Introduction
‘There is something illogical, magical, in this fracturing of identity through enactment.’
Meisel, How Plays Work
The word theatre comes from the Greek θέατρον (théatron), meaning ‘a place for viewing’ and taken as such it is an interesting device for exploring vision. The
‘illogical’ and ‘magical’ elements of theatre that Meisel describes are those that facilitate the overpowering of logic by the senses, particularly vision, forcing us to question the reality of our experiences. They affect us emotionally and pull us in to the narrative allowing us to experience multiple identities.
In this essay I will discuss how these ‘illogical’ and ‘magical’ qualities affect how we see ourselves and those around us, both on and off the stage. The art of theatre itself - and what defines it and distinguishes it from other art forms - will be examined initially before attempting to clarify what it is that we actually see upon entering its ‘illogical’ and ‘magical’ world. To understand this, the neurological processes of vision and their psychological effects need to be considered and questioned. For instance, how does the neurological processing of visual stimuli filter the world around us? And do the effects of this filtering manifest themselves in our sense of self?
I will examine how mirror neurons cause us to empathise with actors/characters and take into account how the controlled relationship that theatre

sets up, between the seer and the seen, creates or destroys our idea of our own identity. The discussion will conclude by reflecting on whether representation of character, or ‘enactment,’ does cause a ‘fracturing of identity’ or whether it compounds it.

Setting the Seen
In order to examine how we see identity in the context of live theatre it is important to understand exactly what is meant here, by the term theatre . Beyond the basic staging or presenting of some form of dramatic entertainment,
1
there are specific elements that constitute theatrical performance as a shared live experience. An exchange between performers and audience that is specific to its time and space, which open out onto emotional states of being. The audience are witness to a unique and irrefutable, although subjective, event. This is the definition of theatre I shall be using. Bruce
McConachie states in Engaging Audiences :
‘At its best, good theatre involves… both actors and spectators throwing down and taking up emotionally charged entanglements of truth, status, honour and identity’ (
McConachie, 2008, p.1)
‘Good theatre’ lays the foundations for emotional connection between player and viewer, affecting identity. Living actors playing to a living audience make this connection possible. The conscious portrayal of character draws the players’ attention to their own physicality while distracting them from their own identity ‘reflecting equally the artificial aspects of everyday life and the lifelike qualities of created art.’
(Kaprow, 1993, p.195) Theatre therefore involves both a metaphorical and a literal blurring of the boundaries between Art and Life, playing characters or assuming a persona being the art of theatre. As spectators we are aware of the artifice, in that we know we are being performed to, but for the performance to be successful we must become emotionally involved just as we would in real life.
1 ‘I see no contradiction between art and entertainment. […] Dance is entertainment. Art does not contradict entertainment.’ Merce Cunningham cited in Centre Pompidou (2011) p.39

‘Works of art demand the very same kinds of cognitive strategy and emotional response as we bring to real life situations.’ (
Butler, 2004, p. 59 )
This paradox of being able to engage fully in the spectacle while at the same time detaching ourselves from what we are witnessing is what causes the fracturing of identity in theatre.
‘From the Platonic point of view, the stage, which is simultaneously a locus of public activity and the exhibition-space for ‘fantasies’, disturbs the clear partition of identities, activities and spaces.’ (Ranciere, 2006, p.13)
When the normally distinct and well defined aspects of life and art are blurred in this way we become actively involved in what we are seeing. There is a reciprocity of action that distinguishes theatre and live performance in general, from film, photography or literature, in that the performers act upon the audience and are acted upon by them in turn. Despite the consistent framework of performance, being constructed through rehearsal and/or positioned by a playwright, when the audience react to what they see, this reaction is visible to the performers and effects how they perform.
As social beings we crave the presence of others and theatre provides this on a heightened level without the difficulty of social engagement. Interaction in the theatre is concentrated, as everything in the sensual field converges to facilitate it. Theatre places the audience in the position of the privileged witness, giving them access to otherwise taboo passions or appetites such as consuming love, violent hate, libido and

