Dramatic Form Research Articles

드루리의 메타드라마: 은폐된 첫 번째 대학살의 폭로

This paper aims at exploring the meta-dramatic elements of a concealed history of the first genocide conducted on the Namibia Herrero people in the 20th century, as dealt in Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play, We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The meta-dramatic elements to be discussed in this play are the lines that reflect actors’ self-consciousness and a type of a play within a play which consists of dramatic forms, “Process” and “Presentation,” which recreate the hidden death that is eluded over as history is canonised. Unlike conventional diaspora plays, Drury traces the forgotten historical truth by exhibiting the actors’ improvisations. In the scene of “Process,” actors continue to improvise with lines that reflect self-consciousness, revealing stereotypes about race in the role of the German/Herrero. In the scene of “Presentation,” the improvisations actors reproduced in “Process” are repeated and modified, showing the violence caused by racial prejudice. The stage called “Processtation” is the point where the boundaries between “Process” and “Presentation” are broken and the place where the audience face inconvenience. In the scene, actors are immersed in their roles as oppressors and victims, creating a dramatic situations. The stage is a space encountering the tragic history and recognizing the violence of implicit bias. This play, which reveals the meta-characteristic nature of Drury’s dramatic world, draws attention to how we narrate and learn history, going further from the historical drama that discovers African characteristics and the concealed history.

Great Patriotic War in School Literature: Features of Political Socialization of Students

The author of article reviews relevant setbacks of modern school education. Russian youth faces a «dissolution of history» due to gaps in school subjects, where historical events and individuals are losing their significance, but which was mentioned in soviet school program. Author underlines that new studying courses limit the list of authors and their works, which truly reflect a picture of Great Patriotic War. Moreover, digital technologies are filling up kids and youth’s spare time, that is why historical and fictional works are being replaced away. The author of article focuses on Russian and foreign contemporary movies as well, which have played its role in creating “historical content” in knowledge of youth. Nowadays, modern movies are replacing wartime and historical literature because of its interactive and dramatic form of impact, and for some time its fake facts, which are more acceptable for screenplays and have more commercial success. Author concludes that modern school program is needed to be corrected. These new corrections must include creating of new culture of reading, socialization of youth and popularization of reading.

Lógicas sensibles en Campo minado y Teatro de guerra de Lola Arias

Into the postdramatic theater the mimetic funtion of the body tends to be displaced towards transmedial resources thus favoring the producction of a metatheatre. The Lola Arias’s work stands out precisely because of putting in tension the role of the acting body on stage producing, through transmedial resources, a representational crisis that questions traditional forms of drama. The present article aims to establish the aesthetic strategies used by this playwright and director to problematize the place of the body in her theatral work Campo Minado (2016) and her documentary Teatro de Guerra (2018).

Nietzsche's Metaphilosophy: The Nature, Method, and Aims of Philosophy

Nietzsche's Metaphilosophy: The Nature, Method, and Aims of Philosophy

La rinascita della tragedia dallo spirito del blues nel teatro di August Wilson

Born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August Wilson was the most prolific and represented African American playwright of the twentieth century. His Century Cycle, a series of ten plays that chronicle the lives of African Americans from the early 1900s to the late 1990s, is an expression of Wilson’s spiritual realism, a form of drama that, while adhering to some conventions of the Western realist tradition, also introduces elements of innovation inspired by blues music and Yoruba cosmology. This essay analyses the double cultural genealogy of Wilson’s work to show how, despite respecting the Aristotelian principle of mìmesis, his playwriting draws on a quintessentially black aesthetic. In conceiving of theatre as a ritualistic performative context where music and words intertwine, Wilson restored what Friedrich Nietzsche regarded as the authentic spirit of Greek tragedy – the harmony between Dionysian and Apollonian – while at the same time injecting an African American ethos into the Western theatrical canon.

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891

La « poésie active » de Valère Novarina. Sortir du drame par la poésie

In his works, Valère Novarina has proven an acute taste for the discursive reinventions and for the violent restructuration of classical dramatic or poetic forms. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the expression and the construction strategies of the poetical experience in Valère Novarina’s poetical theatre. In this behalf, we will investigate how the genesis of literary creation, as it is conceived and used by Valère Novarina, depends on a profound interrogation and a perpetual reinvention of the language’s limits. The perspective presented by the author leads to a dissolution of the common structures of literary genre and reveals the poetical exercise as a gateway from theatre. On another level, our work interrogates the simultaneous reinvention of the literary expression and the conceptual or technical limits of the literary categories.

