1 / 8

Acting Theories of Stanislavski

Acting Theories of Stanislavski. Discovering Realism. Background:.

felix
Download Presentation

Acting Theories of Stanislavski

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Acting Theories of Stanislavski Discovering Realism

  2. Background: • Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) was the founder of the first revolutionary acting system in the world. He watched 19th century theatre (melodrama) and thought that theatre could make social change. But the only way theatre could make change was if the characters on stage could be related to by the common person. Therefore he created a natural style of acting to help the actors create “modern” more “realistic” characters.

  3. Influences • Stanislavski was greatly influenced by the Bolshevik Socialist Revolution. • The goal of the Socialist Revolution was to overthrow the Czar (Russian Royalty), and put the power into the hands of the common person (the working class).

  4. Birth of Psychology • In the late 1800’s theories about mental illness were developed. Causes were now either “nature” (you were born with a mental illness), or “nurture” (something in your environment or upbringing) caused the mental illness.

  5. Psychology Influences: Freud • Freud studied the mentally ill. He believed that a person’s psyche is made up of: • Id - functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind • Ego - functions with the rational part of the mind. Ego negotiates between the Id and Superego. • Superego - is the last part of the mind to develop.  It might be called the moral part of the mind. The Superego becomes an embodiment of parental and societal values. It stores and enforces rules. It constantly strives for perfection, even though this perfection ideal may be quite far from reality or possibility.  Its power to enforce rules comes from its ability to create anxiety.

  6. Psychology Influences: Maslow • Maslow studied mentally healthy people and created his hierarchy of needs to explain mental illness.

  7. WWI • WWI had many people trying to decide what life was all about. • The Post-Modern Movement (beginning after WWI) had people questioning many things such as the existence of God (how could “he” exist and allow WWI to happen?). People also began to question the meaning of life and what it meant to be human (after seeing the death and destruction of WWI).

  8. What does it mean to be Human? • These influences in psychology and world events lead to the revolution in theatre to answer the question “what does it mean to be human?” • Therefore a new style of acting had to be created to make realistic characters who were facing the realities of life. • This lead to the birth of Naturalistic (or Realistic) Acting.

More Related