Multiple Realities: The Changing Life Worlds of Actors

Abstract

This is an empirical phenomenological interview study into the experiences of professional actors as they create and perform roles for the stage. Prior research was inadequate for capturing actors’ changing life worlds over time. Analyzing the interviews using the descriptive phenomenological method yielded general structural descriptions and pointed to the relevance of Schütz’s description of multiple realities. Being cast in a role changes the pace and goals of actors’ everyday worlds and leads the actors intermittently and with intention to enter other realities—fictional, theoretical, and/or pictorial. A province unique to acting is the drama world in which the actors live incarnate as their characters. The drama world is infused pre-reflectively with discoveries from other provinces of meaning, unfolds spontaneously, and, in performance, has the audience as horizon. The drama world and the experiences that give rise to it provide new material for comparative phenomenological analysis of various forms of imagining.

Social Interaction in the Art of Acting: Forms and Phases

“…The author conducted four narrative, phenomenological interviews with professional actors who appeared in featured roles on Broadway and off-Broadway in New York. Findings were reported in two previous papers (Doyle, 2013;2016). Some unpublished material from those interviews will also be included in the review.…”

“…In performance, the musician is in a face-to-face relationship both with the fellow players and the audience. Doyle (2016) concluded that the life worlds of actors can be illuminated by one of Schütz's best known contributions, the phenomenological concept of multiple realities.…”

“…Reading the play: The obvious first step all the actors reported was reading the script (Noice & Noice, 1997) and, as readers, having an emotional reaction to it (Doyle, 2016).…”

“…Many, but not all of the Bandelji (2003) did this as well. One of the author's actors broke down the script this way; two others analyzed each scene and the relation to the whole, but not as systematically (Doyle, 2016). All these actors typically entered theoretical worlds; their relations to their characters were somewhat like the relation of a psychologist using theory to understand a patient.…”

“…Instead she read the play repeatedly, entering the play's world over and over again. As she read, realizations came to her (Doyle, 2016). She was more like someone observing a person's interactions over time and getting to know the person implicitly through those observations.…”