University Press of America
Pages: 140
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7618-4103-6 • Paperback • October 2008 • $48.99 • (£38.00)
Maria Ignatieva, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at Ohio State University, Lima campus. As a specialist in Stanislavsky and Russian theatre, Ignatieva has over 70 publications to her name in English and Russian. She has taught at the Moscow Art Theatre School Studio, Moscow State Institute for Theatrical Arts, and at the University of Helsinki.
Chapter 1. Stanislavsky's Mothers: At Home and in the Theatre
Chapter 2. The Wife: Maria Lilina
Chapter 3. Phenomenon: Maria Andreyeva
Chapter 4. The Best Partner: Olga Knipper
Chapter 5. Artistic Daughter: Olga Gzovskaya
Chapter 6. Artistic Granddaughter: Irina Rozanova
Chapter 7 Epilogue: In Search of his Ideal Actress
Ignatieva's research has been published in leading journals and shared through international conferences. It is scrupulously documented, informed through her network of contacts among leading Russian theatre artists, and of great import to theatre history. Her book, Stanislavsky and Female Actors, contains a wealth of information on Stanislavsky's working relationships with both seasoned performers and students. It will open up new avenues for understanding his foundational approach to acting by looking at its application by women.
— Sharon M. Carnicke, Professor of Theatre and Slavic Studies, Associate Dean, Theatre
Ignatieva dedicates her book to the analysis of Stanislavsky's collaborations with female actors and their Life in Art. There are fewer and fewer studies being published in Russia and worldwide about acting, as if the world forgets that theatre can exist without all other theatre practitioners, but not without actors. Stanislavsky remembered it, and Ignatieva's book reminds us about it once again. Like My Life in Art, Ignatieva's book is published in the United States; as an editor-in-chief of the journal Stanislavsky, I hope that, in the future, the Russian public can also benefit from reading Ignatieva's unique study.
— Dr. Olga Galakhova, Editor-in-Chief, Journal Stanislavsky, Moscow, Russia, Professor of the Maly Theatre Schepkin School, Moscow, Russia
She deftly arranges her selected material into a coherent and cohesive narrative, resulting in a work that is informative, engaging, and delightful to read. The book functions both as a valuable resource for the scholar of Russian theater and as a cogent and thoroughly accessible introduction to the life of Stanislavsky, his female actresses, and the formation of the Moscow Art Theatre.
— Slavif and East European Journal, Winter 2009
The portrait that Maria Ignatieva gives us of Stanislavsky is perhaps no less autocratic and patriarchal than the traditional one, but he emerges as needier, more vulnerable and more humanly dependent. . . . We come away from a reading of Maria Ignatieva's book with a renewed interest in Stanislavsky as a creator motivated by a passionate love for his art and for those who practiced it by his side and with an awakened curiosity about the women without whom he could not have developed his theories or exercised his craft.
— Professor Daniel Gerould, Editor, Slavic and East European Performance