The lived experience of actor training: Perezhivanie - A literature review

Abstract

This paper examines definitions of the lived experience through a literature review that focusses the lens on both Vygotsky’s and Stanislavski’s considerations of the lived experience, or in the original Russian perezhivanie. This literature review seeks to establish both the distinction between the use of the term by the practitioners in the context of their respective fields, as well as to present the links between the rendering of the theory of perezhivanie as relevant in a contemporary creative performer training learning environment. The etymology of the term perezhivanie is investigated and contextual historical readings of the term perezhivanie are presented, with connections made between the practice of the teacher in the learning environment of the actor and the teacher’s interaction with the lived experience of the student actor engaging in a creative process.

Keywords:

• Perezhivanie
• pedagogy
• Vygotsky
• Stanislavski

Introduction

In order to examine the lived experience of contemporary Western actor training, it is first necessary to foreground and contextualise the definition of the term ‘lived experience’ through a review of the literature surrounding this term in relation to the fields of education and actor training. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky and acting practitioner Constantin Stanislavski have both examined and considered the role of the lived experience upon learner and actor. Mok (2017) highlights the uncertainty as to the direct influence and connection between the parallel research of Vygotsky and Stanislavski (Mok, 2017, p. 21) as both men worked at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia, but Mok is certain that Vygotsky would have been familiar with Stanislavski’s work (Mok, 2017, p. 21).

The nuance and complexity of the notion of the lived experience in the wide variety of meanings ascribed to it (Weinbren, 2020, p. 136) and utilised by the two practitioners is acknowledged here and approached as a concept which ‘ostensibly unifies emotion and cognition, and the individual with their environment’ (Mok, 2017, p. 20). The link between the work of Vygotsky and Stanislavski, ‘at least historical if not conceptual’ (Mok, 2017, p. 21), is dialogic (Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 410); Vygotsky approached his consideration of the lived experience through the lens of ‘holistic and synchronic’ (Mok, 2017, p. 27) personal development, validating the actor’s ability to utilise emotions as part of their creative process (Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 414) and Stanislavski sought to understand the actor’s emotional process of creating a character (Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 409) as a technical and creative endeavour. Capucci and Silva, quoting Vygotsky, underline the importance of understanding the essential and inseparable nature of the arts within social development (2017, p. 413) and vice versa:

The actor’s feelings cannot be analyzed from only one point of view of the individual experience, but from its function in a certain time and class, within the same scenario in which the audience’s aesthetic perezhivanie also has a place.

(Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 415)

It is the link between Vygotsky and Stanislavski’s articulations of the concept of the lived experience, or in the original Russian perezhivanie, that is of interest to this study, as Capucci and Silva deftly express, ‘in order to open a differentiated view on the dramatic constitution of human consciousness’ (Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 418). It is recognised here that a multitude of acting practitioners who followed Stanislavski have since contributed insight as to the perspectives of the experience of the actor. However, these are not explored within the scope of this literature review as it is specifically the work of Stanislavski that has defined and articulated the lived experience of the actor in training as perezhivanie within the psycho-physical practice of the actor.

This literature review seeks to establish both the distinction between the use of the term by the practitioners in the context of their respective fields, as well as to present the links between the rendering of the theory of perezhivanie as relevant in a contemporary creative performer training learning environment as an in-the-moment tool for understanding, as opposed to the after the fact reflection allowed by experience in hindsight. This is pursued by outlining first the etymology of the term perezhivanie. Subsequently, this literature review then provides an overview of Vygotsky’s psychological studies relating to creativity, linking on then to Stanislavski’s examination of the actor’s creation of the lived experience of a character. Contextual historical readings of the term perezhivanie are presented and connections made between the practice of the teacher in the learning environment of the actor and the teacher’s interaction with the lived experience of the student actor engaging in a creative process.

