Actor in a Second Language

Abstract

The thesis is focused on actors who use English as a second language in performances on stage
or on screen in England. The question that frames the enquiry is, “Who is a Second Language
Actor?”, and it is posed three times, differently in each of the three chapters. Throughout the
thesis, I will be applying philosophical terms from Gilles Deleuze and Felix, such as plane of
immanence, plane of composition, becoming, schizo-affect, grammaticality. In the first chapter, I
discuss the possible emergence of an SLA from within the totality of random events of act-ing
(as opposed to acting) in a second language, termed the plane of immanence of second language
act-ing. I will introduce the concept of becoming-SLA, a second language actor in the process of
appearing, and always coming into being. Each act of uttering is seen as a minorisation of the
second language, a creative pushing of the language’s limits, which generates a special form of
English, named English-becoming-another-language. The second chapter introduces the concept
of grammaticality: a complex machine (people, technologies, schools, traditions/customs) that
names the SLA’s as either Migrant or Nomad and inscribes them onto a given plane of
composition of second language acting, restricting their immanent, creative energies. The final
chapter discusses the possible emergence of a new type of SLA : a schizo-actor who produces
schizo-affects in an English-becoming-another-language, uncontrollable by grammaticality. The
schizo-SLA operates in a state of bottomlessness, which is defined as a specific
creative/existential condition. The thesis discusses all these in the context of the practice-based
research conducted with Nu Nu Theatre, a company that focuses its work on the question of who
a Second-Language Actor is and who he/she can become. The two performance processes that
are analysed in relation to the research question are Billie Killer and BANDIT.

Date of Award	26 Nov 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Bristol
Supervisor	Simon Jones (Supervisor) & Katja Krebs (Supervisor)