Moscow Art Theatre

The Cherry Orchard was from 1904, and it gives us yet another familiar pattern.

The Moscow Art Theater staged it, and Stanislavski sank his teeth into it, and Chekhov worried that he was getting it all wrong.

It's about a woman who presides over an estate.

which has been in her family for generations, only now it's no longer profitable or viable.

And Stanislavski wrote to him and said, what are you talking about? This is a tragedy through and through.

Critic J.L. Steyen got at the slippery duality, the contradictions, the subtleties when he wrote the following, quote, This ultimate exercise in Chekhovian comedy is a lesson in phonambulism.

If, like recent Soviet audiences watching the work of the Moscow Art Theater, they want rousing polemics from Trofimov, they can hear them.

If, like most Western audiences, they want to mourn for Madame Ranevsky and her fate, they can be partly accommodated.

yeah no i thought that was maybe the most interesting part was understanding that because obviously his manner i mean you say method now and we think brando dean cassavetes whoever and he's obviously not like them and yet for his time he is doing what they were doing

exactly exactly and and um What I discovered in these over 200 letters that I stumbled on in the New Republic Library was that he knew and revered Stanislavski and took an acting lesson from Stanislavski and saw Stanislavski in the Moscow Art Theater when they came to New York and and exclaimed, well, this is the greatest night of theater that I've ever experienced.

And even before that, with the Yiddish Theater in 1911, he was steeped in the Russian school.

And one thing that I think is just marvelous is that when Stanislavski came with the MAT, he took them to Harlem to hear jazz.

So when he started working, and he had a very long life, and that's why he's been so influential.

He was an actor and a director and led Moscow Art Theater for decades.

And was a very, very exacting teacher, had extremely high standards.

for himself and for others, apparently tortured everybody around him in this search for believability.

And that is the double dual consciousness in performance that Michael Chekhov talks about.

So he was Stanislavski's genius student.

Stanislavski was his teacher and Chekhov was a famous actor in Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theater.

But in this Stanislavski's technique, you are asked to go into personal memories to go into your own personal treasures of experiences and personalize and draw on them, to personalize everything in order for it to be even more truthful and believable.

But I noted there was a book that came out recently by Isaac Butler about the way that Stanislavski's methods arrived in the United States.

And he talks about specifically Richard Boleslavski as being a person that when the Moscow Art Theater comes to America in 1923, Boleslavski speaks English or sort of, and is able to sort of lead them around.

And although this is not in Butler's book, I discovered that Bolasovsky gives a talk at Bryn Mawr College at this time.

So there must be something that was going on there that you were able to pick up on.

And Early 1900s, Stanislavski, one of the great American, well, great Russian artists, he was an actor who developed what they called method technique, Konstantin Stanislavski.

And Stanislavski then started the Moscow Art Theater in Russia, and it revolutionized the melodramatic aspect of acting at the time.

They were brought to the Americas, and the Americans fawned over that technique and that work.

Stanislavski subsequently wrote several books, affected the acting world.

Ellen Page now is the opposite of an actress.

Acting, the, the most basic definition I've ever heard of acting comes from Sanford Meisner, one of the great theorists of acting, who comes from the Group Theatre, uh, which emerged, it created the naturalistic school of acting in the United States, and it emerged out of the Moscow Art Theater, Konstantin Stanislavski though, which emerg- itself emerges out of Freud.

This is where modern acting comes from, the real naturalistic style.

Marlon Brando talking like he's got marbles in his mouth.

Acting at UC San Diego.

And he also studied acting at Moscow Art Theater.

He was the lead in Girl from the North Country on the West End and in Toronto.

Toronto.

Miss Cavendish is the mother of Tony Cavendish, screen lover, who is being sued for breach of promise by Zita Kedak, the anatomic bombshell.

It is felt by those who know the old lady that she is looking for Miss Kedak and not merely to discuss the Moscow Art Theater.

Gwen, I think it was wonderful of you to come out here to Mother's.

Thanks, Perry.

In the early 1900s, Stanislavski, one of the great American, well, great Russian artists, he was an actor who developed what they called method technique, Constantin Stanislavski.

And Stanislavski then, uh, started the Moscow Art Theatre in, in Russia, and it revolutionized the melodramatic aspect of acting at the time.

They were brought to the Americas, and the Americans fawned over that technique and that work.

Stanislavski subsequently wrote several books, affected the acting world, and the cognoscenti of Holly- of, of, of American theater and writers adapted and loved, as we all do, Stanislavski's principles.

Method acting, traditionally known as the Stanislavski system, was developed as a way for actors to combine the outer and inner theatrical sense of self by physically embodying the character's experiences.

Today's actors must look to Moscow at the beginning of the twentieth century to find one of the great theatrical figures of his time, an actor, stage director, teacher, and founder of the legendary Moscow Art Theater.

This is Konstantin Stanislavski.

Before his death in 1938 and after, he was an enigma.