Vygotsky’s perezhivanie: Etymology

A core tenet of the theories of Vygotsky, the term perezhivanie lacks a direct English equivalent (Blunden, 2016b, p. 274) and is understood and interpreted in a myriad of ways in translation (Blunden, 2016a, p. 272), from active experience to emotional understanding. Michell cogently describes the original clinical perspective of perezhivanie presented by Vygotsky thus:

As Vygotsky’s (1935/1994a) ‘straightforward’ (p. 340) clinical case of three brothers living with an alcoholic mother (pp. 339–3341) is the only example of diagnostic practice involving perezhivanie available to us, close analysis is warranted. Vygotsky describes the nature, role, and influence of perezhivanie in the reaction and development of three children who experienced the same external situation (an alcoholic, violent mother) but whose perceptions of this environment fundamentally differed according to their personal needs and social position in the family. The psychological impact of this situation on the youngest child was terror, depression, and helplessness; for the middle child, hate-attachment characterised by internal conflict and contradictory behaviour; while the oldest child, understanding his mother’s illness and the need to protect his younger siblings, developed a maturity and seriousness beyond his years. The cases illustrated that, although the boys experienced the same family environment (social situation), because of their different individual perezhivanie, they each experience an entirely different and unique social situation of development.

(Michell, 2016, p. 13)

Although Vygotsky’s example described by Michell above is a clinical example of the impact of the lived experience upon the social development of individuals, as will be discussed here, this can be and indeed has been extrapolated across broader contexts with particular relevance to educational settings, acknowledging and accounting for the social emotional aspects of learning.

Michell (Michell, 2016, p. 15) reminds us of Vygotsky’s presentation of the concept as a prism through which intellectual perceptions of environment are refracted as a person makes sense of their environment and consequently interprets their experiences (Michell, 2016, p. 17). Blunden reminds us that it is important to acknowledge that Vygotsky did not invent the phrase perezhivanie or its use and that an understanding would be inherent for native Russian speakers. However, Blunden does acknowledge that the evolved comprehension of the term as a psychological theory is more complex and nuanced (Blunden, 2016b, p. 274). Blunden offers an overview of perspectives drawn from existing literature at the time, iterating the complexity of both the term and the concept. Quoting Vygotsky, Blunden states:

in a perezhivanie we are always dealing with an indivisible unity of personal characteristics and situational characteristics, which are represented in the perezhivanie.

(Vygotsky in Blunden, 2016a, p. 2016)

Blunden proposes that perezhivaniya, when approached as a function of ontogenetic psychology, can be considered in distinct and differentiated ways. Clara also acknowledges the ambiguity that surrounds the term and points out that the translation of the word itself has been ‘widely noted and discussed by Western scholars’ (Clara, 2016a, p. 285). Clara identifies Vygotsky’s use of the phrase as rooted in meaning, rather than activity, emphasising the meaning that situations have when they influence learners as distinct individuals with reactions and responses peculiar to themselves (Clara, 2016a, p. 287).

Clara articulates the view of the original translation of the phrase perezhivanie to English as emotional experience as being problematic, preferring a more holistic interpretation that captures the whole situation. Clara dives further into the lack of clarity surrounding the term perezhivanie, proposing that this very lack of specificity is what enabled the development of the theory’s adoption and popularism (Clara 2016b, p. 339) but is of the view that precision is now required to propel the continued evolution of the concept. Summarising his pursuit of ‘conceptual precision’ (Clara, 2016b, p. 342) in relation to a commonly agreed interpretation of the word perezhivanie, Clara represents his understanding of the term as a ‘unit of consciousness [with] environmental and personal characteristics’ (Clara, 2016b, p. 341) as a plural unity.

Within the same edition in a separate article, Blunden explores the ‘unity of personal characteristics and situational characteristics [as] the relation’ (Blunden, 2016b, p. 278), and therefore defines perezhivaniya as both subjective and objective as they capture the individual, the environment, as well as influence of and interaction with wider contributing factors. As Blunden articulates, ‘Vygotsky takes personality and knowledge to be something actively constructed by the subject’ (Blunden, 2016b, p. 275). Such a consideration also accounts for the transformational impact of the environment upon the individual with outcomes that arise from the person as part of the situation, as opposed to the effect of inherited, genetic traits (Blunden, 2016b, p. 2017). Horta Nogueira elaborates:

This Vygotskian concept, understood as emotional experience or lived experience, explains how the same objective situation or experience can be experienced, perceived, and interpreted by the persons in different manners – ‘each event or situation has a different effect on behavior depending on how each person understands it’.

