Shakespeare, Performance and Embodied Cognition

Darren Tunstall
2019
This submission draws upon a range of evidence to account for the non-verbal features of theatrical performance. By blending rhetoric and gesture studies with psychology, I shed light on the acting of Shakespeare's plays in the past, and ask what a scientifically-informed analysis of non-verbal communication can bring to actor training and performance theory. The centrepiece is a book which uncovers a key concept from Classical oratory of 'decorum' and explains how this concept became central
more » ... the development of the professional actor, including where it was translated as 'smoothness' in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The book traces a history of Shakespearean acting using a taxonomy drawn from psycholinguistics and manuals of gesture. I relate smoothness to Stereotype Content Theory within social psychology to show how non-verbal behaviour influences perceptions of warmth and competence and how actors have exploited this perceptual bias. The second item, a book chapter on the theatre pedagogue Jacques Lecoq, relates key concepts from his teaching to Shakespearean performance, in particular his insistence upon 'élan' in the embodiment of a role. I show how this concept is an extension of the idea of smoothness. The third item, a book chapter, asks upon what basis of evidence we can train an actor to improve their timing. I introduce evidence for the psychological present, a window of attention critical to the sense of timing, and connect it to smoothness. I draw on the Stereotype Content Model to show how signals of warmth and competence play a primary role in an encounter, where smoothness of movement is such a signal. Finally, in a book chapter I outline the philosophy of Embodied Cognition, and show how it can be used to articulate a series of strategies for the rehearsal of a Shakespearean text.
doi:10.15126/thesis.00853217 fatcat:vj4fj42jiraxlnbkttuidovpbe