Theatre Studies Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This article explores the coincidence between Sarah Bernhardt's role as a theatrical manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and her pioneering work in the nascent film industry. I argue that Bernhardt was not only a... more

This article explores the coincidence between Sarah Bernhardt's role as a theatrical manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and her pioneering work in the nascent film industry. I argue that Bernhardt was not only a performer and manager in the theatre, but a creative agent in modern media industries. Questions about the relationship between Bernhardt and early film allow us to discuss the formation of female business experience in the theatre and its subsequent movement into a cinematographic culture that would dominate and define twentieth-century culture and commerce. Even if Bernhardt is regarded as a 'lone entrepreneur' and therefore extraneous to broader national discussions of theatrical industrialisation, it is important to understand the impact she has as a media celebrity who used film in order to expand her own twentieth-century global marketability. Sarah Bernhardt is one of the most globally celebrated actress-managers of the late nineteenth century. Her renown hinges on her capacity to remain in the public eye for over sixty years and to gain control of her professional career through forty years of theatrical management.

The ecosystem approach to human health attempts to develop community capacity to address environmental health concerns by crossing disciplinary boundaries and promoting equity and widespread participation. Role-play, a technique... more

The ecosystem approach to human health attempts to develop community capacity to address environmental health concerns by crossing disciplinary boundaries and promoting equity and widespread participation. Role-play, a technique increasingly used in other training programs, is now being used in programs to promote ecosystem health. Here we analyze a socio-dramatization recently used in Ecuador in an ecosystem health-training course. We explore the complexities that must be addressed in order to foster the use of this technique to achieve its intended progressive objectives. Drawing on Spivak's distinction between political representation and artistic representation, we analyze some of the issues encountered in using role-play to facilitate understanding of politically charged environmental health issues with an intercultural and interdisciplinary group. We highlight the successes achieved, but conclude that without adequate guidance in understanding and deconstructing the archetypes and actions presented by the group, the full scope of the lessons that role-play has to offer remain untapped. We therefore finish by noting that expertise in performance techniques for community empowerment and cultural emancipation would be a useful addition to interdisciplinary teams endeavoring to promote ecosystem and human health using theatrical techniques.

Το Κρατικό Θέατρο της Δρέσδης το 2009 δημιούργησε μία ‘Σκηνή Πολιτών’, ένα θέατρο αφιερωμένο στη συμμετοχική διαδικασία, στις παραστάσεις του οποίου συνεργάζονταν επαγγελματίες της σκηνής και πολίτες (μη ηθοποιοί). Η σκηνή αυτή αποτέλεσε... more

Το Κρατικό Θέατρο της Δρέσδης το 2009 δημιούργησε μία ‘Σκηνή Πολιτών’, ένα θέατρο αφιερωμένο στη συμμετοχική διαδικασία, στις παραστάσεις του οποίου συνεργάζονταν επαγγελματίες της σκηνής και πολίτες (μη ηθοποιοί). Η σκηνή αυτή αποτέλεσε μοντέλο συμμετοχικού θεάτρου όχι μόνο στη Γερμανία αλλά και σε ολόκληρη την Ευρώπη. Βασισμένη στο θέατρο-ντοκουμέντο, η νέα αυτή μορφή συλλογικού θεάτρου προώθησε την ιδέα της συμπερίληψης και της κοινότητας στις παραστατικές τέχνες, επιδιώκοντας τόσο την αισθητική όσο και την πολιτική παρέμβαση στο δημόσιο χώρο. Τον Μάιο του 2019, διοργανώθηκε στη Δρέσδη το 4ο Ευρωπαϊκό Φεστιβάλ Συμμετοχικού Θεάτρου, στο οποίο παρουσιάστηκαν παραστάσεις από διαφορετικές χώρες και ομάδες. Στο άρθρο αυτό συζητούνται έξι από τις παραστάσεις αυτές ως παραδείγματα των νέων τάσεων στον χώρο του εφαρμοσμένου και συμμετοχικού θεάτρου και μαζί επιχειρείται μια αδρομερής χαρτογράφηση του σχετικού τοπίου στον ευρωπαϊκό και ελληνικό χώρο, έτσι όπως αποτυπώθηκε στο Φεστιβάλ Our Stage.

U radu će se na temelju istraživanja osječkih dnevnih novina Die Drau, Slavonische Presse, Narodna obrana i Hrvatski list u prvoj polovini 20. stoljeća istražiti dominantni elementi glumačke umjetnosti, stav kazališne kritike prema... more

U radu će se na temelju istraživanja osječkih dnevnih novina Die Drau, Slavonische Presse, Narodna obrana i Hrvatski list u prvoj polovini 20. stoljeća istražiti dominantni elementi glumačke umjetnosti, stav kazališne kritike prema njihovim ostvarenjima proizišao iz zahtjeva kazališnog umijeća u kontekstu vremena, kritičarskih zahtjeva te njihove evaluacije navedenog.

