Stanislavski and the Actor, and: Stanislavski in Rehearsal (review)

Stanislavski and the Actor. By Jean Benedetti. New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books, 1998; pp. xxii + 154. $15.99 paper.

Stanislavski in Rehearsal. By Vasily Osipovich Toporkov. Translated by Christine Edwards. New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts Books, 1998; pp. 224. $19.99 paper.

Two recent additions to the literature based on Konstantin Stanislavski's method of actor training are Stanislavski and the Actor and Stanislavski in Rehearsal, which offer some insight into how Stanislavski worked. Both the Stanislavski scholar and the method practitioner will find the two works useful in that they show how his method might be understood in a fresh and exciting way. First, Jean Benedetti suggests that his book is "the manual Stanislavski never had time to write" (back cover), an interesting claim coming from one of America's top Stanislavski scholars. In the second, Christine Edwards offers her revised 1979 translation of Vasily Osipovich Toporkov's book on how Stanislavski worked with his actors in the last ten years of his life, which has been available in Europe since the 1930s.

From the outset Benedetti utilizes the term "system" to denote the acting pedagogy used by Stanislavski. As he explains in the introduction, Stanislavski had a habit of utilizing many different terms to describe his method of actor training, but it seems that Benedetti wanted to distance himself from the connotations brought on by the use of the word "method" and its association with early attempts at either "a primitive kind of 'naturalism' or with Lee Strasburg's Method" (vii). This separation was a good idea and sets the book apart from other texts on the same subject.

Benedetti states that the purpose in writing the book was to offer a modern version of the system of rehearsal method in which actors explore a script through physical actions and exercises. He readily admits that he has relied heavily on the book by Irena Novitskaya entitled Uroki Vdoxnovenija (Inspiring Lessons). Novitskaya was one of the eleven students whom Stanislavski had selected as his "assistants" in training a new class of actors. The eleven students took copious notes during the sessions, and one even recorded in shorthand almost every word Stanislavski spoke. These sessions occurred during the last three years of Stanislavski's life. Benedetti states that the system taught to the members of the Opera-Dramatic Studio of Moscow is the very system of exercises and improvisations explained in his book. Although Benedetti presents little that is new, he does offer a different way of looking at this sixty-year-old material. Herein lies the strength of the book.

The book is divided into four parts. The first outlines Stanislavski's method of physical action which emphasizes how the actor can progress from an everyday action, through several exercises and improvisations, to a creative actor on the stage in a play. Although this section is very brief, its purpose is merely to acquaint the reader with the system from a bird's eye view. In part two, the heart of the work, Benedetti attempts to explain in detail how Stanislavski's system of physical action is different from the other "methods." He begins with a basic understanding of just what constitutes a physical action. He then explains how an actor can "monitor" her actions both externally and internally and thus learn about the action for future use. He ultimately moves to mental action, a concept often overstressed in some acting schools, by explaining the use of focus, concentration, and attention. In this section Benedetti explores other topics such as the relationship between body and mind, how the imagination works, tempo, and physical characterization. This section is worth the price of the book alone.

In part three, Benedetti demonstrates just how the system works in a rehearsal. In this section he details how an ensemble of actors would move from the reading of a play through to the presentation of a performance. He emphasizes the strengths and purposes of the various exercises in...