Getting to the Task

Getting to the Task
Part 1, Five Approaches to Acting Series
by David Kaplan

Paperback text
72 pages, 8.5 x 11

$11.95 USD
ISBN 978-1-60182-181-2
Published January 2007
Hansen Publishing Group

Modern acting begins with a question: Why? Why am I happy? Why am I sad? Why am I doing what I do? The answer, given by Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian inventor of modern acting, turns out to be another question: What do I need to do?

Stanislavsky suggested actors analyze a text for tasks, not objectives (that is his American translator’s idea). Getting to the Task, Part One of the Five Approaches to Acting Series, clarifies Stanislavsky’s approaches for actors within the context of the time in which it was created: the then-new science of psychology and the rich inner world of fiction. Of particular interest is Stanislavsky’s lifelong inspiration from yoga, mention of which was cut by Soviet censors and a racist American publisher.

When acting becomes something you do out of necessity, action onstage becomes charged with desire, passion, and deep felt emotion. The tasks performed onstage contribute to Stanislavsky’s aim: communion with the audience, emotional and spiritual.

Getting to the Task, Part One includes practical exercises for class and rehearsals, techniques for analyzing a text for tasks, techniques for maintaining and deepening performances, examples from film to study, and a useful working vocabulary. It explains how other approaches might expand Stanislavsky’s vision. Getting to the Task, Part One separates Stanislavsky from his inaccurate (and widely influential) translators and interpreters in America. Getting to the Task, Part One separates The System from “The Method” — itself the subject of Building Images, Part Three in the Five Approaches to Acting Series.