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‘Presentational acting’ and the related ‘representational acting’ are critical terms used within theatre aesthetics and criticism.

Thanks to some highly idiosyncratic usage by a particular strand of acting theory, however, the terms have come to acquire often overtly contradictory senses (as demonstrated by even the most cursory search of the web for their current use).

In the most common sense (that which relates the specific dynamics of theatre to the broader aesthetic category of ‘representational art’ or ‘mimesis’ in drama and literature), the terms describe two contrasting functional relationships between the actor and the audience that a performance can create.

In the other (more specialized) sense, the terms describe two contrasting methodological relationships between an actor’s preparation for a role and their performance of that role.

The type of theatre that utilizes ‘presentational acting’ in the first sense (of the actor-audience relationship) is usually created by a performer utilizing ‘representational acting’ in the second sense (of their methodology). Conversely, the type of theatre that utilizes ‘representational acting’ in the first sense is usually created by a performer utilizing ‘presentational acting’ in the second sense.

The actor-audience relationship

In every theatrical performance the manner in which each individual actor treats the audience establishes, sustains or varies a particular kind of actor-audience relationship between them.

In some plays all of the actors may adopt the same attitude towards the audience (for example, the entire cast of a production of a Chekhovian drama will usually ignore the audience until the curtain call); in other plays the performers create a range of different relationships towards the audience (for example, most Shakespearean dramas have certain characters who frequently adopt a downstage ‘platea’ playing position that is in direct contact with the audience, while other characters behave as if unaware of the audience’s presence).

‘Presentational acting’, in this sense, refers to a relationship that acknowledges the audience, whether directly by addressing them or indirectly through the use of language, looks, gestures or other signs that indicate that the character or actor is aware of the audience's presence. (Shakespeare's use of punning and wordplay, for example, often has this function of indirect contact.)

‘Representational acting’, in this sense, refers to a relationship in which the audience is studiously ignored and treated as 'peeping tom' voyeurs by an actor who remains in-character and absorbed in the dramatic action. The actor behaves as if a fourth wall were present, which maintains an absolute autonomy of the dramatic fiction from the reality of the theatre.

The rehearsal-performance relationship

The use of these critical terms (in an almost directly opposed sense from the critical mainstream usage detailed above) to describe two different forms of the rehearsal-performance relationship within an actor's methodology originates from the American Method actor and teacher Uta Hagen. She developed this use from a far more equivocal formulation offered by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski in chapter two of his acting manual An Actor Prepares (1936).

In 'When Acting is an Art', having watched his students' first attempts at a performance, Stanislavski's fictional persona Tortsov offers a series of critiques, during the course of which he defines different forms of methodological approaches towards acting. They are: 'forced acting', 'overacting', 'the exploitation of art', 'mechanical acting', 'art of representation', and his own 'experiencing the role'. One symptom of the recurrent myopic ideological bias displayed by commentators schooled in the American Method is their frequent confusion of the first five of these categories with one another; Stanislavski, however, goes to some lengths to insist that two of them deserve to be evaluated as 'art': his own approach of 'experiencing the role' and that of the 'art of representation'.

See Also

Related terms and concepts:

• Dramatic Convention
• Mimesis and Diegisis
• The Fourth Wall
• Stepping Out of Character
• Meta-reference and Metafiction

Related practitioners and dramatic genres:

• Constantin Stanislavski
• Stanislavski's 'system'
• Method Acting
• Bertolt Brecht
• Epic Theatre
• Vsevolod Meyerhold
• Erwin Piscator
• Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop
• Augusto Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed
• Shakespearean Theatre
• Restoration Comedy

References

1. ^ Elam , Keir (1980). The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. Methuen. ISBN 0-416-72060-9 Pbk. p.90-91.
2. ^ Stanislavski, Constantin. 1936. 'When Acting is an Art' in An Actor Prepares. Methuen. ISBN 0 413 46190 4. p. 12-32. Also Hagen, Uta. 1973. Respect for Acting. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-547390-5. p.11-13.
3. ^ Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. The John Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-3506-2 Pbk. See also Counsell, Colin. 1996. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10643-5 Pbk. p. 16-23.

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