Stanislavsky in Focus...or Not.

Oh dear. Sometimes you have to undertake and write and explain things that you don't want to but which need to be set correct, or straight, or better. This post is one of those.


Occasionally, but not as often as you might think, I do a quick search on the Internet for "Stanislavsky" and sometimes I even read the found entries. Well, I did one very recently and did read some entries in some blogs and elsewhere. Several were related to the book "Stanislavsky in Focus" by Dr. Sharon Carnicke. There were enough entries to make it seem like a kind of outbreak again of this material. For those unfamiliar with this book, the premise is that here in America, due to inadequate translations of Stanislavsky's writings, his books as published in America, and an apparent mis-understanding or mis-interpretation of Stanislavsky's ideas and work by Lee Strasberg and others, but especially by Lee, our knowledge and grasp of Stanislavsky and his work is poor, wrong, or incomplete, with entire notions missing. That is the premise. The book is hailed in certain circles as a definitive and practical account, a long overdue correction and clarification, the so-called righting of the myth in America of who and what Stanislavsky intended and did in his work with actors. These recent Internet offerings by people who have recently read the book confirm this circle of thinking. It is a clever piece of work Dr. Carnicke has put together to be sure. Clever, meaning often misleading and downright wrong - but not something your average Stanislavsky or theatre reader would catch or understand in that way, and so the book passes as truth. And that is a sad thing.

Now I'm just a guy who likes Stanislavsky, nature and sports, but I can smell a fake and a cheat of a book when I read one. I won't go into numerous examples, but I will use one from the book that touches upon scholarship, accountability, interpretation, and integrity and shows the absolute shoddy and bad work by Dr. Carnicke that is present throughout the book in its details. Chapter nine of the newest edition is called "Emotion and the Human Spirit of the Role: Yoga." The first sentence reads as follows


“When Strasberg writes that for Stanislavsky “the actor’s internal means […] was still called at that time the ‘soul’” (1987:67), we understand that Strasberg wishes to replace “soul” with “subconscious,” reflecting his own assumptions about acting as grounded in popular psychology.”


At face value, after reading that sentence, we would assume that she is quoting Lee Strasberg (from his book "A Dream of Passion") and that Strasberg is talking about or somehow referring to Stanislavsky and there must be something in the way he says it or in what he says that is obvious and would lead us to understand, as she says, that to him this notion of "soul" in acting really has to do with "subconscious" as it is understood in popular psychology. And from the title of the chapter we know that later she will explain that Strasberg was wrong and that Soul means Soul as understood in Yoga practice and thought.

Dr. Carnicke needs Strasberg to appear wrong so that she appears right, or more right. It is a theme that runs throughout the book, meaning this example as it unfolds, is a microcosm of the entire work and her modus operandi. To better understand this and move forward, let me set out the paragraph from Strasberg's book that is cited. Here it is




Equally important was the implicit recognition that not just the actor’s technical means – his voice, speech, bodily actions – could be trained. Boleslavsky contended that the actor’s internal means – what was still at that time called “soul” – could be trained. There were concrete methods or exercises that dealt with the most difficult aspects of the actors work, such as imagination, emotion, and inspiration. The means of arriving at the actor’s imagination, emotion and inspiration were through concentration and affective memory.”



Notice any problems? I do. The first one is that Strasberg is not talking about or referring to Stanislavsky. Second is that Strasberg is not talking about or referring to Stanislavsky's use of the word or concept of soul. Third is that nothing about what is there would lead us to believe that Strasberg wants soul to mean subconscious. I could go for four and five but I will spare you for now. Three significant errors in one little sentence! Who would have thought it possible? Can you mess up that bad even if you try to?! There is a density to the wrongness combined with an audacity to see it through to print that is baffling.

