. The strength of the actor’s fantasy, no matter how improbable or ludicrous it might be, could lead him to a more believable sense of reality in his performance. This concept of “inner justification” allows the actor to create his own powerful private reality in productions ranging from the most stylised to the most naturalistic.

The concept of “selected truth” and “theatrical theatre”

Vakhtangov believed in the importance of truth in a theatre production, but he detested theatre productions in which the truth was presented in a shallow, pseudo-real, stale way. In his view life itself offers a theatre practitioner a huge variety of truths to recreate on stage and he should select only those ones, which would impart to the audience something profoundly complex and new about life.
The theatre is only viable when it possesses true theatricality and a joy mood at its core. In theatre such as this the actors are not afraid to live through their characters’ feelings and at the same time to reveal their craft to the audience. Theatre of this type presents an artistic and passionate reflection of life not one drawn by means of precise imitation. Its productions possess both bold form and a style, which allow the audience at the same time to recognizes the reality of life and also to admire the art with which it is being created.

Acting craft.

Characters and their feelings should be both recognisable and believable in the theatre; however actors who create these characters must present them purely by theatrical means. The difference between the naturalistic and the theatrical mode is like that between duck served at home or in a restaurant. The contents of both meals might be the same, but in the restaurant it is served in a “theatrical” way and therefore looks and tastes more appetising.
The Vakhtangov’s actor does not hide the fact that he is performing for the audience. As opposed to the actor of the naturalistic school, trained to live through his character or to perform this character’s inner experience, the actor of the Vakhtangov’s school is trained to live through or experience a performance. Therefore the actor demonstrates not only what he does in the role but also how he does it. The how becomes as important as the what. i.e. the method or style of the actor’s performance has the same value as its content. To this end Vakhtangov trained his actors to manipulate the audience during a performance. At the point where the audience has forgotten that they are in the theatre with actors on stage, the actors should suddenly step out of the character and openly demonstrate their technique or reveal the tricks of the trade. After a few moments they should reconnect the audience with the reality of the play and its characters. Vakhtangov’s actors therefore can destroy a scenic illusion at their will in front of the audience and then restore it in an instant.

The principal of the dramatic grotesque

According to Vakhtangov a naturalistic theatre produces good examples of a naturalistic grotesque i.e. a selection and exaggeration of the external and psychological traits of the stage character. There is also another type of the grotesque, which could be called “the exotic grotesque”. It features not just the psychology of the character and its everyday reality but also uses an unconcealed technique by means of which the character is created. This type of grotesque consist of: hyperbola leaning towards the fantastical, sharp contrast, sudden switching from the tragic to the comic and back again. For Vakhtangov this particular type of grotesque was one of the principal means of developing a stage character.

The concept of “performing a character” as opposed to “living through the character’s feelings”

Stanislavsky always insisted that in the actor’s ability to identify with the character’s feelings lies the peak of creativity. Vakhtangov, however, contradicted this idea. After many years of exploring and testing the Stanislavsky system at his studio he came to the conclusion that “the art of living through your character’s feelings” is merely a foundation for “performing the character”. The latter, however, becomes true art only when the actor is able to present during his performance a clear personal attitude to the character portrayed. Therefore unlike Stanislavsky Vakhtangov was convinced that it is only through the overt display of the actor’s attitude to the character that highest creative achievement in any particular role may be seen. The pure “experience of living through the character’s feelings” as understood by Stanislavsky remained for Vakhtangov only a technical tool, and not an end in itself. Instead of aiming for a complete identification with a character he stood up for the actor’s right to comment on the character and to pursue the freedom of creative subjectivity. Hence the actor, rather than the character becomes the creative basis for a theatre production. This means that instead of the character subjugating and absorbing the actor; it is the actor who is in charge and who through the medium of the character is able to reveal his own essence and truth as a human being. This allows him to justify the illusion of a theatre performance. It also allows him to find a more meaningful existence within his role for now he can simultaneously unite the joy of performing his character with the joy of commentating upon it himself. This does not, however, mean that the actor overwhelms the character, but simply that he interiorises it in order to illuminate it with his own attitude consisting as it may of empathy, trust, irony or ridicule. The emphasis is therefore put on the principal of free and courageous creativity in playing the character, in contradistinction to the principal of what could arguably be an unattainably profound transformation into the character.

The concept of “playing the play”

Vakhtangov insisted that the actor should not actually become a character but only play at being a character. Unlike the Stanislavskian actor, the Vakhtangov’s actor does not fully identify with his character’s feelings, he just plays at having them. This “playing the play” or the “playing at theatre”, however, must be executed with utmost seriousness, humanity and depth, thus turning the play into a form of art profoundly reflecting life.

The principal of the monism of the actor

The basic principal of a naturalistic acting technique lies in the attempt to reconcile the actor’s truth as a human being with that of the character. The followers of this technique seek to overcome the “lie” of the actor’s performance by means of a complete and authentic transformation within the stage character. Instead of acting a character one must become that character exactly as it is drawn in the play and thus fully experience the character’s feeling. However the more the actor strives to achieve this the more detrimental it becomes to his acting as a theatrical game. Starting the artistic portrayal of his character’s essence and feelings, the actor moves towards a mundane imitation. As a result he is not in charge of the character’s feelings but simply submits himself to them. The wealth and freedom of the actor’s inner technique turns into its opposite; the actor is thus burdened by the need to establish shallow everyday traits and sensations of his character and to search for his own affective feelings instead of fulfilling his true mission - to move the audience by means of an artistic and imaginative manifestation of the character.
Vakhtangov looked at this problem from a different perspective. By means of the stage character’s essence he wanted to reach the essence of the personality of the actor playing it. To this end he first established the supremacy of the creative game as forming the foundation of theatre, supported by the actor’s will to participate in it. He also promulgated the monism or unity of the actor as opposed to schizoid split of the naturalistic actor always maintaining the balance between his own persona and the character. This monism allows the actor to construct his character freely from himself through his own active and creative and thus reveal his inner truth as an actor, which may differ from the naturalistic truth of the character. By establishing the importance of the actor-personality, he discovered that the truth of the theatre for the actor is achieved by means of performing and freely controlling the character without hiding this fact from the audience and thus to speak his own truth. If in the past the character prevailed over the actor, now Vakhtangov was permitting the actor to prevail over the character. He was freeing the actor from his traditional craft and from disappearance in the amorphous of psychologism. He inspired the actor to achieve the technical perfection, to control the audience, to exult his power on stage, but above all to be allowed the game of theatre to intoxicate him. In this sense he consciously purged from the Stanislavsky system extraneous features and returned it to its initial purpose- the discovery of “inner justification” for the actor. It would now be possible for the actor to find his own justification of the actions of the character and to justify its essence not through its own truth (as written in the play) but through that of the actor- personality. The perhaps clumsy concept of “living trough your character’s feeling” or identification with the character’s feelings is therefore replaced by the more practical and creative Vakhtangov principal of inner justification through the actor-personality.

The role of intuition, spontaneity, imagination and improvisation in acting.

Vakhtangov believed that spontaneity and intuition are amongst the most important qualities the actor can possess and that training must not destroy them. In his view an actor should not be a theorist whose character’s choices are entirely governed by his intellect or derived from detailed research. The role of the latter is accepted as being helpful tool by which the actor can activate or feed his intuition, but it is intuitive approach, which must be the principal impetus in the process of creating a role.
In Vakhtangov’s view a truly intuitive actor must be able to develop his character even with the most basic amount of information available. As a director he was proud of his ability to establish a specific world of a play through an intuitive and imaginative digestion of just a few historical details. As a director he had developed a completely free approach to all dramatic material and believed that the staging of a play demands that a director search for an original approach that is both organically inspired by and most appropriate to the essence of the play and is not imposed by established theatrical techniques. A director should also be free to combine many approaches and aesthetics within one theatre production. Vakhtangov successfully implemented this principal in his 1921 production of Gozzi’s Turandot.

What defines the Vakhtangov actors

• He (the actor) performs his character in a condensed, “accentuated way” without concentrating too much on detailed psychological detail, and instead presenting his character in what might seem a rather generalised way with a strong emphasis on one or two of its most important features
• His performance is graphically precise. He moves, speaks and interacts musically with a clear sense of tempo-rhythm. One can say that he “dances” the inner essence of his character
• He builds his character on the principal of contrast, i.e. in the tragic essence of his character he reveals the comic and vice versa
• He possesses a profound inner reality for his character but presents it in a totally unexpected, theatrical and physically bold way
• He does not hide the fact that he is performing the character in front of the audience.
• He loves this theatrical game of playing and emphasises it in his performance.
• He experiences his character’s feelings, plays with them and at the same time maintains a distance from them. In his acting he reveals the “inner irony of the heart” of his character.
• He presents his character in a “demonstrative or extrovert way”, i.e. light, skilful, confident and generous
• He can play a whole range of roles from tragedy to farce. He is exceptionally capable of transformation
• He does not looses himself in the character and is not carried away by its feelings. He is aware of every moment of his performance, is able to control the audience and can re-adjust his impact on it according to its reactions.
• He is a skilled at improvisation. Every time he performs he keeps the content of his character’s actions or “the what” unchanged and improvises “the how” or the way he plays these actions. For him an improvisation is not general freedom in performance but a courageous break through, which pushes him beyond his current abilities and becomes an act of profound artistic discovery.
Vakhtangov developed three concepts: “a method of contrasts”, “the dramatic grotesque” and “heightened acting style”. These enable actors to combine two totally contrasting qualities in their performances – profound psychology with extreme expressiveness and the grotesque with the lyrical. As a result the actor creates a powerful and long lasting impact on the audience. Using the memories of some of Vakhtangov’s actors I have rediscovered some of his original exercises, which to the best of my knowledge have not been used in actor training since his death. I also drew from the written records of his acting classes and rehearsals and through that was able to create some new exercises, which I feel, develop the actor’s abilities according to the Vakhtangov principals described above.

Dissemination of my findings

I have taught two of the Vakhtangov exercise to First and Second year BA acting students at DCL over the last two terms. Both of the exercise were presented to the staff and students of the school as well as being filmed for the future references. I have used the Vakhtangov technique while directing an Elizabethan comedy project with the Master of European Classical Acting students and received both oral and written feedback from them. In the Summer term I also directed the Second year students in Bertolt Brecht’“ The Good Person of Szechwan”. This was an important opportunity to test the whole range of the Vakhtangov principals of acting, especially because both Brecht’s and Vakhtangov’s understanding of theatre bear striking similarities. The technique of the latter in fact proved highly beneficial to the students in their work on the Brecht play.
The work with all the year groups showed that they reacted very positively to the Vakhtangov technique. For example, my “Cabaret Project” with the second year demonstrated that many students who mastered some of the Vakhtangov principles, revealed an unexpected creative freedom and an ability to transform, which they had not show in their previous projects. Many of them discovered an alternative acting tool previously unknown to them and acquired self-confidence and the courage to explore the demands of contemporary acting in a much more imaginative way. I felt that my work with the imaginative, extrovert and the physical principals of the Vakhtangov acting training over the last two terms complemented and balanced very well the introspective methodological approach of Drama Centre. I feel that my fellowship has been completely justified and I am enormously encouraged in my future plans for dissemination of the Vakhtangov technique. At the end of the term I will be holding talks with the Director of Drama Centre Dr Vladimir Mirodan and The Course Director of The BA Hons Acting Annie Tyson to discuss future integration of the Vakhtangov technique into the school’s curriculum. It is my intention as a tutor to focus my teaching of the Drama Centre students solely on the Vakhtangov technique. Together with ARTSCOM at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, a10 week workshop on the Vakhtangov technique has been set up, which will run each term of the 2007-08 academic year and which will be open to any University of The Arts London students and staff as well as to general public. I have submitted my proposal of workshop to the Actors Centre in London and to various other drama schools and universities both nationally and internationally. I am currently awaiting their response. Throughout the Summer I am planning to write to various international acting workshop with a proposal for master-classes and workshops on the Vakhtangov technique. Later in the year Dr Vladimir Mirodan and I will be applying for research funds to carry out further research into some areas of the Vakhtangov technique in order to write an article for one of the international journals.

Conclusion

The teaching gave me the most worthwhile opportunity possible to augment and enhance my practical knowledge of the Vakhtangov technique. It has resulted in a coherent system of actor training wholly relevant to the needs of contemporary theatre. This intensive and stimulating method of work places at its heart the exploration of story-telling, character and dramatic relationships through means of imagination, improvisation and movement. It challenges the actor and gives him permission to push his creative boundaries and to develop his imaginative and physical capacity to the full. The Vakhtangov technique contains the answers to many pressing questions facing today’s theatre: the question of reality and artifice; psychology and physical expression; theatricality and behaviour. To a world of performance torn between kitchen-sink naturalism and Hollywood artificiality, Vakhtangov’s work brings a freshness of approach that leads to exciting, innovative and visually bold theatre.
Oleg Mirochnikov 17 June 2007

About Nikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov

Nikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov - February 13, 1879 - September 7, 1953) was a Russian director, dramatist and theatre practitioner associated with Russian Symbolism.
Life
The son of a French woman and a Russian engineer, Evreinov developed a keen interest in theatre from an early age, penning his first play at the age of 7. Six years later, he performed in a wandering circus as a clown. He attended a gymnasium in Pskov, before moving to the School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. It was there that he staged his first full-fledged play, The Rehearsal, followed by an opéra bouffe, The Power of Charms (1899).
Having matriculated from the school in 1901, Evreinov turned his attention to music and studied with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Moscow Conservatory for a couple of years. In 1907-08 and 1911-12 he was involved in reconstructing the world of medieval plays and those dating from the Spanish Golden Age at the Starinny Theatre ("Old-Fashioned Theatre") in Saint Petersburg.
The foremost Russian actress, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, asked him to cast her in the leading role for his version of Francesca da Rimini (1908). Later that year, Evreinov's production of Oscar Wilde's Salomé was suppressed on the orders of Nicholas II. Evreinov's association with the Komissarzhevsky family continued for several years. Together with Theodore Komisarjevsky, he staged a number of "harlequinades" and "monodramas" as part of his new project, "The Merry Theatre for Aged Children". His concept of monodrama was exemplified in The Curtain of the Soul, a 1913 production set inside the human breast as the repository of the soul.
In 1910, Evreinov quit his job at the Ministry of Railways to take the helm as producer, dramatist, and composer of the False Mirror Theatre in Saint Petersburg. It was there that he staged more than one hundred plays, including fourteen pieces written by himself. His production of The Government Inspector was a milestone in the history of Russian theatre: each act was staged so as to parody one of the following aesthetics: provincial realist theatres, the Moscow Art Theatre of Constantin Stanislavski, the techniques of Edward Gordon Craig and Max Reinhardt, and slapstick comedy films.
In 1922 and 1923 Evreinov visited Berlin and Paris where his plays were produced by the likes of Jacques Copeau and Charles Dullin. He spent the rest of his life in Paris, working with the Opéra Russe, Sorbonne, and Serge Lifar. He prepared a comprehensive monograph tracing the History of Russian Theatre through the centuries. Many of his later plays have never been staged, including the "anti-Stalinist drama" The Steps of Nemesis, with such characters as Alexei Rykov, Nikolai Bukharin, Genrikh Yagoda, and Nikolai Yezhov.

The Storming of the Winter Palace
In 1920 Evreinov staged the mass spectacle The Storming of the Winter Palace, a re-creation of that pivotal event of the October Revolution on its three-year anniversary. The mass spectacle form took the pre-revolutionary Symbolist utopias of "ritual theatre" (whose formulation was largely a response to the abortive 1905 revolution), and recast their 'people' as the proletariat. Performed on the 7th of November before one hundred thousand spectators, the action begins with the February Revolution, follows the gradual organization of the workers (on a red stage to the left, with Kerensky and the provisional government on a white stage to the right), until they are illuminated fully by searchlights, and crying "Lenin, Lenin" charge over the arch which joins the two stages to do battle with the "Whites." Kerensky leaps to a car for an escape, and is pursued along a path between the two large groups of spectators by trucks full of the Red Guard waving bayonets, to the Palace. Silhouettes struggle in the windows of the Palace, until the Red Army is finally successful, and red lights flash out. A cannon fired from the battleship Aurora and fireworks herald the victory of the October Revolution. Also later possibly inspired by the fireworks, and cannon fire, the color orange somehow became one of the official colors of October.

Works and theories

Title page from Evreinov's Pro Scena Sua (1915), showing a commedia Harlequin
Evreinov argued that the role of theatre was to ape and mimick nature. In his estimation, theatre is everything around us. He pointed out that nature is full of theatrical conventions: desert flowers mimicking the stones; mouse feigning death in order to escape a cat's claws; complicated dances of birds, etc. He viewed theatre as a universal symbol of existence.
Apology for Theatricality is his most famous essay. It was published in 1908. Here Evreinov promoted an underlying aesthetic:
"To make a theatre of life is the duty of every artist. ... the stage must not borrow so much from life as life borrows from the stage."
The director sought to reinvigorate the theatre (and through it life itself) through the rediscovery of the origin of theatre in play. He was influenced by the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Bergson, and, like Meyerhold, the aesthetics of symbolism and the commedia dell'arte (particularly in its use of mask and spontaneity). Evreinov developed his theatrical theories in An Introduction to Monodrama (1909), The Theatre as Such (1912), The Theatre for Oneself, and Pro Scena Sua (1915).
His plays include the monodramas The Presentation of Love (1910) and In the Stage-Wings of the Soul (1911), the tragi-farce A Merry Death (1908, based on Alexander Blok's The Puppet Show), and The Chief Thing (1921); the last two of which were heavily indebted to the commedia. Based on Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths (1902), The Chief Thing provided Evreinov's one international success. According to Spencer Golub, the play provides a "compendium of Evreinovian aesthetics and devices" and features Harlequin "as death-defier and life-transformer".

