Michael Chekhov

Mikhail Aleksandrovich "Michael" Chekhov (Russian: Михаил Александрович Чехов, 29 August 1891 – 30
September 1955) was a Russian-American actor, director, author and theatre practitioner. He was a
nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov and a student of Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski referred to him
as his most brilliant student. Although mainly a stage actor, he made a few notable appearances on film, perhaps
most memorably as the Freudian analyst in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), for which he received his
only Academy Award nomination.

Stanislavski considered Chekhov to be one of his brightest students. When Chekhov experimented with
affective memory and had a nervous breakdown, this aided Stanislavski in seeing the limitations of his early
concepts of emotional memory.

After the October Revolution, Chekhov split with Stanislavski and toured with his own company. He thought
that Stanislavski's techniques led too readily to a naturalistic style of performance. He demonstrated his own
theories acting in parts such as Senator Ableukhov in the stage version of Andrei Bely's Petersburg. With the
beginning of Stalinism in 1927, Chekov came into conflict with the Communist regime and was threatened to be
arrested, especially for his spiritualist interests. In the late 1920s, Chekhov emigrated to Germany and set up his
own studio, teaching a physical and imagination-based system of actor training. He developed the use of the
"Psychological Gesture", a concept derived from the Symbolist theories of Bely. Stanislavski came to regard
Chekhov's work as a betrayal of his principles.

Chekhov's own students included Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Quinn, Clint Eastwood, Dorothy Dandridge, Mala
Powers, Yul Brynner, Patricia Neal, Sterling Hayden, Jack Palance, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, Paula Strasberg,
Guy Gillette, and Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges. In the television programme Inside the Actors Studio, noted
actors such as Johnny Depp and Anthony Hopkins have cited Chekhov's book as highly influential on their
acting.

ARCHETYPAL GESTURES

One of the key components of Chekhov’s technique is the Archetypal Gestures. An Archetypal Gesture is “the
largest possible gesture of a primal intention” (Herrera, 2014, para. 2). Archetypal Gestures are universally
known but have not necessarily been taught. There are 11 Archetypal Gestures in the Chekhov work. The
Gestures are as follows: open, close, push, pull, lift, embrace, penetrate, ring, tear, smash and throw. One
of the basic precepts of the Chekhov technique is that there is “no physical movement without inner movement”
(Caracciolo, 2008, p. 12). When actors perform these gestures, they not only execute the movement physically,
but they also carry it out in their imaginations. These Archetypal Gestures become Psychological Gestures when
a quality or emotion is added to them. For example, if an actor is performing the Archetypal Gesture of
embrace, he or she could choose to embrace carefully, embrace aggressively or any other quality that he or she
selects. Once the Gesture has been given a quality, it can then be used to assist an actor in exploring a role.

Chekhov’s Archetypal gestures:

1. Place / give
2. Lift (imagine just tapping a balloon)
3. Carry / drag (drag a heavy sack of something)
4. Throw (throw overarm)
5. Pull (e.g Romeo pulling Juliet towards him)
6. Push (hand low rejecting)
7. Rip / tear (down)
8. Wring / like twisting

Do the pure gesture, not with too much colour.

Use this as a quality to your work.

Psychological gesture
“The psychological gesture (PG) is a means of expressing the entire character in condensed form through an
intuitive grasp of the character’s main desire. The PG was Chekhov’s answer to an analytical approach to role
which could offer keen insights but leave the actor without a means of embodying them. The PG is perhaps
Chekhov’s single most original contribution to twentieth-century actor training.” Hodge, A. (ed.)
(1999) Twentieth century actor training. Routledge.

Drop the physical gesture and internalize it.

- Connection between your body / and inner life

- Number one – in your body / physical instrument. Movement leads to inner-feelings.
- Quality about your character that is different to you: e.g., they’re greedy.
- Do the first gesture of greed/ whatever you feel from toes to head
- What kind of archetypal gesture have you used?
- How does this gesture make you feel?
- This can be used to hook you into the character.

“Chekhov argued that the emphasis should be on the character’s feelings, not the actor’s – not ‘how would I
feel?’ but ‘what does the character feel?’ – and that this would enable the actor to transform into the character
rather than reducing the character to the personality of the actor.” Hodge, A. (ed.) (1999) Twentieth century
actor training. Routledge.
CHEKHOVIAN CENTERS

Centers: Chekhov felt that, generally speaking,

each of these psychological forces reside or
originated in different parts of our bodies and that
we as actors can tap into these physical spaces of
our person to find psychological attributes of our
characters. He called this the actor’s three-fold
body, the head, the chest, the hands, feet, and
groin. So, by focusing on our heads we can tap into
our thinking force, by focusing on our chests we
can find our feeling energies, and by concentrating
on our hands, feet, and groin, we can tap into the
quality of willing.

 Thinking people are called 'brains',

'eggheads', 'longhairs', or 'highbrow'. A
Thinking person does not necessarily
need to be particularly intelligent either.
He or she could have their “head in the
clouds” or be an “airhead”.
 Feeling has, of course, long been associated with our hearts ('big hearted', 'soft hearted', 'open hearted',
"loving with all of our hearts"). A particularly emotional person might “let their heart rule their head”
or “wear their heart on their sleeve”. Feeling is also associated with our lungs or our breath. Someone
might “take our breath away” or make us “breathless”. And our blood. We can be hot-blooded and
warm-blooded. If we have no emotion, we might even be cold-blooded.
 Willing is generally associated with our hands, feet, and groin. We might take a stand or stand one’s
ground. We also might fight tooth and nail and reach for the moon or the stars. We also might gird our
loins, fly by the seat of our pants, or shoot from the hip. We reach with our hands to grasp the things
that we want. We use our feet to go where we want. We use our groin to…well, you get the idea.

Petit’s Slap Test

If you are still having trouble deciding on your character’s psychological force, then I recommend using
Chekhov Guru, Leonard Petit’s slap test. In other words, imagine that your character has just been slapped.
What is his or her first response? Do they go “Why did you do that?” (Thinker) “Do they go “That hurt” or cry
or get angry. (Feeler) Do they slap back? (Willer).

KEY WORDS:

- Atmosphere 
- Feeling of ease 
- Imagination and Concentration
- Radiating 
- Characterisation 
- Feeling of beauty 
- Improvisation
- Higher creative self / Ego

READINGS

Petit, L. (2009) The Michael Chekhov handbook: For the actor. London, England: Routledge.

The Michael Chekhov handbook: For the actor (2009). Taylor & Francis Group.

Chekhov, M. (1985) To the actor: On the technique of acting. London, England: Grafton

Chekhov, M. (2001) Lessons for the professional actor. Baltimore, MD: Performing Arts Journals.

Rushe, S. (2019) Michael Chekhov’s acting technique: A practitioner’s guide. London, England: Methuen
Drama.