Much of the world has found entertainment in going to the theatre to see a play and seeing a world that was once on paper become real before their eyes. The final product revealed on the stage is only a small amount of the work it truly takes to be involved in any area of theatre. The actors you see on stage while watching a performance put in a great amount of work prior to the opening night of the production. The acting process begins even before the first read-through of the script. These actors use various techniques and methods to assure they are putting the best possible performance they can on stage. Throughout the years, theatre has changed and developed new material, techniques, and teachings that have been found useful to actors, directors, and others in the entertainment industry. While there are many techniques used by actors in the theatre community, one technique has been found to be the most influential. Constantin Stanislavski was the creator of this technique known as “The System,” which developed in Russia and later made its way to America. Due to his teachings influencing playwrights, actors, and other teachers, Stanislavski has had an enormous impact on American theatre since the 1920s.

The Stanislavski System is a systematic approach to training actors. Constantin Stanislavski developed this technique in order to fill a gap in theatre he was constantly observing throughout his own acting career. Constantin Stanislavski was involved in theatre beginning at a young age; however, he quit due to his frustration with actors who delivered hyperbolized performances. He continually saw actors that would exaggerate their movement and voice. Overall, this led to actors not being able to seem believable on stage. “The Stanislavski ‘system’ emerged from his own practice and struggles as an actor and a director” (Allen and Fallow). Constantin Stanislavski never saw a performance that spoke truthfully to human behavior and served as a relatable story. Allen and Fallow state, “He felt acutely the absence of any system or method.” This gap he found then created the main goal of the System, which was to portray believable, natural characters on stage (Bradford). His teachings created an entirely different outlook on what it meant to “act.” Stanislavski created the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) in 1898. It was at MAT where Stanislavski taught his developed techniques as well as found new obstacles to overcome and provide solutions to. Russia was where his system first emerged, and once he felt like it was ready he introduced it to the rest of the world.

It was in 1922 that Stanislavski took MAT on tour, and in 1923 MAT graced America and brought a whole new perspective on acting. “Nowhere outside Russia itself have [Constantin] Stanislavski’s acting theories been more popular than in the United States…,” states Richard Hornby. America had not achieved much in the area of theatre, especially in playwriting, until in 1915 when the “new theatre” movement hit New York. It was mainly due to his realism that Stanislavski’s company conjured so much fascination with American audiences. At the time, American audiences began a backlash against productions of Macbeth due to a contrast between the representation of cultured English actors and the rugged American actors. As stated by Hornby, “Stanislavski, presenting a system of acting based on honest emotion rather than on beautiful speech and movement, unwittingly fed the longstanding American bias.” In late 1923, Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya, two former students of Stanislavski, started the American Laboratory Theatre in New York. This Theatre went on to create actors and more teachers, some of which took their own spin on some of the techniques Stanislavski developed as well as creating their own.

Stanislavski created many tools within his technique to create a believable performance and encouraged actors portraying characters to reacted in the most natural ways. Robert W. Corrigan claims, “Stanislavski teaches actors to live on the stage and not to act on stage.” The ‘magic if’ was a simple tool created for actors to use their imagination and ask themselves, “What would I do if I were in this situation?” This allows the actor to give a true response to the situation at hand in the scene. Re-Education is also a way for actors to rethink and take into account how they carry themselves and speak while onstage. Wade Bradford, a playwright and English professor, points out that theatre began in Ancient Greece with masks and choreographed sequences, which led to actors over-emphasizing their movement and voice during a performance. In real life, we do not act as such; therefore, Stanislavski made it a point to create ways for actors to display honest human nature while also projecting the voice. In addition, emotional memory is a tool in which the actor recalls a memory of when they felt true emotion and then they attach that memory to the moment in which the character is experiencing the same emotion. This tool helps to create authentic emotion on stage for actors who have a difficultly relating to the character’s emotional state. “[Stanislavski] wanted his actors to actually feel the emotion” (Bradford). Finally, observation was extremely important to Stanislavski and his teaching methods. This tool was highly encouraged for actors to examine others and identify both physical and personality traits. As noted by Bradford, every person has unique characteristics therefore every character does as well. Observation served as a way to inspire actors to create these unique traits for the characters they portray. Motivation allows the actor to back up the action they exhibit on stage. This is often described as the characters justification. This tool adds another layer that helps to create a believable performance. In real life, there is always a reason or an underlying meaning behind the words we choose to say and the actions we take. Creating this for a performer takes it one step further into making the character into someone the audience and can claim is real.

Due to his desire to create believable performances, he tried to create exercises in order to assist actors in understanding and adopting a character’s mindset. Stanislavski enjoyed asking more questions than answering them in order to figure out everything he could about a character. Actors can gain more knowledge about their characters by analyzing their scripts and asking themselves: Who am I? Where am I? What do I want? Why do I want it? How do I get what I want? What do I need to overcome? Answering these questions in the mind of the character assists the actor in acquiring a sense of the characters mind and behavior. Learning what a character says about themselves versus what others say about them gives a double perspective on how a character justifies their actions and how their actions can be perceived. Also, people act differently based on their location. If someone is in a place they feel more comfortable in, that can affect what they say, how they say it, and what actions they take. Understanding what a character wants in a scene is something that was heavily emphasized by Stanislavski. This aligns with a character’s motivation and was also described as a character’s objective. This is often called a super-objective, in which the character has an overall goal they are trying to accomplish (Skvortsov). As Helen Kantilaftis states, “All actions should be executed with the goal of getting what you want from the other characters in the scene.” The actions you take to try and accomplish your objective should all be motivated by your objective. Having obstacles to face makes for tension within a scene and often times makes the actor fight harder for what they want or are trying to accomplish, and this creates an even more enjoyable performance for the audience watching. The simple questions were the most important to Stanislavski because they created work for the actor to put their time and focus into, and the end product was a greater actor with an astonishing skill set and performance value. The exercises worked only to benefit the actor creating a believable and realistic performance. Through his system, Stanislavski introduced a truly new outlook on theatre which also led to the fascination with realism. 

