Showing papers in "Theatre Journal in 1983"
[...]
TL;DR: Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, would have responded to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successful tragicomedy as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, would have been quick to respond to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successful tragicomedy. In the tragic plot, written in verse, young Leonidas has to struggle to assert his place as the rightful heir to the throne of Sicily and to the hand of the usurper's daughter. In the comic plot, written in prose, two fashionable couples (much more at home in London drawing-rooms than at the Sicilian court) play at switching partners in the 'modern' style. The introduction of this edition argues that Dryden's own ambivalence about King Charles and his entourage, on whom he came to rely more on more for patronage, manifests itself in both plots; most of all perhaps in the excessively Francophile Melantha, whose affectation cannot quite hide her endearing joie-de-vivre.
31 citations
TL;DR: One way of approaching the phenomenology of the actor is to consider him as a kind of storyteller whose speciality is that he is the story he is telling as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: One way of approaching the phenomenology of the actor is to consider him as a kind of storyteller whose speciality is that he is the story he is telling. Presumably, the transitional "voice" between the true storyteller and the actor would be the rhapsode who tells his story (or rather someone else's) directly to the audience, simulating the more exciting parts of it in the manner of the First Player in Hamlet, who gets so carried away by the plight of Hecuba. With the actor, of course, the narrative voice ("Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks") disappears entirely, and we hear only the fictitious first-personal voice ("Now I am alone," or "Now, mother, what's the matter?")rather, we overhear it, since the voice is no longer speaking to us. The audience is now an implicit or unacknowledged "you," at least in the more naturalistic styles of acting. This is, of course, what bothered Rousseau so much, that the actor was the final step in the disintegration of presence and direct discourse.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, eight unpublished manuscripts among the Portland papers on deposit at the University of Nottingham Library shed considerable light on hitherto unknown details of the operation of the Royal Academy of Music in its first season.
Abstract: Eight unpublished manuscripts among the Portland papers on deposit at the University of Nottingham Library shed considerable light on hitherto unknown details of the operation of the Royal Academy of Music in its first season.' Added to known but incompletely printed manuscripts in the Public Record Office and to the information collected in Deutsch and substantially augmented by J. Merrill Knapp, these documents go a long way toward filling in the blanks in our knowledge about the reestablishment of Italian opera on the London stage under the patronage of George I.2 In particular, the Nottingham MSS give us salaries for the singers, the
15 citations
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a speech made by Pinter when he was awarded the German Shakespeare Prize is described, which set me thinking about theory in what has become an extended preface which has preempted much of the essay but will not be unideological.
Abstract: I was going to start by talking about power, or rather what they call in poststructuralist theory the discourse of power. But I happened to read, after I had done some writing, a speech made by Harold Pinter when he was awarded the German Shakespeare Prize. That set me thinking about theory in what has become an extended preface which has preempted much of the essay but will not be unideological as we circle back to where I had started, reflecting on the fantasy of power in the midst of which and out of which we make theatre.
14 citations
14 citations
8 citations
TL;DR: As a theorist of the stage, Stanislavsky has pervasively influenced the modern theatre as discussed by the authors. But this influence stems less from his stylistic innovations than from his systematic exploration of acting.
Abstract: As a theorist of the stage, Stanislavsky has pervasively influenced the modern theatre. We can see Stanislavsky influencing the Group Theatre and Actors' Studio productions (and their offspring on the American stage, in film, and television), as well as providing a point of departure for students like Vakhtangov and Michael Chekhov, and defining a guiding antithesis for Meyerhold, Brecht, and perhaps Artaud. Even Jerzy Grotowski, who dispenses with many of the performance goals of Stanislavskian naturalism, finds himself constantly returning to problems first phrased by the Russian master.' Stanislavsky's effect on the modern theatre stems less from his stylistic innovations than from his systematic exploration of acting. Like Diderot and others before him, Stanislavsky centers his investigation of acting on the problematic tension between the actor and his role. But Stanislavsky rephrases the paradox of acting with a keenly modern resonance. By requiring the
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the ghost of Banquo takes Macbeth's seat at the banquet table and twice drives him to distraction while the dinner-guests look on, ignorant of what Macbelt sees.
