University of St.

Andrews
Scots Philosophical Association
Dramatic Representation
Author(s): J. O. Urmson
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 22, No. 89 (Oct., 1972), pp. 333-343
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and
the University of St. Andrews
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2218308
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333

DRAMATIC REPPRESENTATION
BY J. O. URMSON

There has been a great deal of work done in recent years on the nat
of representation in the arts. Most of it has concentrated on representa
in the visual arts, and some of it has been very good. But there is no re
to suppose that there will be any one specific analysis of representat
that will be applicable without modification to all art-forms; I, for my par
am sure that there is not. In this paper I shall be concerned only wit
dramatic representation, not at all with pictorial representation in t
graphic arts, with representation in music, or representation of a no
dramatic type in literature. No doubt there is a murky border-land
which it is hard or impossible to determine whether a work should co
as a dramatic representation; no doubt some complex works of art, s
as operas, will invariably contain elements of representation of diver
types. But I do not wish to get involved in tedious boundary disputes
shall concentrate on the clearly dramatic element in clear cases of dra
and particularly on plays intended for stage-production, and within su
plays on the drama and not, for example, elements of pictorial representat
such as painted back-cloths.
The specific problem about the nature of dramatic representation w
which we shall be concerned can be most clearly indicated by means of
example. Let us suppose that there was a performance of Shakespeare
Macbeth at the Playhouse in Worktown on January 1st 1972, commen
at 7.30 p.m. On the programme it was truly stated that Mr. Jones w
play the part of Macbeth and AMr. Smith that of Banquo. It will the
historically true to say that at approximately 7.45 p.m. on January 1
1972, in the Playhouse at Worktown, Mr. Jones, standing on the stage
the presence of Mr. Smith, uttered the sentence 'So foul and fair a d

have not seen'. But a detailed account of the relevant part of the

might possibly run as follows : Macbeth, returning from battle in com

with Banquo, arrives at a blasted heath and remarks to Banquo that h
has never seen so foul and fair a day. This also is true, as part of an acc
of the course of the drama, though not as a piece of historical narra
Or let us be ultra-cautious; this would be very unlikely to be true if offere
as a piece of historical narrative about the rtiddle ages, but it is not offere
as an historical narrative about the middle ages, and the question whet
it would be true as a narrative about the middle ages is entirely irrele
to our problem, though not of course to the question how far the play
historical and how far fictional. Our problem is to clarify the relatio
between the true historical statement about Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith and

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334

J.

o.

URMSON

the true dramatic statemen

clear how things stand in t
to understanding the genera
Let us begin by noting the
philosophy. The first point

Smith

is

quite

certainly

simply untrue, historically

sentence ' So foul and fair a
town, in the presence of Ban
improbable that Macbeth ev
and irrelevant whether he d
truly said of Macbeth and Ba
It is not true, historically o
on a medieval blasted heath
It might possibly be true th
January 1st 1972, and could
had had a foul and fair day;
what

is

true

of

Jones

and

Smi

and Banquo, and what is tru

Smith. But what is true of M
true of Jones and Smith. Ou
I have now set up my probl

solution, I wish first to draw

of which I shall make use in t

First, I remind you of the

different accounts of any ac
I cut a branch off a rose-bus
what I did will be equally tr
pruned

the

rose-bush,

let

lig

others. Within these accounts some seem to be more basic than others.

For example, I could move my fingers, or some other part of my b

without cutting a branch off a rose-bush, and could cut off a branch with
pruning the rose-bush (since pruning is cutting with a certain specific purp
But I could not prune a rose-bush without cutting bits off it, and could n
bits off it without moving my fingers or some other part of my body. Sim

I can play a card without trumping your ace, but could not trump you
without playing a card. So it seems that we can give a number of diff

accounts of an action, some of which will be more basic than others in th

way: the truth of the more basic will be a necessary condition of the
of the less basic, but not vice versa. Each account will be distinct, but
an account of a separate action; I do not both move my fingers and, q
separately, prune a rose-bush at the same time, as I may move my fi
and, at the same time and quite separately, open my mouth. There a

many problems here, which I am skating over, that would require discussi

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DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION 335

in a fundamental account of action in general

we should never get to the problem with w

In his book called How to Do Things with
to distinguish a number of acts, some mor

total speech-act of saying something to someb

he distinguished what he called the phonetic

noises and the phatic act of " uttering certa
of certain types belonging to and as belong
certain construction, i.e., conforming to a
grammar with a certain intonation, etc.".
is no doubt rather legalistic; it would be ne
say that a phatic act was the intelligent utt
or sentences. Austin also distinguished oth
act, such as the locutionary act and the illoc
are difficult to understand and have occasio

ment. Luckily we are not concerned with them

of the phonetic and phatic acts within the

not seem to raise any great difficulty.

