Catching the Wind in a Net: The Shortcomings of Existing Methods for the Analysis of Performance

Abstract

Despite what we often like to think, academics and theatre practitionerfor the most part remain safely segregated, each on their own side of the continually widening gap between theory and practice, between reflection and creation. When actors, directors or designers venture into the realm of philosophy, as is the case with Richard Foreman's concept of "Ontological-Hysteric Theatre," their treatment of the subject is usually not perceived by the academic community to be quite as significant and methodologically coherent as when a similar problem is addressed by a "proper" scholar. Likewise, theoretical approaches to theatre such as Albert Camus's existentialist interpretation of acting in "The Myth of Sisyphus" are regularly seen as bewildering, impractical, or outright amateurish by professional directors and actors. It is certainly difficult to imagine from a purely pragmatic point of view how "complex kinemorphs" or "semiotic ostension" are supposed to be performed.