Linguistic layering and the play semiotics of postdramatic (and dramatic) theatre

Abstract

The article considers the linguistic essence of postdramatic theatre by submitting its play-defining and play-realisational elements to analysis from a linguistic semiotic perspective. In doing so, it is argued that a ‘stylistics’ understanding of theatre and drama must connect directly to such characterising features and establish the linguistic structures that systematically express these dramatic and theatrical elements as ‘signs’. Since the ‘postdramatic’ is understood as a late 20th/early 21st century set of trends in theatre production which complements but also challenges existing ‘dramatic’ practice and is characterised in relation to such, linguistic analysis must equally compare and contrast the two. In the present study, this is achieved by the further refinement of a linguistic semiotic framework of analysis for postdramatic theatre which has previously been developed for dramatic theatre (James and Gomceli 2018). The play under consideration, Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh, is chosen for the exemplification of the present analysis since it can be shown to manifest particularly explicitly both the dramatic and postdramatic of theatre practice.