Unit 11 research

BIG Question

What are the , similarities   and preference between The Stanislavsky System and Lee Strasberg's method and how are they effective and useful in Acting.

Plan for Dissertation

1. Introduction - Why your interested and what sources you have used answer the question
2.  Paragraph 1 - Where acting originated from  about and development of Acting over the years
3. Paragraph 2- The two Acting techniques - history context behind it 
4. Paragraph 3-What the Techniques and Methods consist 
5. Paragraph 4- online review and videos from Actors and students . How its helped them and yourself.
6. Conclusion- what you think gathered by all your research which one is more likely used and how they effect you during performance.

Thespis of Icaria is considered to be the first actor in the theatre. The English word “thespian,” which means actor, is derived from his name. Along with being an actor on the Ancient Greek stage, Thespis was also a celebrated playwright, stage director and producer. None of his plays are extant.

http://www.ancientathens.org/people/thespis

The earliest origins of drama are to be found in Athens where ancient hymns, called dithyrambs, were sung in honor of the god Dionysus. These hymns were later adapted for choral processions in which participants would dress up in costumes and masks. Eventually, certain members of the chorus evolved to take special roles within the procession, but they were not yet actors in the way we would understand it.

That development came later in the 6th century BC, when the tyrant Pisistratus, who then ruled the city, established a series of new public festivals. One of these, the 'City Dionysia', a festival of entertainment held in honor of the god Dionysus, featured competitions in music, singing, dance and poetry. And most remarkable of all the winners was said to be a wandering bard called Thespis.

According to tradition, in 534 or 535 BC, Thespis astounded audiences by leaping on to the back of a wooden cart and reciting poetry as if he was the characters whose lines he was reading. In doing so he became the world's first actor, and it is from him that we get the world thespian.

https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/24a_p1.html

Techniques that have caused acting to evolve:

• The Stanislavsky System
• The meisner Technique
• Method Acting
• Stella Adler
• Ivana Chubbuck
• https://www.raindance.org/top-5-acting-techniques/

lee Strasberg Method 

 (1901-1982), Actor, director, and teacher, has been called the “Father of method acting in America.” His technique is based upon a system created by Konstantin Stanislavski, where actors strive for a realistic performance by utilizing their “emotional memories.”

Strasberg, through his work at the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasbourg Theatre and Film Institute, taught his method to many A-list actors and actresses, including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe. And many other top performers who have not studied under Strasberg also use his method style of acting, such as Angelina Jolie, Scarlet Johnson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jack Nicholson.

While method acting is similar to Stanislavsky's system, Strasbourg took the idea a step further. Strasbourg's method requires actors to go beyond emotional memory and use a technique called “Substitution” to temporarily become the characters they are portraying.

Method acting focuses on achieving realism, differing from classical acting styles, which have traditionally featured exaggerated emotions much bigger than life. method actors “…use their imagination, senses and emotions to conceive of characters with unique and original behavior, creating performances grounded in the human truth of the moment.”

Strasberg identified what he saw as limitations to Stanislavsky's system, in that actors’ emotional memories were insufficient to fully connect to the circumstances experienced by the characters they were portraying. How could an actor who grew up in a middle-class family and lived in New York City truly understand what life was like for a character who lived in poverty in a rural southern town?

Method acting dictates that actors should prepare for a role by immersing themselves as much as possible in the circumstances of their characters. This can include living on a farm, working in a factory, or transforming their bodies. Method acting has come under scrutiny because it is believed that some actors go so far to replicate the lives of their characters, that they actually put their health or lives at risk. In addition, many stories have been told of actors who played their roles to extremes, refusing to step outside of their roles, even when the cameras were not rolling.

http://www.onlocationeducation.com/blog/2018/1/3/acting-styles-strasberg

 VIDEO ABOVE:https://youtu.be/AN2yNJhnBlY :

Stanislavsky Method

 Konstantin Stanislavsky was born in 1863 and was a Russian actor and theater director.

Stanislavsky's principles of directing and his collective theories on acting were very influential in the late nineteenth century and are still used by actors and directors today He adopted the stage name of Stanislavsky in 1884. , he 
died in 1938 at the age of 75. His family loved the theater and he was able to indulge in amateur theatricals as a boy. But when he took a stage name it was to conceal his theatrical work from his family. However, in 1887 he had his father’s approval and eventually became an established figure.

As a serious theatrical practitioner, he made careful notes and evaluated his work, a habit he followed from the first steps in his career. Later he was to write major texts on the art of performance:

• My Life in Art
• An Actor Prepares
• Building a Character
• Creating a Role
• https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxn4mp3/revision/1
• The Stanislavsky method or system is a set of techniques used by actors to portray emotions on stage by putting themselves in the place of the character.

Stanislavsky developed the technique in the early 1900s and they have been used ever since to help actors create believable emotions and actions in the characters they portray.

