Authenticity in the Performance of Self

Abstract

This study utilizes “auto-verbatim performance”—the meticulous recreation of one’s own recorded speech and gesture—to investigate authenticity in acting and essentialist concepts of the self. This approach challenges psychological realist acting traditions that treat authenticity as an internal, essentialist “truth,” instead exploring it as both a performative effect and a reflexive tool for self-knowledge. Situating this work within the discourse of “theatre of the real,” we examine the tension between lived experience and its aesthetic reconstruction. Our findings reveal a striking paradox: when actors perform exact recreations of their pre-recorded interviews, the resulting “Authenticity-Effects” are so persuasive that neither the performers nor the audience can reliably distinguish the recreation from the original interview. Furthermore, actor reflections—particularly regarding “masking” and social performance—suggest that the auto-verbatim process creates a reflexive distance, allowing the performer to objectify and empathize with their “past self” as a character. This dual experience of simultaneous believability and alienation challenges the premise of a fixed identity, suggesting instead that the self is a fluid product of memory, narrative, and performance. Ultimately, this study raises questions about the nature of truth and the “real” in an age of increasingly convincing simulations.