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p The method of active analysis is in
my opinion the most perfect method of work with the actor, the crowning achievement of Stanislavsky’s lifelong search in the sphere of methodology.

p Although I had the good fortune to meet Stanislavsky a few times, I mainly acquired my knowledge and understanding of his method through pupils and followers of his, who were my teachers, and from my own practical work. My understanding of his method is individual and subjective, and far be it from me to suggest that it is the only valid one. I must ask the reader to regard what I have to say not as an objective account of Stanislavsky’s teaching but rather as a number of conclusions I have reached on the basis of my practical work in the theatre.

p If asked what I consider to be the essence of the method of active analysis, I should say that it is a method which ultimately makes it possible to reproduce the extremely intricate “life of the human spirit” on the stage through the simplest sequence of physical actions, in a manner that, far from being a simplification, fully conveys the vast, profound, all-embracing concept that is man.

p Stanislavsky reached this simple conclusion only after a long, intense search. His acting theory was intimately related to life from its in- 238 ception, and it was developed, deepened and altered in direct interdependence with practice. A superficial knowledge of Stanislavsky’s theory may give rise to the impression that the system in its original form was contradicted by much of what Stanislavsky said shortly before his death. In actual fact, the evolution of Stanislavsky’s views simply confirms how consistent he was.

p To begin with, Stanislavsky regarded thought as the prime factor in the creative process. Thus, at the first stage of his search, he came up with the subtext and a little later with the inner monologue, where the human character was revealed mainly through the intellect.

p From the very outset Stanislavsky dismissed emotion, the feelings, as the stimulus for rousing the life of the role. This thesis remained intact right up to the last. Emotion is regarded as purely derivative, and an actor who relies on the subconscious in the creation of his role will inevitably be led to worn cliches.

p For a long time it looked as though the whole secret was to rely on thought, the conscious, deliberate evocation of the necessary emotions. This is basically true as a question of priorities, and the law “from the conscious to the subconscious” has retained its validity to this day.

p Nevertheless, it transpired that this was not the only secret, and that the problem was in fact more complicated than it had seemed.

p The next stage in Stanislavsky’s creative search was concerned with the volitional factor, the “will”, which produces the necessary emotions and leads to the right results. For a long time this thesis was the basic tenet of the system. To this period belong the concepts of objective, through action, and all that has remained valid to the present day.

p Stanislavsky’s teaching revolutionised dramatic art. The old approach where everything was left to the free play of intuition and inspiration and only a few brilliant individuals elaborated their own personal method, which was possibly adopted by a handful of pupils at most, was replaced with a creative process following a precisesystem when Stanislavsky formulated his laws of acting. Beginning work with round-the-table rehearsals, with careful analysis of the characters and ideas, Stanislavsky raised the art of the theatre and the actor to unprecedented heights.

p However, when his new system achieved recognition and began to win over more and more supporters, Stanislavsky’s restless, eternallysearching mind was assailed by doubts, and he discovered dangers in it which might eventually do much serious damage to the actor’s art. He felt the greatest danger to be passivity, the actor relinquishing more and more his active role to the director in the process of creative search.

p A second danger is one-sidedness, the actor’s one-sided development, in that during the period of analytical work on the part his physical 239 apparatus remained inactive, so that he acquired the ability to think about the part and analyse the dramatist’s material, but not to act.

p Stanislavsky was so concerned over the lack of opportunity for harmonious development of the actor’s entire apparatus, spiritual and physical, in the creative process, that he began to review his whole system and shortly before his death developed a new system, subsequently known as the method of active analysis.

p Stanislavsky came to the conclusion that only physical action rouses reason and will, ultimately evoking the feeling that is the theatre’s raison d’etre. He had finally discovered the basic stimulus in the process that would lead the actor “from the conscious to the subcon- scious”.

p Stanislavsky’s system is the most realistic acting method in existence, based as it is on the complete unity of the physical and the spiritual that is found in life itself, where the most complex spiritual phenomenon is expressed through a consistent sequence of physical actions.

p Basically nothing seems to have changed from the first version of the system. Such concepts as through action, communication, “pieces” and objectives are retained. One important thing, however, has changed: previously all these elements enabled the actor to ignore for a long time the physical side of the role and keep it separate from the spiritual. There was a gap between the actor’s rational, intellectual preparation for the role and his complete physical unpreparedness and helplessness. The shortest way to organic action on the stage is to introduce the physical life of the role at the very first stage of work, •eliminating this gap.

