Dr Hannah Grainger Clemson
In the process of social life, feelings develop and
former connections disintegrate; emotions
appear in new relations with other elements of
mental life
Lev Vygotsky
Our type of creativeness is the conception
and birth of a new being – the person in the
part. It is a natural act similar to the birth of
a human being.
Konstantin Stanislavski
K. Stanislavski
L. Vygotsky
Born Russia 1863
Actor &
Theatre Director
Born Russia 1896
Teacher &
Psychologist
LENINGRAD
Pavlov’s
Laboratories
Conditioned Reflex
Institute of Psychology
MOSCOW ART
THEATRE
Identifying a
character’s
‘task’ that guides an
actor’s performance
KREMLIN
SERPUCHOVSKAIA
STREET
Goal-directed thought
Awareness of “own
responses as new stimuli”
Experiences
contribute to internal
state of actor
↓
↓
External theatrical
character realised and
spontaneously
recreated
Experiences
internalised and
understood
↓
↓
(Children) make
meaning of social
existence & act
upon the world
Investigating the motivation and interpretation of human behaviour...
Text of the Play
Parallel Motives
SOPHYA:
O, Chatsky, but I am glad you’ve come.
Tries to hide her confusion.
CHATSKY:
You are glad, that’s very nice;
But gladness such as yours not easily one tells.
It rather seems to me, all told,
That making man and horse catch cold
I’ve pleased myself and no one else.
LIZA:
There, sir, and if you’d stood on the same
landing here
Five minutes, no, not five ago
You’d heard your name clear as clear.
You say, Miss! Tell him it was so.
SOPHYA:
And always so, no less, no more.
No, as to that, I’m sure you can’t reproach me.
[A. Griboedov, Woe from Wit, Act I]
Tries to make her feel guilty by teasing
her.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself ?”
Tries to force her to be frank.
Tries to calm him.
Tries to help Sophya in a difficult
situation.
Tries to reassure Chatsky.
“I am not guilty of anything”
Performed MAT 1906
KS Notes 1916-1920
TOOLS
SUBJECT
RULES
GOAL
COMMUNITY
RESPONSIBILITIES
Vygotsky died in 1934 of
tuberculosis, aged 37.
Though premature, his
death perhaps saved
him from a worse fate at
the hands of the
authorities.
Stanislavski prepared to
hand over the Moscow
Art Theatre to his former
pupil Meyerhold, who
was unemployed and
under great threat.
Stanislavski died in 1938, aged 74.
But that year, Meyerhold
- the surviving link between these two men,
as a former student of Stanislavski and
teacher to Zaporozhets, a student of
Vygotsky,
- was himself arrested, tortured, and shot.
Stanislavski’s writings were translated
into English in the 1930s and have
formed a significant part of actor
training in the West ever since.
Vygotsky’s ‘Thought and Language’ was
first published in Russian in 1936, two
years after his death. It was not until
1962 that it was first published in
English and his ideas became
widespread in the field of education.
...The experience of the actor, his emotions,
appear not as functions of his personal mental
life, but as a phenomenon that has an
objective, social sense and significance that
serves as a transitional stage from psychology
to ideology.
Lev Vygotsky, 1932
‘On the Problem of the Psychology of the
Actor’s Creative Work’