I Hate Science

Let me be clear: theatrical naturalism is nothing more than a painting of a Dog Shit with Wings that pretends to be a Living Nightingale. It is a delusion, a deceit that doubles down on its dishonesty by claiming its affinity with 'the real'. When Zola states his faith in the 'scientific spirit' he does not notice the idiocy of a belief in reason. Reason itself can only be trusted, it cannot claim any absolute meaning. To believe in reason is to substitute faith for analysis (especially when Zola expects his statement to be accepted without qualification).

Of course, it is possible to modify that faith, to seek reason through it in the manner of the Jesuit. But this is not the way of the naturalist. Rather, they have the enthusiasm of the fundamentalism, protected by simplicity and buoyed by the material successes of technology. In this case, it is applied science, not the methodology or some spurious spirit that is being invoked. Zola has seen the factory, has seen the locomotive. Therefore, science achieves. Therefore, it will save theatre. 

I can hear the echo of Plato's chuckle, as he reveals the punchline to The Republic. My rational city, with all its functions defined by thought and reasoning, will be based on a myth. Do you get it? Eh? Eh?

In the adaptation of Zola' Nana (1881), Arnold Mortier reported that 'the young Georges Hugon... shakes a cardboard tree from which real apples fall.'The wry wit of the scenographer explains something that Zola does not understand.

Against Dramaturgy

"...there will always be those who insist that the script is the template, or even the essence of the theatre. At one extreme, the eccentric professor of English Literature who will insist that his own personal reading, in his chamber (an office chair, a desk with a typewriter and surrounded by books) represents the most authentic of experiences and even the discussion of the reading weakens its purity... this position can be found in the thoughts of Louis Becq de Fouquiere's reflection that 'the need for mise en scene becomes all the greater if the work is weaker... artificial means of distraction'. Never mind that the choice to remove the decor, the props, the scenery and lighting are, in themselves, dramaturgical, but tell me again how much better Shakespeare is without all these modern interpretations...'

Dazzled by Definition

A hypothetical definition of tragedy

Tragedy and Ritual and I am Thinking Out Loud again

If the origins of Athenian tragedy are broadly found in religious ritual - the importance of the chorus suggests a shared ancestry with the dithyramb, a hymn to Dionysus - the extant plays offer few clues to the nature of their relationship. One striking feature of ritual, the invitation of direct response extended to the spectators, is absent in Athenian tragedy. By the time that Aeschylus, the earliest playwright of the surviving tragic scripts, was writing, the tragedy had evolved into a separate form and the application of ritual's standards onto theatre has already been rendered, at best, controversial.

It's always easy for me to be distracted by questions of ritual and theatricality, because I dislike the 'revolution' of performance studies (as expressed by Richard Schechner) which dumps all sorts of human activity into a single category (performance) without much care for their cultural or historical context. Religious services, for example, are lumped together, with rock concerts. Sure, they are all amenable to the application of dramaturgy as a methodology, but the intention of a Sunday Mass is not the same as the revival of Sam Beckett's Godot. But once Schechner advocated a smearing of the boundaries, artists could happily claim that they were making rituals - rather than being influenced by rituals - which accords their work a sanctity which it may not deserve.

But I am supposed to be thinking about tragedy today, so let's park that for the moment. I am trying to work out what it might mean, and whether there is any continuity between the tragedy of fifth century Athens, the plays of Shakespeare, French neo-classical tragedy, the naturalism of the 1880s (Ibsen, moving into Chekhov) and various bits and pieces from the last century or so. I suppose, if I asked whether The Motherfucker with the Hat (about to be staged at the Tron) is a tragedy, these are the reflections that would inform my answer.

The easy line to follow is that from Athens to 17th Century France: Aristotle wrote about the Athenian tragedies, and the French theorists turned his observations into rules. The same rules encouraged the self-conscious tragedies of the twentieth century - Death of A Salesman, a couple of plays by T.S. Eliot. These were experiments in form, to see whether it was possible to use the formula and structures of Athenian tragedy for contemporary theatre. These are your Aristotelian tragedies, I guess, for want of a better name. It is strict, follows a bunch of rules  including the unities of time and space.

But tragedy is a wider term: it is applied to Shakespeare, the violent melodramas of Seneca and the Jacobeans (mainly because the word melodrama wasn't available until the 1760s, when Rousseau coined it). And that's enough to cause problems. And I don't even know whether the plays of David Mamet - to take a fairly random example - count as tragedy. Until I get some kind of definition...

So, if Hamlet and Othello are tragedies (and popular opinion say that they are), that isn't because they share the same formula as the Aristotle-influenced tradition. That's why I have an ache in my heart. 

John Moran and a Spot of Critical Doubt

For Sha: Using Dramaturgy for Comics

Pondering Dramaturgy: Why You Need a Dramaturg.

Not going to apologise for this subtitle: nearly every piece of theatre or performance that I have seen in the past year has needed a dramaturg. The ones that didn't: already had one. I don't think it is an accident that two of the most effective plays that I have seen in Scotland over the past year had Pamela Carter on dramaturg duties. Pound for pound, they had less flab, more precision and a taut narrative line (even when, in the case of Tomorrow, that narrative line was merely chronological and gave short shrift to conventional narrative tropes).

The dramaturg's function is contested - and different dramaturgs have different approaches - but they can be said to bring the dramaturgical choices to light. Everything that happens has a dramaturgical choice and consequence imbedded within it. 

And I do mean everything, even if I am sticking to the stage for today's ponder.

Let me take an example from my life. I got up this morning, late. I took the first shirt I found from my drawer, the trousers I had worn last night (with my cards and cash in them) and the fleece I dumped in the corridor when I got in. I pulled on a hat that was on my bed, laced up my only pair of boots that don't have a hole in them, and probably cleaned my teeth and had a Glasgow shower.

The dramaturgical choices of clothing seem fairly random but the choice of shirt had been made when I bought it. To argue that it is actually the one my mum got me from the cash and carry for Christmas 2008 doesn't negate that there was a choice: it could have gone to the charity shop, but I kept it, and even washed it.

Although most of these clothes appear to have been simply the ones to hand, choices have been made. And they reveal themselves in the dramaturgical consequence. I look like a tramp who is dressed by his mother. 

The laziness of my dramaturgical choices has led to an unfortunate dramaturgical consequence. It also means I won't be getting to make any dramaturgical dating choices in the near future.

Now, the same applies to theatre. Those apparently meaningless choices can lead to not getting laid  the point of a performance across. 

Pondering Dramaturgy

Having spent a year studying dramaturgy, I thought I might have grasped a definition by now. That I haven't isn't just a function of my own slippery stupidity (although I am sure that helps): the term itself is broad and open, and confused by the existence of dramaturgs. They do a particular job, but dramaturgy itself is not limited to their activities.





I rather liked Graham Eatough's explanation: the creation of an event in term and space. It's not exactly what he said but, hell, I have to start to somewhere.

Dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The word dramaturgy was coined by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Dramaturgy is a distinct practice separate from playwriting and directing, although a single individual may perform any combination of the three.[1] Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturg, to adapt a work for the stage.

And that's what wikipedia has to say on the matter. Need we go on?

Goffman denies Free Will