While it would still be decades before Stanislavski set out to document his new system in writing, he first tested it in 1907 while directing Knut Hamsun’s The Drama of Life (the same year Meyerhold departed Moscow to assume a post at The Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg). Pleased with the results of the production, Stanislavski continued to research and practice his new system, directing and appearing in MAT mountings of Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man (1910), Hamlet (1911, and widely hailed as a masterpiece), and Pushkin’s Mozart And Salieri(1915).
In his "Hamlet", stage designer, Gordon Craig aimed to create a highly personal, almost hermetic symbolist drama. Stanislavski directed the actors on the basis of what he believed Craig's wishes to be -- and this at a time when he was still feeling his way towards his "method", which was much more naturalistic.
Throughout this time, the Moscow Art Theater continued to grow, becoming the face of popular theater in Russia during the early years of World War I and despite increasing political upheaval in Tsarist Russia.
This populist image proved vital when, in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution swept Russia and Vladimir Lenin became the first leader of The Soviet Union. Despite the horrors that would eventually come, Lenin’s rule proved beneficial for the Moscow Art Theater. A frequent attendee and personal friend of Meyerhold (a fellow Bolshevik party member), Lenin supported Stanislavski and Nemirovich’s work, allowing them to continue unperturbed as the “theater of the people”, while solidifying Meyerhold’s position in St. Petersburg. Supported by the new government, MAT’s attendance increased and the quality of their productions – aided by Stanislavski’s new system – continued to grow. Many ensemble members, including Nemirovich (although not for another two decades), won the People’s Artist of the USSR – the most prestigious artistic award given at the time.
From 1917 to 1926, The Moscow Art Theater produced constantly, remounting the now-deceased Chekov’s best-known work, finding a hit in a 1920 production of Byron’s Cain, and even touring The United States in 1922 and 1923. Even Meyerhold’s 1919 diagnoses with tuberculosis – which led to his temporary retirement and replacement in St. Petersburg – only allowed the state-supported artist to return to Moscow and found The Meyerhold Theater (which employed Stanislavski’s acting system) later that year. In 1924, Stanislavski published his first book – My Life in Art – in the United States with a Russian edition following in 1926. Detailing his life and work thus far, international interest in the memoir confirmed Stanislavski’s position as an historically influential actor and director. However, this book was not the acting manual that Stanislavski still contemplated writing, and throughout the 1920s he continued to flirt with the idea of publishing a more formal guide.
