Abstract

This dissertation explores the logical relationship between three elements characteristic of western theater: the narrative , the play, and the live performance. The most thorough recent analyses of the performance event have been semiotic in orientation, and define the relationship between the play, narrative and performance entirely in terms of representation. Specifically, most semiotic theorists construe the performance as representing the narrative, and interpreting or translating the play. The premise that underlies this model is that actors are signs, on par with linguistic descriptions or painted figures. This dissertation does not refute that premise but brackets it, and investigates the extent to which the relationship between play, narrative and performance is not predicated on representation. To do so, it adopts some of the strategies of contemporary analytic philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of art, action, and identity. ;The first chapter considers the relationship between actor and character, arguing that it is possible, in a meaningful, non-paradoxical, and non-trivial sense, for an actor literally to "become a character." This chapter distinguishes between three senses of "character," and demonstrates that the conflation of these senses has obscured much of the discourse about acting. The second chapter considers the relationship between play and performance, arguing that this relationship is one, not of interpretation or translation, but instantiation. Plays are types whose tokens are performances. This chapter emphasizes the usually-neglected distinction between plays, which are logical constructs, and playscripts, which sometimes help to define plays. The third chapter contrasts theater with other art forms that allow for multiple tokens of a single type-artwork, such as literature, printmaking and music. Performance is unique in being an art form wherein the production of the token is itself the object of art. English usage is precise in saying that actors "perform" plays. The performance of a play is a doing; the play is what is done. The final chapter explores the nature of the actions that constitute the performance event, refuting John Searle's widely accepted claim that in the context of a play actors can only "pretend" to perform speech acts