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1
Marshall, C. W. "Some Fifth-Century Masking Conventions." Greece and Rome 46, no. 2 (1999): 188–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gr/46.2.188.
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Does it matter that all fifth-century staged performance was masked? Modern discussions of fifth-century drama focus almost exclusively on the words of the text, for that is what survives to us, and there is a sound methodology in this, since in a theatre that held over 15,000 people aural appreciation was central. I wish to isolate the amount of information that was communicated to the audience by masks, and so discover what then can be incorporated into modern studies of ancient staging, and in particular to determine what visual details existed for the ancient audience to help them understand ‘character’. Direct evidence is slight, and this must remain a brief overview. Nevertheless, reasonable deductions from the plays allow for a clear appreciation of what was the essential information conveyed by fifth-century masks.
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Hulton, D. "Practice as Research in Drama and Theatre inside and outside academia: the implications for Classical Reception Studies." Classical Receptions Journal 6, no. 2 (2014): 338–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/crj/clu002.
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Wolf, Stacy. ": Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance . J. Ellen Gainor." American Anthropologist 98, no. 4 (1996): 897–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00420.
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Smart, Billy. "Three Different Cherry Orchards, Three Different Worlds: Chekhov at the BBC, 1962–81." Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies 9, no. 3 (2014): 65–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.7227/cst.9.3.7.
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Unlike the theatre, there is no established tradition of plays being revived (new productions made from existing scripts) on television. The only instance of this mode of production in Britain has been the regular adaptation of classic theatrical plays. The existence of three separate BBC versions of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1962, 1971, 1981) creates a rare opportunity to trace developing styles of direction and performance in studio television drama through three different interpretations of the same scene. Through close analysis of The Cherry Orchard, I outline the aesthetic and technological development of television drama itself over twenty years.
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Łuksza, Agata. "Beyond the Empire: British Influence on the Warsaw Theatre Scene in the Nineteenth Century." Britain and the World 12, no. 1 (2019): 89–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/brw.2019.0314.
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In the late nineteenth century British culture, politics and history were customary topics in Polish newspapers, and Shakespeare's dramas were the most often performed classic texts on the Warsaw theatre stage. However, in this paper focusing on Warsaw seasons 1814/1815–1900/1901 I demonstrate that surprisingly one can hardly talk about any form of cultural transfer between the British and Polish popular theatre and drama in that period. The analysis of the Warsaw repertoire, travel recollections to the United Kingdom and press articles, reveal that even though the Polish nation treated the UK as a point of reference, it consistently rejected the British theatre at large and theatre entertainment in particular, and considered it ‘crude’ and in bad taste. I claim that the geopolitical situation of Poland cannot alone account for this puzzle.
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Nwahunanya, Chinyere. "Nigerian drama and the theatre of the absurd." Neohelicon 21, no. 2 (1994): 169–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02093250.
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Schonmann, Shifra. ""Master" versus "Servant": Contradictions in Drama and Theatre Education." Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no. 4 (2005): 31–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jae.2005.0047.
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Goldhill, Simon. "Reading Performance Criticism." Greece and Rome 36, no. 2 (1989): 172–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017383500029740.
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Fred Astaire once remarked of performing in London that he knew when the end of a play's run was approaching when he saw the first black tie in the audience. Perhaps this is an American's ironic representation of the snobbishness of pre-War London (though he was the American who sang the top-hat, white tie and tails into a part of his personal image). Perhaps it is merely an accurate (or nostalgic) picture of the dress code of the audiences of the period. The very appeal to such a dress code, however – in whatever way we choose to read the anecdote – inevitably relies on a whole network of cultural ideas and norms to make its point. It implies tacitly what is easily recoverable from other sources about the theatre of the period: the expected class of the audience; the sense of ‘an evening's entertainment’ – attending the fashionable play of the season, with all the implications of the theatre as a place not merely for seeing but also for being seen; the range of subjects and characters portrayed on the London stage of the period; the role of London as a European capital of a world empire (with a particular self-awareness of itself as a capital); the expected types of narrative, events, and language, that for many modern readers could be evoked with the phrase ‘a Fred Astaire story’. If we want to understand the impact of the plays of Ibsen or Brecht or Osborne or Beckett, it cannot be merely through ‘dramatic techniques’, but must also take into account the social performance that is theatre. Ibsen's commitment to a realist aesthetic is no doubt instrumental to the impact of his plays, but it is because his (socially committed) dramas challenged the proprieties of the social event of theatre that his first reviewers were so hostile.
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Brown, John Russell. "Shakespeare, the Natyasastra, and Discovering Rasa for Performance." New Theatre Quarterly 21, no. 1 (2005): 3–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x04000284.
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Recognizing analogies between the assumptions about theatricality found in the classic Sanskrit treatise on acting, the Natyasastra, and those of the Elizabethan theatre, John Russell Brown suggests that the concept of rasa as the determining emotion of a performance is similar to that of the Elizabethan ‘humour’, or prevailing passion, as defined by Ben Jonson. Here he describes his work exploring what happens when actors draw on their own life experiences to imagine and assume the basic rasa of the character they are going to present, based on experiments in London with New Fortune Theatre; in Bremen with actors of the Bremer Shakespeare Company; and in New Delhi with actors of the National School of Drama. Using actors both young and experienced, familiar and unfamiliar with ensemble playing, and well or poorly acquainted with the concepts involved, he suggests that the results merit further exploration of a technique which could empower actors to bring Shakespeare's plays to new kinds of life. John Russell Brown founded the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, and for fifteen years was an Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre. His New Sites for Shakespeare: Theatre, the Audience, and Asia was published by Routledge in 1999, and his Shakespeare Dancing: a Theatrical Study of the Plays by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004. He edited and contributed to The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (1995), and for Routledge has been General Editor of the ‘Theatre Production Studies’, ‘Theatre Concepts’, and forthcoming ‘Theatres of the World’ series.
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Smith, Keren M. "“Designing Readers: Redressing the Texts of Classic Drama”." Design Issues 17, no. 3 (2001): 56–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/074793601750357204.
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Worthen, W. B. "Shakespeare and Postmodern Production: An Introduction." Theatre Survey 39, no. 1 (1998): 1–5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040557400002982.
