Reviewed by:

• Rediscovering Stanislavsky by Maria Shevtsova
• Alisa Ballard Lin

English-language writings on the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky have been abundant ever since the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) toured the United States a century ago. But as we now recognize, for decades Stanislavsky was misunderstood as a result of poor translations, Soviet censorship, and distortions of his System by his US continuators. Landmarks in Stan-islavsky scholarship like Sharon Marie Carnicke’s Stanislavsky in Focus (1998; 2nd ed., 2009) have corrected entrenched misbeliefs about Stanislavsky’s work by offering more nuanced and accurate understandings of crucial terms for him such as perezhivanie (experiencing). Maria Shevtsova’s new book, Rediscovering Stanislavsky, is poised to become another such landmark in Stanislavsky scholarship.

As the book promises in its title, Shevtsova offers a thorough reinterpretation of Stanislavsky’s legacy, from his productions at the Society of Art and Literature prior to the MAT’s founding, through his housebound and bed-ridden work at the Opera-Dramatic Studio in the final years of his life. By consulting a range of primary and secondary sources, including archival materials, Shevtsova has uncovered numerous fresh insights into Stanislavsky’s System and its origins, as well as his directorial and pedagogical work, relationship to Soviet politics, and administration of the MAT studios. She portrays Stanislavsky as a sharp and original, highly spiritual thinker who knew how to succeed within his political and social reality.

Shevtsova brings to Stanislavsky the perspective of a scholar of contemporary theatre, and accordingly, she gives continual attention to those aspects of his work that have resonated with more recent directors and actors indebted to him. Overall, her book paints a rich and full picture of Stanislavsky’s wide-ranging career, synthesizing aspects of his life often kept separate or even ignored in scholarship into broadly conceived chapters on contexts, actor, studio, director, and legacy. Shevtsova’s choice to discuss Stanislavsky so comprehensively leads to a rewarding, though sometimes wandering, narrative that integrates Stanislavsky’s personal and professional lives with his cultural context. [End Page 126]

From the beginning, the book establishes Stan-islavsky as a “colossal” innovator (x), and Shevtsova adds much to traditional conceptions of just how Stanislavsky innovated. Particularly radical, she underscores in chapter 1, was his notion of ensemble theatre. Stanislavsky believed in creative collaboration based in shared values among all theatre artists involved in a production, including a deep connection among all the actors, who were accustomed to an egotistical star system that Stanislavsky rejected. His emphasis on the importance of ensemble and community echoes throughout the book. The chapter goes on to discuss some of Stanislavsky’s most formative contexts that shaped his concept of the ensemble. These include the utopian communities of late nineteenth-century Russia, such as the famed Abramtsevo artists’ colony, which Stanislavsky visited in the summers as he was growing up. He was also influenced by Symbolism and the turn-of-the-century metaphysics that sought entry to a realm of mysticism and spirituality. So much scholarship on Stanislavsky divorces him from his context within Russian thought and culture; Shevtsova’s novel account of influences on his understanding of ensemble enriches our knowledge of his practice.

Chapters 2 and 3 focus on larger political and religious contexts for understanding Stanislavsky’s entire career. In chapter 2, Shevtsova argues, based on letters and other sources, that Stanislavsky was politically savvy rather than naive, as often assumed. She discusses the MAT’s efforts to find politically acceptable repertoire under Stalinist censorship, depicting Stanislavsky as courageous through the trauma and adversity of those difficult years. His letters attest to his accurate assessment of political motives, as he survived and protected his family in years of not only censorship and repression but material shortages and hardships. In the third chapter, Shevtsova argues for the fundamental importance of Russian Orthodox Christianity to the System, a topic that many scholars have gestured toward but have not explored in detail. She connects Stan-islavsky’s thought to the teachings of the Orthodox Christian prelate Feofan Zatvornik, who writes of the thinking, willing, and feeling sides of the soul...

