Stanislavsky was a Russian actor, producer and theoretician, who created the method of acting the 'Stanislavsky system'.In the beginning, he tried to find a style of acting that was more appropriate to the realism of 20th century drama as opposed to the theatrical acting methods of the 19th century. It was never his intention to develop a new style of acting, he actually wanted to organize in teaching and performing regimens the ways in which good actors had always learnt success in their work, regardless of previous styles of acting.
The Stanislavsky system requires that an actor utilize their memory of emotions. The entry of an actor on stage is not seen as the beginning of the actor's life as the character, but a continuing of the preceding situation. Through Stanislavsky method, the actor has trained their concentration and senses so that they are able to respond freely in the entire environment of the stage. Through the empathic observation of people in many situations, the actors aims to develop a wide emotional range so that the performance on stage is as real as possible.
A risk of the Stanislavsky system is that because the actor draws on their own personal experiences, the scene is sometimes taken on unexpected directions. This was opposed to by Stanislavsky himself, as he thought the actor should be fully immersed within the play, and some directors have been opposed to the system, saying that is takes away control of the play from them.
The Stanislavsky system was widely practiced in the Soviet Union and in the US, as experiments in its use began in the 1920s, and continued in many schools and theatres. The director, Lee Strasberg, added many new aspects into the system, to which he called 'Method'; a name that has stuck around until today, and has came to be
associated with the prestigious Actor's Studio.
Meyerhold
Meyerhold was a Russian theatrical director, producer and actor whose experiments in nonrealistic theatre leave him as a strong influence on theatre today. Meyerhold undertook intensive actor training at Moscow Arts Theatre. He saw realism as a type of hypnotism that removes the control of what happens on stage from the actor to the character. He believed that theatre should not mirror reality and instead theatre should be larger than the everyday; through exaggeration and distortion through theatrical techniques.
In 1906, Meyerhold became the chief producer at the theatre of Vera Komissarzhevskaya, a well know actress at the time, and staged a number of non-realistic, symbolist plays that showcased his radical ideas of exaggerated theatre. For his presentation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler, he rebelled against the stylized naturalism that was popular from Stanislavsky; and instead, he got his actors to behave in robotic, puppet-like movements. This became the beginning of an innovative theatre known as biomechanics in Russia.
Meyerhold's unusual approaches to the theatre led him to break with Komissarzhevskaya in 1908. After that, drawing upon the conventions of Commedia dell'Arte and Asian theatre, he went onto productions in St Petersburg. During 1920-35 Meyerhold achieved his greatest artistic success in his career as a director, beginning with 'The Magnificent Cuckold'; followed by his controversial production in 1935 of 'The Queen of Spades'.
Even though he embraced the Russian revolution of 1917, his individualistic views that were seen as rejecting of Russian Socialist Realism. He refused to conform and he advocated for the artists' right to experiment. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1939. Nothing was heard of him in the West until 1958, when they confirmed his date of death for 1942, and later 1940.
Sources
http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/drama/hsc/studies/topics/3265/Meyerhold/overview.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/379502/Vsevolod-Yemilyevich-Meyerhold
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/563178/Stanislavsky-system
http://plays.about.com/od/actingessentials/a/The-Stanislavsky-Method.htm
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