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This issue of Theatre Survey explores the condition of postmodern Shakespeare production, and by implication the situation of classic drama on the horizon of the contemporary stage. Working on this issue has been, for both of its coeditors, a surprising experience. Theatre Survey is a distinguished journal in the field of theatre history and historiography, and with this issue we intended to press the journal's agenda toward the history and theory of contemporary culture, generating a series of articles on radical, revisionist, and alternative ways of putting “the ‘classics’ into play.” Because we understand this enterprise—from the Kathakali King Lear to Robert Wilson's When We Dead Awaken to Heiner Müller's Medeamaterial to Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet—to stand in a strategic relation to modernity, we were calling the issue “Performance: Modern and Postmodern.”
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Morrin, Serafina. "Kingsbury Brunetto, K. (2015). Performing the Art of Language Learning: Deepening the Language Learning Experience through Theatre and Drama. Blue Mounds, WI: Deep University Press." Scenario: A Journal of Performative Teaching, Learning, Research XI, no. 2 (2017): 94–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.33178/scenario.11.2.7.
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In this book, Kingsbury Brunetto describes her research on the language learning experience through theatre. Doing so, she analyses interviews with undergraduate students, which she collected from two theatre-based language courses (French and Spanish as L2) at different survey dates. The focus lies on the use of language as a social act that demonstrates the multifaceted nature of theatre-based language learning. Language is not only seen as something shown in evident linguistic objects here; rather it is a result of activities in complex contexts. The author wants to find out how learners of a second language function within a theatre-based language learning environment. She tries to understand the complexity of language learning as a socially situated human activity by looking at the perspectives of the participants. The particular charm of the book is that it is structured like a theatre play. Kingsbury Brunetto refrains from classic terms such as "theoretical background" or "research method", and instead entitles the chapters analogously to the procedure for a theatre performance, such as "Playbill", "Before the Curtain Rises" or "The Critics’ Reviews". In the beginning, Kingsbury Brunetto presents her approach to this research by briefly sketching her own background and providing a short insight ...
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Barnett, David. "Resisting the Irish Other: the Berliner Ensemble's Production of The Playboy of the Western World." New Theatre Quarterly 33, no. 2 (2017): 156–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x17000069.
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In this article David Barnett explores the Berliner Ensemble's production in 1956 of Synge's classic The Playboy of the Western World. Although it was directed by Peter Palitzsch and Manfred Wekwerth, Bertolt Brecht, the company's co-founder, loomed large in planning and rehearsal. This staging serves as an example of how a politicized approach to theatre-making can bring out relationships, material conditions, and power structures that the play's production history has often ignored. In addition, Barnett aims to show how Brechtian methods can be applied more generally to plays not written in the Brechtian tradition and the effects they can achieve. David Barnett is Professor of Theatre at the University of York. He is the author of Heiner Müller's ‘The Hamletmachine’ (Routledge, 2016), A History of the Berliner Ensemble (Cambrige, 2015) and Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory, and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014). His recent AHRC-funded ‘Brecht in Practice: Staging Drama Dialectically’, led to a Brechtian production of Patrick Marber's Closer, and he offers theatre-makers and teachers workshops on using Brecht's method on stage and in the classroom.
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McCaslin, Nellie. "Seeking the Aesthetic in Creative Drama and Theatre for Young Audiences." Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no. 4 (2005): 12–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jae.2005.0045.
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Diala, Isidore. "Theatre and Political Struggle: Trends in Apartheid South African Drama." Neohelicon 33, no. 2 (2006): 237–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11059-006-0035-1.
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Pizzato, Mark. "Staging Consciousness: Theater and the Materialization of Mind. By William W. Demastes. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002; pp. 193. $47.50 cloth." Theatre Survey 45, no. 2 (2004): 294–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040557404280267.
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William W. Demastes's new book is a rare find. It shows a new direction for interdisciplinary theatre scholarship, combining drama and performance with cognitive science, fuzzy logic, and complexity theory. With this challenging combination, Demastes extends the significance of theatre beyond its conventional place in the humanities and proposes specific ties between an ancient art form and recent scientific discoveries. He demonstrates a post-postmodern or “neostructuralist” approach that dares to discuss “the emergent essence of life itself,” through a materialist, yet “nonpositivist” science of the drama. He thus offers a glimpse “of ’universal' consciousness” in theatre's “spiritual something more” (7–9).
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Scullion, Adrienne. "The Citizenship Debate and Theatre for Young People in Contemporary Scotland." New Theatre Quarterly 24, no. 4 (2008): 379–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x08000511.
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In this article Adrienne Scullion reviews the citizenship debate in education policy within contemporary – and specifically post-devolution – Scotland. She identifies something of the impact that this debate has had on theatre-making for children and young people, with a particular focus on projects that are participatory in nature. Her key examples are drawn from TAG Theatre Company's ‘Making the Nation’ project, a major three-year initiative that sought to engage children and young people throughout Scotland in ideas around democracy, politics, and government. Revisiting a classic cultural policy stand-off between instrumental and aesthetic outcomes, she asks whether a policy-sanctioned emphasis on process, transferable skills, and capacity building limits the potential for theatre projects to develop other kinds of theatre skills, such as critical reading and/or spectatorship. With its emphasis on participatory projects rather than plays for children and young people, the article complements her earlier essay, ‘“And So This Is What Happened”: War Stories in New Drama for Children’, in NTQ 84 (November 2005). Adrienne Scullion teaches in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow.
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Kerdarunsuksri, Kittisak. "Ramakian in Modern Performance: A Way to Cope With a Cultural Crisis." MANUSYA 6, no. 3 (2003): 24–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/26659077-00603002.
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In the Bangkok period, the literary classic Ramakian has been reproduced again and again, either in literary forms or performing arts. This literary piece has been reinvented many times, particularly in the course of cultural crisis so as to demonstrate the glory of Thai culture. Although Ramakian is still able to be seen in the form of traditional theatre, i.e., khon (a masked dance-drama) in particular, it was also re-created in modern theatrical form during the mid-1990s, during which a cultural campaign was promoted by the government. This paper focuses on three modern theatrical productions of Ramakian : Rama - Sida ( 1996), Nonthuk (1997), and Sahatsadecha ( 1997), The paper addresses the questions: why was this classic re-created in modern performance and how was the story revised to make it fit into today’s society.
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Saunders, Graham. "‘Out Vile Jelly’: Sarah Kane's ‘Blasted’ and Shakespeare's ‘King Lear’." New Theatre Quarterly 20, no. 1 (2004): 69–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x03000344.
