Stanislavski had a privileged youth, growing up in one of the richest families in Russia, the Alekseyevs. [4] He was born Constantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev – “Stanislavski” was a stage name that he adopted in 1884 in order to keep his performance activities secret from his parents. [5] The prospect of becoming a professional actor was taboo for someone of his social class; actors had an even lower social status in Russia than in the rest of Europe, having only recently been serfs and the property of the nobility. 6] The Alexeyevs were a prosperous, bourgeois family, whose factories manufactured gold and silver braiding for military decorations and uniforms.
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Until the Russian revolution in 1917, Stanislavski often used his inherited wealth to fund his theatrical experiments in acting and directing. [8] His family’s discouragement meant that he appeared only as an amateur onstage and as a director until he was thirty three. [8] As a child, Stanislavski was exposed to the rich cultural life of his family. [9] His interests included the circus, the ballet, and puppetry. 10] His father, Sergei Vladimirovich Alekseyev, was elected head of the merchant class in Moscow (one of the most important and influential positions in the city) in 1877; that same year, he had a fully equipped theatre on his estate at Liubimovka built for the entertainment of his family and friends, providing a forum for Stanislavski’s adolescent theatrical impulses.
Stanislavski started, after his debut performance there, what would become a life-long series of notebooks filled with critical observations on his acting, aphorisms, and problems. 12] It was from this habit of self-analysis and critique that Stanislavski’s system later emerged. [13] The family’s second theatre was added in 1881 to their mansion at Red Gates, on Sadovaya Street in Moscow (where Stanislavski lived from 1863 to 1903); their house became a focus for the artistic and cultural life of the city. [14] Stanislavski chose not to attend university, preferring to work in the family business.
Early influences: Increasingly interested in “living the part,” Stanislavski experimented with the ability to maintain a characterization in real life, disguising himself as a tramp or drunk and visiting the railway tation, or disguising himself as a fortune-telling gypsy; he extended the experiment to the rest of the cast of a short comedy in which he performed in 1883, and as late as 1900 he amused holiday-makers in Yalta by taking a walk each morning “in character”. [16] In 1884, he began vocal training under Fyodor Petrovich Komissarzhevsky, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and leading tenor of the Bolshoi (and father of the famous actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya), with whom he also explored the co-ordination of voice and body.
Together they devised exercises in moving and sitting stationary “rhythmically”, which anticipated Stanislavski’s later use of physical rhythm when teaching his ‘system’ to opera singers. [18] Komissarzhevski provided one of the models (the other was Stanislavski himself) for the character of Tortsov in his actor’s manual An Actor’s Work (1938). [19] A year later, in 1885, Stanislavski briefly studied at the Moscow Theatre School, where students were encouraged to mimic the theatrical tricks and conventions of their tutors. 20] Disappointed by this approach, he left after little more than two weeks.
Instead, Stanislavski devoted particular attention to the performances of the Maly Theatre, the home of psychological realism in Russia. [21] Psychological realism had been developed here by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Shchepkin. [22] In 1823, Pushkin had concluded that what united the diverse classical authors.