Euripides’ Hecuba is originally performed in the ancient theatre of Dionysus around 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian war. The moral and political corruption of the Athenian society at the time is strikingly reflected onto the ethos of... more

Euripides’ Hecuba is originally performed in the ancient theatre of Dionysus around 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian war. The moral and political corruption of the Athenian society at the time is strikingly reflected onto the ethos of Hecuba’s chaotic dramatic world. Euripides’ relocation of the events concluding the Trojan War from Troy to Thrace is counted among the most bold and successful Euripidean mythic innovations of the specific play. Thrace, a place charged with heavily negative associations in his contemporary Greek consciousness, functions as the most suitable context within which to set Hecuba’s drama and onto which to project Euripides’ problematization on the grim consequences of war onto the human identity. What is more, Euripides’ use of his actors’ skeue (costume and accoutrements) and hypocrisis
(gesture, movement) further promotes that theme as central in the play.
The Cypriot director Magdalena Zira chooses to restage Euripides’ play for a modern performance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Wing, in 2006. Her principal aim is to use Euripides’ play as a political allegory for the contemporary war in Iraq. Her own directing gestures configuring the opsis of her adaptation are the key subject matter of the analysis. By focusing on the mechanics of dramatic space, the actors’ skeue, and hypocrisis, the analysis exemplifies the ways in
which the different opseis of Hecuba function as a mirror of the socio-political context of each performance and as vehicles of the strong political message of their creator (ancient and modern respectively). In the process, another fundamental feature of the ancient (and particularly Euripidean) theatre and of its modern reception is reaffirmed: its innate nature as political praxis.

The Lisbon sisters, Camille, and the "Arminuta" are the daughters and the protagonists of three novels set in three different geographical-linguistic areas: the United States, France, and Italy. "The Virgin Suicides" (1993) by Jeffrey... more

The Lisbon sisters, Camille, and the "Arminuta" are the daughters and the protagonists of three novels set in three different geographical-linguistic areas: the United States, France, and Italy. "The Virgin Suicides" (1993) by Jeffrey Eugenides, "Hunting and Gathering" ("Ensemble, c’est tout", 2004) by Anna Gavalda, and "A Girl Returned" ("L’Arminuta", 2017) by Donatella Di Pietrantonio are the selected novels covering the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. The theoretical background of the mother-daughter relationship provides an introduction to the textual analysis of the novels, which unveils the condition of outsiders of the protagonists. Their characterization develops within their social marginality: imprisonment (the Lisbon sisters), "emotional autarky" (Camille), and abandonment (the "Arminuta"); while their marginal status is the product of their particular relationship with the controversial personality of their mothers. Mrs. Lisbon is a control-obsessed, authoritarian mother; Catherine is a narcissistic woman; while both the biological and the adoptive mothers of the "Arminuta" abandon her. The outsider theme, particularly its literary-philosophical theorization by Colin Wilson, is the key point of our analytical method. In our literary selection, each storyline identifies one of the three existential steps of the outsider, originally conceived as a male figure. By analyzing the fictional development of the Lisbon sisters, Camille, and the "Arminuta", we retrace backwards the existential journey of the outsider as theorized by Wilson: the mystic detachment from reality as the final stage of a route which started with the pursuit of Truth, and went through the process of accepting personal alienation. Retracing the outsider's experience allows us to show that being an outsider in literary terms is not a male prerogative: it is a condition of marginality embodied by female characters as well. In addition to this, precisely as outsiders the protagonists can express their agency.

"The expression “mental illness” arises historically in the course of conversations about our human relational living, in an attempt to visualize some regularities that occurred in it, thinking that if we could grasp them we would be able... more

"The expression “mental illness” arises historically in the course of conversations about our human relational living, in an attempt to visualize some regularities that occurred in it, thinking that if we could grasp them we would be able to solve some difficulties that we were encountering in our living together, thinking that we could do so through formalizing them with some adequate theory that we would invent. However, to do that, we have to abstract those regularities in our living together first; we must respect ourselves accepting that naming is not a trivial aspect of what we do in our living: names have arisen in our history of living together as operational elements of coordination of our doings, and reveal regularities in that living."

Lorenzo Mango, Studing acting during avantgards age. Some methodological issues The avantgard theatre of 1900 has changed completely the theatrical style, counterposing the concepts of representation, the mise-en-scene and the centrality... more

Lorenzo Mango, Studing acting during avantgards age. Some methodological
issues
The avantgard theatre of 1900 has changed completely the theatrical style,
counterposing the concepts of representation, the mise-en-scene and the
centrality of the literary text.
According to that, the concept of acting has changed deeply. New scenic
conditions didn't consider as important the problems connected with acting
a specific character and two new phenomena were born such as the change
of position of acting and the improvement of it.
The former considers the work of the actor as a physical action during the
development of the stories, not contemplating his interpretation of a
specific character. The latter is referred to the insertion of non-theatrical
phenomena in the world of acting such as dance, happening and
performance.
The main point of these procedures is the centrality of the presence,
considered as the most important thing concerning the actors.