p When we overload the actor with facts about the role, the circumstances of the play, he becomes like a rachitic child, his puny body bending under the weight of his overlarge head, stuffed full of information. At the same time, he remains quite helpless as regards the most important thing of all-thc physical embodiment of the role.

p Thanks to the method of active analysis we can embark on what we might call “physical reconnaissance” at the initial stage of work on the role, that is, we get inside the role and explore it with our arms, legs, back, and all our physical being. Here it is necessary to understand exactly what is happening and endeavour to achieve the final result. There is no need to search for the correct intonation for this or that phrase at the play reading: it is the action underlying the role that must be sought.

p If we compare the spiritual aspect of human relationships in Moliere and Chekhov, it might appear that everything is very simple in Moliere’s plays and that the events are perfectly clear and straightforward. In actual fact, however, the spiritual life underlying the action in 240 Molière’s plays is every bit as complicated as in Chekhov, and it is simply a question of adopting a different method of investigation, taking into account the different nature of the work and the different “rules of play” given by the author.

p The aim of the play-reading stage in the method of active analysis is the actor’s preparation for attempts to enter into the real confrontations of the play. This involves fully understanding the nature of the main conflict and the given circumstances.

p The director’s task is extremely difficult in the process of search for the correct action. It requires great pedagogical skill on his part to ensure that the entire intellectual and spiritual complex is conveyed in the simplest possible form of expression, directed towards a concrete result. The actor’s role in this process is exceptionally active, since he must bring into play his whole “psycho-physical” apparatus.

p Thus, the essence of the method is that every minute, every second of the scenic action is an uninterrupted confrontation. The director must remember that there is no scenic life without conflict.

p We understand this perfectly well in theory, but in practice we are often content to have two people on the stage talking in a “life-like” manner. Everything appears to be perfectly natural and authentic. After all, not every conversation is an argument or scandal. Thus we are content to have a “likeness” of life thereby sinning against the main thesis of the system, the need to reveal conflict, without which even the most idyllic scene is impossible.

p We have no right to a superficial understanding of conflict as a clash between diametrically opposed viewpoints. It is far more subtle and profound than this: different standpoints in an argument, different groups of given circumstances, in which people exist, and which do not permit them to openly express their conflict, although it exists. Unless we find the hidden conflict, unless it underlies the scene, there can be no question of genuine action.

p It goes without saying, it is far easier to discover the physical action in a scene where the conflict is patent and expressed in a direct physical clash.

p But what about a well-concealed chain of physical actions which must be expressed in a “bout”?

p It is essential to produce a score for the life of each character with a continuous chain of inner conflicts, a score which ultimately reveals the clashes between groups, action and counter-action. Only then can a production be said to be constructed according to the method.

p If each character is given a line of conflict, however mild its scenic expression may be at times, this will help create the atmosphere of the scene through the most diverse inner actions. For every character it is 241 Emma Popova as Maria Lvovna and S. Yursky as Professor Polczhayev necessary to find the essence of conflict expressing his content, according to which the atmosphere and the line of behaviour for each character is created. Then we come to what Vakhtangov called “the ball of attention”, drawing the attention of the audience to what the director considers to be the most important thing in a scene at a particular moment.

p When the action of all the characters has been found, the atmosphere has been created, and attention drawn to the essential point, the desired counterpoint of the scene is achieved.

p The chain of conflicts, reaching the point of “psychological boxing”, so to speak, produces the score of the production. To the uninformed it might appear simplification, reduction of the philosophical and psychological depth of the work to a primitive level. In actual fact, all that is most profound and complex in dramatic art is ultimately expressed through the most simple physical action.

p The depth of ideological content and emotional infectiousness can only be brought out when the one and only appropriate physical action capable of “blasting open” a piece, and the whole play, and expressing the author’s creative intention is found in every case.

p How is the work process organised according to the method of active analysis?

