U9 Task 1 Practitioner Research

A practitioner is someone who is actively engaged in a discipline, for example, nurse’s and doctors are highly skilled in their professions and are therefore practitioners in their field.

Stanislavski’s techniques are:

Three Core Elements

Beginning With Objects

The Magic If

Obstacles and Methods within a scene

The Internal Monologue

Differences from ‘Method Acting’

For my first practitioner, I chose to study Konstantin Stanislavski.I chose him because his work interests me the most, he has several various theatre methods that I regularly use when performing such as emotional recall.

Stanislavski (Alekseyev) a Russian  practitioner born on 17th Jan 1863 and died on 7th August 1938.who was widely known for his character work and the many productions that he directed garnered a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his ‘system’ of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique, he was also well known for his naturalism in his performances and some of his methods, eg, inner monologue, 7 steps of method acting and emotional recall, are all about trying to make your performance naturalistic

Alekseyev started acting at the age of 14, joining the family drama circle. He developed his theatrical skills considerably over time, performing with other acting groups while working in his clan’s manufacturing business. In 1885, he gave himself the stage name of Stanislavski—the name of a fellow actor he’d met. He married teacher Maria Perevoshchikova three years later, and she would join her husband in the serious study and pursuit of acting.

In 1888, Stanislavski founded the Society of Art and Literature, with which he performed and directed productions for almost a decade. Then, in June 1897, he and playwright/director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko decided to open the Moscow Art Theatre, which would be an alternative to standard theatrical aesthetics of the day.The company successfully opened in October 1898 with Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich by Aleksey K. Tolstoy. The theater’s subsequent production of The Seagull was a landmark achievement and reignited the career of its writer Anton Chekhov, who went on to craft plays specifically for the company.

Over the following decades, the Moscow Art Theatre developed a stellar domestic and international reputation with works like The Petty Bourgeois, An Enemy of the People and The Blue Bird. Stanislavski co-directed productions with Nemirovich-Danchenko and had prominent roles in several works, including The Cherry Orchard and The Lower Depths.

In 1912, Stanislavski created First Studio, which served as a training ground for young thespians. A decade later, he directed Eugene Onegin, an opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

During the Moscow Art Theatre’s early years, Stanislavski worked on providing a guiding structure for actors to consistently achieve deep, meaningful and disciplined performances. He believed that actors needed to inhabit authentic emotion while on stage and, to do so, they could draw upon feelings they’d experienced in their own lives. Stanislavski also developed exercises that encouraged actors to explore character motivations, giving performances depth and an unassuming naturalism while still paying attention to the parameters of the production. This technique would come to be known as the “Stanislavski method” or “the Method

 

The Moscow Art Theatre undertook a world tour between 1922 and 1924; the company traveled to various parts of Europe and the United States. Several members of the theatre  decided to stay in the United States after the tour was over, and would go on to instruct performers that included Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. These actors in turn helped to form the Group Theatre, which would later lead to the creation of the Actors Studio. Method acting became a highly influential, revolutionary technique in theatrical and Hollywood communities during the mid-20th century, as evidenced with actors like Marlon Brando and Maureen Stapleton.After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Stanislavski faced some criticism for not producing communist works, yet he was able to maintain his company’s unique perspective and not contend with an imposed artistic vision. During a performance to commemorate the Moscow Art Theatre’s 30th anniversary, Stanislavski suffered a heart attack.

Stanislavski spent his later years focusing on his writing, directing and teaching. He died on August 7, 1938, in the city of his birth.

Uta Hagen:

For my second practitioner, I chose Uta Hagen, her work influences me to improve my own. I aspire to have the same level of knowledge and precision about my acting as she does hers. I apply her techniques in my everyday acting such as the steps to analysing her monologues to understand the context and what you are actually trying to display to the audience, she makes the motives of acting very clear for me and I feel i am able to connect to drama and make my performances more naturalistic using her methods.

Uta Hagen was a German-Amercian practitioner and actress who was born 12 June 1919 and died on the 14th Jan 2004.

Because she has had a long, distinguished career on the stage, and because for decades she has been one of the most important acting teachers in America, and because she has written with wit and clarity about the technical craft of acting, Uta Hagen has had a profound influence on the way acting is practiced, taught, and thought about in this country.

Uta Hagen made her professional debut in 1937 at the age of eighteen as Ophelia in an Eva Le Galliene Hamlet in Dennis, Massachusetts. In 1938 she made her Broadway debut as Nina in the Lunts production of The Sea Gull. She played in twenty-two Broadway productions, including the legendary Othello with Paul Robeson and Jose Ferrer.

In 1948 she re-invented Blanche DuBois for the national tour of A Streetcar Named Desire with Anthony Quinn, and then succeeded Jessica Tandy’s radically different Blanche for the Broadway run the next year. In 1950 she won her first Tony award, the Drama Critics Award, and the Donaldson Award for her creation of Georgie Elgin in Clifford Odets The Country Girl. She starred in such classics as Shaw’s St. Joan and Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, and in 1962 she created Martha in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, winning her second Tony and second Drama Critics Award, as well as the London Critics Award. She has also appeared in many TV specials and several films.

Since 1947 Hagen has taught acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Together with her late husband, she trained generations of actors: Geraldine Page, Jason Robards, and Matthew Broderick are among the countless others who reached prominence.

As Jack Lemmon wrote, This extraordinary woman is one of the greatest actresses I have seen in my lifetime, yet she has deliberately made her acting career secondary to teaching and directing others so that they might benefit. Lord knows what exalted position she might have attained had she chosen to concentrate on her own acting career, but I guarantee that she has absolutely no regrets. Nor should she, because she has given so much to so many.

Her books, Respect for Acting (1973) and A Challenge for the Actor (1991) grew out of decades of collaboration and exploration of the actor’s craft.

In addition to honorary doctorates from Smith College, DePaul University and Wooster College, in 1981 she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame, in 1983 into the Wisconsin Theatre Hall of Fame, and in July 1986, she received the Mayor’s Liberty Medal in New York City. In 1987 she was given the John Houseman Award and the Campostella Award for distinguished service.

Since her husband’s death three years ago, Hagen has taken over the chairmanship of HB Studio and the theatre of the HB Playwrights Foundation. She honors his memory by continuing to shape their school as a source of inspired teaching and practice for theatre artists.

Uta Hagen has brought beauty, drama and dreams to the world, leaving her extraordinary legacy every step of the way.

Here is a video of a Uta Hagen method class that I have found very usseful and interesting. 

 Bibliography:

Stanislavski:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zxn4mp3/revision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Stanislavski

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-stanislavski-method-of-acting.htm

http://www.biography.com/people/constantin-stanislavski-9492018

 

Uta Hagen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uta_Hagen

http://www.wic.org/bio/hagen.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1451744/Uta-Hagen.html