ABSTRACT
Most Anglophone readers know Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) for his dramatic theory and his major plays. Fewer, however, are familiar with his acting theory and his long association with actors, which informed both his performance and dramatic theory, including that which one finds in the Hamburg Dramaturgy. In Anglophone studies of Lessing’s journal, one rarely sees Lessing’s dramatic theory placed in conversation with his acting theory, reception theory, or performance reviews. Historical narratives more often focus on Lessing’s strained relations with the actors of the Hamburg National Theater, the company to which his journal was attached. This focus, however, neglects the fact that Lessing’s acting theory supports his wider ideas about theater as a force for social change. This chapter suggests that Lessing’s career-long interest in the acting process is a critical component of Lessing’s agenda for theatrical and cultural reform. The chapter further explains how Lessing constructs his unique understanding of performance and reception by synthesizing theories of French, English, and German contemporaries, and how, by negotiating larger eighteenth-century international debates about physiology and performance, Lessing is able to argue that theatrical emotion can be controlled and adjusted through a mechanistic regulation of the actor’s body.