(Horta Nogueira, 2014, p. 50)

Investigating emotion causation from a Vygotskian perspective, Clara defines emotion as ‘autonomic physiological responses’ (Clara, 2015, p. 39) and hypothesises the causation of feeling as being linked to the interrelation of the agency of subject and object acting in a transformational manner with one another, simultaneously cognitively and emotionally (Clara, 2015, p. 49). Clara writes that emotion may also be unconsciously experienced but can be ‘made conscious by directing the subject’s attention toward the emotional state’ (Clara, 2015, p. 50). This unity of cognition and emotion is key:

Vygotsky insists that education that focuses on the mind to the detriment of the emotional component of one’s personality cannot be successful.

(Lantolf & Swain, 2019, p. 529)

Blunden argues for an understanding of the term perezhivanie that includes comprehension of experiential processes and assimilatory processing (Blunden, 2016b, p. 276). The qualifying of the term in translation to English as a mass noun is, to Blunden, an over-simplification of a distinct articulation that is separate to experience as practice (Blunden, 2016b, p. 275). Blunden provides an etymological analysis of the term, exploring the linguistic roots as based in a cathartic over-living (Blunden, 2016b, pp. 276–277), not as a traumatic re-living, but as an onwardly developmental possibility beginning ‘in a moment of especial clarity’ (Blunden, 2016b, p. 276):

Perezhivaniya have a beginning, a middle, and an end; they are events, episodes, activities, happenings or experiences in which people are active participants.

(Blunden, 2016b, p. 275)

Gonzalez Rey discusses the gaps and contradictions in Vygotsky’s perezhivanie, stating that ‘Vygotsky utilized perezhivanie in a slightly different way from how the word was understood in Russian’, distinguishing it from emotion (Gonzalez Rey, 2016, p. 306). Whilst highlighting the difficulties arising from the vagueness of its definition, here Gonzalez Rey states that ‘Ultimately, I do not believe that perezhivanie is a useful concept for psychology, although it retains great importance in the history of cultural-historical psychology’ (Gonzalez Rey, 2016, p. 311). Gonzalez Rey (2016, p. 313) asserts that perezhivanie is important today only for its historical impact on the field and that Vygotsky’s unfinished work on the concept leaves it insufficiently developed for useful consideration in contemporary psychology, a perspective not shared Fakhrutdinova (2010), or this author.

Fakhrutdinova emphasises the importance of nuanced reflection in understanding the complexity of the elevated human experience and presents a hierarchy of reflection and concurs with Gonzalez Rey, 2018 assertion of the notion of a ‘dialectic unity […] between the interacting subjective and objective principles of the mind’ (Fakhrutdinova, 2010, p. 36). Poole interprets subjectivity as an unconscious underlying internalised systemic unit that includes ‘contradictions, ambiguities, and reciprocal tension’ (Poole, 2020, p. 409). Connecting inner speech and non-verbal thought with language and speech within a plane of consciousness, Barrs (2016) establishes that this plane is a continuum (Barrs, 2016, p. 248) whereby thinking transforms into consciousness and codifications and signals are regularly transformed via a ‘constant and dynamic interchange’ (Barrs, 2016, p. 249) between cognition and emotion.

Psychology of art

In Souza’s opinion, emotion is the framework of the notion of perezhivanie (2018, p. 337), expressing the view that the emotional aspects of the concept have long gone overlooked. Discussing Vygotsky’s 1925 doctoral thesis Psicologia da Arte, bringing together the theoretical fields of the arts and psychology through the lens of examining the social being, Souza articulates that Vygotsky’s work characterised ‘a powerful mediation between man’s reality and himself’ (Souza, 2018, p. 336). Of note here is Souza’s assertion that

in contact with an artistic production, the subjects experience situations and/or phenomena expressed in it which, as such, do not belong to the subjects or to their reality. However, subjects experience their real emotions and feelings through art. […] This is because art does not express life, or phenomena as they present themselves, but it focuses on the same foundations and aspects [affirming] the dialectical character of the artistic expression […] between the represented and the representation.

(Souza, 2018, p. 337)

Giving consideration to the theory of subjectivity and dialogic emotion in relation to Vygotsky’s The Psychology of Art, acknowledging the political reading of the text and recognising the nature of performance as a social cultural phenomenon, Larrain and Haye detail Vygotsky’s consideration of the audience’s experience as a social technique (Larrain & Haye, 2020, p. 802), positing that the socio-historic semiotic of creativity is why art possesses an experiential impact (Larrain & Haye, 2020, pp. 804–805). Kozulin, when writing the conclusion ‘The Mystery of Perezhivanie’ to a special edition of Mind, Culture, and Activity, considers the perspective of the audience relationship when watching (experiencing) a performance and thus recognises this crossover to the world of performance:

Theatre performance makes use of some of the same properties of perezhivanie. It is not that we observe the behavior of actors and the shape of stage sets, we actually experience (perezhivaem) this theatrical reality. When the performance is poor, the act of perezhivanie fails to take place and we actually just observe people moving on the stage against the painted panels.

