However, she has developed an original practice – evolved and refined over the years – that achieves equally profound energetic and emotional accessibility, with no psychological trawling. Working with Shakespeare’s plays, Packer’s imperative is obviously and necessarily language driven, so silent études wouldn’t really serve her purpose. As actors we want our spectators to empathize with the characters, to see different worldviews, to broaden their perspectives. Part of Michael Chekhov’s healing process after his nervous breakdown was his work with Rudolph Steiner, in particular his connection with Eurhythmy and Anthroposophy. It’s about the spirit and soul – both of which are words that Shakespeare and Stanislavsky regularly use.

In rehearsals I tend to the tendrils of the actor-ivy, ensuring they grow freely and healthily, but don’t wander too far from the trellis of the play. This second edition of Konstantin Stanislavsky combines:an overview of Stanislavsky’s life and work, including recent discoveries an assessment of his widely read text, An Actor Prepares (1936) with comparisons to Benedetti’s 2008 translation, An Actor’s Work detailed commentary of the key 1898 production of The Seagull an indispensable set of practical exercises for actors, teachers and directors. e. it is a provocation as much as a definitive solution – in which Merlin ultimately invites the reader to consider how actor trainers can help a generation of risk-averse young people become willingly vulnerable and emotionally accessible actors. While we may never be able to beat the enemy of stage fright, we can embrace its presence and (in the words of The Beatles) Let It Be! In my book Facing the Fear I explore my own experiences of terrible stage fright and how I overcame it.The ‘creation of the living word’ was a phrase used by Russian acting pioneer Konstantin Stanislavsky (1963-1938) to capture the dynamic connection between actor, script and moment of performance. In this presentation Merlin focuses primarily on the work of the actor embodying a fictional character. In fact, my experience with both Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis and Tina Packer’s directing process has revealed some interesting Anglo-Russian-American correlations. As long as they’re listening to each other, connecting with the images, following their impulses and not hurting each other, themselves or the furniture, whatever happens while they’re ‘working the play on its feet’ constitutes valuable raw material. We have to provide safe spaces in our classrooms where our students can (a) express their own emotions; (b) consider other perspectives through scripts and dramas that may bring out challenging emotions for them; and (c) handle, within the safe structures of a dramatic text and an actor-training environment, issues of conflict, risk and emotional discomfort.

On the other hand, we have a responsibility to a generation of students who have in many respects become markedly risk averse: they don’t necessarily feel comfortable addressing the soft underbelly of humanity that has long been the raw material of our art. Through that experience they may find more balance within themselves and, therefore, a broader range of emotional intelligence with which to handle the world. To really measure the power of the actor’s excitement,’ continues Stanislavsky, ‘we must direct our attention to how he takes in the facts and events, how he evaluates the thoughts of his partner; we must watch him during his moments of absorption’. This in itself can make screen acting both incredibly liberating and incredibly scary: we have to walk the knife-edge of the moment. But this Stanislavsky toolkit really does explain the most important parts of Stanislavsky's teaching in a much more accessible way, breaking them down into practical 'tools' to use when aproaching the play, getting into the mind of the charcater and then embodying the character in performance.

Each character does whatever they do – be it love, hate, revenge, excite, fight, make peace – to the nth degree. And I find myself asking: ‘How can I make my classroom increasingly safe so that my iGen students can explore their connections to their own self, as much as to each other? Her frustration with the acting industry in Britain at the time was significant enough for her to seek out Linklater in New York City in 1972. In other words, her staging of a production comes from deep witnessing of and listening to the whole team’s thoughts and discoveries.

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. It behooves us not be put off by the fact that both Shakespeare and Chekhov are dead European males, as they both offer the actor complicated scenarios and violent disagreements (ergo, important training material). This comprehensive introduction to Stanislavsky is organised into three sections: Training; Rehearsal and Performance. It’s a shame, because Stanislavski couldn’t talk about spirit under the Soviet regime because it was forbidden. In this moment, I understood the way in which the four pillars on which Stanislavsky’s ‘system’ rests all connect to provide a sound base for the actor at work.The iGen’ers’ dependence on texting, tweeting, Snapchating and Instagraming as their primary modes of communication means that their words are ‘living’ in ways we couldn’t have imagined twenty years ago. So even after the very first (joyously chaotic), ‘working the play on its feet’, she invites observations and revelations from everyone in the circle. What does it mean to devote one’s professional life to using other people’s words to create a living experience?

I just want them to listen to each other, to listen to their pauses, to listen to each other’s fear. After all, acting for the camera includes following impulses in response to what actually happens there and then.The words and structures used by Shakespeare are far richer and more liberating than anything we could possibly think up ourselves. The way in which Shakespeare’s imagery works an actor’s imagination provides unmatchable training, not least because the Elizabethan theatre barely used any scenery. While I don’t currently teach in a conservatory or on a vocational program, I’ve reached out to colleagues who do, and the issues seem parallel. It didn’t have anything to do with emotions, it wasn’t emotion led; there was a sequence of actions that revealed my intention.