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Konstatin Stanislavski's Theory

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Konstatin Stanislavski

Konstantin Sergeyvich Alexeyev was born in January 18ac63 into a wealthy Russian family. His family were always involved in the theatre so Sergeyvich got increasingly involved from a young age and when he was a teenager, he started working in theatres with the mind-set of becoming an acclaimed thespian and/or a director of theatre productions. He also studied piano and singing, and also performed in amateur plays with his siblings. As a teenager Stanislavski also had an excellent education in ballet, singing and acting.

Although Konstatin Stanislavski went to drama school post his education in ballet, singing and acting, he dropped out as he didn’t like the style of performance, he thought it was over-dramatic, unrealistic …show more content…
Whilst in practice of the method, he also continuously improved and updated it through inter-disciplinary studies. In 1910, Stanislavski travelled to Italy where he explored the performances of Eleanora Duse and Tomasso Salvini. He thought their style of performance was free and naturalistic and they greatly inspired him on his theories of acting.

During Konstatin Stanislavski’s life, he was a serious theatrical practitioner, therefore he not only created performances, but also produced dramatic texts for theatrical shows. He later proceeded to write texts on the art of performance such as, My Life in Art, An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a role.

Stanislavski’s approach to theatre was highly based around experimentation. He committed to realism in his work and also tried to stand out against the idea of naturalism. At some point, Konstatin Stanislavski also explored the idea of symbolism, whereby symbolic images or specific movements would be used to create theatre. Stanislavski once said “Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws.”. This quote links to Stanislavski’s acting method as he is essentially saying that actors need to link their performance to natural life, that way they will obtain a better performance because they will put themselves in the situation of the character they are playing and therefore it will seem more

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