aggression. ( Meisel, 2007, p.232) As members of the audience we are permitted access to visceral displays, ranging from the extreme to the mundane, which allow us to cross social boundaries (at least vicariously) and purge ourselves emotionally.
Witnessing the emotions of the players we feel we are experiencing them ourselves which has a cathartic effect. The audience is invited to believe in what they see before them while at the same time suspending their belief. That is to say, that on entering the theatre their expectations of what is possible change. They are willing to be transported to another reality. Howard Barker defines this purpose of theatre, exquisitely in Death, The One and the Art of Theatre :
‘Nothing said about death by the living can possibly relate to death as it will be experienced by the dying. Nothing known about death by the dead can be communicated to the living. Over this appalling chasm tragedy throws a frail bridge of imagination.’ (
Barker, 2005, p.1
)
Here he demonstrates both the inadequacy of any art form, in this case Tragedian theatre, to truthfully represent life’s terminal narrative and, at the same time, how tantalisingly close it comes to representing that which cannot be represented.
Theatre uses both mimicry and illusion to represent the unrepresentable by manipulating our cognition of stimuli, to strengthen this ‘bridge of imagination’.
Mimicry provides the audience with recognisable symbols of the quotidian, or even direct representation as a point of entry into the spectacle, while enhanced visual and auditory elements such as costume, lighting and sound effects carry them into the realms of the extraordinary. In doing so, theatre, like children’s play, explores and strengthens what Walter Benjamin referred to as man’s increasingly fragile mimetic

faculty. It causes us to revert to a child like state in which our capacity for and recognition of imitation is boundless.
‘Children’s play is everywhere permeated by mimetic modes of behaviour, and its realm is by no means limited to what one person can imitate in another.
The child plays at being not only a shop keeper or teacher, but also a windmill and a train.’ (Benjamin, 1999, p.270)
In this way theatre immerses us in a world of its own creation where everything has the ability to imitate something else. We can take nothing for granted, each piece of theatre creates its own aesthetic realm and by consequence its own politics.
‘Aesthetics can be understood in a Kantian sense – re-examined perhaps by
Foucault – as the system of a priori forms determining what presents itself to sense experience. It is a delimitation of spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise, that simultaneously determines the place and the stakes of politics as a form of experience. Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around the properties of space and the possibilities of time.’
(Ranciere, 2006, p. 13)
By engaging our mimetic faculty and creating its own aesthetic, theatre questions our perception of the sensible. How we interpret its aesthetics, in the form of sensory stimuli, determines the degree of emotional separation or involvement that we feel to

a piece of theatre. This creates a new way for people to relate to each other which forms a community with its own politics and identities.
The most dominant senses in theatre are visual and auditory, hence the terms spectators and audience. In order to understand the effect the stimulation of these senses has on us, and our perception of theatre, we must have an understanding of how we process them. Here, for lucidity, we will focus mainly on the impact of the visual.

Affecting Perspective
Sight is, for most people, the predominant sense and we tend to make most of our judgments based on information received through our visual cortex. Therefore when we are transported into the world of a performance it is likely to be through this sense.
‘Both Rancière's account of politics and Kant's attention to the sublime in the
Critique of Judgment illuminate a power of sensible expression over and above any sensus communis
’ (Wolfe, 2006)
When there is a conflict between what we know to be true through experience and logic, and what we see, sight tends to prevail. In addition, in the context of theatre, there is a willingness to extend what we expect to see based on our awareness of ourselves as subjects acted upon by performers. We know we are seeing a theatrical performance that is designed to play with our perceptions. Gombrich explains in Art and Illusion how our expectations affect our powers of perception, creating illusions.
‘The difficulty in distinguishing between the two [illusion and reality] in seeing as well as hearing was well brought out in a fiendish experiment. The subjects were seated in the dark in front of a screen and were told their sensitivity to light was to be tested. At the request of the experimenter, the assistant projected a very faint light onto the screen and slowly increased its intensity, each person being asked to record exactly when he perceived it. But once in a while when the experimenter made the request no light was, in fact, shown. It was found that the subjects still saw it appearing. Their firm

expectation of the sequence of events had actually led to a hallucination.’
( Gombrich, 2002, p.172
)
We see what we expect to see or at least our expectations colour how we see what we see. Theatre sets out to create and control expectations, facilitating illusion.
‘The pleasure of oscillation between the two [what we know to be there and what we see] lies in our exercising a highly adaptive visual skill.’ (
Butler,
2004, p.134
)
That our visual perception is ‘highly adaptive’ suggests that we have a degree of choice (conscious or not) in what we see. We enjoy the interplay between seeing the play as it is being represented to us, or as we have been prompted to see it, and thinking about it as the construction we know it to be. This is the result of theatre being simultaneously mimetic (representing that which it isn’t) and framed by its own context; it imitates life whilst demonstrating an awareness of its separation from it. Its content and form simultaneously attempt verisimilitude and reflexivity.
The relationship of the viewer to the performance can cause a disruption between our powers of vision and comprehension in favour of what Gordal called intensities . (Gordal, 1999, p.53) These sensual intensities are caused by a regression in our perceptive abilities, which requires a conscious effort to restore; it is from this effort that we derive pleasure. Because what we see contradicts what we know, we are forced to go back to first principles to understand it, cutting out the shortcuts in our visual processing that we have adapted for daily life. Effectively, theatre presents us with a problem that we must work to solve, and solving it gives us a sense of pleasure.