p Many regard as an essential feature of the method the practice of working on etudes. I disagree. The etude is simply a means of gaining a better understanding of the action and its essence, a pedagogical aid. In working on etudes, the actors’ attention is distracted from the play itself, and they find analogous given circumstances and act in these circumstances. The material is similar but not identical to that of the play. As I see it, the essence of the method of active analysis consists in determining the appropriate sequence of events in the play itself. The director and the cast must try to split the play unto a chain of events, proceeding from the most important to the minor ones, to find what is called the molecule of scenic action, the ultimate unit beyond which the action cannot be split any further.

p Having established the chain of events, it is then necessary to find in them the sequence of conflicts out of which the action emerges already clearly-shaped. It is not at all easy to discover the precise conflict that “blows open” the author’s text, for it is a question of finding not a conflict in general, but the one and only conflict which will produce the logic ultimately inherent in the text.

p This requires of the director a trained sense of real-life logic and an ability to reveal the human psychology through action. He must possess a sense of the truth without which the most correct theses are worthless.

p The greater his knowledge of life and people, the easier he will find Emma Popova as Maria Lvovna The finale 242 it to use the system in his work and the sooner he will assimilate its creative principles and make them his own. When Stanislavsky says that a stage action must be internally justified, logical, consistent and feasible in real life he is addressing an artist who knows life so well that he is able to determine exactly in every single case what is typical and what is not, what reflects its development and characterises the direction of this development.

p When Stanislavsky said “We love great and small physical actions for the clear sense of truth they evoke” he was stressing the fact that all the elements of his system without exception were intended to serve a single major purpose, the truthful and profound reflection of real life. He never thought of the truth of scenic action as anything other than the equivalent of the internal intellectual and emotional truth of the part. As I see it, this is the only possible interpretation of the whole complex system Stanislavsky devised.

p It is possible to know and understand everything perfectly well in theory, in the abstract, but the system has no value at all unless the director has a practical knowledge of the logic of real-life and scenic truth. This is where the director’s professional capability and the degree of his giftedness are manifest.

p Once we have determined correctly the sequence of events in a play and established their logic accurately and organically, and established the chain of conflicts, we may then proceed to search for the concrete action in the clashes between two, three, or ten partners, as the case may be. Two is the minimum, without which there cannot be action or development of a conflict. (The problem of the soliloquy must be examined separately, as a special form of scenic action).

p One begins search for the action through active clashes in the conflict. This can be done using the author’s text of the play or on the basis of an approximate text, but the conflict must be the “one and only”, so to speak. If the active conflict is not revealed immediately, one must resort to an etude as an aid to the actors, to help rouse their imagination, so that they can gradually come to grasp and feel the conflict. But it must be borne in mind that the etude is not an end in itself and should only be employed sparingly, as required. The aim is to discover the conflict, to find the right clash between the characters, to solve the conflict right there on the stage.

p If the chain of events that forms the groundwork of the whole action is established logically and accurately, the method of active analysis will ensure that the actor’s behaviour is logical and truthful. This is the shortest road to the logical and truthful existence of the actor on the stage.

What difficulties are encountered here?

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p The first difficulty is that of finding the one and only possible conflict that is intrinsic in the text of the play. At the first stage of work on his role the actor tends to be drawn towards outward expression of the text, towards intonational colouring irrespective of the conflict. Heis drawn towards old habits which generally lead him away from the artistic goal.

p Thus a new difficulty arises for the director: he must be infinitely patient and demanding in the matter of bringing out the one and only possible conflict in every given case. The methods used may be various and must be established in advance by the director, but on no account has he the right to depart from the essence of the conflict that underlies the whole chain of the action which he has discovered and thought out beforehand.

p There are two sides to this problem. The first is that the construction itself requires strict logic. But even where this has been achieved the second aspect of the problem ariscs-an unremitting struggle must be waged to ensure that the conflict is realised in every single scenic action and that it underlies every link in the chain of events of the play.

p What is required of the actor for mastery of the method?

p In his creative search the actor must sustain spontaneity and a capacity for improvisation. The director must ensure that the whole team ate in a constant state of creative improvisation. Unless the actor is prepared to improvise at every moment he will achieve nothing, however conscientious he may be. This is why the method of active analysis so often encounters opposition from experienced actors. Their habits, developed reflexes and professional experience lead them to involuntary inner protest against the method. They may even accept it in theory, but this is purely formal acknowledgement and in fact they remain hostile to it.

