0 an attempt to hide your feelings from other people, or to entertain them, by deliberately behaving in a way that does not represent your true feelings:
Don't take any notice of him - it's just play-acting.
In this play-acting scenario, both parties exaggerate and flatten each other into caricatures in the course of an irritable and peevish exchange.
They developed shared meanings of particular actions and interpreted them in the context of play-acting.
The jarring term ' play-acting ' just used deserves a bit of exegesis.
He knows that she knows they are both play-acting, but that such posturing and presentation are a necessary part of politics.
This is no more than well-organised political play-acting between left and right.
It would be difficult to stage a less attractive piece of pre-arranged official play-acting than that.
This kind of play-acting is not adding to the quality of the debate.
We should have no truck with pretence and play-acting.