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Sarah Kane's notorious 1995 debut, Blasted, has been widely though belatedly recognized as a defining example of experiential or ‘in-yer-face’ theatre. However, Graham Saunders here argues that the best playwrights not only innovate in use of language and dramatic form, but also rewrite the classic plays of the past. He believes that too much stress has been placed on the play's radical structure and contemporary sensibility, with the effect of obscuring the influence of Shakespearean tradition on its genesis and content. He clarifies Kane's gradually dawning awareness of the influence of Shakespeare's King Lear on her work and how elements of that tragedy were rewritten in terms of dialogue, recast thematically, and reworked in terms of theatrical image. He sees Blasted as both a response to contemporary reality and an engagement with the history of drama. Graham Saunders is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and author of the first full-length study of Kane's work: ‘Love Me or Kill Me’: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (Manchester University Press, 2002). An earlier version of this article was given as a paper at the ‘Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium’ conference in Brussels, May 2001. Saunders is currently working on articles about Samuel Beckett and Edward Bond.
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Muneroni, Stefano. "The Cultural Politics of Translation: The Case of Voltaire’s Mérope and Scipione Maffei’s Merope." TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies 4, no. 1 (2013): 15. http://dx.doi.org/10.21992/t9x05j.
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In 1743, Voltaire writes to Scipione Maffei his intention to translate Merope, a drama the Italian playwright had composed thirty years before and that Voltaire deemed worthy of the French stage due to its treatment of the classic heroine and its adherence to classical norms. However, Voltaire later claims that due to flaws in Maffei’s work, he will write his own version of the play. This petty incident stirred a long-lived and animated debate over which dramatist had adhered more closely to the principles of classical theatre and whose country could claim its primacy in European theatre. In my paper, I use this episode to illustrate how translation shapes and is shaped by source and target cultures, and how it determines what is peripheral and what is central to intercultural debates. I argue that both Voltaire and Maffei struggle to assert their position as leading “translators” of classical Greek theatre and eminent interlocutors in the debate over form and content of modern drama. My paper will use Voltaire’s translational faux pas to reflect on the larger issues of how translation situates itself in the middle of cultural hierarchies and how it fashions national identity, cultural pertinence, national subordination, and notions of cultural peripheries and centers, all topics that lie at the heart of contemporary translation studies
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Snook, Jean M., and Hilda Meldrum Brown. "Leitmotiv and Drama: Wagner, Brecht, and the Limits of 'Epic' Theatre." German Studies Review 15, no. 3 (1992): 644. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1430425.
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Stenberg, Josh. "How far does the sound of a Pipa carry? Broadway adaptation of a Chinese classical drama." Studies in Musical Theatre 14, no. 2 (2020): 175–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/smt_00031_1.
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The 1946 Broadway premiere of Lute Song represents a milestone in reception of the Chinese dramatic tradition in the United States. Despite its yellowface and ‘Oriental pageantry’, it must be situated at the beginnings of a more respectful relationship to China and Chinese people, as the American stage began to move beyond treatments of China dominated by racist vaudeville or fantastical fairy tales. Instead, Lute Song emerged from a classic text, the long drama Pipa ji ‐ even as its own casting and staging inherited some of the same problematic habits of representing Asia. Lute Song, one of several indirect adaptations of Chinese dramas in the American mid-century, represents a milestone as the first Broadway show inspired by American immigrant Chinatown theatre and the first Broadway musical to be based on Chinese classical drama, mediated through European Sinology.
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Martin-Smith, Alistair. "Setting the Stage for a Dialogue: Aesthetics in Drama and Theatre Education." Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no. 4 (2005): 3–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jae.2005.0044.
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Song, Binghui. "The experimental drama of Gao Xingjian inspired by avant-garde theatre." Neohelicon 46, no. 1 (2019): 69–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11059-019-00485-2.
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MacLean, Sally-Beth. "Drama and ceremony in early modern England: the REED project." Urban History 16 (May 1989): 38–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0963926800009160.
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In 1976 a medieval and renaissance theatre history project was launched under the masthead Records of Early English Drama (now more familiarly known as REED). The official launch had taken two years of planning by scholars from Britain, Canada and the United States, and was given assurance for the future through a ten-year major Editorial Grant from the Canada Council. REED's stated goal – then as now – was to find, transcribe and publish evidence of dramatic, ceremonial and musical activity in Great Britain before the theatres were closed in 1642. The systematic survey undertaken would make available for analysis records relating to the evolution of English theatre from its origins in minstrelsy, through the flowering of drama in the renaissance, to the suppression first of local and then of professional entertainment under the Puritans.
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Sorokina, Nataliya V. "L.M. Leonov’s plays on the stage of Tambov theatre." Neophilology, no. 23 (2020): 573–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.20310/2587-6953-2020-6-23-573-584.
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The review of productions of Tambov state academic order “Badge of Honour” of Lunacharsky drama theatre of L.M. Leonov plays “Invasion” (premiere of 3 October 1943), “An Ordinary Man” (22 September 1945), “Golden Carriage” (9 October 1971) is given. Theater reviews of 1940s–1970s written by Tambov authors, among which are teachers of Tambov State Pedagog-ical Institute (now Derzhavin Tambov State University), are collected and analyzed. The theatrical embodiment features of L.M. Leonov’s dramaturgical works on the stage of the provincial theater are considered. The multi-sided connection of the classic of Russian literature of the 20th century with Tambov land is marked. The dynamics of theatrical and literary regional interest in L.M. Leonov’s dramaturgy is traced. The stylistic features of theatrical reviews by R. Chernyak and L. Yakovlev are revealed. Special attention is paid to the responses of Tambov philology teachers, which allowed us to clarify the range of scientific and educational activities of the uni-versity’s teaching staff in different years, to determine the forms of interaction between educational and cultural organizations in the region. The features of the plays and their reflection in the productions are indicated. The stage embodiment’s distinctive features of L. Leonov’s plays’ characters by Tambov actors are determined.
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BERNARD, MIRIAM, MICHELLE RICKETT, DAVID AMIGONI, LUCY MUNRO, MICHAEL MURRAY, and JILL REZZANO. "Ages and Stages: the place of theatre in the lives of older people." Ageing and Society 35, no. 6 (2014): 1119–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0144686x14000038.
