Actors in Search of Theatre’s Quintessence

At the border between the fields of anthropology of theatre and phenomenology, this article presents and analyses the answers given by a sample of French theatre actors to an apparently simple question: How would you define your art ? One could have been expect a wide range of answers, which would have reflected the infinite multiplicity of perspectives about that subject. Yet unexpectedly, the author deduces from the field investigation she conducted, a common and almost consensual vision of theatre expressed by these actors: an art in which practitioners are in the poetic quest of themselves, in their most accomplished humanity, in harmony with the self, the Other and the life ( le vivant ).