Category Archives: Constant Stanislavski

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (142) · Sep 30th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

(Think) about the inner side of a role, and how to create its spiritual life through the help of the internal process of living the part. You must live it by actually experiencing feelings that are analogous to it, each and every time you repeat the process of creating it. (AP)

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (141) · Sep 9th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

Aside from the fact that it opens up avenues for inspiration, living the part helps the artist to carry out one of his main objectives. His job is not to present merely the external life of his character. He must fit his own human qualities to the life of this other person, and pour into it all of his own soul. The fundamental aim of our art is the creation of this inner life of a human spirit, and its expression in an artistic form. (AP)

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (140)  · Aug 17th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

You may play well or you may play badly; the important thing is that you should ​play truly (Shchepkin to Shumski).
To play truly means to be right, logical, coherent, to think, strive, feel and act in unison with your role.
If you take all these internal processes and adapt them to the spiritual and physical life of the person you are representing, we call that living the part.  This is of supreme significance in creative work. (AP)
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CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (139)  · Aug 5th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski: 

Our art teaches us first of all to create consciously and rightly, because that will best prepare the way for the blossoming of the subconscious, which is inspiration.  The more you have of conscious creative moments in your role the more chance you will have of a flow of inspiration. (AP) 

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (138) · Jul 26th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

[Tommaso] Salvini said: ‘The great actor should be full of feeling, and especially he should feel the thing he is portraying.  He must feel an emotion not only once or twice while he is studying his part, but to a greater or lesser degree every time he plays it, no matter whether it is the first or thousandth time.’  Unfortunately this is not within our control. (AP)

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (137) · Jul 18th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

The very best that can happen​ is to have the actor completely carried away by the play.  Then regardless of his own will he lives the part, not noticing how he feels, not thinking about what he does, and it all moves of its own accord, subconsciously and intuitively. (AP)
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CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (135) · Jun 27th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

​I was ready to turn myself inside out​, to give [the audience] everything I had; yet inside of me I had never felt so empty.  The effort to squeeze out more emotion than I had, the powerlessness to do the impossible, filled me with a fear that turned my face and my hands to stone.  All my forces were spent  on unnatural and fruitless efforts. (AP)
 

CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (134) · Jun 17th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

There is a good side to this period of waiting [to go on stage]. It drives you into such a state that all you can do is to long for your turn, to get through with the thing that you are afraid of. . . .

But the minute the curtain rose, and the audience appeared before me, I . . . felt myself possessed by its power. At the same time some new unexpected sensations surged inside of me. [Although] the set hems in the actor . . . [and] this semi-isolation is pleasant . . . a bad aspect is, that it projects the attention out into the public. Another new point was that my fears led me to feel a certain obligation to interest the audience. This feeling of obligation interfered with my throwing myself into what I was doing. I began to feel hurried, both in speech and in action. . . . The slightest hesitation and a catastrophe would have been inevitable. (AP)