The director's perception of text and actors' presence: by a relational viewpoint

Date

1996-08

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

Perceptual facts, experienced through life on the basis of the dramatic written text, determine the aesthetic phenomenon of theatre. The truth, that the art of acting originates from the actor's physical form, fortifies theatre not as the written text itself but the sensuous experiences about it. When one reads "a desk" in a play script, for example, he or she does not perceive the word but perceives a physical object called desk. Upon this recognition, a director shares a wide range of interests with the other arts. His power of perception, acquired and enhanced by knowledge of those arts, submerges into a reading. The director becomes electrified in the perceptual facts hidden largely in the text.

The director then works with the actors in order to make his (or her) own theatre production. He will work with them on the basis of what he already perceived through the text. The actors' presence (i.e., their physical and verbal presentation), becomes here a new element. Making theatre is an impossibility without the director's critical perception of the actor's presence. The actor is not simply himself (or herself); he becomes an actor as he is related to character, other actors and the audience. Therefore, the director's perception of an actor's presentation should be made within the range of these relational elements.

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