Like many of the great figures in theatre, Stanislavski rehearsed his plays over extended periods of weeks, months or even years. However he evolved a comprehensive set of steps for a production to go through that can be adapted to any rehearsal period.
Stanislavski was an actor before he was a director or a teacher, and so his method puts the actor right at the heart of the development of the play and gives him or her the responsibility, in conjunction with the vision of the director and the requirements of the playtext, for creating and developing the details of his or her performance.
Preliminary analysis
Read through the play several times to thoroughly absorb everything that happens. Summarise the action to show the basic structure of the play and the major events. For each main part, examine the Given Circumstances (the information explicitly given in the play’s script) and consider what you would do if what happens to your character happened to you, now. Improvise these sections without learning the scripted dialogue at this stage.
Create and improvise the Before-time – everything that happens to the characters that the playwright hasn’t explicitly written before they enter the scene – and the After-time – what will happen to them after the scene ends. Now create a more detailed summary of the play from your Given Circumstances.
Create a provisional Supertask: the main theme or objective of the play, the reason it was written and the task that all the scenes are working towards. As you work further on the play, this may change. For example, Stanislavski defined the Supertask of Chekhov’s Three Sisters as ‘The desire for fulfilment, to live a full life’. For his 1911 production of Hamlet with Gordon Craig, he settled on ‘Discovering the meaning of existence’.
Next, create the Through-action for your character: the overall action or goal that your character is trying to achieve throughout the play. For instance, Romeo’s goal may be to take Juliet to where they can always be together. The Counter-through-action is whatever is preventing your character from immediately achieving this, such as the deadly feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.
Breaking down the play
Divide the play up into Episodes: the main sections of the play, each with its own logical sequence of events. These may or may not correspond to scene or act divisions in the script. You should only use as many Episodes as you need to represent the major events in the play.
- For each Episode, define your character’s Basic Action: what your character is trying to accomplish during this Episode.
- Break each Episode down into a series of Facts: a logical sequence of events that together describe the action of the Episode.
- For each Fact, define your character’s Task: what they are trying to achieve. Create a sequence of Actions that will get them there.
- Note that Basic Actions, Tasks and Actions are unique to each character, whereas each actor must be working to the same agreed Episodes and Facts.
- Work on improvised versions of each Fact, refining them so that the Task is achieved logically but any unnecessary action is stripped away.
The Subtext is the part of the play that happens in the characters’ minds but which they do not say or do. A major part of this is the Inner Monologue, the thoughts running through the character’s mind throughout the scene. Mental Images are the pictures that the character has in his or her head at each moment. Create the Inner Monologue for your character for each Fact, and decide what Mental Images they have.
The text
Read the play through as a group a few times, making more notes on anything that seems significant or anything that may require further research. Begin to learn the lines.
Go through the whole play, Fact by Fact, with the actors speaking the lines and explaining the Subtext. Work on external characterisation: how your character looks and walks, any characteristic gestures they have.
Preparing the production
Fix the moves for each Fact based on the work you have done so far. Keep the Subtext in your head while rehearsing the scenes. Find the correct Tempo-rhythm (the pace and rhythm of words and actions) for each scene.
Make sure that the Through-action and the Counter-through-action for your character is clear and that all of your Basic Actions contribute towards it. As a group, look at the Supertask you originally defined and check that your work on the play contributes towards it. If your subsequent discoveries lead you to believe that the Supertask is not correct for your production, redefine it.
Stanislavski's method may not be for every actor, director or play, but his comprehensive, detailed approach to acting and directing are worth studying by anyone, amateur or professional, who is creating a performance for the theatre.
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