The Theme of Infidelity in Ajo Obi: A Reader Response Approach

Thematic study is an area in any literary study that cannot be easily overlooked. It is an area that cuts across the three major genres of literature. This paper examines the literary text Ajo Obi which is written by I.G. Nwaozuzu in form of drama with the view of studying the theme of infidelity as portrayed in the text. This work aims at showing the ambiguity of the claim of innocence by the accused in the text. It also brings to light how cultural divergence brings about different interpretations of an action. The data for this study are drawn from intensive study of the literary text Ajo Obi. Following a qualitative research paradigm the study adopts reader response approach in its analysis. Findings show that there is a kind of uncertainty in the claim of innocence by the accused in the text. Again cultural divergence is also found to bring about differences in interpretation of an action.

Waiting for Lear: Re-creations of Shakespeare’s Play Through Beckett at the Royal Shakespeare Company

Stage productions of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) have played a key role in reinventing the play for each new generation. Every production finds unique ways of presenting Lear, each of which adds new layers of meanings that can potentially shape our understanding of the play. In the 1960s, romanticized and naturalistic approaches that had governed the staging of the play were displaced by a modern conception of King Lear as Shakespeare’s Endgame. This article examines comparatively how dramatic forms emblematic of Samuel Beckett’s theatre were assimilated into three distinct RSC productions of King Lear, directed by Peter Brook (1962), Adrian Noble (1982) and Gregory Doran (2016). Beckett’s enduring influence on the play’s afterlife foregrounds both the practices of appropriation and transformation of previous texts that shape contemporary Shakespearean performance, and the dialogic interplay of textual and non-textual elements through which Shakespeare’s play has acquired meaning on the RSC stage. The appropriations of Beckettian patterns were shaped by the tensions between text and performance, and the battle between centripetal and centrifugal forces that intersect dialogically in the processes of meaning-making within Shakespearean performance.

Söngleikur sem félagslegur vettvangur

Markmið þessarar rannsóknar er tvíþætt: Annars vegar að skoða félagslegan ávinning söngleikjaþátttöku og mikilvægi söngleikjaforms sem óhefðbundins náms og hins vegar að skoða hvaða áhrif söngleikjaþátttaka hefur á félagskvíða hjá nemendum með frammistöðukvíða. Rannsóknin var eigindleg viðtalsrannsókn þar sem viðtöl voru tekin við unglinga í grunnskóla sem tóku þátt í söngleik. Þá voru dagbókarfærslur rannsakanda einnig hluti af gögnum sem og reynsla hans á vettvangi. Niðurstöður sýna að óhefðbundið nám í söngleiksuppfærslu er mikilvægur vettvangur til að efla félagsfærni nemenda. Jafnframt hefur söngleikjaþátttaka góð áhrif á félagskvíða og eflir samskiptafærni nemenda. Þá sýndu niðurstöðurnar að söngleikur er mikilvægur vettvangur fyrir nemendur til að kynnast og losa um hömlur. Jafnframt hefur þátttakan jákvæð áhrif á félagsfærni og minnkar félagskvíða en margir nemendur upplifðu aukið öryggi í félagslegum samskiptum í gegnum söngleikjaferlið. Niðurstöðurnar eru mikilvægar til að sýna fram á hversu nauðsynlegt er að efla óhefðbundið nám og listgreinar og til að styrkja félagsfærni og sjálfstraust nemenda. Jafnframt skipta þær máli til að hjálpa félagskvíðnum nemendum þar sem félagskvíði byggir meðal annars á félagslegri fullkomnunaráráttu sem lýsir sér helst á þann veg að nemendur eru hræddir við að gera „samskiptamistök“. Söngleikur, þar sem eiga sér stað mikil samskipti, er því gagnlegur jafnt sem krefjandi vettvangur fyrir þá félagskvíðnu.

“Pinteresque” as an artistic method. The Theatre Of Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter is a prominent theater reformer and creator of the unique style, which in criticism received a name of “Pinteresque” that plays on the playwright’s last name and artistic distinctness of his works. The subject of this article is the examination of “Pinteresque” as a special form of drama created by H. Pinter. Attention is given to the impact of Franz Kafka on the artistic method of Harold Pinter, which manifests in creation of the characters, as well as in general philosophical concept. The novelty of this work is defined by the reference to the phenomenon of “Pinteresque” as a method of realization of peculiarities of artistic method of the playwright. As a result, the author reveals the principles that comprise and define the simultaneously real and absurd world of H. Pinter’s plays, when the human is daily overcast with a treat, origins of which remain outside of their understanding, and violence takes place to which they have to nothing oppose.

