Bibliografía de Teoría Literaria, Crítica y Filología

Bibliografía de Teoría Literaria, Crítica y Filología https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2025/04/bibliografia-de-teoria-literaria.html

Théâtre, Savoir, Politique

 

Memory and Theatre conference

CALL FOR PAPERS (via PsyArt)

Call for Papers

Memory and Theatre: performing the Archive

An International Conference

TANGIER/TETOUAN, MOROCCO 2, 3, 4, 5 MAY 2015

            Current performance practice and research are caught in an ambiguous compromise comparable to what Jacques Derrida has evocatively termed ‘archive fever’. Archival revivals — from the digitization of performance, to re-enactments of past traumas and art works, to the staging of interventions into existing archives — place the discourses of preservation and intervention in creative tension, inscribing an anxiety towards ephemerality while simultaneously critiquing conservation. Theatre’s liveness and transience are often accompanied by the urgent need for documentation before they enter the mnemonic field of embodied memory. Still, archived documentations of live performance shall never capture the traces of lived yet ephemeral experience.

            The questions which arise in the context of our reflections bring to our attention the complexities between two different logics: performance and archive, disappearance and documentation. The archive logic explored by Derrida’s Archive Fever invokes a dialectical oscillation between commencement and commandment; it combines the practice of storing and restoring. Unlike museums’ tasks of “archiving, categorizing and indexing”, performance “challenges categorization, which was originally its point […] It’s not always an easy fit, but maybe what’s interesting is the way in which the past is reframed in the present.”[1] Following the thread of thought of Rebecca Schneider, reenactments challenge the existing archives and their logic in organizing and reflecting memory and history.

            The term ‘reenactment’ is charged with repetition and repercussion. It is the “practice of replaying or re-doing a precedent event, artwork, or art […] a critical mode of remaining, as well as a mode of remaining critical.” (Schneider, 2-7) It is both an act of documentation as well as a challenge to disappearance. The cultural urge to document the ‘Arab Spring’ — and the ‘years of lead’ — explains a great deal about the desire for reenacting the memory of the past/future. Arabic reenactments of the Arab Spring render the pastness of the past “both palpable and a very present matter.” (Schneider, 30)

            Inspired from our previous discussions we propose a double-edged dialogue, which is artist-driven and research-oriented. The conference also seeks to tease out some of the complexities related to the body as memory. It is a call for more critical attention to archival revivals and re-enactments of memories of the past that have become so visible also in Arabo-Islamic contexts. We invite scholars from around the world to join the debate and offer elements of reflection on the various problematics related to the following proposed panels:

·      Archival revivals between preservation and intervention

·      Sites of memory “a will to remember” (Pierre Nora): the interplay between monumentalization, performance and memory politics.

·      Body as memory and site of agency: staging a body of memories to reveal memories of the body

·      Performing the memory of the past: memory and theatre in the countries of the Arab Spring

·      Performing the archive of the Moroccan ‘years of lead’

Keynote Speakers: (to be announced later)

Memory and Theatre: presentations by eminent practitioners and scholars// Round tables with guest speakers from the field of performance and academy// Performances// Installations// Workshops (to be announced later)…

The conference is part of the International Festival “Performing Tangier” now in its 11^th edition. The theme was carefully chosen as a follow up of our previous international conferences, with the expectation that it would be sharp enough to elicit diverse intellectual contributions from distinguished experts and colleagues from many parts of the world and in many areas of research. Besides academic panel sessions, the conference program will be nourished by a rich artistic public agenda with workshops, exhibitions, book launch, and diverse performances and artistic interventions relevant to ‘Memory and Theatre’, plus receptions and gala dinners to be announced after opening.

Proposals: The organising committee welcomes abstracts and proposals strictly on the above issues. A 250-WORD abstract, along with a ONE PARAGRAPH curriculum vitae, should be submitted electronically (preferably in Word or Rich Text format) by 31 January 2015 to the scientific committee care of Professor Khalid Amine (Conference Convener). Acceptance, however, unfortunately does not include any financial support - participants are responsible for their own funding (i.e. securing grants, etc.) to pay for travel and lodging expenses. Selected conference papers will be published in a special volume upon the approval of the scientific committee. Submitters of accepted proposals will be notified within two weeks of the above deadline and all decisions of the scientific committee are final.

