Joy, Guilt, Anger, Love (42 page)

48
. Ibid.

49
. Arikha,
Passions and Tempers
. One such treatise is
The Treatise of Fevers
by the Arabic doctor Ishaq ben Sulayman al-Israeli. In Chapter XI al-Israeli talks about a fever caused by sorrow, which was governed by the emotions and was characterized by agitation and lack of appetite: Sluzki, C., ‘On Sorrow: Medical advice from Ishaq ben Sulayman al-Israeli, 1000 years ago’,
American Journal of Psychiatry
, 167 (2010), 5. I also thank Dr Sluzki for kindly providing me with an earlier, longer version of his paper on the treatise.

50
. Arikha,
Passions and Tempers
; Sluzki, ‘On Sorrow: Medical advice from Ishaq ben Sulayman al-Israeli, 1000 years ago’.

51
. ‘Living with grief’, editorial,
Lancet
, 379 (2011), 589.

52
. I read Robert Pinsky’s poem ‘Grief’ – which also inspired the subtitle of this chapter – in the
New York Review of Books
, 7 June 2012.

Chapter 5

1
. Darwin, C.,
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(originally published 1872), in Wilson, E. O. (ed.), From
So Simple a Beginning: The Four Great Books of Charles Darwin
, Norton, 2006, p. 1476.

2
. Ibid. p. 1434.

3
. Ibid. p. 1402.

4
. Ibid. p. 1420.

5
. For a good general review of the function of fiction in simulating social experience, see Mar, R. A., and Oatley, K., ‘The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience’,
Perspectives on Psychological Science
, 3 (2008), 173–92.

6
. Titchener, E. B.,
Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of Thought Processes
, Macmillan, 1909; Vischer, R.,
Über das optische Formgefühl: Ein Beiträg zur Ästhetik
,
Credner, 1873; Lipps, T.,
Grundlegung der Aesthetik
, Engelmann, 1903.

7
. For a review of the role of empathy in aesthetic experience, see: Freedberg, D., and Gallese, V., ‘Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience’,
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
, 11 (2007), 197–203.

8
. For a definition and in-depth study of empathy, as a capacity to understand what another person is thinking or feeling, see Baron-Cohen, S.,
Zero Degree of Empathy
, Penguin (Allen Lane), 2011.

9
. Certainly theatre is not the only vehicle for empathic communication with a fictional world. Reading a book or watching a film at the cinema may both evoke powerful emotions. However, in theatre we have a
live
demonstration of emotions, like the demonstration of an experiment in the laboratory. Reading a book – except in the case of public readings – is mostly a private affair, whereas watching a performance is a collective action. When we read a novel, a short story or a play, we create in our mind coherent representations of the characters, places and imagery presented in the work, from start to end. Through the author’s words, the characters take shape and possess distinct qualities and features. Each assumes a physical appearance and, in our mind’s eye, takes on a life of his or her own. Even after we have finished reading the work, the characters maintain the appearances acquired while we read about them – until, of course, cinema adapts the book for the screen and gives them the faces of famous movie stars.

In cinema, suggestive music, close-ups and particularly camera angles can immensely enhance our emotional responses. Yet the story is displayed on the fixed and physically constrained surface of the screen. So we are offered a flat, two-dimensional representation of a story. The acting we see is over by the time it is edited and watched in cinemas. In theatre, by contrast, stories are told and acted by flesh-and-blood actors in a time and space shared with an audience who may influence the delivery of the performance. In this way, theatre is a unique space in which to connect and share an experience.

10
. Ramon y Cajal, S.,
Advice for a Young Investigator
, MIT Press, 1999.

11
. For a review of mirror neurons, see Rizzolatti, G., and Craighero, L., ‘The mirror-neuron system’,
Annual Review of Neuroscience
, 27 (2004), 169–92, and Gallese, V., ‘The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity’,
Psychopathology
, 36 (2003), 171–80.

12
. Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., and Rizzolatti, G., ‘Action recognition in the premotor cortex’,
Brain
, 119 (1996), 593–609; Rizzolatti, G., Fadiga, L., Gallese, V., and Fogassi, L., ‘Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions’,
Cognitive Brain Research
, 3 (1996), 131–41.

13
. The fact that the mirroring type of firing that takes place when observing an action does not result in any actual motor action may be due to an incomplete or insufficient pattern of firing, or to some subsequent inhibition mechanism that prevents the execution of the action.

14
. Iacoboni, M.,
et al.
, ‘Cortical mechanisms of human imitation’,
Science
, 286 (2003), 2526–8.