Just to be on the safe side, lets examine what Strasberg is saying, what he is talking about and referring to in this particular paragraph that Dr. Carnicke has chosen to quote from. Strasberg is referring to his days at the American Lab and classes with Richard Boleslavsky. He is talking about what he learned from Boley. In case anyone harbors doubt, Boleslavsky is not Stanislavsky. When Strasberg says an actors internal means was at that time still called "soul' he is simply mentioning a universal historical use of the term, not anything particular to Stanislavsky or even Boleslavsky. It was a widely used and common term for a long period of time - like when Shakespeare wrote "is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit..." The general thinking was that you couldn't train or practice these internal workings of the actor, this soul. It was a puzzle as to how it all worked, and Shakespeare's Hamlet character marvels over it. And now for Strasberg, here was Boleslavsky saying you could indeed train and work on an actors internal means - an actors imagination, emotion and inspiration - and the way to do so was through concentration and affective memory. Its that straight forward and doesn't need me really to interpret it for anyone - least of all Dr. Sharon Carnicke (or whoever did the research for her).

So the question is how and why would someone draw out the statement from it as Dr. Carnicke did that "we understand that Strasberg wishes to replace "soul" with "subconscious" reflecting his own assumptions about acting as grounded in popular psychology?" Its a hell of a leap and I don't have the answer. I could come up with a few theories but I would sooner invite Dr. Carnicke to give us an explanation of her abstract reasoning. In the big picture its helpful to just make something up if one wants to go the route of "good" argument where you have a foil who is not only wrong but evil too. Strasberg is this kind of foil for Dr. Carnicke in this book. He is so bad and evil in this book that surely what Dr. Carnicke presents as alternatives is not only correct but is good hearted and decent.

So there you have it - one small catch from a sea of mistakes and misleading statements. The research and scholarship on Stanislavsky has long gone beyond Dr. Carnicke's assumptions and theories presented in this book. Time will show and tell. In the meantime, if you've got the book in hand, keep your own close eye on the facts and logic as presented.

Following the Winding Road

If you received your invitation to the launch party for Winding Road Ensemble, you might have noticed, if you are like me, that thirteen(!) people are inviting you. Why do I think this is so great? Because most theatre organizations are started by one, two, three or maybe four people. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that - but if you long to witness a real theatre, an ensemble of like minded folk who continuously train and prepare themselves individually and collectively to present works that bespeak their experiences, well, you need some bodies! And Winding Road apparently has them. And, if memory serves, they will be presenting a play by one of their very own. More wonderful news there. I cannot and would not pretend to speak for Winding Road of course, but right off the bat they seem to have all the inherent traits that set a real theatre apart from a mere producing organization. When I say producing organization, think Arizona Theatre Company. They have a permanent group of administrators who oversee individual productions consisting of various unrelated artists and works. Each show is a piecemeal endeavor with actors jobbed in to fill roles solely for a particular show. The administrators view their organization as having the same function and responsibility as a museum, e.g., presenting classic or "professional" work to a wide audience. Actors, whose very home should be in the theatre, are just temporary and usually one-time visitors there. In contrast, a real theatre company grows and nurtures its own artists over time, actors, writers and directors, with a conscious and deliberate effort, working in specific relationship with one another.

Biomimics

Bi-o-mim-ic-ry
(From the Greek bios, life, and mimesis, imitation)
1. Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.
2. Nature as measure. Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the "rightness" of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.
3. Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.

The above is from the first plate page of the book Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine M. Benyus.

About a hundred years ago, the great Russian stage director Meyerhold was borrowing ideas from man-made industrialization and turning out a fabulous training technique for actors known as Biomechanics. Before, during, and after Meyerhold, Stanislavsky was discovering ideas rooted in nature, in the natural world and in human behavior, and making his own science and practical technique for actors. Perhaps his work could have been called "Biomimicry - a conscious emulation of life's genius. Innovation inspired by nature." Perhaps the credo could have been "there is more to discover than to invent." In any case, Stanislavsky as most who know him know, was way ahead of his time.

