Eugenio Barba and the Stanislavski legacy: An ontology of the actor.
Item
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Title
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Eugenio Barba and the Stanislavski legacy: An ontology of the actor.
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Identifier
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AAI9959163
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identifier
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9959163
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Creator
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Baumrin, Seth.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Harry Carlson
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater | Education, Language and Literature
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines theatre director and pedagogue Eugenio Barba's claim that he is professionally descended from the well-known theatre reformer Konstantin Stanislavski. The study is a focused analysis of each man's methodology for actor training. Though Stanislavski and Barba's work has been conducted at opposite ends of the twentieth century, and their aesthetics are remarkably different, their respective approaches to actor training are based on a similar set of principles. To the extent that these principles are first announced by Stanislavski, they are elaborated upon by Barba into a methodology that is more conducive than Stanislavski's to a contemporary, often non-text based, theatre. Rather than the author-oriented dramaturgy practiced by Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios, Barba's approach is actor-oriented, and, in his dramaturgy the author does not occupy a pinnacle in the hierarchy of the creative process.;In order to examine Barba's claim of professional heredity independently of that claim, a chain of connections, both chronological and methodological, is made. The chain links Stanislavski and Barba through three director/pedagogues who, in the years intervening between Stanislavski's death in 1938 and the beginning of Barba's career, 1964, were either in direct contact with Stanislavski as his students or were students of his students who then taught Barba. This set of director/pedagogues are Eugene Vakhtangov, Vsevelod Meyerhold, and Jerzy Grotowski. Their teachings, transmitted both orally and in writing, comprise a continuum, referred to as the Stanislavski Legacy or the Stanislavski-Barba continuum.;Each different pedagogue in the continuum worked with different aspects of Stanislavski's methodology and contributed significantly to Barba's understanding and practice of actor training. Although Barba differs with each in matters of aesthetics, his methodology is informed by all of these predecessors. Thus Barba's methodology is not merely an elaboration on Stanislavski's but also those of Vakhtangov, Meyerhold, and Grotowski. Understanding Barba in this light makes his methodology not only crucial to an experimental theatre like his own, but also a pedagogy for any actor in any genre---his principles being those of the profession whose most outstanding pedagogue was Stanislavski, Barba's professional progenitor.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
