Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical ProblemsWhy do actors get stage fright? What is so embarrassing about joining in? Why not work with animals and children, and why is it so hard not to collapse into helpless laughter when things go wrong? In trying to answer these questions - usually ignored by theatre scholarship but of enduring interest to theatre professionals and audiences alike - Nicholas Ridout attempts to explain the relationship between these apparently unwanted and anomalous phenomena and the wider social and political meanings of the modern theatre. This book focuses on the theatrical encounter - those events in which actor and audience come face to face in a strangely compromised and alienated intimacy - arguing that the modern theatre has become a place where we entertain ourselves by experimenting with our feelings about work, social relations and about feelings themselves. |
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action actor actual affect allow animal appears audience auditorium awful become beginning Berger body called cause character claim clearly comes corpsing course darkness described difficulties direct discussed distinction economic embarrassment encounter established example experience exploitation eyes face fact failure feeling follows force function gaze going hands historical hole horse human idea imagine inside intense interest involve kind Kostya labour laugh laughter least libidinal light live look magic means mind moment moments nature object observation offer once one’s origins particular performance perhaps person phenomenon physical play pleasure political possible precisely present production psychoanalytic question reading relations relationship representation response role scene seeking seems sense shame simply social space specific stage fright stands step suggests takes technique theatre theatrical thing thought tion turn writing