An Actor Prepares - Stanislavskis's Continuing Drama

Remember, this book is written like a memoir, not a textbook. Be prepared for drama. Be prepared to dig to find the technique.

I have just finished the chapter where Kostya, the first-person character, has injured himself during an improv exercise. He had gripped something breakable in his hand when the emotion of the scene overcame him, cut himself, injured an artery, lost massive amounts of blood and had to spend several days in bed, missing class.

This triggers Torstov's lesson on physical relaxation, which his classmates come to report to him on their visits. It's actually a good lesson, with concrete exercises. Kolya enrolls the help of his cat, always a wise idea.

This chapter left me with quite a few questions, the first one being - do we really have arteries in our hands? Since the sight of blood makes me queasy and I find anatomy charts indecipherable, I e-mailed the best authority I could find: my cousin, the doctor. He assured me that we do in fact have arteries there, so I guess Stanislavski did his research.

My bigger question is why the hell did the teacher let a bunch of untrained, inexperienced, exuberant students loose on a stage with breakables?

Since there's no mention of "hold harmless" agreements being signed at the start of term, Torstov is lucky he didn't get sued. Perhaps 1936 Russia was not as litigious a culture as our own, or perhaps it just wasn't allowed. Either way, a modern student would have had Torstov's butt in court sooner than he could blink.

But back to my question -- students with breakables? You know that's a recipe for disaster. The instrument of the actor is the voice and the body - the purpose of theatre training is to develop this instrument to the point that it seamlessly does one's bidding. I understand that this incident in the book was created to illustrate a point and lead into the lesson on physical awareness and relaxation (which is actually quite good) but the issue is important.

Why didn't Torstov have his assistant remove the breakables, or remove them himself? How can fledgling actors experiment and make the mistakes they need to make, if they're concerned about potentially fatal injuries?

OK, so I'm exaggerating here but my purpose is twofold - first, it's an important thing to be aware of in any school. The first job of the teacher is to create safety, physical and psycological safety.

My other purpose is to take Stanislavski off of his pedestal, or at least shake him up a little. We can't learn from him if we handle him with kid gloves. We have to be willing to take his ideas and work with them, get our hands dirty, make mistakes -- see what works! We can't learn if we just swallow the ideas whole.

Incidentally, the exercise in this chapter, relaxing every muscle that is not occupied in doing something, is very good to do if you're having difficulty sleeping.