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PLAGUE AND MIRROR: METAPHORS OF EMOTIONAL TRANSFER AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE ACTOR-AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP IN THEATRE by ROBERT JAMES VRTIS A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Theater Arts and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2011 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Robert James Vrtis Title: Plague and Mirror: Metaphors of Emotional Transfer and Their Effect on the Actor-Audience Relationship in Theatre This dissertation has been approved and accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Theater Arts by: Dr. John B. Schmor Chair Dr. Theresa May Member Dr. John Watson Member Dr. Lisa Freinkel Outside Reader and Dr. Richard Linton Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/ Dean of the Graduate School Original Approval Signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree Awarded June 2011 ii © 2011 Robert James Vrtis iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Robert James Vrtis Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theater Arts June 2011 Title: Plague and Mirror: Metaphors of Emotional Transfer and Their Effect on the Actor-Audience Relationship in Theatre Approved: _____________________________________________________ Dr. John B. Schmor In the last two decades the discovery of mirror neurons led to a flurry of investigations into the role these action recognition cells play in a range of interpersonal exchanges, including emotional transfer. The ability of one person to “infect” another with emotion through their actions, sounds, and words should be no surprise to a theatre practitioner. Indeed, this ability seems like a theatrical given: both the primary purpose and central difficulty of performance. Yet, while this ability may be a theatrical given, it is under-examined. Prompted by the surge of studies into mirror neurons in recent years, this dissertation provides a framework for discussing and analyzing emotional communication in the theatre. Specifically, this study focuses on emotional transfer between actors and audience and how theatre practitioners metaphorically construct this transfer. While there are many potential metaphors that can describe this emotional exchange, two metaphors frequently persist in theatre: metaphors of infection and reflection. Locating these metaphors as employed by a theatrical practitioner or theorist to describe the emotional exchange between actors and audience is an important step in iv illuminating the expected acting style, the relationship an actor must seek with the audience, and the function of emotions in theatre. Once these guiding metaphors are located they must be understood in that artist’s cultural context, as a part of the emotional values and norms of expression of their historical moment. This understanding provides nuance to our understanding of a single metaphor’s distinctly different use by different artists. This dissertation begins by examining metaphors of infection at two distinctly different historical and cultural moments. These chapters illuminate the function of metaphor in shaping the early modern theatre of William Shakespeare and the theatre of plague proposed by Antonin Artaud. Chapter IV will bring to bear on acting theory the science that could explain emotional transfer and its inherent metaphor of reflection, demonstrating how cognitive studies and theatre can productively interact. Finally, this dissertation outlines how theatrical practices can be more fully understood by analyzing the metaphorical structures that practitioners use to shape the emotional relationship between actor and audience. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Robert James Vrtis GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon: Eugene, Oregon Longwood University: Farmville, Virginia DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Theatre Arts, June 2011, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Theater Arts, September 2007, University of Oregon Bachelor of Fine Arts, May 2003, Longwood University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Acting and Directing Theory Cognitive Science and Performance Early Modern Theatrical Performance Post Colonial Theatre Eco-Criticism Avant Garde Performers and Theorists PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Theater Arts, University of Oregon, 2006-2011 Teacher and Director, Lord Leebrick Theatre Company, 2010-2011 Actor and Director, Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre, 2004 Guest Director, Longwood University, 2004 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude and give my heartfelt thanks to Dr. John Schmor for his invaluable assistance in preparing this work. As well, I would like to offer my thanks to Dr. Theresa May, Dr Lisa Freinkel and Dr. Jack Watson. Their guidance and input shaped this inquiry in unexpected and necessary ways. I also owe thanks to Dr. Sara Freeman and Jennifer Schleuter whose well-timed provocations enriched my work. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my fellow students whose sincere interest and encouragement motivated me to continue pursuing this project. vii To my beloved wife Christina Vrtis. Without your encouragement I would not be where I am. You are a source of constant inspiration. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INFECTION AND REFLECTION: INTRODUCTION .................................. 1 Metaphorical Conceptualization and Emotional Communities ......................... 15 Areas of Focus: A Plague of Players ................................................................ 23 Artaud’s Plague of Theatre .............................................................................. 28 Reflection and Other Possibilities .................................................................... 31 II. PLAYERS, PLAGUE AND EMOTIONAL INFECTION: THE TEMPEST TOSS’D SHIP ............................................................................... 36 The Great Disorders of Stage Plays .................................................................. 47 An Emotional Refuge ...................................................................................... 62 Take Thou Some New Infection to the Eye ...................................................... 66 III. A CONTAGIOUS, EMOTIONAL ABBERANCE .......................................... 79 The Cenci ........................................................................................................ 101 The Failure of the Plague ................................................................................. 111 IV. MIRRORS IN THE FLESH ............................................................................ 117 Mirror Neurons ................................................................................................ 127 Dissonance with the Mirror Metaphor: Rapport ............................................... 135 Meaningless Arm Movements ......................................................................... 143 Inexact Transfers ............................................................................................. 147 V. METAPHORS OF COMMUNICATION ........................................................ 152 Mirror Work .................................................................................................... 165 REFERENCES CITED ........................................................................................... 172 ix CHAPTER I INFECTION AND REFLECTION: INTRODUCTION At the end of a lesson on emotional preparation Sanford Meisner decides that he will take “a few legitimate questions” from his students. The class has been learning about how to come into a scene full of emotion rather than letting it build during the scene itself. One student asks whether the goal of the work they did earlier was meant to help them enter on to the stage as full as they could be with emotion “because we’re in a theater, as opposed to being in a film, where acting is much more contained?” Meisner chooses to answer the question somewhat indirectly by speaking about the force of emotion saying “I’ll tell you this: you cannot escape the impact of emotion, whether it’s in a big theater or a tiny one. If you have it, it inflates you,” abruptly he corrects himself noting that his metaphor of inflation does not completely convey his meaning. He continues, “If you have it, it infects you and the audience” (Meisner 87). His corrected metaphor of infection broadens the scope of the exercise of emotional preparation. The purpose of the work done before entering a scene doesn’t only swell the actor’s emotional presence as in the metaphor of inflation; it also spreads that suffusion of emotion into the audience as part of an inescapable force. The actor becomes a carrier of an emotion capable of spreading that same (or associated) feeling into the audience. For Meisner, 1 without this infectious emotion the actor appears empty and the audience’s experience diminishes by the absence of a shared emotional experience. This very purposeful use of emotion as infection is not unique to Meisner. Decades earlier, Constantin Stanislavski wrote very similarly on the infectious force of an actor’s emotions. Addressing what he saw as a common mistake made by actors, specifically that only what can be seen and heard on the stage is “of scenic quality,” he explained that something invisible and inaudible also permeates the theater during a performance. He wrote “the irresistibility, contagiousness, and power of direct communion by means of invisible radiations of the