‘BEING ONESELF ON STAGE’: MODALITIES OF PRESENCE ON STAGE

The expression ‘being oneself on stage’ is often used to characterize differences between those developments in (post)modern theatre in which performers are considered not playing roles anymore and more traditional types of theatre in which fictional worlds with fictional characters are shown on stage. Konijn (1992, 1994, 2000) concluded in her research about the relationship between actor’s and character’s emotions that during a performance actors experience emotions related to their acting task and not to the emotions they portray as character’s emotions. With these results as point of departure a proposal is being made for a more detailed approach to the idea of ‘being oneself on stage’ by distinguishing between social roles and artistic roles. The conclusion is that the expression ‘being oneself on stage’ is hiding the fundamental similarities between performers portraying fictional characters and those who are considered to be oneself on stage. In both cases their dominant social role is the one of actor/crafts(wo)man of performer/crafts(wo)man. In both cases the assumed dominant emotions will be the ones related to their acting/performing task, which makes an image of oneself as much a construction as a fictional character is.