Lessac Kinesensics' five levels of communicative behaviour to facilitate shifts between theatre acting and film acting

Abstract

The actor's task is to recognise and interpret the potential performative qualities of their character embedded in the written text and to embody and envoice these qualities so that the audience may perceive the behaviour of the character. The different demands of the medium, specifically theatre and film, contribute to the actor as character as well as the audience's formation of meaning. The presentation of (a) reality in a particular medium, is essential to the artistic mimesis of life and relies on the verisimilitude of characters and events so that audience members invest in the narrative. Actors must have an embodied knowledge of the performance shifts posed by each medium so that their communicative behaviour contribute to the verisimilitude of the presented narrative. The demands that each medium pose on the actor can be studied according to space, place and time. Lessac Kinesensics' five levels of communicative behaviour explicate the actor's embodied and envoiced use of space, place and time. This article investigates how these levels of communicative behaviour can facilitate actors in making the necessary performance shifts between theatre acting and film acting.