Philosophy of acting

I’m fairly confident Abby doesn’t read much of this sub so I’m not trying to pitch this as an idea for the show. I’m just voicing a gripe here.

I would love a PT episode on the philosophy of acting. I’ve seen some folks respond to her performance in HotD with ‘the acting was bad’ and I just…no? Like, did we watch the same thing? I had the same problem with Rings of Power. That show has issues, for sure. But the acting was always at least acceptable and often great! I just don’t understand what people are missing.

Abby touched on this area I think in the episode on art and aesthetic analysis. Like any art form, acting is subjective. But we can still evaluate things like accent, inflection, emphasis, physical movements, nonverbal cues, facial expressions, and all that. Did the actor make choices in those areas that fit the scene? Did the actor try to match the tone and energy of scene partners? Those kind of things can at least be somewhat less subjective.

I think too often people say ‘bad acting’ when they just don’t like a show or don’t like a character. And people confuse acting with what they think they would do in a situation all the time. Or they think acting is bad if it doesn’t match what they think the character should do. That’s not a proper critique of acting.

Maybe someday Abby will do this as an episode, who knows! But if anyone has any suggestions on books or articles I’m happy to hear them.