Gordal coined the term intensities in relation to film. It is also discussed in painting, but in theatre, it is all the more important as the relationship between the seer and the seen is in a constant state of flux. This flux can be both physical and metaphorical; the actual space between the seer and the seen and, the illusion of place or character that the artifice creates, distinct from the actual set and players. I would suggest that Butler’s description of this effect in impressionist painting could equally be applied to theatre:
‘Our appreciation of this relationship, between sensational surface and representational and conceptual depth, is a pleasurable and curiosity-satisfying activity.’ (
Butler, 2004, p.134
)
The ‘sensational surface’ of brush strokes is replaced by the conscious context and the
‘representational and conceptual depth’ is replaced by an engagement in narrative or the world of the play. Alternating between the two is perhaps more satisfying in the case of performance as their relationship to each other is not fixed. The greater the discrepancy between the two the harder we have to work to comprehend it and therefore the greater the pleasure we derive from it. We seek out theatre because we enjoy the perceptual challenge. Playwrights such as Pirandello and Tieck play with the collapse of these distinctions creating yet more challenges for the audience. In
Land of Upside Down (Tieck, 1978) the ‘conceptual depth’ that Butler describes is made manifest by placing a stage within a stage. The receding perspective of the set creates a representational hierarchy, which in turn is subverted:

‘Through the initial stage audience is confused, and the real audience ought to be as well, what with characters at one level playing characters and audience at another, nevertheless the scaling through receding planes is actually well worked out. What it points to however, is cognitive collapse – of rational order into mental chaos, of the actor and audience functions into each other.’
( Meisel, 2007, p.107
)
As the audience of such a play we not only struggle to reconcile what we see with what we believe to be taking place, but also with our relationship to what is taking place and our role within it. We begin to question what constitutes our reality.
Establishing the relationship between ‘surface’ and ‘depth’ becomes almost impossible, but if achieved must result in extreme intensities . By provoking intensities the sensory processes are felt at a more primitive level, heightening them. The
‘cognitive collapse’ or regression of our senses to a primitive level, as we have discussed, is due to the need for constant re-evaluation. When we are no longer able to take anything in the visual field for granted we become more receptive to external stimuli giving us a heightened sense of awareness.
As I have said, one of the defining aspects of theatre is that we are able to simultaneously engage emotionally and remain morally detached. This framework allows us to concentrate completely on sensory stimuli without the distraction of needing to act on them as we would in the real world. For example if we were witness to Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth’s plotting to murder Duncan in real life, we would feel a moral obligation to intervene but seeing it in the context of the play, as we do, we are free to enjoy the deceit. Liberated from the pressure of taking immediate action we are able to luxuriate in our emotional responses, taking pleasure even in unhappy

emotions, as in Macbeth . Craig Raine went so far as to say that ‘All emotion is pleasurable’ (Nuttall, T. cited in Butler, 2004, p.56). There is something marvellous about experiencing emotion without repercussion.
‘Sheer excitation or arousal may be pleasurable for us, however dreadful the stimulus, as in the blinding of Gloucester or in a different way, the storm at the beginning of Verdi’s Othello .’ ( Butler, 2004, p.56
)
With ‘excitation or arousal,’ and therefore pleasure, being the only result of provoking an emotion the whole event becomes literally irresponsible. We are able to experience all the passions without consequence, allowing us to explore alternative personas. The identity of both performers and audience are altered, if only temporarily, by the encounter. The question of identity is therefore clearly an important one, both for those on and off the stage, and here again what we see is a key aspect of our understanding.
‘In the history of theatre and in the vast majority of plays written for it, most of the work of characterisation is done through physical appearance.’ (
Meisel,
2007, p.56
)
Communication through vision is relied on to such an extent that costume and make up have become a form of shorthand for characterisation. This can be used to quickly establish an identity or, in contrast to the actual traits of a character, to challenge our expectations. It is in the second instance, this inciting of a discord between vision and understanding, that performance creates spectacle.

‘The marvellous is characterized by sensory invasion, the subversion of intellect by “body madness.”’ (
Garner, 2007, p.115
)
In good theatre our senses overpower our common sense. There is, therefore, a dependence on affecting our visual processing to immerse us fully in a performance.
To understand the conscious creation of this visual discrepancy we first need a command of the mechanics of vision.

