1. 1
Tuché: Encounters with the Real of Acting
What is the relationship between psychoanalysis and acting?
Acting is, simply put, the representation of a role in the cinema or the theatre by a
human being who must suffer the problem of the body.
Psychoanalysis will be of interest to those who want to find a way of closing the gap
between the ‘role’ and the ‘character’ that an actor plays.
The actor is split between the demands of the role and the requirements of the
character.
Wherever there is a split in human subjectivity through the agency of language, the
unconscious insists on having its way.
Psychoanalysis has a preoccupation with the representational function of acting and
the libidinal embodiment of a role.
How else do we explain the excessive anxiety that besets the actor about his level of
sex appeal to the audience?
Are these not the questions that ravage the ego of the actor as he grows older?

2. 2
1. Am I sexy?
2. If yes, am I still sexy?
3. If yes, will I always be sexy?
The audience, needless to say, is worried about the state of the actor’s body.
There is a profound sense of shock and disbelief if an actor were to fall ill or if he is
hurt while shooting a scene.
Thespian actors also insist on dying on stage as though there is no better way to die
than in the middle of a play.
The audience can at best handle an actor’s imaginary body.
It can handle neither the real body of the character nor even of the symbolic body of
the role on display.
Why does more than one actor play the same role?
Is it not because we want to see the differences in how they embody the role?
The actor’s body then is a form of symbolic translation.
When an actor plays a role that somebody else played originally, it is akin to staging
the play or making the movie in another language altogether.
Along with the change in language, there is a difference in values as well.
What are the switching costs in playing the role with another actor?
Psychoanalysis comes into the picture when we want to calculate the switching costs
at the level of jouissance rather than on the level of a cost-benefit analysis.
That is because there is a leap of faith that is required to think beyond the notion of
homeostasis.
It calls for a terrible excess which is accompanied by a gamut of affects.
The desire to encounter this excess on the part of the actor may not be in conformity
with the bourgeois values in place amongst the members of the audience.
It is also important to understand the difference between the role and the character.
The role represents the symbolic dimension and the character represents the real
underpinnings of that which has to be represented.
If an actor is merely role playing, it means that he is doing just enough to get by
without exerting himself.

3. 3
That is because the logic of the role is well-known to the audience; they might have
even encountered it before. This prior exposure creates the idea of a stereotype.
Here the character dimension takes a backseat, and an experienced actor will not
experience much by way of emotional growth while playing a role.
It is just a day’s work for him.
If an actor wants to experience emotional growth, if he wants to grow into a role, he
will have to study the part carefully.
This means that the requirements of the character (and not just the role) have to be
understood. It may even involve a psychological examination of the part that has to
be played anew.
This might involve studying other talented actors or active introspection to
understand why a role is attractive.
That is why actors are given ample time when they sign up to prepare for a role.
Preparation however cannot exhaust the psychological dimension involved in the
growth that an actor experiences while playing a demanding role.
While playing a role, the actor has insights not only about the character, but also
about his real self.
How an actor comes to terms with these encounters with the real will determine
how much he will grow as an actor.
This is the dimension that Jacques Lacan refers to as tuché.
Examples of this could be any insight that an actor suffers while playing his part
which brings out the gap between the role and the character.
In order to individuate as a performer, the actor must draw upon his inner reserves
as both an actor and as a character.
Sometimes an insight that is generated in the locus of the actor throws light upon the
character and vice versa.
This is why not all actors want to grow.
They are afraid that the audience will detect a ‘hidden enjoyment’ in their real self
when they play a role.
But it is only actors who can draw upon this hidden enjoyment who are headed for
greatness in their profession.

4. 4
That is why highly-paid Hollywood stars secretly envy or openly look up to the
great actors who play Shakespeare or Brecht.
These actors have the psychic space to work through horrendous insights that
constitute the toolkits of genius or those of prodigious talent in the theatre.
They are not surprised by the insistence of the real which erupts, from time to time,
on the stage in the form of an unexpected encounter…which Lacan terms ‘tuché.’
These encounters then constitute the real of acting.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN