Product Description

A hands-on, step-by-step guide to Stanislavsky's famous acting techniques, from the author of Beyond Stanislavsky. A practical, hands-on guide to Stanislavsky's famous 'system' and to his later rehearsal processes - for actors, directors, teachers and students. The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit collects together for the first time the terms and ideas developed by Stanislavsky throughout his career. It is organised into three sections: Actor-Training, Rehearsal Processes and Performance Practices. Key terms are explained and defined as they naturally occur in this process. They are illustrated with examples from both his own work and that of other practitioners. Each stage of the process is then explored with sequences of practical exercises designed to help today's actors and students become thoroughly familiar with the tools in Stanislavsky's toolkit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22036 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

Review
Erudite but very accessible... a brilliantly researched study --Amateur Stage

A great achievement... a serious, no-nonsense interpretation of Stanislavsky's thinking written by an actor-teacher with considerable experience... I shall be going back to this Toolkit again and again --Reviews Gate

About the Author
Bella Merlin has successfully combined a professional career in acting (notably in Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint Theatre Company) with teaching at the drama departments of the Universities of Birmingham and Exeter. She is the author of Beyond Stanislavsky and Konstantin Stanislavsky in Routledge's Performance Practitioners series.

Customer Reviews

One of the best acting manuals available
A really accessible, honest and useful summary of Stanislavsky's famous system. Personally I've always felt secretly guilty that I can only browse through An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role in a desultory fashion- especially when as an actor/director and drama teacher I should have read them all from cover to cover (all that Tortsov nonsense and his thick students for heaven's sake!). The original trilogy can often be bewildering in the context of any kind of coherent and holistic System, more so because the structure of Stanislavsky's original books is so higgledy-piggledy and wrapped up in that irritating semi-fictional format. However I managed to read Merlin's long but extremely well-organised and comprehensively researched book in just two afternoons.Bella Merlin goes one better than Benedetti and Magarshack's summaries in my view. She writes particularly well about "Super-Objective", "Active Analysis" and "Tempo-Rhythm" as well as the whole spiriual dimension of acting without ever becoming overly serious or intellectual about it. In this book the emphasis is not so much on the cerebral (something Stan the Man was often guilty of) and far more on the psycho-physical dimension of the actor's process (aided and abetted by Merlin's frequent references to Michael Chekhov's ideas). This 'Toolkit' is written by an actor for the actor. An inspiring (and occasionally LOL!) read for anyone who thinks they know 'that Stanislavsky stuff', and one which you're bound to want to keep returning to. Extremely useful for actors at any level and HIGHLY recommended. :-)

good for actors
I am a psycology student and picked this up because of the cover. As I flicked through it I became more and more intrigued by the idea of a psyco physical approach to acting. I've now read it twice, its brilliant,concise,fluent and I would think, a must for any actor pursuing a career on the stage or in front of a camera. Having been briefly aquainted with Stanislavski at school I found the authors interpretation of the approach to the 'method' completely enthralling. Bella Merlin guides the 'Wannabe" through the maze of creating a role with utter simplicity. If it isn't a set book for any drama school or university, it certainly should be.