The Stanislavski Approach

Sometimes when I wonder what on earth I am doing and where I am going I ask myself "what would the mean if it was a play?". It's not as kooky as it may sound, if you were to know that I trained as an actress in my early years and one of the ways of approaching a role/play was the Stanislavski system, by Konstantin Stanislavski. (Not the same as Method Acting, which is sort of popular and American in origin, maybe mostly famous due to Marlon Brando* or Stella Adler or more present time Christian Bale and Daniel Day-Lewis, but similar... if that method is more known to you.)

The key to the system is to never be "totally" like the role you are playing. You try and find Why the character does what they do, How they will move on it... and what kind of feelings are in there (as named "the goal of the character") but you never "turn into the character" as many who do Method acting would rather prefer to do. I.e. maybe get high in order to play high.... whereas Stanislavski would point more towards asking "what's the goal of being high" and "how can you encompass that feeling ..." It's sometimes described as a "table conversation" where you try and suss out the answers to these questions and try and grasp what it going on inside of the character and how to visualise it the best for the audience. It's not as important that you feel it, as that you can relay it to the people watching.

I did play quite a few roles before moving here and before I was in deep with my post doc. I approached Lady MacBeth while writing letters and diary notes as her, both before after the fact that she had killed and started to loose it... Interesting to place yourself into the shoes of someone who loved as much as she did, and was as scared as she was to loose it all. At the time of the post doc, it was easy to forget - I had lots of research I wanted to do and not too much time outside of the lab to do it. Then there is that pesky thing of being in another country and it is harder, at least I think it is harder for me, to be as natural in the acting in another language. However, that wasn't the reason for this post. My reason now was that I sometimes find myself a bit lost in this we call the world. I don't feel like I know what I am doing, nor where I am going. My solution?

Sometimes I try and pretend to look at myself from outside, as if I were a character and see where this person might want to go... or what the goal might be... and how to get that from myself. Like before a job interview. I found it easier to practice the answers when I asked myself "WHY would I want this" and "HOW would I explain it so it is believable to someone else". Instead of simply saying "I want this job" I needed to explain Why I wanted and why they wanted to hire me. And in order not to feel pretentious or silly, I approached it from the outside, as if this was someone else and I was merely conveying the ideas and persona. I wanted to be me, but be me that the interviewer could understand and relate to, and wanting to work with.

Although, now when I write this I am starting to wonder if it sounds like I am an insane person? I don't really think so, but I miss acting - I miss pretending to be someone else, to lay my mundane everyday problems aside and try and grab hold of those other things.... and I miss dressing up in strange stuff that I wouldn't normally do. In many aspects though, like the much talked about Impostor Syndrome, the idea of pretending to be someone else (looking at yourself as "playing the researcher") is a feasible alternative to being silly nervous, thinking too much and shrugging away compliments. After all, when actors get their Academy Awards and give their thank you speeches they don't tell people that they are idiots for voting for them (maybe some do, but not many) so just go with it and smile and think that it is a great time. And people around them smile and are happy too (apart from the sad ones who didn't win of course).

As a person once told me "You might not feel it, but They don't need to know that. They only need to feel what you want them to feel. They only see your outside, not taking a ride for real inside." Make pretend and then maybe you'll find that everyone believes it, even you.

*it's Brando's birthday today ... and I thought of saying "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.... //.... smells like, victory" as a start of this post but alas, I thought Stanislavski might be more appropriate after all...