(Kozulin, 2016, p. 357)

In order to ‘preserve its theoretical potential’ (2016, p. 356) Kozulin calls for the limits of application of the concept to be determined. Kozulin articulates the difference between the theoretical consideration of the concept of perezhivaniya as it specifically relates to childhood developmental psychology where ‘development is associated with socioculturally constructed leading activities’ (Kozulin, 2016, p. 357) and the more generic application to account for ‘human experience and emotions’ (Kozulin, 2016, p. 365).

The importance of emotion as interwoven with cognition within the creative process by Vygotsky is integral to his work on both perezhivanie and catharsis (Marjanovic-Shane et al., 2010, p. 224). Vygotsky’s perspective on the impact of art and cultural activity, Larrain and Haye propose, extends beyond catharsis as a physical effect toward a transformative reorganisation of emotional social processes. Capucci and Silva concur with this finding, proceeding to cite Vygotsky’s conceptualisation of catharsis as contradicting that of Aristotle’s experience of catharsis as purifying (2017, p. 414). Smagorinsky also gives comment to Vygotsky’s use of Aristotle’s, detailing the process of catharsis as a transactional experience requiring connective empathy, detailing the centrality of both emotions and imagination in elevating an affective response (Smagorinsky, 2011, pp. 332–333). Importantly Smagorinsky is clear that Vygotsky was narrow in his consideration of an acceptable canon of art, rejecting a ‘democratic view of art’ (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 328), delineating the populist receipt of art from the expression of the professional artist:

Cultural frameworks are inherently ideological, enabling dominant groups to assert their authority over others by establishing the standards by which all public works are evaluated.

(Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 329)

Such a potentially reductive perspective, Smagorinsky counters, is a limitation that must be addressed by twenty-first century scholars encountering and working with Vygotsky’s theories and assertions. Sobkin notes the background against which Vygotsky was conducting his research thus:

He conducted that intense dialogue amid postrevolutionary Russia’s enormously powerful sociocultural shifts and transformations.

(Sobkin, 2017, p. 96)

Gonzalez Rey establishes The Psychology of Art as a ‘still unexplored text’ (Gonzalez Rey, 2018, p. 339) in spite of its creation in the first part of the twentieth century. In the view of Gonzalez Rey, this is due to the politically driven dismissal of the work (Gonzalez Rey, 2018, p. 345) as an ‘immature’ notion under Soviet leadership (Gonzalez Rey, 2018, p. 340) leading to its consequential exclusion from Vygotsky’s canon. Morozov draws upon their understanding of Vygotsky’s methodology and applies a Marxist lens to their analysis (2017, p. 66), giving particular attention to the understanding of work. Here a separation is articulated between a contemporary understanding of labour as part of a ‘consumer society […] for money’ (2017, p. 73) and Marxist readings. Morozov defines such a Marxist interpretation as a ‘process of transformation’ (2017, p. 73) resulting from everyday activity, proposing that this too was the perspective from which Vygotsky wrote (2017, p. 74). Emphasising the indivisible connection between an individual and their environment (2017, p. 71), Morozov presents Vygotsky’s work on perezhivanie as a scientific consideration belonging to the natural sciences, but distinct from biology (2017, p. 68). By identifying the organic nature of psychology as social-cultural behaviour (2017, p. 68) ‘“saturated” with a person’s emotions’ (2017, p. 72), Morozov asserts that an individual is both unique (217, p. 75) and connected through social interactions and influence (2017, p. 71).

