Performance:Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies Vol. II

PE RFO RMANCE

Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies

Edited by Philip Auslander

Volume 11

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I (JNII( IN "hll l NI W YO HK

C ONT E NTS

VOL UM E 11

IX

Acknow/edgements

PART 1

I·irst [luhlished 20m

hy Rou l!edge

2l'ark Squarc, Millon I',¡rk, i\bingdon, Oxon , OXI4 4 RN

Simullaneollsly published in lhe USA ami Canada

hy Rout!edgc

270 Madison J\vc, New YOrk NY 10016

aOU//fc("e is UI1 imprill/ !I( /!Te ]'(jy/or & hUl1cis (iroujJ

Rcprcsentation

1

21 T lle theater of cruelty 3nd the closllrc of representatiol1

3

J AC'Q U ES DER RI DA

25

22 The tooth, tlle palm J EAN-I'R A Ny OIS L YO r ARD

Transfcrrcd lo Digitall I'rinling 200'! l dilorial m a lter an d scleclion 20m Phili[l J\lIsJander; individual

n wne rs re lain cO[lyrighl in lheir own malerial

23 Frame-op: feminism, psychoanalysis, thealre

32

BARBA R A F REJi D MAN

I'ype scl in Times hy Gra[lhicrart Limitcd, Ilong Kong

AII righlS rcse rvcd. No [lan 01' lhis hook may he reprinled nr

['cprndllced or LLlilised in any rorm or by any c1eelronic.

mechaniea.1. m other means. no", known 01' hereafte['

invenled. including [lhOloco[lying and rccording, or in

any int'onnal1on slmage 01' relrieval syslem, withoul permission in

wri !ing from the [lL~hlishcrs.

13ri/il'/¡ Uh I'O/)' Cat(/¡oglling in l'uhlinr/io/1 1)ata

A calal ogue record ro l' this hook is availahle I'rom lhe Brilish I.ihru[·y

24 The dynamics of desire: sexuality and gender iD pornography and performance

57

JII.I . D OL AN

I'ART 2

Tcxtuality

77

25 The¡¡"rica l performance: iIIustration, translation, fulfillment, Or supplement'l

79

U/mI/y o(Congre.\s Ca/%gillg inl'uh!ica/ioll 1)a/a

J\ catalog record ror !his hook has hcen reqlleslcd [SnN 0-4 15-25511 -2 (Scr)

IS BN 0-41 S-25 5 1VJ (Volullle U)

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Puhlíshcr', 1'1"11:

Rekrc ll ccs w ilhin ca ch ¡;ha ptcr are: as Ihey ,[[' peal' in Ihe

!)[,ginal ('!)[[¡pl d .; work.

26 Ornma, Iwrformutivit y. ,lIId Jll!rf WII I.I A M S

124

40 Why modero plays are /lot culture: disciplinary bli/ld spots

8liRNt'lcRD J , fIlJl RITTS

313

S IJ ANNON J ACK SON

41

'>ART 3

Embodying difference: issues in dance and cultural studies

c.

Bodies

155

30 The actor's bodics

157

5.2 Inlerwltural,I'fudies

175

42 Twins separa ted at birtlt'! West African vernacular and Western avant garde performa tivity in tbeory and practice

D AVID GRAVER

31 The body as the object 01' modern performance J O N ER ICK SO N

JA Nh

I> BSMOND

359

'YNTIII A WARO

32 Strategic abilities: negotiating tite disabled bOOy in dance

188

ANN C OOPER AL BRIGI-I T

33 Feminine free fall: a fan tas)' of freedom

207

43 Western femi nist theory, Asian Indian performance, and a notion of agcnC)'

DAR y 1. e lll N

PART 4

Audiences/spectatorship

217

34 Dramaturgy of the spectator

219

MARC O D H MA Rl N IS

236

35 The pleasure of the spectator ANN E U BERS FELD

36 The audience: subjectivity, community a nd the eahies of listening

249

AI.I CE itA YN ER

37 O dd. anonymous needs: tite audience in a dramatized socicty

269

II ERIIEln JlI.¡\U n~c

of media culture

282

'" I/AIII'I II "'I ,AVI R

l '1

382

AV¡\ N T I-I I MEDURI

44 IntercuJturalism, postmodernism, pluralism

N iT A T A1T

.'\8 Sped.alorhll tlu.'ury in lit\!

334

11

395

A CK NOWLE DGE M ENTS

Thc Publishers wo ulcl like to thank the foll owing for penn ission lo reprint Ihcir material: Thc University 01' Chicago Press for permission to reprint Jacques Derrida, "Thc theater 01' cruelty and the c10sure of representation ", in WI"iting on ')¡ffel"ence, translated by A lan Bass. (Chicago: Uni versity of Cbicago Press , 1978), pp. 232 - 250. © 197R by The University of C hicago. Thc University of Wi sconsin Press for permission to reprint Jean-Franyois Lyotarc\, " The tooth, the palm", translated by A nne Knap and Michel BenamoLl, SubStance 15 (1976): 105 - 110. © 1976, SubStance l nc. The Johns Ho pkin s University Press for permission to reprint Barbara I:reedman , "Frame-up: fe minism , psychoanalysis, theatre", Thealre Jo ur!1al 40(3) (1988): 375- 397. © 1988 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Johns Hopkins University Press fOI" pcnnission to reprint Ji ll Dolan , "The dynamics of desire: sexuality amI gendcr in pornography and perform­ ;\I1ce", Tlmllre .Journal 39(2) (1987): 156- 174. © 1987 by The Johns Hopkins lJniversity Press. The Johns Hopkins U niversity Press for permission to rcprint Marvin C arlson , "The,Ltrical perfornlance: illustration, translation , fulfi llment, or supplement?", 'nlealre .foumal 37( 1) (1985): 5- 11. © 1985 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The Modcrn Languagc Association for permission to reprint W . B. Worthen. "Drama, perlormativity, amI performance" . Puh/icaliolls oj"the Modern '"(/11­ ~/I(/g(' A.I'.I'ol'ÍalionI13(5)(1998): 1093, 1107. © 1998 byThe Modern Language Associatioll.

Thc M; lss;¡ chu sclts InstiluIC 01" Tcch no logy Press ro r permi ssion lo rep rint Uino r F uch¡¡, " Prcscl1\:c an d lhl: rcvc ngc 0 1" writing: ret hin ki ng thea lre after Dcrriua" . "" (/ l)l'II lillg ,~rf \ .1/1/11//(/1 9(211 ) ( 1 9R~ ): 161 173. (O 1985 by New Yml- ll l1i vl:rs ily ill1\ llhl: M ,I s~ : II"IIII ~clh (nsl illll C ~) r réchll ol ogy . 1\

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The Mus:sa c hu~dts lnstituh; o f T"cl:hn o logy Prcss for pen nissio n to rep rint R ie Al lsop. " Perl"ormance writing" , Per{orming Arl.l' JOllrna!21(1) (1999): 76- 80. Ü 198 7 by The J o hlls I Jopkins Universily P ress .

: amh rid gc 1I11ivnsily Pn.:ss :lItU tilt' cs t ~l tc uf Raymo nd Williams for per­ missi o n l l) rcp rint Ra ym onJ Willi ams. " D rama in a dramatiscd societ y" . (Cambridge : Camhridge University Press, 1975), pp. 1 21.

The ./ournal ol COl1lempo/"{fry L egal /sslles for permission to repl-int Bernard H ibbitts, "Mak ing m o tions: the embodiment of law in gesture" , Jour!7a! o( COl1lemporary Legal ¡ssues 6 (1995): 51 - 81.

Thc U ni ve rsity of T oronto Press for permission lo reprin t Shannon Jackson, "W hy 1ll0dern pla ys are not culture: djsciplinary blind spots", j\1odern Drama 44 (2001): 31- 51. © 2001 The l..Jn iversity o r T oronto.

T he National Communication Association (formerly the Speech Co mmun­ ication Association) ro r permission to reprint David Graver, "T he actor's bodies". Texl 0/1(1 Pe/j iml1ol/ ce Quarlaly 17(3) (1997): 221235 . © 1997 The Speech Co mmunication Association. The ¡ .-~

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hiulscl f. . r he child thrnw~ a Wil y his 11I y S; huI SUlIlI 111: hllll l, lI 1' alll 111 all illllll­ ce nt fr ame ('1 1' minJ. As ,non how\!v~ r as I IK: chi ld bUllds he cn ll uccls , juills i.llld forms lawfully and according lo un in na tc sc nsc 01' orucr . Tlt us Illl ly is ¡he WQl"l d contemplated by the acs thetic man , who has Icarned ["m m lhe artist and th e gencsis of the lattc r'S work , how lhe strugglc 01' plurality can ye l bear within ¡belf la w a ndjustice, how the artist stands cOlltemplative above, ,tnd wo rking wit hin the work 01" art, ho w necessity a nd pl ay. an tago nism and harmon y must pair them­ sel ves ro r the procrcation of the work or art" ("Philosophy During the Tragic Age or tbe Greeks," in E arl)' Greek Philosop¡'y, p. lOS).

22

T H E TOOTH, TH E PA L M* Jecm-Fram,:ois Lyotard S,,"rcc: Translatcd by Ánnc Kn a p and Jvlichcllknamou , Suf¡SW l1 c(' 15 (l 'n6) : 105 110.

l . Theater places us right at the heart of what is religious-political: in the IK'art of absence, in negativity, in nihilism as Nietzsche would say, therefore ill the question 01' power. A theory 01' thea trica l signs , a praetice 01' theatrical si 1',11 S (dramatic text, mi se en scene, interpretation. arc hitecture) are based (JIl accepting the nihilism inherent in re-presentation. Not only accepting it: I\'inforcing it. For the sign, Peirce used to say, is somet hin g which stands lo ·;()\I1ebody for something. To Hidc, to Show: that is theatrality. The modernit y 01' our fin-de-siec\e is due to this: there is nothing to be replaced, no lieuten­ ;111 1uptive perspecti ve of the unconscious and sexuality, language a nd ideo­ I,,~,.y. so that it never rests sta ble or secure. Each discipl ine acknowledges the ,JI IIlIacy 01' the signifying dependenee of the subject on t he O ther. and is , 1\\IIIllitted to devcloping ways 01' re-visioning the subject in rel a tionship to IhL: (>thcr's gaze. Yet thal ver)' paradigm has also stymied productive feminist rl"l ll\"lIlulations of subjectivity, insofar as "safe" descriptions of a phalloeentric .lIde\" have taken the plaee 01' prescriptions for change. !"he play 01' the eonstitutive gaze in postmodern theory usual1y registers as .1 \Villy paradox rather than the trap 01' ideology containing and preventing • hll ll gC. Thc bind 01' the constitutive gaze has surfaced most notably in Julia "llsh.:Ví.l 'S dcscriptions of the problem of how to convey on the side of lal1­ ' II;l gC and representation lhe experience outside of it. 11 Assuming that \Vomen 1t ,l w hccn exduded from the scene 01' representalion- how to place that \ rl\'ricncc in representation? The eonstitutive gaze is characteristic 01' cinema 111 Iltal il slages Ihe desire to see oneselfsecing onese1fthat never gets outsidc Il w ll".

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" the P (; Uis is wh¡t t illen ha ve éll H.! wurnclI d() IIlll . 1111: plt ,lI ll1" 11' t 111: a t t I íhule of power which ncitlwr mCI1 Iwr wOl11en have, Bul (1:-; lo ng Ihl' al tributc 01' power is a p hall us wh ich rercrs LO and can be conruseu ... wi th a penis. this confusion wi ll support a ~tr ucture in which it seem s rcasonab le that men haye power and women do not. A nd as long ~s psychoanalysts maintain the separability of ' phallus' from 'penis.' they can hold on to thcir 'phal1u:)' in the belief th a Ltheir discourse has no rela tion to sexual ineq uality, no rela tion to poli ties." 12 Those who read Lacan closely an swer t hat his phal10cenlric J iscourse is intent ionally reflective of the problems he sought to portray. Mo reover, they remind us that the speci fic configurations 01' the Symbol ic are indeed open to change in t he Lacanian schema. As ElIie Ragland-SlIll ivan observes: "We must remember that the Symbolic here does not mean an ything represent­ ative of a second hidden thing or essence. Rather it refers to that order whose principal function is to mediate between (he lmagin a ry orde.r and the Real. The Symbolic order interprets, symbol izes. a rticulates, and uni versalizes both the experiential and the concrete which , paradoxically, it has already shaped contextual1y. " J3 Yet Lacan's Symbolic was developed in the context of a specific histo rieal period 01' intelIectual tho ught, one heavily inftuenced by strllctural anth ropol ogy. As Louis Alth usser protests, " Jt is not enough to know that the Wcste rn family is patriarch ic and exogamic ... \Ve must also work o ut the ideological formations that govern paternity, maternity , con­ jugulity , and childhood." 14 JIlsofar as Lacan 's writings ignore the material and historical nature of social organiza tion and social change, they betray a d islu rbing complacency toward structuralist and phallocentric versions 01' a transcendenl law, whether in the form of the phal1ic signifier, the law 01' the fat her, or the law of the symbolic order. Lacan 's Sym bolic is heavily dependent upon Lévi-Strauss's aecount of lhe origin of our m yth of difference in íncest taboos , taboos which function to transform a state o f " nature" into one of "culture": "The prime role of cul­ ture is to ensure the group's existence as a group , and consequently, in this domain as in all others, to replace chance by organization. The prohibitíon of inccst is a certain form, and even highly yaried forms , 01' in te r\lention . But it is intervention over and aboye anythíng else; even more exactly it is Ihe intervention ."15 As an exogamy rule , the incest taboo functions to establish a system of social relati onships. Jt replaces the taboo of intrafamilialmarriage \Vith interfamilial marriage , and so seis up social roles and values. Of crucial interest here are the mythic and ideological aspects 01' Lacan's Symbolic Order, since it fails lo explain the practice it describes , repeating the very difference it purports to explain. Ob serves Jacqueli ne Rose: " Laca n's use of the symbolic ... is ope n to the same objeetions as Lévi-$trauss' account in that it presu pposes Ihe subordination which it is in tended to cxpla in , Thus wh.ile a l f1rst gla nce lhese remarks , , SCCIll most c ri lical (1ft he onkr dcscri bcd. lhey are in ,IONhe r scnsc cl)mplici t wilh Iha! ordCr. " lfo

1.;1\::11 1\ :-'y lll hlllic Illust he IIIH h! r..¡ tuOlI both ill Ik co ntcxt 01' the structuraJ ,lIIth rllrol()gy Up OIl which il d n,:w a mi thc objecl rd ut.ions theory against whk h il ddi ncd il sdr. "Taking tJIC cxperience ofpsychoanalysis in its develop­ ll11'fl t over sixly ycu rs." observes Lacan expansively, " it comes as no surprise lo 1101e lhat whereas lhe first outcome of its origins wa s a conception 01' the ~lIs tr gaze fractured , its look stared down by él series of gazes which challenge I Itc place of ib look and cxposc it as in turn detined by the other. The lar va/us "rodeo. or l11a ~k which points to itsclL is the lure oftheatre, a gaze which admits 1I hclongs to lhe Ot hcr, only to become the Other of the spectator in turno 11 c inema appcals lo the ucsirc lO see oneself seeing, lheatre appeals to lhe d ~, ... ire I I I ex pose anu d ispltH':C lhe displaced gaze- tha t is, to enta ngle the "1I1í: r',, ga/u wilh \lné'~ alwa ys a lrcau y pu rl oi ncú image, to rcveal the play 01' IIl le'o¡ louk as illcvltu hl y_ inCl.·"'j;ln lly in lllol iol1 d ispla\Xd and di splaeing in 1111 11. 'lile sI, Ipl~¡¡ ... c i ~ q 1I 1t ¡lcs"l' lll ia I Ihe; II ",:. il s sIügc t he tlll l tic () f 1he place 01' ,¡

