Theatre, Body and Pleasure (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Theatre, Body and Pleasure Jeffrey Scott Theatre, Body and Pleasure. By Simon Shepherd . New York: Routledge, 2006; pp. 198. $31.95 paper. A group of bodies watching other bodies is the core of theatrical performance. The body of the performer is the object of physical manipulation and display, which speaks to and manipulates the body of the spectator in varying degrees. Simon Shepherd begins with the proposition that "theatre is, and has always been, a place which exhibits what a human body is, what it does, what it is capable of" (1). Through the pleasure generated and manipulated within the body, the theatre engages personal and cultural values. These values can include the social, moral, and political and attach themselves to the physical characteristics of the body, as well as to the distinctions between the body and nonbody. In his introduction, Shepherd explores several developments that have influenced contemporary thinking about the body. He begins with feminist body art of the 1960s, which challenged dominant assumptions about gender roles through performance and made the body into a key theoretical and political topic, a site of contestation in a variety of ongoing struggles. He also notes George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's interest in the interconnection of mind and body, Erving Goffman's understanding of human behaviors as social roles, and the anthropological work on performance by scholars such as Mary Douglas and Victor Turner, which in turn came to influence the development of performance studies, particularly through Richard Schechner. Shepherd especially utilizes a phenomenological approach, arguing that since seeing, hearing, and speaking are mediated and affected by physical mechanisms, they are embodied experiences. Two groups of bodies participate in the theatrical event: the performers, and the spectators. Seeing, hearing, and speaking affect both groups. Shepherd's focus is the study of "the interplay of bodily values, the art of bodies and physical responses to that art" (9). He selects as his principal material the canonical scripted drama of Western Europe, in particular English drama. The works encompass a wide historical range, selected to provide the best examples for discussion. Throughout, Shepherd emphasizes the function of theatre as a mechanism of the civilizing process whereby societies learn and naturalize particular behaviors. Part 1 of the book explores the relationship between body and script. The theatre constructs a certain body that promotes particular values; the written script, then, is yet another agent in shaping the body. The script may serve to distinguish bodies in one play from bodies in another, in that the performer bases choices regarding movement on textual interpretation. The script then becomes a third element alongside acting technique and contemporary notions of physiology that produce the body onstage. Essentially, the text carries with it suggestions on how the body behaves. Theatre functions as a mechanism of society in allocating bodily values through the laughter and admiration that it encourages for particular bodies. Rather than being a continual evolutionary process, Shepherd argues that each period in history presents its own negotiations with bodily value and decorum. He examines a Restoration comedy, The Country Wife, as an example of the ideological work of the body, arguing that instead of being condemned as bawdy in the context of Whig ascetics, Restoration comedy "can be seen to produce a helpful aestheticising of that ascetic body" (31). Shepherd compares the clowning of Trinculo in The Tempest to the acting style of the commedia dell'arte. The performer operates as a full-body mask, adapting the physical musculature of another persona. The physical display of the performer accomplishes the ideological work of the body through a kinesthetic empathy between spectators' musculature and that of the performers. In watching the clowning of Trinculo, the audience has a sense of what is "low," just as in watching the dancing of a courtly masque, the audience has a sense of what is "high." In part 2, Shepherd analyzes the rhythmic organization and spatial arrangements of performance and the bodily impact on the audience, an example of which is the comic timing in Alan Ayckbourn's farce, Absurd Person Singular. Just as the script suggests a particular body for the performer to adopt, it also suggests certain...