The Distinctive Feature of Theatre Which Separates It From Other Arts Is That Theatre Employs

I.

Performance studies

1. The field

The performing arts have go a subject of interest in a number of disciplines, each of which—in accordance with its own priorities—emphasizes different aspects of performance do. The ensuing range of approaches is indicated in the following list.

a) Empirical inquiry is concerned with collecting information nearly specific performance traditions. Ignoring theoretical hypotheses, it concentrates essentially on annotation (of gesture, movement, facial expressivity, stage spaces, declamatory styles), the work of the role player, and the physical organization of the stage. This type of study finds its inspiration in the work of theatre practitioners themselves and for this reason may be disproportionately constrained by the metaphysical presuppositions inherent in notions such as the eighteenth-century codes of emotion and the operation conventions derived from them (including Lessing'southward Hamburg Dramaturgy and the writings of Goethe and Schiller). The tendency in some gimmicky work (such as Eugenio Barba's theatrical anthropology) is to combine theatre practice and analysis: here the focus is no longer particular forms of theatrical expression but more general models of theatricality. Furthermore, twentieth-century dramatists have tended to undertake activities which ane might have assumed to be more the preserve of other disciplines. Sociological concerns are one such instance: the attempts to concenter a working-class audience, to motion theatres out of the big city centers, the choice of new types of operation infinite, customs cultural-development activities. Semiotic analysis is axiomatic in the claims of many directors: work on levels of meaning, rethinking the notion of character, concrete operation styles, directly appeals to the audition. There is likewise the increasingly frequent tendency in mod productions for the stage to present its ain operation as part of the bear witness. In improver to all this, the evolution of new stage technologies involving specialized noesis (set construction, lighting pattern) has in turn inspired works which exploit the new technology in architecture, electronics (new types of color filter; remote command; programmed, automatically focused lights; lasers), and computer controls (microprocessors, etc).

b) The social sciences provide specialized methods and approaches which take dramatic text analysis into new domains.

Historical studies examine the weather determining the theatrical production of a given period, and help in distinguishing and identifying significant features. This sort of study emphasizes the extent to which stage practices, audiences, objects, and techniques are historically marked , exemplifying the social and ideological structures and "codes" of their time.

Philosophy approaches the representational arts from several perspectives in relation to time and truth (e.k., deception, Sartrean inauthenticity). Henri Gouhier's study of theatre aesthetics inspired a number of attempts to define the essence of theatricality. More recently, broadly based full general studies such as T. Kowzan's Littérature et spectacle have attempted to situate the theatre in relation to other fine art forms, and this work is leading to the development of a poetics of theatre types (utopian, comic, etc.) which relates to genre theory. This is the goal that André Veinstein is pursuing.

Interpretative criticism , which derives from both philology and literary criticism, offers a number of theoretical options which facilitate recognition of operative features in the play or performance text (staging, interim, costume, etc.) and allow these to exist "read" and so as to produce an overall meaning, which may or may not be compatible with the initial interpretative hypothesis.

Dramaturgy , in the contemporary meaning of the word, is concerned with the relation betwixt the means of expression (the narrative cloth, phase space and time, formal organisation) and the vision of the world to be expressed.

Psychology provides a means to examine in greater depth the work of the actor (the more than rigorous analysis of the notion of "doubling" and of the "natural" which practitioners have hitherto discussed in intuitive terms) and the experience of the spectator. The ways of investigation in this surface area take been significantly improved (see Maryvonne Saison, Imaginaire imaginable ) with the development of psychodrama. The therapeutic value of theatre has been acknowledged, and this has opened the way for both creative work and critical analysis (in theatre, dance, and puppetry). Psychoanalysts take undertaken a number of substantial studies in the field of theatre, peculiarly on acting and on the play.

Sociological methods (interviews, surveys, statistical analyses) are existence applied to audience reception: conditions of perception, audience limerick (preferences, needs, patterns of cultural consumption), and to the relation between audience and theatre locale. More than broadly, these studies situate the socio-cultural role of the theatre in the perspective of the leisure industry and in terms of cultural politics, also as exploring the connection between the theatrical and daily life (Duvignaud, Goffman, Debord, Bourdieu). Demand analysis (box-office percentages, audience patterns) tin be related to economic parameters (size of potential audience in a given area at a given fourth dimension, the social and economical factors determining demand). The growing trunk of work in the economic domain can be related to Bourdieu's theory of habitus .

Semiotics looks at performance activity as a structure made upwards of sign systems organized into particular meaning-begetting ensembles, and its catenary includes the production process, reception, and performance models. Its aim is double: the study of both how the object of interest functions, and how the sign systems operate within the socio-cultural network. Theatre semiotics tin can thus be seen equally essentially initiatory, encouraging interaction with a number of disciplines and providing a basis for assessing the relevance of their contribution.

c) Some of the "difficult" sciences are as well expressing interest in the study of performance. Biologists and neurochemists perceive operation as a "behavioral part" (Laborit) which corresponds to genetic programs shaped by ecology factors (simulacrum, ritual, and parade all share comparable rhythmical structures). Mathematicians such as René Thom accept shown how these biological systems can be modeled; physics and acoustics—which in the work of Pradier designate theatre a "living science"—take too made notable contributions to knowledge in the last few years.

