Theatre scholars rethink 300-year-old acting methods for modern stages
A new analysis challenges the dominant framework for understanding eighteenth-century performance, proposing instead that actors should focus on revealing character uniqueness rather than symbolic representation. The shift could reshape how theatres train performers and interpret classical works, with implications for arts institutions and cultural programming strategies.
Originaltitel: Contemporaneity in Historically Informed Performance
<p>Discussing how historical acting principles might enrich today’s theatre, the author suggests that theatre scholars turn away from semiotics: a twentieth-century theory that still informs today’s views of eighteenth-century acting, largely due to Dene Barnett, an influential pioneer of Historically Informed Performance. As an alternative to semiotic representation, the author points to Jan Kott’s concept of contemporaneity, which refers to a special relationship between the text, the actor, and the spectator. This leads him to promote the finesse: a crucial but forgotten concept of eighteenth-century acting theory that was associated with the actor’s revealment of the uniqueness of the character. </p>