NIKOLAI NIKOLAIEVITCH EVREINOV

(1879-1953) Playwright, Producer, Regisseur, Actor, Musician, Theoretician, "fount of life and mischief."
Educated at the Imperial Law School, Petrograd, Evreinov later studied composition under Rimsky-Korsakov and followed the circus. In 1907, became the stage manager of Moscow's Old (or "Ancient") State Theatre where he focussed on producing plays from the theatre of the Middle Ages and the Golden Age of Spain. He attempted to recreate not just the conventions of the periods in question, but the entire milieu as well. Hence the acting company could be seen arriving, setting up and getting into costume, etc., through the strike and departure. In 1909, he organized the Happy Theatre for Grown Up Children in Petrograd where his brilliant parodies and sketches attacking everything from Italian opera to bad directing became the yardstick against such things were measured. From 1914-1917, he directed the Crooked Looking-Glass, a cabaret theatre.
In all these efforts, Evreinov turned to theatre history for practical models. He was fascinated with commedia dell 'Arte and collaborated on a number of experiments in the form with K. Miklashevsky who wrote an important study there on, which was published in the West by Constant Mic.
An avid essayist, Evreinov theorized an "instinct of transformation." This concept differs from Aristotle's mimesis in that Evreinov's transformation, as he says, "may best be described as the desire to be 'different.'" Thus primitive men of Borneo take great pains to scar themselves; Orinoco Indians tatoo themselves with costly pigments so they may become "a different man." He goes so far as to assert that "the theatrical instinct ... is responsible for the wearing of clothes." It even precedes the religious impulse. When the urge to embellish one's experience with material from dreams transforms reality into something more fantastic, primitive man "begins to realize that besides his physical 'ego' he also has a spiritual 'ego,' that man has a body and a soul and that this soul which possesses the talent of staging such wonderful plays while one is sleeping must possess it ... also while one is awake."
In his passionate and most famous essay, "Apology for Theatricality," published in 1908, Evreinov set forth his underlying aesthetic:

Thus the purpose of theatre was not the familiar formula "to teach and to please" but rather to create a theatre of life that would be worth living to the fullest. Despite some superficial similarity to Walter Pater's Aestheticism, Evreinov is convinced that the theatrical instinct is more primitive and therefore precedes the "aesthetic impulse." In a fanciful dialogue between Pater's famous disciple Oscar Wilde and himself, Evreinov has Wilde say,

Earlier in the same dialogue, Evreinov has Schopenhauer say:

Evreinov replies:

Still, the theatre was, for Evreinov, "as it were a purgatory to which the soul is taken...Acting gives way out to the elemental forces of nature that have been in hidden in the human soul under the organized structure of culture, the systems of rules in society, and the gloss of decency."
From a sort of Hegelian synthesis of the above points of view, Evreinov came up with the notion of the monodrama in which the protagonist is the spectator's "alter ego." the monodrama was to transform the spectator into the participant with the viewpoint of the protagonist--a sort of emotional intensification of Wagner's identification. However, unlike Wagner, Evreinov sought directly to involve the audience. In theory, the acting, scenery and lighting were all to reflect the emotional state of the protagonist, not to represent three-dimensional reality.
Evreinov was most concerned with visual effect: "Words play but a subordinate role on the stage, and we hear more with our eyes than with our ears."
All this and more was spelled out in Monodrama (1909) and Theatre for Oneself (3 vols. 1915, 1916, 1917).
In practice, Evreinov used strictly controlled acting, masks, non-realistic scenery and lighting, but his productions were not as unique as his theories. He is seen as a precursor of the Expressionists and evey (by Martin Esslin who is always on the lookout for such things) as a forerunner of absurdism.

About Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya

Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya - 8 November 1864, St. Petersburg - 23 February 1910, Tashkent) was the most celebrated Russian actress at the turn of the twentieth century.

Komissarzhevskaya's sculpture on her grave on Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint Petersburg
Vera Komissarzhevskaya was the daughter of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, a high-profile tenor of the Mariinsky Theatre, and sister of Theodore Komisarjevsky, a famous theatrical director. At the age of 19 she married Count Muravyov but preferred to keep her stage name after the marriage. Since 1896, she worked in the Alexandrine Theatre of St Petersburg. Her greatest triumph was the role of Nina Zarechnaya in the premiere of Chekhov's The Seagull in 1896.
In 1904, Komissarzhevskaya established her own theatre, which proved immensely popular with the Russian aristocracy in promoting the ideas of Russian Symbolism. The theatre was directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold in 1906, but his idiosyncratic approach led to Komissarzhevskaya's rupture with him the following year.
Vera's death of smallpox during a tour in Central Asia shocked many of her admirers and occasioned some poignant lyrics from Alexander Blok. One of major St Petersburg theatres still bears her name.
There was a biographical film about her, Ya - aktrisa ("I am an actress"), released in the USSR in 1980, starring Natalia Saiko as Komissarzhevskaya.

About Jerzy Grotowski

Statement of Principles - Jerzy Grotowski
I
The rhythm of life in modern civilization is characterized by pace, tension, a feeling of doom, the wish to hide our personal motives and the assumption of a variety of roles and masks in life (different ones with our family, at work, amongst friends or in community life, etc.-). We like to be "scientific", by which we mean discursive and cerebral, since this attitude is dictated by the course of civilization. But we also want to pay tribute to our biological selves, to what we might call physiological pleasures. We do not want to be restricted in this sphere. Therefore we play a double game of intellect and instinct, thought and emotion; we try to divide ourselves artificially into body and soul. When we try to liberate ourselves from it all we start to shout and stamp, we convulse to the rhythm of music. In our search for liberation we reach biological chaos. We suffer most from a lack of totality, throwing ourselves away, squandering ourselves.
Theatre - through the actor's technique, his art in which the living organism strives for higher motives - provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre's therapeutic function for people in our present day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounter with the spectator - intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl - in direct confrontation with him, and somehow " instead of" him. The actor's act - discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up - is an invitation to the spectator. This act could be compared to an act of the most deeply rooted, genuine love between two human beings - this is just a comparison since we can only refer to this "emergence from oneself" through analogy. This act, paradoxical and borderline, we call a total act. In our opinion it epitomizes the actor's deepest calling.
II
Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art? Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves which we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves. Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function). Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.
We fight then to discover, to experience the truth about ourselves; to tear away the masks behind which we hide daily. We see theatre - especially in its palpable, carnal aspect - as a place of provocation, a challenge the actor sets himself and also, indirectly, other people. Theatre only has a meaning if it allows us to transcend our stereotyped vision, our conventional feelings and customs, our standards of judgment - not just for the sake of doing so, but so that we may experience what is real and, having already given up all daily escapes and pretenses, in a state of complete defenselessness unveil, give, discover ourselves. In this way - through shock, through the shudder which causes us to drop our dally masks and mannerisms - we are able, without hiding anything, to entrust ourselves to something we cannot name but in which live Eros and Charitas.
III
Art cannot be bound by the laws of common morality or any catechism. The actor, at least in part, is creator, model and creation rolled into one- He must not be shameless as that leads to exhibitionism. He must have courage, but not merely the courage to exhibit himself - a passive courage, we might say: the courage of the defenseless, the courage to reveal himself. Neither that which touches the interior sphere, nor the profound stripping bare of the self should be regarded as evil so long as in the process of preparation or in the completed work they produce an act of creation. If they do not come easily and if they are not signs of outburst but of mastership, then they are creative: they reveal and purify us while we transcend ourselves. Indeed, they improve us then.
For these reasons every aspect of an actor's work dealing with intimate matters should be protected from incidental remarks, indiscretions, nonchalance, idle comments and jokes. The personal realm - both spiritual and physical - must not be "swamped" by triviality, the sordidness of life and lack of tact towards oneself and others; at least not in the place of work or anywhere connected with it. This postulate sounds like an abstract moral order. It is not. It involves the very essence of the actor's calling. This calling is realized through carnality. The actor must not Illustrate but accomplish an "act of the soul" by means of his own organism. Thus he is faced with two extreme alternatives: he can either sell, dishonour, his real "incarnate" self, making himself an object of artistic prostitution; or he can give himself, sanctify his real "incarnate" self.
IV
An actor can only be guided and inspired by someone who is whole-hearted in his creative activity. The producer, while guiding and inspiring the actor, must at the same time allow himself to be guided and inspired by him- it is a question of freedom, partnership, and this does not imply a lack of discipline but a respect for the autonomy of others. Respect for the actor's autonomy does not mean lawlessness, lack of demands, never ending discussions and the replacement of action by continuous streams of words. On the contrary, respect for autonomy means enormous demands, the expectation of a maximum creative effort and the most personal revelation. Understood thus, solicitude for the actor's freedom can only be born from the plenitude of the guide and not from his lack of plenitude. Such a lack implies imposition, dictatorship, superficial dressage.
V
An act of creation has nothing to do with either external comfort or conventional human civility; that is to say working conditions in which everybody is happy. It demands a maximum of silence and a minimum of words. In this kind of creativity we discuss through proposals, actions and living organisms, not through explanations. When we finally find ourselves on the track of something difficult and often almost intangible, we have no right to lose it through frivolity and carelessness. Therefore, even during breaks after which we will be continuing with the creative process, we are obliged to observe certain natural reticences in our behaviour and even in our private affairs. This applies just as much to our own work as to the work of our partners. We must not interrupt and disorganize the work because we are hurrying to our own affairs; we must not peep, comment or make jokes about it privately. In any case, private Ideas of fun have no place in the actors calling. In our approach to creative tasks, even if the theme is a game, we must be in a state of readiness - one might even say " solemnity". Our working terminology which serves as a stimulus must not be dissociated from the work and used in a private context. Work terminology should be associated only with that which it serves.
A creative act of this quality is performed in a group, and therefore within certain limits we should restrain our creative egoism. An actor has no right to mold his partner so as to provide greater possibilities for his own performance. Nor has he the right to correct his partner unless authorized by the work leader. Intimate or drastic elements in the work of others are untouchable and should not be commented upon even in their absence. Private conflicts, quarrels, sentiments, animosities are unavoidable in any human group. It is our duty towards creation to keep them in check in so far as they might deform and wreck the work process. We are obliged to open ourselves up even towards an enemy.
VI
It has been mentioned several times already but we can never stress and explain too often the fact that we must never exploit privately anything connected with the creative act: i. e. location, costume, props, an element from the acting score a melodic theme or lines from the text. This rule applies to the smallest detail and there can be no exceptions. We did not make this rule simply to pay tribute to a special artistic devotion. We are not interested in grandeur and noble words, but our awareness and experience tell us that lack of strict adherence to such rules causes the actors score to become deprived of its psychic motives and "radiance."
VII
Order and harmony in the work of each actor are essential conditions without which a creative act cannot take place. Here we demand consistency. We demand it from the actors who come to the theatre consciously to try themselves out in something extreme, a sort of challenge seeking a total response from every one of us. They come to test themselves in something very definite that reaches beyond the meaning of "theatre" and is more like an act of living and way of existence. This outline probably sounds rather vague. If we try to explain it theoretically, we might say that the theatre and acting are for us a kind of vehicle allowing us to emerge from ourselves, to fulfill ourselves. We could go into this at great length. However, anyone who stays here longer than just the trial period is perfectly aware that what we are talking about can be grasped less through grandiose words than through details, demands and the rigours of work in all its elements. The individual who disturbs the basic elements, who does not for example respect his own and the others acting score, destroying its structure by shamming or automatic reproduction, is the very one who shakes this undeniable higher motive of our common activity. Seemingly small details form the background against which fundamental questions are decided, as for example the duty to note down elements discovered in the course of the work. We must not rely on our memory unless we feel the spontaneity of our work is being threatened, and even then we must keep a partial record. This is just as basic a rule as is strict punctuality, the thorough memorizing of the text, etc. Any form of shamming in one's work is completely inadmissible. However it does sometimes happen that an actor has to go through a scene, just outline it, in order to check its organization and the elements of his partners' actions. But even then he must follow the actions carefully, measuring himself against them, in order to comprehend their motives. This is the difference between outlining and shamming.
An actor must always be ready to join the creative act at the exact moment determined by the group. In this respect his health, physical condition and all his private affairs cease to be just his own concern. A creative act of such quality flourishes only if nourished by the living organism. Therefore we are obliged to take daily care of our bodies so we are always ready for our tasks. We must not go short of sleep for the sake of private enjoyment and then come to work tired or with a hangover. We must not come unable to concentrate. The rule here is not just one's compulsory presence in the place of work, but physical readiness to create.
VIII
Creativity, especially where acting is concerned, is boundless sincerity, yet disciplined: i.e. articulated through signs. The creator should not therefore find his material a barrier in this respect. And as the actor's material is his own body, it should be trained to obey, to be pliable, to respond passively to psychic impulses as if it did not exist during the moment of creation - by which we mean it does not offer any resistance. Spontaneity and discipline are the basic aspects of an actor's work and they require a methodical key.
Before a man decides to do something he must first work out a point of orientation and then act accordingly and in a coherent manner. This point of orientation should be quite evident to him, the result of natural convictions, prior observations and experiences in life. The basic foundations of this method constitute for our troupe this point of orientation. Our institute is geared to examining the consequences of this point of orientation. Therefore nobody who comes and stays here can claim a lack of knowledge of the troupe's methodical program. Anyone who comes and works here and then wants to keep his distance (as regards creative consciousness) shows the wrong kind of care for his own individuality. The etymological meaning of " individuality" is " indivisibility" which means complete existence in something: individuality is the very opposite of half-heartedness. We maintain, therefore, that those who come and stay here discover in our method something deeply related to them, prepared by their lives and experiences. Since they accept this consciously, we presume that each of the participants feels obliged to train creatively and try to form his own variation inseparable from himself, his own reorientation open to risks and search. For what we here call "the method" is the very opposite of any sort of prescription.
IX
The main point then is that an actor should not try to acquire any kind of recipe or build up a "box of tricks." This is no place for collecting all sorts of means of expression. The force of gravity in our work pushes the actor towards an interior ripening which expresses itself through a willingness to break through barriers, to search for a "summit", for totality.
The actor's first duty is to grasp the fact that nobody here wants to give him anything; instead they plan to take a lot from him, to take away that to which he is usually very attached: his resistance, reticence, his inclination to hide behind masks, his half-heartedness, the obstacles his body places in the way of his creative act, his habits and even his usual "good manners".
X
Before an actor is able to achieve a total act he has to fulfill a number of requirements, some of which are so subtle, so intangible, as to be practically undefinable through words. They only become plain through practical application. It is easier, however, to define conditions under which a total act cannot be achieved and which of the actor's actions make it impossible. This act cannot exist if the actor is more concerned with charm, personal success, applause and salary than with creation as understood in its highest form. It cannot exist if the actor conditions it according to the size of his part, his place in the performance, the day or kind of audience. There can be no total act if the actor, even away from the theatre, dissipates his creative impulse and, as we said before, sullies it, blocks it, particularly through incidental engagements of a doubtful nature or by the premeditated use of the creative act as a means to further own career.

Q: I am currently studying Grotowski and his "Poor Theatre" acting >techniques. I was wondering if you could e-mail me any >information on his influences - most importantly Vakhtangov and >how he influenced Grotowski. > > >Thank you very much > > >R H

A: My experience with Grotowski's techniques were experiential, not academic. I can tell you what our rehearsals and performances were like. I can tell you what it felt like to visit and perform in Poland in 1969. I can also relate what it was like to work with the Performance Group, another Grotowski influenced group in NYC.
So to better address your question I called the director of Pillory Theatre, Dr. Jacques Burdick. His opinion is that Grotowski would certainly have known about Vakhtangov who was active in the early 1900's. In his personal discussions and correspondence with Grotowski, Dr. Burdick said that Vakhtangov's name never came up.
When I asked Dr. Burdick about any similarities between Grotowski and Vakhtangov he recalled a moment in a performance of the Habimah Theatre he saw on tour in NYC in the early 1960's. This group was formed in Russia and produced a performance of "The Dybbuk" by S. Ansky in 1922. Vakhtangov directed the original production. In 1928 the Habimah Theatre company moved to Palestine and continued to perform the same production. In the performance of "The Dybbuk" Dr. Burdick attended (of the same company, grown older) there was a section in the performance when the old rabbi is exorcising the foreign spirit from the young girl where the dramatic / physiological impact had the same qualities as he experienced with Grotowski's productions.
This is a tenuous thread, but it feels true to me. I experienced that there is a focus on the physicality and wisdom / knowingness of the body in Grotowski's work. His impact, going beyond words and concepts, is felt by the audience as physical sensation. Jeff Spolan describes this in his interview on the web site as, in one case, hearing the vibration of the performer's song in the base of his spine. This dramatic / physiological impact that Jeff experienced was quite real. He noted: "This is not an accident, nor is it a 'trick'."
An email from Robert Ellermann (who trained with Lee Strasberg, Bobby Lewis, among others, and was artistic director of the Cactus Theatre in Chicago, and taught with Bobby Lewis in Los Angeles) points out a more tangible connection:
>>The information you seek about Vakhtangov's influence on Grotowski is based on the fact that when Grotowski went to the old USSR to study at GITIS his main teacher was the great Vakhtangov disciple Yuri Zavadsky. Zavadsky was with Vakhtangov from 1916 or so until 1922. Look into Zavadsky and GITIS for your answers. Robert Ellermann<<
Indeed, in his book Grotowski and His Laboratory, Zbigniew Osinski writes:
"Grotowski was enrolled in the G.I.T.I.S [State Institute of Theater Arts in Moscow] directing program from August 23, 1955, until June 15, 1956. Under the supervision of Yuri Zavadsky, he directed The Mother by Jerzy Szaniawski at the theater Institute. He was Zavadsky's assistant in the production of Zialpotov by L.G. Zotin, which opened on April 27, 1956 at the Mossoviet Theater. His professors left him free to accomplish his routine apprenticeship. He met Zavadsky ten years later in the hall of Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, where, during the season of Théâtre des Nations, the Mossoviet Theater of Moscow performed Gogol under Zavadsky's direction. The old man looked at Grotowski, took his glasses off, recognized him and opened his arms to him. (24) He also directed productions at the Mossoviet and Moscow Art Theater, and he studied the techniques of Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, and Tairov"
More information about Vakhtangov's work and techniques and their relation to Grotowski's work :
On a web page from Actors Studio, Lee Strasberg is quoted as saying, "If you examine the work of the Stanislavski System as made use of by Stanislavski, you see one result. If you examine it in the work of one of his great pupils, Vakhtangov—who influenced our thinking and activity—you will see a completely different result. Vakhtangov's work was skillfully done, his use of the Method even more brilliant and more imaginative that Stanislavski’s, and yet Vakhtangov achieved totally different results."
Strasberg also says, "Vakhtangov says, 'If you had to do such and such a thing, as Othello does, what would have to happen to you, what would motivate you to do that?' In other words he places the aesthetic intention first and then uses the technique as a way of carrying out the aesthetic intention. When that is not done, often even in Stanislavski’s productions, the work makes the reality descend to the level of the actor, rather than helping the actor to ascend to the level of the character."
All of this does not sound like 'grotesque' Commedia, which would seem to more closely related to Meyerhold's work.
Britannica.com has Vakhtangov 'bridging the gap' between Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, "Yevgeny Vakhtangov tried to bridge the gap between Realism and the avant-garde"... by use of his '"outer technique"' ... "While preserving a deep respect for the actor's art--something he learned from Stanislavsky--he brought bold gesture and vivid colour to his productions"
This, to me, seems to make sense, given the reputation of Strasberg and Actor's Studio.
Grotowski, in an article written in 1965 and published in his book of the same name published in 1968, "Towards a Poor Theatre" mentions Vakhtangov as one of his influences. "I have studied all the major training methods of Europe and beyond. Most important for my purposes are: Dullin's rhythm exercises, Delsarte's investigations of extroversive and introversive reactions, Stanislavski's work on 'physical actions', Meyerholds's bio-mechanical training, Vakhtangov's synthesis."
The link between Grotowski and Stanislavsky is defined more fully defined by Grotowski in Towards a Poor Theatre. Lee Strasberg (Actor's Studio, NYC) makes reference to this: "A contemporary [to B. Brecht] Polish director, Jerzy Grotowski, made the most thorough effort to rediscover the elements of the actor's art. Although he credited Stanislavsky with having posed the most important questions, he was not satisfied either with Stanislavsky, who let natural impulses dominate, or with Brecht, who was too much concerned, Grotowski felt, with the construction of the role. To Grotowski, the actor is a man who works in public with his body, offering it publicly. The work with the actor's instrument consists of physical, plastic, and vocal training to guide him toward the right kind of concentration, to commit himself totally, and to achieve a state of "trance." The actors concentrate on the search for "signs," which express through sound and movement those impulses that waiver on the borderline between dream and reality. By means of such signs, the actor's own psychoanalytical language of sounds and gestures is constructed, in the same way as a great poet creates his own language."
My take is that Grotowski departed from Stanislavsky in a direction not indicated by Vakhtangov, nor Meyerhold and Brecht.
In a biographical sketch of Hanna Rovina, an original member of the Habimah Theatre the following glimpse of Vakhtangov's directorial effectiveness emerges: "Under Vakhtangov's direction, Rovina reached one of her artistic peaks, playing the part of Leah in An-ski's "The Dybbuk" (then entitled "Between Two Worlds"). The atmosphere at rehearsals is recalled by Chaim Nachman Bialik, who had translated the play into Hebrew. "Habimah's acting overwhelmed everyone who came within its orbit...perhaps it was the ecstasy stemming from some spring of invisible fire..."
Is there a relationship between this 'ecstasy' of Vakhtangov's direction and the 'state of "trance"' described by Strasberg in Grotowski's actors? If so, it may be a key to understanding of the effects felt by Dr. Burdick at the Habimah performance in NYC in the early 1960's that felt the same to him as Grotowski's performances in Edinburgh in 1967-68.
"Trance comes up in Grotowsi's "Towards a Poor Theatre" article as well. "The actor makes a total gift of himself. This is a technique of 'trance' and of the integration of all the actor's psychic and bodily powers which emerge from the intimate layers of his being and his instinct, springing forth in a sort of 'trans-lumination'."
These ecstasy / trance states could also be just different, independent means to a similar end. Grotowski had an interest in 'Hinduism and yoga' in his early life which preceded his interest in directing. See which presents Margaret Croyden's reporting of Grotowski's memorial service in NYC on January 14, 1999. Read Grotowski's taped remarks that were played at the opening of that service.
They go, in part, "When I was young I asked myself what would be a possible job that would enable me to look for the other one and myself, to look for a dimension of life that would be rooted in what is normal, organic, even sensual, but that would go beyond all this, that would have a sort of axis, another higher dimension that would surpass us. At that time, I wanted to study either Hinduism, to work on the different techniques of yoga, or medicine, to become a psychiatrist, or dramatic art to become a director."
In relating Grotowski's early history Jennifer Kumiega writes in The Theatre of Grotowski: "According to the Polish writer Kazimierz Braun, ill health again interrupted Grotowski's studies, and it was in order to recuperate that he made his first journey to Central Asia, spending two months raveling there in 1956, This was his first direct contact with the East, but it was evidence of a fascination that had been engendered during his childhood. He had at that time become acquainted with esoteric literature, and during his higher education in Cracow he made contact with those working in the area of Eastern philosophy, and participated in organized meetings and discussion groups. It was an interest that he also brought to bear in later years, in ways both manifest and implicit. Subsequent visits to the East were to culminate in 1970 in a six-week solitary odyssey through India and Kurdistan which had a profound and transformative effect on him and his work."
Like Stanislavsky, Grotowski investigated the mechanics and internal dynamics of performance. Starting from a base including Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Brecht, Vakhtangov, Dullin and Delsarte, my judgment is that Grotowski went his own way, as much influenced by the inner states and knowledge made available through his exposure to 'Hinduism and Yoga', as by the theatrical culture preceding him. Grotowski's work is related to Vakhtangov in some similarity of results obtained in performance, and thanks to Robert Ellermann, we have one clear link, the work Grotowski did with Vakhtangov's student Yuri Zavadsky in the USSR at GITIS in 1955-1956.
Owen Daly, revised May 5, 2005