p An actor with a hard crust of habits and developed reflexes has his own fixed views on the means of presenting life on the stage, and is either unable or unwilling to accept the principle of lively improvisation. He follows the text, the words, and although he makes no open protest against active exposure of relationships and circumstances he is, in effect, unable to work according to the method.

p This is not to say that active analysis comes easily to all young actors. Many are unreceptive to it, since it requires an exceptionally flexible and versatile talent. Conversely, a talented actor who has lived a long life in art not as a hack but as a truly creative artist, will have been prepared by his experience for work according to the method of active analysis.

p So it is not a question of age. Take for example the young and gifted actress R. who played the partisan heroine Zoya Kosmodemyan- 244 skaya very successfully. Her performance was a sensation and a great deal was written about her. She was an extremely emotional and excitable person by nature and her success in this role was due to the fact that she was perfectly suited for the part. The audience believed in her as Zoya alright, but since everything was based on an outward display of emotion, she never went any further. And nobody ever managed to get her to return to the correct path. She might take steps in the right direction during rehearsals, but at the dress rehearsal or the first night she returned to the path that had once brought her such outstanding success. She has done nothing interesting or in any way significant since.

p By contrast, take Larikov who worked in our theatre. At the age of seventy he still had the ability and desire to achieve something new. People with such a rich nature have a natural affinity for the method and there is no need to convince them of the advantages of our method of work. People like Larikov are completely free from bad influences and are so immune to falsehood that they cannot be led astray. He will always remain a fine actor, one of the very best kind.

p It also happens that even an extremely intelligent, well-educated actor, well-read and with the most progressive artistic views, is unable to master the method because of certain reservations or inhibitions. An actor must believe in the director, he must believe that the director has established the chain of conflicts correctly and is leading the actors along the right path.

p Does the method of active analysis require that the director come to rehearsals with a ready plan or should he seek the solution together with the actors? The director must have a clear idea of the sequence of events beforehand, but there is no reason why it should not be modified and altered in the course of rehearsals. The director must be a step ahead of the actors, but they must work together as a team to decide on details because, although he can and should determine the essence of the conflict in a given passage himself, the director cannot decide how the actor ought to express it. He cannot know in advance how the conflict will turn out in the process of active search. The director must not be a slave to his own inventions. If he sees that hehas made a mistake, if practice shows that he has taken the wrong direction, he should not insist upon his “discovery” simply in order to maintain his own authority. For this would not be true authority. The director must be clear as to what he is getting from the actors, and therefore all creative questions must be solved jointly with them. Only this approach can ensure truly creative activity by the actors at rehearsals, without which a truly artistic result is impossible.

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p The chain of events is the path to the production solution, an intrinsic part of the director’s conception. The chain of events cannot be established outside the through action of the play. Thus it is the production conception and solution realised in consistent, accurate development of the conflicts that the audience will be following in the performance. The real production is born when the director introduces his solution into a play which has been constructed and tested in work with the actor on the action sequence. The through action is the scenic expression of the underlying idea of the play, which is the reason for producing it. At the first stage of work I try to follow the author in the sequence of scenes, only I do not allow the actors to speak the exact text, since when an actor learns his lines right at the start there is a danger that he will be led astray.

p Stanislavsky said that during the first stage of work the actor must be deprived of the words and given an outline of the given circumstances, the exact physical actions being indicated, and that he should be made to perform these actions according to the logic of the author’s thought. If these actions are accurately chosen, if they are based on truth, approximately the same words as those used by the author will arise during rehearsal. Expressing the author’s idea in their own, sometimes clumsy, words, the actors arrive at the sense of the work through the action, developing the meaning of the play to its logical conclusion. In this way the author’s text can be made to arise in its true essence, and not as a result of mechanical learning of the lines.

p The actor’ must be allowed to depart from the actual lines of the play, but he must attempt to act immediately. Once the essence has been found, it is easy to substitute the original lines for the approximate words. The actors must assimilate their lines gradually, in the course of rehearsals. The final text will arise when the action has been expressed in full accordance with the author’s logic. Sometimes it happens that the actors’ own, approximate words persist longer than is necessary and represent a threat to the purity of the original text, and so it becomes our duty to make sure the actors keep to the text beyond a certain point.

p In the case of plays written in verse the problem is somewhat more complicated. The conditions of the existence of the characters is not the same as in a prose play, and require an immediate sense of poetic form on the part of the actors. But the idea of work according to the method is roughly the same.

