Konstantin (Constantin) Stanislavski (Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский / Алексе́ев) (January 5, 1863 - August 7, 1938) was a Russian theatre and acting innovator.
He was born Konstantin (Constantin) Sergeievich Alexeyev in Moscow to a wealthy family, if not the wealthiest in Russia. He had an early interest in acting and took the stage-name Stanislavski to preserve the reputation of his family.
In 1888 he established the Society of Art and Literature at the Maly Theatre, where he gained experience in aesthetics and stagecraft. In 1898, he assumes the role of principal director of the Moscow Open Theatre, later known as the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). From there, based on the realist tradition of Aleksandr Pushkin, he developed his ideas of what he called The System and which would later be adapted by Lee Strasberg in the United States to become method acting - actors would research the situation created by the script according to their character's motivations and their own experiences. Ideally, the actor would make his motivations identical to those of the character in the script. He could then replay these emotions and experiences in the role to achieve a more genuine performance. The 17th century play Tsar Fyodor was the first used to demonstrate his ideas.
He laid the foundations of modern opera and boosted the works of writers such as Maxim Gorki and Anton Chekhov, whose works could be well used by his methodology.
Stanislavski survived both the 1905 Revolution and the 1917 one, apparently Lenin intervened to protect him. In 1918 Stanislavski established the First Studio as a school for young actors and wrote several works: those available in English include the biography My Life in Art, An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role.
Stanislavski's response was to shift the emphasis from over-complex detail (still favoured by Nemirovich) to another aspect of staging which had always interested him – the creation of the mood within which the actors could work, and the physical manifestations of that mood within the actor.
Stanislavski began writing down his techniques as early as 1906, but the emphasis was constantly changing within his work, and it was not until much later in his life that The System took on a coherent form.
It is likely that Stanislavski's concern with the external as well as the internal form of a character had a lot to do with the tendency of his actors to employ empty theatrical gesture in their work, in a way which seemed to preclude psychological or emotional truth.
His process of character development, the "Stanislavski Method", was the catalyst for method acting- arguably the most influential acting system on the modern stage and screen.
Stanislavsky was born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev in Moscow on January 5, 1863, amidst the transition from the feudal serfdom of Czarist Russia under the rule of Peter the Great, to the free enterprise of the Industrial Revolution.
Using this system, Stanislavski succeeded like no producer or director before him in translating the works of such renowned playwrights as Chekov and Gorki, whose writings were aptly suited to his method.
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