Theatre

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31197, 22 October 1966, Page 4

Theatre

The Stanislavski System. By Sonia Moore. Gollancz. 112 pp.

Although Stanislavski has been dead for nearly thirty years, controversy still surrounds his famous system of “method” acting. Miss Moore believes that one cause of misunderstanding has been the lack of material, in English, about Stanislavski’s conclusions and deductions. In this book she sets out to clarify the essential elements of his teaching. In her introductory chapter she describes Stanislavski’s search for a science of acting. He wanted to discover the laws that govern the actor’s creativity, and by so doing to give the actor control over his inspiration. In this way he hoped to reduce the elements of chance, which he saw to be one of the chief enemies of art. His experience led him, after many years, to discover the link between the psychological life of the individual and the simple, physical actions with which he expresses moods, feelings and ambitions; and to realise the important part which expressive skills can play in inducing appropriate emotional responses in the actor. On these conclusions he was to base his system. Miss Moore describes with admirable clarity the essential elements of Stanislavski's “Method of Physical Actions." She also includes a chapter on directing, and one on Stanislavski’s chief disciple, Eugene Vakhtangov.

A new dictionary that takes in “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” the portmanteau word in the film “Mary Poppins,” will be published this month from Random House in New York. Other newcomers are “Ho Chi Minh trail” (supply route for the Vietcong), “psychedelic” (mind-expand-ing in relation to hallucionogenic drugs), “teach-in” and “ratfink” (popular American term of abuse). The compilers used a computer to help them in their seven-year-long labours. but the choice of words is human.