2. Ways of investigation

The means of investigation at our disposal today are constantly being improved; nevertheless they remain constrained past the theoretical hypotheses which underpin them.

a) Questionnaires and other survey methods are geared to written report from outside such things as the spectator'southward decoding processes. This book will, however, propose some new approaches in this field.

b) Visual recording methods pose the trouble of what has been recorded and, more fundamentally, of whether to analyze code by lawmaking or within a global perspective. The photograph was historically the first such recording method, but we are now well aware that photography is itself a form of creative expression ( écriture ) whose "grammar" consists of such things as camera bending, lens type, calorie-free intensity, and depth of field. Rather than presenting an objective record of performance, it offers the possibility of re-creation. The same can be said of slides . Taking into account the above-mentioned constraints, still photography nevertheless makes it possible to analyze cross sections or slices of the operation and can also provide prove of temper or audition mood. Picture show brings with it the dynamism of the moving epitome, only this introduces the run a risk of distortion in the instance of a very static performance, as some of Bablet'due south experiments have shown. The perception of the theatrical result through the lens of one or more than movie cameras and the impossibility of presenting simultaneously both functioning stimulus and audience response limit the value of this kind of documentation. On the other manus, the preservation of some trace of the functioning tin can make assay far more precise; documentation of rehearsals (for instance, Vitez's record of the rehearsals of Vendredi ) provides a great deal of insight into the creative process. Video recording is bailiwick to the same limitations as film although the flexibility of the medium makes it more appropriate for precise documentation. Taken together, all these techniques constitute an improvement in documentary capacity in the domain of theatre. Theatre records have been substantially refined as tin can exist seen in some of the collaborative ventures undertaken by libraries and theatre museums (e.k., the establishment by the International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts (SIBMAS) of the pertinent features of theatrical productions, details of which are to exist collected and preserved in a computer index). All of this provides the possibility of much more accurate and rigorous studies.

3. Terminology

The terminology used by theatre specialists is far from having clear, universally accepted meanings. Information technology would therefore be useful to take an overall look at the theatrical lexicon and to describe the semantic field involved.

The give-and-take theatre (from the Greek theatron , a identify for viewing, the amphitheatre surrounding the orchestra) designates a social space (theatre building or performance space). In French the word tin can also be used to refer to the audience ( amuser le théâtre ) but while the Oxford English Dictionary gives a similar seventeenth-century definition ("A theatreful of spectators, the audience at a theatre"—1602), this is non in current English usage.

The word spectacle (from the Latin spectare, to expect) has two definitions. Strictly defined, it designates the visible aspects of the performance; more broadly it evokes symbolically an attribute of the general theatricality which is fundamental to our civilization. [Translator's note: In English the term "spectacle" is used to refer to theatrical productions in which visual display is a dominant feature. A range of terms is needed in English (show, production, and—nigh frequently—performance) to indicate the semantic field covered by current French usage of the discussion spectacle .]

The term representation (from the Latin repraesentatio , the action of placing before the eyes, making a picture show) is often considered in relation to the Platonic opposition between mimesis and diegesis. It accentuates the notion of functioning equally a concrete event intended to make something nowadays by substituting one thing for another; this paradox leads to consideration of both illusion and convention, and reminds the states that theatre constructs significant without denying the presence of the representing object. In addition, representation obliges us to think of theatre, not every bit a story told by a narrator, but in terms of a narrative communicated to the spectator through specifically dramatic languages.

The give-and-take actor (or the Greek hypokrinomai, to respond on cue, to explicate, to play a part) brings in the notion of role and by derivation that of ruse . The word thus bears the mark of the histrion'southward social condition, alternately reviled and rehabilitated over succeeding historical periods. The lexical field associated with the actor introduces both play and theatrical code; today this correlation is seen as indicative of the social function of the thespian, that of imitating a role that is not his own, theatricalizing a social role which activates codes other than his ain. Like the jester, wizard, and madman, the player confronts society with an unknown "Imaginary" and reveals the codes underpinning this. From the perspective of writing, aesthetics, and ideology, the actor is a kind of freak, divers through play (which may or may not express 18-carat personal emotion), past social codes, and by the transfer of identity.

4. Methods

A. Ways of expression

The physical means of expression, the actual substance of functioning, are to a large extent the preferred object of reflection for theatre practitioners; besides reflection on the artful message and the function of the operation, theatre directors tend to concentrate discussion on the following areas.

THE TEXT

For some, the text is seen equally a written score which precedes the performance; for others the text exists simply in its spoken course and in relation to the other performance codes. Repeatable and enduring, the text is transformed by the performance into voice, an ephemeral phenomenon. This transformation justifies the distinction between (written) dramatic text designed to be read, production text (stage direction, didascalia), and theatre text (the ensemble designed to be performed). While theatre history provides many farthermost examples of a production text that has a dramatic function (Beckett's Act without Words , Cocteau'southward The Human Phonation ), it is at present usually accustomed that a product is equanimous of the interweaving of dramatic text and what may be called the text of tradition (the corpus produced past earlier directors).

