Acting

In theater, an actor expresses the actions of a certain event or character in front of the audience through gestures and words. As the word drama comes from the Greek word dran, which means to act, acting is the essence of theater, and is the work of bringing everything to life in front of the audience on the stage, which is originally an empty space. Today, it also means that actors become material for media such as movies, television, and radio through their gestures and words, and it also includes performing skills such as singing, dancing, acrobatics, and gymnastics. Since the Japanese word "acting" means "to perform a skill," it is often thought of as a spectacle (show), and is also used to mean hiding one's everyday known self and acting as a different person. It should be noted that this is a different concept from the action (behavior) that creates and develops drama in Western Europe.

The first acting by humans is thought to have been gesture signals using imitation, but it eventually evolved into a magical dance to ward off disasters and pray for a good harvest. The "ogu" in the old Japanese word for actor, "wazaogi," means to invite divine spirits and to dance while possessed by a god, and is said to have originated from the wild dance of Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto in front of the Ama-no-Iwato cave. When the words of the gods and prayers to the gods were written down and eventually a single author began to write the script, theater, which was separate from religious rites, began to take shape in earnest. This period is said to be the time of the establishment of Greek tragedy in the West and Noh in Japan. As the literary perfection of the script progressed, acting moved away from divine possession and improvisation and created a clear style with sonorous recitation of lines and elegant gestures. Kabuki, a representative form of Japanese theatre, is literally based on singing and dancing, and as exemplified by the fact that all-male actors begin their training as female roles, it shows the power of stylized beauty that goes beyond human physiology to create a fictional world.

In Western Europe, the dialogue scenes between the main characters in Greek tragedies, sandwiched between the chorus and the dance group, gradually expanded and became independent, and through the Renaissance, developed into modern dramas depicting human conflict and struggle. Acting became a technique for realistically expressing modern human images with intense passions and complex psychology, and keen observation of human beings and their reproduction became the prerequisite for a great actor. Eventually, in the 19th century, theater companies unified by the artistic intentions of the director appeared, and ensemble acting became the mainstream in the theater world. As a result, a hierarchy of literary figures, directors, and actors was established, and the acting of actors became merely a task of faithfully imitating the instructions of superiors and creating, for better or worse, a part of the stage. In the early 20th century, the pinnacle of modern acting was formed at the Moscow Art Theatre, where its director and actor, Stanislavski, organized and studied conventional acting and for the first time discovered a system of acting based on consistent training of the mind and body. This Stanislavski system has since become popularized and is the basis of today's world acting techniques.

However, as the 20th century progressed, acting underwent a great transformation, with the emergence of Meyerhold's biomechanica (ergonomics), Artaud's "theatre of cruelty," and Brecht's epic theater. Furthermore, intersecting with attempts to express the subconscious in America, there was a demand for methods to restore the intense dynamism of life on stage, such as the abandonment of literature, the destruction of unified character, the overthrow of psychologicalism, the expansion of gestures and shouts, the use of masks and dolls, and "happenings." In recent years, expressive activities that go beyond the boundaries of theater, which have come to be called "performance," have also been attracting attention, and the present age can be said to be an era of searching for new expressions that will revive the entire history of acting in one fell swoop, from divine possession to singing and dancing styles and the expression of raw human emotions.

[Toshiharu Takeuchi]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

演劇において俳優が観客の前で身ぶりやことばをもってある事件や人物などの行動を表してみせること。ドラマdramaの語が行動するという意味のギリシア語dranから出ていることに示されるように、演技は演劇の本質であり、本来何もない空間である舞台において観客の眼前にいっさいを生み出す作業である。今日では俳優が身ぶりとことばによって映画、テレビ、ラジオなどの媒体の素材となることもいい、歌曲、舞踊、曲芸、体操などの技をやってみせることも含まれる。日本語の「演技」は「技を繰り広げてみせること」を意味するので、見せ物（ショー）として意識されることが多く、日常の見知られた自分を隠し別人として行動する意味にも用いられることになる。これは西欧における、ドラマを成り立たせ展開していくアクション（行動）とは異質の概念であることは注意される必要がある。

　人類の最初の演技は物真似(ものまね)による身ぶり信号だったと考えられるが、やがて災厄を祓(はら)い、豊穣(ほうじょう)を祈る呪術(じゅじゅつ)の踊りとなる。日本の俳優の古語「わざおぎ」の「おぐ」は神霊を招き寄せること、神がかりして踊ることであって、天岩戸(あめのいわと)の前での天鈿女命(あめのうずめのみこと)の乱舞が起源と言い伝えられている。神のことば、神に祈ることばが文字に記されやがて1人の作者が台本を書くようになると、神事から離れた演劇が本格的に成立する。その時期は西欧ではギリシア悲劇、日本では能の成立時とされる。台本の文学的完成が進むにつれ、演技は神がかりや即興を脱して朗々たる台詞(せりふ)の吟唱と華麗な身ぶりによって明確な様式をつくりだした。日本の代表的な演劇である歌舞伎(かぶき)の演技は文字どおり歌舞が基本であり、男性のみの俳優がまず女方(おんながた)から修行に入ることなどに代表されるように、人間の生理さえ離れて虚構の世界をつくりだす様式美の力をみることができる。

　西欧ではギリシア悲劇において合唱と群舞の間に挟まれる主人公たちの対話の場面がしだいに拡大独立して、ルネサンスを経て人間の対立と葛藤(かっとう)を描く近代のドラマへと発展する。演技は、激しい情熱と複雑な心理をもつ近代的人間像をリアルに表現する技術となり、鋭い人間観察とその再現が名優の条件となった。やがて19世紀には演出家の芸術意図によって統一される劇団が現れ、アンサンブル演技が演劇界の主流となると、文学者―演出家―俳優のヒエラルキーが成り立ち、俳優の演技は上級者の指示を忠実に模倣し、よかれあしかれ舞台の一部品をつくりだす作業にすぎなくなった。20世紀初めモスクワ芸術座において近代演技の頂点が形づくられるが、その演出家兼俳優のスタニスラフスキーは従来の演技を整理研究して、初めて一貫した心身の訓練に基づく演技の体系をみいだした。このスタニスラフスキー・システムは以来通俗化されつつ現在の世界の演技術の基盤となってもいる。

　しかし、20世紀が深まるにつれ、演技は大きく変貌(へんぼう)し、メイエルホリドのビオメハニカбиомеханика／biomehanika（人間工学）、アルトーの「残酷の演劇」、ブレヒトの叙事詩的演劇の主張などが相次いで現れる。さらにアメリカにおける深層心理の表出の試みなどと交錯して、文学の放棄、統一ある性格の破壊、心理主義の打破、身ぶりと叫びの拡大、仮面や人形の使用、ハプニングhappeningなど舞台上に激しい生の躍動を回復する方法が求められてきた。近年、演劇の枠を超えたパフォーマンスperformanceと名づけられた表現活動なども注目されているが、現代は神がかりから歌舞様式、なまなましい人間情念の表出まで、演技の全歴史を一気によみがえらせる新しい表現の模索の時代といえるだろう。

［竹内敏晴］

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