Mechanics of Vision
Seeing seems effortless as we do it constantly and without thinking but it actually requires a great deal of intelligence. So much so in fact that visual processing uses almost half of the brain’s cortex. ( Hoffman, 1998, p. XI ) It is not simply a case of detecting the stimuli around us as with the other senses. Hearing, for example, directly translates the vibrations of sound waves on our eardrums into chemical signals, which we understand as sounds. Seeing is a much more complex process involving many stages of cognitive analysis after the initial filtering of light through the lens onto the retina.
An image of the outside world is not projected onto the back of the eye as in a camera. Instead data collected at the cells of the retina is passed through the cortex in various stages of increasing complexity. Each stage detects different aspects of vision, from distinguishing between light and dark to orientation of line and identifying motion and colour.
Hermann Von Helmholtz
2
suggested that optically the human eye is rather poor and would not, on its own, be sufficient for providing the visual language we rely on. It is therefore indirectly, through neurological processes, that we create what we see .
‘Vision is a process that produces from images of the external world a description that is useful to the viewer and not cluttered with irrelevant information.’ (David Marr cited in Hoffman, 1998, p.11
)
2
Hermann Von Helmholtz was one of the first people to research visual perception in the 19 th C. and author of Handbook of Physiological Optics or Treatise on Physiological Optics .

Our surroundings are far too complex to take in, uncensored, through the eye, even if our eyes were more optically efficient. The information we receive must be filtered and processed in order for us to understand it. Without this filtering and prioritising of certain aspects over others we would be overwhelmed with information and unable to function as we do.
To simplify our visual environment we follow a set of simple rules that we assume to be true in all instances. Some examples of these rules are: light comes from above, objects are normally not viewed from below, faces are seen (and recognised) upright, closer objects can block the view of more distant objects, but not vice versa.
(Hunziker, 2006) Therefore everything that we see is not what is actually in front of us but an interface with reality that we subconsciously create based on assumptions that we learn to make from the first time that we open our eyes.
There is a clear distinction between looking and seeing. Seeing requires an active engagement of your visual intelligence whereas looking can be passive.
‘Vision is not merely a matter of passive perception, it is an intelligent process of active construction.’ ( Hoffman, 1998, p.XII
)
This ‘active’ element of vision and our enjoyment of the construction process is what attracts us to visual art. It poses a challenge to our constructive powers. In painting it is once again the relationship between ‘sensational surface’ and ‘representational and conceptual depth’ that interests us. Alternating between the construction of strokes of paint and the construction of a vast spatial scene is very satisfying because it tests us.

‘We seek out and enjoy visual media that challenge our visual intelligence.’
( Hoffman, 1998, p.XII
)
In theatre it is the combination and contrast of the visual and the conceptual space that intrigues us. The deliberately constructed landscape of a production can excite our visual intelligence by playing with our expectations, either reinforcing them to create heightened versions of the everyday or opposing them to create more surreal visions.
The representation of the everyday is always exaggerated in theatre, blood is always redder and moonlight is always brighter. The effect is more powerful when it acts as a symbol rather than a copy of the real thing. Playing with expectations creates visions outside the everyday spectrum. Once our expectations have been challenged we, again, cut out the shortcuts and become more receptive to stimuli. This, in turn, expands our expectations and we become willing and able to see more.

Theatre as Laboratory
Theatre is the ideal place to experiment with the effects of human vision as it allows us to set up a specific relationship between the seer and the seen, which is the key variable of vision.
‘Seeing appears to alter the thing seen and to transform the one seeing, showing them to be profoundly intertwined in the event that is visuality…This relationship between someone seeing and what is seen is often considered to be a fundamental characteristic of the theatrical event and crucial to the intense experiences it can evoke.’ ( Bleeker, 2008, p.2
)
There is a symbiotic relationship between the seer and the seen, which is reflected in that between audience and performer. The audience are both the seers and the seen, as are the performers. Each party is continuously affecting the other. There is a constant to and fro exchange altering both parties. Each slight change in a seer has the potential to affect the seen and vice versa. This connection is the subject of visuality, the cultural and historical context of vision or how the way we see effects what we see.
‘The object of visual analysis is the way things become visible as a result of the practices of looking invested in them.’ (Bal, 2003, pp.5-32)
Visuality is the result of seeing being more than just a mechanical process. As a neurological process, what we see is not only the result of stimuli detected by the eyes but also of memory, imagination, the unconscious and the passions. As a result what

we see has a huge impact on how we feel, and the history of everything we have seen before colours how we interpret what we see now.
The same factors that shaped our identity affect how we see and consequently what we see. What we have seen becomes a part of our identity and in turn influences what we will see in future. This cycle closely interlaces vision with identity.
‘Our visual intelligence richly interacts with, and in many cases precedes and drives, our rational and emotional intelligence. To understand visual intelligence is to understand, in large part, who we are.’ (
Hoffman, 1998, p.XII
)
If vision is fundamental to understanding ourselves then theatre is an important tool for exploring identity. It gives us access to visions outside our everyday reality, forcing us to exercise our visual intelligence and, as a result, our emotional intelligence.
‘Paradoxically, the more the individual is concerned with the reality that is not available to perception, the more he must concentrate his attention on appearances… It is here that communicative acts are translated into moral ones.’ (Goffman, 1959, pp. 241-242)
The communication of moral ideas in this way promotes a social identity. Through the constant interchange between seer and seen, audience and performer, we see ourselves being seen, allowing for literal self-reflection.