Speech communication

The spoken discussion poses the problematical question of the ability of language, and it therefore has to be approached through its intermeshing with other functioning codes:

a) Gesture: either autonomous or equally support to the verbal, preceding spoken language (Marivaux'southward lazzi ) or following information technology, on occasion replacing decor. Movement can be symbolic (coded), a visual translation of relationships (Beckett), or a ways of constructing place (Meyerhold).

b) Facial expression , basis of focalization, must be seen in terms of the overall aesthetic of the production.

c) Props (objects, costume, make up, pilus styles, masks) accept to be situated both in terms of the narrative content and of the style of staging (verism, symbolism, neutrality), and they contribute to the building up of layers of meaning.

Phase DESIGN

a) Lighting can exist used to assist focalization, to include or exclude the auditorium in relation to the playing space. From oil lamps to projectors, electric light to lasers, technological progress has greatly modified the contribution of lighting to theatrical expression.

b) The same can be said of sound effects and incidental music. Creating a mood (Antoine) or imposing a rhythm on the action (Wagner) or on a character (Beckett), music can as well be used to structure space (Arrabal) and to punctuate the operation.

c) The set poses the trouble of the overall scenographic organisation: it can be mimetic or symbolic, it tin take a dynamic function (Craig) or a static one (Antoine), it tin can exist used to display the plasticity of the human being body (Appia), or it tin be dispensed with entirely (Copeau, Vilar, Grotowski). Twentieth-century theatre has sometimes been dubbed a "progression toward emptiness."

STAGE/AUDITORIUM Human relationship

The relation between stage and auditorium raises questions apropos theatre aesthetics and actor grooming. The functioning may or may not demand an agile response from the audience. (Vilar aimed for communion; others seek provocation, guilt, the questioning of received wisdom, identification, demand for intervention or verification.) The accent in role player grooming varies greatly equally a consequence of the performance functions desired: elucidation through theatre of the mechanics of everyday life, translation of universal myths, arousal of emotion, exploration of self, improvisation, acceptance or refusal of chance occurrences, and then along.

The table below indicates a number of cardinal moments in the evolution of performance theory every bit exemplified in the work of some major theatre practitioners.

The preceding description has utilised an empirical pick/list of detail: it was concerned with the material substance of functioning (staging, color, grade) rather than the object of knowledge. But listing the component elements of theatrical performance in this way omits the signifying relationship—it ignores the work of the spectator constructing pregnant past making connections across the spatio-temporal axis of the performance and elaborating structures of coherence. A farther problem with this approach is that information technology suggests that the theatrical sign is synthetic and defined exclusively through the prior existence of the operation tradition. Uncritical credence of the categories and reductive definitions (which are essentially the product of the directorial vision) would result in failure to confront the question of how the performance-object is constructed and indeed at what level it can be said to exist. While Artaud touched on the problematic involved in these questions, it is worth devoting a little more attention to the aesthetic and semiological dimension underpinning the accompanying tabular array.

This table recapitulates a number of modes of theatrical presentation: pure functioning, ways of acquiring knowledge, place of fantasy and the fictional Imaginary. At the same time, it renders explicit a number of the variables governing access to meaning:

• interpretative rules derived from the piece of work of the actor

• rules of translation of operation into fiction

• rules imposed by the spectators and governing the other rules.

Theoretical thinking about the theatre revolves around hypotheses of the kind mentioned higher up. While the concerns may be in essence philosophical or artful, they manifest a number of preoccupations that have recurred throughout the history of Western idea. Lessing (in his Hamburg Dramaturgy ) focuses on the intentionality of the actor'southward operation even when it falls clearly within the category of mimesis. Diderot'due south Paradox of the Actor emphasizes the theatrical nature of identification; his 2 other essays tackle the visual components ( tableaux ) of theatrical operation and its relationship to the spectator. Jacob Engel's Ideas on Gesture and Theatrical Action make explicit the connection between the role player's emotion and the rhetorical strategies employed. In similar vein, Gomperz situates the actor's performance in a "semasiology." Nosotros should likewise mention Valéry (whose essays on dance deal with the question of aesthetic function), Hegel (the actor equally material support for the representation), and Rötscher (the relationship between actor and character). In that location is indeed a fairly direct intellectual line of descent (Diderot and Honzl, Valéry, and Mukařovský) through to the theory developed past the Prague Schoolhouse. Notable contributions made past the latter in 1931 include Aesthetics of Art and Drama (Zieh) and Structural Assay of the Phenomenon of the Actor (Mukařovský).

B. Sign systems

Members of the Prague Circumvolve were the first to effort whatsoever systematic theorization of the performance miracle. J. Honzl, for example, in his exploration of the way theatrical signs function (and in particular their mobility and transformability), rejected approaches restricted to the material reality of the stage: "total art can be seen to negate theatrical expression; the latter is ultimately no more than the sum, the juxtaposition, the 'coordinated presentation' of a number of textile forms: music, text, thespian, decor, props, lighting. The principle of total art, however, involves recognition that the impact of theatrical expression, in other words the strength of the impression received by the spectator, is a directly function of the number of perceptions flowing simultaneously to the mind and senses of the spectator."

