Deception and inauthenticity
Once he’sfinished setting out the general reputation of the actor, Rousseau
gives his view of what being an actor actually consists in:
What is the talent of the actor? It is the art of counterfeiting himself [...]of
appearing different than he is, of becoming passionate in cold blood, of
saying what he does not think as if he really did think it.^70There is no doubt, of course, that acting typically involves pretending to
be somebody else. Then again, of course, it’s hardly as though the actor
expects to get away with it, against the audience’s will. Somebody who
pretends to be me in order to withdraw money from my bank account
does not produce programme notes for the cashier, in which he details all
the people from whom he has previously stolen money. Anticipating
precisely this response, Rousseau admits that actors aren’t actually
deceiving people when they’re on stage. But, he complains, they do learn
the tools for deception, for seeming to be other than they are when they are
off the stage; and by teaching actors to dissemble, and rewarding them when
they do it well, we encourage them to make use of these skills in everyday
situations.^71
All things considered, actors probably don’t learn useful tools for
deception in everyday life (rather than tools for a highly restricted, minimal
kind of play or impersonation in the peculiar setting of the theatre). But
although I see no reason to take Rousseau very seriously here, I do think
he points us in the direction of a more interesting discussion of theatre,
deception and authenticity. Anybody familiar with the classical theatre
repertoire will be aware of the importance that the twin notions of
deception and authenticity have on the stage, as part of many theatre
plots. Seeming to be what you’re not–and the failure to discern that
someone else is other than he seems– are among the most common
themes of theatrical work. Think of the Shakespearean comedy, with all
its dressing up and misrecognition; or of the tragedy in which the failure
of the hero to recognise another (or himself) is what brings about his
downfall. To name but a few well-known examples, this forms much of
the subject matter ofOthello,ofThe Merchant of Venice,ofThe Misanthrope
and so on. In this context, it seems peculiar to attack theatre for some-
thing that it often addresses head on: the danger and perhaps also the
necessity of seeming to be other than you are.
A second, and more sceptical, point should also be made with respect
to the claim that acting encourages inauthenticity. The central notion for
‘authenticity’is one according to which a person has a kind of genuine
‘centre’ or‘essence’. The authentic person is then someone who acts in
118 From the Stage to the World