Planes, Trains and Russian Cosmopolitism

Through a close reading of statements from An Actor’s Work and My Life in Art in the context of Russian socio-cultural history, and in comparison with Stanislavsky’s avant-garde and literary peers, I sketch what Henri Lefebvre (1991) calls the “spatial imaginary” which underpins Stanislavsky’s construction of the place from which action occurs. Starting with Stanislavsky’s key questions of where and when the action takes place, I find that images of flight—airplanes, or in the case of Nikolai Gogol, a bird-like sleigh (troika), as well as of trains—all act as highly mobile images of spatial interaction. Spatial mobility was an essential trait for the modern actor, while Stanislavsky also worked to slow down the speed of initial contemplation of place prior to action so as to develop resistances, motivations and considered rhythms which might act in opposition to the sense of velocity and change which modernity brought. Stanislavsky’s deft construction of diverse onstage places was also challenged by the abject scale of Russia’s vast, under-developed territories, as represented during rehearsals by the peasant voice. Stanislavsky’s approach to space and place may be characterised as modern and cosmopolitan, inspired by concepts from both Europe (French neuropsychology) and the Orient (modern Spiritualism and globalised yoga), yet he was ultimately unable to keep up with the speed of change which Russia’s leaders urged. Stanislavsky was in tune with his historical place but not his time .