Stanislavski

Who am I?

Technical Committee

Foundation Board of Directors

Developer Infrastructure Core Team

Who am I?

Undergrad Degree in Theatre Directing

Grad School at CalArts for Lighting Design

Member of the Satori Group

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky

Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский

Founder of the Moscow Art Theatre

"The task of our generation is to liberate art from outmoded tradition, from tired cliché and to give greater freedom to imagination and creative ability."

Psychological Realism

Anton Chekhov

The Seagull (1898)

Uncle Vanya (1899)

The Three Sisters (1901)

The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Moscow Art Theatre

Founded in 1897

popular seat prices

ensemble ethos

realistic theatre

Verisimilitude

the appearance of being true or real

Psychology, Physiology and Neurology

First meeting of International Congress of Psychology - Paris, 1889

Pavlov - Institute of Experimenal Medicine, St. Petersburg, 1891

(the dogs were in 1901)

Freud - Interpretation of Dreams 1899

Stanislavski's system

psychophisology

interrelation between mind and body

Physical Actions and Internal Life are linked

Most modern theatre, tv and film actors

Key ideas

"What if" (what if I were in the same situtaion as my character)

Motivation (why)

Objectives (what do I want)

Chekhov and Psychological action

Emotional Memory

Sense Memory

Inside out

like using a programming framework

Express the key points - let the framework handle the details

Manipulate the emotional life - the body will handle a lot of the details

An Actor Prepares

For further reading

Lee Strasberg

Moscow Art Theatre visited the US in 1923

Strasberg == Mind Blown

Dropped out of school and went to study with the Russians

The Group Theatre

New York - 1931

Founded by Lee Strassberg, Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford

Not the same as the Group Theatre in London

Believed in Leaderless Operation and Collaborative Work

Sound familiar?

The Method

Strasberg took Stanislavski's system and made a training system

You've probably heard of it

Marlon Brando, Heath Ledger, Philip Seymor Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, Al Pacino

Big differences from Stanislavski

Emotional Memory becomes Affective Memory

Substitution - What would make me, the actor, behave in the way the character does

So I was at this bar ...

Clear danger, right?

Notice that Heath Ledger and Philip Seymour Hoffman were in the list

Everyone other than Strasberg walked away from pure-emotional immersion

Stanford Meisner

Split from Strasberg - thought emotional memory caused actors to focus on themselves and not the character

Concentration on the parter instead

live truthfully under imaginary circumstances

Stella Adler

Broke with Strasberg after studying with Stanislavski

Emotion should come from imagination based on given circumstance

Uta Hagen

Another split

Basic Object Exercises

Start by doing mundane things in front of people

What the heck does this have to do with OpenStack?

All of these people shared a purpose

To create truth in realistic acting

All of these people both shared approaches and diverged substantially

"What would I do if I were in this circumstance"

"What would motivate me, the actor, to behave in the way the character does?"

Tadashi Suzuki

The Feet

connection to the ground

outside in

Truth from Physicality, not from Psychological realism

The Trojan Women

Drew from Noh, Kabuki and Shingeki tranditions

Produce a thing that is "true" to a modern Japanese sensibility

Training arose from the need to train replacement actors for the show

SITI Company

Suzuki collaborated with Anne Bogart

Added Anne Bogart's Viewpoints to Suzuki's techniques

P3

Robyn Hunt and Steve Pearson studied for 12 year in Japan with Suzuki

Moved back to US to teach the techniques

Added Shogo Ohta's slow-tempo techniques

Frank

Here in Brisbane

Studied with Suzuki - Added Australian content and form

Exercies to Nick Cave instead of Japanese Flute

The training is a tool

An actor might study all of them

Each technique can be useful for different things

Shakespeare

Each of these directors has applied their techniques to Shakespeare

They're all useful tools for different hings

Why all this talk about acting techniques?

Four takeaways from the actors

Know what problem they're trying to solve

Develop techniques to solve the problem

Don't confuse technique with results

Be willing to adapt based on new data

The problem

Are we chasing psycological realism?

Are we chasing physical truth?

The problem for us

Are we making a toolkit for people to use to build clouds?

Are we making a cloud that can be deployed in multiple places?

Are we providing computers?

What I want

OpenStack should provide computers and networks that work

OpenStack should not chase 12-factor apps

OpenStack should provide a happy home for app frameworks

OpenStack should, by default, give me a directly routable IP