Commitment – the Principle of Identity in Theatre and Cinema
Commitment – the Principle of Identity in Theatre and Cinema

Summary/Abstract: I have always wondered how we could formulate an approximate definition of the Art of Acting and how we could integrate into the capacity for understanding of people outside our field of work this maxim about what we actors do: „Do we learn how to lie? Or do we learn to commit to lying?” Fortunately, I have not yet reached such a definition; I am still trying out possibilities. From my perspective, I would opt for the second choice, which somewhat approaches the type of acting discussed by Meisner – “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”. The circumstance derived from the text, the dramaturgical constraint, puts us in the condition of a different identity; first of all, we have to answer to another name (that of the character) and perhaps to a different past or possible future, to events that have happened or will happen. This “will happen”, this future becomes another aspect of committing – something that we as human identities (actors) expect, but of which we must feign ignorance in acting. The conscious commitment to this essentially becomes, through recurring, conscious exercise, one of the means of the Art of Acting.

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