Stanislavski's system

Stanislavski's system is a systematic approach to training actors that the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing" (with which he contrasts the "art of representation").^[2] It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly.^[3] In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a "task").^[4]

Later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the "Method of Physical Action".^[5] Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active representative", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised.^[6] "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the given circumstances."^[7]

Thanks to its promotion and development by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of Stanislavski's theoretical writings, his system acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed a reach, dominating debates about acting in the West.^[8] According to one writer on twentieth-century theatre in London and New York, Stanislavski’s ideas have become accepted as common sense so that actors may use them without knowing that they do.^[9]