Art of representation

Stanislavski considered the French actor Coquelin (1841–1909) to be one of the best examples of "an artist of the school of representation".[1]

The "art of representation" (Russian: представление, romanized: predstavlenie) is a critical term used by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski to describe a method of acting. It comes from his acting manual An Actor Prepares (1936). Stanislavski defines his own approach to acting as "experiencing the role" and contrasts it with the "art of representation".[2] It is on the basis of this formulation that the American Method acting teacher Uta Hagen defines her recommended Stanislavskian approach as 'presentational' acting, as opposed to 'representational' acting.[3] This use, however, directly contradicts mainstream critical use of these terms. Despite the distinction, Stanislavskian theatre, in which actors 'experience' their roles, remains 'representational' in the broader critical sense.[4]

  1. ^ Stanislavski (1936, 21).
  2. ^ In addition to Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares, for his conception of 'experiencing the role' see Carnicke (1998), especially chapter five.
  3. ^ Hagen (1973, 11–13).
  4. ^ See the article Presentational acting and Representational acting for a fuller discussion of the different uses of these terms.