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m c'~ 1 \1~1" . Willl IH: s lri pp~1 mai lllalll I he pl,u;!.: u l lll, 1,1,," ' , .dIVII )''' alrcad y rurllli ned , so as tu preserve lhe kl1lalcc tal ()r\ 1110" 111 \VI II he loo" bac" in a way th at d isplal:cs hcr g U/c? T hcatrc's mask s 01' their displaccment, announcing, '" am already taken ," as in "this seat is takl;n," or as in, "That was no lady, that was my wife (mother). " Theatrc is the pl ace wherc a male ruling class has been a ble to play at being the excJudcd other, to rcveaJ the sense that ''1'' is an olher. Ir theatre has o tTered men a chance to identify wil h the place of a mother':; loo k, to im ilate the mother's tlesire, and to control the woman 's looking back, theatre also offers the opportunity 10 reframe that moment from a point 01' view alien to it. The paradox of the frame and the gaze. the problem of the conslilu tive gaze in relationship to key problems of change, needs to be worked out more fulty both witb.in the discourses of feminism, psychoana lysis, and theatre theory, and in the arguments with which they are in volved . Feminism faces this problem in the Kristevan paradox of the scmiotic and the symbolic; psychoanalysis faces this problem in the rclationship of the Imaginar)' and the Symbolic; but theatre al one is capable of staging the paradox of the fra me in a way that subverts it. Unlike feminism and psychoanalysis, theatre has no altegiance but to ambi valence, to a compulsion to subvert its own gaze, to split itself through a reflected image. Theatrc comfortably allies with feminism again st psychoanalysis, witb psychoanaJysis against cinema, a nd with cinem a against itsclf, without ever fi nding a resting point except as provisional and always already undcrmineu.. Whereas feminism and psychoanalysis seek to reflect the subject from a place where it can never see itself, be.it gender, ideology, or the unconscious, theatre pro vides the tools- the stages, the mirrors, or refleeting gazes--through which perspectives are fra gmented , shattcrcd, and set into play against one another. A methodology necessarily tied to no master, theatre is quintessenti­ alt)' deconstructive, and poses a mcthodologica 1 chalJenge to feminism and psychoanalysis to escape its terms , its goals, its identity. We dose here with an open q uestion, one posed at the end 01' Laca n's seminar, "The Spli t Between the Eye and the Gaze." "To what extent," e parate fro m those 01' Ihe wri tten text.'¡ T he lheorisls who fo llo w this approach are in part interesled in clcvaling performance to a position 01' aulhenticity eq ual to that of th e wri Uen text, b ut the parallel to tran slation does not cn tirely achieve this end. Tite mo re li te rally one takes the linguistic anal ogy, the more onc foregrounds tlJe script. the very thing these theorists are attempting to a vü id. T heir model is condi­ tioned by tbe no rmal pres uppositions 01' thcatrical production, in which t his so-ca llcd Iran slalion runs always fro ro scri pt to perfonnance and not vice versa : such a situa tion necessarily privileges the script as defin ing the origi na ry parameters of the translation amI makes performance subservicnt not on ly temporariJy, but artistically , since it is unusual indeed for a translation to be considered aesthetically superior to its origi na l. Both Croce and Pira ndello speak 01' performance as translation , but for both this term is a pejorativc one. Pirandello remarks, "So many actors, so many lranslations, more or !ess faithful, more or less fortunate, but like any 1rans!a !iOI1, ollVays and neces­ sarily inferior to the origina l. " 10 The tra nslalio n analogy raises technical problems as well, since in fae t the written text is " transJated" into theatrical terms only in a very special sense. True, words are spokell instead of read , an important phenomenological shift, but they remain the same words . The original is in one sense changed, but in another it is literally embedded in its own presumed translation. T his brings us back to the paradox 01' organic unity in theatrical \Yorks. U na ble to accept the idea 01' one harmoniously unified work 01' art embedded within another, the illustration theorists, as we have seen, essentially denied this uni ty to performance, making it a largely su perfluous addition. T he opposile position, however, has also been ta ken- that organic unity is achieved on/y in performance, and that the text as written is incomp!ete. This might be called the theory 01' performance as fultl11me nt, and it also has attracted many adherents in the present century . A n early American ch a m­ pion o f this position was Brander Matthews, who wi th his students carried on nn extended debate wilh such Crocean theorists as J oe! Spingarn. In Engla nd theorist-directors Ashl ey D ukes and Harley Granville- Barker similarly ca lJed for un end to the idea 01' a completed wrilten text whose "rigid conceptio n" could nn!y stifle the essential creativity 01' other theatre artists. What m ade Sha kespeare great, they argued in direct opposition to critics like Lam b, was not that his plays were complete as written, but that they were incomple le in a particularly imaginative way. H e wrote " not to dictate, but to con tri bute: not lo im pose but to colla bo ra le." creating charactcTS an u sit ua lio ns whid l wou ld stimu late cre Iance" (2). Whil e it ma y be a relief to sorne that philosophers are now IWl lmlllers, it is striking to think that literary scholars have only recently recog­ 1I1 /,l!d I hl~ pcrrorllla l i \'e aspects of ri tuals and ceremon.ies, a oevelopmen I they I.SlglI lo lhl: new antidiscipline 01' performance stlld ies. Accoroing lo Parker IlI d S..:dgwick, then ter studies. "[r]eimagining itself over the course of the past dn: ad..: ;IS Ihe wider licld 1)1" pe rformance stlldies," has " moved well beyond 111,· d assicalolltology 0 1' the hla l:k box mooel to embrace a myriad of perfo rm­ IIl h'l pr;wliccs. ranging I"r\)m 'lla gc lO Ih ti va l anu every thing in between ~ (2).3 Pal hel all d Scdgw ick's rtlWl.!1 flll n:ad ing l)r Austill qlleers felicitous per­ 1\1 I1I I:t li\' iIV. lk ll10 1l ~ll'lIlillp ils ~'IIIl ~li lll ,ivc p l'..:dicH ti on on l he "cliol a ted " ­

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me1 11..1111\'11 t I II ~N IIIII,'. 1I" :IIIl " posi tioll (se\! 'Tllctlln: itl lhe hVClll y- Fi rsl ('c nlllly"). 3 In an carlier ¡¡rlicle, "Quccr P.:rfúrmal tv il Y," Scdgwick st lllllarly undcrtak cs 111 Icveragc Ihe perfornwlivc away from "Ihe nolion 01' ti ~rrO rl1l11n l'C in lh.: defini nl' instam:e Iheatrical" (2) and 10 devclop this sensc of pe rrormativily lhrouglr arca d ing of Henry James ':; Tlle ArIo/lIle Nove!. 4 Like the theater, " the perfor mative has thus been rrolll its inc.:ption alr.:adv infected with queemcss" (Parker and Sedgwick 5). inspiring a convenliolléll slrain of antitheatrical prejudice as well (see Barish). 5 Indeed , as Judith Butler suggests, Ihe citation of legal precedents appears (evclI more than dra matic theater) to ground lhe meaning 01' a particular act in a priOl' tex!. while it in fact determines Ihe force 01' that texl in the momenl of the judgc's performance, thc étct of citation: "it is lhrough the citation of the law lhal the figUl'¡; ofthejudge's ' \Viii' is produced and that the 'priorit)" oftext ual a uthori ty is estab Iished" (" Critically Q ueer" 17). 6 For useful recent overvi ew;; 01' Geertz, sec G. E. Ma rcus; Sewell. 7 Despite Conquergood's delicacy, jt has become commonplace to associate an opposi­ tion to wri ting both with the uses of performance by margina lized or domin ated groups (lnd with the practice of performance studies as an academic discipline. A ~ Conquergood rernarked in his opening address to the 1995 Performance Sludic:, COllference, "Performance studies is a bo rder discipline, an interdiscipline, lhal cultivates the capacity to rnuvc between structures. to forgc connections , to $e\.' together, to speak with instead ofsimply speaking a bout or for others. Performa nlA! privileges threshold-crossing, shapc-shifting, and boundary-violating figures , such a ~ shamans, tricksters, and jokers, who value the carnivalesque over the canonical , Ihe transformative over Ihe normative, t'he mobile over the monumental " ("Caravans" 137- 38). This scnse of the oppositionality of performance studies is certainly o ~n to question (see Auslander) - how useful is it to have trieksters as colleagues. (lnd what is it that their tactics are resisting?- as is the sensc that perform ance is always about a liberating, carnivalesq ue. or even socially progressive transgressiOIl Conquergood 's sense that performance's affiliations \Vith rhetoric locate perfonn­ ance studies as "the new frontier for stakingjoint c1aims to poelics and persuasi on . pleas ure and power, in the interests of community and critique, solidarilY and resistance" (" Ethnography , Rhetoric" 80) might be set alongside George E. Marcus's reading of Douglas Holmes's fieldwork among the European far right and 01' his sense of that group's exploitation 01' " illicit discou rse" (102- 03). On perform ance studies' "foundational" opposition to texts, see Worthen, " Disciplines" ; D()lart, Response; Roach , Res ponse; Schechner, Response; ZarriUi , Response; see rlisí> Roac h, "Economies," and Dolan. "G eogra phies." 8 I am adapting Gary Taylor's sense of editorial practice as a science of proximi lY here, the sense that an edited text asserts its authority by claiming to be "[p]roximall' to something we value," a value that is articulatcd by the form and content 0 1' t J¡~, edition itself ("Rena issance" 129), On editorial and performance theory, see Wort hl,; ll , Slwke,lpe{/re 1- 43 . 9 "Texts may obscure what performance tends to reveal: memory challe nges hi~t o ry in the construction ofcircum-Atlantic cultures, and it revises the yet ull\vritten cpic of their fabulous cocrcation" (Cifie,,· 286).

References Arla lld, Anlonin. "NI) More MlIS lcrril!l.:c~"· '11,(' T/¡M I¡',. tllld ';Irolinc R i \JhurJ .~ . Ncw Vnrk : Cll IIIS." Diamond . l'el/orl11WI Ce 89 107 . I'hclall, Pcggy . (lllll/ark('r!: '¡he {'o/ili('s (JI PCljimnunce. London: Ro utledge, 1993. Roac h, J (lsepl. 0 1ies o(lite Dt!ad: (.'il'CIII11- A Ilanl ic /'e/'/'or/'/1OI1(,(, . New York: C o lum bia U f>,1996. - . " tl:onomies of Abundance. " '}'/)R: The Dramu Reviell': The Journa/ o/Peljimn­ once SlUdi('s 39.4 ( 1995): 164- 65 . . "Kinship , Intelligence, and Me mory as Improvisation: Culture and Pe rform­ ance in New O rleans," D iamond . Per/ámwllce 217- 36 . . "M ard i G ras lndians an d Q thers: Ge nealogies of A meril:an Pe rformance." n ealre Jounza{ 44 ( 1992): 461 - 83. - . Response to W . B. Wo rthen ' s " Discipli nes o f th e T ext I Sites 01' Pcrfomlance ." TDR: Tite Drama Review: The Joumal oj' Pel:!'ormance SI I/dies 39. 1 (199 5): 35 - 36. Rouse , lohn. " Textualily and Authority in T heater and D rama: Some Contemporary Possibilities." Criliwl Thcory a/1(1 PerjímT/(I/1ce. Ed . lancllc G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach. A nn A rbor: U of Michigan P, 1992. 146- 57. Savigliano, M art a E. Ta/1 go oncllhe Po/ilieal EC(JIlOI11Y or Passion. Boulder: W est view, 1995. Schechner. Richard. " Collective R eflex.ivity: Res toratioo of Bch.a vior. " A Crack ill I/¡e Mirror: Rej/exire Penpeclil'es in AlllhrofJology. Ed. Jay R ub y. P hjladelph ia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982. 39 - 81 . - . "A N ew Paradigm for Theatre in the Academy. " TDR: The Drama Re l'iell': Tite Journal o/Performance Sludies 36.4 (1992): 7- 10. - - o Pel:!'orl11(//lce Tlteory. 1977. Rey. ed. New Y o rk : Routledge, 1988. - -oResponse to W. B. Wo rthen 's "Disciplines of th e Text I Sites of Pe rformance. " TDR: The Drama RevieH:: The Journal t!/ Pel/iml1once S ludie.l' 39.1 (1995 ): 36- 38. - . "T hea trc in the Twenty-F irst Century." TDR: Tite Drama Re vie\V: The Joumal o( Per(ormance SIL/die.\' 41.2 (1997): 5- 6. Schneider, Rebecca. Tite Explicil l3udy il! Pe¡/iml1(/l1ce. London: RoutJedge , 1997. Seogwick, Eve Kosofsky. " Q ueer Perfonnativity: H enry lames's TIr(' Arl o/Ihe Novel. " CLQ 1 (1993): 1- 16. SGwell, W illiam 11.. JI'. " Geertz. Cultunil Systems, and H istory: F rolTl Synchron)' to Transformati o ll," R epre.l'enlaliol1s 59 (1997): 35 - 55. Shakespeare , WiJliam. The River,l'ide SIU/kespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. 2nd ed. BoSlon: H Ollghton , 1997. Shillingshurg. Peter L. Scholarl.1' /:'diling in lit e Compuler Age. Athen s: U o f Georgia P,19Sú. Slrillc . Mar)' S. , Beverly Whilaker Long, and Mary Frances Hopkins. " Resca rch in Interprelation and Performance Studies: Trends, hsues, '''riorities.'' Sl'eech COI11­

III1I1IÍmliol1 : Ess(/)'.I' lo COl11l11er/'/(J/'{/le lite S el'enly-Fijilr Annivers((rv (JI' lite Speech. ( 'O{III11/II{iC(fliO/l AS.l'ocialiol1. EJ. Gerald M.l'hillips and Juli wlt ich wrilcl's ami artists devel op textu ally

in response M in II;;Ir,:lillll 1.. Iltcir (I WIl lime anu lhcir OWIl lIelu s.'

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Jl n th Ihc(' n.: til:a l il ltl:n::s t ill " wrili ll!!· itsell ,IS 11 ·"1"'1\ l ' 11:0 rla cin!! ;¡s ;¡ Jis tim.:livc Icalurc wi lhi n Il1 ()Jl! m i ~ 1 a vall l-ganh.: pradll"l', \ Ih e 1I1l': leasingly cross-Jisdplinary ami rragll1cl1 la ry co nJ irio n 01" I he ~lI l s: uno lh e pc rvus ivc ncss of the lerms o f "perfo m wnée" a s u means 01" rcad ing J i verse cult ural practices, ha ve proviJed a rich gro und for the cmergcnce 01' pcrformal1l:l' wrili ng as a pract ice ancl as a way o f fra ming pntctil.'C. The term perfO nn Ul1ét.: writing itsel f, w hile inevitab ly evol vi ng into ye t an other category Ih al relcrs to a11 increasingl y fixed body of work. is-al JeaSl no w-stiU un unSlablc (llld explo ratory te rm thal attempts 10 hold in tension both wri ting a nd ilS per­ forrn a nce, performance a nd its writing. lt is a trame throug h which a ra nge of wti ti ng a nJ performa nce praclices are bro ugh t inlo view- the texualities oJ sonic, visual , graphic an d movement pl:lrfo rmances; t he performance or SOllic, vi sual , graph ic and m ovement texls. As a frame performance writing al so provides a means fo r rethin king a no lInderstanding a range of arts and perfo rmance practices that have remaincú silent or mute in the face of more trad itional ways of looking ano read ing, Performance writing effectively both problematizes and widens the discou l"sc that surrounds the textuality of contemporary arts practice and a1Jows othe r­ wise marginal and peri pheral practices into the field ofperformance researc h . While the danger of any new disciplin e o r new means of framing wo rk is Ih:.1l the frame itseJftends to impose restrictive limits and conventions 00 practiccs that were otherwise unimpeded; the benefi t is its ability to map and link practices which are often unaware of each otner and the new directions am] initiatives which can emerge fro m such integration and framing. Performance writing is the contin uing and transforming rela tionship between the t wn telms 01' ils discourse, proposed both as boundary markers and as two terminal points in an open circuit across which the luminolls arc ofperformance wri!­ ings take formo T he origins 01' performance writing must be placed within the broad his­ torical context of writerly performance work within and across ma ny dis­ ciplines and media. But it also has a more localized history ano academ i¡; setting in reJation to Dartington, a specialist arts col1ege in Devon , England , where writing in rela lio n to music, to theatre, and to the visual a rts and performance, has in one way or another been a consistent am.l integral feéltu rc of its academic program since the mid- I 970s with links back to lhe fo unding 01' the present Dartington Estate in 1925.4 For example, '\vriting for perform­ ance" was an essential speci alism in the newly-established theatre degrce course (1976 onwards). It was not predicated primarily on ideas ofpla yw riting. o r the literary stlloy o f playscripts 01' dramatic texts, but on the con li n uing qllest ion (and questioning) o f the rela tionship of wriling 10 per foml,mcl.: wo rk. particu larl y (at lha l lime) on lhe uses 01' writ ing rOl" perfo nna ncc thul emphasized l he making 01' " p h ysical, non-narrali vc ano vi:m a l" l'xper imental theat re a no " Ilew dance" work, an ú its relalio ns ll) wilkr :-l1l.:lal a m! plllilil: cont\!xts.

