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Here, Today, Now: Active Analysis for the 21st-Century Actor

Merlin’s Beyond Stanislavsky, Nick Hern Books, 2001, was arguably the first British text to investigate fully Stanislavsky’s legacy of Active Analysis, which was the culmination of his lifelong exploration into acting process, galvanising the body, imagination, emotional palette, intellect and dynamic listening, into one psycho-physical process, Active Analysis (AA) is one of the most under-utilised aspects of Stanislavsky’s work though one of the best vantage points to look at him as a researcher into the process of acting. Over the last decade Merlin has applied AA’s fundamental principles to the direction of several full-length productions and numerous research-focussed workshops. The chapter “Here, Today, Now” condenses that practical research into a chapter, with clear guidelines to directors and actors as to the basic ethos of Active Analysis and the direct means of implementing it. The steps of Active Analysis may seem extremely simple: 1) read a scene, 2) discuss it, 3) improvise it, 4) discuss the improvisation, and 5) re-read the scene. That said, it can take courage on the part of actors, and faith on the part of directors, to dare to embrace the time-efficiency and potency of improvisation-based rehearsals. Foregrounding the research into the actor in rehearsal, Merlin addresses the challenges and highligts the discoveries, in order to provide one of the first English-language practically-based interpretations of Active Analysis. It is hoped that the result of this chapter will be the increased use of Stanislavsky’s final and highly impactful contribution to theatre making, in actor-training establishments and in theatres at large. Active Analysis continues to be the subject of Merlin’s research at RBC.