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s most celebrated collaboration was premiered at the Avignon Festival in France in 1976. During its initial European tour, the Metropolitan Opera premiere and revivals in 1984 and 1992, Einstein evinced... more

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s most celebrated collaboration was premiered at the Avignon Festival in France in 1976. During its initial European tour, the Metropolitan Opera premiere and revivals in 1984 and 1992, Einstein evinced diametrically opposed reactions from audiences and critics. Embedding repetitive structural principles in a spectacle reflecting the late-capitalist media age, the work problematized commonly held assumptions about opera, music, theater, and
dance. Today, Einstein is well on its way to becoming a canonized avant-garde work, widely acknowledged as a profoundly significant moment in the history of opera or musical theater, whichever of these terms is considered more fitting, but apparently not – after all – repeatable, at least not in such a way that continuity between this work and what followed in the history of the genre would have seemed unavoidable: the result of a linear progression from one stylistic development to the next.

Hundred years after the birth of the Dada movement in Zürich, Tristan Tzara’s theatre is unjustly not as well known as his poetry or manifestos. Being himself a theatrical person, always staging his own personality as the leader of the... more

Hundred years after the birth of the Dada movement in Zürich, Tristan Tzara’s theatre is unjustly not as well known as his poetry or manifestos. Being himself a theatrical person, always staging his own personality as the leader of the Dadaists in Zürich and Paris, he refused to walk on already traced paths, in a similar way the medieval fools had done it in their search for the abolition of given rules and conventions. Turning upside down the traditional dramaturgical and staging patterns, Dadaist plays such as Mouchoir de nuages (Cloud Handkerchief) or Cœur à gaz (Gas Heart) leave behind a significant heritage if we think of surrealist performing arts and of the New Theatre of the 60’s, especially Eugène Ionesco’s and Samuel Beckett’s theatrical work. The present study focuses on how Tzara’s personality and work can be seen as part of the same genealogical theatrical line as the famous Shakespearian triad “the poet, the lunatic and the fool”, and which are the constants making of him not only an acrobat-poet (in the tradition of the antique mime and of the medieval fool), but also a path opener and a dramatic character in the history of the 20th and 21st century modern and postmodern literature.

This study aims at highlighting the role of the Irish theatre in reviving Irish culture and establishing a dependent Irish identity. It also seeks to prove that theatre is used as means of resistance to English colonialism; it presents W.... more

This study aims at highlighting the role of the Irish theatre in reviving Irish culture and establishing a dependent Irish identity. It also seeks to prove that theatre is used as means of resistance to English colonialism; it presents W. B. Yeats as an example of the Irish dramatists who played a significant role in the recreation of Irish national identity as an independent distinct identity. Actually, Yeats' efforts in the national employment of literature for national purposes were the fountainhead by which he was able to present the national cause of his country. The study concludes that the Irish theatre played a great national role by presenting nationalism-oriented plays that aroused the sense of national feelings of audiences and created a national identity as well. Irish theatre imposingly for grounded itself powerfully not on the literary level, but also on the national level by its role in identity creation.

International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 9:1, 221-223.

One of America's most powerful and original dramatists, August Wilson offered an alternative history of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of black Americans. He celebrated the lives of those seemingly pushed to the... more

One of America's most powerful and original dramatists, August Wilson offered an alternative history of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of black Americans. He celebrated the lives of those seemingly pushed to the margins of national life, but who were simultaneously protagonists of their own drama and evidence of a vital and compelling community. Decade by decade, he told the story of a people with a distinctive history who forged their own future, aware of their roots in another time and place, but doing something more than just survive. Wilson deliberately addressed black America, but in doing so he discovered an international audience.

To what extent does an actor become his art? Is each creation a true becoming? Or is it mere imitation?

Introduzione 1. La condanna cristiana degli spettacoli come problema storico, 8-2. L'ipotesi (letteraria) di una presenza cristiana nei luoghi di spettacolo, 16-3. La realtà (storica) di un giudizio radicalmente negativo, 23-4.... more

Introduzione 1. La condanna cristiana degli spettacoli come problema storico, 8-2. L'ipotesi (letteraria) di una presenza cristiana nei luoghi di spettacolo, 16-3. La realtà (storica) di un giudizio radicalmente negativo, 23-4. Insufficienza delle spiegazioni tradizionali e primi approcci verso un nuovo paradigma interpretativo, 25-5. Oggetto, delimitazione del campo e piano della presente ricerca, 53 CAPITOLO PRIMO Gli spettacoli come problema nella società antica 67

