Author(s): Constantin Stanislavski; Hermine I. Popper (Editor); Elizabeth R. Hapgood (Translator)

Creative Arts and Drama

No-one has had greater influence on acting as we know it than Stanislavski. His 'system' or interpretations of it - has become the central force determining almost every performance we see on stage or screen. His teaching is principally set out in three famous books- An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role. It is still the only comprehensive theory of acting we possess.

In the first book, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski dealt with the inner imaginative processes. In the second Building a Character, he concentrated on the body, the voice and other physical means of expression. In Creating a Role, the third book, he describes the elaborate preparation that precedes actual performance. Creating a Role describes the elaborate marination that precedes the actual performance. The analyses of Othello and The Inspector General, which make up Parts Two and Three, show a mind cutting through text like an inspired pneumatic-drill . . . Altogether Creating a Role is a brilliant little treatise and a careful reading is worth several lessons in almost any English acting academy (Charles Marowitz, The Observer)