Perezhivanie and the creative learner

Asserting that although lived experience can be perceived from an objective perspective of how a single person experiences something, there is greater nuance to be accounted for. Importantly Gonzalez Rey underlines subjectivity of human objectivity (Gonzalez Rey, 2018, p. 343) and the unconscious nature of creative emotional functions and motivations in art, linked definably to action (Gonzalez Rey, 2018, p. 340). Blunden makes a convincing argument for a subjective understanding of the wider context of the moment and the people both within it and interacting with it (Blunden, 2016b, p. 279). Here Blunden draws parallels between the definition of Vygotsky’s perezhivaniya and the practical systems of Russian actor training practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski. In the article ‘Translating Perezhivanie into English’, Blunden finds synergies in Stanislavski’s practice of uniting texts into moments that can be analysed as parts of a greater whole:

The actor must draw on his or her own life experiences to be able to reproduce the outward forms of perezhivaniya onstage and allow the audience to share them. Stanislavskii [sic] insists that each unit has to make sense in terms of the dramatic objective of the play as a whole. This surely suggests the idea of perezhivaniya as units of analysis of a really lived life.

(Blunden, 2016b, p. 280)

The view of perezhivaniya as ‘units of our autobiography’ (Blunden, 2016b, p. 282) is tremendously constructive in scaffolding an appreciation of the use of the term to mean a lived experience that has applications toward the field of acting and actor training. Carnicke proposes that the now traditionally held view of Stanislavski is coloured by Western and Soviet political influences of the twentieth century (Carnicke, 2009, p. 3). As with Vygotsky’s use of perezhivanie, Carnicke acknowledges that Russian actors and academics equally contemplate the ambiguity of Stanislavski’s use of the phrase perezhivanie and notes the absence of the term from Western consideration through the twentieth century, substituting instead a preoccupation with ‘realism and truth’ as the prevailing core tenet of Stanislavski’s work (Carnicke, 2009, p. 131). This link with truth has since potentially rendered Stanislavski’s work as outmoded in an era that understands phenomenology and paradigms of thought (Carnicke, 2009, p. 146).

Linking perezhivanie phenomenological understanding, Moran, reflecting on Vygotsky’s perezhivanie states:

[…] each of us will feel or understand the same event in different ways. Because our internalization of existing cultural resources does not create exact replicas of information in each person’s mind, considerable variation in understandings entails.

(Moran et al., 2010, p. 143)

Carnicke attributes responsibility for this direction of understanding with early translations of Stanislavski’s work, which in her view erased Stanislavski’s intended definition from his own work (Carnicke, 2009, p. 132). Moving away from these misconceived traditions and placing Stanislavski’s work as a still relevant approach (Carnicke, 2009, p. 147) Carnicke centres the reader on a more balanced understanding of the practitioner’s techniques and renowned system of acting. Key elements drawn out by Carnicke are the nature of playing a performance moment-to-moment, the dual-consciousness of the actor, eschewing notions of the actor becoming lost in a role, but retaining critical awareness in performance, and the power of empathy over emotion as a means to facilitate access to creativity. (Carnicke, 2009, p. 3).

Carnicke nominates perezhivanie as elusive indicated by her choice of chapter title of ‘Stanislavski’s lost term’ (Carnicke, 2009, p. 129). Here the author describes the precarity of the understanding of the term perezhivanie and determines Stanislavski’s emphasis on experiencing as the phrase used to capture the actor’s successful attainment of their full creative potential. Wei notes the translation of perezhivanie to experiencing, and later ‘experiencing-with-struggling’ (Wei, 2021, 3) and Whyman too utilises the translation perezhivanie as experiencing. Whyman’s view of experiencing is that it is intrinsically linked to embodiment (Whyman, 2013, p. 121) and enables communication between actors (Whyman, 2013, p. 106) and of subtext from the actor to the audience (Whyman, 2013, p. 103). For Carnicke, perezhivanie as experiencing is essential to the realisation of Stanislavski’s system facilitating a craft of distinction, beyond mere entertainment. Whyman concurs:

The period of experiencing can be stormy or even agonising […] but as the work continues, they gain control of their emotions, getting rid of what is excessive or inessential and they are able to go onstage and convey the experiencing to the audience with clarity and finish, warmth and inner richness.

(Whyman, 2013, p. 133)

For Carnicke, ‘experiencing expresses a totality that cannot be broken down into component parts’ (Carnicke, 2009, p. 129), a whole that is to be understood via experience, but cannot satisfactorily articulated in descriptive form. Carnicke links perezhivanie to Stanislavski’s engagement with flow as a higher consciousness achieved through heightened and intense awareness (Carnicke, 2009, p. 130). The practical output of this experience is that the actor, precluded from critically assessing their own work in the moment, can reflect on the task on the basis of their own experience of it (Carnicke, 2009, p. 131).

