On the Limits of the Actor’s Craft

The present work aims at discussing the problematics of the actor who, throughout his career, experiences dilemmas marked by several questions about the limits of his own craft. In this regard, two of the three major choices that an actor can make at the beginning or along his professional path are analyzed, choices that leave their definitive mark on his work and that lead us to ask ourselves, again, who/what an actor is. William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, Samuel Beckett and Billie Whitelaw, Jerzy Grotowski and Ryszard Cieślak tell us about the colossal work of the actor, who for the encounter with characters such as Hamlet, Winnie, Don Fernando, enters a process of (re)discovery of his own being, of investigating his own self. Moreover, Jerzy Grotowski, in his work with the actor, experimented with techniques of deconditioning, techniques of probing the unconscious, techniques of control, because, in his vision, the actor, through the character, goes through a process of knowledge and self-becoming. Due to the strong influence exerted by Jerzy Grotowski on the way of making theatre, today, in the third millennium, we can talk about numerous actors who devote time to research, treat their craft as a lifetime study

Craft · Historical and Modern Theater Studies · Samuel Beckett and Modernism · Theatre and Performance Studies