The Change of a Verbal Text in a Postdramatic Play: Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

By examining a number of drama and theatre theories of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century (M. Pfister, P. Pavis, M. Van den Heuvel, H. T. Lehmann, D. Heddon, J. Milling), the article explores a problematic relation between drama (as a verbal text) and a play (as a performative text), raising a question about the textuality of a postdramatic play and possibility for its interdisciplinary analysis. Invoking theories that apply structuralist, communicative and deconstructive approaches, the article discusses the point where drama, being a determinant of play‘s values turns into a postdramatic play, where the fundamental function of a verbal text becomes only one of many possibilities of the text. The article argues that the non-verbal codes and the nature of a collective drama as the creation of a multimedia text directly affect the structure of drama texts and non-verbal communication influences the understanding of a spoken text. Therefore, the analysis of drama texts is only possible when one takes into account theatre practice where these texts gain importance and enter the field of tension and action. In postdramatic theatre, the verbal text is interspersed and deconstructed. Charged with a spatial feeling, it loses its unifying and logical functions. Such principle inevitably affects the structure and style of the verbal text. The article highlights the direction of the analysis of a postdramatic play by examining how performative elements affect verbal text which in a postdramatic play, is gaining new literary quality. Keywords: drama, performance, postdramatic play, performativity, verbal text, performative text, texture. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2015.24