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The 1!.Il1 dll ,t! lIL p;jI t un: pi \\ III" W (.I l h:a st in t~ n ns 01" ex.]1l' rilllcntal thca tre Wtl lk in lhe U.K. ) from lile Il IlJl ll:; pf playwl it ing ano Ihe fo rms orora m a ,I~s\ll,; ia lcd wilh wnw ntilmul thca ln: and lhcatrc spaccs d llrin g the I970s ami 1I)XOS, wa s n.:lkdcd in Ihe w nlinuing and unrcsolvab lc d ebate aroum.l which 1'1 l'I)()sit ioll or connective wo uld besl characte ri/:e the rela tio n between writ ing ;llId pe rforma ncc: writing for performance, which bega n lO s llggesl a sense 01' wriling in lhe service of performance, writing and performance, or wril ing as pcrl"omlancc. During the 1970s lhe theatre co urse at D artinglo n had looked baek ror II1spiraliun lO lhc writerl y models and examples of work a t Blac k M oun tai n ( 'tlllcgc in No rth Ca roli na. In 1952, the poet and then dean of Black M o un­ LIIIl Collcgc. C harles O lso n . wrote a course deseription en titled " The Act o f Wriling in lhe C ontexl 01' Post-M odcrn M an ," which incidenta Jly might nO l I1l1ly have conlained one 01' lhe earliest sustained usages of the lerm " p ost­ IlIodcrn:' but also provided a marker from which an idea o f perf0l111anCe \VI iling could emerge. Olson \\frote: The cngage ment of caeh c1ass ... is the search for a methodology by which each person in the dass, b y acts of writi ng and critique on others' acts of writing, may more and more fin u the k inetics of cxperience disclosed- the kinetics ofthemselves as perso ns a s well as 01' lhe stuff they have to work on , and by .5 Illere are (at least) two key ideas here: (i) "acts of writing" which cJearly places \VI iling as performative. as engaged in physica l process, which Ieads to (ii ) 1 " kinetics of expe riencc"-the literal " movement 01' material " or " perform­ .111\':

Beyond personage we encounter in the actor a corporea l identity linked lo race, class, or gender and con structed within the soci o- historica l d i scour.~~ of culture. This body 's exte rior consists of physica l reatures dee med s.ign ilk­ ant by custom and prcjudice. These features might indude skin color. sex , posture, accent, dialect, gait, or hand gestures - \\lhatcver featu res hist ory and contemporary configurations of society exploit for placing the persol1 in qucstion within a particular group. The interio r of tllis body is an ama lg~1 1I1 of ideological stereotypes and group narratives that establish the historit.:al and social identity of the group, definÍllg w hat va lues, talents and behav ior il has Jemonstrated and is capa ble of or expeded to perpetua te. The socio­ historical body bclongs to a group tha t has a particular history of oppression or privilege. Although separatc from personage and often at odds with it, thu socio-historical boJy is similar in that it is constructed from narrativcs th a need not be true as long as they are compelling. 17 The significan ce of the socio-historical body in thcatrical performance I.:U n, und er ideal conditions, be minimal. In a sma ll school ar comm unity prodllc tio n where parts are assigned solely on the basis of tal en l or availabili ly unl l the audicncc has no strong investment in particu la r graup identities, Lhe :-.kiJl color, accent. or gender of the actor may be unimportant. In m o st p ro les sional productions, however, even when progresúve, intercultural values a n' espoused. cross-gender or race-bl ind ca sti ng plays in some wa y upo n 111\: significance of socio-hi slorical boJ ies.l ~ In the hi story o f lhea ter the socío-hi storical bod y has orten pla yeJ W ! ~ prominen t roles. In the ease of bla ek-facc min st re lsy a nJ Ihe ~ lage Irisllln;1I1 Ihe $ocio-histori.:a l hoJy rc placcs . New York: Theatre Communicat,ions Group, 1992. Gr
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llc lill lJ , .al lhourh 111\; ¡'qlla ll \- \'llIp hn :,l/cd iJ ea l (~ r Ihe ador's sclf-reveJ lItion already hcl ics Ihis . )'.vell III~ lI:d lll'l i' lIl DI' lhea lre lo ils es:;en tial relationship 01' iI \.'I,)r lu spcd alo r dcn Hm sl ra t\:!s in thal vcry rclationship a matcri alization nr the struclure 01' I,)l)ns\.'iou:;nes::; Iha t must b e split. Irwc are lo draw awa y from G rolo wski' s as\.'eti\.' endave rha t post ulates an essential humanity inlo the much larger realm of social a nd historieal forces, Ihe uni fied self becomes e ven m ore un reasible, as Berlolt Breeht a rg ues wh en he says, "The wn ti n uity of the ego is a m y th. A man is an a tom tJla l perpetu­ ally brea ks up and form s anew. We have to show things as they are" (Brec ht 15). For Brechl it is n o t th e responsibili ty of the acto r to objecti fy what is human as se/fat a IJ . W ha t is o bjecti fi ed are lhe rel a tions helween human beings, made manifest in the gest us, O ne should nol even coneeive o f the gCStllS a s a unified or pure act, however. in that Bre\.'ht desi rcs as well th a t every ael contain the cond itions of possi bility for alternative ac tion . Wh a t 1 am p rimaril y interested in examining is a particular fo rm of object ification that takes pla\.'e in modern e xpe rimental theatre whose focu s is on the hocly .1 One ca n view the distinction betwee n, to bon 'ow te rms from R . D. Laing, the " di sembodied self" a nd the "embodied self. " Although the wntinuity of the ego may be a m yth , and consciousness rnay be split and its source unloca la b le , the body appears to be substantial. irreducible and sol id, so that the focus of any theat rieal search for its essentia l object locates itself there, Before J begin , I wo uld like to make some brief eommcnts on a ly pe o f theat re that sets itself in opposition to the phen omenological reduc tio n of (I\.'tor a s the central featu re oC lheat re, either as sign 01' boJy. " Total theat re" resists the ongoing rationaliza tio n oC theatre, that is, its inexorably reductive process ofself-reflection, in that it tries to mobil ize other forees outside ofits minimal generic boundaries: dance, music, visible spectadc, advanced tech­ nology. Y el what is still posited is a basi s in an essential and unquestio ned theatricality. Total theatre tries to cJaim hegemo ny over lhe other arts in that it puts to thcatrical use elements from the other arts. trying to draw oul the IhCQtrica / aspects of dance, music, vi sual art, et\.'. T h is is reflected in Nietzschc's deman d , a fter his break with Wagner. that "the theatre shaIJ not lord it over lhe other arts" (636) . Total theatre would maintain that the only synthesis can be a theatri\.'al ooe . Yet what it is resistin g is its own cssentializing red u\.'­ tion by expanding its horizons in a desire for a larger cultural unity, a unity lhat defies the compartmentalization of modern life . Brecht re\.'ogni zed in this proeess a reallack of seJf-reflection . the positing 01' a cul t ural unity that is the promotion of a bourgeois my th. His own work is ti meet ing place 01' d iverse a rts , yct it is not a synthesis. As he puts it: "So let liS in vile ,,11 lhe sislcr a rb or lhe drama, not in arder to create an ' illtegrated wo rk o f art' in w bi d1 IIH':y a 11 l) fler lhcl11selves up an d are lost , but so that logclhcr w ith Ih!: dr¡t ll lil Iht.:y II Ii1y 1'11 flIler the com m o lllask in differen t ways; a m i Ihl!ir rcla LÍ ll lIs wil lt IlIW .11111111\.' 1' c~Hls ist in this: lhat lhey Iead lO mulual

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,111\': 11 :111111 1 ¡'0 .1) !11":l ll l' \ ,11111 ill tlt il. is to nlalll l.I II I :1 11 11 l· Id kc liOIl \,1' lile dividl'd ,'lid ,lhclI;lh:d 11.. 1111 e 0 1 social .. tal cull ll Lrll>phc l c. 0/1 Ihe l'e/!omel1o fogy ol' T healre. .Berkele y: U nI' C aliforn ia P, 1985. Wil e:;. T imothy. The Thealre Evenl: Modo'/! Theor;e.l' oI Per{o/"l1U/l1ce. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.

IIrcc hl, Bertolt. Bree/u 011 Th eu lre. Trans. and ed, John Wil1clt. New York : ll i.¡¡ and Wa ng, 1964. ( 'raig, Gordon. Croig o/! Theolre. Ed, J. M ichael Wallon . London: Met huen , 19~3. I'nu':;lult, Michel. Lal'lg uage, Counler-Memory, Pru('lice, T ran s. D onald F. l3ollchard. Ilhaca , NY : Comell ur, 1977. I;fe lld, Sigmund. l11(' L:r;o {l/uflhe Id. T rans, loan Rivicre. New Y ork: W , W . No rton. I C)(¡O. ~ roto wsk i.

.ICr7.y. TOl!'ord.\' o POOl' Th('alr('. New York: Clarion, 1968. '1'.. eJ . TiJlaf1heo lre. New York: D utton, 1969. Kh.:i ~ l . Ildn rich von. ,,11/ Ahv.l'.I' /)('('fI E¡ /O//gh. Trans. and ed. Ph ilip B. Miller. Nc w YOI'k: Dull qn, 1982. I :IC,ln JilCqlll'S. En;I ,I'.' ;/ .~'( ' f('('lúl/I. Tm ns. Alan Shcri ÚlI n. Ncw York : W, W . N\lrt\~n . 1'177. I~.

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M~Vl" IIUld , VSCVOllld. M" I'I'f /¡JI/d .'11 I /' ,·, {II,·. Trans . ;llld l~d . blw:lrd Braun. Nc w

References

Kirby,

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32

ST RAT EGIC ABIL ITIES

N egotiating the disabled body in dance

Ann Cooper A lhl'ight Sourcc: ,'.Jir·/¡igal1 Qua/'rerly R el'ie ,r ~7( 2 ) ( 199X): 475 501.

throllgh Iny had.. , Sl lIlIl I l.1 1I k l'1 111l" a IH.J k'llce bcgillni ng lo Iwticc the s ITI a ll InnliOlls ~) f Ih ~ consl,lIlI C\ p:lI ISIIlII amI cllll lraction 01' m y b realhing. Th is mo men l is illtcrn lplcd by él n:wrdcu voice which Iclls the l11ythic story of anotha wo man ma ny ccn turics ago, whose p a rents ca rvcd the names of their cncmics onto her back . The lirst image j'ades into blackncss as my voice contjnuc~ :

Two ycars ago , whe n I was severely, albeit lemporarily, d isabled , th is secne from Ma xine Hong K in gston 's The Wnm an Warriot" kept reappearing in my Oreams. 1 see n oW that d isabili ty is like those kni ves that cut and marked her skin. Sometim es it lea ves p hysica l scars, bu t mostly it ma rks one 's psyche, preying upon one' s sense o f well-being with a deep recognition 01' l he frail ty o f life.

Th e dance's opcning image haunted me lo ng before 1 ever choreograp hctl t he piccc. Indeed, it was lhe power of th is image- its visual a nd physical d'l'cct on me- - that gave me the co ura ge b o th to crea te a performa nce aboul Ihe undoing 01' my life as r knew it and to stage it in the middle of a da nce concert. Through this proccss of perfonning the un perfol'm able, o f te\1 ing the lIlltold story, of staging the an tithesis of m y iden tity as a d ance professiona l, I bcgan to redai m Lhe expressive power of my body. What do yOll see? A back? A backless \ovheelchair'! A woma n? A nude" Do you see pain or pleasure? Are you in pain or pleasure? How do you see me'. M osl likely you don't see a dancer, rol' the cornbined discourses o f ideal ­ i/,eu I'ernininity and aesthetic virtuosity which serve to regulate theatrical da nc­ IIII! throughout rnuch of the W estern world refuse the very possibility of thi s npc lling moment. As a dancer, 1 a m a body on display. As a body on dis play, I (1 m cxpected to resid e within a certain continuum oftitness and bodil y con­ trol. not to mentio n sex uality amI beauty. But as a woman in a whcclcha ir. I aJlI neith er expectcd to be a dancer nor to posi tion m yself in front of a n a uJ iencc's gaze. In d o ing this performance, r con fronted a wholc hust 01' cnn trad ictions bolh wi thin myself and wi th in lhe audience . T he work was a cOllscious attempt lO both deconstruct the representationa l codes 01' dan l.:C prmJuction a nd com l1111nicate an "other" b odil y real ity. It was also onc o rthe hardest picccs J've ever performed. I tak e m y pla ce in total d arkness, carefull y situating myself in the hackle:;s whcdchair set center stage. Gradua lly a squarc trame o f li g ht comes up a rollnd me lo rl'vea l the glint 01' melal and the sonnes~ uf Ill y na keu fl esh. I lllll su /l for a '(lllll onl:e wro lc C'ynlhia Novack, S/¡({ring lh e Dance: ClJnlacl/mprovisalion amI AmeriNlI1 e l/l/tII'L' (M:ldison WI: lJniversit y 01' W iscon sín P ress , 1990), 186. For references to Judso n Dance T heater see Sa ll y Banes' work o n the era, espeeiall y Terpsic/¡ore in S neaker,l' all d lJI.'1II0{,/,({{Y 's Body : Jud.l'on Da/l.ce Theater /962 - /964. I \ ('lI rl Siddall, "Contact l mprovisation ," Easl Bay Review, September 1976, c! led in "IIII (,amble. "On Contact Impro visatíon," Tlle Painled Bride Quorlerly 4 (Ann /\r hor: U MI Research Press, 1983), No, 1 (Spring 1977), 36. 1,1 Sk V\: Pa"ton , "3 Oays," Conlacl Quarlerly 17, No. 1 (Winter 19(2), ]J, 1 ~ INri. 1 (J,

('ircus cxists uneasily in what Peter StaJlybrass and AlloD W hite refer to as a "displacemcnt between sil es of discourse " in the hierarchy of geographlcal places associated witb cultural production. ' Jt remains part 01' Stallybrass and White's designated low culture in a stratilication 01' values in which society rcjects marginalized communities, but desires their presence to reinforcc the parameters of social normality , Circus was the most popular form of enter­ tainment in Australia 2 fram European colonization in the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s. 3 It evoked an ideal of freedom within the context 01' a Ilcwly established colony which had rejected the old world. As Stallybrass and White explain wi th refere nce to Barbara Babcock's work, wbat is "social/y peripheral is so frequently symhofically central."4 The transitory nature of circus evoked a social fantasy 01' liberation from regulatory systems of order. The presentation of circus acts, however, was (lL"signed to maximize the impression of extraordinary feats. The trick could only be aecomplished within the circus. The tantalizing appeal of the circus pcrforlller depended on maintaining an illusion of unrestricted physical free­ dom in performance. J \Vould argue that the widespread fascina tion with the cirL"us performer as "other" for Australian audiences was analogous to that aCL"Orded to Stallybrass and White's "Iow-Other. '" The circus 's " lo\V-Other" could be symbolically venerated rather than social1y estccmed beca use the central experience 01' circus attendance involved viewing acts of physical c: ~ o

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34 DR AM ATURG Y OF

THE SP ECTATOR

Marco De Marin is Sourcc: Translatcd by Paul Dwycr, TDR: T/¡e .!ournal 100 114.

