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  • Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting
  • Ian Watson
Jonathan Pitches . Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Pp. ix + 225 , illustrated. $115/£65 (Hb).

In Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting, Jonathan Pitches explores what he terms the "scientific subtext" underlying Stanislavsky's acting system from its origins through its North American incarnations and into contemporary Russia (2). Pitches attempts to "unpick" the underlying framework of a practice that has shaped much of western theatre since the early years of the twentieth century, dividing his investigation into three parts (2). The first section, "The Roots of the Tradition," deals with the evolution of Stanislavsky's actor-training system in light of the Cartesian division between mind and body and the scientific ideas of Isaac Newton. Having established what he describes as the mechanistic nature of Stanislavsky's approach to performance against the backdrop of early twentieth-century industrial practice in America and Russia among the likes of Henry Ford, the management theorist Fredrick Winslow Taylor, and his Russian disciple, Alexei Gastev, Pitches contrasts Stanislavsky with Meyerhold in the second part, "The Newtonian Branch." Drawing upon the relationship between Meyerhold's biomechanics, Taylor, Gastev, and Ivan Pavlov's experiments with reflexology, and the American behaviourist school of psychology, he concludes that Meyerhold's acting theories are even more Newtonian than those of his predecessor. Meyerhold's contribution to an historical understanding of Stanislavsky's theories established, Pitches traces a further variation in their move to North America via Richard Boleslavsky, Lee Strasberg, and – to a lesser extent – Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and Robert Lewis. In the third part of the book, "The Romantic Tradition," Pitches contrasts the linear, rational trajectory of Stanislavsky's legacy with what he characterizes as the Romantic branch of his acting tradition. Rooted in Goethe's view of [End Page 528] science as a synthesis of nature in which the whole is encapsulated in the smallest of things, this is the strain of performance practice that favours the organic and intuitive over mechanistic causality. Michael Chekhov's acting technique, particularly as it evolved during his residence at Dartington Hall in England between 1936 and 1938, and the ludo theatre system developed by the contemporary Russian director and teacher Anatoly Vasiliev (who is little known in the west) are at the heart of these chapters.

More in the vein of cultural studies than conventional assessments of acting techniques, Pitches' book traces these contrasting foundational modalities through a weave of history, theories, practice, and, at times, philosophy. All but Vasiliev in this study are dead. But, in acknowledgement of oral traditions that have been passed down through the generations, Pitches includes brief interludes with some of those he has observed personally who carry history's legacy in their teaching and performance. These include the likes of Alexei Levinsky and Gennady Bogdanov, who, through their studies with Nikolai Kustov, have a direct link back to Meyerhold; David Zinder, who bases his work in Israel on Chekhov; and Vasiliev himself, who studied at the institute founded by Meyerhold and served his apprenticeship under Maria Knebel, a pupil of both Stanislavsky and Michael Chekhov.

This is a book for those with an investment in performer training and technique; yet the writer does not assume his reader knows all the facts and/or history of each of the theories dealt with. He supplies thumbnail histories of his protagonists while examining the circumstances that affected each of the actor-training systems he considers. The studies of Boleslavsky and Chekhov are particularly revealing in this regard, as is the consideration of the French psychologist Théodule Ribot, whose work on affective memory informed Stanislavsky's early psychologically based acting theory.

The volume offers a perceptive blend of technical analysis, historical research, and comparative insight. Some might ask, for instance, why Pitches includes Meyerhold, who is frequently cast as the antithesis of Stanislavsky, in an evaluation of the latter's legacy. But the chapter on Meyerhold reveals not only a connection between them in light of their relationship to science; it also provides a historical context for Meyerhold's ideas that, in turn, places Stanislavsky in...

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