The performing body is linguistic

In the previous chapter, I focused on how written and spoken human language can, in principle, be embodied onstage. In this chapter, I reverse the perspective and ask how the actor's body is articulated, or languaged, ¹ in the act of performing. When, as spectators, we see someone acting, what else do we perceive or expect to perceive, except a person pretending to be something other than what they are? The question is intrinsically related to the way humans perceive and encounter their fellow species: On what grounds is someone perceived as like or unlike themselves, human or nonhuman, conscious or unconscious, free or unfree? In an era of virtual and augmented reality, avatars, robots, technological transformation of bodies, such questions are not merely theoretical but intrinsically linked to the “distribution of the sensible,” ² on the basis of which societies grant or deny rights and identify equality or inequality.