What has been called “the intellectual adventure of the twentieth century” is a sudden awareness of the unexploited possibilities of the arts. It is more than a lucid hubris, more than a deliberate effort to transcend the limits imposed by tradition and prudence. It is a deep conviction that art must change its structure and even its function. All the arts have purified themselves, eliminating the intrusions of other arts; they have rejected everything that was not necessary and vital to their own intentions.

“After the success of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya the theatre felt that it could not do without a new play by Chekhov,” wrote Stanislavski. “The fate of the theatre was in his hands: if he gave us a play we would have another season; if he didn’t the theatre would lose all its prestige.”

The Three Sisters was the first play Chekhov wrote especially for the Art Theatre; actually, on order from it. After a preliminary discussion, Nemirovich-Danchenko went abroad, so that the rehearsals were conducted by Stanislavski alone. His production plan (now in the MAT archives) clearly includes rehearsal changes, since Stanislavski finished it on January 8, 1901, and the first full run-through took place at the end of December, 1900.

The actors of the Theatre Laboratory in Opole, all of them under thirty, meet every morning at ten. The day begins with three hours of “basic” exercises: gymnastics, acrobatics, breathing exercises, rhythmic dance, plastic motion, concentration, mask composition, and pantomime. When this is finished, they start rehearsing the play which is currently in preparation and keep at it until show time in the evening. The acting technique they have perfected in five years is resolutely “theatrical,” meaning that it is anti-naturalist. We shall start with an analysis of this technique, which is supposed to increase substantially the actor's means of expression.

If the symbol was a hard nut for Stanislavski to crack, so is Lee Strasberg, symbolically and literally, a hard nut for anyone, friend or foe, to crack. Certainly it is easy to take an emotive view of him whether you admire him or not. In a most remarkably simple-minded way, his friends and disciples adore him while his enemies detest him. He is one of those figures who, like a supreme politician as opposed to an expert statesman, invites no middle ground, no neutral view. He suggests, as much by his nodding silences as by his little attentions, a classically formed love-hate relationship. But when the nut is there to be cracked, it almost always comes out melting love or towering hate, rarely both together.

A performance lasting ninety minutes, a language few of the audience can understand, a play more than 2,400 years old, and the immediate result—continuous applause for more than twenty minutes. This is a measure of the success of ancient tragedy in modern Greek translations and productions when on tour. In Greece itself, performances are frequently attended by audiences of twelve to fourteen thousand, most of whom have come from considerable distances, such as the 112 miles from Athens to Epidaurus.

Beginning with his introspective Finnish vacation in 1906, Stanislavski spent thirty-two years developing his work through speculation and experimentation. He was not a systematic thinker, and his books do not represent the consistent development of a single set of ideas; rather they are notes outlining the evolution of his methods. Stanislavski’s work is held together by its goal: to achieve excellence and truth in theatrical production. Because of the work of the American Lab and Group theatres, Americans are most familiar with Stanislavski’s early and middle periods. An understanding of his late work—his “method of physical actions”—would complete our grasp of his contribution.

There are two versions of Laius’ murder in Oedipus Rex. First, there is the version that is current in Thebes and is expressed by Creon, Jocasta, the Chorus, and presumably the Shepherd if he were to talk about it. Second, there is Oedipus’ version.

The first version is essentially this: one day, not too long before the Sphinx came to terrorize Thebes, Laius set out—so he said—to Delphi. He did not travel as a king generally might with a great many soldiers, but with only four of his men, one of whom was a herald. Laius himself rode in a chariot. At a place where three roads meet, Laius was met by a group of robbers.