Moving beyond a fictional character : changes in contemporary acting

Abstract

Acting by its usual and simplest definition is the art or practice of representing a fictional character on a stage by means of movement, gesture, and intonation. However contemporary theatre practice encourages the reconsideration of such definition and understanding of acting as there are numerous theatre performances where the actor is not representing the other and performs without pretending to be one of the fictional dramatis personae. One can say that there is a significant shift within the idea of acting as representation: acting as an act (and art) of pretending and representing fictional character more and more often is replaced by acting as an act (and art) of performing. In this paper such forms of acting are analyzed, which are less oriented towards building a theatrical character or towards the representation of dramatic text, but more towards an actor's performance in a theatrical situation, towards such ways of acting, which can be described as "moving beyond a theatrical character".