Simultaneous Interpreting in all Panel Sessions

Important dates & Deadlines:

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 31 January 2015.
• Notification of Acceptance/Rejection:  15 February, 2015
• Final Paper Submission Deadline: 01 April, 2015 (included). (The paper must have a sound methodology reflecting the features of real scientific research.  It must be 10 up to 12 pages of A4 format using Times New Romans size 14 in text and size 10 in the margins.
• The conference will be held on 2, 3, 4 May 2015.
• Abstracts and completed research papers should be sent to the following emails:

khamine55@gmail.com / jaouadradouani@gmail.com

For more information on the conference please contact Prof. Khalid Amine: Khamine55@gmail.com

New Scholars’ Panel: The conference is also a home for graduate students and new scholars from different parts of the world. The establishment of an emerging Scholars’ panel invites new voices to join the debate (provided that their contributions must be relevant to the theme of this year). Up to FIVE participants will be selected for this panel, and each panelist will have ten to fifteen minutes to deliver her/his paper. Graduate students whose papers are accepted will receive free conference registration, free admission to conference luncheon, and a one-year membership in ICPS. Who is eligible? Scholars who meet the definition of ‘new scholars’ are postgraduate students writing up their PhD dissertation or post-doctoral researchers whose PhDs have been completed less than three years.

Registration Fee: 100 Euros payable in advance via Bank transfer (le centre international des études de spectacle, Banque Populaire, Tanger Ain Ktiout: 164 640 2121490077510009 61) or upon arrival. Registration includes 2 Gala Receptions, conference pack, tickets for any public concerts or site-specific performances within the conference’s public agenda, free guided tour of the Kasbah Museum, and one of the books of published proceedings from previous conferences. Since the conference is again pulling a very international public, registered attendees, participants from past conferences, and friends of ICPS will be most welcome to attend too. Women and underrepresented minorities are especially encouraged to apply.  ICPS is an Affirmative Acting/ Equal Opportunity Organization.

Conference Location: Faculty of Letters at Abdelmalek Essaâdi University (Tétouan), the Kasbah Museum (Tangier), Sahat El Kasbah, Chellah Hotel…

The Scientific Advisory Board (2015)

·      Erika Fischer-Lichte (Head of DFG Collaborative Research Centre "Performing Cultures" and Director of BMBF International Research Centre "Interweaving Cultures in Performance", Berlin, Germany

·      Christel Weiler, Professor at Institute for theatre science of the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

·      Maria Shevtsova (Chair Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts, Co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press), Director of Sociology of Theatre and Performance Research Group, University of London)

·      Marvin Carlson (The Sidney E. Cohn Professor of Theatre, Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York)

·      George F. Roberson, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Geography Human Dimensions Research Cluster, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA

·      Richard Gough, Senior Research Fellow and Artistic Director of the Centre for Performance Research, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales

·      Zohra Makach (Professor of Theatre at Ibn Zohr University of Agadir. She holds a PhD degree in Theatre Studies from Paris III)

·      Omar Fertat (Professor of Theater in the Arab World, Department of Oriental Studies and the Far East and the Department of Performing Arts, Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 3)

·      Mohammed Samir Al-Khatib  (Professor, Ain Shams University, Egypt)

Conference Supporting Committee:

·    Mohammed Saad Zemmouri (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at AEU)

·      Mohammed Kaouti (Independent Playwright, Morocco)

·      Carol Malt (Museum Curator, Adjunct Professor at the University of West Florida, and Ex-Director of the Art & Culture Center of Hollywood, USA)

·      Marjorie Kanter  (Author of short literary and poem-like pieces, USA)

·      Said Karimi (Professor, Faculty of Errachidiya, Moulay Ismail University)

·      Noureddine Chemlali (Director, King Fahd School of Translation)

·      Mustapha El-Ghachi (Vice Dean, Faculty of Humanites, AEU, Tetouan)

·      Abderrazzak Essrhir (Chair of the English Department at AEU)

·      Mohamed Bahjaji (Playwright and journalist, Morocco)

·      Abdelmajid El Hawass (Artist, ISADAK, Morocco)

·      Redouan El Ayadi (Professor, Abdelmalek Essaadi University)

·      Mohammed Taqqal (Regional Director of the Miniustry of Culture)

Conference Convener:

Khalid Amine (President of ICPS)

khamine55@gmail.com

Conference Co-Convener:

Younes El-Assad Ryani (Professor of Cultural Studies, Abdelmalek Essaadi University)

ra_younes@hotmail.com

Conference Assistants:

