The Audience and the Actor

This flow traces how an audience imaginatively encounters a character through an actor whose real body remains distinct from the figure represented.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The Performer’s Body

A Body Before an Audience The visible performer On stage, the audience sees an actor’s real body, which has its own size, movements, and physical features. Those facts do not automatically make the performer identical with the character. The performance must make the body function as representative matter for someone who is not literally present. Audience knowledge matters Stage signs, costume, words, and the performance’s context guide the spectators’ interpretation. The audience participates in making the character imaginatively present.

A Character Appears

Imaginative Recognition Sign and expression combine Signs identify the intended character, while gesture and affective response help make that character appear through the performer. The audience does not need to mistake the actor for the character. A performance can work even when physical resemblance is slight, because recognition and imaginative presentation involve different resources. Shared activity The actor’s gestures and the audience’s knowledge form a coordinated act. Their emotional response belongs to the creation of a theatrical presence rather than to a false perception.

The Character Moves the Audience

Feeling Through a Performance Emotion without confusion Spectators may laugh, admire, or feel concern for the character while knowing that a performance is taking place. The actor’s real body provides a medium through which an irreal figure becomes affectively significant. The audience’s response is genuine, even though its object is not a present character in the ordinary sense. A theatrical relationship Sartre uses the actor’s work to clarify a broader aesthetic relation: the performer lends the body to an imaginative appearance, while the audience animates that appearance through attention and feeling.

Part I, Chapter 2, Section III

As the signs of an impersonation are recognized

At the height of the stage performance