A Cultural Sociology of Social Media: Social Drama, Cultural Affordances and Blogging in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

Research on social media, networks and collective action currently lacks a strong cultural component, often focusing on network formation and characteristics from afar. At the same time, research in cultural sociology often takes social media for granted, removed from analytical or theoretical attention. We know little about the perspectives of users or the shared meanings, emotions, and codes that inform social media practices and discourses. Addressing this gap requires examining how users imagine, understand and use social media in ways that foment culturally-meaningful social networks and it would “thickly describe” the discourse that they create and share across these networks. This article uses social drama theory to understand the creation of community and collective action among a group of citizen bloggers in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Informed by their shared grievances and motives, users created a collective social drama across their blogs. This social drama was an important resource with which users developed trusting social ties, voluntary relationships, a sense of community and offline collective actions. These developments were realized in part due to the cultural affordances of the blog platform, the ability to easily, efficiently and effectively communicate and consume richly meaningful and emotive texts unhindered by data limits or media modalities. The cultural affordances of blogs were such that people were able to communicate their shared grievances in the form of social drama, over an extended period of time, and develop meaningful, emotive connections with each other through social media.

LINGUISTIC IDENTITY AND THE IRISH POLITICAL CONFLICT IN BRIAN FRIEL'S TRANSLATIONS: A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Purpose of the study: The study will shed light on Friel's political and national doctrines. The premise of this paper is to define and address the politics of language and language role as a cultural marker in Friel's Translations (1980). The study aims at showing the cultural and political dimensions of linguistic identity.
 Methodology: The methodology adopted in this study is New Historicism. Friel related the historical and cultural context in Ireland to the political scene; the North Irish conflict in particular. Also, the study applied Post-Colonialism as a methodology since translation from Irish to English is not placed in a linguistic form; rather Friel sees it as a betrayal to the Irish national identity.
 Main Findings: The study proved Friel's Translations comes as an affirmation of Friel's cultural and political visions which presented Irish conflict in a dramatic form, yet it proclaims symptomatic employment of the political conflict in North Ireland. The study concludes that the recurrence of the national themes confirmed Friel's plain awareness of the national identity.
 Applications of this study: The findings of this study are useful for researchers who are interested in researching the relation between language and politics. Many politicians have carefully chosen certain expressions either to clarify or mislead people by their language. It would be relevant to investigate the pragmatical aspect of language about political situations.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: This study benefits researcher interested in tracing the cultural depth of the language where culture and politics are interrelated to form an independent identity. The importance of the study is related to its treatment of the issue of translation from the language of the colonized to the language of the colonizer as an act of treason to one's national identity.

From social drama to political performance: China’s multi-front combat with the Covid-19 epidemic

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the social crisis of the Covid-19 epidemic and the government responses in China from a performance perspective. It argues that the epidemic outbreak in late December 2019 initiated a highly contested social drama, in which loyalty was tested, political order questioned, and ideological crisis made visible. The numerous netizens and residents drew on a wide-ranging repertoire of discourses, symbols, and narratives to heighten public spectacles of suffering and sympathy, which placed extensive blame on the lies, negligence, and censorship of the government. Nonetheless, within the short span of three months, the conflictive, cacophonous social drama was overshadowed and subsumed by a hegemonic political performance of national victory, unity, and patriotism, framed and channeled by state propaganda, censorship, ritual, and practical policies. Social protests in cyberspace continued in even more dramatic forms. But these it only constituted sporadic performances of resistance, rather than a monumental social drama that challenged the fundamental political order.

Redemptive Apotheosis and Joseph Campbell’s Narrative of the Hero’s Journey: August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Revisited

Ever since Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom appeared on one of New York’s Broadway stages in 1984, August Wilson’s focus on the history, destiny and identity of African American people during the course of the 20th century through his celebrated 10-play cycle has continued to fascinate and draw the attention of numerous critics all over the world. A good number of these critics focus on the playwright’s depiction of alienation, confusion and despair among African Americans since emancipation. Some among them also identify Wilson’s call for African Americans to locate their destiny and identity in African history with its rich blend of ancestor worship and African spirituality if they are to overcome these challenges. In this article, I carry forward the latter focus and give it a new twist and an innovative thrust. I harness a comparative approach in order to juxtapose traditional film theory with the dramatic form as I argue that August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone can be read against Joseph Campbell’s narrative of the Hero’s Journey. In this comparative approach, my principal argument is that in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone Wilson posits a redemptive apotheosis that is located in African spirituality for members of the black race. Just as in Campbell’s narrative of the Hero’s Journey, Wilson’s redemptive apotheosis is rooted in presenting a mysterious or inscrutable hero/character who travels on a journey that will lead to positive self-discovery not just for himself but also for the generality of Wilson’s African American characters. I argue that although Joseph Campbell’s narrative of the Hero’s Journey is normally associated with film analysis, it is also available as a broad framework with which to analyse Wilson’s play in a fascinating and innovative way. This will further enhance our general understanding of the play.

