Acting Emotions

Actors and actresses play characters such as the embittered Medea, or the lovelorn Romeo, or the grieving and tearful Hecabe. The theatre audience holds its breath, and then sparks begin to fly. But what about the actor? Has he been affected by the emotions of the character he is playing? What's goi...

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Main Author: Konijn, Elly
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Amsterdam University Press 2023
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Online Access:ONIX_20231005_9789048505814_2625
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author Konijn, Elly
author_browse Konijn, Elly
author_facet Konijn, Elly
author_sort Konijn, Elly
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Actors and actresses play characters such as the embittered Medea, or the lovelorn Romeo, or the grieving and tearful Hecabe. The theatre audience holds its breath, and then sparks begin to fly. But what about the actor? Has he been affected by the emotions of the character he is playing? What's going on inside his mind? The styling of emotions in the theatre has been the subject of heated debate for centuries. In fact, Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le comedien, insisted that most brilliant actors do not feel anything onstage. This greatly resembles the detached acting style associated with Bertolt Brecht, which, in turn, stands in direct opposition to the notion of the empathy-oriented "emotional reality" of the actor which is most famously associated with the American actingstyle known as method acting. The book's survey of the various dominant acting styles is followed by an analysis of the current state of affairs regarding the psychology of emotions. By uniting the psychology of emotions with contemporary acting theories, the author is able to come to the conclusion that traditional acting theories are no longer valid for today's actor. Acting Emotions throws new light on the age-old issue of double consciousness, the paradox of the actor who must nightly express emotions while creating the illusion of spontaneity. In addition, the book bridges the gap between theory and practice by virtue of the author's large-scale field study of the emotions of professional actors. In Acting Emotions, the responses of Dutch and Flemish actors is further supplemented by the responses of a good number of American actors. The book offers a unique view of how actors act out emotions and how this acting out is intimately linked to the development of contemporary theatre. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1169522024-03-25T18:28:15Z Acting Emotions Konijn, Elly Language & Literature Psychology thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DD Plays, playscripts thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology Actors and actresses play characters such as the embittered Medea, or the lovelorn Romeo, or the grieving and tearful Hecabe. The theatre audience holds its breath, and then sparks begin to fly. But what about the actor? Has he been affected by the emotions of the character he is playing? What's going on inside his mind? The styling of emotions in the theatre has been the subject of heated debate for centuries. In fact, Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le comedien, insisted that most brilliant actors do not feel anything onstage. This greatly resembles the detached acting style associated with Bertolt Brecht, which, in turn, stands in direct opposition to the notion of the empathy-oriented "emotional reality" of the actor which is most famously associated with the American actingstyle known as method acting. The book's survey of the various dominant acting styles is followed by an analysis of the current state of affairs regarding the psychology of emotions. By uniting the psychology of emotions with contemporary acting theories, the author is able to come to the conclusion that traditional acting theories are no longer valid for today's actor. Acting Emotions throws new light on the age-old issue of double consciousness, the paradox of the actor who must nightly express emotions while creating the illusion of spontaneity. In addition, the book bridges the gap between theory and practice by virtue of the author's large-scale field study of the emotions of professional actors. In Acting Emotions, the responses of Dutch and Flemish actors is further supplemented by the responses of a good number of American actors. The book offers a unique view of how actors act out emotions and how this acting out is intimately linked to the development of contemporary theatre. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org. 2023-10-05T11:18:18Z 2023-10-05T11:18:18Z 2000 book ONIX_20231005_9789048505814_2625 9789048505814 9789053564448 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/116952 eng image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt46n1zd Amsterdam University Press 10.2307/j.ctt46n1zd 10.2307/j.ctt46n1zd de2ecbe7-1037-4e96-8c3a-5a842d921e04 9789048505814 9789053564448 open access
spellingShingle Language & Literature
Psychology
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DD Plays, playscripts
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology
Konijn, Elly
Acting Emotions
title Acting Emotions
title_full Acting Emotions
title_fullStr Acting Emotions
title_full_unstemmed Acting Emotions
title_short Acting Emotions
title_sort acting emotions
topic Language & Literature
Psychology
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DD Plays, playscripts
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology
topic_facet Language & Literature
Psychology
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DD Plays, playscripts
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology
url ONIX_20231005_9789048505814_2625
work_keys_str_mv AT konijnelly actingemotions