L’arte del gesto : Diderot e il ruolo della pantomima nella recitazione

The actor’s gesture is the hieroglyph of the theatre. Diderot knows it very well when he analyses the acting skill of the great actor Garrick. At the same time, the actor is both the brush for painting and the canvas. If the actor does not possess the art of pantomime, he could not know either how to begin or to complete the scene. In any tragedy, comedy or drama, the first action that the actor will play is a ‘pantomime’ : a movement of surprise, pain, joy, that gives colour to the drama. It is ‘action painting’ because every action, every gesture, every movement on stage moves more than the words.