The Living Imagination in Theatre.

The present article explores the potential of Paul Ricoeur’s concept of productive imagination, as developed mainly in his Lectures on Imagination, in a theatre studies context. Given the broad scope of imaginative activity in theatre, it focuses on the processes of role creation and interpretation, analyzing the function of imagination in two contrasting acting methods: those of Lee Strasberg and Michael Chekhov. Ricoeur’s distinction, drawing on Kant, between reproductive and productive imagination offers a conceptual framework for understanding the different ways in which actors access their material: Imagination is thus not merely connected to recollection but constitutes a capacity for creative transformation. The focus on performance practice may help to clarify Ricoeur’s conception of imagination and illuminate the intertwining of both modes of imagining. Ricoeur’s conception of an imagination freed from reference to empirical reality opens the possibility of conceiving theatre as a space for the reconfiguration of reality. Theatre art can thus be given a philosophical function: it becomes a way of questioning and reshaping our understanding of the world, and a practice through which reality may be augmented.