Writing on the paradoxical nature of acting, Smagorinsky recalls Diderot’s thinking on the tension between the requirement of the actor to perform truthfully within a false construct (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 334). Of value to a contemporary narrative understanding of a lived experience is the question as to whether

the actor’s experience must be congruent with the experience of his or her stage persona, whether it is necessary for the actor to experience the same feelings – love, rage, despair – as the character being performed and whether the same emotions must be experienced by the viewer.

(Vygotsky in Vassilieva & Zavershneva, 2020, p. 26)

Vassilieva and Zavershneva (2020) present the above consideration as part of their discussion of meta-play as a developmental device for enabling self-relfection, framed by Vygotsky’s analysis of theatre director and student of Stanislavski, Yevgeny Vakhtangov (Vassilieva & Zavershneva, 2020, p. 27). Drawing on the unified and transactional reciprocity of emotion and development in relation to environmental factors (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 336), Smagorinksy links Vygotsky’s psychological perspectives with the creative endeavours of the actor through highlighting the performer’s meta-experience (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 337).

Author, actor and practitioner Bella Merlin further considers the meta nature of the actor’s practice (Merlin, 2015). Here Merlin looks to the function of breath in the actor’s pursuit of physical, cognitive and emotion connection (Merlin, 2015, p. 60). Merlin rejects the notion that the actor should aspire to put aside their own feelings in pursuit of experiencing the character’s emotions. Merlin guides the actor away from preoccupation with the emotional outcomes for the character, as the feelings belong, not to the character, who Merlin is clear does not exist, but to the actor (Merlin, 2015, p. 58). This is a perspective shared by Carnicke who quotes Stanislavki’s assertion that ‘Actors can only experience their own emotions […] There is no other material for the creation of the role’ (Carnicke, 2009, p. 133). Merlin develops this further:

If we honestly believe that we have to experience what “the character” is experiencing’, we often put ourselves at a significant disconnect from the actuality of what we’re negotiating in performance. […]. We simply have to allow whatever we’re actually experiencing – here- today-now – to be part of the given circumstances of performing.

(Merlin, 2015, p. 59)

Thus, Merlin demands that the actor acknowledge and accommodate the inherent duality of the lived experience of creative performance, as do Capucci and Silva:

His art allows remaining in this threshold between himself and the other, between being and not being of the alteritarian experience […]. The actor, therefore, lives the other’s perezhivanie from his own perezhivanie

(Capucci & Silva, 2017, p. 416)

Whyman too in her book relates the concept of experiencing to the ‘here and now’ (Whyman, 2013, p. 107). Ysabel Clare in ‘A system behind the system: but is it Stanislavski?’, also writing for Stanislavski Studies (2016), considers this paradigm as situated in positional relationships with the body in space, which she names the attention field (Clare, 2016, p. 95). This attention field marks the zone in which the actor can manipulate attention in the pursuit of truthful engagement with the given circumstances (Clare, 2016, pp. 95–96). In agreement with Merlin, Clare stipulates that each actor must engage with this in relation to their own world through a set of bespoke contextual given circumstances that evolve to become increasingly unconscious and embodied through repeated engagement (Clare, 2016, pp. 96–97). Carnicke proposes that ‘perezhivanie carries with it the possibility that a Stanislavskian actor, using the self as artist, can maintain objectivity, a distance clearly necessary in practice when controlling one’s performance’, (Carnicke, 2009, p. 135).

The dichotomy of the actor’s experience onstage is described by Carnicke and determined as a ‘messy world’ (Carnicke, 2009, p. 141) beyond the clean articulation determined by the framework of Stanislavski’s system. Carnicke proposes that this experience can only be considered analytically in theoretical form (Carnicke, 2009, p. 141), and that in reality the actor’s creative practice begets unpredictable and nuanced outcomes delineated by actor and character, determined by creative enterprise and theatrical performance in front of an audience (Carnicke, 2009, pp. 144–145). However, Ferholt does propose that ‘the elusive phenomenon of perezhivanie’ (Ferholt, 2010, p. 164) can be analysed through utilising Vygotsky’s own method of analysis applied to literature, arguing findings that she proposes reveal the qualities of experiencing through the lens of children and playworlds.

