Active Analysis for Beginning Acting Students: A Class Blueprint

ABSTRACT

Stanislavsky’s latter practice known today as Active Analysis is a powerful tool for quickly integrating the givens of a script into an actor’s body. Learning the tool can be anxiety-inducing for beginning actors as they cannot rely on a script in hand. This essay outlines the scaffolding techniques I’ve developed to serve as stepping stones while students explore the freedoms that Active Analysis offers, curtailing anxiety and streamlining the embodiment of the role. These practices also promote bell hooks' calls for focus on the “self-actualization” of students and help create Stanislavsky’s desired “actor-creators.”

KEYWORDS:

• Active Analysis
• counteraction
• acting
• directing
• Stanislavsky
• embodiment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I wrote about this experience, focusing on the reasons this technique works well from acognitive science perspective, in the Stanislavski Studies article “Page – Body – Performance:A Journey into Active Analysis and How it Helps the Actor’s Body Learn.” See Bibliography for details.

2. Carnicke, Dynamic Acting, 42, 87, 126.

3. Stanislavsky quoted in Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 154.

4. Maria Shevtsova convincingly argues that indeed the experimentation with the Method of Physical Action began in earnest with Stanislavsky’s work in opera: “Stanislavsky and Leonidov’s work on Othello had established a substantial forerunner of the ‘method of physical action’ on which Stanislavsky was, opportunely, able to concentrate in the Opera-Dramatic Studio.” Shevtsova, “Music, Singing, Word, Action,” 10.

5. Knebel, Active Analysis, 189.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., 32.

8. Ibid., 40.

9. Ibid., 32.

10. Ibid., 43.

11. Ibid., 191.

12. Merlin, Beyond Stanislavsky, 17–9, 205–6; Carnicke, Dynamic Acting, 74–89.

13. Thomas, Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis, 32–7.

14. This doesn’t mean we cannot work on scenes that contain Sexual Intimacy; it means that I will stage it in a way that lies within their personal boundaries and doesn’t require mouth to mouth contact.

15. I write in detail about scaffolding Consent and Staged Sexual Intimacy practices into a beginning acting class in the forthcoming Critical Acting Pedagogies: Shifting Epistemologies with Intersectional Approaches, edited by Lisa Peck and Evi Stamatiou.

16. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 21 and 156.

17. Ibid., 195.

18. Knebel, Active Analysis, 27–8.

19. Luckett and Shaffer, Black Acting Methods, 3.

20. Ibid., 90.

21. Skulmowski and Rey, “Measuring Cognitive Load,” 1–6.

22. Hausfather, “Vygotsky and Schooling,” 1–10.

23. See especially Teaching to Transgress.

24. Mitchell, The Director’s Craft, 175–6.

25. Merlin, Facing the Fear, 16, 36–9.

26. For a deep dive into the cognition of fear and embarrassment in acting, see my chapter “Stanislavsky and Intimacy: The Brain-Body Responds” in Stanislavsky and Intimacy, released in November 2023 as part of the Stanislavsky and … series.

27. Although in class we also include additional exercises and practices that round out actor training, this essay only focuses on scaffolding Active Analysis.

28. Shevtsova, “Music, Singing, Word, Action,” 11 (emphasis added).

29. Maria Knebel asserts as follows: “There was a particular thread running through Stanislavski’s life: the dreams of a fully conscious actor, an actor-creator, capable of interpreting the play independently and of taking effective actions in the play’s given circumstances.” Knebel, Active Analysis, 27–8.

30. Cohen, Acting One, 21–4.

31. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 181. Carnicke explains that zadacha can be defined as either “task” or “problem.”

32. Carnicke, Dynamic Acting, xiv.

33. I use variations of common acting terms interchangeably so students will recognize them outside of class if needed. If students wish to explore the terminology more deeply, I offer readings on the specific differences. These include sources like Gillett, Acting Stanislavski; Merlin, The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit; Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus; and Shevtsova, Stanislavsky Rediscovered.

34. Carnicke, Dynamic Acting, 73–4.

35. Ibid., 73–4. Carnicke likes to use “counteraction” instead of “obstacle” because the forces may not be in direct opposition, but the characters may have “wants” that simply alter the main action in some way.

36. Interestingly, at the start of the analysis most students tend to refer to the characters as he/him regardless of their own gender expression. They switch to the pronouns they use as we work.

37. The large poster-paper for “Facts” and “Events” is another Katie Mitchell practice.

38. Arp-Dunham, “Page – Body – Performance,” 49–53.

39. Massaro, “Multimodal Learning,” np.

40. Carnicke, Active Analysis, 104.

41. I participated in French’s ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education) pre-conference workshop in 2016, where she introduced the idea of using sculptures to break down the play structure with student actors.

42. Stanislavski, An Actor’s Work, 312.

43. Knebel, Active Analysis, 52.

44. Ibid., 105.

45. Bella Merlin outlined using a score in Active Analysis in a similar way: “A score of physical actions is discovered through improvisations; it is noted, repeated and tested for usefulness or truth, and retained or rejected accordingly.” Merlin, Beyond Stanislavsky, 206.

46. Stanislavsky basically side-coached the Active Analysis of the entire rehearsal for his production of Othello (Knebel, Active Analysis, 83). Since we have many groups doing études at once, and these students need to have a clear understanding of structure in preparation for future classes, I find the charts to work really well instead.

47. Merlin, Facing the Fear, 26–9.

48. Some of these students have never performed anything memorized in a public space before. Having the crutch of calling for a line available allows them to focus on their scene partner rather than on what line comes next.

49. See Staging Sex by Chelsea Pace for some examples of effective boundary communication tools.

50. See my article “Page – Body – Performance” for a deeper look into the cognitive effects of holding scripts when trying to act.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joelle Ré Arp-Dunham

Dr. Joelle Ré Arp-Dunham is a director, actor, consent and staged intimacy professional, scholar, and educator in both theatre and film. Her primary scholarly and embodied interests include how the cognitive sciences may lead to new pedagogical strategies in directing and acting that help create safer, braver, and more creative spaces for the entire production team. She currently teaches Directing, Acting, Voice, Devising, and Consent and Staged Sexual Intimacy classes at Kansas State University. She served as the Producing Artistic Director of the Circle Ensemble Theatre Company in Athens, Georgia for 8 years, has directed over 50 productions and acted throughout the east coast. Dr. Arp-Dunham is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and currently serves as the Focus Group Representative for the Directing Program of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), as the Social Media Editor for the international journal Stanislavski Studies, and on the editorial board of The Journal of Consent-based Performance. Dr. Arp-Dunham is the editor of Stanislavsky and Intimacy, part of the Stanislavsky and… series.