Chapter 9: Contemporary Theatre and Its Diversity
• Dominant (primarily white, middle-class) cultural
standards have been challenged (since the 1960s)
• Efforts made:
– To open mainstream theatres to plays about groups
previously marginalized or ignored
– To establish theatres to give these groups their own
voices
• Companies and directors have championed radical
change in theatrical conventions and in ideas about
the nature and purpose of theatre
Alternative Theatre Groups
• The Living Theatre (1960s)
– Epitomized rebellion against established authority
– Most extreme piece = Paradise Now
• Included nudity, obscene language, provocation of
audience
• Blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality
– Company gained notoriety
– Tested limits of permissibility
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Alternative Theatre Groups
• The Bread and Puppet Theatre (1961)
– Used both actors and giant puppets to enact
parables denouncing war and materialism
• The San Francisco Mime Theatre (1966)
– Performed satirical pieces promoting civil rights
and other causes
Poor and Environmental Theatres
“Poor” Theatres
Jerzy Grotowski, director of the Polish Lab Theatre
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–
–
–
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Eliminated all theatrical elements considered unessential
Hoped such elimination would lead to the rediscovery of
theatre
Concluded that only 2 elements are essential: actor and
audience
Known for methods of actor training
Experimented with spatial relationships between actors
and audience
Grotowski’s View:
Theatre = Modern Tribal Ceremony
Poor and Environmental Theatres
“Poor” Theatres
The Open Theatre (1963-1974)
–
Headed by Joseph Chaikin; based in NYC
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Work grounded in contemporary theories of role-playing
and theatre games
–
Concerned with transformation = a constantly shifting
reality in which the same performer assumes and discards
roles or identities as the context changes
–
Reality as ever-changing
–
Works developed collaboratively
Poor and Environmental Theatres
Environmental Theatre
Richard Schechner
•
Defined Environmental Theatre:
–
Should take place in a transformed or found space
–
The use of space is flexible
–
Performance takes precedence over text
–
Focus is flexible and variable
–
Blends categories long treated as distinct:
– Acting space and non-acting space
– Performer and spectator
– Text and performance
– Sequentiality and simultaneity of focus and action
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
Multimedia
–
–
Joseph Svoboda
• Czech designer
• Best-known multimedia experimenter
• Polyekran = “multiple screen”
• Laterna Magika = use of motion pictures in
combination with actors
Multimedia experimentation popularized:
• Projected still images on multiple screens as scenic
background
• Interjecting filmed sequences into dramatic action
• Manipulating volume, direction, quality of stereophonic
sound
• Use of closed-circuit television
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
Happenings
–
Allan Kaprow
•
Painter who pioneered happenings
•
Argued that in addition to the art objects on
display, the space and those who attend must
be considered essential parts of the total
artistic experience
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
Characteristics of Happenings:
1.
Multimedia events that broke down the barriers between the
arts and mingled elements
2.
Shifted emphasis away from creating a product and onto
participating in a process
3.
Sought to provide an experience rather than present a
message or a single meaning
4.
Shifted emphasis from artist’s intention to participant’s
awareness
5.
Often made each participant a partial creator of the event
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
Performance Art
–
May intermingle borrowings from any or all of the visual
arts, dance, music, video, and theatre
–
May be scripted or improvised
–
May or may not use costumes and props
–
Frequently solo performance
–
May be highly personal or confrontational
–
Often explores issues of sexuality, violence, power
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
The essence of performance art is that there are
no rules about what is allowed.
•
Performance Artists originally came from the visual
arts, dance, and music
•
Appeal of Performance Art: disregards boundaries
among the arts, thereby expanding means of
expression
Multimedia, Happenings, and Performance Art
Practitioners of Performance Art
Meredith Monk
Ping Chong
Spalding Gray
P.S. 122
Martha Clarke
Laurie Anderson
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Postmodernism
Postmodernism = imprecise label
Characteristics:
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Breaks barriers between spectator and performance space
–
Removes distinctions between audience and performers
–
Intermingles high culture and popular culture
–
Blurs distinctions between dramatic forms
–
Mingles elements from disparate styles, periods, cultures
Postmodernism
Key Practitioners:
•
Peter Brook
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–
•
Attempt to bridge cultural and language barriers
Nine-hour adaptation of the Mahabharata
Ariane Mnouchkine
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–
•
Drawing on Asian performance conventions in productions
of Shakespearean and Greek plays
Founded the Theatre du Soleil
Robert Wilson
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–
Highly visual pieces, connecting images
“There is nothing to understand, only things to experience.”
Trends in Directing
Modern View
The Director’s task = to translate the playwright’s script
faithfully form page to stage
Postmodern View
The Director’s task = since there can be no single
“correct” interpretation of a text, the Director may
interpret the playwright’s script as he/she sees fit
The first view preferences the playwright while the second view
preferences the director.
Trends in Directing
Modern View
Postmodern View
Playwright
Performance
Interpretation
Script
Intention
Director
Director
Script
Intention
Performance
Intention
Playwright
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