When We Talk of Horses Or, what do we see when a play?: Dan Rebellato.
“the way we watch theatrical performances is to make-belive that we are seeing the events represented (Rebellato, 2009, 19.
“it doesn’t require a complicated mental process whereby we convert perception into imagination, real experiences into fictional mental images. Instead, I perform an act of make-belive and then I just watch the story unfold as if it were real” (Rebellato, 2009, 19).
“to suggest that what we imagine and what we see are the same thing” (Rebellato, 2009, 19).
“you can’t imagine something without paying it attention” (Rebellato, 2009, 21).
“the most important difference between perceptions and mental images that I want to discuss is that mental images are indeterminate. For example, let’s say I imagine a man. if someone asks me, ‘does this man you’re imagining have a beard?’ it is perfectly comprehensible for me to say I don’t know because I hadn’t imagined that aspect. That detail has not yet formed part of the imagined scene. I might think about my mental image again to get the answer but what I’m actually doing when we do that is deciding the matter of his beardedness. Before I made that decision, the man I imagined was neither bearded nor clean-shaven” Rebellato, 2009, 21).
“If there were a flock of birds in the sky outside, there would be a determinate number of birds in that flock. But Borges can perfectly plausibly summon to his imagination a flock of birds that is of an indeterminate number. And, because mental images can have some aspects determinate and others not (we might have known the skin color of the imagined man but not his facial hair arrangements), we can know something of the volume of birds without there being a number, and so there need not be a God ” (Rebellato, 2009, 21).
If you are seeing something then you are playing god. Less about there being a God, but more how our mind works that the information we receive is good enough to work with.
“we might distinguish this second use of the imagination is to call it ‘imagining that’. If I imagine that something is the case, I don’t need to visualize it at all. If I imagine that Hitler won World War 2, that Sarah got that dream job, that I were a Master of Wine, I might conjure up something roughly visual, but it’s not necessary, or particularly helpful, to do so” (Rebellato, 2009, 22).
In one sense, watching a play is much like reading a novel. When we read a novel, we are given verbal information to build up a picture of the imagined world which we might visualize – if we believe in mental images – or simply amass as information. The stage is only different in that the source of the information is itself visual, otherwise theatrical performances ‘are narrations carried on by other means: by means of objects and images visually presented’ (Currie, cited in Rebellato, 2009, 22).
The idea of me readingHarry Potter compared to how someone else imagines it, the information that you are given about something is only about as far as you are willing to go. The idea of a green pony is just that, you would not see it as blue or pink.
“The theatre has, within its technical means, similar flexibility. Old can play young, women can play men, black can play white, wood can play stone, large rooms can play small rooms, a wooden O can play the fields of France, and words can play horses printing their proud hoofs I’th’receivingearth. The means of theatrical production are metaphors for the worlds they represent. Metaphor is not limited”(Rebellato, 2009, 25).
“The closer the stage and the fiction are together, the more representation becomes identical with itself. Theatre as metaphor requires a non-identity of the two” (Rebellato, 2009, 27).
Theatre requires imagination and metaphors, it works because in our minds things we see are like other things. Our mind fills in the missing gaps. However, the one thing that is detrimental to that mind is if that thing is real and tangible. I.e. space, location then you are confined. The idea of Blasted within a hotel room… You crave something for your imagination to fill in the gaps. However, if it is laid out you invest more. The question and problem really is, how much information your hold and supply yourself. The idea of the metaphor become integral. It is simply up to the active spectator on how much they bring into this given space.
My observations.
In conclusion, there is no way of defining the correct way of what we are seeing. We as individuals have each very differently views. What we and, I am seeing is arguably very different. There is no way of seeing the real character onstage as written by the original playwright, you know this and are inherently aware of the discourse taking place in performance. You are just watching an actor, you are ghosted by that given actor from previous performances you have witnessed or have prior knowledge of. The idea of the of the eyes, you will always look for the phrenological line between the perceived theatrical work and the world of the play or text. Dan Rebellato draws issue with Henry V not apologizing for not showing a battle, saying sorry for it not being real and not containing ‘real theatricality’. The article, asks what is the process of what people i.e. spectators are seeing and how does it work, what is the illusion? Unlike Bertolt Brecht’s theatre, that is laid and projected in a form where you are aware of what you are seeing is not really what you were seeing i.e the suspension of disbelief. Your imagination is doing your cognitive thinking for you. You don’t think that actor or ‘person’ you are not in an illusion otherwise you would surely intervene and ask the question, where is the line between illusion and investment and where are its limits? What are the limitations of quality, imagination, and understanding? What is the difference between having Tim Crouch instead of a human being Dad? How is using an object more convincing, why is this good as this? The idea of a metaphor, the over fictionalization and, the romanticized image that related to the humanistic or physical quality.
Works Cited.
Rebellato, D. (2009) When We Talk of Horses Or, what do we see when a play? PerformingLiteratures: Taylor & Francis Ltd. 14 (1) 17-28.