Jaouad Radouani (Theatre Scholar, member of ICPS)

jaouadradouani@gmail.com

Badreddine Charab (Administrator, ICPS)    charab09@yahoo.fr

Abdelaziz Khalili (General Secretary, ICPS)    khaliliaziz@yahoo.fr

Conference Organizing Committee:

(ICPS members & volunteers/ to be announced later)

Contact information:

Khalid Amine, Conference Convener, Residence Al Andalous  N° 11, Rue  Birr Anzaran, Tanger 90 010, Maroc Adresse: E-mail: khamine55@gmail.com, Tél/Fax: (212) 539330466, Portable: 0664596791/ Web: www.furja.ma / Bank details of ICPS, Centre International des Etudes de Spectacles, Banque populaire, Agence N° 36, Tanger Ain Ktiouet, Relevé d’identité bancaire: 164 640 212149007751000961.                                           © ICPS

---

[1] Carol Kino, in Rebecca Schneider, Performing Remains: Art and war in Times of Theatrical Reenactment (New York: Routledge, 2011), p.5.

Teatralidad y dramatismo

 

Teatralidad y dramatismo (A Bibliography): https://bibliojagl.blogspot.com/2023/09/teatralidad-y-dramatismo.html

Natya Shastra

 

"Drama." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama

2013

"Natya Shastra." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natyashastra

2013

Bharat Muni (Attr.). Natya Shastra. Ancient Sanskrit treatise on drama. (c. 200 BC-200 AD).

Abhinavagupta. Abhinavabharati. Commentary on Bharata's Natya Shastra.

Bharat Muni (Attr.). Natya Shastra. Trans. Manomohan Ghosh. 1951. Internet Archive.

http://archive.org/details/NatyaShastra

2013

 

Metateatralidad (A Bibliography)

 

Metadrama, Metateatralidad (A Bibliography) https://bibliojagl.blogspot.com/2023/09/metadrama-metateatralidad.html

Actuaciones teatrales

 Actuaciones teatrales y escénicas https://bibliojagl.blogspot.com/2023/09/actuaciones-teatrales-y-escenicas.html

Espectadores y público teatral (A Bibliography)

    from

A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology

http://bit.ly/abibliog

by José Ángel García Landa

(University of Zaragoza, Spain)

 

 

Audience, Public, Spectators (theatrical)

 

 

Acheson, James. "Chess with the Audience: Samuel Beckett's Endgame." In Critical Essays on Samuel Beckett. Ed. Patrick A. McCarthy. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986.

Álvarez Carbajal, Rita Lucía. "La construcción del espectador desde el texto en cuatro casos de la dramaturgia textual peruana." Desde el Sur 15.3 (2023): e0035.*

         https://doi.org/10.21142/DES-1503-2023-0035

         https://revistas.cientifica.edu.pe/index.php/desdeelsur/article/view/e0035

         2023

Avery, E. L. "The Restoration Audience." Philological Quarterly 45 (1966): 54-61.

Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. Routledge, 1991. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1997.

Brown, Pamela Allen. "'Fie, What a Foolish Duty Call You This?' The Taming of the Shrew, Women's Jest and the Divided Audience." In A Companion to Shakespeare's Works, Volume III: The Comedies. Ed. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard. Malden: Blackwell, 2003. Pbk. 2006. 289-306.*

Crow, Brian. "The Behzti Affair Revisited: British Multiculturalism, Audiences and Strategy." Studies in Theatre and Performance 27.3 (2007): 211-22. (Gurpreet Bhatti).

Davis, Jim, coauth. Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880. U of Iowa P, 2001.

_____. "4. Spectatorship." In The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730-1830. Ed. Jane Moody and Daniel O'Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 57-68.*

Davis, Mac. Get the Guests: Psychoanalysis, Modern American Drama and The Audience. U of Wisconsin, 1994.

de Bolla, Peter. "The Visibility of Visuality: Vauxhall Gardens and the Siting of the Viewer." In Vision and Textuality. Ed. Stephen Melville and Bill Readings. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1995. 282-95.*

Dolan, Jill. The Feminist Spectator as Critic. U of Michigan P, 1988.

Dunbar, R. I. M., et al. "Emotional Arousal when Watching Drama Increases Pain Threshold and Social Bonding." Royal Society Open Science 21 Sept. 2016. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160288

         Abstract and introd. at New Savanna 21 Sept. 2016.*

         http://new-savanna.blogspot.com.es/2016/09/emotional-arousal-of-drama-increases.html

         2016

Duranti, Alessandro, and Donald Brenneis, eds. The Audience as Coauthor. Special issue of Text 6.3 (1986).

