Until now, readers and students have had to contend with inaccurate, misleading and difficult-to-read English-language versions. Some of the mistranslations have resulted in profound distortions in the way his system has been interpreted and taught. At last, Jean Benedetti has succeeded in translating Stanislavski’s huge manual into a lively, fascinating and accurate text in English. He has remained faithful to the author's original intentions, putting the two books previously known as An Actor Prepares and Building A Character back together into one volume, and in a colloquial and readable style for today's actors.
The result is a major contribution to the theatre, and a service to one of the great innovators of the twentieth century.
This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by the director Richard Eyre.
Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) was a Russian actor and theatre director. He was the co-founder (with Nemirovich-Danchenko) of the Moscow Art Theatre, which took the international theatre world by storm when he began producing the plays of Anton Chekhov in 1898.