Testing the blending

Abstract

This paper intends to measure the plausibility and the explanatory traction of the notion of “conceptual blending” as an account of theatrical experience. First, by assessing its novelty as a new definition of what is specific to theatre as an art form, and a suitable alternative to Aristotelian and Brechtian conceptions. It seems that by placing conceptual integration as the basic theatrical experience and by reviewing role-playing as the cognitive foundation of theatre, the concept of blending allows us to reassess the importance of emotional empathy, or detachment, in theatre. In a given sense, emotional empathy or sympathy become just an ingredient of blending, albeit a very significant one. Second, we shall try to place theatrical blending side by side with other theories of art (namely, visual art) that portray artistic representation as a a kind of “shuttle” or “fusion” between configuration and content. In particular, we propose that theatrical blending works as a kind of “seeing in”. More recent developments of Wollheim’s concept – such as Bence Nanay’s – will be adapted to the experience of role-playing in order to test whether this constitutes a suitable analogy.