It was not by chance that we started talking about the harmony, clarity and integrity of a work of art with questions of the formation of the artist's worldview. This is important not only for solving large, complex problems of our art, but also for shaping the creative individuality of the artist himself.
The personality of the artist is visible in everything he does in art.
The great Goethe spoke of this interdependence in this way: “In general, the style of a writer is a sure imprint of his inner life: if someone wants to have a clear style, then he must first achieve clarity in his soul; whoever wants to write in a majestic style must have grandeur in character.”
Without a high life goal, the director will not be able to catch the super-task of the writer-dramatist, respond to it, select topics close to himself, in order to develop them, supplement, enrich them with the language of theatrical art.
Without the ideological foundations of stage realism, without an understanding of the historical laws according to which human society develops, we will never be able to understand and deeply appreciate all the great and practical significance of the super-task and through action in the creative practice of the theater. For the leading principle, helping to organize the stage action, for us is the understanding of the ideological goals of the author, that is, the super-task and through action of the play. There is no such play, and consequently, there cannot be such a performance in which the life of the characters would begin from the beginning of their life path.
A play is always a link torn from the general chain of life events, and usually it is main, decisive in the light of the problem the playwright has chosen.
And that is why the director who is staging a play must be able to see events in the perspective of their development.
Before the last stage of the life of Ivan Kolomiytsev unfolds in the play “The Last” by A. M. Gorky, we learn that they already wanted to remove him from life - they shot at him. We learn a lot of terrible things about his past, about his family, children. The play, as it were, serves as a denouement of the disgusting life of the last campaigner of the Russian autocracy.
If we turn to the “Petty Bourgeois”, then before the disintegration of the Bessemenov family begins, we will find out a series of events that shook this petty-bourgeois fortress. Peter was expelled from the university due to student unrest, which Peter himself regrets most of all. Mutual understanding has been lost between the burghers-old people and the burghers-"children". Neil is going to marry Paul, to get away from the petty-bourgeois despotism of old Bessemenov. Tatiana is hopelessly in love with Neil. All these facts will then receive their conflict resolution in the play. Peter will go to Elena, Nile from the Fields will go to build their own independent life. Tatiana will try to commit suicide. The life and events that Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet" covers are preceded by long years of family feuding between the families of the Montagues and. Capulet. The children of the warring families never met or saw each other. Romeo, before the events of the play, is in love with a certain Rosalind.
And the two rats that Anton Antonovich dreamed about, and the godfather's letter warning about the auditor-official, determined the whole character of Gorodnichiy's behavior, the sharpness and increasing swiftness of all actions in the comedy The Inspector General.
The ability of the director and actor to look at the play as a stage that continues the previous human life, the ability to build action and human character not from the beginning and in the continuation and development of all previous life there are the most precious qualities of a realist artist.
The consequence of this skill is the special vitality of the performance and individual actor's images.
We, the directors, are often hindered, oddly enough, by elementary understood technicalism.
Analyzing a play as a work of art built according to certain laws of dramaturgy, we, armed with the experience and technology of our art, often lose the simple ability to perceive a play as a piece of real life. We lose exactly the view of the play with which the audience will watch it.
All the events and facts listed by us in The Last, The Philistines, The Inspector General and in Shakespeare's tragedy that took place before the start of the play, we consider as the so-called "exposure to action", which must be quickly told to the viewer, instead of deep comprehension and mastering those proposed circumstances in which the characters are placed at the very beginning of the play. Starting from these events and facts, only the movement of events in the play can begin.
We, on the other hand, tend to start the stage life in a play as if from the beginning.
Yes, every play begins a certain stage in the life of the characters, just as every day of human life has its beginning. But we, directors and actors, armed with creative imagination, it is necessary to see this beginning on the basis of the continuation of previous days and events.
Every play begins with the fact that it carries the atmosphere and tempo-rhythm of the previous life of the characters, and only the first events that lie within the play itself can change or enhance them.
We must understand the emotional “grain” of a play, its rhythm, its characters in movement, in development, and the charge of movement of all this, as we have already said, is given outside the play.
From this it will become clear the great importance attached by K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko richly imagined biography of the characters.
The perspective of the role and the perspective of the artist cannot exist without a reverse perspective, that is, without looking back. back: where, from what environment, from what life troubles did the person shown in the play come out?
Of particular, decisive importance for the future performance, for its ideological strength, as we know, is the through action. But it can also be defined, revealed in the concrete struggle of the characters of the play, only when we, retreating to the origins of the driving forces, go beyond the framework of the play, that is, starting from the play, caught up by creative imagination, we see the life of the characters. before the beginning plays. Then the through action will have its origins. The motor spring that unwinds the action is very often wound up to failure before the curtain opens.
A play is always such a confluence of facts, circumstances and relations, which must inevitably cause conflict. And so we, directors and actors, cannot but be interested in the causes that contribute to the emergence of drama, and the sources that prepare the formation of human character.
Saltykov-Shchedrin saw in a dramatic work, as it were, the climax, the highest point of human existence.
“... The real drama, although it is expressed in the form of a well-known event, but this latter serves only as an excuse for it, giving it the opportunity to immediately put an end to those contradictions that fed it long before the event and which lurk in life itself, from afar and gradually prepared the event itself. Considered from the point of view of the event, the drama is the last word, or at least the decisive turning point of all human existence...”.
As a stage image, according to Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko is practically known by the goal to which his temperament is directed, so the action of the play, into which the author brings so much passion and intelligence, we will more clearly and accurately reveal when we know the idea that guides him, that is, the super-task of the work.
With a deep understanding of the fundamental role of the super-task and through action in the work of the director, the practical implementation of the artistic integrity of the performance begins.