Leszek Kolankiewicz
Aarhus, 5th October 2004
Grotowski and Flaszen – Why a Theatre Laboratory?
Many of the theatres discussed here – or maybe all of them – can be classified as laboratories, but only a few bore this title. Foremost among the latter there was the Polish Laboratory Theatre. I will therefore first provide a handful of information about this institution’s name. Jerzy Grotowski and Ludwik Flaszen founded their theatre in the summer of 1959 in Opole, first taking over the name of the Theatre of 13 Rows which existed there previously. It was as late as the 1st of March 1962 that they modified it into the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows in Opole – and this date can be recognized as a moment in history. The premières took place in Opole under the new aegis. These were: Akropolis after Stanis?aw Wyspia?ski (in November 1962), The Tragical History of Dr Faustus after Christopher Marlowe (in April 1963), and A Study of Hamlet based on texts by William Shakespeare and Stanis?aw Wyspia?ski (in March 1964). At the moment of the relocation of the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows from Opole to Wroc?aw – on the 1st of January 1965 – the name of the place was supplemented with a new element: the Institute of the Actor’s Method. The Constant Prince after Pedro Calderón de la Barca in Juliusz S?owacki’s translation (premiered in April 1965) was presented in the theatre with this name. At the beginning of 1967, when the company was working on The Gospels, which later evolved into Apocalypsis cum figuris (premièred in February 1969) – the last theatre piece directed by Grotowski – ‘13 Rows’ disappeared from the name of the Laboratory Theatre. From 1st of January 1970 the name of the institution was shortened into ‘The Institute of the Actor – the Laboratory Theatre’; this name survived without change until the end of the institution’s existence. In a letter to the local authorities in Wroc?aw, Ludwik Flaszen, Rena Mirecka, Zygmunt Molik and Ryszard Cie?lak, who were writing on behalf of the group, recalled all its historical names: ‘As of 31 August 1984, the Theatre of 13 Rows, the Institute of the Actor’s Method, Institute of the Actor – in other words the company of the Teatr Laboratorium, after exactly 25 years, has decided to dissolve.’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 169).
It is worth adding that in the 1970s, when the team did not work on new theatre performances, but organized so called paratheatrical workshops (Grotowski called retrospectively this type of project a ‘theatre of participation’) on the posters two words: ‘institute’ and ‘laboratory’ from the official name of the institution were written in a bold font. And a phrase was added to the double name of the Laboratory Theatre: ‘an institute of cultural research situating itself on the border of art, especially theatre,’ taken from an interview with Grotowski published in October 1976 by the official daily Trybuna Ludu (cf. J. Grotowski 1976). Grotowski eagerly resorted to scientific terminology at that time. Perhaps the most famous type of paratheatrical workshop, which was realized for the first time in October 1973 near Philadelphia in the United States, was called the Special Project – using a term derived from university terminology. Later, different types of paratheatrical workshops realized abroad – in France and Australia – were described by the shared name ‘the Complex Research Program.’ While in 1975 the Theatre of Nations season took place in Warsaw, Grotowski conducted the primary part called the University of Research of the Theatre of Nations in Wroc?aw. Right in the middle of 1970s, laboratories multiplied in the Laboratory Theatre – documents report the creation of the Acting Therapy Laboratory, the Group Theory and Analysis Laboratory, the Laboratory of Event Methods, the Working Encounter Laboratory. Grotowski’s personal, most secret research was called in documents by the title ‘the Program of Prospective Research,’ whatever this name might mean.
When in 1983 – after emigration from Poland – Grotowski inaugurated the Objective Drama Project in the United States, he described its institutional shape in grant proposals, submitted first to
New York University, and finally to the University of California, Irvine, as laboratory. ‘Grotowski’s work codes may be religious by origin, but they are in the process of being isolated into technical codes by means of the work of the laboratory’ (in: Schechner: 256). So it was that in his later work as well, carried out with new teams outside the Polish Laboratory Theatre, Grotowski sometimes used the title laboratory.
At the end of his life Grotowski combined research led at the Workcenter in Pontedera with academic work. He was appointed professor of the Collège de France in Paris and in 1997 took the
Chair of Theatre Anthropology which was created especially for him.

What made him use these names – laboratory, institute – taken from institutional science?
Why did he constantly place his artistic work in the context of scientific research?
Grotowski spoke about this in an interview Laboratorium w teatrze [The Laboratory in the Theatre], given in April 1967, reprinted as a separate text Methodical Exploration, and subsequently included in the book Towards a Poor Theatre. This text begins with Grotowskiadmitting his fascination for the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, founded in 1920 by Niels Bohr. Grotowski was obviously fascinated not by the subject of the research conducted there, but by the way it was organized: the physicists from different countries were allowed to realize their
boldest experiments in order to extract from their results the key directions in their research; the research was led in the space of a no man’s land and was permanent in its nature. Grotowski
emphasized that theatre and especially the art of the actor obviously do not constitute the domain of scientific research. But on the other hand, he referred to Stanislavski and recalled the actor’s need to master a method. He said: ‘Taking into account the fact that the domain on which our attention is focused is not a scientific one and not everything in it can be defined (indeed, many things must not be), we nevertheless try to determine our aims with all the precision and consequence proper to scientific research. The actor who works here is already a professional for, not only his creative act but also the laws which govern it, become the object of his preoccupations’ (in: J. Grotowski 1968: 97). In his text Grotowski called these general principles ‘objective laws’ (in: J. Grotowski 1968: 96). The Laboratory Theatre was meant to resemble the Bohr Institute precisely because of the research nature of the work on the actor’s method and its operation on the border between art and other scientific disciplines (at that time Grotowski had already mentioned cultural anthropology among others). Grotowski was attached to this comparison. In 1989 – when Zbigniew Osi?ski was negotiating with him the contents of the collection of his texts published in Poland – he stated that in this article (written more then twenty years before) the only accurate thing was the Laboratory’s comparison with the Bohr Institute.
Jerzy Grotowski’s brother Kazimierz, three years his senior, is a Professor at the Jagellonian University in Cracow. He remembers that during the last years of the II world war which they spent
in a village, their mother Emilia, who was a teacher, gave both her sons various books to read. Among these they both read Paul Brunton’s A Search in Secret India about the Indian saint ?r?
Ramana Maharshi, and New World of Physics by sir James Jeans, a British physicist and astronomer. Kazimierz Grotowski asserts that these books were decisive in shaping their paths in
life. It is well known how closely Jerzy Grotowski was faithful to his fascination as a ten years old boy – according to his will his ashes were to be scattered on the slopes of Arunachala, the mountain where ?r? Ramana had his hermitage. But maybe Grotowski had also kept in his memory books about the latest scientific research, on physics and astronomy. His brother in Portret rodzinny [Family Portrait] – an article written after Jerzy’s death – remembers: ‘We talked also about physics and astrophysics. We could communicate without problems. Despite his engagement in theatre, philosophy, religious studies, and anthropology, Jurek approached the issues of the world from a position which brought him close to scientists. After all, his Theatre was mainly a place for carrying out experiments.’ And he immediately adds: ‘In our conversations we sometimes wrangled over the meaning of certain terms such as energy [...].’ In Kazimierz Grotowski’s opinion, his brother experimented, leading a ‘quest for the supernatural in human experiences.’ He confesses: ‘We spoke about very rare moments in life, for example in a remote place, in high mountains, when a man senses the direct presence of Lord’ (K. Grotowski: 34). (We should be aware that was also fascinated by India, made an expedition there, and went – unlike Jerzy who did not climb – high up in the Himalayas, where he visited lamaic monasteries.)
Jerzy Grotowski approached the problematic of his work from a position close to scientists’. Scientific research made an impression on him, and this is where his predilection for such names as
‘laboratory,’ ‘institute’ and so on comes from. But the domain which he cultivated – and he was perfectly aware of this – was neither scientific nor did it yield to scientific definitions. After all,
Grotowski could have said the same as Jung: ‘I see that all my thoughts spin around God’ (Jung: 10). Yet Grotowski returned to the epithet ‘objective’ again and again. At first he was concerned
with ‘objective laws’ which govern the actor’s creative processes, and then with ‘objective drama’ which can be distilled from the world’s various liturgical performances. In a well-known critique, Richard Schechner (cf. Wolford, Schechner: 489-490) expressed his unease about this epithet in Grotowski’s work, especially in Ritual Arts when Grotowski kept employing the artistic-subjective method. Schechner asserts that Grotowski’s investigations were not scientific – even when they were led at universities, for instance in the framework of the Objective Drama Project at the University of California, Irvine. Neither in the course of the work, nor after its completion were the hypothesis and results subjected to open discussion. They were made known only to a small coterie or to individuals chosen from the circle of Grotowski’s supporters. They were never verified in the way scientists – or at the very least hard scientists – verify the results published for instance in Nature or Science. These arguments are irrefutable. However, Grotowski carried out his research in the frame of another paradigm. This paradigm differed from a scientific one in the same way as alchemic experiences were different from chemical experiments. In October 1980 at a conference at York University in Toronto he formulated the pragmatics of his Theatre of Sources Project. This project was carried out in Poland at a very particular moment in history. The first practical seminar took place in the summer of 1980 when Poland was swept by a wave of strikes which ended in the founding of Solidarity, the first independent workers’ union in the territories under the dominance of the Soviets; while the second practical seminar – planned for 1982 – was being prepared by an international team traveling around Poland in 1981, that is in the period of stormy civil conflict and the constant threat of invasion by the armies of the Warsaw Pact – in the period which ended in December 1981 by imposition of martial law in Poland. At the conference in Toronto Grotowski determined the conditions in which the efficacy of the research should be tested – incidentally this fragment can be found in the Polish version of the text published in 1987, but was cut from the revised version published in The Grotowski Sourcebook ten years later (actually the text is wrongly dated): ‘You should have a favorable place for [experiments], but then you must try [to carry them out] in another condition – under a bridge, in a hospital, in a prison. If you manage in these three places it means that you really found what you had been looking for’ (J. Grotowski 1987: 113). Of course he was not speaking about scientific experiments – but certainly what was at stake was an experiment led in a way that is not compromised and which demands the total involvement of the researcher. Grotowski put this instruction into practice when he left the forest base of the Laboratory Theatre (a place favorable for work) with the second team of the Theatre of Sources and began travelling around a feverish Poland in order to lead an investigation ‘under a bridge,’ all the time taking into account that at some point it would have to be continued in a hospital or even in a prison. I took part in these expeditions. In this period Grotowski read and eagerly commented on Martin Buber’s book about Hasids. Needless to say that Grotowski was not a Jew and as such was not an inheritor of the Hasidic tradition. He was not a black person, but all the same he took up Afrohaitian voodoo traditions – just like Hasidism. And it is possible that when we were going across Poland in 1981 and visiting a few small towns and a village, being prepared for the worst, we looked like a zaddick wandering with his Hasids. Hasidism was important for Grotowski because – according to an excellent formula of Buber – in Hasidism, the cabbala as a system, which we know from Sefer ha-Zohar, was transformed into an ethos, a way of life (cf. Buber, p. XXI). In Hasidism the system was inseparable from the relation between Hasids (that is ‘the pious’) and the zaddick (i.e. ‘the just’) as an embodiment of knowledge, a personal example, a living legendary character; the system resulted from this relationship and fulfilled itself in it. At the beginning of the 1980s Grotowski was still not speaking directly about the meaning of this type of relationship to his research. He did this in February 1987 at a conference in Pontedera, when he spoke about the relationship between the teacher of Peformer and Performer. ‘I am a teacher of Performer’ – he said. ‘A teacher – as in the crafts – is someone through whom the teaching is passing’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 374). The teacher himself came to know this teaching, as Grotowski says mysteriously, by initiation, or by theft. The teaching mentioned here concerns knowledge – Grotowski calls Performer a man of knowledge. ‘A man of knowledge [cz?owiek poznania] has at his disposal the doing and not ideas or theories. The true teacher – what does he do for the apprentice? He says: do it. The apprentice fights to understand, to reduce the unknown to the known, to avoid doing. By the very fact that he wants to understand, he resists. He can understand only after he does it. He does it or not. Knowledge is a matter of doing’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 374). Obviously the knowledge mentioned here is not scientific knowledge – instead it is more like the central notion of gnosis: active knowledge, which is the sole path towards salvation. In the version from the aforementioned conference in Toronto published in The Grotowski Sourcebook, Grotowski makes a distinction between gnosis and gnosticism (cf. Wolford, Schechner: 261). He regards the latter as very baroque in its language and invention of levels of reality. In one sentence in this Grotowski speaks about early gnosis and transmission attributed to the non-public teachings of Jesus – but perhaps he meant early Christianity, which was still mixed up with gnosis, as was the case with the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi. Grotowski read this gospel as a collection of practical tips. There is a transcription of an extraordinary meeting which Grotowski held in March 1981, during this stormy period for Poland, with researchers of Polish Romanticism. It took place in Gda?sk: the city where Solidarity had been born half a year before. This transcription was published simultaneously in three different unauthorized versions and it reflects Grotowski’s orature excellently. It is still very little known in Poland, and is probably completely unknown abroad. The encounter took place in a very special historical moment and maybe this is the reason why Grotowski said things he never mentioned either before or afterwards. I think that, of his texts, this is one of the most important. He said then: ‘In fact, gnosis does not interest me at all. It is a system, one of many. And every system is a Procrustean bed’ (in: Janion, Rosiek: 400). He must have meant this sincerely because gnosis interested him only as a practice. Or – it interested him only in as much as it worked in the practice of such performing arts which he later called Ritual Arts. In fact this brought his approach closer to Afrohaitan voodoo, which above all is practice and only practice, even if it becomes like a system on the pages of ethnographic studies such as Maya Deren’s or Alfred Métraux’s. And it also brought it closer to Hasidism which Martin Buber could not have introduced better through stories about the zaddiks, through traditions, in which the teaching is inseparable from action and from events. According to Buber, to create or acquire a more or less systematic theory in our times is completely beside the point. The point is to get to know a reality which can help man remain in a state of readiness (cf. Buber: 237). Grotowski probably shared this view. This is why he did not give his teaching a systematic form: neither scientific, nor gnostic. And such accounts as At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions and The Edge-Point of Performance by Thomas Richards are the best testimonies of his teaching. During the meeting in Gda?sk, which I was speaking about here, Grotowski presented his gnostic world view for the only time in such a direct way. ‘I think that the world in which I was born and where I live is not for life’ – he said. ‘We are as if expelled, as if we are born in this world not from this world, not for this world – but I don’t know if from the other – but as if it appeared that a lot can be found in this world’ (in: Janion, Rosiek: 403). In this desperate recognition his imitation of the way of the Hasids was consolidated. Grotowski said: ‘For them God exploded with sparks, which the further they fly, the more they disappear, disperse, and the Hasids understood that the sparks need to be taken up and shared with people – they wandered in the name of this’ (in: Janion, Rosiek: 378). According to this understanding, the world of nature and human experience is the stage where the exile of the soul is played out – and being so, it remains a mission for man, who should find sparks of God, and extract and restitute them during his exile. Later, in the text Performer, Grotowski will speak – after Meister Eckhart – about this as a ‘breakthrough’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 377), which is the return of an outcast from exile in this world. Grotowski understood the mission imposed on man as being independent from current events of history. In Gda?sk, in the most heated period of Polish contemporary history he suggested treating social disturbances as a period similar to the time spent in the transit zone at an airport. He then said: ‘Hasids, Saint Francis, the madmen of zen – they all resemble each other. It is as through everything was starting from the beginning, with people who come from the very heart of society and at the same time from its margins’ (in: Janion, Rosiek: 399). Turning points happen in the lives of societies, and at that moment political matters are at stake. Often it is war, but at the same time – somewhere on the margins – people appear who refer radically to spiritual sources, to the very origins of the human calling and mission. Perhaps it is the deepest manifestation of the relationship between Grotowski’s work in his successive laboratories and the main stream of social life, between knowledge and history. Grotowski rejected gnosis as system. With gnosis, he was interested in knowledge itself, which he considered a matter of doing. This brings to mind an association with alchemy which Grotowski himself never mentioned, even though he suggested using the term opus in order to describe the work in Ritual Arts. As a matter of fact this was something which brings him close to Carl Gustav Jung and George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: overall, Gurdjieff presented his teaching to Ouspensky – and this is acknowledged In Search of the Miraculous – as a kind of alchemy, while Jung draw a genealogical line which started in gnosticism and ran through alchemy towards analytical psychology. It is a well known fact that alchemists made many scientific discoveries, so popularly understood alchemy is regarded as pre-chemistry, an imperfect science – imperfect because alchemists gave themselves over to a world of fantastic imaginings of hermeticism. But all these point to the fact that they were by no means aiming at chemical reactions. Alchemy everywhere – wherever and whenever it was cultivated – remain in a close relationship to some mystical tradition or other. Chinese alchemy was related to taoism, Indian alchemy to tantrism, Hellenic alchemy to gnosticism and the religion of the mysteries, Arabic alchemy to sufism, and European alchemy of the middle ages and renaissance to hermeticism and cabbalistic mysticism. It is enough to point out that alchemy was a spiritual technique. The alchemist above all conducted operations on himself in his laboratory: on his psychophysiological life, on his experience. He did these operations with a rigor characteristic of scientific procedures, and at the same time as an artist, drawing from gymnastic, choreographic, and ecstatic techniques. In the Chinese esoteric alchemy of neidan, chemical substances were not employed at all, but the operations were carried out in the body and psyche of the adept. This is where the elixir vitae, the elixir of life, was being prepared. However, in the main, alchemy was nothing but laboratory work. In this work the drama of the psyche was experienced as inseparable from the drama of matter. This dramatic dimension can be seen in the best way in Hellenic alchemy where the initiatory scenario of the mysteries was projected onto laboratory procedures which were the realization of the drama of life and transformations of matter. But everywhere alchemy involved initiatory schemes: suffering, death and the resurrection of matter which were analogous to the suffering, death and the resurrection of the laboratory adept. The work of the alchemist aimed at the redemption of the anima mundi, the soul of the world, imprisoned in matter. The ultimate aim of the opus magnum, the great work, was an apocatastasis: renovation, healing, restitution, and liberation of the anima mundi. Just as Christ redeemed man, the alchemist’s task was to ensure the redemption of nature. That is why alchemist operations had soteriological value. While searching for gold the alchemist was looking for his spiritual essence. This is why Jung interpreted the opus magnum as an individuation process and saw the finding of the elixir vitae as reaching the Self. But this transformation did not proceed according to a natural rhythm. In alchemy, transmutatio, the transformation of matter and the transformation of an adept, were triggered off artificially in the laboratory. Hence the laboratory was needed and alchemy deserved the title of an art, of artistry, and craftsmanship. Jung distinguished between natural individuation, which happens voluntarily in the course of man’s life, who in his second half turns as though it is
natural to his inner life, and an individuation triggered artificially, for instance by means of initiatory techniques of mysteries and alchemy. Gurdjieff also spoke about the two ways of reaching
the essence: about the way of a ‘citizen,’ who goes through the vicissitudes of life in his conscience, and about the way of a ‘sly man,’ who by all accessible means – by initiation, or by theft –
accelerates his transformation. This in fact is an art – an alchemical ars magna, a great art – and a laboratory is needed for this.
I think that this is the deepest and the most exact meaning of the term ‘laboratory’ in the name of the Polish Laboratory Theatre and in all subsequent laboratory works of Jerzy Grotowski.
In his first manifesto, Towards a Poor Theatre, in 1965, Grotowski spoke about his method – which suggested that it all boils down to the actor’s physical exercises: ‘Here everything is concentrated on the «ripening» of the actor which is expressed by a tension towards the extreme, by a complete stripping down, by the laying bare of one’s own intimacy – all this without the least trace of egotism or self-enjoyment. The actor makes a total gift of himself. This is a technique of the «trance» and of the integration of all the actor’s psychic and bodily powers which emerge from the most intimate layers of his being and his instinct, springing forth in a sort of «translumination»’ (J. Grotowski 1968: 16). Something that Grotowski called at that time ‘the most intimate layers of his being and his instinct’ later received the more alchemical name ‘«density» of the body’ (in: Richards: 125) in his vocabulary. The actor’s organism should eliminate any resistance to the inner process, ‘the body vanishes, burns, and the spectator sees only a series of visible impulses’ (J. Grotowski 1968: 16). Later Grotowski called Ryszard Cie?lak’s accomplishments in The Constant Prince a ‘carnal prayer’ (in: Richards: 123). He said that it was as though Cie?lak in this role ‘liberated himself with his body from the body itself, as if he liberated himself – step after step – from the heaviness of the body’ (in: Richards: 123). In this type of act it was as though the actor radiated ‘like figures in El Greco’s paintings, can «illuminate» through personal technique, becoming a source of «spiritual light»” (J. Grotowski 1968: 20). Grotowski describes here a transformation of an alchemical nature which consisted of lifting up what is heavy and carnal towards light and spirituality. He described this transformation in Performer as passing ‘from the body-and-essence to the body of essence’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 375). But in his opinion to make this transformation possible a precise structure of actions is indispensable. Action was meant to be such a structure and he called it an opus – not accidentally. Grotowski placed a great emphasis on this. ‘One cannot work on oneself (to use the term of Stanislavski), if one is not inside something which is structured and can be repeated, which has a beginning a middle and an end, something in which every element has its logical place, technically necessary. All this determined from the point of view of that verticality toward the subtle and of its (the subtle) descend toward the density of the body’ (in: Richards: 130). This is precisely why Grotowski needed laboratory work – a laboratory which was devised as a permanent empirical quest led with a stable team of apprentices. This research was not of a scientific nature, but rather resembled an alchemical art. In alchemists’ practice, the laboratory, the place for experiments, was at the same time an oratory, a space for prayer. In the picture by Hans Vredemann de Vries, published as a print in Heinrich Conrad Khunrath’s Amphiteatrum sapientiae aeternae, we can see an alchemist’s room divided symmetrically into two parts: a chapel and a workspace, where these two operations – prayer and work – are carried out in parallel, both equally necessary for the completion of an opus. Alchemists believed that by influencing matter in an opus magnum one can make an impact on spirituality; and the reverse: being subjected to spiritual processes one transmutes matter. Hence in the art of alchemy a laboratory and an oratory were two sides of the same process. European alchemists were mainly Christian. Jung showed plausibly that their lapis philosophorum, the philosophers’ stone, was analogous to Christ. Gurdjieff also considered his teaching an esoteric Christianity. But neither Jung, Gurdjieff, nor Grotowski relied in their work on faith. Like Gnostics, they all relied exclusively on empirical knowledge. This is why they created laboratories – not churches and sects.
Alchemists tested gnostic and/or Christian truth in a practical way: ‘God’s kingdom is in you and beyond you. Thus if somebody knows himself he will find it’ (in: Starowieyski: 91). According to Grotowski, the man of knowledge understands only through doing. In the domain of performing arts the man of knowledge is a dancer/priest and as such through fighting with his habits
he searches for the extremity of passivity in action; passivity that is repose – inner repose in movement (action). Outwardly his action of a dancer-priest does not lose any of its dynamics,
whereas inwardly he becomes a carrier for a process of knowing himself (a knowing which is gnostic salvation). The ethos of alchemists was extraordinary. The basic principle of alchemy was – as Micha? S?dziwój (Sendigovius Polonus) put it: ‘Nature is one, one is art, but different laboratory apprentices’ (S?dziwój: 190). For this reason alchemists – quite unlike philosophers or theologians – did not lead polemical debates amongst themselves. There was a kind of professional solidarity among them. On the other hand, they did not feel the need to create brotherhoods (with the exception of Rosicrucianism). Alchemists worked in the privacy of their laboratories, each on his own process. And if they referred to tradition, they quoted only what they had accomplished empirically themselves. But while they eagerly discoursed on the introductory phases of an opus they spoke vaguely or kept silent about its goal. Grotowski was the same – but then he did say why. I cite again: ‘A man of knowledge [cz?owiek poznania] has at his disposal the doing and not ideas or theories. The true teacher – what does he do for the apprentice? He says: do it. The apprentice fights to understand, to reduce the unknown to the known, to avoid doing. By the very fact that he wants to understand, he resists. He can understand only after he does it. He does it or not. Knowledge is a matter of doing’ (in: Wolford, Schechner: 374).
Why was the Polish Laboratory Theatre a laboratory? Firstly – to avoid being a repertory theatre, which was common in the Polish conditions. And then – to avoid being a theatre, to avoid
the necessity of producing performances. But this was not about trickery with an official name. The Laboratory Theatre and Grotowski’s later laboratories were laboratories in the very essence of his world view and through their likeness to the alchemical tradition. This is why the Laboratory Theatre was first and foremost a laboratory in a literal sense. In the summer of 1970 Grotowski
spoke about this quite directly: ‘it is not so important to call it a laboratory, it is not important whether it is called a theatre. Such a place is necessary. If a theatre did not exist, another pretext
would be found’ (J. Grotowski 1972: 117).

