“Stanislavsky’s ruined my play.”
Chekhov wrote that about the Moscow Art Theater actor/director who directed and starred in all of his plays. Meyerhold, the Moscow Art Theater’s next famous actor/director agreed with Chekhov after seeing The Cherry Orchard. “….the naturalistic director, profoundly analyzing each separate part of a work, does not see a picture as a whole; fascinated by his filigree work…in the Moscow Art Theater the characters of The Cherry Orchard became real and the mystical lyricism was lost.”
Meyerhold has a variety of bones to pick with naturalism. The idea that the stuff on stage doesn’t just take the audience’s attention - but the actor’s! and a director’s! is new to me. This perspective as an actor first, director next, and audience member last is so rare.
We look where the lighting designer looks - that I know.
We look where the actors look - that one is more subtle, but obvious once you are aware.
We look where the directors look. That’s the unconscious stuff.
So few of us are capable lead performers. The carry a show kind of performer. …because it is hard. I trust that both of those awesome performers had a handle on the unconscious stuff that gave them the power to communicate with the audience. Stanislavski seemed to advocate for all of the stuff as a necessity for delivering a powerful performance. Meyerhold says that the stuff interfered with the performance. Reviewers seemed to love them both.
“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first act that there is a gun hanging on the wall, in the second or third act it must go off. If not, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” That’s the Chekhov’s gun quote that is the most specific about props being an extraneous stuff problem. Chekhov was not a performer (but married a very good one). Was one of his problems with stuff the attention of the actor/directors?…I will have to keep reading those thousands of letters before I can report back….
The debate of how much “business” is important for this show, and therefore, how many props continued that whole century. Peter Brooks and Peter Stein did the big productions in the 1980’s and 1990’s - and they were vocal about their difference of opinion. Brook - simple, less business, few props, no walls, no orchard; Stein - ornate, all the business, all the props, all the walls with all of the moulding, and 2 orchards.
orchard, or no. teacup, or no. I think we all would have loved each of those productions. We could even end with the Jaime Lloyd no-nothing production, and loved that one, too. They all got a big response from their audiences because those teams were working in the vernacular that works best for them.
Is Stanislavsky, king of naturalism, still taught in acting programs because all the action and the things really do help? Do we call them props because they are propping up a performance? Acting is very hard. It takes a lifetime of training, months of preparation and magical levels of self-control to drop into a character. Give a girl a teacup for goodness sake.
Whatever helps the actor, whether it is focusing the eye by standing in a void, or giving them pockets and cigarettes so they never have to think about their hands - is probably worth the effort. The actor, and the director, in the moment can probably determine how much business and how much stuff is best.
I am interested in the schlock and the stuff for other reasons, I will go into tomorrow. In the meantime, please take a look at the modern master of the schlocky stuff set design’s take on The Cherry Orchard. Santo Loquasto did the set and costumes…that’s Meryl Streep as the maid (Chekhov’s favorite part that he wrote for his wife) and Diane Lane lingering in the background as an understudy (she would play the lead on Broadway 4 decades later). Actors love Santo. He puts the right books in the bookshelf and always gives folks cigarettes and pockets.