Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts 2011

Keynote

Michael Earley (Rose Bruford College, UK)

Stanislavski and the New Consciousness in Early 20^th-Cenury Russia

The development of a ‘science’ of acting, as articulated by Konstantin Stanislavski early in the Twentieth Century, placed consciousness at its foundation. My talk focuses on the different and influential aspects of Russian thinking at the time of Stanislavski (a collision of new western psychological ideas and different strands of eastern mysticism) which formed the basic psycho-physical techniques of acting that are still being explored today. The new information we are gaining about Stanislavski, coming from post-Stanislavski studies and a wider understanding of turn-of-the century Russian art and literature, informs my paper. Where possible, I hope to make use of the Stanislavski Archive at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and Jean Norman Benedetti’s new translations of Stanislavski’s key texts.