From the beginnings of human societies the question “Was ist der Mensch“, founded centuries later in Kant’s philosophy, has motivated human thought. Man as a being embodies his uniqueness. But what happens to the theater man, the Man-Actor, who as a singularity embodies other singularities at the same time…?
The actor as an existential whole has occupied the sciences and philosophy for centuries. More specifically, the duality of his physical identity, the fact that his physicality embodies his Being and at the same time the Being of a potential being, which does not exist. The incarnated theatrical hero may not exist within the world, but may at some point exist, or once existed, or it is a being that does not exist in it, but its actions extend within the multiplicity of lives of different people.
The duality of the actor’s own body[1] lies in the fact that the actor, at the moment he embodies his ontological identity as an existence, at the same time abandons it by adopting another, embodying two or more selfhoods in his own physicality. The mystery becomes even more intense, since the actor does not lose his individuality for a moment, even though as a physicality he takes on the actions of others, often diametrically opposed personalities.
When we refer to the art of the theater and the role of the actor, we use verbs such as: “performs“, “incarnates”, “puts on“,[2] since within his Being he assumes a non-being, which becomes active and inactive through the corporality of the actor .
The dipole of being-non-being is already found in Presocratic philosophy. Parmenides defined real beings as the only true, stable and unchanging ones, since they transcend the changes and fallacies of sensibility. Non-beings are unstable, changeable and fall within the dimension of the senses. Contrary to Parmenides, Heraclitus believed that being and non-being alternate, being is potentially non-being, while non-being is an expected being. It seems that Heraclitus pronounces dialectically regarding the relationship between being and non-being, compared to Parmenides. However, a dialectical tendency is also hidden in Parmenides’ thought, because he contrasts being with non-being, a fact that demonstrates that contrasting one with the other presupposes their interchange.
The dialectical relationship between being and non-being is embodied in the individuality of the actor, who, while being his existence, is at the same time a non- existence or a potential existence.
The body becomes a dialectical space-time meeting of the Being of the actor with the potential Being of a hero through the condition of imitation. The body, maintaining its effects, tries to imitate and assimilate the effects of a non-existent body. The actor’s body imitates speech, movements, behaviors on stage, within a certain time. But what is the deepest need that pushes man to embody a non-existence and to become familiar with the effects of this non-existence..?
The theater in ancient Greece had Dionysian origins with an early stage of the dithyramb. The dithyrambos was an improvised liturgical chorus in honor of the god Dionysus,[3] god of wine, gaiety and pleasures. The chanting movements were disorderly, improvised and exuded the Dionysian fury that possessed the worshipers of Dionysus. Later, as man’s need to grasp the infinity of space and the eternity of time intensified, he was pushed to form tragedy, comedy and satirical drama. Thus, from Thespis, the first tragic actor, and Phrynichus and Pratina[4], the first tragic poets, we pass to the age of the great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and of course the satirical poet Aristophanes, who introduced the art of the dramaturgy of the politics-politician relationship by cauterizing the bad texts of his time, with the aim of awakening his fellow citizens.
According to Aristotle’s definition: “Tragedy is therefore an imitation of a great and perfect deed, the greatness of which, adorned with speech, without each of the species in the particles, acting and not by recitation, by pity and fear passing through the purification of those sufferings. » («Ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας, μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ, χωρίς ἑκάστου τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων και οὐ δι’ ἀπαγγελίας, δι’ ελέου και φόβου περαίνουσα την των τοιουτων παθηματων καθαρσιν.»[5] ) The actor gets to know the actions of the hero he embodies through the process of imitation, which lasts a certain amount of time, has a beginning, a middle and an end. The body of the actor kinesthetically activates the Being of the hero, which he puts on. The movements, the words, the looks and the experiences of the hero he embodies make up the duality of his corporal identity.
