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ABSTRACT
Stanislavsky placed belief in imagined circumstances at the heart of his acting System. As he wrote, “Everything on stage must instill belief in the possibility that it could exist in life as actual feelings and sensations, analogous to those that the artist undergoes while creating.” However, leading proponents of Stanislavsky’s late work rarely mention belief when they write about his last rehearsal technique, named Active Analysis by Maria Knebel. My essay interrogates this puzzling absence through Knebel’s practice, which still positions belief as “the foundation of foundations” in acting, but also sees belief as originating from actors’ active exploration of their roles’ circumstances. For Knebel, there can be no belief in fictional possibilities without the visceral knowledge, acquired through the rehearsal process.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Knebel’, “Vysokaia prostota,” 47–8.
2. Recalled by the Russian actor, Lyubov Zabolotskaia Weidner, in a personal discussion on 22 August 2021. For more on the relationship between exercises and Active Analysis see Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, 190–6.
3. This investigation was first presented at the annual conference of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, San Francisco, in November 2019. A fuller version appears in Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, 180–4.
4. Carnicke, “Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis for Twenty-First Century Actors: Be Flexible.”
5. Knebel’, O deistvennom analize p’esy i roli, 6–7. Anne Bogart emphasizes this shift in the role of the director when endorsing Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis. Bogart writes, “In our current moment as we transition to more collaborative environments, Active Analysis will prove to be a boon for rising theatre artists.”
6. Georgy Tovstonogov, quoted in Malochevskaia, Rezhisserskaia shkola Tovstonogova, 138.
7. For more on how Soviet disinformation continues to condition contemporary views on Stanislavsky, see Carnicke, “Stanislavsky and Politics: Active Analysis and The American Legacy of Soviet Oppression.”
8. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 38–9.
9. The distortion of Stanislavsky and his ideas has been the focus of much of my research over the years. In Dynamic Acting Through Active Analysis, Part I: chapters 1 and 2, I trace the Soviet manipulation of him and his work from 1928 to 1938.
10. I first presented Knebel as a model for overcoming precarity at the annual conference of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Conference, online, in October 2022.
11. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 485.
12. Knebel’s second husband, Pavel Vladimirovich Ubranovich, who was a teacher of Meyerhold’s biomechanics and a director at the Theatre of Revolution, introduced her to this circle. See Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, 30–1.
13. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 366.
14. Ibid., 402.
15. Letter 442, O. S. Bokshanskaia to Nemirovich-Danchenko, 30 June 1942 in Pis’ma O. S. Bokshanskaia i V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, vol. 2: 690.
16. Letter 1674 to O. S. Bokshanskaia, 2 March 1942 in Nemirovich-Danchenko, Tvorcheskoe nasledie, vol. 4: 116. For more on the production of Kremlin Chimes, see Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, 52–3.
17. Kedrov’s relationship to Stanislavsky in his last years may well have been more politically than artistically driven. See Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 99–103 and Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, Part I: chapters 2 and 3.
18. For an overview of her career and pedagogy, see Carnicke, “The Knebel Technique: Active Analysis in Practice” and Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, Chapters 2 and 3.
19. Knebel’, “Vysokaia prostota,” 46.
20. Smeliansky, The Russian Theatre after Stalin, 215.
21. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 56.
22. Rozov, “Rezhisser, kotorogo ia liubliu,” 60–1.
23. Knebel’, Poeziia pedagogiki, 248.
24. Quoted in Liadov, O M. O. Knebel’, 31.
25. Quoted in Ibid., 61.
26. Vladimirova, M. O. Knebel’, 204.
27. Liadov, O M. O. Knebel’, 88 and Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 122–3.
28. Abensour, Une vie pour le théâtre, 261–5.
29. Liadov, O M. O. Knebel’, 88–90; Andrew Makarovskiy, Knebel’s nephew, in a conversation with the author, Boston, July 2007.
30. Ibid., 100.
31. M. O. Knebel’, [Televised Interview], www.nakhim-shifrin.livejournal.com (accessed 24 January 2017).
32. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 477.
33. Ibid., 478.
34. Liadov, O M. O. Knebel’, 140.
35. Ibid., 26. The relationship between Kedrov and Knebel always reminds me of the antagonism between Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.
36. For example, see Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, chapter 10; “The Knebel Technique: Active Analysis in Practice,” 104; and Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, 53–5.
37. Knebel’, O tom, chto mne kazhetsi︠a︡ osobenno vazhnym, 109.
38. Vladimirova, M. O. Knebel’, 20.
39. Quoted in Liadov, O M. O. Knebel’, 88.
40. Stanislavskii, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 2: 233. All further references to this source, abbreviated as SS, will be given in parentheses within the text.
41. See, for example, Worthen, The Idea of the Actor, 145.
42. Strasberg, A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method, 84–87. Strasberg attributes this reformulation to Evgeny Vakhtangov.
43. Wiles, The Theater Event, 14.
44. Knebel’, Poeziia pedagogiki, 366.
45. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 251–3.
46. Knebel’, Poeziia pedagogiki, 125.
47. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension.
48. Vinogradskaia, Stanislavskii repetiruet, 448.
49. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 258. All further page references to her work on this role and her conversation about it with Stanislavsky will be given in parentheses within the text.
50. Following this conversation, Knebel and Lilina shared the role of Karpukhina for many years, each of them successful in entirely different ways.
51. Knebel’, Vysokaia prostata, 48.
52. Knebel’, Slovo v tvorchestve aktera, 65.
53. Ibid., 29. Knebel refers to this probing in a variety of ways, sometimes using the phrase “mental reconnaissance.”
54. Efros, The Joy of Rehearsal, 40. For a more detailed description of Knebel’s rehearsal process, see Carnicke, Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis, Part II: Lessons 1–4.
55. Knebel’, Slovo v tvorchestve aktera, 34.
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Notes on contributors
Sharon Marie Carnicke
Sharon Marie Carnicke is internationally known for her groundbreaking book, Stanislavsky in Focus. Her newest book is Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis. She has published extensively on Russian theatre and acting. Her other books include her award-winning translations in Anton Chekhov: Four Plays and Three Jokes, Checking Out Chekhov, and the coauthored Reframing Screen Performance. Her research is distinguished by her fluency in Russian and her experience as an actor and theatre director. Currently on faculty at the University of Southern California, she has taught and directed in the US, Europe, Scandinavia, and Australia.