a) The Prague Circle, in the work of Veltruský, drew attention for the first time to the semiotization inherent in the theatrical phenomenon. The process whereby all stage signs are rendered artificial is the basis for the transformation into intentional signs of all phenomena marked past theatrical convention. In the theatre all events, even chance occurrences, are necessarily resemanticized by the spectator: the unintentional sign (Jouvet's stutter, a chance scratch or blemish) is perceived as meaningful past the spectator. Bogatyrev reinforced the idea of the semiotization of the stage through his notion of the excess or supplement of meaning inherent in theatrical signs every bit what distinguishes them from the signs of everyday life. Mukařovský, too, explored the structure of the theatrical sign: for him the performance signifier or "text" was associated with a signifier established by the collective mind of the audition.

b) The system of stage meaning was also considered and information technology was claimed that the denotative/connotative network was activated dialectically past the role player.

c) The overdetermination of the stage signifier—even on the denotative level (Mephisto'due south cloak indicating alternatively his submission to Faust and his ability over the forces of evil)—led to the study of theatrical codes. Honzl noted the interchangeability of signifiers (human body replacing an object) and the lack of limitations on the class of signifiers to which they can refer. The distinction betwixt static (fixed meanings) and dynamic codes (open range of symbolic meanings) was thus introduced.

d) The Prague scholars were also interested in the hierarchy of codes: the way meanings are generated, the shifting between exact and not-verbal communication during the performance, led to the notion of a layering of codes.

C. Descendants of the Prague School

A) Advice

In the wake of concepts derived from linguistics, Georges Mounin attempted the analysis of theatrical phenomena in terms of communication . Mounin used the give-and-take in its linguistic sense (the intentional transmission of a bulletin from emitter to receiver, perceived as such and entailing a response through the aforementioned channel); this was thus applicable only to the fictional world on phase, for the phase/auditorium relationship, seen in this perspective, excludes any response from the spectators (who are reduced merely to applauding, booing, or hissing). This radical linguistic position has since been largely abandoned by those who wish to study the theatre sub specie communicationis . The idealist notion of the gap between pre-production (author, written play) and production (interest of director, actor, spectator) has been replaced by a materialist approach in praesentia to the functioning effect. Scholars are exploring the recognition of intention, aberrant decoding (Eco), and the delegation of pleasure (Helbo), and take thus emphasized the reciprocal functions of actor and spectator in the theatrical event. The stage/auditorium relationship having been established as socially marked (linked to a detail audience and its socio-cultural context), studies are currently focusing on the language of theatre perceived in its production or reception functions within the context of a shared social feel. It is in this sense that we now speak of performance codes (conventions specifically applicative to performance, genre, historical period), general codes (linguistic, ideological/cultural, perceptual), or mixed codes (general codes functioning in a specific operation context). The notion of an enunciating commonage is a more accurate means of designating the process of communication in the theatre, which can be seen to consist of ii elements:

• a soapbox or combination of communicative acts (theatrical discourse constitutes a specific genre in that information technology displays its own rules of operation, renders them explicitly "readable" in their own context while dissociating them from their everyday functions);

• a situation of enunciation which evokes a dynamic ready of relationships and contracts (pre-existing or constructed past the performance) adamant by the prevailing ideology.

B) Segmentation

The hypothesis of the minimal unit, beloved to narratologists and film analysts, has been examined critically by theatre specialists.

• We volition mention for the record the works on dramatic text by Souriau, which derive from the kickoff moving ridge narratological studies (Brémond, Propp, etc.).

• Others have suggested a sectionalisation based on text/performance correlation. One group in the Italian school (Serpieri) sees performance as an intermeshing of different discourses, the play text itself containing a performative/deictic joint which provides the basis for operation segmentation and thus determines the construction of the mise-en-scène . The stage space in this view is organized according to the deictic markers contained in virtual course in the text.

• Rumanian scholars (Marcus, Dinu) have approached the question of segmentation with the assistance of mathematical models. Statistical analyses of actors' movements (relative frequency and appearance on stage of characters) enable them to reduce the performance continuum to a number of "hyper-syllables" or basic units of dramatic action.

• The Paris school (based on the work of Greimas) considers that the problem of defining the theatrical sign (operation units) has not still been resolved, and is exploring both form of expression and course of content. Whatever the substance of expression (lighting, gesture, movement, visual detail), signification is studied as an autonomous entity. For example, a light/dark contrast associated with a solar day/night temporal segmentation would be taken into account if information technology played a structural role in ordering the text of a given segment of the theatrical discourse, in particular that of signaling a narrative progression in the story.

• Peircean semiotics, also, has attempted to regroup the dispersed theatrical signs into a number of functions (iconic, indexical, symbolic) which are applicable to both written text and performance.

