Building a Character

Building a Character
First English-language edition
Author Constantin Stanislavski
Original title Работа актера над собой
Translator Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood
Country Soviet Union
Language Russian
Subject Acting
Published
  • 1948
  • 1949 (Theatre Art Books)
Media type Print
Preceded by An Actor Prepares
Followed by Creating a Role

Building a Character (Russian: Работа актера над собой) is the second of stage actor/director Constantin Stanislavski's three books on his method for learning the art of acting. It was first published in Russian in 1948; Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood's seminal English translation was published by Theatre Art Books of New York the following year.[1]

In Stanislavski's most widely read work, An Actor Prepares, he describes a process by which an actor imagines the character he will become. In Building a Character, he explains that the outward expressions of character must flow from that character's inner life: his memories, beliefs, preoccupations, and so on. He then elaborates ways in which the actor's manner of speech, dress, and movement (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) evidence the character's inner experience.

Creating a Role, the final book in the trilogy, followed Building a Character in 1957.

Contents

  1. Toward a Physical Characterization
  2. Dressing a Character
  3. Characters and Types
  4. Making the Body Expressive
  5. Plasticity of Motion
  6. Restraint and Control
  7. Diction and Singing
  8. Intonations and Pauses
  9. Accentuation: The Expressive Word
  10. Perspective in Character Building
  11. Tempo-Rhythm in Movement
  12. Speech Tempo-Rhythm
  13. Stage Charm
  14. Toward an Ethics for the Theatre
  15. Patterns of Accomplishment
  16. Some Conclusions on Acting

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Catalogue record". British Library. Retrieved 22 March 2013.


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