p The director who has the courage to proclaim that he employs the method of active analysis bears a great responsibility, just as the director who says “I work according to Stanislavsky’s system”. I personally, am not prepared to say that I work according to the method 246 of active analysis. All I can say is that I try to approach it and discover it in my daily practical work at rehearsals.

p Use of the method brings out all the qualities of a director and above all his ability to work with the actors, to carry them along with him, and offer them correct guidance and direction. It is not simply a question of training the actors in the framework of the play one happens to be working on. The profession of stage direction involves an important pedagogical element, it involves training the actor in general.

p Misapplication of the method can ruin actors, so that the director’s will becomes an evil, stifling all that is alive and creative. If an actor fails to understand the method, the result will be a personal failure. If the director misunderstands it, the result is a general disaster, for only an extremely talented actor can master a role when he is up against a bad director, and such examples arc extremely rare.

p The director bears the responsibility for the successful development of creative personalities. Just as an unsuccessful surgical operation can put a patient’s heart out of action, so bad direction can destroy the actor’s soul. This means that, in addition to ability, a director must possess a strong sense of responsibility.

p It is not my intention to make directors feel afraid of the method, and I must say that in speaking of responsibility I have in mind all the director’s work and not only active analysis. If you are working correctly you are basically approaching the method. If you achieve good results at rehearsals spontaneously, as it were, then assimilation of the method of active analysis will enable you to achieve even better results. Declarations of adherence to the method are quite uncalled for. There is no point in saying “I have turned over a new leaf and tomorrow I am going to begin working according to the method of active analysis”. I suggest that you try using the method in a couple of scenes of the production you are currently engaged on, preparing the other scenes as usual. It is best to test it for yourself to begin with. On no account should you take the attitude of the omniscient director who wants to use a progressive method but is unable to achieve anything because the actors just don’t understand him and are quite incapable. There is of course nothing easier than blaming the actors, but this can never serve as a real justification for a director. What is needed is a humble approach, recognition of the fact that you still have something to learn. The director is always duty bound to blame himself for the actor’s failures. If you are successful in nine cases out of ten, then you possibly have grounds for supposing that someone else is to blame for a failure.

p I repeat: we tend to take the view that we know everything and the 247 actor simply does not understand us. This is an erroneous and pernicious attitude. The method of active analysis must on no account be thrust down people’s throats. The thing to do is to organise a team of like-minded people, people who share your beliefs. You should try to inspire them with your ideas and on no account foist anything upon them. Never browbeat the actors, but try to influence them in such a way that they follow you of their own free will and never feel that you are imposing your own will on them. When you have succeeded in creating the necessary working atmosphere then you can proceed to get what you want patiently and insistently.

p Thus, while it is essential that directors should try to employ the method, it is equally essential that they understand the full implications of doing so before taking any step in that direction.

p Ideally, of course, your team of actors should only include people in whom you have faith, people who have shown themselves to be capable of genuine creative work or who are gifted and potentially capable. Ideally, incapable people should never be allowed on the stage. It is bad for the reputation of the theatre, bad for the gifted actors and bad for them, too. Ideally, a company should be chosen according to the same principle for both a major theatre and the smallest theatre. In practice, however, we arc often forced to compromise, even in the major theatres. In practically every production there is somebody with whom we are dissatisfied. Although one can never expect the ideal situation in practice, it is important that we should aspire towards it. During the process of rehearsal, the actors gradually begin to sense a difference between themselves in the given circumstances and the character they are playing. Thus, the actors find the elements of the part arise of their own accord, as it were. With some actors the process is quicker, with others slower, but however that may be, if it takes place organically, without the actor forcing himself, it is essential to sustain the process, which leads to transformation and “reincarnation” in the role.

p There is no room for pedantry here: it is essential to be alert and responsive here. The method, like the whole system, turns into its opposite if you continue to “school” the actor when he has already entered into the role. I once remember a young director rebuking an actor who had read his part magnificently at the very first rehearsal, and saying “No, no, no! Don’t act yet, please. . . We know nothing yet. . . Start from scratch!” No good can come of a slavish observance of the “rules” and attempts to force the actor to adhere to a strict pattern, ignoring the fact that he is entering into the feelings of his part naturally. Stanislavsky used to let Moskvin off rehearsals when he was ready well before the other actors.