 审阅者：

• 
  玛丽亚·舍夫佐娃《重新发现斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基》
•  艾丽莎·巴拉德·林

自从一个世纪前莫斯科艺术剧院（MAT）在美国巡演以来，关于康斯坦丁·斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基作品的英文著作就非常丰富。但正如我们现在认识到的那样，几十年来，斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基由于糟糕的翻译、苏联的审查制度以及美国继承者对其体系的扭曲而被误解。斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基学术界的里程碑式著作，如莎朗·玛丽·卡尼克（Sharon Marie Carnicke）的《聚焦斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基》（1998年；第2版，2009年）通过对斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的关键术语（如“体验”）提供更细致和准确的理解，纠正了人们对斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基作品根深蒂固的误解。玛丽亚·舍夫佐娃的新书《重新发现斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基》有望成为斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基学术界的又一个里程碑。

正如书名中所承诺的那样，舍夫佐娃对斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的遗产进行了彻底的重新诠释，从他在 MAT 成立之前在艺术与文学协会的作品，到他在歌剧戏剧工作室卧床不起的作品。他生命中的岁月。通过查阅包括档案材料在内的一系列一手和二手资料，舍夫佐娃对斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的体系及其起源、他的导演和教学工作、与苏联政治的关系以及 MAT 工作室的管理有了许多新的见解。她将斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基描绘成一位敏锐、独创、高度精神化的思想家，知道如何在政治和社会现实中取得成功。

舍夫佐娃为斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基带来了当代戏剧学者的视角，因此，她持续关注斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基作品中那些与他的近代导演和演员产生共鸣的方面。总体而言，她的书描绘了斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基广泛的职业生涯的丰富而完整的画面，将他生活中经常被分开甚至在学术中被忽视的各个方面综合到关于背景、演员、工作室、导演和遗产的广泛构思的章节中。舍夫佐娃选择如此全面地讨论斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基，从而产生了一种有益的、尽管有时徘徊的叙述，将斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的个人和职业生活与其文化背景融为一体。 [完第126页]

从一开始，这本书就将斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基确立为“巨大的”创新者（x），舍夫佐娃对斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基如何创新的传统观念做了很多补充。她在第一章中强调，特别激进的是他的合奏戏剧的概念。斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基相信参与制作的所有戏剧艺术家之间基于共同价值观的创造性合作，包括所有演员之间的深厚联系，他们习惯了斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基拒绝的自负的明星体系。他对整体和社区重要性的强调贯穿全书。本章继续讨论斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的一些最具影响力的背景，这些背景塑造了他的合奏概念。其中包括十九世纪末俄罗斯的乌托邦社区，例如著名的阿布拉姆采沃艺术家聚居地，斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基在成长过程中的夏天曾到访过那里。他还受到象征主义和世纪之交形而上学的影响，寻求进入神秘主义和灵性的领域。如此多的关于斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的学术研究使他脱离了俄罗斯思想和文化的背景。舍夫佐娃对他对合奏的理解的影响的新颖描述丰富了我们对他的实践的了解。

第 2 章和第 3 章重点关注更大的政治和宗教背景，以帮助理解斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的整个职业生涯。在第二章中，舍夫佐娃根据信件和其他资料认为，斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基在政治上很精明，而不是像人们通常认为的那样天真。她讨论了 MAT 在斯大林主义审查制度下寻找政治上可接受的曲目的努力，并描绘了斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基在那些困难岁月的创伤和逆境中表现出的勇气。他的信件证明了他对政治动机的准确评估，因为他在多年的审查和镇压以及物质短缺和困难中幸存下来并保护了家人。在第三章中，舍夫佐娃论证了俄罗斯东正教对该体系的根本重要性，这是许多学者已经提出但尚未详细探讨的话题。她将斯坦-伊斯拉夫斯基的思想与东正教基督教高级教士费奥凡·扎特沃尔尼克的教义联系起来，费奥凡·扎特沃尔尼克写下了灵魂的思考、意愿和情感方面……