Stanislavsky method acting is basically in seven steps, these techniques where developed to help actors to build believable characters. These are:

1. Who Am I?
2. Where Am I?
3. When Is It?
4. What Do I Want?
5. Why Do I Want It?
6. How Will I Get It?
7. What Do I Need To Overcome?

https://www.dramaclasses.biz/the-Stanislavsky-system

The MOSCOW Arts Theater

The company was founded in 1898 by Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich Chernenko. Despite being wealthy, Stanislavsky only contributed to its foundation rather than paying all the bills. The company was a joint stock company owned by shareholders. This created a strong collaboration and community behind the venture. It did also mean Stanislavsky was challenged at times but his wealth was undeniably useful to him when he was exploring or developing a new field. It was both successful and hugely influential in the world of the theatre and survived until it was split into two troupes in 1987. It was, of course, affected by the political turmoil in Russia from 1917.

Video 1 : https://youtu.be/Ul_wE953yPQ
Video 2: https://youtu.be/TM42O6kYbI8

Video 3: https://youtu.be/vpEGXrDSXo8

When Stalin controlled Russia, Stanislavsky was keen to appease him to ensure the survival of the theater. During this time the company’s work reflected the political voice of the USSR, as represented by Socialist realism. Stanislavsky was able to remain a follower of realism but the theater company’s plays promoted socialist political beliefs. This remained the case until 1970 when there was a movement back towards the essence of Stanislavsky's method.

It’s very easy to over-simplify the Method of Konstantin Stanislavsky, one of the greatest and most influential of modern theater practitioners The main thing to remember is that he takes the approach that the actors should really inhabit the role that they are playing. So the actor shouldn’t only know what lines he needs to say and the motivation for those lines, but also every detail of that character’s life offstage as well as onstage. In this way we can establish Stanislavsky as a director and practitioner whose productions are naturalistic.

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxn4mp3/revision/1

Personal experience

• Chicago- The monologue that I was given was minimal therefore I had to use the method to us ethe method to help me develop and explore my character 
• Cats- portraying the character of Grizabella the Glamour Cat
• A Christmas carol- Belle scrooges   wife to be  who is heartbroken that scrooge has turn miserly and changed towards her.
• Personal opinion - gives me more of a story 
• helps me get everything out of the character that I need to show 
• The two methods are really helpful learning how to adjust to your character

From watching this video, I wrote down notes that can help me answer my question. these are listed below:

• Actor sit in the character given circumstances with whats in the script 
• find out what the objective
• use actions to find out what the character physically wants so you respond with the right emotion
• use real life events to helps create emotions
• remember the story and events and input that into the physicality and lines to trigger the emotions 
• with this method it was quite unreliable and caused damaged in some actor which was the least of Stanislavsky's worries and all he cared about making sure the actors were portraying the characters correctly 
• and the best why can
• e.g if you told your son drowned. How would you show your emotion physically ?
• using frantic short movement 

From watching this video, I wrote down notes that can help me answer my question. these are listed below:

• Heath Ledger isolated himself for a week to portray the role of the Joker 
• Training for actors to understand their character 
• how they perform as themselves vs interpretation given from the character.

Bibliography

 Benedetti, J. (1990). Stanislavski. New York, NY: Routledge.

Biography. (2018). Constantin Stanislavski. [online] Available at: https://www.biography.com/people/constantin-stanislavski-9492018 [Accessed 16 Dec. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). Daniel Day-Lewis talks method acting. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/Db03GF8VP7c [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

  Ebert, R. (2018). On the Waterfront Movie Review (1954) | Roger Ebert. [online] Rogerebert.com. Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-on-the-waterfront-1954 [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

Hastings, C. (2018). 'Try to be sexy': how Larry Olivier set out to humiliate Monroe. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1440198/Try-to-be-sexy-how-Larry-Olivier-set-out-to-humiliate-Monroe.html [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

Hastings, C. (2018). 'Try to be sexy': how Larry Olivier set out to humiliate Monroe. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1440198/Try-to-be-sexy-how-Larry-Olivier-set-out-to-humiliate-Monroe.html [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). Interview clips with Marlon Brando. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN9rxVbZ74k [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

 Long, C., Rossignol, D., Cosores, P., Cosores, P., Gilke, C., Rossignol, D. and Cosores, P. (2018). The Story Behind Heath Ledger’s Joker Transformation. [online] UPROXX. Available at: https://uproxx.com/movies/heath-ledger-the-joker-preparation/2/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

 Ltd, B. (2018). The Stanislavski Method |. [online] Dramaclasses.biz. Available at: https://www.dramaclasses.biz/the-stanislavski-system [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

 ThoughtCo. (2018). The Stanislavsky Method - An overview of his Acting Techniques. [online] Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/stanislavsky-system-acting-method-2712987 [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].

 Timoney, B. (2018). The Method Acting of Heath Ledger. [online] Brian Timoney Acting:. Available at: https://www.briantimoneyacting.co.uk/heath-ledger-close-look-method-acting-legend/  [Accessed 16 Dec. 2018].