Live theater in the His Dark Materials universe must be wild. Surely an actor's daemon also has lines to recite, so their daemon's form probably also factors into casting decisions. Maybe some plays have vague character descriptions for daemons, but I bet other plays have really specific or central daemon characters. And sure, big-budget theaters can afford to hire a separate actor with a particular daemon to stand backstage while their daemon plays its part onstage, but community theaters don't have those kinds of resources.
Like if you're casting for Julius Caesar, surely the real historical Caesar had a pretty iconic daemon, right? Are you going to cast an actor with a pigeon daemon as Caesar and just have everyone suspend their disbelief that it's Caesar's lioness, ἁμαρτία?
#overthinking how casting works in real life#internal pieces of an essay about directors' choices and interpretation and whatnot#But imagine casting your actors and daemons as a set--what it says about the characters they're playing#It says something if you cast Julius Caesar with a pigeon daemon#Imagine what it would do to the Eulogy speech! How could Caesar have been ambitious! His daemon was a common pigeon!#(or do you argue that historians were embarrassed by the betrayal and “lionized” his daemon after the fact to make him seem more regal?)#It would make typecasting and casting against type absolutely fascinating when you thrown in daemons.
absolutely fire tags from @afamiliarroomba
#i bet in some cases of really iconic daemons they keep the actor's daemon offstage #and use puppets or something #also opens up a world of new possibilities for child actors (via @pigeonhawk)
#I had to preserve these. the bit about child actors made me go ''oh fuuuuck'' out loud #there must be some majorly significant coming-of-age plays that have to do with daemons settling #and like. at least one instance of a daemon /actually/ settling during a performance #the reviews! the doctoral dissertations! #also love the idea of daemons-as-puppetry #something something the facsimile of theater while daemons skitter along under the stage like matched magnets #distinct schools of theatrical production and history based on live-action or puppetry daemons and mixed-form shows trying to make a point (@impossibletruths)
different theater traditions would solve it differently, too. the greeks once wore rigid theater masks--they might once have also held up their role's daemon as a metal silhouette on a stick, a form as rigidly symbolic as their unchanging mask... and as easy to recognize from the back of the amphitheater.
consider also kabuki, with the stagehands in black, and the bright contrast of the actor's makeup and posturing. the daemon's role could be superimposed with patterned fabric overlays as well as ritualized posturing. a monkey daemon could pose and roar like a general's tiger, while a stag daemon could frisk around and like a servant's loyal dog. and if anything orange and striped was a tiger, and anything white with brown ears was a dog, audiences would be perfectly fine with this for the duration of the show.
theater doesn't have to be realistic, it has to be convincing. an actor's soul would be up to the challenge, whatever shape it was.