‘Theses attributes of the individual qua performer are not merely a depicted effect of particular performances; they are psychobiological in nature, and yet they seem to arise out of intimate interaction with the contingencies of staging performances.’ (Goffman, 1959, p.246)
Goffman suggests that our everyday life is a performance and therefore our responses to what we see in theatre and outside it are analogous. We are both psychologically and biologically affected by everything in the same way, but the intimacy of theatrical interaction can make it more powerful. Therefore visual language has a strong effect on an audience and the identity of the individuals within it. Theatre, by presenting us with carefully constructed visions designed to work on our visual intelligence can affect and induce emotional responses in an audience. It can affect how we see by what it chooses to show us.
‘In vision… the constructive processes seem to be more “hardwired” than those of emotion, and therefore less susceptible to change by conscious effort.’
( Hoffman, 1998, p.202
)
We are unable to consciously alter what we see, except by very small degrees as with a magic eye image for example. Without the option of changing what we see by mental effort we are only left with a choice of how we respond to what we see. By designing what an audience see throught a performance it is possible to effect their emotional intelligence. Immersing an audience in an environment where everything they see is controlled allows for considerable manipulation.

Light is an important factor in the visual experience of a performance. The impact of lighting relies on the relationship of light to dark; darkness heightens the effect of light. (White, 2013) In general the audience are positioned in a darkened space looking onto a lit stage or performers. This has a strong visual impact as in our day-to-day experiences we are usually under the same light as that which we are observing. This effect can be further enhanced by set, props and costume that react to the light, everything in the playhouse works together to create a complete vision.
Costume and make up are an element of this as they can considerably add to the effect of illusion. (Karim-Cooper, 2009)
Enveloped in darkness we are directed exactly where to look, blackness masks anything unlit and there is nothing else visible to distract us. This gives performance a dreamlike quality and the intimacy that Goffman describes. Shakespeare acknowledges this in the title and the closing lines of A Midsummer Nights Dream :
PUCK:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
( Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Act 5 Scene 1 )
Just as in a dream, once consciously seen, the visions of a performance have the power to penetrate our thoughts and stay with us long after we have seen them.
Shakespeare recreates dreams and visions in his plays through dialogue as opposed to stage directions. This provides the performer and the audience with the thought

process behind such episodes. The performer can use the language as a guide to their physicality during the scene, working from their own reactions to what the character sees . The dialogue does away with the need for stage directions as both performer and audience work through a visual representation of the minds workings. Expectations brought about through language effect what we see, the result of visuality is that auditory stimuli can produce visions.

Mirroring and Mimicry
Macbeth describes his vision of the dagger by comparing sight to his other senses.
MACBETH:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still…
( Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2 Scene 1 )
It is the sight of the dagger that outweighs all other judgment. He questions whether it is ‘A dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?’ which of course it is but so, as we have seen, is that which he draws. As he attempts to touch the dagger a vision of the vision is created for the audience. However, certain

conditions must be fulfilled in order for this type of ‘projection’ to work. There must be sufficient information for the viewer to complete the picture and an area or
‘screen’ onto which to project the illusion. (
Gombrich, 2002, p.174
) The visible and audible descriptions of the dagger give us enough information to create expectation and the empty space in front of Macbeth provides the ‘screen’. This can be more effective than attempts to illustrate the illusion.
‘Figures, even those painted without eyes, must seem to look; without ears, must seem to listen… There are things which ten hundred brushstrokes cannot depict but which can be captured by a few simple strokes if they are right.
That is truly giving expression to the invisible.’ (De Piles, 1743, p.11)
It is our familiarity with human behaviour that allows us to read the signals to infer meaning and complete the ‘picture’. Goffman suggests that we assimilate appearances with past experiences to do this, but more recently it has been suggested that our ability to infer meaning in the actions of others comes from a neurological function called the Mirror Neuron System. (Goffman,1959, p.13) These are neurons that fire when we perform an action or experience an emotion and also fire when we see the emotions or actions in others.
‘This matching mechanism, which can be framed within the motor theories of perception, offers the great advantage of using repertoire of coded actions in two ways at the same time: at the output side to act, and at the input side, to directly understand the actions of others…

