The Stanislavski Method
Realism was the guiding principle for Stanislavski who demanded that the actors’ essential task is to reproduce a credible reality on stage or screen, founded on acute observations of the world. Where naturalism implied a concern with and highly detailed realistic portrayal of, lower class life, realism emerged from it and could be recognised by its selection and distillation of the observation of everyday life, not the life itself.
When following this Method and developing answers to the “given circumstances”, an actor must understand the answers to the following:
What is the sub-text?
What is my super-objective? Do I reach it?
What is the through-line of my action in this performance and how does it intersect those of other characters?
Divide the text into beats so that you can work on each one separately before running them together.
Glossary
Physical and emotional memory: the actor draws on anecdotal emotional and physical experiences to capture the realism he or she is trying to convey.
The magic if: If is a word which can transform our thoughts; through it we can imagine ourselves in virtually any situation. "If I suddenly became wealthy..." "If I were vacationing on the Caribbean Island..." "If I had great talent..." "If that person who insulted me comes near me again..." The word if becomes a powerful lever for the mind; it can lift us out of ourselves a give us a sense of absolute certainty about imaginary circumstances.
Beat :a scene can be divided into sections or beats or units which can be isolated from the rest for intense development due to the specific nature of one or more components e.g. setting, focus, mood, characters onstage, theme, source of tension etc.
Sub-text: the unspoken but understoodmeaning running beneath the surface dialogue and action.
Super-objective : the motivating force - the fundamental wish or desire - that determines the character's actions all through the play. This, of course, must be closely related to the author's main purpose in writing the play. To put it another way, the character’s super-objective is dependent on the fundamental action and conflict which the play is intended to represent. For example, Hamlet's super-objective, according to one director, is his search for the truth. How the character goes about achieving that super objective will be via the interaction of his/her through-line and a series oftext units or beats.
Source:
Through-line : what makes the character tick and act/react the way he or she does along the path to achieving their super-objective. I.e. the spiritual ethos of the character which will be a product of what has happened in their past, where they are now and what they see in their future. The through-line will coherently link all the units of action and any minor objectives.