read in Dutch translation by Gemma Pappot from French original (1773)
Written in the Rococo period, this pamphlet argues that the best actors rely entirely on imitation skills for their performance. If they do not feel a thing themselves, they will be much more capable of moving the audience. This links the act of acting to that of writing or drawing, where observation is one half of the work and reproduction is the other.
It reminded me of our desire to build the Drama Princess system “from the outside” rather than designing the emotion first and then hoping for the proper behaviour to emerge from that.
Diderot’s concept is not very popular amongst actors. And probably never has been. Perhaps this is because they feel that he is giving their tricks away. Or perhaps because they can’t meet his high expectations. Diderot makes it very clear that what he says only applies to the best of actors, the geniuses. For mediocre actors, he admits that it may be better to really feel the emotion when playing it on stage.
Obviously, in the mean time, modern theater has developed quite different goals than imitation or even moving the audience. So perhaps these ideas apply more to movies nowadays than to the stage.
He also makes a big distinction between acting “in the Salon”, amongst friends, for fun, and acting on stage. The latter is never even based on real life, but on a text that was written by somebody else. That way, the actor is even further removed from real life. Standing on the shoulders of the poet, who was standing on those of a person in nature, the actor becomes larger than life.
I don’t know if Diderot was ultimately in favour of a very stylised, symbolic way of acting or if he thought that imitation performed by a genius actor would look naturalistic.
Here’s a quote that sounds oddly similar to things said previously in this journal:
So what defines true talent? Knowing very well the external symptoms of the soul that one borrows, directing oneself to the sentiment of our audience and deceiving them by mimicking these symptoms in an imitation that makes everything look bigger in their imagination and that shapes their judgement permanently; because another way to judge what happens inside ourselves does not exist. And what does it matter whether they do or do not play from their emotions, if we don’t notice?
(from page 99 translated from Dutch by me)
Posted on June 4, 2006 at 8:50 am
[…] Meyerhold is an interesting character. He was a pupil of Stanislawski who inspired the famous American school of Method Acting. As you may know, Method Acting is all about the actor trying to really feel the emotions he needs to express on stage or film set. Despite of being life long friends, Meyerhold’s approach is completely opposite and much more related to Diderot’s. Meyerhold took Diderot to its utlimate conclusion by abstracting the motions of the actors into some form of physical constructivism (which happened in painting around the same time), in part inspired by the more folkloristic arts of Commedia dell’Arte, the circus and Elisabethan theater. […]
Posted on June 6, 2006 at 12:35 am
[…] Michael Samyn: What do you think of the “paradox of the actor“, as described by Diderot in the 18th century, in relation to autonomous characters? Diderot claims that the best actor is the one who does not feel a thing but who excells at imitating only the symptoms of the behaviour of humans. Is it required for virtual actors to feel the emotions (i.e. to posses a mind) in order to express them? […]
Posted on February 6, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Diderot helps us distinguish bad acting (or non-acting) from good acting. There is certainly an element of exaggeration in his insistence that the actor needs only to present the “outer signs” of an emotion. The dialogue format of the piece should alert us to the open presence of exaggeration here, as should
Diderot’s point that the actor always portrays an exaggerated — we might say distilled or concentrated –version of what is in the real world.
Posted on February 6, 2007 at 10:16 pm
So you mean Diderot was acting when he wrote the book? 😉
Posted on January 15, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Hallo,
Als ik u goed begrepen heb, heeft u het werk van Diderot zelf vertaald, en bestaat er blijkbaar geen officiele uitgave in het Nederlands van. Kunt u dit bevestigen? En heeft u wellicht deze vertaling anders nog? Ik heb examens en ik kwam er achter dat door een misverstand ik niet wist dat we dit boekje moesten lezen, waardoor ik nu nogal in tijdnood zit. Ik ben op uitwisseling in Italie, en kan hier alleen de Italiaanse versie vinden en dat kost me te veel tijd om te lezen…
Zou u me kunnen en willen helpen? Ik zou u veel dank verschuldigd zijn.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Ingrid Dillen
Posted on January 15, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Zoals je bovenaan deze pagina kan lezen heb ik de Nederlandse vertaling door Gemma Pappot gelezen. In boekvorm, uit de bibliotheek in Gent.
Posted on January 26, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Love the advice. Thank you.