Interpretation on stage: performing in a laboratory

ABSTRACT This article analyzes a performance device that exposed a team - actor·resse·s, playwrights and a director - in a working situation on Le Cid written by Corneille in order to make visible, for an audience, the process of thought of the actors when they choose their acting. Interpretation. L’Amour fou du théâtre was based on a technique derived from action-analysis and succeeding in seeing the interplay between semantic analysis and acting. This analysis shows that this device, although not revealing the totality of the mechanism of a thought at work on a text, shows the process of appropriation of meaning from the reflections, discussions and discordances between playwrights, actor·resse·s, director and fictional characters.