Fundamentally hostile to us theories of formalist art, having abandoned the ideological foundations of the teachings of K. S. Stanislavsky, from the super-task and through action, were forced to create their own laws for constructing a stage spectacle. In the history of the young Soviet theater, these theories found their expression in the formalistic opuses of the Leningrad and Moscow Proletkult. One of these “laws” at one time was the so-called “installation of attractions”.
Each performance and film was proposed to be considered as a combination of separate play attractions, built in an increasing progression of a spectacular experience.
Each piece of a play or a separate scene was looking for a special game focus, on which they were built according to the principle of spectacular entertainment.
The language of the circus structure of the program according to the principle of sharp entertainment, borrowed from the arsenal of bourgeois music hall programs, was transferred to the theater and cinema as cementing principle theatrical spectacle.
Each scene, having its own game focus, was a separate attraction, and clever installation, that is, their mechanical linkage in increasing sharpness, guaranteed the “profitability” of this performance.
The old formalistic "school" of directing was based on the desire to stun the viewer, to show off the technique. Formalist directors learned to “plant firecrackers” in a performance in order to shock the viewer. All this hype was presented as innovation and daring in the field of directing.
Naturally, such formalistic tricks in our time cannot have anything to do with the technology of ideological realistic art.
Genuine stage innovation is always associated with a new theme, with a new ideological content of the repertoire, which alone can give rise to new forms. So it was in the era of Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov, Gorky came to the theater as such a revolutionary, and, finally, the creative upsurge of the Soviet theater is entirely associated with new, advanced social ideas that invaded the stage.
Let us recall the main thoughts of Stanislavsky about the super-task and through action, we will try to read them from the point of view of the problem of interest to us, namely: to what extent they help to cover the whole, lead to the artistic completeness of the work of theatrical art.
“... Just as a plant grows from a grain,” wrote Stanislavsky, “so exactly from a separate thought and feeling of a writer, his work grows.
These individual thoughts, feelings, life dreams of the writer run like a red thread through his whole life and guide him during his creative work. He puts them at the basis of the play and grows his literary work from this grain. All these thoughts, feelings, life dreams, eternal torments and joys of the writer become the basis of the play: for the sake of them he takes up the pen. Transferring on the stage the feelings and thoughts of the writer, his dreams, torments and joys is the main task of the performance.
It is this “grain” of the play, generated by the entire spiritual aspiration of the writer, that Stanislavsky puts as the basis for both the analysis of the play and the practical artistic embodiment of the performance.
“Let us agree for the future to call this main, main, all-encompassing goal, which attracts to itself all tasks without exception, evokes the creative desire of the engines of mental life and elements of the artist’s well-being, the super-task of the writer’s work.”
The great director sees in the super-task a special ability to attract all forces, aspirations and actions; everything that is not connected with the super-task of the work, that does not reach out to it, is superfluous, clogging up and slowing down the stage action.
“Everything that happens in the play,” writes Stanislavsky, “all its separate large and small tasks, all the creative thoughts and actions of the artist, similar to the role, strive to fulfill the super-task of the play. The general connection with it and the dependence on it of everything that is done in the performance are so great that even the most insignificant detail that has nothing to do with the super task becomes harmful, superfluous, distracting attention from the main essence of the work.
The desire for the most important task should be continuous, continuous, passing through the entire play and role. In addition to continuity, one must distinguish the very quality and origin of such striving.
It can be acting, formal and give only a more or less correct general direction. Such a striving will not enliven the whole work, will not arouse the activity of genuine, productive and expedient action. Such a creative desire
needed for the stage.
But there may be something else - a genuine, human, effective desire for the sake of achieving the main goal of the play. Such a continuous striving feeds, like the main artery, the whole organism of the artist and the person portrayed, gives life both to them and to the whole play.
From that moment on, the independence of acting and directorial creativity begins, and not a simple retelling of the thoughts and feelings of the playwright. This is what makes us insistently put before the actor and director the question of independent knowledge of reality, of a holistic worldview, of an active and passionate attitude to life. Only then does Stanislavsky's final assertion that we need a super-task, similar to the writer's intention, and that the super-task must be sought not only in the role, but also in the soul of the artist himself. This is necessary in order to achieve independence and emotional fulfillment of the artist when performing a modern play and even more so when translating pieces from the classical repertoire.
In a classical play, sometimes of a distant era, but which has not lost its ideological and artistic value for us, the question of the play's super-task becomes very acute. It is directly related to the choice of the piece. In the name of what it is being staged today, what we want to say to our viewers. And since the classical works of world dramaturgy are unusually deep, in depending on which aspects of the work, which lines, which characters are of paramount importance for us, we determine the super-task of the performance. It cannot be hostile to the super-task of Ostrovsky, Chekhov or Shakespeare, but it is purely in response to those thoughts and ideas that can especially excite our viewer. After all, in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, the bourgeois theater found and saw the affirmation of the Domostroy morality - let the wife be afraid of her husband. And the Soviet theater found in the same Shakespeare a progressive humanistic principle, he saw the essence of the play not in the enslavement and taming of one person by another, but in the power of love mutually taming spouses. In the future, I will be able to dwell in more detail on the director's intention of The Taming of the Shrew.
Having understood and felt the "grain" of the work, the actor rushes to this final goal. And Stanislavsky calls “this active, inner striving through the whole play of the engines of the mental life of the actor-role through action.
Assuming a super-task and a cross-cutting action as the basis for the artistic integrity of a performance, we, the directors, learn to subordinate and combine all the individual actions of the characters in the play to one main action, all the characters become the engines of one through action of the performance. We consider all episodes, pictures, acts as stages of one developing through action.
A performance staged without a clear, clearly conscious and heartfelt the supertasks of the play, without iron logic, developing through action, is always doomed to failure, even if individual actors demonstrate the “truth of existence” in separate parts of the role.
