Abstract: This paper explores the critical reflexivity between actors and the audiences by focusing on François-Joseph Talma during the French Revolution. Admirers wrote letters to Talma filled with advice which may have prompted Talma’s dramatic style, his theory about “creative imagination”, and his belief in an actor’s mission to be like a history teacher, which he would later develop in Réflexions sur Lekain et sur l’art théâtral (1825).