Abstract: Audiences, directors, and not a few scholars have long been fascinated by that pivotal moment in Macbeth when the ghost of Banquo takes Macbeth's seat at the banquet table and twice drives him to distraction while the dinner-guests look on, ignorant of what Macbeth sees. The shape our fascination takes is determined by our own or a given production's response to the staging problem this moment always poses: namely, does one fill Macbeth's chair with an actor portraying the nodding corpse of Banquo, or leave the chair empty since empty it seems to everyone onstage apart from Macbeth?' Choosing between these two possibilities clearly has profounder consequences for our reception of the play than those that follow from deciding to perform it in Renaissance or Victorian dress, and just as clearly involves important assumptions about audience/play interaction in Macbeth. If the ghost of Banquo physically appears onstage, Macbeth's dramatically private vision becomes an experience that is theatrically shared; that is, the offstage audience sees with Macbeth what the onstage audienceLady Macbeth and the dinner-guests-do not and cannot see.2 If, on the other hand, the chair remains empty, we the offstage audienceshare the perspective of the onstage audience, and see Macbeth looking "but on a stool."3 In this respect, our perspective becomes
7 citations
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an aesthetically visionary piece of theatre criticism that reveals a highly complex point of view, so rich and detailed in the sum of its original observations, that it becomes the objective of my treatise to expose those features.
Abstract: The student of political philosophy who reads Louis Althusser's For Marx with the intention of gaining insight into Marxist thought as it pertains to epistemological disquisitions is liable to be initially perplexed by a chapter entitled "Piccolo Teatro': Bertolazzi and Brecht. Notes on a Materialist Theatre" Althusser had originally prepared this essay (hereafter PT) in response to a cultural event (the presentation of Giorgio Strehler's production of Carlo Bertolazzi's El Nost Milan at Theatre des Nations in July, 1962).2 Attentive inspection of the essay shows that its place in the book is quite secure, an indication that the search for a materialist theatre is in no way at odds with the theoretical and political topics examined throughout the volume. The premises discussed by Althusser constitute a rare example of Marxist criticism practiced upon a theatrical performance by a major philosopher. A formal simplicity governs the design of the essay: it opens with a brief introduction, followed in ordered sequence by plot synopsis (of the play as staged), extended discussion of Strehler's achievements as interpreter of the text, and a culminating argument in support of Bertold Brecht's pivotal role in Marxist theatre practice. Beneath the classically inductive method of persuasion employed by Althusser there is hidden a highly complex point of view, so rich and detailed in the sum of its original observations, that it becomes the objective of my treatise to expose those features, even as I introduce an aesthetically visionary piece of theatre criticism.
TL;DR: Kopit's dramatic universe parallels the Panopticon model of society described by Michel Foucault: a prison in which all cells are exposed to the surveillance of a central power as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Kopit's dramatic universe parallels the Panopticon model of society described by Michel Foucault: a prison in which all cells are exposed to the surveillance of a central power. Foucault suggests that power is invisible in our modern "disciplinary" society, exercised through a social order in which "the individual is carefully fabricated ... according to a whole technique of forces and bodies."1 In such a society, the individual is manipulated by both the external, central power and the internal limits of his-own perceptions as programmed by the society. Similarly, Kopit creates a theatrical world in which the characters are imprisoned, "like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible. .... Visibility is a trap."2 In a "metatheatrical" or Pirandellian sense, the theatrical form itself serves as a metaphor for imprisonment. The actors are trapped within the fabricated "masks" of their characters and exposed to the critical gaze of an audience of "watchers" who peer at them through the "window" of the proscenium arch.
TL;DR: This paper showed that the matrix is not a language, not a linguistic structure (une structure de langue), not a tree of discourses, and not a figure that is recognizable in itself.
