Stanislafski

Konstantin Stanislafski lived from 1863 to 1938 and lived in Moscow, Russia. His styles were very naturalistic, with symbolism, and realism built within the styles. After developing his 'cross-cultural experience' as an actor, playwright, and businessman, with his style absorbing modernist developments, and psychological themes, such as; Pavlovian behaviourist psychology. Stanislafski used a range of techniques to overall make the actor believe they are the character, popularly known as the methodist technique. 

Some techniques he used were;

• Emotional memory
• The Magic If
• Given circumstances
• Objectives, Superobjectives, and Units
• Improvisation
• Subtext

Emotional memory, is using the actor's own emotional experiences, to show the raw emotion experienced by the character to make it look more 'real'.

• Imagining a simple activity with certain given circumstances, releasing the raw emotion of that imagination, for example getting out of bed, and imagining that your brother has just died.

Subtext is the actual motivation of the meaning behind the lines. There are many ways to say "I hate you", it depends on the delivery of the line, it could be as a joke, out of desperation.

The Magic if is when you ask the actor to think, "What would I do if I was in this situation?" The actor puts themselves into the character's situation, and it stimulates motivation to enable the actor to play the character's real emotions.

Given circumstances are when the actor considers the known circumstances surrounding the character, including 'facts' surrounding characters and their backgrounds. It allows the actor to develop the instinctual authentic actions, and reactions. Asking; Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

The Super Objective is the primary motivator of the character's actions, which is linked to the overall outcome to the play. It is the essential idea, and core of the play, providing the impetus (makes the process happen quicker) for the writing of the play.

The Objective is the motivator of the events being portrayed in that moment or "Unit". It changes all the time, as present circumstances are always changing, therefore, the actor should react to the other characters with these certain objectives in mind.

A Unit is a section of the play where the emotion of the characters change in some way and can be broken down into a few lines, or paragraphs, depending on the function for the units.