The idea of realism that Stanislavski introduced to the world began a snowball effect that caused existing playwrights to begin writing more meaningful simplistic stories. He also created and inspired new playwrights who studied his teachings at theatres such as MAT and ALT. Not only did Stanislavski inspire playwrights to create new material, he was able to bring fame to already established playwrights such as Chekhov. It was the MAT tour to America that brought in audiences to see Chekhov’s The Sea Gull. The characters in the show were brought to life by Stanislavski’s MAT actors, who worked so very hard to indulge in the System and become their characters. Due to the attention of Stanislavski’s new approach to theatre and acting, it was inevitable that Chekhov’s work would be gain some of the lime light as well. Stanislavski’s company went on to produce more of Chekhov’s pieces of work.

Stanislavski’s teachings have influenced and encouraged actors to take their craft a step further to present authentic, enjoyable performances for audiences. The Stanislavski System was created to benefit the actors’ performances and create a realistic connection to the story being told on stage. Many actors began using Stanislavski’s System because of the response the public had on this new perspective of theatre. Embracing this technique brought forth a new generation of actors who truly embodied their characters. When an actor experiences a role, Stanislavski believed, the fully realized personality of the character so dominates the occasion that the actor’s own personality virtually disappears (Hobgood). In 1927, Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, both renowned actors and teachers, began attending the American Laboratory Theatre that was started by Boleslavski and Ouspenskaya (Gray). It was through their education of the Stanislavski System, that they both went on to use his techniques and develop their own. It was because of his techniques and teachings that we were able to discover actors and teachers such as Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Uta Hagen.

As a teacher, Stanislavski taught and influenced many minds that later began to create their own methods and/or elaborate on his teachings. Throughout his teaching career, Stanislavski had many pupils, who eventually opened their own theaters and some of which went on to develop their acting techniques and methods. Two of the most prominent pupils that Stanislavski had were Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya. As previously mentioned, “[They] established the American Laboratory Theatre in New York in late 1923, which they hoped would become the American MAT” (Hornby). In 1930, three of Bole[slavski]’s students-Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford-formed the Group Theatre in New York as an alternative to the American Laboratory Theatre (Hornby). Both of these theatre groups had wonderful runs and through teaching Stanislavski’s work, they produced actors, playwrights, and others who contributed to theatre. Hornby explains, “Boleslavski outlined his teaching methods in his 1933 book, Acting: The First Six Lessons. Although he does not mention Stanislavski, the topics of the six lessons show the Stanislavskian influence: Concentration, Memory of Emotion, Dramatic Action, Characterization, Observation, and Rhythm.”

While Stanislavski’s methods can be noted as influential and ground-breaking for his time, claims have been made that although Stanislavski created amazing actors, he had little regard to the playwright. According to Corrigan, Stanislavski often misunderstood the art and meaning behind the playwright’s work. However, this claim has been directly attached to the playwright Chekhov and it was the MAT’s performance of his work The Sea Gull that put Stanislavski’s System on the map as well as highly increased the fame of Chekhov. From that production onward, Chekhov had many more pieces of his work performed by MAT with his permission such as The Cherry Orchard. It was Stanislavski who brought Chekhov’s stories and characters into the stage lights and created something for audiences to enjoy. 

It is also suggested by the media that the System in which Stanislavski created corrupts actors and blurs the line between performer and character. This could be seen in the performance given by Heath Ledger, as the Joker, in The Dark Knight. Ledger became so deeply involved and committed to his role that he developed bad habits similar to that of his character’s. In the end, this ultimately led to his death which some claim to be a result of his use of the system. While it is possible to be an acting technique that led to Ledgers death, it was in fact not Stanislavski’s System that was in use. As previously mentioned, overtime many actors and teachers created their own techniques, however they all had the same basic foundations related to Stanislavski’s System. Lee Strasberg created “The Method,” which indeed led many actors into an unhealthy psychological mindset. Many actors who used Strasberg’s method began to pick up the mannerisms of the character which at times would lead to unhealthy addictions. This, in fact, was the acting technique used by Ledger and because it had a similar correlation to Stanislavski’s teachings it is assumed that his System corrupts actors as well. Due to many techniques having the same foundations as the System, many people often become confused and cannot tell one apart from the other without proper knowledge of each specific technique.

Due to his teachings influencing playwrights, actors, and other teachers, Stanislavski has had an enormous impact on American theatre since the 1920s. Stanislavski created a new outlook on theatre and graciously brought it to America where it continues to thrive today. He was able to instill an idea of real people on stage that would influence playwrights to create stories that audiences could relate to. His use of realism created an outlet for actors to bring forth performances that were believable and able to touch the hearts of audience members.  His acting foundations introduced more teachers that were able to develop their our techniques and influence even more young minds. If it were not for his work, we very well may be still observing over dramatic actors and stories that would become unbearable to watch.