One of the most conspicuous renderings of professional cross-dressing performance on the British stage from the interwar period through the mid-1950s was a series of shows starring casts of exservicemen in women's dress. This talk will... more

One of the most conspicuous renderings of professional cross-dressing performance on the British stage from the interwar period through the mid-1950s was a series of shows starring casts of exservicemen in women's dress. This talk will examine how these theatricals achieved widespread critical and commercial popularity despite increased cultural anxieties about the links between gender variance and transgressive acts, behaviours, and categories of identity. Prior to this study, historians have investigated female impersonation in wartime concert parties and POW camp theatricals, but scant attention has been given to the popular phenomenon of ex-servicemen who performed cross-dressing revues for the general public. Staging these revues on the home front exposed ex-servicemen female impersonators to new forms of spectatorship: the theatregoing public, arts criticism in the press, and state censorship. Utilising newly discovered archival material, I will analyse the commercial, critical, and legal response to ex-servicemen's cross-dressing revues. Through this methodology, I argue that the public reception to the shows was largely positive. For example, the interwar troupe Les Rouges et Noirs was considered 'a household word' by the 1930s and was deemed distinguished enough to be selected as the subject of one of the very first British motion picture 'talkies'. The 1940s and 1950s incarnations of the subgenre were so commercially successful that no less than twelve shows starring cross-dressing veterans were produced between 1941 and 1953. As I will demonstrate, much of the acclaim for the revues was tied to audiences' admiration for the performers' wartime service. However, the main focus of the critical praise received by the theatricals was the sheer artistic quality of artists' performances.

This section of the work will look at gender identity disorder in the era of scientific improvement. The first part of this section will look at scientific innovations in the field of sexuality, starting with "chemical lobotomy…shut down... more

This section of the work will look at gender identity disorder in the era of scientific improvement. The first part of this section will look at scientific innovations in the field of sexuality, starting with "chemical lobotomy…shut down the higher functions of…brain…" (4:48 Psychosis, 14). Attention will also be focused on hormonal therapy recommended by hospitals, prior to possible clinical surgery. For example, in Cleansed, Grace undergoes a hormonal therapy before a clinical surgery that is carried out on her and her sex is reassigned. The last part of this section will be

Perché il teatro occupa una posizione centrale nella civiltà letteraria inglese? Come nasce il romanzo e quali forme specifiche assume nell’isola? Come evolve la poesia inglese da quando gli elisabettiani importano il sonetto dall’Italia?... more

Perché il teatro occupa una posizione centrale nella civiltà letteraria inglese? Come nasce il romanzo e quali forme specifiche assume nell’isola? Come evolve la poesia inglese da quando gli elisabettiani importano il sonetto dall’Italia? Il volume fornisce una risposta a queste e altre domande, proponendosi come utile avviamento all’analisi del testo letterario inglese e offrendo una panoramica dello sviluppo dei principali generi: poesia, romanzo e teatro. Ogni capitolo è corredato di numerosi esempi distribuiti su un arco temporale che va dal Cinquecento al secondo Novecento. Insieme al tradizionale manuale di storia letteraria, questa guida presenta gli strumenti critico-metodologici indispensabili e le coordinate essenziali per lo studio della letteratura inglese.

Offering a radical re-evaluation of current approaches to performer training, this is a text that equips readers with a set of new ways of thinking about and ultimately 'doing' training. Stemming from his extensive practice and... more

Offering a radical re-evaluation of current approaches to performer training, this is a text that equips readers with a set of new ways of thinking about and ultimately 'doing' training. Stemming from his extensive practice and incorporating a review of prevailing methods and theories, Frank Camilleri focuses on how material circumstances shape and affect processes of training, devising, rehearsing and performing. Frank Camilleri puts forward the 'post-psychophysical' as a more extended form of psychophysical discussion and practice that emerged and dominated in the 20th century. The 'post-psychophysical' updates the concept of an integrated bodymind in various ways, such as the notion of a performer's bodyworld that incorporates technology and the material world. Offering invaluable introductions to a wide range of theories around which the book is structured-including postphenomenological, sociomaterial, affect and situated cognition-this volume provides readers with an enticing array of approaches to training and creative processes.