Recognising Vygotsky’s theories of the emotional experiences of both the audience and the actor, Gothberg et al. (2018, p. 248) note the difference between the actor’s real emotions and their onstage feelings. They propose theatre as a multi-layered cultural phenomenon for all participants as they engage in a socially interactive ‘goal-oriented and co-creative activity’ (Gothberg et al., 2018, p. 247). Although onstage feelings are drawn from ‘personal emotional experiences and […] situated historical and social conditions’ (Gothberg et al., 2018, p. 249), the authors mark Vygotsky’s view of this as ‘tortuous’ (Gothberg et al., 2018, p. 249) as well as Vygotsky’s emphasis that this should be ‘highly regulated’ (Gothberg et al., 2018, p. 249).

Examining the creative and three-dimensional nature of perezhivaniya, Ferholt and Nilsson (2016) describe the concept as an inhabited action:

A perezhivaniya doubles back on itself through a series of stages that spiral back over themselves in such a way that, when the same stage, still flat, but at another point in time, is placed over the first, just so, your life becomes three-dimensional again.

(Ferholt & Nilsson, 2016, p. 294)

This multi-dimensional nature of meaning making is described by Zoss in relation to classroom activity as a complex creative activity. Calling on theatre and performance theorist and practitioner Richard Schechner, Ferholt and Nilsson evoke the multi-directional flow of time engaged as part of a creative rehearsal process: ‘For Schechner, performance is a perezhivanie’ (Ferholt & Nilsson, 2016, p. 298). Articulating this as the ‘pivot’ point (Ferholt & Nilsson, 2016, p. 299), whereby we are both as ourselves but also as another, the authors draw a parallel with Schechner’s definition of the ‘present moment’ (Ferholt & Nilsson, 2016, p. 300) as a liminal space of juxtapositional suspension on the boundary between worlds of being and worlds of play/creation. On this point of play/creation, the authors define the difference between the perezhivaniya as experienced by the child, who may engage with play, as only different by degrees to the experience of the adult, who may engage with creative activity, and therefore not distinctly different or separate.

Art-making experiences are special kinds of experience whereby humans are able to feel and communicate emotion and ideas in ways that may not be possible in other everyday experiences.

(Davis, 2015, p. 66)

The potential for a truly transformative experience through imagination is described by Davis. Davis pinpoints the duality of the experience of creative learning, whereby the individual engages on multiple planes both as a learner and as one immersed in the creative endeavour. Davis frames this as metaxis, an in-between state (Davis, 2015, p. 68). This duality, Davis proposes, can produce a ‘productive tension in a realm of possibility’ (Davis, 2015, p. 69) where experiences, although potentially dissonant, unpredictable and non-linear, may bring about new understanding. Drawing upon Vygotsky’s reasoning that the creative process is a social tool for meaning making and communicating through which an individual can externalise a real experience through engagement with imagination, Davis proposes that the emotionally engaged, yet critically distanced learner can experience learning as transformational as ‘within drama education, human experience and emotions are at the very core of learning’ (Davis, 2015, p. 64).

Articulating the experience of meaning making in drama in relation to perezhivanie, Davis acknowledges that the educational context can give rise to perezhivanie, connecting the work of Vygotsky with that of Stanislavski. Here Davis draws together the performance concepts of ‘“living the part” or “experiencing”’ (Davis, 2015, p. 65) with perezhivanie and posits that whilst the use of these different phrases may have diluted the understood significance of perezhivanie within Stanislavski’s practice, the connection between the internal and external lived and ‘“re-lived” experience’ (Davis, 2015, p. 65) of the actor is central to the creation of meaning making. Although Davis is specifically writing about drama and young people here, the perspectives and conclusions drawn are transferable as the actor’s process similarly necessitates both ‘emotional engagement [and] embodied action’ (Davis, 2015, p. 65).

Perezhivanie and the creative learning environment

Pertinent in Davis’ writing is the observation marking the importance of the role of the teacher/educator in shaping the learner’s experience and environment. Davis evokes the work of drama education practitioner Dorothy Heathcote where creative drama becomes a co-constructed educational experience, guided by a teacher who frames and shapes the process and environment whilst enabling the student to engage with the imaginative realm without real-world consequences (Davis, 2015, p. 67):

For example, the child weeps in play as a patient, but revels as a player.

