Sculpting the Body, or Embodied Time

Abstract

As indicated above, acting is the most important component of theatre as art, and of stage speech in particular. This is why it is important to discuss it within the context of the latter. However, while being recognized as an inseparable component of theatre art, acting presents an immensely complex theoretical problem. The vast majority of publications on the subject of acting are not theoretical at all, and usually deal with the psychology of the actors, their professional cooperation with directors, methods of training, not to mention all sorts of memoirs, diaries and interviews.¹ In what follows, none of these topics will be dealt with, and the focus will fall on the ways in which acting becomes a TSGC, and a meaning-generating and distinctive factor in theatre.² The widespread impact of the Goffman–Schechner theoretical fallacy, by which acting becomes an all-inclusive term, used to describe all sorts of social behaviour and interaction, has been sufficiently dealt with by Eli Rozik, so there is no need to enter into the discussion.³ The degree of perplexity is deepened by a wave of new streams in theatre and criticism, postmodern or postdramatic, by which the traditional understanding of the nature of acting is undermined or even invalidated.⁴ The appearance of performance art, and its impact on the theatre, has brought a large measure of confusion as to the boundaries between different artistic mediums.