(ir l'er/órnwl1cc S ludies

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(1987):

An unlikely association I wish to reconsider here the problem ofreception in the theatre as broadly and with as little theoretica l bias as possible. On the one hand, 1 wil1 concen trate on l'csults drawn from the work oftheatre practitioners while considering. o n lhe other hand , the hypotheses and data coming out of the scientific research into this and l'elated matters. T his research ha s been going on in va riolls f1elds- often via a multidiscip linary approach ranging from sociology to experimental psychology, from anthropology to history and, of co urse, to scmiolics (see De Marinis 1982, chapler VII, 1983, 1984, 1985). Thel'e is an unlikely association of two tel'ms which we are not general1y lIsed to seeing as connecled: dramalurgy and speclalor. First, an important distinction in terminology: Drama tlll'gy- This may be defined as: th e set of tech n iq uesltheo ries governing the composition of t he lheatl'ical text. Theatrical tex t- This is no longer meant to indicate the dl'amatic, literary text but rather the text 01' the theatrical performance (Ieslo .ljJe//aco/(/re), the performance text. This is conceived of as a com­ plcx network of different types of signs, expressive mean s, ol' actions, coming back to the etymology o f the word " text" which implies the idea of lexture, of something woven together. "Dramalllrgy" can now be lldi ncd as: lhe techniques/theory governing the com po:i ílion ~l r Ih\! pCIII)f llIancé-a:H ex t (l es/o spellaco¡are) ; it is: lhe set of cchn iqul's/Ihcor il.:s ¡"'W I "" I!' I he ("() lllPll:,;itioll 01' signs/expressi ve means/ '1')

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Oramaturgy of the performance/dramaturgy of the spectator lll hc basÍ!) llfthis redefi nitio n, there c1early exists a drama turgy orthe director alld ti ura l1latLlrgy ofthe pcrformer. Howevers ur prisingly it may seem at fina, we also ca n an d should speak- not just metaphoric,llly--of a dram al urgy 01' lhe spcctator (see R uffm i 1985). Por a start, I wo uld suggesl that we can speak nI' lhis dra maturgy o f t he spectalor in two ways, both 01' which are a lready Jrammaticall y presen l in the do ub le mea ning (objecLi ve and subjective) 01' the r osscssive "01" ': l. Wc can speak of a dra ma turgy 01' the spCctator in a passive o ro more precisely, o~jec.:ti ve sen se in wbic h we conceive of the aud ience as a drama turgica l object, a ma rk or target for the actions/operations 01' lhe director, the performers, and , if there is one, the writer. 2. Wc can also speak of a dramaturgy of the speda to r in an active or sub­ jcctive sensc, refe rring to the various receptive operati ons/aetions tha t an a udience ca rries o ut: pcrception , in terpre tatio n, aesthetic a pprecia ti on. memo rization , em olive a nd inte llectual respon se. etc. (see De Marinis 19S3, 1984). These o perati o ns/actions of the audience's members are lO be considered trul y dramaturgical (no t just meta pho ricaJly) sin ce it is only thro ugh these acti o ns that the pcrfonn ance lext achieves its fullness, bccoming realized in a ll its semantic and communicativc potentia l. N;ltllrally, in order to speak o f an active dramaturgy of the spectator, we mll sl sce her/his understandin g of the performance not as some mechanica l ' II'lC ration which has been strict ly predetermined- by the perfo rma nce a nd its pll ld llcers- but rather as a task wh ic h the spectator carries o ut in condi lions IIr Icla tive indepcndence, or, as Fra nco Ru rfini has recently suggestcd. in con­ dlllOIlS uf "controlled creativc au tonomy" ( 1985:35). T he parti a l or rela tive ;lIlllll10my of eaeh of the ditTerent dram atuTgies (the director 's, the write r's, the pcrformer's, Ihe spectator's) all work toge ther in the compositio n of the pelformance a nd m ust be seen as mutually setting aad occasio nally adjusting each other's boundaries. In particular, as rega rds the spccta lo r, to d en y her/ hi s (rclative) autonom y or, co n versely, to con sider it tota lly beyond rcslrainl.s llIeans upsetting and threatening the balance between determina tian (con­ ~Iraint) a nd freeclom; t his di aJectic between th e constraints im posed by Ih!.: wo rk (the "aesl hetic text" ) and th e possibilitics left o pen to (hose whn rcccive I he wo rk sl ri kcs a bal a nce wh ich is the essencc o l"t he aesthetic experiom:e amI Ihe sO ll rcc 01" ils vi lalit y.

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c rror l1la l1cc~ al1 lll'lllUll' a vcry pnx:ise rct:dver and demand well­ defined lypC!i 01' "c()Illpdellcc" (ellcyd o pcd ic, idcological. etc.) ror thei r "corred" recopl io n. T his is moslly lh e case with cortain form ~ 01' gcnre-based theal re: p~)lilical theatrc, ¡;hildrcn 's Iheatre, women 's lheatre, gay theatrc, street thealre, llIusicals, dance Iheatre, mime, and so on . In these cases, of CQursc, the performance only "comes off" to the extent that the real audiencc eorresponds to the antieipalcd one, thus reacting to the performance in the desired \Vay. If, however, a dosed perfo rmance is pertonned fo r a spectator far removed from its Model Spectator, then things will turn out rather differently: imagine, for cxample, the behavio r 01' an ad ult at a child ren's performance; or the reacli on of a straitlaced wowser to a slightly risqlle variety number; or the unprogressivc male who fiods bi mself al a feminist performance, etc. Open performances a re at the other en d of the con tinuum. Open perform ­ ances ma ke a poin! of addressing themselves to a receiver \Vbo is neither too precise, nor too dearly defined il1 terms oftheir eneydopedic, intertextual , or ideological competence. 1n a suecessful1y open performance, the perception and interpretatiol1 for which the theatre produeers call1lpon the spectator are not rigidly preset. Rather, aside from unavoida ble textual constraints, tJ1e performa nce will leave the spectator more or less free, though still deciding the extent to which this freedom ought to be eontrolled- " where it needs to be eneouraged, where directed, and where it needs to be transformed iIltO ú'ee interpretive speclllation" (Eco 1979:58). The openness ofany given perform­ ance text might even be related to, and ifpossible measured by, the number of performanct: signs which are based 011 codes 110t shared by the spectator (RlIftini 1985:32). In this respect, the obvio LIS reference is to experimental theatre or "theatre of researeh " ÍJ] aH its various forms , from the historical avant-ga rde and on. A more interesting case, however, would be the example ofman y non-Western theatre trad itions where the normal practice is to leave plenty of interpretive freedom to the audience, and nol lo impose fixed readings . f orms such as dassicallndian theatre, kathakali, Balinese dance­ theatre, kabuki . amI even the 110h plays general1y demand varied level s of understanding and enjoyment; al1 of these readings are equally legitimate or rc1evant , though not always of equal importance or val ue . since they can all trade what is actually there, in the performance, in exchange for some sort 01' emotional or intellectual gain . O bviollSly, at this point, the category " opcn performances" becomes unw ieldy since il must incorpora te many di verse strategies for dealing with spectators and prcdctermining their understanding of the performance. Hence, we must make a dis li nction between t\Vo types of open performance. O n the Ol1e hand, Ihere are avant-garde or experimental performance texts whose "o pcnnes~" Ihl:ir highly ¡ndetermína te makeup and loose fixing of rcadi ng slrategics dlll.:s 1101 corrcspond lo any real ¡ncrease in the range and Iypc ur d csin.:d spcc luh ll . hu i whid . Icaus rathcr to a more or Iess drastic

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Ih us, aCLualizillg Ihc LéX I's sC l11 a nl ic lInd cÓl11 llwfl icaliw potcn tia l alsll .cq llircs a spcdalo. lo posscss a ra ngc of oncyd opcdjc. intertexlual amI idcological compclcncc whid l is :t ny lhing h uLstandard , 111 this sensc, as Eco has said , there is nOL hi ng more dl1seJ than an "o pen" work (un ' opera aperla ). J ames Joyce's Finncgal/s Wllk ,', which is one orthe most "open " texts in worklli tera tu re becallsc o rthe ~rca l mass al' work its cOllntless "blanks" ¡eave fo r the reader to fill in, als dra stically liOl its the num ber a nd type o f reader:; a bl c lo successrully join in it s selllantic and communicative actualization. On lhe other hand , we also fi nd performance texts and theatre for ms where this o pen ing up ofintcrpretive possibi lities d oes correspond to a real openness 01' rcccption: the openness leads to a real increase in the n um ber of " autho rizcd" spcctalors and in the types of rel:epti on alJowed fo r ami compatible wi th the pe rfo rm a nce lext. For cxamp1c, traditional l nd ian theatre al:cording lo the lh~oretil:al trcatll1ent of it in the N alyasaslra- was devi sed so t hat indiv idual alldiclKe ll1ell1bcrs cOllld find in it whatever interested them most, witho uL ahllsing or mislInderstanding the drama in the process (see Ghosh 1967). I bclievc it is precisely on this level that \Ve find the main difference between ex perimental or avant-garde theatre amI the ground now occlIpied by Ú¡C international New Theatre which , a few years ago , Eugeni o Barba slIggestcd Gl lling the "Third Theatre. " The theatre of the avant-garde, while staunt.:hly IIpposi ng lhe passive and standardized means ofconsumption fOlln d in main­ st rcalll thea lre, has often ended up prodllcing esoteric wo rk s reserved fo r a sch.:cl hand of "sllpercompetent" theatregoers. Ilowe ver, in Barba's "Thi rd Thca trc" the aim- though not always achieved- has been to crea te perform­ :l1Il:es which might allow a real plura1ity of rel:eption or viewings which a re l'qual lo one another. So far, 1 have sai d litrle regarding lhe al:tllal means·- the strategies and lt..' chniqucs -by which a performance builds into its textual strlll:ture and :1 111 icipates a certain type of reception. a c1ear1 y deteTmined attitllde which the spcctator may holh Ir:.l Il ,; I;II IOIII 111

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(.'l ufI) l1cc: La C asa Us hc r. - - 1983b, "M ontaggio, " In Alla lo/l/ill del T('alro, ediled by N, Savarese, 11 5 222, Florence: La C asa Ushc r. - - 1985, " El cue r po d il ata do," Pape r read at the inte mational congress of lhe Instituto del T eatro, Barcelona, 19- 25 March, Ba rthes, Roland 1964, "Littera t ure et signification. " In Essais Criliques , Paris: Seuil. Berlyne , Daniel E. 1960, Con(lic/, ArouS(l1 (I/UI Curiosily. N ew Y ork: McOra w- H ill. - - 1974, S/udies il1 NeHi Experimenlal Aeslhelics, New York : W iley & Son s, - - 1976, "L'estetica sperirnentale, " In Prospellil'e dellapsicologia, edited by p, C. Dodwell, 123 - 149. R utin: Borillghieri, Originally published in N ew Ho rizons in Psychology 2, N cw York: Pe nguin Boo ks, 1972, Berly ne, Daniel E., and Jo yee Oit kofsk y 1976. " E ffects of N ovelty and O d d ily on Visual Selective Attention, " Brilish Juum(/I (J/ Psyd/Ology 67, no, 2: 175, 180, Oe' Ma rinis , Ma l'eo 19SI. " Vers une pragrnatique de la cornmunication teatrale," Versus 30: 71- 86, - - 1982. Semio/ic{/ del lealro, Milan: Bornpiani, - - 1983, "Theatrical Cornprehension: A Socio-serniotic Approach," Theat er 15. no, 1 (Winter): 8- 15, - - 1984, "L'espcricnza dello spettatore: fondarnenti per una semiotica della ricczione leatrale, " I n Documenlidi lavoro. 13S- 139, Centro di Serniot iea e Linguistica di Urbino, - - 1985, "Toward a Cognitive Serniotie of Theatriea l Elllotions," Vers us 41: 5- 20, - 1986, " 11 corpo artilkiale: biologia e cultura nell'arte dell 'atore ," Pro/11eteo 4, no, 14: 48- 55, 1987, /1 NI/ovo Teatro ( 1947 1970). Milan: Bornpiani, F (A.), U mberto 1979, Lec/o,. in fahula, Milan: BOlllpiani, English ed ition , The Role of ,he Reader, Bloornington: Indiana U niversi ty P ress, 1979, G hos h, Manornohan, ed, and tTans, 1967 , The N a /yas{/s/ra, Cakutla: Manisha G ranthalaya, l rl! illlaS, Algirdas J" and .1, H , Courtes 1979, Semiolique: D iuionl1aire raiSOl1l1e de la tll('oric rlu lal/gage, Paris: Hachette, (iro towski, .Icrzy 1986, " 11 regista come spettatore di professione," Tea/m Festival 3: 2H 16, Moll;s , Abrahalll 1958, Thcorie de I'injimlU/lirJII el percepliol1 eSlhe/ilfu!', Pa.ris: I :Iallllll"rion, POPPl!, bnile 1979, "Anal yse scmiotique de I\;space spetawlaire," Unpublished m¡1I \lI~c ri pI. R 1I1'1il1i , F ranco 1985, "Tcsto/scel1a: dralllrnaturgia de llo spettacolo c dcllo spettalore." 1'('1'.1'1/.1' 41: 21 -40, Schechl1cr, Richard 1973, Emiroll/1lenlal Thealre, New Yor k: H awthorn Books, 1984, La leorias de ffll per/órnwl1ce, 1970 1983, R omt:: Ilul w ni. 1,)S6. Pt:rsonal cOfllm ul1icatiol1, 21 26 A ugust. S¡; llIw'"IJakL'rs , I ler,ry 1982, "1'he Tacit Majority in t he T h ealrc ," 111 Mlllliuwdi:-. plcasurc \.:an \.:\llIsidcrcd as lilllllclhing Iha l ca Ol Il H be mil dc tk (Ihjcí.·1 \11' ra li\ll1 al illll ll y~is I sll:d l I.y,

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a) Theatrical pleasure is no t a solitary pleasure, but is reftected 00 and re ver­ berates through otheTS; it spreads like a train of gunpowder or suddenly congeals. T hc spectator emits barely perceptible SigllS of pleasure as welJ as loud la lIghter and secre t tears - thei r contagioLlsness isnecessa.ry fo r every­ one's pleasurc. One does not go alone to the theatre .~ one is less happy when alooe . b) Theatrical pleasure is multiform; it is made up of all kinds of plea.­ sures, sometimes contradictory o nes. Il varies with the fo rms of theatrica lity. I t cannot be red uced to a univocal notion - tbe more so as, by nature, it is twofold: it is th e pleasure of an absence being summoned IIp (the narrati ve, the fiction, elsewhere); and it is the pleasure of contempl ating a stage real ity experienced as concrete activity in which the spectator takes pa rt. Sometimes there is an indissolllble link between these two kinds of pleasures: sometimes. according to the forms of representation, they are distinet, separate. W het her it is the pleasure of looking at a sealed-down reaJity or an emotional stim­ ulus, it oseillates between the experience of an absence and the play with a presence . e) Corollary: the pleasure ofthe audience is never pure, passive reception; it is related to an activity, a series of activities (wh ose complexity we ha ve already seen) in which, to a degree, it invests itself. d) The pleasure of the audience can be found in opaque signs (those which are resistant to meaning) as well as in those whose traospa rency refers to an obvious meaning and /or to an obvious referent.