García Landa, José Angel. "Redes, Regiones y Público (Networks, Regions, and Audiences)." Social Science Research Network 21 June 2015.*

         http://ssrn.com/abstract=2623861

         2015

_____. "Redes, regiones y público (Networks, Regions and Audiences)." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 30 June 2015.*

         http://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/redes-regiones-y-publico-networks.html

         2015

Gurr, Andrew. "The Audiences." In Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. 212-31.*

Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare's Audience. London, 1941.

_____. Shakespeare's Audience. New York: Columbia UP, 1941. 1969.

Levy, Deborah. "Structuring the Audience's Attention." Paper delivered to the Graduate Women and Literature Seminar, St Joh's College, Cambridge, 7 Feb. 1990. (Unpublished).

Martin, Jack, and Bryan Sokol. "Generalized Others and Imaginary Audiences: A Neo-Meadian Approach to Adolescent Egocentrism." New Ideas in Psychology 29.3 (2011): 364–75.

McConachie, Bruce Alan. Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectatorship in the Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

McDougall, Gordon. "Theatrical Truth: The Dialogue between Audience and Performance." Studies in Theatre and Performance 22.2 (2002): 107-17.

Miller, Adam David. "It's a Long Way to St. Louis: Notes on the Audience for Black Drama." In The Theatre of Black Americans: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Errol Hill. New York: Applause, 1987. 301-6.

Normington, Katie. Medieval English Drama: Performance and Spectatorship. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.

Ozieblo, Barbara, and Maria Dolores Narbona-Carrión, eds. Codifying the National Self: Spectators, Actors and the American Dramatic Text. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2006.

Pedicord, Henry William. The Theatrical Public in the Time of Garrick. New York: King's Crown Press, 1954.

_____. (Harry W. Pedicord). "The Changing Audience." In The London Theatre World, 1660-1800. Ed. R. D. Hume. Carbondale, 1980. 237-41.

Rebellato, Dan. "When We Talk of Horses: Or, What Do We See When We See a Play?" Performance Research 14.1 (2009): 17-28.

Ross, Julian L. "Dramatist versus Audience in the Early Eighteenth Century." Philological Quarterly 12 (1933): 73-81.

Schaefer, Kerrie. "The Spectator as Witness? Binlids as Case Study." Studies in Theatre and Performance 23.1 (2003): 5-20.

Scolnicov, Hanna, and Peter Holland, eds. The Play out of Context: Transferring Plays from Culture to Culture. 1989.

Scouten, Arthur H., and Robert D. Hume. "Restoration Comedy and Its Audiences." In The Rakish Stage. Ed. Robert D. Hume. Carbondale (IL), 1983.

Straub, Kristina. "9. The Making of an English Audience: The Case of the Footmen's Gallery." In The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730-1830. Ed. Jane Moody and Daniel O'Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 131-44.*

Osborne, L. E. "Female Audiences and Female Authority in The Knight of the Burning Pestle." Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1991): 491-517.

Paulus, Diane. "I'ts All About the Audience." Contemporary Theatre Review 16.3 (2006): 334-47.

Sánchez Roura, María Teresa. "Addressing the Audience of the Towneley Plays." In SEDERI VI. Ed. Ana María Manzanas Calvo. N.p.: SEDERI, 1996. 175-88.*

Styan, J. L. "4. Shifting Impressions: The Cherry Orchard." In Styan, The Elements of Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1960.*

_____. "11. Audience Participation: Crime Passionel, The Hairy Ape." In Styan, The Elements of Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1960. 231-55.* (Sartre, Crime passionel = Les mains sales).

Trussler, Simon. "6. The Jacobean Theatre 1603-1625." In Trussler, The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. pbk 2000. 90-105.* (From Elizabethan to Jacobean. New patrons, and the 'move indoors'. Changing audiences and changing tastes. Acts and scenes. The nature of 'character': the malcontent and the revenger. Conventions, cross-dressing, and clowning. Tragedy, tragi-comeedy, and the 'triumvirate of wit'. Masques, and other entertainments. 'City Comedy', the puritans, and the politics of theatre).

Webster, John.  "To the Reader in, The White Divel . . . Written by Iohn Webster. London: Printed by N. O. for Thomas Archer, 1612.

