Unit of action

Bits of pieces

Stanislavsky conceived the segmentation of script as a preparatory tool for actors working on a play. Although he used the Russian word for "bit" (kusok) in the drafts he originally made for his planned books, he later preferred to speak in terms of "episode" (epizod in Russian), "event" (sobytie), and "fact" (fakt). These were the terms that Stanislavsky chose to use while teaching his system of acting to students at the Opera-Dramatic Studio in Moscow in the final years of his life, when he was concerned about the risk of losing sight of the play as a whole after breaking the action down into small bits. By this time, he was consistently distinguishing between more extended "episodes" (large bits or "events") and shorter "facts" (medium or small bits or "events"), using the Russian terms he had already employed in his notes and drafts earlier in his career. In Stanislavsky's conception, division into "episodes" can reveal the basic building-blocks of action, while subdivision into "facts" can help uncover the changes that occur from one moment to the next. Such divisions can be used to help players explore their characters and discover their actions through improvisation work during the early stages of rehearsal.

The frequently used term "units" derives from the somewhat less intuitive terminology introduced by Stanislavsky's original American translator, Elizabeth Hapgood (a fluent speaker of Russian who had married the diplomat Norman Hapgood). In addition to choosing more abstract terms for her translations, Hapgood was somewhat inconsistent in their use. For example, she sometimes confuses "bits" (i.e. "units") with the related "tasks" that actors must confront in their roles ("objective" is her translation of zadacha, the Russian for task).

The term "beats" is commonly used in American method acting. The transformation of "bits" into "beats" may derive from the pronunciation of émigré Russian teachers in America, possibly in conjunction with the image of a string of "beads" on a necklace. It has been suggested that oral teachings by Richard Boleslavsky of the Moscow Art Theater, who helped bring Stanislavsky's system to America, may have triggered the persistent mistranslation, and ultimately the metaphor commonly encountered in method acting of the script as a musical score. (Following the 1898 Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull, Stanislavsky had himself referred to the detailed production plan that can be made for a play as the directorial score, and later the metaphor was further developed by Jerzy Grotowski, who envisaged a physical score of action.) The word "beat" is sometimes also employed as a stage direction to indicate a significant pause.

References

References

1. Stanislavski, Konstantin. (2008). "An Actor's Work: A Student's Diary". Taylor & Francis.
2. Benedetti, Jean. (2013). "Stanislavski and the Actor". Routledge.
3. Larlham, Daniel. (2013). "The Routledge Companion to Stanislavsky". Routledge.
4. Carnicke, Sharon Marie. (2009). "Stanislavsky in Focus: An Acting Master for the Twenty-first Century". Taylor & Francis.
5. Esch, Kevin. (2012). "Theorizing Film Acting". Routledge.
6. Benedetti. (1999). "Stanislavski: His Life and Art". Methuen Drama.
7. (2007). "Jerzy Grotowski". Routledge.
8. Harrison, Martin. (1998). "The Language of Theatre". Psychology Press.