5. Operation models

The study of theatre has, over the years, included within its ambit numerous performance practices (inanimate signs such as puppets, in the example of the Prague School, circus, opera), practices which in certain forms of dramaturgy may well be combined. Information technology is not surprising, therefore, that with the abandonment of linguistic and narratological models, research has been concentrated on the evolution of a specific paradigm: performance.

a) Numerous sociologists take noted that social structures are themselves theatrical in nature. Erving Goffman'south studies, for example, which due to the vagaries of disquisitional terminology have been dubbed "dramaturgical assay," show that we can all exist seen as actors involved in situations liable to involve us in theatrical strategies such as disguise or parade. Our daily lives are governed by interactions, and our cultural codes and models ( rituals of interaction ) tin also be analyzed in terms of game theory; the rituals of funfair at the basis of our official civilization (Bakhtin), Duvignaud's idea of generalized theatricality, and Goffman's notion of the presentation of cocky in everyday life all indicate that the very ground of our civilisation is structured effectually functioning models. Theatrical performance itself, or other institutionally marked forms of performance, constitute particular cases, exemplifying in the here and now the functioning of effects within the performance domain. The problem for theatre analysts is thus to establish the means (markers, conventions, limits) whereby performance proper establishes its own distinctive territory, and how it exploits the ritualized functions which can also be seen to regulate our everyday "reality."

b) Analogous presuppositions are at work in the field of biology: Laborit includes operation in a group of behavioral functions (rituals, animal parades) controlled from the right side of the brain; theatrical performance proper demonstrates the mechanisms at work which are masked by the very familiarity of the social/cultural structures of daily life; he sees theatre as a means of liberating us from anxiety-producing inhibitions, as a way of reflecting, through its fictions, the suppressed Imaginary, and equally bounty for the prohibitions of backer, consumer society.

c) Semiotics takes upwardly these various preoccupations while developing a range of methodical approaches:

• the semiotics of Peirce offers a theory of levels of convention synthetic by the culture; this is the point of his trichotomies (e.g., icon/index/symbol), which, he argued, govern our systems of signification.

• the semiotics of Greimas is equally concerned with performance processes ( le faire spectaculaire ) which are made operative through convention in the sequences of discourses (modalities of seeming and beingness) and in their actantial structure.

d) Theatre semioticians take for their role attempted to relate their definition of performance to the notion of functioning discourse made physically manifest in the theatrical effect. 3 criteria of operation convention are currently the focus of inquiry:

• convention as the basis of theatrical functioning to the point of being its fundamental component. The various ritual markers which separate the performance from the real earth (bells ringing, lights dimming, drape) and the reinsertion of the latter into the fictional globe (intermissions, pretend nearmisses in circus acts) are inextricably linked;

• convention as related to denegation in theatrical performance: a given pick will separate fiction from referential discourse but well-nigh immediately will reconnect the ii: the vox of Jouvet reminds us of the thespian himself and his immense prestige merely and so obliterates this in the service of the fictional character;

• convention equally a means of drawing attention to the officially authorized nature of performance discourse. It sets the mechanisms in move, establishes the limits of the contract, and circumscribes—in terms used by Bourdieu—"the I-we sanctioned by the group." The illocutionary value of convention (the condition necessary for illusion and fundamental to the function of denegation) opens up the question of the possible worlds thus created. The discourse of performance is typically fabricated up of a duality: (1) assertion of the convention of the lie: this utterance presupposes a veridictory modality (exclamation, reference to knowledge about the truth of the real world) which sanctions a regime (convention) whose touch on is denegatory (prevarication or illusion); (2) pseudo-assertion inscribed within a possible world: a conventional utterance of doing contains an overmodalization of seeming which is (pseudo)justified on the ground of a desire to believe (the spectator accepts the prevarication every bit though he were accepting the real globe).

e) The influence of historians has induced a certain doubt most the deductive hypothesis of a operation language of which all possible performances would exist detail manifestations. The danger here is that one might extrapolate from one field of discourse to others, perceiving equally definitely given functions (eastward.yard., deixis, ostension, mimesis, projection) which are culture-specific and situated in a given historical context.

6. Production and reception of operation

Performance theory in its electric current state seems to accept reverted to detailed analysis of the systems of product and reception. Affiliate and department headings in the residue of this book provide an overview of procedures in electric current use, and the summary of these set out below is thus intended to prepare the parameters of the field every bit currently divers.

a) Production is concerned with the post-obit:

• the work of the actor, its presuppositions and contractual aspects (I play / I want to listen-see / I comment / I observe)

• the pragmatics of speech acts

• the relationship between fiction and concrete performance

• spatialization

• the construction of performance text

• the phenomena of denegation

b) Reception is concerned with the following:

• visual composition and juxtaposition, linear/tabular perception

• the relation between the readable and the visible

• emotions

• the observer actant (run into below)

• enunciation of/by the spectator (re/desemanticizing)

• verbalization by the spectator

The sectionalization betwixt product and reception has to be seen as a pedagogical distinction. A number of recent studies have gone beyond this partition in favor of the concept of the enunciating collective, and the notion of the observer actant is of key importance to this theoretical conception. Conceptualized in terms of a cerebral role, the observer represents a specific function, 1 of the conditions of existence of the performance utterance ( l'énoncé spectaculaire ). It is indeed the silent presence of the observer—syncretically integrated into the stage reality (in the case of a play within a play) or auditorium (the theatre spectator has a double presence, both seeing and being seen)—that enables the operation act or performance behavior to occur. The watching eye, an indispensable part of the performance, is nevertheless incapable of any intervention that could change its progression, and the notion of the observer actant refines considerably the analysis of identification initiated past Brecht.

