[A]sk an actor, after some great performance, how he felt while on the stage, and what he did there. He will not be able to answer because he was not aware of what he lived through, and does not remember many of the more significant moments. All you will get from him is that he felt comfortable on the stage, that he was in easy relationship to the other actors. Beyond that, he will be able to tell you nothing. You will astonish him by your description of his acting. He will gradually come to realise things about his performance of which he had been entirely unconscious.
Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares (1936)
[T]he very best that can happen is to have the actor completely carried away by the play. Then regardless of his own will he lives the part, not noticing how he feels, not thinking about what he does, and it all moves of its own accord, subconsciously and intuitively.
Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares (1936)
There are three relevant senses of 'naturalism,' and of the associated 'naturalist' and 'naturalistic.' The first, and most popular, indicates a method of 'accurate' or 'lifelike' reproduction. The second, and historically earliest, indicates a philosophical position allied to science, natural history and materialism. The third, and most significant in the history of drama, indicates a movement in which the method of accurate production and the specific philosophical position are organically and usually consciously fused.
Raymond
Williams, "Social Environment and Theatrical Environment:
The Case of English Naturalism" (1977)
Naturalism is not a dramatic method [. . .], a simple photography which includes everything [. . . .] That is the false naturalism, which believes that art consists simply of sketching a piece of nature in a natural manner: but it is not the true naturalism, which seeks out those points in life where the great conflicts occur, which rejoices in seeing what cannot be seen in every day.
August
Strindberg, On Modern Drama
and Modern Theatre (1889)
The play is, as you must have observed, conceived in the most realistic style; the illusion I wished to produce was that of reality. I wished to produce the impression on the reader that what he was reading was something that had really happened. If I had employed verse, I should have counteracted my own intention [. . . .] We are no longer living in the days of Shakespeare. [. . .] [W]hat I desired to depict were human beings, and therefore I would not let them talk the "language of the Gods."
Henrik Ibsen, Letter to Edmund Gosse (1874)
Stanislavski
and Naturalism in the Theatre