K. S. Stanislavsky sharply opposed all attempts to turn his system into an end in itself.
But to neglect in the creative heritage of the great director the doctrine of a super-task and through action means to decapitate Stanislavsky's system, to deprive it of a deeply ideological meaning in our activity. “If you play without a through action, then ... you are not creating on stage, but simply doing separate, unrelated exercises according to the “system”. They are good for a school lesson, but not for a performance. You forgot that these exercises and everything that exists in the “system” are needed, first of all, for a through action and for a super task. That's why parts of your role that are wonderful in isolation do not impress and do not give satisfaction as a whole. Break the statue of Apollo into small pieces and show each of them separately. It is unlikely that fragments will capture the beholder.
The conclusion suggests itself: the correctly revealed and practically implemented through action of the performance naturally collects it into a holistically living system of stage images.
Departure from the super-task and through action in our work- this is not only a loss of ideological purposefulness, but it is also a disintegration of the form, when the director’s performance and the actor’s image are crushed into separate pieces that do not create a whole.
If I limited myself to expounding the concepts of the super-task and the through action in connection with with, problem of the integrity of the performance, then this could be put an end to.
Indeed, no one disputes the fundamental importance of the super-task as the main ideological factor in the creative heritage of K. S. Stanislavsky. The attention that the great director pays to the doctrine of the most important task, that emphasis and the highly emphasized significance of the “main artery” that creatively nourishes the actor - all this leaves no one in doubt about the deep importance and significance of this issue. The need to search for a super-task “not only in the role, but in the soul of the artist himself” is especially and specifically emphasized.
I do not undertake to deepen or popularize the thoughts of K. S. Stanislavsky, expressed with exhaustive clarity. I'm interested in something else.
Of all the richest treasury of the creative heritage of the great director, it is the doctrine of the super-task that we most often perceive in a scholastic, schoolboy way, and not practically.- creatively.
What is the reason for such a sad state of affairs? The system as a whole is not immune from superficial and shallow attitudes. But I still think that in this case the issue is more complicated.
Undoubtedly, the whole creative teaching of K. S. Stanislavsky bears great costs from how and by whom it is practically mastered.
A remarkable actor and contemporary of the great director, L. M. Leonidov, shocked by the depth and breadth of Stanislavsky’s creative discoveries, exclaimed: “What happiness for us, actors, that it is Mozart who checks the harmony of our art with algebra!”
Yes, this is a great happiness for us and for art, but after all, the practical development of the wisdom revealed to us by Stanislavsky requires Mozart's element of perception. wide emotional breathing.
The system is a storehouse of large and lasting deposits of national talent. It mainly expressed the experience of many, many talents of our stage and individual luminaries of the European theater who are kindred to us in spirit. It contains the creative "discoveries" of the luminaries of the Maly Theater, from Shchepkin to Yermolova, Fedotova, Lensky. But at the same time, Stanislavsky's system is autobiographical, and this is an extremely important circumstance. The great director created it as a guide to work, a guide in his creative and pedagogical activities. And he couldn't help but come from the needs of his nature, his creative personality.
Fear of the audience, psychological and physical constriction, the play of feelings - all these are the ghosts and fears of Stanislavsky in the first years of his passion for the theater, and they could not but affect his system.
Feeling and excitement owned Stanislavsky, and not he them in the years of amateurism, before the organization of the Art Theater.
Elemental temperament and intuitive insight were characteristic of the initial formation of the stage talent of K. S. Stanislavsky. We know that K. S. Stanislavsky in the summer, during the preparation for Chekhov's "The Seagull", even before meeting with the actors, had to make all the mise-en-scenes of the future performance. And according to Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, made them brilliantly, talentedly and correctly, despite the fact that during this period he still did not fully understand and did not appreciate the entire huge scale and significance of A.P. Chekhov as an artist.
Entire chapters of his book "My Life in Art" say that in the most creative being of Stanislavsky, Mozart went towards Salieri. And over the years, this unbreakable union triumphed in its brilliant victory. In order to understand and appreciate the inexhaustible living keys of creativity revealed by Stanislavsky, we need to deeply feel why he loved Yermolova, Fedotov, Lensky so much.
He, the discoverer of new paths in the theater, who replaced the art of the Maly Theater, a man of different views, requirements and tastes in the theater, spoke with admiration about Yermolova and Fedotova. And this is not a tribute to the youthful delight of the first impressions of the theater, but a high mission consciously set for oneself - to unravel, reveal the secret of this great art and make it accessible to a wide range of gifted people.
So what shone with unfading light in the work of these luminaries of the Maly Theater for Stanislavsky? Already that Stanislavsky, who was armed and ready to create a new theater together with Nemirovich-Danchenko. Without an answer to this question, we will hardly feel the life-giving power of the laws of creativity revealed to us.
In dozens of critical studies, in the memoirs of contemporaries about the luminaries of the Maly Theater, with all the richness and difference in their personalities, M. N. Ermolova, G. N. Fedotova and A. P. Lensky have a common essence inherent in their work. The inspired work of thought creates that solid channel into which the human feeling of the artist pours out in a stormy stream. This is not the notorious “inside”, capricious and not obedient to the will of the actor, freeing him from enormous labor in overcoming the role, but this is a genuine joyful harmony of intellect and passion in creativity, which K. S. Stanislavsky has been looking for all his life.
“Above the soul asks!” - was Yermolova's motto, and neither Fedotova, nor Lensky, nor Yermolova herself were afraid to surrender to this impulse of their feelings. For the preliminary work of thought paved the way for the creation of a rich, multifaceted image.
Yermolova in every role, whether it was Schiller's Jeanne d'Arc, or Laurencia Lope de Vega, or Negin in Ostrovsky's Talents and Admirers, always had an emotional climax, a "psychological center", where all spiritual and physical forces were concentrated and in which the whole pathos of the image was expressed.
