In 1885, he gave himself the stage name of Statisticians?the name of a fellow actor he’d met. He married teacher Maria Proprietorships three years later, and she would join her husband in the serious study and pursuit of acting. Later Years… 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 Strangers 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, After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Statisticians 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, Statisticians suffered a heart attack. Statisticians spent his later years focusing on his writing, directing and teaching.
He died on August 7, 1938, in the city of his earth. Techniques Magic If: Statisticians believed that the truth that occurred onstage was different than that of real life, but that a ‘scenic truth’ could be achieved onstage. A performance should be believable for an audience so that they may appear to the audience as truth. One of Statistician’s methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character’s emotion was his ‘magic if. ‘ Actors were required to ask many questions of their characters and themselves.
Through the ‘magic if,’ actors were able to satisfy themselves and their characters’ positions of the plot. One of the first questions they had to ask was, “What if I were in the same situation as my character? ” Another variation on this is “What would I do if I found myself in this (the character’s) circumstance? ” The “magic if’ allowed actors to transcend the confinements of realism by asking them what would occur “if’ circumstances were different, or “if” the circumstances were to happen to them.
By answering these questions as the character, the theatrical actions of the actors would be believable and therefore ‘truthful. ‘ Relaxation: Statistician’s thoughts on elation were based on the premise that in order to achieve control of all motor and intellectual faculties, the actor needed to relax his muscles: ‘Muscular tautness interferes with inner emotional experience’. However, his line of reasoning on this was somewhat unclear. On one hand he quite rightly identified muscular tautness as the cause For several constrictions in performance.
Some of these constrictions could be loss of fullness of voice, a ‘wooden’ physical appearance, or the blockage of creativity. These concerns were valid because actors have been known to ‘clam up’ through muscular tension. However his suggestion that only when an actor was totally relaxed, could the performance be any good, is problematic. Let us consider his statement for a moment, with regard to ballet, a highly disciplined art form. When ballerinas appear to effortlessly glide, leap, pirouette, they are not completely relaxed, but hold certain abdominal muscles tightly in.
They also stretch or contract other muscles in order To achieve that fluidity of motion. In fact, if they were totally relaxed, they would lose energy, form and not be able to achieve their high level of artistry. Instead, an opposition in contraction and elongation of muscles helps achieve that look of effortlessness. Concentration and Observation: Statisticians was concerned with actors getting distracted by the audience while performing on stage. He sought ways to counteract this distraction.
He however did not advocate that the actor forget the audience, or tries to believe it did not exist. That, he felt, would be contradictory to the art of theatre, because the audience was an important ‘co-creator’ of the performance. Statistician’s main need was in finding a way to get the actor sufficiently interested in something (for example, an object) on stage so as to to find the presence of the audience a crippling factor. He felt that if his actors observed the object intensively enough, a desire would arise in them, to do something with it.
This would, in turn intensify the observation and help develop an action with it. Importantly, Statisticians realized that actors lost control of their basic faculties on stage, and had to be re-taught how to achieve this in public. This is especially apparent in beginning actors. Statisticians realized this early on in his experiments: All of our acts, even the simplest, which are so familiarity us n everyday life, become Strained when we appear behind the footlights before a public of a thousand people.
This is why it is necessary to correct ourselves and learn again how to walk, move about, sit or lie down. It is essential to re-educate ourselves to look and see, on the stage, to listen and to hear. Through Line of a Role: When objectives were strung together in a logical and coherent form, a through line of action was mapped out for the character. This was important in order to create a sense of the whole. Statisticians developed the concept of the Super objective that would carry this ‘through line of action.
The super objective could then be looked at as the ‘spine’ with the objectives as ‘Vertebrae. ‘ For example, the super objective of one character could be to win back the love of the other character. In order to achieve this super objective, the first character would have successive unit objectives such as, to tease her, to please her, to excite her, to provoke her and to placate her. These objectives, when strung together, revealed the super objective, the logical, and coherent through line of action. Statisticians called this super objective the ‘final goal of every performance’.
