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In acting, given circumstances ([predlagaemye obstoiatelstva] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) are what determine a character's behaviour.[1] They include everything that the playwright proposes in the dramatic text, all of the social, historical, cultural, and environmental conditions that its setting implies, and anything that the director or designers establish during the process of its production.[2] All of these circumstances are "given" to the actors to incorporate into their performances.[3] The term originates in the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski's 'system' of actor training, production preparation, and rehearsal technique.[4]

Origin edit

Stanislavski invented the term "given circumstances" and defined it in his acting manual An Actor's Work (1938): "They mean the plot, the facts, the incidents, the period, the time and place of the action, the way of life, how we as actors and directors understand the play, the contributions we ourselves make, the mise-en-scène, the sets and costumes, the props, the stage dressing, the sound effects etc., etc., everything which is a given for the actors as they rehearse."[4] He based his term on a phrase in what he called "Pushkin's aphorism", which appears in the Russian Romantic playwright Alexander Pushkin's essay "On National-Popular Drama" (1808).[6] Unlike the playwright, who in Pushkin's phrase "proposes" the circumstances (predpolagaemye obstoiatelstva), from the point of view of the actor, Stanislavski reasoned, the circumstances are "given" (predlagaemye obstoiatelstva).[7]

Imagination edit

Actors use their imaginations to invest the given circumstances with "life".[8] The more or less vague information that the playwright provides in the text and in the "cryptic descriptions" in its stage directions, Stanislavski argued, is not sufficient "to create fully what a character looks like, his mannerisms, his walk, his personal habits", nor will a purely formal execution of the direction given by the director "determine all the nuances" of the character's "thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and actions".[9] He expected actors to imagine all of the detail necessary for their characterisations.[10] Every given circumstance that the play and its production prescribes, he insisted, must be elaborated, extended, and deepened by the actors, in a creative act that supplements the playwright's own.[11] For example, the actors might form a vivid and detailed mental image of the rooms of the house in which the play is set, visualise a journey through them, and engage in imaginary conversations with the other characters that they could meet there.[12] When their imaginations are focused and active, it facilitates the actors' experiencing of the inner life of their character and enables them to behave in the ways that the director and the text indicate.[13] "The imagination takes the initiative in the creative process," Stansiavski wrote, "drawing the actor along behind it."[14]

As an element in the rehearsal practice that the 'system' promotes, given circumstances mediate the relationship between actors and the director (as well as the other creative contributors to the process). Stanislavski warned that when actors lack imagination and are unable to embellish and justify creatively their given circumstances, then a director may usurp their autonomy and they will become pawns in a directorial vision.[15]

Tasks and actions edit

The given circumstances of a scene present its actors with "tasks", to which they respond with actions.[16]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Carnicke (1998, 174).
  2. ^ Carnicke (1998, 174).
  3. ^ Carnicke (1998, 174).
  4. ^ a b Benedetti (1999, 15) and (2005, 100), Carnicke (1998, 174), and Stanislavski (1938, 53).
  5. ^ Benedetti (1999, 15) and (2005, 100) and Carnicke (1998, 174).
  6. ^ Benedetti (1999, 15) and (2005, 100) and Carnicke (1998, 174).
  7. ^ Carnicke (1998, 174).
  8. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 9) and Stanislavski (1938, 62).
  9. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 62).
  10. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 62).
  11. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 62). "Yes, precisely, make it up!", he writes. "That’s what you always have to do in situations when the author, the director and the rest of the production team have not provided everything the actor needs to know when he is being creative" (1938, 73-74).
  12. ^ Milling and Ley (2001, 10).
  13. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 62, 65).
  14. ^ Stanislavski (138, 63).
  15. ^ Stanislavski (1938, 63-64). "There are people who neither create on their own nor accept what is given them", Stanislavski continues. "If they can only latch onto the externals of what has been demonstrated to them, they have no imagination and without imagination you cannot be an actor."
  16. ^ Benedetti (2005, 122-123), Carnicke (2000, 24), Gordon (2006, 51), and Stanislavski (1938, 46-47, 52-53).

Sources edit

Primary sources edit

  • Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1929. "Direction and Acting." Article written for the Encyclopædia Britannica. Rpt. in Cole (1955, 22-32).
  • ---. 1936. An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen, 1988. ISBN 0413461904.
  • ---. 1938. An Actor’s Work: A Student’s Diary. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 041542223X.
  • ---. 1950. Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage. Trans. David Magarshack. London: Faber, 2002. ISBN 057108172X.
  • ---. 1957. An Actor's Work on a Role. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. ISBN 0415461294.
  • ---. 1961. Creating a Role. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Mentor, 1968. ISBN 0450001660.
  • ---. 1963. An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Methuen, 1990. ISBN 0413630803.
  • ---. 1968. Stanislavski's Legacy: A Collection of Comments on a Variety of Aspects of an Actor's Art and Life. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. Revised and expanded edition. London: Methuen, 1981. ISBN 0413477703.

Secondary sources edit

  • Benedetti, Jean. 1989. Stanislavski: An Introduction. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413500306.
  • ---. 1998. Stanislavski and the Actor. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413711609.
  • ---. 1999a. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413525201.
  • ---. 1999b. "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898-1938". In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 254-277).
  • ---. 2005. The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, From Classical Times to the Present Day. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413773361.
  • ---. 2008a. Foreword. In Stanislavski (1938, xv-xxii).
  • ---. 2008b. "Stanislavski on Stage". In Dacre and Fryer (2008, 6-9).
  • Braun, Edward. 1982. "Stanislavsky and Chekhov". The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413463001. p.59-76.
  • Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 9057550709.
  • ---. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11-36).
  • Cole, Toby, ed. 1955. Acting: A Handbook of the Stanislavski Method. Rev. ed. New York: Bonanza. ISBN 0517050358.
  • Counsell, Colin. 1996. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415106435.
  • Dacre, Kathy, and Paul Fryer, eds. 2008. Stanislavski on Stage. Sidcup, Kent: Stanislavski Centre Rose Bruford College. ISBN 1903454018.
  • Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0416720609.
  • Gauss, Rebecca B. 1999. Lear's Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre 1905-1927. American University Studies ser. 26 Theatre Arts, vol. 29. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0820441554.
  • Gillett, John. 2007. Acting on Impulse: Reclaiming the Stanislavski Approach. London, Methuen. ISBN 978-0713677584.
  • Gordon, Robert. 2006. The Purpose of Playing: Modern Acting Theories in Perspective. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P. ISBN 0472068873.
  • Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415194520.
  • Leach, Robert. 2004. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415312418.
  • Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521432200.
  • Magarshack, David. 1950. Stanislavsky: A Life. London and Boston: Faber, 1986. ISBN 0571137911.
  • Milling, Jane, and Graham Ley. 2001. Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0333775422.
  • Pfister, Manfred. 1977. The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Trans. John Halliday. European Studies in English Literature Ser. Cambridige: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 052142383X.
  • Rayner, Alice. 1994. To Act, To Do, To Perform: Drama and the Phenomenology of Action. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 047210537X.
  • Roach, Joseph R. 1985. The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Theater:Theory/Text/Performance Ser. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P. ISBN 0472082442.
  • Szondi, Peter. 1965. Theory of the Modern Drama: A Critical Edition. Ed. and trans. Michael Hays. Theory and History of Literature ser. vol. 29. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. ISBN 0816612854.
  • Toporkov, Vasily Osipovich. 2001. Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years. Trans. Jean Benedetti. London: Methuen. ISBN 041375720X.
  • Whyman, Rose. 2008. The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance. Cambridge: Cambrdige UP. ISBN 9780521886963.


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