This focus on the essence, on the center of the role did not at all push the great actress to a one-line solution to the image. On the contrary, the great actress never appeared on the stage with the seal of the tragic or the features of fatal doom. And her understanding of the nature of the heroic even now sounds surprisingly modern, precisely for the ethics and aesthetics of the Soviet theater. She led Joan of Arc onto the path of the heroic through simplicity, lyricism, and even the ordinariness of existence, in the name of a genuine heroic take-off. This gentle lyricism, combined with the power of a tragic temperament, constituted the unique property of Yermolovsky's amazing talent.
G. N. Fedotova in “Guilty Without Guilt” made the auditorium cry throughout the first act precisely because all the misfortunes that fall on a young girl (Murov’s announcement of a sudden departure, his betrayal and the death of a child), Fedotova piled on the ingenuous heart of a loving and happy girl.
And in Shakespeare's Beatrice, from the very beginning, she was seized by a stormy animation in the game that she played with Benedict. Rise and animation were seen in everything - in the voice, in the movements, in the intonations, in the eyes. The source of this animation was a bright and deep love for Benedict.
The competition in wit, resourcefulness, in the ease of dialogue, and finally in the cunning that she developed in a duel with Benedict, were magnificent. We also saw a lot of young, beautiful, charming Beatrice, many of them were talented, brilliantly played a love game with Benedict, but there was only one difference from Fedotov's performance. Neither of them loved Benedict. Was not inspired by love.
This fact is decisive in the artistic depth, vitality of the stage image and its emotional contagion for the viewer.
Let us now try to group all the great feelings and thoughts underlying it into the center of the images of M. N. Yermolova we have listed: boundless tender love for the native land and heroic defense of the homeland in The Maid of Orleans; the same love of freedom and the call to rebellion in the "Sheep Spring"; an all-consuming passion for the stage and a quivering sense of one's own vocation in Talents and Admirers.
G. N. Fedotova bore the great suffering of a deceived woman and innocent guilt before her child. And along with this - ringing, joyful thrill of love in Beatrice.
And now let's compare all these thoughts and feelings that worried Yermolova and Fedotova with what Stanislavsky says about the most important task: “All these thoughts, feelings, life dreams, eternal torments or joys of the writer become the basis of the play: for the sake of them he takes up the pen. Transferring on the stage the feelings and thoughts of the writer, his dreams, torments and joys is the main task of the performance.
So, all these thoughts and feelings of Ostrovsky, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega found a lively response in the hearts of great actresses. This response was dictated by their time, epoch and social conditions of life, became their most exciting task!
So why do our definitions often look scholastic, dead and unexciting?
Are we afraid to play feeling? But after all, the feeling is usually played on the text, and the most important task should be in the "soul of the artist."
And the most important thing is animation, this feeling is endured, brought up and lives in the heart of the actor even before he stepped on the stage. This feeling arose from falling in love with role center, in the name of which he wanted to play her. This is his overriding task. This is what we saw in the examples given by Yermolova and Fedotova.
Negina has no monologues about her passionate love for the theater. Beatrice is in love with Benedict - in the subtext, not in the text, and the most important thing is that that the most important task is to animate the whole role, and it covers the actor even before the start of the performance.
I have not touched here on many aspects of the art of the Maly Theatre, which were unacceptable to Stanislavsky and pushed him, together with Nemirovich, to create a new theater, to search for new forms. But this inspired animation by the most important task was unshakable for Stanislavsky. This is what he took from the luminaries of the Maly Theater. It sounded on a new dramatic basis and in new forms in the best creation of his acting skills - in “Doctor Shtokman” by G. Ibsen. This inspired animation triumphed in the best performances of the Art Theater - in "The Seagull" by A.P. Chekhov and in "At the Bottom" by A.M. Gorky.
And the reverse course of recognition is interesting. Yermolova at first did not accept Chekhov's dramaturgy, but was defeated by The Seagull and Gorky's At the Bottom at the Art Theater. And this victory took place precisely because the best performances of the Art Theater answered Yermolova's slogan: "The soul asks higher." Because in the best "program" performances of the Art Theater there was not only an external, "logical" reproduction of human existence, but there was the life of the human spirit in its highest manifestation.
The loss of animation and spirituality of stage art is inevitably associated for me with the departure from the emotional element, the theater and the departure from the most important task as a practical creative concept. The super-task as a concept was most readily and quickly picked up by our theater experts and critics. In the analysis and analysis of performances and acting work, the concept of the most important task played a positive role.
In the work of directors and actors, the most important task by the will of fate often refers to declarative-theoretical attributes, because it is recognized by all that it expresses the ideological foundations of directorial activity. The super-task in the director's work gradually becomes an abstract concept of an idea, a theoretical prerequisite for the ideological and creative substantiation of a future performance.
For people who are sincerely fascinated by the teachings of Stanislavsky, such concepts as tempo-rhythm, perspective, verbal action, physical action, etc., have a specific working content. And the concept: super-tasks often does not evoke a figurative, emotional and sensual response in the heart of an actor and director. It would seem that the emotional “grain” of the image, the nature of temperament, psychophysical well-being, obsession and purposefulness of character, and, finally, through action, should inevitably be associated with it. And this is something we often do not see in performances.
When the most important task of the role does not irritate the actor's nerve, then we can assume that the system is practically decapitated, that is, it is deprived of direct meaning as a creative aid, and it is not Stanislavsky who is to blame for this, but we ourselves.
