Comparing Stanilslavski & Brecht | 'Crossing the Threshold'

Transitioning from Brecht's Epic Theatre to Stanislavski's Naturalism and comparing the two is something that I think will benefit me throughout the rehearsal process for this production. I think it's interesting differentiating the two styles because we learn what their overall motivations were and what effects they wanted their plays to have on audiences. We were introduced to the way in which Stanislavski may have trained his actors; by envisioning a circle around performance space and committing to a that focus no distractions surrounding it (like audience reactions) should interfere with that performance. Unlike Stanislavski, in Brechtian performances actors would instinctively improvise (if not directed to already) react to spontaneous endeavours from a live audience. Considering this made me come up with a diagram that I feel represents the difference in 'thresholds' with these two practitioners' styles.

The red outline here signifies the area in which the actor’s character shows a conscious awareness of their surroundings as their reality. Naturalistic actors will be trained to dismiss and ignore anything going on outside their perception of their limited reality- and to not cross that threshold. This distances the audience by effectively separating their versions of reality at the moment of performance. Whereas, Brecht constantly reminds the audience that they are watching a performance. Actors practising Brecht's style would probably be given the freedom to react to real life events from the audience who are constantly reminded that this is a play, and they are in a theatre being directly spoken to by actors playing characters.

Stanislavski Naturalism Introduction | £10 Note Exercise

Before reading the script for Look Back in Anger, the class had a workshop which introduced Stanislavski's style of theatre. Naturalism- Something that we (and particularly drama students) would assume we are most comfortable and familiar with, both watching and performing. Being directed to ‘act naturally’ can seem the simplest way to perform for a drama student; creating a household scene of real life that they probably can relate to and or have gone through. For some it’s viewed as a style that requires the least application of effort and ‘comes natural’ but after this workshop I realised it is almost the complete opposite. The exercise involved in the workshop simply directed Beth to hide a £10 note, then exit and re-enter the room improvising a short scene of them looking for it, eventually finding it- in a naturalistic style. Subconsciously, we seemed to think that gestures like a confused frown or a subtle head scratch is the key to portraying what is happening in a situation, and we soon learnt that Naturalism is not about shrinking these gestures so much that it becomes a depiction of ‘real-life’. Stanilsavski reffers to this idea as 'mechanical acting' and over-acting' in his 'An Actor Prepares. I noticed and discussed with the group though how naturally in life, we do mimic things. It is interesting to notice how elements of Brechtian and slapstick gestures are something that we do. We were then introduced to the ‘threshold’ in which may have helped our performance with this exercise. A second time, Beth was then directed to exit the room again, but this time the note will be hidden for her resulting in her having to genuinely search for the note which would evoke genuine reaction. Having being told that she could only keep her borrowed money unless she found it in the short time frame, the conscious decision to perform this routine were gone and after watching this, the difference in what we think naturalism is and what it actually aims to be became clear. I decided in order to apply this to my own performance, I would maybe have to reproach my actions and the delivery of each line and really question whether that is genuinely how I would act in that situation.