Albert Camus in his work “The Myth of Sisyphus” (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) points out that the theatrical symphony is expressed both experientially and conceptually through the body, movements, gaze, voice.[1] Thus, the actor sculpts in his imagination the theatrical heroes, who occupy and appropriate the Dasein of the actor’s existence.
Camus in the same work analyzes the importance of masks, kothornous and trifles.[2] In fact, since ancient times, they used the appropriate footwear, they often used kothornous (a type of boot that gave height to the actors, so that they looked imposing), clothes shaped in such a way as to transmit the corresponding messages by introducing the actor into the atmosphere of each theater work and , of course, masks (masks of comedy and tragedy). The mask is the expression of the physical look of the hero through the existential body of the artist. Epictetus believed that what the actor lends to the role is only his voice, the rest belongs to the mask.[3] In the ancient theater, comic and tragic masks were used, so that the corporality of the hero emerged at the level of visibility. The mask makes visible the duality of the actor’s bodily selfhood, since at the same time that he embodies his own existence behind the mask, he puts it on hold by covering it with the potential gaze movements of the theatrical hero.
The visual body of the actor appropriates eternity through the appearance of the hero he wears, overcoming within a few hours the impasse of human limitation. His physicality in the three hours of the performance lives, dies and is resurrected. something that man does not achieve in his chronologically limited real life.
The actor on stage is governed by the tragic ambiguity of human existence. Human struggles throughout his life to embrace infinity and eternity, even though he is aware of his limitation. This is how the actor seeks to sculpt his tragic fate by embodying many different roles, penetrating multiple factual universes and spatio-temporalities.[4]
The artist experiences through each role a new life, he feels that he is winning the inexorable time, since he is not just a being of limitation. The actor is his body[5] at the same time as the theatrical hero is the actor’s body. The actor on stage is Hamlet, is Ophelia, is Romeo, Juliet, is Falstaff, is Oedipus who directly confronts the Sphinx, which symbolizes the tragedy of human fate. Oedipus finds the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle by demonstrating and at the same time overcoming the limitations of human nature.
The more lives of heroes the actor has worn, the easier he accepts the fact that he must part with them.[6] This is the tragic fate of the actor, as well as the everyday person, the inevitable end. The actor radiates from the past to the future by performing a multitude of roles. But, although he has the privilege of reviving various lives in different space-times, he cannot stop the dizzying flow of time that carries him away and absorbs his vital energy.
The actor constantly renews his spatio-temporality through the interpretation of roles. But he himself as a being in his daily life is called upon to interpret roles. As the great Oscar Wilde said, ” One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead ”.[7] The man in his life is also an actor who wears multiple roles. Unfortunately, however, quite a few times, he falls into roles trying to become something other than his self.
Man is alienated from his Being as he alienates himself in social stereotypes and false values. Wilde emphasizes man’s need to be himself, as everyone else is caught. When, then, man imitates in his life something that he is not and renounces himself, then the distribution of roles in the theater of the world is completely wrong.[8]
Human existence embodies social roles throughout its life. Depending on the occasion, the place and the time he is in, he puts on and takes off the respective roles. Many times, in fact, he chooses what could potentially be, and not what he is. Thus, Camus[9] explains man’s inclination towards the theater, as he wishes to penetrate many lives, to experience their diversity, to feel eternity, as he passes from one life to another. Continuing, Camus refers to the following saying of Nietzsche:[10] “What matters is not eternal life, but eternal vivacity.”[11] Is the life of modern man ruled by the vital vivacity that encloses eternity?
Human existence, especially in today’s era, strongly experiences the ambiguity of his existence, in a reality where the natural flow of time seems to have been altered by socio-political crises and technological challenges. There are countless times when the person acts without vital fervor, functioning completely mechanically, as if observing himself from a distance in a virtual reality.
Within this complexly challenging reality, man adopts actions of another potential body, which is not himself, but is either a body of another existence with which he has identified, or a corporal identity that does not exist, but the person strives in vain to become intimate.
Man in his daily life covers his existence with various social “guises”. He looks happy, when in reality he is sad, he answers “Yes” when he means “No”, he acts involuntarily, when in reality he would like to avoid this particular act. So also the actor on stage, comes into conflict with his own personality, faces dilemmas, he is asked to act in the midst of strong contradictions and after the end of the performance he wonders if he was good, if he touched the audience, looking for the next role – challenge. Which role, should he/she be the most demanding, that needs a constant struggle for the person to become familiar with it? Is it Hamlet? Macbeth? Maybe Oedipus, or maybe himself/herself..?
[1] Albert Camus, Ο Μύθος του Σίσυφου, ( Le Mythe de Sisyphe), μτφρ. Ιάνη Λο Σκοκκο, εκδ. Αλεξ. Χ Ρούγκα, copyright: Ελικών, σ. 80.
[2] Όπ.π. Camus.
[3] Μαρία Πρωτόπαπα – Μαρνέλη, (2019), «Ο βίος ως θέατρο», Καθημερινή, ανακτήθηκε από: https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/theater/1010236/o-vios-os-theatro/
[4] Όπ.π. Camus, σ. 82.
[5] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Φαινομενολογία της Αντίληψης, ( Phenomenologie de la perception), (μτφρ. Κική Καψαμπέλη), εκδ. Νήσος, 2016, Αθήνα ( Gallimard, 1945).
[6] Όπ.π. σ. 82.
[7] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/oscar_wilde_396863.
[8] Όπ.π. σ. 15, 119.
[9] Όπ.π. Camus, σ. 81.
[10] Όπ.π. Camus, σ. 77.
[11] https://www.kalimaquotes.com/quotes/209923/what-matters-is-not