Introducción ¿Qué límites presenta el texto dramático para su realización en escena? ¿Hay una traductibilidad entre el texto y la puesta en escena, o bien, el montaje es un producto de la recreación mental, libre, casi arbitraria, que... more

Introducción ¿Qué límites presenta el texto dramático para su realización en escena? ¿Hay una traductibilidad entre el texto y la puesta en escena, o bien, el montaje es un producto de la recreación mental, libre, casi arbitraria, que hace el director? En este artículo, se tratará de dar luz a estos tópicos a partir de dos grandes avenidas: desde la perspectiva lingüística, se

Pantomime's history is one of evolutionary transformation, and its modern incarnation as a multi-million-pound industry has seen a significant change in its treatment of the stock characters: the female principal boy and the male dame,... more

Pantomime's history is one of evolutionary transformation, and its modern incarnation as a multi-million-pound industry has seen a significant change in its treatment of the stock characters: the female principal boy and the male dame, skin parts and speciality acts. This article examines gender dynamics and casting practices contingent upon the relationship between pantomime companies' aesthetic identification with, or rejection of, mediatized popular culture. Qdos Entertainment and the in-house panto companies at the Nottingham Playhouse and York Theatre Royal provide case studies for tracing the generic modifications in pantomime praxis. The ascendancy of the cross-dressed dame and the concomitant decline of the female principal boy reflect the employment opportunities and casualties produced by British pantomime's current market placements.

Riassunto · Con riferimento a studi filologici e critici accreditati, recenti o meno, si ripercorre la vicenda, editoriale e teatrale, del Tieste foscoliano, contestualizzando la tra-gedia e i suoi temi nella discussione... more

Riassunto · Con riferimento a studi filologici e critici accreditati, recenti o meno, si ripercorre la vicenda, editoriale e teatrale, del Tieste foscoliano, contestualizzando la tra-gedia e i suoi temi nella discussione politico-culturale del tempo, in particolare a Venezia. Si propongono alcune originali osservazioni critico-filologiche per sostenere la tesi del « giacobinismo » ideologico sotteso al Tieste e se ne reclama l'inclusione stabile nel canone delle opere teatrali di ascendenza giacobina. Parole chiave : Tieste, Ugo Foscolo, teatro giacobino italiano, teatro settecentesco.
Abstract · Tieste by Ugo Foscolo. Critical-philological notes for a permanent inclusion in the canon of Italian Jacobean theatre · The author, following several of the most important phlilological and critical studies, runs over the editorial and theatrical events relating to Tieste, the first Foscolo's tragedy. This drama is set in his own politic and cultural context (Venetian milieu, in particular). The author suggests same original critical remarks to support his thesis, that is Tieste as a jacobin job. Finally, he proposes the inclusion of the tragedy in revolutionary theatrical canon.

Funeral of the Acrobat (“Cambazın Cenazesi”) written by Firuze Engin, directed by Berfin Zenderlioğlu as a production of IkinciKat theatre in Istanbul is a new breath in Turkey’s theatre field; but beyond its local importance, it is a... more

Funeral of the Acrobat (“Cambazın Cenazesi”) written by Firuze Engin, directed by Berfin Zenderlioğlu as a production of IkinciKat theatre in Istanbul is a new breath in Turkey’s theatre field; but beyond its local importance, it is a very important rebellion against the Anglocentric current of the contemporary world. The theatricality of this play paradigmatically contradicts with Anglophone theatre’s purist obsession to grasp “authenticity”, which is a paradigm still colonially distributed through media and academia. The play’s staging is revolutionary in the most pre-modern way: two performers use the “meddah” technique to embody the narrators and eleven characters each, where they tell and act the story without a fourth wall. Putting two “meddahs” in dialogue is a surprising use of tradition since the comedic “meddah” storytelling technique is known to be a solo performance tradition which originated in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. These two “meddahs” act on a stage designed with shadow images appearing in light screens behind them, images which also refer to the tradition of shadow puppetry in Turkey. Two “meddahs” sometimes go behind these screens and become a part of the shadows of the story and dissolve in the allegorical landscape. On the other hand Funeral of the Acrobat has a concrete dramatic structure with a chain of events layering from the most personal to the most social where the fictional Western Thracian village Yapıldak slowly becomes a microcosm of the transformation of the Turkish society in the last decade as a result of rapidly precipitating neoliberal urban transformation. Yapıldak exists in the same parallel universe of the planet Solaris of Stanislaw Lem, country of Uqbar of Jorge Luis Borges, or the town Macondo of Gabriel Garcia Márquez where allegory devours life and creates a habitat of truth beyond the stagnating pornography of our contemporary and mediatised “reality”.

T he story begins, as is traditional, with a narrator. He opens his mouth, and without pretending he has any choice in the matter, sets things into motion with the fateful words 'Once upon a time…'. Instantly, as if operated by clockwork,... more

T he story begins, as is traditional, with a narrator. He opens his mouth, and without pretending he has any choice in the matter, sets things into motion with the fateful words 'Once upon a time…'. Instantly, as if operated by clockwork, characters spring into action around him: Cinderella begins wistfully preening in anticipation of a ball she is unlikely to attend, Jack begins pleading with his inadequate cow to yield some milk, and the Baker and his wife begin articulating their desire for a child. It seems just like the well-oiled inception of any other fairy tale, except for the plurality of images. The driving mechanism is there, the opening phrase has been uttered, and the spectators presumably feel ready to embark on a journey they feel satisfied and justified in assuming will bring the story to some sort of morally fortified happy ending.