15
. Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E., and Baron-Cohen, S., ‘Empathising with basic emotions: Common and discrete neural substrates’,
Social Neuroscience
, 1 (2006), 364–84.

16
. Carr, L., Iacoboni, M., Dubeau, M. C., Mazziotta, J. C., and Lenzi, G. L., ‘Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas’,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 100 (2003), 5497–502.

17
. Wicker, B., Keysers, C., Plailly, J., Royet, J. P., Gallese, V., and Rizzolatti, G., ‘Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust’,
Neuron
, 40 (2003), 655–64.

18
. Keysers, C., Wicker, B., Gazzola, V., Anton, J. L., Fogassi, L., and Gallese, V., ‘A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch’,
Neuron
, 42 (2004), 335–46.

19
. Haker, H., Kawohl, W., Herwig, U., and Rössler, W., ‘Mirror neuron activity during contagious yawning – an fMRI study’,
Brain Imaging and Behavior
(7 July 2012: electronic abstract ahead of publication).

20
. Brook, P.,
The Empty Space
(originally published 1968), Penguin, 1990.

21
. Based on an interview with Ben Crystal and on his book
Shakespeare on Toast
, Icon Books, 2009.

22
. Shaw, G. B.,
Our Theatres in the Nineties
, Vol. I of
Collected Works
, Constable and Company, 1932, p. 154.

23
. Ibid.

24
. Stanislavsky, C.,
Creating a Role
, Methuen, 1961, p. 106.

25
. Stanislavsky, C.,
An Actor Prepares
, Theatre Art Books, 1936 (1983 printing).

26
. Ibid. p. 121.

27
. Stanislavsky most probably adopted the concept of emotional memory from the French scientist Théodule Ribot (1839–1916), who first used the term ‘affective’ memory. Ribot is mentioned in Stanislavsky’s
An Actor Prepares
to illustrate how we hardly forget the emotions we feel (p. 156).

28
. Stanislavsky,
An Actor Prepares
, p. 159.

29
. Ibid. p. 164.

30
. Ibid. p. 158.

31
. Ibid. p. 163.

32
. Sawoski, P.,
The Stanislavsky System: Growth and Methodology
, Teaching Material, Santa Monica College, Spring 2010.

33
. Stanislavsky,
An Actor Prepares
, p. 133.

34
. Ibid. p. 122.

35
. Ibid. p. 123.

36
. Ibid. p. 47.

37
. Interview by Lynn Hirschberg,
Daily Telegraph
, 8 December 2007.

38
. Diderot, D.,
The Paradox of Acting
(trans. Walter H. Pollock), Chatto and Windus, 1883.

39
. Ibid. p. 8.

40
. Ibid. p. 9.

41
. Ibid. p. 39.

42
. There is often confusion about what is meant by ‘method acting’ and about the attribution to Stanislavsky of this approach to dramatic performance. It is commonly accepted that the American method of acting is an echo of the Russian director’s teachings on emotional memory. The reason why Stanislavsky’s later focus on physical actions did not enter the American theatrical tradition guided by personalities like Lee Strasberg may be a chronological accident. Stanislavsky described the evolution of his method in his books published in 1936 and 1949, by which time the ‘method’ based on portraying a character ‘inside-out’ had already become routine; Gray, P., ‘From Russia to America: A critical chronology’ in Munk, E. (ed.),
Stanislavsky and America
, Hill and Wang, 1966. See also Sawoski,
The Stanislavsky System: Growth and Methodology
.

43
. Stanislavsky,
An Actor Prepares
, p. 123.

44
. Diderot,
The Paradox of Acting
, p. 18.

45
. A recent study explored how spectators reacted to an identical scene played in two different ways: one played by actors who ‘incarnate’ the role and one by actors who are more detached. In the end, the spectators judged the actors with the detached approach to be closer to the character of their role and showing more powerful emotions: Goldstein, T., ‘Responses to and judgments of acting on film’, in Kaufman, J. C., and Simonton, D. K. (eds),
The Social Science of Cinema
, Oxford University Press, 2012.

46
. Interview by Charles McGrath,
New York Times
, 31 October 2012.

47
. Abraham, A., von Cramon, D. Y., and Schubotz, R. I., ‘Meeting George Bush versus Cinderella: The neural response when telling apart what is real from what is fictional in the context of our reality’,
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
,
20 (2008), 965–76. I am grateful to Dr Anna Abraham for explaining her work to me during an interview.

48
. Abraham, A., and von Cramon, D. Y., ‘Reality-relevance? Insights from spontaneous modulations of the brain’s default network when telling apart reality from fiction’,
PLOS One
,
4 (2009), e4741.