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ABSTRACTDespite the growing interest amongst gerontologists and literary and cultural scholars alike, in arts participation, ageing and the artistic outputs of older people, comparatively little attention has yet been paid to theatre and drama. Likewise, community or participatory theatre has long been used to address issues affecting marginalised or excluded groups, but it is a presently under-utilised medium for exploring ageing or for conveying positive messages about growing older. This paper seeks to address this lack of attention through a detailed case study of the place of one particular theatre – the Victoria/New Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire, England – in the lives of older people. It provides an overview of the interdisciplinaryAges and Stagesproject which brought together social gerontologists, humanities scholars, psychologists, anthropologists and theatre practitioners, and presents findings from: the archival and empirical work exploring the theatre's pioneering social documentaries and its archive; individual/couple and group interviews with older people involved with the theatre (as audience members, volunteers, employees and sources); and ethnographic data gathered throughout the study. The findings reaffirm the continuing need to challenge stereotypes that the capacity for creativity and participation in later life unavoidably and inevitably declines; show how participation in creative and voluntary activities shapes meanings associated with key life transitions such as bereavement and retirement; and emphasise the positive role that theatre and drama can play as a medium for the inclusion of both older and younger people.
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Kershaw, Baz. "Dramas of the Performative Society: Theatre at the End of its Tether." New Theatre Quarterly 17, no. 3 (2001): 203–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x0001472x.
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The emergence of new performance paradigms in the second half of the twentieth century is only now being recognized as a fresh phase in human history. The creation of the new discipline, or, as some would call it, the anti-discipline of performance studies in universities is just a small chapter in a ubiquitous story. Everywhere performance is becoming a key quality of endeavour, whether in science and technology, commerce and industry, government and civics, or humanities and the arts. We are experiencing the creation of what Baz Kershaw here calls the ‘performative society’ – a society in which the human is crucially constituted through performance. But in such a society, what happens to the traditional notions and practices of drama and theatre? In this inaugural lecture, Kershaw looks for signs and portents of the future of drama and theatre in the performative society, finds mostly dissolution and deep panic, and tentatively suggests the need for a radical turn that will embrace the promiscuity of performance. Baz Kershaw, currently Professor of Drama at the University of Bristol, trained and worked as a design engineer before reading English and Philosophy at Manchester University. He has had extensive experience as a director and writer in radical theatre, including productions at the Drury Lane Arts Lab and with the Devon-based group Medium Fair, where he founded the first reminiscence theatre company Fair Old Times. His latest book is The Radical in Performance (Routledge, 1999). More recently he wrote about the ecologies of performance in NTQ 62.
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Kruger, Loren. "The drama of country and city: tribalization, urbanization and theatre under apartheid." Journal of Southern African Studies 23, no. 4 (1997): 565–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057079708708558.
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Krajewska, Anna. "Humanistyka performatywna." Przestrzenie Teorii, no. 29 (January 31, 2019): 31–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pt.2018.29.2.
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This article foregrounds the collapse of the binary opposition between drama and theatre that in literary and theatre discourses are traditionally recognized as wholly separate art forms, with the former based on words and the latter based on live performances. The present author argues that by applying a performative perspective on art in its varied forms and introducing the category of the entanglement of matter and meaning, derived from quantum physics, a non-antagonistic approach to drama and theatre is still possible. The argument that sees literature as a performative art, adopted by the author, provides additional support. This article shows how changes in the very notion of the text as well as in the ontological status of literature itself have had their effect on the transformations of beliefs and conceptions grounded in the vision of the humanities understood as “the textual world” to produce the concept of “entangled world” instead. This being the case, the author proposes to depart from the concept of “text” (no matter how restructured or redefined), abandon thinking in categories of network structures (even Latour’s actor-network’s theory), and discard dialectical or holistic approaches (even the theory of cognitive blending – “cognitive amalgams”) in favour of emergent “entanglement acts”, anamorphic perspective in art reception and synaesthetic discourses. By studying experiences related to performativity in the arts and discourses related to performance studies, the article goes to show the changes currently going on in the humanities and transforming them into the perfomative humanities in the process.
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Khabutdinova, Mileusha, and Rezeda Mukhametshina. "Sławomir Mrożek at the Tatar stage: the metamorphoses of Polish stage." Przegląd Wschodnioeuropejski 8, no. 2 (2018): 309–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.31648/pw.3589.
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In this article we analyzed the stage interpretation of Sławomir Mrożek’s play on the scene of Tatar theatre. The performance of “Shashkan babay” (“The mad grandfather”) play was staged on the 10th of February, 2016 by Karim Tinchurin drama and comedy theatre in Kazan. It was the first staging of Sławomir Mrożek’s in Tatar language. In this article we generalize the history of Sławomir Mrożek’s plays production waves in Russia. The specifics of Polish text interpretation by producer Rashid Zagidullin was outlined. We proved that “Shashkan babay” play production continues the best tradition of Russian and Polish theatres.
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FitzGerald, Lisa, Eva Urban, Rosemary Jenkinson, David Grant, and Tom Maguire. "Human Rights and Theatre Practice in Northern Ireland: A Round-Table Discussion." New Theatre Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2020): 279–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x20000664.
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This round-table discussion, edited by Eva Urban and Lisa FitzGerald, took place on 5 July 2019 as part of the conference ‘New Romantics: Performing Ireland and Cosmopolitanism on the Anniversary of Human Rights’ organized by the editors at the Brian Friel Theatre, Queen’s University Belfast. Lisa FitzGerald is a theatre historian and ecocritic who completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC), Université Rennes 2 and the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She is the author of Re-Place: Irish Theatre Environments (Peter Lang, 2017) and Digital Vision and the Ecological Aesthetic (forthcoming, Bloomsbury, 2020). Eva Urban is a Senior Research Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast, and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Irish Studies, QUB. She is the author of Community Politics and the Peace Process in Contemporary Northern Irish Drama (Peter Lang, 2011) and La Philosophie des Lumières dans le Théâtre Breton: Tradition et Influences (Université de Rennes, 2019). Rosemary Jenkinson is a Belfast playwright and writer of five short story collections. Her plays include The Bonefire (Rough Magic), Planet Belfast (Tinderbox), White Star of the North, Here Comes the Night (Lyric), Lives in Translation (Kabosh Theatre Company), and Michelle and Arlene (Accidental Theatre). Her writing for radio includes Castlereagh to Kandahar (BBC Radio 3) and The Blackthorn Tree (BBC Radio 4). She has received a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to write a memoir. Tom Maguire is Head of the School of Arts and Humanities at Ulster University and has published widely on Irish and Scottish theatre and in the areas of Theatre for Young Audiences and Storytelling Performance. His heritage research projects include the collection Heritage after Conflict: Northern Ireland (Routledge, 2018, co-edited with Elizabeth Crooke). David Grant is a former Programme Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival and was Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. He has worked extensively as a theatre director throughout Ireland and is co-investigator of an AHRC-funded research project into Arts for Reconciliation. He lectures in drama at Queen’s University Belfast.
