Acting and Representation Essay.

Aaron Lim Si Ru
Zheng Jie
HL 815: Acting and Representation in Theatre and Film
23 March 2010

Breaking the Mould of Representation and Reality.

Reality is defined as the world within the reach of our five senses. The corporeal world, which we can interact with, is commonly accepted as reality. Anything outside of that realm is deemed the realm of the ethereal and the imaginary. Yet, is the realm of reality merely limited to our sensory perceptions? The Matrix clearly challenges that belief, that the world we perceive are merely electrical signals processed by our brain, so what exactly is ‘real’? In this comparison of Plato’s Theory of Forms and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, the definitions of reality take on myriad forms. Plato perceives reality through the lens of logic, shunning all forms of representation, where Artaud challenges the realm of rational thought, pushing to explore the limits of perception beyond the realm of thought. The notions of mimesis appeal differently to both Plato and Artaud. In Plato’s opinion, representation in Art is twice removed from Truth, which is the highest form of reality. Artaud on the other hand, theorizes that theatre is life; theatre is a form of presentation and not representation, a means to access a higher form of reality beyond the realm of sensory perception. Clearly, for Plato and Artaud, the notion of mimesis cannot be totally abolished in their quest for reality beyond the tangible world. Reality and representation thus share a somewhat tenuous relationship, which I will use to attempt the definition of reality.

Plato’s Analogy of the Divided Line is an expression of the four levels of existence, essentially highlighting the gaps between the visible world and the intelligible world. Representations in his opinion, are the furthest removed from the ideals of philosophical truth, even lower than the realm of physical objects, because they are mere shadows, things that do not actually exist, like a painting of a tree instead of an actual tree that exists in the physical realm. Thus, such representations can only serve to distort our sensory reality. Yet, even the current sensory reality that we live in, that which we can see, touch, feel and taste is a faded one. Compared to the reality of forms, ideals and thought, our physical world is a mere corrupted existence compared to the world of ideal Forms. Therefore, to access the highest and most fundamental kind of reality, of Form, most forms of representation are abolished or discouraged in his utopian Republic.

Ironically, in recording the Socratic dialogues and producing it in the form of dialectic is in itself a form of representation. Plato himself represents Socrates’ speeches into textual form, in essence demoting Socrates’ metaphysical ideas into mere physical ones. Furthermore, in his quest to seek out the ideal reality, he relies on allegories and metaphors, most common of which is known at the Allegory of the Cave. The Allegory itself is again a fictional recount of Socrates dialogue with Glaucon. This highlights the fact that the ideal of forms is clearly not a simple concept that can be grasped with our five senses that we use to determine physical reality. To be able to access the highest form of reality, it must needs be understood through metaphors and allegories that uses our knowledge to bridge to that which was previously unknowable and out of reach to the world of ideal Forms. While other forms of representation distort truth, rendering them mere shadows, his metaphors and allegories serve to bring one closer to the abstract truth.

Clearly, representations cannot be completely alienated from our perceptions of the ideal reality. Hence, we need to define the boundaries of representations. Plato removes evocative forms of music and poetry because Art is a misrepresentation of the divine twice removed from truth causing a deleterious effect upon human morals. While Art is a form of misrepresentation, the literary techniques used in its expression are not, as in Plato’s Allusion of the Cave and the Metaphor of the Sun. Therefore, representation devoid of emotions and based on logic and knowledge instead are the key accessing the abstract. Representations can then be seen as simply mediums to access the ultimate reality, the representations on their own are still mere shadows compared to reality, and such forms of representations must be devoid of evocative elements.

