Abstract

Perceptual facts, experienced through life on the basis of the dramatic written text, determine aesthetic phenomenon of theatre. The truth, that the art of acting originates from the actor's physical form, fortifies theatre not as the written text itself but the sensual experiences about it. When a director reads "a desk" in a play script, for example, he does not perceive the word but perceives "a physical object" called desk. Upon this recognition, the director shares wide range of interests with the other arts. His power of perception, acquired and enhanced by knowledge of those arts, submerges into his "text reading." He becomes electrified in the "sensual fact" hidden in each word of the text. ;The director then works with actors in order to make his own theatre production. He will work with them on the basis of what he already perceived through the text. But here, the actor's presence becomes a new element. Making theatre is an impossibility without his critical perception of the actor's presence. The actor is not simply himself, he becomes an actor as he is related to the art of acting. Therefore, the director's perception of the actor's presence should be made within that presence's relation to the acting process. ;The first part of this dissertation deals with artworks in general, putting the emphasis on how to enlarge the director's perceiving power. This part comes to the conclusion that power can help him distinguish the specific style or category of the chosen text as well as his production. The second part tries to read play scripts as the "performance text," that is, the text not as the written text but as perceptual facts. The semiotic program in theatre, seeing theatre as a continuation of "sign actions," focuses on the perceptual facts. Upon this recognition, the director uses the semiotic program, dealing particularly with signs in theatre. A theatrical model is designed through examinations on kinds, actions and functions of signs. This theatrical model can help the director to perceive the text objectively as possible as he can. Yet a pure objective reading does not exist. In other words, his subjective point of view cannot help submerging into the objectively tuned perception. Moreover, he needs to be daringly subjective unless he wants to be the text's servant but without deviating from the boundary of what it suggests. Recognizing this, the third part of this dissertation examines possibilities that make the director's reading more uniquely his own. The fourth part deals with the acting process, specifically with regard to the actor's involvement. Examinations on known methodologies lead the director to the recognition that acting originates from the actor's physical embodiment on stage. Finally, this dissertation concludes with the notion that the director's perception of text and actor cannot but be subjective, yet that subjectivity is explored within the realm of what the text world and the acting process