An actor animated by a super-task, as we saw in the examples of the works of M. N. Yermolova, G. N. Fedotova, K. S. Stanislavsky, inevitably and naturally embraces the entire perspective of the role, for he looks at it as if from the tower of his super-task. Here he finds the meaning and place of individual details, sees the correlation of plans, and most importantly, finds the emotional “grain” of the image, that is, its through psychophysical well-being. It comes from the center of the role, from that in the name of which the actor plays this role and what he feeds on.
A holistic stage image is a concrete embodiment of the most important task of the playwright and actor in the figurative form of acting art. And the most important task is not a speculative goal, only revealed by the mind, but, first of all, the author’s thought that captivated and excited the actor, a thought that evoked a lively, warm response in the actor’s heart.
And maybe the theoretical, dry and scientific nature of the super-task and through action arose because they were torn away from such exciting and touching concepts of the actor’s heart as through psychophysical well-being and the “grain” of the role. After all, through them the actor penetrates into the essence of the human character depicted on the stage, learns the nature of his temperament. In other words, here the actor crosses the line where he stops reasoning, and begins to feel - to worry. This artificial gap must be eliminated - then the super-task and the through action will lose their scientific character and become a sensual and emotional concept.
The main task of the performance is to convey on the stage the feelings and thoughts of the writer, his dreams, torments and joys. This main, main, all-encompassing goal, which attracts to itself all tasks without exception, evokes the creative desire of the engines of mental life and the elements of the artist's well-being, is called the super-task of the writer's work.
Everything that happens in the play, all of its separate large or small tasks, all the creative thoughts and actions of the artist, similar to the role, strive to fulfill the super-task of the play. The desire for the most important task should be continuous, continuous, passing through the entire play and role. In addition to continuity, one must distinguish the very quality and origin of such striving. The more fascinating the wrong super-task, the more it leads the artist to itself, the further he moves away from the author, from the play and the role. We also do not need a dry, rational super-task. But we need a conscious super-task coming from the mind, from an interesting creative thought. We need both an emotional super-task that excites our entire nature, and a volitional super-task that attracts our entire mental and physical being.
We need every super-task that excites the engines of mental life, the elements of the artist himself, like bread, like nourishment. Thus, it turns out that we need a super-task, similar to the thoughts of the writer, but certainly evoking a response in the human soul of the most creative artist. This is what can evoke not a formal, not a rational, but a genuine, living, human, direct experience.
The artist himself must find and love the most important task. If it is pointed out to him by others, it is necessary to carry out the super-task through oneself and be emotionally excited by it from one's own, human feeling and face.
In the difficult process of searching for and approving a super-task, the choice of its name plays an important role. The very direction and very interpretation of the work often depends on the accuracy of the title, on the effectiveness hidden in this title.
The inextricable link between the super-task and the play is organic; the super-task is taken from the very thick of the play, from its deepest recesses. Let the super-task continually remind the performer of the inner life of the role and the purpose of creativity. The artist must be busy with it throughout the performance. To forget about the most important task means to break the line of life of the play being depicted. This is a disaster for the role, and for the artist himself, and for the whole performance. Having understood the real goal of creative striving, all engines and elements rush along the path outlined by the author, towards the common, final, main goal, i.e. to the overriding task. This active, inner striving through the whole play of the engines of the mental life of the actor-role is called the through action of the actor-role. The line of through action connects together, permeates, like a thread of disparate beads, all the elements and directs them to a common super-task. From that moment on, everything serves her.
If you play without any through action, then you are not acting on the stage in the proposed circumstances and with the magical "if"; this means that you do not involve nature itself and its subconsciousness in creativity, you do not create a “life of the human spirit” role, as required by the main goal and foundations of our direction of art. Very often, when striving for the ultimate super-task, along the way you come across a secondary, unimportant actor's task. All the energy of a creative artist is given to her. Is it necessary to explain that such a replacement of a big goal by a small one is a dangerous phenomenon that distorts the entire work of an artist.
Every action meets with a reaction, and the second causes and strengthens the first. Therefore, in each piece, next to the through action, in the opposite direction, there is an oncoming, counter-through action hostile to it.
The role, put on the right rails, moves forward, expands and deepens, and, in the end, leads to inspiration.
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The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". 12 episodes. 2008 Series 1. "Cursed Years" In the first program, the author compares two performances from the era of the civil war: "Mystery - buff" by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold and the mystery "Cain" by George Byron directed by Stanislavsky. In these works, opposite aesthetic and ethical assessments of the situation that arose after the 1917 revolution were given.
Author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky. 12 episodes. 2008 Series 2. "I was late for the Racine festival" "I was late for the Racine festival." The program is dedicated to Jean Racine's play Phaedra staged at the Chamber Theater by Alexander Tairov with Alisa Koonen in the title role and the play Princess Turandot directed by Yevgeny Vakhtangov. Only two weeks separated the premieres of these two performances in the winter of 1922. Both of them, each in their own way, responded to the country's exit from the Civil War.
Author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky (Russia, 2008). 12 episodes Series 3. "Repertory Line" "Repertory Line". In the mid-1920s, the authorities gave the figures of the Soviet theater tough political guidelines. Two performances were chosen that responded differently to the turning point of time - "Armored Train 14-69" based on the play by Vsevolod Ivanov at the First Moscow Art Theater and "The Case of Sukhovo-Kobylin" at the Second Moscow Art Theater, then directed by Mikhail Chekhov.
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". (Russia 2008) 15 episodes Series 4. “The right to whisper” “The history of the Soviet theater consists of plays staged and not staged, banned, strangled by censorship. Here are two such plays of the late 1920s - "Running" by Mikhail Bulgakov and "Suicide" by Nikolai Erdman will be discussed in the program.
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". (Russia 2008) 12 episodes. Series 5. "List of Good Deeds" In this program, two performances collide and compare - "List of Good Deeds" based on the play by Yuri Olesha, staged in 1931 by Vsevolod Meyerhold and "Fear" based on the play by Alexander Afinogenov, released at the end of the same year by Stanislavsky at the Art Theater .