_____. "To the Reader of The White Devil." 1612. Select. in Literary Criticism from Plato to Dryden. Ed. Gilbert. 551.*

_____. "To the Reader." From The White Devil. In Writing and the English Renaissance. Ed. William Zunder and Suzanne Trill. Harlow (Essex): Longman, 1996. 266-67.*

Whitelock, Dorothy. The Audience of Beowulf. Oxford, 1951.

 

 

 

 

 

Literature

 

 

Jonson, Ben. "Ode to Himself." 1631, 1640-41. 

_____. "An Ode to Himself." In The Songs and Poems of Ben Jonson. London: Philip Allan & Co., 1924. 59-60.

_____. "Ode to Himself." In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: Norton, 1999. 1.1416-18.*

_____. "An Ode to Himself." Luminarium

         http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/odetohimself.htm

         2012

 

 

 

 

 

Video

 

 

Gómez, José Luis. "Breviario de teatro para espectadores activos." Inaugural discourse at the Real Academia Española, 1 Dec. 2011. Online video at YouTube (Canal de RAEinforma) 30 Jan. 2014.*

         http://youtu.be/FNrz9qs0O34

         2014

 

 

 

 

 

See also Theatre-going.

 

 

 

 

Dramatismo del Monaguillo

Origen de la conciencia del teatro, de la ceremonia, del ritual y del espectáculo en el Monaguillo, según Albert Boadella (Memorias de un bufón):

 

'La sacristía era como un tugurio en el que los curas jugaban al dominó, en espera de misas y sacramentos; discutían, fumaban o reían tan fuerte que, a veces, el párroco tenía que pedirles más moderación. En medio de aquel ambiente tabernario, todo se transformaba por el simple hecho de atravesar la puerta de la sacristía tocando la campanilla, seguido del cura revestido con los ornamentos. A partir de aquel preciso instante los actos se volvían trascendentales, éramos otros, él y yo.

No hay diferencia alguna entre este comportamiento y el de los actores cuando están entre cajas o salen a escena; se invisten de un personaje y solo por la voluntad del celebrante (actor) y la de los feligreses (público) ya todo es diferente. Poco importa que el actor sea un imbécil, pues solo con que sea un hipócrita aceptable nos hará emocionarnos con su heroísmo de ficción. Tal como lo expresábamos en la obra El Nacional, "somos un oficio de putas, maricones y cabrones; la grandeza está en que las putas hacen de Vírgenes, los cabrones de héroes, y los maricones de Don Juan; ésta es la auténtica magia del teatro".'

El teatro y la liturgia utilizan el mismo lenguaje: por eso el Bufón sostuvo siempre que la actuación de monaguillo profesional supuso el primer trabajo escénico de su vida. 

En un párrafo de su libro El rapto de Talía, analiza las funestas consecuencias que la degradación de la teatralidad de las funiones litúrgicas católicas le ha acarreado a la religión después del Concilio Vaticano II, que fue el pretexto para proceder al desmantelamiento de las rúbricas. 'Los que pertenecemos al gremio escénico observamos a menudo cómo repercute un efecto visual o sonoro en los mecanismos sensoriales del espectador, que obtiene así mayor lucidez, debido a la excitación de esos mismos impulsos. También comprobamos cómo estos efectos se multiplican por el simple hecho de recibirlos en común (público); de tal manera que el poder de sugestión aumenta proporcionalmente con la participación colectiva en el acto. Es evidente que la pérdida de estos beneficios escénicos por parte de la Iglesia repercute directamente en el fervor espiritual del creyente, pues le será muy difícil al feligrés separar de su impulso religioso fondo y forma, ya que, tal como ocurre en las artes, la forma es esencialmente contenido.

Lamentablemente, cuando se corta una tradición, se descomponen los códigos con gran celeridad; por eso hoy en día el conocimiento de la comunicación ritual en los clérigos es nulo. Las ceremonias religiosas acostumbran a ser desoladoras, y, en vez de orientar hacia la divinidad, expresan descarnadamente un estado de decadencia monumental de la Institución. Poco importa que Santa Teresa de Jesús declare en su autobiografía "que en cosa de la fe, contra la menor ceremonia de la Iglesia que alguien viese yo iba, por ella me pondría yo a morir mil muertes".

