Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Theatre as Voyeurism again

Although I am not completely convinced by site-specific performance - it is supposed to offer a new way for audiences to relate to a performance, but I've not seen many audience members behave as if they were anything other than passive receivers of theatrical experience - William McEvoy argues that 'the visible and the linguistic operate in dialectical tension with one another'. 

I think they do that in any situation where words and images go together, but okay. In his contribution to Theatre as Voyeurism, he postulates that the audience member is made 'voyeur, writer and critic'. 

Again, no different to any other form of theatre, or comic book, if I want to keep that analogy going. 

His entire introduction seems to be claiming a special status for site-specific theatre where none exists. The spectator observes outwardly and inwardly? The desire for meaning is exposed? Subjectivity is evoked... hold on...

That might have something. Continue, please, Mr McEvoy.


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