7. Pleasure and noesis

The theatre is the focus of a range of diverse intellectual practices and is currently the focus of attempts to elucidate more precisely what constitutes the pleasure of performance, and, more generally, the nature of the theatrical experience.

a) Far from existence limited to a semiotic/cerebral experience, the theatrical effect provides a double form of intellectual appeal: primary (pleasance, acceptance of the fiction, feelings, expectations) and secondary (logic, interpretation, assessment, memory); there is a movement toward trying to connect the theory of focalization (attention stimulus) with that of emotional response (elementary and complex emotion).

b) Psychologists accept used the theory of montage with adept results: It is claimed that the spectator, selecting from the available perceptual material, organizes his/her own montage which runs parallel to that presented on the stage. Confronted with the continual flow of visual information, the spectator constructs his/her own "visions" from perceptual elements selected, and this montage (the viewer's "motion-picture show") makes possible a personal narrative verbalization.

The experience of the functioning can thus be described, non in terms of communication, but of agile participation: focalization of attention through signalling devices and frameworks of enunciation gear up by the stage, inferences based on the rhetorical strategies proposed.

8. Media theory

Analysis in this field has been condign increasingly specific:

• the study of particular performance practices (theatre, circus, opera)

• improved definition of codes: the narratological dimension has not been abased merely recontextualized in the total signifying network; the theory of segmentation—derived from film theory and more accordingly associated with cinematic discontinuity and with the mediating function of the screen—has been progressively abased by theatre specialists.

Having caused a more than solid intellectual base of operations, theatre studies can now compare its object of analysis with that of other media:

• with mixed forms, particularly the comic strip, which utilizes in analogous means the interaction of textual and visual elements;

• with the 2-dimensional prototype and its visual components, which share sure optical and meaning-begetting features with the theatre;

• with goggle box, whose structures of enunciation (continuous story presentation, unification of enunciative disjunctions) and communication (transmission and non-representation, contemporaneity of the referent rather than the signifier) tin can profitably be explored in connection with theatre.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. General references

Daniel Couty and Alain Rey, 1980, Le théâtre, Paris, Bordas.

Oswald Ducrot and Tzvetan Todorov, 1972, Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences du langage , Paris, Seuil.

Patrice Pavis, 1980, 1987, Dictionnaire du théâtre , Paris, Ed. Sociales.

2. Dramaturgy

André Antoine, 1903, "Causerie sur la mise en scène," in Revue de Paris , April.

Adolphe Appia, 1921, L'oeuvre d'fine art vivant , Geneva, Atar.

Denis Bablet (ed.), 1978-83, Les voies de la création théâtrale , vols. 1-11, Paris, CNRS.

Gordon Craig, 1911, On the Art of the Theatre, Chicago, Browne's.

Denis Diderot, 1959, Oeuvres esthétiques, Paris, Garnier.

Johann Jacob Engel, 1804, Ideen zu einer Mimik (1785), in Schriften, vols. 7-viii, Berlin; 1971, reprint, Frankfurt, Athenaüm.

Gotthold-Ephraim Lessing, 1886-1924, Sämtliche Schriften , 23 vols., (ed. K. Fifty. Lachmann, under the direction of F. Muncker) Stuttgart, Berlin, and Leipzig.

Constantin Stanislavski, 1936, An Thespian Prepares (trans. E. R. Hapgood), New York.

3. Aesthetics

Monique Borie, Martine de Rougemont, Jacques Schérer, 1982, Esthétique théâtrale , Paris, CDU-Sedes.

Henry Gouhier, 1968, L'essence du théâtre, Paris, Flammarion.

Roman Ingarden, 1958, "The Literary Work of Art," appendix to The Functions of Language in the Theatre , Evanston, Northwestern Univ. Press.

Tadeusz Kowzan, 1975, Littérature et spectacle, Paris and La Haye, Mouton.

Paul Valéry, 1960, Eupalinos: 50'âme et la danse. Dialogue de l'arbre , Paris, Gallimard.

André Veinstein, 1955, La mise en scène théâtrale et sa condition esthétique, Paris, Flammarion.

four. Performing arts

Denis Bablet, 1981, Filmer le théâtre, in Cahiers théâtre Louvain, 46.

Jean Baudrillard, 1972, "Requiem cascade les médias," in Pour une critique de 50'économie politique du signe, Paris, Gallimard.

Walter Benjamin, 1971, "L'oeuvre d'fine art à l'ère de sa reproductivité technique," in L'Homme, le langage et la culture, Paris, Denoël-Gonthier.

Dany Bloch, 1983, L'art vidéo, Paris, Limage 2—Alin Avila.

Patrice Flichy, 1980, Les industries de l'imaginaire, P. U. Grenoble, I.N.A.

André Helbo, 1986, Approches de fifty'opéra, Paris, Didier Erudition.

Hugues Hotier, 1984, Signes du cirque, Bruxelles AISS-IASPA (Tréteaux).

Kodikas/Code, 1984, 7, "Le spectacle au pluriel," Tübingen.

Marshall McLuhan, 1968, Pour comprendre les media, Paris, Mame/Seuil.

Edgar Morin, 1958, Le cinéma ou l'homme imaginaire, Paris, Minuit.

five. History

Denis Bablet, 1975, Les révolutions scéniques au XXe siècle, Paris, Société Internationale d'Art XXe siècle.

Marvin Carlson, 1985, Theories of the Theatre, Cornell University Press.

David Cole, 1975, The Theatrical Event, Middleton, Conn.