While Plato attempts to define reality, Artaud uses the Theatre of Cruelty to elicit a violent response through his physical determination to dispel what he deems as a false reality, which he said, “lies like a shroud over our perceptions” (Artaud). Artaud sees reality clouded by representation, like cinema and traditional Western theatre. He believed that words restricted the conveyance of real meaning, and advocated, instead, “for a theatre made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space”. In retrospect, that is not entirely dissimilar with Plato’s exploration in his Theory of Forms. The only exception being Plato gains access to a higher reality through logic, knowledge and a sense of goodness. While Artaud sought to explore the realm of the imaginary through his theatre, believing them no less real that the physical world. Reality becomes a consensus between theatre and the audience, accepting the fact that when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real. By doing so, Artaud shatters the 4th wall, drawing the audience to meld with the performance as the actors make use of gestures and sounds to evoke a response that is primal, honest and true within the audience, pushing their sensory experience beyond that of logic, relying on metaphorical senses to access unadulterated reality, one that is beyond our normal sensory perception. Theatre according to Artaud then becomes a presentation on life, not mere representation, “for if theatre doubles life, life doubles true theatre” (Artaud). Theatre exposes the real life without any pretensions, producing clarity of mind and perception with the ability to grasp the abstract and by extension a metaphysical form of reality.

Artaud strives to explore reality beyond the realm of rationality and logic via his eschewal of language in the Theatre of Cruelty. He chooses instead to focus on bodily gestures and sounds to transform our concepts of reality. He aims to break the masks of rationality behind which we often huddle, “breaking language in order to touch life”, forcing us to confront something mystical and visceral in the deepest parts of our psyche, a part of ourselves that has gradually been forgotten but not any less real (Artaud). Language can thus be seen as representing ideas into text, during the process which something essential that cannot be expressed in words are lost, not dissimilar to Plato’s eschewal of representation. Artaud’s elements of cruelty are expressed in requiring the actors to “completely strip away their masks and show an audience a truth they do not want to see”. This relates back to the prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave being dragged out of the cave and thrust into blinding sunlight. Being accustomed to recognizing shadow as the only form of reality, he would be struck blind by the harsh sunlight in comparison to dim shadows, unable to comprehend that form of ideal reality.

Evidently, both Plato and Artaud agree that our immediate reality is only a mere shade of the pure form of reality beyond the reach of our empirical senses. Plato attempts his definition of reality upon logical deduction, however realizing that logic is limited in its exploration of the abstract, Plato ultimately resorts to representation in the form of metaphors and allegories albeit devoid of Art’s evocative elements. Artaud in his case abolishes language as a rational construct, one that confines human sensibilities to mere words. Theatre of Cruelty then serves to jar our senses out of the stupor of that shade of reality, which we perceive as the only absolute reality, blithely ignorant to the existence of a reality in the realm of thought and imagination. Theatre of Cruelty thus becomes a forceful presentation of Life upon the audience; its elements of representation drawn from hieroglyphics crafted by bodily gestures to draw the audience back to a repressed reality long forgotten. As much as Plato and Artaud differ in their practices, they both admit the fact that to achieve a higher sense of reality, representation cannot be completely abolished. Yet neither should representation be embraced as a hallucination shrouding our understanding, but rather we should be made cognizant that representation is merely a medium for a greater understanding of a higher reality and not lose ourselves to its allures.

In this discussion about the methods of Plato and Artaud, we have determined that there is a higher form of reality beyond this physical reality that resides purely within the reach of our empirical senses. Both Plato and Artaud failed to determine what reality is, leading us to believe that reality is undeterminable, an unachievable utopia like Plato’s Republic, or one that is too horrifying to behold in Artaud’s sense. Ultimately, trying to define reality is like drawing a circle and saying that is reality, but by doing so are we not excluding the reality that is outside of the circle. A circle that both Plato and Artaud have been trying to break out of, thus I can only say that reality is an unknowable concept that is constantly being explored as we venture further away from our familiar concept of reality, a concept we can never fully encircle and define.
1587 Words.



















Works Cited

Antonin Artaud, Mary C. Richard (translator), The Theatre and Its Double. Grove Press, 1994
Plato, G.R.F Ferrari and Tom Griffith, eds. The Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Wikipedia contributors. “Theatre of Cruelty.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2010