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MacLean, Sally-Beth. "Records of Early English Drama: A Retrospective." Renaissance and Reformation 37, no. 4 (2015): 235–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.33137/rr.v37i4.22649.
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The Records of Early English Drama, founded in 1976, remains a productive humanities research project, with thirty-three volumes in print and two open access research and educational websites to date. This retrospective essay reflects on the individuals who contributed to its founding and evolution; the establishment of systematic research and editorial principles for an international team of contributors; the challenges of funding a collaborative enterprise with long term goals; some of its key contributions to the field of theatre history; and the transition from a print-based series to REED Online, a multi-faceted digital enterprise. In summary, while the re-envisioning of REED as an interoperable research and educational online resource represents a major shift in editorial and publication processes, the core values of the project remain intact: to work together in interdisciplinary collaboration with like-minded partners to deliver the results of systematic research in early theatre to as wide an audience as possible in the twenty-first century.
 Le Records of Early English Drama, fondé en 1976, consiste toujours en un projet fructueux de recherche en sciences humaines, totalisant à ce jour 33 volumes imprimés et deux sites web ouverts de recherche et d’éducation. Cet article rétrospectif se penche sur les personnes ayant contribué à sa fondation et son évolution, l’établissement d’une systématique de recherche et de principes éditoriaux à l’intention d’une équipe internationale de contributeurs, les défis de financer un projet collectif avec des objectifs à long terme, quelques unes de ses principales contributions dans le domaine de l’histoire du théâtre, et la transition d’une publication imprimée vers le format REED Online, un projet numérique polyvalent. En effet, bien que la transformation du projet en une ressource collaborative REED de recherche et d’enseignement en ligne représente un changement majeur dans les processus éditoriaux et de publication, les valeurs centrales du projet demeurent inchangées : le projet vise toujours la collaboration interdisciplinaire avec des partenaires ayant la même approche afin d’obtenir des résultats de recherche systématique en histoire du théâtre, et à les rendre disponibles à un public aussi large que possible en ce vingt-et-unième siècle.
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Starkey, Kenneth, Sue Tempest, and Silvia Cinque. "Management education and the theatre of the absurd." Management Learning 50, no. 5 (2019): 591–606. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350507619875894.
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In this article, we recommend the drama of theatre of the absurd as a novel space for critically reflecting upon management and management education as shaped by the forces of emotion, irrationality and conformism rather than reason. We discuss the theatre of the absurd as uniquely relevant to understanding our troubled times. We present a brief overview of the history of business schools and management education. We apply the idea of absurdity to the world of business schools and management education, focusing on the work of one of the theatre of the absurd’s leading proponents, Eugène Ionesco. We emphasise the importance of fiction and fantasy as key aspects of organisation and education. We contribute to debates about management education by reflecting on possible futures for management education and the business school, embracing the humanities as a core disciplinary focus. We suggest that this will help rebalance management education, retaining the best of the existing curriculum, while re-situating the study of management in its broader historical and philosophical nexus.
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Novitz, Julian. "‘The Time Is out of Joint’: Interactivity and Player Agency in Videogame Adaptations of Hamlet." Arts 9, no. 4 (2020): 122. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/arts9040122.
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Although Shakespeare and his plays have been a frequent subject of videogame adaptations in the past, these have often been confined to either theatre-making games (which present the staging of Shakespeare plays using the mechanisms of strategy or simulation videogame genres) of education/trivia games that aim to familiarise players with Shakespeare’s texts. While references to Shakespeare abound in videogames, there have been relatively few attempts to directly adapt one of his plays into the form of an interactive videogame narrative, where the player controls one or more of the principal characters and can affect the outcome of the story. This paper will examine four videogame adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whose differing approaches to player-agency and interactivity in relation to narrative of the classic play demonstrate the interactive potential of Shakespearean drama. While the player-driven overwriting or rewriting of the classic text may appear irreverent, it is, in each game, dependent on some conception the original play and the past tradition that it represents, which is translated into the contemporary medium of the videogame. This illustrates Jacques Derrida’s contention that the longevity and translatability of Shakespearean texts are due to their ‘spectral’ qualities, in that they allow the past to be re-examined through the lens of the present and vice versa.
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Newbury, Michael. "Polite Gaiety: Cultural Hierarchy and Musical Comedy, 1893-1904." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4, no. 4 (2005): 381–407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537781400002760.
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In 1903, Alan Dale, the theater critic for the New York American and Journal, when contemplating the state of the American stage, came to the conclusion that “the only national theatre I can find, after severe cogitation, is that beautiful, flip, and classic commodity known as musical comedy.” Dale pointed out that musical comedy's exorbitant popularity was a recent development, emerging only in the previous five or ten years, and that his anointing of the form as the national theater would not sit well with more serious-minded devotees of drama. “Well read gentlemen with heavy minds,” wrote Dale, would prefer different sorts of productions, plays that “mere commercial managers don't want to stage and mere amusement seekers don't want to see.” Seeking an improbable bridge over this cultural divide, Dale suggested that “[Henrik] Ibsen might air his neat little views on heredity in happy verse set to music…[His] favorite subject of maggots on the brain” could feature a “chorus of pretty girls disguised as maggots.”
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Swettenham, Neal. "Irish Rioters, Latin American Dictators, and Desperate Optimists' Play-boy." New Theatre Quarterly 21, no. 3 (2005): 241–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x0500014x.
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The narrative process is inherently selective and consequently open to distortion and falsification. J. M. Synge humorously illustrated this in The Playboy of the Western World, in which his central character, Christy Mahon, reinvents himself through the telling and retelling of his own story. Play-boy, a much more recent performance work created by Desperate Optimists, takes as its opening gambit the riots that accompanied the first performances of this controversial Irish classic and adds a bewildering variety of other narrative materials to the mix—providing, as it does so, a tongue-in-cheek commentary on this story about stories. A detailed account of the show in performance and the manner in which the company construct their own tall tales initiates an investigation into how fact becomes fiction in the creation of new narrative accounts, narrative being considered as a participatory event that is both a psychological imperative and a ludic pleasure. Neal Swettenham lectures in drama at Loughborough University. His research into the role and status of narrative in contemporary theatre has led him to fresh examinations of both traditional story-based drama and avant-garde performance work. In particular, he has written about the plays of American dramatist Richard Foreman and is currently exploring the challenges presented to both actor and director by these texts.