A dialética em estado de exceção: Alegorias da ditadura civil-militar em À Flor da Pele, de Consuelo de Castro

Este artigo propõe uma análise da peça teatral À flor da pele, da dramaturga brasileira Consuelo de Castro, escrita em 1969, durante o auge da ditadura civil militar brasileira. Procura-se demonstrar que o texto pode ser melhor compreendido utilizando-se o conceito de alegoria, tal como definido pelo filósofo WalterBenjamin. Seguindo esta leitura, a linguagem alegórica desloca os parâmetros da forma dramática tradicional, de origem europeia, modificando-a a partir do confronto com o contexto histórico brasileiro do período. Essa realidade histórica, fraturada pelos ditames de um Estado de Exceção, teria gerado uma espécie particular de drama negativo, que procuraremos revelar durante o texto.

La Jaquerie: une tragédie romantique juste avant la « fin de l’histoire »

The Jaquerie is one of the lesser-known dramatic works of Prosper Mérimée. However, it is a very important work to understand the aesthetic and political stakes of romantic theatre on the eve of the July Revolution. The Jaquerie also helps us to understand the cul-de-sac of the theatre of French liberalism which had, however, dominated the theoretical debate about a new dramatic form during the 1830s.

“Distinguishing Form”: Shakespeare, Perspective and the Heartlessness of Comedy

ABSTRACT Any discussion of comedy as a dramatic form is rendered difficult by the fact that the term “comedy” has two quite separate meanings: a work that is intended to make spectators laugh and a work that has a happy ending. In the early modern period, literary theorists were eager to make clear distinctions between the two definitions – in large part, because of the contemporary suspicion regarding the ethics of laughter, which was commonly seen as being related to cruelty. Theorists like Philip Sidney argued that we laugh at those to whom we feel superior, whereas a true comedy should aim to produce the rather different emotion of “delight”. Modern critics are similarly prone to make distinctions between the “elevated” comedy of delight and the “low” comedy of laughter: the one rooted in an audience’s sympathy towards the play’s characters; the other in its amusement at those characters’ follies. However, this essay will offer a different perspective. Through a consideration initially of The Winter’s Tale, but also Shakespeare’s earlier romantic comedies and problem plays, I will argue that the kind of ‘delight’ provoked by the end of much Shakespearean comedy often discourages a sense of true sympathy towards its subjects, and, indeed, may seem to share some of the heartlessness that Sidney saw as inherent in the comedy of laughter.

Androgyny as Mental Revolution in Act 4 of Prometheus Unbound

ABSTRACT Apart from in his translation of Plato’s Symposium as The Banquet, the word ‘androgyny’ does not appear within Shelley’s writings, but androgynous images are extant throughout his works. The androgynous union of Asia and Prometheus, the ungendering of Demogorgon, and the Earth and the Moon’s shifting gendered pronouns in Act 4 echo Shelley’s desire for ‘a future state of being’ wherein ‘these detestable distinctions [of male and female] will surely be abolished’. The Banquet is a catalyst for the lyrical drama’s composition, wherein androgyny becomes Shelley’s central strategy for inciting mental revolution in his audience of ideal readers. Shelley assumes the self-ordained role of Plato’s ideal reader through his creative translation of The Banquet, where the mental union of writer and translator radically expands androgyny as the traditional union of the masculine and the feminine to include the psychic union of the poet and the reader. Drawing upon the dialogic, dramatic form of Plato’s text, his subtle instruction of his reader, and his playfulness with gender, Shelley transmutes elements of The Banquet into verse in Prometheus Unbound in order to encourage a mental revolution in his own readership.

Pengembangan Kemampuan Interaktif dan Reaktif Siswa Dengan Metode Pembelajaran Sosiodrama

This article is a type of conceptual research that explains how sociodrama learning methods are able to develop students' interactive and reactive abilities. The subject of automation in public relations and protocol management, especially the basic competencies for implementing meetings, aims to enable students to practice how to simulate meetings. In the implementation of learning, the conceptual delivery of material isnt enough to stimulate students' kinesthetic intelligence, and therefore practical activities need to be applied in its application. Sociodrama learning methods are considered appropriate and in accordance with the learning objectives. The sociodrama method is a teaching method conducted by the teacher by providing opportunities for students to play roles using improvised dialogue about social phenomena that occur in the community or experience-based learning in the form of social drama. Sociodrama trains students to express their opinions in meetings, think responsively in problem solving, communicative in interacting, and bring up cooperative attitudes in groups. The review in this article proves that the sociodrama learning method is very influential in the development of students' interactive and reactive abilities.