Do you know much about Stan's students, esp. M. and V.? I'd like to understand the different methods of M. and V. in terms of THEIR inner contradictions, as well as in contrast to their teacher's.
In 1922, Vakhtangov directed TURANDOT in his theatre called Third Studium. Ripellino tells us that he used stanislavsky method but asked to all actors/actresses to play their parts as they were italian actors/actresses of Commedia dell'Arte. So, his actors/actresses should show each character of the play on stage as it was made by a comic actor/actress of an italian company of Commedia dell'Arte. This instruction made possible for him, Vakh, to get a very specific scenic result: a theatrical effect (that same postulated by M - and later, in Germany, by Brecht).
Vygotsky's ON THE PROBLEM OF THE CREATIVITY OF THE ACTOR also refers to this remarkable spectacle in which Vakh had ephasized the splendour of chmíra (cabotinage, rough performance - avoided by Stan) based on, contradictionly, in Stan's method or system. According to Vygotsky, it is necessary to understand Stan's system not only as a tool-kit to get a naturalistic-realistic performance on the stage. He give us some cues but does not explain exhaustively how should someone proceed along that way. It's a brief article in which he proposes an historical-cultural approach to the psychology of actor.
I've been reading about M., who was inclined throughout much of his career to link his theatre to the world 'outside' though later in his career he seems less inclined to do that.
?
It's very interesting percieve that even when Stan directed and put on stage his Hamlet (critizised by Vygotsky in Psychology of Art) there was indeed something puttrid in the "Denmark reign", something puttrid in csarist Russia. If we contextualize each theatre spetacle produced by those great theatre people, all of them are metaphoric communications/approaches to the most close reallity or "world outside".
(I guess I could express, in English, my thinking on this - in a better way. But my vocabulary is too limmited yet. Sorry.)
Despite this pointed above, I think Vygotsky is right in his critics to Stan's understanding of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Psychology of Art.
I'm curious about the "inside-outside" way of thinking about individual/social interrelations that seems salient to Vygotsky's thinking/psychology as well as the dramatists' -- I mean specifically the question of "which comes first?" Stan. seems to have worked "both ways", though most of us in the West know him as working with "inside-->outside" methods. I've no doubt that Yrjo's is the truer reading.
I think Yrjv's reading of Stan's system is one between others. A rigorous and convincing one.
There's a lot to think about here.
At 03:22 PM 1/30/01 -0200, you wrote:
>>>>
I read with much interest Yrjv-kallinen's article. It reveals that the authors did study and do know Stanislaviski's and Leont'ev's theoretic systems very well.
Below, there is a resume of it (please, help me if I forgot something important):
1 - After a brief exposition of the two russian thinkers, they explicit 3 parallels between Stan/Leon's conceptual paradigms of activity:
(1) Priority of physical, external/object-oriented, instrumentally mediated actions;
(2) Emphasis on the overall/motivating factors of an activity;
(3) The importance of contextualization of every singular actions.
2 - They make clear that in Stan's system the subject is the actor/actress and the object the part-play-theatrical representation of a dramatic text. In Leon's paradigm, the subject is the human being and the object is any one, towards which the behaviour of a human being is directed/oriented to.
3 - After doing so, they figure out 2 aspects of contradiction detected in Stan's system:
(I) Seeking for truthfullness X exclusion of the outside world;
(II) Free acting X adherence to the strict playwright's dialogue and "rubricas" (rubrics? [f.e. instructions related to actors/actresses moving, character gestual repertory, scenary descriptions etc]);
4 - Thereon, they analyze how professionals in Finland (1985) reconstruct their own work according to three instructions presented them in a workshop conducted by the authors:
(a) describe the work as it was "used to be";
(b) describe the work as it is;
(c) identify the main contradictions of their present work;
(d) sketch the synthesis of those contradictions in future.
The finlandian theatre professionals were divided in 4 groups:
(1) Actors - asked for more independence and less stress in work in their synthesis (the object was the text or the role);
(2) Directors - quested for authonomy, considering the division of labour in terms of the social role of theatre in the world in their synthesis (the object was the text or the role);
(3) Playwritters - remarked their individual economic independence as a solution to the feeling of opression and subordination to the group (the object was the people they try to influence to);
(4) Theatre-Educators - saw themselves as becoming instructional bureaucrats (the object was students)
So, the authors figured out that:
(a) the groups did not really identify essencial contradictions in their work but rather listed problems;
(b) they all revealled aspiration to authonomy within the theatre.
In the discussion that followed presentation by all sub-groups a "quest for further, expansive working out of the object was expressed". The authors believe the understanding of contradicitions beyond the step in which was located the group needs a moving up to more two other steps:
(Step 2) lifeworld X selfsuficient world of theatre;
(Step 3) use value X exchange value of an object in capitalist society.
Ending the article, they discuss some aspects of pedagogical implications of theater in education. As Galvin Bolton, they criticize the idea of drama as a liberator of individual potentials of creative self-expression and advocate a meaning of drama as something that results from the interplay between the real and imagined world, as in Bolton's own words: "a collective experiencing, celebrating (...) on what we share, on what ways we are alike". But they can not agree with this author when he states that "above all drama is a mental state". To them, this statement of Bolton reveals a reduction of drama to the Stan's "mentalism".
According to the authors, the problem of "mentalism" is essential because, for it, "creation and production are something (...) taking place within the head of the individual" not bringing a open minded view of societal life.
Finally, they bold 3 dimensions of the contradiction found in theatre as a productive activity:
(1) self-suficient of theatrical activity X interplay between real and imagined worlds;
(2) mentalism X intersubjectivity;
(3) internalization X objective creation and production.
The authors, like Goodman, understand theatre as colletive worldmaking:
"we may consider theatre as an ideal model system for learning to create collectively imagined worlds"
They conclude that any attack to the core problem of theatre activity - according to them, that of turnning an ideal imagined world into something real - must provide instruments for dealing with inner contradiction of artifacts (use value X exchage value). So, theatre in education may deal with the same metodological questions that are faced in the productive activity of theatre.
The authors believe that the models of activity, exposed and analized by them, can be tools with which theatre people and theatre educators could (re)think their social praxis and "learn to create collectively imagined worlds".
Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu
Universidade do Estado da Bahia-Uneb
Cond. Aldeia de Trobogy
Rua B1, Bl. 49C/301
Patamares - Salvador
41680140 BAHIA
Brasil
Fone: (071) 3660923
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