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Kaczmarek, Tomasz. "Armand Salacrou : de la « dédramatisation » à la « redramatisation » du drame." Anales de Filología Francesa 28, no. 1 (2020): 433–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.6018/analesff.422991.
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El autor del artículo analiza dos piezas de Armand Salacrou, L'Inconnue d'Arras y Sens interdit, que, a diferencia del "drama absoluto", forman parte del nuevo paradigma de "drama-de-la-vida". Al renunciar a la forma canónica del drama, el escritor francés deconstruye la fábula clásica para llamar la atención del público no a la acción en el sentido tradicional de la palabra, sino al estudio del alma humana. Además, desafía el carácter individual, definido por una psicología, a favor de un personaje enajenado con múltiples facetas. Por lo tanto, estamos presenciando un drama que ya no es agonista sino ontológico, el "personaje de actuación" da paso al "personaje pasivo". La implementación de algunas operaciones de "desdramatización" (retrospección, anticipación, descomposición del personaje) no apunta a la aniquilación del género, sino a su ampliación, lo que le permite (después de las crisis que sufre) reinventarse (redramatización) para expresar mejor las decepciones del hombre moderno. The author of the article analyses two pieces by Armand Salacrou, L'Inconnue d'Arras et Sens interdit, which, contrary to“absolute drama”, are part of the new paradigm of “drama-of-the-life”. By renouncing the canonical form of drama, the French writer deconstructs the classic fable to attract public’s attention not to action in the traditional sense of the word but to the analysisof the human’s soul. What is more, it challenges the individual character, defined by a psychology, in favor of an alienated character with multiple facets. Thus, we are witnessing a drama which is no longer agonistic but ontological, the “acting character” giving way to the “passive character”. The implementation of some operations of “dedramatization” (retrospection, anticipation, decomposition of the character) does not aim at the annihilation of the genre, but at its enlargement which allows it (following crises which it undergoes) to reinvent itself (redramatization) and to better express the disappointments of the modern man. L’auteur de l’article se penche sur deux pièces d’Armand Salacrou, L’Inconnue d’Arras et Sens interdit, qui, contrairement au « drame absolu », s’inscrivent dans le nouveau paradigme du « drame-de-la-vie ». En renonçant à la forme canonique du drame, l’écrivain français déconstruit la fable classique pour attirer l’attention du public non sur l’action au sens traditionnel du mot mais sur l’étude de l’âme humaine. Qui plus est, il remet en cause le personnage individué, défini par une psychologie, au profit d’un personnage aliéné aux multiples facettes. Ainsi, nous assistons à un drame qui n’est plus agonistique mais ontologique, le « personnage agissant » cédant la place au « personnage passif ». La mise en œuvre de quelques opérations de « dédramatisation » (rétrospection, anticipation, décomposition du personnage) ne vise pas à l’anéantissement du genre, mais à son élargissement qui lui permet (suite à des crises qu’il subit) de se réinventer (redramatisation) et de mieux exprimer les déboires de l’homme moderne.
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Heuvel, Michael Vanden. "The Politics of the Paradigm: a Case Study in Chaos Theory." New Theatre Quarterly 9, no. 35 (1993): 255–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x00007983.
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This article continues NTQ's explorations, commenced in NTQ18 (1989) and NTQ23 (1990), of the interactions between theatrical performance and emerging views of nature coming out of the ‘new sciences’. Here, Michael Vanden Heuvel argues that analogies between quantum science and performance are productive mainly in reference to work which investigates the nature of perception, and which foregrounds the spectator's awareness of the ‘event-ness’ of theatrical performance. Models drawn from the new science of ‘chaotics’, on the other hand, appear more applicable to performances which seek to move beyond phenomenology into the sphere of cultural discourse. He offers as an example of this ‘post-quantum’ theatre the work of the renowned New York collective the Wooster Group, whose performances create a dialogics between order and disorder which acts to map dynamic interactions between hegemony and difference in American culture. Michael Vanden Heuvel is Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Humanities at Arizona State University. His Performing Drama/Dramatizing Performance: Alternative Theatre and the Dramatic Text was published by the University of Michigan Press in 1991, and he has written articles and reviews for Theatre Journal and Contemporary Literature.
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Miles, Patrick. "Reviews : Improvisation in Drama. By Anthony Frost and Ralph Yarrow. (New Directions in Theatre.) London: Macmillan, 1990. Pp ix + 214. £30.00." Journal of European Studies 21, no. 2 (1991): 149–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004724419102100207.
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Derrick, Patty S. "Julia Marlowe: An Actress Caught Between Traditions." Theatre Survey 32, no. 1 (1991): 85–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040557400009479.
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Julia Marlowe's career, 1887–1924, came at an awkward point in the history of the American theatre, a transitional period when old traditions were fading and new ones had not yet been established. During her thirty years as an actress, a heterogeneous mixture of plays was seen on the American stage: Shakespeare and other old classics, emotional dramas adapted from the French and German, melodramas old and new, early attempts at realism, problem plays. Most strikingly innovative in this period were the dramas of Ibsen, Shaw, and O'Neill (his early plays), which questioned conventional values and often presented a disturbing view of human life and relationships. The range of plays was varied for performers, and the acting styles employed by the actors revealed a comparable diversity. According to Garff Wilson's classification, players like Helena Modjeska performed in the classic style characterized by grace, symmetry, and poetic grandeur; Clara Morris and Fanny Davenport perfected a highly emotional style, both specialists in the art of stage weeping; Otis Skinner abandoned the classics of Shakespeare and Restoration drama and became famous in sentimental comedy and romantic costume drama such as Kismet; Ada Rehan and Viola Allen, part of the “sisterhood of sweetness and light,” achieved popularity as actresses of the “personality school”; Richard Mansfield, a thoroughly transitional figure, clung to the classics in his repertoire but also produced and performed in the modern plays of Shaw and Ibsen; Minnie Maddern Fiske championed the works of Ibsen and a style of acting called the school of psychological naturalism.
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Scullion, Adrienne. "Self and Nation: Issues of Identity in Modern Scottish Drama by Women." New Theatre Quarterly 17, no. 4 (2001): 373–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x00015001.