New empirical evidence suggests that the same neural structures that are involved in processing felt sensations and emotions are also active when the same sensations and emotions are to be detected in others. (Gallese, 2011, p.456)
Ramachandran, a champion of the theory, says that:
‘These neurons are performing a virtual reality simulation of your mind, your brain. Therefore, they’re constructing a theory of your mind – of your intention – which is important for all kinds of social interaction.’ (Marsh,
2012)
This theory supports the idea of theatre as basis for social interaction and identity.
Vicariously living through situations outside our normal experience allows us to evaluate our responses to them, giving us a greater understanding of ourselves. We mimic, both physically and mentally, the actions and emotions we see. This allows us to immerse ourselves in the narrative as we imitate the performance in our mind.
‘[We] cease to be mere spectators and become participants in the movement that is presented to us and though to all outward appearances we shall be sitting quietly in our chairs we shall nevertheless be dancing synthetically with all our musculature.’ ( Martin, 1939, p.3
)
It is not only ‘synthetically’ that we are moved in response to theatre; we also literally mirror the physicality of performers through emotional contagion. That is:

‘The tendency to automatically mimic and synchronise facial expressions, vocalisations, postures, and movements with those of another person and consequently, to converge emotionally.’ (Cacioppo, 1994, p.5)
Experiencing mimicry in performance enables us to recreate what Lacan called the
‘mirror stage’. ( Lacan, 1980 ) The first time we recognise a mirror image of ourselves and are transformed as a result.
‘The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation – and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of fantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopedic – and, lastly, to the assumption of the armor of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid structure the subject’s entire mental development.’ (Lacan cited in Kul-Want, 2010, p.154)
Seeing our body as a whole, as opposed to feeling its physicality, gives us both a more complete sense of self and a feeling of separation from self. This external representation is required to give us our visual identity, however, its position, spatially distinct from the I/eye that sees it, causes a sense of fragmentation. Ranciere describes how passive spectatorship can compound this fragmentation but how good theatre can overcome it.

‘Vision means externality. Now externality means the dispossession of one’s own being. “The more man contemplates, the less he is”, Debord says…
The “good’ theatre is posited as a theatre that uses its separate reality in order to suppress it, to turn the theatrical form into a form of life of the community.’
(Ranciere, 2007, p.272)
The impossibility of placing the image of oneself in relation to oneself in space is overcome in this ‘good’ theatre. It positions the entire drama within a physical, shared, space. It is therefore a useful device for exploring the dual relationships of the
Ego to the body and the imaginary to the real that characterise the mirror stage. It presents an imagined self in the form of the actor to the real self in the form of the spectator. This idea is supported by mirror neuron theory:
‘The mirror matching systems in our brains map the different intentional relations in a fashion that is neutral about the specific quality or identity of the agentive/subjective parameter. By means of a shared functional state realized in two different bodies that nevertheless obey the same functional rules, the
‘objectual other’ becomes ‘another self’. Our seemingly effortless capacity to conceive of the acting bodies inhabiting our social world as goal-orientated selves like us depends on the constitution of a shared meaningful we-centric space. I propose that this shared manifold space can be characterized at the functional level as embodied simulation , a basic functional mechanism by means of which our brain/body system models its interactions with the world.
Embodied simulation constitutes a crucial functional mechanism in social cognition, and it can be neurobiologically characterized. The mirror neuron

matching systems so far discovered in the human brain represent subpersonal instantiations of embodied simulation.’ (Gallese, 2011, p.456)
The performer becomes an embodied simulation of the spectator; motor neurologically speaking there is no difference between performing and spectating.
Here again there is the blurring of life and art because the distinction between the two, doing and seeing, that Kaprow describes no longer exists. (Kaprow, 1993, p.195) The actions and reactions of the performer are what we respond to, no physical resemblance of the body is necessary. Lacan acknowledged this when he later replaced the term ‘mirror’ with ‘screen’ allowing for a more abstract reflection or projection of the self. The presence of the performers creates the ‘screen’ effect that
Gombrich refers to and we fill in the blanks in our own image. ( Gombrich, 2002, p.174
) We (mis)recognise ourselves in the performers in the sense that we see ourselves in them when in fact we are not in them to be seen. ( Bleeker, 2008, p.129
)
We are left with a sense that we have had their experiences, which allows for the emotional catharsis that Aristotle describes in Poetics .
‘Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude… in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.’ (Aristotle, 1997, p.10)
Aristotle believed that, if well constructed, a tragedy could first incite an audience and then restore them to a state of equilibrium. It functions as a form of training of the emotions or a drawing off of excess. He dissects poetry , specifically drama, to find how its parts contribute to the effect it has on human nature.