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p As soon as the actor feels at home in the given circumstances of his part and succeeds in identifying himself with the character and sharing his feelings, he will unconsciously acquire the features of the character/ part. Then comes the most magic moment in the actor’s art, which it is the basic purpose of Stanislavsky’s system to induce, and which is summed up in Stanislavsky’s brilliant formula “from the conscious to the subconscious”. The chief purpose of the method of active analysis is to promote this process of transformation, the actor’s “reincarnation” in the role.

p Many directors hold that investigation of the role should begin with the action and that the feelings should be developed at some later stage. This is not so. The method of active analysis involves search for the action producing the appropriate feelings. This process cannot be divided into stages. The actors must be brought into real conflict from the very first rehearsals.

p Let us suppose a first rehearsal is in progress. N. is standing by the window and M. is writing his diary. It would seem that nothing at all is happening, and yet it is here that the conflict begins and it must be revealed in the very first dialogue, and not only revealed but taken to its logical limit. It is here that the objective is realised and in this realisation of the action everything must be at once brought to the maximum; there can be no special transition to the feelings.

p The process of transition from “I am” to “I am” in the given circumstances is accumulation of the character/part in all its manifestations. Although this is a gradual process, it is nevertheless essential to endeavour to achieve the necessary power of che conflicts, and hence of the feelings, from the very first rehearsal. This involves maximum activity of the actor’s psycho-physical being as the only way of inducing this process, which goes parallel to all his searches and germinates unconsciously.

If an actor living according to the logic of Othello feels an irresistible desire to strangle Desdemona, then he is acquiring features which are not his own but Othello’s. This is an unconscious process, which the method of active analysis is intended to produce. The method enables the actor to evoke this process in himself so that he gradually acquires the ability to think and speak like Othello without having even become fully acquainted with the man into whose skin he has “inserted himself” through a chain of uninterrupted actions. The feelings can arise at the very first rehearsals, if evoked by appropriate action. If the actions are followed truthfully the feelings will arise automatically, unconsciously. If they fail to arise then something is wrong with the process itself. The most important thing ultimately is to achieve the correct feelings.

249 THE THIRD WATCH by G. Kapralov and S. Tumanov at the Gorky Theatre, Leningrad, 1970 IV. Strzhelchik as Bauman and Y. Kopclyan as Morozov Scene from The Third Watch V. Strzhclchik as Bauman and Yclena Ncmchenko as Nadya Scene from The Third Watch Scene from The Third Watch V. Strzhelchik as Bauman

p At play readings, when investigating the logic of events and justifying the nature of the conflict for oneself, everything in the action must be taken to its logical conclusion, carried out to its fullest extent. Gradually, parallel to this process, the subconscious comes into play. Both these processes, I repeat, must be going on simultaneously, and the process of active search must on no account be separated from the process of acquiring the feelings.

p One of the fundamental elements in our work is imagination, which must be flexible, active and responsive to concrete stimuli. But in order to work properly, the imagination needs “fuel” which comes from observation of life, requiring constant attention to life in all its manifestations.

p I have said it before and I’ll say it again: the director must study life and not only study it but train himself to use all his experience of life as fuel for his imagination. It is quite possible that a person who has seen a lot in his time and lived a rich and full life may find himself quite unable to apply his knowledge and experience to good effect in art, for the simple reason that his imagination is limp and passive. It is rather like putting firewood into a stove that draws badly: however much you put in you’ll never get it to blaze.

p A man may have travelled all around the world and yet be unable to tell you what he has seen. Another person may have spent all his life in the one place yet seen so much and be able to transmit his impressions in such an interesting manner that you are amazed how the other man could have seen so much and yet not really “noticed” anything.

p It is essential to train the imagination to work in the right direction, so that when you are working on a production it will help you with appropriate associations from your “store”. But in order to “see” correctly, an artist must get away from a utilitarian perception of the world and get his imagination to work in a way which is of no use to the layman but is essential to the actor and director.

p Suppose you are travelling along the Georgian Military Highway when the bus breaks down and you all get out while it is being repaired. “What a gorgeous view!” one person will exclaim. Another will yawn and grumble that he’s fed up with all these mountains and hopes there’s not much further to go. A third will imagine how the poet Lermontov stood here and conceived his poem The Caucasus. Their imaginations all work quite differently, the same scene producing totally different associations. For one it is simply a beautiful view, for another a mass of rocks, and for a third a stimulus to penetrate the human soul, an urge to know how a great work of art arose.