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". (Russia 2008) 12 episodes. Series 6. "Fire of Passion". Anna Akhmatova called 1934 "relatively vegetarian". The Soviet theater responds to a short respite with various performances, including the completely unexpected "Lady with the Camellias" (at the Meyerhold Theater) and "Anna Karenina", which at the Moscow Art Theater of the USSR. Gorky began to rehearse in 1935
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". 12 episodes. Series 7. "Thaw" The death of Stalin is a turning point in the life of the country and in the fate of the Russian stage. Anatoly Smelyansky chose two performances for this program - "The Power of Darkness" by Leo Tolstoy at the Maly Theater and "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky at the BDT. Gorky. It was in these two works by Georgy Tovstonogov and Boris Ravensky that, after a long break, the ethical motifs of the great Russian classics sounded with extraordinary artistic power.
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". 12 episodes. Series 8. “And we sowed, sowed millet” The 1960s were marked by a variety of very striking theatrical events. The author presents the play "The Good Man from Sezuan", which Yuri Lyubimov opened the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater in 1964, and the play "An Ordinary Story" in Sovremennik (play by Viktor Rozov, director Galina Volchek).
The author's program of Anatoly Smelyansky "Through action". 12 episodes. Series 9. "The Almighty God of Details" Two samples of theatrical ground of the 1970s - "Marriage" based on Gogol's play at the Malaya Bronnaya Theater and "Adult Daughter of a Young Man" based on Slavkin's play at the Moscow Drama Theater. Stanislavsky. Two performances staged by outstanding directors of different generations: Anatoly Efros and Anatoly Vasiliev.
Theme of the play
The theme of the play determines what the play will be about. At the center of any story is a hero or a group of heroes. Only a creature with human psychology can be a hero. When defining, formulating the topic, it is necessary to indicate the hero (about whom the performance is), what the hero strives for and what he does to achieve the goal.
The play “Royal Cow” is a story about a cow that wanted to bring happiness to everyone and achieved this: “The more happy people, the less dirty tricks from them” (Cow Dawn).
The idea of the performance
The idea of the performance is a universal truth, which, as a rule, does not provide enough food for fantasy. The idea of the performance is somewhat similar to the morality that the viewer must endure after watching the performance.
The main idea of this performance is that happiness is somewhere nearby, you just need to be able to consider it.
Main conflict
A conflict is a clash of parties and their interests. conceptconflict for dramaturgy is more general, it covers not only plot conflicts, but also all other aspects of the play - social, worldview, philosophical. There can be multiple conflicts in a play. The main conflict is understood as one that directly or indirectly concerns all the characters in the play. The basis for this conflict is the aspirations of the characters in the play, more precisely, the contradiction of aspirations.
From the director's point of view, the conflict is the basis of that very notorious action, which is the only true way of translating a play on stage, without which, according to Stanislavsky, there is no performance. The material, the means of expressing the director's art is wrestling. "... Conflict is the opposition of people in the struggle for their goals, interests, etc." (S. V. Klubkov).
In the play "Royal Cow" the Princess strives for changes in life, the Shepherd Phil - to stay with the princess, the maid of honor Sigismund - to stay in the palace and the Dawn Cow - to be near the Princess, the King - wants his own daughter and friend to be happy for himself, and the Guard strives to be with Sigismund. Everyone wants their own happiness.
The main conflict of the performance unfolds between the Cow Dawn and the maid of honor Sigismunda for a place next to Princess Anya. Through Sigismund, the Guardian, who loves the maid of honor, is drawn into this conflict. On the other hand, the shepherd Filya participates in the conflict as a representative of the cow and the King, who is not indifferent to the happiness of his daughter, which depends on her immediate environment. And, finally, the princess herself as a direct object of influence.
super task
The most important task is a common creative, semantic, moral and ideological goal that unites the entire production team and contributes to the creation of an artistic ensemble and a unified sound of the performance.
The super-task - in Stanislavsky's system - is the main ideological task for the sake of which the play, the actor's image and the whole performance are created. The idea in stage creativity is revealed in actions and deeds, which in their totality constitute the through action of the performance.
In Stanislavsky's methodology, the whole process of working on a play and a role is aimed at comprehending the super-task and the through action of the performance and each of the characters.
The most important task is a unifying element of the performance and moral aspirations of the participants in the performance. This is at the same time what you want to say to the viewer and life principles that are shared by the actors.
The overarching goal of the performance "Royal Cow" is to find happiness. Every person has the right to happiness, regardless of his social status and worldview. There is no general measure of happiness - it is individual, everyone is happy in their own way.
through action
Under the through action, K. S. Stanislavsky understood “an effective, inner desire through the whole play of the engines of the mental life of the artist-role ... The line of through action connects together, permeates ... all the elements and directs them to a common super-task".
A cross-cutting action is created from a long series of large tasks, each with a huge number of small tasks. Thus, the logic of all actions is combined into a single end-to-end action.
The through action of the play "Royal Cow" is the subconscious desire of all the characters to find happiness, which, oddly enough, is realized through leisure at the royal dacha as the main proposed circumstance.
Event series and action analysis
The series of events and the actions of the characters take place in the proposed circumstances. In Stanislavsky's system, the proposed circumstances are understood as the circumstances of the life of the character, proposed by the author, found by the director and created by the imagination of the actor.
The proposed circumstances induce the actor to perform certain actions that embody the image, and all of them can be concretized as a line of physical actions.
The action of our performance takes place in the garden of the royal dacha.
1. Fall of the Cow.
Initiating event The performance is the impact of the Cow on the tree, which contributed to the change in her life principles and the acquisition of the goal - happiness for everyone. The initial event is taken out of the play, we learn about it from the story of the shepherd Fili.