The central idea of Poetics is that all art is imitation. He concludes that humans are born naturally imitative so it is important to be surrounded by good/moral cultural influences, in this case tragedy. We derive pleasure from imitation as it is a means of learning and satisfies our insatiable thirst for knowledge, hence the compulsion to make and see art. The more we imitate; the more we learn. And the more we learn, the more we assimilate the qualities of those we imitate.
This inevitably raises a question for identity: how is the imitator distinct from the imitated?
‘The ultimate problem turns out in the final analysis to be that of distinction : distinctions between the real and the imaginary, between waking and sleeping, between ignorance and knowledge, etc.’ ( Caillois, 1984 )
Caillois describes in Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia how imitation can lead to a blurring of boundaries between the subject and its surroundings. He suggests that the space between the imitation and the viewer is literally collapsed as we are left with no fixed reference points. Without distinction between subject and ground we are unable to construct a visual representation of space. Caillois describes this phenomenon in the camouflage of insects but I would suggest that it could also apply to performance. As spectators we are both positioned and displaced by the theatrical event. ( Bleeker, 2008, p.169
) Seeing ourselves in performers, as we do, we no longer have a contained sense of self; we seem to be occupying two points in space simultaneously. This effect is compounded by our subjective perception of space due to the constructed nature of our entire visual environment.

‘The feeling of personality, considered as the organism's feeling of distinction from its surroundings, of the connection between consciousness and a particular point in space, cannot fail under these conditions to be seriously undermined; one then enters into the psychology of psychasthenia, and more specifically of legendary psychasthenia, if we agree to use this name for the disturbance in the above relations between personality and space.’ (
Caillois,
1984 )
This disconnection ‘between consciousness and a particular point in space’ can also be experienced in the dark, as Caillois describes darkness as having a ‘positive’ spatial quality (as opposed to the negative quality of light). Light exposes the spaces between objects whereas darkness envelops the viewer and seems to ‘touch’ and even
‘penetrate’ them. This aspect of psychasthenia is also present in the theatre. The members of the audience sitting together in the dark become a single entity, expanding into the darkness. They lose their individual identity and by inhabiting the darkness seem to encroach on the lit area of the stage. As a result of this contagion through ‘touch’ they become more invested in the action of the performance.
The way in which ‘space is indissolubly perceived and represented’ (
Caillois,
1984 ) gives us as spectators a dual relationship to the performers, we simultaneously imitate and observe them, becoming at once united with them and distinct from them.
We are in the world of the play but not of it. This condition of theatre is reflected in our ability both to invest emotionally in what we see and divorce ourselves from any responsibility for it. Is one of these identities, or perspectives of performance, real and the other false? Is Coleridge’s ‘suspended disbelief’ ( McConachie, 2008, p.43
) just a temporary lapse in intelligence that we allow ourselves for the sake of pleasure?

Gombrich suggests otherwise. He proposes that there is no distinction between imitation and reality:
‘The world of man is not only a world of things; it is a world of symbols where the distinction between reality and make-believe is itself unreal.’
( Gombrich, 2002, p.85
)
In recounting a persons performance in a play we are apt to oscillate between description of the actor and description of the character and in some instances make no distinction at all. In considering the actors/characters before us we are selective in the information we choose (subconsciously) to blend together to form the single actor/character identity. For example we choose to combine the physical attributes of the actor with the personality traits of the character but we ignore anything we may know about the actual personality of the actor or the fact that the dialogue comes from a script. There are exceptions to this, for example if an actor is very well known we may bring something of their personality to the character.
Everything that we understand from watching the actors/characters is also blended with memory. Our own experiences of similar situations, narratives, identities, be they real or imagined, influence how we interpret the current performance. We begin with the template of our own experiences and build on this with what we see in the performance, we ‘live in the blend.’ (Fauconnier & Turner,
2002)

‘The cognitive concept of identity, plus the ability of the mind/brain to do conceptual blending, makes possible the doubleness of actors/characters.’
( McConachie, 2008, p.42
)
We form the actor and character into a single entity so that we are able to relate to them more easily.
‘Audiences generally “blend” the actor and the character together into one image, one concept of identity to enable their effective immersion in the performance.’ (
McConachie, 2008, p.42
)
The proof of the completeness and effectiveness of this blending is the mental adjustment that is required on leaving the theatre and re-entering the real world. This is not the same adjustment we make on leaving the cinema, in fact it is an adjustment in the opposite direction. Film involves only passive spectatorship, it requires no interaction, as a result our social intelligence is suspended during the film, we lose a sense of identity and are forced to rediscover this when the film ends. This aspect of film is equivalent to Ranciere’s description of a bad theatre:
‘Being a spectator means being passive. The spectator is separated from the capacity of knowing in the same way as he is separated from the possibility of acting.’ (Ranciere, 2007, p.272)
After the film we must rediscover our ability to take action. In good theatre we are forced into a heightened level of inter action , acting vicariously through the players:

