This essay is an attempt to answer why audiences respond more strongly to watching people interacting in a three dimensional space than on the screen. The keyword is the body.
Let's start with an example of the dumb-show in Hamlet. At the end of the dumb-show Ophelia asks:
OPHELIA What means this, my lord?
HAMLET Marry, this is miching malicho. It means mischief.
Ophelia has difficulty in understanding the dumb-show and asks Hamlet, the director, for interpretation, which implies that the actor's body can only "mean" something if it can be translated into words. …
