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A Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience in Stanislavsky's an Actor

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A Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience in Stanislavsky's an Actor A Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience in Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares Ysabel Clare Goldsmith’s College, University of London Thesis submitted for degree of PhD 1 Declaration I hereby confirm that all the work presented in this thesis is my own work. Signed: Date: 2 Abstract Stanislavsky’s seminal text An Actor Prepares remains popular and highly influential, difficulties of translation and editing notwithstanding. This thesis proposes that the book delivers a systematic encounter with an implicit and orderly model of subjective experience, to be found in the embodied practice articulated in the text, and which has therefore influenced generations of actors. Process-orientated logical typing is employed as an analytical methodology in order to reveal the underlying structure of this model. This new approach to Stanislavsky’s core concept of Perezhivanie reveals the extent to which subjective experience informs the text and affects the reader. Systematic analysis of structural aspects of the text demonstrate them to be consistent with the disposition of classical rhetoric. Within this robust framework, patterns of exercise function and distribution indicate an underlying lesson plan and a strategic pedagogy, in the context of which difficulties and successes incrementally potentiate aspects of the model of experience that then provide possibilities among which choices can be made for the purposes of the actor. Stanislavsky’s pedagogy is condensed and re-presented, and the structure of the underlying model is made explicit. Five governing principles offer a new perspective on the problem of the actor and Stanislavsky’s solutions to it, and show how specific idiosyncracies of individual experience can be used in practice. The System is then revealed in its own terms, in the light of which key concepts and their inter-relationships can clearly be situated. This research sheds new light on the value of An Actor Prepares as a pedagogical tool and a model for the depiction of training on the page. The identification of new levels of specificity in Stanislavsky’s model of experience affords a recontextualisation of the System that will clarify practice, facilitate differentiation between interpretations and permit effective comparison with the work of others as well as making it possible to generate new versions while maintaining the consistency and coherence of Stanislavsky’s model. 3 Table of Contents DECLARATION .................................................................................................................... 2 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ 7 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 9 A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER ................................................................................................................. 10 PART I: BACKGROUND ................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 1: CONTINUING POPULARITY AND EXISTING APPROACHES ........ 25 CHAPTER 2: EVOLUTION OF A METHODOLOGY .................................................... 39 THE RESEARCH PROCESS .................................................................................................................. 41 THE INFLUENCE OF GREGORY BATESON ........................................................................................ 50 CONCLUSION TO PART I ................................................................................................ 58 PART II: PEREZHIVANIE ................................................................................................ 60 CHAPTER 3: VOCABULARY AND TRANSLATION ISSUES ..................................... 65 PREDICATES ....................................................................................................................................... 66 TERMINOLOGY IN USE: BOLESLAVSKY ............................................................................................ 67 ETYMOLOGY AND COLLOQUIAL MEANING ...................................................................................... 75 Living Through ............................................................................................................................. 77 Experiencing .................................................................................................................................. 80 VOCABULARY: A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................... 84 Vygotsky and Perezhivanie ..................................................................................................... 84 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................... 87 CHAPTER 4: AN ELUSIVE CONCEPT? ......................................................................... 90 HAPGOOD: AN ACTOR’S HANDBOOK (1963) .............................................................................. 91 BENEDETTI: STANISLAVSKY: AN INTRODUCTION (1989) ......................................................... 96 CARNICKE AND PEREZHIVANIE .................................................................................................... 101 Wholeness and coherence ..................................................................................................... 106 Abstraction .................................................................................................................................. 109 Stubbornly subjective ............................................................................................................. 110 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 5: SUBJECTIVITY AND FORM IN AN ACTOR PREPARES ................. 117 STANISLAVSKY’S SOLUTION ........................................................................................................... 118 AN INGENIOUS FORM ...................................................................................................................... 123 SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND THIS RESEARCH .......................................................................... 129 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 131 CONCLUSION TO PART II ........................................................................................... 133 4 PART III: PATTERNS OF NARRATIVE ORGANISATION IN AN ACTOR PREPARES ........................................................................................................................ 137 CHAPTER 6: EXPLORING NARRATIVE ORGANISATION ................................... 140 THE RHETORICAL DISPOSITION .................................................................................................... 141 The characteristics of the Exordium ................................................................................ 142 THE DISPOSITION OF CLASSICAL RHETORIC ............................................................................... 153 Exordium ...................................................................................................................................... 154 Narration ..................................................................................................................................... 154 Division and Confirmation ................................................................................................... 156 Refutation .................................................................................................................................... 157 Peroratio or Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 159 DISTRIBUTION OF EXERCISES ........................................................................................................ 161 NEW CATEGORIES OF INFORMATION ........................................................................................... 168 Induction, deduction and abduction ................................................................................ 168 Cumulative, comparative and subtractive .................................................................... 169 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER 7: THE EXERCISES .................................................................................... 173 INVESTIGATING THE EXERCISES .................................................................................................... 186 Redundancy ................................................................................................................................ 186 Exercises according to narrative function .................................................................... 189 PATTERNS OF PROGRESS – SUCCESS AND FAILURE .................................................................... 197 THE
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