The Cognitive Psychodynamics of Acting: Character Invasion and Director Influence

Abstract

In order to evaluate the presence and extent of 1) Character Invasion (the effect of the character on the actor) and 2) Director Influence (the effect of the director on actors' conceptualizations of their characters), measures of semantic meaning were administered to the actors participating in a production of Macbeth. The actors were asked to assess 1) how they perceived their characters and 2) how they perceived themselves at four crucial times during the rehearsal to performance process (first read-through, first run-through, first dress rehearsal, and fourth performance). The director was also asked to assess his conceptualizations of the play's characters at each of the aforementioned four occasions using the same semantic meaning measurement device. An analysis of the ratings casts doubt on both the character invasion and director influence hypotheses. However, there does seem to be an indirect director effect on the actors' stage behaviors.