Action and activity

Action is the heart of stanislavsky's system. An actor/character performs an action in order to fulfil a task: an action is performed for a purpose. it is expressed by and active verb.A complete performance can be seen to consist of a chain of action,a through a line of actions,which can be considered the actor's score(as a musician in an orchestra plays a score).

  an activity in Stanislavasky's terms is as it were which the actor/character 'does with his hands'. it is not part of his score in the sense that it does not matter in terms of the development of the play whether he performs these things or not. He lays the table, reads the newspaper, peels an orange. Masha takes snuff in The Seagull, Gayev pretends to play billiards in The Cherry Orchard. These are inconse-quential activities which may be personally revealing, but have no purpose beyond themselves.  

H.M.L.P.Herath

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