The three points listed in the above description of Biomimicry run exactly through Stanislavsky's work with actors. Point one, nature as model. Stanislavsky sought to find out what is the basic natural process that is "acting." In other words, what occurs that brings together fictional, made-up circumstance and living behavior in a way that becomes art, processed fully with human thought, sensation and feeling? The answer he called Affective Memory, and he described and articulated it and all its accompany details and qualities over a lifetime of work. This fundamental creative process he often said was akin to all other "magical" processes in nature, and he used many metaphors of such in his talks and work with actors. Point two, nature as measure. In the most simplistic sense, Stanislavsky knew that if an actor was violating what he called the creative laws of nature, the acting was "off." For Stanislavsky this measure of nature was his way of telling what kind of short and long term impact an actor's work would have on the spectators, how shallow or how deep it would it affect their sensibilities. Point three, nature as mentor. What could we learn from those characters in Uncle Vanya or The Three Sisters when they were presented to us not as metaphors or political operatives but as fully functioning living breathing human beings with all their interconnected and interdependent lives? An eco-system of a play? What would the actor-artist grasp in a visceral sense? What about the spectator? What is to be learned when you go "into the forest" or "into the play?"


Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

Ah, good ol' Stanislavsky! Gets better all the time!

What happened to, or where are, those who came before us?

I was flying commercial, several thousand feet above the Republic of Texas, looking down at the trees, the rivers, the tributaries, the land. Not that it matters but I was on my third bloody mary... potent little suckers. I had almost finished reading "1491," a captivating book that considers the Americas pre-Columbus, and supposes that the societys and cultures here were as vast and sophisticated, as complex and diverse as any in Europe at the time. And so looking down I was imagining the people of that time, managing their lives, farmers, hunters, craftspeople, warriors, politicians, artists perhaps. And I was thinking of the land itself, how if I was on the ground below I could just reach down and pick up a fossil, millions of years old perhaps. This area of Central Texas had once been underwater, a shallow sea and the build-up of shells as fossils, limestone as cliffs is enornmous. Maybe the water went all the way up and formed a shore along the the Llano Estacado, the high, staked plains above and to the west of Abilene. The oldest known human remains of North America have been discovered on those plains. Perhaps they were hunters following ancient herds of bison or mammoth. And then there is the Marty Robbins song, a sad but melodic refrain of lost love, somewhere out over the Llano Estacado. These thoughts, images and sounds were running through my head as the airplane dipped south and east, eventually flying along the Gulf of Mexico, over the great Mississippi just above New Orleans, bound for Atlanta and the busiest airspace and landing strips the world has ever known.

Like Old Times - Theatre and Dissent

Yesterday morning I was lucky enough to have been at a presentation by a Prescott College Student regarding Theatre and Dissent. It was shades of the old days at the Tucson Center when Esther would have two or three would be "subversives" in her office and I was being subpoenaed by the FBI to testify.

This particular student that did the presentation is a hardworking all around good person who takes on his education with full stride. He hasn't just joined a cause and gone to work. He has spent a multitude of time researching, comparing, gaging and trying to understand the complexities of this world, including the injustices and the atrocities.

Led by a powerful mentor, Mr. Howard Allen, for this course, this student took on the study of some difficult plays - Antigone, A View From the Bridge, The Mad Woman of Challiot, Julius Ceasar among them - all plays with "dissent" from moral or political or personal standards, but not your overt and obvious ones really, Antigone aside. In other words there was no "Waiting For Lefty" (although he may go one to explore Odets Paradise Lost as part of his follow-up).

Patrick, who was also present to hear, and I drank some espresso (mediocre we decided, although we do not claim the abilities to distinguish the finer aspects of espresso. Our measurement was that he said it was like the espresso he drank in Orvieto at a cafe where he was advised "not to be seen" if he wanted to to be considered a person of refined tastes) and settled in to listen. I might have made a mistake giving Howard Allen espresso. Has anyone ever known Howard not to be at full alert at any given time? No telling what he accomplished later that morning. In any case, the presentation prompted a good amount of discussion in the little available time we had so we agreed on an informal meeting over beer at a later date to finish it off.