The potential being activated through the flesh of the actor, who experiences the state of reverie and ecstasy. The actor emerges and transforms into another potential being, which is sculpted with the help of the plasticity of the actor’s imaginary images. Ekstasis emerges in Nietzsche’s work “The Birth of Tragedy” (Die Geburt der Tragӧdie).[6] Tragedy shapes the tragic of human existence, the finitude of its physicality, which while affirming the vitality of man, at the same time it declares its transience. The Dionysian (Dionysischen) and the Apollonian (Apollinisch) are inherent in the pity and fear caused during the condition of the tragedy, until at the end there is catharsis, that is, redemption (according to Aristotle’s definition of Tragedy).
Pity and fear are inherent in human life throughout its duration, for just as the actor fears, suffers, anguishes, rages, and seeks justice, so man throughout his life strives to come to purification in the tragedy of his own life. The drive of vitality and the constant tendency of man to overcome his mortal nature push him to artistic elevation through the form of tragedy.
The vital impetus of man appropriates the everywhere of infinity and the everything of eternity. The existential drive of man is consistent with the evolution of humanity and the socio-economic developments of each era. Reflections on the evolution of the ethical-political and political-political relationship within the complex multiplicity are intense in the Renaissance theater, especially in the work of the philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Mandragola.[7] Reflections on the cosmological and social evolutionary flow of multiplicity influenced another Renaissance philosopher, Giordano Bruno, whose work Il Candelaio was banned in his day and staged in Italy only in 1905. Bruno’s philosophy was groundbreaking for that period, but proved to be timeless, having influenced various thinkers throughout the centuries. It is even considered possible that Shakespeare inspired Hamlet from Bruno’s philosophy. [8]
Despite any socio-political obstacles, the art of theater is evolving, since the tendency for artistic creation stems from the human tendency towards a good life. Modern theater was founded in Italy, which is why, after all, Italy deserves to be considered the cradle of modern theatrical art. The most important genre of Italian theater was Commedia dell’ arte.[9] The farce of the Commedia dell’arte exerted influences on the French theatre, as seen through the works of Moliere (The Imaginary Invalid ), but also the Elizabethan theatre. Strong elements of Commedia dell’arte can be found in Shakespeare’s works, where the heroes experience existential contradictions so intense and complex, consequently mixing the comic with the tragic element, laughter with crying.
The theater of the 19th and 20th centuries was marked by rapid and terrifying social developments. Important writers such as Ibsen, Chekhov and Lorca demonstrate the need for man to break free from the suffocating power of the time by claiming the fundamental right of self-determination.
The Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, known mainly for his poems that have as their main theme, the death that torments every human being, but also for the dramatic his trilogy: “Blood Wedding” (Bodas de Sangre, 1933), “Yerma”( 1934), “The house of Bernarda Alba” (La casa de Bernarda Alba, 1936), left his mark on the theater of the 20th century. He was born in 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros and died in Granada in 1936. He was assassinated by the nationalists shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. [10] Lorca’s tragedies, which remain relevant to this day, “Blood Wedding“, “Yerma” and “The House of Bernarda Alba”, center the socio-political changes and the stakes of human existence, more specifically the socially oppressed woman of seasonal.[11]
Lorca, influenced by the difficult years of the Civil War in Spain, composed the above works, wanting to show everyone the extent of the cruelty of that time and the criminal violence that the people were subjected to. He tried through his written work to awaken the world to resist this suffocatingly domineering situation, the result of which was the degradation of human existence. It seems that the composition of his works arose from a completely profound existential need with the aim of overcoming social oppression and shaking off social ties, on an individual and collective level. Lorca was arrested and executed during the Spanish Civil War at dawn on August 19, 1936 for his democratic views.[12]
Another very important dramatist and poet, who dealt with the political and social happenings of his time, conveying important moral messages through his works, is Bertolt Brecht, who is considered the father of the “epic theater” in Germany.[13] His work is deeply anti-war, while at the same time emphasizing and bringing awareness to the world crisis of 1929, the economic impoverishment that particularly afflicted people by focusing on the struggles of the working class. His works became widely known after the Second World War, in which the human condition is strongly highlighted. “The Good Man of Setzuan“, ( Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”, (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) are some of his very important works, while in 1944 he strongly criticizes the regime of national socialism in Germany. [14]
Thus, the inseparable connection between life and theatrical art becomes clear. The world is like a theater and man, like a theatrical hero, tries to cope, to face the difficulties, to accept the fate of limitation existing gross injustice, even when he acts with the intention of good. The Stoics, in fact, did not consider theater just another art, but an art of life.[15] The world is the theater and the people are protagonists and at the same time spectators who participate in the theater by acting (action – drama), while at the same time admiring the majesty and harmony of the natural flow of things.