Now it is obvious that I may perform a phon

a phatic act-I may make a noise that has n

language. But I cannot perform a phatic act
act; I cannot utter an English sentence, for
noises. So the phonetic act is more basic th
clear that one may perform a phatic act w
full-scale speech act of saying something t
perform a phatic act. 'Do you like whisky
sentence but I have not said something to so
had thought that they were being asked a
understood the situation. I uttered an inter
ask a question; I was not using the word 'yo
larly I may utter the sentence 'The Queen
nobody and saying nothing true or false.
ment about Queen Elizabeth I, it would have been a true statement; if I
had been referring to Queen Elizabeth II it would have been a false statement ; but in fact I merely uttered the sentence xwithout referring to anybody.

So it seems clear that one may perform a phatic act and in so doing not
perform an act of such complexity as the typical full-scale speech-acts of
stating, warning, promising, ordering, questioning, etc. Equally clearly, one
cannot perform such full-scale speech-acts without performing a phatic
act. In this way the phatic act stands to the full speech-act in the same
relation as other more basic acts stand to less basic ones.

So we have distinguished the phonetic and phatic acts from the f

scale speech-act of saying something to somebody. I now want to m

use of these distinctions by asking which, if any, of these acts is being pe

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336

J.o.

URMSON

formed
seems

to

by

Mr.

me

Jones

that

the

the

actor

'So foul and fair a day

Jones is not referring

I ha
to a

have

to

to

nobody
audience

be

referring

who
that

hears
he

him

has

had

will
a

suppose that it was not a d

phatic act, while Macbeth
matter of historical fact. H
perform a full-scale speech
other hand, it is clear that
speech-act.
In saying that Jones performs a phatic act, and in general in discussing
the relation between what historically occurs on the stage at a dramatic
performance and what is dramatically represented, I am deliberately ignoring the connected problems of the relation of the play to a performance of
it and the relation of the author to the actor. I speak of what the actor
says and does, though he does it to some extent under the direction of the
playwright and, no doubt, the producer. How much each contributes no
doubt varies in specific cases, but to some extent the actor is, like a marion-

ette, a tool of the author; he speaks the lines because the playwright has
written them. How far then are we right to regard the phatic act as being
that of the actor and how far ought we to regard the actor as merely a
substitute voice of the playwright ? Thus I have spoken of the actor as
performing a phatic act when he says, for example, " So foul and fair a day
I have not seen ". But he would as readily produce a string of nonsense
syllables if the playwright so directed; so there is some case for saying that
the distinction between the phonetic and phatic act does not arise for the
actor, but rather that the playwright wrote the words as a sentence of the

English language. But the audience is certainly expected to hear and

treat the sounds uttered as a sentence in the English language, however we
allocate responsibility between the actor, the producer and the playwright.
So I dodge these issues, and speak as if all could be attributed to the actor,
because I do not believe that this over-simplification has any ill-effects on
the answer that I propose to the problem with which I am mainly concerned.

We are concerned with the relation between what goes on on the stage and
what is dramatically represented, not with assigning to playwright, producer
and actor the proper degree of responsibility for what goes on on the stage.

Sometimes, indeed, as in a charade, playwright and actor will be identical.

One can similarly discuss the nature of representation in music without
deciding how far to attribute the musical performance to the executant
musician and the composer.
Now when a phatic act is performed normally as an abstractable com-

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DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION 337

ponent of a full-scale speech-act, we determine

performed by reference to general conventi

and to the context and occasion of utteranc
hears a sergeant call out " Come here, you " h
the military context and as being addressed t
is looking at him. What speech-act is being
clear-outside the military context it is not
orders from requests and advice, for examp
convention and general experience of the w
decide most of the time what is going on. Mi
tion, not the rule, and usually our interpre
automatic.