Thc fable: a prcliminary In the beginn ing \Vas the fable. We should have to go baek too far if we tried to justify the pleasure oflistening to a story. lhe pleasure that any story-tellers as well as Racine, Shakespeare, or Genet givc their alldiences. Pleasure ofthe diachrony of nevcr-heard stories in whieh suspense is at the root of pleasure. Pleasure of the re petition of well-kno\V1l stories, similar to the pleasure experi­ enced by a c hi ld who, ro r the twentieth time , asks for a story that he knows by heart bui wht)se 1l1 0S1 m inute octails must be rcspected. T he very plcasurc M!la rra (ive is no more él sim ple p leasu re than tbe "simple I"ornt s" nI' Jil eralll lc II IC silllpk. Ihillllu tic narr(lUvcs invol ve " maki ng live rél1n!Sé lll ali~)Jl !'i nI' ICpUI k d iII !l lvcll led h a rre l1 in~s betwecn huma n beings a nd doi11 g so willl : 1 "H'W 111 I I! It' ll il if1l11cn l. " \ N nt h i ll ~ is said 01" [he r\:!asolls

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!" lr 111I'. ~nrc.:Il:l \lll m·lIl , W lly d u 11I c.:"~· " ('l·p l\l dll ~t HII I .. .,1 t hl'l' nJ lllllllllallil'i: 111 mell " givc pk"' "1 e 1':1 t hcr 1ha ll :-;\!~I II li kc Ihe lcdi llUS ,cpdi t jl l ll ~ 01' wlw t cx isls (amI wh ieh . by lile very I'a¡;t \11' ils cx¡sl cn n.~ . iti cnJowcd wi lh ti more cm incn t J ignil y )? Br.;ehl dücs IW I Id l U~, a nd we can ó nl y co njeclure aboul th e reasons rol' lh is p1casure specific lo Ihe narl'ati ve fo rm : to see. in sare ly, prescntcd lhrough si mple word s or nal imuges, what could prod uce anxiet y 0 1' uangc r­ ous dcsire is a kin lO "Fre ud iall " pleasure. In the story of"Tom T hwnb: ' all children ha ve lakcn delighl in lhe fearful a nd breath-taking possi bility 01' 4 being aba nooncd by th eir parcnls . At the other end of the chain, we can :)ce (and Brecht does not fa il to do so) in the " reprodllctions" of these easily managed . scaleu-down models. a safc and qllick way to observe the productive mcchan ism of h um an events.5 BU I this is going m uch further tha n the si mple pleasure o f story-te Uing. The pleasure 01' narrative is not specifical ly theatrical ; to read a fa ble. a short story, to hear a detec tive story on the radio, etc.. .. give lhe samc pleasure as t he d ram atic narrative. 11' one went through the li s1 al' pl ea:)ure~ contained in the thealTical performance, o ne would find a large num ber t ha( are not, properly speaking, theatrical , pertaining as they do to the fieli on and not to the stage: plt.:asure 01' the narrative, of 1he story-teller and of the story, pleasure of the miming as well, of the imitatíon 01' a human being a nd 01' an action - a plcasure that has already been theatriea lized , even with in the boundaries of daily life. Here we come close to this kinu 01' spontancous theatricality (of a socialnature, obviously) whieh is that 01' evcryday Iifc am.I 01' human relationships, mim ing anu relating dail y oecurrenccs; as we shall see , their pleasure tlows back in to the theatrical performance. The p1easure of human speech - its contagious charm can be experienced in " life. " on the politica) platform , on the radio. or cven on the telcph onc. Theatre is not necessa ry for this pleasure to be experienced and enjoyed. but on the other hand , isolating it from the theatrical representation does no perhaps make much sense sinee, tho ugh it exists c1sewhere , it is neverthel css pa rt of the representation . The sum of all these various pleasures that thea tre alone cnables us to experience toget her constitutes, in itsc1 f, a kind 01' speeificily.

Pleasurc oí' the sigo Thcatrical pleasurc. properly speaking, is the pleasure of the sign; it is the Illost semiotic of all pIca sures. What is a sign, if not what replaces an objcct rür someone under certain cin;umstances? Surrogate sign , a presonce whkh slands for an absence: the sign for a god, the spool 01' thread for the mother, the sta ge rol' an abscnl " rca lity." Theatre as sign or a gap- bei ng-fi llcd . 1I would 11 0t be going too t~lI' 10 say thal the ac1 of filli ng the gap is lh e vCly so urcc 01' thca t ricu l plcasu rc. Memory anJ utopia. desi rc anu reOlell1braru:c. cvcryl hing lhal SUllllIH')n:-. IIp :l n .lbsl!ncc is, in nH.: I. fcrl ile gro und 1'1.)1' lllca lr­ ic

cclalm k l\ \lw~. Hullhcalrc I S Ihe U I I o f in vl'n lio[] . l':vC Il lhe 111\)S\ t ta~li l i (l n a l ;l\:I(\f kn()ws lhal he must in vcut slgns Ihat wi ll crcate .pcricnce nft his cOlllbín a ti ll11 . . ji¡ pureo uniquc and cOl11 plclcly pcaceful. Such un cxrerícnce is cél llcu r(/ .\'(/ a mi ji ís "ot hing slr o rl nrhcalíl lldc." 11 T hll¡¡l rÍ(;¡¡ 1 plt!aslIIt: thus ddlJ1cd is Ihe Ill1 i' l l1 1· 1(1

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f" all al"l"cctivc cIC IllClJl s pItls thl dís tancillJ; we necd to éIl:h icve peacc. Perhaps I :1m c10se lO Illaki ng rni " e Ihe fin al ddinition 01' this ancient Jndian theorist. Even Brech l might subscribe lo it. But one must not rorget that lhe thea lre speda to r is sUITounded and pressed on by a sort of urgency, a.nd that this pleasure is coun tereu by its own ¡im its.

Limits It is not hard to contrast pleas ure with desire - desire as lack. I f the pleasure 01' the spectator is, as we have seen, the pleasure of a presence that cann ot be denied , 01' the being-there [1'élre-Ia] of bodies in a text to be ..ead a nd reread ; ir pleasure find s íts fulfilment as sensual pleasu re at the precise moment that the ever-increasing gap between the acting-out and the fictíon, between the hody and the character portrayed , disappears; ir pleasure lies, then, in the ability 01' the spcctator to relate to a prescnce, it is also blocked by taboos: lhe taboo against touching, even against seeíng at c10se quarters, the taboo against seeing (knowing) w¡th certainty. The Iimits of pleasure are to be found in the very existence of this no man 's land in which it travels between f¡ctíon and realíty . The object of desire is forever in flight ; it is and it is not: it constantly repeats to the one who desires it, " 1 am and 1 am not what I am. " I f there is a passion proper to theatrc, it resides in tlris uninterrupted fli ght. This ftight and this Illovement are of a dual nature; the object ftees from the eye and the touch 01' the Qne who desires it: not only the actor ftees from us, but all the beauly shimmering on the surface of the stage. Like water held in our cupped hands, it trickles away and evapora tes, unable to satisfy the demands we ma ke on it. But our demands also flee ; they CallJlot affix them­ sc\ves to what exists before uS. And the flight 01' our desire is no less frustrat­ ing than the Il ight 01' the object: the desire of the spectator travels from object to object, and if it stops and becomes fixed , the relationship between the spectator and the theatre at once disappears. To fix one's desire on a particu­ lar actor is to give up one's role as spectator, to negate the theatrical experi­ cnce. 12 The relationship between the specta tor's desi re and the stage is one 01' cndless wandcring but also one of permanent frustration. And it is not desire alone tha1 is frustrated; the totality ofthe stage space is the object ofdemands that ca nn ot be mct. The essential situ a tíon of the speclator is dissatisfaction, lIot onl y because he cannot possess the object of desire (and ir he did , he would possess something other than what he desired),ll but because his intel­ Jigence iLsclf is unable to bridge the gap. And at this point the semiologist, I"accd with what rcfuscs to yicld meaning. falls sílent.

Notes litis I.:xt is 1111: illiti;!1 \lc r ~ 11I1l .I {"', ·flll, ''' ' (P;lri s, II)XII

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2 Berloll Brel:hl , f·cril .\· sl/r le Iltétill'!!, tran~ . kan T ailkur, cl al., 11 (Pari s, 1')"1'» , 10 - 12. "It is in rael a dlaraCI~rislie 01' the resourl:C~ 01' lhe Ihealre lo lranslllil kn owlcugc anu impulses in lile fo ml of sensual pleasu rcs: LiJe intensit y 01' t he kn owledge and the impulses is uirectly rel a teu to Ihe in tensity o f the sensual pleas ul'e." See " A nmerkun ge n ZLI den S tLick cn unu AufTürllnge n: Z u Del' JloJineislcr von Lenz, " in S clrrificn ZUIYI Thcmcr 3. Gcsammefle Werk e, XVII (F rankfurt am M a.i n, 1967), 1240. 3 Berlolt Breeht, uA Shorl O rga nu m for the Thea tre," in Breehl 0/1 T/¡en{re. T" e

Developmenl (¿{an Aeslhelic. tra ns, a nu eu. Joh n W illett (Lo nuo n , ,1964), p. 180.

4 Cf. Bruno Bette lheim , The Uses ol Ellc/¡al1lmenl: Tire M ell/1ing lImllmpOrl({nce (JI

Fairy Tales ( New Yo rk , 1976). 5 Cf. Breeht: "The inexh a uslible goou hUl110llr ofthe ellnning Vl asso va ... inuueeu ha ppy laughter o n the workmen's benches. T hey seí7.eJ a viul y l h is ra re oppor­ tun í!y to observe everyuay happenings in sa fety, anu thus ha ve ¡he leisure to stuuy lhem anu prepare their ow n h ne o f eonduct" (" Briel' an uas Arbeitertheater Thealre Union in New Y o rk , das Stüek Die ¡\tUlle,. betreffend, " in S dlrijien zum Theater 3, 1(55). 6 " AII Paris , lik e Rodrigue, has eyes only for Chimene" A comment on the popula r­ ity of Pie rre Co rneiLle 's Le Cid, despite the op in ions of the eritics. See Nicolas Boilea u-Despréaux, Scllire IX (Paris, 1666), 1. 232. 7 The chilu moves the spool back and forth , lea rning in this wa y to m aster a presenee/absenee wh ieh m a kes the absence of the mo the r m ore bea rable. 8 See Sigrnllnd Fre ud. Essais de psyclumalvse appliquée , transo Marie Bonaparte a nu Éuouard M arty (Paris, 1933); O. Ma¡{noni , C/efs pour l'imaginaire: ou, /'aulre scene (Paris, 1969); élnu Anuré Oreen , Un CEil en lrop (Pa ri s, 1969). 9 See C harles Mauro n, P.\ychocrilique du genre comique (Pa ris, 1964), for his remark­ able an a lys is of Ihe fantasy o f triumph. 10 Mikhai l Ba khtin , Rahelais ami /ti.\ Wo rld, tran so Hclcne Iswolsk y (Cambriuge, Mass., 1968). 11 K . M. Varma , " La Base uu théatre c1assiquc inuien ," in Les Théalres d'A sie, comp. Jean Jacq llo t (Paris , 1961), pp. 32- 33. 12 For the man or woméln in love with an actor or act ress, the stagc beeomes the obstacle, él place wherc all uesires are unleasheu. 13 This can be seen in George Sanu's aumiT21ble sh ort story La Marquise, where the woman in lo ve with (he actor eollapses before th e reality of the man.

".1>{

36

T HE AU D I E NC E

Subjectivity, community and the etrucs of listening

Alice Rayner So un:c:

JO/JI'//{{( o!f)I'(/IHatic TI/ eor)' l/lid Crilicism

7(2) (1 993): J 24.

In Rosencranlz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Player King accosts the uncer­ tain duo "joyously," with the words, " an audience! Do n't move" (21 - 22). [n his monumenta l book on the audience. Herbert Bla u begins \Vith a quotation from Virginia Woolf. " No audience. No ech o, T hat's part ofone's death " (1). In his play, ortending lhe Audicnce, Peter Handke announces, " Yo u are the topie. . .. y ou are th e cen ter. You are thc occasion. Y ou are the reaSOTlS why" (21) . And in certain historical accounts, a ud iences are iden tified by d01l1inant cultural ideas by such statements as Tillyard 's: " orthodox doctrines of rebellion and of the monarch were shared by evcTy section of the community" (64, . I f these uses of the word are at all indicative of the range of how "audience" is convention ally understood , they suggest how an audience is projected as a fixed point (" Don 't move"), a dimensi on o fself-reftection ("No echo. That's part of one 's death"), a teleology (" th e reasons why") and an orthodoxy. In semiotic terms, thc audience is a sign for purpose (telos), a point of reception , an echo, an orthodoxy. One of the first problems in trying to understand the word " audiem:e" comcs with the assumption that it signifies a collcctive vcrsion of a single consciousness rather than just the desire for such unity. The word "audience" oftcn appears to function as an im age of unity created out of diversity, as a kind of e plurihlls unum: an aggregate 01' indi viduals that together constitute a largcr yet still singular individuality, as though " the" audience has a collect­ ivc co nsciousness that is analogo us to a uniflcd individual subject. Such an ass umpti Qn di~intcgrates rather quickJ y under the pressure of both hi storical a mi dec(mstruct ive qucstions. The sign obviously. perhaps neccssarily, conceals tlle di lTere nces th at l11a kc each ind ividu al member unique not only by various ..:Iassilic,tt ions of ra¡;c, n;i1iol1 , dass or gendcr, famili al, social, cducation a.l, Iill glli~tic ;Ind \,l xpc!'icnl ¡a l hi stories hut abo by lhc particular position (literally i ..¡\

1\ lJ 1> 11, N (' 11 ~/ s pI:( ' I " I ti It ... 111 ..

and figu ra lively where one sits) in lhe con fig uratíon u r an evcnt. Ncithcr ca n the wmd accou nt ror th e temporal aspeclS of history~ that audiences ch ange over time. fro m moment to moment, night to nigh t, epoch to epoch. !\nd even when the word does not refer to a gro up 0 1' ind ivid uals , b ut to either ano ther perso n or lo the dívided consciousness in which a sel l' is " audience" lO itself, similar di fferences are concealed o r ignored. T he sign "a udien ce," in other wo rds, does not ne~'Cssarily OI wholl y confo rm to the practice of "a udie nce. " In addition lO rhe uses 01' the sign , one may consider "a ud ience" as a \Vord tha l im plicitly loca tes the d ivision betwccn speak in g and hewi ng, a divisi on that applies as much to a supposedl y si ngular s ubject as lO a collecti ve o ne . As soon as I speak. lhe wo rds 1 have found (as soon as they a re won.ls) no longer belong to me, are origin all y repeated (Artaud desires a theateri n which repeti tion is impossiblc ... . ) I must first hear myself. In soliloquy as in dialogue, to spea k is to hear oneself. As soon as 1 am heard , as soon as J hear myself, the I who hea rs itsel!; who hea rs me, becomes the I who speaks and ta kes speech from the J who thinks that he speaks and is hea rd in his own name; ... (177) Th e ''1'' who speaks, in Derrida 's formulat ion, is already an audience to itself. an audience thal is comprised by division and differenee . Bu t understanding ofwhat is sa id or written or seen is also, in Ba rbara Herrnstein Smi th's view, radically eontingent upon time, context and inlerest (as opposed to merely " slIbjectivity" or the divisions ofsignifier and signified) (11). That is, the divi­ sion occllrs within a context no t only of history a nd circumstances but o f intentions. The individual hears with varying capacities, from varying posi­ tions, from di ffering interests, from one moment to lhe next. Sometimes r hear you from my position as a woman, sometimes as a professor, sometimes as a mother, sometimes as bOllrgeois. My hearing depends on detailed differ­ ences or similarities: have 1 read thc same books; have 1 heard this before; do I have an earache; do 1 see you or listen on the telephone; do 1 presume we are alike or different. 1 And sometimes an d in varying degrees , t can ch oose the mode of my conscious Iistening. From the pressure 01' such questions of differences a nd paIticlllarities, not lo mention intentionaJ ities, the very reaU ty ofan audience might seem to disintegrate. As a paradigm of community, moreover, the audiencc is a lready in the process of such d isintegrati on. W hether explained through the de­ constructi ve turn (Derrida) , the lo!:,'¡ c of la te capitalism. mu ltina ti onal eco­ nomy. and the postmodcm aesthetic (Jameson), the en d of master narratives (Lyolard ), the skepticism toward history by histori ogra phy (Whitc), lhe era 0 1' mech an i\:ttl rcp rod uction ( Oenja mi n). l he J isplaccl11cn I uf I he Re'JI (La\:an). powcr I,;om in g rrom belo w (l-'o\l\:a ll ll). 01' simply lh l' I\gc ni Aq uarius. lhe IlId iclICl' UIIlI cOllllTlun it y :m: di ~pcrsing. Ir lhen: is ;1 n i ~ b in 11I1liL'r\lil llding "'lO

