Authenticity

Authenticity related to people means that the action of a person is not determined by external factors, but is due to the person himself/herself. Authenticity consits of four components:

• Awareness: An authentic person knows his/her strengths and weaknesses as well as his feelings and motives for certain behaviour. Only through this self-reflection he is in the position to consciously experience and nfluence his actions.

• Honesty: This includes looking in the eye the real environment and also to accept unpleasant feedback.

• Consequence: An authentic person acts according to his values. That is valid for set priorities and also for the case that in this way he exchanges disadvantages. Hardly anything seems more hypocritical and false as an opportunist.

• Sincerity: Authenticity includes the willingness not to deny his negative sides.

Improvisational theater

In improvisational theater one can distinguish two forms of authenticity: first the authenticity of the actor, so of the real person "behind" the represented figure and the "fictitious" authenticity of the figure or the character represented on the stage. The authenticity of the actor can be an important component of a possibly existing broadcast of that actor, which in addition has an effect on the stage presence. A represented stage character seems authentic when he is perceived as "real", credible, truthful, real, natural, unbentm unaffected by the spectator. This is especially the case when the feeling and the actions represented on the stage result logical, comprehensible and congruent from the previously experienced personality features of the figure (character, actions, feelings, thoughts). To authenticity also belongs that the actor takes seriously his own figure. An authentic and truthful stage character is desirable when it comes (also) to the actors to touch the spectators, to address directly them in their feelings, their experiences and world of experiences.