Now we have reached the point when I can put my explanatory hypo

thesis before you in outline. You presumably have no difficulty in following

me when I make to you the following conditional statement: if a serge

were to perform the phatic act of uttering 'Come here, you' in a loud
bellowing tone, looking at a soldier on the parade ground, we should reas
ably understand him to be ordering the private soldier in question to co
to him. There is surely no greater difficulty in following the followi
counter-factual conditional statement : when Jones uttered the sentence

'So foul and fair a day I have not seen', a phatic act, then if he had
a mediaeval general returning from battle and crossing a blasted h

with a fellow general he would naturally have been understood as perfor

the full-scale speech-act of giving a mixed verdict on the day's activ

though we know full well that the facts of the case are quite otherwise.

In the light of this let us construct an hypothesis, not yet wide e

to cover all drama and all dramatic elements, but wide enough to c
speech in realistic drama.
Let us call the phatic act genuinely performed on the stage on a c
occasion, for example Jones's utterance of the sentence 'So foul and
day I have not seen ', H, which is short for 'historical truth'.
Let us call the dramatic account of what happened, the account
would appear in a narrative of the plot (for example, that Macbeth
blasted heath offers Banquo his verdict on the day's events), D, wh
short for 'dramatic truth '.

Let us call any account of a full-scale speech-act based on a gen

understanding of the background conventions, context and occasion
phatic act, an interpretation of that phatic act.
Then I say that D is what would have been the natural interpretat
of H against a certain counter-factual background. The relevant coun

factual background is provided by the information given in the programm

including dramatis personae, the place and the time of the dramatic eve
also by the scenery, and also by the interpretation of earlier stages in
performance. Part of the skill of the dramatist is to provide us with

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338

J.

o.

URMSON

sufficiency

of

information

fo

and to do so in a convincing
be for two actors to appear
" Hello, Tom " and the secon
the first bit of the conditional clause: 'If these two men were Tom and

George . . .'. Perhaps one actor will now say, as a phatic act, someth
like this: " You remember that such-and-such happened last week an
that so-and-so intends to do this and that . . .". We can now enlarge
conditional clause to read 'If these two men were Tom and George a
such-and-such had happened the previous week and so-and-so intende
do this and that . . .'. That is crude, but somehow the playwright m
ensure that we get our conditional clause.
Shakespeare in Macbeth is, of course, pretty masterly. He starts

three actors who are obviously playing the part of witches from their dr

the thunder and lightning and references to Graymalkin and Paddo

they say they will meet Macbeth when the battle is over. Then the r
of the battle against Cawdor is announced to Duncan. We go back to
witches who are expecting Macbeth. So we easily have the required
ground conditional to interpret Macbeth when he comes on and says
foul and fair a day I have not seen ". We are readily able to say of t
actor's phatic act : if this had been Macbeth on a blasted heath the na
interpretation of H, the phatic act, would have been D, the full-scale s
act, which is a verdict on the day's events.
So my hypothesis is that the historical truth is that certain relati
basic actions, in the case of speech, phatic acts, are performed on the
by actors. The auditors who are acquainted with the conventions of d
will expect the playwright to provide them with a hypothetical, coun

factual background and they will then interpret the more basic actions on
stage as more complex actions in the light of the counter-factual hypothe
The story of the play is this counter-factual interpretation. Any member

the audience who does not realize that the interpretation is counter-f
will be mistaking drama for actuality.
It is quite easy, I think, to extend this hypothesis to cover action
well as speech, for the present still confining ourselves to realistic d

Once again, as in the case of speech, more basic acts are performed in hist

ical truth by the actors and the audience supply a counter-factual in

pretation in terms of less basic actions. Thus, let us suppose that in R
and Juliet the part of Romeo is played by Brown and that of Mercut
played by Robinson. Then, at a certain stage of the play Brown and
Robinson will engage in certain physical movements that I shall crudely
call " banging swords together ". The dramatic interpretation will be that
Romeo and Mercutio are fighting a duel. Once again, Brown and Robinson
are not fighting a duel and Romeo and Mercutio are not banging swords
together as a matter of historical fact. Applying our hypothesis, we say

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DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION 339

that the dramatic truth that Romeo and M

the interpretation of the banging of swords
natural if the sword-wielders had been Romeo and Mercutio in mediaeval

Italy, etc., instead of modern actors.