References

Buber, Martin
1999 Gog i Magog. Kronika chasydzka [Gog and Magog: The Hasidic Chronicle]. Translated by
Jan Garewicz. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Grotowski, Jerzy
1968 Towards a Poor Theatre. Holstebro: Odin Teatrets Forlag.
1972 ‘Co by?o (Kolumbia – lato 1970 – Festiwal Ameryki ?aci?skiej)’ [‘What was. Columbia –
Summer 1970 – Festival of Latin America’], Dialog, Warsaw, no. 10.
1976 ‘Poszukiwania Teatru Laboratorium’ [‘The Laboratory Theatre Explorations’]. Conversation
led by Tadeusz Burzy?ski, Trybuna Ludu, Warsaw, no. 252.
1987 ‘Teatr ?róde?’ [‘Theatre of Sources’]. Prepared for publishing by Leszek Kolankiewicz, in:
Zeszyty Literackie, Paris, no. 19: Summer.
Grotowski, Kazimierz
2000 ‘Portret rodzinny’ [‘Family Portrait’], in: Pami?tnik Teatralny, Warsaw, special issue edited
Leszek Kolankiewicz: Grotowski and Flaszen – why a Theatre Laboratory? 8
by Jaros?aw Fret, Grzegorz Janikowski and Grzegorz Zió?kowski, XLIX: 1-4.
Janion, Maria; Rosiek, Stanis?aw (eds.)
1986 Maski [Masks]. Gda?sk: Wydawnictwo Morskie. Vol. 1.
Jung, Carl Gustav
1999 Wspomnienia, sny, my?li [Memories, Dreams, Reflections]. Transcription and preparation for
publishing by Aniela Jaffé. Translated by Robert Reszke and Leszek Kolankiewicz.
Warszawa: Wrota. 3rd revised and supplemented edition.
Richards, Thomas
1995 At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, with A Preface and the Essay From the
Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle by Jerzy Grotowski. London, New York: Routledge.
Schechner, Richard
1985 Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
S?dziwój, Micha?
1971 Traktat o kamieniu filozoficznym [Treatise on the Philosophical Stone]. Translated and with
the introduction and commentaries by Roman Bugaj. Warszawa: Pa?stwowe Wydawnictwo
Naukowe.
Starowieyski, Marek (ed.)
1980 Apokryfy Nowego Testamentu [The New Testament Apocrypha]. vol. 1: Ewangelie
apokryficzne [Apocrypha Gospels]. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego
Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. Part 1.
Wolford, Lisa; Schechner, Richard (eds.)
1997 The Grotowski Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge.
English translation Grzegorz Zió?kowski with Paul Allain

About Boris Evgenyevich Zakhava

Boris Evgenyevich Zakhava (1896–1976) was a Russian theatre director, actor and acting coach.
Biography
Boris Zakhava was born on May of 1896 in Pavlohrad, Russian Empire. It is unknown his birth date is May 12 or May 24. Evgeni Zakhava, his father, was a graduate of Moscow Imperial Cadet School and was an officer at the Russian Imperial Army. Boris, like his father, graduated the 3rd Moscow Imperial Cadet School (1913). While being a cadet, he was acting in amateur performances. In the meantime he was involved in the centennial celebration of the victory over Napoleon in 1912, in Moscow.
Zakhava studied at the acting class of Vsevolod Meyerhold (1913–1916) and acting at the Moscow Vakhtangov studio under Yevgeny Vakhtangov. Since he was being hired by Vakhtangov as an actor, Zakhava worked at his theatre (Vakhtangov Theatre) for entire life. In 1922 he performed as a Timur in Carlo Gozzi's Turandot. Zakhava was a teaching director at the acting studio (1925) and a leading director of Vakhtangov Theatre Company. He produced and directed Maxim Gorky's dramas, Yegor Bulychev and Others (1932, 1951) and Dostegayev and Others (1933, 1934). Since 1939 he became a director of the Shchukin Theatrical School (f. Vakhtangov acting studio). In 1958 Zakhava directed William Shakespeare's Hamlet starring Mikhail Astangov in the main role. In 1968 he portrayed Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov in Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace (original: Vojna i mir), an Academy Award winner film.
He died on November 25, 1976 in Moscow. Buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, Russia.

Method acting schools in America

Studying the Method at Its Source         

By RICK LYMAN
Published: November 11, 1997
The American Repertory Theater and the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University have announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Moscow Art Theater School, where the Stanislavsky Method was introduced and evolved, to offer a two-year program in acting, directing and theater management. The program will include a semester of training, working and performing in Moscow.
The partnership is the first between the historic Moscow theater school and an American school, and will include the regular presence of instructors from Russia, administrators said. It will also offer American students, for the first time, the techniques and philosophies that the director and teacher Constantin Stanislavsky developed toward the end of his life.
''The impact of Stanislavsky on American theater has been, of course, famous,'' said Robert Brustein, artistic director of the institute. ''And famously misunderstood.''
The Stanislavsky system and the Method have been at the center of several influential American acting schools from the 1930's onward, sometimes resulting in debates between competing companies about which was offering the purest form. ''Fundamentally, his technique was always evolving,'' said Robert Orchard, managing director of the institute. ''That was why there was such confusion in this country about the so-called authentic Method.''
In the most general terms, the Method is a realistic style of acting in which the actor strives for close personal identification with the role being played.
Recent research into the work Stanislavsky conducted late in his life has revealed some pioneering techniques that, up to now, have only been interpreted and taught in Moscow, Mr. Orchard said.
''This is not to say that our two-year curriculum will teach Stanislavsky and nothing else,'' he said.
Some more recent, post-modernist approaches to acting and staging will also be a large part of the program, as will performances in verse, which were never integral to the Moscow program.
''Our philosophy is not to try to merge two different programs into one and making them drive parallel to one another,'' said Alexander Popov, who was associated with the Moscow theater for many years and will become administrative director of the institute and its new program. ''It is actually about trying to develop a new, solid program. It is not an academic program per se. It is about practitioners teaching practitioners.''
The program will begin with a summer semester in Cambridge, Mass., during which the incoming class will be exposed to the basic Stanislavsky techniques and the Russian language, Mr. Brustein said.
This will be followed by a fall semester in Cambridge; a spring semester in Moscow, where instruction will be in English, and two final semesters in Cambridge. A rotating roster of instructors from the Moscow theater will be in Cambridge during the sessions there, and some of the American instructors will go to Moscow for the spring semester.
At the end of the program, students will receive a certificate from the institute and, if they already possess a bachelor's degree, a master of fine arts from the Moscow Art Theater School. The application deadline for the first semester is Jan. 19. Acting students will be accepted by audition, directors and dramaturgists by interview, and sessions will begin in July.
''Next year is the 100th anniversary of the Moscow Art Theater, where the first production was held on Oct. 17, 1898, so we are very happy that this partnership is beginning during that centenary,'' Mr. Popov said. ''For American students, to be in Moscow for three months, to absorb and participate in theater life in Moscow, perform two of their projects, be exposed to the Russian audience, watch some of the great Russian directors at work, watch from over their shoulders while they are at work, is something that they have not been allowed to do before.''
Mr. Orchard said that giving American students the experience of working in Moscow and performing on Stanislavsky's home stage would be crucial to the success of the partnership.
''With all due respect to New York, I think that Moscow is the theater capital of the world,'' he said. ''There are over 200 theaters within the city limits alone. I think it is very important for our students to have the opportunity to train and perform in a community where theater is at the center of intellectual, cultural and political dialogue.''
Correction: November 22, 1997, Saturday
An article on Nov. 11 about a new educational partnership by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theater School referred incorrectly to its uniqueness. The affiliation is not the Moscow school's first with an American University.
In a letter to The Times, Peter Frisch, head of the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, notes that the Moscow Art Theater has participated in a partnership with his school, including student exchanges and offering a Master of Fine Arts in acting, since 1994. The Moscow theater's new partnership ends that affiliation, said Robert Brustein, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater.

Theatre theoreticians, actors, designers and directors in Europe.

Antonin-Marie-Joseph Artaud

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was one of the 20th century's most important theoreticians of the drama. He developed the theory of the Theater of Cruelty, which has influenced playwrights from Beckett to Genet, from Albee to Gelber.

