Stanivslaski Work

In order for us to look at our characters in a way that would help us 'become' our character, we had to look at the practitioner Stanivslaski and his idea of creating a high degree of physiological involvement with the character that you are playing. Stanislavski treated theatre-making as a serious endeavor, requiring dedication, discipline and integrity. Throughout his life, he subjected his own acting to a process of rigorous artistic self-analysis and reflection.

Konstantin Sergeievich Alekseiev (Benedetti, 1988, 3)  17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a Russian actor and theatre director

"Stanivslaki created a system of training actors in a methodical way and is strongly associated with realistic theatre. This system was designed to create a high degree of psychological involvement of the actor with the role he or she is playing"

Magic if: Stanislavski believed that the truth that occurred onstage was different than that of real life, but that a 'scenic truth' could be achieved onstage. A performance should be believable for an audience so that they may appear to the audience as truth. One of Stanislavski's methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character's emotion was his 'magic if.' Actors were required to ask many questions of their characters and themselves. 

Objectives: The objective is a goal that a character wants to achieve. This is often worded in a question form as "What do I want?" An objective should be action-oriented, as opposed to an internal goal, to encourage character interaction onstage. The character doesn't necessarily have to achieve the objective, and the objective can be as simple as the script permits. For example, an objective for a particular character may simply be 'to pour a mug of tea.' For each scene, the actor must discover the character's objective. Every objective is different for each actor involved because they are based on the characters of the script.

Given Circumstance: The term given circumstances is applied to the total set of environmental and situation conditions which influence the actions that a character in a drama undertakes. Although a character may make such choices unconsciously, the actor playing the character is aware of such conditions on a conscious level to help him or her deepen his or her understanding of the motivation behind the character's actions.

The Units: In order for Stanislavski to effectively create this map, or method, of physical actions, he created and defined acting units. In a foundation sense, a unit is any portion of a scene that an objective is established for an actor. In any given scene, there may be a single unit or multiple units.

Selected character: Puck

Objective: Puck wants to gain respect from oberon, and for him to gain the ultimate level of trust.

Through Objective: Puck wants to be the most important of all the sprites, and he does this by working his way up the ladder of heirachy by gaining respect from Oberon.