Psychotechnique

Psychotechnique (A portmanteau of psychological technique) forms part of the 'system' of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal developed by the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski. It describes the inner, psychological elements of training that support what he called "experiencing" a role in performance. In a rehearsal process, psychotechnique is interrelated with the "embodiment" of the role, in order to achieve a fully realised characterisation. Stanislavski describes the elements of psychotechnique in the first part of his manual An Actor's Work.

List

• Relaxation^[1]
• Concentration on an object^[1]
• The "As if"^[1] (Also called "What if" or "Magic ''if")
• Affective memory^[1] (Also called "Emotional memory", or divided by Maria Ouspenskaya teaching in Analytical memory and the Memory of real feeling^[2])

References

• Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-5755-070-9.
• Carnicke, Sharon M. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11–36).
• Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-19452-0.
• Stanislavski, Konstantin. 1938. An Actor's Work: A Student's Diary. Trans. and ed. Jean Benedetti. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 0-415-42223-X.

1. From Stanislavsky's book 'An Actor Prepares, and A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method of author, actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg (Page 59 of the original version of the book).
2. From A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method of author, actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Page 69 of the original version of the book.