Stanistlavski Techniques

Stanislavski created many different techniques to make actors think more about their characters and how they are feeling during a performance. These techniques are not only effective but also help enhance an actor or actresses performance and the audiences experience. 

The first technique I used was 'given circumstances'. This gives your character some unnamed emotional and physical feelings that should affect how they react to certain things. For example I had a physical cough which changed the pace of my dialogue by breaking up my speech. I also used it to make the character get angry over his cough and therefore changed my pitch as I got louder and more vicious towards the 'kid'. 

I also used the technique of sub-text to investigate what the characters were actually thinking when they spoke their lines. This helped me more than my performance as it allowed me to think about the character and how they were feeling. The only downside is that it can be difficult to work out whether a character really means what they say or not. Therefore you as an actor have to decide, including your "given circumstances" and "the magic if", how they would react in different situations and how they would feel about certain things.