Practitioner - Stanislavski.
History and Philosophy.
Konstantin Stanislavski was a Russian playwright and practitioner who lived from 1863 to 1938 in Russia. He is very famous for his totally-naturalistic style. He lived in a very turbulent time in Russia, the rise of communism saw a totalitarian government come into power.
This meant that theatre was closely controlled and monitored to ensure it did not go against the state. One of the central ideas of naturalism is that it is a reflection of life, so abstract, revolutionary political views are simply not possible. For this reason, lots of Stanislavsky and Chekov (another Russian naturalist) plays are set in Russia and about communist culture.
His philosophy is that theatre should be a perfect reflection of real life, when watching a play the audience should feel like a fly on the wall, looking in at the action. This means there is strictly no fourth-wall breaking and the audience are distanced from the action.
However, the audience are pulled closer to be emotionally attached to certain character; the believable style in which the characters are played makes the audience feel emotionally attached to them. If they die, or tragedy strikes the audience is saddened thus naturalism is sometimes called theatre for the heart.
Questions.
Stanislavski envisioned that theatre should be totally representative of what being a human is like. Through this idea Stanislavski produced his 7 questions which actors should ask themselves as they play naturalistic characters:
- Who Am I?
- Where Am I?
- When Is It?
- What Do I Want?
- Why Do I Want It?
- How Will I Get It?
- What Do I Need To Overcome to achieve what I want?
Whilst rehearsing naturalism, the actors first task is to ensure that they have satisfactory answers to all of these questions. This allows them to fully immerse in their character.
Emotional Memory.
One of the key aspects of Stanislavsky approach to naturalism was emotional memory. The idea behind it is that the actor playing a character should not have to consciously think at all in order to convey their characters personality or emotions.
This is the polar opposite of Brecht's gestus in which the actor uses pre-planned gestures and movements to show aspects of their character painfully clearly.
Stanislavsky believed that if the actor drew upon their own similar experiences then they could convey their character much more convincingly.
The classic example of emotional memory is fake crying. If an actor neds to cry in a scene, if they relate the circumstances to the saddest memories they have then they won't have to act sad - they literally are sad.
Emotional memory is therefore brilliant in conveying realistic and believable characters the audience. If the actor is truly sad, the audience can't help but perceive the character to be sad.
One way Stanislavsky helped actors to perfect emotional memory is by body-association. The actors stands in neutral in a space with eyes closed/unfocused. They focus on remembering in as much detail as possible a memory that has lots of emotion behind it.
Whilst experiencing the emotion from the memory, the actor thinks about which part of their body they feel it in. For example, anger is often felt in the throat or hands whilst sadness is in the chest.
Then when they need to access that emotional memory for a scene with their character, the actor can focus on that body part and so relive the emotion of the rehearsal and slip into the emotion more easily.
Key Characteristics.
Short time-frame and linear scene progression- in naturalistic plays, the idea is that the time taken for the play to run is also the time taken for the events of the play to unfold. This means the action of naturalistic plays usually happens over one night.
Very in depth, detailed sets- every detail of the set and costume is carefully recreated in order to concrete the idea that the audience is just a fly on the wall watching the action.
Minimalistic lighting and sound- there are no non-diegetic sounds in Stanislavsky naturalism and any diegetic sounds are very realistic. The lighting is also minimalistic - only lights that exist in the scene can be used.
Realistic dialogue- like in DNA by Dennis Kelly, the lines include any pauses and ums/er's that real life people talk in. This includes lots of half sentences and shortened words.
Absolutely no audience acknowledgment- no monologues or audience address. The characters are not aware in any sense that they are being watched.
Other important naturalism techniques are emotional memory, circles of attention and method acting:
Circles of Attention.
Stanislavsky believed in a theatre technique called circles of attention. There are 3 circles of attention that any actor who plays in a naturalistic play must understand:
The first circle is on a purely introverted level. It contains all the thoughts of the character outside of obvious lines as well as the seven give circumstances questions and emotional memory. This is sometimes described as the control circle because it is the one the actor/character has the most control over.
The second circle contains the character and one other character. This circle mostly focuses on interactions between the two, what is the power dynamic? Why is it this way? How do the two characters feel about each other? This circles is sometimes called the influence circle because the actor/character has some influence over the other character but cannot control them.
The third circle contains all the characters in the play, not just those interacting with the character. In order to truly play a naturalistic character, Stanislavsky believed it was vital that the actor understood their character's opinions on all other characters. This is referred to as the concern circle because the actor/character is concerned about all the other characters.
Method Acting.
One method that developed from Stanislavsky naturalism was method acting Although Stanislavsky never invented it or encouraged it, he is credited with its creation.
The central pillar of method acting is that the actor is always in character. In Brechtian plays, the actor is purposefully separated from the character but in method acting the actor becomes the character. At the end of a rehearsal the actor does not go home as themselves, they go home as their characters.
For weeks or months at a time, the actor becomes their character in all aspects of their lives. Their personalities literally change and the line between actor and character becomes blurred.
Method acting is also very dangerous because actors can easily get lost in their characters. This is dangerous for certain types of characters, like Heath Ledger who died as a result of method acting the Joker. For this reason, it is rarely practiced or encouraged in the UK.