In the theatrical condition the actor acts and at the same time sees the flow of events within spatio-temporal reality, as does the spectator, who sees the events taking place on stage, many of which govern his own vital action within the world. Ιn the theater the spectator is a decisive factor for the flow of the theatrical action. The theater is not made just for the audience, but together with the audience. As British actor Alec Guinness said: “It is better to play in front of empty seats than empty faces”. [16]
The actor communicates directly with the viewer, especially in theater art, where the physical movement of the actor’s body is captured in live time, compared to cinema, where the spatio-temporal movement of events is projected through the gaze of the director’s camera. Therefore, a kind of dramaturgical empathy develops, since the viewer experiences two spatio-temporities at the same time: the present hic et nunc and the potential hic et nunc experienced by the physicality of the actor. The viewer is experientially and visually attuned to the corporality of the actor, who extends as mit-Sein,[17] since he extends simultaneously as the Dasein of his own existence and as a potential Dasein[18], embodying the respective hero.
The viewer is moved, laughs, cries, indignant, awakened, until finally he reaches the purification through the redemption of the actor, hoping to experience his own personal purification, as an existence. The viewer’s empathy towards the actor, the experience of the theatrical event, the redemptive laughter and crying help the viewer to release their own repressed emotions. Theatrical art “turns germs into a vaccine“,[19] Jean Louis Barrault had said, after filtering negative elements that plague human existence, such as: violence, injustice and fear, with the aim of stopping the dilutive effect of these negative elements on the human being.
Along with this “homeopathic” theater therapy, the function of replenishment[20] is extended. Person co-suffers with the actor by experiencing situations that he has either experienced in his daily life, or are unknown to him, as a result of which his experiences are enriched and the ability to empathize. This is why the theater, since ancient times, was applied as a means of treatment, as of course in today’s era with the method of drama therapy, because it contributes the most to the reconstruction of human becoming.
Spectators make a decisive contribution to the visual and experiential theatrical action, even if they are few in number. The paradox is that even if there is only one actor performing on the stage, there may be more than one, since he simultaneously assimilates the emotions of different heroes. In fact, the phrase of the great actor and director, Orson Welles, to the audience of one of his performances is well known: “Why are there so many of me and so few of you?” [21]
The corporality of the actor embodies the essence of his existence and at the same time he assimilates the effects and essence of another or other existences. The Nietzschean saying “Become who you are” in theatrical art is realized as “Become who you are not”, since the actor becomes familiar with emotions, which are often unknown to him.
The actor, within the contingency that governs him as a transitory being carved by time, has the privilege of constantly transcending his limitation. The theatrical man has the privilege of reviving and renewing his individuality through the embodiment of heroes. The theatrical idiosyncratic extends the dialectic of human nature by incorporating the actions of the actor as existence and the actions of the theatrical hero of a potential existence, the Being and the Zero that prospectively tends to Being.
