K. Stanislavsky’s System and Husserl’s Phenomenology: the “Life World” in the Footlight

The actor’s situation on a stage, being “unnatural”– as K. Stanislavsky noted – which, in E. Husserl’s terms, necessitates the actor’s capacity to “bracket” the naivety inherent in the “natural attitude”. This case allows us to see in Stanislavsky’s “System” the analysis of the ways of constituting stage images as “phenomena”, from a phenomenological perspective. The first part of the article demonstrates how an actor trained in the Stanislavski school transforms an object, by analogy with the method of “purification” of immediate experiences in Husserl’s project to achieve “absolute” experiences. In the second part, relying on Husserl’s concept of the “lifeworld”, the author identifies the necessary conditions for the actor’s “creative well-being”, as they are presented by Stanislavsky. To this end, the following aspects of the lifeworld are subjected to analysis: the “spatio-temporal world”, “corporeality”. “personhood”, and “causality/motivation”. Considering each of the elements the author demonstrates the similarities between the perspectives of Stanislavski and Husserl, who explores the constitution of the phenomenal field. The problem of the splitting of the actor’s self is considered, which turns into a phenomenological theme of the constitution of the self. In conclusion, it is clarified that the “verification” of Stanislavsky’s work by Husserl’s phenomenology indicates the prospects for further research into the director’s legacy in other areas related to the problem of consciousness.