2. Boredom Princess.
The princess has been coming to the royal dacha for the umpteenth time, but nothing new is happening, and therefore she is terribly bored.
In this scene, a conflict occurs between the maid of honor Sigismund and the Princess, since the task of the maid of honor was to amuse the princess, and the very fact that Sigismund should amuse her already makes the Princess feel sad. The princess sends Sigismund away from herself.
3. The appearance of the Cow.
The appearance of Cow Zorka at the dacha brings revival to the boring life of the Princess. The cow interests the Princess with a story about her unusual origin: she claims that she is the daughter of the sun and that her mission is to bring happiness to everyone.
4. Indignation of the maid of honor.
In the next scene, an event takes place, from which, among other things, we learn about the Guardian's sympathy for the maid of honor. Sigismunda is outraged by the appearance of a cow in the royal dacha and the influence it has on the Princess. The princess stands up for the protection of the Cow, and the guard takes the side of the maid of honor.
5. The appearance and story of Fili.
The event of the next scene is the appearance of the shepherd Fili, who is looking for his runaway cow Zorka. From the story of Fili, it becomes clear that the Cow hit her head against a tree and ceased to adequately perceive the surrounding reality. This information, on the contrary, makes the princess even more interested in the Cow.
6. Leaving Fili in the country.
Further, the conflict between Sigismund and the Princess begins to appear, since both liked the shepherds Phil. Sigismund, by cunning, seeks to leave the cow at the dacha, so that Filya stays at the dacha with the cow.
7. Warning of Sigismund by the Guard.
From the next scene, we learn about the Guardian's feelings for Sigismund. A conflict occurs between them, since the Guard is afraid that the king will expel Sigismund from the dacha and, accordingly, deprive them of the opportunity to communicate, so he tries to set Sigismund against the Cow, and Sigismund, on the contrary, because of his feelings for Phil, seek to leave the Cow.
8. Assigning the title of “royal” to the Cow
After that, the Princess contributes to the development of the conflict between the Cow and Sigismund, promoting the Cow to the rank of royal and designating her as a more important person than the maid of honor. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the Princess requires Sigismund to teach the Cow court etiquette.
9. Search for common interests of Fili and Princess.
The next event is that Filya helps the Princess, who is tired of doing nothing, find an interesting activity. They find a common favorite thing and go to plant flowers together.
10. Approval of the influence of the Cow in the country.
Over the next few scenes, the Cow asserts its presence at the dacha. In the beginning, there is a conflict between her and the Guard, when she causes disturbances in the royal kitchen, after that between Sigismund and the Cow, who tries to force the maid of honor to milk herself. As a result of this scene, the Cow leaves the inept Sigismund to go to the milkmaids in the village.
11. Winning the attention of Fili Sigismunda.
Taking advantage of the situation, Sigismund tries to win Fili's attention. A conflict occurs between them, since Filya is not at all set up for a relationship with the maid of honor.
12. Intimidation of Fili by the Guard.
Filya shares her feelings about this situation with the Guard, who, in turn, tries to take Filya away from the maid of honor. He invites Phil to escape from the palace, trying to intimidate him with the hidden (invented by him) oddities of Sigismund. There is a conflict, since Filya is not at all inclined to leave the dacha. However, when the Guard finds out that Phil likes the Princess, he calms down.
13. Finding out the relationship between the Cow and the maid of honor.
Cow Zorka learns about Sigismund's attempts to conquer Filya. And in the next scene we observe the conflict between the Cow and the Maid of Honor, as Dawn, sensing the emerging relationship between Fili and the Princess, tries to interfere with Sigismund in her attempts regarding Fili.
14. The appearance of the King.
In the next scene, a conflict occurs between the King and the Cow who arrived at the dacha. The king is discouraged by the fact of the appearance of a cow in the country and her familiar attitude towards him. However, in the course of the next scene, he becomes interested in Zorka, as she knows how to play checkers and has a beneficial effect on the king's daughter, the Princess.
15. Accusation of the Cow by Sigismund.
The following events take place at the same royal dacha a week later. Sigismund is brought to a critical state by the behavior of the Cow and is conducting an intrigue, accusing the Cow of eating the king's favorite roses, thereby seeking to remove the Cow from the palace, leaving Fily with him. This - main event plays.
16. Finding out the true culprit.
The king arranges judgment. Sigizumunda's intrigue fails, because in the course of the proceedings it turns out that it was she who cut off the roses, trying to shift the blame on the Cow. The conflict begins between Korova and Sigismund, but in the course of the proceedings, everyone is drawn into it.
17. The guard takes the blame.
Seeing the hopeless situation of Sigismund, the Guard takes the blame.
18. Coming up with a punishment for Sigismunda.
Sigismunda admits her guilt and asks to marry her to the shepherd Phil. Everyone is outraged by this. The cow offers to marry her to another shepherd. Sigismunda faints and the Guard carries her away.
19. Assigning a princely title to Phil.
The cow seeks to arrange the happiness of the Princess and Fili, for this she tries to convince the King that the shepherd must be made a prince so that he can marry the Princess. The king is outraged by this proposal. The princess, already fully aware of her feelings for Phil, promises her father to become a shepherdess. The king, wanting to keep his daughter by his side, signs a decree conferring the title of Prince on Phil.
20. Revealing the maid of honor's dream.
Having arranged the happiness of Fili and the Princess, the Cow intervenes in the conflict between the Guard and Sigismunda, trying to draw the attention of the maid of honor to him. The cow learns about Sigismund's superstitious dream: to marry a baronet with a scar on his forehead.
21. Changing the image of the Guard
The cow asks the King for a baronetcy for the Guardian and beats the Guardian, scarring his forehead, forcing him to take off his helmet. Thus, the Cow changes the image of the Guard in the eyes of the maid of honor.
