Noh Desires and The Others

Abstract

All characters onstage and onscreen are, in a sense, ghosts. They are phantom limb figures and spectral personalities projected from numerous neuronal mappings of Self and Other in the intersubjective, yet alienated, human brains of writers, directors, actors, technicians, and spectators—through the creative sharing of specific plots and embodiments on the stage or screen. In ordinary life, science has freed modern culture from many prior superstitions. But our brains continue to be haunted by the primal experience of key figures, especially in childhood, and by innate animal drives. These internalized spirits and unconscious zombies involve particular, repeated patterns of concepts, emotions, and motives that have been sculpted and encoded in our material brain structures. Stage and screen dramas are extensions of the theatre within the brain, as considered in prior chapters here. Yet theatre and cinema are also mechanisms of evolution, from nature to culture, as humans not only adapt to a natural environment but also radically transform it—replaying the past changes and future possibilities, onstage or onscreen.