Navigating the Prague-Toronto-Manitoulin Theatre Project: A Postmodern Ethnographic Approach to Collaborative Intercultural Theatre

Abstract

This paper considers critical approaches to collaborative intercultural theatre using the Prague-Toronto-Manitoulin Theatre Project (PTMTP) as an instrumental case study. It begins by contrasting orderly and coherent accounts of intercultural theatre with the more messy and confusing experiences of it. Taking a poststructural view of culture, this paper suggests that postmodern ethnography is well suited to access the experiential dimension of theatre work,making it a valuable addition to existing semiotic strategies and models. Looking at the kinds of insight offered by semiotic and ethnographic approaches, the author discusses a particular scene fromthe PTMTP, first suggesting how itmay have appeared to its audience in public performance and then analyzing how it was experienced and interpreted in development and performance by both himself and several of its creators. Though postmodern ethnography has its practical limitations, it is hoped that its application in this context sheds light on the meanings made available to particular critical approaches.