It is always heartening to see how active and dynamic our field of Stanislavsky studies is. Apart from this bi-annual journal – and I will discuss the contents of this issue, November 2023, immediately below – recent publication activity remains unabated. Some exciting new sources include Sharon Marie Carnicke’s Dynamic Acting through Active Analysis (reviewed in this same issue) and Tomasz Kubikowski’s An Actor Survives, while last July has seen the publication of the first volume in the Stanislavsky and … series (Series Editor: Paul Fryer; Routledge), titled Stanislavsky and Pedagogy and edited by yours truly. This September and November will also see the publication of the next two volumes, Stanislavsky and Race (edited by Siiri Scott and Jay Paul Skelton) and Stanislavsky and Intimacy (edited by Joelle Ré Arp-Dunham). I am looking forward very much to have these two volumes in hand, as framing themes like race and intimacy contribute markedly to make Stanislavsky more contemporary, up-to-date, and relevant. Do keep an eye on this space and other announcements made by the Stanislavsky Research Centre, as there are other titles planned. The S Word symposium also remains at the core of the activity carried out by the Centre. Coverage of the Athens S Word, organized in partnership with the Theatre Studies Department of The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, will feature in the next issue, while possible proposals for The S Word: Stand in Place/Stanislavski and Place, hosted by the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth, Australia (4–6 April 2024), can be discussed by sending an email to Renee Newman ([email protected]) or Jonathan Marshall ([email protected]). And while we are at it, may I also remind readers of the Stanislavsky Here, Today, Now site (https://www.stanislavskyheretodaynow.com/), which contains a broad range of video material on actor training and performance practices framed around Stanislavsky’s work, his associates, practices, theories, and applications today. The site is also a fantastic teaching resource, and do please get in touch if you have an idea for a video.
This issue of Stanislavski Studies reflects an area of scholarship that is particularly invested in interpretations of the system. Consequently, the essays collected here are less about Stanislavsky per se, and more about how other practitioners understood, developed, applied, or even read Stanislavsky. The essays are roughly presented in a chronological manner, starting with Ewa Danuta Godziszewska’s detailed account of Maria Ouspenskaya, the First Studio participant who went on to teach and work in the US, including in the film industry. Godziszewska presents Ouspenskaya as a side-lined figure in theatre scholarship, particularly because attention has been more devoted to her colleague Richard Boleslavsky – a recurrent issue which current modernist studies is engaged in destabilizing. Using an impressive range of primary sources, Godziszewska reconstructs Ouspenskaya’s teaching and acting, emphasizing the potential which the system has when applied to film, even if Stanislavsky was not too impressed by this medium. The second essay is Virginie Magnat’s final part of her study on the Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage (the first part appeared in volume 11, issue 1 of this journal). At times, I feel this lineage has been taken rather for granted, given how much Grotowski speaks about Stanislavsky in such books like Thomas Richards’ At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. Conversely, Magnat’s contribution is in how she unpicks this lineage in terms of the interrelation between organicity, impulses, and associations, in turn underscoring this interrelation as a key aspect of “experiencing.”
Adding to a discourse started by Stanislavsky in the World: The System and Its Transformations across Continents, the 2017 book which I co-edited with Jonathan Pitches, the issue features two contributions on the transmission of the system outside Russia or the US. The two essays in question each uses one figure to represent a broader cultural milieu. Thus, Zuzana Sílová discusses the work of Czech actor, director, author, and pedagogue Radovan Lukavský, another little-known figure outside of his immediate work context. Sílová explains his reactions to the “vulgarization” of the system in early-1950s Czechoslovakia, when an emphasis placed on the super objective and on through-action generated an ideological and rationally oriented interpretation of the system. Michaela Antoniou, on her part, discusses the work of GITIS-trained Stathis Livathinos, a Greek practitioner whose impact is located to the Experimental Stage of the National Theatre of Greece (2001–07) and the Acting and Directing Workshop of the National Theatre (2001–04). The latter Workshop is particularly revealing when placed within a broader discussion of “training the directors,” one of Stanislavsky’s own last dreams which however remained largely unrealized.
The final two essays move forward Stanislavsky’s interpretations right to our own time. Richard J. Kemp’s essay is about using our contemporary understanding of cognition to explore eyewitness accounts of Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis, the eyewitnesses being Vasili Toporkov and Maria Knebel. Cognitive explorations of theatre and Stanislavsky have seen an upsurge of interest in the last decade or so, and Kemp’s essay is a helpful introduction to this topic. Finally, many of us will surely see themselves reflected in Michael Shipley’s essay on using Active Analysis to train beginner actors. The essay does not shirk from discussing common difficulties encountered in training students attending higher education, especially the possible divide between studio exercises and rehearsal processes. Shipley’s account is also an example of the more practitioner-based voices which this journal is keen to support and feature in future issues.
Finally, I also would like to take this opportunity and welcome Benjamin Askew, who has joined our editorial team as a Book Reviews editor. He has contributed to the book reviews collected in this issue, which apart from the aforementioned book by Sharon Marie Carnicke, also include reviews of The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold (edited by Jonathan Pitches and myself) and Clive Barker and His Legacy: Theatre Workshop and Theatre Games (edited by Paul Fryer and Nesta Jones). As always, there is a lot going into this issue of Stanislavski Studies, and I hope readers find it as engaging and thought-provoking as I did.