Antonin-Marie-Joseph Artaud was born in Marseilles on September 4, 1896, the son of a wealthy shipfitter and a mother from a Greek background. At age five he suffered a near-fatal attack of meningitis, the results of which remained with him for the rest of his life.
He was educated at the Collège du Sacré Coeur in Marseilles and at 14 founded a literary magazine, which he kept going for almost four years. Still in his teens, he began to have sharp head pains, which continued throughout his life. In 1914 he was the victim of an attack of neurasthenia and was treated in a rest home; the following year he was given opium to alleviate his pain, and he became addicted within a few months.
He was inducted into the army in 1916, but was released in less than a year on grounds of both mental instability and drug addiction. In 1918 he committed himself to a clinic in Switzerland, where he remained until 1920.
On his release, he went immediately to Paris, still under medical supervision, and began to study with Charles Dullin, an actor and director. He soon began to find jobs as a stage and screen actor and as a set and costume designer. Within the next decade, he appeared on film in Fait Divers and Surcourt--le roi des corsairs (1924); Abel Gance's Napoléon Boneparte (1925); La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928); Tarakanowa (1929); G. W. Pabst's Dreigroschenoper, made in Berlin (1930); and Les Croix des Bois, Faubourg Montmartre, and Femme d'une nuit (all 1930). On stage he had roles in He Who Gets Slapped (1923), Six Characters in Search of an Author (1924), and R.U.R. (1924).
At the same time, Artaud became seriously interested in the surrealist movement headed by André Breton and in 1923 published a volume of symbolist verse strongly influenced by Mallarmé, Verlaine, and Rimbaud, Tric trac du ciel (Backgammon of the Sky). Two years later, at the height of his involvement with the surrealists, he published L'Ombilic des limbes (Umbilical Limbo), a collection of letters, poems in prose, and bits of dialogue; it contained one complete work, the five-minute playlet Le Jet de sang (The Jet of Blood), which was finally produced in 1964.
Artaud broke with the organized surrealist movement in 1926, when Breton became a Communist and attempted to take his fellow-members with him into the party. Yet Artaud continued to view himself as a surrealist and in 1927 wrote the filmscript for La Coquille et le clergyman, perhaps the most famous surrealist film, and Les Pèse-nerfs (Nerve Scales), another collection containing various literary forms.

As A Producer
It was also in 1927 that he joined with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron to found the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, named for the author of the 1896 play Ubu roi, which had so shocked the theatrical establishment of its time. Their theater had no permanent home, so they leased space in established theaters. In their first year they presented two programs, the first an evening of three one-act plays, one contributed by each of the founders, and Léon Poirier's Verdun, visions d'histoire. The following year they produced one evening which combined the film of Maxim Gorky's The Mother and the last act of Paul Claudel's Partage de midi, another of Strindberg's Dream Play, and their final effort, Vitrac's Victor ou les enfants du pouvoir.
Working as a theatrical producer gave Artaud an insight into the exigencies of the practical aspects of theater, with which he was not happy. Then, in 1931, he saw a Balinese drama at the French Colonial Exposition in Paris and found in this work, which stressed spectacle and dance, the ideal for which he had been searching.

As A Theoretician
In 1932-1933 he published his first work of dramatic theory, Manifestes du théâtre de la cruauté (Manifestos of the Theater of Cruelty), and in 1935 staged the first work based on his theories, an adaptation of Les Cenci, heavily dependent on the earlier works on that theme by the British poet Shelley and the French novelist Stendhal. Since one of Artaud's theories involved the breaking of the barrier between actors and audience, Les Cenci may be have been the first play ever staged in the round. In any event, it was a total failure.
Shattered, Artaud went to Mexico in 1930 and stayed there for the better part of a year, spending some time with the sun-worshipping Tarahumara Indians. On his return to France, he became engaged to a Belgian girl and tried to end his drug dependence. In May of 1937, giving a lecture in Brussels, he went completely out of control and began screaming at the audience. In the fall of that same year, on a visit to Ireland, he was declared mentally unfit, put in a straitjacket, and sent back to France. Ironically, it was shortly thereafter that his most important and influential work, Le Théâtre et son double (The Theater and Its Double), was published.
Diagnosed as schizophrenic, Artaud spent the next nine years in mental institutions, returning to Paris in triumph, acclaimed as a genius after his three-hour lecture-reading to an audience which included Nobel laureate Andre Gide, future Nobel laureate Albert Camus, and André Breton. Artaud died of cancer on March 4, 1948, in a rest home near Paris. Unlike his fellow theoretician of the drama, Bertolt Brecht, whose plays have been widely honored and frequently performed, Artaud had no success at all with his endeavors in drama, poetry, or fiction. His reputation rests entirely on his critical work.
In a word, Artaud called for a theater that is anti-intellectual. He believed that the drama of the past 400 years had become sterile and had no future. In the essay "No More Masterpieces" he laid the blame for the psychologically oriented drama on Shakespeare and elsewhere blamed Racine, but, wherever the responsibility lies, he asserted that the attempts "to reduce the unknown to the known, to the quotidian and ordinary" had brought the theater to the sorry state in which he found it.
Besides the psychological concerns, he also objected to the emphasis on the written word, the primacy of spoken poetry. In "The Theater of Cruelty (First Manifesto)" he said that "it is essential to put an end to the subjugation of the theater to the text and to recover the notion of a kind of unique language half-way between gesture and thought."
What Artaud offered as a substitute was the Theater of Cruelty. In the essays "Letters on Cruelty," Artaud said, "This cruelty is a matter of neither sadism nor bloodshed...." He went on, "I do not systematically cultivate horror ... cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination." He added, "It is a mistake to give the word 'cruelty' a meaning of merciless bloodshed and disinterested gratuitous pursuit of physical suffering.... Cruelty is above all lucid, a kind of rigid control and submission to necessity. There is no cruelty without consciousness...."
Yet, at the same time, it must be remembered that in one of his staged works Artaud picked as the theme the Cencis, a tale of rape, incest, and murder; that another of his works concerned the warped and dissolute Roman emperor Heliogabalus, and that one of his favorite British plays was 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, also about incest and murder.
What Artaud's Theater of Cruelty had to offer instead of the conventional was a theater in which spectacle played the main role. Instead of poetic language, there would be a series of sounds and "...these intonations will constitute a kind of harmonic balance, a secondary deformation of speech...."
There will be musical instruments, he said, which will be "treated as objects and as part of the set." The lighting will be calculated to produce "an element of thinness, density, and opaqueness, with a view to producing the sensations of heat, cold, anger, fear, etc." The dress should be "age-old costumes of ritualistic intent," while the stage should be "a single site, without partition or barrier of any kind." He adds: "Manikins, enormous masks, objects of strange proportions will appear." As to the set, "There will not be any set." Finally, there will be no script: "We shall not act a written play, but we shall make attempts at direct staging, around themes, facts, or known works."
While Artaud's theory was not successful in eradicating a theater based on texts, it made play-producers more conscious of elaborate sets, of movement (particularly the dance), and of an attention to myth, another of his concerns. Hence, his influence continued to be strong decades after his death in 1948.

Max Reinhardt (1873-1943)
German Expressionist theatre director. Massive influence on one of his actors, F W Murnau (who later directed the expressionist classic Nosferatu).

Adrian Samoiloff ( - ) Russian artistic 'electro-technician' who perpetrated colour tricks using lights of complementory colours. By using red and green lights, he was able, for example, to turn the king of comedy, George Robey, into a 'negro in green striped pyjamas'. His tricks with coloured lighting were originally seen at the London Hippodrome in the early 20th century and are now standard practice in pantomimes and on television.
cenic design (also known as stage design, set design or production design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with M.F.A. degrees in theatre arts.
The 'stage picture' is the 'look' or physical appearance of the stage for a play, whether in rehearsal or performance. It reflects the way that the stage is composed artistically in regard to props, actors, shapes and colours. The stage picture should express good principles of design and use of space. It should be visually appealing for the audience or should express the show's concept. The stage picture is also crucial for the creation of atmosphere for the audience.
The scenic designer is responsible for collaborating with the theatre director and other members of the production design team to create an environment for the production and then communicating the details of this environment to the technical director, production manager, charge scenic artist and propmaster. Scenic designers are responsible for creating scale models of the scenery, renderings, paint elevations and scale construction drawings as part of their communication with other production staff.
In Europe and Australia scenic designers take a more holistic approach to theatrical design and will often be responsible not only for scenic design but costume, lighting and sound and are referred to as theatre designers or scenographers or production designers.
Like their American cousins, European theatre designers and scenographers are generally trained with Bachelor of Arts degrees in theatre design, scenography or performance design.
Notable scenic designers, past and present, include: Tony Walton, Adolphe Appia, Boris Aronson, Howard Bay, Edward Gordon Craig, Luciano Damiani, Ezio Frigerio, Barry Kay, Sean Kenny, Ralph Koltai, Ming Cho Lee, Santo Loquasto, Jo Mielziner, Oliver Smith, Franco Colavecchia, Jean-Pierre Ponelle, Josef Svoboda, George Tsypin, Robert Wilson, Franco Zeffirelli, Natalia Goncharova, Vadim Meller, Aleksandra Ekster, Nathan Altman, David Borovsky, Daniil Lider, Inigo Jones, Nicholas Georgiadis, Alexandre Benois and Léon Bakst.

Eugenio Barba (born in Brindisi, Italy, on October 29, 1936) is an Italian author and authority on theatre.
Although Barba was born in Brindisi, he grew up in Gallipoli in the Province of Lecce, where his family came from. His family’s socio-economic situation changed significantly when his father, a military officer, was wounded in the Second World War and died soon after.
Upon completing high school at the military academy of Naples in 1954, he abandoned the idea of following his father into the military. Instead, in 1954, he emigrated to Norway to work as a welder and a sailor. He also took a degree in French, Norwegian literature and history of religion at Oslo University. In 1961 he went to Warsaw in Poland to study theatre direction at the State Theatre School, but left one year later to join Jerzy Grotowski, who at that time was the leader of Teatr 13 Rzedow in Opole. Barba stayed with Grotowski for three years.
In 1963 he traveled to India where he had his first encounter with Kathakali, a theatre form which had been overlooked in the West up to that time. Barba wrote an essay on Kathakali which was published in Italy, France, the USA and Denmark. His first book, about Grotowski In search of a Lost Theatre, was published in Italy and Hungary in 1965.
When Barba returned to Oslo in 1964, he wanted to become a professional theatre director, but as he was a foreigner, he was not welcome in the profession. Although, in this period he became a close friend to the Norwegian author and rebel Jens Bjørneboe with whom he wanted to start the theatre group. They/Eugenio Barba gathered a group of young people who had not passed their admission test to Oslo’s State Theatre School, and created the Odin Teatret on 1 October 1964. The group trained and rehearsed in an air raid shelter. Their first production, Ornitofilene, by the Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe, was performed in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. They were subsequently invited by the Danish municipality of Holstebro, a small town in the Northwest, to create a theatre laboratory there. They were offered an old farm and a small sum of money to set them on their feet. Since then Barba and his colleagues have made Holstebro the base for the Odin Teatret.
During the past forty two years Eugenio Barba has directed 65 productions with Odin Teatret and the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble, some of which have required up to two years of preparation. Among the best known are Ferai (1969), Min Fars Hus (My Father’s House) (1972), Brecht’s Ashes (1980), The Gospel According to Oxyrhincus (1985), Talabot (1988), Itsi Bitsi (1991), Kaosmos (1993) and Mythos (1998). Some of the more recent productions are Salt (2002), Great Cities under the Moon (2003), Andersen's Dream (2005), Ur-Hamlet (2006) and Don Giovanni all'Inferno (2006) in collaboration with Ensemble Midtvest.
Since 1974, Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret have devised their own way of being present in a social context through the practice of theatre "barter", an exchange through performance with a community.
In 1979 Eugenio Barba founded the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA). He is on the advisory boards of scholarly journals such as The Drama Review, Performance Research, New Theatre Quarterly, Teatro e Storia and Teatrología. Among his most recent publications, translated into several different languages, are The Paper Canoe (Routledge), Theatre: Solitude, Craft, Revolt (Black Mountain Press), Land of Ashes and Diamonds. My Apprenticeship in Poland, followed by 26 letters from Jerzy Grotowski to Eugenio Barba (Black Mountain Press) and, in collaboration with Nicola Savarese, The Secret Art of the Performer and the revised an updated version: A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology (Centre for Performance Research/ Routledge).
Eugenio Barba has been awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Århus, Ayacucho, Bologna, Havana, Warsaw, University of Plymouth (UK) and the "Reconnaissance de Mérite scientifique" from the Université de Montréal.
He is also a recipient of the Danish Academy Award, Mexican Theatre Critics' prize, Diego Fabbri prize, Pirandello International prize, the Sonning Prize of the University of Copenhagen and the Academy of Performing Arts (Hong Kong).

Meethod acting designers

Josef Svoboda - Scenographer (1920-2002) From the Laterna Magika website: Josef Svoboda was born May 10; 1920 in the town Cáslav. After completing his secondary studies; he apprenticed as a cabinet-maker. Following a master´s course; he enrolled in the Central School of Housing Industry in Prague. However; he was drawn to the theatre; where while in his home town and later in Prague he acquired his first practical experiences. Shortly after World War II he enrolled in scenography courses at the Prague Conservatory and studied architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague.
One of the predominant characteristics of Josef Svoboda was his consistent confrontation of theory and practice; in 1945; during his studies he participated in the founding of the Grand Opera of the May 5 Theatre. He became the theatre´s chief stage designer; as well as collaborating with the Theatre of Satire and the Studio of the National Theatre. In 1948; he joined the staff of the National Theatre; initially as stage designer and; as of 1951; as the head of its artistic and technical operations. Until 1992; he remained loyal to the National Theatre; when he left - and became the managing director of the independent Lantern Magic Theatre; where he had also served as artistic director since 1973.
In the May 5 Theatre he met his two principal directors - Alfréd Radok and Václav Kašlík. His collaboration with Radok refined his sense of the director´s concept of scenography and of the functional incorporation of the stage design into the context of the other components of a theatre production. Their common desire for discovery led them to a series of experimentations; the result of which was the founding of Lantern Magic; the creation of the polyekran (multiple screens); and other audiovisual forms. Svoboda´s cooperation with opera director Václav Kašlík inspired his love for music; which helped to introduce a number of excellent operatic works to theatres both at home and abroad. During the nineteen-sixties; he met other outstanding directors; among them Otomar Krejca and Miroslav Machácek; resulting in yet other outstanding works staged at the National Theatre in Prague; and; in Krejca´s case; at the Divadlo za branou in Prague; as well as numerous theatres around Europe. In the nineteen-eighties; Svoboda´s collaboration with stage director Evald Schorm in Lantern Magic signalled a major change in the orientation of this unique theatre.
Josef Svoboda created stage designs for more than 700 theatre performances in his own country and abroad. During the second half of the 20th century; hardly any prominent director could be found worldwide with whom Svoboda would not have collaborated. These particular artists include A. Delcampe; J. Dexter; C.H. Drese; A. Everding; G. Friedrich; G. Strehler; L. Olivier; R. Petit; J.-C. Riber; and others. He was at all times appreciated more abroad than in his home country; obtaining awards and titles; such as Dr.h.c. at the Royal College of Arts in London (1969); International Theatre Award in New York (1976); Chevalier de l´Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in Paris (1976); Doctor of Fine Arts at Denison University and Western Michigan University in the U.S.A. (1978-84); a prize of the U.S. Institute for Theater Technology in the U.S.A. (1986); the title The Royal Industry Designer in London (1989); the French Légion d´Honneur in 1993; and Dr.h.c. at the Université Catholique de Louvaine-la-Neuve in 2001.
Svoboda enjoyed the young generation; he gave his experiences at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague; where he brought up a strong generation of Czech scenographers; and also at institutes and universities throughout the world. Only one dream he failed to fulfil - that of designing and building a theatre in Prague; one that could materialise his ample theatre experiences and demands.
Further information: http://www.laterna.cz/
The secret of theatrical space : the memoirs of Josef Svoboda

Josef Svoboda was born May 10; 1920 in the town ?áslav. After completing his secondary studies; he apprenticed as a cabinet-maker. Following a master´s course; he enrolled in the Central School of Housing Industry in Prague. However; he was drawn to the theatre; where while in his home town and later in Prague he acquired his first practical experiences. Shortly after World War II he enrolled in scenography courses at the Prague Conservatory and studied architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague.

One of the predominant characteristics of Josef Svoboda was his consistent confrontation of theory and practice; in 1945; during his studies he participated in the founding of the Grand Opera of the May 5 Theatre. He became the theatre´s chief stage designer; as well as collaborating with the Theatre of Satire and the Studio of the National Theatre. In 1948; he joined the staff of the National Theatre; initially as stage designer and; as of 1951; as the head of its artistic and technical operations. Until 1992; he remained loyal to the National Theatre; when he left - and became the managing director of the independent Lantern Magic Theatre; where he had also served as artistic director since 1973.

In the May 5 Theatre he met his two principal directors - Alfréd Radok and Václav Kašlík. His collaboration with Radok refined his sense of the director´s concept of scenography and of the functional incorporation of the stage design into the context of the other components of a theatre production. Their common desire for discovery led them to a series of experimentations; the result of which was the founding of Lantern Magic; the creation of the polyekran (multiple screens); and other audiovisual forms. Svoboda´s cooperation with opera director Václav Kašlík inspired his love for music; which helped to introduce a number of excellent operatic works to theatres both at home and abroad. During the nineteen-sixties; he met other outstanding directors; among them Otomar Krej?a and Miroslav Machá?ek; resulting in yet other outstanding works staged at the National Theatre in Prague; and; in Krej?a´s case; at the Divadlo za branou in Prague; as well as numerous theatres around Europe. In the nineteen-eighties; Svoboda´s collaboration with stage director Evald Schorm in Lantern Magic signalled a major change in the orientation of this unique theatre.

Josef Svoboda created stage designs for more than 700 theatre performances in his own country and abroad. During the second half of the 20th century; hardly any prominent director could be found worldwide with whom Svoboda would not have collaborated. These particular artists include A. Delcampe; J. Dexter; C.H. Drese; A. Everding; G. Friedrich; G. Strehler; L. Olivier; R. Petit; J.-C. Riber; and others. He was at all times appreciated more abroad than in his home country; obtaining awards and titles; such as Dr.h.c. at the Royal College of Arts in London (1969); International Theatre Award in New York (1976); Chevalier de l´Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in Paris (1976); Doctor of Fine Arts at Denison University and Western Michigan University in the U.S.A. (1978-84); a prize of the U.S. Institute for Theater Technology in the U.S.A. (1986); the title The Royal Industry Designer in London (1989); the French Légion d´Honneur in 1993; and Dr.h.c. at the Université Catholique de Louvaine-la-Neuve in 2001.

Svoboda enjoyed the young generation; he gave his experiences at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague; where he brought up a strong generation of Czech scenographers; and also at institutes and universities throughout the world. Only one dream he failed to fulfil - that of designing and building a theatre in Prague; one that could materialise his ample theatre experiences and demands.

