An Exploration of a Way for Contemporary Actor Training/Acting: A Perspective from Denis Diderot and Tadashi Suzuki’s Concepts

Abstract

This research aims to reconsider the necessity of an alternative way(s) for contemporary actor training and acting in discussing and articulating Diderot and Suzuki's concepts and approaches for acting/training. First of all, the physical body, assumed and conceptualized by Diderot is beyond our control by means of a type of radical body/mind dualism, and is based on the concept that body and mind are separate. In contrast, Suzuki's notion of acting/training is raised by his concern about the role of an actor's body in the constitution of an actor's bodily experience against the imitation of the West-oriented theatre/acting/training. The descriptions of the two theatre artists' notion of acting/training gives us insight into the place and role of contemporary theatre as a practical root to encounter and communicate between a doer and a spectator where an actor's body must appropriately be attuned and cultivated towards the cultivation of bodily attributes which are foundation but usually neglected by actors/directors/practitioners particularly in Korea. Especially, misunderstanding of a specific training sources/approaches, namely 'scientific system' and the 'method' have taken us away from the potential possibilities of the lived oneness. Here, the 'possibility' refers to the primary bodily functions within a specific context or being in the here and now rather than attempting to copying, imitating and/or adapting a specific cultural source(s)/approaches/techniques as we have faced with through the previous century. We reconsider and argue that a potential way to correspond the nature of theatre/acting/training is that how to meet the demand of contemporary spectators which in turn intensifies an actor's stability, sustainability and hopefully professional identity in this contemporary era.