Gilbert Debusscher and Alain Van Crugten (eds.), 1983, Théâtre de toujours, d'Aristote à Kalisky, Brussels, Ed. U.L.B.

Paul Delsemme, 1983, L'oeuvre dramatique, sa structure et sa représentation, Brussels, Ed. U.L.B.

Maurice Descotes, 1964, Le public de théâtre et son histoire, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Guy Dumur (ed.), 1968, Histoire des glasses, Paris, Gallimard ( La Pléiade ).

Erika Fischer-Lichte, 1983, Semiotik des theatre, 3 vols., Tübingen, Gunter Narr.

Robert Pignarre, 1967, Histoire du théâtre, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Richard Southern, 1964, The Seven Ages of Theatre, New York.

Jiry Veltruský, "La sémiologie du spectacle à la recherche de son passé," in A. Helbo, Approches de 50'opéra, Paris, Didier Erudition.

6. Sociology

Mikhail Bahktin, 1976, "Problema Teksta," Voprosy literatury, 10, pp. 122-51.

Pierre Bourdieu, 1979, La stardom, Paris, Minuit.

Guy Debord, 1967, La société du spectacle, Paris.

Robert Demarcy, 1973, Eléments d'une sociologie du spectacle, Paris, UGE.

Marco De Marinis, "Theatrical Comprehension: A Socio-semiotic Approach," in Theater, fifteen, no. i.

1984, L'esperienza dello spettatore, Univ. di Urbino, Nov.-Dec.

Jean Duvignaud, 1965, Sociologie du théâtre: Essai sur les ombres collectives, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

1965, L'acteur: Esquisse d'une sociologie du comédien, Paris, Gallimard.

1970, Spectacle et société, Paris, Denoël-Gonthier.

1972, The Sociology of Art, London, Harper and Row.

1973, Fêtes et civilisations, Paris, Weber.

1977, Le don du rien, Paris, Stock.

Jean Duvignaud and Jean-Pierre Faye, 1966, "Débat sur la sociologie du théâtre," in Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, pp. 103-112.

Erving Goffman, 1959, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York, Doubleday.

1961, Encounters, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.

1963, Behavior in Public Places, The Free Printing of Glencoe.

1967, Interaction Ritual, New York, Doubleday.

1971, Relations in Public, New York, Basic Books.

1974, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the System of Experience, New York, Harper and Row.

Lucien Goldmann, 1964, The Hidden God, New York.

A.-M. Gourdon, 1982, Théâtre, public, perception, Paris, CNRS

G. Gurvitch, 1956, "Sociologie du théâtre," in Lettres Nouvelles , 35.

André Helbo, 1983, Les mots et les gestes , Lille, Presses de fifty'Université de Lille.

1987, Theory of Performing Arts , Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Benjamins.

Ernest Hess-Lüttich, Multimedial Communication II, Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag.

Abraham Moles, 1986, "Peut-on construire une sémiologie des actes à propos d'une représentation théâtrale?" in A. Helbo, 1986, Approches de fifty'opéra, Paris, Didier Erudition.

Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, 1972, Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne , Paris, Maspero.

Grand. Wolf, 1979, Sociologie della vita quotidiana , Milan, Strumenti Espresso.

7. Economics

C. D. Throsby and G. A. Whriters, 1979, The Economics of the Performing Arts, Victoria, Edward Arnold.

8. Anthropology

Eugenio Barba, 1982, "Anthropologie théâtrale," in Degrés 29, Brussels.

Jerzy Grotowski, 1968, Towards a Poor Theatre, New York.

Franco Ruffini (dir.), 1981, La scuola degli attori: Rapporti dalla prima sessione dell'I.South.T.A., Florence, Usher.

Nicola Savarese, 1985, Anatomie de l'acteur: Un dictionnaire d'anthropologie théâtrale, Rome and Carcassone, Zeami-Bouffonneries.

Richard Schechner, 1985, Between Theatre and Anthropology , Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Printing.

Ferdinando Taviani, 1986, "Presenza energica ed espressione amorosa nella Commedia dell'Arte," in Teatro e Storia (Dipartimento di Musica due east Spettacolo dell'Universita di Bologna), 2.

9. Semiotics

J. L. Austin, 1962, How to Exercise Things with Words, London, Oxford Univ. Press.

Petr Bogatyrev, 1971, "Les signes du théâtre," in Poétique , 8, pp. 517-30.

Diez Borque and Luciano Garcio Lorenzo (ed.), 1975. Semiologia del teatro , Barcelona, Planeta.

Michel Corvin, 1985, Molière, Presses Universitaires de Lyon.

Degrés, 1978, thirteen, Théâtre et sémiologie, Brussels.

1979, 18, Sémiologie de la musique, Brussels.

1982, 29-32, Sémiologie du spectacle (Actes du colloque AISS-AISPA), Brussels.

Marco De Marinis, 1982, Semiotica del teatro , Milan, Bompiani.

Oswald Ducrot, 1972, Dire et ne pas dire , Paris, Hermann.

Umberto Eco, 1977, "Semiotics of Performance," in The Drama Review, 21, no. one.

1978, "Pour une reformulation du signe iconique," in Communications, 29, Paris, Seuil.

Keir Elam, 1980, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, London, Methuen.