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The creation of the devolved Scottish parliament in 1999, argues Adrienne Scullion, has the potential to change everything that has been understood and imagined or thought and speculated about Scotland. The devolved parliament shifts the governance of the country, resets financial provisions and socio-economic management, recreates Scottish politics and Scottish society – and affects how Scotland is represented and imagined by artists of all kinds. The radical context of devolution should also afford Scottish criticism an unprecedented opportunity to rethink its more rigid paradigms and structures. Specifically, this article questions what impact political devolution might have on the rhetoric of Scottish cultural criticism by paralleling feminist analysis of three plays by women premiered in Scotland in 2000 with the flexible, even hybrid, model of the nation afford by devolution, resetting identity within Scottish culture as much less predictable and much more inclusive than has previously been understood. An earlier versions was delivered by the author on 5 March 2001 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in receipt of the biennial RSE/BP Prize Lectureship in the Humanities. Adrienne Scullion teaches in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, where she is also the academic director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research.
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Pütz, Babette, and Kenneth Sheedy. "Bad Hair Day: Some Mementos of New Comedy Refurbished." Antichthon 44 (November 2010): 33–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0066477400002069.
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Masks having a bad hair day? Two terracotta masks now in the Museum of Ancient Cultures, Macquarie University (figs 1-5), and the Classics Museum, Victoria University of Wellington (figs 9-12), seem to be in this embarrassing situation. Both of these tonsorially-challenged characters display highly unusual features (indeed the entire forehead of the male mask seems somewhat deformed) but a closer look suggests that in both cases their bad hair is the result of ‘tampering’ with classic mask representations or their moulds. That is to say, existing moulds have been modified and then brought back into use, or examples of each mask-type have been used as the basis for new moulds. Furthermore, the changes can be shown to have occurred at a much later date than that of the original masks or moulds. These changes confuse the identity of the mask, suggesting that those responsible for their later production did not fully understand the original iconography. They are thus of interest as evidence for the later reuse of artefacts relating to theatre, though we suggest in our conclusion that, in spite of their theatrical derivation, their purchaser was not primarily interested in them as souvenirs of Greek drama.
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Butler, Michael. "Reviews : German Studies German Classical Drama. Theatre, Humanity and Nation 1750-1870. By F. J. Lamport. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. 241. £39.00." Journal of European Studies 22, no. 1 (1992): 101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004724419202200105.
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Myropolska, E. V. "THE DRAMA SEARCHES ON THE FIELDS OF THE "PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSURD": THE EXPERIENCE OF MODERN UNDERSTANDING." UKRAINIAN CULTURAL STUDIES, no. 1 (6) (2020): 64–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/ucs.2020.1(6).14.
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The article reflects the logics of the development of the "philosophy of absurd" – a term of intellectual tradition connected with attributive characteristic of reference between a man and surrounding world. The best productive ideas of the "philosophy of absurd" – non- conformism,resistance to the imposition of other people's thoughts, revolt, freedomand some others have been described.The "philosophy of absurd" is aphilosophical conception which examines a man in the context of his inevitable relations with the world which is sencseless and unfriendly to human individuality, in the result of which "absurd consciousness" is bearing. The nuances of the "philosophy of absurd" in the art practices of the XX-th – the first two decades of the XXI-st centuries, especially absurd drama has been disclosed. Its typical signs are the absence of act's plays and time, the plot and composition are breaking, existentialist's mood of characters, absurd plot's situations, words' nonsense and so on. The heroes of the plays by S. Becket from the very beginning are solitude. But S. Becket developes ideas of "the philosophy of absurd", showing that if such people find faith, there is no strength that can break them. The main theme of S. Becket's creation is man's doom, his solitude. S.Becket became the most typical interpretator of the ideas of "the philosophy of absurd" in the drama, finding both simple and non-traditional methodsfor classic theatre aesthetics and new means of their incarnation.The playwright very exactly expressed such thought: progress's movement causes "progress" to all mankind reticence, alienation, closeness. One of the reasons of the negative perception of the world S. Becket calls a man's unrealizness and as a result – man's deformation. The consciousness wich is prepared by philosophical comprehension and scene "playing" absurd situations, helps a modern man worthly treat such situations in the real life, understanding that life occurs Hic et Nunc, we can't delay it for tomorrow.
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Stockett, Miranda. "SITES OF MEMORY IN THE MAKING: POLITICAL STRATEGIZING IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION OF PLACE IN LATE TO TERMINAL CLASSIC SOUTHEASTERN MESOAMERICA." Ancient Mesoamerica 21, no. 2 (2010): 315–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536110000295.
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AbstractArchaeological spaces can be viewed as material manifestations of human drama—sites for the production, expression, and manipulation of social life, power, and history. By viewing such spaces as stages for the enactment of processes of social memory, we may further enrich considerations of the interplay of materiality and history. Here I address the insights archaeologists may gain from engaging with theories of social memory by exploring their application to the analysis of settlements occupied during the Late to Terminal Classic period transition (a.d. 650–900) in pre-Columbian southeastern Mesoamerica. I also consider their relevance to community initiatives engaged by archaeologists today. Ultimately, I argue that processes of making, altering, and remaking place are one among many ways that memory may have served as a tool for political strategies and discourses about power.
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Keyang, Tang. "Forming and Performing: Conditioning the Concept of Chinese Space in the Case of National Theatre of China." Space and Culture 22, no. 2 (2018): 153–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1206331218774486.
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This article will examine the case of National Theatre of China, one of the most iconic buildings that have been looming in the skyline of Chinese metropolises in recent years. They are known to the Chinese public for their unprecedented, and often nicknamed, architectural types. Critics tend to deem such examples of contemporary Chinese architecture from recent waves of urban development as merely “bizarre,” taking wacky building forms as the dishonorable outcome of a corrupt conspiracy between capital and politics. Instead of making a similar judgment, this article will discuss the case of the National Theatre as a wishful cultural practice in the context of a complicated sociopolitical drama. The discussion will elaborate on three core issues emerging in the transformation of contemporary Chinese public space: (1) how the meaning of the architectural “face” changes as the urban “body” is redefined, (2) how formal and technical means enhance or weaken the psychological impact that an innovative and adventurous building might have on its patrons, and (3) how rigid urban planning is reconciled with a more dynamic and active theatric space that turns the city itself into an improvised stage.
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Kaltsounas, Efthymios, Tonia Karaoglou, Natalie Minioti, and Eleni Papazoglou. "‘Communal Hellenism’ and ancient tragedy performances in Greece (1975‐95): The ritual quest." Journal of Greek Media & Culture 7, no. 1 (2021): 69–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jgmc_00028_1.
