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##### August 8, 1938 OBITUARY ## Stanislavsky Dies in Moscow At 75 ##### By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Moscow, Aug. 7 -- Constantin Sergeivitch Stanislavsky, one of the greatest masters of Russian drama and a founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, died here today of a heart ailment. The 75-year-old dramatist had been ill since June 15 when he collapsed during preparations for staging "Cartouche," a work of the seventeenth century French playwright Moliere. All Russia celebrated his birthday last January. Stanislavsky began his stage career that made him internationally famous by directing performances of non-professional artists in Czarist Russia and, in 1933, he received the Order of the Red Labor Banner for his services to the proletarian stage. Stanislavsky was an actor, producer, teacher and philosopher of the theatre. As an actor he appeared in roles that have become part of the history of the Russian theatre. He was Satine in Gorky's "Lower Depths" and Famusov in "Woe to Reason," by Griboyedov. For fifty-five years Stanislavsky strove to create bold new forms of theatrical expression. In forty of those years, during which he headed the Moscow Art Theatre, he staged fifty plays and enacted twenty-seven characterizations. In recognition of his work the government conferred on him, besides the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Lenin and the title of People's Artist of the U.S.S.R. Co-Founder of Art Theatre Constantin Stanislavsky, co-founder with Nemirovitch-Dantchenko of the Moscow Art Theatre and for many years its director, was the acknowledged father of the modern Russian theatre. He revolutionized the art of producing, and his genius as director was lauded even in foreign countries where audiences could not understand the language used by his players. The individual distinction of his group of actors was due to his philosophy of direction. He transplanted nature upon the stage, and the expression "just like life" was what audiences delighted in Stanislavsky's productions. What he launched was unlike anything previously seen on the stage. He brought something to life that was invisible before. Yet the Russian was far from "discovering" something new in dramatic art or from attempting to produce something that was never seen before. He simply went ahead with his plans, conducted by an artistic spirit, and driven by an impulse that he could not suppress. While his inspirations were sudden, the technique of the Moscow Art Theatre was created gradually, yet spontaneously. His actors were his pupils, and they saw in him the master. He was their idol, and they were convinced that he alone had the quality of developing their individuality. "My work with the artist," Stanislavsky once said, "is to open his eyes to what he has to accomplish, to encourage and guide him to the expression of all of those things that must be developed out of his own soul." Natural Setting Disquieting In his book of memoirs, "My Life and Art," he related the following episode: On one of their tours in the provinces some members of his company happened to be walking in a park. They came upon a spot which bore such a striking resemblance to one of their sets in Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" that then and there they decided to play the scene in its natural setting. "It was my turn to make the entry," related Stanislavsky. "As set out in the play, I and Mme. Knipper walked down a long alley saying our lines; then we sat on a bench, just as we used to do on the stage; began to talk, and--stopped, for we found ourselves unable to proceed. In the surroundings of living nature my acting, I felt, was utterly false. Yet people say that we have brought simplicity to the point of complete naturalness. How conventional the things we were accustomed to do on the stage proved to be!" In another of his books on acting and playing, "An Actor Prepares," Stanislavsky held that "in our art you must live the part every moment that you are playing it, and every time." In order to accomplish this aim he evolved his "psycho-technique" for the release and free play of proper inspiration, which has its sources in the subconscious mind. He made it impressively clear that an actor who is to be prepared in this manner must have an excellently trained physical and vocal apparatus. His body and his voice, according to the director, must respond to the creative work of his emotions "with precision." He was of the opinion that the world was on the eve of a new form of drama. "War and suffering have changed people's outlook," he said. "Although I don't know myself what the new theatre will be, I'm sure there is a general expectancy of a new ideal." Group Performed in United States The Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavsky's direction performed here in 1923 and 1924. It presented plays by Tolstoy, Gorky, Tchekhoff and other Russian dramatists in their own language, and they appeared in a large group, more than fifty in all. They were then looking forward to their American appearance, because the Russian revolution and tours on the Continent had left the company in anything but prosperous circumstances. The American Defense Society protested against their entrance here on the theory that they were Communist propagandists, to which charge Stanislavsky answered: "It is not so. We have no connection with the Soviet Government. We are interested only in art. It is our art that we have come to bring you, not politics." The development of the Russian Art Theatre spelled romance, and it was always with pride that Stanislavsky pointed to it. It was born at a moment when he, an amateur actor, dreaming great dreams of his art which he had not been able to carry into effect, met Dantchenko in a Moscow cafe in 1897, and they sat for eighteen hours talking of the stage and what they wished to do. They determined to do it, and that marked the beginning of the Moscow Art Theatre. It was begun as, and always remained, a cooperative institution. Its members drew salaries and whatever profits came were divided among them after the needs of the theatre had been provided for. The most prominent actors, more interested in their art than in becoming wealthy, belonged to it, and the undertaking boasted that it has never had an empty seat. Trained Young Actors But the Moscow Theater itself was only a part of the organization Stanislavsky created. To train young actors and actresses who show talent for the stage he formed four studios, small theatres in which they were developed until the time when they were ready to take their place in the greater theatre. He added to these undertakings an operatic studio, and in them all, at one time, more than 1,000 persons were employed. When the revolution of 1917 came the company fell upon evil days, and a minor theatrical Odyssey happened which ended only in 1923. The group was under a constant threat in Moscow because of the supposedly bourgeois tendency of its repertory, and it was only by the courageous enthusiasm of Stanislavsky that it was able to carry on. Stanislavsky, whose real name was Constantin Sergeevich Alexeev, was born at Moscow in 1863. His father was a rich mill owner and his grandmother a French actress. He studied at the Imperial School of Dramatic Art and in 18888 began work as an actor and producer in the Society of Art and Literature. The Moscow Art Theatre was founded in 1898. As a director he was an actor of great force and subtlety, taking the leading parts in Tchekhoff's and Gorky's plays which he produced.
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