p A person normally selects what he has a practical need for, but the The finale. Bauman’s funeral 250 artist must overcome ordinary practical considerations, for his purpose and need are different from the layman’s.

p Thus you can be constantly enriching your store of fuel for the imagination. You have stored up numerous observations and thoughts, and at some rehearsal you find an association evoked which is just what you need. Every artist must accumulate a vast store of observations in order to be able to give fuel to his imagination as the need arises. In the case of stage-directors, our attention should mainly be on the internal relationship between phenomena and events, and we must train ourselves to make this a lifelong process, to make it a major purpose of our lives. In this way we shall ensure that man with his complicated psychological life always occupies the “centre of the stage”, as it were, in our work.

p The most difficult thing of all in our profession is to transfer the language of the feelings to the language of action. This requires a welltrained imagination.

p The director proceeding to work according to the method of active analysis encounters numerous difficulties of a non-artistic nature. Thus, it is no easy matter to induce a well-known actor with an established reputation to search for physical actions when he is quite convinced that he knows perfectly well how to speak and act in such and such a scene without going back to this “kids’ stuff”. One has to be very diplomatic and have one’s own special strategy and tactics, as it were.

p If actors are not very amenable to the method, the director, rather than attending to the diplomacy of struggling with the deep-rooted prejudices of those who prefer the torpor of familiar methods to the excitement of experiments whose outcome is unpredictable, should concentrate on himself. Since the method is based on the director’s thinking being specially trained in the right direction, one must begin by training oneself in order to have the right to demand as much of the actors. Perhaps, after all, the actors are right not to take the director’s word for it. Rather than accusing others of conservatism, we should do better to consider what our own faults may be.

p I do not refer to those self-styled “masters” who have no desire to try anything and simply say: “Well, go on, show me!” But let us imagine that we have a company of actors ready and willing to try anything. Are we really ready to lead them? Only when the director is sure of himself, confident of his own powers, can he turn to thinking of the tactics to employ in order to win adherents to the new method.

p Sometimes a director sets about trying to do something with great zeal and energy but completely fails to achieve practical results, which -only serves to discredit the method.

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p How can the director convince the actor that he is right? By helping him to achieve not only the joy of discovery in the process of rehearsal work but success with the audience. Then the actor will believe in the director and be willing to follow him. Unless the actor achieves this, however inwardly prepared he may be to attempt the new, he will never be able to believe that it is really justified.

p All your efforts should be directed towards finding the way to bring out the actor’s individual personality to the maximum, and here dogmatism is enemy number one.

p Once a new director came to work in our theatre who employed the method and never missed an opportunity to announce the fact. Nothing came of his efforts. Stanislavsky himself insisted that his method was not to be forced on people. Once this director came up to me and said: “But you do exactly the same, only without talking about it.”

p No doubt he was right. The important thing is to have the method within oneself, as it were. It is not essential to profess it openly. Then the actor will achieve what you need naturally, unconsciously. One must not treat the actor as a school pupil. Many actors resent being given to understand that they are being re-educated.

p Practice shows that there are ways of leading the actor to the desired results without hurting his pride or belittling him in front of his fellows. Sometimes directors lack tact and “go to war” on the actor with the method.

p The director must enlist the actor’s support for his conception, and place him in a state of constant examination and responsibility as for something he has chosen to believe in himself.

p Strange as it may seem, very often instead of keeping the actor in a state of activity, we place ourselves in the position of an examinee through our verbosity, enabling the actors to judge us and giving sceptics ample opportunities. If you place the actor in the position of having to do something he won’t have time for anything else.

p We directors often fail to make use of the weapon when it is placed in our hands. We have power, and if we know how to make proper use of this weapon there should never arise situations where we are judged and the actors are bored and disaffected.

p It must be borne in mind that a method docs no more than lead us towards a solution, it does not provide a solution.

The director must always be just that little way ahead of the actors if there is to be genuine creative co-operation. Only a director who is able to arouse the actors’ enthusiasm and make them feel not his right to exert power over them but an inner need and desire to go along with him, is a real director in the full sense of the word as the person who directs a stage production.