Segmentation of Drama

Abstract

The semiotics of drama has proved incapable of formulating a theory of segmentation that can be used in practice. Tadeusz Kowzan admits that his suggestion, ‘l'unité sémiologique du spectacle est une tranche contenant tous les signes émis simultanément, tranche dont la durée est égale au signe qui dure le moins’ (1975, 215), leads to a multitude of small, totally unrelated segments. As Erika Fischer-Lichte pointed out (1983, 186–7), it is impossible to tell in advance whether any distinguishable sign system (or combination of sign systems) will manifest itself at all times in the performance. Her conclusion was therefore that semiotics should stop searching for homogeneous units. However, she added, anyone who for practical reasons seeks a division should proceed from the two categories of character and space without which no theatrical process is possible and which can never be consumed into one another. This will not create homogeneous units either, but together these two categories comprise everything to which the various types of theatrical signs may refer.