L’art du comédien au tournant des Lumières. Conscience de l’éphémère et sensibilité mémorielle

Abstract

 The issue of the ephemeral in theater seems strictly linked to the figure of the actor, since this most replaceable element of a performance, more so than a dramatic text or a musical score and more subject to perishing than the sets. Starting from a few reflections by the actor Talma, this paper aims to illustrate the rise of a memorial sensitivity intended to produce new forms of self-portrayals or narration of an actor’s identity. An ‘awareness of the ephemeral’ becomes sharper when actors start to carve out a figure of themselves – like in Talma’s case – away from their tradition. By breaking this bond of heritage, which involved the preservation and transmission of characters, their costumes, their attitudes and traits, and which was for the actor not only an archive of knowledge but, above all, an identity matrix, the actor renounces a sort of temporal continuity with the past, while simultaneously fueling their own future myth.