1111 "~lIId i c llcc " il l11ay \Vell hl: IIlIly Il lI é 1I101~' iIlSI :U H':C ()I' Ihe cOll lcmporary crisis arising rmlll lhc ~ ritiqllc 01' n~I;lJ 1'1I11II1S, sc lf~ rctkxi v il y, Icl eo l()gy and idco­ Illgy , a criti que lllal :;cenls l() d iSlll a ntk l:ol11munities as it dismantles meta­ physics. For tlle taxonom y 01' dilTerences yields eventually to the radical partil:ularity and plurality of every individual and lhus disso lves the force 01' eOI11TTIunal or collective real ity ati well as of intentions. Excessive em phasis on individual differences suggests the impossibility of lIsing the lerm "audi­ cnce" in any meaningful way as an instance of a commun ity . W hile tbere are certainly modest uses ofthe word, "a udience," uses that seem to ma ke no assertions about an ontological sta tus, the word's status as a noun gives it aspects ol' a su bstanti ve lh at, as Wittgenstein pOÍJlted out, " makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it" (1). T o account fo\' what an audience " is," to ask for the point of reference, is a difficult if not suspect p rojecr, since the referent does not operate, as Wittgenstein wou ld have it. apart froTTI the uses of the termo If it is imposs ible to mak e an y assumptions abo ut the status of either cOl11munity or audience outside usage, however, we a re left with either a pessimistic view that community a mi audience do not exist and lh at there i:; therefore no reality for indi vidua ls in a gro up, no force in social acli on. o r the optimistic view that they can be endlessly created and reereated in an infinite play oflanguage games, as Lyotard describes it in The Posll11odern Gnu/ilion. The mystery of coherence, whose disintegration is either deplored 01' cele­ brated in postmodern politics and aesthetics, is a mystery of the eollective no un . T he focus or the collective noun upon the unified status of an aud ienec tends to obscure both diversity and Lem porality, suggesting an idea l conform­ ity between speaking and hearing, an ideal of simultaneity imagined by Heidegger." On the other hand, the deta iled specification of any single audi­ ence disintegrates the co llective idea to infinite particlIlarity. Ir Ihe alldience is accurately a eolJective noun, however, il is best undcrstood as a multiple subject. The questions about audience, 1 think , need to turn away from ontology what an audience or a community is- toward the listenin g func­ tion that would constitute the action of audienee. an action that has historicaJ and unconsciol\s con lexts as well as intcntions. F or it is that function, J might suggesl, lhat comprises a means for brid ging the deconstructed sign " audi­ ence" and ethil:al acts that produce social meanings in social encounters. The contradiction between the audience that is constructed linguistically, ideologically 01' ideally as a sign and the audience that actively Iisten s may be irreconcilable. But that contradiction may itself be productive insofar as it identi1ies the ditTerenees that comprise the social world . The very division helween speak ing anu hearing that Derrida has described aboye, that is , can he visible, he asks nol j usl that an audience refuse absm ptioll in to the representation or th at, like other modernists , the rnedi um be ma de appa rent, but that the a udicnce see the ruptures in iden tifi cation or fusion ofsubject with object. He asks that choices be made apparent. In the tbeatre, particularly with th e fu nd a menta l materiali ty ofthe visible and auditory, of bodies and speech. cxternality is the site for po litical nego tiations, which are less a matter of know ledge than 0 1' choice a nd judgement. As Lyotard puts it in J'he Po.\'lmodern Cundition:

Levinas is interested in pointing at the engagement that occurs beca use of the strangeness of extema Jit.y. 01' strangeness and diffe rence. and the attraction toward the "alterity 01' the O the r." The otherness of the O lher is not itsel f a datum fo r knowledge but a condition for interest and for dialogue . And thi s is furthermore the condition of social being as distinct from some idea 01" essential Being. In this formulation the desire of the subject ''1'' transforms into "curiosity" towa rd the "yo u." In each ofthe pronominal positions discussed aboye, audience is conceived as a form 01' address, in which the fo rm of a representation úetermines in par! the posi tion of the auúie nce. But to ¡eave the issue there presumes fhst thal there is no ovcrlap in position s- that an aud ience and its individual m emhcr~ are cit her in one posilion 01' anolher- ~ami :¡econd that the a ll d i en~c is hel p­ Icss in the fnce the re presen ta t io n that il has no aUlonomy alld no ~ h oicc anel is d o o lll cd (o 1he " idcology 01' Ihe acslhc lic ," in Ten')' hl~I\)ln n' s phrasc.

II 11I11h~ 1 pl ~K III I1~~ 1",111111' .1 111 11111\ .: I~ I> lill a "Ih ing " tllat il; uc tl:l'lninl:d by Ihl: spcu kcr/pl uywlI!'hl / ll\.:'tlP lI llcl Fve ll Brecht, Whl) claiml:d to ask the alldic llí.;c 1"\)r ; 1I1 c lhil:al dl s l i\ll~e I'n HlI Ih~ rcprl:sl:lltaiio ll . who wallted to give il Ihe a uto no my lo juu ~c , ilss llIm:d it was his task to "crea te" a ne w kind of alldiclll:e. This is what Ma rx ist critics have bccn saying for some time: that Ihe form an d hi:;tory 01' a particular ki nd of represcn tat ion not only assumes a kind 01" audience~...v ho can hea r-Ü goes a lo ng way toward instituting or determining who can hea r or see a given representati o nal fonn. A long wi lh [)sychoanalytic views, these critics have contrib uted lo und erstanding the ways in which the subject is constituted by language, ideology a mi otherness, by internalized self-di vision . by an inaceessible, unrecovera ble origin, by an always alrea dy existing system of language and cultural institutions. But the exclusive focus on the subject, an d by ex tension on the identity of aud iences in terms of "who" can hear or see, reiterates the prob1ems invol ved in assutn­ ing an audience is a " th ing" Wilh a specific set of identity criteria and dete rmin­ ate Iinguistic practice. Tn much of the analysis of the re\ationship be tween forms 01' representation and the subject is an implicit hypostasis of th e rela­ tionshi p : the subject is bound and delermined, in retters to fo nns. That is , it would seem that the subject is so fu ll y determined by its viewi ng, reading, or hearing of the forms of representation and the objects 01' its ga7.e, that only the liberation of forms will allow the Iiberation of the subject and subjectivity. This \Vould appear to lie behind the articulated efforts of both B recht and Artaud to change their audiences by changing the forms of represen ta tion and of Adorno to find in Beckett the means of breaking t he hold of bourgeois morality over art (194). Those efforts have been cruci a l in responding to the Enlightenment doctrines of "free will," independent of history, culture and form s 01' representation . While the analysis is crucial in understanding ho w representational forms do foster a specific constitution of a subject, Lhe distinction and separation of subject a nd the action 01' subjectivity ignores the possibili ty o f thÍllking alld acting in opposition to the fonns that would defin e and position the subject: as though a bourgeois could not be skeptical of bourgeoís theatre; as though él Marxist co uJd not get " absorbed" by Mo {her Courage; as though a particip­ ant in ritua lized theatre cea sed to thjnk and ask questíons of the ritual: as though a determinant form sol ved the indeterminacy ofindividuallives; or as though indeterminacy and multiplicity could negate the wish ror coherence and certitude. J do not mean to restate sorne intentionalist doctrinc 01' frec will ami absolutc autonomy of the individual but to ask after thc sourccs of opposition in the individual's capacity to oppose ami criticize even the forms, culture and historical momcnt in which it is implicated . In the gap belwec n 11

is IIIlJt.:r way. ;t l\ y 1~' il1 \1,IL-lllPll ,)1 >.11 11 Inllj!. will be in lt.: rru plCJ al in tcrvuls by mllre com mc rciub . 1' 1 Tltcrcrl1rt:, ~VCI1 ir the s lIllll l'J s lIb jCl:,1 posil ion is installed b y lhe spectatorial gaze, il is quick ly Ji slll an Llcd by lclevision's own plurality a nd in terruptive cirL~ulation 01' th~ t ~xls. S OI1lC cri tics such as Johu ElI is have charaetcrized tbe TV viewer's look not as a speetatorial gaze, b ut rather as a glance,40 a del in­ eation that has been used lo exploit the dcbascJ statu~ 01' women lo gender te1evision as a fem ini ne medium. Aceoruing to this arg ument. if the gaze is maseuline, the glanee must be feminine, and si ncc telcv ision generates only glances the viewer must be in a feminine sllbjecl positíon. This is the same sort of rigid binary eategorization that Mulvey and O 'Oo rman use .- an analysis that does not take in to account the variety of subject positi o ns avai.lable to the TV viewer, including Stam's audio-visua l master. Nor does it eonsider the ways in whieh the rapid dispersal 01' a tele­ visua l glance may be the radical alterity 01' the filmic gaze and its monolilhic spectator. In fact, the television viewing experience may rebound to the filmie sllbjeet as an effect of postmodernizing. Again. the movie Stay T uned, in incorporatiog television' :, rapi d disjune­ tion of texts, must open up for the fil mie spectator a huge array of televisual glances and viewing positions. And Bcverle H ouston even suggests that IJle inft uence 01' television on viewers has inca paeitated film io its ability to gen­ erate the illusion of privileged mastery.4 1

Tbe TV viewer and the retumed gazc In other words, the television viewing experience, Iikc theatre, tends to tear up the spectatorial gaze even while bein g traversed by it. Beeause the television megatext is Ilon-narrative, assembled out of a plurality oí" texts and rapid , interr uptive play, watching is an unstable , constantly ftuetuating act. The T V viewer. rather than settling into a passive , fi.lmjc voyeurism as sorne critics would have her. gains agency, ror she is actively performin g as brico1cur, assembling a readable text out of the array oC TV images anó thus has a perforlllative impact on what is viewcd. Intcrestin gly. though, what is viewed also has a performati"e impact on the TV viewer. for in accommodating television 's restless barrage of informa­ tion lhe viewer's look has to aceommodate a gap, the few seconds of blaek screen tekvision generates between texts . This interruptivc gap is similar to HOllston's 'gap ofdesire' - the repeated reopening te\evisioll makes in its ftow of images Y 1 l wOlllo posil fllrlher tha!. as in Sartre\ 'slight opening of a shutter',4 the eye's shu ttcr glim pscs wltal lhe ca mera's has dosed: an image of the TV viewt.!r rctll!dl!o b:u.:k I'mm IhL' scrccn. or lhe th ree media under diseussion , tclcv isinn is lhe nnl v \1m: Ihal bCl',IllSC or its inte rr upli ve fealure anu reflective SIII I'. . ,,;C ca n IItcl:lI ly \' .\ 11' 1111 .111 illnl!'C ufits yicwcr hack from the viewed. 1 1>1

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In wit lll!::>: > ing IJi;r llWIl rclh;cl ion slaring bUl,;k I he I V vlt:Wl.! r l.! , pC J' i úrH;C~ a rct urncd gazc si m ila r lo lhe n nc proj\.!ctcd by Ihe gllOSlly illla gc Lilcan lillds h overing in Ihe Ho lbein palnti ng , The Alllh(/,\',I'ác/or.l'. " he skull allll lIJ e ~ye in Laca n 's pictll re a re also 'fly[ing] in l he foregro un u' orl he TV viewc r's pid ure, where lhere is 'somet hin g symbolic of the fllDclio n of the lack >44 T he TV viewer llndergoes a d estabili zatio n of sllbjectivily, for wben the TV ' Iook$' back she (mis)recogn izes her o wn two dimension a l f~lce am ong t he images pattering aerass t he surface of its scrcen . Thi s evellt act uall y br ings M etz's fi lm ic min or slage up to Lacan 's thcory 01' lhe gaze, but cloes no t generate Metz's su bjecti fying, identification Wil h lhe per ­ spectivc o f a character. N o r does it gene rate the voyeu ristic posi tion , beca use the ret urned gaze, in look ing back, hghts up the TV vicwer in an expos u re th at d rives from the picture any impression of hidden viewing over rhe viewcd . The TV viewer's rellection , in being caugh l up in the space of telc visio n images, not only reverbera tes bac k o nto and alieuates her from the illusio n of whole selfhood, but also uncovers a postmodernizing ofher subjectivity. Il is as if Laca n's mi rror stage has shattercd into a million possibilities, for whcn shc (mis)recogn izcs herse lf as an im age in the television megatext, the TV viewcr's subjectivity is reconfigured at an intersection \Vith things of the mediafized world. The T V scl f is semiotized in the perfo rmative m odality of televi sion , at that space between viewer and viewed - the sereen . R ather than being secluded by the spcctatorial gaze outside of tbe spectacl e, the TV viewer experiences a strange feeling ofhyperreali ty as televisi o n begi ns 10 exert lts own form of age ncy. E ven as the bricoleu r assembles her lext, hcr subjectivity is bein g assemb led at the imagistic surface of the screen . This is why one can legitimately sal' that there is no spectator here and n o spectade : as Jean Baudrillard writes, 'al! beeomes ... immediate visibility' .45 Everythin g begins to act in the backlight of perform a nce. Small wonder that television is so often associated vvith the media culture and with postmodernism in general. But towa rds the end of the twentieth century the med ia culture ought lo be understood as a network ofvarious medi a wi l h looks and gazes opera ling in vast exchanges. Beca use viewership oecurs not in isolation with one p ar­ ticular medium but in el plura listie setting, a per rormative modality that takes into account many diJferenl sorts of intersections makes a bctter paradigm th a n the spectatorial m odel. O ne way to recognize this new eonfi g uration is in the destabilization ofthe spectatori a l gaze ami its related thcory. While appearing in all three media , the spectatorial gaze is also being ta ken apart in each , most c1ea rl y by lhc opacily of looking st ructu res a nd the visibili ty of th e returnc:d gaze. As p hen o menological theory suggests. simpl y wi lh the ad mitta nce 01' a returned ga7.e t he space betwcen viewcr and vicwed reverbc rah:s \Vil \¡ pc rrorma livc activily al1d with the arlicu la t.i on 01' media Ji scOUr'iéS .u:til1!' 11 11 i.:ach ~)thcr a nd 0 11 H world.

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¡¡ve ll Ih \.' pla ) 1111 illl ll'/il'l \1.. 11'1 ",1111 1.1' \)11 a lllll ll!', ¡íhl\ , Ihca l rc, ,1Ild Idcvision and lh..: sh rl:d dill l' \1 1 111 ~ il I!P lllh l; lIi\,;s . él vicwer I\ ot on ly walches in él variety 01' lnt:dia-vicw il1t' pOMIIOII~ hui a lso sees tIJe deconslruc ti o ns and alterities of media r er l'o rming eaclI olher. Sudl a Huid . eonstantly fluct u aül1g set of relat iom means lhal pl urality. d esla biliza tio n . and fragm entation beco me lhe sccnc ofwatching, ripping IIp the illusion that subjectivi ty can be constructed cithcr singly or in isolalion .