The paradox of the dual bodily identity of the actor as being and as potential being is analyzed in the work of the great philosopher and Encyclopaedist, Diderot. Diderot in his essay “The Paradox of the Actor” (Le Paradoxe sur le comedien)[22] attempts to explain the complexity of the theatrical art. Diderot believed that sensitivity and emotionality are harmful to the actor, since it can prove detrimental to his art. Continuing Diderot, he argued that the actor must remain unmoved in order to stay focused on his role and manage to move the audience. The paradox, according to Diderot, is the actor’s ability to cry on stage, moving the audience, without feeling sorrow or emotion himself. This point of view of Diderot caused conflicting opinions, because the actor at the moment of his performance appropriates and extends the dialecticized[23] relation of being-potential being.
The experience of the corporal duality of the actor as aktive leib and as potenzieller leib proved decisive for the directing method of one of the most important theater directors of the 20th century, Constantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski emphasized the development of artistic truth on stage, teaching actors to “live the part” during a performance. In his theater workshop, actors were taught to use their memory to naturally express emotions.[24]
The director, however, soon noticed that some of the actors were abusing this method. Many of the actors used their emotional memory intensively, resulting in hysteria, especially if it was about bad memories that brought up unpleasant feelings. In these cases, the active dimension of the body of the actor-being was desynchronized from the potential dimension of the body of the theatrical hero, due to the fact that the potential bodily dimension enclosed in its own hic et nunc the active dimension of the body.
So Stanislavski then began to look for less painful ways, emphasizing imagination and faith in the given circumstances of the scenario. In this way he sought to cultivate the emotional memory of the actors and to reach the subconscious through the conscious.[25]
The body in theatrical art is the spatio-temporal field of acquaintance (mit-sein) of actor (aktive Leib) – hero (potenzieller leib). The actor’s idiosyncratic body is that body in which so many souls meet, it is that body within which the actor cohabits with the hero and meets himself in a unity-difference condition. The unity-difference relationship that develops between the actor and himself is active in the ancient theater, where male actors were called upon to perform female roles. The male impersonators imitated female personalities, they were called to penetrate their psyche, to empathize with them, as they assimilated the sexes of the opposite sex by embodying the female Dasein in their male body. In this case, the artist’s body turns into a factual area of dialecticization of gender differences.
The unity-difference relationship between existential body – idol is reflected in Euripides’ tragedy Helen. In the Helen of the great tragic poet Euripides, the real body of the Beautiful Helen is in Egypt, while in Troy is her form-idol.[26] In the case of the actor, his idiosyncratic character is appropriated by the image of the theatrical hero. In this way, the actor’s existence presents itself as a visible-invisible chiasm,[27] that is, as a synthesis of the energetic body of the artist and the potential body of the hero.
In the tragedy of Euripides, the real Helen is in Egypt, in a different space and time from her idol who is in Troy. In the theatrical condition the hic et nunc of the theatrical life of the hero is framed in the present experienced hic et nunc of the actor. The corporality of the actor through the classes of the hero he appropriates is included in a space-time inherent in the present event. The myth and the dream are composed through the apparent-real[28] ambivalence within the theatrical subject. The Appearance of the corporeal aspect constitutes the potential Being, as the physical aspect of the actor is occupied by the personality of the hero. Consequently, the Appearance of the theatrical subject acquires a double dimension, since it extends as one facet, which expresses two different beings, an actual being and a potential being. The actor is occupied by the personality of the hero, but he, in turn, determines the modalities of his physical features at the moment of performance. Characteristic is the technique of Far Eastern theater[29] actors, who have been introduced to the theatrical condition since childhood, gaining complete control over every movement of their body.
[1] Maurice Merleau-Ponty Φαινομενολογία της Αντίληψης, ( Phenomenologie de la perception), (μτφρ. Κική Καψαμπέλη), εκδ. Νήσος, 2016, Αθήνα ( Gallimard, 1945).
[2] Νικηφόρος Παπανδρέου, Περί θεάτρου, εκδ. University Studio Press, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1989, (ανατύπωση 2007), 2.3, σ. 40.
[3] Αριστοτέλης Αναγνώστου, Έργα και Ποιητές του αρχαίου ελληνικού θεάτρου, εκδ. Αρμονία, Αθήνα, 2010, σ σ. 18-19.
