The Structure of Acting Reconsidered: From the Perspective of a Japanese Puppet Theatre, Bunraku

My primal interest is to show a model for an analysis of the structure of any theatrical performance, modem or traditional, Western or Japanese. I have stated my ideas several times before (Mori, 2002, 2007). But I have further explored them since, mainly with regard to the structure of acting, and shall present some of my findings in this chapter. It is necessary, however, to describe partially and briefly what I have written before in order to make my points clear in this workIn presenting my argument, I shall take as a point of departure the common statement concerning the mode of theatre performance, that is, 'an actor plays a character, which is watched by the audience.' The basic elements of theatre are actor, character and audience. This view may seem conservative today. But I believe that when considering the uniqueness of recent performances which appear to be standing at the edge of the concept of theatre or non-theatre, the idea of 'perform- anee' may be clarified by examining in what respects these performances are differentiated from what is commonly called theatre.TRIANGULAR STRUCTURE OF THEATRE PERFORMANCEAccording to the modem concept of art, which we have inherited from the romanticist philosophy of art in the second half of eighteenthcentury Europe, an artistic production develops in the time that an artist creates an artwork and an art-appreciator appreciates it. Hence the following diagram:But in theatre the creative procedure is double. So, the diagram will be:A similar diagram may also be applied to music, since music too, is a performing art. But in fact, any art genre seems to have originally involved a performing action, as was demonstrated, for example, in public composition of poetry, ritualistic action of painting etc. Those physical actions became gradually assimilated to the creator's activity as in the case of painting, or to an artwork as in the case of literature. Music also followed this modem trend. A music player plays faithfully to the score, and so a musical performance is almost a faithful realization of a work of a composer. Thus, the diagram for music is:Theatre, however, is the only art that does not fit into this structure of the modem artform, and the diagram remains thus:The dramatist would not be able to control 'playing', except for the lines actors utter on the stage. Nonetheless, even lines are given different meanings by the different tones of the actor's utterance. This is only another way of saying that theatre is an art form both on the spatial and temporal, or visual and auditory levels. In this respect cinema is often equated to theatre. A film director, however, controls everything including actors, so that the productive structure is close to that of painting or a photograph.Let us now focus our argument on the artistic production of the second phase, namely, performance.As stated above, a theatre performance is a product of the relationship of three basic elements: actor, dramatic character and audience. This is in fact nothing but the structure of an ordinary art production, diagrammed above as 'Artist-»Artwork-»Appreciator.' But in a theatrical performance these three elements are mutually related, not lineally but triangularly.This triangle emphasizes not only three comers but also three sides, that is, the relationships between each two comers. Unlike a painter or a novelist, an actor is present here and now, where and when the audience is conceiving a dramatic character. This is a unique feature of theatre performance. If any other art form takes this sort of triangular relationship of the three basic elements (artist, artwork and appreciator), it will come close to theatre, as often seen in the case of pop-music concerts or traditional Japanese performance arts, such as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, collective creation of poetry etc.The relationship between audience and actor needs a theatrical space. …