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Toward an Intersubjective Ethics of Acting and Actor Training

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Ethics and the Arts

Abstract

Using a recently created performance (‘Told by the Wind’) as a case-study, this chapter addresses the ‘ethical’ implications of intersubjectivity in acting and performance from the author’s dual perspectives as an artist who makes theatre and as a theorist who reflects on the work he creates. The essay reviews phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity, how ethical issues have been raised in relation to theatre and the practices of making theatre, and the question of what ‘ethics’ is possible in a postmodern, intercultural, globalised world. Utilising Emmanual Levinas’ radical assertion that ‘First philosophy is an ethics’ and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the lived body, the essay articulates some of the opportunities offered by acting for examining the ethical implications of intersubjectivity in practice and performance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Translators of Levinas use the capitalised ‘Other’ (autrui) to refer to ‘the personal other, the other person’ and ‘other’ autre to refer to ‘otherness in general, to alterity’ [9, pp. 30 & viii]. I use of Levinas’ distinction between ‘Other’ and ‘other’ throughout this essay.

  2. 2.

    Told by the Wind was funded by the Arts Council of Wales and AHRC; previewed at the Tyn y parc (Wales) studio and the Evora, Portugal festival in 2009; premiered at Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff) in 2010; toured to Berlin, Poland, Chicago, and continues on tour.

  3. 3.

    The ‘figures,’ ‘male figure,’ and ‘female figure’ from Told by the Wind are indicated in this chapter by italics and apostrophes.

  4. 4.

    Personal email communication, 2010.

  5. 5.

    See Paget on verbatim theatre, and Upton on theatre of witness [19, 29].

  6. 6.

    For an overview of Levinas’ work and philosophy see Bergo [2] and Moran [15, pp. 320–353]. Moran also offers a critique of Levinas’ more idiosyncratic and ambiguous discussions.

  7. 7.

    Bauman is here quoting Jacques Derrida.

  8. 8.

    Levinas’ use of ‘the face’ is ambiguous and has “given rise to… confusion” because there is slippage in his use of the term [16, p. 347]. I accept at face value this slippage and Levinas’ use of the term as foundational to experience of the ‘Other,’ as metaphor, and as that ‘other’/alterity which makes its demands on us by its very presence.

  9. 9.

    Editor’s Comment: The reader is referred to (the following) Chap. 12 where Thompson makes a similar point that, for Levinas, “The relationship between the two people… should not be understood as equal—or as a movement towards equality.”

  10. 10.

    For further discussion of Levinas’ notion of transcendence, see Bergo [2, pp. 12–15].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Llanarth Group, Wales, UK

    Phillip Zarrilli

  2. Exeter University, Exeter, UK

    Phillip Zarrilli

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  1. Phillip Zarrilli
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Correspondence to Phillip Zarrilli .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Paul Macneill

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Zarrilli, P. (2014). Toward an Intersubjective Ethics of Acting and Actor Training. In: Macneill, P. (eds) Ethics and the Arts. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8816-8_11

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