(Vygotsky in Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 56)

Expanding further on the relationship between teacher and learner in creative environments, Davis and Dolan argue persuasively that the teacher affects the learner’s experience through the communication of the teacher’s own participation in and confidence with that experience (Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 54). The authors here emphasise the importance of the impact of the teacher as curator (Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 52) upon the selection, structure and design of learning environments (Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 54), arguing against the neutrality of the teacher (Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 51) and toward one of influence and contagion (Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 63):

The concept of perezhivanie is intriguing for educators as it raises questions about the totality of the lived experiences of students within our classrooms and how these experiences might be cultivated for the most meaningful forms of learning.

(Davis & Dolan, 2016, p. 51)

Writing in reflection of the experience of teaching drama during the time of the Covid pandemic, David and Phillips highlight the ‘human dimension’ (Davis & Phillips, 2021, p. 1), citing the centrality of the shared experience of the learning community when learning in creative environments (Davis & Phillips, 2021, p. 14). Critiquing the success of the school environment at building relationships between teacher and learner and enriching the potential social emotional engagement and understanding (Vadeboncoeur & Collie, 2013, p. 202), Muller Mirza concurs, offering the assertion that

In Western tradition, there is a tendency to dichotomize cognition and emotion […] promoting the former over the latter.

(Muller Mirza, 2016, p. 635)

Muller Mirza considers this perspective from a teacher’s point of view, as well as from that of a psychologist. Here the author investigates the ‘dialogic and dialectic conception of emotion’ (Muller Mirza, 2016, p. 637) as an action that is imbued with meaning, engaging the learner in reflective practices (Muller Mirza, 2016, p. 635) and asking whether the articulation of emotions in educational settings and learning environments can result in a developed understanding of a person’s experience and position in relation to that experience (Muller Mirza, 2016, p. 642). Vadeboncoeur and Collie place responsibility for this lack of facilitation of potential with the historic prejudicial classist structures and systems inherent in formal education settings (Vadeboncoeur & Collie, 2013, p. 202) and recall Vygotsky’s position that places of education should be:

Where relationships between teachers and students sustain the exploration and examination of accumulated knowledge of human cultures […] where teachers are acknowledged as experts and social actors, and […] where education leads to the cultural development of all.

(Vadeboncoeur & Collie, 2013, p. 221)

Reflections

The key theories hypothesized that are pertinent to the exploration of the bridge between the understanding of both Vygotsky and Stanislavski’s perezhivanie have been surveyed in the literature here. An important aspect of this body of literature rightly centres on the etymology of the term itself. It is clear that the vagueness of the term in translation is accepted by scholars, however, a clear emerging theme is that a shared essence of the concept is accepted, particularly within the scholarship of Vygotsky. What is lacking in the literature surveyed however, is a clearly defined link between the concept as a shared notion or theory between the two practitioners. Research has been pursued separately, confined within the subject specific areas of the two disciplines of psychology and actor training, and there is scant interdisciplinary exploration for review. Although Vygotsky indeed reflected upon the process of the actor, it emerges that this has been explored within scholarship to understand the effect/affect of art upon its audience, rather than upon the actor. By contrast, the authoritative published research surrounding the practice of Stanislavski has centred upon the emotional lived experience of the actor as they research, explore and seek to embody a character, and not upon the actor’s own personal experience as a learner. This, of course, is not to assume that the link between the process of actor training and the lived experience of the individuals engaged in this endeavour is not being explored in practice within contemporary actor training, however, but this was not evident as being currently documented in the published literature available.

Lastly, it is noted in this literature review that the realm of drama teaching, as a distinct and separate field of practice and research from actor training, does explore the experience of the teacher and learner within the creative classroom. However, it is important to highlight that this research field currently falls short of specifically linking the possible application of this exploration to actor training. The field of drama is a recognised defined discipline that centres its practice upon the transformational effect/affect of drama, not acting, upon the participant student. It is included within this literature review as an acknowledgement of a further interdisciplinary connection, but it is acknowledged that the detailed pursuit of this link is not in evidence within the published literature available and is noted as worthy of detailed further investigation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna McNamara

Professor Anna McNamara is Director of Internationalisation for the Guildford School of Acting at the University of Surrey, previously having been Head of School, Director of Learning and Teaching and before that Director of Student Experience. A passionate advocate for inclusion, access and participation, Anna is invested in working with creative practitioners to develop teaching and scholarship opportunities through mentorship across drama schools and HE institutions. An award-winning teacher, Anna is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a Principal Fellow of Advance HE (PFHEA) in recognition of her sustained record of effective strategic academic leadership.