Sleep No More’s immersive adaptation of Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention for its insight into spectatorial desires for mobility and interaction. This promotion of spectatorial choice has drawn critiques from scholars such as... more

Sleep No More’s immersive adaptation of Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention for its insight into spectatorial desires for mobility and interaction. This promotion of spectatorial choice has drawn critiques from scholars such as Adam Alston, Jen Harvie and Keren Zaiontz for its enthusiastic complicity in neoliberal modes of consumption and labor. The article conceives of Sleep No More’s version of neoliberal spectatorship as sleepless spectatorship, modeled on Macbeth’s own insomniac characters, reading Sleep No More’s form of spectatorship in conversation with what Simon Williams terms ‘sleep cultures’ research, including Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Sleep No More encourages its spectators to have embodied experiences of the sleeplessness brought about by defining characteristics of neoliberal life, including the deregulation of human biological patterns, the interweaving of ‘real’ life with virtual technology and the experience of intimate relationships as frustrated by a free market logic of scarcity. The article also looks beyond the performance itself to trace neoliberal discourses in the production’s online fan communities and potential labor law violations. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator, the article proposes that a sleep cultures approach to theatrical performance might challenge the dichotomy between active and sleepy spectatorship, advocating for a ‘sleeping’ spectator, reclaiming sleep from passivity and framing it as political action performed over a long duration.

How many playwrights, novelists, philosophers, artists, composers, performers, filmmakers and critical thinkers influenced Samuel Beckett? And how profound has Beckett's impact been on creative artists worldwide, who have responded to the... more

This paper examines the development of LGTB representations in Israeli theater for four decades between 1970 and 2005. It focuses on plays that raised central themes in the Israeli experience: the relationship between homosexuality and... more

This paper examines the development of LGTB representations in Israeli theater for four decades between 1970 and 2005. It focuses on plays that raised central themes in the Israeli experience: the relationship between homosexuality and the Holocaust, the relationship to the army and to militaristic existence and the connection between the Jewish religion, the state and LGTB issues. The main conclusion of the research was that during the years under study there was a significant social change in Israeli society that has changed from a racist society that is alienated to LGTB, to a more inclusive and tolerant one. The theater, alongside with other media, contributed to these changes in consciousness, which lead to real action in the social field.

Jérôme Bel’s Disabled Theater, a dance piece featuring eleven actors with cognitive disabilities from Zurich's Theater HORA, has polarized audiences worldwide. Some have celebrated the performance as an outstanding exploration of presence... more

Jérôme Bel’s Disabled Theater, a dance piece featuring eleven actors with cognitive disabilities from Zurich's Theater HORA, has polarized audiences worldwide. Some have celebrated the performance as an outstanding exploration of presence and representation; others have criticized it as a contemporary freak show. This impassioned reception provokes important questions about the role of people with cognitive disabilities within theater and dance—and within society writ large. Using Disabled Theater as the basis for a broad, interdisciplinary discussion of performance and disability, this volume explores the intersections of politics and aesthetics, inclusion and exclusion, and identity and empowerment. Can the stage serve as a place of emancipation for people with disabilities? To what extent are performers with disabilities able to challenge and subvert the rules of society? What would a performance look like without an ideology of ability?

En portada: «Pieza del trimestre» (octubre-diciembre de 2012), por gentileza del Museo Nacional del Teatro

Ce travail s’intéresse à la poétique de la dissociation mise en œuvre par Helen Cooper dans sa pièce Three Women and a Piano Tuner (2004). Réunies pour mettre en commun leurs talents respectifs de compositrice, pianiste et productrice... more

