Building a Character

Explores how an actor creates character through physical expression, movement and speech.The translation that introduced Stanislavski's work to the English-speaking world and remains the most widely-used.The follow-up to the international bestseller, An Actor Prepares, now in the Bloomsbury Revelations series.Includes a new preface by Nick O'Brien, author of Stanislavski In PracticeKonstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) was a Russian director who sought 'inner realism' by insisting that his actors find the truth within themselves and 'become' the characters they portrayed. His work brought international fame to the Moscow Art Theatre, which he had co-founded with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1897. During his early years at the Moscow Art Theatre, he directed the first productions of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904) as well as a series of celebrated versions of Shakespeare. Stanislavski toured America with the company in 1923. After World War II, the US edition of Stanislavski's treatise An Actor Prepares (1926) became a bible of the Method school of acting.In this follow up to his most famous book, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski develop his influential 'system' of acting by exploring the imaginative processes at the heart of the actor's craft. Building a Character deals with the physical realisation of character on the stage through such tools as expressions, movement and speech. It is a book in which every theory is inextricably bound up with practice - a perfect handbook to the physical art of acting. The work of Stanislavski has inspired generations of actors and trainers and - available now in the Bloomsbury Revelations series to mark the 150th anniversary of Stanislavski's birth - it remains an essential read for actors and directors at all stages of their careers.Developing his influential 'system', Stanislavski explores how an actor develops a character through physical expression, movement and speech. Explanatory Note by the Translator \ 1. Toward a Physical Characterization \ 2. Dressing a Character \ 3. Characters and Types \ 4. Making the Body Expressive \ 5. Plasticity of Motion \ 6. Restraint and Control \ 7. Diction and Singing \ 8. Intonations and Pauses \ 9. Accentuation: The Expressive Word \ 10. Perspective in Character Building \ 11. Tempo-Rhythm in Movement \ 12. Speech Tempo-Rhythm \ 13. Stage Charm \ 14. Toward an Ethics for the Theatre \ 15. Patterns of Accomplishment \ 16. Some Conclusions on Acting \ Index. Bringing together books and thinkers that have opened up startling new ways of looking at the world, the Bloomsbury Revelations series celebrates the originality and excellence of Bloomsbury Academic's non-fiction publishing. Including books by the likes of Carol Adams, Winston Churchill, Slavoj Zizek, Ferdinand de Saussure, Ronald Dworkin, Constantin Stanislavski, Susan Strange and Gilles Deleuze, this is an essential library of the thinkers who have fundamentally shaped the way we see the modern world.