ON ACTING: The Centrality of Actors in the Theatrical Experience; Part II

Writer’s are hired to create a story (a context) for actors to live out a specific logical and factual experience; dialogue is written to give actors something to say; producers are hired to secure the financing necessary to produce the recorded life of the actor; directors are hired to organize the physical, logical and filming context within which the actor lives; film stock is manufactured and exposed to record the lives of the actors; lighting is done to enable the actor to be better seen; the sound department is hired so the actor can be heard, etc. etc. etc.

The process of theatre and film originates with, focuses on and revolves around the actor’s central participation in the stage or film event. Story may be the vehicle; but acting is the sine qua non raison d’etre, the driver, the engine of theater and film.

The actor is the axle; everything else is the spokes.

(Animation might seem to undermine this thesis, but the anthropomorphic antics of animated characters can still be considered central ‘actors’ in the film. Even animators can’t escape the need to deal with, use and understand humanity--actor reality--as a basis or their creative experience of animating.)