I do not wish to claim that the members of the audience explicitly

enunciate these counter-factual statements to themselves. But the attitude

of the theatre-goer is a very sophisticated one which one has to learn fro
long experience. Many children are horrified by their first experiences
pantomime precisely because they are not aware that their interpretatio
of what goes on on the stage, which is often pretty gruesome, should be
counter-factual one. The spectator who can distinguish drama from realit
is constantly aware that his interpretation is counter-factual, though fe
would express the fact in this technical jargon. But there is no willing
suspension of disbelief, even temporarily. Certainly we await the stage
murder with horrified fascination; but this would not be our reaction if

we had suspended our disbelief; if we had suspended our disbelief we should

either dash on the stage and try to stop it or at least go out into the foyer
to look for a telephone to call the police. Some of the audience of the radio
serial The Archers have apparently suspended their disbelief to the extent
of sending wreaths to the funerals of the characters. But this is not interpretation but misunderstanding.

So my hypothesis, still explained only in the case of wholly realistic

drama, is, shortly, that the dramatic account of what occurs in a drama is
an interpretation in terms of certain higher-level actions of what the actors

would have been doing when they performed certain lower-level actions if
they had performed them against a background of time, place and circumstance which in fact does not obtain. I hope that this hypothesis is, in a
general way, clear, but I must now offer a more rigorous account of certain
elements in it.

I have already stated that, for our purposes, two accounts of an action
are relatively of higher and lower level if the former cannot be performed
without an action of the latter type being performed, but not vice versa.
Thus, a full speech act of stating, questioning or commanding cannot be
performed without a phatic act being performed, but a phatic act can be
performed without a full speech act being performed. But we must note
that it would be false to allege that the actors merely and solely perform a
phatic act. I have already insisted that whenever we act our action will
satisfy an indefinitely large set of descriptions. Thus, if Jones is performing

the part of Macbeth as a professional actor on the professional stage, then

when he performs the phatic act of uttering the sentence ' So foul and fair
a day I have not seen', he will probably also be performing an act falling
under the description 'performing his duty in accordance with his contract
with his employers'. When, therefore, I speak of the actor as performing
only a phatic act I should more strictly and rigorously say that the conven-

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340

J.

tions

0.

URMSON

of

drama

are

such

that

act will be dramatically irre

to his act in such a way that
act other than its being a ph
But what of the dramatic
banging

and

of

swords

duelling

as

together

an

as

example

this example will, no doubt,

mind, it is necessary to try
the actor's doings is the dra
swords together it will also
acting in accordance with th

obviously

dramatically

account of the actor's actions which is relevant is the account either of his

irr

own movements or of his moving of objects, including people, that ar

the stage with him. Thus we need to attribute to the actors such act
banging swords together, but not as duelling; as shaking each other's
in a purely physical sense, but not as shaking hands as a conventional f
of greeting; as kissing physically but not as making love; as putting pl
knives and forks on the table, but not as laying the table.
So my hypothesis could be put more accurately as follows: an hist
cally true account of what the actors do can be given purely in term
phatic acts and making of bodily movements and moving other bodi
Other accounts of what they do could be given, but this is the only dra
tically relevant description of what they do. The dramatically true acco

of the plot will be an interpretation of what the actors do under this descr

tion which would be the natural interpretation if certain counter-fact

conditions about the historical background had been true.
However, even if our account of dramatic representation is in princ
acceptable it is certainly still an over-simplification. We have to take i
account three elements so far neglected, stage illusion, simulation, an
stylization.

In a realistic production the actors are dressed up, they speak, the
grip each other's hands (though they do not in the conventional sense s
hands), they bang swords together and may even hit each other. But t
are various things of a logically similar type that they do not do but ei
simulate, or perform in a stylized manner, or which they do not do at
though an illusion is created of their performance.
To illustrate what I have in mind let us take as an example first w
dramatically is a hand-to-hand fight. Possibly in a film production t
actors will actually hit each other, though an illusion will be created t
they are actually hitting each other much harder than they in fact a
But in a twice-nightly stage performance, with no specialized stunt-me
take the risks, the actors will probably not hit each other at all, but o

