Editing Stanislavski's system (section)

{{Short description|System to train actors}}
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[[File:Diagram of Stanislavski's 'system'.jpg|thumb|300px|A diagram of [[Konstantin Stanislavski|Stanislavski]]'s system, based on his "Plan of Experiencing" (1935), showing the [[Psychotechnique|inner]] (''left'') and outer (''right'') aspects of a role uniting in the pursuit of a character's overall "supertask" (''top'') in the drama.<ref>Whyman (2008, 38–42) and Carnicke (1998, 99).</ref>]]
'''Stanislavski's system''' is a [[system]]atic approach to training [[actor]]s that the Russian [[theatre practitioner]] [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing" (with which he contrasts the "[[art of representation]]").<ref name=rep>Benedetti (1999a, 201), Carnicke (2000, 17), and Stanislavski (1938, 16—36 "[[art of representation]]" corresponds to [[Mikhail Shchepkin]]'s "actor of reason" and his "art of experiencing" corresponds to Shchepkin's "actor of feeling"; see Benedetti (1999a, 202).</ref> It mobilises the actor's [[Consciousness|conscious]] thought and [[Will (philosophy)|will]] in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and [[subconscious]] behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 170).</ref> In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a "task").<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 182—183).</ref>

Later, Stanislavski further elaborated what he called 'the System'<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zg5b | title=BBC Radio 4 - Michael Sheen Gets into Character, from System to Method }}</ref> with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the "Method of Physical Action".<ref name="MOPA"/> Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active representative", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are [[Improvisation|improvised]].<ref name="Benedetti 2000">Benedetti (1999a, 355—256), Carnicke (2000, 32—33), Leach (2004, 29), Magarshack (1950, 373—375), and Whyman (2008, 242).</ref> "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the [[given circumstances]]."<ref name=ANALYSIS>Quoted by Carnicke (1998, 156).</ref>

Thanks to its promotion and development by acting teachers who were former students and the many translations of Stanislavski's theoretical writings, his system acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed a reach, dominating debates about acting in the West.<ref>Carnicke (1998, 1, 167), Counsell (1996, 24), and Milling and Ley (2001, 1).</ref> According to one writer on twentieth-century theatre in London and New York, Stanislavski’s ideas have become accepted as common sense so that actors may use them without knowing that they do.<ref>Counsell (1996, 25).</ref>