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Can a machine think? More pointedly, if I am a machine, can I think? Beck answers these questions by analyzing two clusters of metaphors -- one of which dramatizes human beings as spontaneous agents (actors), and the other sees them as observers attempting to explain causally their own behavior and that of the actor (spectators). Using a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world, Beck points up the central philosophical problems raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and those of others.
From Aristotle’s theory of tragic katharsis onwards, theorists of the theatre have long engaged with the question of what spectatorship entails. This question has, directly or indirectly, often been extended to the investigation of acting. Acting, Spectating, and the Unconscious approaches the unconscious aspects of spectatorship and acting afresh. Interweaving psychoanalytic descriptions of processes such as transference, unconscious phantasy, and alpha-function with an in-depth survey of theories of spectating and acting from thinkers such as Brecht, Diderot, Rousseau and Plato, Maria Grazia Turri offers a significant insight into the emotions inherent in both the art of the actor, and the spectator’s experience. A compelling investigation of the unconscious communication between spectators and actors, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars fascinated by theatre spectatorship.
Actors and the Art of Performance: Under Exposure combines the author's two main biographical paths: her professional commitment to the fields of both theatre and philosophy. The art of acting on stage is analysed here not only from the theoretical perspective of a spectator, but also from the perspective of the actor. The author draws on her experience as both a theatre actor and a university professor whose teachings in the art of acting rely heavily on her own experience and also on her philosophical knowledge. The book is unique not only in terms of its content but also in terms of its style. Written in a multiplicity of voices, the text oscillates between philosophical reasoning and narrative forms of writing, including micro-narratives, fables, parables, and inter alia by Carroll, Hoffmann and Kleist. Hence the book claims that a trans-disciplinary dialogue between the art of acting and the art of philosophical thinking calls for an aesthetical research that questions and begins to seek alternatives to traditionally established and ingrained formats of philosophy.
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Spectator Politics is the first major study of metatheatre, or theatrically self-conscious performance, in Aristophanes. Using a reception-based performance criticism, Niall Slater elucidates the comic effectiveness of the earliest surviving comedies in the Western tradition. Slater demonstrates that Aristophanes employed metatheatre not simply to entertain but also to teach his audience how to read and interpret performance in other key public venues of the ancient democracy of Athens, such as performances in the political assembly and law courts. Aristophanes was, Slater contends, the first performance critic. Spectator Politics shows how Aristophanes' comedy served the Athenians by helping them to become active political participants, teaching them to see through deceptive performances, whether on stage or in the political sphere. His comedies use self-conscious performance to encourage the public to move out of the role of passive consumers of spectacle and to reengage the political process. Aristophanes' critique of performance prefigures much in the performance-dominated culture of the modern American political scene. Throughout, detailed readings of the original stagings illuminate the plays for today's audiences and performers, while Slater's cultural critique provides much for those interested in Athenian democracy and its lesson for the contemporary political scene. Spectator Politics offers a salutary demonstration of the power of art to expose and resist the performance powers of would-be demagogues.
Since early texts as "Thinking and Politics", Arendt had highlighted the contrast between philosophical and political thinking and compelled herself to find a satisfactory answer to the question: "how do philosophy and politics relate?". In her last work "Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy" (1982), Arendt analyses the "political" dimensions of Kant's critical thinking. To think critically implies taking the viewpoints of others into account: one has to "enlarge" one's own mind by comparing our judgement with the possible judgements of others. While thinking remains a solitary activity, it does not cut itself off from all others.The essays in this book address the philosophical and moral questions raised by Arendt's attempt to draw out the political implications of "critical thinking" in Kant's sense. In one way or another, they all address the place of judgment in Arendt's thought. Arendt's turn to Kant and The Critique of Judgment was motivated by her desire to find a form of philosophizing that was not hostile to politics and the public realm. But did she really think that Kant's characterization of the judging spectator pointed the way out of the opposition between the universal and the particular, between looking at things sub specie aeternitatis and looking at things from a political point of view? To what extent did she think that Kant was successful in revealing a mode of thought oriented towards public persuasion, yet one which retained its critical independence?Each of the essays wrestles with the complexities of a complex thinker. They remind us that critical thinking or Selbstdenken is among the most difficult and rare arts, even though it is an art potentially accessible to everyone. They also remind us that Hannah Arendt was a virtuoso of this art, and of how her example points the way toward a renewal of judgment as the political faculty par excellence.
This book investigates the role and impact of the spectator, covering many different performance types including theatre, sport, television, gambling and ritual.
Explores the contribution the design of a theatre can make to the theatrical experience. It also examines the failure of many modern theatres to appeal to audiences and theatre people.
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME MAGAZINE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR “Entertaining and illuminating.”--The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”--New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I've ever read.”--Nathan Lane The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting-an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood. On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia's crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told. Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull. He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski's ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group's feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture. Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman--The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.