[4] Όπ.π. Αριστοτέλης Αναγνώστου.
[5] Αριστοτέλους Περί Ποιητικής, (μτφρ. Σίμου Μενάνδρου, εισαγωγή Ι. Συκουτρή), εκδ. Εστία, 2011, ανατύπωση της πρώτης έκδοσης του 1937, VI 1-4, 1449b.
[6] Friedrich Nietzsche, Η Γέννηση της Τραγωδίας [ Die Geburt der Tragӧdie], ( μετάφραση: Χρήστος Μαρσέλλος, επίμετρο: Μάρκος Τσέτσος- Πιερ Όσμο),εκδόσεις: Εστία, 2009, Θεσσαλονίκη.
[7] Ph. Hartnoll, Ιστορία του Θεάτρου,( A concise history of the Theatre, ©THAMES and HUDSON Ltd, 1968) , (μτφρ. Ρούλα Πατεράκη), εκδ. Υποδομή, Αθήνα, 1980, κεφ. 3, σ σ. 68-69.
[8] Όπ.π. Ph. Hartnoll.
[9] Όπ.π. σ. 69.
[10] ΒΛ ΄Λόρκα. Σε. ΠΑΠΥΡΟΣ Larousse Britannica, ΕΚΔΟΤΙΚΟΣ ΟΡΓΑΝΙΣΜΟΣ ΠΑΠΥΡΟΣ, [La], Αθήνα 1989, Τόμος39, σελ. 170 .
[11] https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[12] https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[13] https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[14] https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Μπρεχτ.
[15] Μαρία Πρωτόπαπα – Μαρνέλη, (2019), «Ο βίος ως θέατρο», Καθημερινή, ανακτήθηκε από: https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/theater/1010236/o-vios-os-theatro/.
[16] https://www.gnomikologikon.gr/.
[17] Martin Heidegger, Είναι και Χρόνος ( Sein und Zeit, 1927), (Μεταφρ: Γιάννης Τζαβάρας), εκδ. Δωδώνη, Αθήνα, 1η εκδ. 1978, 2η, 2013, κεφ. 6.
[18] Όπ.π Heidegger.
[19] Βλ. Νικηφόρος Παπανδρέου, κεφ. 4, σ. 52.
[20] Όπ.π. σ. 52.
[21] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/orson_welles_539014.
[22] Γιούλη Μακρή, Ντιντερό. ΤΟ ΠΑΡΑΔΟΞΟ ΤΟΥ ΝΤΙΝΤΕΡΟ – DIDEROT – LE PARADOXE SUR LE COMMEDIEN, MyTheatro.gr, ανακτήθηκε από: https://www.mytheatro.gr/ntintero/.
[23] Σωκράτης Δεληβογιατζής, Ζητήματα Διαλεκτικής, εκδόσεις: Ερωδιός, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2010.
[24] Ph. Hartnoll, Ιστορία του Θεάτρου, μτφρ. Ρούλα Πατεράκη, εκδόσεις: Υποδομή, Αθήνα 1980, {σελ. 258. κεφ. 11 Ίψεν, Τσέχωφ και το θέατρο των Ιδεών}.
[25] https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Κονσταντιν Στανισλαφσκυ.
[26] Βλ. Αριστοτέλης Αναγνώστου, σ. 152.
[27] Σωκράτης Δεληβογιατζής, Ζητήματα Διαλεκτικής, εκδόσεις: Ερωδιός, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2010.
[28] Maurice Merleau-Ponty Φαινομενολογία της Αντίληψης, ( Phenomenologie de la perception), (μτφρ. Κική Καψαμπέλη), εκδ. Νήσος, 2016, Αθήνα ( Gallimard, 1945), Β’ μέρος, II, σ. 481.
[29] Βλ. Hartnoll, κεφ. 11, σ. 266.