Ce travail s’intéresse à la poétique de la dissociation mise en œuvre par Helen Cooper dans sa pièce Three Women and a Piano Tuner (2004). Réunies pour mettre en commun leurs talents respectifs de compositrice, pianiste et productrice autour d’un projet de concert, les trois femmes de la pièce font émerger à la surface un trauma enfoui : en constant désaccord, Ella (figure de la mère), Liz (figure de l’amazone), et Beth (figure de la prostituée) matérialisent en réalité trois versions possibles du personnage unique mais intimement divisé d’Elisabeth, dont le fils possible est accordeur de piano. Dans cette pièce marquée par la prolifération du même – non pas idem, mais ipse – comme figure du clivage, où la métaphore musicale sert à évoquer le phénomène de dissonance cognitive, chacune incarne un mécanisme de défense spécifique en réaction à l’inceste subi à l’adolescence par la protagoniste. A la minimisation (Ella), au refoulement (Beth) et à l’exagération (Liz), s’articulent ainsi trois chemins de vie éventuels ou fantasmés mis en dialogue. Cette concurrence permet de dramatiser un conflit intérieur en quête de résolution, en mettant en scène les forces psychiques contradictoires, conscientes et inconscientes, qui animent ce personnage féminin, dont le choix ultime entre plusieurs options – garder l’enfant de l’inceste, le donner à adopter ou bien avorter – semble simultanément avoir déjà été fait et se reporter à l’infini. C’est autour de cette décision laissée hors du temps, qui se cristallise en creux sur la figure du fils reléguée en arrière-plan, dans l’espace du hors-scène, alors qu’il travaille sur l’instrument désaccordé, que s’élaborent les versions multiples du drame originel et d’un personnage féminin dissocié qui vise sa propre réconciliation. Redonnant symboliquement voix à un drame passé sous silence, le seul personnage masculin de la pièce illustre, par son travail, le patient processus de réparation du trauma, alors même que son existence à lui se révèle incertaine, terriblement « optionnelle ». Figure de hantise, l’accordeur de piano apparaît donc comme le maillon central qui à la fois œuvre à cette intime harmonie et l’empêche, invitant par ailleurs à réfléchir sur le processus d’écriture dramatique et le statut du personnage de théâtre, toujours en attente d’incarnation, jamais pleinement actualisé, suspendu entre la page et la scène. La métaphore musicale qui parcourt la pièce, depuis la présence en filigrane de l’accordeur jusqu’à la scène finale du concert, permet ainsi de travailler la figure du rhapsode conceptualisée par Jean-Pierre Sarrazac, qui traduit ici le travail de réintégration psychologique du Réel dans l’ordre Symbolique (Lacan). À la fin de la pièce, l’apparition de Harold, qui répète les gestes d’un père incestueux qu’il n’a pas connu, offre la vision d’un mimétisme impossible : cette coïncidence signifiante, ou « synchronicité » (Jung), évoque la dimension transgénérationnelle du trauma et laisse présager le retour du même. Elle renouvelle ainsi le sens du tragique sur la scène contemporaine en ouvrant l’espace du doute, des probabilités et du malaise. Dès lors, l’incertitude se donne comme la modalité ultime d’un réalisme traumatique de la scène qui, en interrogeant la vérité impossible du sujet, relocalise le drame de l’humain dans l’indéterminé, ce dont l’accordeur de piano, œuvrant dans l’ombre des dissonances, se fait l’image.

London is home to more than eight million people, who speak more than three hundred languages, but the representation of this cultural richness and diversity in the theatre of the British capital is far from adequate. London theatre... more

London is home to more than eight million people, who speak more than three hundred languages, but the representation of this cultural richness and diversity in the theatre of the British capital is far from adequate. London theatre remains predominantly white, British, and middle-class, and performances use the standard London dialect and accent combination. In the first part of this article, I offer a contextualization and classification of types of heteroglossia available to London theatregoers. In the second part, I describe my research project "Translation, Adaptation, Otherness: 'Foreignisation' in Theatre Practice." The aim of the project was to investigate new strategies in theatre translation that would enable us to disrupt audience expectations and challenge ethnocentrism. In the present article, I assess the difficulties we encountered and audiences' responses to our experiments. The project offered many timely opportunities to interrogate perceptions of "foreignness" among London-based theatre makers, scholars, and spectators immediately following the Brexit referendum vote.

The question of why women did not perform on the English Renaissance stage is an enduring one, which is yet to be properly answered. This article examines contemporary legislation and case law to illustrate the regulation of women's... more

The question of why women did not perform on the English Renaissance stage is an enduring one, which is yet to be properly answered. This article examines contemporary legislation and case law to illustrate the regulation of women's performance throughout the Renaissance. The article engages in a reading of legislation, provides a textual analysis of court records - both the official narrative presented in the court transcripts and the social and political attitudes that underpinned the rulings - and links the law to the position of women and performers in the Renaissance social structure. The author contends that the laws adopted by judges and legislators were not arbitrary, but reinforced dominant concepts of gender, class and status in Renaissance society. It is argued that regulations operated to cast women performers as outsiders who were subject to male controls. The author offers an alternate reading of Renaissance women performers that expounds the diegetic and political possibilities of their performances, and significantly challenges the notion that the Renaissance theatre was an all-male stage.