‘The theatre is a place where an action is actually performed by living bodies in front of living bodies. The latter may have resigned their power. But this power is resumed in the performance of the former, in the intelligence that builds it, in the energy that it conveys.’ (Ranciere, 2007, p.272)
We bring ourselves into the blend as we allow the performers to act on our behalf. We become accustomed to employing the kind of mental dexterity that enables us to continually blend and re-blend and on leaving the theatre it takes time to reassign our actions.
This concept of ‘blending’, both visually and mentally, reminds us that theatre is not merely imitation, the ‘blend’ also contains life. It is the result of an imitation of life represented by actual life, in the form of the ‘living bodies in front of living bodies’ whose actions and intelligence combine.
‘I like theatre as a phenomenon that we have created for us to observe life staged. I like its straight-forwardness; it doesn't use any additional medium for mediation between itself and spectator, just a stage, movements, gestures, language. That's what we all do on a daily basis, being a part of many stages - in apartments, offices, restaurants, streets.’ (Ondak cited in Morgan & Wood,
2007, p.74)
Theatre could be described as a second reality, a layer of reality on top of that which we inhabit everyday. As such it becomes a heightened reality and harks back to ‘an earlier more awe-inspiring function of art when the artist did not aim at making a

‘likeness’ but at rivalling creation itself.’ (
Gombrich, 2002, p.80
) It is only in a live art such as Theatre that this ‘rivalling creation’ can possibly be achieved, purely because it is living, and creates its own reality .
‘The artist’s desire to create, to bring forth a second reality, finds its inexorable limits in the restrictions of his medium.’ ( Gombrich, 2002, p.82
)
Painting, for example, is limited in this respect by its inanimate medium. Although it may seem to live and breathe it is bound by the confines of the canvas. Film is animated but still confined, although it is a record of live activity it has ceased to live and is no longer subject to change or creation. Theatre has no physical bounds and this gives it a frisson because there is always a danger that it will cross the line from art into reality . There is an interesting moment in theatre when it approaches this line.
The audience becomes caught between a state of action and inertia, the comfortable identity of the privileged witness is lost and they are forced to forge a new identity.
The possibility of this has a tangible presence in live performance which adds to the sensation of pleasure.
Plays that threaten to cross over into reality also draw attention to the corporal identities of the individual audience members; the blanket of darkness seems to lift as we look about for reassurance that we are still in the context of performance. Of course this disengages us.
‘This gesture exposed my bodily presence in the audience as being part of the theatrical event while at the same time it made me aware of this bodily presence as something that, when made explicit to the consciousness, prevents

the stepping inside to take place that would allow me to travel elsewhere.’
( Bleeker, 2008, p.168
)
This disengagement and the resulting self-consciousness brings our identities into sharp focus; they literally put us on display. We see ourselves reflected in those around us and are again confronted with the Lacanian concept of the ‘mirror stage.’ In this instance however it is not just in the performers that we see ourselves but in the other members of the audience. With the entire audience turning in on itself, reflecting reflections, a general consensus of reaction is reached and the many identities become one. A social identity is created.

Conclusion
It would seem that the theatre facilitates a convergence of identity amongst the audience while at the same time allowing us to assume new and diverse identities individually. The ways that it achieves this are various and numerous but almost all of them involve vision.
We are presented with various characters/actors on the stage whose identities we ‘blend’ and merge to form a single entity. Each character/actor blend that we form is coloured by our own identity and that in turn is coloured by what we see of the blended character/actor. We also ‘project’ aspects of ourselves onto the blend giving us the perspective to reflect on our own identity.
There is a constant building up and breaking down of identity which is self perpetuating due to the social element of live performance. We see character/actor blends and emulate their emotional and physical behaviour in our minds. At the same time we are aware, either consciously or subconsciously, that we are watching a performance. This allows us to dip in and out of critical reflection on the characters/actors and the skill of the director and playwright in creating them. We are given the opportunity to reflect on our own identity whilst vicariously experiencing the identity, and even the construction of identity, of others.
In good theatre everyone involved should be altered by the experience. There is a definite ‘fracturing of identity’ but there is also a unifying effect. By the conduit of vision we are broken up into different identities and then rebuilt into a single and slightly altered, ideally for the better, version of ourselves.