Who has had the greatest influence on modern acting? Without doubt it was Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938). He was the great director–teacher who co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre, staged the premieres of Chekhov's plays and codified a system of acting explained in books such as An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and – his autobiography – My Life in Art. He was also the godfather of American "method" acting, whose disciples ranged from Marlon Brando to Marilyn Monroe. But, while Stanislavsky was a colossus, I'd say modern drama requires other approaches to acting; and I've recently seen two brilliant performances that demonstrate both the potency of Stanislavsky and the need to venture beyond him.
If you want to understand Stanislavsky's system, you have to read the books. But a crude simplification would go like this. For the spectator to identify with the actor, the actor has to identify with the role. S/he can do this in a variety of ways: by summoning up memories from his/her past; by relying on what Stanislavsky called the "creative if", in which the actor is transported from the plane of real life to that of the imagination; or by focusing on the character's ultimate objective and then breaking the action down into specific units. All this may sound like gobbledegook to non-actors, but it is part of the vocabulary of modern theatre. It's also important to remember that Stanislavsky believed that the actor's inner experience had to be matched by external technique.
What he has to say is still vital, but, also, a lot has changed. The theatre of illusion has lost ground. Curtains and proscenium arches have been replaced by the anti-magical open stage. Playwriting has also altered in myriad ways: it is often more documentary in style and, even when totally fictional, tends to be non-naturalistic. Above all, there has been Brecht, the man who argued that the nature of performance had changed in modern times. The actor, in Brecht, stands back from the character and looks at it; the audience, meanwhile, stands back from the actor and assesses him or her.
So which is to be? Brecht or Stanislavsky? I think there's room for both. I've no idea whether Laurie Metcalf, who is currently playing Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Apollo in London, is a Method-trained actor or not; but everything she does on stage could be seen as a vindication of the Stanislavsky approach. Metcalf does, or so it seems to me, identify with the character. She also does have a super-objective: to disguise from her family for as long as possible her relapse into morphine-addiction. You could even say she has broken the action down into specific units: I noticed, in one scene, how she both tries to respond to her husband's gentle caresses while also ensuring he doesn't touch her needle-punctured left forearm. Metcalf seems to have immersed herself totally in the character and situation, so that she delivers her final speech lying on the floor clutching the chaise-longue for support.
It's great acting. But different plays require different styles. A week later I saw Cate Blanchett give an equally monumental performance in Botho Strauss's Big and Small at the Barbican. If I call this a classic Brechtian piece of acting, it is not just because the play is German and written in 10 discrete scenes: it is because we are invited to enjoy the conscious element of performance. Obviously that has something to do with Blanchett's movie fame. But she also seems to be presenting the character to us for comment. "Here," she effectively says, "is this good-hearted blabberer, Lotte, who seems totally adrift in a mad, modern, materialist society. Is it her fault or the society's?" I wouldn't for a second deny that, by the end, we have come to identify with Lotte in the style of illusionist theatre. But Blanchett also perfectly fulfils the Brechtian ideal that we should savour the dual nature of performance: half actor, half role, Blanchett playing Lotte as well as being Lotte.
Of course, there is a host of other influences at work in acting today: the drizzle of TV realism, the exuberance of stand-up comedy, the intimacy of small spaces and the heavily-amplified atmosphere of big arenas. Actors also work in highly individual ways – some start from inner intuition, others from the physical externals. I'd only say this: even if actors choose to go beyond Stanislavsky, they first have to know exactly what it is they're rejecting.
Now read: My Life In Art by Konstantin Stanislavsky (Routledge)
In detail: The Moscow Art Theatre Letters, edited by Jean Benedetti (Methuen/Routledge)
• This article was amended on 18 April 2012. The original said that My Life in Art is published by Penguin. This has been corrected. In addition, The Moscow Art Theatre Letters US copyright is owned by Routledge. This entry has been clarified.
