Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Text Exposed: Displayed texts as players onstage in contemporary theatre
AU - Juers-Munby, Karen
PY - 2010/1
Y1 - 2010/1
N2 - This article explores dramaturgical functions of visibly displayed text in contemporary postdramatic theatre. By analysing a variety of performance examples – from seminal performances, by the Wooster Group and Forced Entertainment, to very recent performances, by companies like Proto-type Theatre, Apocryphal Theatre and The Strange Names Collective – it identifies functions such as the opening up of gaps between source material and performance/performer and the use of text as a ‘player’ in live improvisation and as an acknowledged prompter for performativity. It proposes that exposed textuality is often used to reflect on the intensely mediatised state of our lives. Furthermore, it revisits an earlier debate about the subversion of presence by exposed writing (with reference to Elinor Fuchs) and proposes that it is more accurate to speak of a mutual infiltration of speech by writing and writing by speech/performance. Finally, it suggests that the openly exhibited tension between text and performer can be mobilized for a political aesthetic, creating spaces to expose culturally dominant ‘scripts’.
AB - This article explores dramaturgical functions of visibly displayed text in contemporary postdramatic theatre. By analysing a variety of performance examples – from seminal performances, by the Wooster Group and Forced Entertainment, to very recent performances, by companies like Proto-type Theatre, Apocryphal Theatre and The Strange Names Collective – it identifies functions such as the opening up of gaps between source material and performance/performer and the use of text as a ‘player’ in live improvisation and as an acknowledged prompter for performativity. It proposes that exposed textuality is often used to reflect on the intensely mediatised state of our lives. Furthermore, it revisits an earlier debate about the subversion of presence by exposed writing (with reference to Elinor Fuchs) and proposes that it is more accurate to speak of a mutual infiltration of speech by writing and writing by speech/performance. Finally, it suggests that the openly exhibited tension between text and performer can be mobilized for a political aesthetic, creating spaces to expose culturally dominant ‘scripts’.
KW - Postdramatic theatre
KW - text and performance
KW - performance writing
KW - reading in performance
KW - presence in performance
M3 - Journal article
VL - 30
SP - 101
EP - 114
JO - Studies in Theatre and Performance
JF - Studies in Theatre and Performance
SN - 1468-2761
IS - 1
ER -