Stanislavski background

In drama, Konstantin Stanislavski is one of the most influential modern theatre Practitioners.
His method taught is very easy to over-simplify, but in reality is very complex in the world of drama.
He takes the approach that actors should concentrate and inhabit the role that they are playing.
He believes in the importance of motivation in an actor, to put their concentration on their motivation to learn lines  instead of concentrating on only knowing what lines the actor needs to say, this shows there passion for drama.
Stanislavski focuses his technique on actors knowing every detail of there character’s life offstage as well as onstage. In this way he taught us that we can establish him(Stanislavski) as a director and practitioner in his naturalistic productions.
Background information:

he was born in 1863 and died in 1938.
He was born on January 5th in Moscow, Russia as Sergeyevich Alekseyev. His family was descended from slaves but they had improved their lives during the Industrial Revolution as producers and sellers of gold and silver thread. He had a luxury life growing up, he had nine siblings. Their parents often took them to the theatre and to concerts. The children used to recreate the plays they had seen either acting or with the use of puppetry, the parents were artistic so were very supportive. He started acting at the age of 14 and developed his theatre skills. He performed in other acting other groups while working in his family's manufacturing business. He gave himself the name Stanislavski as it was the name of another actor he'd met. He marries a woman called Maria Perevoschikova and  three years later and she joined her husband in the study and work of acting. He founded the Society of Art and Literature in 1888, he performed and directed productions for almost a decade. In June 1986, he and playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko decided to open the Moscow Art Theatre, this was an alternative to the normal theatres back then.
He constantly updated his method through inter-disciplinary studies, absorbing from a range of sources and influences, such as the modernist and avant-garde developments, yoga and Pavlovian behaviorist psychology. He introduced group rehearsals and relaxation techniques to achieve better spiritual connections between actors. Pavlovian approach worked well by conditioning actors through discipline in longer, organized rehearsals, and using a thorough analysis of characters. Stanislavski himself was involved in a long and arduous practice making every actor better prepared for stage performance and eventually producing a less rigid acting style. In his own words, Stanislavski described his early approach as "Spiritual Realism." His actors worked hard to deliver perfectly believable performances, as none of his actors wanted to hear his famous verdict, "I don't believe."

As an actor:

Stanislavski starred in several classical plays. His most notable stage performances, such as Othello in the Shakespeare's 'Othello', and as Gayev in Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard', were acclaimed by critics and loved by public. His own students said that Stanislavski was a very comfortable partner on stage, due to his highly professional, truthful and reciprocative acting. At the same time, he could be very demanding off stage, because of his high standards, especially during his lengthy and rigorous rehearsals, requiring nothing less but the full devotion from each actor of his company, the Moscow Art Theatre.

TheoriesSome examples of his theories are;

• Given circumstances - What information you have already about the character such as where and who they are.
• Emotional Memory - When you draw on a past experience where you have felt the same way as this character is and you bring it in to your role.
• Objectives - Why we are behaving in a certain way? What we want to achieve.
• Actions - How your objective is achieved.
• Magic If - How would the actor behave if they were in the characters situation.

The end?Stanislavski suffered after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Stanislavski's fortune, his factory and all other business property was nationalized by the Soviet Communists, but he survived and was allowed to own his mansion in Moscow. Stanislavski wisely let go of all his wealth and possessions and expressed himself in writing and directing.
In 1928 Stanislavski suffered from a heart attack.

In our performance of the cherry orchid we used props wich links to the movements of neautralism.

we done he majic if excersise in the beginning,before we were introduced to our groupds and it teally helped us get into character.

I used actions with Greek Theatre as it helped me with how to deliver the lines whilst performing i.e when isaid "on my knees i beg you"