Generating Theatre Meaning A Theory and Methodology of Performance Analysis

by Rozik, Eli

• ISBN13: 9781845192525
• ISBN10: 1845192524
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-01
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

This book offers a theory and methodology of performance analysis as an alternative to traditional play-analysis. The underlying theme is that theatre performance is a descriptive text generated by the theatre medium and that the process of generating meaning takes place in the actual encounter between a theatre performance and the spectator. Many new understandings result, including how the theatre medium is iconic in the new sense of operating images of real or mental models, and how this impacts on the verbal text and stage metaphor; how poetic principles structure fictional worlds and bestow unity and wholeness on performance-texts; how a dialogue between implied director and implied spectator is inscribed in the performance-text; and how the implied spectator is characterised by functions of framing, reading, interpreting and experiencing a performance-text. It follows that actors' bodies on stage fulfil functions of textuality, metatheatricality, personification, characterisation and aesthetic effect. An Introduction surveys major contributions made to a methodology of performance analysis, particularly throughout the twentieth century, and problematises the main issues. Part I is devoted to the semiotic substratum of the performance-text, i.e. to the theatre medium and its basic means of generating theatre texts and meaning. The innovation of this approach lies in seeing theatre first and foremost as a non-verbal medium. Part II deals with the poetic structure of fictional worlds described by the theatre medium and the metaphoric and rhetoric structures that operate on the level of relationship between the description of such a world and the world of a spectator. Part III contains analyses of actual performance-texts that illustrate the application of principles previously presented. This is the first comprehensive book to address the necessity of a methodology of performance analysis.