Edward Gordon Craig (1872 - 1966) On the Art of Theatre Craig was one of the most influential designers of the early twentieth century. He trained under Henry Irving and worked as an actor before designing a series of productions that demonstrate the influence of symbolism. His artistic collaborators included Otto Brahm, Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan and Konstantin Stanislavski. In 1905, he published The Art of the Theatre, which called for the development of a non-naturalistic æsthetic. From 1908 to 1929, he edited a quarterly journal entitled The Mask, which presented Craig's theories. Edward Gordon Craig Theatric Society
1872-1966, English scene designer, producer, and actor. The son of Ellen Terry, Gordon Craig began acting with Henry Irving's Lyceum company (1885-97). Feeling that the realism in vogue was too limiting, he turned to scene design and developed new theories. He strove for the poetic and suggestive in his designs in order to capture the essential spirit of the play. His ideas gave new freedom to scene design, although many were impractical in execution. Among his notable productions were The Vikings and Much Ado about Nothing (both in 1903 for Ellen Terry) and Hamlet (with the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912). At Florence, Italy, he founded (1913) the Gordon Craig School for the Art of the Theatre; he also edited a magazine, The Mask (1908-29). He wrote On the Art of the Theatre (1911, rev. ed. 1957), The Theatre Advancing (1921), Scene (1923), and biographies of Henry Irving (1930) and Ellen Terry (1931).

Fred Bentham (1911 - 2001) Fred Bentham was a rare combination of artist and engineer whose life’s work had been devoted to theatre, cinema and TV. During his 42 years with the same company, Strand Electric, he not only invented and initiated equipment, but pioneered ways of using it. The artist in him developed the use of coloured light as an art form - colour music - which was recognised by the Art Workers’ Guild who elected him as ‘Decorative Colour Worker’ in 1936. His energies were directed towards the design of theatres and scenery, writing, lecturing and demonstrating lighting Further reading: Sixty Years of Light Work by Fred Bentham (Entertainment Technology Press)

Adolphe Appia (1862 - 1928) Swiss theorist of modern stage lighting and décor. In interpreting Wagner's ideas in scenic designs for his operas, Appia rejected painted scenery for the three-dimensional set; he felt that shade was as necessary as light to link the actor to this setting in time and space. His use of light, through intensity, color, and mobility, to set the atmosphere and mood of a play created a new perspective in scene design and stage lighting. (from www.encyclopedia.com) Further reading: Adolphe Appia: Texts on Theatre by Richard Beacham (Routledge)

Richard Pilbrow Lighting designer, theatre design consultant, author and producer. Chairman and founder of Theatre Projects Consultants (http://www.tpcworld.com). Theatre projects: more than 500 theatre design consulting projects in 50 countries, including the new Goodman, Steppenwolf and Shakespeare Theatres in Chicago; the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood; the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia; and the renovation plans for New York's Lincoln Center and the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington. A pioneer of modern stage lighting in Britain, he was recently the lighting designer for The Magic Flute, Los Angeles and Seattle Operas. Other credits include On Raftery's Hill at the Druid Theatre, Galway and the Royal Court Theatre, London; The Life on Broadway (Tony Award nomination); and Hal Prince's Show Boat in New York, London and on the U.S. tours (Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award 1995 and DORA Award 1994 for Best Lighting Design). (From PLAYBILL http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/whoswho/biography/9588)
Full biography is available at the Theatre Projects website. (Photo from the Theatre Projects website)

Acting schools in Europe

Acting schools in Poland

THE LUDWIK SOLSKI STATE THEATRE SCHOOL

Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Teatralna im. Ludwika Solskiego w Krakowie
ul. Straszewskiego 21-22, 31-109 Kraków
Dean of the Acting Department: Krzysztof Globisz
Dean of the Directing Department: Miko?aj Grabowski
tel. (+48 12) 422 18 55, 422 57 01, 422 15 90
fax (+48 12) 422 02 09
www.pwst.krakow.pl

The Theatre School opened in Kraków in 1946. It was given the name of Ludwik Solski, one of the greatest actors of the Polish stage, in 1954. The school's present name - the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School - has been in use since 1955. In 1962 the school was granted the status of an academic institution. It is located in Warszawska and Straszewskiego streets.

It was in Kraków that Poland's post-war theatre life concentrated, the town becoming pied-a-terre for a large number of people of the theatre. The Theatre School had its roots in three theatre studios established soon after the war had finished in 1945: the Actors Studio at Stary Teatr, managed by the actor and director Jerzy Ronard Buja?ski; the Actors Studio at the Teatr im. Juliusza S?owackiego, opened owing to the distinguished set designer and director Karol Frycz; and Iwo Gall's Dramatical Studio founded by Iwo Gall, the set designer and director connected with Juliusz Osterwa's Reduta Theatre. The three Studios were merged in 1946 into a State Drama School, called the National Acting School in 1949-54. The school's founder and first director was Juliusz Osterwa, the remarkable theatre reformer to whom his job was vocation and mission.

Close ties with Kraków theatres defined the unique character of the school from the very start. This uniqueness has been maintained to this day, surviving the difficult period of the 1950s, when the authorities and the Soviet art school training model barred any student relations with professional theatres. Jerzy Stuhr, the school's would-be Chancellor, thus comments on his studies:
"Warsaw was Lee Strasberg telling students playing Chekhov: what is Gayev to you, you are Marlon, you do not care about Gayev, and if you get through… Here we were told: do all you can to be Gayev. Our Warsaw colleagues had extremely awakened personality energies and they displayed them all the time. Someone must have told them to do so. We did not need to manifest our personalities so strongly, for we knew that our teachers would always take us in somewhere and that we would be able to continue to learn - to learn and not to exhibit ourselves". ("Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna wczoraj i dzi? /dyskusja/" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", red. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997) ["The Krakow Theatre School: Yesterday and Today (A Discussion") in "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School of Krakow", ed. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997).
When Juliusz Osterwa died in 1947, the four directors to succeed him in managing the school until 1953 were W?adys?aw Wo?nik, Antoni E. Balicki, Eugeniusz Fulde and Tadeusz Burnatowicz, who was also the school's first Chancellor in 1953-1963. The subsequent Chancellors were Bronis?aw D?browski (1963-1968) and Eugeniusz Fulde (1968-1972), Jerzy Krasowski (1972-1981), Danuta Micha?owska (1981-1984), Jerzy Trela (1984-1990), Jerzy Stuhr (1990-1996), Jacek Popiel (1996-2000). Jerzy Stuhr was again elected Chancellor in 2000.

Kraków's Theatre School trained actors from the very beginning. From 1949 a four-year training period was introduced. In the 1950s the authorities imposed the Stanislavsky method of training. The system developed by this celebrated Russian director, teacher and creator of the Moscow Art Theatre was applied in a schematic and vulgarized way. At the same time the Ministry of Culture and Art banned students from working as theatre extras, reduced the number of theoretical courses and increased the number of practical and ideological classes. The Ministry's directives applied to the entire system of art education and marked the introduction of Socialist Realism. The repertoires of theatre schools were narrowed down to Russian and Soviet drama and contemporary Polish plays, with no contemporary West-European drama whatsoever.

A new repertoire appeared after the "thaw" of 1956 and in the 1960s.
"... Witkacy, Ró?ewicz, Ionesco, Pinter entered", wrote Danuta Micha?owska. "When it came to designing 3rd year poetry curriculum, students suggested contemporary works, mostly American and English ... Polish poets were proposed as well, particularly Miron Bia?oszewski, Stanis?aw Grochowiak, Ewa Lipska, Leszek Moczulski, and, a little later, the super-idol of the young, Edward Stachura." (" 'Stara' i 'nowa' szko?a wiersza" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", Kraków 1997) [" 'Old' and 'New' School of Poetry" in "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School of Krakow", Kraków 1997].
Approach to diploma projects changed gradually, too.
"... Until 1951 they were not so much full performances as shows composed of selected scenes from dramas and poems. Later they started to stage plays. Some just highlighted the strengths of the graduates-to-be, but others reflected much farther-reaching ambitions of directors and young actors" (Tadeusz Korna?, "Echo Krakowa" 1996 no. nr 119).
This evolution produced some outstanding diploma performances that would be remembered by audience and critics alike, for instance Tadeusz Ró?ewicz's PIESZO (1981) and BROTHERS based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, directed by Jerzy Jarocki in 1981 and 1988, respectively, or SKETCHES FROM THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES based on Robert Musil's prose, directed by Krystian Lupa in 1990.

Kraków's Theatre School's Directing Department operated in1955-1962 and was re-established by Chancellor Jerzy Krasowski in 1973. Its syllabus focused increasingly not only on acting skills but also on personalities and talking to actors. Care was taken to maintain co-operation with major artistic individualities and to enable students of both Acting and Directing Departments to work with people of the theatre from outside of Kraków's circles.
"I have made contact with theatre schools abroad", said Jerzy Trela, Kraków Theatre School's Chancellor in the late 1980s. "Our students could therefore go to international workshops and festivals in France, Germany, Russia, Slovakia, US and Ukraine. … I have also come to the conclusion that the school needs to open up more as it is too insular and lacks input. I have introduced a subject which I called 'Partnership Skills'." ("Dwa wspomnienia" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", Kraków 1997) ["Two Memories" in: "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School of Krakow", Kraków 1997).
In 1954-1964 the school had a Puppetry Art Department. Maja Komorowska and Ryszard Cie?lak were among its graduates. In 1972 Puppetry was re-established at the branch of the Kraków school in Wroc?aw, the city having become one of the centres of Polish theatrical life. Stanis?aw Stapf, the director of "Chochlik", the State Puppetry Theatre in Wroc?aw, who had founded a Puppeteer School at the Theatre, was the first Dean, replaced in 1975 by Henryk Jurkowski. The major challenge of puppetry training was to teach puppeteers to appear on the stage and to expand the repertoire to include plays for adults.
"From the commedia dell'arte, street and market comedy through animal fable and classic fairy tales to nativity play to satirical, surrealist and even Dadaist repertoire. Using the best drama pieces, we developed difficulty-graded scripts, designed curricula for each year". (A. Helman-Twardowska, "Wroc?awski Wydzia? Lalkarski" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", Kraków 1997) [A. Helman-Twardowska, "The Wroclaw Puppetry Art. Department" in: "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Krakow", Kraków 1997).
In 1992 the Wroclaw Puppetry Art Department opened Poland's first Graduate Children and Teenager Theatre Directing School, and since 1991 the Department has hosted the International Meetings of Theatre School Puppetry Art Departments.

Since 1979 Wroc?aw has also been home to the Acting Department, whose first Dean was Igor Przegrodzki. Since 1991 its second-year students have had the option to choose the pantomime and movement line. Pantomime is taught by experienced actors of the Henryk Tomaszewski Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre.

Theatre studies literature contains a term "Krakow school", referring to the style of acting created in the 1870s by Stanis?aw Ko?mian, the then director of the Krakow Theatre. The style was characterized by the actors' submission to the director's staging concept, moderation in the use of emotions, gestures and intonation, and rather natural acting. Its exponents included such celebrities as Helena Modrzejewska [Modjeska] and Antonina Hoffmann. Most of the teachers and alumni of the Krakow Theatre School consider themselves creative continuators of that 19th century school, or at least see in it the roots of Kraków's later approach to actor training.
"Is there really a major difference between the Kraków and Warsaw schools nowadays? Is it the training method that makes the Kraków graduates' style of acting so distinct from that of alumni of other schools?", wonders Janusz Degler. "Everybody says that the method is a fact of life and that the 'Krakow school' owes it its one-hundred-year-old fame. The distinctiveness must be the result of a number of factors, yet there has to be a core element to have kept the Krakow Theatre School unique despite all the changes. I think that this critical element is traditionalism, not to say conservatism, demonstrating itself in the perpetuation of certain values and principles, such as solidity in teaching fundamental acting skills, and in particular the requirement of perfect diction. It was for the reason of the latter that Ryszard Cie?lak, found to possess a speech defect, was admitted to the Puppetry Art and not the Acting Department; it was the same case with Maja Komorowska". ("Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna wczoraj i dzi? /dyskusja/" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", red. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997) ["The Krakow Theatre School: Yesterday and Today /A Discussion/" in "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Krakow", Kraków 1997].
The importance attached by the Kraków school to work on the text was similarly extolled by Danuta Micha?owska, who pointed out "…reverence for the text, passion for poetry to which we refer as classics, especially for the works by the great Romantics and Norwid" (" 'Stara' i 'nowa' szko?a wiersza" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", Kraków 1997) [" 'Old' and 'New' School of Poetry" in "The Krakow Theatre School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Krakow", Kraków 1997].

The Kraków school teachers were the celebrities of Polish post-war theatre and included Jerzy Jarocki, Tadeusz Kantor, Mieczys?aw Kotlarczyk, Konrad Swinarski, Ewa Lassek, Krystian Lupa, Krzysztof Penderecki, Anna Polony, Krystyna Skuszanka.

Some of the key people of the Polish theatre have included the alumni of the Acting Department, in particular Halina Miko?ajska, Halina Gryglaszewska, Gustaw Holoubek, Zbigniew Cybulski, Bogumi? Kobiela, Leszek Herdegen, Kalina J?drusik, Zofia Kucówna, Anna Polony, Marek Walczewski, Jerzy Bi?czycki, Teresa Budzisz-Krzy?anowska, Jan Nowicki, Anna Seniuk, Ewa Demarczyk, Jan Peszek, Olgierd ?ukaszewicz, Wojciech Pszoniak, Jerzy Trela, Jerzy Stuhr, Anna Dymna, Jan Frycz, Krzysztof Globisz, Dorota Segda. The Acting Department also had Jerzy Grotowski among its graduates. Directing was studied here by Miko?aj Grabowski, Krystian Lupa, Edward Lubaszenko, Anna Polony, Krzysztof Babicki, Tadeusz Bradecki, Andrzej Dziuk, Waldemar Zawodzi?ski. Over the last ten years the school's graduates included such directors as Anna Augustynowicz, Grzegorz Jarzyna and Krzysztof Warlikowski as well as actresses Magdalena Cielecka and Maja Ostaszewska. All of them have had a major impact on Polish theatre and acting in the past ten years.

Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora
November 2003

Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts (Polish: Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Teatralna im. Ludwika Solskiego, often shortened to PWST), located in Kraków, Poland, was founded in 1946 by a well-known Polish actor, Juliusz Osterwa, who took the initial steps leading to the establishment of the Academy through the amalgamation of three local studios, the Theatre Actors' Studio at Stary Teatr, the S?owacki Theatre Actors' Studio, and Iwo Gall's Dramatic Studio connected with Juliusz Osterwa's Reduta Theatre.

History
The history of the Ludwik Solski Academy began in 1946 with a three-year training course in drama for prospective actors. In 1949 the name of the school was changed to the State College of Acting (Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Aktorska), and the curriculum extended to four years. Its current name, the Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Teatralna, was determined in 1955. From 1954 to 1964 the college also provided courses in puppetry and the puppet theatre, reactivated in 1972 as an independent Puppet Theatre Faculty located in the city of Wroc?aw.
The new Faculty of Directing was created in 1955 and continued in its original form till 1962. In 1973 the Faculty was re-established as the Faculty of Play Directing with several students pursuing a four-year programme. The next important stage in the development of the Academy was the establishment in 1979 of the Actors' Faculty in Wroc?aw.
From its beginnings the Academy for the Dramatic Arts was run by some of the most prominent Polish dramatic artists, Juliusz Osterwa, Tadeusz Burnatowicz, W?adys?aw Wo?nik, Eugeniusz Fulde, Bronis?aw D?browski, Jerzy Krasowski, Danuta Micha?owska, Jerzy Trela, and Jerzy Stuhr. The Academy's history was shaped by outstanding teachers and trainers as well as by famous theoreticians, including its own graduates who have made a substantial impact on the theatre scene in Poland and abroad. The following celebrities have also conducted practical classes in acting, directing and music: Jerzy Jarocki, Tadeusz Kantor, Mieczys?aw Kotlarczyk, W?adys?aw Krzemi?ski, Ewa Lasek, Krystian Lupa, Krzysztof Penderecki, Anna Polony, Krystyna Skuszanka, Marta Stebnicka, Konrad Swinarski, and Roman Zawistowski. Many of these artists are still teaching at the Academy.
Some of the Academy's more outstanding graduates in its first decade included Zbigniew Cybulski, Jerzy Grotowski, Leszek Herdegen, Gustaw Holoubek, Jerzy Jarocki, Bogumi? Kobiela, and Halina Miko?ajska, while subsequent decades produced further prominent alumni: Jerzy Bi?czycki, Teresa Budzisz-Krzy?anowska, Ewa Demarczyk, Jan Nowicki, Jan Peszek, Anna Polony, Maciej Prus, Wojciech Pszoniak, Anna Seniuk, Jerzy Stuhr, and Marek Walczewski. Many of its students and graduates have been involved with the emergence of new dramatic initiatives, such as the establishment of Teatr STU and the Stanis?aw Witkiewicz Theatre in Zakopane.
From its early years the Ludwik Solski Academy was a source of continuity for the Polish theatre thanks to the fact that its teaching staff often belonged to different generations including actors from before the Second World War, with many of them (i.e. Tadeusz Burnatowicz, Halina Gallowa, W?adys?aw Krzemi?ski, Wac?aw Nowakowski and W?adys?aw Wo?nik) completing drama courses in prewar Poland. Close ties with the local theatre scene defined the unique character of the school from the very start. This uniqueness has been maintained even during the difficult period of the 1950s, when the authorities and the Soviet training model [1] barred students from active participation in professional theatre. The directives of the Stalinist Ministry of Culture marked the introduction of Socialist Realism in a schematic and vulgarized way. The repertoire of the Academy was narrowed down mostly to Russian and Soviet drama with no contemporary Western plays whatsoever. The repressive political climate lasted until after the Polish October of 1956.
Close links to the leading theatres in Kraków contribute to the Academy's status. There is a direct correlation between the condition of the city's theatres and the condition of the Academy with staff composed of a fair number of Cracovian theatre personalities whose views on drama and the teaching methods cover a wide range of philosophies.

Organizational structure
Faculties

Enrollment
At present the Academy recruits new students for the Actors' Faculties in Kraków and Wroc?aw, the Faculty of Play Directing in Kraków, and the Puppet Theatre Faculty in Wroc?aw. Since 1946 well over a thousand students have graduated from the Ludwik Solski Academy, and found employment on theatre stages in Poland and abroad.