Abstract: And that figure I named matrix, is it coherent?' Can we say it is one: unified and unifying? What kind of unity does it have? The unity of a language? If so, is its unity that of a language-system (langue) or that of a discourse? What I want to show is this: that the matrix is not a language, not a linguistic structure (une structure de langue), not a tree of discourses. Of all the figural orders it is the most remote from communicability, the most withdrawn. It harbors the incommunicable. It breeds forms and images and it is about those forms and images that discourse eventually starts to speak. Discourse itself is not always able to recognize them. Is the matrix even a figure then? It is not a figure that is recognizable in itself. Neither can we establish a regulative order that would give it a stable form. The phantasy, as a figure, inscribes itself neither as an ordinary pattern, an identifiable shadow cast on the imaginary screen, nor as an explicit stage direction to be followed on the
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore some of the striking elements of mid-eighteenth century French writings on the theatre and dance that prepared the way for late eighteenth and early nineteenth century ballet.
Abstract: The highly formalized classical drama of the seventeenth century with its three unities advocated the use of one plot around which all scenes and actions revolved. Eighteenth century ballet inherited these ideas and also offered a moral message in the hope of touching or profoundly moving the spectator. The plots attempted to deal authentically with natural feelings in real-life situations, using exaggerated gestures, tableaux vivants, and pantomime to heighten moments of strong dramatic meaning. Thus, the dancing master or choreographer became an architect of complex theatrical elements. He designed the movements and at the same time sought to move the audiences to laughter and tears. These dramatic ideas were shared by three writers, Cahusac, Diderot, and Noverre, and can also be found in the writings of eighteenth century historians of dance such as Abbe du Bos and Charles Batteux. The aim of this study is to explore some of the striking elements of mid-eighteenth century French writings on the theatre and dance that prepared the way for late eighteenth and early nineteenth century ballet.
TL;DR: Oskar Kokoschka's one-act play Murderer Hope of Womankind along with the poster and drawings for this play reveal an inner being, throbbing with a sense of urgency and desire to destroy what he considered the decadent nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg culture as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Oskar Kokoschka's one-act play Murderer Hope of Womankind along with the poster and drawings for this play reveal an inner being, throbbing with a sense of urgency and desire to destroy what he considered the decadent nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg culture. The harsh and turbulent lines pound out the grimaces, gasps, and anger of barbaric human beings stalking about, who seem to be volcanic emanations from the shadowy subliminal realm of the artist. These men and women are ready to split, tear, and dismember everything that is whole and unified. Gone are the conventional religious, political and social values. Murderer Hope of Womankind is an apocalyptic, overwhelming experience, a massive premonitory event, that speaks directly to all those who encounter it, whether in pictorial form or as drama.
TL;DR: The New Yorker carried by The New Yorker in February of 1981 as discussed by the authors depicts a busy bar, crowded with noisy patrons, and one obviously exasperated imbiber complains vociferously to another: "Everywhere you go it's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang AMADEUS Mozart!"
Abstract: Of all the print cartoons to capture America's cultural concerns of the early 1980s, none succeeded better than that carried by The New Yorker in February of 1981. Depicted is a busy bar, crowded with noisy patrons. One obviously exasperated imbiber complains vociferously to another: "Everywhere you go it's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I've had it up to here with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!"
TL;DR: Claudel as discussed by the authors saw at least thirteen performances of Noh plays, became acquainted with several figures of the Noh stage, and read the excellent scholarship and many of the fine translations (as well as transliterations) of Michel Revon, Noel Peri, Arthur Waley, and Gaston Renondeau.
Abstract: During his tenure as the French ambassador to Japan, from 1921 to 1927, Paul Claudel saw at least thirteen performances of Noh plays, became acquainted with several figures of the Noh stage, and read the excellent scholarship and many of the fine translations (as well as transliterations) of Michel Revon, Noel Peri, Arthur Waley, and Gaston Renondeau.1 His journal and essays in this period contain frequent, perceptive reference to Noh. And many of his plays composed after 1921 reveal a profound impact arising from three aspects of the Noh: the peculiar use of dream, the figure of the shite, and the retrospective dimension.
TL;DR: Theatre places us right at the heart of what is religious-political, in negativity, in nihilisme as Nietzsche would say, therefore in the question of power.