Author Biography

Eli Rozik is professor emeritus of theatre studies. Twice head of the Department of Theatre Studies and until recently Dean of the Faculty of the Arts at Tel Aviv University.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	p. x
Introduction: State of the Art and Perspectives	p. 1
Main schools and trends	p. 2
The formalist movement	p. 2
The Prague Linguistic Circle	p. 3
Roman Ingarden	p. 4
The semiotic school	p. 4
Post-semiotic criticism	p. 5
The IFTR Performance Analysis Working Group	p. 6
Main theoretical topics	p. 7
Textual nature of the theatre performance	p. 7
Descriptive nature of the performance-text	p. 8
Imagistic nature of the theatre medium	p. 8
Basic convention of the theatre medium	p. 10
Univocal nature of theatre units	p. 10
Segmentation of the performance-text	p. 11
The principle of acting: deflection of reference	p. 12
Theatrical nature of the play-script	p. 12
Poetic structure of the fictional world	p. 13
Metaphoric nature of the fictional experience	p. 14
Rhetoric structure of the theatre experience	p. 15
Role of the implied director	p. 15
Role of the implied spectator	p. 16
A phenomenology of theatre	p. 16
Structure of the book	p. 17
Semiotic Substratum
The Imagistic Nature of Iconicity	p. 21
Imagistic thinking: from Nietzsche to neuroscience	p. 23
Iconicity: image imprinting and language mediation	p. 25
The basic convention of theatre	p. 27
Explanatory power of the imagistic approach	p. 27
Typical iconic units	p. 28
Real objects on stage	p. 29
Stage metaphor	p. 31
Stage convention	p. 32
Segmentation of Performance-texts	p. 34
Segmentation of real interaction	p. 35
Ingarden's view of fictional verbal interaction	p. 39
The pragmatic approach of Serpieri et al.	p. 40
Segmentation of iconic interaction	p. 41
Segmentation of stage objects	p. 44
Segmentation of iconic interaction in Habimah's The Seagull	p. 45
Stage Metaphor and Symbol	p. 48
A theory of verbal metaphor	p. 48
Stage metaphor	p. 52
Speech act stage metaphor	p. 56
Stylistic implications of mixed stage metaphor	p. 57
Stage allegory	p. 58
Personification	p. 58
Substitution	p. 59
Mediation by abstraction	p. 60
Mixed praxical and allegoric discourse	p. 61
Stage symbol	p. 61
Stage Conventions	p. 64
Reading principles	p. 65
Kinds of stage conventions	p. 66
Medium conventions	p. 66
Imagistic conventions	p. 67
Functions of stage conventions	p. 68
Semiotic functions	p. 68
Poetic functions	p. 69
Norms and styles	p. 76
Acting: The Quintessence of Theatre	p. 78
Deflection of reference	p. 79
Expanded notions of 'actor', 'text' and 'character'	p. 82
Existential gaps between text and two worlds	p. 84
The fundamental gap between real action and enacting action	p. 86
Experiencing the performers' bodies	p. 88
The Theatrical Nature of the Play-script	p. 90
Two kinds of theatre texts	p. 91
The literary fallacy	p. 93
Play-script analysis	p. 95
Intertextual relations between performance-text and play-script	p. 97
Additional Strata and Disciplines
The Poetic Structure of the Fictional World	p. 105
The twofold structure of the performance-text	p. 106
Archetypal patterns of response	p. 107
The stratified structure of the fictional world	p. 110
Mythical layer	p. 110
Praxical layer	p. 111
Naive layer	p. 112
Ironic layer	p. 113
Aesthetic layer	p. 114
Structure of the character	p. 116
Possible fallacies	p. 116
Sophocles' Oedipus the King	p. 118
The Metaphoric Nature of the Fictional Experience	p. 120
The metaphoric principle	p. 121
The expressive nature of fictional worlds	p. 122
The principle of personification	p. 123
The apparent double reference of the performance-text	p. 124
The mechanism of textual metaphor	p. 125
Poetic implications	p. 127
Metaphor in dramatic practice	p. 129
Sophocles' Oedipus the King (continued)	p. 129
Yerushalmi's Jephthah's Daughter	p. 130
The Rhetoric Structure of the Theatre Experience	p. 133
The pragmatic nature of speech interaction	p. 134
The pragmatic nature of stage/audience interaction	p. 135
Descriptive nature of the performance-text	p. 136
Performative nature of the performance-text	p. 136
Equivalence agent/director and object/spectator	p. 137
Notion of 'macro-speech act'	p. 138
Rhetoric nature of the stage/audience interaction	p. 139
Yerushalmi's Jephthah's Daughter (continued)	p. 143
The Implied Director	p. 146
Hermeneutic vs. creative interpretation	p. 147
The mechanism of creative interpretation	p. 149
Fidelity, creativity, and legitimacy	p. 150
Creative interpretation and intertextuality	p. 151
Productions of Beckett's Waiting for Godot	p. 152
The play-script	p. 152
Creative interpretations of Waiting for Godot	p. 154
The Implied Spectator	p. 161
Real vs. implied spectator	p. 161
Roles of the implied spectator	p. 163
Yerushalmi's Woyzeck 91	p. 164
Framing a performance-text	p. 164
Reading a performance-text	p. 166
Interpreting a performance-text	p. 168
Experiencing a performance-text	p. 171
Dialogue between implied director and implied spectator	p. 173
A Phenomenology Theatre	p. 174
State's phenomenological approach	p. 175
Alternative phenomenological approaches	p. 179
Functions of actors' bodies on stage	p. 180
Textuality	p. 181
Metatheatricality	p. 181
Personification	p. 182
Characterization	p. 183
Aesthetic effect	p. 183
Life Class: a personal experience	p. 184
Theatre vs. performance art	p. 186
Examples of Performance Analysis
A Transient Shadow: A Silent Description of a Speaking Fictional World	p. 191
Reading A Transient Shadow	p. 192
Interpreting A Transient Shadow	p. 198
Principles of non-verbal description	p. 202
Inherently non-verbal acts	p. 202
Symbolic non-verbal acts	p. 203
Metonymic non-verbal acts	p. 203
Metaphoric non-verbal acts	p. 204
Metaphoric hand gestures	p. 204
Allegoric characters	p. 205
Projected titles	p. 205
Suz/o/Suz by La Fura dels Baus: Theatre at the Borderline	p. 207
The notion of 'performance'	p. 208
The notion of 'actual'	p. 210
Performing an action vs. enacting an action	p. 213
Suz/o/Suz by La Fura dels Baus	p. 213
Habimah's The Trojan Women: A Ready-made Metaphor of Unjustified War	p. 222
Euripides' The Trojan Women and its Homeric sources	p. 223
Sartre's adaptation: Les Troyennes	p. 227
Habimah's production of Les Troyennes	p. 231
Robert Wilson's H.G: Non-theatrical Space as Stage Metaphor	p. 237
Reading H.G.	p. 238
On the legitimacy of interpretation	p. 244
An attempt at interpretation	p. 245
The warren - a found-space metaphor	p. 247
Yerushalmi's Woyzeck 91: Intention in Creative Interpretation	p. 250
Buchner's Woyzeck	p. 251
Yerushalmi's Woyzeck 91	p. 257
Methodological Conclusions	p. 266
Aims of performance analysis	p. 267
Means of performance analysis	p. 268
Theoretical focus	p. 268
Personal experience	p. 269
Use of video recording	p. 269
Abridged account	p. 270
Intuition of structure and meaning	p. 270
Independent performance analysis	p. 270
The disciplines of performance analysis	p. 271
Excludes disciplines	p. 275
List of Cited Works	p. 277
Index	p. 289
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