of Russian who had married the diplomat Norman Hapgood). In addition to choosing more abstract terms for her translations, Hapgood was somewhat inconsistent in their use. For example, she sometimes confuses "bits" (i.e. "units") with the related "tasks" that actors must confront in their roles ("objective" is her translation of zadacha, the Russian for task). The term "beats" is commonly used in American method acting. The transformation of "bits" into "beats" may derive from the pronunciation of émigré Russian teachers in America, possibly in conjunction with the image of a string of "beads" on a necklace. It has been suggested that oral teachings by Richard Boleslavsky of the Moscow Art Theater, who helped bring Stanislavsky's system to America, may have triggered the persistent mistranslation, and ultimately the metaphor commonly encountered in method acting of the script as a musical score. (Following the 1898 Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull, Stanislavsky had himself referred to the detailed production plan that can be made for a play as the directorial score, and later the metaphor was further developed by Jerzy Grotowski, who envisaged a physical score of action.) The word "beat" is sometimes also employed as a stage direction to indicate a significant pause. References Acting techniques