THE LEON SCHILLER NATIONAL FILM, TELEVISION AND THEATRE SCHOOL

Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera
ul. Targowa 61/63, 90-323 ?ód?
Chancellor: prof. Jerzy Wo?niak
tel. (+48 42) 63 45 800
fax (+48 42) 674 81 39
www.filmschool.lodz.pl

The Leon Schiller National Film, Television and Theatre School was established in 1958 through a merger of two ?ód? schools, both active since 1948: the State Acting School (re-named the Leon Schiller State Theatre School in 1954) and the State Film School. In 1970 its syllabus was expanded to include television and the school has since been known as the Leon Schiller National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. Since 1949 the school has had its Film Production Centre in which students work on their practical assignments and diploma projects.
"The history of the Lodz Film School is a rare contradiction of Norwid's pessimistic vision", wrote Andrzej Wajda. "In 1945 a group of amateur filmmakers from pre-war START was given a chance to act - and did not waste it. They not only created Polish post-war film industry by opening subsequent production facilities in ?ód?, Wroc?aw and Warszawa, but also - and more importantly - created the Film School without which our cinema would have had no future" (in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szkola Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998].
From the very start both of the ?ód? schools, the theatre one and the film one, trained actors as well as film directors and cinematographers. The first students of the film school were offered instruction in both directing and cinematography, choosing their line at a later stage.
"The two schools were still operating independently", wrote Kazimierz Lewkowski, "but students knew each other very well. They would often walk from Gda?ska Street (where the State Acting School was located) to Targowa Street (where the Film School had its premises), some to visit their girlfriends, others to watch films, talk about art and technique - in other words, to have conversation." (in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998]
Leon Schiller, the prominent Polish theatre leader, was the first Chancellor of the school, then known as the State Theatre School in Warsaw with a seat in Lodz. Schiller modified the school's syllabus and introduced education-crowning diploma performances. In 1949 the school was moved to Warsaw and the State Acting School was established in ?ód?. Its Chancellor in the years 1950-1952 was Kazimierz Dejmek, the founder of ?ód?'s Teatr Nowy, and Halina Gallowa, Jadwiga Chojnacka, Janina Mieczy?ska and Emil Chaberski were its most noted teachers. Jan Machulski and Jerzy Antczak were among the school's students in the 1950s. Like in other Polish theatre schools, teaching was based on the Stanislavsky method, developed at the Moscow Art Theatre.
"Jan Machulski says", wrote Kazimierz Lewkowski, "that referring to method verities contained in Stanislavsky's writings saved them from the impersonal, administratively imposed Socialist Realism, for the Stanislavsky system was treated as a natural process of role preparation by a professional actor who has consciously chosen the method as a tool of creation." (in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998]
After Socialist Realism was decreed the only correct artistic doctrine, the school - as well as the entire country, not only its artists - was subjugated to political pressure. If the school did not win the battle for creative freedom, it put up a strong resistance to political indoctrination. This was helped by the fact that its teachers included such pre-war professors as the film historian Jerzy Toeplitz, film directors Wanda Jakubowska and Antoni Bohdziewicz, documentary filmmaker Jerzy Bossak and cinematographer Stanis?aw Wohl.
"Many of them could offer us an invaluable thing besides their knowledge and talent: a sense of internal freedom, carried over from pre-war Poland. This freedom soon became a short supply commodity, and shortly a rationed one", recalls Jacek Korcelli. "Some of our teachers, including the top ones, were connected with the authorities, but I think they nonetheless understood that young art needed an area of freedom." (in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998]
The first students of the Film School included some mature people with war background. Some of them turned out outstanding directors and creators of the "Polish film school": Andrzej Munk, Andrzej Wajda, Janusz Morgenstern, Kazimierz Kutz. The school also turned out the documentary filmmakers Kazimierz Karabasz and Andrzej Brzozowski as well as the creators of Polish art of cinematography: Jerzy Wójcik, Witold Soboci?ski, Mieczys?aw Jahoda, Wies?aw Zdort.

The school was considered an oasis of freedom in Poland's post-war artistic and cultural life, and attracted personalities. Teachers and students showed interest in the European avant-garde, the theatre of the absurd, Witold Gombrowicz and Franz Kafka. The school became one of the few places in Poland where one could see the masterpieces of the world cinema, the European classics, the latest pictures of Italian Neorealism. The showings attracted crowds of students of the Film and Theatre Schools as well as people from the outside, the stuffy rooms bursting at the seams. Jam sessions - banned in those days - were organized, too, and musicians included Krzysztof Komeda-Trzci?ski and the students of the Film School, Jerzy Matuszkiewicz and Witold Soboci?ski.

After the "thaw" of October 1956, Jerzy Toeplitz was appointed Chancellor of the Film School. A distinguished film historian and essayist, Toeplitz had taught at the school from its inception and was its director in 1949-51. Before the war, in 1931, he co-founded, with Wanda Jakubowska, Stanis?aw Wohl and others, the START Association of Art Film Lovers and subsequently worked in film industry in the UK.

In 1958 the Theatre and Film Schools in ?ód? merged, opening new opportunities of work in film for prospective actors.
"... Actors ... participated in the process of development of films and later also television shows … You could not only test the stage skills of yourself and your colleagues, but also stand in front of the camera while behind it may have been a superb artist-teacher or a student who may have been creating original work while learning …" (Kazimierz Lewkowski in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998]
The school's two departments, of acting and of directing and cinematography, began to co-operate more closely in the framework of the so-called integrated training. Designed by Teoplitz, it involved simultaneous mastering of film techniques and technology and broadening of knowledge in the arts as well as integrating practical activities with theoretical classes.

In the mid-1950s another generation of students came to the school, among them Henryk Kluba, Roman Pola?ski, Janusz Majewski, Andrzej Kondratiuk and Jerzy Skolimowski. Roman Pola?ski's DWAJ LUDZIE Z SZAF? / TWO MEN WITH A WARDROBE turned the school's major foreign success, receiving an award at the 1958 Expo exhibition in Brussels. By the late 1950s and early 1960s the ?ód? school had won acclaim not only in Poland but also abroad. The school became a true phenomenon, its method of training proving highly successful and its graduates turning out major independent artists. The legend of the school continued to grow. From the early 1960s its students could make television films. In 1964 the Andrzej Munk Award for debut was introduced and its first winner was Jerzy Skolimowski (for WALKOWER). At that time the school witnessed the birth of an attitude of artistic negation of the realities of communist Poland, and its students included the future authors of the "cinema of moral disquiet", notably Krzysztof Zanussi and Krzysztof Kie?lowski, as well as Marek Piwowski and Wojciech Marczewski, the outstanding documentary filmmaker Marcel ?ozi?ski and cinematographers Adam Holender, S?awomir Idziak and Edward K?osi?ski.

1968 and March events were a severe blow to the school. As the witch-hunt was launched against Jews, the authorities dismissed its Chancellor and one of the founders, Jerzy Toeplitz. Several other professors and students were forced to leave Poland. In the early 1970s Toeplitz received an invitation from the government of Australia and soon became one of the creators of Australian national filmmaking, co-building Australia's first film school. In 1993 the Lodz school awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In the 1970s the school was recovering its equilibrium and a number of new talents arrived. The Directing Department had such students as Feliks Falk, Filip Bajon, Piotr Szulkin, Juliusz Machulski, Janusz Kijowski, while Cinematography and TV Productions had Zbigniew Rybczy?ski, who would win the Academy Award for the short film TANGO in 1983. (The other winner of the Academy Award educated at the school is Andrzej Wajda, honoured for lifetime achievement in 2000). The school was joined by Wojciech Jerzy Has, the reputed director and teacher who would become its Chancellor in 1990-96. It also started to attract foreign students, opened to the world, its students winning prizes and mentions at international festivals in Oberhausen, Mannheim, Munich, Cannes, Tel Aviv, New York, Huesca, Angers, Poitiers, Krakow and Lodz.

Meanwhile a new trend in actors' education emerged at the Acting Department in the 1970s, putting value on spontaneity or "super-expressiveness" of acting, with considerable focus on body training, physical fitness and stage skills.

After the turbulent start of the 1980s - which did not leave the school unaffected - "no dominant trend could have easily been singled out. This must have been in line with the spirit of the times", wrote Maria Kornatowska in a descripiton of the Directing Department. "New Age has marked its presence, but its irrational element was not strong" (in: "Pa?stwowa Wy?sza Szko?a Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w ?odzi 1948-1998. Ksi?ga jubileuszowa", red. Jolanta Lemann, Lodz 1998) ["The Leon Schiller State Film, Television and Theatre School" in "The Leon Schiller Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz in 1948-1996. Anniversary Book", ed. Jolanta Lemann, ?ód? 1998]. Meanwhile the school continued to develop interesting artists. Directing was studied by Dorota K?dzierzawska, W?adys?aw Pasikowski, Jan Jakub Kolski, Mariusz Grzegorzek, Ma?gorzata Szumowska, ?ukasz Barczyk, and Cinematography students included Piotr Soboci?ski and Pawe? Edelman.

In 1990 the then Chancellor, Profesor Henryk Kluba founded the Film Studio INDEKS. It produced Dorota K?dzierzawska's film DIAB?Y, DIAB?Y / DEVILS, DEVILS and co-produced W?adys?aw Pasikowski's KROLL and Mariusz Grzegorzek's ROZMOWY Z CZ?OWIEKEM Z SZAFY / CONVERSATIONS WITH THE MAN FROM THE WARDROBE. Prior to that, in 1982, Chancellor Kluba recruited former school students and top cinematographers Witold Soboci?ski and Jerzy Wójcik as teachers, thus confirming the school's tradition of maintaining inter-generational links. Other former students of the school became its faculty members, notably Kazimierz Karabasz, Andrzej Brzozowski, Andrzej Munk, Janusz Morgenstern, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Mariusz Grzegorzek, to mention just a few. The fact that a number of the teachers combined excellence in teaching with work helped students to stay in touch with the outside world and the film circles.

Versatility was another distinct characteristic of the school. Students had the opportunity to work with leading representatives of other arts and humanities. Their teachers included the theoreticians of film Boles?aw Lewicki and Aleksander Jackiewicz; the historian of science and technology, Polish-Russian relations and film W?adys?aw Jewsiewicki; theoretician and historian of literature Stefania Skwarczy?ska; painters Jerzy Mierzejewski, whose contribution to educating future cinematographers was enormous, and Krystyna Zwoli?ska; prose- and scriptwriter Piotr Wojciechowski; theatre directors Bogdan Hussakowski and Zbigniew Brzoza; and many others. The school's training method has influenced the way the cinematographer's job is perceived and treated: as that of a co-creator's of the moving picture, sometimes equal to the director's. The school's model of education and the famed alumni of its Department of Cinematography are behind the international rank and prestige of CAMERIMAGE - THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY ART FESTIVAL held in Poland since 1993, initially in Torun, since 2000 in ?ód?.

Since 1952 the Film School has also trained film production managers and, from a later date, television production managers. The department's teachers included Antoni Bohdziewicz, Jerzy Mierzejewski, Jerzy Toeplitz, Stanis?aw Wohl, as well as the pioneers of Poland's production management Ludwik Hager and Zygmunt Król, and later Wiktor Budzy?ski and Edward Zaji?ek. The syllabus has always covered both economics and management as well as humanities. Nowadays the studies focus on management, allowing students to work from the very beginning with directors, cinematographers, TV producers and actors.

The school currently has four departments: Direction, Cinematography, Film and TV Production, and Acting. The alumni of the latter include a number of popular and famous film and theatre actors, such as Pola Raksa, Janusz Gajos, El?bieta Starostecka, Barbara Brylska, Mariusz Benoit, Artur Barci?, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Cezary Pazura i Wojciech Malajkat. Since 1983 the school has been the organizer of the SCHOOL THEATRE FESTIVAL, previously known as the National Theatre School Diploma Performance Review, and since 1993 it has organized the MEDIASCHOOL International Film and Television Schools' Festival.

THE THEATRE ACADEMY IN WARSAW
The Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw
Akademia Teatralna im. Aleksandra Zelwerowicza w Warszawie
ul. Miodowa 22/24, 00-246 Warszawa
Chancellor: Lech ?liwonik
tel. (+48 22) 831 02 16 - 18
fax (+48 22) 831 91 01
www.at.edu.pl

The Theatre Academy in Warsaw, called the State Higher School of Theatre (PWST) until 1996, was founded in 1946. Its first seat was in ?ód? and it was moved to Warsaw in 1949. Since 1955 it has had its premises in the Collegium Nobilium, the 18th century edifice of a Piarist monastery school in Miodowa Street.

The Theatre Academy continues the long tradition of actors' education in Warsaw. It dates back to 1811, when Wojciech Bogus?awski opened the first school of acting, and goes well into the 20th century, when two leaders of the Polish theatre, Aleksander Zelwerowicz and Leon Schiller, established the National Institute of Theatre Art (PIST) in 1932. With Zelwerowicz as the director and manager of the Acting Department and Schiller as the head of the Directing Department, PIST continued to operate clandestinely under the Nazi occupation.
"... A significant number of people associated with today's PWST are aware that the school did not originate in a vacuum, but has been shaped by the experience of many a generation. The closest bond is felt with the twenty years of the interwar period, in particular with the National Institute of Theatre Art and its predecessors. After all, the post-war PWST was founded largely by the same people who had most influenced theatre education before the war: Leon Schiller, Aleksander Zelwerowicz, Bohdan Korzeniewski, or who were graduates of PIST (or its predecessor, the Division of Drama at the State Musical Conservatory), such as Jan Kreczmar and Jan ?widerski". ("Warszawska Szko?a Teatralna 1944-1989" in: "Warszawa Szko?a Teatralna: Szkice i wspomnienia", Warszawa 1991).
When the school functioned as the State Theatre School in Warsaw with a seat in Lodz, its first Chancellor and Dean of the Directing Department was Leon Schiller, while Aleksander Zelwerowicz and Bohdan Korzeniewski were Deans of the Acting and Drama Departments, respectively. Soon a dispute concerning the education of actors erupted. The argument - its roots in the pre-war times - was about whether the students of acting should be trained in a "closed" school or should rather be allowed to appear on the stages of professional theatres from the very start. Schiller opted for the latter, Zelwerowicz opposed him. As a result Zelwerowicz left the school and was replaced by Henryk Szlety?ski. The argument, however, persisted, with varying intensity, for another score years. Zelwerowicz's approach won in the 1950s and 1960s, but in the 1970s the school started to open to the professional theatre, to finally arrive, in the 1990s, at a widespread belief that insularity made it unable to successfully fulfill its educational tasks.

After the PWST moved from ?ód? to Warsaw in 1949, the state authorities removed its two founders, the outstanding actors and teachers Schiller and Zelwerowicz, from the school, appointing Jan Kreczmar Chancellor. Kreczmar remained the Chancellor until 1967 (W?adys?aw Krasnowiecki had briefly replaced him at this post in 1955-57). The authorities forced him to abide by the guidelines of Socialist Realism in the school's curriculum. The school had to follow the model of teaching adopted in Soviet art schools and this affected the choice of works and repertoire of diploma performances. Training was based on a limited, if not distorted, version of the Stanislavsky method developed at MCHAT (the Moscow Art Theatre). Students were isolated from out-of-school artistic and cultural life. Studies were extended to four years, the last year devoted to the staging of diploma performances, their repertoire highly limited from the times of the "thaw" of 1956 and focusing mostly on Russian, Soviet and contemporary Polish plays, with little Polish or European classics and no contemporary West-European drama whatsoever. 1951 marks the closure of the Drama Department. For a brief period of time, in 1953-58, a Show Business Department operated, its elements later incorporated in the school's syllabus. The Choreographic Department was similarly short-lived (1955-59).

In 1955 PWST was given the name of Aleksander Zelwerowicz and seven years later was granted the status of an academic school.

The "thaw" of October 1956 was felt at the school, too. New, western repertoire appeared with the 1956 staging of Jean Giraudoux's LA GUERRE DE TROIE N'AURA PAS LIEU directed by Halina Miko?ajska and Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, directed by Aleksander Bardini in 1958. The Stanislavsky method was still followed, Kreczmar being its adherent, but the "socialist superstructure" that had been imposed on it was now given up. Movement classes, including pantomime, were introduced on a larger scale that in other schools. The Directing Department was reformed to provide for a closer co-operation between prospective directors and actors; its theoretical courses were cut down and left to self-study on the grounds that only graduates of humanities or of the Acting Department were admitted to study directing, anyway.

In 1970-81 the school's Chancellor was the celebrated actor Tadeusz ?omnicki. He was
"apparently the first one to understand that both television and film and the huge pressure of the mass media force a change in the way actors are educated to allow them to start working outside of the school earlier" (Barbara Osterloff, a voice in a debate "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna wczoraj i dzi?" w: "Krakowska Szkola Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", red. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997) ["The Krakow Theatrical School: Past and Present", published in "The Krakow Theatrical School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski PWST in Krakow", ed. J. Popiel, Krakow 1997).
This is what ?omnicki himself wrote about his role as a teacher:
"My method was first of all intended to reveal to young people the capabilities of which they would have never suspected themselves, but also to introduce them to the world of teamwork - the fundamental value of all they would later be doing at school and in life. It was aimed to teach them concentration and focus, quick change, conscious use and development of body language, gesture, word; to boost their imagination and courage…" (after E. Dobrza?ski, "O problemach kszta?cenia aktorów" w: "Krakowska Szko?a Teatralna. 50 lat PWST im. L. Solskiego w Krakowie", red. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997) ["On the Issues of Actors' Education", published in "The Krakow Theatrical School. 50 Years of the Ludwik Solski PWST in Kraków", ed. J. Popiel, Kraków 1997).
During ?omnicki's term as Chancellor the school started to invite distinguished directors from the outside to work with the students. This has resulted in such diploma performances as ACTS based on the texts by Stanis?aw Wyspia?ski, Stanis?aw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz and S?awomir Mro?ek, directed by Jerzy Jarocki (1972) and ANTIGONE directed by Adam Hanuszkiewicz (1973). EXERCISES IN SHAKESPEARE, directed by Aleksander Bardini in 1971, proved another noteworthy diploma performance.

In 1975 a Puppetry Department was established at the Bia?ystok branch of the Warsaw PWST. Jan Wilkowski, the noted Polish creator of the puppet theatre, was appointed its first Dean. Instrumental in the establishment of the new Department was the director of the Bia?ystok Puppet Theatre, Krzysztof Rau. Rau, who the previous year had opened a theatre-affiliated school to teach puppeteers, was appointed deputy Dean. A Puppetry Directing Department was added to the Bia?ystok branch of the PWST in 1978. Henryk Jurkowski, who had created the Department, became its Dean. In the early 1990s both Departments were combined to establish the Puppetry Art Department with two sections, acting and directing. An attempt was made to educate the so-called "strong groups" of graduates who would be able to break the petrified structures of the Polish puppet theatre and raise its artistic standards and prestige. The attempt failed, but the school leaders continued the puppeteer training reform.
"Until recently we were torn between two ways of thinking", said Krzysztof Rau. "To some a puppeteer was an actor equipped with the additional skill of animating the puppets. To others puppetry was a separate profession. To me the latter view was obviously right. It is this profession that we should teach in our school. This view is now becoming obvious to a vast majority of lecturers" (in: "Szkolnictwo teatralne", "Teatr", 1988 no. 10).
The syllabus was reformed to divide the four years of study into two periods: two years of intensive puppetry and acting skills training, and a period of individual artistic projects.

