Review: Shakespeare and Stanislavsky

Subtitled ‘A practical guide for actors, directors, students and teachers,’ Annie Tyson's welcome book does exactly what it claims. It dispels the old myth that the Stanislavskian method cannot be applied to Shakespeare and demonstrates that all the acting choices in the plays of Shakespeare relate to action and character, exactly as they would in plays by other playwrights.

Anyone who has to teach Stanislavsky as a practitioner while also helping students to study Shakespeare, whether from an English or theatre studies perspective, will find plenty of useful information, ideas and activities here. Shakespeare and Stanislavsky should not be categorised as irreconcilable forces. Taken together, these two men probably influenced drama development more that anyone else in the history of theatre. Of course there can – and should – be cross-fertilisation.