Ni los grandes faustos que envuelven ahora los viajes papales tienen la más mínima calidad escénica: solo exhiben un despliegue de medios, más propio de un concierto de rock. El objetivo de la pretendida ceremonia espiritual siempre parece más encaminada a demostrar el potencial de la empresa vaticana que a la exaltación de la fe. Desde una óptica puramente ceremonial, consigue hoy mucha más trascendencia la retransmisión desde Viena del concierto de año nuevo, en el que cada primero de enero dos mil cretinos satisfechos de sí mismos siguen, dando palmadas, la Marcha Radetzky, bajo las indicaciones del Dios napolitano Ricardo Mutti.

Los hechos demuestran que ha sido más grave para el catolicismo la falta de fe en el Teatro que la falta de fe en Dios'.

Esta defensa de la forma en las funciones religiosas manifiesta un empeño profesional muy impregnado de añoranza de aquellos solemnes oficios católicos en los que había participado, anunciados con campanas, perfumados con incienso, recitados en latín, con el órgano acompañando el canto gregoriano e ilustrando la acción. No es posible que un hombre de teatro no sienta un profundo interés por el ceremonial religioso, especialmente por un rito como la misa, tan perfecto en cuanto a participación y simbología. Con poquísimos recursos, una mesa, unas velas, un libro, pan y vino, se rememoran poéticamente los acontecimientos supremos de la mitología cristiana de manera escénicamente ejemplar.

'En cierto momento de los oficios solemnes, el sacerdote, después de incensar el altar, me pasaba el turíbulo; yo me colocaba en el centro del presbiterio, de cara a la gente, les hacía una reverencia, y automáticamente todo el mundo se ponía de pie mientras les lanzaba humo de incienso. Es de suponer la excitación que sentía cuando toda la iglesia se levantaba a mi señal; aquello inoculaba en mí el virus del histrionismo, y es muy probable que de manera subconsciente aquella simple acción decidiera irreversiblemente mi vida'.

El drama: Forma y acción, no mensaje

 Retropost, 2013:

Un pasaje de J. L. Styan, The Elements of Drama, contra la idea de un teatro "de ideas" o "realista", y defendiendo el mostrar sobre el decir, y las convenciones, la estilización, la construcción de una forma dramática autosustentada:

By the laws of comic theatre and of any comic art, perhaps the more incisevely and vigorously the writer wishes to probe, the farther into a Ruritania must he transport the spectator first. 

So a first step towards judgment is not to ask how far it is like life, but why it is different from life. But in asking 'why?', we come close to looking for theat tiresome, misleading, ungainly phantom, the play's 'message'. The common assumption that the more the playwright teaches a tidy lesson, the more considerable it is, is a dangerous fallacy. Though we may consciously disavow it, it is an assumption we hold unwittingly. Drama does not tell what it has to say, but shows it. The good mother does not say to her child, 'Go away and play'; she says specifically, 'See if you can find the cotton-reel in my basket'. The playwright owes to his audience to find particular and concret action for the general and abstract idea, so that the playgoer can move across common ground with him. Because the stage expects concrete detail of behaviour for its living actors, no other literary form is more objective, less moralizing. (...)

Without losing one's sense of the complexity of the whole, the discssion must become one about the ordering and emphasis of the play and the relation of its parts, not immediately about its content or message. Injustice has been done to the work of Bernard Shaw, though he invited it himself, by a general refusal to give him credit as an artist before assessing hims as a thinker. This is somewhat true of Molière, is still largely true of Strindberg and Pirandello, for years was true of Shakespeare, and may yet blight the fortunes of M. Anouilh today. Shaw's own attitude to Ibsen, as seen in The Quintessence of Ibsenism, showed a similar error of judgment. Should the spectator become aware of the preacher in the playwright, aware that a view of life is being thrust upon him, the play will destroy itself. 

A poem can make a deep and broad meaning out of a tiny subject, and what is true of poetry is true of drama. The meaning that matters emerges from the way the subject is treated. the family of The Cherry Orchard makes a departure, the family of The Three Sisters does not, but there the seminal ideas end: the rest is growth and fruition. The satisfaction of drama arises from no logical consistency in the events, nor from their magnitude. The power of the play comes of its consistency within itself, and its content achieves magnitude by the quality of its exploration, its with of view and its sense of proportion.

In arriving at a judgment, the second step is therefore one inseparable from our decision about the quality of the texture and the offering of the impressions, together with decisions about the delicacy and precision by which the author and his agents originate and project them. (1960: 262-3)

Drama and Theatre

 

—oOo—

Jorge Prado Zavala

 

Prado Zavala, Jorge. Academia (Jorge Prado Zavala).*

         https://iems.academia.edu/JorgePradoZavala

         2022