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For the better part of the twentieth century, the quest for a ‘Greek’ continuity in the so-called revival of ancient drama in Greece was inextricably linked to what is termed and studied in this paper as a Ritual Quest. Rituality was understood in two forms: one was aesthetic and neoclassicist in its hermeneutic and performative codes, which were established and recycled ‐ and as such: ritualized ‐ in ancient tragedy productions of the National Theatre of Greece from the 1930s to the 1970s; the other, cultivated mainly during the 1980s, was cultural and centred around the idea that continuity can be traced and explored through the direct employment of Byzantine and folk ritual elements. Both aimed at eliciting the cohesive collective response of their spectators: their turning into a liminal ritual community. This was a community tied together under an ethnocentric identity, that of Greeks participating in a Greek (theatrical) phenomenon. At first through neoclassicism, then through folklore, this artistic phenomenon was seen as documenting a diachronic and essentially political modern Greek desideratum: continuity with the ancient past.Such developments were in tune with broader cultural movements in the period under study, which were reflected on the common imaginings of Antiquity in the modern Greek collective ‐ consciousness ‐ a sort of ‘Communal Hellenism’. The press reception of performances, apart from being a productive vehicle for the study of the productions as such, provides indispensable indexes to audience reception. Through the study of theatre reviews, we propose to explore the crucial shifts registered in the definition of Greekness and its dynamic connections to Antiquity.
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Panasiuk, Valerii. "«La Traviata» remastered. G. Verdi’s opera in the stage interpretation by V. Nemirovich-Danchenko." Aspects of Historical Musicology 21, no. 21 (2020): 63–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum2-21.04.
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The historical evidence of the XX – the beginning of the ХХІ century musical theatre proves that the drastic interpretation as “a coherent artistic project” can include creating a new text for a libretto, which is aligned to fundamentally important provisions of the director’s concept. It was true for G. Verdі’s “LaTraviata” theatrical performance implemented on the stage of the State Musical Theatre named after People’s Artist of the Republic V. Nemirovich-Danchenko (1934). Due to their provocative approach and radicalism of breaking with wellestablished traditions the ideas of the stage producers (directors, a conductor, an artist and a librettist) are in tune with the guidelines of the modern interpreters of opera classic. Consequently, that far away experience becomes relevant nowadays. Considering it, one can enable solve certain problems in condition when the new ideological principles and innovative art directions are spread. There is an urgent necessity to define the principles of coping with a libretto as an integral part of a holistic director’s vision on the example of “LaTraviata” staging implemented by V. Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858–1943), who was one of the most prominent reformers of both drama and musical theatres in the XX century. So, the aim of this article is to analyze the libretto for the opera “La Traviata” by G. Verdi created by V. Inber using the research approaches of theater studies and literary theory and to define the principles of working with the verbal text as with the part of a holistic director’s conception implemented by V. Nemirovich-Danchenko. The results of the research. Taking into account the guiding directions of the Soviet ideology, the producers obviously over accentuate the social component of the conflict. As a result, “the scenic situation is exacerbated” and consequently “Violetta’s social characteristics” are adjusted; being originally a demimondaine, the main heroine turns into an opera singer, whose tragedy makes the class conflict obvious. The total redefining of the conflict, transferring the place of the action (Venice) and the time (the 1870s), and characters’ social tagging enables implementing another fundamentally important provision – an aesthetic one. The visual identity of the 1870s is strongly associated with the impressionists’ images, Venice is identified with a carnival and relevant artistic attributes (the third act of the play). Focusing on the certain “painting archetype of the epoch”, the set designer (P. Williams) created the suitably matched environment for scenic playing. The innovative approach provided by the director’s concept is implemented within the libretto text by means of updating the stage narrative itself. The author of the libretto, Vera Inber (1890–1972) does not emphasize the opera singer’s destiny, but pays attention to the main character’s relations with the bourgeois society. The latter observes the lifetime conflicts development of one of the artistic bohemia’s representatives with a great deal of interest, but without any compassion. That fact justifies using the new scene – the stage, which enables applying the principle “a theatre within a theatre” (also in the sphere of the artistic design). This approach is naturally combined with the use of the “heraldic construction” in V. Inber’s libretto. In the process of realizing the stage narrative, a separate plot situation is repeated in a small-scale version. The mindset to double and complicate the narrative is carried out in the libretto. Due to that fact, a new conflict (social in its origin and provided by the authors of the director’s vision) development is enabled. The relevant literary allusions in poetical text (although obviously shallow) are set to create a meaningful artistic prospect. In the turning points, the storylines development in V. Inber’s libretto coincides with F. М. Piave’s libretto drama collisions: happy lovers; their happiness, destroyed by Alfred’s father; having an argument and the heroine’s death. The key distinction of a new version is the refusal to use Violetta’s disease as the character’s feature and the plot component, which determines the tragic ending. That is why the fourth act becomes fundamentally different, unlike the original one. Being ignored by the bourgeois environment, Violetta secludes herself from the society and abandons her successful career. The singer informs her coactors (who appear on the stage later) about that fact in the letter. Implementing the principle “a theatre within a theatre” consistently, V. Inber treats the entire final set (especially the heroine’s death) as the last scene of the theatrical performance. Thus, the inevitability of the tragic resolution of the conflict between the artistic personality and the bourgeois society is proved. It facilitates realizing dramatically vital guidelines of a director’s general vision, which becomes determinant in the process of staging G. Verdі’s masterpiece. Conclusions. The practice of rewriting librettos in the first decades of XXI century acquires a new relevance. First, creating a new libretto resolves all the disagreements between a conception of the production team and the original verbal text nowadays. Mostly those contradictions emerge in the process of changing the locality, in which the action proceeds and the time of the plot. Secondly, one of the most burning problems of the ХХІ century musical theatre, concerning the performance language choice, is resolved. Performing an opera using the audience’s native language promotes full-fledged communication between the actors and the spectators. Thirdly, the necessity for rewriting librettos supposes involving the prominent masters of the word, especially poets. Thus the effective dialogue between different national cultures is put into practice and the active circulation of the previous centuries classic (including the opera one) in the socio-cultural sphere is insured.
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Worrall, Nick. "Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance. By Maria Shevtsova. London: Routledge Publishers, 2004. xviii, 231 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. £25.00, paper." Slavic Review 64, no. 2 (2005): 473–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3650052.
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