Creating A Role

__Creating a Role__is the culmination of Stanislavski's masterful trilogy on the art of acting. __An Actor Prepares__focused on the inner training of an actor's imagination. __Building a Character__detailed how the actor's body and voice could be tuned for the great roles he might fill. This third volume examines the development of a character from the viewpoint of three widely contrasting plays: Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, Shakespeare's Othello, and Gogol's The Inspector General. Building on the first two books, Stanislavski demonstrates how a fully realized character is born in three stages: "studying it; establishing the life of the role; putting it into physical form."Tracing the actor's process from the first reading to production, he explores how to approach roles from inside and outside simultaneously. He shows how to recount the story in actor's terms, how to create an inner life that will give substance to the author's words, and how to search into one's own experiences to connect with the character's situation. Finally, he speaks of the physical expression of the character in gestures, sounds, intonation, and speech. Throughout, a picture of a real artist at work emerges, sometimes failing, but always seeking truthful answers. Creating a Role is the culmination of Stanislavski's masterful trilogy on the art of acting. An Actor Prepares focused on the inner training of an actor's imagination. Building a Character detailed how the actor's body and voice could be tuned for the great roles he might fill. This third volume examines the development of a character from the viewpoint of three widely contrasting plays: Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, Shakespeare's Othello, and Gogol's The Inspector General. Building on the first two books, Stanislavski demonstrates how a fully realized character is born in three stages: "studying it; establishing the life of the role; putting it into physical form." Tracing the actor's process from the first reading to production, he explores how to approach roles from inside and outside simultaneously. He shows how to recount the story in actor's terms, how to create an inner life that will give substance to the author's words, and how to search into one's own experiences to connect with the character's situation. Finally, he speaks of the physical expression of the character in gestures, sounds, intonation, and speech. Throughout, a picture of a real artist at work emerges, sometimes failing, but always seeking truthful answers. Stanislavski's "System" offers both a means of mastering the craft of acting and of stimulating the actor's individual creativeness and imagination. Generations of actors have been inspired by his ideas -- the "magic if," "emotional memory," the "unbroken line"--And by that hallmark of Stanislavski's work, an unwavering commitment to theatrical truth. THE PREPARATORY WORK on a role can be divided into three great periods: studying it; establishing the life of the role; putting it into physical form. pt. 1. Griboyedov's Woe from Wit pt. 2. Shakespeare's Othello pt. 3. Gogol's The Inspector General.