Stanislavski's Amateurism

Stanislavski contrasts amateurism, stock-in-trade acting and the actor’s goal of experiencing by relating his own experiences starting of as an actor and taking his first acting class with Arkadi Tortsov. He contrasts amateurism, stock-in-trade and the actor’s goal in life by a way of recounting his lack in experience in acting, some of his learning points from Tortsov, and relaying his experiences and ways of thinking that were sometimes contrary to his education in acting all in an effort to teach the reader. Amateurism is the first chapter in which we see Stanislavki differentiating being an amateur from the other chapters by speaking of his first assignment of the class, which was to act a scene without any guidance. This was most challenging because he did not know what to expect and hadn’t had much experience in the field of acting. He recounts how choosing repertoire was hard because he the plays he knew where limited. He also talks about how he struggled through his different methods of preparing for rehearsals and memorizing his lines to feel comfortable on

Whereas the other chapter focused on Stanislavski’s lack of experience this chapter delves into the good and the bad of his performance assignment. Tortsov explains how he had an authentic moment in his acting and how acting should always be in the moment versus mimicking or just stating lines. He explains the importance of gestures versus not using gestures and how some have just become second nature in acting that there is no real purpose for doing them. He describes this type of gesture as being an aspect of a mediocre acting versus great acting. He makes all the students go up on stage to perform and most don’t know what to do because they don’t believe they have context and he points out to them that they must have a