Belief through Knowledge: The Relationship of Knebel’s Active Analysis to Stanislavsky’s System

ABSTRACT Stanislavsky placed belief in imagined circumstances at the heart of his acting System. As he wrote, “Everything on stage must instill belief in the possibility that it could exist in life as actual feelings and sensations, analogous to those that the artist undergoes while creating.” However, leading proponents of Stanislavsky’s late work rarely mention belief when they write about his last rehearsal technique, named Active Analysis by Maria Knebel. My essay interrogates this puzzling absence through Knebel’s practice, which still positions belief as “the foundation of foundations” in acting, but also sees belief as originating from actors’ active exploration of their roles’ circumstances. For Knebel, there can be no belief in fictional possibilities without the visceral knowledge, acquired through the rehearsal process.