THE SCIENCE OF ACTING IN THE RUSSIAN THEATRE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY-FROM THE MODERN EPOCH TO THE AVANT-GARDE

K.S. Stanislavsky's System remains the basis for actor training in conservatoires in the UK and more widely and Vs. E. Meyerhold's Biomechanics is increasing in popu-larity as a training method in the twenty-first century. Both methods were rooted in sci-entific understandings from the modern epoch to the avant-garde, so it is important to question how this remains relevant to today's practice. This essay explores responses to Diderot's Le paradoxe sur le comedien (The Paradox of the Actor) in Russia from the nineteenth century to the 1930s, which, essentially, questioned whether head or heart should be primary in acting. A.N. Ostrovskii and P.D. Boborykin discussed this question from the 1860s in relation to the new science of I.M. Sechenov, which theorised generating emotion by reflex. Reflex theory impacted the debate between experiencing and representation in acting. The development of I.P. Pavlov's re-flex conditioning had further implications for heart or head and experiencing or representation debates for Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. In the 1930s, L. S. Vygotsky proposed a new response to Diderot's Paradox and N.A. Bernstein's neurophysiology pushed against the Soviet Pavlovian paradigm -a new context for reassessment of the great directors' work.Crown Copyright (c) 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

K.S. Stanislavsky's System continues to be the foundation for actor training in the UK and beyond, while E. Meyerhold's Biomechanics is gaining popularity as a training method in the 21st century. This essay explores the responses to Diderot's Paradox of the Actor in Russia from the 19th century to the 1930s, questioning the significance of head and heart in acting. The development of science and theories such as reflex conditioning and neurophysiology played a role in shaping Stanislavsky and Meyerhold's approaches.