Επιχειρείται μια φαινομενολογική προσέγγιση της νύχτας στην ελληνική δραματουργία, από τη μεταπολίτευση και μετά. Η νύχτα είναι και λειτουργεί ενδοκειμενικά ως μία αναπαράσταση, δηλαδή ως μία ελλιπής ή και παραπειστική επανάληψη μιας... more

Επιχειρείται μια φαινομενολογική προσέγγιση της νύχτας στην ελληνική δραματουργία, από τη μεταπολίτευση και μετά. Η νύχτα είναι και λειτουργεί ενδοκειμενικά ως μία αναπαράσταση, δηλαδή ως μία ελλιπής ή και παραπειστική επανάληψη μιας ελικοειδούς και δυσπρόσιτης πραγματικότητας, ως μία επανάληψη που ενεργοποιεί κατά το μάλλον ή ήττον τις μεταφορικές δυνάμεις της γλώσσας, παράγοντας, ως εκ τούτου, νοητικά σχήματα ασταθή, αμφίβολα και αμφίσημα. Το μελέτημα δεν εστιάζει στις τυπικές χρονικές σημάνσεις της νύχτας, εκεί δηλαδή όπου μια σκηνική οδηγία μας πληροφορεί ότι απλώς είναι νύχτα, αλλά στα «γεγονότα» που λαμβάνουν χώρα κατά τη διάρκεια αυτής της νύχτας και, σε αρκετές περιπτώσεις, στα γεγονότα γενικότερα που θα μπορούσαν να χαρακτηριστούν ως «νυχτερινά». Άρα, το ζήτημα μετακυλύεται από τη χρονική σήμανση στο περιεχόμενο της νύχτας, σε αυτό που θα μπορούσε να είναι νυχτερινό χωρίς απαραίτητα να λαμβάνει χώρα τη νύχτα, σε αυτό που είναι «σκοτεινό», ανοίκειο ή παραβατικό. Η νύχτα είναι το σύνορο του οριοθετημένου και του απεριόριστου, της λογικής και της φαντασίας, του φυσιολογικού και του τερατώδους, είναι η οριακή εκείνη περιοχή όπου ο άνθρωπος μπορεί να σταθεί έχοντας στη μία πλευρά του το οικείο περιβάλλον της «κατοικίας» του, (που αποτελείται λ.χ. από υιοθετημένες στάσεις και συμπεριφορές, από αυτονόητες προϋποθέσεις και κοινόχρηστες έννοιες), και στην άλλη, όλους εκείνους τους ακατοίκητους τόπους που αγνοεί, παραβλέπει ή απωθεί.
Οι αναλύσεις των έργων κινούνται σε δύο κατευθύνσεις: στην κατεύθυνση του ανοίκειου και σε εκείνη του οικείου. Μεταξύ των εξεταζόμενων κειμένων στην κατεύθυνση του ανοίκειου είναι ο Γάμος και η Γυναίκα του Λωτ του Μάριου Ποντίκα, η Κατσαρίδα του Βασίλη Μαυρογεωργίου, το Playmobil του Παναγιώτη Μέντη, ο Αόρατος θίασος και οι Δύκολες νύχτες του κυρίου Θωμά του Ιάκωβου Καμπανέλλη, ο Φιλοκτήτης και Τα επτά κουτιά της Πανδώρας του Βασίλη Ζιώγα, ο Περιποιητής φυτών και Προς Ελευσίνα του Παύλου Μάτεσι, το Μαγικό δωμάτιο του Γιάννη Χρυσούλη, το Μόνο την αλήθεια των Βασίλη Μαυρογεωργίου και Μαρία Φιλίνη. Στην κατεύθυνση του οικείου εξετάζονται τα έργα: Σε φιλώ στη μούρη του Γιώργου Διαλεγμένου, το Γάλα του Βασίλη Κατσικονούρη, Στην Εθνική με τα μεγάλα του Μιχάλη Βιρβιδάκη, οι Φιλοξενούμενοι του Μάρκαρη και οι Ξένοι του Μέντη, οι Εφτά λογικές απαντήσεις του Λεωνίδα Προυσαλίδη κ.ά, ενώ στις διασταυρώσεις των δύο κατευθύνσεων εξετάζονται το Σε σας που με ακούτε της Λούλας Αναγνωστάκη, Ο Κήπος με τα χελιδόνια του Μπάμπη Τσικληρόπουλου, το 314 του Παναγιώτη Παναγόπουλου, το Ατύχημα του Χρυσούλη ή ο Ορθός λόγος του Μάριου Ποντίκα.
Τα θέματα, οι εικόνες, οι ιστορίες και οι προσωπικές περιπέτειες που συναντούμε εδώ μπορούν να αποτελέσουν μέρος μιας μεγαλύτερης αφήγησης παραβάσεων και υπερβάσεων, αποκλίσεων και συμβολικών μορφών, η οποία θα μπορούσε να διευρύνει τις οπτικές γωνίες επόπτευσης των κειμένων. Μια παρόμοια προσέγγιση μας προτρέπει να ξαναδιαβάσουμε διεστιακά πολλά κείμενα της νεοελληνικής δραματουργίας με διαφορετικούς τρόπους και να διερευνήσουμε πώς οι ταυτότητες και οι διαφορές εμπλέκονται στη σύνθεση των κειμένων αυτών, διαμορφώνοντας μια διαλογική σχέση του εγώ και του άλλου.