'Brazil Fado' No doubt this sort 01' deco nstruction has to occur in a theatre p iece thal makes an cffo rt lO pcrform the media cult ure . Fl a rdly had the spectato ri al paradigm becn devcloped in fil m ami begutl to shift into o ther m edi a tha n it \Yas bein g ripped up by pe rfo rmances lík e Brazil Fado. As r described ea rlier, this play calls upon its alldience to watch from the angles of a va riety of media as it combines the television megatex t with fi'ltnic camera techn iqlle in a theatre space. First, by continuing to use the tclevisi on fea tures that \Ye re particul a r to the lcleplay, Brazil Fado replicates the television watl:hing experiencc. T hc sil1lultaneous playing of the two discrete actions - the American homc ami the Brazilian TV studio - provides él constant barra ge of images a nd scenes as well as the television effect ol' intelTllption and displaeement. A s if infosurfing two TV programl1les or channels, the a ud ienee sees, in t he mode of the televisual glance , its eyes flickering restlessly between the two actions, making al Ieast two points-of-view continually available. The erfect on watching of this set-up shows that, in television and in the theatrc space performing it, looking is radically unstabl e, spectatorial alignment virtually il1lpossible. Sincc s he ca nnot watch the pl a y' :; 'television mcga tex t' as a whole or engage in a solitary process ofperceptual identiflcation , each viewer performs Brazil Fado as an effect of her own looking idiosyncrasics. Likc the TV viewer, she has the agency of él brieoleur, one who negotiates her way thro ugh the play by piecing together a texl of her OWIl out of glances at eithe r playing area. And , like the theatre viewer, as her glance shifts and disperses aeross the performance site, it continucs to fragment perspective into variable possibilit­ ies. This mea ns that subjectivity for thc play's viewer must also be as variable a s a bricolage , for the self, lik e Lyotard ' s subject. is being pcrfonned at the interseetion of multipJc subject positions which are forming , collapsing, and refo rming in the play all lhe ti me. Intereslingly. Ihe <Jclion of Ihe Brazilian TV studio by itself would have this cnecl Qn lhe vicwcr. hcca use it also pl ays televi:;ion. It replicates a megatext hy perfl'lrm ing 1I11 111C I C\lI S TV ' programmes' such as newscasts, videos, p ro­ mn lil'n.} 1'0 1' liS ~'1 1 1 p\lI¡¡ liilll ". anJ .:om l11t:rcials. In a way th a t reinforces the impn;ssiol1 pI' Id, YI'ilnl' \ Invin!'.. lcrry uses hc r Iransforlll atio na I slyle of "1'1

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:tl:ti ng .... hieh was CO Il S(;iOLI11111 1 ",,,Ii" ' 11Is su!(gcsls al! a ll c: ruali Vé vicw poilll as clI rly li S 1')7 5 ( Nllf/'/l l/ \'" "",./111 /11.1. I,/.'olug l·. p. 31:\). 26 T l:I'l:sa dc I .a ulc lh, 1 ~·"¡IIIf//"¡.; /I'" tll (;,·lId.. l': I:'.lsays 0/1 Th('()/y. Fil/ll. III/d FiNio/( (Blo Olllillg""¡ ; Il\diall :lpolis: IlItlian~1 U 1'. 1987), p. 2. Sec (lIso M aync , op. cit.. p. :l 6. 27 M chrnaz SacGd-Vafa. Ruins Wi¡flin : WOll1 en in Ih e Dil'eclol''s Omir, So ut he rn

ll linoi s U n iversity. C arbon d ale. IIlinois. 27 October 1993. 28 Sartre, o p. cit. , p. 242. 29 K athl ee n O 'Gorma n , ' "so that people would sta re:" Tbe Gaze and T he Glance in Beckett ' s N ol M odern [rmguoge S ludic.I', XXIII, No. 3 (1993), p. 34, 36. 30 Sallluel Becketl , N o l 1, in Co/leued S horler P lay s oj' Samllel Beckell (New Y o rk: Grove Press. 1984), p. 2 I 3- 23. 31 F reedlll an . op. cit., p . 68 . 32 Ibid. , p. 64, 71. 33 Marc Sil verste io. ' "Body P resence:" Cí xou s's P hen omenology of Thcater', T healre } ournal, XLI II (1991) , p. 508.

34 Merleau- Pont y, o p . cit. , p. 169.

35 Sarlre, op. cit., p. 241.

36 D eming, op. cit., p. 61. 37 R o bert Stalll , 'Television News an d Its Spectator' , R ega/'ding Tele l'ision: Critical Pfil'()(/ ches ( 1/1 Anlhology , eJ. E. Ann K aplan (Los An geles: A merican Film

r,

lnstitute. I 9~3). p. 24.

38 Ibid. , p. 24.

39 Television does have its own ways ofholding the viewe r. To bring lhe viewcr back lo a progra rnme, i.t instals mini-cliffhangers before eacb commercial break. A nd for its regular progra:mming, the repetition 01' character and se ttin g week a rter week causes the vi ewer to de velop emotional att achm ents . 40 John ElIis, Visihle FiC/;on.l': Cinema, Television, Video (London : Boston : R oulledge, 1(82), p.163 . 41 Beverle H ouston , ' Viewing Television: the M etapsychology of E ndless Co nsump­ tion ' , Quarlerl)' Re \'iewofFilm Sll/die.l, IX, No. 3 (1984), p. 193. 42 Ibid., p . 184. 43 Sartre, op. cit., p . 233, 44 Lacall , op. cit.. p. 89, 88. 00 CBS a stylized eyc (its logo) actually appears during this interruptive ga p. 45 Jean Baudrillard, 'The Ecstasy ofColllmunicatioll', The A nti-A eslhelic: Essays on PosllI1udem CullUre , ed. Hal F oster (Seattle: Bay Prc ss. 1983), p . 130. 46 Megan Terry. 'An Inlerview with Mega n Te n-y' , by Felieia Hardison Londré, S II/dies in Alllerican Drama, 1945-Pr!'senl, IV (1989), p. 178. 47 Sartre, op. cit. , p. 241.

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39 D RAM A IN A

D RA MAT IS ED SO CJE T Y

Raymond Williams Sourcc: Raymo nd Williams, J)ram a in (J Drmr/a/ised Sociely (Inaugllral 1,ect urc), Ca moridge: Camoridge Unive rsity Press, 1975 , pp . 1- 21.

The title ' P rofessor of Drama ' is new in Cambridge. but tbat is a fonnality. In several different ways, drama has been important in the Un iversity fo r at least four centuries. It was of the sixteenth century, with the coming of 'dassieal' studies, among them the reading and perform ance of G reek and especially Latin plays, lh at Professor Wickham wrote: 'Dons and Churchmen ... viewcd this mad career to new di scipli nes wi th ever-increasing alarm .' Sin ce th en, though very unevenl y, Cambridge has contributed, directly and indirectly, to the development of English Jrama , and especially, of course, in the last twenty years, when there has been a curious coexistence of an olJ Cambridge stock character called a Theatre Third and a steady supply of talented writers, directors and actors to professional drama , where iJ they last, like all prodigal sons, they return to feasting. Active Cambridge theatre is too often treated as a sport, in a common oscillation betwcen the stuffy and the stage­ struck, but plays and films still get steadily made , in a practice as specifie as that of a ny laboratory or workshop. Then, in the Faculty 01' English, for the last fifty years, there has been the Tragedy paper, and with it a steady f10w of scholarship and criticism which, though it remains perhaps the most prob­ lcmatic of studies, is in some fields impressive . I cannot rehearse al1 the memor­ able names but to present oneself in Cambridge as a Professor of Drama with out acknowledging, for example, the work of Professor Bradbrook on the English Renaissance drama and theatTe, or the work of M r Rylands espeeiaJl y with the Marlowe Society, would be simple solecism. The new title is lhcn a rormality but as such needs emphasis for one par­ ticlIlar rcaso": I llat iI is an oCwlsi o n to ack nowledge the initiative and gener­ osity or Miss J lldith Wi l:'i\lll wlt n. wan ling lo sCC H bridge between academic studics ami \':lIl1 111111r"I ,1 1 y I h l~lIlll.'. prcwklcd not on ly ror the annuallecture \0 ;

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which bcars hcr Il 111 cumc \VI!I'C IlIainl y qllanlitélli vc changcs. 1I is ill 01 11 1m Illl'lll lll v. 111 duct il;!, in radio an d in tclc visioll, that the a ud ienec ti)! drll lll;! 1111' !!,om: Ihlough a qualitalivc ch a ngc. I mean nol onl y Ihat Ball/c.I'llIjl PtliI'II /Á;1/ a lld Slugcc()()c/¡ have been secn by h undreds of millions 01' peoplc, in rnan y places and ayer a contin uing period. nor only that a play by Ibsen or O' Neill is now seen simullan cou sly by te n to twenty million people on television. This , though the figures are eno rmOLlS, is still an under­ standable extension . Jt means that for the first ti me a majority or th e pop ula­ tion has regular and constant aecess to d rama , beyond o ccasion or season . B ut what is feally new - so new 1 think that it is difficult to see its significan ce - is that it is not just a matter of audiences for particular pla ys. lt is th at drama. in quite new wa ys, is b uilt into the rhytbm s of everyday life. On tclevision alone it is normal for viewers - the substantial majority o f the pop ula tion - to see anything up to three hours 01' d rama , of co urse dra ma of several dirrerent kinds, a da y. And not jus t one day; almost every d ay. This is part of wh at 1 mean by a dramatiseu society. In earlier pcrious drama was important at a festival , in a season , 01' as a conscious journey to a theatre; from honouring [)jonysus or Christ to taking in a show. Wha t we now have is drama as habitual cxperience: more in a week, in many cases, than most human beings would previously have seen in a lifetime, C an thi s bemerely extension: a thing like eating more bee f muscle 01' wearing out more shirL'i than any ancestor could bave co nceived as a widespread huma n habit? It certainly doesn ' t look like a straight line extension. To watch simulated action , ol' several recurren t kinds, not j ust occasionally but regu­ larl y, ror longer than eating and ro r up to half as long as work or s1cep; this, in our kind of society. as majority behaviour. is indeed a ne\\' form and pres­ sure. It \Vould of course be easy to excise or exorcise this remarkable ract if we could agree, as sorne propose , that what rnill ions of people are so steadily watching is all or for the most part rubbish . That would be no exorcism: ir it were true it would m a ke the faet even more extraordinary. And it is in a ny case not true. Onl y dead cultures have scales that are reliable. There are discernible, important and varying proportions of signiflcant and trivial work , but ror all that, today, you can find kitsch in a national theatre and a n intensely original pla y in a poliee series. The critical diseril1linations are at once im­ portant and unassumable in advanec. Bu t in one perspective they pale before the gcnerality of the habit itself. What is it, we have to ask, in us and in our contcmporaries, that draws liS repeatedly to these hundreds and thoLlsands of sil1lulated actions; these plays, these representations, these dramatisations? lt oepends where you ask that question from. I ask it from watchin g and frol1l contributing to the extraordinary process itself. B ut I can hea r - who can nol7 - SOI11C familiar voices: the grave merchants wh o se apprentices and sh opboys sl ippcu away lO Bu nkside: the heads of households whose wives, a nd the hc¡¡ds 01' l'ull cpcs whmic sl uocnts. aumittcd to rcad E nglish. would read novcl s ami COl1ll'd llS 111 I lrL 1l1l1t ll ing . Thcsc sobe r me n would know what to

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aho lll C,)nl.:m p()I¡u y Calt ro rnlu, whnl.: YUUl:.1I1 wu tl: h your lirst tntlV ic at si x-t hirty ill Ihe morn ing and ir yOll rcally lry ca n $CC Sl'VC Il í,l r eight more be fore yo u wat¡;h the la le movie in lhe next recu trcnl small hours. Fidion ; acting; id le drcami ng and vicari o us spectade; the sim ulta neous satisfac­ tion 01' sloth a mi appetite; distradion from di straction by distraetion . (t is él heavy , e ven a gross catalogue o f our errors, but now millions of people a re sending the cata logue back, unopened. Ti lllhe eyes tire, milli ons o f liS watch the shadows of shadows an d find t hem substance; watc h scenes, situations, actions, exchanges, crises. Thc slice of life, once a projed o f natu ral ist dra ma, is now a vo lunta ry, habitual , in termll rhyt hm; the f10w of acti on and act in g, 01' reprcsentation and performance, raised to a n ew convention. that 0 1' a basic necd . We cannot kno w what would have happened ir th ere had becn, for ex­ ample . outside b roadcasti ng facilities at the Globe. In some measure , at least, we must retain the hypothesis of simple extension of access. Yet 1would argue that what has happened is much more than this. There are indeed disco ver· able factors of a probably causal kind . We are all used to saying - and it stiJI means something - that we live in a society which is at once more mobile a nd more complex, and therefore, in some crucial respeets, relatively more un know­ able, rclatively more opaq ue than most societies of the past, and yet which is also more insistently pressing, penetrating amI even determining. W hat we try to rcsolve rrom the opaque and the unknowable, in on e mode by statistics whi¡;h give us summaries amI breakdowns, moderatcly accurate summaries and even mOre accurate breakdowns, of how we Iive and what we t hin k - is o rrcred to be resolved in another mode by one kind of dramatisation. Miner ami powe r worker, minister and general , burglu r and terrorist , schizophrenic and genius; a back-to-back home and a country housc; metropolitan apart­ Illent and subu rban villa; bed-sitter and hill-farm: il11ages, types, representa­ lians: a rc\ationship beginning, a marriage breaking down; a crisis of illness Dr 1110ncy or disloca tion or distllrbance . It is not only that all these ar!! J'c presented. It is that much drama now sees its function in this ex perimental. invcstigative wa y; fi nding a subject, a setting, a situation; and with some l~lllphasis on no vel ty, o n bringing some of that kind of life into drama . 01' COllrse all societies have had their dark and unkn owable a reas, sorne 01' them by agreement, some by defaul1. But the clea r public o rder of much trauitional drama has not , for many generations, been real1y a vailable lo LIS. It was fo r this reason that the great na turalist dramatists, fr01l1 Ibsen , left lhe palaces. the rorums amI the strects o fea rlier actions. They created , aboye all , roOI11S ; encloscd rooms on enclosed stages; room s in which lile was cen trcd hut inside which people waited 1'01' the kn ock on lhe d oor, the \c lter or tho Illcssagc, the sho ut I'rOI11 the strce!. to know what would happen to thcl11 ; whal w() uld come lO inlcl'scct and lO J ecid.: Ihcir ow n su ll in lcll sc unu immcuia lc livl.:s. Thcn: isu d¡red cult u l'lil l:onlinu il y, it SCCIllS lo me, lmm tI Hl~C 1!00:luscd rOllllls, cm:luscd and li¡,t hlcd flll lllcd rnOI11S, t ~) lile W"l1lfl 111 which we waldl

lile I'rallu.:d illl " l '.~· , tll Idl \1.111 11 ,d 1I "llll' in Ollr 0\\-11 li vl.:s, hui nl;edin~ lf walcll wllat i:-¡ hal'l ".! III I1¡t ,p. Wl' ~:ly. ' (Iu l tlll~ I'l; ' : not out there in eL particular slred 01' a lipcdlú: \"\ lIt1llll lllit y hui in u cl,1 mplcx an u o therwise unrocussed and IIllrocu~sa b l c natiutl al a nd intcrn at iona l li te , where our arca 01' concern a nd apparent concc rn is un precedentedl y wide, and where what happens on anolher contincn t can work through to our own lives in a matter of days and wecks ­ in the worst imagc, in hours a no minutes. Ye t ou r lives a re sl ill here , sti11 substantially here , with lhe people we know, in our own rooms, in lhe similar rooms of o ur friends and neighbours, and they too are watching: not only rol' public evcn ts, 01' for distraetion , but fro m a need for images. for repres­ cntations, of what liv ing is now like, for this kind of person and IhaC in this situation an d p lace ami that. It is perhaps the ful1 development of wha t Wordsworth saw at an early stage, when the crowd in the street (lhe new kind of urban crowd , who are physical1y very close b ut still absolute stra ngers) had lost any common and settled idea of ma n and so needed representations - the images on hoard ings, the new kinds of sign - to simulate if not affirm a human identity: what life is and looks like beyond this intense and anxi ous but also this pushed amI jostled private world 01' the head. That is one wa y ofputting it; the new need, the new exposure l he need and exposure in the same movement - to a Aow of images, of constant rep res­ entations, as distinct from less comp lex and less mobi le cultures in whieh a rcpresentation 01' meaning, a spectade 01' orde r, is clearly, solidly, rigidly present, at certain fixed points, and is then more actively a ffi rmed on a speeia l occasion , a high day or a festival , the da y o f the play or Ihe procession . But there is never only need ano ex posure: eaeh is both mad e and used. In the simplest sense our society has been dramatised by the indusion of constant dramatic representation as a daily habit and need. But the rea l process is more active than tha1. Drama is a special k ind of use of quite general processes of presentation, representation, signification. The raised place 01' power - the eminence of the ro yal platform was built hi storically before the raised place ofthe stage. The presentation of power, in hierarchical groupings , in the moving emphases of procession , p receded the now comparable modes 01' a reprcsentetl dramatic state. Gods were made prcsent 01' made accessible by precise movements , precise words, in a kno wn conventional formo Drama is now so often associ­ ated with what are called myth and ritual that the general point is easily matle. But the relation can not be reduced to the usualloose association. Drama is a precise separation of certain common modes for new and specific ends. It is neither ritual which disdoses tbe G od , nor myth which requires and sustains repctition. h is specific , active, interactive c01l1position : an action not an act; . Ir lhe rclaLionsh ip between li tera t ure :1111.1 ~(lei l.!ly 1I, 1 ~ ' "1 11 111 1(1 " Cll lt ur;¡\ sllldics fa scinalion hctwccn lext and

