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Laurence Senelick
On the short shelf of theatrical autobiographies that continue to be
read long after their author has ceased to be a headliner, Konstantin
Stanislavskys My Life in Art stands foremost. It is a primer for acting classes,
a source book of stage history and a guidebook for those workers in
the theatre who have lost touch with their raison dtre and seek an artistic
True North to put them back on course. In Russia, it was lauded as a
model of superb literature and comparable to such books as Herzens My
Past and Thoughts.1 In Western Europe, Stanislavskys counterparts in theatre
reform also sang its praises. Gordon Craig lauded the sincerity which
breathes out of every page of it [that has] raised the entire profession of
the Theatrical workers to a position it cannot recede from.2 Jacques
Copeau described My Life in Art in terms that made it sound like the vita of a
saint.3
Few readers enthralled by Stanislavskys account of his trials and errors,
goals and achievements are aware of the hasty and inconvenient circumstances in which the work was composed, or the fact that it exists in two
distinct versions that reect, in their separate ways, dierent stages of
Stanislavskys life. The original English version of My Life in Art is a sorely
imperfect creation. The Russian version written a couple of years later
amplies and emends its precursor, while making fresh omissions and
suppressions.
My Life in Art originated as an adjunct to the publicity campaign waged
by the impresario Morris Gest when the Moscow Art Theatre visited the
United States of America in 1923. The Russian-born Gest, in the tradition
of his father-in-law David Belasco, created an aura of aesthetic sanctity
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Nearly a year had passed since the contract was signed and the publishers
showed signs of impatience, forcing Stanislavsky to work all the more
feverishly. In April 1924, Little, Brown demanded that the manuscript
My Life in Art nally appeared under Little, Browns imprint in May 1924,
in a handsome edition of 5,000 copies, lavishly illustrated (the contract
had stipulated that Stanislavsky provide the pictures). Robbins translation
had been a rush job, the exigencies of the printers schedule obviating
any polishing or revising, especially since some of the chapters had
been published in newspapers as a preliminary teaser. The English playwright St. John Ervine was right to call it at and, on occasion, execrable
English.13 Robbins prose is thick with solecisms: something is deserving of notation or is at ones call and beck. What is clearly the Russian
for gossamer is rendered as cobweblike not at all the same thing
trumpery is mistaken as frumpery, and terms like incarnify and
artillerists create awkward non-equivalents of their presumably straightforward Russian counterparts. At one point we are told that Chekhov was
wont to roll with long laughter. Far more serious are mistranslations that
obscure the sense. For instance, the statement that Gordon Craig objected
to actors kabotinstvo [cabotinage, hamming it up, playing to the gallery]
especially in women is transformed by Robbins into the usual behaviour
of actors and especially actresses. This is an unfortunate gae, since the
term cabotinage had been brought into currency by Meyerhold, who made it
denitely more successful, more interesting and more necessary than the
American one.18 This was, however, a mere rst draft. He still found the
task of writing hellish and, as the deadline approached, had avidly
accepted Lyubov Gurevichs oer to serve as his editor: I am embarrassed,
disconcerted, moved, grateful for all your work. Dont bother standing on
ceremony: cross out everything thats superuous. I have no attachment
to and aection for my literary exercises. He dreaded rewriting and
gave her full authority to delete anything that was abominably written.
Gurevich demurred that she approached his text with reverence and
limited herself to correcting only things which could impair the readers
concentration or hobble the imagination.19 She pooh-poohed his fear that
the book might be bourgeois, but warned him of clichs and repetition.
He accepted her conation of short chapters into long ones and the new
titles for them she provided
Stanislavsky was upset to hear others describe his book as bourgeois
because it was a standard Bolshevik term of abuse, usually in the vernacular form boorzhooy. The far left Theatrical October movement in art, led
by Meyerhold and Mayakovsky, was calling for the abolition of all preRevolutionary theatres, the Moscow Art chief among them. Stanislavsky
had personally come under attack for sticking with such an obsolete
organization when his own creativity might be directed to Soviet goals.
Consequently, many of the changes made to My Life in Art were geared
specically to address problems the Art Theatre was facing in a Soviet
world. In his notes for the revision, to answer critics who complained that
the Art Theatre was elitist in its appeal, Stanislavsky jotted down the new
point that he and Nemirovich-Danchenko had rst called the Moscow Art
the Publicly Accessible (Obshchedostupny) Theatre because there was no
way to be national (limited repertoire). Nevertheless we hoped to oer
popular prices. Another note shows that Stanislavsky intended to use My
Life in Art as propaganda in the struggle between the tenets of psychological realism and the constructivist theatricality sponsored by his former
colleague Meyerhold, at this time the most inuential director in Russia.
In the chapter on the Revolution say that constructivism is a good thing,
but they didnt make very good use of it and it was discarded.
Predict that the actors art is on the decline. In the chapter on the
Revolution state that this is the result of all that affected stylization.
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galley-sheets arrived from the printer for correction. He feared the book
was to appear in that outlandish format.21 Overwhelmed by his duties to
the theatre, he grieved to Gurevich:
I have no life because of this book. The publishers are insistent. They
demand that I meet the contracted deadline, otherwise all expenses and
losses fall on me. They overwhelm me with questions and galley proofs. I
dont understand their marks . . . When I turn in the last manuscript and
proof-sheet Ill be the happiest man on earth, but when the book comes
out I think . . . Ill look for a hook to hang myself from. Yes! . . . Its
abominable enough to be an actor, but a writer!! . . .??22
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Like Don Quixote or Bunyans Christian, he never loses sight of the ideal,
no matter how bruised or battered he is by failure, no matter how far
he strays down the wrong path. Candid in its depiction of his mistakes
and temptations, My Life in Art is indeed a Pilgrims Progress, with each
artist encountered by its protagonist serving as a forerunner. Stanislavsky
himself was aware of the devotional overtones of his book:
Ive been told that the title calls to mind the famous religious work My
Life in Christ. Never mind, this association, if it occurs to anyone, is not
a problem. On the contrary, it underlines the accompanying idea in my
book of quests and heroic deeds, the idea of serving a sublime mission.31
Consequently, if we are to rethink Stanislavsky, as a Russian-born historian once put it,32 we would do well to begin with this new translation
of the version its author considered denitive. A unique combination of
personal narrative, cultural history, aesthetic theory and reections on
actor training, My Life in Art is a cornerstone of the modern theatre.
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