Abstract: Theatre places us right at the heart of what is religious-political: in the heart of absence, in negativity, in nihilisme as Nietzsche would say, therefore in the question of power. A theory of theatrical signs, a practice of theatrical signs (dramatic text, mise en scene, interpretation, architecture) are based on accepting the nihilisme inherent in a re-presentation. Not only accepting it: reinforcing it. For the sign, Peirce used to say, is something which stands to somebody for something. To Hide, to Show: that is theatricality. But the modernity of our fin-de-siecle is due to this: there is nothing to be replaced, no lieutenancy is legitimate, or else all are; the replacing therefore the meaning is itself only a substitute for displacement. . . . Is theatricality thus condemned? Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Tooth, The Palm"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the structure of the Camino Real as a structure of alienation and contradiction, which both frustrate and entice artists to interpret the play.
Abstract: Central to interpretations of Tennessee Williams's Camino Real are the play's structures of alienation and contradiction, its pervasive incongruities, which both frustrate and entice theatre artists. The contradictory world the play depicts and the episodic plot Williams uses to depict that world define Camino Real as a structure alienated in itself. Moreover, in its thematic structure the play is about characters who are alienated from themselves, from each other, and from their society or culture. This "existential" alienation is reinforced by Williams's use of the Brechtian conventions of theatrical "alienation," such as episodic plotting and direct address to the audience. Ironically, the strategies of alienation are critically important to a coherent direction of Williams's Brechtian play.
TL;DR: The Annual Fellows Address could encompass almost any type of communication from reminiscence to formal scholarship to exhortation, and that this important occasion has, indeed, been used over the years in the widest variety of ways by my distinguished predecessors.
Abstract: I would not have had the courage to undertake this talk if I had not been reassured that the Annual Fellows Address could encompass almost any type of communicationfrom reminiscence to formal scholarship to exhortation, and that this important occasion has, indeed, been used over the years in the widest variety of ways by my distinguished predecessors. So I took heart from this proffered freedom to prepare these notes to share with you and they include reminiscence, scholarship of sorts, and exhortation in about equal parts.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look back on the diverse dramatic compositions and creations produced in France in the early nineteenth century, and they question the adequacy of a linear evolutionary model.
Abstract: Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy (1872) and George Steiner's The Death of Tragedy (1961) betray, by their very titles, that preoccupation with organicism which has been the hallmark of much of theatre history at least since the late nineteenth century. Yet when one looks back on the diverse dramatic compositions and creations produced in France in the early nineteenth century, one cannot help but wonder about the adequacy of a linear evolutionary model. Does such a model truly describe the complex history of French drama between 1800 and 1830, or does it present an over-simplified picture of the past? To ask the question is, perhaps, in itself a sign of discontent. If so, it will not be enough merely to demonstrate the weaknesses of a diachronic view of theatre history. (This can easily be done by pointing to the persistence, both in print and on stage, of what were said to be "dead" theatrical forms and by focusing on the resultant coexistence of several dramatic genres.) What is needed is an alternate model which, by virtue of its superior "fit" with the facts, implicitly reveals the flaws inherent in the standard "biological" description of early nineteenth-century French drama.
TL;DR: In this paper, the late Tudor and early Stuart public playhouse at the Globe of London is considered. But the Globe's economic, social, political, and ideological heterogeneity undoubtedly precludes any simple categorization.
Abstract: How might we understand the late Tudor and early Stuart public playhouse? The institution's economic, social, political, and ideological heterogeneity undoubtedly precludes any simple categorization. The large sums of money, the evident quest for profit, and the array of financial instruments integral to the operation of the Globe, its predecessors, and its competitors seem to indicate the dominance of the capitalist mode of production. And indeed this is the position taken by Christopher Hill, a distinguished historian of the period.' Yet an emphasis on effective control of the stage on patronage, licensing, censorship, and the like points to the nobility and the monarchy, as do the thematic preoccupations of most of the plays. One might reasonably speak in this sense of a neofeudal theatre. Finally, a concern with actors and, more ambiguously, with dramatists, audiences, and theatrical structures reveals the profoundly popular dimensions of the stage.