Stanislavski, Maria Lilina (fl. early 1900s)

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Stanislavski, Maria Lilina (fl. early 1900s)

Russian actress who was the wife of Constantin Stanislavski. Name variations: Maria Petrovna Perevostchikova; Maria Lilina Perevozchikova; Mme Stanislavsky; Maria Stanislavski or Stanislavskaya; acted under the name Maria Lilina. Born Maria Lilina Petrovna Perevostchikova; daughter of Petrov Perevostchikov (a lawyer); married Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938, an actor, director, and teacher of acting), on July 5, 1889; children: Xenia (died in infancy); Kira Stanislavski; Igor Stanislavski.

The daughter of a well-known lawyer, Maria Perevostchikova met Constantin Stanislavski when she made her acting debut with him in a charity performance of Spoiled Darling in 1888. At the time, she was a teacher at a Moscow high school for girls and was breaking all the rules of respectable female behavior by appearing on the stage. Although she attempted to hide her theatrical activities by performing under the name Maria Lilina, the alias did not prevent her from losing her job. At Stanislavski's invitation, she joined The Society of Art and Literature which he founded later that same year. She appeared on stage with him again in the society's production of Schiller's Kabale and Liebe. "It seems that we were in love with each other, but did not know it," Constantin wrote later in his biography My Life In Art, "but we were told of it by the public. We kissed each other too naturally, and our secret was an open one to the public. In this performance I played less with technique than with intuition, but it is not hard to guess who inspired us, Apollo or Hymen." She and the young Constantin were married at Liubimovka on July 5, 1889. According to his biographer Jean Benedetti, Constantin was fortunate in his marriage. "Lilina was a remarkable woman," he writes, "always supportive yet never offering blind adulation, offering criticism where needed and going her own way artistically if she had to."

The newlyweds set up housekeeping in Moscow, in an apartment at the Stanislavski family residence at Red Gates. Household duties and childrearing soon took precedence over Maria's career. In the course of the next six years, she gave birth to three children: Xenia (who died in infancy), Kira Stanislavski , and Igor Stanislavski. When not pregnant, Maria took to the stage whenever possible. In his biography, Constantin praises her "feeling for costume" and her "taste and inventiveness," suggesting that she may have been involved with the design elements of his productions as well. She also knew English and frequently interpreted for him.

Constantin, who believed that the theater was his destiny and that his name would go down in history, continued to pursue his passion while also fulfilling his duties to the family's textile business. This double commitment left little time for Maria and the children, a matter of contention that strained her to the point of illness. An enforced separation in 1896 (the house at Red Gates was commandeered by the German delegation who were attending the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, and Maria and the children went to stay with relatives while Constantin remained in Moscow) did little to solve the problem. While on holiday with her husband sometime later, after he had established the renowned Moscow Art Theater, Maria wrote to her daughter Kira: "Papa writes all day and thinks about his plan. I read."

Over the years, Maria apparently came to grips with her husband's divided attention and became content to support his artistic struggles. She remained his devoted disciple and a member of the company of the Moscow Art Theater, although Olga Knipper-Chekova emerged as the company's leading actress. There is nothing to suggest that Maria was an extraordinarily talented actress, but is also unlikely that she would have competed with her husband for the spotlight, or that he would have willingly relinquished it to her. As Benedetti points out, however, Maria had a mind of her own. Along with the rest of the Moscow Art Theater company, she had difficulty with the Stanislavski Method of Acting as it was evolving. In 1909, during rehearsals for Blue Bird, she told Constantin outright that she did not find his new ideas helpful.

In later years, as Constantin became famous, Maria protected him from an eager public and helped manage his busy schedule. After 1930, he was frequently ill, but she was nonetheless shocked by his death in the late summer of 1938, shortly before the Russian edition of his An Actor's Work on Himself: Part One was completed. The book was released that fall, prompting Maria to write: "At three in the afternoon they sent an advance copy of his book, the labour of his life, three weeks after his death. Why is fate so cruel? Who knows, if he had seen this book in his lifetime what a boost it might have been, what a stimulus to go on living."

While her husband was buried in the cemetery of the New Maiden Monastery along with other notable Russians, Maria slipped into obscurity. It is to be hoped that, upon her own death, she was laid to rest beside her husband, or, at the very least, in the nearby corner of the graveyard reserved for the members of the original Moscow Art company.