Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre. By Gay McAuley. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000; pp. 320. $19.95 paper.

Abstract

In the current scholarly discussion, many disciplines usurp the word “performance” to represent the postmodern idea of discursive creation through repetition (iteration). In an attempt to demarcate the boundaries of theatre studies, to reclaim performance as a “theatrical act,” many theatre scholars argue that a theatrical frame designates theatrical performance. This idea of frame may often be distilled into a spatial relationship between actor(s) and audience. To further this theory, many have written metaphorically about theatrical space; however, in her important new book, Gay McAuley addresses the idea of a theatrical space directly, discussing architecture, spatial structure, actor space, and audience space. She argues that theatre requires not only “liveness” and the presence of both performer and spectator but also the space where those presences meet. That “lived space” must be added to the first two aspects and examined as a basic element of the theatrical act. Thus McAuley seeks “to explore the multiple functions of this spatial reality in the construction and communication of theatrical meaning” (4).