Video installation

An installation based on the work and collaboration between Chekhov and Stanislavsky.

We asked several actors to prepare a Chekhov scene of their choice. No directing advice was given. We treat their take on the text as the first step in the work on the character; in that sense, their acting is closer to a rehearsal setup than to a final stage interpretation. We are not assuming that the actors are using the Stanislavsky method, although it is hard to find actors who do not use some elements of the system in their work.

The origins of Stanislavsky’s system are in naturalism, positivism, even Marxism, photography, Darwin, electricity… Realism became “natural”; the subtext idea promised that we could discover everything within the ordinary. Everybody loves Chekhov puts the ‘scientific’ approach to acting to the test. Can acting be measured? Can it be corrected via studies and observations? Can a simple examination of the actor’s work – facial expressions, voice projection, stress, and relaxation, to name just a few parameters – lead us to a better understanding of the actor’s actions and how they can be “corrected”? The answer is “yes”: some simple observations into the actors’ work can be corrected fairly fast; and the answer is “no”: corrected according to which reality? Further studies will have to be conducted…

With: Alexander Braunshör, Michaela Hurdes-Galli, Jutta Schwarz a.o.

brut Wien/ Nov 25 – 29, 2009