Throughout the unfolding of this situation, a series of small-scale conflicts occur - between the Cow and the King for the baronetcy for the Guardian, between the Guardian and the Cow at the time of scarring.
As a result, the Guard and Sigismund find each other.
22. Finding happiness by the Cow.
The last event of the play is the confrontation between all the characters and the Cow. Zorka seeks to find happiness for herself, for which she tries to go to India for the sacred bull, everyone else is trying to persuade her not to leave them, offering various options for solving the problem. In the process of this event, it becomes obvious that everyone has become not only happy, but also helps others to find happiness. The cow easily agrees to the proposal of the King to marry the bull Fire, which the King declared royal by his decree.
The last event reflects the complete achievement of his goal by the main character: all the heroes became not only happy, but also learned to bring happiness to others. This event is the execution supertasks of the performance .
On the through action of K.S. Stanislavsky writes as follows: “The effective, inner striving through the whole play of the engines of the mental life of the artist-role we call in our language “the through action of the artist-role” [...] The line of through action unites, pierces, like a thread, scattered beads, all elements and directs them to a common super-task.
So,a single action directed towards a super-task, K.S. Stanislavsky callsthrough action.
The through action in the performance arises before our eyes. This is what the viewer should watch for. This is the realization of the conflict of the play through an event-effective series. In the definition of the through action of the work, there is always the word “struggle” for something, for the sake of something. For an actor, a correctly found through action gives rise to a true sense of well-being. If there were no through action, all the pieces and tasks of the play, all the proposed circumstances, communication, adaptations, moments of truth and faith, and so on, would vegetate apart from each other, without any hope of coming to life.
The overriding task is desire. A through action is aspiration. Doing it is an action.
The through action of the performance is to rescue the Snow Maiden from captivity, so that the New Year would come for everyone.
Counteraction - a psychophysical reaction to a hostile or hostile attitude towards the protagonist, which in the system of plot development represents one of the opposing sides.
Each through action in an organic work of art has its own counter-action, which reinforces the through action.
Stanislavsky writes: “If there were no counter-through action in the play and everything would be arranged by itself, then the performers and those persons whom they portray would have nothing to do on the stage, and the play itself would become inactive and therefore unstaged.”
Counteraction in the play - Prevent the release of the Snow Maiden, thereby disrupting the holiday.
Interpretation of the main images of the play and their clash in the main conflict
Actor - this is a character in a work, a play that participates in the development of the plot andreveals his character directly in psychophysical and verbal action.
There are twelve main characters in the play “Masha and Vitya vs. Wild Guitars”: the most ordinary Sorceress, elementary school students Masha and Vitya, the kind wizard Santa Claus and his granddaughter Snegurochka. Inhabitants of the fairy forest - Old man-forester, stove, apple tree. And also, holding the whole forest in fear, the rock band "Wild Guitars" consisting of: the cunning and hypocritical Baba Yaga, the very Wild Cat Matvey, the simple-minded and stupid Goblin. Crowns the list of evil spirits - the main villain - Koschey.
Masha 10 years old, elementary school student. A kind, sympathetic girl who believes in fairy tales, at the same time, at the beginning of a fairy tale, she is boorish, self-confident. After a dispute with Vitya, as proof that fairy tales and magic exist, he revives the toy Santa Claus. Once in a fairy forest, he extends a helping hand to "everyone who is waiting for help." Her task is to prove to Vita that friendship and kindness work wonders, and of course, to save the Snow Maiden. “It was because everyone helped you because you are kind and sympathetic. That's how it should be."
Vitya- 10 years old, elementary school student. Consistent, reasonable and cautious boy. “I have been interested in science and technology since childhood.” He considers fairy tales fiction, which is not worth wasting time on. But as a person with an inquisitive mind, he goes into a fairy tale with Masha to be not only her protector, but also to conduct a study - is there magic in the world. Encountering various difficulties on the way, he overcomes them with the help of "gadgets" that he makes right on the spot.
Father Frost- Good fairy tale character. Kind, but cunning. Sends schoolchildren to the fairy forest, where the Kingdom of Koshchei is located. There, the Snow Maiden languishes in captivity. Santa Claus is confident in the victory of the guys, because for this they have everything - courage, kindness, ingenuity.
Snow Maiden Granddaughter of Santa Claus. Kidnapped by Koshchey to celebrate the New Year with forest evil spirits. And here's the trouble: without it, the New Year will never come to the guys.
Enchantress- the most common sorceress. Creates stories and then tells them. And before that, she magically turns out that she herself can not believe it. Introduces us to the main characters of the fairy tale, determines their conflict. But even she does not know how the fairy tale will end ...
Baba Yaga, Goblin, Wild Cat Matvey- the unclean power of the fairy forest. Creative guys. They organized the rock group "Wild Guitars". Having learned that Koschey has kidnapped the Snow Maiden, and is planning a New Year's Eve, they are preparing to perform songs at the celebration. However, schoolchildren interfere with their plans. The evil spirits take turns trying to defeat their friends, but they are defeated.
Baba Yaga- a cunning, deceitful intriguer.
Goblin- a weak character, inhibited, "offended by fate" mattress.
Wild Cat Matvey- self-confident, "eternally hungry" hooligan.
Koschei the Deathless- the main villain of the fairy forest. A crafty intriguer, cleaner than Baba Yaga, "the master of life." By cunning, he lured the Snow Maiden into his Kingdom. He is ready to fight to the last - he is sure of his victory, although he has not had fighters for a long time.
Stove, Apple tree, Old Man-Lesovichok- inhabitants of the fairy forest. Very trusting and kind characters. They pay good for good - they help schoolchildren find their way to the Kingdom of Koshchei.
