An Actor Reveals/Acting the Real: Performing testimony in Applied Theatre: an analysis of performer experience in live re-enactment theatre

Performing real people is of this time. More and more, professional actors are being asked to play real people. But what does this mean and how is this experienced by the actor/performer? This paper seeks to consider the actor/performer experience. Drawing on two case studies it examines the actors' embodiment of the (other) real person, at the moment of performance. It takes as its point of departure the actors' experience, the psychophysical and intra-psychic dynamics in performing real stories, including the aftermath and the actors' reflective experiences. Drawing on self-observation and reflections of the performers, and my own observations, I investigate the way in which actors' experiences seemingly interact with the document/told material (which is also real experience, but of some different or other real person who is not the actor) in the moment that they are performing it. A phenomenological consideration of the actors' experiences of saying someone else's words where these words are necessarily expressions of past experiences (the teller is recounting a story), the expression of feeling and emotion (occurring now, and sometimes being remembered during the telling), and their expression of values, beliefs, and reflective fragments and how each interacts with the performers' embodied presence and infuses their performance. Through these case studies a notion of what might be called intercorporeal authorship is explored.