Stanislavski's System

Stanislavski's System is a list of techniques that actors use to bring up believable emotions, emotions used to make the audience think that the play could be real. This is effective because it puts the audience in a world that doesn't exist and makes them believe it's real. The System consists of techniques like emotional memory, this is when you think of something that's happened in the past and use the emotion from that in the acting situation you have been given. This is an effective method because the audience don't know what you are thinking when you're on stage so they just assume that you're thinking of the the situation in the scene. Focus is a key part of Stanislavski's system, if you're not focused you can't seriously take on the role and more importantly the the mind of a character. To get focused the System talks about concentration and relaxation. I applied all of these to my performance, for the emotional memory I thought of something in my past that angered me at the time, and used that emotion to unlock the character of Jimmy Porter. This worked because Jimmy is a very angry man and had aggression towards a lot of things. The System describes a technique known as 'magic if' this is when you put yourself in the same situation as the character, I did this with Jimmy and it was effective because it helped me to understand why Jimmy is the way he is. As for the relaxation, we did an exercise with Jill that helped us relax, it was a 20 minute routine that is equivalent to 2 hours of sleep, I believe this works because it clears your mind, this is useful because if you're mind is clear, you can take in the character's thoughts and more of their personality.

Later on between 1934 and 1938 the technique evolved to be a method with physical actions. Stanislavski developed this system to try to learn how to control the emotions of the characters and genuine uncontrollable human behaviour. The System is very useful for this play because the play was designed to mirror reality and get it as accurate as possible, the methods in 'The System' help us to do this because it helps us get into character, which means it makes it easier to understand Jimmy's personality and get into the role. Jimmy is a very difficult character to play because he has many defining characteristics which make the role hard to take on realistically. I believe the character of Jimmy would be easier to play in a more theatrical piece because you could take it over the top but for the purposes of this performance we had to portray the character in a more naturalistic way, this means I had to create an imaginary bubble in the scene and anything outside that bubble did not exist.

Overall I think I used Stanislavski's System effectively because I achieved the desired effect which was to make the audience believe the scene was or could be real.