1984, Shakespeare's Universe of Soapbox: Language Games in the Comedies, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press.

Etudes littéraires, 1980, 13/3, Théâtre et théâtralité, Montreal.

Algirdas Julien Greimas, 1966, Sémantique structurale, Paris, Larousse.

1970, Du Sens, Paris, Seuil.

T. East. Hall, 1971, La dimension cachée, Paris, Seuil.

1979, Au-delà de la culture, Paris, Seuil.

André Helbo, 1975, Sémiologie de la représentation, Brussels and Paris, Complexe—Presses Universitaires de France.

1979, Le champ sémiologique, Brussels, Complexe.

1983, Sémiologie des messages sociaux, Paris, Edilig.

1985, "Approches de la réception: Quelques problèmes," in VS, 41, pp. 41-48.

Jindrich Honzl, "Dynamics in the Sign of the Theater," in Matejka Titunik, pp. 118-127.

Roman Jakobson, 1963, Essais de linguistique générale, Paris, Minuit.

J. Dines Johansen, 1980, "Sémiotique et pragmatique universelle," in Degrés, 21, Brussels.

Solomon Marcus, 1975, "Stratégie des personnages dramatiques," in Helbo, 1975, Sémiologie de la représentation, Brussels and Paris, Complexe—Presses Universitaires de France.

Ladislaw Matejka and Irwin R. Titunik, 1976, Semiotics of Fine art: Prague School Contributions, Cambridge, MIT Press.

Georges Mounin, 1970, Introduction à la sémiologie, Paris, Minuit.

Jan Mukařovský, 1934, 50'fine art comme fait sémiologique: Actes du buitième congrès de philosophie à Prague; 1976, trans. in Mateyka and Titunik, pp. 3-ten.

1978, Structure, Sign and Function (ed. J. Burbank and P. Steiner), New Haven, Yale Univ. Press.

Patrice Pavis, 1976, Problèmes de sémiologie théâtrale, Montréal, P.U.Q.

1982, Voix et images de la scène, Presses Universitaires de Lille; 1972, trans. Performing Arts Periodical, New York.

Michel Pecheux, 1975, Les vérités de la Palice: linguistique, sémantique, philosophie, Paris, Maspero.

Charles Sanders Peirce, 1931-58, Collected Papers, viii vols., Cambridge.

Poetics Today, 1981, 2, no. 3, Drama, Theater, Performance, Tel Aviv.

Franco Ruffini, 1978, Semiotica del testo: l'esempio teatro, Rome, Bulzoni.

Herta Schmid and Aloysius Van Kesteren, 1984, Semiotics of Drama and Theatre, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Benjamins.

John R. Searle, 1972, Les actes de langage, Paris, Hermann.

Alessandro Serpieri, 1977, "Ipotesa teorica di segmentazione del testo teatrale," in Strumenti critici, 32-33.

Irena Slawinska, 1978, "La semiologia del teatro in statu nascendi," in Biblioteca teatrale, 20.

Etienne Souriau, 1950, Les deux cent mille situations dramatiques, Paris, Flammarion.

Substance, 1977, 18-xix, Theatre in France, Univ. of Wisconsin—Madison.

Anne Ubersfeld, 1970, Salacrou, Paris, Seghers.

1974, Le Roi et le Bouffon, Paris, Corti.

1977, Lire le théâtre, Paris, Editions Sociales.

1979, L'objet théâtral, Paris, CNDP.

1981, "The Space of Phèdre," in Poetics Today, two, no. 3, Tel Aviv.

1982, L'école du spectateur, Paris, Editions Sociales.

Jiřy Veltruský, 1976, Drama equally Literature, Lisse, Peter de Ridder.

Versus, 1978, no. 21, Teatro east semiotica, Milan, Bompiani.

1985, no. 41, Ricezione teatrale, Milan, Bompiani.

Otakar Zich, 1931, Esthétique de l'fine art dramatique, Prague, Melantrich; 1977, reproduced in JAL reprint, Würzburg.

ten. Psychoanalysis

Degrés, 1980, 21, Communication et sujet, Brussels.

Sigmund Freud, 1969, "Psychopathische personnen auf der Buhne," in Studienausgabe, x, Frankfort.

Octave Mannoni, 1969, "50'Illusion comique ou le théâtre du point de vue de fifty'imaginaire," in Clés cascade fifty'imaginaire, Paris, Seuil.

Christian Metz, 1977, Le signifiant imaginaire, Paris, UGE.

Maryvonne Saison, 1981, Imaginaire imaginable, Paris, Klincksieck.

Yves Thoret, 1983, "Etude sémiologique de la fonction scénique dans la relation thérapeutique," in 50'évolution psychiatrique, Toulouse, Privat.

"Place du théâtre dans l'oeuvre de Freud," in Degrés, 56.

11. Life sciences

Henri Laborit, 1982, "Le geste et la parole: Le théâtre vu dans l'optique de la biologie des comportements," in Degrés, 29, Brussels.

Jean Pradier, 1982, "Theatrum scientiae / Scientia theatri: Interrogations et propositions," in Degrés 29, Brussels.

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Source: https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/approaching-theatre/section/eeb226b9-805a-4cab-8288-eb0434132f87

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