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li nt1 llalli l\: ur dra l1l,1 in Ihe a~ad ~'lIly Ic:-siluatcs óJlIO is rc-s itll illcd hy sUI.h rnc thodol llgical qucsl ions. Whell MCl.,lghan Mo rris asks wou ld- bc cu ltu ral lhc(}rists to move beyond "[a] lilerary read.ing 01' él shop­ pi ng ma ll th al tl oes not seriollsly cngage wit h q uestions thal arise in history. soLio logy and cconomlcs" (q td. in G rossberg 14), her argllment aligh b 0 11 sim ilar in crtias that have produced blind spots arollnd modero dram a. lndeed , IIlclhodological q uestions abollt the role of " text -bascd" critidsm in éultural studies rest upon concerns tha l have plagued tbe st uc\y of d rama wit bin and withOut Iitcrary stlldies since thc l uro 0 1' the century , even befo re F ranci s Fergusson's litera ry wari ness prompted him LO conlact those " studenls 0 1' cul ture" in Ca m bridge anlh ropology. Thc ambivalent status of d rama migbt well be continuoWi with. lO cile DoroLhy Hale, a lin gering social formalism in progressive literary and cul­ tural studies. Hale investigates the "sli ppery ma terial ism tha! creales a bridge [ ... ] between Marxist literary criticism and Anglo-American literary form­ alism" (13). Read ing Ihis sli pperiness next to contemporary scholarsh ip in cultural studies. she cites examples of literary scholars such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Ba rbara Joh nson, and Henry Louis G ates, Jr. , \Vho use novels as the basis ror wider cultural theory . IIale mai ntai ns lhat such work is ultim­ ately fo rmalist, derived from traditional new critica] 1iterary paradigms ano 11 I 1: IU ' N ( , I

forrm \Ve n: hcavily marked with elhnic associatiolls, and the g{wernmcn t wan ted to play down et hnic enm ities while celebra ting the nation as a wholc.) The narrati ve possibi lities 01' ballet lllay have bee n one factor in its adoption, as the leaders sought the crea tion of art that woukl rcinforce the tencls 01' the rcvolution an d appeal to the masses. F urthermore, it offered visi o ns 01' action and stren gth , th rough a combination of C hinese ac.robatic tradition s (also found in lhe opera) witb the leaps and turns 01' the ballet vocabulary. Slrauss notes that "h ighly extended p ostures such as attitudes an d arabesques and
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TUrIlt:r optimistically wrote in 191)2. "T hc c thnollfu ph ics, Iiteratu res, ritual. and lheatrical traditions 01' the world now lie open to ll~ as the hasis for a new transcultural com municat ivc syn thesis through pe rfo rmance " (18). But whether theorized as the lack 01' a wo rldwide c(ll'I1l'11unitas or the degradation 01' the eommunal ego by industrial and postindustrial socielY , the failure to effcctiveJy app ro pr iate those forms has been attributed to a radical difference bctween primitive and modern "man. " Ho wever , performati ve t heatricality a s it operates within secular, urba n West A frican idiom s- wbjch respond to many of the same imperatives that influence "western " genres- is not so easily ascrihed to exotic forms of ritua.l ized hehavior. It TIlay be the o ne road to activating this performati ve thcatricality is not a matLer o f adapting --non ­ western" fo rms 01' performance to western theatrical m od es but of examining the non-alienable effects the urban W est African audience exerts on even recogn izably western forms and genres . Directing attcntion to the idioms In which African audiences popularly pa rticipate rather than to the forms , genres, or individual works of art tl1 at lend themselves to textual an a lysis and interpretation is not here intended to yield a more corred reprcsentation 01' Arrican culture; rather it is mea nt to suggest to the present audience somc ways non-pa rticipation in western metaphysics has been historically and is still articulatcd . West African "Con­ cert Party." a popular idiom that comhines drama , music, poetry , and dance, p.rovides such an examplc, and my oriel' discussion of it will not attempt to define the genro or interpret the content 01' the ind ivid ual narratives , but will focus on how mini mal textualization cncourages increased audience participa­ tion and, at the same time, resists overt forms 01' oppression as well as more subtle forms of cultural objeetification. Here performance opera tes not in the mode 01' tho Royal Shakespeare Company to embody and transmit c ultural capital, 01' cven didactically in the mode 01' the San Francisco M ime Troupe , El Teatro Campesino, or the Brcad and Puppet TheateT to initiate social action , but as social aetion itself, in which the audi ence and performer par­ ticipate in a process of affirmation 01' their own and each other's significanee over that of the ohject.

"K/coko(u)vito concert party"

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Mw,I \: Rc~ct lll."h Pllrl y ," 1I va l'il!s from \!Ounlry lo co ulI lry. froITI ethnic group 111 ci hllil' gl\l llp, fro lll IrCl UpC lo Imupe, frolll perfo rmance lo perfo rmance, :llId is \.!onl> lall lly cha nging. Whether its origins are indigen o us, Ell ropean, or a l;o l1lbillalion 01' the two, is contested .1 It also varies in regard lo degree of luX luali¡,alion, both in terms of how it is performed-scripted or improvisa­ lioll aL ill runs or in one-night stands. at permanent or mobile venues- a nd in IcrlllS 01' how it is received- reviewed. transcribed, published , recorded , and slIbjcc led to scholarly analysis. While the foml is highly developed in Nigeria­ alld , lo a Icsser extent, in Ghana- where it is the basis 01' a burgeoning tele­ visioll a nd film industry , the fOCllS 01' this paper is on concert party in Togo, whc n: il is probably the most nebulous: only one troupe was opera tive between 1984 19l'6. and it was, as discussed below, highly non-textllal. x Ui vi!n my critical concerns , my immediate problem is how LO describe T ngulcse concert party to my present, "imaginary" audience-one, wh om 1 imag ine, will be unfamiliar wi th the topie and expect a more or less "objeetive" dcst,;ription- wi thou t retroaetively text ualizing the thirty or so perfo rm­ illlces I partieipated in into a "genre, " susceptible to the kind of objeetifieation I :ll\1 arguing the idiom resists. Short of taking my audienee along to a few pcrl"ormances, however, l cannot entirely avoid this consequence so instead will compromise by presenting a description that 1 ho pe will reinscribe the problematies ofaudienciality. It is a description ofthe first two performances I a!tended, prepared for a speeific, unimaginary audience. It was written to Illy two children, then ages six and ten, who had already been to Togo for a six-week visit.

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Dear Dears, We had a busy weekend. Friday night and Saturday night we went to see something called a concert party. \t's like a play with music. \t's done by a group ofmen who put on the plays at a different place cach night on the weekends. The name ofthe leader- and his group­ is Cocovito. They always perform in Ewe amI Mina. On Friday Saul and l \Vent by ourselves and though we didn't understand what they were saying, we had a good time . \t was at a bar on the road from our house to town. I t \Vas in an open courtyard . By Ihe time we got there at 10:30 it was ful1 of people. We had to sit in the back and eould hardly see where the band was pl aying- there was no stage. People kept coming and by the time the aetors came out, the place was {Jacked, with people standing at the back. T hey began with short "bits" like comie monologs- before the play s(arted. One guy eame out \Vith a wig a nd messy clothes and did a sal ire 01' regga~i t was reall y fu nny . TIc san g a Bob M arley song­ in Engli, amI h ll ma ns. Toe gestllres and movemunt :-; \Ir Od/s.lí. evok ing Ihe

temple icollography rrolll wh ich lhe uall lle draws il s IIlspll a lioll , a n: slyliLcu on thc assumptio ll, pcrh aps, lllal god s use spacl' di rJi!n!ll ll y Ihan hUlllans. Ir lIsing more space signals rreedo ll1 , lhcn Indian me ll. womcn, anu Il indu gods and goddesses can all be seen ~ o p pressed since they all use less space than Western uancers. T he idcologies of subordination made visible in Odissi use of space are not exclusive to women, since men, women and gods are all oppre~sed by the cod ified language 01' the dance. J\ critique of an oppression that is expressed t hro ugh the use of space in a da nce can only be articulated after one addresses the mo re generalized form of oppression that lies in lh e ass umplion of oon-identity the tOrtUOllS self­ effacement and sublimatioll- that c1assical Indian actors a nd aclresses are forced to rehearse in the training pcriod. A Marxist cd tique can decon struct this religious transcendentalismjust as well as, and perh aps a little better than. a materialist feminist critiq ue . Both discourses might read it as the pO\verful after effects of ideological mystification, of false consciousness- which, in fact. it is. Yet what is called mystification is not so easily iden tifiable, which is why Panigrahi and Pelletier cannot comm uojcate beyond the point of saying, "No, it is different," or " No , it is the same." Also , t he d isco urses of self­ effaccment and sublimation in which Pan igrahi is inscribed an d wh ich she exprcsscs in the dance, extend beyond the realm of representatioll and find reinforcement and legitimation in the social , personal and pol itical strllctures al' Hindu life . Renowned Jndian psychoJogist Sudhir Kakar has pointed out that the H indu sense of identity is formulated more relationally than individualistic­ ally, and that the eoncepts of self-effacement and sublima tion are reiterated in the social structures orthe extended Hindu famiJy .1 1 Ka ka r tell s us that Lhe father 01' the extended family systelll is not the only patria reh as he is himscJf subservient to his grandfather, or uncle, or other elders. T hjs fa mily arrangc­ ment postpones the Oedipal unification as the male child Icaros to passivel y await his accession to patriarchal power, an OedipalllnificatiQn wh ich might never be in his life span. This long wait, Kak a r suggests, thwarts the develop­ ment of the individual ego, prevents the aggressiveness al' Western Oedipal unification and the formation of the superego . Individualism is thus not at the heart 01' H indu Indian identi ty , and neither is extreme antagonism between men and women. Indian dance expresses this decenteredness, this blurring 01' sclf/other distinctions in the "transccndcnt third "- also called p aramall1w, or God , or " it "- which is substitutcd for the bipolar duality. A Western/lndian ICminist critique must attempt to undcrstand the complexity oí' this Ill yt h ic slIostitlllion rcinforced in the discourses that articulate the meani ng 01' Odi.l.l'i dance. The world view cmbodied in the dance is expressed not only in huw spa ct! is 11111 11 iplllated and uscd, but also in the use of appropriute jcwdry UIlU 1'(Is I UI1 IC'l IlIa t l il e IIIlJ ian cla s~ ical da ncer ad opts . No dou bt, it ca n sli ll bi: nilu':JlII:d IIN 11 hIrm o!' o pprc~sio n , bU I it is a form signi fican tly diITcn.: n! !'rull l W,'~ l l' l ll p;¡lna ldla J ( ) rpn.:ss i~m h~au~c 0 1'

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Panigrahi: In the female role we also use a lot of space. What do you mean by space? ln the female roles we did , you didn 't see us using the space? Pellcticr: AII I said was that today, I saw other women performers using the space more free ly. Two al' them were playing male roles. Another was playing th e role of a female warrior. Your female character used relatively less space. Panigrahi : Yes, because every culture has its own style, dresses, ornameots, costumes and social behavior. It is our duty as an actor or aclress to refine, stylize, define anc1 put o ur socia l code of behavior into action. O ur style is such that our women in our society and their behavior and qualities in comparison to what you see in Europe is different. Pcllitier: No , it is the same. Panigrahi : No, it i.s different. 9

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II UI Ikcd hy ;ln ill aLL\!1111111l 11> I l u: p n:á;ioll ol'la ngutlj,!":',~" , lIa l tlll' idcolngk al Ull d SI H.:i' l. po lil il'ul pOllll s In the d iu logtlc are PC IU!IVed in an incanta tory túshi on. a lld the spcc iti ci ty 01' Ihe dialog ue lost. Pe te r L3 rook 's rcce nt prouuc LÍ ons , The Mahahharala and Tlle ('llar )' Orc'lwrd, di ~play lhe intercullu ral approach to nationalist texts in ways both ove rt ami insidious. Tll e M allabharuta has been the subject or m uch d e bate; sIIrtiCC it to say that Brook 's approach does not account for the dis tincti ve­ Ilt:ss orthe text, its non-lincarity , and its multiplicity o fmeanings . Rather, he cx l racts fro m the outline or The Mahabharata the rudiments ofthe na rra tive, lo which he then im poses an ethnocentric meanin g . In Ihe case of The Cherry Orclwrd. Brook displaces the mean ing of the work by denyi ng its specificity. The e'lllivalence 01' m earri ng, which finds formal co rrelat ives in tbe interna ­ lional cas t, th e lack or dramatk emphases leveling tbe momentum 01' th e play , and the bare staging, denies th e slr ucture of the play, stretching it o ut until the sense 01' drama tic im petus deteriorates. Ln this produetion , The Ch erry Orchard Is displaced, set in an empty space which does not reveal new I1lcanings; rather, the production e'luivocates, rendering a sense of unva rying continuity a1l but destroying narrative logic. The strategies of Breuer, Wilson, and Brook are n ot unique; to differcn t degrees, they can be seen in the work of Peter Se1lars, D es M acA nuff, A n ne Bogart, Elizabeth LeCompte, John Jes urun , Robert W ood ruff, and T he S'luat TheatTe . F o r exam p le. in A nne Bogart 's p rod ucti on of D an/On's Dea/h, the sense of th e play was lost in a staging which wa s s u pposed to compensate through a sensual overftowing. There are many problems with this approach . For one, the attempt to update classical material often is an excuse to force disparate elements into conjunction without careful consideration , depleti ng lhe possible meanings . For another, the imprecision in the deployment o l' sensual means, such as the shouting, chanting, or reeitatio n of dramatic dia­ logue, crea tes an effect of confusion. [f a play has a specifie text, with a rhyth m structure and a drama tic developmcnt clearly de fined , the disruptions of that sLructure and development must procecd to establish a viable alternative, rather than just a cacophonous negaLion . To reconceive of a n aesthetic in the most stringent telTns ofexistent categor­ izations is one agenda much admired within postmodern circ1es. The total re­ creation of a thing so that the specificity of that thing is revealed has become a n cnterprise both critical and capitulatory. (n the February 1989 issue of Vallily Fair, James Wolcott reviews t he cable te1evision station Nickelodeoll in these lcrms: "Ry repackaging the sitcoms as camp ar tiraets, by recontexl ual izin g lhem, ir I may use a lit-crit mout hful, Nick at Ni le ha s rinsed old pel1n ies ne w. It \ the approach or postmodernists from D avid LcUcnn a n to David Byrne, 1)1I11ing iron ic 'l uolation ma rks a rOllnd stu pid so th