Old Quarrels, New Liaisons: On the Vexed Relationship between Theater Studies and Literary Studies (original) (raw)
Related papers
THEA 240: Theatre History and Dramatic Literature I (From Origins to the 1700s)
This course introduces students to the history of world theatre and corresponding dramatic literature from the prehistoric rituals to the eighteenth century. The student will be introduced to the ways in which the theatre played a crucial social, political, and cultural role throughout its early history. The course will also examine the various lenses that effect the writing of history and problematize the idea of a singular and linear historical narrative. We will encounter several representative plays and critical material from major historical periods. We will read this material closely in conjunction with contemporary critical responses to classical theatre texts and styles. Throughout the semester we will interrogate if there is the possibility of an alternate history of theatre, what is left out from the current historical narrative, the importance of learning the history of our craft, and collect the basic facts of theatre practice from its supposed ritual origins to the eighteenth century.
Theatricality. A critical genealogy
2004
The notion of theatricality has, in recent years, emerged as a key term in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies. Unlike most writings dealing with theatricality, this thesis presents theatricality as a rubric for a particular discourse. Beginning with a casestudy of a theatre review, I read an anti-theatricalist bias in the writer's genre distinctions of "theatre" and "performance". I do not, however, test the truth of these claims; rather, by deploying Foucauldian discourse analysis, I interpret the review as a "statement" and analyse how the reviewer activates notions of "theatricality" and "performance" as objects created by an already existing discourse. Following this introduction, the body of thesis is divided into two parts. The first, "Mapping the Discursive Field", begins by surveying a body of literature in which a struggle for interpretive dominance between contesting stakeholders in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies is fought. Using Samuel Weber's reframing of Derrida's analysis of interpretation of interpretation, in Chapter 2, I argue that the discourse of the field is marked by the struggle between "nostalgic" and "affirmative" interpretation, and that in the discourse that emerges, certain inconsistencies arise. The disciplines of Theatre, and later, Performance Studies in the twentieth century are characterised, as Alan Woods (1989) notes, by a fetishisation of avant-gardist practices. It is not surprising, therefore, that the values and concerns of the avant-garde emerge in the discourse of Theatre and CHAPTER 7: The 16th/17th Century Epistemology Of "Theatre" 205 7.1 The medieval sense of being 206
The Text-Performance Relation in Theater
Philosophy Compass, 2009
This essay is a survey of positions on the relation between texts and performances in theater. It proposes a simple framework within which to compare and evaluate these positions. The framework also allows us to see a pattern of thinking that reflects the historical fact of the importance of the literary tradition in theater. The essay points out certain challenges facing the positions surveyed and concludes with a brief sketch of the most recent views that have been put on offer. The latest positions re-situate the literary theater as a species of the more general phenomena of theatrical performance. Even before the unprecedented flourishing of literary theater in Western European culture that began in the middle of the 1800s, philosophical discussions of the nature of theatrical performance were not typically about theater or theatrical performance itself. Instead, they were grounded in the perception of theatrical performance as a practice whose primary function is connected to other forms of art and dependent upon the products of those other forms, most especially on what is produced by the arts of writing. Other functions, when recognized at all, were accorded secondary status, and dealt with as marginal cases. This attitude towards theater was only solidified by the successes of the literary theater. There is still older precedent for this attitude. At the beginning, in Aristotle, the notion of 'drama' had ambiguous application: did it refer to features of a form resembling dance and music or to features of its own form of 'making'? Moreover, Aristotle answered this question ambiguously, by holding that the defining characteristic of drama is dialogue. But does this mean a kind of speaking or a kind of writing? Most Medieval, Renaissance, and modern authors have taken Aristotle to hold that if any writing is in dialogue we have drama, otherwise we have some other form of written poetry. So the relevantly contrasting classes came to be not theater and other forms of public performative presentation, but drama as a form of writing in contrast with other forms of writing. The stage was set for views that were to become dominant once the literary theater came on the scene.
THEA 245: Theatre History and Dramatic Literature II (1700-Present)
This course introduces student to the history of world theatre and corresponding dramatic literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. The student will be introduced to the ways in which the theatre played and continues to play a crucial social, political, and cultural role during this time. The course will also examine the various lenses that effect the writing of history and problematize the idea of a singular and linear historical narrative.
In The Art of Theater I propose and explain a claim that many theater people hold true in some form but, so far as I can tell, have defended in a manner that has had almost no success outside discussions among themselves. 1 The claim proposed is that, in an unqualified way, theater is a form of art. By that I mean theatrical performances are what are created in the practice of theater and that theatrical performances are works of art because they can be picked out and appreciated in the same ways we appreciate other kinds of artworks. 2 The agenda I set for the book is to state and explain what that claim comes to-exactly and in detail. Accordingly, most of the book consists of explanations of what else must be true if the claim is true, together with arguments defending the truth of those entailments. some of the material consists of clarifying what the claim does not entail, and some passages contain arguments to show that alternative claims have problems that this one does not. Of these, I have allowed the explanation and clarification materials to carry the burden. Many philosophers and literary theorists are likely to find the claim incomprehensible because they have inherited, rather than critically accepted, a conception of theater as centrally dependent on literary texts. 3 Philosophers, literary theorists, and theater theorists are better served by the explanations and clarifications I offer, however, because they show the claim can withstand the immediate objections or worries likely to arise.
TDR/The Drama Review, 2011
Matters: Theatres in the Second Part of the 20th Century) by Valentina Valentini, represents a breakthrough in theatre studies and performance theory outside of the Anglo-Saxon world. Its publication in Italy can be compared to the innovative works of Patrice Pavis (Languages of the Stage, 1982), Marco de Marinis (Capire il teatro [To Understand Theatre], 1988), and Hans-Thies Lehmann (The Postdramatic Theatre, 1999), which each introduced a major change in European theatre studies. A renowned Italian theatre scholar and professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, Valentini modestly claims that her book is meant as a textbook for teachers and students of theatre and performance practice and theory. However, it is also accessible to nonspecialists, who might be unfamiliar with the "archaeology" of contemporary performing arts and their main aspects: its 200 pages are very well equipped with numerous footnotes, titles, and sources, and richly illustrated with photographs from various historical and contemporary performances. Some of these represent memorable moments in the history of theatre and performance, while others serve to illustrate the main hypothesis: the complex relations between different performance and artistic practices can only be examined and analyzed from a contemporary philosophical perspective which, in turn, can contribute to the development of the field of theatre studies. References
Baleia na Rede, 2012
The article focuses on the possible relationships between cultural history and theater. In order to do so, it alludes to the different meanings that this art had in the West, especially from the point of view of the opposition between the dramatic text and the staging. A complex semiotic object, the theatrical phenomenon also encompasses the audience, which means that its historical narrative must encompass both sides of the scene. As a referral and exemplification of possible historiographical paths, three important titles by international playwrights, focused on questions of interpretive method, are examined: Marco