Is there a chance to evade "antics" on stage? On the crisis of scenic representation of emotions

Abstract

The article formulates a range of theoretical questions concerning heuristic potencial of the notion «emotion», applied to the contemporary European and Russian theatre. Such an issue definition allows, on the one hand, to research the announced notion in the interdisciplinary field, and on the other hand, to describe substantial changes in the current theatre communication. The notion "emotion" is introduced in the article in connection with the notions "representation", "code", "semiotic system". Emotions on stage make something, the audience is to read and interpret. The research includes a brief historical overview, showing changes in means of affective influence on spectators and in the representation of emotions in theatre. The 17^th and 18^th centuries are characterized by an implicit concord between actors and spectators: certain emotional conditions are linked to corresponding fixed gestures, postures, mimics. Thus, the affective influence is based on reading and recognizing. Later the model of constructing and reading the "emotional code" of a theatrical performance was reconsidered in B. Brecht's theoretical works and theatre pieces in 1920s. The 20^th century poses an issue of interrelation between the semiotic - liable to being read - and the unsemiotic in theatre. The center of attention become such notions as "experience", "trial", "corporality", while the word "emotion", although linked to them, but belonging to another level, takes second place and acquires a hint of a commercial meaning (emotions are sold to the audience in a commercially orientated theatre). The article analyses several directors' strategies of overcoming "the crisis of representation" (according to H.Goebbels) of emotions in the contemporary theatre.