We study the Stanislavski approach at the NYC Vazquez Acting School. Stanislavski found faults with an experienced-based approach early on, noticing that users and abusers of techniques such as affective memory were prone to hysterics. For this and other reasons he shifted the focus of his system to rely upon imagination, which the actor can use to portray things they haven’t even experienced. This remains a fundamental distinction between the System and Strasberg’s method, and other American acting philosophies, such as that of Stella Adler and Meisner, would be much truer to Stanislavski’s system in this respect.
Stella Adler, an actress and acting teacher whose students include Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro, also broke with Strasberg after she studied with Stanislavski himself, by which time he had modified many of his early ideas. Her version of the method is based on the idea that actors should conjure up emotion not by using their own personal memories, but by using the scene’s given circumstances. Like Strasberg’s, Adler’s technique relies on carrying through tasks, wants, needs, and objectives. It also seeks to stimulate the actor’s imagination through the use of “as ifs”. Adler often taught that “drawing on personal experience alone was too limited”. Therefore, she urged performers to draw on their imaginations and utilize “emotional memory” to the fullest.[44]
The charge that Strasberg’s method distorted Stanislavski’s system has been responsible for a considerable revivalist interest in Stanislavski’s “pure” teachings. As the use of the Method has declined considerably from its peak in the mid-20th century, acting teachers claiming to teach Stanislavski’s unadulterated system are becoming more numerous. (www.vazquezactingclasses.com)