In 1975 yet another department was added to the PWST, that of Theatre Studies. Jerzy Koenig was made its first Dean. Unlike theatre studies at universities, this Department was to introduce students to the broadly understood practice of the theatre through participation in selected joint courses with prospective actors and directors. Students are trained to become literary theatre managers, to work in libraries and archives, to be journalists, critics and essayists. Following the Solidarity-organised student strike of 1981 (supported by the faculty members, including the then Dean, Marta Fik), the authorities suspended recruitment to the Department. It was resumed in 1984, and a theatre culture promotion course was added to the syllabus.

1981 saw the first democratic election of the school authorities. Andrzej ?apicki was voted Chancellor. He was the Chancellor in 1981-1987 and 1993-1996, while Jan Englert held office in 1987-1993 and 1996-2002. The current Chancellor of the Theatre Academy is Lech ?liwonik.

The Warsaw Theatre Academy has adopted some highly ambitious objectives:
"(...) we are intent on bringing people up", said Jan Englert, "on - to put it somewhat lofty - spreading the ethos of the man of the theatre ...We want to move towards a Theatre Academy. Naturally, it is not about the name, but about a very widely understood, even interdisciplinary, training of the people of the theatre" (in: "Szkolnictwo teatralne"," Teatr" 1988 no. 10).
In 1983 a History of Artistic Education Section opened at the PWST, its objective being to catalogue the historical records of PWST and PIST. In 1997 extension courses were launched at the Theatre Studies Department and a graduate School of Pronunciation was opened. 1999 was marked by the completion of the reconstruction of the former Collegium Nobilium Theatre. It is there that the diploma performances are nowadays staged and performances of young graduates are shown. Last but not least, for two years now the Warsaw Theatre Academy has been the organizer of the IINTERNATIONAL THEATRE SCHOOLS FESTIVAL.

The greatest celebrities of the Polish stage have been associated with the school in Miodowa Street. Its faculty members and Deans have included Bohdan Korzeniewski, Zygmunt Hübner, Kazimierz Rudzki, Aleksander Bardini, Zofia Mrozowska, Aleksandra Górska, Ryszarda Hanin, Ludwik René, Aleksandra ?l?ska, Jan ?widerski. In recent years its teachers have been Gustaw Holoubek, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Mariusz Benoit, Anna Seniuk i Teresa Budzisz-Krzy?anowska.

Polish acting has for decades been shaped by such graduates of the Warsaw Theatre Academy as Marek Kondrat, Jerzy Radziwi?owicz, Andrzej Seweryn, Henryk Bista, Stanis?awa Celi?ska, Krystyna Janda, Jadwiga Jankowska-Cie?lak, Franciszek Pieczka, Marian Opania, Joanna Szczepkowska, Roman Wilhelmi. Directors who have studied at the school include Zygmunt Hübner, Konrad Swinarski, Jerzy Grzegorzewski, Helmut Kajzar, Jerzy Krasowski, Krystyna Skuszanka and Maciej Prus.

Acting Schools in Russia

History of the Moscow Art Theater School

The Moscow Art Theater School opened in 1943 as an affiliation of the Moscow Art Theater. Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the creator of the school, was also one of the founders of the Moscow Art Theater (MXAT).

On March 21, 1943 the leaders of the MXAT gathered together at Nemirovich-Danchenko?s apartment. “I have invited you here to talk about the school,“ he began. On April 25, 1943, not long after that meeting took place, Nemirovich-Danchenko passed away, and in his legacy as a teacher and director, he left behind a great idea for a school. On April 26, 1943 the Soviet Ministry of Culture immortalized the name of the great master in establishing the theater school at the MXAT, named after Nemirovich-Danchenko.

At the first audition for the school, held in the foyer of the Moscow Art Theater, great actors of the day were present, such as Moskvin, Kachalov, and Knipper-Chekhova. Vasiliy Sachnovsky was appointed as the first director of the school. (Knipper-Chekhova jokingly used to call Vasiliy, a brilliant director and theater philosopher, and the only intelligent person in the Soviet Moscow Art Theatre. Nemirovich-Danchenko managed to save him from prison and bring him backs to the theater to participate in the production of Hamlet.) The official opening of the school was on October 20, 1943.

Speaking to the first class of students to enter the school, Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theater, Khmelev, echoed the words of Nemirovich-Danchenko. „I would give all my efforts to the school only because it has a tremendous meaning for the art…I would devote the rest of my life to it.”

The core of the acting method taught at the school was originally developed by Stanislavsky to create a sharp sense of truth and real life on the stage, the truth of organic acting and spiritualized mastery.

The atmosphere of the school was permeated every minute by the efforts to comprehend the nature of acting. Everything was subjected to it; not only acting classes, but also lectures and workshops. They used to organize meetings with famous artists of that time such as Knipper-Chekhova, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Richter, Erenburg, and many others. Almost all of the students of the first graduating class of 1947 were admitted to the Moscow Art Theater. The production of Dombey and Son (1949) was a testament to how gifted the young trained actors were.

Oleg Efremov was a leader among the graduates of 1949. The graduation of 1950 produced Alexei Batalov, a star of Soviet-Russian film, and Lilia Tolomacheva, who became famous on the stage of the Sovremennik (Contemporary) Theater. In 1951, the Moscow Art Theater School gave birth to Oleg Borisov. Borisov began as a comic actor and later became one of the greatest modern tragic actors, combining analytical acting with extreme passion; he was very adept and skillful in the mastery of his temperament. In fact, 1951 was a fruitful graduation year for the art of theater in this country. In addition to Oleg Borisov, there were Victor Korshunov (Artistic Director of the Mali Theater) and Ekaterina Elanskaya (Artistic Director of Sfera Theater). 1952 brought Nikolai Rushkovsky, Artistic Director of the Ukranian Theater named after Lesia Ukrainka, who also graduated from the school. Clearly, the solidity of artistic successes coming out of the Moscow Art Theater School has proven to be extraordinary time and again.

The MXAT is known for its tradition of having the leading masters of the theater serve as teachers at the school. This tradition is well preserved. The majority of the teachers are former graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School — pupils of Stanislavsk?s pupils.

Among the teachers and master teachers of the school are famous actors, directors, dramaturges, leading movement teachers, famous dancers, and professors of voice and speech. The majority of teachers also have substantial experience working abroad.

The acting faculty worked with the leaders of the school to found a production faculty. Theater is a collaborative art, and communication between actors and production managers, lighting designers, costume designers, and set-designers was, and still is, very close. The students of the production faculty designed the thesis shows of the acting students.

At first, production students satisfied only the artistic needs of the Moscow Art Theater. Nowadays, almost all of the production managers of Moscow theaters are former graduates of the production faculty of the Moscow Art Theater School. The production faculty began to reach its height in 1946, when the efforts of two Moscow Art Theater School leaders, Ivan Gremislavsky and Vadim Shverubovich, were put together. Ivan Gremislavsky was Stanislavsky's make-up designer, from the start of his days with the Society of Art and Literature. Shverubovich was the son of Vasily Kachalov, leading actor of the Moscow Art Theater. The formidable force created by this dynamic duo set a precedent of high standards in aesthetics for the Moscow Art Theater. Student disciples included such stage and lighting designers as Matveyev, Belov, Leskov, Udler; administrative directors and production managers; teachers such as Ponsov, Kunin, Erman, Maklakova. Oleg Sheintsis, who is now the leading set-designer of Lenkom Theater, was also a pupil of Shverubovich.

In 1956, emerging from the heart of the Moscow Art Theater, the Sovremennik (Contemporary) Theater was born. It was created by former students who were inspired by their teachers' idea of bringing a genuinely human audience to the theater. The first productions of this theater rehearsed in the Moscow Art Theater School.

The Dean of the Art Studies Department, Professor Vitaly Vilenkin, who was teaching the history of the Moscow Art Theater at the school in the 1950s, also served as an inspiration for the Sovremenik. The director of the school, Veniamin Radomislensky, supervised the project. The core company of the “Theater of Young Actors“ (later known as Theater-Studio Sovremennik), consisted of former graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School: Oleg Efremov (class of 1949), Lilia Tolmacheva (1956), Oleg Tabakov (1957), Vlad Zamansky (1958).

Nowadays, it is nearly impossible to find a theater in Moscow, St. Petersburg, or any other city, that does not have graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School. Among the graduates are famous masters of Russian theater and film: Lev Durov (1954), Leonid Bronevoy (1955), Oleg Basilashvili and Mikhail Kozakov (1956), Valentin Gaft and his classmate, Eugene Urbansky (1957), who died tragically.

The group supervised by professor Stanitzin (1959) had incredible talents such as Vladimir Kashpur, Tatiana Lavrova (notable for her work in the acclaimed film Nine Days Of The Year), Alexander Lazarev, Eugene Lazarev, Elena Millioti, Galina Moracheva, Vyachelav Nevinny, Alla Pokrovskaya, Anatoly Romashin, Albert Filozov, Genady Frolov. In 1960, Vladimir Visotsky graduated, and was admitted to the Taganka Theater, where he went on to become the „tragic baritone” of his time.

The school continues to serve its main goal of „refreshing the blood of alma-mater” by providing the company of the Moscow Art Theater with young talented actors. The majority of the current faculty who are bringing the traditions of the school to the 21st century are also former students of the Moscow Art Theater School.

The current Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theater named after Chekov is Oleg Tabakov (1957), who graduated one year after the Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theater named after Gorky — Tatiana Doronina (1956). The other actors of the MXAT — Dmitri Brusnikin, Igor Vasiliev, Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Nina Gulyaeva, Vladlen Davidov, Natalia Igorova, Vecheslav Zhelobov, Igor Zolotovitsky, Vladimir Kashpur, Eugene Kindinov, Sergei Kalesnikov, Tatiana Lavrova, Raisa Maksimova, Polina Medvedeva, Irina Miroshnichenko, Andrei Myagkhov, Vyacheslav Neviny, Viktor Sergachev, Boris Scherbakov — all of them are from the same nest, though it may be hard to tell them apart because their talents are so diverse.

The Department of Art Studies is an inherent part of the school. It documents scientific research of the Moscow Art Theater history, as well as the memoirs of the founders of the theater. To date, the department has published the main works of Stanislavsky (the ninth edition was released in 1999). The department also released the fourth edition of Nemirovich-Danchenko?s works is being prepared for publication, and the book Life And Creations Of K. S. Stanislavsky, by I. N. Vinogradsky. In the near future there will be another edition of this book published, including new materials once prohibited in the Soviet era.

Under the authority of Dr. Anatoly Smeliansky, Pr. Inna Solovieva and Olga Egoshina, the Department of Art Studies prepared the two volume edition of Moscow Art Theater: One Hundred Years. They also released two volumes of interviews with leading actors and directors from all over the world, edited by Dr. Smeliansky and Olga Egoshina. If you would like to purchase Moscow Art Theater: One Hundred Years.

Programs:
First year
Basics of actors work along with the line of the “Actor prepares”. Revealing infidelity of the actor through etudes (objects, animals, observation, parodies, silence etudes). Developing techniques for attention/awareness, communication skills on stage in scenes, imagination and fantasy, ways to use affective memory, sense of truth and reality on stage, perception. Studying the concept of given circumstances.

Second year
Deep Studying of given circumstances concept on the examples of different playwrights. Work on the scenes from the plays according to the individuality of the students. Applying the skills worked out during the first year to the actual text of writers. Analisys of a play: Row of events, definition of events, main event, stage action: logic, sequence; expediency, through-line, nature of the conflict, objective, super objective, justification of the objectives, expressive means and accomplishment of the objective, atmosphere, genre, artistic image, internal and external characteristics, transformation, nature of ensemble work.

Third year
Working on the role. The main accent during this year is made towards creation of the role in an actual production. Students work on separate acts from plays, studying different genre approach. The main objective of the third year of study to learn how to act in the character. In the end of the year students represent their work to the faculty to make a decision about their diploma productions.

Fourth year
Students’ work on approved productions. This year of study is considered as transitional year before the professional career in theater. Interaction with the audience. Working with director. Analyzing work of each performance. Getting prepared for the auditioning process.
The graduates of the acting faculty receive diploma of specialist of acting art; directing ? masters degree.

Drama Schools Germany
Aachen
Theaterschule Aachen für Schauspiel und Regie (Theatre School for Drama and
Direction)
Theaterstr. 77, 52064 Aachen
Phone: 0241 / 44 50 645
www.theaterschule-aachen.de
post@theaterschule-aachen.de

Alfter
Alanus Hochschule für Kunst und Gesellschaft (College of Arts and Society –
with a Drama Program)
Johanishof, 53347 Alfter
Phone: 02222 / 932125 / Fax: 02222 / 932121
www.alfanus.edu

Berlin
Universität der Künste Berlin
(University of the Arts Berlin)
Postfach 120544, D-10595 Berlin
Phone: 030 31 85 22 04 / Fax: 030 / 31 85 27 13
www.udk-berlin.de

Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” (Drama School)
Schnellerstr. 104, 12439 Berlin
Phone: 030 / 63 99 75 0
www.hfs-berlin.de

Bochum
Studiengang Schauspiel Bochum der Folkwang Hochschule
(Acting Studies at the Folkwang College Bochum)
Lohring 20, 44809 Bochum
Phone: 0234 / 32 50 444 / Fax: 0234 / 32 50 446
www.schauspielausbildung.de/bochum.htm

Constantin Schule Bochum GmbH (Drama School)
Hernerstr. 299, 44809 Bochum
Phone: 0234 / 540 98 42 / Fax: 0234 / 950 82 907
www.constantin-schule.de

Dresden
Dresdener Schauspielforum DSF (Acting Forum Dresden)
Nagelstr. 24, 01279 Dresden
Phone: 0351 / 25 000 86
www.dsf.kulturserver.de

Düsseldorf
Internationales Theater-Studio NRW Düsseldorf (International Theatre Studio)
Jürgensplatz 46, 40219 Düsseldorf
Phone and Fax: 0211 / 39 52 70

Freiburg
Freiburger Schauspielschule (Drama School)
Ferdinand-Weiß-Str. 6A, 79106 Freiburg
Phone: 0761 / 38 11 91

Hamburg
Freie-Schauspielschule-Hamburg (Drama School)
Wandalenweg 28, 20097 Hamburg
Phone: 040 / 23 32 23
www.freie-schauspielschule-hamburg.de

Hochschule für Musik und Theater (College of Music and Theatre)
Harvestehuder Weg 12, 20148 Hamburg
Phone: 040 / 42 84 82 586

Institut für Theater, Musiktheater und Film (Institut of Theatre, Music Theatre and
Cinema)
Hansastraße 35, 20144 Hamburg
Phone: 040 / 44 58 14

Hamburger Schauspielstudio Frese (Drama School)
Harkortstr. 123a, 22765 Hamburg
Phone: 040 46 46 26, 38 61 05 40 / Fax: 040 / 38 61 05 34
www.schauspielstudio.de

Schule für Schauspiel Hamburg (Drama School)
Oelkersallee 33, 22769 Hamburg
Phone: 040 / 430 20 50 / Fax: 040 43 12 63
www.schauspielschule-hamburg.de

Hannover
Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover (College of Music and Theatre)
Expoplaza 12, 30539 Hannover
Phone: 0511 / 31 00 416 / Fax: 0511 / 31 00 440
www.hmt-hannover.de

Hürth
Schauspiel-Institution Hürth (Acting Institution)
Daimlerstr. 11, 50354 Hürth
Phone: 02233 / 20 98 82 / Fax: 02233 / 39 78 849
www.movie-kids.de

Köln
Theaterakademie Köln (Academy of Theatre), Cologne
Sachsenring 73a, 50677 Köln
Phone: 0221 / 55 09 902 / Fax: 0221 / 559 50 69
www.theaterakademie-koeln.de

Leipzig
Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” (College of
Music and Theatre)
Postfach 10 08 09, 04008 Leipzig
Phone: 0341 / 21 44 55

Theaterfachschule Leipzig (College of Theatre)
Hans-Drieschstr. 54, Franz-Flemming-Str. 16, 04179 Leipzig
Phone: 0341 / 44 24 669 / Fax: 0341 / 44 24 670
www.schauspielschule.info

Mainz
Schauspielschule der Theaterwerkstatt Mainz (Drama School of the Dance
Workshop Mainz)
Alte Ziegelei, 55128 Mainz
Phone: 06131 / 36 43 14

Mannheim
Theaterakademie Mannheim (Academy of Theatre)
Heppenheimer Str. 31-33, 68309 Mannheim
Phone: 0621 / 41 75 30 / Fax: 0621 / 41 76 91
www.theaterakademie-mannheim.de

Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim
(National College of Music and Performing Arts)
www.muhu-mannheim.de

Munich
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
(College of Music and Theatre)
Arcisstr. 12, 80333 München
Phone: 089 / 289 03 / Fax: 089 / 28 92 74 19

Bayerische Theaterakademie München (Bavarian Dance Academy)
Prinzregentenplatz 12, 81675 München
Phone: 089 / 21 85 02 / Fax: 089 / 21 85 28 13
www.prinzregententheater.de/theaterakademie

Otto-Falckenberg-Schule (Drama School)
Postfach 22 16 13, 80506 München
Phone: 089 / 23 33 70 82
www.otto-falckenberg-schule.de

Schauspielakademie ARTE (Drama Academy ARTE)
Kastanienstr. 7, 81547 München
Phone: 089 / 69 388 752 / Fax: 089 / 69 388 753
www.schauspielakademie-arte.de

Potsdam
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) “Konrad Wolf”
(College of Cinema and Television)
Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 11, 14482 Potsdam-Babelsberg
Phone: 0331 / 62 02 0
www.hff-potsdam.de

Rostock
Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock
(College of Music and Theatre)
Am Bussebart 11, 14482 Rostock
Phone: 0381 / 20 20 621 / Fax: 0381 / 20 20 625

Saarbruck
Hochschule des Saarlandes für Musik und Theater
(Saarland College of Music and Theatre)
Bismarckstr. 1, 66111 Saarbrücken
Phone: 0681 / 96 73 10
www.hfm.saarland.de

Siegen
Stuttgart
Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst
(National College of Music and Performing Arts)
Urbanstr. 25, 70182 Stuttgart
Phone: 0711 / 21 24 620 / Fax: 0711 / 21 24 639
www.mh-stuttgart.de

Live Act / Drama Stuttgart (Drama School)
Wörishofener Str. 54, 70372 Stuttgart
Phone: 0711 / 55 900 48 / Fax: 0711 / 55 30 948
www.liveact-akademie.com

Internationale Schauspielakademie CREARTE
(International Drama Academy)
Alarichstr. 18a, 70469 Stuttgart
Phone: 0711 / 85 60 712

Ulm
Akademie für Darstellende Künste Ulm, AdK Ulm
(Academy of the Performing Arts)
Fort Unterer Kuhbarg 12, 89077 Ulm
Phone: 0731 / 38 75 31 / Fax: 0731 / 38 85 185
www.adk-ulm.de

Wiesbaden
Schauspielschule Genzmer e.V. (Drama School)
Butterblumenweg 5, 65201 Wiesbaden
Phone: 0611 / 30 35 26 / Fax: 0611 / 42 00 373
www.schauspielschule-genzmer.de

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