Overview

Jean Benedetti's critical biography of Konstantin Stanislavski, one of the towering figures of twentieth-century theatre, has been fully revised and expanded offering new facts and insights into Stanislavski's life and arts. This new edition, written with unprecedented access to original Russian material including letters and production notes never previously translated, explores the collaboration and often bitter disputes with Nemirovich Danchenko, co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, and traces further Stanislavski's often troubled relationship with the company he led. It gives a new account of the difficulties and tensions that lay behind the highly influential 1922-4 American tour. Benedetti also gives us fuller versions of key moments in Stanislavski's career: his arbitrary arrest in 1919 and his troubled relationship with the Soviet regime over artistic differences; a greater understanding of how Stanislavski's seminal books on acting came to be written, edited and translated into English only to lead to gross misunderstanding of his work; plus the best understanding yet of the evolution of Stanislavski's revolutionary acting 'system'.