Building a Character

by Constantin Stanislavski

Other authorsJoshua Logan (Introduction), Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood (Translator)

Hardcover, 1987

Status

Available

Call number

792.028

Genres

General Nonfiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Routledge (1987), Edition: 1ST, Hardcover, 352 pages

Description

Building a Character is one of the three volumes that make up Stanislavski's The Acting Trilogy. An Actor Prepares explores the inner preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. In this volume, Sir John Gielgud said, this great director "found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students." Building a Character discusses the external techniques of acting: the use of the body, movement, diction, singing, expression, and control. Creating a Role describes the preparation that precedes actual performance, with extensive discussions of Gogol's The Inspector General and Shakespeare's Othello. Sir Paul Scofield called Creating a Role "immeasurably important" for the actor. These three volumes belong on any actor's short shelf of essential books.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member RKC-Drama

In his most famous book, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski dealt with the imaginative processes. In the second book, Building a Character, he deals with the physical realisation of character on the stage, expressions, movement and speech etc. It is a book in which every theory is inextricably bound

up with practice - a perfect handbook to the physical art of acting. The work of Stanislavski has inspired generations of actors and trainers. This edition, now reprinted with a new cover at a more accessible price, has stood the test of time for actors all over the world and was the original English language translation.

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LibraryThing member reganrule

Stanislavski's theory of method acting requires actors to dip into their personal emotional wells to achieve verisimilitude in their roles. As such, actors are expected to exercise self-reflection regularly as part of their technique. Stanislavski's techniques for building a character are as useful

to the lay person as to the actor--they are practical lessons in self-control. If practiced habitually, such technical awareness will expand one's moral perception as well as one's emotional depth, making one a more sensitively attuned actor in the world.

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