Stanislaysky's Way
IN the summer of 1906 Stanislaysky, worried about his staleness as an actor, went'for a holiday in Finland and returned, like Moses from Sinai, with the first formulation of his System. It was not a fixed thing; throughout his life he kept on revising it, for he was as much concerned with refreshing actors and providing a corrective as With establishing a code. In so far as he codified, he codified his own acting experience. In spite of this, his System has been alternatively wor- shipped, especially in the drama departments of American Universities which forget that it was not devised for beginners but trained actors, and damned by lazy actors as a rarified mystique.
In the best of his articles and addresses Mr. Redgrave does as much to put the record straight as the recent visit of the Moscow Arts Theatre itself. He speaks less of theory than of use and abuse. The System may be twisted to sanction emotional self-indulgence and it may hinder rather than help an actor in building a classical role. Directors who regard themselves as expo- nents of theory soon learn to soft-pedal. the fact When they work on individual actors. When we get a book from a leading director or actor, there- ,fore, it is likely to be eclectic and common-sensical like Mr. Redgrave's. He throws his general asser- tions out as talking-points to be developed in terms of his own experience. It is Stanislaysky's way.
And in practice, thank heaven, it is the way of the other theorists too. Mr. Gorchakov's comprehensive account of the modern Russian theatre reminds us of how the great directors kept on experimenting, theorising, and theorising anew throughout their artistic life. Stanislaysky, Ptemirovich-Danchenko, and the Moscow Arts Theatre are discussed in their proper context—the teeming, complicated and tragic life of one of the great eras of the theatre. Mr. Gorchakov not only summarises what Meyerhold, Tairov, Evreinov and the rest were doing, but shows the extent to Which they formulated their views in reaction to one another, and especially to Stanislaysky. His book also provides a great corrective to sweeping Judgments. Stanislayskyan acting was being prac-
tised b Schepkin fifty years before the genesis of
the System, and none of the great directors can be associated with one style. Evreinov, the pro- tagonist of Monodrama, used a cast of 6,000 to stage the Storming of the Winter Palace, and Stanislaysky himself must not be associated too closely with Naturalism; he produced Haupt- mann., s Hannele surrealistically as early as 1895. _ The Russian Theatre has been predominantly d_ T2 actor's and a director's theatre, and the reign et the Regisseurs in the great post-Revolutionary period had nearly as crippling an effect on play- w, riting as the appalling censorship imposed by (7.0_ the dies like Litkontro/. It is doubtful whether any
famous directors really believed in their
lire arts that the play was the thing. Evreinov thought the audience's response was the most Important ingredient in any performance, and
Meyerhold's versions of Ostrovsky make Guthrie look like an academician.
It is not simply because such men were moons to Stanislaysky's sun that their work is compara- tively unknown today. Every experiment with form and every interpretation was violently attacked by Soviet critics and damned as 'Formal- ism.' The only safe form was, in Stalin's phrase, `Socialist Realism.' Dramatists, actors and direc- tors alike tried in vain to reconcile their artistic urgings with Marxist requirements. Meyerhold alone, originally an ardent Revolutionary and for years the main object Of attack, came in the end to make an absolute stand and suffer the conse- quences. At the 1939 All-Union Congress of Directors he declared,
In my heart, I consider what is now taking place in our theatres frightful and pitiful . . . everything is gloomily well-regulated, averagely arithmetical; stupefying, and murderous in its lack of talent. Is that your aim? If it'is—oh! you have done something monstrous . . in hunting Formalism you have eliminated art!
Only Stanislaysky seems to have achieved a modus vivendi without sacrificing his artistic integrity. He only produced one propaganda play and virtually retired from the theatre some years before his death, devoting himself to teaching and occasionally producing in order to try out the matured version of his,System. For in a world of Social Realism the true life of the theatre seemed to lie more and more with the actor. 'Art begins where there is no role but where there is an "1" in supposed circumstances.' 'Seek the truth of simple physical actions . . . [they] enable an actor to acquire faith, to penetrate into the realm of authentic emotions.' Mere Method? Or a way of artistic life in an alien world?
If the Moscow Arts Theatre owes its artistic survival mainly to Stanislaysky, the credit for its political acceptability must go to Danchenko. This is not to deny Danchenko's artistry nor his interest in acting. But he was a much more vociferous supporter of a Marxist theatre than Stanislaysky, and one cannot help concluding from Gorcha- kov's book that the Arts Theatre clings to Natural- ism today largely because Danchenko saw that it accorded so well with the dictates of Social Realism. We should not assume that all Russian directors regard Naturalism as essential to Chekovian production. Tairov's 1946 Seagull was staged symbolically, and Treplev's dramaturgical views were put into action in the production itself. The Arts Theatre's present Uncle Vanya is par- ticularly naturalistic by Western standards.
The Company, in fact, has inherited two distinct traditions, Naturalism and the System, which need not be connected and which can be distinguished in their present work. In general the raise en scene is Danchenko's. The Three Sisters is a copy of his 1940 production and has the same setting, inter- pretation and simplified 'optimistic' ending. In the light of the criticisms recently produced in this country about the way in which it has been cut, it should be recorded that members of the Com- pany seem convinced that the cuts have always been made and were originally approved by Chekov. When I questioned them about points of interpretation they had recourse to the formula of 'going for the inner truth of the character.' I do not think that this was a polite fobbing off, but 'a pointer to the two traditions within which they work. 'Interpretation' is not the actor's business. It is scarcely even the director's. He seeks the `trunkline of action,' and although the concept is Stanislaysky's, its practical application will be Marxist and dialectical. An 'objective' moral has to be found and a Chekov play is seen to be built on a simple antithesis of hope- lessness and optimism, since Social Realist plays are invariably optimistic. As the interpretation is fixed a priori, the director becomes mainly a teacher; Rayevski's chief task with The Three Sisters has been to train young actors in roles already interpreted.
It is here that the System pays. Points of inter- pretation, the settings, lighting and even some of the famous sound effects have not escaped criticism, notably from English •actors and direc- tors. And in one sense the productions are magnificent fossils. Yet at the same time they are tinglingly alive in the persons of the actors. The main impression of all who saw them must surely be one of bodies, faces, and voices that are glow- ing, clear, firm, and free, and of an inner radiance wonderfully projected. This acting is not only natural, it is real. And there is something no less significant about the actor's off-stage personalities; they seem like a guild of craftsmen, simple, easy, and gay. Through the intensity of their training and the sheer action of acting they not only derive a great physical, emotional and artistic satisfac- tion. They have a complete way of life.
JOHN BARTON
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