by Fani Gemtou

The Interrogation of a Being

Have you ever considered how closely theatrical performance under the beams of stage lights, surgery under operating-theatre lights, and meticulous observation through the lens of a microscope converge?

If we assume that actors interpret roles, essentially seeking to interpret human natures, mentalities, aesthetic sensibilities, perspectives and temperaments through the selective exploration of a single character and a single story at a time, what they are actually placing on the operating table is our very nature, dissecting and interrogating the possible versions of the being we harbour, consciously or unconsciously, within us. Seen in this light, theatre becomes a field of research into and observation of human nature and, inevitably, of our own selves.

What is particularly interesting is that actors, in the case we are considering, do not stand outside the object of their research. They do not have the distance of scientists observing a foreign body. The body they examine is their own. So too are the memory, thought, senses and reactions. They are called upon to explore another human being using themselves as living material. To approach the unfamiliar, they must confront the familiar.

What happens, then, when actors are called upon to embody someone who commits an act they themselves abhor? How do they approach behaviour that runs counter to their personal values? How do they recognise the logic of a decision that, outside the theatrical context, would seem inconceivable to them?

This is where the real interrogation begins. Actors are not called upon to acquit their characters or to condemn them. They are called upon to understand the mechanism that drives them to act, to seek out the needs, fears, desires and contradictions that shape their particular logic. Such understanding does not imply moral acceptance. It does, however, allow the human being on stage to acquire substance beyond simplistic categories of good and evil.

The deeper the exploration goes, the more actors confront their own potential. Not only what they have experienced, but also what, under different circumstances, they might experience, desire or do. Acting, therefore, is not exhausted by the representation of behaviour. It requires the discovery of the inner necessity that gives rise to it. Otherwise, anger is reduced to a single, predictable vocal intensity, sadness to a recognisable bodily posture, power to a stereotypical manner of speaking. And yet a person may laugh at the moment of their greatest anguish, or remain motionless while a catastrophe unfolds within them. Truth on stage is often discovered where expected behaviour is overturned.

But what kind of interrogation does the spectator witness? They watch someone act, seek their motives, judge them, question them, perhaps justify them. To interpret that person, they draw on their own experiences, convictions and prejudices. Their judgement of the human being on stage may thus reveal something about themselves. Someone who believed they were observing another person may find themselves confronted with aspects of their own self. In “interrogating” the character on stage, spectators find themselves, without intending to, in the dual position of interrogator and interrogated.

There is another shared condition that unites actor and spectator. Both know that what happens on stage is not actually happening. Actors embody another human being while remaining aware of theatrical convention. Spectators accept that convention without being deceived. And yet, within this conscious acceptance of the imaginary, something profoundly true may occur.

How much truth, then, can a convention hold? Perhaps the greatest truth of all. Not because theatrical truth is superior to lived truth, but because it possesses a particular density and an awareness that everyday experience rarely has time to acquire. In life, we often act before fully understanding our actions. Experience unfolds so rapidly that self-observation usually comes afterwards. In theatre, by contrast, actors can experience the reality of the stage while remaining conscious that they are creating it. This is a distinctive form of experience, which we might provisionally call “meta-experience”: an experience that encompasses the possibility of consciously observing oneself as it unfolds. Actors do not cease to be themselves in order to exist as someone else. Lived experience and awareness of the convention can coexist without either negating the other.

Theatrical convention, therefore, does not weaken truth. It offers a space in which truth can be concentrated, examined and acquire dimensions that the uninterrupted flow of everyday life does not always allow us to discern.

Under the stage lights, human existence becomes at once the subject, object and medium of inquiry. Actors interrogate it by embodying it. Spectators interrogate it by watching it. Both participate in a process through which human nature, in the here and now of theatrical performance, acquires the capacity to observe its very self.

Theatre lights, then, illuminate more than the person on stage. They also illuminate the person sitting opposite. And the interrogation, if it has truly taken place, does not end when the lights go out.