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DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION 341

go through the motions of doing so. The motio

us into believing that blows are actually exchan

we may get only a stylized version, a subs

even attempt to make realistic or decept
intermediate possibilities.
There are even more cogent reasons why
stick swords into each other, drink large q
more than minor sexual activities, or destr
various moral and prudential objections to
activities are not merely inadvisable but com

a stylized or simulated form, such as flying, m

or, like Bottom in Midsummer Night's Drea

There is, I think, a clear difference betwe

tries to appear to do one thing when he is in f

tion, when the actor does something which

doing something else. No doubt there can b
are elements of both stylization and simul
operatic kiss, but this fact does not invalida
Clearly much more could be said about sim
tion, much that is of great importance to t
critic. But for our purposes there is one po

to be made. We now have two distinctions before us. The first was between
the historical truth about what the actor does and the dramatic truth about

what the character he portrays does; the second is between what the actor
in historical truth actually does and what he simulates doing, or what he
gives an illusion of doing or that of which what he does is a stylized version.

It is most important that these two distinctions should not be confused.

What the actor simulates, or gives an illusion of doing, or does in a stylized
form is logically on a par with the other more basic actions that he actually
performs, like the performance of phatic acts; he abstains from actual
performance only on moral or prudential grounds, or because actual perfor-

mance is impossible, physically. If these objections did not hold he might

well do these things and the drama would be unchanged in its nature. We
might even imagine a Caligula with plenty of expendable actors who insisted
on a realism we should shrink from. But the dramatic truths are dramatic

truths just because what they recount is not to be attributed to the actors.
Jones, the actor, may hit Smith with far less vigour than he simulates, or
he may hit Smith only in a stylized way; but Jones does not have either a
simulated or a stylized fight with Smith. What the actors simulate they
try to make it look as though they themselves were doing; but it is no
part of an actor's job to make it look as though he personally was duelling,
or making love.

Another way in which we could make the same point is this. Our first

distinction was between a representation and what is represented; our

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342

J.

O.

URMSON

second distinction is betwee

genuine and the substitute a
recognition of B as being a s
different

from

the

recognitio

are apt to get muddled abou

realistic production the acto
doing

by

himself

doing

A;

A. Thus Jones does not mer

when he takes off his hat, b
in

taking

off

his

hat.

So

we

killing with a blow. But the

actor is a substitute for a ge
by

blow.

It

is

essential

that

for a genuine blow, for othe

simulated blow. In so far as

with

regard

to

simulation

representation.

We

can,

now,

think,

see

of drama in certain circumstances. In realistic drama we attribute to the

represented characters not only the less basic acts but also the more ba
acts that are in historical truth performed by the actors. We attribu
to the characters not only, say, a passionate farewell, but also the act
words, accent, gestures and movements of the actors. This is excellen
the case of, for example, drawing-room comedy. But if we have, say, g
and goddesses represented, as in Wagner's Ring of the Niebelungs, th
perhaps no mere human professional singers can ever simulate, let alo
actually perform, phatic acts and movements appropriate for the gods

perhaps it is well that we should have here a degree of stylization. The phat

act is stylized by Wagner-nobody supposes that Wotan sang his conver

tions in poetic German; perhaps modern producers are wise to stylize t
movement more than Wagner had intended, though no doubt some of t
go so far that we no longer know what acts are being stylized. No do
producers will tell us that even in so-called realistic drama there is a deg
of stylization, though it goes unnoticed by the unsophisticated audien
We can accept this, but still insist that this degree of stylization is mo
akin to simulation. Gestures are, for example, extravagant in order t
they may look more natural.
I have now presented to you, so far as I have worked it out, my accou
of the nature of dramatic representation., I said at the beginning of
paper that I did not believe that there was a single account of all arti
representation. It will be clear that my account of dramatic representat
in terms of a counter-factual interpretation of lower-level actions by
actors in terms of higher-level actions by the characters could not rea

be transformed into an account of representation in, for example, the grap

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DRAMATIC REPRESENTATION 343

arts. This does not seem to me either surpri

also add that my account is meant to cover only

in wholes that are called dramas. Many of these

of pure spectacle, or of purely pictorial rep

sake, as when we have gratuitously complex
mining what counter-factual hypothesis is re

scenery. There are also elements of importance

that are not representational at all; when w

pleasure is in totally non-representational as

be, indeed, that sometimes the element of dram

is quite subservient to some religious, politi

has been to give an account of the dramatic
cussion of any of the conventional genres, w
Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

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